The workshop focuses on the idea of Morocco “as a horizon of thought”, as Abdelkébir Khatibi defined the Maghreb. A site of cultural entanglements, diversity and plurality, Morocco is gaining a privileged position in area studies. The workshop aims to gain insight into recent research focusing on the way the country’s linguistic, cultural and social diversity is both affirmed and contested in cultural and intellectual production.

Morocco has received relatively little scholarly attention, at least in English-language academic studies, especially with regards to its cultural production. Among the reasons for the underestimation of the Maghreb in general is the fact that it is a region that can hardly be framed within the usual disciplinary boxes, such as the largely Mashreq-centred Arabic or Islamic Studies. Multicultural and multilingual, historically located at the crossroads between the Mediterranean, sub-Saharan Africa and the Arab Levant (not to mention the Atlantic routes), the Maghreb is a place of complex knots and relationships, of threads and traces that intersect, questioning and provoking the observers, and forcing them to deconstruct their epistemological paradigms.

Representing various disciplinary approaches, international scholars at different career stages based in Morocco, Europe and the US will present their work during the workshop and discuss it with graduate and PhD students from the University of Münster.

Abstracts and short bios
Programm
Plakat

The workshop is organized by

Dr. Fernanda Fischione
SARAS Department
Sapienza University of Rome
fernanda.fischione@uniroma1.it

Dr. Barbara Winckler
Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies
University of Münster
barbara.winckler@uni-muenster.de

Venue
RS 2
Schlaunstraße 2 (Hofgebäude),
access via Rosenstraße 2/9
48143 Münster

To attend the workshop remotely, please join us on Zoom via the following link (all timesareCET): https://wwu.zoom-x.de/j/64310839081

Registration
To register and access the readings for the workshop,please send an email to one of the organisers. Registration is not mandatory but warmly recommended.

Until recently, Western academia has shown little interest in literature and arts from Syria, perceiving Syrian literature as stuck between (social) realism and political repression, lacking the experimental character of  postmodern literary texts.

With the uprisings of the ‘Arab Spring’, Syrian literary and cultural production – especially popular forms of dissent – caught the attention of researchers and media, especially with many authors and artists moving to Europe. Critics emphasized the unreserved criticism that defined large segments of post-2011 Syrian literature and arts, as compared to authors in earlier decades – especially those that stayed in Syria – who had turned to more subversive forms of expressing social and political criticism, while also experimenting with ‘silence’ as a performative device.

This workshop brings together international scholars based in Germany to explore forms and strategies Syrian writers and artists of different generations have employed to conceal or reveal critical perspectives on society, demonstrating how the new wave of open protest did not materialize in a cultural and political vacuum, but had its roots in earlier decades. The presentations will challenge paradigms of ‘resistance’ or ‘protest’, suggest new approaches to memory, cultural heritage and trauma dynamics, and add aspects of social and material conditions of cultural production. While the focus will be on fictional and non-fictional texts, such as poetry, novels and memoirs, alternative modes of intellectual and cultural production, such as songs and underground music, will also be explored. Academic presentations are complemented by poetry reading and a conversation with Syrian poet Hanadi Zarka.

Programm

Plakat

Abstracts and short bios

The workshop is organized by
Dr. Barbara Winckler
Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies, University of Münster
barbara.winckler@uni-muenster.de

Venue
RS 2
Schlaunstraße 2 (Hofgebäude),
access via Rosenstraße 2/9
48143 Münster

To attend the workshop remotely, please join us on Zoom via the following link (all times are CET): https://wwu.zoom-x.de/j/61006182286?pwd=VzF3czhzWUpwNlh4M3c4SGZKdWFEQT09

Registration
To register and access the readings for the workshop, please send an email to the organizer. Registration is not mandatory, but warmly recommended.

This International Workshop is organized by Dr. Ines Weinrich and Jun.-Prof. Dr. Syrinx von Hees in cooperation with the DFG Project "mawlid - Texts from the 13th to the 18th Century: Prophetic Piety as Ritual Performance?" and the ALEA Leibnizpreis-Research-Unit "Arabic Literature and Rhetoric, 1100 - 1800".

It will take place on the 6th and 7th of December 2019 at the Institut für Arabistik und Islamwissenschaft (2nd floor), Schlaunstraße 2, 48143 Münster.

Program:
Friday, December 6
14:00 - 14:30    Welcome and Introduction > Ines Weinrich

14:30 - 15:15    Al-Qaṣidah al-Shuqrāṭīsiyyah: Rhetoric and the Aesthetics of Devotional Poetry in Madīḥ Nabawī > Suzanne Stetkevych

15:15 - 15:35    Coffee Break

15:35 - 16:20    Vorislamisches Prophetenlob: Ibn Daftarḫān (d. 1257) islamisiert die Muʿallaqāt > Thomas Bauer

16:20 - 17:05    Spätabbasidisches Prophetenlob: Ein Gedicht von aṣ-Ṣarṣarī (st. 1258) > Annabel Gering

18:00                  Dinner

Saturday, December 7
10:00 - 10:45    Reading Practices of the Arabic mawlid > Ines Weinrich

10:45 - 11:30    Prophetenlob in dialektalen Strophengedichten (zaǧals) > Hakan Özkan

11:30 - 11:50    Coffee Break

11:50 - 12:35    Tawshīḥ, zajal and Devotional Repertoire in the Moroccan Nūba Tradition > Carl Davila

12:35 - 14:00    Lunch Break

14:15 - 15:00    Der Brief Yūsuf b. Ḥaǧǧāǧs an das Grab des Propheten > Andreas Herdt

15:00 - 15:45    A muʿāraḍa on al-Būṣīrī’s Burdah by Ibn Abī Ḥajalah (d. 1375) > Syrinx Hees

15:45 - 16:05    Coffee Break

16:05 - 16:50    ʿĀʾisha and Muḥammad: Praise of the Prophet in the late 9th/15th Century > Emil Homerin

16:50                   Closing Discussion > Chaired by Stefan Reichmuth

You can download the flyer with the program here.

The 29th UEAI (Union Européenne des Arabisants et Islamisants) conference will be hosted by the Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Münster in cooperation with the Cluster of Excellence "Religion & Politics".

The UEAI is one of the most prestigious and influential associations covering fields and perspectives connected to Arabic and Islamic Studies. This year’s conference will feature outstanding lectures and assemble interesting presentations from renowned international experts under the overall headline of “Conflict and Coexistence”.

More than 90 scholars from numerous countries have registered to participate in the 29th UEAI conference at the University of Münster. The conference sessions will be held between September 11th and September 13th 2018 at the buildings of the University of Münster.

Please find the program for the conference presentations, which will take place from Tuesday 11th to Thursday 13th September in the "Fürstenberghaus" (Domplatz 20-22) here.