Draft:University of Hamburg, Asia-Africa Institute

Below: Asia-Africa Institute,Centre: Central Bulding of the University of Hamburg

The Asia-Africa Institute is an institution of the University of Hamburg with departments for African Studies, Ethiopian Studies, Austronesian Studies, Indology, Iranian Studies, Islamic Studies, Japanese Studies, Korean Studies, Sinology, Thai Studies, Tibetology, Turkology and Vietnamese Studies.

Main article: Hamburgisches Kolonialinstitut

The origins of Oriental Studies in Hamburg lie in the Akademisches Gymnasium, founded in 1613, where there was a professorship for Oriental languages as part of the theological training programme. Hermann Samuel Reimarus, who held the professorship from 1727, is considered the "progenitor" of Hamburg's Orientalists and also studied Chinese in addition to the languages relevant to the Bible. Georg Behrmann was also a theologian by training, who learnt Arabic, Persian and Turkish and hosted the International Congress of Orientalists in Hamburg in 1902.

An important forerunner of the Asia-Africa Institute was the Hamburg Colonial Institute, founded in 1908, at which, in addition to chairs for colonial economics, law and geography, a professorship for the history and culture of the Orient was established, to which Carl Heinrich Becker was appointed. At the beginning of 1910, two further chairs were established, for African and East Asian languages. The Chair of African Studies was the first in the world for this subject, the first holder being Carl Meinhof. From 1911, the Colonial Institute used the lecture building in Rotherbaum donated by Edmund Siemers, which is now the main building of the University of Hamburg. With the founding of the University of Hamburg in 1919, whose initial task was "particularly to promote foreign and colonial studies", the Colonial Institute was integrated into the Faculty of Philosophy.

In 1969, the faculties at the University of Hamburg were dissolved and replaced by 15 departments, each with its own dean. One of these was the Department of Oriental Studies. The Asia-Africa Institute emerged from this in 2000 and moved into the eastern wing next to the main building, which was completed in 2002.[1] Since the university was reorganised into faculties in 2006, the Asia-Africa Institute has been part of the Faculty of Humanities.

Departments of the Asia-Africa Institute

Department of Japanese Language and Culture

• Japanology

Entrance of the Asia-Africa-Institute

The first German chair for the language and culture of Japan was established in Hamburg in 1914. Although the main interest of its founding professor Karl Florenz was literature and religion of the pre-modern era, modern Japan was by no means neglected in teaching.[1] Wilhelm Gundert took over the chair in 1936, but was relieved of his teaching duties in 1945 due to his political role at the university during the Nazi era. From the 1950s to the 1980s, Oscar Benl taught as a literary scholar and translator and Günther Wenck (1916-1992) as a linguist. From 1957 to 1978, Géza Siegfried Dombrady (literature), from 1983 to 2005 Roland Schneider (language and literature of the Middle Ages), from 1987 to 1993 Klaus Antoni (cultural anthropology), from 1994 Manfred Pohl (state, politics and society), from 1995 to 1999 Kay Genenz (cultural development and language didactics) and since 2006 Jörg B. Quenzer (literature, intellectual and cultural history) taught at the department.

In addition to the publications of the OAG Hamburg (Nachrichten der Gesellschaft für Natur- und Völkerkunde Ostasiens (NOAG)), Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft für Natur- und Völkerkunde Ostasiens (MOAG)), the department, together with the Sinology Department, is also responsible for the East Asian Studies journal Oriens Extremus.

Department of Chinese Language and Culture

The Department of Chinese Language and Culture has a working area for Korean Studies. The department publishes the peer-reviewed journal Oriens Extremus.

• Sinology

The Department of Chinese Language and Culture mainly offers the two degree programmes "International Bachelor of Arts East Asia / Sinology" and "Economics and Culture of China (B.A.)", as well as a Master's programme in Sinology.

In Hamburg, the Master's degree in Sinology is divided into the degree programmes "Chinese Language and Literature" (Sinology I) and "Chinese State and Society" (Sinology II). Students had the option of choosing one of the two programmes as their major and the other as a minor.

The two professorships in the field of Sinology are held by Michael Friedrich and Kai Vogelsang. There is also a professorship in Korean Studies.

• Korean Studies

The Department of Korean Studies has a professorship, which has been held by Yvonne Schulz Zinda since 2012.

Department of Languages and Cultures of Southeast Asia

• Austronesian Studies (Indonesian and South Sea languages)
• Thai Studies
• Vietnamese Studies

Department for Language and Culture of India and Tibet

• Indology
• Tibetology

A total of four universities in Germany currently offer Tibetology as a degree programme: University of Hamburg, University of Munich, University of Leipzig and University of Bonn. The department in Hamburg includes a chair for Buddhist Studies.

Department of History and Culture of the Near East

The department was founded in 1908 as part of the Hamburg Colonial Institute. The first director was the founder of German Islamic Studies, Carl Heinrich Becker. Originally, the seminar was intended to prepare merchants and civil servants for work in the Orient by offering language and regional studies courses. In addition to contemporary historical research and the introduction to language and regional studies, history and philology now take centre stage. The department works together with the GIGA Institute of Middle Eastern Studies on topics relating to current Middle Eastern politics.

• Department of Islamic Studies

Islamic Studies deals with the history and culture of the Islamic world from its beginnings to the present day. It is based primarily on written records in the literary languages of this region (Arabic, Turkish, Persian). The focus of the work in this area is on cultural history, law and material culture (e.g. numismatics and manuscript studies). The department publishes Der Islam, one of the oldest specialised journals. The historical tradition of the department was continued after the Second World War by Bertold Spuler, Albrecht Noth and Lawrence I. Conrad and is currently represented by Thomas Eich (since 2010), Stefan Heidemann (since 2011) and Konrad Hirschler (since 2021).

• Turkology Department

The subject of Turkish Studies is the language, history and culture of the Turks. Research interests in Hamburg are primarily focussed on: History and culture of the Ottoman Empire and the modern history of Turkey, Ottoman and modern Turkish literature as well as Turkish migrants in Germany; Azerbaijan is given special attention in Central Asian studies. It was only with the appointment of Annemarie von Gabain as an adjunct professor in 1948 that Turkish studies were separated from Islamic studies and established as a separate major subject, initially with a focus on general Turkology (Ancient Turkish, Central Asian Turkic languages) and in close connection with Altaic Studies, Finno-Ugric Studies and Sinology (Chinese and Central Asian Buddhism). Under her successor Barbara Flemming, Turkish was added in the fields of linguistics, history and literary studies, while Hanna Sohrweide (1980) focussed in particular on Ottoman Studies. With the appointment of Petra Kappert in 1979, Turkish Studies became a separate field of work at the department. Raoul Motika has represented the department since October 2006 and was Director of the Orient-Institut Istanbul (DGIA) from October 2010 to September 2020.

• Department of Iranian Studies

The subject of Iranian Studies was represented by Heinrich Junker and Hans Reichelt from 1919 to 1930, then by Jehangir Tavadia from 1937 to 1954. In 1948, with the appointment of Wolfgang Lentz, it moved from the Department of Linguistics and Indology to the Department of Oriental Studies, where it became an independent department in 1966. Ronald Erich Emmerick then represented the subject between 1971 and 2001, and since December 2004 Ludwig Paul took over, specialising in Iranian linguistics, in particular the history of Persian and West Iranian dialectology as well as the modern history of Iran. Since December 2022, Shervin Farridnejad also took over the chair of the Iranian Studies, specialising in Iranian phylology, religions and manuscript cultures, in particular Zoroastrianism, the history and literature of the Zoroastrian communities of the Parsis and the history and literature of Iranian and Persianate Jewery.

Department of African and Ethiopian Studies

Professors of the department

• Carl Meinhof

In 1909, a professorship for African languages was established in Hamburg at the then Hamburg Colonial Institute. Hamburg can therefore claim to have created the oldest chair of its kind in the world. The post was filled by Carl Meinhof (1857-1944). Originally a pastor in Zizow, a village in Pomerania, who devoted his free time to his many philological interests, Meinhof came into contact with African languages by chance via a neighbouring manor: He was supposed to give German lessons to a Duala boy living there.

In his work, the main features of which have not yet been superseded (in 1984, the third edition of Vergleichende Lautlehre der Bantusprachen was republished in English translation), Meinhof applied the principles of comparative linguistics of the late 19th century to languages that could not look back on a written tradition.

• August Klingenheben

Meinhof's successor in 1936 was August Klingenheben (1886-1967), who came to the Hamburg seminary in 1911 as a research assistant after studying Semitic studies and theology. Together with Meinhof, he undertook a longer study trip to Sudan from here. After his military service (from 1917 as a Turkish first lieutenant in the Middle East), he completed his doctorate in 1920 on a Hausa dialect. Klingenheben concentrated his academic interests on the areas in which a German Africanist could work without difficulty after the First World War: the non-colonised African states, Ethiopia and Liberia.

• Johannes Lukas

Klingenheben's successor was Johannes Lukas (1901-1980), who went to Egypt for an extended stay as a tutor, where he was able to make contact with numerous students from Central African countries at Al-Azhar University. He won them over as the first informants for his work on their native languages.

• Emmi Kähler-Meyer

In addition to the Chair of African Languages and Cultures, there has been a second professorship since 1949. The Bantuist Emmi Kähler-Meyer held this professorship until her retirement in 1969. As Meinhof's former secretary, she had studied African Studies (from 1927) alongside her profession. During her long academic career, Kähler-Meyer felt particularly committed to Meinhof's legacy, which she preserved above all as the long-standing editor and editor-in-chief of the journal "Afrika und Übersee" (today's name), founded by Meinhof in 1910.

• Anton Vorbichler

From 1970 to 1974, the Steyler priest Anton Vorbichler held the second Africanist professorship. In addition to dealing with Bantu topics, he focussed his listeners' attention on the linguistic world of Zaire, where he had worked as a missionary between 1954 and 1960.

• Ernst Hammerschmidt

Lukas was succeeded at the Institute in 1970 by the Ethiopianist Ernst Hammerschmidt. His achievements lie in the development of fundamental sources and working materials for Ethiopian studies, which he was responsible for publishing in the Ethiopistische Forschungen series that he founded. Hammerschmidt was succeeded in 1990 by the Ethiopianist Siegbert Uhlig, who represented the "Ethiopian Studies" section within the Department of African and Ethiopian Studies until 2004.

• Ludwig Gerhardt

Ludwig Gerhardt succeeded Vorbichler in 1975. Gerhardt not only represents the narrower Bantu studies traditionally associated with this professorship, but also significantly expands it to include the languages of West Africa of the Niger-Congo language family, which are closely related to the Bantu languages of East and South Africa.

• Ekkehard Wolff

From 1983 to 1994, the Institute had a third professorship. The appointment of Ekkehard Wolff meant that the research and teaching areas that had been largely orphaned since the departure of Johannes Lukas (1970) were once again represented: the Chadian languages within Afro-Asiatic and the Saharan languages within Nilo-Saharan as well as Berber.

Department research

The department includes the Collaborative Research Centre for Upheavals in African Societies and their Overcoming.

Associated institution: Centre for Buddhist Studies (ZfB)

Since 2007, the Asia-Africa Institute has had an interdisciplinary institution, the Centre for Buddhist Studies (ZfB), which is dedicated to researching Buddhism from the perspectives of Indology, Japanese Studies, Korean Studies, Sinology, Thai Studies, Tibetan Studies and Vietnamese Studies and offers courses for students and the public[1].

Interdisciplinary research at the Asia-Africa Institute

Since 2011, the DFG has been funding the Collaborative Research Centre 950 Manuscript Cultures in Asia, Africa and Europe at the Asia-Africa Institute.

The library

The library of the Asia-Africa Institute is located on the ground floor of ESA-OST (Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1) and contains around 370,000 media units on the subjects of Africa, Austronesia, China, India and Tibet, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Vietnam and the Middle East. It is open to all members of the university as well as city readers and offers not only academic texts but also beautiful literature from these countries. With a library card from the University of Hamburg library system, books can be borrowed here for a fortnight, plus renewals[1].

References

• Rainer Nicolaysen, Eckart Krause, Gunnar B. Zimmermann (Hrsg.): 100 Jahre Universität Hamburg. Band 2: Geisteswissenschaften, Theologie, Psychologie, Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2021. Mit Beiträgen von Ludwig Paul zur institutionellen Geschichte der Asien-Afrika-Wissenschaften an der Universität Hamburg (S. 406–430); Roland Kießling zur Afrikanistik (S. 431–453); Alessandro Bausi zur Äthiopistik (S. 454–464); Albrecht Wezler zur Indologie, Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde (S. 465–488) sowie Thomas Eich zur Orientalistik (S. 489–508).
• Ludwig Paul (Hrsg.): Vom Kolonialinstitut zum Asien-Afrika-Institut. 100 Jahre Asien- und Afrikawissenschaften in Hamburg (Deutsche Ostasienstudien 2), Gossenberg: Ostasienverlag 2003, ISBN 978-3-940527-11-0.
• Jens Ruppenthal: Kolonialismus als Wissenschaft und Technik. Das Hamburgische Kolonialinstitut 1908 bis 1919 (Historische Mitteilungen Beihefte 66), Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-515-09004-9.

See also

• Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft
• German Institute for Global and Area Studies
• Institut der Länder Asiens und Afrikas an der Lomonossow-Universität Moskau
• Institut für Asien- und Afrikawissenschaften an der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Weblinks

• Internetpräsenz des Asien-Afrika-Institut
• Homepage des DFG-Sonderforschungsbereichs 950 Manuskriptkulturen in Asien, Afrika und Europa des AAI
• Zentrum für Buddhismuskunde (ZfB) des AAI
• Homepage der von Abt. f. Sprache und Kultur Chinas herausgegebenen Zeitschrift Oriens Extremus