Dr Andy Hilkens is a Newton International Fellow in the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Oxford. He holds a BA in Egyptology and Byzantine and Eastern Christian studies from KU Leuven (2008), MA in ancient Eastern languages from UCLouvain (2010), and a PhD in History from Ghent University (2014). Previously he was (Senior) Postdoctoral Fellow of the Research Foundation of Flanders (FWO) (2016-2018, 2019-2020, 2021-2023) and of the Center for the Study of Christianity at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2018-2019) and he has worked as a scientific collaborator in the LOEWE-Cluster on Minority Studies: Language and Identity at the Goethe-University of Frankfurt (2020-2021).
Andy is a Syriacist and an Armenologist. His current project focuses on interfaith dialogue between Syriac and Armenian Christians, in particular in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and the impact of Syriac-Armenian bilingualism on this process. His research interests include interfaith dialogue, ancient and medieval chronicles, the circulation of historical information in the Mediterranean, translations (Syriac-Armenian, Armenian-Syriac, Greek-Syriac, Greek-Armenian, …), bilingualism, and hagiography.
Andy serves as co-editor of the Brepols book series Eastern Christian Cultures in Contact and co-host of the online TeTra Text and Transmission Seminar.