Page - 66 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 01/01

66 | Bärbel Beinhauer-Köhler www.jrfm.eu 2015, 1/1, 65–71 MeDia iN hisTOry Of reliGiONs? The following case study will shed light on methodological and theoretical questions about media in history – which were once spoken of as “sources”1, such as textual or archaeological sources. in medieval Cairo, the female patronage of religious in- frastructure grew significantly. But reconstructing the traces of these patrons in the city’s public sphere is not easy and requires a combination of the study of texts and archaeology. Thus, questions arise about the heuristic quality of the term “media” when used as an umbrella term for all sorts of sources in pre-modern times as well. Might it be more useful, alternatively, to speak of “materials”, considering the term’s metaphorical link to materiality, especially when dealing with manuscripts and build- ings as physical traces of commemorative cultures? The historical case to be discussed has surprising parallels to lövheim’s empirical work on new media,2 but no one would use the term “media” to characterise histori- cal sources. My contribution here is a discussion of how historical and contemporary fields might be connected by the character of data that represents constructions of religion and gender. This is not an anachronistic approach. It tries to give different terms rights of their own, independent of metaphorical biases such as that media are dynamic and modern or that sources are a reliable basis for historical knowledge. in the background of this discussion stands observation of in-between spaces:3 re- ligious as well as gender cultures are seen as not totally segregated; moreover, the modes of bridging religions, gender and public and private spheres come into view. should historical sources be connected in a similar way? sPaCes aND aGeNCies Of WOMeN WiTh DiffereNT reliGiOUs BaCKGrOUNDs iN MeDieVal CairO around the 12th century, Cairo’s inhabitants varied as much in ethnicity as in religion or denomination. That said, the whole of society practised one gender regime and it did not make a huge difference if one was a Jew, Christian or Muslim. Many people lived with close family or clan ties. To a certain extent, architecture suggests separate spheres for the sexes, but the norm of segregating and banning women in a harem 1 The option to return to the term “sources”, a term that was overthrown in debates on new cultural history, will not be reflected here. The term is only used here for pragmatic purposes. See Burke 2004. 2 lövheim 2013, 153–168. she deals with female and female Muslim bloggers on the internet. in her em- pirical study, the internet and new media are seen as means of communication and social mediation: young women act as agents in new public spaces aside from traditional religion with fewer options to represent their religious identity. as in the following example, media, gender and religion are con- nected. 3 Wirth 2012, 7–34, 11, 18–19. homi K. Babha’s topos of a third space and Juri lotman’s semiosphere describe similar models of cultural fluidity.