Ilse Lichtenstädter

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Ilse Lichtenstädter (* 1907 in Hamburg ; † May 23, 1991 in Harvard ) was a German-American orientalist.

Life and activity

Ilse Lichtenstädter was the daughter of a teacher. She passed her Abitur in 1922 at a convent school. She then became a teacher, but then began studying Semitic languages ​​and philosophy at the University of Frankfurt in 1927 . Shortly after her doctorate on the nasib in ancient Arabic poetry, her supervisor, Josef Horovitz, died . From 1932 to 1933 she received a scholarship from the Notgemeinschaft der Deutschen Wissenschaft .

After the National Socialists came to power , Lichtenstädter saw no more prospects for herself in Germany and went to Great Britain, where she initially earned a living with typing and proofreading (1933–1934 researcher at the Queen's College Library). At the same time, she attended Oxford University for three years , where she did her doctorate again with a copy of the Kitäb ​​al-muhabbar. From 1935 she worked for Oxford University Press .

In 1938 Lichtenstädter followed her two sisters to New York, where she worked as an assistant professor from 1942 and as a lecturer from 1952. During this time she traveled to Egypt and East Pakistan for research purposes.

After her emigration , Lichtenstädter was classified as an enemy of the state by the police forces of the Nazi dictatorship : Since she was mistakenly suspected to be in Great Britain, she was also placed on the special wanted list by the Reich Main Security Office in early 1940 , a directory of people who would be found in the event of a successful occupation and invasion the British Isles should be located and arrested by the Wehrmacht from the occupation troops following special commandos of the SS with special priority.

In 1960 Lichtenstädter was appointed professor of Arabic at Harvard University, where she taught until her retirement in 1974.

Fonts

  • The nasib of the old Arabic Qaside, in: Islamica 5 (1932), pp. 18-96.
  • Women in the Aiyâm Al-ʻArab: A Study of Female Life During Warfare in Preislamic Arabia , 1935.
  • From particularism to Unity: Race, Nationality and Minorities in the early Islamic Empire, in der "Islamic Culture" , vol. XXIII (1949), pp. 251-280.
  • A Note on the Gharaniq and Related Qur'anic Problems, in: Israel Oriental Studies , Vol. 5 (1975), pp. 54-61.
  • And Become Ye Accursed Apes, in: Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam , Vol. 14 (1991), pp. 153-175.

literature

  • Ludmila Hanisch: marginalized competence: portraits of displaced orientalists 1933-1945: a homage on the occasion of the XXVIII. German Orientalist Day in Bamberg, 26.-30. March 2001 , 2001, p. 55.
  • Annemarie Schimme: In Memoriam Ilse Lichtenstädter , in: Die Welt des Islam , Vol. 32, 1992, pp. 173–176.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Entry for lichtenstädt on the special wanted list GB (reproduced on the website of the Imperial War Museum in London).
personal data
SURNAME Lichtenstädter, Ilse
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American orientalist
DATE OF BIRTH 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH May 23, 1991
Place of death Harvard