The Adab Colloquium
With Sarah R. bin Tyeer and Matthew L. Keegan
The adab Colloquium brings together scholars of Islamicate languages who study the cross-cultural, transregional phenomenon of adab. The term adab, usually translated as “literature” in the post-colonial world, had a much wider range of ethical and generic connotations in pre-colonial contexts. The division of the world into secular and religious realms and the re-coding of adab as a kind of secular literature have tended to obscure the complex ways in which adab was written, circulated, read, and conceived of in the Islamic world before secularism. The secularization of adab has also led to a reformation of the pre colonial adab canon, which is only now beginning to be understood. The MEI & CSMS-sponsored adab Colloquium at Columbia is a platform for scholars whose work engages with the range of adab practices of reading, writing, and performance from the 6th century down to the 19th century. The colloquium brings together faculty and graduate students from Columbia and other universities in the region for intensive discussions of new research by leading specialists invited from the US and abroad. Scholars will circulate recently published or forthcoming work to be discussed in the colloquium.
There will be four events per semester covering the various topics, languages, and regions of Islamicate adab.
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