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Crossing Borders

The Elite Grad­uate Pro­gram “Cul­tural Stud­ies of the Mid­dle East” fo­cuses on diver­sity and histor­ical change in the cul­tures and lan­guages of the Mid­dle East. It offers a chal­leng­ing ap­proach to a di­verse range of sub­ject mat­ters, trans­cend­ing com­mon lan­guage fron­tiers and sin­gle-disci­pline per­spec­tives. Tak­ing the broader view, stu­dents of the pro­gram made a trip to re­search facili­ties and librar­ies in Paris.

Oriental Studies in Paris

Under the head­line “Ori­entals Stud­ies in Par­is”, fif­teen stu­dents of the Elite Grad­uate Pro­gram “Cultural Studies of the Middle East”,the Islam­ic Art and Ar­chae­ology, Ara­bic Stud­ies and Near and Mid­dle East­ern Stud­ies of the Uni­versi­ties of Bam­berg and Er­langen-Nu­rem­berg trav­elled to Paris. Rep­re­senta­tives of the rele­vant de­part­ments guid­ed them through the col­lec­tions and re­search facili­ties in the Bibli­othèque natio­nale de France (BnF) and the Bibli­othèque uni­versi­taire des langues et civili­sa­tions (BU­LAC). They gained val­uable in­sight into cur­rent re­search pro­jects of the CNRS (Cen­tre na­tional de la re­cher­che scien­tifique).

Very inspir­ing was the meet­ing of pro­fes­sors, lec­turers and stu­dents of the Insti­tut d'études irani­ennes from the Uni­versi­té Sor­bonne Nouvelle.

Opening new Prospects

This trip of­fered many op­por­tuni­ties to make new con­tacts and to be­come famil­iar with inter­na­tional­ly re­nowned French re­search facili­ties – im­portant ad­dress­es for future re­search and in­tern­ships. “My per­sonal high­light was the visit of the Insti­tut du Monde Ar­abe. I’ve got to return to its library as soon as the op­por­tunity pre­sents it­self!”, said Safinaz Saad, stu­dent of the Elite Grad­uate Pro­gram “Cul­tural Stud­ies of the Mid­dle East”.

Text: Elite Graduate Program "Cultural Studies of the Middle East"