Bamberg June 1-July 2

I spent the month of June in Bamberg continuing to work on my various research and editing projects. I finished the report about the second season of my survey project in Bhimunipatnam, India and started work on an article about Muslims in Jerusalem in the Abbasid Period, which I had presented at the Jerusalem conference last July.

During the last week in June I edited a draft English translation of the latest book by Mohammed Ghosheh about Islamic Jerusalem, Mecca and Medina. That was a rushed book project that needed to be out in time for Ramadan next month. So I only had time to complete a portion of the full editing work needed to get the English text into good shape.

On Friday June 14 I made a day trip to Mainz to attend a conference at the Roman-Germanic Central Museum about Geographical Information Systems and Byzantium. While there I also had the opportunity to speak with Johannes Pahlitzsch about my research grant proposal to come next year to the University of Mainz.

Among the various public lectures, concerts and other cultural events that I attended, on Sunday June 9 I went to the neighboring town of Bischberg to attend a concert in celebration of the 1000^th anniversary of the establishment of the town.

 

The concert in Bischberg

During this current stay in Bamberg I downloaded a lot of operas, ballets and Shakespeare’s plays from YouTube. I was just in time, because a few days after I finished downloading what I wanted, YouTube eliminated the ability to download videos. I was especially impressed by a performance of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring by the Joffrey Ballet in 1989 with a reconstruction of the original choreography by Nijinsky.