The performing arts in medieval Islam : shadow play and popular poetry in Ibn Daniyal's Mamluk Cairo /
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This is a study of the life and work of Ibn Dāniyāl (d. 1310), a Cairo-based eye doctor, poet, playwright, court jester, and arguably one of the most controversial cultural figures of his time. Drawing on medieval Arabic sources, many still in manuscript and some used for the first time, the author further contextualizes Ibn Dāniyāl's work with respect to poetry production and popular culture in the Islamic Near East in the post-Mongol period. The book also presents the first full English translation of "The Phantom," one of Ibn Dāniyāl's three shadow plays, the only surviving pre-Ottoman Arabic theatrical texts.
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1 online resource (xiii, 240 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [229]-233) and index. :
9789004218802 :
0929-2403 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Rustam nāma : Dāstān-i manẓūm-i Musalmān shudan-i Rustam bih dast-i Imām ʿAlī ('alayhi al-salām) bih inḍimām-i Muʿjiz-nāma-yi Mawlā-yi muttaqiyān /
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In his Meccan days Muḥammad's message was rejected by many as a threat to the values and interests of the community. Among his opponents, there was a merchant called Naḍr b. Ḥārith. From his visits to the city of Ḥīra in Mesopotamia, a cultural melting-pot of Iranian, Christian, and pagan Arab beliefs and traditions, he had brought back stories from Iranian folklore, especially about Rustam and Isfandyār, with which he tried to attract the attention of those listening to Muḥammad's speeches, away from the latter's revolutionary message. This explains why the religious elite of the Persianate world rejected Iranian epic folklore as contrary to the message of Shīʿī Islam, Rustam in particular being viewed as incompatibele with the person of Imam ʿAlī. But folklore being difficult to eradicate, Rustam was often depicted as a Muslim convert and enemy-turned-friend of ʿAlī, like in this poem from Safavid times. A miracle story involving ʿAlī accompanies it.
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1 online resource. :
9789004405042
9789648700657
Avicenna in medieval Hebrew translation : Todros Todrosi's translation of Kitab al-najat, on psychology and metaphysics /
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In this volume, Gabriella Elgrably-Berzin offers an analysis of the fourteenth-century Hebrew translation of a major eleventh-century philosophical text: Avicenna's Kitāb al-Najāt (The Book of Salvation), focusing on the psychology treatise on physics. The translator of this work was Ṭodros Ṭodrosi, the main Hebrew translator of Avicenna's philosophical writings. This study includes a critical edition of Ṭodrosi's translation, based on two manuscripts as compared to the Arabic edition (Cairo, 1938), and an appendix featuring the section on metaphysics. By analyzing Ṭodrosi's language and terminology and making his Hebrew translation available for the first time, Berzin's study will help enable scholars to trace the borrowings from Todrosi's translations in Jewish sources, shedding light on the transmission and impact of Avicenna's philosophy.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004281974 :
0169-8729 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Storytelling in Chefchaouen Northern Morocco : an annotated study of oral performance with transliterations and translations /
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Storytelling in Chefchaouen Northern Morocco includes two sets of tales told by two different storytellers with an annotated study of the oral performance, transliterations and translations. The purpose is to preserve a part of the region's oral tradition of storytelling in the vernacular language in which it has been transmitted, presenting the original texts with parallel English translation. In addition, the cultural, literary, and linguistic background necessary for understanding this body of oral performance is given. A combination of disciplines (anthropology, philology, sociolinguistics, dialectology, comparative literature, ethnography, typology) is applied to the linguistic and literary features of the present corpus.
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Consists of thirteen folktales and two poems narrated by a man, and nine folktales, four lullabies, and one song told by a woman. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004279131 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Like Joseph in beauty : Yemeni vernacular poetry and Arab-Jewish symbiosis /
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Like Joseph in Beauty traces the evolution of an Arabic poetic form called 'Humayni poetry'. From Muslim mystical circles, the courts of aristocrats in Highland Yemen, and kabbalist circles of Yemenite Jews, Humayni poetry distinguishes itself with lyricism, musicality, and eroticism. It also plays a variety of code-switching linguistic games. The book addresses the connections between the Humayni poetry of Yemen and the sacred poetry of Jews from Yemen, a hitherto-neglected chapter in the history of Arabic and Jewish literatures. The book culminates with a discussion of ways in which poets and critics in modern-day Yemen and in Israel transformed this poetry.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [327]-339) and index. :
9789047442196 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Muslim-Christian polemics across the Mediterranean : the splendid replies of Shihab al-Din al-Qarafi (d. 684/1285) /
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In Muslim-Christian Polemics across the Mediterranean Diego R. Sarrió Cucarella provides an exposition and analysis of Shihāb al-Dīn al-Qarāfī's (d. 684/1285) Splendid Replies to Insolent Questions (al-Ajwiba al-fākhira 'an al-as'ila al-fājira). Written in response to an apology for Christianity by the Melkite Bishop of Sidon, Paul of Antioch, the Splendid Replies is among the most extensive and most important medieval Muslim refutations of Christianity, and the primary significance of this study is to provide detailed access to its argumentation and intellectual context for the first time in a western language. Moreover, the Introduction and Conclusion creatively situate the work within the challenges of modern-day Christian-Muslim dialogue.
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1 online resource (xii, 366 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 303-346) and index. :
9789004285606 :
1570-7350 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Prophets, gods and kings in Sirat Sayf ibn Dhi Yazan : an intertextual reading of an Egyptian popular epic /
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This book is a literary, intertextual study of an Egyptian popular epic. In this innovative study, Helen Blatherwick investigates how various sources, including Islamic qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ ('tales of the prophets'), Pharaonic, Graeco-Roman and Coptic Egyptian myths and narratives, and recensions of the Alexander Romance function as intertexts within Sīrat Sayf . Blatherwick argues that these intertexts are deployed as narrative devices which are readily recognisable to the story's audience, and that they are significant carriers of meaning and theme. Crucially, these intertexts also interact within Sīrat Sayf to bring a conceptual continuity to its discussion of kingship and society that stretches from this late-medieval epic back to ancient Egyptian narratives.
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Revised and expanded version of the author's thesis (doctoral)--SOAS, University of London, 2002. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004314801 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Talmudic transgressions : engaging the work of Daniel Boyarin /
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Talmudic Transgressions is a collection of essays on rabbinic literature and related fields in response to the boundary-pushing scholarship of Daniel Boyarin. This work is an attempt to transgress boundaries in various ways, since boundaries differentiate social identities, literary genres, legal practices, or diasporas and homelands. These essays locate the transgressive not outside the classical traditions but in these traditions themselves, having learned from Boyarin that it is often within the tradition and in its terms that we can find challenges to accepted notions of knowledge, text, and ethnic or gender identity. The sections of this volume attempt to mirror this diverse set of topics. Contributors include Julia Watts Belser, Jonathan Boyarin, Shamma Boyarin, Virginia Burrus, Sergey Dolgopolski, Charlotte E. Fonrobert, Simon Goldhill, Erich S. Gruen, Galit Hasan-Rokem, Christine Hayes, Adi Ophir, James Redfield, Elchanan Reiner, Ishay Rosen-Zvi, Lena Salaymeh, Zvi Septimus, Aharon Shemesh, Dina Stein, Eliyahu Stern, Moulie Vidas, Barry Scott Wimpfheimer, Elliot R. Wolfson, Azzan Yadin-Israel, Israel Yuval, and Froma Zeitlin.
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"Originated in a conference held at the University of California, Berkeley, in April 2014"--From the editors. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004345331 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The true Israel : uses of the names Jew, Hebrew, and Israel in ancient Jewish and early Christian literature /
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Many studies have portrayed Judaism in Antiquity as sectarian, with a variety of groups all claiming to be The True Israel. Early Christianity is alleged to have begun in this context as one more Jewish sect claiming such authority. However, the second-century Christian Justin Martyr is the first person known to have used the phrase 'the True Israel'. This book examines the uses of the names 'Jew', 'Hebrew' and 'Israel' in the surviving literature - especially the Bible, Dead Sea Scrolls, Philo, Josephus, New Testament and Mishnah - to determine whether this is an adequate or accurate picture. It discusses the associations of each word, as determined by their actual usage and collocations rather than their theoretical origins. It will be of value to scholars of ancient Judaism and early Christianity. This publication has also been published in paperback, please click here for details.
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1 online resource (xvii, 303 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 274-297) and index. :
9789004332515 :
0169-734X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Justin Martyr and the Jews /
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Justin Martyr, a second-century Gentile Christian apologist, was active in the Christian-Jewish propaganda war to convert each other and the pagans. He radicalized the ideas of St. Paul on the divine Election, Abraham, the Pentateuch, and the Gentiles. Justin's background, sources, and thought, and his place in the inter-religious propaganda war, are discussed, as are the irreconcilable views of Jesus and Paul on the Pentateuch and the Gentiles. Justin Martyr and the Jews considers the place of Paul and Justin's teachings in today's Christian-Jewish dialogue about the roots of early Christian Antisemitism, showing that the presuppositions of Paul and Justin must be abandoned if Christians and Jews today are to reach true understanding. As part of the search for such understanding, recent scholarly literature has been concerned with pre- and post-Holocaust inter-religious relations, as well as with the roots of Christian Antisemitism. Some scholars have endeavoured to show that Pauline teachings were misunderstood, and thereby exonerate Paul from the responsibility for Christian persecutions of Jews through the ages. These scholars have also attempted to make Paul a bridge between Christians and Jews in their modern dialogue. The present writer argues that this interpretation of Pauline teaching, followed and even radicalized by Justin, is unfounded.
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1 online resource :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004421424
9789004123106
The experience of Jewish liturgy : studies dedicated to Menahem Schmelzer /
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Menahem Schmelzer, widely recognized for his expertise in Jewish manuscripts and piyyut, has also influenced Jewish liturgical research of the past half century. This collection of sixteen academic studies, by Israeli, European, and American scholars, honors Schmelzer's contribution. The contributors represent three generations, and their topics and methods testify to the vast subject area that Jewish liturgy has become. The articles explore a wide variety of texts and ritual occasions, the relationship between text and worship experience, and implications for related areas such as mysticism; most apply the methods of other subject areas such as liguistics to liturgical study and its implications for related fields. \'...this volume, as a whole, is as much a testimony to the enduring centrality of the librarian in scholarship as it is a collection of essays on \'the experience of Jewish liturgy.\' Wide ranging in scope, these essays are an accurate snapshot of the state of research, illustrating the wealth of material awaiting publication, the need for revisiting prior assumptions, and also the limits of our scholarship.\' Yoel Kahn, Congregation Beth El, Berkeley
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Includes index. :
1 online resource. :
9789004208032 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
A newly discovered Greek Father : Cassian the Sabaite eclipsed by John Cassian of Marseilles /
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This is a critical edition of texts of Codex 573 (ninth century, Monastery of Metamorphosis, Meteora, Greece), which are published along with the monograph identifying The Real Cassian , in the same series. They cast light on Cassian the Sabaite, a sixth century highly erudite intellectual, whom Medieval forgery replaced with John Cassian. The texts are of high philological, theological, and philosophical value, heavily pregnant with notions characteristic of eminent Greek Fathers, especially Gregory of Nyssa. They are couched in a distinctly technical Greek language, which has a meaningful record in Eastern patrimony, but mostly makes no sense in Latin, which is impossible to have been their original language. The Latin texts currently attributed to John Cassian, the Scythian of Marseilles, are heavily interpolated translations of this Greek original by Cassian the Sabaite, native of Scythopolis, who is identified with Pseudo-Caesarius and the author of Pseudo Didymus' De Trinitate . Codex 573, entitled The Book of Monk Cassian , preserves also the sole extant manuscript of the Scholia in Apocalypsin, the chain of comments that were falsely attributed to Origen a century ago. A critical edition of these Scholia has been published in a separate edition volume, with commentary and an English translation (Cambridge).
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A critical edition of texts written by Cassian the Sabaite and preserved in Codex 573 of the Monastery of Metamorphosis (the Great Meteoron), in Meteora, Greece; the codex is entitled "The book of Monk Cassian the Roman." Cf. Preface, pages [xi]. :
1 online resource (xv, 715 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 639-695) and indexes. :
9789004225275 :
0920-623X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Metaphor and imagery in Persian poetry /
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This volume is a collection of essays on classical Persian literature, focusing on Persian rhetorical devices, especially imagery and metaphors. The various contributions discuss the origin and the development of debate poetry, the transmission of Persian and Arabic tales to the works of Europeans medieval authors such as Boccaccio and Chaucer, but also the development of Aristotelian poetics and epistemology in Persian philosophical tradition. Furthermore, the baroque style of the Shiʿite author Ḥusayn Vāʾiẓ Kāshifī, the use of wine metaphors by mystics such as Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī, Ḥāfiẓ's original use of candle metaphors, the translation of Khayyām's metaphors into English, and the importance of a single metaphor in the epic Barzū-nāma are discussed. Contributors include: F. Abdullaeva, G.R. van den Berg, J. Landau, F.D. Lewis, N. Pourjavady, Ch. van Ruymbeke, A. Sedighi and S. Sharma
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1 online resource (viii, 281 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004217645 :
1569-7401 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The verbal system in late enlightenment Hebrew /
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This book constitutes the first detailed corpus-based analysis of the verbal morphology and syntax employed in the Eastern European Maskilic (Jewish Enlightenment) Hebrew prose fiction written between 1857 and 1881. This verbal system exhibits biblical, rabbinic and medieval elements as well as unprecedented features and similarities to Israeli Hebrew and Yiddish. The first section of the work offers a selective examination of maskilic verbal morphology, while the second section constitutes a thorough examination of the functions of the verbal conjugations and the third section surveys selected features of verbal syntax. The work fills a serious gap in the Hebrew philological literature and will therefore be of great relevance to students and scholars of diachronic Hebrew language and linguistics.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004182257 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Wissensvermittlung im Gespräch : eine Studie zu klassisch-arabischen Dialogen /
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Wissensvermittlung im Gespräch ist die erste Monographie über die Verwendung der Dialogform in der arabischen Literatur. Regula Forster untersucht dazu ein umfangreiches Korpus klassisch-arabischer Dialoge ganz unterschiedlichen Inhalts (Religion, Jurisprudenz, Alchemie, Geschichte et cetera) aus der Zeit zwischen dem 8. und der Mitte des 11. Jahrhunderts. Sie zeigt auf, dass arabische Dialoge nicht einfach als dialogisierte Abhandlungen zu verstehen sind. Vielmehr erschaffen Dialoge eigene literarische Universen, indem sie Figuren in Zeit und Raum agieren lassen und spezifische Formen der Argumentation und Textstrukturierung verwenden. Durch die spezifische literarische Form des wissensvermittelnden Dialogs wird auch der Inhalt der Texte gelenkt. This is the first book-length study about the usage of the form of literary dialogue in Arabic literature. Regula Forster studies an extensive corpus of Classical Arabic didactic dialogues on very different subjects (religion, jurisprudence, alchemy, history, et cetera) from the 8th to the mid-11th centuries. She shows that Arabic dialogues are by no means dialogised treatises. Rather, they create a literary universe of their own. In this universe, figures are shown to be acting and speaking in time and space. Therefore, the dialogues use specific forms of argumentation and structuring. Through the use of the literary form of dialogue the content of these texts is shaped and the knowledge presented channelled.
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1 online resource (xi, 532 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 480-509), repertorium of texts, and indexes. :
9789004326729 :
0929-2403 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The cutting edge of the poet's sword : Muslim poetic responses to the Crusades /
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In this comprehensive analysis of Arabic poetry during the period of the crusades (sixth/twelfth-seventh/thirteenth centuries), Osman Latiff provides an insightful examination of the poets who inspired Muslims to unite in the jihād against the Franks. The Cutting Edge of the Poet's Sword not only contributes to our understanding of literary history, it also illuminates a broad spectrum of religiosity and the role of political propaganda in the anti-Frankish Muslim struggle. Latiff shows how poets, often used by the ruling elite to promote their rule, emphasised the centrality of Islam's holy sites to inspire the Muslim response to the occupation and later reconquest of Jerusalem, and expressed some surprising views of Frankish Christians.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004345225 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Sullam al-samawāt /
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In the Persianate world, encyclopaedias have a long history. Arabic works by Persian authors aside (like Ibn Farīghūn's Jāmiʿ al-ʿulūm , 4th/10th century), the earliest encyclopaedia in Persian is Avicenna's (d. 428/1037) philosophical Dānishnāma-yi ʿAlāʾī . Fakhr al-Dīn Rāzī's (d. 606/1210) Jāmiʿ al-'ulūm on the other hand, is an encyclopaedia on everything there was to know at the time. Philosophical encyclopaedias would usually divide into logic, physics and metaphysics, more general encyclopaedias into the pre-Islamic and Islamic sciences, also called the rational ( ʿaqlī ) and traditional ( naqlī ) sciences, even if a strict separation was not always maintained. In addition, there were also specialized encyclopaedias like Ibn Ḥusayn Jurjānī's medical Dhākhira-yi Khwārazmshāhī (early 6th/12th century). The content of encyclopaedias often being dependent on the author's interests and intellectual horizon, no universal format exists. The present work by Abū Qāsim Kāzarūnī (fl. early 11th/17th century) is an example of a very personal encyclopaedia, treating of religion, philosophy, and literature.
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1 online resource. :
9789004404939
9789648700305
The raven and the falcon : youth versus old age in medieval Arabic literature /
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This book fills a long-standing gap in Arabic-Islamic studies. Following the informative and entertaining style of adab literature and based on a large number of relevant sources from a wide range of genres, Hasan Shuraydi presents a panoramic view of relevant themes that concern youth and old age in Medieval Arabic literature intended for both specialists and non-specialists. A pattern of binary oppositions runs through such themes, e.g., black/white, male/female, husband/wife, sacred/profane, paradise/this world, ignorance/wisdom, past/present, young/old, new/old, health/disease, sappy/dry, permitted/forbidden, lust/chastity, obedience/disobedience, experience/inexperience, folly/reason, sobriety/intoxication, parent/child, celibacy/marriage, present life/hereafter. Themes discussed include: aging, ambition, aphrodisiacs, beauty, education, feminist trends, hair dyeing, homosexuality, honoring age, jihad, life stages, longevity, love, marriage, sex.
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1 online resource (pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004278950 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The heritage of Arabo-Islamic learning : studies presented to Wadad Kadi /
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The Arabo-Islamic heritage of the Islam is among the richest, most diverse, and longest-lasting literary traditions in the world. Born from a culture and religion that valued teaching, Arabo-Islamic learning spread from the seventh century and has had a lasting impact until the present.In The Heritage of Arabo-Islamic Learning leading scholars around the world present twenty-five studies explore diverse areas of Arabo-Islamic heritage in honor of a renowned scholar and teacher, Dr. Wadad A. Kadi (Prof. Emerita, University of Chicago). The volume includes contributions in three main areas: History, Institutions, and the Use of Documentary Sources; Religion, Law, and Islamic Thought; Language, Literature, and Heritage which reflect Prof. Kadi's contributions to the field. Contributors:Sean W. Anthony; Ramzi Baalbaki; Jonathan A.C. Brown; Fred M. Donner; Mohammad Fadel; Kenneth Garden; Sebastian Günther; Li Guo; Heinz Halm; Paul L. Heck; Nadia Jami; Jeremy Johns; Maher Jarrar; Marion Holmes Katz; Scott C. Lucas; Angelika Neuwirth; Bilal Orfali; Wen-chin Ouyang; Judith Pfeiffer; Maurice A. Pomerantz; Riḍwān al-Sayyid ; Aram A. Shahin; Jens Scheiner; John O. Voll; Stefan Wild.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004307469 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Looking back at al-Andalus : the poetics of loss and nostalgia in medieval Arabic and Hebrew literature /
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Looking Back at al-Andalus focuses on Arabic and Hebrew Literature that expresses the loss of al-Andalus from multiple vantage points. In doing so, this book examines the definition of al-Andalus' literary borders, the reconstruction of which navigates between traditional generic formulations and actual political, military and cultural challenges. By looking at a variety of genres, the book shows that literature aiming to recall and define al-Andalus expresses a series of symbolic literary objects more than a geographic and political entity fixed in a single time and place. Looking Back at al-Andalus offers a unique examination into the role of memory, language, and subjectivity in presenting a series of interpretations of what al-Andalus represented to different writers at different historical-cultural moments.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [171]-180) and index. :
9789047442721 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.