KHK Visiting Research Fellow 2017

Khanna Usoyan completed her Ph.D. research as well as her B.A. and M.A. study at Saint Petersburg State University. In July 2017, she habilitated at Georg-August University of Göttingen in Iranian Studies with the Habilitationschrift “The Yezidi Religious Textual Tradition: From Oral to Written: Categories, Transmission, Scripturalisation and Canonisation of the Yezidi Oral Religious Texts”. In 2005, she joined Georg-August University Göttingen where she worked as an Academic Assistant in the DFG project “Kulturelles Gedächtnis der Yezidi-Gemeinschaft in Deutschland hinsichtlich religiöser Fragen,” from 2007 to 2010 she was a bursar of the DFG Graduiertenkolleg 896/2 “Götterbilder – Gottesbilder – Weltbilder”, with the project “Yezidi Religious Texts: Their Theological Implications with some References to the Ahl-e Haqq Religious Tradition”. From 2010 to 2017 she was a researcher (wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin) in the Institute of Iranian Studies in Göttingen and responsible for Kurdish Studies program. From 2012 to 2017, she was also responsible for setting up of the Iranian and Kurdish Digital Audio Archive at the same Institute.

Khanna Usoyan’s main research covers religious minorities in Kurdistan, religion, orality and scripturalisation in the Middle East, Yezidism (history, rituals, modern transformations), theological implications of the textual tradition of Yezidis, religious and spiritual authorities in transition, qualitative research in Religious studies and Kurdish dialectology, literature and culture.

Education

• PD, Habilitation in Iranian Studies, Faculty of Philosophy, Georg-August University of Göttingen, 2017.
• Ph.D., Department of Philosophy of Religion and Religious Studies, Faculty of Philosophy and Political Science, Saint Petersburg State University, 2006.
• M.A., Religions of the Peoples of Asia and Africa (diploma with honors), Faculty of Oriental Studies, Saint Petersburg State University, 2004.
• B.A., Iranian Philology and Kurdish Studies (diploma with honors), Faculty of Oriental Studies, Saint Petersburg State University, 2002.

KHK Fellowship

Duration: October 2017 to March 2018
Project: From Orthopraxy to Orthodoxy – Christian Influences on Yezidism in the Diaspora? The Discourse on Canonisation, Standardisation and Unification of Tradition among Yezidis in Western Europe

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