We are pleased to announce the schedule for the 2018 Great Lakes Adiban Workshop! The workshop is free and open to all.

Time: Saturday–Sunday, October 6–7, 9:30am–5:00pm
Location: 3rd Floor Lecture Hall / Swift Hall, 1025 E 58th St, Chicago, IL 60637

Program Schedule

Saturday, Oct. 6

9:30–10:10 / Kaveh Hemmat (Benedictine U) - China in the Iranian Epic Tradition (1000-1500): Cultural Geography and the Concept of Adab
10:15–10:55 / Aria Fani (U of California, Berkeley) - What is Adabiyat? The Genealogy of a Discourse of Literature (1860-1960)
11:00–11:40 / Paul Losensky (Indiana U) - Why Kings Need Poets: Negotiating Identity and Patronage in the Saqi-nameh of Zohuri Torshizi

Lunch Break

1:00–1:40 / Ali Noori (U of Pennsylvania) - Sabk-i Hindi or Tāza-Gū’ī: Reading Sahābī Astarābādī Today
1:45–2:25 / Shaahin Pishbin (U of Chicago) - Mīrzā Jalāl Asīr and the Poetics of the “Imaginative Style” (Ṭarz-i Khayāl)

Coffee Break

2:45–3:25 / Ayelet Kotler (U of Chicago) - Clear Meaning, Simple Persian: A Philological Inquiry into a Mughal Translator’s Work
3:30–4:10 / Pouye Khoshkhoosani (Northwestern U) - Shi‘ism and Kingship in Safavid Court Poetry
4:15–4:55 / Zahra Sabri (McGill U) - Three Shi‘a Poets: Sect-related Themes in Pre-modern Urdu Poetry

Sunday, Oct. 7

9:30–10:10 / Cameron Cross (U of Michigan, Ann Arbor) - “I Know It When I See It”: Towards a Theory of the Romance Genre
10:15–10:55 / Rachel Schine (U of Chicago) - Nourishing the Noble: A Tale of Breastfeeding and Hero-Making in Arabic Popular Literature
11:00–11:40 / Allison Kanner (U of Chicago) - Majnun’s Animal Kingdom: Desert Wanderings in the Kitāb al-Aghānī and Niẓāmī’s Laylī o Majnūn

Lunch Break

1:00–1:40 / Esraa al-Shammari (U of Pennsylvania) - Images Dispossessed: Tīh of Tropes in Abū Tammām’s Ghazal
1:45–2:25 / Sabeena Shaikh (McGill U) - Selfhood or Seduction: Reading Urdu Poetry as ‘Autobiography’

Coffee Break

2:45–3:25 / Alexandra Hoffmann (U of Chicago) - Cross-dressing in Samak-e ʿAyyār
3:30–3:50 / Samuel Lasman (U of Chicago) - In the Maw of the Nahang: Sea Monsters and Subjectivity in Classical Persian Epic
4:15–4:55 / Open discussion, matters arising, future plans

This event was made possible through the generous support of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, the Department of Comparative Literature, the Martin Marty Center, the Committee on Southern Asian Studies, and the Graduate Council at the University of Chicago. A huge round of thanks to Alexandra Hoffmann, Samuel Lasman, and Allison Kanner for all their hard work managing logistics, food, and fund-raising!