About
Dale J. Correa, PhD, MS/LIS, is the Middle Eastern Studies Librarian and History Coordinator for the University of Texas Libraries, the University of Texas at Austin. She serves as the liaison to the Department of History, the Department and Center for Middle Eastern Studies, and the Islamic Studies Program.
Dr. Correa specializes in Islamic legal theory, theology, manuscript history, digital approaches to text reading and manipulation in RTL languages, and conceptualizations of preservation via digitization, with a particular interest in the intellectual tradition of the eastern regions of the Islamicate empire (namely, Transoxania, which is today in Uzbekistan/Tajikistan). Her research, although rooted in the 10th-12th centuries CE, extends to contemporary conceptions of what it means to be Muslim, particularly in Eurasia. Her current book project examines the development and flourishing of the Transoxanian approach to testimony, or communication: that is, the transmission of knowledge of a past event by agents over time and space. This study brings together Qur’anic exegesis, Islamic legal theory, and Islamic theology with contemporary approaches to epistemology, philosophy of language and the mind, and logic to examine the consequences of positing epistemology as a confessional boundary.
Dr. Correa is currently a Mellon Fellow for Diversity, Inclusion & Cultural Heritage with the Rare Book School, Charlottesville. Education
PhD, New York University, Middle East & Islamic Studies
MA, New York University, Middle East & Islamic Studies
MS/LIS, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Special Collections
AB, Dartmouth College, Asian & Middle Eastern Studies
Certificate, Center for Arabic Study Abroad (Cairo) Publications
- With Lejla Demiri and Phillip Dorroll, eds. Maturidi Theology: A Bilingual Reader. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2022.
- “Taking a Theological Turn in Legal Theory: Regional Priority and Theology in Transoxanian Ḥanafī Thought.” In Locating the Sharīʿa: Legal Fluidity in Theory, History and Practice.
Leiden: Brill, 2019.
- “Recovering Yemen’s Cultural Heritage: The Stookey Microfilms.” In Shii Studies Review 2(1-2): 308-318.
Leiden: Brill, 2018.
- “Digitization: Does It Always Improve Access to Rare Books and Special Collections?” In Preservation, Digital Technology & Culture 45(4): 177-179. Munich: De Gruyter Saur, 2017.
- “Review of The Islamic Scholarly Tradition: Studies in History, Law, and Thought in Honor of Professor Michael Allan Cook, edited by Asad Q. Ahmed, Behnam Sadeghi and Michael Bonner.” In American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 30:4: 102-106.
Herndon: IIIT, 2013.
- “The Vehicle of Tawātur in al-Māturīdī’s Epistemology: Constructing a Theory of Knowledge From Ta’wīlāt al-Qur’ān.” In Büyük Türk Bilgini Imâm Mâtürîdî ve Mâtürîdîlik. Istanbul: Marmara Üniversite İlâhiyat Fakültesi Vakfı Yayınları, 2012.
Memberships
Middle East Librarians Association
Middle East Studies Association
