OTRA · An Ontology for the Transmission and Re-Use of Argumentative Patterns (OTRA) in Christian-Muslim Religious Encounters

In this project, I will study argumentative structures in Christian anti-Islamic polemics from a historical perspective using a Digital Humanities approach. By investigating these argumentative patterns, I want to find out how this discourse developed over time. Are we confronted with a stable set of arguments, stereotypes, and references that structured the Christian discourse about Islam from the Middle Ages? Or did the increased availability of empirical sources and the increased contact from the 17th century lead to new forms of argumentative interactions? In order to answer these questions in a data-driven, comparative way, I will create an ontology that allows to record and classify references, borrowings, and structure of arguments in a standardized form. I will apply this scheme to a selected number of texts from the Christian tradition from the 13th to the 19th century, creating a knowledge base. I will use this knowledge base to answer selected research questions regarding the evolution of argumentative patterns. To disseminate this approach, I will develop and conduct a workshop format in which I will introduce students and other researchers to work with ontologies in general, my ontology, and my knowledge base. My approach will yield insights historical development of argumentative structures, but it will also allow to easily share data among researchers, to collaborate more effectively, and to base conclusions on larger datasets. It will provide a paradigm for describing historical argumentative structures that can be generalized and applied to many other fields of research. Pursuing this project will allow me to evolve into a Digital Humanities researcher, to pioneer my own research, to greatly expand my research network, and to gain a wider perspective on Christian-Muslim religious engagement.