We invite graduate students, postdocs, and all interested scholars to attend four short seminars on Arabic texts, held in conjunction with the Animals, Adab, and Fictivity workshop on May 9th and 10th. 

We will be pre-circulating Arabic texts to the participants. These texts belong to different genres and discourses, but they all touch upon animals in one way or another. Participants are expected to read and prepare these texts prior to the seminars. 

Two of these seminars will be led by visiting scholars Jeannie Miller (U. of Toronto) and Kevin Blankinship (Brigham Young U.), whose visits have been supported by the Dahlem Junior Host Program, DHC, Freie Universität Berlin. 

The texts seminars will be held on May 5th and 6th. On May 7th and 8th, we will be taking field trips to the Bode Museum and the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin - Preußischer Kultur-besitz, as well as an optional visit to the Neues Museum exhibit on storytelling. 

RSVP by May 1st, 2019 to matthew.keegan@fu-berlin.de 

Space is limited.

Programme

May 5th (Sunday) — Arabic Text Reading Seminars 

Reading Session 1 @ 14:00 

Siyar al-Mulūk (A Mamluk introduction to a version of Kalīla wa-Dimna) 

Led by Khouloud Khalfallah & Matthew L. Keegan 

[Break] 

Reading Session 2 @ 16:00 

al-Masʿūdī, Murūj al-Dhahab (selections) 

Led by Guy Ron-Gilboa 

May 6th (Monday) — Arabic Text Reading Seminars 

Reading Session 3 @ 14:00 

al-Maʿarrī, Risālat al-Ṣāhil wa-l-Shāḥij (selections) 

Led by Kevin Blankinship 

[Break] 

Reading Session 4 @ 16:00 

al-Jāḥiẓ, Kitāb al-Ḥayawān (selections) 

Led by Jeannie Miller

The Kalīla and Dimna ‒ AnonymClassic project hosted at Freie Universität Berlin has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 742 635. 

May 7th (Tuesday) — Bode-Museum (Museumsinsel Berlin-Mitte) 

Field Trip: Bode-Museum @ 15:30 

Guided Tour of "Beyond Compare: Art from Africa in the Bode-Museum" 

Description from the Bode-Museum website: 

"The exhibition raises several questions. What insights can we gain from the joint display of works of art with different histories? What are the consequences of assigning to separate museums objects that once all belonged together in the collection of the Kunstkammer of Brandenburg-Prussia? Why were some of these objects classified as ethnological artefacts and others as works of art?" 

May 8th (Wednesday) — Visit to the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin Manuscript Collection 

Field Trip: Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (Haus Potsdamer Straße) @ 10:00 

Guided Examination of Selected Manuscripts from the Collection 

NB: Limited Space Available 

Field Trip: Neues Museum @ 16:00 

Optional Visit to the Neues Museum Exhibition: 

"Cinderella, Sindbad & Sinuhe. Arab-German Storytelling Traditions" 

May 9th & 10th — "ANIMALS, ADAB, AND FICTIVITY" 

Workshop at Freie Universität Berlin, Fabeckstraße 23/25, Room 2.2051 

Conveners: Matthew L. Keegan and Beatrice Gruendler (Principal Investigator AnonymClassic)