Written Artefacts across World Regions: Incommensurabilities and Comparisons

Lecture Series (hybrid format)

Convenors: Mariapaola Gritti and Martin-Jörg Schäfer

In the Winter Semester 2023/24, the Cluster of Excellence ‘Understanding Written Artefacts’ at the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures convened the lecture series ‘Understanding Written Artefacts: Untold Stories / Schriftartefakte verstehen: Unerzählte Geschichten’ to explore aspects of written artefacts that have not yet been brought to the foreground of scholarly conversations in written artefact studies. The series also reflected on some of the cultural and disciplinary norms and ethical challenges that have shaped written artefact research so far. This year’s lecture series aims to expand these conversations on the (changing) norms, emphases, and trajectories of development that characterise contemporary written artefact research by presenting materials and perspectives from across world regions, and specifically from beyond Euro-American scholarly centres. In making room for further ‘untold stories’, we want to focus particularly on the connections – the similarities, the entanglements, but also the incommensurabilities – that emerge when we look at research on artefacts originating from or located in different regions or at research informed by different scholarly and conservation traditions as well as by different cultural and political contexts. We hope that contributions to the series will enable us to discuss the powers and pitfalls of cross-cultural comparison as a productive yet also potentially limiting approach in written artefact research. Comparisons can sharpen our sensibility for the cross-cultural diversity of written artefacts and writing practices, but also stifle our capacity to convey radically diverse modes of knowledge and practice to our audiences. What aspects of written artefacts and of writing practices invite or, instead, defy comparisons? What insights can comparisons yield, what understandings might they obscure? And what thematic, methodological, and epistemological expansions can a focus on cross-cultural or cross-regional incommensurabilities help us envision? Lectures in the series will explore these questions by looking at case studies from Algeria, India, Iran, Mali, Mexico, Thailand, and Yemen.

The series comprises lectures in Arabic, English, French, and Spanish. Consecutive interpretation into English will be provided for the lectures in Arabic, French, and Spanish.

The series will be presented in hybrid format. We look forward to having you with us in the lecture hall, or alternatively on Zoom.

All lectures will be held on Mondays, 6:15 pm — 8:00 pm CET, at Erwin-Panofsky Hörsaal (ESA C), Hauptgebäude, Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1, and online (ZOOM).

Registration: https://www.zfw.uni-hamburg.de/oeffentliche-vortraege/programm-wise/11-written-artefacts-across-world-regions/anmeldeformular-zoom.html

Understanding Written Artefacts: Untold Stories

Lecture Series (hybrid format)

Convenors: Mariapaola Gritti and Martin-Jörg Schäfer

Since 2019, the Cluster of Excellence "Understanding Written Artefacts" at Universität Hamburg has investigated written artefacts (manuscripts, inscriptions, etc.) originating in different times – from the beginning of writing up until today – and in different regions of the world. Artefacts studied range at present from Mesopotamian clay tables to the graffiti sprayed on Hamburg’s walls. The lecture series presents this research and by doing so explores the geographical, cultural, and historical diversity of written artefacts and of writing as a human practice. At the same time, it raises the question of which aspects of written artefacts, of the historical contexts from which they stem, and of the social contexts in which they are used we have as of yet failed to consider or account for. Which creators and users of written artefacts and which types of artefacts have we deemed (un-)worthy of our attention? Whose perspectives on written artefacts have we incorporated into our research? What bodies of knowledge about written artefacts have we, instead, backgrounded? And what spoken and unspoken cultural and disciplinary norms have led to such marginalisations? With this lecture series we would like to begin telling some of the still-untold stories about writing and written artefacts that questions such as these bring into view.

The lecture series comprises talks in English and in German. It will be presented in hybrid format. We look forward to having you with us in the lecture hall, or alternatively on Zoom.  

All lectures will be held on Mondays, 6:15 pm — 8:00 pm CET, at Erwin-Panofsky Hörsaal (ESA C), Hauptgebäude, Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1, and online (ZOOM)

Between Invisibility and Autonomy: Negotiating Gender Roles in Manuscript Cultures

Lecture Series (hybrid format)

Convenors: Eike Großmann and Johanna Seibert

Women’s contributions to the production and use of written artefacts have been neglected or even made invisible in many manuscript cultures. Their agency being written out is only one of the numerous blind spots when pursuing a gender perspective in the study of manuscript cultures. The aim of this lecture series is to explore precisely these blind spots by raising questions which enable us to grasp the multiple roles women have played in manuscript cultures. At the centre of each lecture lies the question of how women contribute to the production, circulation, and dissemination of manuscripts, inscriptions, graffiti, and other written artefacts. Did they function as patrons or scribes? If they were allowed to write in the first place, what kind of artefacts were they expected to produce? In which ways did female production of written artefacts subvert the existing order and modes of gendered dominance? Or did their actions possibly contribute to supporting, stabilising, and perpetuating their own disadvantage? How was their exclusion then rationalised and explained in cases where they were denied active (and passive) participation in manuscript cultures?

It is through perspectives such as these that women’s roles in historic and contemporary manuscript cultures become visible. Exploring a range of examples — liturgic, devotional, biographic, among many others, from ancient Assyria and Egypt to medieval Japan and Central Europe and on to today’s Thailand and Northern Africa — the speakers shed light on new findings, give unique insights into their fields, and discuss methodological considerations.

All lectures will be held on Mondays, 6:15 pm — 8:00 pm CET, at Warburgstraße 26 (Pavilion) and online (ZOOM)