Africa in pre-modern times

Research on pre-modern Africa focuses yet on north-east Africa, the sub-saharan part of the continent is much less explored in this respect. Studies on the land of the pharaohs and late antique Coptic Egypt already has a long tradition. But pre-Islamic Nubia and Sudan are also being investigated in Münster, as is ancient Algeria. The literary creation of the 12th-18th centuries in Egypt is another special research focus at the WWU.

• African Archaeology

  El Tuweina – Inventar einer Residenz in der Wüste
  Wadi Abu Dom Investigations
  Interregional Linkage Investigations in Northern Kordofan (InterLINK)

• Ancient Cultural history of Africa

  • Menschenhaar – Götterhaar: Studien zum Körperkonzept in der altägyptischen Religion
  • Gestaltung, Funktion und Bedeutung antiker Treppenanlagen. Multiperspektivische Analyse einer transkulturellen Konstante (Symposion in Hannover, 20.-22.10.2021)
  • Das Alexandersanktuar in Karnak und die umgebenden Räume
  • Was sind "Staatsgötter"? Königtum und Kult in Meroe (3. Jh. v. bis 3. Jh. n. Chr.)
  • Rekonstruktion des Textes des altägyptischen Stundenrituals (Tagesstunden) und seines Komplements für die Nachtstunden in Grab TT 223 in Theben-West., Ägypten

• Christianity in Africa

  • Kritische Gesamtausgabe der Werke des Schenute
  • Sakraltopographie einer Klosterlandschaft und ihre Entwicklung auf dem Hügel von Dra Abu el-Naga / Oberägypten: Deir el-Bachît und das thebanische Pauloskloster
  • Die arabische Version der hagiographischen Lebensbeschreibung des koptischen Heiligen Schenute (Vita Sinuthii): kritische Edition, Übersetzung und Untersuchung
  • Gnostics, Christians and Philosophers in the Third and Fourth Centuries A.D.: An Investigation into the Philosophical Sources behind the Platonizing Coptic Gnostic Texts from the Nag Hammadi Codices (PhD-Project)

• Medieval and early modern literature

  Arabische Literatur und Rhetorik Elfhundert bis Achtzehnhundert

Post/colonial Africa: socio-political and cultural dynamics

This field of research brings together scholars at and outside the WWU who explore colonial and postcolonial African societies, cultures, religions and political-legal transformations from different disciplinary vantage points. The research projects of this research field are empirically grounded in particular national, regional and local settings. They simultaneously illustrate, and reflect on, the long-standing transnational ties of travel and of intellectual and economic exchange that have connected people in Africa to the world beyond the subcontinent.

• Thematic focus (1): Religious plurality in contemporary Africa and its global diaspora

• Thematic focus (2): Legitimacy and authority: conceptual and empirical perspectives

• Thematic focus (3): practices of healing in the Black Atlantic

African Postcolonial Philosophy

This field of research is dedicated to contemporary philosophical scholarship stemming from Africa and the African diaspora as well as transcultural encounters between African, European and other philosophical traditions. African Philosophy in postcolonial times critically reflects on the history of slavery, colonialism and neo-imperialism and their reverberations in the presence. Conversely, it searches for new ethical foundations to confront the many challenges of our contemporary global order; including climate change, economic exploitation, forced migration and diverse forms of sexism.

DFG-funded Research Project "Diversity, Power and Justice. Transcultural Perspectives" (2015-2021)