The panel addresses aspects of “Begriffsarbeit,” including extensive terminological and methodological explorations as well as case studies focusing on specific concepts, genres, and works. It also marks the opening event of the KALiMaT project hosted at Freie Universität Berlin, funded by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft/LIS.

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September 8, 2025

Why Study Terms and Concepts in Premodern Arabic Literature? Or: An Introduction to KALiMaT
Johannes Stephan (Freie Universität Berlin)

Section 1: The Reuse/Reinvention of Aesthetic Forms and Topoi

Lamenting Loss & Claiming a Voice: Interpretations of rithāʾ by Women Writers in North Africa
Hanan Natour (Freie Universität Berlin)

Reading ṭarab as Sonic Affect
Christian Junge (Philipps-Universität Marburg)

Rajaz: Redefining ḥimār al-shiʿr through Observations on20th Century Arabic Poetry
Maysoon Shibi (Minerva Fellow, Freie Universität Berlin)

A Creative Science: The Concept of Naqd in the Literary Debates of the 1980s
Yvonne Albers (Freie Universität Berlin)

 

September 9, 2025

Section 2: Themes and Genres from Classical to Modern

Mapping Characterization in Early Arabic Literature: The Emergence and Primacy of Ethical Instruction
Oualid El Khattabi (Freie Universität Berlin)

The Arabic Fable: Defining a Neglected Genre of Premodern Arabic Literature
Ulrich Marzolph (University of Göttingen)

From God’s ‘Creating ex nihilo’ to the Writer’s ‘Literary Creativity’: The conceptual history of ʾibdāʿ
Stephan Guth (University of Oslo)

Riḥla
Björn Bentlage (Universität Bern)

Section 3: Philological Practices 1200-1900

Correcting Manuscripts, Verifying Knowledge: Textual Criticism and Epistemological Practices in the Seventeenth-Century Maghrib
Natalie Kraneiß (Universität Münster) 

Notebooks as Knowledge Repositories and more: A Nineteenth-Century Ismāʿīlī Scholar’s Engagement with his Autograph
Verena Klemm (Bibliotheca Arabica, Sächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Leipzig)

Cross-copying and Co-authorship: The Case of Ayasofya 4213
Beatrice Gruendler (Freie Universität Berlin)

Rethinking World Literature: The Case of Kalila wa-Dimna
Khouloud Khalfallah (Freie Universität Berlin)

Section 4: Semantic Transformations between Languages and Disciplines

Equilibrium or Justice: Arabic Literary Writing and Imperial Law
Hannah Scott-Deuchar (Queen Mary, University of London)

Terminological Disconnect between Arabic and Persian Literature: The Case of Tadhkira/Taẕkira
Theodore Beers (Drexel University, Philadelphia)

Interwoven Eloquence: The Multilingual Poetics of Laff wa-l-nashr in Arabic and Persian Rhetoric
Kayvan Tahmasebian (SOAS, University of London)

What is waḍʿ? Establishing language as the basis for interdisciplinarity
Colinda Lindermann (Universiteit Gent) 

Final Discussion