H-Levant ANNC: The Reception of European Orientalism in the East: Scholarly Encounters in India, Iran, and the Mashriq during the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Dartmouth, 14-15 Nov 2015) Discussion published by Nancy L. Stockdale on Sunday, November 8, 2015 Jewish Studies Conference, November 14 and 15, 2015: The Reception of European Orientalism in the East: Scholarly Encounters in India, Iran, and the Mashriq during the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries The conference is free and open to the public, but pre-registration is requested. Please contact Prof. Susannah Heschel, chair, Jewish Studies Program, Dartmouth College -- Contact Email:
[email protected] European scholarship on Islam grew rapidly during the course of the nineteenth century, particularly in the German-speaking academic world. Imperial politics led to the acquisition of manuscripts and facilitated travel to the East by students and scholars. The scholarship on Islam was affected by the imperial political framework, as Edward Said has argued, and also by theological interests and philological methods, as Suzanne Marchand has demonstrated. The purpose of this conference is to investigate the reception by Muslim scholars in India, Egypt, and Palestine of European scholarship on Islam, and to interrogate the impact of travel to India and the Mashriq on the nature of the scholarship produced by Europeans. Establishing personal relationships, experiencing Islam as a practiced religion, examining archeological sites and artifacts as well as manuscripts, learning about Islam from Muslims, and refining linguistic abilities were some of the many experiences for the Europeans that emerged from their travel. The interactions were multi-confessional, as Jews as well as Christians were among the European scholars who traveled East, and also among those in the East who met their European counterparts.