The conference brings together specialists from around the world who work on ancient textual traditions. The goal—in line with the Center’s mission—is to inspire and support the comparative study of ancient texts in all their intellectual, social, and material dimensions. We wish to initiate and develop new conversations among scholars from different fields and academic communities who normally do not have the opportunity to share their research and exchange ideas with one another. The topic “From Practices to Things: First Books in the Ancient World” is directed at the social and intellectual practices, and further at genres, historical actors, materials, and media, during the early stages of ancient textual traditions.

Convened by Martin Kern, Princeton University (Director ICSATC) and XU Jianwei, Renmin University of China (Associate Director, ICSATC).

Conference programme and participants.

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Abstract: When speaking about the Arabic written heritage, the first “book” that comes to mind is the Qurʾān. But Arabic books cover a broad spectrum from more or less fixed in memory and writing to highly fluid. I focus on the fluid end of the spectrum, namely, the textual tradition of Kalīla wa-Dimna. This highlights the dynamic and ever-evolving nature of semi-popular Arabic literature from the thirteenth the nineteenth century. Intriguingly, Kalīla wa-Dimna, despite its textual fluidity retains its distinct identity as a “book” and indeed the changes occurred through writing. Key to this process were the copyists who both preserved and transmitted the text and kept constantly adapting it. [...] Those copyist-redactors engaged with transmitting and adapting Kalīla wa-Dimna might best be described as “scholars of the practice,” i.e., self-taught or literate in ways different from specialist scholars in the established disciplines (tafsīr, hadīṭh, balāgha etc.). Here I will look at some factors that may have spurred the motions of this protean book.