<html><body><div style="font-family: trebuchet ms,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: #000066"><div data-marker="__QUOTED_TEXT__"><div style="font-family:'trebuchet ms' , sans-serif;font-size:12pt;color:#000066"><div><div style="font-family:'trebuchet ms' , sans-serif;font-size:12pt;color:#000066"><div><div style="font-family:'trebuchet ms' , sans-serif;font-size:12pt;color:#000066"><div><div id="zimbraEditorContainer" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms' , sans-serif;font-size:12pt;color:#000066" class="1"><br><div><img src="cid:162356f2399467ed8c985776bb086d91b9111038@zimbra" data-mce-src="cid:162356f2399467ed8c985776bb086d91b9111038@zimbra" style="display:block;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto"></div><div> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center;margin:0px" align="center"><b><span style="font-size:13pt;color:#591246">Near Eastern Studies and Digital Scholarship @IAS Joint Lecture</span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center;margin:0px" align="center"><b><span style="color:#591246">February 3, 12:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)</span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center;margin:0px" align="center"><b><span style="font-size:14pt;color:#591246">THE HISTORY OF THE ARABIC BOOK: A NEW CHAPTER<br><br></span></b><b><span style="font-size:10pt;color:#591246"></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0px"><b><span style="color:#591246">Mathew Barber </span></b><span style="color:#591246">(The Aga Khan University, KITAB), <b>Lorenz Nigst </b>(The Aga Khan University, KITAB), <b>Sarah Bowen Savant </b>(The Aga Khan University-ISMC),<b> Peter Verkinderen </b>(The Aga Khan University, KITAB). </span><span style="color:#673e39">Hosted by <b>Sabine Schmidtke</b> (School of Historical Studies, IAS) and<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b>María<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Mercedes Tuya</b> (Digital Scholarship, IAS).<br><br></span><span style="font-size:5pt;color:black"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;margin:0px"><span style="color:#591246">It is an exciting time to be thinking about Arabic book history, as many questions are now being re-framed and addressed in ways that speak to a wider field of scholarly investigation. These questions concern, for example, the arguably scant material evidence for books up until roughly the eleventh century C.E., the non-survival of books treating important topics, the great variability of witnesses to individual works, and the ways that recycling of parts of prior books operated across time and place. Such questions, which query the very nature of ‘the book’, are relevant for the first four Islamic centuries, but also for later periods. This jointly delivered lecture will present the KITAB project – a collaboration between historians and computer scientists that addresses these major questions. We have assembled a corpus of 1.7 billion words of Arabic texts, and are seeking specifically to understand transmission practices (ca. 700-1500), with a special focus on how authors recycled earlier works and how they cited their predecessors. Through this lecture, we hope to describe the frontiers of knowledge, the challenges and promises of our data, and what listeners themselves might now do with it. (KITAB is a European Research Council Consolidator Grant project funded under Horizon 2020 and also has received funding from the Qatar National Library and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;margin:0px"><b><span style="font-size:5pt;color:#591246"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;margin:0px"><b><span style="font-size:11pt;color:#591246">Register in advance for this webinar </span></b><a href="https://theias.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_RSCOK4wzTG2jtkvcwn3LNQ" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer nofollow noopener noreferrer nofollow noopener noreferrer nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><b><span style="font-size:11pt;color:#591246">here</span></b></a><b><span style="font-size:11pt;color:#591246">. </span></b><span style="font-size:11pt;color:#591246">After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;margin:0px"><span style="font-size:11pt;color:#591246"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center;margin:0px" align="center"><b><span style="font-size:13pt;color:#591246">Near Eastern Studies Lecture</span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center;margin:0px" align="center"><b><span style="color:#591246">February 10, 12:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)</span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center;margin:0px" align="center"><b><span style="font-size:14pt;color:#591246">THE EUROPEAN QUR’AN</span></b><b><span style="font-size:14pt;color:#591246" lang="EN-GB">: THE </span></b><b><span style="font-size:14pt;color:#591246">QUR’ĀN</span></b><b><span style="font-size:14pt;color:#591246" lang="EN-GB"> IN EUROPEAN RELIGIOUS AND <br>CULTURAL HISTORY</span></b><b><span style="font-size:14pt;color:#591246"> <br><br></span></b><b><span style="font-size:10pt;color:#591246"></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0px"><b><span style="color:#591246">Mercedes García-Arenal </span></b><span style="color:#591246">(Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas [CCHS-CSIC], Madrid), <b>Jan Loop</b> (Københavns Universitet),<b> John Tolan </b>(Université de Nantes) and<b> Roberto Tottoli </b>(Universita degli Studi di Napoli L'Orientale). Hosted by </span><b><span style="color:#673e39">Sabine Schmidtke</span></b><span style="color:#673e39"> (School of Historical Studies, IAS).<br><br></span><span style="font-size:5pt;color:#591246"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;margin:0px"><b><span style="color:#591246" lang="EN-GB">“</span></b><span style="color:#591246" lang="EN-GB">The European </span><span style="color:#591246">Qur’ān</span><span style="color:#591246" lang="EN-GB">” (EuQu: </span><a href="https://euqu.eu/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer nofollow noopener noreferrer nofollow noopener noreferrer nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><span style="color:#591246" lang="EN-GB">https://euqu.eu/</span></a><span style="color:#591246" lang="EN-GB">) is an ongoing project funded by a Synergy Grant of the European Research Council (ERC), dedicated to the important place of the Muslim holy book in European cultural and religious history. From the 12th century to the 19th, European Christians read the </span><span style="color:#591246">Qur’ān</span><span style="color:#591246" lang="EN-GB"> in Arabic, translated it into Latin, Greek and various vernacular languages, refuted it in polemical treatises, and mined it for information about Islam and Arab history. The “European </span><span style="color:#591246">Qur’ān</span><span style="color:#591246" lang="EN-GB">”, in its various manifestations (Arabic editions, Latin and vernacular translations) should be conceived as scholarly efforts to understand Islam; as weapons in polemical exchanges between divergent versions of Christianity; as financial ventures on the part of printers and publishers; and as tools for the understanding of Semitic languages, Arab history and culture, and the history of monotheism. </span><span style="color:#591246"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;margin:0px"><span style="font-size:5pt;color:#591246" lang="EN-GB"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;margin:0px"><span style="color:#591246" lang="EN-GB">The team that leads the project—Mercedes García-Arenal, John Tolan, Roberto Tottoli, Jan Loop—with their respective units in Madrid, Nantes, Naples and Copenhagen, will be dealing with various aspects of the transmission, translation, uses and study of the </span><span style="color:#591246">Qur’ān</span><span style="color:#591246" lang="EN-GB"> in Europe, on the role the </span><span style="color:#591246">Qur’ān</span><span style="color:#591246" lang="EN-GB"> played in debates about European cultural and religious identities, and more broadly about the place of the </span><span style="color:#591246">Qur’ān</span><span style="color:#591246" lang="EN-GB"> in European culture.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;margin:0px"><b><span style="font-size:5pt;color:#591246"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;margin:0px"><b><span style="font-size:11pt;color:#591246">Register in advance for this webinar </span></b><a href="https://theias.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_b87bCUngQnK4ZPk0JZRLKw" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer nofollow noopener noreferrer nofollow noopener noreferrer nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><b><span style="font-size:11pt;color:#591246">here</span></b></a><b><span style="font-size:11pt;color:#591246">. </span></b><span style="font-size:11pt;color:#591246">After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.</span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><br></div></div></body></html>