Subject area Orientalism

Edited by Thomas Bauer and Syrinx von Hees

The series Arabic Literature and Rhetoric, Eleven Hundred to Eighteen Hundred (ALEA) was founded as part of the Leibniz Prize Research Unit of the same name at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster. The center is dedicated to Arabic literature and rhetoric of the later centuries, which have been largely neglected until now. The reason for this is the dominant notion, originally Western colonialist but quickly adopted by Arab elites, that an early “Golden Age” was followed by a long period of stagnation and decline until the Islamic “Sleeping Beauty” was kissed awake by Western colonial powers in the 19th century.

This concept of decadence is not only inaccurate but has politically manifest consequences in Arab countries to this day. For example, the fixation on a “Golden Age” makes a link to history problematic and fosters ideological distortions of various kinds. Above all, however, these prejudices stand in the way of the reception of entire literary periods in which some of the most fascinating Arabic texts were written.

It is already apparent that the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in Syria and Egypt were an unparalleled period of literary flourishing, during which not only the most sophisticated highly literary texts were produced, but also a broad literary life prevailed in which people from artisan classes, such as the master builder Ibrahim al-Miʿmār, also participated.

Nevertheless, numerous key texts of this period have not yet been edited, let alone become the subject of scholarly research. A better knowledge of the literature and rhetoric of this period will significantly change our understanding of Arabic literary history as well as Islamic cultural history.

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Herausgegeben vom Orient-Institut Beirut (Max Weber Stiftung

Beiruter Texte und Studien (BTS) is the Orient-Institut’s peer-reviewed book series for research on the historic and contemporary Middle East. Since its inception in 1964, the series has published more than 130 books and has served as a platform for innovative studies.

With an established focus on Arabic language and literature, the Levante, and the provinces of the Ottoman Empire, BTS comprises a broad spectrum of themes, methods and periods within the wider region. It documents the rich, diverse history of Middle Eastern Studies and encourages new developments in the field. The series publishes monograph studies, conference proceedings of the OIB and other collective volumes in German, English, Arabic and French.

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Published by Ergon Verlag

The house series on Oriental Studies publishes monographs and anthologies on selected topics in the discipline.

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Edited by Prof. Dr. Eva De Clercq, Prof. Dr. Bart Dessein, Prof. Dr. Franziska Ehmcke, Prof. Dr. Ann Heirman and Prof. Dr. Andreas Niehaus

Since the cultural turn, the individual disciplines of South and East Asian Studies, such as Indology, Japanese Studies, Korean Studies, Sinology, etc., increasingly see themselves as cultural studies. The series Contributions to Cultural Studies in South and East Asia is intended to provide a forum for current and outstanding research findings in individual disciplines of Asian studies that have adopted a cultural studies approach, in which questions and problems can also be discussed from a trans- and interdisciplinary perspective.

The series brings together literary, social, and historical research approaches as well as research in the field of media and popular culture of South and East Asia from a cultural studies perspective. The series includes outstanding monographs and dissertations as well as the results of cultural studies-oriented conferences in German or English.

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Edited by Thomas Bauer, Stephan Conermann, Sabine Damir-Geilsdorf, Gudrun Krämer, Anke von Kügelgen, Eva Orthmann, Anja Pistor-Hatam, Irene Schneider and Reinhard Schulze.

The focus of the series Culture, Law and Politics in Muslim Societies is on studies in Islamic Studies and History. Across regional boundaries, the interplay of religion and society as well as its effects on the political and legal level are examined.

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Edited by Dirk Hartwig, Mouhanad Khorchide, Angelika Neuwirth und Martin Tamcke

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Edited by Katajun Amirpur and Dina El Omari

The Islam & Gender series aims to provide scholarly contributions and interdisciplinary approaches to gender issues to the heated public debate. Focal points are Gender in History and the Present, Gender and Society, Religion and Gender. The volumes published in the series provide well-founded insights into theories, research, and methods, but also into the realities of life in generational change.

The series publishes relevant monographs, anthologies, and outstanding dissertations and habilitation theses. It addresses researchers and students of Islamic Studies and Islamic Theology, Sociology, Catholic Theology, Migration Studies, and related subjects. And, of course, to people who are interested in Islam in contemporary society.

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Published by the Orient-Institute Istanbul (Max Weber Foundation)

The series of the Orient-Institute Istanbul is dedicated to the historical and cultural studies examination of topics in Turkish Studies, Ottoman Studies, and Middle Eastern Studies.

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Edited by Thomas Eich and Serena Tolino

The series focusses on the relation between law, ethics and society in the Middle East and in North Africa. It contains works that combine two or more research approaches or works that are situated at the intersection between two or more disciplines, like Middle Eastern Studies and History, Islamic Studies and Gender Studies, Law and Medicine. Books that are based on a differentiated set of sources, ranging from textual to oral sources, are welcome.

The series will include excellent PhD dissertations and habilitation theses, but also monographs and anthologies. On the chronological perspective, books from the pre-modern up to the modern and contemporary era are published. The books will be published in German, English and Italian language.

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Edited by Hatem Elliesie

The series deals with historical and contemporary conceptions of order, social configurations, and dynamics of change. In this respect, it focuses on Islamic law, Islamic legal systems, and the Islamic religion itself. On the other hand, it focuses on juridical practices and actors who, in a wide variety of societal contexts, refer in whole or in part to Islamic elements. The fields of investigation are not bound to a specific geographical area.

Conceptually, the series is deliberately designed to be multi- and interdisciplinary to make the normative and regulative diversity of actually or supposedly Muslim-influenced life worlds accessible to a broader specialist audience. The manifold interactions are illuminated with empirical, theoretical, and hermeneutic research approaches. The series includes monographs, edited volumes, and scholarly qualification papers in the humanities and social sciences.

Edited by Johann Büssow, Patrick Franke, Jens Peter Laut, Norbert Oberauer, Eva Orthmann, and Ulrich Rebstock

The series publishes academic contributions to the social and cultural history of the Islamic-dominated world from the beginnings of Islam in the 7th century to the immediate present. The geographic focus of the monographs is correspondingly broad, encompassing the space between Indonesia in the east to the western edge of the Arab world on the Atlantic, but also the Central Asian and sub-Saharan area. Works on Islam in Germany, in Europe, and more generally in the non-Islamic world are also welcome.

Volumes include Islamic law, Quranic hermeneutics and the wider history of Islamic ideas, Sufism, and other manifestations of Islamic religiosity. Studies of Islamic reform movements and Islamism deal with areas of great interest to a wider academic and non-academic audience. The press in individual states is a topic of the series, as is the history of music or medical and sexual ethics. Historical works in the narrower sense are also welcome: Contributions on tribal, dynastic, and colonial history, for example, attest to this thematic diversity and openness.

The series includes relevant monographs, anthologies, and outstanding dissertations and habilitation theses.

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Edited by Anton Escher, Albrecht Fuess, Gritt Klinkhammer, Stefan Reichmuth, Paula Schrode and Jörn Thielmann

The series is located in the border area between social, cultural and Islamic studies. Empirical social and cultural sciences (geography, cultural anthropology, political science, religious studies) are to be brought into conversation with Islamic studies discourses and publications.

The study of Muslim (life) worlds in a transnational perspective can make a significant contribution to social science theory building, since on the one hand social phenomena seem to occur here that contradict common social science theories (e.g., on modernization and secularization), and on the other hand phenomena such as globalization or universalization of lifestyles can be illustrated almost exemplarily there.

Through innovative and interdisciplinary works – monographs, dissertations, post-doctoral theses and anthologies in German and English – the series aims to contribute to the development of a discourse in social and Islamic studies across disciplinary and regional boundaries.

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Edited by Martin Tamcke

The publications of the series Orthodoxy, Orient and Europe deal with cultural encounters in the Christian Orient.

Herrnhut Sources on Egypt
This subseries focuses on diaries and letters of the Herrnhuter in Egypt.

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Edited by Julian Rentzsch

The series Turkic and Oriental Studies is a forum for academic work on various aspects of the Turkic peoples and their neighbors. While its focus lies on linguistics and literature, studies on other fields are welcome as well. Both synchronic and diachronic studies qualify for publication. Criteria for acceptance are originality, significance, and academic excellence. The series includes monographs, collective volumes, conference proceedings, editions of primary sources as well as excellent dissertations and habilitation thesis. Publications will be mainly in German and English. Publications in Turkish of outstanding relevance are eligible as well.

Edited by Bianca Devos, Jens Peter Laut, Ulrich Rebstock and Julian Rentzsch

Since 1998, the Arbeitsmaterialien zum Orient (Working Materials on the Orient) have opened historical and contemporary fields of knowledge in the Islamic Orient in more than 30 volumes of basic source literature and studies. Mostly for the first time, key texts from the Arabic- and Persian-speaking as well as the Turkophone world are brought to the attention of the reading public in the original and in translation. In addition, literary studies, studies in the history of religion and law, and studies in the history of science find their place in this series. The working materials interfere in Islamic studies and general cultural studies controversies and enrich the discussion with arguments and points of view. The series thus also presents itself as a showcase for academic qualification work and is explicitly open to young scholars.

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Published by the  Society for Turkology, Ottoman Studies and Research on Turkey (GTOT e. V.).

Diyâr is a new interdisciplinary and cross-regional scholarly journal. It deals with Turkey, the Ottoman Empire, and its successor states as well as Iran, Central Asia, and the Caucasus. It focuses on the language, culture, history, and present of the various Turkic- and Iranian-speaking ethnic groups, dynasties, and states, as well as other ethnolinguistic and religious groups living in these states.

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