Gotha Manuscript Talks start a new round

"We invite researchers to the 'Gotha Manuscript Talks' to discuss with them how specific manuscripts have changed the way we look at objects of research," explains Dr Feras Krimsti, academic speaker for the Oriental manuscript collection at the Gotha Research Library. "Using manuscripts written in Arabic, Persian, Turkish-Ottoman, Syriac, Ethiopian, Hebrew and many other 'oriental' languages, we trace stories of the reception of knowledge, but also stories that tell of forgetting. For example, we deal with historical or literary developments that become tangible in manuscripts, with theological problems that are revealed or solved through them, with transmission processes, social and intellectual networks, artistic and museum practices, economic developments and many other social and intellectual phenomena at the centre of which are oriental manuscripts."

Guests at the upcoming events are:

• 4 March: Professor Augustin Jomier (Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales & École Normale Supérieure) "At the Crossroads of Empires: North African Libraries in the 19th Century"
• 18 March: Jakob Wigand (Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures, University of Hamburg) "Smuggling Papyri: Scholarship, Law, and the Case of Papyrus Hamburgensis bilinguis 1"
• 1 April: Dr Nadine Löhr (Goethe University Frankfurt) "Reflections on the Many Forms of Commentary in Astronomical and Astrological Manuscripts"
• 15 April: Dr Michael Erdman (British Library) "Spoke not Hub: Regional Ottoman Manuscripts in the British Library"

Each lecture will last 45 minutes and will be followed by a discussion. If you would like to attend, you can register at https://uni-erfurt.webex.com/meet/veranstaltungen.fb to dial into the respective event. Recordings of the events will then be available later in the media centre of the Gotha Research Library.