Dear Mar Shiprim readers, we are back with our column entitled “In the Spotlight”! This time, we travel to Argentina: thanks to Federico Luciani, to whom we are very grateful, we can learn more about what’s going at the Universidad Nacional de Litoral in Santa Fe, and elsewhere in Argentina. ¡Feliz lectura!
Please, tell us something about yourself!
My name is Federico Luciani and I teach Ancient Near East History in Litoral National University located in the city of Santa Fe and in Rosario National University. From the latter, I obtained my PhD in History, with a dissertation on political models and ethnic identities in the Kingdom of Mari during the reign of Zimri-Lim. I initiated in ANE studies under the direction of late prof. Cristina Di Bennardis, who was my first mentor and supervised part of my dissertation. I had the opportunity to enjoy a short study stay in La Sapienza and in the Biblical Institute in Rome where I came into contact with Assyriology and the ancient languages of Mesopotamia. I have published several articles and recently co-edited a teaching book for Spanish-speakers History students available here.
Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias, Universidad Nacional del Litoral, Santa Fe (Argentina)
How do students generally come to study Assyriology in Argentina? Which classes and activities do you offer to students today?
As a matter of fact, it is hard to speak of “Assyriology” in my country as an independent field of study. It might be said that as such Assyriology does not exist, but within History Departments in different universities. Regarding your question, students come to university to obtain a General History Degree that will allow them to teach History in schools, institutes, and in universities as well. This four-to-five years degree always include a compulsory course related to Ancient Near East History, frequently in the first year. I am in charge of this course in Litoral National University. After this, students go through European History, National and Latin-American History and other theoretical courses.
But also, in the frame of the same General History Degree, I offer my students an elective class named Writing History of ANE societies. Here I try to explore the diverse ways in which the Mesopotamian past has been inquired, thought, and written. I start with the Ancient themselves, to continue with the Classical and Biblical reception, and the rediscovery of the Assyrians and the founding of Assyriology. I finish exploring the recent trends in ANE History: digital collections, remote access to tablets, where and how to study Assyriology… The main goal of this elective class is to attract students with a special interest in the ancient world, and to offer a panoramic view of what can be done in terms of research and study from Argentina. The real specialization in ANE comes in graduate studies, by choosing an MA or a PhD program.
Apart from my teaching duties, I try to offer my students other activities related to ancient history, like conferences, workshops, and assistantship. I must admit that it is not always easy to attract students to ANE studies, but it is worth the effort.
What about the ancient history academia in UNL and in Argentina in general?
As said, ANE History is included among a wider community of historians, which is the basic field of training and research. This does not mean there is no specialization, quite the opposite. The Buenos Aires University has a half a century old Oriental History Institute. I have to say though that the fate of ANE studies in Argentina has been heavily influenced by the political vicissitudes that shook the country during the second half of the twentieth century. However, since the recovery of democracy in 1983, it can be said that a new phase of “normalization” and professionalization of ancient oriental history has begun. At this moment, all the History degrees of the universities in the country have classes related to the Ancient Near East. In addition, in several of them, there are teams and research centers dedicated to the study of ancient Mesopotamia (and Egypt as well). There are also some specialized journals. Personally, I am part of the Center for Studies on Cultural Diversity (CEDCU), a multidisciplinary research institute founded in 1998 by Cristina Di Bennardis within the National University of Rosario. Its journal, Claroscuro, directed by Prof. Leticia Rovira is published twice a year, and I participate as co-editor. The summer issue (released by December, our very hot summer!) is always devoted to History and Culture of the Ancient Near East. I had the honor to coordinate volume 18/2, dedicated to commemorating the 85th anniversary of Mari/Tell Hariri discovery by André Parrot. I invite the readers of Mar Shiprim to browse this and other volumes in the link provided above.
Finally, I would like to mention that the community of ANE historians in Argentina has a busy agenda of activities, including workshops, research meetings, and sessions at every history congress. As I said earlier, although it is difficult to break through among historians dealing with national and Latin American history, the community of Orientalists does not cease to grow.
How is Assyriology generally perceived outside Academia in Argentina? How do you disseminate knowledge about your activities outside the university?
Unfortunately, I do not believe there is much perception of “Assyriology” in my country outside the Academia. This is largely due to the educational reforms at the primary and secondary levels, with the elimination of many of the contents referring to ANE history in the curriculum. This meant that many Argentine children and teenagers can go through their entire schooling without hearing a single word about some place called Ancient Mesopotamia, Sennacherib or the like… In addition to that, there is the almost absence of oriental collections in local museums (except for some Egyptian objects in museums in the city of Buenos Aires and La Plata). Because of all this, teaching ANE history in university is a great challenge: I have to start practically from scratch, those who attend my classes have very little knowledge of antiquity in general. Although this is a disadvantage, it is also an invitation to creativity, to generate attractive resources and to try to make ANE history accessible.
Replica of the Stele of Hammurabi housed in Museo de la Constitución, Santa Fe.
In particular, I would like to mention an ongoing project with my colleague Prof. Leticia Rovira with the aim of disseminating knowledge outside the university. The city of Santa Fe is known in my country as the “cradle of the constitution”, given that the constituent assembly that drafted the magna carta in 1853 met here. In 2018, a museum dedicated to legislation, the Constitution, and its history was inaugurated. The museum welcomes visitors with a first room devoted to ancient laws and -it could not be otherwise- ancient Mesopotamia appears as the “first of the first”. The museum houses a replica of the Stele of Hammurabi, acquired from the workshops of the Louvre. However, the information surrounding this object is scarce, imprecise, and incorrect. For this reason, we propose a set of activities and resources that will allow to resignify the presence of the stele in the museum of the constitution, exploring its influence on modern legal systems and also to offer assistance and counselling to the museum staff to improve the information available on this very well-known object.
Which are your main goals for future research and activities at Universidad Nacional de Litoral?
I would like to comment on a project that has already been developed and that I plan to repeat in 2023. It is a project of “internationalization of curriculum” founded by Litoral National University. This project aims at offering undergraduate students an international learning experience. In this case, I contacted my colleague and friend Prof. Armando Bramanti, with whom I shared some classes at La Sapienza, and together set up a project to approach ancient languages. It is worth mentioning that there are no specific courses on Sumerian and Akkadian language in the curriculum. In this sense, the idea of bringing an expert in cuneiform paleography seemed to me a unique opportunity to show my students the working practices of Assyriology. In a first opportunity, back in pre-pandemic 2019, Prof. Bramanti visited my university and gave three lectures on the origin of writing, the development of cuneiform, and the work of the Assyriologists. The contacts and joint work continued during these years and part of the reflections on possible transatlantic dialogues between disciplines were summarised in a collective article.
Virtual Sumerian lessons at UNL? ¡Sí señor!
During 2022, the exchange experience was repeated, although this time in virtual mode. The focus of the project this time was on introducing undergraduate students to the basics of ANE languages. For the first time in the history of the Litoral National University, Sumerian and Akkadian classes were taught as part of the general undergraduate course. The activity was very gratifying, because it was possible to show how information technologies can contribute to narrow the gaps between different academic traditions, and how it is also possible from these latitudes to approach ancient history. I hope that this type of projects and exchanges will intensify during 2023 (Anyone interested is welcome to join in!)
Reading Codex Hammurabi
On the other hand, I am working on the preparation of a collection of source texts for use in Near Eastern history classes, in which an overview of the available historical evidence can be visualized, with commentaries, forms of access and publication history.
How can our readers know even more about your Department and follow your research and projects?
Readers can visit my Academia.edu profile, my university website and, as mentioned, Claroscuro journal.