What does it mean to be a Froebelian in the 21st century? : An Essay

What does it mean to be a Froebelian in the 21st century? It is not a new question but one that is more urgent than ever. Not only since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic but for years, young children and their well-being have been thrust aside, and Early Childhood Education and Care worldwide has been treated as subordinate. The Global Education Reform Movement (GERM) has negatively impacted early childhood education over the last decades, and these tendencies have only exacerbated during the pandemic. This essay centers around what it means to be a Froebelian and what role Froebelian thinking can play in the 21st century. The focus is on the questions and not the answers. The essay asks what it does and what it does not mean to be a Froebelian in the 21st century. It finishes by reflecting on the role that Froebelian thinking can play today to advocate for young children’s well-being in a post-pandemic world by resisting current GERM thinking and developing alternatives

Some Thoughts on Devising a Historiographical Map of Seventh-Century BC Egypt

The social and cultural developments in the Eastern Mediter-ranean Area of Connectivity in the 8th to 6th c. BC are stronglyrooted in the cross-regional mobility and subsequent culturaldiversity that resulted from the various local strategies in thesouthern Levant and the Nile delta of challenging and outma-neuvering the super-powers. Yet, historiographical maps of 7thc. Egypt predominantly depict the political landscape – if at all– as the dominion of politically homogeneous entities: as parteither of the Assyrian empire, or of the Kushite empire, or ofa local power. By contrast, this paper discusses an alternativevisualization, which indicates historical complexity with theaim of triggering further research

Mapping Political Diversity : Some Thoughts on Devising a Historiographical Map of Seventh-Century BC Egypt

citation: Melanie Wasmuth, "Mapping Political Diversity. Some Thoughts on Devising a Historiographical Map of Seventh-Century BC Egypt", in: Susanne Grunwald, Kerstin P. Hofmann, Daniel A. Werning and Felix Wiedemann (eds), Mapping Ancient Identities. Methodisch-kritische Reflexionen zu Kartierungspraktiken, Berlin: Edition Topoi, 2018, 115–136.The social and cultural developments in the Eastern Mediterranean Area of Connectivity in the 8th to 6th c. BC are strongly rooted in the cross-regional mobility and subsequent cultural diversity that resulted from the various local strategies in the southern Levant and the Nile delta of challenging and outmaneuvering the super-powers. Yet, historiographical maps of 7th c. Egypt predominantly depict the political landscape – if at all – as the dominion of politically homogeneous entities: as part either of the Assyrian empire, or of the Kushite empire, or of a local power. By contrast, this paper discusses an alternative visualization, which indicates historical complexity with the aim of triggering further research.Peer reviewe

The statues of Udjahorresnet as archaeological artifacts

Published within the special issue: Melanie Wasmuth and Pearce Paul Creasman (eds), Udjahorresnet and his World, Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections 26 (2020), https://egyptianexpedition.org/volumes/vol-26-udjahorresnet-and-his-world/ [double-blind peer review for each paper, open access].Udjahorresnet is best known for the inscription on his statue in the Musei Vaticani. It gives insights into the transformation of Egypt from an independent kingdom under the Lower Egyptian royal house of Sais (Twenty-sixth Dynasty) to a dependent kingdom under Achaemenid Persian rule. What is less known is that the so-called Naoforo Vaticano is not the only statue preserved. Udjahorresnet was commemorated in at least three to five statues, one of which was created c. 150–200 years after his death to keep his memory alive and to enhance the commissioner’s social standing by association. In addition to this chronological scope, the evidence points to an extensive statue program disseminating Udjahorresnet’s sociopolitical statement in various major temples in Lower Egypt and in the capital, Memphis. In contrast to the traditional focus on the inscription, the contribution at hand discusses the implication of the archaeological evidence of the statues for elucidating Udjahorresnet’s socio-historical context.Peer reviewe

"Thinking as someone else" - Using Avatars in teacher education and the challenge to think and act as someone else.

This article discusses an alternative learning project that has been conducted in an online course at a teacher education program from Fall 2012 to Fall 2015. As part of the course, students have to create avatars and think and act as their avatars when faced with educational issues. The project strives to overcome challenges that teacher education programs have to take into account when preparing students to become teachers. A qualitative research study has been conducted in order to find out more about the studentsΓÇÖ thinking and learning in this innovative approach of the online class. Results of the study and the implications for the project will be discussed

Introduction: Udjahorresnet and his world : A key figure of cross-regional relations reconsidered (in collaboration with Alex Aissaoui, Ladislav Bareš, Reinhold Bichler, Henry Colburn, Francis Joannès, Ivan Ladynin, Francesco Lopez, Nenad Marković, Allison McCoskey, Cristina Ruggero, Alexander Schütze, Květa Smoláriková, and Marissa Stevens)

The contribution at hand provides a synthetic response to the special issue on “Udjahorresnet and his World,” published as Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections 26. After introducing the aims and motivation behind the volume, I present a concise summary of the key questions, investigation lines and major results of the volume’s contributions. These fall into four major thematic blocks. Three papers are primarily concerned with a re-evaluation of the material culture commemorating Udjahorresnet, three take up the question of his professional and social environment, four focus on Udjahorresnet as a cross-regional agent, while the last three draw on Udjahorresnet and the textual evidence on his naophorous statue in the Musei Vaticani as a historiographical mediator. The final section showcases synthetically the key advances in the study of Udjahorresnet and his world jointly achieved by the author collective.Non peer reviewe

Transient or eternal? Cross-regional identity display reconsidered : The missing head of the statue of Darius (NMI 4112)

by permission of the journal editor: open publication via my host institution allowed since June 2020The statue of Darius I found at Susa provides a striking example for petrifying an identity construction that is transient in nature. Darius I is simultaneously Persian Great King and Egyptian pharaoh. Usually, either one or the other aspect is put to the fore in the preserved media of presentation. Characteristically, the statue in its current headless state combines these identities and presents a new image, which follows neither regional tradition, but is understandable in either of the two (and beyond). As such, long-term and cross-cultural readability is explicitly ordered in the commission inscription on the statue, and this can be equally assumed for the missing head. Based on this hypothesis, I will reconsider the scope of potential reconstructions of the statue and, consequently, of the secondary context of erection at the gate building of the ‘palace of Darius’ at Susa.Peer reviewe