The Great Lakes Adiban Society (GLAS) invites submissions for its second annual workshop, scheduled to take place at the University of Chicago, October 6–7, 2018. We particularly welcome papers that are works in progress and would benefit from extensive discussion and feedback.
The Society hopes to provide a regional forum for scholars of Islamicate adab, particularly of the medieval and early modern periods, to meet and share their work. We leave our parameters intentionally broad in order to invite as wide a collaboration as can be useful, but we are basically engaged with the literatures of the broad complex of premodern Muslim societies from the Danube to the Deccan. This naturally includes the major Islamicate languages of Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Urdu, as well as others (Armenian, Georgian, Hebrew, Spanish, etc.) that participate in similar literary conventions. We welcome and encourage scholars working in any of these languages to consider participating!
Those who wish to participate in the workshop should fill out our online application by August 15, 2018. Please note that each accepted paper will be given 45 minutes for presentation and discussion; because of this, we have limited space on our schedule and may have to turn down some submissions if get too many. In such an event, preference will generally be given to scholars in the Great Lakes region, per the mission of this organization.
Graduate students note: we have some funding to help offset at least part of your travel costs! If you would like to apply for this additional aid, there is a space to do so on the application form.
If you have any questions, please feel free to write Cameron Cross at kchalipa [at] umich.edu. We look forward to hearing from you!
Reading the Ruins
Whew, it’s been a while since I’ve posted! It’s been a busy year. Anyways, I’m giving a talk with my colleague Samer Ali on two poems written on the arch of Ctesiphon; see the announcement below.
Reading the Ruins: Two Poems on the Arch of Ctesiphon
Samer Ali, associate professor of Arabic language and literature, U-M; Cameron Cross, assistant professor of Iranian studies, U-M
Tuesday, February 7, 2017
4:00-5:30 PM
1644 School of Social Work Building
On the banks of the Tigris river, the Sasanian Empire left an iconic monument called the Arch of Khosrow (Taq-i-Kasra or Iwan Kisra), whose vault towered like the heavens at 121 feet. Two poets, al-Buhturi (d. 897) and Khaqani (d. 1190), gravitated toward this site and composed two timeless odes, one in Arabic and the other in Persian, on the Arch as a memorial to a bygone civilization — or the very idea of civilization itself. In these poems, we find that Time (and Fate) play an ominous role, crushing the genius and labor of human beings on both an individual and collective scale. How, then, do the two poets respond to this? How do the ravages of Time generate new ethical and political imperatives for humanity? In this workshop, we place the poems in conversation with each other in order to address these and other questions of art, life, and meaning.
Professors Samer Ali and Cameron Cross will present and discuss their own translations of these poems.