Culture, New scholarship

Arabic, Persian, and Turkic Poetics

Hany Rashwan, Liverpool University Press, 2024

This volume challenges the Eurocentric lens through which Arabic, Persian, and Turkic literatures are often read, and advocates for centering the literary theories – often termed balāgha – of these customs when engaging with their literary traditions. Written by an international array of scholars, the volume offers a dynamic exploration of these distinct literary traditions while showcasing their inherent theoretical frameworks. Emphasizing the unique standards of each tradition, and uncovering their shared critical concepts, the book liberates Arabic, Persian, and Turkic literatures from the confines of European theoretical frameworks. Highlighting the richness and depth of the literary traditions under discussion, the volume paves the way for a more inclusive and representative literary theory by putting the literatures of the Islamicate world in conversation with European literature and fostering a deeper understanding of global literary discourse.

The Ottoman Catalogue is a curated section of our Bookstore featuring English-language classics and new scholarship on Ottoman history and culture. It explores the impact of nationalism on the Ottoman Empire, the consequences of its decline and dissolution for Europe, and the histories of peoples, lands, religions, and their books before the concept of “the Middle East” emerged as a political and geographical term.

Following two decades of research, programming, and publishing on the history of nationalism, Fascism, Nazism, and Communism, Centro Primo Levi moved its attention to the period before 1922, exploring the stories, ideas, exchanges, and transformations that occurred over six centuries of Ottoman rule.

The era that ushered in the rise of the workers movement, totalitarianiasm, the Spanish Civil War, the fall of three empires, the shaping of modern nation-states, and the establishment of an economy based on industrial and scientific growth, banking, and warfare, also brought to an end cultures, concepts of time, language, and rituals that today’s observers often struggle to appreciate.

Much of this history has attracted modest attention from American and English-language scholarship. However, over the past few years, there has been an increase in original and translated research and publications, showcasing this period from various angles and perspectives. As the “Middle East” storms into our societies, challenging the vocabulary of public life, as well as its ethical and epistemological paradigms, we feel that attempting to move our gaze back into this past may help us refine our sensibility and interpretational tools.