Saxon Academy for Sciences and Humanities, Leipzig
Stefanie Brinkmann is Research Fellow at the Bibliotheca Arabica Project funded by the Saxon Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Leipzig, Germany. During her time as research associate and acting professor for Arabic and Islamic Studies at the universities of Leipzig, Freiburg im Breisgau and Hamburg, she served as research assistant and principal investigator of a number of manuscript projects, and she was a long-term board member of The Islamic Manuscript Association. Her main research interests are manuscript studies, hadith, material culture (especially the history of food and drink), and classical Arabic poetry.
Research related to commentary
The Bibliotheca Arabica Project (2018-2035, PI: Prof. Dr. Verena Klemm) investigates the history of Arabic literatures from the 12th to the 19th centuries, using manuscript data and physical manuscripts as main sources of information. My first module is dedicated to commentaries on Prophetic tradition (hadith). The main research questions focus on the definition of hadith commentary, terminology, transformations of the genre, neglected sub-genres, as well as the production, transmission, and use of chosen texts. Special attention is given to marginal commentaries in hadith manuscripts. While a number of articles investigate these above-mentioned questions, the monograph is dedicated to the post-canonical hadith collection of al-Ḥusayn b. Masʿūd al-Baghawī (d. 516/1122) and the commentaries written on this collection, the vast majority of which has not been edited yet. I am especially interested in the cultural contexts in which these commentaries were produced, and where and when these texts circulated. I am currently editing a volume on marginal commentaries in Arabic manuscripts together with my colleague Boris Liebrenz (Brill, forthcoming 2023).
Publications related to commentary
“Marginal Commentaries in Hadith Manuscripts”, in: Practices in Commentary, edited by Markus Stock, and Christine Lechtermann, Frankfurt a.M. 2020 [special issue of Zeitsprünge, Forschungen zur Frühen Neuzeit, Sonderband 24], pp. 6-44.
Brinkmann, S. / Ciotti, G. / Wilden, E. / Valente, S. (eds.): Education Materialised. Reconstructing Learning and Teaching Contexts Through Manuscripts, Berlin: De Gruyter (Studies in Manuscript Cultures Volume 23) 2021.
Forthcoming 2021
Blecher, Joel / Brinkmann, Stefanie / Zaherinezhad, Ali (eds.): Hadith Commentary: Continuity and Change, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
“Between Philology and Hadith Criticism: The Genre of Sharḥ Gharīb al-Ḥadīth”, in: Hadith Commentary: Continuity and Change, edited by Joel Blecher, Stefanie Brinkmann, Ali Zaherinezhad, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
“From Iran to Kawkabān: The transfer of Sunnī texts to Zaydī Yemen – a case study on Glaser 30”, in: Yemeni Manuscripts in Peril, edited by Sabine Schmidtke und Hassan Ansari, Gorgias Press (Piscataway, NJ).
Other publications
“Multilingualism in Manuscripts“ and “Page Layout in Manuscripts with Poetry“, in: Wonders of Creation. Ottoman Manuscripts from Hamburg Collections, Exhibition Catalogue, edited by Janina Karolewski and Yavuz Köse, Hamburg, manuscript cultures No. 9 (2016), pp. 53-57, 88-90.
“Beer in Early Islam: A Ḥadīth Perspective”, in: The Arabist. Budapest Studies in Arabic No. 36 (2015), pp. 3-34.
“Die kulturelle Biographie einer Buḫārī-Handschrift“, in: (eds.): Aus Buchwerkstatt und Bibliothek. Manuskriptkulturen des Mittelalters in Orient und Okzident, edited by Lorenz Korn, Birgitt Hoffmann, and Stefanie Stricker, Bamberger interdisziplinäre Mittelalterstudien, Vorträge und Vorlesungen, Vol. 3, Bamberg 2014, pp. 123-172.
“Wine in Hadith – From Intoxication to Sobriety”, in: Wine Culture in Iran and Beyond, edited by Bert Fragner, Ralph Kauz, and Florian Schwarz, Wien 2014 (Veröffentlichungen zur Iranistik; 75 = Sitzungsberichte der phil.-hist. Klasse 852), pp. 71-135.
“Ein Mangel an Quellen oder fehlendes Interesse – zum späten Einstieg der deutschen Schia-Forschung”, in: Orient No. 4 (2009), pp. 25-43.
S. Brinkmann / B. Wiesmüller (eds.): From Codicology to Technology – Islamic Manuscripts and Their Place in Scholarship, Berlin 2008.
al-Aḫṭal – Dichter der Umaiyaden, Untersuchungen zu Bau, Funktion und Rezeption von al-Aḫṭals ḫaffa l-qaṭīn, Europäische Hochschulschriften, Reihe XVII, Asiatische und Afrikanische Studien, Frankfurt a.M. et al. 2005.
“Standing on the Shoulders of Giants? Das Euphratgleichnis bei al-Aḫṭal (gest. ca. 710 AD)“, in: Gelehrte Dichter, dichtende Gelehrte, edited by Lale Behzadi, Hildesheim et al. 2003, pp. 37-69.