Thursday, December 14, 2023, 12.00 – 14.00
Room: 1.1062 (meeting room 1^st floor, Holzlaube)

Online participation via WebEx link: https://fu-berlin.webex.com/fu-berlin-en/j.php?MTID=m1ab653310f78dc8d408c2afba0541e68

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Two Digital Humanities projects have recently been added to the agenda of Arabic Studies in 2023: CtG II – Closing the Gap in Non-Latin Script Data II (Berlin University Alliance, 10.2023-06.2026) and KALiMaT – Keywords of Arabic Literature and Manuscript Traditions (DFG, 10.2024-09.2027).

Both research projects propose hands-on solutions for sound data management, shared research environments and innovative publication formats. In the past decades, machine-aided processes such as searching the net or acessing archived data have pushed English (and with it other languages using Latin script) to assume the dominant role as today's lingua franca for both research and data processing tools.

For the academic community to share data and insights alike, DH must now come up with new approaches for Arabic script (the world's second most frequent segmental script which serves, besides Arabic, also Persian, Kurdish, and Ottoman Turkish among others) to be handled just as easily, and on equal terms. Theodore S. Beers and M. Xenia Kudela (both CtG II / BUA) explain the achievements of the first project phase and give an outlook on their goals for Closing the Gap II in the years to come. The conceptual ideas behind KALiMaT are being outlined by Brigitte Grote (head of DH team at CeDiS) and Johannes Stephan (Arabic Studies).

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The Research Colloquium presents international guest speakers in alternation with Close Reading Sessions on text editing questions.

Colloquium sessions are being held in a hybrid fashion, combining personal encounter with the advantages of remote access. Participants meet every Thursday from 12:15 to 1:45 pm (CET).

Colleagues, visiting scholars, and students (Arabic Studies or related disciplines) are cordially invited to participate. We especially welcome researchers based elsewhere than Freie Universität Berlin to join us for any one (or more) sessions.

For technical support, please mail to: oualid.el.khattabi@fu-berlin.de

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