NYU Abu Dhabi and NYU Press Announce the Launch of the Library of Arabic Literature
NYU Abu Dhabi and NYU Press are pleased to announce the establishment of the “Library of Arabic Literature” (LAL). This new long term project, awarded as a multi-million dollar research grant by the NYUAD Institute, will initially publish 35 English translations of the great works of classical Arabic literature. The translations, rendered in parallel-text format with Arabic and English texts published on facing pages, will be undertaken by the world’s most renowned scholars of Islamic studies. The texts will include a full range of works, including poetry, poetics and fiction, religion, law, science, and historiography.
The LAL will be led by a group of distinguished scholars from around the world. Philip Kennedy, Faculty Director, NYUAD Institute, will serve as General Editor, with James E. Montgomery, Professor of Arabic, Cambridge University and Shawkat M. Toorawa, Associate Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies, Cornell University, serving as the Executive Editors. The LAL also has a five-member Editorial Board, and a twenty-three member Advisory Board, all of whom will be involved in the selection of the texts, the commissioning of the translations, and the review of the translations and final manuscripts.
The LAL will be unprecedented in its scope, aiming in the long term to publish the entire canon of classical Arabic literature in English. The LAL will publish single-volume integral works, as well as multi-volume works and anthologies. NYU Press will publish each title simultaneously in print and ebook format, priced to ensure the widest possible readership. Samples of ongoing translations will be made available along with the original Arabic texts in an online forum, with readers encouraged to engage and discuss the work in real time. We expect the first book in the LAL will be published in late 2011.
The LAL will constitute the first comprehensive library of the great works of Arabic Islamic civilization in English. The primary goal of the translations will be accuracy and lucidity in modern English, bringing the treasure of this little-known literature to scholars and students, as well as a general audience of readers.
Editorial Board Members, Library of Arabic Literature
Julia Bray (University of Paris, VIII); Michael Cooperson (UCLA); Joseph E. Lowrie (Univ. of Penn); Tahera Qutbuddin (University of Chicago); Devin Stewart (Emory University).
Advisory Board Members, Library of Arabic Literature
Muhammad Abdel-Haleem (School of Oriental and African Studies)
Azia al-Azmeh (Central European University, Budapest)
Roger Allen (University of Pennsylvania)
Humphrey Davies (Freelance translator, Cairo)
Nadia El Cheikh (American University of Beirut)
Geert Jan van Gelder (University of Oxford)
Dimitri Gutas (Yale University)
Antonella Ghersetti (Università Ca’ Foscari, Venice)
Beatice Gruendler (Yale University)
Wolfhart Heinrichs (Harvard University)
Robert Hoyland (University of Oxford)
Robert Irwin (Independent Scholar)
Marion Katz (New York University)
Jane Dammen McAuliffe (Bryn Mawr)
Maria Menocal (Yale University)
Angelica Neuwirth (Freie Universität, Berlin)
Zaki Nusseibeh (Presidential Palace, Abu Dhabi)
Wadad al-Qadi (Chicago University)
Jumaa Al-Qubaysi (The National Library, Abu Dhabi)
Wen-chin Ouyang (School of Oriental and African Studies)
Tim Reiss (New York University)
Everett Rowson (New York University)
Michael Sells, (University of Chicago)
Richard Sieburth (New York University)
Ali bin Tamim (Kalima, Abu Dhabi)
Marina Warner (Essex University)
About the NYU Abu Dhabi Institute
Founded in 2008 as the public face of the new NYU Abu Dhabi, the NYUAD Institute is a center for advanced study. Cutting-edge research defines its reputation internationally. Its outreach programs play a mediating role linking research and scholarly resources with Abu Dhabi’s burgeoning public agenda in the arts, humanities, and sciences. The Institute fosters and sustains an open forum where evolving intellectual and policy communities of interest convene, connect, and converse.
To this end, the Institute sponsors major academic conferences, lecture and film series, research workshops, exhibitions, and theatrical and music performances. With its comprehensive range of activities, the NYUAD Institute forms an immediate intellectual link between NYU New York and NYU Abu Dhabi. They connect NYU’s talented faculty to Abu Dhabi and vice versa; they nurture scholarly relationships regionally and internationally; they engage colleagues from local universities; and they involve collaboration with partners in Abu Dhabi who are also committed to public discourse and dialogue.
About NYU Press
The Library of Arabic Literature will be managed at NYU Press by Steve Maikowski, Director; Eric Zinner, Editor-in-Chief; Monica McCormick, Program Officer for Digital Scholarly Publishing; and a Project Manager. New York University Press is a distinguished, award-winning publisher of academic books and is a department of the New York University, Division of Libraries. NYU Press publishes over 100 new titles each year, has more than 2,500 titles in print, and publishes in the humanities and social sciences, with emphasis on sociology, law, cultural and American studies, literature, religion, American history, anthropology, politics, criminology, media and film, and psychology. The Press also co-published, with the JJC Foundation, the Clay Sanskrit Library (CSL), which was launched in 2005. The CSL has now published 56 individual volumes of many of the classics of Sanskrit literature, all in facing, parallel Sanskrit/English facing pages format. For more information, visit www.nyupress.org