Stranger Studies: 'Gypsies' and Race-Making in the Premodern Middle East

FAIN: HB-267428-20

Kristina Lynn Richardson
University of Virginia (Flushing, NY 11367-1575)

Research and writing leading to a book about Roma language and culture in the premodern Middle East.

Historians of the Roma (Gypsies) work under the assumption that the earliest written records about their subject were produced by fifteenth-century non-Roma in Europe and the Ottoman Empire. My recent work identifies the classical Arabic term for Roma and Roma-affiliated wandering groups as Strangers (ghuraba') and uses this ethnonym as an entry into the reconstruction of the community’s medieval languages and its material and intellectual cultures. This new transhistorical and transregional discipline—which I call Stranger Studies—will generate a full reimagination of the make-up of Central Asian, Middle Eastern, North African, and European societies.

Associated Products

Roma in the Medieval Islamic World: Literacy, Culture and Migration (Book)
Title: Roma in the Medieval Islamic World: Literacy, Culture and Migration
Author: Kristina Richardson
Abstract: In Middle Eastern cities as early as the mid-8th century, the Sons of Sasan begged, trained animals, sold medicinal plants and potions, and told fortunes. They captivated the imagination of Arab writers and playwrights, who immortalized their strange ways in poems, plays, and the Thousand and One Nights. Using a wide range of sources, Richardson investigates the lived experiences of these Sons of Sasan, who changed their name to Ghuraba' (Strangers) by the late 1200s. This name became the Arabic word for the Roma and Roma-affiliated groups also known under the pejorative term 'Gypsies'. This book uses mostly Ghuraba'-authored works to understand their tribal organization and professional niches as well as providing a glossary of their language Sin. It also examines the urban homes, neighborhoods, and cemeteries that they constructed. Within these isolated communities they developed and nurtured a deep literary culture and astrological tradition, broadening our appreciation of the cultural contributions of medieval minority communities. Remarkably, the Ghuraba' began blockprinting textual amulets by the 10th century, centuries before printing on paper arrived in central Europe. When Roma tribes migrated from Ottoman territories into Bavaria and Bohemia in the 1410s, they may have carried this printing technology into the Holy Roman Empire.
Year: 2021
Primary URL: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/roma-in-the-medieval-islamic-world-9781784537319/
Publisher: I.B. Tauris
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9781784537319

Roma in the Medieval Islamic World: Literacy, Culture and Migration (Book)
Title: Roma in the Medieval Islamic World: Literacy, Culture and Migration
Author: Kristina Lynn Richardson
Year: 2021
Publisher: I.B. Tauris
Type: Single author monograph

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