Month: July 2019

Matthew L. Keegan joins Barnard College as assistant professor.

We are happy to announce that our former postdoctoral researcher Matthew joins Barnard College of Columbia University as the Moinian Assistant Professor in Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures. Until July 2019, Matthew worked on the theorization of fictive writing in pre-modern Arabic within our project. We wish Matthew all the best for his future in New York City!

Find out more about Matthew on his Academia.edu profile.

Matthew Keegan and Johannes Stephan participated in a workshop on Conceptions and Configurations of the Arabic Literary Canon in Paris

Matthew Keegan and Johannes Stephan participated in the international workshop Conceptions and Configurations of the Arabic Literary Canon which took place between June 17 and 19, this year in the Columbia University Global Center of Paris.

A central aspect discussed at the workshop is the overlap of the concepts of canon, literary history, anthological literature and tradition. The question of canonicity is crucial to our project, as Kalīla and Dimna happened to be included and excluded from processes of canonization throughout its long history within the Arabic tradition. A complex process culminating in first critical editions in the early 19th century led to its acquiring the status of a classic within Arabic literature. Moreover, all versions of Kalīla and Dimna carry with it an internal textual history, as they all thematize in their introductory chapters the travelling of texts between different languages and localities, and hence may be seen as an early contribution to an Arabic literary canon.
Recap by Johannes Stephan

AnonymClassic panel at the ISSN annual conference in Pamplona (Spain)

AnonymClassic team members Beatrice Gründler (PI), Matthew Keegan, Johannes Stephan, and Isabel Toral participated in the Annual Conference of the International Society for the Study of Narrative in Pamplona/Spain from May 30 to June 2, 2019, which gathered scholars of narrative studies from different disciplinary angles. Our panel under the title “Before Factuality/Fictionality History and Narrativity in Premodern and Early Modern Arabic Literary Tradition” was chaired by Johannes Stephan.

Our group formed the only Arabist panel. Furthermore, it was among one of the very few that engaged with non-Western and premodern literary traditions. In comparison to many contemporary narratological and rhetorical approaches, our contributions altogether stressed the importance of historicizing fictionality, rethinking it as a literary mode and a pragmatic category beyond European literatures, as well as relating it to the ongoing reformulation of philological activity in the digital age.

Recap by Johannes Stephan