Thursday, November 24, 2011

Alpheios Texts

The Alpheios Project makes open source software for reading and learning languages. It currently supports Arabic, Latin and Ancient Greek texts.

Following texts are available in Arabic:

al-Aghani (Book of Songs)
[Misr Matba'at al-Taqdim. 1905.] Compiled by Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani in the tenth century. A vast collection of poems, ranging from the earliest period to his own and including invaluable biographical notices.
Arabian Nights
[Bulak. 1863. Bulak. 1935.] Compiled over many centuries by many hands.
Arabic Reading Lessons
[Duncan Forbes LL.D. London. Wm. H. Allen & Co. 1864.]
The Autobiography Of The Constantinopolitan Story-Teller
[Joseph Catafago. London. Bernard Quartich. 1877.]
Selection From The Annals Of Tabari
[ed. by. M. J. de Goeje. Leiden. Late E.J. Brill. 1902.] Passages from the work of one of the greatest Islamic historians, Abu Ja'far Muhammad Ibn Jarir al-Tabari, 838-923.
Selections from Arabic geographical literature
[Edited with notes by M. J. de Goeje. Leiden. Late E.J. Brill. 1907]
Voyages of Ibn Batuta
[C. Defrémery et Le Dr. B. M. Sanguinetti. Paris. Imprimerie Nationale. 1879.] A remarkably comprehensive survey of the world in the mid-fourteenth century by the great traveller Abu Abdullah Muhammad Ibn Battuta, 1304-1369.
- Volume 4

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Last week you met Greg, he is wearing Classic Specs eyewear a great concept, you buy your frames via internet for only $ 89,-- per frame and you've got a lot of combinations, like frame color, optical lens or for sunwear lens color. Plus they donate 6% from every purchase to New Eyes for the Needy. So support this Brooklyn based company with buying your glasses via them......don't you need glasses yet, it's a great fashion item without optical lenses.

Online Checklist for Arabic Papyrus edition

The Checklist of Arabic Documents

Orientalisches Seminar - معهد الاستشراق

(Last Update 11. November 2011) by Petra M. Sijpesteijn, John F. Oates (✝), Andreas Kaplony, and Eva M. Grob

Download (version November 2011) (PDF, 603 KB)

Download (version June 2006) (PDF, 140 KB)

Download (as in Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 42 (2005) 127-166) (PDF, 1869 KB)

Introduction

The Checklist of Arabic Documents aims to facilitate and advance the use of Arabic documents. By providing this inclusive bibliography of editions of Arabic documentary texts - on papyrus, paper, parchment, leather, ostraca, wood, stone and bone - in monographs and articles, and setting out a standardized system of abbreviations for monographs of Arabic document editions, we hope it will serve to enhance the transparency of citations and improve the accessibility of editions, functioning as a useful point of reference for Arabists and non-Arabists, specialists and non-specials alike.

Arabic Papyrology
Scholars have long acknowledged the importance of papyri and other documents for our understanding of early and medieval Islamic culture and society. Tens of thousands of papyrus documents survive, in Greek, Coptic and Arabic, and among the vastly diverse and significant information they contain are the only contemporary records of the Muslim conquest of Egypt in the mid-seventh century, a cornerstone event not only in the history of Mediterranean civilization but in the development of one of the most populous religions of the world. Never intended to be read by later generations, the documents not only offer a useful check on the data preserved in narrative and literary sources, but also record aspects of life and strata of society to which we would otherwise have no access, and with a richness, immediacy and variety unmatched by any other source. Together, these documents have the potential to shine a fresh and detailed new light on early Islamic Mediterranean culture and society. The field can no longer afford to be without them.

Despite their importance, however, papyri from the Islamic period continue to be underused. The philological complexity of Arabic papyri combined with the poorly developed infrastructure of the field (with few catalogues and handlists) seriously impedes the edition of new documents. Of the tens of thousands of Arabic documents preserved in museum and library collections around the world, only some two thousand have been published so far. The relative neglect is especially striking when Arabic papyrology is compared to older disciplines such as Greek, Latin and Coptic papyrology, all of which have benefited from such essential tools as electronic and printed databases, lexicographic, geographical, onomastic and linguistic reference works and compilations of corrigenda - all of which Arabic papyrology lacks.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Open Access Report: Turkey and the Arab Spring

Turkey and the Arab Spring: Implications for Turkish Foreign Policy from a Transatlantic Perspective

Source: Istituto Affari Internazionali

From the Foreword:

The Arab Spring reveals a number of contradictions, constraints as well as opportunities for Turkish foreign policy, all of which are of key relevance both to Turkey and to its transatlantic partners.

In the short-term, the Arab Spring has revealed a number of inconsistencies in and weaknesses of Turkish foreign policy, particularly when mapped against the stances of the European Union (EU) and the United States. These weaknesses and inconsistencies may be viewed as by- products of a more proactive Turkish role in its southern neighborhood. Over the last decade, Turkish foreign policy has become more open to engagement with its neighbors, more eager to resolve regional problems and less secularized in nature. Improved relations with Syria, Iraq, and Iran (as well as Russia, Armenia, and Greece) are evidence of this. But this does not mean that Turkish foreign policy has been purely idealistic and norm driven. The Arab Spring has revealed the inherent tension between the normative and realpolitik dimensions of Turkish foreign policy.

THE GANT RUGGER GALLERY

GANT Rugger presented their Spring/Summer 2012 collection in London in a "Gallery" way. The collection was shown in the Elms Lesters Painting Rooms, the Painting Rooms are historic studios, aged over the past hundred years, thick with paint-flecked walls. I can imagine that this was the perfect place to present the brand. I'm filled with envy, wish we had an event like this in Holland. (pics via Preposity & Rippedbackpocket)