Call for Applications

NISIS Autumn School 2021:

“Islamic(ate) Classics: From Manuscript to the Digital Age”

Date: November 8-12, 2021

Venue: University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

Registration Deadline: October 10, 2021

Organized by: Arabic and Islamic Studies, Faculty of Arts, University of Leuven

Inspired by Ahmed El Shamsy’s recent book, Rediscovering the Islamic Classics: How Editors and Print Culture Transformed an Intellectual Tradition (Princeton University Press, 2020), the autumn school will highlight the impact of technological changes on Islamic(ate) primary sources and scholarship not only during the printing age, but up until the current digital era as well.  By ‘classics’ we roughly refer to the most significant pre-modern primary sources, which affected and continue to affect Muslim beliefs, religious duties and practices as well as ways of life in different regions.

Invited speakers will be asked to reflect on the concept of “Islamic classics,” and how primary texts were produced, shaped, transmitted and transformed throughout Islamic(ate) book history. How did the written culture affect the circulation and interpretation of Islamic(ate) classics through the centuries of Islam? In what ways did the process and implementation of various technologies in the last two centuries transform this written culture in Muslim societies? To what extent did the physical means of printing and digital tools affect the reception and influence of these primary sources in both the Muslim world and Europe?

Confirmed Keynote Speakers

• Beatrice Gründler (Seminar für Semitistik und Arabistik, Free University Berlin)
• Brinkley M. Messick (The Middle East Institute, Columbia University)
• Ahmed El Shamsy (Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago)
• Peter Verkinderen (KITAB project, The Agha Khan University London)

During the research school a master class on “Digital Humanities in Arabic and Islamic Studies” will be given by Emad Mohamed (Research Institute of Information & Language Processing, University of Wolverhampton).

More information on: NISIS