BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//wp-events-plugin.com//7.2.3.1//EN TZID:America/Detroit X-WR-TIMEZONE:America/Detroit BEGIN:VEVENT UID:35916@arabamerica.com DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260324T181500 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260324T211500 DTSTAMP:20260224T011703Z URL:https://www.arabamerica.com/events/celebrating-recent-work-by-matthew- keegan/ SUMMARY:Celebrating Recent Work by Matthew Keegan DESCRIPTION:\n\n\nDr. Keegan discusses his new book "Before World Literatur e: The Trickster Tales of al-Hariri in an Age of Commentary"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n If you are a Columbia/Barnard affiliate with campus access\, please use yo ur Columbia/Barnard email when registering.\n\nEach attendee must have the ir OWN registration and email address.\n\nRegistration for external guests closes at 4PM on March 23. Registration will automatically close at that time. Columbia/Barnard affiliates may register at the door.\n\nBefore Worl d Literature: The Trickster Tales of al-Ḥarīrī in an Age of Commentary \n\nby Matthew L. Keegan\n\nBefore World Literature offers an account of A rabic literary history through the lens of the reception of one of the mos t widely read Arabic texts of the postclassical period: the Maqāmāt of a l-Ḥarīrī\, a twelfth-century collection of fifty trickster stories wri tten in an elaborate and highly allusive form of prose. Innumerable Muslim scholars taught the text to new generations of students and wrote extensi ve commentaries on it. In the nineteenth century\, however\, the Maqāmāt fell rapidly out of favor\, its elaborate style and its commentary tradit ion suddenly seen as symptoms of cultural decay.\n\nMatthew L. Keegan show s how the emergence of world literature as a literary critical paradigm le d to a wholesale reformulation of literary tastes that sidelined elaborate ly referential texts like the Maqāmāt. Nineteenth-century European Orien talists and Arab reformist thinkers derided the Maqāmāt for being decade nt and derivative\, while assailing the entire postclassical Arabic intell ectual tradition. The canon of Arabic poetry and prose was reshaped accord ingly\, favoring classical authors whose work was perceived to be more in line with modern\, European literary aesthetics.\n\nKeegan looks to the fl ourishing commentary culture of the postclassical period to uncover the th eories of reading and interpretation that informed engagement with Islamic texts in their own time. Tracing the social\, material\, and intellectual practices embedded in the commentaries on the Maqāmāt\, he explores how generations of Muslims read and interpreted al-Ḥarīrī’s trickster s tories\, for edification and entertainment. Restoring the Maqāmāt to its place as the pinnacle of Arabic style and as an essential text of Islamic education for centuries\, Before World Literature offers a model of how t o read texts like the Maqāmāt on their own terms.\n\nAbout the Author\n\ nMatthew L. Keegan is the Moinian Assistant Professor of Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures at Barnard College of Columbia University. His work focus es on the intersections of Arabic literature and Islamic thought in the pr e-colonial period. In particular\, his first book project explores the vas t commentary tradition on the Maqamat of al-Hariri\, a collection of Arabi c trickster stories written in the 12th century that was a canonical text of Islamic education until the 19th century. Before arriving at Barnard\, he received his PhD from NYU\, taught at the American University of Sharja h\, and completed a postdoc at the Freie Universität Berlin.\n\nAbout the Speakers\n\nSeth Kimmel is Associate Professor of Early Modern Cultural Studies and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Latin Americ an and Iberian Cultures at Columbia University\, as well as Director of Co lumbia's Institute for Religion\, Culture and Public Life. His research fo cuses on the literatures and cultures of medieval and early modern Iberia\ , debates about religion and secularism\, and the history of information m anagement. He is the author of two books\, both published by the Universit y of Chicago Press: The Librarian's Atlas: The Shape of Knowledge in Earl y Modern Spain (2024) and Parables of Coercion: Conversion and Knowledg e at the End of Islamic Spain (2015). The latter work won the American Co mparative Literature Association's Harry Levin Prize for best first book i n the field.\n\nJonny Robert Lawrence is an Assistant Professor in Near Ea stern Studies at Cornell University. He specializes in Arabic literature\, Islamic studies\, gender\, and Islamic history. His current book project\ , Love and Morality in Medieval Arabic Literature\, focuses on how storie s and storytelling\, both religious and profane\, became central to the co nstruction of moral ideas around sexual lives and desires.\n\nRachel Fell McDermott is Professor of Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures and specialize s in South Asia\, especially India and Bangladesh. School in 1984\, and he r Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1993. Her research interests focus on B engal\, in eastern India and Bangladesh\; she has published extensively on the Hindu-goddess-centered religious traditions from that part of the sub continent and is now involved in a research project on Kazi Nazrul Islam\, both the “Rebel Poet” of India and the National Poet of Bangladesh.\n \nAlison Vacca is a historian of early Islam working on the caliphal prov inces Armenia and Caucasian Albania. According to ʿAbbasid-era Arabic geo graphies\, Armenia included what is now the modern Republic of Armenia and eastern Turkey. The neighboring Caucasian Albania (Arrān) stretched over the modern Republic of Azerbaijan and eastern Georgia. Her work centers o n several themes\, including intercultural transmission of historical text s\, quick-changing alliances in moments of intercommunal violence\, and in termarriage across ethnic and religious lines.\n\nPlease email disability@ columbia.edu to request disability accommodations. Advance notice is neces sary to arrange for some accessibility needs. This event will be recorded. By being present\, you consent to the SOF/Heyman using such video for pro motional purposes.\n\n\n ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.arabamerica.com/wp-content/uploads/2 026/02/Matthew-1.webp LOCATION:Heyman Center for the Humanities\, East Campus Residence Hall Colu mbia University\, New York\, NY\, United States GEO:40.807177;-73.959002 X-APPLE-STRUCTURED-LOCATION;VALUE=URI;X-ADDRESS=East Campus Residence Hall Columbia University\, New York\, NY\, United States;X-APPLE-RADIUS=100;X-T ITLE=Heyman Center for the Humanities:geo:40.807177,-73.959002 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/New_York X-LIC-LOCATION:America/New_York BEGIN:DAYLIGHT DTSTART:20260308T030000 TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 TZNAME:EDT END:DAYLIGHT END:VTIMEZONE END:VCALENDAR