PSCO

We have created a new website for PSCO and are in the process of migrating our material into it.
Please visit the new website.

The Philadelphia Seminar on Christian Origins (PSCO) is a colloquium in ancient Judaism, early Christianity, and cognate fields. Its active membership includes teachers and research scholars in the study of early Judaism and early Christianity from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and beyond. (For more information, see “Who We Are.”)

The topic for the fifty-eighth year of PSCO is “Popular Piety in Late Antiquity”. Reyhan Durmaz, Simcha Gross, and Theodora Naqvi will coordinate the year's sessions. For more information, see our (new) topic page.

Now in its fifty-eighth year, the Philadelphia Seminar on Christian Origins (PSCO) brings together scholars and graduate students in Philadelphia and surrounding areas for informal discussion and debate of timely issues and questions in the study of ancient Judaism, early Christianity, and cognate fields. Each year, PSCO hosts five to six meetings to explore one theme-ranging from pressing methodological or theoretical questions, to neglected primary or secondary sources, to timely conversations across disciplines. Meetings are informal and discussion-oriented, and invited speakers are encouraged to provide suggested readings and resources prior to their session so as to facilitate productive conversation. The PSCO is organized under the auspices of the University of Pennsylvania's Department of Religious Studies and has been made possible by generous sponsorship from the Penn Humanities Forum and Penn’s Center for Ancient Studies.