Transformations of South-Western Arabia in Past and Present

To ensure a new dynamism in research, the installation of this long term project aims at integrating a long established Austrian Academy of Sciences research focus along three main types of sources:

1. Contributions by Johann Heiss and Andre Gingrich to the major project plan “Visions of Community” (VISCOM), and to corresponding publications, on medieval Yemeni history. This is part of ISA’s share in the proposed cooperation between the entire “Centre for Studies in Asian Cultures and Social Anthropology” at the AAS and the University of Vienna. Main aspects in it are the anthropological interpretation of classic texts of medieval Yemeni history between late antiquity and the early modern era under the perspective of wider interregional influences.
2. Assessing and elaborating the corresponding Austrian historical academic record in South Arabia (with its intersections to ISA’s other focus on “orientalism”): since Gertraud Sturm’s book publication on the Heyns (Austrian Academy of Sciences Publishers, 2007) this is continued by two independent research projects on Eduard Glaser (Peter Rohrbacher) and on the Imperial South Arabia expedition (Gertraud Sturm). The results are planned for publication in ISA’s Eduard Glaser series.
3. Current documentation of present conflicts in northern Yemen with regard to the so-called al-Huthi movement, and its wider contexts. This dimension includes lectures and publications by Marieke Brandt and Andre Gingrich as well as submitting a Marie Curie EU 7th FP proposal by Marieke Brandt.