International bilingual summer school, Online, 16–20 August 2021
In Search of the Reader: New Approaches to Practices, Functions and Histories of Reading in Arabic Literature, Arts, Media and Culture
What role does the reader play for Arabic literature, arts, media and culture? What do we know about different historical practices and social functions of reading, and how do they shape Arab culture? And how can new approaches help us to make readerships and their readings more visible?
For five days, the online summer school brought together twelve junior and eight senior scholars from universities in Algeria, Egypt, France, Germany, Italy, Lebanon, Morocco and the United Kingdom to discuss theoretical approaches as well as participants’ research projects. Islam Dayeh (Freie Universität Berlin), Khayri Douma (Cairo University), Richard Jacquemond (Aix-Marseille University) and Rana Siblini (Doha Institute for Graduate Studies) acted as mentors to the junior scholars. In addition, the junior scholars were offered individual coaching sessions by professional academic linguistic editors and trainers, Dani Nassif (University of Münster) and Rana Siblini (Doha Institute for Graduate Studies).
The program was complemented by two keynote lectures by Konrad Hirschler (Islamic Studies, Freie Universität Berlin) and Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab (Philosophy, Doha Institute for Graduate Studies) — for further information, see below.
As part of the research projects of the Arab-German Young Academy of Sciences and Humanities (AGYA) the summer school was funded by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF).
Short documentary about the 2021 online summer school
Keynote Lecture Prof. Konrad Hirschler (Freie Universität Berlin, Germany): Researching Reading Practices in the Age of Manuscripts (in English, Poster)
Keynote Lecture Prof. Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab (Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, Qatar): قراءة أخرى للفكر العربي المعاصر: منظور الفن التشكيلي (“A Different Reading of Contemporary Arab Thought: A Visual Arts Perspective”; in Arabic, Poster)
