Group for Experimental Methods in Humanistic Research
at Columbia University

Rediscovering Words and Worlds: Arabic Script Collections at Columbia University

We encourage all participants to RSVP for the conference.

Day 1, Thursday, February 16

Location: Butler Hall 523

• 14:00-15:30 Roundtable 1- The Making of a Digital Archive
  Chair: Manan Ahmed
  Participants: Janet Gertz, Matthew Miller, Boris Liebrenz.
  Description: This roundtable opens up the discussion on opportunities, limitations, and obstacles of creating a digital archive of Muslim World manuscripts. Our participants have been selected to bring in varied perspectives into this debate.

• 15:30-16:30 Break

• 16:30-18:00 Keynote by Professor Sabine Schmidtke (Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton NJ): Preserving, Democratizing, and Studying the World Heritage of Islamic Manuscripts.

Day 2, Friday, February 17

Location: Butler 523

• 9:00-9:30 Welcome and Introductions by Professor George Saliba (Columbia)

• 9:30-10:50 Panel 1- Worlds of Manuscripts
  Chair: Kathy Ivanyi
  Participants: Hassan Ansari, Alexandre Roberts, Avinoam Shalem, Kristina Richardson
  Description: This panel gives an overview of different types of manuscripts (i.e. Quranic, scientific, etc.) from the Muslim world.

• 10:50-11:00 Coffee Break

• 11:00-12:00 Panel 2- Worlds of Lithographs
  Chair: Hossein Kamaly
  Participants: Brinkley Messick, Abbas Amanat, Kathryn Schwartz
  Description: This panel opens the discussion on the larger context of printing in the Muslim world and emphasizes the significance of lithographs as rare books.

• 12:00-12:45 Lunch

• 12:45-13:45 Roundtable 2- The Making of a Collection
  Chair: Peter Magierski
  Participants: Sadegh Ansari, Mahmood Gharavi, Matthew Gillman, Zeinab Azerbadegan, Jane Siegel Description: This roundtable gives an overview of the Columbia collections of Muslim World Manuscripts and the evolution of the collaborative project currently underway in cataloging them. It is also an introduction to the discussion to take place in the following panel.

• 13:45-15:15 Panel 3- The Making of an Archive
  Chair: Brinkley Messick
  Participants: Sean Quimby, Hadi Jorati, Evyn Kropf, Mitch Fraas, Maryam Ekhtiar Description: This panel is a discussion on different strategies employed in cataloging and publicization of multilingual and thematically varied collections. The panel is a concluding remark to all the discussions held throughout the workshop.

• 15:15-15:30 Closing Remarks by Manan Ahmed (Columbia)

PRIVATE WORKSHOPS— Day 3, Saturday, February 18

Location: RBML

• 9:00-10:30 Workshops

These workshops are intended to be private tutorial sessions held at RBML for approximately 10 select graduate students per session. Participation in the workshops is contingent upon your participation in the whole public event. The Arabic/Persian paleography and codicology as well as the cataloging workshops are obligatory for students to attend in order to benefit from the thematic workshops, on either scientific or Quranic manuscripts. Please register for the workshops here

• Paleography/Codicology (1)
  Participants: Hassan Ansari

• Paleography/Codicology (2)
  Participants: Boris Liebrenz & Kristina Richardson

• 10:30-10:45 Coffee at Butler 523

• 10:45- 12: 15

• **Cataloguing **
  Participants: Evyn Kropf

• 12:15-13:15 Lunch in Butler 523

• 13:15-14:45

• Scientific Manuscripts
  Participants: Alexandre Roberts & Hadi Jorati

Contacts:

• Sadegh Ansari
• Zeinab Azarbadegan
• Mahmood Gharavi

Post-Event Summation