Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies Volume 12 (2012)
'The book in fact and fiction in pre-modern Arabic literature' - a themed issue edited by Antonella Ghersetti (Ca' Foscari, Venice)
Call for papers
How to participate
Please send an abstract of no more than 500 words or one side of A4 (double-spaced) to Antonella Ghersetti. Deadline for abstracts: 15 February 2011. Those articles accepted for publication must be sent to Antonella Ghersetti (antghers@unive.it ) by 31 August 2011.
Further details
As Johannes Pedersen stated in his seminal work, The Arabic Book, 'In scarcely any other culture did literary life play such a role as in Islam'. Such a role can be seen in the enormous output of this intellectual activity: many Arabic scholars of the pre-modern period are famous for their vast production, which biographical sources reckoned in terms of pages, physical volumes and titles. When connected to the conceptual side of the book, the material side cannot be neglected. Indeed, books in both their concrete and intellectual senses were frequently a topic of discussion. Declarations of passionate love for books are quite common in Arabic literature: the well-known passage al-Jahiz in praise of books is perhaps the most famous example, but literary representations of a passion for written materials, even verging on pathological attachment, are also found. Indeed, Arabic literature is full of representations of books of all kinds.
This themed issue will examine representations and conceptual images of the book, as well as related topics in pre-modern period. The theme addresses the notion of "the book" as a product of human intellectual and material activity, and hence as an item having both conceptual and physical aspects. Articles may choose to focus on the notion of "book" not only as a tool for transmitting knowledge and wisdom, or for simple distraction, but also as a global product involving physical and intellectual aspects. Literary representations of collective and factual phenomena, such as collections of volumes, or individual emotional responses such as bibliomania, bibliophilia - or even a hatred of books and written objects - may also be themes for exploration.
Potential research questions and issues
- Intellectual property rights concerning books
- Concepts of forgery and plagiarism
- The circulation of forbidden, or non-canonical, books
- Books and the ways knowledge and intellectual exchange were transmitted
- from oral communications
- The image of books as substitutes for emotional relations (e.g. books as
- friends or as sons)
- Books as a means of dialogue between different cultures
- Cases of bibliophilia or bibliomania.
- Motives driving to love, hate, accumulate or destroy books
- Books as precious items to be valued for their aesthetic qualities
- Emotional responses to calligraphy, good binding and luxurious volumes
- The tension between the desire to acquire books, both as precious items
- and as a means of knowledge, and frustration both for economic
- reasons or shortage of appropriate items
- Literary representations of libraries, both public and private
- Motivation for the choice of books
- Books, curiosity and chance findings
- The projection of the self upon the book as an intellectual product
- expressing some inner feeling
- The dissemination of books: roles of professional classes, material or
- ideological incentives for this
- Patronage and the composition of books
- Recommendations on handling books and writing materials
- The representation of, and appreciation for, the professions involved in
- the production and distribution of books
Please note the following additional points:
Articles which have already been published, accepted for publication, or are under review by any other journal should not be submitted. We particularly welcome articles written in English, although we may also publish articles in other languages. Articles will be peer reviewed. The text must conform to accepted scholarly conventions for the field in which you are writing. Diacritics should be marked correctly throughout and made entirely in a Unicode-compatible font, preferably Arial Unicode MS (Microsoft Word), Times New Roman (for Vista) or Lucida Grande (AppleMac).
More information here.
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