Project Description

The history of cultural and intellectual exchanges between the Ottoman, Persian, Arab, European, and American worlds has become an increasingly important area of research in the last decades. Studies on the multi-directional flow and dynamic networks of these encounters and transactions have significantly improved our understanding of the shared history of these regions over time.

Particular attention has been given to the history of language studies in Europe (Arabic, but also Persian and Turkish), the diffusion of Ottoman learning among early modern European orientalists, and the writings of Arabic-speaking Christians and their interactions with the Churches of the West. 

More recently, scholars have explored the move of people, texts and material objects, as well as aesthetical values, religious ideas, and artistic methods, and their impact on the cultural and intellectual history of these areas. 

Based on the rigorous study of published and unpublished primary sources, this institutional platform for the study of cultural exchange aims to foster original and interdisciplinary research that will develop and deepen our knowledge of the plethora of multi-directional processes and forms of religious, intellectual, and cultural exchange, as well as the practices of scholarship involved in these exchanges.

As such, it will enhance our understanding of the historical connection between these areas and the global dimension of cultural and intellectual networks and knowledge transfer in general. In addition, we hope that it will generate both a platform and a hub for the study of connected histories of the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas, thereby contributing to world-class scholarship in this area.

Areas of interest:

• Multidirectional exchange and transfer of ideas (agents, modes, and practices)

• Scholarship, networks, and knowledge transfer at the interface of travel, diplomacy, trade, and war

• Cultural exchanges in intellectual, religious, aesthetic, artistic, and material perspective

• Practices of scholarship (language learning and teaching; procuring, reading, annotating  and copying manuscripts, etc.) 

• The role of religious actors and representatives in intellectual and cultural exchanges

• The history and impact of misappropriation /-perception in cultural encounters

Image: Mantle of Roger II of Sicily, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, acc. no. WS XIII 14.

Project Description

This is a joint initiative between NYU Abu Dhabi, Australian Catholic University, and ‘The European Qur’an. Islamic Scripture in European Culture and Religion 1150-1850 (EuQu)’ (University of Copenhagen).

This project aims to study and discuss the impact that encounters, interaction, and mutual recognition of Jews, Christians, and Muslims, as well as non-Abrahamic religions, had on their historical development and their understanding of themselves and others. Particularly, we are interested in concepts that Jews, Christians, and Muslims entertained about themselves and about any other cultural or religious group and how these concepts changed over time.

In this context, ‘recognition’ involves cultural change by the exchange. It does not merely describe the act of attentively observing and distinguishing another as different from or similar to one’s own group. It also involves a recursive adaptation of self-definition and identity, facilitated by real and imaginary encounters, both peaceful and belligerent.

The interest is in how recognition functions in real world encounters between cultural groups and how it changes over time; how recognition employs media that communicate knowledge within and across cultural and geographical boundaries; how it uses true and false information about the other; and how it is affected by philosophical, theological, and ethical ideas openly or implicitly shared across cultural and geographical borders.