Turkic Oral Epics
The MEMO Project
From 1995 until 2008 the research project on 'medieval epic and medieval orality' (MEMO) was linked to my chair of Medieval English Philology at the University of Bonn. Work on this project continues also after my retirement; see Current Research.
My recordings of Turkic oral epic poetry were inspired by the comparative work of Milman Parry and Albert Lord on South Slavic oral epics; they began in 1975 with the recording of a Turkish aşık in Ürgüp and have been carried out regularly since 1981 in the Turkic-speaking parts of Central Asia (both in the former Soviet Union and in Xinjiang, China).
For my comparative approach to medieval and Turkic heroic poetry, see my book Singing the Past: Turkic and Medieval Heroic Poetry. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2000.
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