The Sixth North American Syriac Symposium brought together scholars from across North America, Europe, the Middle East, and India. Syriac Encounters offers twenty-five papers that were originally delivered at the Symposium, a, nd represents a cross-section of both the Symposium and the current state of Syriac studies more broadly. Although most of the papers in the volume focus on the late antique heyday of Syriac Christianity, several papers contribute to the study of other, related fields, including Islamic studies and Middle Eastern anthropology. The blossoming of Syriac studies beyond church historians and Semitic philologists can be attributed to a wider recognition of Syriac as a bridge language and culture linking (and fostering encounters between) Rome and Persia, Byzantium and Baghdad, and Christianity and Islam