Im Rahmen der strategischen Partnerschaften der LMU können unter anderem Gastprofessuren finanziell unterstützt werden. In diesem Jahr sind die Professoren Roderick B. Campbell von der New York University (NYU) und Yoram Cohen von der Tel Aviv University (TAU) zu Gast an der LMU. Lesen Sie hier zwei Kurzinterviews mit den Wissenschaftlern.
© Roderick B. Campbell
Professor Roderick B. Campbell von der NYU forscht von September bis Dezember 2024 am Institut für Sinologie der LMU-Fakultät für Kulturwissenschaften.
Dear Professor Campbell, Thank you very much for your time. Could you give us an insight into your current research activities?
My research is focused on the Chinese Bronze Age but I have three current research directions. These are visual culture, historiography/narrative and economy. I have just finished or am finishing monographs on Shang dynasty visual culture and the Shang economy. I have also begun work on a book exploring the fragmentary nature of historical narrative. In my time in Munich my principle goal is to organize a workshop on major topics in early Chinese economy with the aim of gathering potential local and international collaborators. I envision this as an expansion of the archaeological work on the Chinese Bronze Age economy I have been engaged in for the last twelve years. By collaborating with archaeologists and historians with specializations in other subdisciplines and periods, I hope to cover the period from the first urban centers in China to the rise of empires.
What made you opt for a research stay at LMU?
My choice to come to LMU for my sabbatical is due to my desire to spend some time in Europe in order to get better acquainted with my European Sinological colleagues. LMU was my choice of institutions because it is home to two excellent colleagues – Professors Armin Selbitschka and Maria Khayutina. Not only are they scholars whose work I have followed and admired but also wonderful people whom it would be pleasant to visit for a term! Professors Selbitschka and Khayutina are also specialists in periods that compliment my own and so could potentially contribute to a collaboration on a long-term investigation of Early Chinese economy. Munich, a very pleasant place to be on its own merits, is also perfectly situated to make visits to other German and European universities. The fact that NYU and LMU have a visiting professorship on top of all its other desirable qualities made LMU the obvious choice.
How can joint projects foster collaboration between LMU and NYU in your particular field of research?
One of the goals of my collaboration with my LMU colleagues is the establishment of a long-term collaboration that will include ERC and other grant applications. The Early Chinese Economics Project will bring together specialists in a number of disciplines and periods to research key issues in the economic development in Early China. Going forward, it is envisioned that the workshop we will have organized on October 19th and 20th will be the first of many meetings at LMU and NYU. It will bring in scholars from other universities and potentially employ post-docs and graduate students making a research hub centered on NYU’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World and LMU’s Sinology department. This collaboration will build on the strengths of NYU in ancient studies, archaeology and ancient economy and LMU’s complimentary strength in Sinology.
© Yoram Cohen
Professor Yoram Cohen von der Tel Aviv University (TAU) forschte von August bis Oktober 2024 am Institut für Assyriologie und Hethitologie der LMU-Fakultät für Kulturwissenschaften.
Dear Professor Cohen, Thank you very much for your time. Could you give us an insight into your current research activities?
My current research activities are mainly concerned with developing new pathways into Digital Humanities and the field of Assyriology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies. These are advancing in two complementary directions. The first is concerned with bringing state-of-the-art research to accessible web platforms that enable manipulation of data by scholars as well as users.
The second direction is devising a tool-learning machine for the rapid and correct reading of cuneiform signs. During my stay at LMU, I conducted research with my research associate Dr Eduardo Torrecilla (University of Castilla-La Mancha) on cuneiform historical and literary texts from the western regions of the Ancient Near East. In addition to a published manuscript in book form, we are planning to develop a geo-historical web platform that will include valuable metadata for a variety of texts, placing them in a wider context. This is possible due to our comprehensive reconstruction of archives from the city of Ugarit and the city of Emar.
What made you opt for a research stay at LMU?
My research stay at LMU continues the fruitful collaboration between Enrique Jiménez – Professor of Ancient Near Eastern Literatures at LMU’s Institute of Assyriology – myself and other Israeli partners, who lead the field of machine-learning and imaging. There is much to be gained by immediate interaction with one another, especially as Professor Jiménez and I were both based in the same building at the Institute of Assyriology and Hittitology during my stay at LMU. Moreover, I was able to meet with younger LMU team members to discuss various aspects of our work and also with good friends and colleagues at LMU, whom I have worked with in the past.
The highlight of my stay in this short research period was a workshop where I presented and discussed the results of my research on divination literature with the hope of opening new avenues of exploration with the team of the Electronic Babylonian Library (eBL).
How can joint projects foster collaboration between LMU and TAU in your particular field of research?
It has become increasingly clear that research needs to be dynamic and fast-moving to collaborate across many disciplines and to be in full command of the growing possibilities of digital resources and the AI revolution. Our previous publication, for the sake of illustration, included a computer scientist from TAU, two of his research students, who studied ancient languages and scripts, an expert on digital humanities from Ariel, Israel, two Assyriologists (Prof. Jiménez and myself), along with a research student in Assyriology, who was also partly trained in computer science. Our current project comprises additional collaborators from TAU’s School of Engineering. Two of these projects considerably progressed our ability to teach the machine to read complex cuneiform script comprising multiple different characters.
Following my stay at LMU, we are already planning ahead for further joint applications on the subject of machine learning. We are more confident in our project because of past results and can now demonstrate a new method of teaching the machine to read cuneiform on the basis of big-data sets we have compiled over time.
At this particular juncture, we hold responsibility to preserve our shared heritage of the ancient cultures of the Middle East, and with all difficulties, political and economic, to ensure that the field of Assyriology and the Ancient Near East continues to develop in new and exciting directions hardly thought of less than a decade ago.