SFB 950:  Collaborative Research Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures

• Subject Area: Humanities ; Computer Science, Systems and Electrical Engineering ; Materials Science and Engineering
• Term: from 2011 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 181924784

• Final Report Year: 2021

Final Report Abstract

From the very beginning, the SFB set itself ambitious goals: in a globally unique cooperation of more than a dozen Asian, African and European philologies - more than half of them so-called small subjects -, history, art history, historical musicology, folklore studies as well as computer science and materials science, a new approach was to be developed that starts from the manuscript as a material object and no longer exclusively from its content. This approach has proven itself practically and methodologically: A model relates modes and conditions of manuscript production (production - use - settings - patterns) and allows phenomena of different cultures to be meaningfully compared even without grand theory, in order to distinguish on an empirical basis between universal patterns of human culture and regional or local phenomena. Plurality of objects and plurality of disciplinary traditions can thus be brought together without presupposing dichotomies such as East/West, archive/library and manuscript/document or the universal validity of regionally developed theorems. The results show not only congruencies of different cultures in various aspects (for example: ritual, scholarship), but also how much scholarly disciplines are shaped by the contingencies of their history, far beyond the immediate political context. While this has always been clear in the case of national philologies and fields delimited by period, it is equally true of the so-called Orientalist disciplines, and by no means only in the narrow sense of Said's accusation of Orientalism. By fundamentally taking nothing for granted that cannot be ascertained from the concrete object, it is precisely the limitations of individual disciplines that can be made conscious and overcome. Historical depth and systematic focus were achieved exemplarily in the following fields: paratexts, visual organisation, collections, learning and teaching, ritual, effective power. Sustainability was ensured by a research data management system developed in the SFB, which has since been adopted for the entire University of Hamburg, and by the development of theory and terminology modules in a working group that included representatives from various disciplines. A mobile manuscript laboratory has supported research in the humanities with non-destructive analysis methods and, apart from spectacular individual studies, has introduced material analysis for some traditions in the first place, such as South Asian palm leaf manuscripts. The results of the SFB, especially the successful cooperation of the humanities with the natural sciences and computer science, have laid the foundation for the Cluster of Excellence EXC 2176 ‘Understanding Written Artefacts’.

Publications

• (2014), ‘Material Analysis of Sanskrit Palm-Leaf Manuscripts Preserved in Nepal’, Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, 36, 119–151
  Hahn, Oliver, with Martin Delhey, Emanuel Kindzorra, Ira Rabin
  
• (2015), ʻHeilsgeschichtliche Sukzession und typologische Synopse in Manuskripten der Biblia pauperumʼ, in Wimmer, Hanna, Malena Ratzke and Bruno Reudenbach (eds), Studien zur Biblia pauperum (Vestigia Bibliae 34) Bern: Peter Lang, 9–30
  Reudenbach, Bruno
  
• (2015), ‘The Dissolved Collection of Sheikh ʾAliy Ḥemed ʾAbdallah al-Buhriy (1889– 1957)’, Islamic Africa, 6, 201–208
  Samsom, Ridder
  
• (2015), ‘The Layout of the Early Motet’, Journal of the Alamire Foundation, 7, 11–32
  Huck, Oliver
  
• (2016), ‘Introduction – Manuscripts as Evolving Entities’, in Michael Friedrich and Cosima Schwarke (eds), One-Volume Libraries: Composite and Multiple-Text Manuscripts (Studies in Manuscript Cultures, 9), Berlin: De Gruyter, 1-26
  Friedrich, Michael and Cosima Schwarke
  
• (2016), Formen und Funktionen des Layouts in arabischen Manuskripten anhand von Abschriften religiöser Texte. Al-Būṣīrīs Burda, al-Ǧazūlīs Dalāʾil und die Šifāʾ von Qāḍī ꜥIyāḍ (Arabische Studien, 12), Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz
  Daub, Frederike
  
• (2016), The San Lorenzo Palimpsest: Florence, Archivio Capitolare di San Lorenzo, Ms. 2211. Introductory Study, Commentary and Images, 2 Volumes (Ars Nova – Nuova serie 4) Lucca: Libreria Musicale Italiana
  Janke, Andreas und John Nádas
  
• (2016), ‘Ein neuer Blick auf die Seitendisposition in Biblia pauperum-Handschriften’, in Hanna Wimmer, Malena Ratzke, and Bruno Reudenbach (eds), Studien zur Biblia pauperum (Vestigia Bibliae, 33), Bern: Peter Lang, 31–100
  Wimmer, Hanna
  
• (2016), ‘Found in Paratexts: Murukaṉ's Places in Manuscripts of the Tirumurukāṟṟuppaṭai’, in Emmanuel Francis und Charlotte Schmid (eds.), The Archaeology of Bhakti II: Royal Bhakti, Local Bhakti (Collection Indologie, 132), Pondicherry: Institut français de Pondichéry and École française d’Extrême-Orient, 495–532
  Francis, Emmanuel
  
• (2016), ‘The rNying ma rgyud ’bum at the National Archives Kathmandu: The History of Its Production and Transmission’, in Orna Almogi (ed.), Tibetan Manuscript and Xylograph Traditions. The Written Word and Its Media within the Tibetan Cultural Sphere, Hamburg: Department of Indian and Tibetan Studies, Universität Hamburg, 31–65
  Almogi, Orna
  
• (2017), ‘Exegetische Paratexte zur Physik des Aristoteles in griechischen Manuskripten aus der Renaissance. Einleitung und Edition’, Eikasmós. Quaderni bolognesi di filologia classica, 28, 261–298
  Brockmann, Christian, Vito Lorusso, and Stefano Martinelli Tempesta
  
• (2017), ‘Islamic Education and Ample Space Layout in West African Manuscripts’, in Andrea Brigaglia and Mauro Nobili (eds), The Arts and Crafts of Literacy. Manuscript Cultures in Muslim sub-Saharan Africa (Studies in Manuscript Cultures, 12). Berlin: De Gruyter, 105–142
  Bondarev, Dmitry
  
• (2017), ‘On the Edge of a Tradition. Some Prolegomena to Paratexts in Malay Rental Manuscripts’, Indonesia and the Malay World, 45/132, 145, 179–199
  Jan van der Putten
  
• (2017), ‘Tamil Satellite Stanzas. Genres and Distribution’, in Daniele Cuneo, Camillo Formigatti, and Vincenzo Vergiani (eds), Indic Manuscript Culture through the Ages. Material, Textual and Historical Investigations (Studies in Manuscript Cultures, 14), Berlin: De Gruyter, 163–192
  Wilden, Eva
  
• (2017), ‘Text und Paratext in der frühen Motette’, Archiv für Musikwissenschaft, 74 (2017), 240–253
  Huck, Oliver
  
• (2017), ‘ʿAjamī Annotations in Multilingual Manuscripts from Mande Speaking Areas: Visual and Linguistic Features’, Islamic Africa, 8, 111–143
  Ogorodnikova, Darya
  
• (2018), ‘Das “Rituelle Abschreiben des [Lotos-]sûtras” (nyohôkyô). Darstellungsweisen einer Zeremonie von 1188 in der Hagiographie “Bebilderte Darstellung des Wirkens des Ehrwürdigen Hônen” (Hônen Shônin gyôjô ezu)’, in Daniela Wagner und Hanna Wimmer (eds), Heilige. Bücher, Leiber, Orte, Berlin: Reimer, 87–107
  Quenzer, Jörg B.
  
• (2018), ‘Libraries and Archives in the Former Han Dynasty (206 BCE–9 CE): Arguing for a Distinction’, in Alessandro Bausi, Christian Brockmann, Michael Friedrich, Sabine Kienitz (eds), Manuscripts and Archives: Comparative Views on Record-Keeping (Studies in Manuscript Cultures, 11), Berlin: De Gruyter, 172–230
  Fölster, Max Jakob
  
• (2018), ‘Reading and Commenting Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics over the Centuries. (Marginal) Remarks on Some vetustissimi of the Organon and the Case of the Ambrosianus L 93 sup.’, Scripta, 11, 111–124
  Valente, Stefano
  
• (2018), ‘The Production of zidishu in Manuscript and Print During the Qing and Republican Eras: A Survey of the Extant Corpus’, in CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature, 37.2, 95-127
  Lu, Zhenzhen
  
• (2018), ‘The Quest for the Mixed Inks’, manuscript cultures, 11, 41–48
  Rabin, Ira, with Claudia Colini, Oliver Hahn, Olivier Bonnerot, Simon Steger, Zina Cohen, Tea Ghigo, Thomas Christiansen, Marina Bicchieri, Paola Biocca, Myriam Krutzsch
  
• (2018), ‘Writer Identification in Historical Manuscripts. Analysis and Optimization of a Classifier with an Easy-to-use Tool for Scholars from the Humanities’, Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Frontiers in Handwriting Recognition (ICFHR), Niagara Falls, IEEE Catalog Number: CFP18311-ART ISBN: 978-1-5386-5875-8, 534–539
  Mohammed, Hussein, Volker Märgner, und H. Siegfried Stiehl
  
• (2019), Anisong through Religious Donations. The Case of the Phaya Sekòng Manuscript from Müang Sing (Laos) (Hamburg Thai Studies, 2), Hamburg: Asien-Afrika-Institut, Abteilung für Sprachen und Kulturen Südostasiens und Hamburger Gesellschaft für Thaiistik e.V., Segnitz: Zenos-Verlag
  Grabowsky, Volker
  
• (2019), Models of marriage charters in a notebook of Ademar of Chabannes (nintheleventh century), in: Sarah Greer, Alice Hicklin, and Stefan Esders (eds), Using and Not Using the Past after the Carolingian Empire: c. 900–c.1050, London/New York, 154–165
  Depreux, Philippe
  
• (2019), ‘Books for Liturgical Reading? Remarks on Structure and Function of Early Medieval Gospel Books’, in David Ganz and Barbara Schellewald (eds), Clothing Sacred Scriptures. Book Art and Book Religion in Christian, Islamic, and Jewish Cultures (Manuscripta Biblica, 2), Berlin/New York: De Gruyter, 261–272
  Reudenbach, Bruno
  
• (2019), ‘Helpful Interactions Between Commentary and Text. Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics and Important Manuscripts of this Treatise’, in Shari Boodts and Stefan Schorn (eds), Sicut dicit. The Editing of Commentaries on Authoritative Texts, Turnhout: Brepols
  Brockmann, Christian
  
• (2020), Die Macht der Schrift. Die Manuskriptkultur der Toba-Batak aus Nord-Sumatra / The Power of Writing: The Manuscript Culture of the Toba Batak from North Sumatra = manuscript cultures, 14
  Putten, Jan van der, and Roberta Zollo
  
• (2020), Dividing Texts. Conventions of Visual Text-Organisation in Nepalese and North Indian Manuscripts (Studies in Manuscript Cultures, 10), Berlin: De Gruyter
  Bhattarai, Bidur
  
• (2020), Women of Aššur and Kaneš. Texts from the Archives of Assyrian Merchants (Writings from the Ancient World, 42), Atlanta: SBL Press
  Michel, Cécile
  
• (2020), ‘Ethiopia and the Christian Ecumene: Cultural Transmission, Translation, and Reception’, in Samantha Kelly (ed.), A Companion to Medieval Ethiopia and Eritrea (Companions to European History), Leiden: Brill, 217–251
  Bausi, Alessandro
  
• (2020), ‘Genres of Ethiopian-Eritrean Christian Literature with a Focus on Hagiography’, in Samantha Kelly (ed.), A Companion to Medieval Ethiopia and Eritrea, (Companions to European History), Leiden: Brill, 252–281
  Brita, Antonella
  
• (2020), ‘The Aksumite Collection or codex Σ (Sinodos of Qǝfrǝyā, MS C3-IV-71/C3-IV-73, Ethio-SPaRe UM-039): Codicological and palaeographical observations. With a note on material analysis of inks’, COMSt Bulletin, 6/2, 127–141
  Bausi, Alessandro, Antonella Brita, Marco Di Bella, Denis Nosnitsin, Nikolas Sarris, and Ira Rabin
  
• (2020), ‘The Chamberlain's Sessions. Audience Certificates in a Baghdad Manuscript of al-Kharāʾiṭī's Iꜥtilāl al-qulūb (Forschungsbibliothek Gotha, Ms. orient. A 627)’, Journal of Islamic Manuscripts, 11, 53–100
  Seidensticker, Tilman
  
• (2020), ‘Zauber der Bilder. Abbildungen in Texten jüdischer Magie’, Yearbook for European Jewish Literature Studies 7, 9–46
  Kohs, Michael