CSI Monday Majlis: James E. Montgomery
A Future, Remembered - The Poet-Prophet Al-Mutanabbi
Register please on this link: https://Universityofexeter.zoom.us/meeting/register/mUwZSgnkQ3mQLiOxe2qCnw
| An Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies lecture | |
|---|---|
| Date | 2 February 2026 |
| Time | 17:00 to 18:30 |
| Place | Online Only |
| Provider | Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies |
| Organizer | IAIS |
Event details
Abstract
Abstract:
This talk will begin forty-four years ago in 1982, the fateful year in which I first met Imru? al-Qays, Ab¨± Nuw¨¡s, and al-J¨¡?i?. I will offer an account of some choices I declined to make, and explore the series of the professional mis/adventures, culs de sac, and U-turns that ensued. An overview of my involvement in the Library of Arabic Literature will lead to an exposition of a possible end of career project I am contemplating—a translation of the diwan of Ab¨± l-?ayyib al-Mutanabb¨©. I will explain why I am hesitant to embrace such a venture by surveying the many, not insignificant challenges such a project might involve.
Bio:
James E. Montgomery FBA is Sir Thomas Adams’s Professor of Arabic and Fellow of Trinity Hall at the University of Cambridge. He has won the British-Kuwait Friendship Society Award for The Vagaries of the Qa?¨©dah (1997), been shortlisted twice for a Sheikh-Zayed Book Award for Al-J¨¡?i?: In Praise of Books (2013), won a Sheikh Hamad Award for his translation with Sophia Vasalou of Miskawayh and al-Taw?¨©d¨©’s The Philosopher Responds (2019), been longlisted for the National Translation Award, American Literary Translators Association for ?Antarah ibn Shadd¨¡d, War Songs (2019), longlisted for a Sheikh Zayed Prize for his D¨©w¨¡n ?Antarah ibn Shadd¨¡d: A Literary Historical Study and also for his latest book, the edition and translation of Ab¨± Nuw¨¡s, A Demon Spirit: Classical Arabic Hunting Poems (2024). He also edited and translated with Michael Fishbein Ibn al-Muqaffa?’s Kal¨©lah and Dimnah:Fables of Virtue and Vice (2022).