“Reading Arabic Manuscripts”
Mediterranean Studies Summer Skills Seminar
24-27 June 2024 • Remote
The Summer Skills Seminar, “Reading Arabic Manuscripts” will be held via Zoom from Monday, 24 June to Thursday, 27 June 2024 from 10am to noon and 1pm to 3pm MDT.
Registered Participants enter here.
Course overview
This Summer Skills Course will build participants’ ability to read handwritten Arabic manuscripts and documents, primarily those written before the twentieth century. It is designed with academics in mind, particularly graduate students, postdocs, and professors working in disciplines such as history, literature, and religious studies. All interested parties with at least two years of Arabic language training are, however, welcome to apply, and attention will be paid to the ways that paleographical skills can enhance diverse forms of research and teaching. Participants will receive a completion certificate which may be listed on a CV and on other documents such as grant/fellowship applications. The seminar is held via Zoom over four days, with two two-hour sessions each day. Participants are expected to prepare readings in advance of the sessions, which will be a blend of lecture and pair- and group-work.
Populations who spoke and read Arabic across pre-modern Eurasia and northern Africa—from Iberia to Indonesia—have left a vast trove of manuscript codices and documents, which survive in libraries, museums, and private holdings. Only a small fraction of these texts have been edited or published. Most, in fact, have not been read for centuries.
This four-day intensive seminar will provide participants with the paleographical tools and skills to quickly and accurately read premodern handwritten Arabic texts. Intensive practice sessions, both prepared and impromptu, will be paired with readings in the major reference works in English (and occasionally other modern languages). The seminar is organized around a general typology of scripts and hands: we will trace the development of the Arabic script from the ḥijāzī and Abbasid bookhands of the Early Islamic period (650–900), to its formalization and regional variation in the middle periods (900–1400), to its further elaboration in the age of early modern empires and eventual standardization in print (1400–1900). Special attention will be paid to major script families that tend to give readers trouble, such as maghribī and nastaʿlīq.
The goal is to enhance participants’ ability to read handwritten Arabic texts in their research and teaching and provide them with a bona fide (in the form of a certificate of completion for those who attend the full seminar), which may be advantageous in securing funding for research and travel. Preparation in Arabic paleography can be a way for scholars working in history, literature, philology, or religious studies (or other fields) to access new and important primary sources, distinguish their research and/or teaching profiles, and enter into discussion with new interlocutors.
Preparation and Resources
Participants are strongly encouraged to watch, before the beginning of the course, one of these two recent UCLA+ Islamic-manuscript training courses:
• https://www.international.ucla.edu/cnes/islamic
• https://marbas.princeton.edu/arabic-manuscripts-workshop-august-23-27-2021
To get a sense of the resources in the field, explore Evyn Kropf’s resources page:
• https://guides.lib.umich.edu/islamicmsstudies
Also recommended are the Leiden and HMML resource sites/courses:
• https://mouse.digitalscholarship.nl/
• https://hmmlschool.org/arabic/
This Summer Skills Seminar builds on the experience of earlier editions, which participants described as “transformative” in terms of their research, and which provided them with an opportunity to network and lay the foundations for future collaborations. For information and participant reviews of our former Skills Seminars (Ladino/Judezmo & Aljamiado) see here.
Faculty
The course will be led by Prof. Luke Yarbrough (Islamic Studies and NELC, UCLA). A graduate of the Princeton University’s Department of Near Eastern Studies (PhD, 2012) and a historian of pre-modern Islamic history and thought, Yarbrough makes extensive use of Arabic manuscript sources in his work. He has organized and taught several courses in Arabic manuscript studies.
Fees
$1000 for Full Professors, Librarians & Professionals
$750 for tenured Associates, Emerita/us, Retired Faculty, Independent Scholars & Non-Academics;
$500 for non-tenured Associates and Assistants & Graduate and Undergraduate students;
$350 for Adjuncts, Lecturers & Contingent faculty.
Members of University of Colorado departments may be eligible for a discount.
Applicants who are (1) nationals; (2) current residents; (3) AND faculty or students in low-per-capita GDP countries may apply for a reduction (please see below).
Payment information will be provided at the time of acceptance. Posted fees do not include a 5% processing fee. NB - fees have not changed since 2017, we anticipate an increase of 10% for 2025.
Application & Information
Participants MUST have the equivalent of at least two years of university-level Arabic.
For samples of Arabic text and calligraphy, click here.
Please note: sessions will not be recorded; synchronous attendance is required.
The regular application period is until April 15.
Applicants will be advised of acceptance on April 21. Payment of no less than 50% of the course tuition is due on April 28, with the balance due on May 7. Applicants waiting on a grant or subvention may request an extension for the second payment.
Late applicants may be accommodated if space remains. Full payment will be due within three days of acceptance, including a $50 surcharge for late applications.
All payments are final and non-refundable. A letter of confirmation/ receipt will be provided by the Mediterranean Seminar.
Apply via this form.
For further information or inquiries, contact mailbox@mediterraneanseminar.org, subject: “Summer Skills Information”)
Important dates:
Application period: 15 April 2024
Acceptance/stand by notifications: 21 April 2024
Full payment: 7 May 2024 (subject to extension for late applicants/ or pending grants)
NOTE: Numbers are limited; participants are encouraged to apply early. [download poster]
Proposed Program
Monday, 24 June 2024
10am—noon & 1—3pm
1. Introduction; Text Types: Basic manuscript terminology. Main text types encountered. Practice on ownership statements
2. Scripts I (Chronological case studies): Major ancient and modern historical scripts (hijazi, kufi, riqaʿ, ruqʿa). Practice on incipits.
Tuesday, 25 June 2024
10am—noon & 1—3pm
1. Scripts II (Calligraphic case studies): Major named calligraphic scripts (naskh, thuluth, tawqiʿ, etc.). Practice on title pages.
2. Scripts III (Regional case studies): Major regionally dominant scripts (maghribi, sudani, bihari, etc.). Practice on colophons
Wednesday, 26 June 2024
10am—noon & 1—3pm
1. Focus on Maghribi scripts: Practice on religious/legal texts
2. Focus on taʿliq/nastaʿliq: Practice on literary texts
Thursday, 27 June 2024
10am—noon & 1—3pm
1. Documentary hands: Practice on Fatimid/Ayyubid documents
2. Features of manuscripts: Peculiarities readers encounter (textual anatomy of a manuscript; collation marks; commentarial notation; scribal errors, etc.)