Middle East Studies

Digitizing Early Arabic Printed Books: A Workshop

event poster

Friday, October 21, 2016

10:00am – 2:00pm

Register now.

For workshop attendees: All Brown ID holders may access the "Early Arabic Printed Books" database by clicking here. Everyone else may access a free limited trial via this link. If you are prompted to input the Brown account number, it is 111766.

The Digital Islamic Humanities Project, a signature initiative of Middle East Studies at Brown University, is pleased to announce its annual scholarly gathering: a workshop on the topic of print culture in the early modern and modern Middle East. The event is organized in partnership with Gale Publishers, which will present its new digital text archive entitled “Early Arabic Printed Books from the British Library”. The archive is based on A. G. Ellis’s catalog of the British Library’s collection of early printed materials from the Arabic-speaking world, and contains approximately 2.5 million pages from historic books on diverse genres, including literature, law, mathematics, medicine, geography, and other topics.

The workshop will include a featured lecture entitled “Towards a New Book History of the Modern Middle East” by Dr. Kathryn Schwartz, Postdoctoral Fellow for the Digital Library of the Eastern Mediterranean at Harvard University.

Please note that space is limited and registration is required. Click here to register.

WORKSHOP PROGRAM

10:00 AM: Welcome and opening remarks (Elias Muhanna)

10:15 – 11:30: Presentation and demonstration of the “Early Arabic Printed Books” archive along with Gale’s new “DH sandbox” and text mining tools. (Bret Costain)

11:30 – 12:00: Discussion

12:00: Lunch for all workshop participants

12:00 – 1:30: Talk by Dr. Kathryn Schwartz (Digital Library of the Eastern Mediterranean, Harvard University) on the topic “Towards a New Book History of the Modern Middle East”. Discussant: Dr. Cynthia Brokaw (Brown University, History Dept.)

1:30-2:00: Discussion and concluding remarks.

Please contact the event organizer, Professor Elias Muhanna, with any questions.

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