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[Nachruf] Manfred Faßler
(2021)
Based on Ivan Marcus’s concept of “open book” and considerations on medieval Ashkenazic concepts of authorship, the present article inquires into the circumstances surrounding the production of Sefer Arugat ha-Bosem, a collection of piyyut commentaries written or compiled by the thirteenth-century scholar Abraham b. Azriel. Unlike all other piyyut commentators, Abraham ben Azriel inscribed his name into his commentary and claims to supersede previous commentaries, asserting authorship and authority. Based on the two different versions preserved in MS Vatican 301 and MS Merzbacher 95 (Frankfurt fol. 16), already in 1939 Ephraim E. Urbach suggested that Abraham b. Azriel might have written more than one edition of his piyyut commentaries. The present reevaluation considers recent scholarship on concepts of authorship and “open genre” as well as new research into piyyut commentary. To facilitate a comparison with Marcus’s definition of “open book,” this article also explores the arrangement and rearrangement of small blocks of texts within a work.
This paper was presented at the workshop “Goods, Languages, and Cultures along the Silk Road” at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, October 18 and 19, 2019. While many contributions to the workshop focused on recent developments in China’s current “New Silk Road” politics, on forms of communication, and on contemporary exchange of goods and ideas across so-called Silk Road countries in the Caucasus and Central Asia and with China, this short essay focuses on the history of the so-called Silk Road as an important transport connection. Although what is now called the “Silk Road” was not a pure East-West binary in antiquity but rather developed into a network that also led to the South and North, the focus here will be on describing the East-West connection.
I will start with a few brief remarks on the origins of the connection referred to as the Silk Road and will then introduce the different great empires that shaped this connection between antiquity and the Middle Ages through military campaigns and by using it as a trading route and network. But the Silk Road was by no means only of economic and military importance. Its significance for the exchange and dissemination of religions should also be mentioned. This paper does not detail the importance of the numerous individual religions in the area of the Silk Road but discusses the phenomenon of the spread of religions and the loss of some of their own distinguishing characteristics in this spread, a phenomenon that could be described as a “unity of opposites” (coincidentia oppositorum). Finally, the essay asks who, in the face of the regular replacement of powers, held sovereignty over the transport connection: the subject (in the form of the empires) or the object (in the form of the road).
Who were the main protagonists of and along the Silk Road in the course of history? Who were the people who became the great powers of the ancient Silk Road, building up the material route, governing parts of it, and organizing trade and relationships from the far East to the extreme West of the Eurasian continent?
The merchant language of the Georgian Jews deserves scholarly attention for several reasons. The political and social developments of the last fifty years have caused the extinction of this very interesting form of communication, as most Georgian Jews have emigrated to Israel. In a natural interaction, the type of language described in this article can be found very rarely, if at all. Records of this communication have been preserved in various contexts and received different levels of scholarly attention. Our interest concerns the linguistic aspects as well as the classification.
In the following paper we argue that the specific merchant language of Georgian Jews belongs to the pragmatic phenomenon of “very indirect language.” The use of mostly Hebrew lexemes in Georgian conversation leads to an unfounded assumption that the speakers are equally competent in Hebrew and Georgian. It is reported that a high level of linguistic competence in Hebrew does not guarantee understanding of the Jewish merchant language. In the Georgian context, the decisive factors are membership in the professional interest group of merchants and residential membership in the Jewish community. These factors seem to be equivalent, because Jewish members of other professional groups (and those from outside the particular urban residential area) have difficulties in following the language that are similar to those of the Georgian majority. We describe the pragmatic structure of interactions conducted with the help of the merchant language and take into account the purpose of the language’s use or the intention of the speakers. Relevant linguistic examples are analysed and their sociocultural contexts explained.
This study explores literary representations of gender and sexuality in contemporary Malaysian Popular Fiction in English (MPFE) written by Malay Muslim authors that are published in between the years 2010 to 2020. It questions why gender and sexuality are considered sensitive topics and the public discussion of these topics is deemed taboo by some Malay Muslim traditionalists and contemporary scholars of Malay literature. Previous studies suggests that Islamic rules and regulations influence the Malaysian Malays worldview. Its sacred book, the Quran, has established clear-cut prohibitions against any sexual indulgence among its believers. Muslim writers must learn to restrict themselves from indulging in sexual writings in order to prevent them from intentionally or unintentionally arousing their readers’ sexual fantasies that may lead both parties to sinning. However, at the end of the twentieth century, many factors such as the impact of modernisation through scientific and industrial revolution on Malaysian society, the influence of Western Humanities theories among local intellects, and the introduction of Internet culture have contributed tremendously to the dramatic social changes in Malaysia. These changes are reflected heavily in its literary culture. In recent years, the Malay people’s awareness of their body and individuality is heightened. There is a surge of curiosity among contemporary Malay Muslims about their gender and sexuality and they would want a discussion. Following this development, the first objective of this study is to provide the latest discussion on gender and sexuality in MPFE by Malay Muslim authors. The second objective is to provide observations on how MPFE authors employ their literary strategies to approach aspects of gender and sexuality in their literary works. It pays attention to how writers express their acceptance, negotiations, and/or rejections towards the dominant “normative” or “common” values in the Malay society with regards to their body and sexuality. Using textual analysis to examine one novel and six short stories from the MPFE genre, this paper cross-examines Malay literary theories on sexual and erotic literature available in Pengkaedahan Melayu (Malay Methodology), Persuratan Baru (Genuine Literature), as well as Western theoretical approaches in Postcolonialism, Postmodernism and Feminism on gendering system and sexuality, in its aim to explain the growing interest in the topics in spite of the red-tape around sexual taboos in Malaysian literature.
Die Normativität des Korans
(2021)
Der Koran hat eine besondere Bedeutung für Menschen muslimischen Glaubens. Er gilt als göttliche Offenbarung, die mit dem Propheten Muhammad als Medium der Menschheit übermittelt wurde. Dem hohen rituellen, ästhetischen und religiös-emotionalen Wert des Korans als Wort Gottes steht allerdings ein weniger stark verbreitetes grundlegendes theologisches Wissen zu seiner Erschließung gegenüber. Die Entstehungsgeschichte und der Offenbarungskontext sind beim Verständnis und der Auslegung des Texts von essentieller Bedeutung. Vor allem aber die wissenschaftlichen Diskurse in den Jahrhunderten seit der Offenbarung des Korans, aus denen das unendliche Spektrum an Auslegungen und deren Wandel über die Jahrhunderte hervorgeht, sind wenig bis gar nicht bekannt...
Die Normativität des Korans
(2021)
Der Koran hat eine besondere Bedeutung für Menschen muslimischen Glaubens. Er gilt als göttliche Offenbarung, die mit dem Propheten Muhammad als Medium der Menschheit übermittelt wurde. Dem hohen rituellen, ästhetischen und religiös-emotionalen Wert des Korans als Wort Gottes steht allerdings ein weniger stark verbreitetes grundlegendes theologisches Wissen zu seiner Erschließung gegenüber. Die Entstehungsgeschichte und der Offenbarungskontext sind beim Verständnis und der Auslegung des Texts von essentieller Bedeutung. Vor allem aber die wissenschaftlichen Diskurse in den Jahrhunderten seit der Offenbarung des Korans, aus denen das unendliche Spektrum an Auslegungen und deren Wandel über die Jahrhunderte hervorgeht, sind wenig bis gar nicht bekannt...
"Imara – Moscheen und Umweltschutz" : Moscheegemeinden als Akteurinnen nachhaltiger Entwicklung
(2021)
This article examines the content and structure of the manuscripts of Sefer Ḥasidim, engaging with ideas concerning its production addressed in Ivan Marcus’s recently published book on Sefer Ḥasidim. Marcus has argued that the book was written piece by piece and not as an integral book and further suggested that each and every manuscript of Sefer Ḥasidim should be taken as a distinct edition of the book prepared by Judah he-Ḥasid. The present study demonstrates that, notwithstanding the gradual process in which Sefer Ḥasidim was written and the great variations among the manuscripts, it is possible to reconstruct a textual process that led to the larger compilations found in the three well-known text editions of Sefer Ḥasidim, represented by MS Parma 3280, MS JTS Boesky 45, and the edition printed in Bologna in 1538. The analysis focuses on the distribution of the text in the manuscripts. While it is difficult to show linear relations among them, the different versions demonstrate a gradual process of growth and enlargement of the material around topical structures. Since most of the material is transmitted in more than one exemplar and few passages appear in one manuscript alone, it is argued that the manuscripts can be linked to show how the material grew from random collections of single paragraphs to topically ordered clusters and into the larger compilations of Sefer Ḥasidim.
Honey and other bee products were likely a sought-after foodstuff for much of human history, with direct chemical evidence for beeswax identified in prehistoric ceramic vessels from Europe, the Near East and Mediterranean North Africa, from the 7th millennium BC. Historical and ethnographic literature from across Africa suggests bee products, honey and larvae, had considerable importance both as a food source and in the making of honey-based drinks. Here, to investigate this, we carry out lipid residue analysis of 458 prehistoric pottery vessels from the Nok culture, Nigeria, West Africa, an area where early farmers and foragers co-existed. We report complex lipid distributions, comprising n-alkanes, n-alkanoic acids and fatty acyl wax esters, which provide direct chemical evidence of bee product exploitation and processing, likely including honey-collecting, in over one third of lipid-yielding Nok ceramic vessels. These findings highlight the probable importance of honey collecting in an early farming context, around 3500 years ago, in West Africa.
Quo vadis Papua: case study of special autonomy policies and socio-political movements in Papua
(2021)
This research discusses socio-political movements in Papua as a result of the implementation of special autonomy policies (Otsus) by the government for almost two decades. Theoretically, indigenous Papuans should support it but in empirical reality, Otsus has been considered "fail" by the indigenous Papuan people because there are still many problems that have not been resolved by Otsus. This negative response indicates public dissatisfaction towards the development planning process in Papua. This dissertation aims to examine these issues; why these policies and development plans failed and are protested, why protests against them are prolonged, how do protests develop into social movements, and whether indigenous Papuan movements can be classified as social movements. The study uses qualitative approach, through case study methods. Data are collected through interviews, observations and documentation studies. The research finds that the presence of Otsus in Papua in addition to being a source of new conflict, also triggers conflicts in the form of protests and resistance movements against the government of Indonesia, both physical and political. This research discovers that, indeed the Otsus management has succeeded in changing the face of Papua because of the many physical projects but the development of human aspects and supporting instruments has not been touched at all. Thus, only a small percentage of indigenous Papuans feel the benefits of Otsus, while most of them are still struggling. This paper finds that protests against Otus are due to the growing resentments from the community so long as their demands are not met. This study suggests that the presence of the state in Papua through the Otsus policy must be re-evaluated. The state must ensure that in the Otsus era, the indigenous Papuans should not be marginalized, so that aspirations for the welfare of all indigenous Papuans through Otsus can be realized.
Ein halbes Jahrhundert Judaistik in Frankfurt : das »kleine Fach« feiert 50-jähriges Bestehen
(2020)
Nichts Neues bei den Masken
(2020)
Der Erforschung der Bronzestatuetten der Frühen Neuzeit im 19. Jahrhundert wurde bisher wenig Beachtung geschenkt. Die erste umfassende stilkritische Gattungsmonographie mit dem Titel „Die Italienischen Bronzestatuetten der Renaissance“ wurde von Wilhelm von Bode (1845 - 1929) verfasst. Er veröffentlichte diese kurz nach der Eröffnung des neu gebauten Kaiser-Friedrich-Museums in Berlin 1904. Maßgeblich durch Bode geprägt, zeigte dieses Museum erstmals Bronzestatuetten der Renaissance und des Barock als eine eigenständige Skulpturengattung. Die wissenschaftshistorische Frage nach der Entstehung der stilkritischen Kleinbronzenforschung zwischen 1871 und 1904 steht daher im Kontext der Berliner Museums- und Sammlungsgeschichte, mit dem Schwerpunkt auf der Erwerbung der Kleinbronzen, deren Zuschreibung und Präsentation. Ein 1883 veröffentlichtes Konzept für ein Berliner „Renaissancemuseum“ verknüpfte mit der Sammlungspräsentation die Erwartung, der ästhetischen Selbstvergewisserung ihrer Betrachter zu dienen. Die Kunst der Renaissance, darunter auch die Bronzestatuetten, war dabei Sinnbild des modernen bürgerlichen Autonomiebestrebens. Diesem Leitbild stand die Arbeitsorganisation ihres Erforschers Wilhelm von Bode gegenüber, die seine historische Theorie und stilkritische Methode prägte. Neben dem Einfluss Jakob Burckharts und dessen „Kunstgeschichte nach Aufgaben“ geben Bodes Briefwechsel mit Theodor von Frimmel, Louis Courajod und dem Sammler Fürst Johann II. von und zu Liechtenstein Aufschluss über sein Forschungsinteresse. So fokussierte er seine Forschung auf die Statuetten des Bildhauers und Bronzemodelleurs Bertoldo di Giovannis. Hier lässt sich der Wandel von einer kulturgeschichtlichen Perspektive hin zu einer historisch-kritischen Analyse der Statuetten verfolgen. Mit der Transformation der so genannten „Kopienkritik“ aus der klassischen Archäologie und mit Hilfe der Fotografie entwickelte Wilhelm von Bode eine Methode für die stilkritische Analyse der kleinformatigen Skulpturen.
Garbage piles up in the capital of Cambodia; it lies around in corners, on streets, in fields. COVID-19, which has led to a global reduction in the production of greenhouse gases considered utopian, has had little if any significant impact within this country, where garbage is produced in the same amounts, likewise burned and buried, or dumped into the rivers. The smelly sewage channels of Phnom Penh run as brown as usual, patterned with flip-flops, shampoo packaging, diverse plastic particles, and undefinable fragments of rubbish, travelling south-eastwards into the morning glory fields; passing by buzzing, still active markets, passing urban poor areas, where children play in the thick mud, passing citizens in facemasks. On 10 April, the Cambodian government counted some 120 official cases of COVID-19 infection among its populace...
From 1945 to the early 1960s, the US government undertook numerous atomic and hydrogen bomb tests. These full-scale explosions were recorded on film from various angles, and at different speeds. Indeed, it soon became required to obtain images of the very first milli-seconds of the expanding phase of the atomic fireball. Ultrahigh-speed cameras able to produce such images were specifically developed for that purpose. This article explores the different “media-temporalities” that intersect in those images. I focus on the “micro-processes happening on a technical level that are very fast,” and more specifically the ones that go into the “Rapatronic camera” designed by Harold Edgerton (head of the US national defense contractor company EG&G) to record the atomic fireball early formation. The scientific slow-motion films and high-speed photographic images operate at the junction of the micro-scale temporality of the atomic explosions’ early phases, and the macro-scale temporality of the political and ecological implications of these explosions. I argue that these films are the objects and inscriptions of micro-temporalities, macro-history and geological times.
This paper describes the interplay of lexical and grammatical aspect with other grammatical phenomena in the interpretation of the aspectual suffix ‑ile (which we analyse as Perfective) in isiNdebele, a Nguni Bantu language spoken in South Africa. Crucial other phenomena include constituency-related factors such as the conjoint-disjoint distinction and (related) penultimate lengthening, along with morphophonological conditions that trigger different forms of ‑ile. These factors appear to interact differently in isiNdebele than they do in closely related Zulu, suggesting two different paths of grammaticalization, which we argue can change the interpretation of markers of grammatical aspect as they interact with lexical aspectual classes.
Movies are brilliant choices to be subjects of discourse analysis since they bear resemblance to real-life phenomena. Lion of The Desert is one of the movies that actualizes the use of the English language as the dialogue and presents Islamic historical values as its content. Among a myriad of sub-disciplines of discourse analysis, this paper attempts to investigate speech act phenomena in the utterances of Omar Mukhtar, the main character of the movie. The discourse analysis is conducted on his utterances in order to extract the types of speech acts he employs. Primary data sources include the movie video file and its script. We execute several procedural steps of extracting the data, commencing with watching the movie while reading its script; re-watching it to identify the aspects like voice, intonation, and mimics; interpreting, and classifying the types of speech acts in accordance with the classification procedure of John R. Searle’s speech act theory. The findings revealed four types of speech acts, namely, representative, directive, commissive, and expressive, being identified and classified in Mukhtar’s utterances. The most frequently used type of speech act was representative, which is performed in 56 utterances, followed by a directive act which appears in 53 utterances. Commissive and expressive speech acts emerge in 9 and 7 utterances respectively.
Are we creating our past?
(2020)
Urnfield Culture hilltop settlements are often associated with a predominant function in the settlement pattern. This study challenged the idea of centrality by means of density estimates and spatial inhomogeneous explanatory statistics. Reflecting on the differences in spatial trends and material culture, no conclusive evidence for a consolidation of power, economic, or cultic dominance was observed. The dataset strongly points towards the inapplicability of commonly used parametric and/or homogenous spatial algorithms in archaeology. Tracer variables as well as the methodological and theoretical limitations are critically reviewed and a methodological framework to increase the reproducibility and reusability of archaeological research is proposed.