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History of the subject

The history of Semitic Studies in Marburg doesn’t start with the founding of the Department of Semitic Studies in 1964. In fact, languages like Persian and Turkish were taught by the Faculty of Philosophy in the Eastern Department even before the Second World War. Seminars on Semitic Studies, which were established after the Second World War, encompassed various areas of Eastern philology: the Islamic languages Arabic, Persian, and Turkish, which were taught by Annemarie Schimmel in the years 1946-1955, the cuneiform languages Sumerian and Babylonian-Assyrian, and Egyptology. During the 1950s, there was a regular collaboration between the Department of Semitic Studies and the Department of Religious Studies and Religious History in the form of joint events held by Annemarie Schimmel and Friedrich Heiler. When a new professorship was created for Eastern Studies under H. Otten in the Winter Semester of 1958/59, the Department of Semitic Studies was renamed the Department of Eastern Studies, which included Eastern Studies, Semitic Studies, Egyptology, and African Studies. Modern eastern languages - Arabic, Persian, and Turkish - were substituted by teaching assignments. Teaching staff included Rudolf Sellheim, Fuat Sezgin, and Annemarie Schimmel.

A separate department for Semitic Studies existed between 1964 and 1999. The first official professor was Otto Rössler, who embedded the Semitic language family into a different “hamitosemitic”, or in today’s terminology, Afro-Asian context. His assistant was Rainer Degen. From 1975 to 2001, the discipline was led by Walter W. Müller, who specializes in Sabaean Studies, during which time he supervised numerous dissertations. The assistant position was occupied first by Norbert Nebes and later by Ute Pietruschka. In 1999, Semitic Studies became part of the Institute for Eastern Studies and Linguistics.

Following Walter W. Müller was Stefan Weninger in 2001, whose main research interests are Arabic and Ancient Ethiopian Studies. During this time, Susanne Saker, Michael Kleiner, Oliver Kahl, Konrad Martin Heide, Michael Waltisberg, Marco Bunge, Guilia Grassi, Marlene Guss-Kosicka, Carsten Hoffmann, and Vera Tsukanova worked in the Semitic department.

Semitic Studies in the Center for Near and Middle Eastern Studies

With a decision made by the Hessian Ministry of Science and Art in December 2005, the foundations were laid for a regional scientific center for eastern research in Marburg. By restructuring participating disciplines, we expected to improve synergies and encourage more interdisciplinary research and teaching. When this project was implemented, Stefan Weninger and the expert in Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Walter Sommerfeld, made a significant contribution. Thanks to their extensive efforts, the subjects of Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Arabic Studies, Iranian Studies, Islamic Studies, and Semitic Studies were merged to form the Center for Near and Middle Eastern Studies, which was based in the former Children’s Hospital on Deutschhausstraße 12 during the Winter Semester 2007/08. A short while later, appointments and affiliations in the subject areas of economics and politics of the Near and Middle East were made. Today, the CNMS is one of the world’s leading institutions for eastern research.

Guest lectures

  • Prof. Otto Jastrow: "Der bestimmte Artikel im Aramäischen im Verlauf einer 3000 jährigen Sprachgeschichte" on  27.06.2002.
  • Dr. Ronny Meyer: "Die Ensete-Pflanze als Beispiel für Sprach- und Kulturkontakt in Zentraläthiopien" on  07.06.2005.
  • Prof. Janet C. Watson: "Die Frauen im Jemen: Wie sie leben, wie sie sprechen" on  17.12.2007.
  • Dr. Oliver Kahl "Die pharmakologischen Tabellen des Rhazes" on  28.10.2010.
  • Dr. Renaud Kuty: "Der Genitiv im Aramäischen – Synchronie und Diachronie" on  10.06.2011.
  • Dr. Matthew Morgenstern: "A New Mandaic Dictionary: on the Lexicography of a not quite-dead Language" on  29.06.2012.
  • Dr. Fabian Käs: "Ein medizinisch-magisches Werk von Ibn al-Ǧazzār und seine Rezeption im lateinischen Abendland" on  06.12.2012.
  • Prof. Frederick Mario Fales (Verona): "Sanherib vor Jerusalem. Die Westexpansion des assyrischen Imperiums" on  14.05.2013 (zusammen mit dem Fachgebiet Altorientalistik).
  • Saleh Mahmud Idris (Asmara): "The language situation and language policy in Eritrea" on  03.02.2015.
  • Prof. Dr. Gregor Schoeler (Basel): "Die Geburtsstunde des Islams - Entstehung, Überlieferung und Verbreitung der Tradition von Mohammeds Berufungserlebnis" on  03.11.2016.
  • Prof. Dr. Norbert Nebes (Jena): "Die Sabäer in Äthiopien: Früher Kulturtransfer am nördlichen Horn von Afrika im frühen ersten Jahrtausend v. Chr." on  09.07.2018.
  • Dr. Daniel Birnstiel (Frankfurt): "Die Lesarten des Koran - eine Schatzkammer für die arabische Grammatik?" on  01.11.2018.
  • Prof. Dr. Verena Krebs (Bochum): "Salomos Erben: Imperiale Stiftungen, Patronagepraxis und Diplomatie in Äthiopien im späten Mittelalter" on  29.11.2018.
  • Dr. Frank Weigelt (Leipzig): "Arabisch lernen wie die Araber? - Nutzen und Schaden der arabischen Grammatikmethode" on  21.01.2019.
  • Dr. Boris Liebrenz (Leipzig): "Bibliotheca Arabica - Was Handschriften uns über die arabische Literatur verraten" on  24.04.2019.
  • Dr. Julia Furman (Berlin): "The Neo-Aramaic Language Turoyo in Turkey: The Results of Recent Fieldwork" on  02.05.2019.
  • Prof. Dr. Werner Arnold (Heidelberg): "Die neuaramäischen Sprachen" on  03.06.2019.
  • Prof. Dr. Peter Stein (Jena): "Mleiha. Wiederentdeckung eines antiken Königreiches in Arabien" on  17.12.2019.
  • Dr. Bogdan Burtea (Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften): "Zur Sprache und Literatur der Mandäer" on  22.06.2022.
  • Dr. Andreas Fink (Universität Heidelberg): "Wenn der Computer arabische Nachrichten liest: Varietätenlinguistik einmal anders" on  26.01.2023.
  • Dr. Benjamin Suchard (Leiden): "Partial preservation of the Semitic case system in Old Aramaic (9th–8th c. BCE)" on  06.07.2023.
  • PD Dr. M. Klimiuk (Heidelberg): "Sprachliche Situation der Insel Gozo, Malta" on  15.07.2023.
  • Prof. Dr. Michael P. Streck (Leipzig): "Seine Sprache war fremd, niemand verstand seine Rede" on  26.10.2023 (zusammen mit der Altorientalistik).
  • Dr. Stefanie Rudolf (Berlin / Tübingen): "König Salomo und der König der Dämonen – über die Entstehung magischer Texte" on  23.01.2024.
  • Prof. Dr. Abraham Winitzer (Notre Dame, USA): "Mesopotamian Myth and Philology in Biblical Theory: More on Philosophy and Science in the Ancient Near East" on  04.06.2024.
  • Prof. Dr. Shabo Talay (Berlin): "Vom Alt- zum Neuaramäischen: Zeugnisse des Sprachwandels in syrisch-aramäischen Quellene" on  26.05.2025.
  • Prof. Dr. Janet C.E. Watson (Leeds): "The effects of language and culture loss in southern Arabia" on  02.12.2025.

Conferences

  • "Epigraphik und Archäologie des Antiken Südarabien. Aus Anlass des 70. Geburtstages von Walter W. Müller" on 26-28.09.2003.
  • "3. Arbeitstreffen der Arbeitsgemeinschaft Semitistik" on 6-7.04.2006.
  • "The Ethiopic Jeremiah-Cycle: A Critical Edition – Project Workshop" on 4-5.10.2016.
  • International Conference "Aramäisch – sprachliche Vielfalt durch drei Jahrtausende" on 25-26.09.2017.
  • Workshop "Artes docendi - Die Didaktiken "alter" Sprachen im Zwiespalt der Traditionen" together with Departments of Indology, Old Testament and Medieval German Philology of Marburg University on 07.11.2019.
  • International Conference "Rethinking Proto-Semitic - Approaches and Methodology" on 2-3.04.2025.