Lara Harb
Princeton University
Philology and Aesthetics in ʿIlm al-maʿānī
ʿIlm al-maʿānī, one of the three sub-fields of ʿilm al-balāgha (Science of Eloquence), could be considered the quintessential example of the discipline of philology. It is concerned with meaning and how it is conveyed through language. However, its end is not hermeneutic. Rather, the ability to grasp nuance is necessary for the appreciation of the aesthetic quality of speech, not least of which, the Qurʾān’s.
Lara Harb's presentation will investigate the development of ʿilm al-maʿānī, starting with ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī and moving on to the various (re)iterations of his concept of naẓm (composition), in the works of al-Sakkākī, al-Khaṭīb al-Qazwīnī, al-Taftāzānī, and al-Sayyid al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī. Focusing on the crystallization of the concept of muqtaḍa al-ḥāl (the requirements of the context), it will analyze the relationship between philology and aesthetics in pre-modern Arabic rhetoric.
Lara Harb is an Assistant Professor at the Near Eastern Studies Department at Princeton University. She received her PhD from New York University’s Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies (September 2013) and holds a BA in Comparative Literature from Brown University (2004). She specializes in Classical Arabic Literature and her research focuses on medieval Arabic literary criticism and theory. Building on her dissertation, which won the S.A. Bonebakker Prize for best PhD thesis in Classical Arabic Literature in 2014, she is currently finishing a book tentatively titled Wonder in Classical Arabic Literary Theory. Her next book project investigates the concept of mimesis in classical Arabic literature, for which she has received a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) award (2017-18). Prior to Princeton, Harb also taught at Dartmouth College. Her publications include: "Form, Content, and the Inimitability of the Qurʾān in ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī’s Works", Middle Eastern Literature (2015), "Beyond the Known Limits: Ibn Dawūd al-Isfahānī’s Chapter on ‘Intermedial’ Poetry", Arabic Humanities, Islamic Thought: a Festschrift for Everett K. Rowson, edited by S. Toorawa and J. Lowry (2017), “Persian in Arabic: Identity Politics in macaronic Abbasid poetry”; Journal of American Oriental Society (Forthcoming).