Finn Lindo-Dunn is a PhD candidate in the NWO-funded VICI project Land, Space, Power: Landscapes of the Early Caliphate, led by Prof. Petra Sijpesteijn. His research examines place-making through literature, with a particular focus on how the landscapes of North Africa became ‘Islamic’. His interests deal with the projection of social and collective memory in the geography of North Africa (c.650-1250 CE). By investigating how divergent symbolic interpretations of the landscape emerged from different social, political and cultural contexts within the Classical Arabic literary canon, his research seeks to understand how natural and built features of the landscape became ‘storied’ in the pre-modern Arab-Islamic geographical conscience.

More information about Finn Lindo-Dunn

Fields of interest

Classical Arabic Literature, Pre-Modern Islamic Literary Culture, Memory Studies, Pre-Modern North African History and Culture.

Research

By combining interpretive history, geographical writing and popular literature, Finn’s research synthesises different literary traditions across various languages as a means of understanding how medieval North African Muslims utilised the physical environment as tool in the creation and projection of identity. His methodology combines aspects of comparative literature, historical analysis and heritage studies as a means of interpreting how the topography of North Africa was imbued with cultural significance. Additionally, he is interested in how the Arabic historiographical tradition emerged, not just as a practice of summative remembrance, but also as a creative an imaginative process.

CV

Finn holds an MA (Honours, 2023) in Arabic and Persian and an MLitt (Distinction, 2024) in Medieval Studies from the University of St Andrews.