Tausendundeine Nacht

Ein internationales Symposium zum 300. Todestag von Antoine Galland

The programme will consist of an academic workshop to discuss the place of Galland’s Mille et une nuits in the various traditions and its multifarious afterlives; a roundtable discussion between four translators of the Thousand and one nights about the technical and cultural problems related to such an ambitious translation; and readings by German authors who in some way or another find inspiration in the Thousand and one nights for their own work, showing that the narrative dynamics of Shaharazad is still felt.

All sessions will be in English, except for the authors’ readings. The event will be open to a general audience.

9.30 Musical Ouverture:

The “One Thousand and One Nights” theme (comp. Baligh Hamdi for Umm Kulthum) accompanied by the opening of the Galland Manuscript in Arabic and German.

Performing: Claudia Ott (nay, recitation); Hanan El-Shemouty (qanun); Hadi Alizadeh (percussion)

Welcome and Introduction: Richard van Leeuwen

Presentations:

Chair: Charles Burnett

 9.45 – 10.30 Ibrahim Akel (Paris), Some notes on the Arabic manuscripts in the collection of Galland “Gallandanus”

10.30 – 11.15 Ulrich Marzolph (Göttingen), Galland in the Making: The early travel diaries (1672–73) in the light of comparative folk narrative research

11.15 – 12.00 Robert Irwin (London), The Abbe Terrasson’s Sethos (1731) and other Egyptological fantasies

Lunch Break

13.40 Musical Intermezzo: Improvisations on the Ottoman Turkish theme “Mevlana”

Chair: Richard van Leeuwen

13.45 – 14.30 Paulo Lemos Horta (Abu Dhabi), Collaborators and Translators

14.30 – 15.15 Elisabetta Benigni (Torino), An overview on 19th and 20th centuries Italian translation of the Thousand and One Nights and the emergence of Italian „nocturnal literature“

16.00 – 17.00 Translators roundtable: Translating the Thousand and one nights: cultural and literary perspectives

Chair: Paulo Lemos Horta

Participants:

Ellen Wulff (Denmark)

Claudia Ott (Germany)

Amund Bjørsnøs (Norway)

Richard van Leeuwen (Netherlands)

17.30 – 19.00 Literary readings:

Musical Opening: Samai Huzam (comp. Abdo Saleh) accompanied by a love poem out of the Galland Manuscript of the Thousand and One Nights in Arabic and German

Chair: Jan Loop

Thomas Lehr

Mircea Cartarescu

Musical Finale: Longa Riyad (comp. Riyad al-Sunbati)

19.30 Conference Dinner