Practices of Commentary

SSHRC Insight Grant, University of Toronto (2020–2025)

arabic

Practices of Reading in the Premodern Arabic Tradition at MLA 2021

Featured image: Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS arabe 7290, fol 5r. Maqāmāt al-Ḥarīrī, 1214 (detail). Source: https://archivesetmanuscrits.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cc83329

Panel at the 2021 Modern Language Association Convention

SATURDAY, 9 JANUARY 5:15 PM-6:30 PM EST

Keywords: 
Reception, Genre, Commentaries, Aesthetics, Literariness

Sponsoring Entity: 
LLC Arabic

Presentations:

1. A Philological Frame of Mind, Matthew L. Keegan (Barnard C) [#14416]

2. Commentary on al-Jāḥiẓ Manuscripts, Jeannie Miller (U of Toronto) [#14418]

3. The Problematic ‘One’ in a Thousand and One Nights, Muhsin J. al-Musawi (Columbia U) [#14420]

4. Al-Tawḥīdī’s Perception of the Art of Writing and Aesthetics, Nuha Alshaar (American U of Sharjah) [#14649]

Presiding: Lara Harb (Princeton U)

View details in the MLA Convention program online.

Attending this panel requires registering for the MLA Convention, but please check back for select recordings after the session.

Background image: British Library. Egerton MS 872, fol. 199r. Pentateuch with the Hafṭarot, Five Scrolls, and Rashi’s commentary, 1341. Source: http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Egerton_MS_872

Princeton Arabic mss Garrett no. 2271Y

by Walid SALEH

I was not going to the USA to study Qur’an commentary tradition. That was not the plan. I came to graduate school to study the Qur’an, in the manner of Biblical Studies (higher criticism). There I was reading up on scholarship on the Qur’an. I read a book on folklore and the Qur’an, and in it the author mentions that one of the most important Qur’an commentaries in Islamic history is still unedited!!!!!!! I said WHAT!!!!! This was 1994. A moment that would define my academic career, a side remark by an author.

[Read more…] about Princeton Arabic mss Garrett no. 2271Y

Matthew L. KEEGAN

Barnard College, Columbia University

Matthew L. Keegan is the Moinian Assistant Professor in the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures at Barnard College. His research focuseson Islamic intellectual history and adab (usually translated as “literature” or “belles-lettres”). He has written on Islamic legal riddles, and he is currently writing a monograph about the commentaries on al-Hariri’s Maqamat, a 12th-century collection of stories about an eloquent trickster who uses his wits and his mastery of language to dupe his audiences. He received his PhD from NYU, taught at the American University of Sharjah, and completed a postdoc at the Freie Universität Berlin.

[Read more…] about Matthew L. KEEGAN