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HEIndividual fellowship2022–2024

OTRA · An Ontology for the Transmission and Re-Use of Argumentative Patterns (OTRA) in Christian-Muslim Religious Encounters

Horizon Europe — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Duration
2022-06-01 → 2024-05-31
EU contribution
€230,774
Participants
1
Scheme
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF

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Results in brief

An Ontology for the Transmission and Re-Use of Argumentative Patterns (OTRA) in Christian-Muslim Religious Encounters

There is a long tradition of Christian intellectual engagement with Islam, much of which consists of apologetic and polemical texts—attempts to defend Christianity and challenge Islamic doctrines. These texts are an important source of information regarding intellectual exchanges between the two religions. However, assessments of their quality have varied. Some scholars have even argued that the Western image and knowledge of Islam has developed very little from the 7th century to the present day. To better understand the trajectory of this intellectual relationship, a comprehensive, long-term perspective is needed. This project hypothesized that such a perspective can best be achieved by representing knowledge about Islam in the West in digital form. The project's objective was thefore to develop a Digital Humanities method to represent which sources authors authors in Christian-Muslim debates used and how they argue based on them. Based on this method, a historical case-study was to be conducted, illustrating how such knowledge might be used. Specifically, the project aimed to a) develop a controlled vocabulary, an ‘ontology’, that allows modeling of references, re-use, and patterns of argumentation in interreligious debates, b) apply this scheme to a selection of key texts from the tradition of Christian-Muslim Religious Encounters (CMRE), thereby creating a digital knowledge base, and c) use this knowledge base to investigate the evolution of arguments and argumentative structures in Christian anti-Islamic polemics. Beyond this, the framework sought to enable researchers to share their data, to collaborate more effectively, and to base conclusions on larger datasets.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union

Project objective

In this project, I will study argumentative structures in Christian anti-Islamic polemics from a historical perspective using a Digital Humanities approach. By investigating these argumentative patterns, I want to find out how this discourse developed over time. Are we confronted with a stable set of arguments, stereotypes, and references that structured the Christian discourse about Islam from the Middle Ages? Or did the increased availability of empirical sources and the increased contact from the 17th century lead to new forms of argumentative interactions? In order to answer these questions in a data-driven, comparative way, I will create an ontology that allows to record and classify references, borrowings, and structure of arguments in a standardized form. I will apply this scheme to a selected number of texts from the Christian tradition from the 13th to the 19th century, creating a knowledge base. I will use this knowledge base to answer selected research questions regarding the evolution of argumentative patterns. To disseminate this approach, I will develop and conduct a workshop format in which I will introduce students and other researchers to work with ontologies in general, my ontology, and my knowledge base. My approach will yield insights historical development of argumentative structures, but it will also allow to easily share data among researchers, to collaborate more effectively, and to base conclusions on larger datasets. It will provide a paradigm for describing historical argumentative structures that can be generalized and applied to many other fields of research. Pursuing this project will allow me to evolve into a Digital Humanities researcher, to pioneer my own research, to greatly expand my research network, and to gain a wider perspective on Christian-Muslim religious engagement.

Original text from CORDIS.

Participants

  • KOBENHAVNS UNIVERSITET · KOBENHAVNCoordinatorDenmark

Links

Data: CORDIS, © European Union