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Essential Digital Resources for Students of Arabic Studies

In the past, studying Arabic literature meant spending hours in archives, flipping through bulky dictionaries, and deciphering various calligraphic styles in the manuscripts. While physical books in the library remain invaluable, the rise of digital humanities has given us access to powerful tools that support research, enhance analysis, and provide…

Don’t give them reasons to disqualify you by saying this [Applications in Academia 101, A Survival Guide, Part 6]

The last post offered some advice on better understanding academic CVs. Now I’d like to highlight one critical mistake I’ve made in the past and recently observed in others: handing someone a reason not to fund you. I will discuss the general conundrum and why it happens more often than…

10 Questions for Anuj Misra

Anuj Misra | Foto: Mona Eendra 2023 Anuj Misra is a historian and philosopher of mathematics specialising in pre-modern Islamicate and Sanskrit astronomy. He currently leads the Max Planck Research Group on Astral Sciences in Trans-Regional Asia, and is also a Professor at Freie Universität Berlin. His research investigates the…

“Most people are not radicalized” Global Perspectives on Resilience and Radicalization: Insights from the PREVEX Project

By Gilad Ben-Nun (Global and European Studies Institute) and Ulf Engel (Institute of African Studies) The PREVEX project, spanning 18 countries across the Balkans, the Middle East, North Africa, and the Sahel, reveals why the vast majority of individuals do not succumb to violent extremism despite facing significant economic and...

Handling Non-Standard Datasets in NoRaRe: A Practical Guide

NoRaRe, the Database of Cross-Linguistic Norms, Ratings, and Relations, is a resource that curates multiple datasets containing information on various properties of words and concepts. When researchers contribute their data, the format and structure can vary widely, presenting challenges for seamless integration. Here, I offer practical guidance for addressing common…

Why There Can’t Be a Recipe for the Philosopher’s Stone: Enlightening Readings from Glasgow and Wolfenbüttel

Going AstrayWhat many do not know: As a researcher at the Wolfenbüttel Library, I spent years meticulously searching for the Philosopher’s Stone (it must have been between 2017 and 2023 – the Covid pandemic clouds my memory a bit). But apart from Alchemie und Augenschein. Eine Wissens- und Mediengeschichte, which…

The Enduring Impact of Historical Institutionalism in Post-Conflict Biafra

Reviewed Work: A History of the Republic of Biafra: Law, Crime, and the Nigerian Civil War by Samuel Fury Childs Daly To understand the social, political, and economic issues shaping the world today, we must examine them within their global and historical contexts. Samuel Fury Childs Daly adopts this approach…

Female Agency and Colonial Repression: Memory and Archives in Tunisia

By Nora Lafi This article is a shortened version of a MECAM Paper, originally published by the Merian Centre for Advanced Study in the Maghreb (MECAM) and the GIGA Institute in Hamburg, Germany, in 2024. The full version can be accessed here (also available in Arabic and French). Tunis, November…

Review: Dr Wangui Muigai’s Lecture on “Black Infant Mortality, the Roots of a Health Inequality”, at C.F. Reynolds Medical History Society, Pittsburgh, USA, on 28 January 2025.

“despite the improvements in the overall health of the country, racial and ethnic minorities experience a lower quality of health care—they are less likely to receive routine medical care and face higher rates of morbidity and mortality than non-minorities.” American Medical Association. Dr Wangui Muigai is an Assistant Professor of…

Examining the relationship between fascism, populism and the far right

This article examines the relationship between fascism and populism in the past, with an emphasis on what it can teach us about the present. This is done by using three books published within the last five years that present different case studies. The case studies range from Mussolini’s Italy, to…

Gumpenhuber’s theatre chronicles as a window into eighteenth-century Viennese theatre culture

After the previous blog posts mainly dealt with our different work areas and steps (from source description to the division of a IIIF manifest using Python to transcription with Transkribus), the following post will now be dedicated to the actual content of the chronicles, examining their context, structure and data…

Breaking Bias: Entry Points for Gender Stereotypes in Judicial Decision-Making

TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research By Beate Streicher As articulated in the Council of Europe’s (CoE) Gender Equality Strategy 2024, while progress has been made, effective gender equality in Europe remains elusive (para. 2). The rise of anti-gender movements in Europe is not only attacking women and LGBTIAQ+ persons…

Seeking Sources for a Recipe for Aqua Caelestis in the Catchmay Manuscript (1629), Part 2

by Annabel Cords, St. Olaf College In Part 1 of this exploration, Cords recounts the questions she faced when first encountering Catchmay’s recipe for Aqua Caelistis. She asked: Could this recipe have come from a larger, more popular foreign work? Could it, with its utilization of alembics and diverse ingredients,…

The Potentialities for Globality in the Tradition of Critical Theory

By Johan Bolding Rasmussen Critical Theory in Global Intellectual History The field of intellectual history is concerned with the development of ideas, particularly focusing on philosophical concepts, as well as their relationships with research fields such as cultural studies and social theory. Global intellectual history is then the emergence of…

The End of the Guilds in Syria

In the Ottoman cities of what was later to become the state of Syria, premodern guilds survived well into the 1920s. By that time, too, the infant trade union movement was beginning to take shape. Three laws shaped the transition from craft guilds to trade unions as the dominant institutions…