Michael Penn

Michael Penn specializes in the history of early Christianity with a particular focus on middle eastern Christians who wrote in the Aramaic dialect of Syriac. He has applied digital techniques, including computerized analysis of ancient Aramaic handwriting, to his research in these areas. He leads Social Networks in the Early Islamic Middle East, a project that applies the visualization and quantification approaches of Social network analysis to the Book of Governors, a hagiography written by Thomas, Bishop of Marga in the mid-9th century.