Günther Windhager

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Günther Windhager (* 1964 in Steyr , Upper Austria ) is an Austrian cultural and social anthropologist and biographer.

Life

After completing his studies in cultural and social anthropology at the University of Vienna in 2000 , Windhager worked as a research assistant on the research project "Local Identities and Supra-Local Influences" (Wittgenstein Prize 2000) at the Social Anthropology Research Center and at the Austrian Academy Corpus of the Austrian Academy in the sciences as well as in the South Arabian focus “Cultures and Languages ​​of South Arabia” of the Institute for Oriental Studies at the University of Vienna. His research fields include transcultural biographies, conversion and identity, ethnography and research history of the Arabian Peninsula.

He became known for his work on the life and work of the Islamic thinker, author and Koran translator Muhammad Asad (1900–1992), who was born in Lemberg as Leopold Weiss . With his monograph Leopold Weiss alias Muhammad Asad , published in 2002 . From Galicia to Arabia 1900–1927 he has processed a wealth of material on the biography and early journalistic career of the influential convert to Islam of Jewish descent and "made much of it accessible for the first time". In 2003 he was awarded the “Böhlau Jubilee Prize” of the Austrian Academy of Sciences for the book.

After completing his doctorate in 2005 with a study of Weiss' / Asad's journalistic work from an ethnological perspective, from 2005 to 2009 he headed the project “Muhammad Asad (Leopold Weiss) at the Saudi Court 1927–1932: Travel Writing, Colonial Discourse and Identity Transformation in the Biography of an Austrian Jewish Convert to Islam ". As a result, among other things, a volume was written about Weiss' / Asad's travels in the area of ​​the forming Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the period that he had barely explored until then, which he spent there as a newspaper correspondent and confidante of King Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud . The Arabic-language publication was published on the occasion of the international symposium "Muhammad Asad - A Life for Dialogue", which was held in April 2011 at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies in Riyadh. An edition of Weiss' / Asad's journalistic writings is in preparation, accompanied by a comprehensive presentation of the historical and biographical context.

Scientific advisor

Windhager worked as a scientific advisor for the film Der Weg nach Mekka - The Journey of Muhammad Asad (A / F / B 2008, 92 min) by Austrian director Georg Misch .

Awards

  • "Böhlau Jubilee Award 2003" from the Austrian Academy of Sciences

Publications

Monographs

  • Leopold Weiss alias Muhammad Asad. From Galicia to Arabia 1900–1927. With a foreword by Andre Gingrich. 3. Edition. Böhlau Verlag, Vienna 2008, ISBN 978-3-205-99393-3 .
  • Muḥammad Asad - Līyūbūld Fāīs. Raḥalātuhu 'ilā-l-ʿālam al-ʿarabī. [Muhammad Asad - Leopold Weiss: Travel to the Arab world. With 48 illustrations and a German-language bibliography by Weiss' / Asad's journalistic writings 1927–1932]. ar-Riyāḍ: Wizārat at-Taʿlīm al-ʿĀlī, 2011.
  • Muḥammad Asad: min Ġālīsīyā ilā l-bilād al-ʿarabīya 1900–1927. [Arabic edition of “Leopold Weiss alias Muhammad Asad. From Galicia to Arabia 1900–1927 ”]. ar-Riyāḍ: Dārat al-Malik ʿAbd-al-ʿAzīz / King Abdulaziz Foundation for Research and Archives, 2016, ISBN 978-603-8194-11-9 .

Essays

  • Leopold Weiss alias Muhammad Asad: In Search of Faith and Truth. In: Bojan Baskar, Borut Brumen (ed.): MESS. Mediterranean Ethnological Summer School. Vol. II (Piran / Pirano, Slovenija, September 23-27, 1996). Inštitut za multikulturne raziskave, Ljubljana 1998, ISBN 961-90583-0-5 , pp. 173-179.
  • From the coffee house to the Saudi royal court: Leopold Weiss' (later Muhammad Asad) encounters in Vienna and Berlin on his way to Islam. In: Gottfried Heuer (Ed.): Utopia and Eros: The Dream of Modernity (5th International Otto Gross Congress, Cabaret Voltaire / Dada House, Zurich, September 16-18, 2005). LiteraturWwissenschaft.de, Marburg an der Lahn 2006, ISBN 3-936134-18-9 , pp. 209–228.
  • Muhammad Asad (née Leopold Weiss) 1900–1992: A biographical sketch. In: The Way to Mekka - The Journey of Muhammad Asad (A / F / B 2008, Director: Georg Misch), press-kit, pp. 5–7, http://www.mischief-films.com/htm/ press-film.php? id = 6 .
  • Conversion. In: Fernand Kreff, Eva-Maria Knoll, Andre Gingrich (eds.): Lexicon of globalization. Transcript Verlag, Bielefeld 2011, ISBN 978-3-8376-1822-8 , pp. 194-197.
  • Cultural defectors. In: Fernand Kreff, Eva-Maria Knoll, Andre Gingrich (eds.): Lexicon of globalization. Transcript Verlag, Bielefeld 2011, ISBN 978-3-8376-1822-8 , pp. 208-209.
  • From Leopold Weiss to Muhammad Asad. Ways and works of an Islamic thinker of Austrian-Jewish origin. In: Amena Shakir, Gernot Galib Stanfel, Martin M. Weinberger (eds.): Ostarrichislam. Fragments of eight hundred years of common history. New Academic Press, Vienna 2012, ISBN 978-3-7003-1851-4 , pp. 128-133.
  • From journalist to Islamic thinker and Pakistani diplomat. Muhammad Asad (nee Leopold Weiss) in India and Pakistan 1932–1952 [with a letter from Muhammad Asad to Heinrich Schiemann dated May 7, 1950 from Karachi and a bibliography of journalistic writings by Muhammad Asad from India]. In: Margit Franz, Heimo Halbrainer (Ed.): Going East - Going South: Austrian Exile in Asia and Africa. CLIO-Verlag, Graz 2014, ISBN 978-3-902542-34-2 , pp. 433-474.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Stefan Broniowski: Longing for the Orient. The checkered life of the Jewish-Muslim cross-border commuter Leopold Weiss alias Muhammad Asad. In: Wiener Zeitung, 24./25. January 2003, p. 9 (Extra-Historicum). Retrieved February 6, 2015.
  2. ↑ Prize winners of the Böhlau Prize ( Memento of the original from August 2, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Website of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Retrieved February 6, 2015.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / stipendien.oeaw.ac.at
  3. ↑ Research projects at the Institute for Cultural and Social Anthropology at the University of Vienna ( Memento of the original dated February 9, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Retrieved February 6, 2015. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / ksa.univie.ac.at
  4. ↑ Ǧūntir Fīndhāgar [Günther Windhager]: Muḥammad Asad - Līyūbūld Fāīs. Raḥalātuhu 'ilā-l-ʿālam al-ʿarabī [Muhammad Asad - Leopold Weiss: Travel to the Arab World]. ar-Riyāḍ: Wizārat at-Taʿlīm al-ʿĀlī, 2011.
  5. ^ Shahid Ali Khan: Asad - A Life for Dialogue. ( Memento of the original from February 9, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Saudi Gazette. April 15, 2011. Retrieved February 6, 2015. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.saudigazette.com.sa
personal data
SURNAME Windhager, Günther
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian cultural and social anthropologist
DATE OF BIRTH 1964
PLACE OF BIRTH Steyr