Between 8 and 12 July we participated in the DH2019, a global conference on Digital Humanities (https://dh2019.adho.org/), held at Tivoli in Utrecht (The Netherlands). As representatives of the ERC-Project Kalīla und Dimna – AnonymClassic we contributed to the Workshop „Towards Multilingualism in Digital Humanities” with a presentation entitled, “Towards Usable and FAIR Software for Arabic Textual Scholarship. Lessons from Kalīla and Dimna Research”. The workshop was organized by Martin Lee and Cosima Wagner of the FU-Library. We presented a survey of the history of the text(s) known as Kalīla and Dimna, paying special attention to the Arab versions. Mahmoud also discussed the latest developments of our digital tools and their theoretical background.

The reaction was positive and there were many interesting questions. We acquired new academic contacts, which will lead to further cooperation in the coming years. Martin Lee and Cosima Wagner have already proposed to organize an advanced workshop at the FU next year to develop the theme further. They have invited Kalīla und Dimna – AnonymClassic to contribute to that workshop. We are also considering to organize a more technical workshop at the FU – in cooperation with P. Belouin (MPIWG ) – on the basis of insights and contacts acquired at the conference in Utrecht.

Recap by Mahmoud Kozae and Jan van Ginkel