Humanities Research Fellowships for the Study of the Arab World

Projects

• Beyond the Oasis: The Ancient Cultural Landscape of Bat and the Sharsah Valley

  In affiliation with the Humanities Research Fellowship for the Study of the Arab World and supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Ministry of Heritage and Tourism-Sultanate of Oman, and the Penn Museum (University of Pennsylvania), the Bat Archaeological Project (BAP) is conducting a new series of archaeological surveys and excavations targeting human-environment interaction at the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Bat, Oman. Previous research by BAP (2007-present) suggests that a web of settlements and related archaeological sites in the Bat region worked cooperatively to thrive in a challenging, hyper-arid landscape. These cooperative behaviors strategically engaged with diverse localized resources, while simultaneously and organically creating culturally meaningful spaces.
  

  This project is a multi-year investigation into the Umm an-Nar period (UaN; ca. 2800-2000 BCE) cultural landscape of the Bat and its surroundings in the Sharsah Valley of northwestern Oman. Employing the tools of the environmental humanities, the project studies the cultural processes and socio-ecological strategies practiced by the UaN in the Sharsah Valley, ad-Dhahirah Region, northwestern Oman. The resulting reconstruction of an ancient cultural landscape will re-situate the critically understudied Omani interior in ongoing debates on connectivity and human environment interaction in prehistoric societies and build a case study for a persistent, thriving cultural landscape in an arid environment.

  Grant Project Director: Eli Dollarhide
  Bat Archaeological Project (BAP) Directors: Jennifer Swerida and Charlotte Cable

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• Connected Histories from the Arab World to the Americas

  The history of cultural and intellectual exchanges between the Ottoman, Persian, Arab, European, and American worlds has become an increasingly important area of research in the last decades. Studies on the multi-directional flow and dynamic networks of these encounters and transactions have significantly improved our understanding of the shared history of these regions over time.

  Based on the rigorous study of published and unpublished primary sources, this institutional platform for the study of cultural exchange aims to foster original and interdisciplinary research that will develop and deepen our knowledge of the plethora of multi-directional processes and forms of religious, intellectual, and cultural exchange, as well as the practices of scholarship involved in these exchanges.

  As such, it will enhance our understanding of the historical connection between these areas and the global dimension of cultural and intellectual networks and knowledge transfer in general. In addition, we hope that it will generate both a platform and a hub for the study of connected histories of the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas, thereby contributing to world-class scholarship in this area.

  Project Directors: Jan Loop (University of Copenhagen), Alastair Hamilton (the Warburg Institute) & Süphan Kirmizialtin (NYUAD)

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• Dictionary of Arabian Poetry & Narratives

  Because of its location in the area where Classical Arabic originated and the relative isolation of inner Arabia, the idiom of what is now often known as Nabaṭī poetry shows an astounding resemblance to the very earliest classical Arabian poetry. It also presents vernacular features and vocabulary that is new or changed since the classical days. Over the roughly seven centuries of its known existence, Nabaṭī poetry developed its own artistic conventions and infinitely rich desert vocabulary. The same is true for the narrative tradition.

  Hence the need for a dictionary of this type of Arabian (oral) poetry and narratives. In order to firmly establish its links with early poetry in Classical Arabic such a dictionary needs to explain the lexical items with reference to classical equivalents, if any. At a later stage the Arabic, transliterated into Latin characters in order to reflect the dialectal pronunciation, needs to be accompanied by an Arabic (Nabaṭī/vernacular) – Arabic (Modern Standard Arabic) version: this will assist the vocabulary’s understanding by students from the Arabian region itself. If presented in digital online format, this version may attract comments and contributions ‘from the field’ such as were collected from informants on research visits before the pandemic brought this practice to a halt.

  Project Director: Marcel Kurpershoek
  Student Research Assistant: Imane Larhlimi

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• Falconry Database

  The project is creating a database of artistic representations of falcons and falconry, serving research of the history and culture of falconry worldwide. It seeks to provide scholars and practicing falconers with knowledge and awareness of falconry's rich cultural traditions. They have found expression in the visual arts from different times and places. In addition, it aims to support scholarly publications and dissemination of knowledge and imagery of falconry traditions to the general interested audience.

  Project Director: Reindert Falkenburg

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• Family Business Histories

  It is estimated that more than 80% of businesses are family-owned and run in the Middle East and North Africa. This interdisciplinary project of NYUAD and the Tharawat Family Business Forum will bring together scholars from the Humanities and Social Sciences at NYUAD to compile, document, and analyze the history of selected regional family businesses to understand better past challenges and decision-making, as well as commercial legacies.

  This understanding will not only offer significant insights into historical transformations of business cultures and socio-economic environments in the GCC as well as the MENASA region but also help family businesses address current and future challenges.

  The goal of the joint project is thus to explore the plethora of contributions family businesses have made to the social and cultural landscape of the GCC and MENASA region as a global economic crossroads, seeking to capture the rich stories of the development of family businesses, the challenges they have overcome in the past and are facing today, and the many ways in which their stories intersect with the stories of the cities and countries they are connected to.

  Project Directors: Farida El Agamy (Tharawat Family Business Forum) & Martin Klimke (NYUAD)

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• Knowledge Futures

  "Knowledge Futures" is an interdisciplinary project aimed at exploring the intersections of  knowledge production, digital methods of inquiry, artificial intelligence, and the study of the Arab world. In collaboration with the Humanities Research Fellowship program, the project aims to foster collaborative inquiry among scholars and researchers across the campus and in our regional community. The project will prioritize an examination of how data and knowledge are produced and used in the Arab world, as well as the methods and platforms that are used in research and teaching. The project will center critical discussions on ethics in a digital society, and on the role of technology in shaping the future of the Arab world and the ways we produce knowledge about it and in it. The project will focus on open data and open scholarship, promoting the free and open exchange of knowledge and ideas.

  Project Directors: Süphan Kirmizialtin (NYUAD) & David Joseph Wrisley (NYUAD)

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• Recognizing Religions: The Cultural Dynamics of Religious Encounters and Interactions in Historical Perspective

  Recognizing Religions is a joint initiative between NYU Abu Dhabi, Australian Catholic University, and ‘The European Qur’an. Islamic Scripture in European Culture and Religion 1150-1850 (EuQu)’ (University of Copenhagen).

  The project aims to study and discuss the impact that encounters, interaction, and mutual recognition of Jews, Christians, and Muslims, as well as non-Abrahamic religions, had on their historical development and their understanding of themselves and others. Particularly, we are interested in concepts that Jews, Christians, and Muslims entertained about themselves and about any other cultural or religious group and how these concepts changed over time.

  In this context, ‘recognition’ involves cultural change by the exchange. It does not merely describe the act of attentively observing and distinguishing another as different from or similar to one’s own group. It also involves a recursive adaptation of self-definition and identity, facilitated by real and imaginary encounters, both peaceful and belligerent.

  The interest is in how recognition functions in real world encounters between cultural groups and how it changes over time; how recognition employs media that communicate knowledge within and across cultural and geographical boundaries; how it uses true and false information about the other; and how it is affected by philosophical, theological, and ethical ideas openly or implicitly shared across cultural and geographical borders.

  Project Members: Taneli Kukkonen, Jan Loop and Christopher Ocker, Reindert Falkenburg, Tamar Herzig, Sina Rauschenbach, Marina Rustow, Ethan Shagan, Charles Stang and Martial Staub

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