The Arabic travel narrative (Riḥla) can do almost anything. As one of the most versatile textual forms of the early modern period with no less fascinating counterparts in modern and contemporary literature, the history of the long-running genre is full of surprises. One of the many things done with travel writing is to bring people from the periphery into a perceived center. The 18th-century litterateur Muṣṭafā Asʿad al-Luqaymī, for example, relocated from Damietta to Damascus, and his work both depicts and celebrates this movement, contributing quite significantly to the Syrian city’s image as a center of attraction. And in a similar fashion, the literary compendium put together in 1758 by a Maronite Christian from Aleppo included a travel-based topography that promoted his embattled community’s position vis-a-vis the sacred landscapes of the homeland. These and other incoming narratives reshape the very spaces that they enter. Drawing from extensive research into early modern travel writing and driven by an interest in period-spanning arguments, this lecture presents a comparative and contrastive reading of Ottoman era narratives with a near contemporary view from the periphery: ʿAlā’ Khālid’s 2024 memoir Karnifāl al-Qāhira (‘Cairene Carnival’) about his frequent trips in the 1990s as an upcoming and incoming writer from backwater Alexandria who rode and wrote his way into the buzzing capital of Egypt’s literary world.
Moderated by Professor Nile Green (UCLA History).
About the Speaker:
Björn Bentlage is a lecturer and researcher of Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies at the universities of Bern (Switzerland) and Munich (Germany). His work ranges from studies of literature and media since the Ottoman period to contemporary legal debates and the connected history of the modern Middle East.
Sponsor(s): Center for Near Eastern Studies