Descripción del proyecto
La formación de la identidad nubia
La batalla de Dongola en 652 detuvo la expansión musulmana en Nubia. Sin embargo, aún no se han analizado sus dimensiones social y cultural y su proyección en futuros desarrollos en la región. El proyecto IaM NUBIAN, financiado con fondos europeos, investigará la formación de la identidad nubia tras este evento histórico y su transformación con el tiempo. El proyecto, mediante la combinación de disciplinas históricas tradicionales con ciencias sociales y estadística, aprovechará evidencias documentales y literarias producidas dentro y fuera de Nubia en griego, copto, nubio antiguo y árabe. El proyecto llevará a cabo cuatro estudios de casos sobre estrategias lingüísticas de (auto)presentación, identidad determinada por el género, la función de las inscripciones públicas y la percepción de los nubios en fuentes externas.
Objetivo
In 652 CE the successful expansion of Islam into Africa was halted at the gates of Dongola. While the historical significance of this ‘Nubian dam’ is well known, its sociocultural dimension also for subsequent developments in the region remains completely unexplored. IaM NUBIAN addresses this gap by examining how Nubian identity was shaped in the aftermath of this world-historical event and how it changed over time to witness the rise to glory and eventual fall of Christian Nubia in the 15th century. Using the extensive, but hardly exploited written evidence (documentary and literary) produced inside and outside Nubia in 4 languages (Greek, Coptic, Old Nubian, and Arabic), I will study textual and contextual means of expressing ‘Nubianness’ in 4 case studies on (1) linguistic strategies of (self-) presentation, (2) gender-determined identity, (3) the role of inscriptions in public space, and (4) how external sources presented Nubians. For the first time in Nubian studies, traditional historical disciplines (e.g. philology, papyrology, epigraphy, history) will be combined with insights from social sciences (sociolinguistics, identity and memory studies) and statistics to unlock the sophisticated interplay of text and context that underlies the studied writings. Moving well beyond the boundaries of current knowledge and approaches, IaM NUBIAN shifts the focus from the political-religious to the sociocultural to understand the historical processes that shaped medieval Nubian society. IaM NUBIAN is best executed in the Leiden Institute for Area Studies with its interdisciplinary approach to studying society at large, while Freie Universität Berlin offers crucial additional digital humanities and sociolinguistic expertise. Through an intensive cooperative and interactive research and training programme I will gain crucial linguistic, disciplinary, and professional skills, which will put me in position to obtain an ERC Consolidator Grant and a permanent academic position.
Ámbito científico
Programa(s)
Régimen de financiación
MSCA-IF-EF-ST - Standard EFCoordinador
2311 EZ Leiden
Países Bajos