Truth & Knowledge

Research defined by the heuristic concept of a cultural matrix, referring not just to the common cultural involvement of all Syro-Egyptian social groups and formations, but also to their constructive participation in a multimodal framework of social semiotic modes and practices of communication that shaped the re/production of their social and cognitive integration (a matrix of particular meanings embodied in particular forms); that is, the ‘performance’ of late medieval Syro-Egyptian political, social and cultural identities always being couched in ‘cultural’ forms makes that understandings of architecture, art, literature … should focus on its social semiotic and performative qualities, as well as on its mere professional, technical, intellecual and aesthetic values.

Research and publication projects that fall within this remit concern the study of texts and of related truth claims and knowledge practices. See now especially:

= a broadly defined research project, studying 15th-century Syro-Egyptian historiography and the cultural production of the 'Mamluk State' (ERC-Consolidator Grant, 2017-21)