6th Annual Big Fat Books Symposium: The Thousand and One Nights (4/5)
Join us for the 6th Annual Big Fat Books Symposium, showcasing “The Thousand and One Nights.” It will take place on Friday, April 5th from 9:30am-6:00pm in STH 625 (745 Comm Ave, 6th floor).
“The Thousand and One Nights” is a seminal text for world literature. Its authorless collage premodern Islamicate literary genres (prophets’ lives, travelogues, mystical love lyrics, wine songs) has inspired adapters and literary innovators in every medium and style.
Continuing WLL’s Big Fat Books tradition and welcoming translator-poet Yasmine Seale, this symposium will explore the magic of the Nights through the sources, translations, rewritings, and film versions that have enchanted audiences in Asia, Europe, and beyond.
See the poster below for the symposium schedule.
Schedule:
9:30-10:00 – BREAKFAST
10:00-10:10 – WELCOME
Margaret Litvin & Catherine Yeh
10:10-11:00 – SOURCES OF THE NIGHTS
Moderated by Sunil Sharma
Haci Osman Gündüz – An Unlikely Arabic Source for the Nights
Peter Schwartz – Your Pretty Dervish is Going to Hell
11:00-11:15 – COFFEE
11:15-12:05 – 1001 NIGHTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST
Moderated by Margaret Litvin
Abigail Gillman – The Nights in Jewish Literature
Roberta Micallef – The Nights as a 21st-Century Turkish Transmedia Story
Sunil Sharma – The Return of the Nights to Persia and India
12:05-1:00 – LUNCH
1:00-2:15 – THE NIGHTS AND WORLD LITERATURE
Moderated by Anita Savo
Keith Vincent – Proust and the Nights
Yoon Sun Yang – Early Colonial Korean Nights
Catherine Yeh – Chinese 1001 Nights Translations
Anna Zielinska-Elliott – Murakami, Scheherazade, and the Power of Storytelling
2:30-4:30 – KEYNOTE: TRANSLATOR AND POET YASMINE SEALE
Always Almost: Approaching The 1001 Nights (Part of the Translation Seminar, CAS / 725 Comm Ave /Room 306)
4:45-5:45 – STUDENT PANEL
Moderated by Haci Osman Gündüz & Margaret Litvin
6:00 – RECEPTION