2019-20

Torsten Wollina

Torsten Wollina holds a doctorate from Freie University Berlin, completing his thesis with generous support from the Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies, Berlin, and the Anne Marie Schimmel Kolleg, Bonn University, between 2008 and 2012. Since then, he has been working at the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research, the Orient-Institut Beirut, and, lastly, Hamburg University.

Torsten is the author of Zwanzig Jahre Alltag: Lebens-, Welt- und Selbstbild im Journal des Aḥmad Ibn Ṭawq [= Twenty Years of Everyday life: images of life, world, and self in the journal of Aḥmad Ibn Ṭawq] (Göttingen 2014). He has published research in the wide field between manuscript studies, social history of the Medieval and Early Modern Middle East, and its contemporaneous representations in writing. His most recent research project has explored the creation and dissolution of the written corpus of a 16th-century Damascene author. His next publication will discuss these processes in detail.

Torsten's project during the Marie Skłodowska-Curie COFUND fellowship at the Trinity Long Room Hub is entitled "Stamping Provenance: Towards a History of the Taymūriyya Library" and investigates the provenance of manuscripts acquired by one of the most important private libraries in modern Egypt. Through an analysis of its manuscripts containing book stamps the project aims at a better understanding of both the personal and professional networks in Middle Eastern manuscript trade around 1900 from an Egyptian perspective. It further investigates the uses and purposes of book stamps as a relatively recent practice to mark manuscripts as one's property. By shedding new light on the collection practices of Aḥmad Taymūr, the project adds fundamental research to the growing field of Middle Eastern book and library history.

 Related links:

• Upcoming Fellow in Focus: Join Dr Torsten Wollina and Professor Anna Chahoud (Department of Classics, TCD), to discuss Arabic manuscripts at Trinity Library from 1-2pm on 24 June 2020. Find out more here.
• Exhibition: Why were Arabic Manuscripts Collected in 17th Century Dublin? View the exhibition on the collection of Arabic manuscripts at the Library of Trinity College Dublin here.
• Trinity Library Blog Posts by Dr Torsten Wollina
• Trinity Long Room Hub Marie Skłodowska-Curie COFUND Fellowship Programme