Books on Adam Talib

How Do You Say "Epigram" in Arabic?: Literary History at the Limits of Comparison

Mon, 01 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This monograph presents the first history of the Arabic epigram form (مقطوع). This form was extremely popular in the later half of pre-modern Arabic literary history (c. 1200–1900) and remains largely unknown in contemporary scholarship. It ranks among the most accessible and immediate literary forms in Arabic and appeared ubiquitously in all manner of literary texts from the period. The epigrams treat amatory and erotic themes, descriptions of natural and luxury objects, jokes, and riddles. The monograph presents the first sustained scholarly engagement with this genre while examining the category of epigram in world literature and its application across literary traditions including Arabic, Persian, Hebrew, and Turkish. The study offers a new history of classical Arabic literature while addressing important theoretical and critical issues in comparative literature.

Arabic Literature, 1200–1800: A New Orientation

Fri, 01 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Edited by Monica Balda-Tillier and Adam Talib.

Special Issue of Annales Islamologiques (Volume 49, Cairo: Institut français d’archéologie orientale, 2016).

The issue gathers studies that revisit Arabic literary production between the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries, a period too often treated as marginal in older literary histories. Its introduction and six dossier articles describe renewed attention to post-classical Arabic writing through case studies of lesser-known authors, embedded poems, love treatises, shadow theatre, robbers, hashish, and other subjects that reveal the period’s creative vitality.

The Rude, the Bad, and the Bawdy: Essays in Honour of Geert Jan van Gelder

Wed, 01 Jan 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Edited by Adam Talib, Marlé Hammond, and Arie Schippers.

This volume collects eighteen essays on all facets of obscenity in classical and modern Arabic literature to celebrate the career of Geert Jan van Gelder, FBA, Laudian Professor of Arabic. Contributors examine how indecency, profanity, taboo, wit, parody, and erotic expression have been signalled, evaluated, translated, and preserved across Arabic literary history.

My contribution is entitled “Caricature and obscenity in mujūn poetry and African-American women’s hip-hop,” comparing modes of caricatured obscenity across both genres to demonstrate their parodic and camp orientation.