In the framework of the Junior Host Programme , Matthew will invite Jeannie Miller and Kevin Blankinship, leading scholars of medieval Arabic literature with shared interests in texts about animals. Together, the three scholars will be hosting a series of seminars on Arabic texts. These seminars will culminate in a workshop entitled “Animals, Adab, and Fictivity.” This workshop explores the various ways in which medieval authors and readers put animals to work in adab, as the site of theological debate, as a vehicle for allegory, and as a way of thinking about poetics.