The Origins of Arabness

05/10/19 • 47 min

In this episode of the podcast, I spoke with Dr. Peter Webb who is a university lecturer of Arabic literature at Universiteit Leiden. Dr. Webb’s research focuses on literature and culture of pre-modern Islam and in this podcast, we discuss the origins of Arabness and his book Imaging the Arabs – Arab Identity and the Rise of Islam.

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Ancient Cousins of Arabic

In this episode of the podcast, I spoke with Aaron Rubin, who is The Malvin and Lea Bank Professor of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies, Jewish Studies, and Linguistics at Penn State University. Professor Rubin is one of the leading scholars of the Modern South Arabian languages and in this episode we discussed his research on Jibbali and Mehri. In our talk we discuss the history and development of these languages, how they can inform of us other ancient Semitic languages, and their current states.

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Safaitic

In this episode of the podcast, I spoke with Dr. Ahmad Al-Jallad who is the Sofia Chair in Arabic Studies and an Associate Professor at Ohio State University. He is one of the foremost authorities on early Arabic and his work focuses on the languages and writing systems of pre-Islamic Arabia and the ancient Near East. The focus of our discussion was his work researching the Safaitic inscriptions, which are concentrated in the basalt desert of southern Syria and northern Jordan.