Dynamics of Transmission: Families, Authority and Knowledge in the Early Modern Middle East (15th-17th centuries)

在过去的二十年里，家族史已经成为中东研究中最激动人心的领域之一。本项目融入了这一近期的传统，并提议朝几个方向推进其议程。首先，它进入了早期现代时期，涵盖了从15世纪到17世纪的时间框架，在这一时期，家庭的历史作用仍然没有得到充分的研究，并继续非常注重地区或社会。其次，它致力于弥合波斯世界与马木鲁克和奥斯曼帝国早期统治下的阿拉伯土地之间在中东问题上存在的日益扩大的学术鸿沟。因此，地域流动性和接触地区值得我们特别关注。最后，将传播学的主要概念应用到家族历史中，并从共时和历时两个方面阐述了在家庭结构中传播权威和知识的动力。实际传递的可能是非常不同的性质：它可能是神秘的知识和精神权威，可能是阿米尔家族内部的军事诀窍和能力，也可能是构建的家庭或亲属团体内的政治或行政权力的形式。同样，我们必须考虑在学者和学者家庭中传播的经文、文学和艺术传统。它们可以沿着真实的物体追踪，被认为是合法性、地位和权力的象征性和真实的表现。传播的过程，也就是我们的假设，是由它们内部和外部的动力塑造的。内部关于家庭的实际构成，外部关于地理、时间和文化因素，如部落组成、领土联盟、经济资源以及宗教或意识形态的变化。我们可以利用广泛的来源，包括档案材料以及传记词典、历史叙述和材料文物。当我们试图定义“家庭”的概念及其背后的主角时，我们的目标是在现代性到来之前，更好地理解家庭和亲属关系群体在伊斯兰文化中的作用。

Family history has become one of the most stimulating fields in Middle Eastern studies in the last two decades. The present project inscribes itself into this recent tradition and proposes to advance its agenda in several directions. First, it moves into the early modern period, covering a time frame from the 15th to the 17th century where the historical role of families remains understudied and continues to be very regionally or socially focused. Secondly, it sets out to bridge the increasing gap that exists in scholarship on the Middle East between the Persianate world and the Arab lands under Mamluk and early Ottoman rule. Geographical mobility and contact areas thus deserve our special attention. Finally, it applies the overarching concept of transmission to family history and sets out to locate dynamics of transmitting authority and knowledge inside family structures, both synchronic and diachronic. What is actually passed on can be of a very different nature: it might be mystical knowledge and spiritual authority, it might be military know-how and prowess inside amir families, or it might take the shape of political or administrative power inside constructed families or kin groups. Equally, we have to think of scribal, literary and artistic traditions which are transmitted within families of scholars and savants. They can be traced along real objects and be considered as symbolic and real manifestations of legitimacy, status, and power. Processes of transmission, thus our hypothesis, are shaped by dynamics internal and external to them. Internal with regard to the actual composition of families, external with regard to geographical, temporal and cultural factors such as tribal formations, territorial alignments, economical resources, as well as religious or ideological change. A wide range of sources is at our disposal, including archival material as well as biographical dictionaries, historical narratives and material artifacts. As we try to define the idea of 'family' and the protagonists behind it, we aim to provide a better understanding of the role of families and kinship groups in Islamicate cultures before the advent of modernity.