Women and Gender in Ethnographicly Oriented Texts

The project is the continuation of the project P14853 "Ethnography - Gender - Reception of the Classical Tradition" (2001 - 2003) which was the continuation of the project " "Geschlechterrollen in der antiken Ethnographie"" (1997 - 2000). The planned project shall finish the whole undertaking consisting of the named three parts. In the beginning of part one (1997-2000) the basic question was how Herodotus` descriptions of women living outside of the Greek world, i.e. the civilized world, prompted later authors to write similar texts even if they had no concrete knowledge about the real ethnographic world. The main interest was on the question if and how the topics (topoi`) found in the text of Herodotus had influenced later ethnographic writing. To get a clear-cut and manageable basis for this kind of research a databank was compiled from texts of the Augustean time. For working out the papers and for selecting the fitting paragraphs of these texts it turn out as indispensable to reflect on the terms text`, intention of a text`, and of course ethnography` in a very subtle manner. In addition, the discussion about the term gender` had to be drawn on into these reflections. In the end it was shown that the restriction of the research only to texts of Augustean time was a too small sample for answering sufficiently the basic question just mentioned. The second project (2001-2003) aimed therefore at the extension of the databank in order to get a broader basis. Texts from the Hellenistic period and from the first centuries AD were included. The second goal was to shed light on how the imagination of gender relations within the texts, stemming from different periods and cultural layers, are connected with their specific cultural context. The question became more important where the relationships between the author and the text are situated in the cultural context. The direction of research changed from the investigation of the topos` and its connection to historical reality to questions which are significant for literature studies. Both projects were accompanied by the organization of workshops. The research results of these two projects have been published in two books, two further books are in print. The project which is applied for comes back to the first and basic question of the topos`. But the methodological basis has changed and improved at the same time. Some basic papers concerning the methodological questions are published or in print. The planned single studies should work as exemplary studies. They will be founded on the comparison of as many texts as possible. And they will deal with the following topics: first with special gender oriented themes as sexuality, status of women etc.; second with the question how the image of women and gender found in a specific text depends on the different parts of its cultural context; and third with specific topoi analyzed from their beginnings until the end of antiquity. For this purpose the databank has to be extended further. A few texts from the 1st to the 4th century AD have to be included. Then the databank will be a most useable scientific tool welcome by all scholars concerned with the theme gender`. In the end the databank will be offered as an internet version to be used by everybody interested in it. When the project is finished it will deliver then a solid basis for a synthesis of the theme "Women and Gender in Antiquity" to be written in the future.