e-ISSN: 1309-1719
ISSN: 1309-1786
Period: 2 Issues Annually
Start: 2010
Publisher: Bursa İlahiyat Vakfı

Arabic Thresholds: Sites of Rhetorical Turn in Contemporary Scholarship, edited by Muhsin J. al-Musawi

Arabic Thresholds: Sites of Rhetorical Turn in Contemporary Scholarship, edited by Muhsin J. al-Musawi

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Amidu Olalekan Sanni
Lagos State University, Ojo, Lagos-Nigeria & Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies

DOI:

10.12730/13091719.2013.42.89
How to Cite
Sanni, Amidu Olalekan. 2014. “Arabic Thresholds: Sites of Rhetorical Turn in Contemporary Scholarship, Edited by Muhsin J. Al-Musawi”. Ilahiyat Studies 4 (2):262-66. https://doi.org/10.12730/13091719.2013.42.89.

Abstract

Arabic Thresholds: Sites of Rhetorical Turn in Contemporary Scholarship, edited by Muhsin J. al-Musawi (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2009), xvii + 339 pp., ISBN: 978-90-04-17689-8, â¬165.00 / $220.00 (hb) (First paragraph) This is a felicitation volume (Festschrift) whose contents originally appeared as articles in two issues of the Journal of Arabic Literature (38/3 [2007]; and 39/1 [2008]) in honour of Jaroslav Stetkevych, the iconic scholar of Arabic studies and critical thoughts. These contributions by friends, colleagues, and old students, which are underlined by a common subscription to the doctrine of a rhetorical shift in the humanities and dialogue with social science methodologies, cover the wide spectrum of Stetkevych´s intellectual interests. These include advocacy for a review of old `Orientalism,´ classical Arabic literary tradition, Andalusian poetry, Francophone literature, translation, the nexus between architecture and poetry, Sufism, and comparative studies. These are the subject matters covered in this volume. Roger Allen (pp. 1-15) identifies some of the principal issues which are in-volved in the parameters for periodizing the Arabic literary history as applied to the Arabic novel. The confusion over placing the `crude´ or informal antecedents into the category of formal narrative categories is mentioned as a key problem. In his view, the nature of generic change which has come to pass since the 19th century has not been fully digested by the scholarly community in its attitude towards modernity, hence the inability, if not the failure to classify rightly, the fictional writings of the pre-Modern period. Allen therefore calls for a different approach to the fictional writings of that period in light of current trends. Muhsin al-Musawi (pp. 17-51) discusses the popular narrative in the ʿAbbāsid era in the context of readership and distribution techniques, and analyzes the theoretical and anecdotal values of authors and works such as al-Qāḍī Abū ʿAlī al-Tanūkhī´s (d. 384/995), Nishwār al-muḥāḍara, Ibn Ṭufayl´s (d. 581/1185) Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān, and Ibrāhīm b. ʿAlī al-Ḥuṣrī´s (d. 413/1022) Jamʿ al-jawāhir, the last being the most analyzed in detail by him...

References

Bauer, Thomas, “In Search of `Post-Classical Literature´: A Review Article,„ Mamlūk Studies Review 11/2 (2007), 137-167.

Liveley, Genevieve, “Narratology„, A review of Narratology and Interpre-tation: The Content of Narrative Form in Ancient Literature, ed. by Janos Grethlein and Antonios Rengakos, The Classical Review 61/2 (2011), 341-343. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0009840X11000631.

Gilliot, Claude (ed.), Education and Learning in the Early Islamic World (Surrey-Burlington, VT: Ashgate Variorum, 2012).

Sanni, Samidu Olalekan, A Review of Description in Classical Arabic Poetry: Waṣf, Ekphrasis, and Interarts Theory, by Akiko M. Sumi, Die Welt des Islams 45/2 (2005), 304-306.

Simon, Herbert W. (ed.), The Rhetorical Turn: Invention and Persuasion in the Conduct of Inquiry (Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, 1990).

https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226759036.001.0001.

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