Wednesday, 7 April 2021

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ZMO Alumni Activities

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ZMO aims to stay in touch with its former fellows and employees and is regularly having exchanges with a number of them. We are always delighted to read about any of their new projects, media contributions or publications. In the ZMO Newsletter, there is a section which highlights news from ZMO alumni.
This month a number of very interesting alumni activities are part of the newsletter. Nushin Atmaca, former Assistant to the Directorate, is one of the curators of a film on the section "Orient" in the now closed permanent exhibition of the GRASSI Museum für Völkerkunde zu Leipzig. Feras Krimsti published an article in the blog of the DFG project "Orient-Digital" on the oriental manuscript collection of the research library Gotha. Farish A. Noor writes in Times Higher Education how the pandemic has given us time to rethink how we view the delivery of education. Makram Rabah analyses the involvement of the Hezbollah in the assasination of Lebanese political activist Lokman Slim.
Links and more information on all alumni activities can be found further down in the newsletter.

Events

12 April 2021, 5 pm, virtual event
Islam in a Zongo. Muslim Lifeworlds in Asante, Ghana
Book presentation by Benedikt Pontzen (affiliated research fellow at ZMO)

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Zongos, wards in West Africa populated by traders and migrants from the northern savannahs and the Sahel, are a common sight in Ghana's Asante region where the people of these wards represent a dual-minority as both foreigners and Muslims in a largely Christian area, facing marginalisation as a result. Islam provides the people of the zongos with a common ground and shared values, becoming central to their identity and to their shared sense of community. This detailed account of Islamic lifeworlds highlights the irreducible diversity and complexity of 'everyday' lived religion among Muslims in a zongo community. Benedikt Pontzen traces the history of Muslim presence in the region and analyses three Islamic phenomena encountered in its zongos in detail: Islamic prayer practices, the authorisation of Islamic knowledge, and ardently contested divination and healing practices.
Please register at registration@zmo.de

More info

29 April 2021, 3 pm, virtual event
Historicizing Democracy
Lecture by Hedwig Richter (Universität der Bundeswehr, München) as part of the "The Historicity of Democracy Seminar"

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When we look at the history of democracy, aspects of democracy come into view that are often overlooked. These include, for example, the interests of elites in democracy or the ambivalent relationship between revolutions and democratization processes. An important point concerns the history of democracy. It is interesting that most European countries do not tell their history as a history of democracy until the second half of the 20th century. Nevertheless, there was already a decisive change around 1900: with mass politicization, it became more and more self-evident that political legitimacy had to be based somehow on the “masses” respectively on the “people”.

For registration, please send an email to HISDEMAB@gmail.com

More info

29 April 2021, 5 pm, virtual event
The making of cheap labour and land for plantations: The north coast of Java, 1830s-1870s
Lecture by Pujo Semedi (Universitas Gadjah Mada, University of Freiburg) as part of the ZMO Colloquium

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Plantations require cheap labour and cheap lands. Labour and lands, in some occasions, were plenty but to make them cheap certain procedures have to be taken. In Java the process took place gradually in the 19th century. It was started with the stripping the Javanese rulers’ feudal right over farmers’ lands the British interregnum 1810-14, insertion of colonial government partial control to land use during the Cultivation System 1830-1880s, and culminating in the introduction of the colonial state domein verklaring, claim of land ownership, through the so-called Agrarian Law 1870. It was the government lands which subsequently leased to private companies for plantations. Liberalization of farmlands had opened a path for the colonial government to exert control over rural, agricultural based labour.
Please register at registration@zmo.de

More info

15. April, 20. Mai und 17. Juni 2021, jeweils 18 Uhr
„Neue Perspektiven auf das Horn von Afrika – lokale sozial-politische Dynamiken“
Online-Vortragsreihe des Wissenschaftlichen Arbeitskreis Horn von Afrika

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Das Horn von Afrika ist gemeinhin und seit langem als Krisenregion bekannt. Hungersnöte, Bürgerkriege, Kriege, islamistischer Terroris- mus, Menschenrechts- verletzungen und Staatszerfall sind Begriffe, die oft mit der Region in Verbindung gebracht werden. Daraus resultiert die Flucht vieler Menschen aus Äthiopien, Eritrea, Somalia oder dem Südsudan, von denen viele seit Jahrzehnten auch in Europa und Nordamerika ankommen. Der Wissenschaftliche Arbeitskreis Horn von Afrika (WAKHVA) vereinigt Wissenschaftlerinnen, die teilweise seit Jahrzehnten zu einzelnen Ländern in der Region arbeiten. Einige Mitglieder des Vereins werden in dieser Vortragsreihe einen historisch fundierten und sozial, kulturell, politisch und ökonomisch differenzierten Blick auf aktuelle Probleme in der Region werfen.
Die Anmeldung erfolgt per Email an katrin.bromber@zmo.de

More info

3 May 2021, 4 pm, virtual event
Masuala ya Kiuana katika Vitabu vya Fasihi Vilivyoteuliwa na Wizara ya Elimu ya Kenya
Baraza la Kiswahili la Berlin with Catherine Ndungo (Chuo Kikuu cha Kenyatta)

Katika wasilisho hili Profesa Ndungo atayajadili masuala ya kiuanakatika vitabu vilivyoteuliwa na Wizara ya Elimu ya Kenya kusomwa katika somo la fasihi ya Kiswahili katika shule za upili kwa kuzingatia nadharia ya ABC ya uchambuzi wa kiuana (1997). Waasisi wa nadharia hiyo ni Profesa Wanjiku Kabira (Idara ya Fasihi, Chuo Kikuu cha Nairobi) na Dk Masheti Masinjila (Katibu Mtendaji wa Shirika Lisilo la Kiserikali la Collaborative Centre for Gender and Development). Mada hii ni muhimu tukizingatia kwamba nadharia hii ndiyo inatumiwa na Taasisi ya Elimu ya Kenya kama mwongozo wa kutathmini ufaafu wa vitabu vya fasihi katika misingi ya kiuana. Masuala ambayo yatajadiliwa ni maudhui, usawiri wa wahusika na matumizi ya lugha katika vitabu ambavyo vinasomwa sasa na wanafunzi wa kidato cha tatu na cha nne katika shule za sekondari.
Please register at Augustine.Malija@zmo.de

More info

6 May 2021, 3 pm, virtual event
Women and Public Space in Turkey. A Gendered History of Modernity, Urban Experience and Everyday Participation
Lecture by Selda Tuncer (Yüzüncü Yýl University, Van) as part of the "The Historicity of Democracy Seminar"

Based on a critical feminist understanding of the Turkish modernity experience, this lecture focuses on the period between 1950 and 1980, a more mature phase of the Turkish modernization process. Selda Tuncer analyzes how middle-class women of different generations participated in new forms of everyday public life in the modernizing capital city. In contrast with trends of the scholarship on women and public space in the region focusing on veiled women, S. Tuncer devotes her attention to women struggling in their daily life in a society both predominantly Muslim society and organized according to secular principles. The lecture will thus explore how women’s urban experience and everyday participation were shaped by patriarchal traditions as well as social and moral codes of public behaviour that are intrinsic to both religious and secular ideologies.
For registration, please send an email to HISDEMAB@gmail.com

More info

Publications

Suaad Alghafal
A Bridgehead to Africa. German Interest in the Ottoman Province of Tripoli (Libya) 1884–1918

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Series: ZMO-Studien. Studien des Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Nr. 39; de Gruyter, Berlin, 2021.

 

 

Sophia Hoffmann
The Possibilities and Limits of Ethnography: Two Examples from Syria and Jordan

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In: Biecker, Sarah; Schlichte, Klaus (Ed.).
The Political Anthropology of Internationalized Politics. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2021.

 

 

 

Anandita Bajpai
Matters of the Heart': The Sentimental Indian Prime Minister on All India Radio

In: Christophe, Barbara; Kohl, Christoph; Liebau, Heike; Saupe, Achim (Ed.). The Politics of Authenticity and Populist Discourses. Media and Education in Brazil, India and Ukraine. Palgrave Macmillan, 2021.

 

 

Ali Dogan
Saudi Arabia’s Neom Diplomacy

In: Sada, Middle East Analysis, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 3/3/2021.

 

 

 

ZMO in the Media

Die große Aufgabe des Mohamed Bazoum

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With Abdoulaye Sounaye.

Deutsche Welle, 1 April 2021.

 

 

Big challenges confront Niger President Mohamed Bazoum

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With Abdoulaye Sounaye.

Deutsche Welle, 31 March 2021.

 

Niger: 137 morts dans une attaque à Tillia au nord-ouest du pays

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Interview with Abdoulaye Sounaye.

Radio France International,  22 March 2021.

 

 

Kyrgyzstan to hold constitutional referendum in April

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With Aksana Ismailbekova.

Novastan.org, 17 March 2021.

 

 

The Gecko on the Wall

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Article by Deepra Dandekar.

Saaranga Books, 15 March 2021.

 

 

Moin und Salam – ein Fotoprojekt zum muslimischen Alltag in Deutschland

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With Heike Liebau.

Deutschlandfunk,  12 March 2021.

 

 

Alumni News

Universities are going to ‘listen to students’, but which ones?

Profound change is in the offing for higher education, but history suggests non-Western students’ voices will not be heard, says Farish A. Noor in an article which he wrote for Times Higher Education.

 

The Hezbollah Empire in Lebanon and the Assassination of Lokman Slim

An artcile by Makram Rabah in Politics Today. "To Hezbollah, which is accused of killing Lokman Slim, this might be another chapter in their ongoing drive to dominate Lebanon and the region, but in reality, this might indeed be the epilogue for a horror story which will not end well for the Lebanese villains", writes Rabah.

 

Bücherkisten aus Kairo: Die Entstehung der orientalischen Handschriftensammlung der Forschungsbibliothek Gotha

Feras Krimsti schreibt im Blog des DFG-Projekts "Orient-Digital" über die drittgrößte Sammlung in Deutschland. Ihre Geschichte lässt sich bis in die Zeit der Gründung der Bibliothek in Gotha im 17. Jahrhundert zurückverfolgen. Überregionale Bedeutung erlangte sie Anfang des 19. Jahrhunderts, als der Gelehrte und Orientreisende Ulrich Jasper Seetzen auf seinen Reisen im Osmanischen Reich und auf der Arabischen Halbinsel für den Gothaer Hof und die Herzogliche Bibliothek knapp 2.700 Handschriften erwarb, ein Großteil von ihnen in Arabisch, aber auch in Osmanisch und Persisch.

 

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Als eine von drei Kuratorinnen wirkte Nushin Atmaca an einem Film der Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig mit. Die Arbeit ist eine filmische kuratorische Auseinandersetzung mit der Sektion „Orient“ in der nun geschlossenen Dauerausstellung des GRASSI Museum für Völkerkunde zu Leipzig. Sie ist ein Versuch, Möglichkeiten alternativer Erzählungen zu untersuchen, die aus den Bedeutungen und Geschichten hervorgehen, welche die Objekte in sich tragen. Unausgesprochen und vergessen oder sogar nie ganz entdeckt, können diese Geschichten eine andere Wahrnehmung von Objekten und Kulturen anregen.

 

Miscellaneous

Fritz Steppat Prize 2020 – video interviews with the awardees

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In 2020, Rahina Muazu (ZMO) and Shaul Marmari (Dubnow Institute) have been awarded with the Fritz Steppat Prize for an outstanding scientific text by a young researcher, granted by the Friends of ZMO. In a video interview, they now talk about their PhD and MA thesis, what they have learned during their research and what motivated them to work on their topics.

 

Wohnungssuche auf dem Berliner Mietmarkt – Blog von Studierenden der HU

In einem Seminar im Format des Forschenden Lernens am Georg-Simmel-Zentrum für Metropolenforschung der Humboldt Universität haben Studierende unter Anleitung von Lisa Jöris, Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin am ZMO, ethnografische Interviews mit Berliner Mieter*innen durchgeführt. Auf dem Blog teilen Sie nun ihre Ergebnisse.

 

"Der lange Abschied von der weißen Dominanz" in die bpb Schriftenreihe aufgenommen

Die Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung hat das Buch unseres Beiratsmitglieds Charlotte Wiedemann in seine Schriftenreihe aufgenommen. Wiedemann schreibt darin über die Infragestellung weißer Privilegien.

 

ZMO-Archiv trägt zu Roman bei

Die Autorin Merle Kröger schreibt in ihrem neuesten Roman "Die Experten" über BRD Experten für Flug- und Luftwaffentechnik, die in den 1950er und 60er Jahren in Ägypten arbeiteten und Nassers Luftwaffe mitaufbauten. Kröger dankt im Abspann unter anderem der Bibliothek des ZMO, wo sie auf die ägyptische Zeitung Al Ahram aus den 1960er Jahren für ihre Hintergrundrecherche zugreifen konnte.

 

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