The Place of Early Modern Arabic Culture

Abstract:This essay argues for treating early modern Arabic literary and historical traditions as a unified cultural phenomenon in space. In proposing the consideration of the spatial around the text, such as the physical location of its production and consumption, and within the text, such as the place of formulaic speech and poetry in literary and historical works, we would be able to bring out the material, the sonic, and the corporeal through which we could construct vivid images of past social reality and arrive at clearer conceptions of communal identity and individual practice.