Research at HLCEES

The main tasks at HLCEES are:

• Coordination and networking for international projects in the field; planning of new projects in cooperation with other scholars as well as with various private and institutional sponsors;
• Conceiving, applying for and conducting of small and large-scale projects (e.g. in manuscript studies);
• Help in securing financial support for research in Ethiopian studies, including applying for scholarships and supervising graduate and postgraduate guest researchers (e.g. the DAAD, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Gerda Henkel Stiftung, etc);
• Help in training of new researchers' generation; organization of field research; of internships and practical skill application possibilities; language courses in the focus region;
• Organization of conferences and workshops;
• Research organization (manuscript cataloguing, critical editions, theses supervisions, etc).

Use the menu on the right for details on the current and recent projects.

The (incomplete) list of major projects includes

ʾAbǝnnat Tǝmhǝrt: Documenting an Ancient Education System in Africa: ʾAbǝnnat Tǝmhǝrt in Ethiopia (since 2021)

Beta maṣāḥǝft. Die Schriftkultur des christlichen Äthiopiens und Eritreas: Eine multimediale Forschungsumgebung (since 2016)

BeInf – Beyond Influence: The Connected Histories of Ethiopic and Syriac Christianity (since 2022)

CMCL: Corpus dei Manoscritti Copti Letterari (in Hamburg since 2011)

COMSt: Comparative Oriental Manuscript Studies (since 2009)

EAe: Encyclopaedia Aethiopica (1999-2014)

ENCODE: Bridging the <gap> in Ancient Writing Cultures (2020-2023)

Ethio-SPaRe: Cultural Heritage of Christian Ethiopia. Salvation, Preservation, Research (2009-2014)

Understanding the ‘Kingdom of the Gideonites’: The Shaping of the Memory of Ethiopia’s Jewish Kingdom and its Impact on Ethiopian Jewish Identity Discourse, Past and Present (since 2025)

ITIESE: Demarginalizing Medieval Africa: Images, Texts, and Identity in Early Solomonic Ethiopia (1270-1527) (2021-2024)

SLAFNET: Slavery in Africa: A dialogue between Europe and Africa (2017-2020)

TraCES: From Translation to Creation: Changes in Ethiopic Style and Lexicon from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages (2014-2019)

Der mediale Status des Körpers – Körper im Bild und Körperbild. König Kāleb und andere äthiopische Heilige in Portugal und Brasilien im 18. Jahrhundert (since 2021)

and many many other minor and individual projects and cooperations