Wondrous Words: The Poetic Mastery of Jalal al-Din Rumi

Wondrous Words: The Poetic Mastery of Jalal al-Din Rumi
Conference - Introduction
13-15 September 2007
Clore Education Centre, British Museum, Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3DG

http://www.iranheritage.com/rumiconference/

On the 800th anniversary of his birth, the Foundation and the British Museum have organised a conference that will focus on the poetic origins, quality, and impact of Rumi's writings, its sources of inspiration, and its echoes in Persian speaking parts of the world near and far.

Organised by
Iran Heritage Foundation and the British Museum.

Convenors
Dr. Leili Anvar Chenderoff & Prof. Fatemeh Keshavarz.

Conference committee
Dr. Leili Anvar Chenderoff, Dr. Sheila Canby, Mr. Farhad Hakimzadeh, Prof. Fatemeh Keshavarz, Dr. Zeynep Sabuncu, Prof. Franklin Lewis, Dr. Pierre Lory, Dr. Alan Williams.

Introduction
Widely admired, translated and commented upon, the works of Jalal al-Din Rumi remain largely unexamined from a literary perspective. Emphasis has been placed on him as a spiritual master, and on his Masnavi as a sacred text. As a result, the poet has often been concealed from view. There is much to be explored and discovered in the poetic legacy of Rumi's entire corpus: his dynamic image-making and his mastery of lyrical expression, his use of poetic devices, including strategies of unsaying or silence, the powerful rhetoric of his narrative structures, and more ...

Topics
While we would welcome papers with fresh topics and approaches, the following are suggestions for core concepts to be used as panel topics:

Rumi on Language: complexity, artistry, and function in poetic language, issues of generic diversity, hybridity (linguistic and generic), intertextuality, image making.
Rumi, Historical Reflections: in the mirror of Persian, Turkish, South Asian, Western, and other - freshly attempted -- biographies.
Rumi, Textual Studies: Study of the manuscripts, philological investigations, critical editions
Rumi the Lyrical Poet: the incorporation and impact of music, tradition and innovation, his sources of inspiration.
Rumi the Storyteller: Masnavi as fiction, Masnavi as pedagogical tool, character formation, voice and narrative structure.
Rumi across Linguistic Traditions: strategies and issues of translating classic texts, an overview of translations of Rumi, ongoing translations of the Masnavi and the Divan.
Rumi Reflected in Arts: recitation, performance to music, oral performance/whirling and Sama, pictorial arts. Studies of the architectural structure of Mevlevi tekkes.
Rumi on Subjectivity and the Self: explorations of the self and selflessness, issues of human agency and individuality, free will and determination, the role of love, the life journey.
Publication of proceedings
The papers presented in the conference will be published in a volume of proceedings, edited by Leili Anvar Chenderoff, Fatemeh Keshavarz and Alan Williams. All papers submitted should therefore be of publishable quality, constitute new work, and reserved to be exclusively published as part of the conference proceedings. No previously published work should be submitted.

Rumi festival
This conference is being organised within the context of the Wondrous Birds: The World of Jalal al-Din Rumi festival, a series of programmes and events which include concerts (both classical and contemporary), exhibitions of works of art as well as photographs, poetry readings, plays, dance performances, educational programmes for adults as well as the younger generation, etc.

Enquiries
The Iran Heritage Foundation, 5 Stanhope Gate, London W1K 1AH. 44 20 74934766 (tel), 44 20 74999293 (fax), info@iranheritage.org.



Reviewed/approved by talieshah -.