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Photo of Professor Christine Robins (formerly Allison)

Professor Christine Robins (formerly Allison)

BA (Oxon), Ph.D. (SOAS)

Ibrahim Ahmed Professor of Kurdish Studies, Director of Education.

4026

01392 724026

(Please note that I am on research leave during the academic year 2019-2020...)

Finally reconciled to describing myself as a folklorist (thanks to Paredes - see my 'Shifting Borders' chapter) and currently writing a monograph on genre and memory in Kurmanji Kurdish, using methodologies from linguistic anthropology. With much of my work centred on the Êzidi community, I am also writing about religious and cultural endangerment, considering minorities such as Mandaeans and Yaresanis whose communities are undergoing an extinction event across their homelands.  Bearing extinction in mind, I'm planning further research on the remarkable literary and cultural moment achieved by Kurds of the former Soviet Union.

My core areas of PhD supervision are Kurmanji language and literature and popular culture and folklore in Kurdistan. I am also happy to co-supervise work on orality, folklore and popular cultures in other parts of the Middle East, and comparative studies where appropriate.

At MA level, I contribute to Kurdish History and Politics for the Kurdish Studies pathway. I also contribute to other modules. 

At undergraduate level, I teach Kurmanji language (where possible); Kurdish History and Politics and contribute to courses on ethnography and folklore, especially the Arabian Nights.

I led the research project "The Worlds of Mandaean Priests," supported by the Arcadia Fund, with the Universities of Exeter and Leiden. 

For office hours and research leave go here.




 

 

Research interests

Finally reconciled to being a folklorist (thanks to Paredes - see my 'Shifting Borders' chapter of 2016) and currently writing a monograph on genre and memory in Kurmanji Kurdish, using methodologies from linguistic anthropology. With much of my work centred on the Êzidi community of Iraq, Syria Turkey and the Caucasus, I am also writing about religious and cultural endangerment, considering minorities such as Mandaeans and Yaresanis whose communities are undergoing an extinction event across their homelands.  Bearing extinction in mind, I'm planning further research on the remarkable literary and cultural moment achieved by Kurds of the former Soviet Union.

Research supervision

I have had the pleasure - and the privilege - of working with some great PhD researchers who have produced ground-breaking work in our field. I  enjoy going on the PhD journey with them, and working through the difficult terrain to the satisfaction of completion. My core areas of supervision are Kurmanji language and literature and popular culture and folklore in Kurdistan. I am also happy to co-supervise work on orality, folklore and popular cultures in other parts of the Middle East, minority religious communities, and comparative studies where appropriate.

I have been lead, second or joint supervisor in Exeter for the following completed theses:

  • Orientalism and Imperialism: Protestant missionary narratives of the 'other' in nineteenth and early twentieth century  missions to Kurdistan - a case study
  • Imagination: The Making of Kurdish national Identity in the Kurdish Journalistic Discourse (1898-1914)
  • Women's Medicine in the Diyarbakir Area (Eastern Turkey)
  • Folkloric Song in Badinan (Iraqi Kurdistan)
  • The Badinani Short Story
  • The Iraqi Kurdish Novel, 1970-2011: A Genetic-Structuralist Approach
  • The Emergence and Development of Modern Kurdish Poetry
  •  Face Mask and Identity in the Persian Gulf: The Case of the United Arab Emirates and Qeshm Island of Iran
  • 'Sal ba sal xozgam ba par, year after year I wish for the previous year': Examining Impacts of Interventions in Narratives of People from Slemani, then and now
  • Exile is Arrival: Kurdish Poetry of the Nineteenth Century

I am first, second or joint supervisor for the following ongoing thesis subjects:

  • Economic adaptation of peripatetics (musicians and non-musicians) identifying as Dom in Kurdistan
  • Changes in Gender Roles among Ezidis of Iraq frollowing the Genocide of 2014
  • Identity Politics and Struggle among Kurds from Syria
  • The Poetry of Abdullah Goran
  • The Sabaean Mandaeans of Iraq in diaspora

 

 

Research students

I have supervised:

Luqman Turgut - 'L’épopée de Cembelî et la tradition des mitirb' DREA (Masters) dissertation, Inalco 2002.

Zubeida Abdulkhaliq - ‘L’histoire du journalisme kurde dans la région de Badinan (Kurdistan d’Irak) après 1991, DREA dissertation, Inalco 2004.

I have co-supervised:

Zubeida Abdulkhaliq - ‘Le journalisme kurde au Kurdistan irakien’ DEA (pre-doctorate) dissertation, Paris III, 2005.

Engin Sustam - 'La reconstruction de la littérature et la performance de l’art contemporain kurdes dans le contexte de migration politique forcée des années post-1990 en Turquie' , Masters 2, EHESS, 2006.

 

Modules taught

Biography

After a BA degree in Classics and French at Magdalen College, Oxford, I studied Kurdish at SOAS. My Ph.D thesis on oral traditions amongst the Yezidis of Iraq was submitted in 1996, and followed by a British Academy postdoctoral fellowship at SOAS (1997-2001). I was then tenured lecturer (maître de conférences) in Kurdish at the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO), Paris, before taking up the post of Ibrahim Ahmed professor of Kurdish studies in Exeter's new Centre of Kurdish studies in 2007.

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