By Chunping Lin. The word “幽默 yōumò,” which means “humor” in Chinese, is originally from Jiǔzhāng 九章 of the Chu Lyrics 楚辭 Chǔcí (475 B.C.–221 B.C.) and was used to describe the tranquility of nature. Lin Yutang林語堂 (linguist, philosopher, and translator, 1895–1976) translated the English word “humor” with the word “幽默 yōumò”.
Autor: Forum Transregionale Studien
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Chomsky Is No Friend of the Syrian Revolution
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
Just three weeks following my release after 16 years in prison in Syria, I started translating a book into Arabic. The book was “Powers and Prospects: Reflections on Human Nature and the Social Order,” by Noam Chomsky. It had taken me some time to realize that the leading linguist and the harsh critic of American imperialism was the same person.
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Envisioning Work: The Visual Cultures of Labor – Call for Contributions
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
By Hala Auji and Nurçin İleri. Capitalism’s far-reaching social, industrial, and cultural implications on the socio-political aspects of production, labor, and class struggle are well-documented. Scholarship on labor has emphasized the social and economic aspects of the capitalist economy and the history of working classes in a global context.
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Yearbook on the African Union
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
By Ulf Engel. In October 2021, I published the Yearbook on the African Union (YBAU). This yearbook is the first of its kind. The YBAU is first and foremost an academic project that provides an in-depth evaluation and analysis of the institution, its processes, and its engagements.
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Welche Bedeutung hat Putins Rede? Ein Gespräch mit Andrii Portnov
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
„Die Vergangenheit ändert sich ständig“, lautet ein sowjetisches Sprichwort. Vielleicht hat sich das auch der russische Präsident gedacht. Gestern Abend hat er die Separatistengebiete in der Ostukraine anerkannt und eine Rede gehalten, in der er diesen Schritt vor allem historisch begründet. Manche sagen schon jetzt, diese Rede werde die Historiker noch beschäftigen.
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The World Historical Gazetteer: A Digital Humanities Interface for Transregional Research
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
By Susan Grunewald, Ruth Mostern, and Karl Grossner. As digital projects become increasingly popular for the humanities, linked open data (LOD) is a means to combine the efforts of many individual researchers and research teams to enable truly transregional research.
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Reporting Corona
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
By Marina Rudyak. The seminar “Reporting Corona: State Media, Critical Journalism and Citizen Witnessing during the COVID-19 Outbreak in Wuhan” at the Institute of Chinese Studies at Heidelberg University, which I taught in the summer semester of 2021, explored the news and information production in locked-down Wuhan. It analysed the different types of reporting and writing, their motivations and their ways of coping with censorship.
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On the Margins of the University: Academics in the Face of Power in post-2016 Turkey
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
By Alihan Mestci. Culture is a battle that “has not yet been won” – this has been iterated on numerous occasions by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan ever since late 2016, the year of the July 15th coup attempt. The state of emergency has given a legal blank check for thousands of dismissals in the civil service as well as for the criminalization and marginalization of dissenting voices from the media and civil society.
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Gods and Outcasts: Ambivalent Attitudes towards Health Workers in India during the Coronavirus Pandemic
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
By Gautam Liu. The COVID-19 pandemic in India generated a strange phenomenon in how health workers were perceived. On the one hand officials were not tired in proclaiming doctors and nurses as gods, on the other hand health workers were ostracized by large parts of the general population.
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God in Times of Uncertainty
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
By Khadija Mohamed Embaby and Amira Mittermaier. In times of profound uncertainty, what does God offer to believers? And how does uncertainty affect believers’ ideas about, and relations to, God?
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Teaching between Spoon-Feeding and Dialogue: My Experience in Institutions of Higher Education and in Interactive Theater
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
By Marie Elias (French Literature / Theater Studies, University of Damascus / Higher Institute for Dramatic Arts, Damascus, Syria / Saint Joseph University, Beirut, Lebanon). Teaching is a difficult, exhausting profession, but an exciting one, and, if handled satisfactorily, it allows for enriching forms of knowledge and social interchange.
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التعليم بين التلقين والحوار: تجربتي في بعض المؤسّسات للتعليم العالي والمسرح التفاعلي
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
ماري إلياس (الأدب الفرنسي / الدراسات المسرحية، جامعة دمشق / المعهد العالي للفنون المسرحية بدمشق، سوريا / جامعة القديس يوسف ببيروت، لبنان). التعليم مهنة شاقّة ومتعبة ولكنّها شيّقة وتسمح بتواصل معرفي واجتماعي غني لو تمّ التعامل معه بشكل مُرض. أظنّ أنّ كلّ شخص درّس كان له رأيه ونظرته الخاصّين في هذه المهمّة. ما أريد طرحه هنا هو موقفي الشخصي من التعليم بناءً على تجربتي الخاصّة.
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Ottoman Roads to the Present: Infrastructure Development in Southeast Europe
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
By Florian Riedler and Nenad Stefanov. Public discourse and official historiography in Southeast Europe still understand the Ottoman period as ‘backward’. This backwardness is particularly associated with social and cultural immobility. According to this perspective, the Ottoman state dominated the Balkan Peninsula and prevented it from ‘moving forward’ and ‘progressing’ like the rest of Europe.
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De la philosophie arabe contemporaine comme champ d’étude
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab (Philosophie, Institut de Doha pour les Études Supérieures, Qatar). Si l’histoire intellectuelle moderne et contemporaine du monde arabe demeure un champ d’étude insuffisamment exploré, elle a néanmoins suscité un intérêt croissant au cours des deux dernières décennies.
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Heterodox Philology
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
Michael Allan and Gauri Viswanathan discuss connections among philology, literary history, and religion, drawing from writers such as Edward Said, B.R. Ambedkar, Zora Neale Hurston, Louis Massignon, and Kumud Pawde. The conversation was initially conducted via Zoom on September 2, 2020, and collaboratively edited for readability.
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Retracing Professional Mobility: Historical Network Analysis through CERD
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
By Thorben Pelzer. If sinology was a religion (which, despite its dogmas, it probably is not), the 15-volume Cambridge History of China could well serve as its holy scripture. Published over the course of over forty years, each of its well over a hundred chapters provides an authoritative overview of a particular topic.
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German Medieval Studies and the Arab World: Overcoming Disciplinary and Epistemic Boundaries within the Humanities
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
By Jenny Rahel Oesterle (History, University of Regensburg, Germany). I am a medievalist, specialized in the history of Europe, the Mediterranean and the Middle East. I have worked and received training at several universities throughout my career and am currently teaching at the University of Regensburg.
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الدراسات القروسطية الألمانية والعالم العربي: التغلّب على الحدود التخصّصية والمعرفية داخل الإنسانيات
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
جيني راحيل أوستيرله (التاريخ، جامعة ريغنسبورغ، ألمانيا). أنا من باحثي القرون الوسطى، متخصّصة في تاريخ أوروبّا ومنطقة البحر الأبيض المتوسّط والشرق الأوسط، تدرّبت خلال مسيرتي المهنية في عديد من الجامعات وعملت فيها، وأدرّس الآن في جامعة ريغنسبورغ.
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“Gender, Sexuality, and Knowledge Production in Current Neoliberal and Authoritarian Regimes”: Call for Contributions to the Series
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
To highlight the ongoing struggles that shape the production and circulation of knowledge in times of neoliberalism and authoritarianism, the Interdisciplinary Gender and Sexuality Research Cluster of De Montfort University, the Margherita-von-Brentano Center of Freie Universität Berlin, and Academy in Exile are calling for blog contributions by scholars, students, and activists from across the globe.
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How the Values of Modernity Contribute to Cultural Mediation
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
Azelarabe Lahkim Bennani (Philosophy, Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University, Morocco). This paper aims to address how to invest the capacity of the university to shape dialogue between cultures in an era of multiculturalism and civilizational conflict.
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مساهمة قيَم الحداثة في الوساطة الثقافية
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
عزّ العرب لحكيم بنّاني (فلسفة، جامعة سيدي محمد بن عبد الله، المغرب). إنّ الهدف من هذه المقالة هو التطرّق إلى كيفية استثمار قدرة الجامعة على بلورة الحوار بين الثقافات في زمن التعدّدية الثقافية وصراع الحضارات. ونحن نعلم أنّ عددًا غير محدود من جمعيات المجتمع المدني والمؤسَّسات الدولية تتطرّق بكلّ جدّية إلى مثل هذا الحوار.
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On Contemporary Arab Philosophy as a Field of Study
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
By Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab (Philosophy, Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, Qatar). Modern and contemporary Arab intellectual history remains an understudied field. The last two decades have witnessed a growing interest in it.
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في الفلسفة العربية المعاصرة بوصفها حقلًا للدراسة
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
إليزابيث سوزان كسّاب (الفلسفة، معهد الدوحة للدراسات العليا، قطر). لا يزال التاريخ الفكري العربي الحديث والمعاصر حقلًا يحتاج إلى درس. وقد شهد العقدان الماضيان اهتمامًا متزايدًا بهذا الأمر. ومن بين الأعمال التي ظهرت مؤخّرًا، ثمّة أعمال تراجع فترة النهضة (من منتصف القرن التاسع عشر إلى منتصف القرن العشرين) وأخرى توثّق على نحوٍ نقدي جدالاتها الأقرب عهدًا.
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The Digital Humanities Interface – An Introduction
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
By Ninja Steinbach-Hüther and Thomas Efer. DH is the glue holding disjointed parts together or a bridge facilitating the exchange between separated regions of academia. We see DH as an interface, an enabler of communication and interdisciplinary collaboration.
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“Innovationitis” and Humanities
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
By Marko Demantowsky (History, University of Vienna, Austria). You read it everywhere. Everyone talks about it, always as a value in itself. We are all haunted by it, not least at universities, not least in the humanities, by the ubiquitous requirement to be innovative.
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هوس ’التجديد‘ والإنسانيات
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
ماركو ديمانتوفسكي (التاريخ، جامعة فيينا، النمسا) تقرؤونها في كلّ مكان. يتحدّث عنها الجميع، كقيمة في حدّ ذاتها على الدوام. تطاردنا جميعًا، لا سيّما في الجامعات، ولا سيّما في الإنسانيات، مُطالِبَةً بالمطلب كلّي الحضور أن نكون مجدِّدين. فالمشاريع التي لا تقتضي التجديد لن تحلّ عليها نعمة التمويل في نظام أكاديمي منتفخ ونحيل في آنٍ معًا.
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Palestine Potash Limited: Industrial Development in Mandatory Palestine and the Infrastructure of Zionism
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
By Mona Bieling. The British Mandate for Palestine was officially instated in 1923 by the League of Nations. From its beginning, the Mandate government received applications for the rights to exploit the mineral resources of the Dead Sea and its surrounding areas.
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Spaces of Participation: Dynamics of Social and Political Change in the Arab World
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
By Randa Abou Bakr, Ulrike Freitag, and Sarah Jurkiewicz. The uprisings in the Arab region in late 2010 and early 2011 took many observers of the political scene by surprise, given the authoritarian nature of most regimes in the area. However, the roots and reflections of these uprisings can be found in the social, cultural, and artistic spheres of these locations, as we argue in our book, Spaces of Participation: Dynamics of Social and Political Change in the Arab World (Cairo, AUC Press 2021).
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Imagining the Telegraph in the Ottoman Empire
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
By Pauline Lewis. By the 1880s, approximately 20,000 miles of telegraph wires and cables stretched across the Ottoman Empire, circulating more than three million electrical messages each year. As scholars have convincingly shown, the technology offered a powerful new tool for the Ottoman central government to exert direct control over distant populations and provinces.
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Keeping the Wheels Turning at all Costs: Factories as COVID-19 Clusters – Interview with Aslı Odman
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
Recently, business have been trying hard to refute the role of the manufacturing sector as a main contributor of COVID-19 cases. In this conversation, Aslı Odman, an instructor at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, and a founding member and volunteer at Istanbul Health and Safety Labor Watch, discusses the socio-spatial inequalities triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic in industrial workspaces on both local and global scales.
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Missionary Anxiety Along Ottoman Istanbul’s Railways
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
By Gabriel Doyle. When new railway lines started to crisscross Ottoman territory at the end of the 19th century, the infrastructural change fuelled a missionary awakening. Catholic congregations, especially, were interested in the urban and rural areas around the Anatolian railway line, which started to be built in 1889 and intended to link Istanbul to Ankara.
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Of ‘nimble fingers’ and ‘jacquard’s soldiers’: Up-scaling, Up-skilling, and the Re-masculinization of Labor in Bangladesh’s Garment Industry
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
By Christian Strümpell and Hasan Ashraf. Bangladesh is widely known as having rapidly grown into one of the world’s major producers of ready-made garments. In 1978, it counted 9 factories; in 1985, their number stood at 598; and in 1996 at 2,353.
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Outside Looking in: On Teaching Art History from the ‘Margins’
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
By Hala Auji (Art History, American University of Beirut, Lebanon). What does it mean to teach art history, a discipline still rooted in eighteenth-century European Enlightenment ideals, in present-day Lebanon? As an art historian of the Middle East living and working in Beirut, teaching courses on the region has proven to be more challenging than one might imagine.
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‘النَظر من الخارج: في تدريس تاريخ الفنّ من ’الهوامش
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
هلا عوجي (تاريخ الفنّ، الجامعة الأميركية في بيروت، لبنان). ما الذي يعنيه في لبنان اليوم أن ندرّس تاريخ الفنّ، ذلك الفرع الذي لا يزال يضرب بجذوره في المُثُل العليا لعصر التنوير الأوروبي في القرن الثامن عشر؟ بصفتي مؤرخةً للفنّ في الشرق الأوسط أعيش وأعمل في بيروت، ثبت لي أنّ مساقات التدريس في المنطقة أكثر تحدّيًا مما تخيّلت.
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History without Debate: A Reading of the Crisis in Arab Historiography
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
By Abdulhadi Alajmi (History, Kuwait University, Kuwait). Many universities in the Arab world, which annually publish thousands of theses, dissertations, academic articles and a numerous range of monographs, follow a common framework, which is the extensive collection of information.
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التاريخ بلا جدل: قراءة في أزمة الكتابة التاريخية العربية
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
عبد الهادي العجمي (تاريخ، جامعة الكويت، الكويت). الكثير من الجامعات التي تُصدِر في كلّ عامٍ آلافًا من الرسائل والأطروحات والمقالات العلمية والدراسات المتعدّدة والمختلفة، تتّبع إطارًا عامًا مشتركًا ألّا وهو الجمع الواسع للمعلومات، مشتركًا يفتقد لروح الجدل والفرضية. والحقيقة أن هذا المعطى التجريبي أصبح هو المنتج لاحقًا لما أسمّيه ’سلبية علم التاريخ‘ ولفقدان هذا الأخير لسمة التحليل النقدي والقدرة التنافسية في حيّز ومسار الفكر الثقافي والإنساني للمجتمعات العربية.
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“The workshops are seedbeds for degeneration”: Forms of Exposure and Protection of Workers’ Bodies in Vardar Macedonia
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
By Ivana Hadjievska. Between 1918 and 1941, Vardar Macedonia was the southernmost region in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. It represented the Ottoman legacy in the kingdom, with its diversity of religions and ethnicities, and a population that predominantly subsisted on agriculture.
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Humanities in Germany: Sciences Among Sciences
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
By Sabine Behrenbeck (Head of Department for Higher Education, German Council for Science and Humanities, Germany). There are many common problems and complaints regarding the humanities in anglophone nations and Germany, but there is also one important difference: In Germany the disciplines dealing with culture and language, religion and history are “sciences among sciences” (Wissenschaften unter Wissenschaften).
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الإنسانيات في ألمانيا: علومٌ بين العلوم
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
زابينه بيرنبيك (رئيسة قسم التعليم العالي، المجلس الألماني للعلوم والإنسانيات، ألمانيا). ثمّة كثير من المشكلات والشكاوى المشتركة المتعلّقة بالإنسانيات في البلدان الناطقة بالإنكليزية وفي ألمانيا، لكنّ هنالك أيضًا فارقًا مهمًّا: في ألمانيا، الفروع التخصّصية التي تُعنى بالثقافة واللغة والدين والتاريخ هي „علومٌ بين العلوم“ (Wissenschaften unter Wissenschaften). وما من تمييز بين ما يُسمّى „Geisteswissenschaften“ (العلوم الإنسانية) ومباحث أخرى من خلال تسميات خاصّة (مثل الإنسانيات أو الآداب الحرّة)، ولذلك يُنظَر إليها وتُعامَل على قدم المساواة لناحية اختيار الطلّاب أو المسارات الوظيفية أو تمويل الأبحاث.
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The Humanities in the Age of Digital Information Exchange
by Forum Transregionale Studien •
By Amani Albedah (Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences). This contribution offers a preliminary perspective on the state of the humanities today, as knowledge production takes an unprecedented turn in human history.