The Great Lakes Adiban Society’s 6th Annual Workshop Program

GLAS Workshop 2022 Flyer

Foster Hall 103 + Online, University of Chicago, 1-2 October 2022

  • Physical location [Click here for map]: Foster Hall 103 / 1130 E 59th St
  • Remote participation: On registering at tinyurl.com/glas2022, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
  • Click here for the UChicago calendar event.

Saturday, October 1st

8:45–9:15: Breakfast

On Persia, Persian, and Persians (9:15–10:45)
9:15–10:00: Jeson Ng (U of Chicago), Arab roots in a Persian land: Saljuq panegyrists and the negotiation of ethnic identity in the eleventh century
10:00–10:45: Shaahin Pishbin (U of Chicago), Persian and the Cosmos: Iranophilia in Akbar’s Hindustan

10:45–11:00: Coffee break

The Politics of Translation in Persianate South Asia (11:00–12:30)
11:00–11:45: Justin Smolin (U of Chicago), Religion As a Question: The Tauḍīḥ al-milal and Mughal Political Theology
11:45–12:30: Zoë Woodbury High (U of Chicago), Translating the new taste: Rasa, movement, and multilingualism in Ibrahim ʿAdil Shah II’s Kitāb-i nauras

12:30–2:00: Lunch

Islamicate Poetics of Time and Place (2:00–3:30)
2:00–2:45: Rama Alhabian (Hamilton College), The Poetics of Contingency in Ḥarīrī’s “Maqāma of Oman”
2:45–3:30, Cameron Cross (U of Michigan, Ann Arbor), Call Him Diyanus in Greek! The Correlating of Pagan and Islamic Knowledge in ʿUnsurī’s Vāmiq-u ʿAzrā

4:00–6:00: Poetry reading in memoriam Franklin Lewis

The University of Chicago and the wider Adiban community recently lost a cherished member, Professor Franklin Lewis. Frank was widely loved and respected, and as a community we are still mourning this enormous loss. You can read a full memorial statement here.

Among his many contributions, Frank was a co-founder of and keen participant in the Great Lakes Adiban Society. I know many of you knew him personally or professionally. As such, together with the NELC department, we thought it would be fitting to add a small event in his memory to the workshop proceedings. We will gather with other members of the NELC community for a poetry reading between 4–6pm on Saturday afternoon (location TBA). We suggest that those who wish to do so read a poem, in the original or in translation, that they feel suits the occasion. It could be something that Frank translated or something you like and think he would. This is not intended as an official memorial service (that will take place later this year), but rather as an intimate gathering to begin to mourn a man who meant so much to so many of us.

7:00: Dinner at Nella

Sunday, October 2nd

9:00–10:00: Breakfast

Islamicate Editorial & Critical Practices (9:15–10:45)
10:00–10:45: Shahla Farghadani (U of Michigan, Ann Arbor), The Earliest Critics: The role of rhetoric in the creation of a proto-literary canon
* CANCELED: Shiva Mihan (Princeton), Text transmission and editing in 15th-century Iran under the Timurids

10:45–11: Coffee break

Adab & the Paratext (11:00–12:30)
11:00–11:45: Seher Agarwala (Colombia U), Between word and image: Illustrated manuscripts and the construction of ethics in sixteenth-century Golconda
11:45–12:30: Fateme Montazeri (UC Berkeley): Zikr and ‘Aqd-i Nikah: Forgotten functions of Persian quatrain
* CANCELED: Manpreet Kaur (Colombia U), Scenographic Strategy as Literary Technique: Framing the teacher-student relationship in the Sufi malfūẓāt genre in South Asia

12:30–2:00: Lunch

The Adab of Disclosure & Recitation (2:00–3:30)
2:00–2:45: Zach Winters (U of Chicago), Speaking Too Freely with Āẕarī Isfarāyinī (d. 866/1461–2)

2:45–3:30: Closing discussion