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Open Access
Active Speech: Critical Perspectives on Teresa Deevy
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-04-07) Kealy, Úna; McCarthy, Kate
'Active Speech' is a groundbreaking collection of scholarly essays and practitioner interviews focused on the work of Irish playwright Teresa Deevy. Acts of recovery in the 1980s and 1990s challenged Deevy’s exclusion from the literary canon, reclaiming her contributions as significant to Irish drama and theatre. The recent resurgence of scholarship and productions evidences that, as a deafened woman and Irish playwright, Deevy’s creative power continues to disrupt and tilt the canon of Irish drama, theatre, and performance. Essays within the collection explore how Deevy’s work interrogates early to mid-twentieth century Irish social norms and ideologies and provide a rich context for understanding her plays. The collection highlights the interdisciplinary nature of research on Deevy and offers insights on her work through archival research, literary analysis, and practitioner perspectives from Deaf and hearing theatremakers. One of the collection's strengths lies in its collaborative and inclusive approach, showcasing diverse methodologies and rigorous scholarship. The chapters on archival research and practitioner perspectives offer compelling models and avenues for future studies. This volume is an essential resource for scholars, educators, and theatremakers alike.
Open Access
Improvising Otherwise: A Decolonial Feminist Approach to Improvisation in Early Modern English Culture
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-04-30) Lahham, Fatima
This volume redefines how we approach early music and cultural histories, intertwining feminist, decolonial, and creative perspectives. Fatima Lahham delves into the improvisational practices of early modern England, situating them within a rich tapestry of musical sources, theological texts, travel narratives, and natural histories. Inspired by Sara Ahmed’s notion of the “feminist ear,” the book amplifies voices and histories often unheard, re-examining the cultural interplay between England and the Ottoman Empire in the seventeenth century. This groundbreaking study bridges disciplines and engages with critical race studies to explore decolonial methodologies. Lahham challenges traditional historiographies, integrating improvisation studies and early modern creativity to transform our understanding of historical performance and inspire new practices today. Tracks from her album punctuate the text, fostering an innovative, multi-modal reading experience, while creative prompts invite readers to craft their own improvisations. At once scholarly and imaginative, this book expands the boundaries of historically informed performance and cultural studies. By mobilizing improvisation as a tool for understanding and re-imagining history, Imagining Otherwise offers a vital contribution to early music, feminist theory, and the study of England’s global engagements.
Open Access
Coral Conservation: Global Evidence for the Effects of Actions
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-04-22) Thornton, Ann; Morgan, William H.; Bladon, Eleanor K.; Smith, Rebecca K.; Sutherland, William J.
Coral Conservation: Global evidence for the effects of actions provides an essential resource for anyone dedicated to conserving or restoring corals. This comprehensive synthesis of global scientific evidence examines the effectiveness of conservation and restoration actions targeting stony, soft and cold-water coral species inhabiting a diverse range of marine habitats in tropical, temperate and arctic waters from shallow coasts to the deep sea. Addressing the urgent threats posed by climate change, invasive species, overfishing, and habitat destruction, this work summarizes evidence from actions in three core themes: protecting healthy reefs, mitigating human impacts, and undertaking active restoration. From establishing Marine Protected Areas to innovative techniques like coral gardening, the synopsis summarizes the evidence for practical actions and offers insights into their outcomes and applicability. Designed to guide decision-makers—resource managers, conservationists, policymakers, and local advocates—as well as those curious to learn about actions that could help corals, this accessible guide provides succinct information to support evidence-based conservation. By identifying the existing evidence and highlighting gaps in the knowledge, Coral Conservation can support practitioners and policymakers to allocate resources effectively by prioritising actions that work. By doing more of what works, we can reverse the loss of coral species and restore these vital habitats for the benefit of current and future generations. The authors consulted an international group of coral experts and conservationists to produce this synopsis. Funding was provided by A.G. Leventis Foundation and Oceankind. Coral Conservation is the 25th publication in the Conservation Evidence Series Synopses, and is freely available from the online Conservation Evidence database (www.conservationevidence.com) ensuring that users have ongoing access to updated research and assessments. Others in the series include Eel Conservation in Inland Habitats, Biodiversity of Marine Artificial Structures, Sub-tidal Benthic Invertebrate Conservation, Marine and Freshwater Mammal Conservation, and Marine Fish Conservation.
Open Access
A Cyborg's Father: Misreading Donna Haraway
(punctum books, 2025-04-04) Brennan, Dave
When his daughter was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes as an infant and became dependent on technology to stay alive, Dave Brennan set off in search of a vision: what does it mean to live as a cyborg? And how might he best help his daughter navigate the relationship between machine and flesh? Beginning with a line plucked from Donna Haraway’s “A Cyborg Manifesto” — “Their fathers, after all, are inessential” — A Cyborg’s Father blends memoiristic poetic fragments with lyric essays that look toward music and literature by women artists who have embraced the technological as a metaphorical or literal means of investigating and owning their experience as women. Traversing the intersecting paths of feminism, chronic illness, disability studies, transhumanism, interdependence, and more, this is the tale of a father whose greatest hope is to be rendered inessential.
Open Access
Tragedy and the Witness: Shakespeare and Beyond
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-04-15) Parker, Fred
As he dies, Hamlet pleads with Horatio to ‘report me aright … tell my story’. This book deals with the task of bearing witness to anguish, atrocity, and madness, as these are staged in the tragic theatre. Focusing on the relationship between the protagonist and the onlooker or witness, it explores how the tragic figure, often and understandably viewed as alien or culpable or profoundly strange, struggles to be understood. Centred on Shakespeare, its wide-ranging approach also introduces works by (among others) the Greeks, Racine, Ibsen, Pirandello, Kafka, Beckett, and Kane. The discussion intersects with trauma studies and with psychoanalytic theory, especially around how subjective experience is ‘held’ by others. The challenge of entering into such difficult experience is likened to the offering of hospitality to the foreigner or stranger: the challenge of overcoming xenophobia. Another large concern is with how tragedy represents madness, and how far such states of mind may be shared with an audience, particularly through the lens of King Lear. Written in an accessible style, this book grounds tragedy in matters that resonate in common experience, from mental breakdown and our need to be heard to questions around grieving, trauma, and the ethics of telling someone’s story.
Open Access
Women Writers in the Romantic Age
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-04-17) Isbell, John Claiborne
This groundbreaking book offers a comprehensive review of six hundred and fifty women writers from over fifty national traditions, spanning Europe and the Americas during the transformative years of 1776 to 1848. Framed by revolutionary upheavals, the book explores how women writers shaped and reflected Romanticism’s global currents. It fills a critical scholarly gap, connecting disparate traditions and uncovering voices often overlooked in male-dominated literary histories. Through concise entries, the book names every woman writer identified in its vast research, from celebrated figures like Phillis Wheatley to lesser-known authors whose manuscripts lay buried in archives. Each entry provides essential biographical details, while select excerpts in seventeen languages bring these voices to life, revealing how women navigated the era’s revolutionary ideals and patriarchal barriers. Structured democratically, the volume treats all writers equally—whether anonymous, pseudonymous, or celebrated in their time. It highlights their diverse experiences: poets and novelists, abolitionists and suffragists, mothers and mill workers. From memoirs to political tracts, their works testify to the rich tapestry of women’s contributions to Romanticism. By illuminating these stories, this book challenges national silos, offering a panoramic view of Romanticism as a truly transnational, female-inclusive phenomenon. It represents a go-to resource for students and interested readers, while setting the ground for future scholars to expand this vital field of study.
Open Access
Humans, Dogs and Other Beings: Myths, Stories, and History in the Land of Genghis Khan
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-04-03) Terbish, Baasanjav
Step into the windswept steppes of Mongolia and explore a world where humans and animals have coexisted for centuries in a delicate, profound dance. This groundbreaking book examines the complex relationships between the Mongols and four animals—dogs, marmots, cats, and camels—shedding light on a nomadic culture that is deeply intertwined with its natural environment. Drawing from rich ethnographic accounts, historical records, and personal memoir, the author, of Mongol origin, offers a vivid narrative that intertwines cultural insights with intimate reflections. Each chapter delves into the dual nature of these animals: as both beings of Mongol cosmology and as tangible, living creatures that shape and are shaped by human lives. From the fierce loyalty and sharp temper of dogs to the culinary and medicinal significance of marmots, the mortal symbolism of cats, and the nurturing bond embodied by camels, these animals reveal unique facets of Mongol life and values. Through these stories, the book invites readers to consider universal questions about humanity’s relationship with animals, our evolving cultures, and the shared fears, loves, and beliefs that define us. Insightful and evocative, this work is a must-read for anyone intrigued by human-animal connections, nomadic traditions, and the anthropology of coexistence.
Open Access
Αncient Greek II: A 21st-Century Approach
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-03-31) Peek, Philip S.
In this elementary textbook, Philip S. Peek draws on his twenty-five years of teaching experience to present the ancient Greek language in an imaginative and accessible way that promotes creativity, deep learning, and diversity. The course is built on three pillars: memory, analysis, and logic. Readers memorize the top 550 most frequently occurring ancient Greek words, the essential word endings, the eight parts of speech, and the grammatical concepts they will most frequently encounter when reading authentic ancient texts. Analysis and logic exercises enable the identification of clitics and full words as well as the translation and parsing of genuine ancient Greek sentences, with compelling reading selections in English and in Greek offering starting points for contemplation, debate, and reflection. A series of thirty entries by James F. Patterson, using a simplified morphophonemic approach to understanding language improve readers’ understanding of word formation, their vocabulary, and their ability to read and understand Ancient Greek. This combination of memory-based learning and concept- and skill-based learning gradually builds the confidence of the reader, teaching them how to learn by guiding them from a familiarity with the basics to proficiency in reading this beautiful language. Ancient Greek II: A 21st-Century Approach is written for high-school and university students, but is an instructive and rewarding text for anyone who wishes to learn ancient Greek.
Open Access
Color, Healthcare and Bioethics
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-03-28) ten Have, Henk
This book explores the profound, yet often overlooked, role of color in healthcare and bioethics, arguing that color is far more than a visual or aesthetic element—it actively shapes human experience, perception, and ethical reasoning. Traditionally regarded as secondary to objective medical observations or rational ethical debates, color has been marginalized in these fields, considered subjective and inconsequential. However, this book reveals that color is critical in diagnostic and therapeutic practices and that it subconsciously influences moral interpretations in bioethics. Through examples like the ‘blue hour’—a time of day associated with melancholy and creativity—readers are invited to consider color not just as a physical phenomenon explained by wavelengths and visual physiology, but as a medium rich with emotional and metaphorical meaning. From ‘feeling blue’ to seeing the world in ‘black and white’, color conveys complex messages that inform our perceptions of health, morality, and identity. By bridging the gap between science, emotion, and ethics, this book illuminates how colors impact our worldviews, urging readers to consider the subtle yet significant ways that color influences our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
Open Access
Music, Religion and Politics at Worcester Cathedral, 680-1950
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-03-17) Newsholme, Richard
This book provides a comprehensive history of music and liturgy at Worcester Cathedral, from its foundation in the seventh century to the mid-20th century. The author delves into how political shifts, public opinion, and national trends have influenced changes in the cathedral's practices over time, while also highlighting the distinct local dynamics at play. The book captures the fluctuating significance of liturgy and music across different eras, from the strict, ritualistic practices of Benedictine monks to the rejection of ceremonial traditions by Interregnum Non-Conformists. It traces how the form of worship evolved in response to the beliefs of church leaders, leading to periods of decline and revival in the cathedral’s musical standards. Notably, the study explores Worcester’s role in the development of British polyphony up to the 14th century and the comforting role of the choir during World War I. With a wealth of surviving Anglo-Saxon charters, medieval liturgical manuscripts, and unique polyphonic fragments, this volume offers rare insights into centuries-old practices. While it focuses on Worcester, the study reflects broader trends in English cathedral history, providing a vital resource for understanding the interplay of music, religion, and politics in the evolution of worship.
Open Access
Interconnected Traditions: Semitic Languages, Literatures, Cultures—A Festschrift for Geoffrey Khan: Volume 2: The Medieval World, Judaeo-Arabic, and Neo-Aramaic
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-03-07) Hornkohl, Aaron D.; Vidro, Nadia; Watson, Janet C.E.; Coghill, Eleanor; Connolly, Magdalen M.; Outhwaite, Benjamin M.
Geoffrey Khan’s pioneering scholarship has transformed the study of Semitic languages, literatures, and cultures, leaving an indelible mark on fields ranging from Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic dialectology to medieval manuscript traditions and linguistic typology. This Festschrift, celebrating a distinguished career that culminated in his tenure (2012–2025) as Regius Professor of Hebrew in the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge, brings together contributions from a vast and representative array of scholars—retired, established, and up and coming—whose work has been influenced by his vast intellectual legacy. Reflecting the interconnected traditions that Khan has illuminated throughout his career, this volume presents cutting-edge research on Hebrew and Aramaic linguistics, historical syntax, manuscript studies, and the transmission of textual traditions across centuries and cultures. Contributors engage with topics central to Khan’s scholarship, including the evolution of the Biblical Hebrew verbal system, the intricacies of Masoretic notation, Geniza discoveries, Samaritan and medieval Judaeo-Arabic texts, and computational approaches to linguistic analysis. As Khan retires from his role as Regius Professor, this collection stands as both a tribute and a continuation of his work, honouring his lifelong dedication to understanding and preserving the linguistic and literary heritage of the Semitic world.
Open Access
Feeling Colour: Chromatic Embodiment in Film Culture, 1950s–1960s
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-03-06) Lameris, Bregt
The shift back from quasi monochrome to coloured motion picture during the 1950s and 1960s famously provided moviegoers the dazzling opportunity to more fully engage their senses, all the while opening new modes of affective possibilities for filmmakers. Set against the intersection of media studies, emotion theory, biology, and digital humanities, Feeling Colour: Chromatic Embodiment in Film Culture (1950s-1960s) delves into the role colour played in the oft-fraught relationship between cinema and its audiences. This transnational analysis of an extensive range of midcentury cinematography examines the multilayered effects which extend beyond the silver screen, offering a high-level theoretical elaboration and in-depth historical exploration of both experimental and mainstream movies. Lameris takes an interdisciplinary perspective, examining the different ways colour creates—or was believed to create—embodied reactions. From perception theory and 'putting the nerves in motion’, to colour psychology and how to ‘steer’ the spectator, to cross-modal perception (or ‘synaesthesia’), Lameris asks how how colours and feelings in film are entangled in the colour cultures, discourses and beliefs of a particular historical context. With its influential cultural scholarly contribution and accessible writing style, this book will delight both students and specialists in film and media studies. In addition, those interested in the history and use of color in advertising, neuroscience, gender studies, and emotion will find the book engaging and useful.
Open Access
The Art of Compilation: Manuscripts and Networks in the Early Medieval Latin West
(punctum books, 2025-03-04) Dorofeeva, Anna; Kelly, Michael J.
The Art of Compilation: Manuscripts and Networks in the Early Medieval Latin West interrogates the medieval manuscript book as a dynamic, constantly changing object entangled in intellectual and cultural networks, constructed and deconstructed by different people, and transmuting in form and meaning over time. Medieval manuscripts are not static, permanently bound, and delimited, but rather serve as evidence for the layered relationships between texts and their material supports, and when we realize that, we gain a clearer view of medieval manuscript culture as driven by the agency and intellectual exchange of the people behind it. This volume of essays investigates early medieval Western European manuscript culture as a field of entangled objects, focusing on the connections between knowledge selection, material representation, and scribal agency. The complex road of compiling selected texts into manuscripts (compilatio) in the early Middle Ages is still not well understood, yet it is the key to the historical context surrounding medieval manuscript culture. The practice of knowledge selection consisted of three key stages: the intellectual selection of the textual content of manuscript collections; the pragmatic action of arranging the textual content in a draft form by authors or editors; and the material representation and aesthetic exposition of texts in manuscripts. These stages were part of a linear development, but also exercised reciprocal influence upon one another. By tracing this process in surviving manuscript collections, we can better understand in what practical ways knowledge was encoded and how these often innovative and experimental practices contributed to the emergence and consolidation of intellectual and scribal traditions. This has important implications for how we understand education, reform, and the exercise of power in the early Middle Ages.
Open Access
One Thing Follows Another: Experiments in Dance, Art, and Life through the Lens of Simone Forti and Yvonne Rainer
(punctum books, 2025-03-28) Rosenthal, Sarah; Witte, Valerie
In the 1950s, Yvonne Rainer, Simone Forti, and a handful of other young artists based in New York’s Greenwich Village set out to challenge the practices and principles of professionalized dance. Inspired by the groundbreaking work of choreographers Anna Halprin, Robert Dunn, and Merce Cunningham, as well as composer John Cage, they were determined to change what dance is and can be. In One Thing Follows Another, a boundary-crossing collection of ten experimental-poetic essays, poets Valerie Witte and Sarah Rosenthal explore the work of dancer-choreographers Rainer and Forti, both at various inflection points throughout their careers and in this particular moment. Through a combination of chance operations and intentional artistic choices that push the authors to unexpected places — including the zoo, the dance studio, the street corner — and via innovative forms and techniques, such as collage, erasure, and their own artistic inventions, they deconstruct the essay form to examine what they as poets, each with their own highly charged relationships to dance, can contribute to the conversation about these pivotal figures in postmodern performance art.
Open Access
Mourning the Ends: Collaborative Writing and Performance
(punctum books, 2025-03-21) Palani, Malin; Ovalıoğlu Gros, Nilüfer; Ambayec, Maria Shantelle Alexies; van Baarle, Kristof; Burke, Peter; Gaspar, Renata; Goudouna, Sozita; Lucie, Sarah; Moritz, Evan; Hafez, Adham; Kühling, Jan-Tage; Laine, Eero; Martins Rodrigues de Moraes, Juliana; Rachev, Rumen; Stojnić, Aneta
Mourning the Ends: Collaborative Writing and Performance is an opening, a beginning, an attempt to rethink how we can be, think, and work together. This book, authored by a multitude, explores new methodologies of collaborative scholarship for the arts and humanities within the context of the various ecological, medical, military, and epistemic ends facing the world. The authors of Mourning the Ends performed an experimental methodology as the book was researched, written, and revised by fifteen individuals situated across the globe. The writing emerged in part from a shared sense of mourning through the global pandemic and ongoing ecological catastrophes, yet the questions and arguments that are raised are immediately relevant as the rolling crises of our contemporary moment play out and further develop. The volume challenges a number of key areas in performance studies as well as foundational expectations and assumptions of the arts and humanities more broadly—namely, that writing and scholarship should be solitary endeavors. The authors write back against the model of thinking and studying that centers the singular genius, especially against the backdrop of enduring and apparent end times. Mourning the Ends is in some ways a rehearsal for another future, a speculative engagement with performance, ecology, and academic affiliation beyond institutional bounds—a methodology for shared mourning, performance, and thinking.
Open Access
Interconnected Traditions: Semitic Languages, Literatures, Cultures—A Festschrift for Geoffrey Khan: Volume 1: Hebrew and the Wider Semitic World
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-03-07) Hornkohl, Aaron D.; Watson, Janet C.E.; Vidro, Nadia; Coghill, Eleanor; Connolly, Magdalen M.; Outhwaite, Benjamin M.
Geoffrey Khan’s pioneering scholarship has transformed the study of Semitic languages, literatures, and cultures, leaving an indelible mark on fields ranging from Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic dialectology to medieval manuscript traditions and linguistic typology. This Festschrift, celebrating a distinguished career that culminated in his tenure (2012–2025) as Regius Professor of Hebrew in the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge, brings together contributions from a vast and representative array of scholars—retired, established, and up and coming—whose work has been influenced by his vast intellectual legacy. Reflecting the interconnected traditions that Khan has illuminated throughout his career, this volume presents cutting-edge research on Hebrew and Aramaic linguistics, historical syntax, manuscript studies, and the transmission of textual traditions across centuries and cultures. Contributors engage with topics central to Khan’s scholarship, including the evolution of the Biblical Hebrew verbal system, the intricacies of Masoretic notation, Geniza discoveries, Samaritan and medieval Judaeo-Arabic texts, and computational approaches to linguistic analysis. As Khan retires from his role as Regius Professor, this collection stands as both a tribute and a continuation of his work, honouring his lifelong dedication to understanding and preserving the linguistic and literary heritage of the Semitic world.
Open Access
Troubled People, Troubled World: Psychotherapy, Ethics and Society
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-03-04) Briant, Michael
Ethical issues are the stuff of psychotherapy, and in fact Freud envisaged the process as one in which an unexamined, irrational and oppressive conscience gives way to one more benignly rooted in reason. Therapists endeavour to be non-judgemental and, indeed, are no more qualified to pass judgement on others than anyone else; do they nevertheless learn anything about ethics from their disciplined listening? The same question was asked after the war about the persecution of the Jews and other minorities, and it’s a very live issue again, faced as we are by movements like ISIS, or Putinism in Russia, that cause great suffering in the name of religious or moral regeneration - a bewildering paradox that David Astor, former editor of The Observer called ‘the scourge’. Can psychotherapy throw any light on it, or contribute any ideas as to how we might contain, if not prevent, the barbarism it sanctions? Can it offer any insights into a different, more inclusive kind of ethics, and if so, can we glean any guidance from it as to how we might further it? These are the questions the author explores, drawing on psychoanalytic thinking on these issues for over a century and illustrated by his work with individuals over four decades.
Open Access
Two Early Byzantine Bible Manuscripts in Christian Palestinian Aramaic: Codex Climaci Rescriptus II & XI
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-02-20) Phillips, Kim
Despite the ubiquitous use of Greek by the Christian church of the late antique Southern Levant, many Christians in the region also—or only—spoke Aramaic. Today, this dialect, known as Christian Palestinian Aramaic (CPA), is relatively sparsely attested in the form of regional inscriptions and, particularly, in the form of vernacular translations of Greek biblical, liturgical and theological texts. These translations survive predominantly as undertexts within palimpsest manuscripts. Codex Climaci Rescriptus (CCR) is one of the most important palimpsest manuscript sources for the recovery of CPA texts. CCR was created around the tenth century; its superior text consists of Syriac translations of two theological works by John Climacus. This tenth century manuscript was manufactured using recycled parchment from at least eleven older, obsolete manuscripts whose texts had been scraped off in preparation for reuse. Two of these eleven manuscripts form the focus of the present study. The first—CCR II—was originally a manuscript of the Pauline Epistles in CPA translation; the second—CCR XI—was originally an Apostolos manuscript (i.e., it contained the Acts of the Apostles and the Catholic Epistles). Cutting-edge multispectral imaging technology has been brought to bear on CCR in the last decade, enabling more detailed and accurate reconstructions of its various undertexts. With the benefit of this technology, this study offers a detailed codicological introduction to each of CCR II and CCR XI, fresh editions of the undertexts themselves, as well as a commentary that begins to evaluate the ongoing significance of this manuscript for biblical and linguistic studies.
Open Access
Phenomenography in the 21st Century: A Methodology for Investigating Human Experience of the World
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-02-10) S. Åkerlind, Gerlese
Phenomenography offers a distinctive approach to studying human experience of the world, by highlighting different ways in which the same phenomena (concepts, objects, events) are experienced within any group of people. Phenomenography focuses on the relationship between meaning—people’s holistic understanding of phenomena—and structure, that is the part-whole structure of people’s awareness of phenomena. This structure of awareness then forms the basis for identifying differences in the experienced meaning of phenomena, and how awareness needs to change to allow new meanings to emerge—whether educationally, historically, culturally or socially. Over its 50-year history, there have been substantial advancements in the methods and theoretical assumptions underlying phenomenographic research, but these developments are not always recognised. This book details how the 21st-century practice of phenomenography differs from its earlier iterations, emphasising that earlier works can be misleading when used to justify current research practices. Phenomenography is a developing, not static, approach to social science research, and this book introduces further methodological and theoretical extensions to the research. Although most commonly used in educational research, the potential of phenomenography to contribute to research in other social science disciplines is increasingly being recognised and is further emphasised in this book. In this way, this book is not only essential reading for doctoral students, but will also be of interest to those already experienced in phenomenography, and to social science researchers within and outside the field of education.
Open Access
New Words to Old Tunes: Genres and Metrics of Lebanese Zajal Poetry
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-02-06) Haydar, Adnan
New Words to Old Tunes: Genres and Metrics of Lebanese Zajal Poetry introduces the rich tradition of Lebanese oral poetry, offering an in-depth study and analysis of its metrics and genres. It presents a novel framework for the proper scansion of meters and emphasises the previously overlooked roles of musical and poetic stress. It details nearly twenty zajal genres, including popular songs that use zajal metrics, and integrates musical notations and web-streamed audio links to enrich the reader’s experience. By presenting both theoretical analysis and practical applications, the book not only contributes to the academic study of Lebanese and Arab oral traditions but also supports broader efforts to preserve and disseminate this cultural heritage through digital humanities. While previous works have been largely descriptive or focused on specific poets, this book provides a detailed analytical approach to zajal metrics and their musical dimensions. This rigorous and comprehensive study will be of interest to scholars working on oral traditions, folklore studies, ethnomusicology, cultural studies, oral-formulaic poetry traditions, throughout the Middle East and beyond.