US-Africa Planning Visit: Collaborations in Cultural Astronomy

该奖项支持发展国际合作的计划活动，以调查伊斯兰天文学与西非土著天文学之间的联系。由于伊斯兰天文学保存并改进了古代天文学，并且在中世纪期间有一段清晰的传播到欧洲的历史，它被认为对欧洲文艺复兴时期天文学的进步做出了贡献。穆斯林商人在10世纪开始在西非工作，作为商人阶层定居在社区，并接触到当地的文化和信仰。美国研究人员(dr。Holbrook和Brown)将与尼日利亚大学的Urama Johnson博士、Nsukka以及南非天文台和南非西北大学的Thebe Medupe博士合作，研究非洲本土天文学，寻找伊斯兰天文学的证据。该小组将检查西非文化及其文化天文学的研究，并将开发一个伊斯兰天文学项目的词典，以便在西非文化天文学中搜索。他们将在土著天文学术语中识别阿拉伯语词汇，并识别可能已经传播给当地居民的独特的伊斯兰天文学概念。该词典预计将与欧洲使用的词典不同，因为大多数西非文化没有使用正式的书写系统，除非他们采用阿拉伯文字。初步研究将针对尼日利亚的豪萨人，他们采用了部分伊斯兰历法，以及在马里发现的用阿拉伯语写的科学文献。这次计划中的访问旨在加强美国和非洲研究人员之间的国际合作。项目团队性别多样化，包括非洲裔和非裔美国人研究人员，以及初级教师。该团队计划让来自非洲和北美的大学生参与他们的研究工作。合作者将把他们的研究成果纳入物理、天文学和社会科学课程以及K-12外展小组的课程中。计划中的项目的研究结果将在学术期刊和大众杂志上发表，旨在促进对科学的理解。该奖项由国际科学与工程办公室和社会与经济科学部的科学与技术研究项目共同资助。

Holbrook 0438245This award supports planning activities to develop an international collaboration that investigates the linkages between Islamic astronomy and West African indigenous astronomy. Because Islamic astronomy preserved and improved ancient astronomy and has a clear history of diffusion into Europe during the Middle Ages, it is recognized as having contributed to advances in astronomy during the European Renaissance. Muslim traders began working in West Africa by the tenth century, settled into communities as the merchant class, and came into contact with indigenous culture and beliefs. The U.S. researchers (Drs. Holbrook and Brown) will collaborate with Dr. Urama Johnson of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka and Dr. Thebe Medupe from the South African Astronomical Observatory and North West University, South Africa, to study indigenous African astronomy in search of evidence of adoptions from Islamic astronomy. The team will examine studies of West African cultures and their cultural astronomy and will develop a lexicon of items from Islamic astronomy to search for within West African cultural astronomy. They will identify Arabic words among indigenous astronomy terms and identify uniquely Islamic astronomy concepts that may have diffused to the local population. The lexicon is expected to be different from that used for Europe because most West African cultures did not use formal writing systems unless they adopted Arabic script. The preliminary study will target the Hausa of Nigeria, who have adopted part of the Islamic calendar, and scientific documents written in Arabic that have been found in Mali. This planning visit is intended to strengthen international collaborations between U.S. and African researchers. The project team is gender diverse, and includes both African and African American researchers, as well as junior faculty. The team plans to include university students from Africa and North America in their research efforts. The collaborators will incorporate their research results into lessons for physics, astronomy, and social science classes and for K-12 outreach groups. The findings of the planned project will be published both in academic journals as well as in popular magazines geared toward advancing the understanding of science. This award is cofunded by the Office of International Science and Engineering and the Science and Technology Studies Program in the Division of Social and Economic Sciences.