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.

Date: Friday, October 21 2016
Time: 10:00 AM – 2:00 PM
Location: Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute (111 Thayer St, Providence RI)
Website: islamichumanities.org

Please note that space is limited and all attendees must register for the event by clicking here.

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.