series: Literaturen im Kontext. arabisch – persisch – türkisch

Literatures in Context is a peer-reviewed book series devoted to Near Eastern and North African literatures. The editors want the title of the series to be understood programmatically. They presuppose a concept of world literature that includes Near Eastern and North African literatures. What is more, they assume that literatures are in many ways marked by intertextuality, that they constitute readings of extremely diverse earlier texts, and that they are posited within a field of tensions, much broader than their respective national language. For the earlier eras of Near Eastern and North African literatures, this field of tensions geographically covers the regions of the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean and Asia Minor. In modern times, it has become a space of interaction that has long since included “global” Western literatures (and realities). This does not imply that the modern Near Eastern and North African literatures have severed themselves from their predecessors. Instead it is precisely the tension between different sets of references in modern Near Eastern and North African literatures, or their “local historical context”, which is a great part of their attraction, that remains a crucial field of research for the modern scholar.

Hama als Erinnerungsfigur

Tabu, Schweigen und der Kampf um Deutungshoheit in der syrischen Literatur

372 p.,
Open Access
Band 51

Dieses Buch widmet sich dem Massaker von Hama im Jahr 1982, das jahrzehntelang zu den stärksten Tabus der syrischen Gesellschaft zählte. Anhand literarischer Darstellungen und Deutungszuschreibungen werden Formen des Schweigens, Erinnerns und Erzählens im Zusammenhang mit dem Massaker analysiert. Die …

The Maqāmāt of Badīʿ al-Zamān al-Hamadhānī

Authorship, Texts, and Contexts

208 p.,
Open Access
Band 48

Through investigations of manuscripts, this book explores important aspects of the life of Badîʿ al-Zamân al-Hamadhânî’s Maqâmât. The broad concerns of the book are divided into three sections: authorship, texts, and contexts. Each chapter in this volume investigates hitherto unstudied …

Oscillating Bodies

Understanding Tunisian Society through its Novels (1956-2011)

256 p.,
Open Access
Band 47

Oscillating Bodies reads together the depiction of human bodies in arabophone and francophone Tunisian novels. This produces an understanding of Tunisian society from the country’s independence in 1956 until the revolutionary upheavals of 2010/2011. It appears as a society that …

Ein leises Geräusch wie ein Gefühl des Sehnens

Dichtung und Zeugenschaft zum faschistischen Konzentrationslager in Libia Coloniale

272 p.,
Open Access
Band 46

Arabic poetry about the Italian concentration camps in Libia Coloniale is often understood primarily as a historical source, thereby neglecting the poems' literary merits. A Soft Sound, Like a Feeling of Longing approaches these poems from a literary theoretical perspective …

Decoding DA’ISH

An Analysis of Poetic Exemplars and Discursive Strategies of Domination in the Jihadist Milieu

344 p.,
Open Access
Band 45

Why do Jihadists compose poetry and what role does poetry play in the transmission of the jihadist ideology? Decoding DĀʿISH is located at the intersections of the literary, the religious, and the political in jihadist discourse. The study examines how …

Die jungen Kosmopoliten

Prozesse von Aneignung und Abgrenzung in der zeitgenössischen türkischen Literatur

232 p.,
69.00 €
Band 44
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Young authors from Turkey question boundaries, they are challenging borders between nations, between humans, between times. Their works reflect a new zeitgeist which is often shaped by contradictions, but instead of trying to dissolve these contradictions, withdrawing to one's own …

Die Entblößung der Wörter

aš-Šidyāqs literarische Listen als Kultur- und Gesellschaftskritik im 19. Jahrhundert

408 p.,
Open Access
Band 43

How do word lists matter for Arabic literature? From the perspective of Literary and Cultural Studies, this monograph approaches the literary word lists of Aḥmad Fāris al-Shidyāq (1805/1806–1887), one of the most important Arab intellectuals of the nineteenth century, and …

Gestalten durch Verbergen

Ghassan Salhabs melancholischer Blick auf Beirut in Film, Video und Dichtung

248 p.,
69.00 €
Band 42
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This volume is the first comprehensive, across-media study of the work of the Lebanese film auteur Ghassan Salhab. His oeuvre emerges in a conceptual environment shaped by a crisis of representation. It is examined not only in its confrontation with …

Cooperator: Yvonne Albers

Commitment and Beyond

Reflections on/of the Political in Arabic Literature since the 1940s

356 p.,
Open Access
Band 41

This book is about relations between literature, society and politics in the Arab world. It is an attempt to come to terms with the changing conceptualizations of the political in Arabic literature in recent modern history. It examines historical and …

Die Messingstadt

Eine Erzählung aus „Tausendundeiner Nacht“. Architektur einer Heiligwerdung

304 p.,
79.00 €
Band 36
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Anyone associating The Arabian Nights with erotic stories will doubtlessly be disappointed when reading “City of Brass” (Nights 566−578). This tale deals not with the lust for life but, on the contrary, with the vanity of existence: Each individual who …

Grenzgänge

Androgynie – Wahnsinn – Utopie im Romanwerk von Huda Barakat

272 p.,
69.00 €
Band 33
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Hudā Barakāt’s novels are complex and densely woven texts that focus on the obsessions and inner conflicts of their protagonists. The first monograph dealing with the Lebanese author’s work, this book presents in-depth analyses of her first three novels, each …

Vorgestellte Öffentlichkeit

Zur Genese moderner Prosa in Ägypten (1860 bis 1908)

224 p.,
59.00 €
Band 31
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This socio-literary study examines the relationship between processes of modernisation and reform, and new literary genres produced in Egypt of the second half of the 19th century. How did heterogenous modern literary forms emerge in this particular environment, and what …

Poetik der Fremdheit

Palästinensische und irakische Lyrik des Exils

432 p.,
79.00 €
Band 30
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This first study on contemporary Arabic exile poetry focuses on four poets who contributed essentially to the innovation of the contemporary Arabic “Qa“īda”: Sa ͑dī Yūsuf (b. 1934) and Kamāl Sabtī (1955–2006) from Iraq as well as Zakariyyā Muḥammad (b. …

Muhammad Iqbal’s Romanticism of Power

A Post-Structural Approach to His Persian Lyrical Poetry

284 p.,
59.00 €
Band 18
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A study of the Persian poetry of Muḥammad Iqbāl (1877-1938), today Pakistan’s national poet, this work identifies the position his poems occupied between tradition and modernity, specifying the appeal they held for his contemporaries. Drawing on structural text analysis, the …

Martyrdom in Literature

Visions of Death and Meaningful Suffering in Europe and the Middle East from Antiquity to Modernity

380 p.,
59.00 €
Band 17
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This book aims to achieve a deeper understanding of the very human phenomenon of martyrdom by analysing in detail its highly varied re-enactments in European and Middle Eastern literatures. Despite its divergent historical, religious, philosophical or political circumstances, there does …

Writers and Rulers

Perspectives on Their Relationship from Abbasid to Safavid Times

260 p.,
59.00 €
Band 16
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Nine essays explore the ways in which individual Arabic and Persian authors between the 9th and 17th centuries (with examples drawn from the Abbasid to the Safavid dynasties) chose rulers and other political leaders as the recipients for their writings, …