This 3-hour workshop invites doctoral and postdoctoral researchers to critically reflect on the archives they use, inherit, and produce. Through a dialogue between two scholars working on Arabic manuscript cultures in Ethiopia and Mauritania, we will explore how archives create visibility, silence certain actors, and shape the questions we can ask. With the help of a short reflection questionnaire, workshop participants will reflect on how theoretical and methodological approaches originally developed within gender and intersectionality studies can productively inform their research practices, from their use of sources to their development of analytical and interpretive frameworks.

The workshop is organised by the Cluster of Excellence “Understanding Written Artefacts” in cooperation with project 360° Gender in Research.

Who: doctoral and postdoctoral researchers at the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures, together with former UWA Guest Professor Gender in Manuscript Cultures Britta Frede (University of Bayreuth) and current UWA Guest Professor African Manuscript Cultures Muna Abubeker (Addis Ababa University).

When & Where: Friday, September 18, 2026, 9:30 am – 12:30 pm, Warburgstraße 28, Room 3015

Registration: via email to mariapaola.gritti"AT"uni-hamburg.de by Monday, September 14 at the latest.