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SUMMARY:On Escaping or Not Escaping Solitude. Persian Tales of Turtles and
  Pearls - Professor Christine van Ruymbeke\, University of Cambridge
DTSTART:20230120T173000Z
DTEND:20230120T183000Z
UID:TALK172142@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Janet Gibson
DESCRIPTION:Narratives speak volumes. As remarked by the philosopher Hanna
 h Arendt\, they are the only possible medium to express the complexity of 
 philosophical or other conundrums. Often\, the reader's effort to decode t
 hem\, that is: the exercise itself\, contains the pedagogy. This presentat
 ion examines two great Medieval Persian narrative works: the Book of Kalil
 a and Dimna ( کتاب کليله و دمنه Ketab-e Kalile-o Demne) by N
 asrollah Monshi and the Seven Portraits ( هفت پيکرHaft Paykar) comp
 osed by Nezami Ganjavi. Should we escape or not escape solitude\, that fee
 ling experienced in a state of physical or mental isolation? Aren’t frie
 ndship or love preferable\, even at very high costs? My two authors-philos
 ophers propose deadly serious situations … and leave us to work them out
 . Listen to what happens to the bored old King of the Monkeys up in his fi
 g tree! Be baffled by the riddles of the Princess who sets such very high 
 standards to her suitors! I will introduce you to my way of interacting wi
 th these two sophisticated narratives written for the highest social strat
 a of the Persianate world\; they address people whose expectations from li
 terature were manifestly different from ours in this 21st century. Neverth
 eless\, my aim is to see you leave this lecture with a huge smile on your 
 face and a new way of looking at friendship and love\, basking in a new aw
 areness of what Persian tales do to us and how irresistible they are.\n\nC
 hristine van Ruymbeke (Universite Libre de Bruxelles\, Ph.D) is Ali Reza a
 nd Muhamed Soudavar Professor of Persian Literature and Culture at the Fac
 ulty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at Cambridge. She is also Graduat
 e Tutor and the College Praelector at Darwin College\, Cambridge. (http://
 www.ames.cam.ac.uk/directory/vanRuymbeke). \nShe is a long-standing member
  of the councils of learned societies\, including the Iran Heritage Founda
 tion (London\, UK)\, the Royal Asiatic Society (London\, UK) and the Ancie
 nt India and Iran Trust (Cambridge\, UK). She was elected Secretary to the
  Board of the Societas Iranologica Europaea in 2019 (http://www.societasir
 anologicaeu.org/content/board.html). In 2009\, her book Science and Poetry
  in Medieval Persia. The Botany of Nizami’s Khamsa\, received the World-
 prize of the Book of the Year of the Islamic Republic of Iran.  \nChristin
 e is a literary critic working on classical (medieval and pre-modern) Pers
 ian literature\, with a special focus on its medieval non-mystical narrati
 ve production. How can we engage today with these classical Persian texts?
  Can we regard them as meaningful and helpful despite the temporal and geo
 graphical distance with their authors? Christine approaches these medieval
  texts through aspect such as medieval authorial rewriting techniques and 
 anxiety of influence\; narrative structures and embedding techniques\; int
 ratextuality\, poetics and cognitive effects\, bringing together medieval 
 and present-day literary and poetic theory. She explores how Persian poetr
 y has irrigated other traditions well beyond the Persianate world\, such a
 s early-modern French and Victorian English literatures. This approach als
 o encompasses the poetry’s impact on visual culture\, especially the cal
 ligraphy and illustrations in medieval and pre-modern Persian manuscripts.
 \n
LOCATION:Lady Mitchell Hall\, Sidgwick Avenue
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