This session will draw on material held in Exeter University’s archives and rare book collections to explore how western engagement with the Middle East has been shaped by knowledge and/or ignorance of languages such as Arabic and Kurdish. Participants will be able to examine manuscripts, dictionaries, language manuals, translated documents and other materials from the 19th century to the present day, and learn about the role these played within the dynamics of political power, scholarship and commercial expansion in the region.
Dr James Downs has been Archivist of the University of Exeter’s Middle East collections since July 2018. With a background in archives and rare book librarianship, he has published three books and over 40 articles and reviews in journals including Ancient Egypt, the Innes Review, Magdalen College Record and Studies in Photography on various aspects of the history of book illustration, film and photography, monasticism, antiquarian scholarship and religious culture.
Clémence Scalbert is senior lecturer in Ethnopolitics and Kurdish Studies at the University of Exeter where she has been working since 2007. She has a background in geography and
Kurdish language and literature. Her research has focused on Kurdish language policies, cultural production, literature, and translation.
Claire Beaugrand is lecturing in the Sociology of the Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter. Fluent in Arabic, her
research focuses on the socio-genesis of nationality, citizenship and statelessness in the Gulf and now deals with the sociology of Gulf elites and their interconnexion with London.
