The Oxford Nahda Workshop 2015 was held on 22 and 23 April, and brought together scholars from around the world for two days of intensive and fascinating discussions around the Arab ‘Nahda’ of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The concept of the Arab Nahda encompasses an idea of enlightenment in the Arabic-speaking world. The workshop engaged a wide range of issues and topics, from global liberalism to word and book histories; from notions of time in Nahda literature to cartoons and ideas of musical taste; from student strikes in Egypt to the Alawi reform movement in Syria. We hope that it will provide a starting-point for future projects and networks in the field.
I am grateful to have had the opportunity to host myself a round-table on the language(s) and literature(s) of the Arab Nahda, in comparison with the Ottoman intellectual history of the period (which is the main focus of my own research). The aim of the discussion was to focus on how the Arab Nahda as a cross-cultural phenomenon was expressed and communicated in its literary form(s) throughout the Middle East and beyond.
As previously announced, we hope to make a large part of the two days’ proceedings available in the form of podcasts. Further information can be found at our official website via this link: https://oxfordnahdaworkshop.wordpress.com/
Ezgi Ulusoy Aranyos
