Gorgias Press

Founded in 2001 Gorgias Press is an independent academic publisher of books and journals related to history, languages, and religious studies, with specific areas of expertise in the Ancient Near East, Arabic and Islamic Studies, Archaeology, Biblical Studies, Classics, Early Christianity, Jewish Studies, Linguistics, and Syriac.

Gorgias [GOR-gee-us] Press was originally created by George and Christine Kiraz as a specialty press that could keep up with their research interests. With a background in computational linguistics, George Kiraz envisioned combining cutting-edge technology with humanities research. The new company would be completely online, with no physical storefront, and it would use automation and digital printing technology rather than traditional print runs. With these tools, the press could afford to publish rare and understudied topics that were previously considered unprofitable, and Gorgias soon became known for its pioneering work in language and linguistics, religion, and especially Syriac and Eastern Christianity.
Gorgias’ philosophy of “Publishing for the Sake of Knowledge” rather than profit, attracted a number of new authors, and the press’ areas of interest rapidly began to expand. Today, Gorgias Press publishes 50-60 new titles a year, including monographs, edited volumes, translations, and more, and Gorgias books can be found in academic collections all over the world.

Fate, Freedom, and Happiness Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 334
ISBN: 9781463239282
Pub Date: 13 Aug 2019
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Description:
In what particular manner human beings are free moral agents and to what extent they can reasonably expect to attain a good life are two intertwined questions that rose to prominence in antiquity and have remained so to the present day. This book analyzes and compares the approaches of two significant authors from different schools at the turn of the third century CE, Alexander of Aphrodisias and Clement of Alexandria. These contemporaries utilize their respective Peripatetic and Christian commitments in their employment of the shared Greek classics toward these shared ethical questions.
The Mystical Tradition of the Eastern Church Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 276
ISBN: 9781463240608
Pub Date: 13 Aug 2019
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Description:
This volume presents the work of contemporary Orthodox thinkers who attempt to integrate the theological and the mystical. Exciting and provocative chapters treat a wide variety of mysticism, including early Church accounts, patristics (including the seemingly ever-popular subject of deification), liturgy, iconography, spiritual practice, and contemporary efforts to find mystical sense in cyber-technologies and post-humanism.
“One of Life and One of Death” Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 395
ISBN: 9781463240257
Pub Date: 23 Jul 2019
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Description:
This book explores the apocalyptic influence upon the Two Ways metaphor in antiquity and more particularly the influence of the Two Ways in the Didache as veering from an apocalyptic worldview. The argument includes essential critical evaluation of the apocalyptic genre and assesses the apocalyptic features in ancient Two Ways texts. The predominant focus of the book will document and critically assess how the Didache veers from maintaining an apocalyptic worldview in its expression of the Two Ways (Did.
Hindu Kingship Rituals Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 408
ISBN: 9781463240479
Pub Date: 05 Jul 2019
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Series: Harvard Oriental Series - Opera Minora
Description:
In recent decades, Nepal has witnessed a dramatic shift from its ancient form of Hindu kingship to a federal republican democratic secular order, with the official dissolution of monarchy in 2008. This study deals with the religious lives of the Śāh kings of Nepal, concentrating on such major rituals as the “coronation” (rājyābhiṣeka) and the autumnal navarātri (Goddess-centered) festival. This study unravels how religion and politics were deeply intertwined in the ritual activities, and how the rituals, in their traditional deeply religious and devotional settings, exerted a maximum of socio-political powers for the king and his institutions.
The Aqaba Khans and the Origin of Khans in Jordan Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 543
ISBN: 9781463206512
Pub Date: 03 Jun 2019
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Description:
A diachronic study of the development of Aqaba castle, an important Islamic khan at the junction of two major pilgrim routes, both based on Arabic and Crusader sources and the results of the excavations undertaken by Ghent University in Aqaba.
The Syriac Orthodox in North America (1895–1995) Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 350
ISBN: 9781463240370
Pub Date: 26 Apr 2019
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Series: Gorgias Handbooks
Description:
A short history of the Syriac Orthodox community in North America between 1895, the year of the First Sayfo that triggered the first wave of immigration to North America, and 1995, marking the passing away of Metropolitan Mor Athanasius Yeshue Samuel, the first and only Archbishop of the Syriac Orthodox Archdiocese of the United States and Canada.
Theory and Practice in Islamic Constitutionalism Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 379
ISBN: 9781463206932
Pub Date: 22 Apr 2019
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Description:
The present work deals with Islamic law and the law of the Muslim countries. More specifically, the author has studied the constitutional law of the Islamic legal tradition, starting from the perspective of the law of Caliphate. Moreover, this work focuses on the process of institutionalization, which, since the first half of 19th century, led to the adoption of civil law in both sunnī and šī‘ī world.
Daughter Zion's Trauma Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 233
ISBN: 9781463207441
Pub Date: 18 Apr 2019
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Description:
Daughter Zion's Trauma offers a new critical reading of the Book of Lamentations through the lens of trauma studies. Through structural analysis and use of the concept of non-referential history as a heuristic lens, Yansen yields fresh insights into the book’s form, language, and larger "historical" significance. Utilizing insights from study of the rhetorical dimensions of the trauma process in cultural trauma, this study asserts that Lamentations strategically adapts certain religious traditions to ensure the survival of those whose voices it echoes.
The Chronicle of Michael the Great (The Edessa-Aleppo Syriac Codex) Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 531
ISBN: 9781463240318
Pub Date: 16 Apr 2019
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Series: Gorgias Chronicles of Late Antiquity
Description:
Michael the Great was elected patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox church in a most instable period. He nevertheless, found time, clarity of mind, and determination to write a voluminous world chronicle, which he completed four years before he died in November 7, 1199. The present edition and its translation begin with Book XV and end with Book XXI, the last Book in the Chronicle, thereby covering more than 160 years, from AD 1031 to AD 1195.
Hidden Treasure Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 105
ISBN: 9781463240394
Pub Date: 15 Apr 2019
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Series: Texts and Studies
Description:
This work presents to the scholarly world the hitherto unpublished trove of over 500 catchwords that were attached to Masoretic doublet notes in the Leningrad Codex. All the doublets with their catchwords are listed both in the chronological order of their first appearance in the Bible and again on their second appearance. The nature of the catchwords, their purpose, and their relation to other Masoretic notes are described in detail, and suggestions are made how they can be of value to biblical scholars.
The Making of the Mosque Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 493
ISBN: 9781463207274
Pub Date: 12 Apr 2019
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Description:
The fact that many features are standard to the oldest surviving mosques suggests that a canonical type, mostly a courtyard surrounded by four porticoes, did exist early in Islamic history. While the structure built by the Prophet in Madina, soon after the Hijra in 622 AD, is believed by many to have later provided the prototype of the mosque, the dominant theory that it was only a private residence casts doubt on that belief. The current study provides fresh evidence, based on the Qurʾān, ḥadīth and early poetry, that this structure was indeed built to be a mosque.
Kierkegaard and Eastern Orthodox Thought Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 319
ISBN: 9781463239473
Pub Date: 11 Apr 2019
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Description:
The continuing popularity and influence of Søren Aabye Kierkegaard remains something of a minor miracle.Kierkegaard himself would undoubtedly find some humor in this development as a part of his overall philosophical project was to provide a full-frontal assault on the growing dominance of ‘objective’ thinking and the hyper-professionalization of all areas of human thought and life. This book provides yet another attempt to engage with the biting wit and philosophical insights of Kierkegaard’s philosophy.
The Zaydi Reception of Bahshamite Muʿtazilism Facsimile Edition of MS Shiraz, Library of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Shiraz (ʿAllāma Ṭabāṭabāʾī Library), majmūʿa 102 Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 378
ISBN: 9781463240295
Pub Date: 08 Apr 2019
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Description:
Iranian libraries hold only few manuscripts that testify to the extended and intensive Muʿtazilite past in the various centers of Zaydi scholarship in the Caspian region, in Ḫurāsān, and in Rayy. Among the few Muʿtazilite Zaydi works preserved in the libraries of Iran is a miscellany held by the library of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Shiraz (ʿAllāma Ṭabāṭabāʾī Library). The maǧmūʿa, a facsimile of which is included in the present publication, was written between 673/1274-75 and 676/1277 and contains doctrinal works by Imāmi and Zaydi theologians from both Iran and from Yemen.
Sermon on Saint Thomas, the Beloved Apostle Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 122
ISBN: 9781463239022
Pub Date: 03 Apr 2019
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Series: Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies
Description:
A study of a homily in praise of Saint Thomas, written in Syriac by a Catholic missionary. The homily, which is preserved in two manuscripts, is an important witness to the interaction between the Indian Syrian Christians and the Western Catholic missionaries.
He Did Not Fear Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 283
ISBN: 9781463239275
Pub Date: 25 Mar 2019
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Description:
He Did Not Fear: Xusro Parviz, King of Kings of the Sasanian Empire spotlights Xusro II, the man who almost conquered the Roman Empire in the Roman-Sasanian War of the Seventh Century CE, and examines his historical prominence.
Journal of Language Relationship 16/3-4 Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 162
ISBN: 9781463240332
Pub Date: 25 Mar 2019
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Series: Journal of Language Relationship
Description:
The Journal of Language Relationship is an international periodical publication devoted to the issues of comparative linguistics and the history of the human language. The Journal contains articles written in English and Russian, as well as scientific reviews, discussions and reports from international linguistic conferences and seminars.