Al-Maqāmāt Al-Aswāniyyah (1970) are a collection of modern maqāmāt featuring a cast of characters from Cairo’s literary scene in the late 1960s. Written by the Egyptian lawyer and author ʻAbbās al-Aswānī (1926-1978), they were a casual and contemporary iteration of the genre, depicting everything from nightlife to Nasserism. They were so modern,…[Read more]

This open textbook serves as a guide to digital cultural immersion in the Arab world. Each chapter looks at a different country, theme, and medium of Arab culture online. They look at specific sites and conversations taking place online, and offer suggestions and tips for how to engage with the content. The book is meant as a guide to culture…[Read more]

In arguing for the central role of language in the creation of the modern nationalist imaginary, scholars of recent literary histories of both Egypt and Turkey have focused a great deal of energy on commonly accepted narratives of linguistic dysfunction. In Egypt and other Arabic speaking countries, the “diglossia problem” has been the locus for…[Read more]

In 2014, the Turkish National Education Council recommending teaching Ottoman Turkish as a mandatory subject in all high schools. Since that time, this historical register of the Turkish language has been making a popular comeback. This is especially true online, where participants are creating and sharing new content written in Ottoman. This…[Read more]

this paper looks at trends in contemporary Turkish literature to see how classic categories of Ottoman poetics are showing up in modern novels.