Narratives of Conflict

Narratives of Conflict in Bilad al-Sham, 19th and Early 20th Centuries 
Co-organised with ERC project 'Moving Stories'

The Old Common Room, Balliol College, Oxford. Saturday 7 December 2024.

Progamme:

9.00-9.15. Welcome (with coffee)

 

9.15-10.45: Panel 1

Cyma Farah (Oxford): A Fighter’s Memoir (from the Northern Bekaa, in the Great Syrian Revolt, 1925-27) / Mudhakkirat of Melhem Mahmoud Haydar

Joseph Leidy (Oxford): Yusuf Fransis al-Haj, Kitab sirāj al-layl fi surūj al-khayl (1881)

 

10.45-11.00: Coffee break

 

11.00-1.15: Panel 2

Seda Altuğ (Boğazici): Labour, Sectarianism and Colonialism: The Jaziran question in the Writing of Khaled Bakdash / Khalid Bakdash, Madha fi al-Jazira? (1939)

Rosie Maxton (Oxford): Remembering unseen violence: Louis Cheikho and the Hamidian Massacres / Cheikho, Min Bayrut ila al-Hind (1912-13)

Andrew Arsan (Cambridge): ‘Local plots’ or ‘Turkish treason’: the events of 1860 in the writings of Bulus Nujaym / ‘M. Jouplain’ [Nujaym], La question du Liban (1908); Nujaym, ‘Lamha fi tarikh Lubnan’ (1918).

 

1.15-2.00: Lunch

 

2.00-3.30: Panel 3

Christopher Cooper-Davies (Oxford): The Diaries of Ahmed Rida and Violence in Jabal ‘Amil in 1920 / Rida, Mudhakkirat (1940s-50s).

Peter Hill (Northumbria): Because of a partridge: the 1841 Druze-Maronite fighting between Dayr al-Qamar and B‘aqlin / Letter by Hugh Rose (1841); Arsaniyus al-Fakhuri (attrib.), Tarikh ma tawaqqa‘a fi Jabal Lubnan min shahr Ayyar 1840 wa-sa‘idan… (1840s?); Husayn Abu Shaqra, al-Harakat fi Lubnan ila ‘ahd al-Mutasarrifiyya (1952).

 

3.30-4.00: Tea break

 

4.00-5.30: Panel 4

Feras Krimsti (Gotha): “The Sighs of Syria”: The Birth of the Idea of Syria in Sectarian Historical Accounts / Jibra'il Mikha'il Shahada, Tanahhudat Suriya (1861)

John-Paul Ghobrial (Oxford): ‘A Thrilling Experience’: Narratives of Conflict among Syrian Lecturers in America, ca. 1890-1920 / newspaper clippings on Amen Rasi, Ezekiel Taminosian, Hanna Korany, Faddoul Moghabghab, Phares Behannessey, Rahme Haidar, A. Shehadi, and Sumayeh Attiyeh; Muhanna Barakat, A Thrilling Experience (1896).