Upcoming Events: ‘Type Design and Intellectual Rights,’ Palestine Writes Cultural Spotlight, More
A few of upcoming online events:
February 27
Organized by the Type Lab project @AUC, “Type Design and Intellectual Rights” will feature five designers of Arabic type and a copyright specialist. The event is set to start at 6 p.m. Cairo Time. Registration is required.
March 1
Art and Power of Arabic Oration (Khutba): Past and Present
Organizers write: “In the early Islamic world of the 7th and 8th centuries AD, religion, politics, and aesthetics coalesced in the rich art of Arabic oration (khutba). Today, the legacy of Arabic oratory continues to shape the idiom and concepts of religion and politics across the Muslim world.”
This talk, by Tahera Qutbuddin, “discusses the major features of classical Arabic oration and explores their deliberate echoes in the contemporary Friday sermon.” Registration is required.
March 2
Fro organizers: “Bahia Shehab (ARIC alumna and Professor of Practice, Department of Arts, AUC) and Haytham Nawar (Chair of Department of the Arts, AUC) have just published their book A History of Arab Graphic Design which recently won the Art History & Criticism category in the 2021 PROSE Awards organized by the Association of American Publishers (AAP). The book traces the work of over eighty designers from all over the Arab world. In this talk, moderated by Noha Abou Khatwa (Adjunct Assistant Professor of Islamic Art and Architecture, AUC), they will discuss the evolution of Arab graphic design focusing on the influences of traditional Islamic calligraphic arts on its development.”
March 6
The first Palestine Writes Cultural Spotlight is set to feature Ibtisam Azem and The Book of Disappearance in a conversation moderated by Laura Albast. This event is co-sponsored by @PalStudies. Advance registration: https://forms.gle/vcSqYJVJd4Ui9EpA8.
Coming later in March
March 8
A discussion on Reading Children’s Literature in Translation with @RuthAhmedzai and @HelenWangLondon. Sign up through Event Brite.
March 9
Shubbak’s Against Disappearance, with writer and historian Marina Warner, writer and activist Hammour Ziada and writer, editor and publisher Abu Amirah. More here.
March 16
PTC Online Workshops: Egyptian Arabic poet Mostafa Ibrahim. More here.
March 18
The MENAWA book-group discussion of Layla Alammar’s The Pact We Made is set for March 18 at 5 p.m. UK time. Zoom details: Meeting ID: 741 2343 6837. Passcode: 9abXzk. More on Twitter.
March 19
Yasmine Motawy talking to Leila Aboulela about literature, history, and human rights in her book The Kindness of Enemies as part of @respond_read project. More here.
KALIMAT: An evening showcasing three spoken-word and musical artists: @DanaDpoetry, @JulianaYaz & @RafeefZiadah. More here.
March 21
Adabiyat Book Club discusses Aboulela’s The Kindness of Enemies. More here.
March 27
@ARCENational will host “Zikra: Remembering ‘Abd al-Halim Hafiz,” a presentation by Dr. Nicholas Mangialardi on the singer’s musical legacy & live performance of ‘Abd al-Halim hits by Egyptian jazz band. More here.
March 31
“Arabic Literary Prose, Adab Literature, and the Formation of Islamicate Imperial Culture” with Ahmed H. al-Rahim. From organizers: “This lecture, based on a chapter in the forthcoming The Cambridge History of World Literature, traces the rise of Arabic prose in the context of empire building and translation of Middle Persian and Graeco-Hellenic literature that transformed Arabic into a literary index of civilizational interconnectivity (with ancient Greece, Persia, Sogdia, and India) and thus into a language of world literature.”