Collegium Helveticum
Switzerland
fellow
Valentina Sagaria Rossi
2025-2026
Home institution
University of Rome Tor Vergata
Country of origin (home institution)
Italy
Discipline(s)
Cultural studies; Language sciences and linguistics; Literature
Theme(s)
Cultural Studies; Regional Studies
Fellowship dates
›
Biography
Valentina Sagaria Rossi explores how texts in Arabic script shape—and are shaped by—the intellectual worlds that transmit them. Trained in Arabic philology, her research focuses on classical Arabic paremiology and textual transmission, especially in Yemen. She examines how knowledge is preserved and authorized through copying, commentary, and scholarly exchange.
Work with Arabic manuscripts in European and Middle Eastern collections has led me to study scribal practices, marginal notes, and the formation of textual corpora and literary canons. A key milestone in her career was directing a major manuscript digitization initiative at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, which strengthened her commitment to integrating close textual analysis with digital humanities.
Velentina's current research investigates how modern Western Orientalism has shaped the classification and interpretation of Arabic manuscript traditions, influencing cataloguing systems and disciplinary categories. By combining philology, manuscript studies, and digital methods, she adopts a transdisciplinary approach that links intellectual history with broader debates on knowledge production and cultural heritage
Research Project
Islamic Literacy and the Politics of Canon: Revisiting Yemeni Manuscript Traditions
This project examines how modern Western Orientalism shaped—and at times narrowed—the study of Yemeni textual cultures in the ninth to twentieth centuries. Nineteenth- and twentieth-century scholarly frameworks influenced how manuscripts were catalogued, classified, and interpreted, defining what counted as authoritative or canonical. By revisiting these categories, the project seeks to recover the internal dynamics of Yemeni scholarship, including its reading practices, intellectual networks, and concepts of authority.
Focusing on manuscript texts in Arabic script, the research analyzes marginal notes, paratexts, and scholarly correspondence to reconstruct modes of literacy and knowledge transmission. A second axis explores how literary canons were formed, why certain works became central while others were marginalized, and how political, social, and material factors shaped these processes. By combining philology, manuscript studies, and digital tools, the project offers a critical reassessment of Yemeni textual heritage and contributes to broader debates on canon formation and the historiography of knowledge.
Research Interests:
Islamic manuscripts; Yemeni cultural history; Orientalism; philology; manuscript studies; textual heritage; canon formation; knowledge transmission; Arabic script; intellectual history; reading practices; paratexts; digital humanities; historiography; postcolonial studies.