Overview

(Please note that I am on research leave during the academic year 2019-2020...)

Finally reconciled to describing myself as a folklorist (thanks to Paredes - see my 'Shifting Borders' chapter) and currently writing a monograph on genre and memory in Kurmanji Kurdish, using methodologies from linguistic anthropology. With much of my work centred on the Êzidi community, I am also writing about religious and cultural endangerment, considering minorities such as Mandaeans and Yaresanis whose communities are undergoing an extinction event across their homelands.  Bearing extinction in mind, I'm planning further research on the remarkable literary and cultural moment achieved by Kurds of the former Soviet Union.

My core areas of PhD supervision are Kurmanji language and literature and popular culture and folklore in Kurdistan. I am also happy to co-supervise work on orality, folklore and popular cultures in other parts of the Middle East, and comparative studies where appropriate.

At MA level, I contribute to Kurdish History and Politics for the Kurdish Studies pathway. I also contribute to other modules. 

At undergraduate level, I teach Kurmanji language (where possible); Kurdish History and Politics and contribute to courses on ethnography and folklore, especially the Arabian Nights.

I led the research project "The Worlds of Mandaean Priests," supported by the Arcadia Fund, with the Universities of Exeter and Leiden. 

For office hours and research leave go here.

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Research

Finally reconciled to being a folklorist (thanks to Paredes - see my 'Shifting Borders' chapter of 2016) and currently writing a monograph on genre and memory in Kurmanji Kurdish, using methodologies from linguistic anthropology. With much of my work centred on the Êzidi community of Iraq, Syria Turkey and the Caucasus, I am also writing about religious and cultural endangerment, considering minorities such as Mandaeans and Yaresanis whose communities are undergoing an extinction event across their homelands.  Bearing extinction in mind, I'm planning further research on the remarkable literary and cultural moment achieved by Kurds of the former Soviet Union.

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Projects

• The Worlds of Mandaean Priests - funded by: Arcadia Fund
• Kurdish Studies Scholarship Programme - funded by: Kurdistan Regional Government

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Supervision

I have had the pleasure - and the privilege - of working with some great PhD researchers who have produced ground-breaking work in our field. I  enjoy going on the PhD journey with them, and working through the difficult terrain to the satisfaction of completion. My core areas of supervision are Kurmanji language and literature and popular culture and folklore in Kurdistan. I am also happy to co-supervise work on orality, folklore and popular cultures in other parts of the Middle East, minority religious communities, and comparative studies where appropriate.

I have been lead, second or joint supervisor in Exeter for the following completed theses:

• Orientalism and Imperialism: Protestant missionary narratives of the 'other' in nineteenth and early twentieth century  missions to Kurdistan - a case study
• Imagination: The Making of Kurdish national Identity in the Kurdish Journalistic Discourse (1898-1914)
• Women's Medicine in the Diyarbakir Area (Eastern Turkey)
• Folkloric Song in Badinan (Iraqi Kurdistan)
• The Badinani Short Story
• The Iraqi Kurdish Novel, 1970-2011: A Genetic-Structuralist Approach
• The Emergence and Development of Modern Kurdish Poetry
•  Face Mask and Identity in the Persian Gulf: The Case of the United Arab Emirates and Qeshm Island of Iran
• 'Sal ba sal xozgam ba par, year after year I wish for the previous year': Examining Impacts of Interventions in Narratives of People from Slemani, then and now
• Exile is Arrival: Kurdish Poetry of the Nineteenth Century

I am first, second or joint supervisor for the following ongoing thesis subjects:

• Economic adaptation of peripatetics (musicians and non-musicians) identifying as Dom in Kurdistan
• Changes in Gender Roles among Ezidis of Iraq frollowing the Genocide of 2014
• Identity Politics and Struggle among Kurds from Syria
• The Poetry of Abdullah Goran
• The Sabaean Mandaeans of Iraq in diaspora

Research students

I have supervised:

Luqman Turgut - 'L’épopée de Cembelî et la tradition des mitirb' DREA (Masters) dissertation, Inalco 2002.

Zubeida Abdulkhaliq - ‘L’histoire du journalisme kurde dans la région de Badinan (Kurdistan d’Irak) après 1991, DREA dissertation, Inalco 2004.

I have co-supervised:

Zubeida Abdulkhaliq - ‘Le journalisme kurde au Kurdistan irakien’ DEA (pre-doctorate) dissertation, Paris III, 2005.

Engin Sustam - 'La reconstruction de la littérature et la performance de l’art contemporain kurdes dans le contexte de migration politique forcée des années post-1990 en Turquie' , Masters 2, EHESS, 2006.

 

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Publications

_{Copyright Notice: Any articles made available for download are for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the copyright holder.}

| 2022 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2005 | 2004 | 2002 | 2001 | 1996 |

2022

• Robins FC. (2022) Fragile Yezidism, Hidden Strength, Yezidism Between Continuity and Transformation, Harassowitz Verlag, 151-180.

2018

• Allison FC, Amy de la Breteque E. (2018) Princes, Thieves and Death: The Making of Heroes amongst the Yezidis of Armenia, Javanmardi: the Ethics and Practice of Persianate Perfection, Ginkgo Library.

2017

• Robins FC. (2017) The Yazidis, Oxford Research Encyclopaedia of Religion, OUP, DOI:10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.013.254.

2016

• Allison FC, Buffon V. (2016) The Gendering of Victimhood: Western Media and the Sinjar Genocide, Kurdish Studies, volume 4, pages 128-147, DOI:10.33182/ks.v4i2.427.
• Allison FC. (2016) Yazidis, Oxford Encyclopaedia of the Islamic World.
• Allison FC. (2016) The shifting borders of conflict, difference, and oppression: Kurdish folklore revisited, Kurdish Studies Revisited, Hurst.

2014

• Allison FC. (2014) Living with Labels: New Identities and the Yezidis of Turkey, Turkey and the Politics of National Identity Social, Economic and Cultural Transformation, I.B.Tauris, 95-117.

2013

• Allison C, Kreyenbroek PG. (2013) Remembering the Past in Iranian Societies, Otto Harrassowitz.
• Allison FC. (2013) Addressivity and the Monument: Memorials, Publics and the Yezidis of Armenia, History and Memory: studies in representation of the past.
• Allison FC. (2013) From Benedict Anderson to Mustafa Kemal: Reading, Writing and Imagining the Kurdish Nation, Joyce Blau: l'eternelle chez les Kurdes, Karthala, 101-134.
• Allison FC. (2013) Memory and the Kurmanji novel: Contemporary Turkey and Soviet Armenia, Remembering the Past in Iranian Societies, Harrassowitz, 189-218.

2012

• Allison FC. (2012) 'The Yezidis', Religious minorities of the Modern Middle East: a Complete Survey of Non-Muslim Communities.

2010

• Allison C. (2010) Kurdish Oral Literature, Oral Literature of Iranian Languages: Kurdish, Pashto, Baluchi, Ossetic; Persian, Tajik:Companion volume 2: A history of Persian Literature, I B Tauris & Co Ltd, 33-69.

2009

• Allison FC, joisten-Pruschke A, Wendtland A. (2009) From Daēnā to Dîn: Religion, Kultur und Sprache in der iranischen Welt. Festschrift für Philip Kreyenbroek zum 60. Geburtstag, Otto Harrassowitz.
• Allison FC. (2009) ‘Representations of Yezidism and Zoroastrianism in the Kurdish newspapers Hawar and Roja Nû, From Daena to Din: Religion, Kultur und Sprache in der iranischen Welt: Festschrift für Philip Kreyenbroek zum 60. Geburtstag, Harrassowitz, 285-291.

2008

• Allison FC. (2008) "Unbelievable Slowness of Mind": Yezidi Studies, from Nineteenth to Twenty-first Century, Journal of Kurdish Studies, volume VI, pages 1-23, article no. 1.
• Allison FC. (2008) ‘La poésie populaire chez les Kurdes : vecteur d’histoire, lieu de mémoire’, Poésies du Sud et des Orients, l'Harmattan, Universite Paris 13, 181-191. [PDF]

2007

• Allison FC. (2007) Kurdish in Iraq, The Languages of Iraq, Ancient and Modern, The British School of Archaeology in Iraq, Cambridge University Press, 135-158.

2005

• Allison FC. (2005) Kurdish Autobiography, Memoir and Novel : Ereb Shemo and his Successors, pages 97-118.

2004

• Allison FC. (2004) Imagining the Book: Fakery, Fantasy and the Search for Yezidi Scriptures, International Conference on Kurdish Studies, Krakow.
• Allison FC. (2004) Kurdistan remembered online: the “Kurds’ Family Photo Album” and other Virtual Memories, Die Kurden. Studien zu ihrer Sprache, Geschichte und Kultur. Asien und Afrika: Beiträge des Zentrums für Asiatische une Afrikanische Studien (ZAAS) der Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Schenefeld: EB-Verlag, 97-120.

2002

• Allison FC. (2002) History and Verbal Art in Kurdish Lyrical Song, Proceedings of the Conference ‘Popular Literatures of the Middle East, Oxford.

2001

• Allison FC. (2001) The Yezidi Oral Tradition in Iraqi Kurdistan, London, Curzon Press.
• Allison FC. (2001) Folklore and Fantasy; the Presentation of Women in Kurdish Oral Tradition, Mazda Press, Costa Mesa, 181-194.
• Allison FC. (2001) Oral History Methodologies and Islamic Groups, Sufism in Bulgaria, International Centre for Minority Studies and Intercultural Relations, Sofia, 433-443.

1996

• Allison FC, Kreyenbroek PG. (1996) Kurdish Culture and Identity, London, Zed Books.

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Teaching

Modules taught

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Biography

After a BA degree in Classics and French at Magdalen College, Oxford, I studied Kurdish at SOAS. My Ph.D thesis on oral traditions amongst the Yezidis of Iraq was submitted in 1996, and followed by a British Academy postdoctoral fellowship at SOAS (1997-2001). I was then tenured lecturer (maître de conférences) in Kurdish at the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO), Paris, before taking up the post of Ibrahim Ahmed professor of Kurdish studies in Exeter's new Centre of Kurdish studies in 2007.

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