EXTENSION OF DEADLINE: NOW 31 JANUARY 2008

THIRD SYMPOSIUM ON THE HISTORY OF PRINTING IN THE LANGUAGES AND COUNTRIES OF
THE MIDDLE EAST:  LEIPZIG, 25-27 SEPTEMBER 2008

CALL FOR PAPERS

Following two successful international symposia on The History of Printing and
Publishing in the Languages and Countries of the Middle East, held at the
Gutenberg Museum in Mainz (2002) and at the Bibliothèque nationale de France in
Paris (2005), we are now convening the third meeting on the same themes. This
will take place in Leipzig, 25-27 September 2008, and it will form part of the
24th Congress of the Union européenne des arabisants et islamisants (UEAI).
This Symposium, however, will not be confined to printing in Arabic and Muslim
languages, but will, as before, cover all Middle Eastern languages and scripts:
Arabic, Armenian, Berber, Coptic, Georgian, Hebrew, Kurdish, Persian, Syriac,
Turkish, etc.

Some of the specific themes which may be discussed and developed in the
conference papers are the following (but other suggestions are most welcome):

# Middle Eastern printing before Gutenberg
# The origins and developments of European typography in Middle Eastern scripts
# The arrival and development of typography in the Middle East
# The aesthetic and practical dimensions of Middle Eastern typography (design,
cognitive effects, etc.)
# Lithography in the Middle East
# The printing, publishing and readership of newspapers and magazines [but not
their journalistic, intellectual or literary content]
# Aspects of descriptive and analytical bibliography of early and rare Middle
Eastern printed material
# The history of Middle Eastern publishing, and its social, economic, and
literary consequences
# The history of publishing in Middle Eastern languages outside the Middle East
# The art and techniques of illustrations in printed books and periodicals

The working languages of the Symposium are English, French and German.
Papers should not exceed 20 minutes. Please send proposals, as soon as
possible, and not later than 31 January 2008, using the UEAI Congress
Registration Form available at http://www.hpplcme.ovh.org . As well as sending
it to the Congress organisers, please copy it to the three Symposium conveners
below.

Information about the Congress, registration fees, accommodation, travel, etc.
can be found in the UEAI Congress circular at http://www.hpplcme.ovh.org

Ulrich Marzolph (Göttingen) [log in to unmask]
Geoffrey Roper (London) [log in to unmask]
Sara Yontan (Paris) [log in to unmask]