The Ninth Conference of the School of Mamluk Studies will be held at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island (USA) from June 8-10, 2023. The conference will be conducted in two parts and will be preceded by a three-day intensive course on the history of the Arabic language during the Mamluk period.
Themed day: The Languages of the Mamluk Sultanate (June 8, 2023)
The first day of the conference will be devoted to the theme of language in the Mamluk sultanate. Accepted papers will treat the phenomena of multilingualism, translation, orality and literacy, vernaculars and cosmopolitan languages, sociolects, and other topics related to the history of language during the period. The languages explored include any relevant to the sultanate including but not limited to Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Hebrew, Coptic, Greek, Latin, and Mongolian.
More Information
Workshops, Conferences, Seminars
Panels (June 9-10, 2023)
The following two days of the conference will be structured in panels, which may focus on any aspect of the intellectual, political, social, economic, and artistic life of the Mamluk period.
The language of the conference is English.
Publication
a) Themed day: The conference organizers expect that a selection of papers from the themed day will be published in a volume of proceedings, pending interest from scholarly publishers.
b) Panels: Selected papers will be published in Mamlūk Studies Review.
Fees
The conference registration fee is $50 for participants and attendees. For those interested, there will be a farewell dinner at a local restaurant, at a cost to be determined. Payment of the fees must be received by April 30, 2023.
Participants must make their own travel and accommodation arrangements.
Intensive course: Arabic in the Mamluk Period
Prior to the conference, Professor Marina Rustow (Princeton University) and Professor Phillip Stokes (University of Tennessee) will offer a three-day intensive course (June 5-7) on the history of the Arabic language during the Mamluk period. The course will present an overview and history of the different varieties of Arabic attested in Mamluk-era sources, with a focus on Judeo-Arabic, Christian Arabic, and other forms of Middle Arabic.
Students will be introduced to the major repositories of documents that are sources for the linguistic history of this period, such as the Cairo Geniza, Saint Catherine’s Monastery, and the Haram al-Sharif documents. The course is intended for advanced graduate students and other qualified participants, and will combine lecture and discussion with hands-on investigation of Mamluk-era materials. Advanced proficiency in Classical Arabic is required, but no other specialized training is necessary to attend.
Since the number of the participants were limited (a maximum of 10), those who desired to take part in the course were requested to submit a CV and a statement of purpose (300 words) to the following email address: schoolofmamlukstudies2023@gmail.com by February 15, 2023. Applicants were notified of their acceptance by the end of February 2023.
The course fee is $300.00, which also includes the registration fee for the subsequent conference (June 8-10). The fees must be paid by April 30, 2023. Participants must make their own travel and accommodation arrangements. The local organizer will provide suggestions for lodging at an affordable price.
Please contact Elias Muhanna with any questions: schoolofmamlukstudies2023@gmail.com
