Second editionComing Up: Arabic Workshop Series on Manuscripts as Written Artefacts

7 March 2024

Photo: Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin

al-Muʾtanaf takmilat al-muʾtalif wa-l-muḫtalif , 460[1068]

Starting on 3 April, we are pleased to offer our ‘Introduction to Studying Manuscripts as Written Artefacts’ again. The online seminar provides Arabic-speaking students and scholars with an opportunity to familiarise themselves with the research approach to written artefacts developed at the CSMC.

Since the nineteenth century, the study of manuscripts has been carried out in two separate fields. Traditional philology has primarily concentrated on textual analysis, with the goal of reconstructing the original version of a text by comparing its various extant copies. In contrast, codicology has placed its emphasis on exploring the physical, material aspects of manuscripts.

This course seeks to combine these two approaches. It takes manuscripts as textual artefacts that can and need to be analysed with regard to their textual content and their materiality at the same time. The aim of the course is to show how this combined approach can shed light on a manuscript’s history, including how the manuscript has changed over time and how it has been transmitted to us.

In the course of 13 lectures, the online workshop on ‘Studying Manuscripts as Written Artefacts’ will clarify what this two-pronged approach means theoretically and practically. The course will be conducted entirely in Arabic and will provide Arabic-speaking students and scholars with an opportunity to familiarise themselves with approaches to the study of written artefacts developed at the CSMC and its Cluster of Excellence ‘Understanding Written Artefacts’.

More information on the course is available here. Registration is open until 15 March 2024.