The Barber of Damascus: Nouveau Literacy in the Eighteenth-Century Levant

This is an exposition of a phenomenon of history writing by unusual authors in the 18th-century Levant, which will focus on the life and chronicle of a Damascene barber, and the reception of his work by later generations. 

Dana Sajdi, from the History Department, Boston College and current Post-doctoral Fellow at the Agha Khan Program for Islamic Architecture, MIT, is the author of The Barber of Damascus: Nouveau Literacy in the 18th-Century Ottoman Levant (Stanford UP, 2013); editor of Ottoman Tulips, Ottoman Coffee: Leisure and Lifestyle in the 18th Century (IB Tauris, 2008); and co-editor with Marle Hammond, Transforming Loss into Beauty: Essays in Arabic Literature and Culture in the Memory of Magda al-Nowaihi (AUC Press, 2008).

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Duration: 00:44:37