PHILIP F. KENNEDY D.Phil. 1991, Oxford University Associate Professor of Middle Eastern Studies (affiliated with Comparative Literature) Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies 50 Washington Square South New York, NY 10012 tel: (212) 998-8887 fax: (212) 995-4689 e-mail: philip.kennedy@nyu.edu

My interests are in medieval and modern Arabic narrative literature and poetry, as well as Islamic Studies and Comparative Poetics more generally; all inform my research, teaching and work as editor. In addition to teaching and publication, one of my chief commitments at NYU is to bring together scholars who work in Arabic literature at specialist workshops, annually; to date I have convened five such events and am currently organizing a conference for Spring 2003 which has a much broader remit: exploration of narrative epistemology in narrative, film and opera.

Research and Publication

My first book, The Wine Song in Classical Arabic Poetry: Abu Nuwas and the literary tradition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997) traces the development of the genre of wine poetry from pre-Islamic Arabia to its heyday in early 9th century Abbasid Iraq. Abu Nuwas is one of the five greatest poets of the Arabic tradition, and his wine poetry is far from obscure; it is a staple of any university course on pre-modern Arabic literature. It is indeed startling that a culture in which wine was religiously proscribed should have spawned the most developed "Bacchic" verse in world literature. To read and understand the wine poems is essential for a proper understanding of the cultural pluralism of early Islamic civilization. It also exposes the complexity of the poetic tradition, since the wine theme developed in tandem with the whole poetic corpus and there is a complex intertextuality subtending it, relating it in a varied dynamic with ascetic/pious poetry, erotic poetry, invective poetry and the more formal panegyric poetry of the court. And there is of course a more universal humanistic aspect to this poetry which renders it fascinating to any student of literature. The Wine Song attempts to uncover and explore the complexity of some of Abu Nuwas greatest poems.

I am currently completing a book-length manuscript, entitled Islamic Recognitions: Anagnorisis in Arabic Narrative Literature. This is a typological study of narrative epistemology concentrating on the medieval period, and focusing on the important way that anagnorisis/recognition provides narratives with both structure and theme; emerging as the latter (theme) recognition furnishes an important semiotic and hermeneutic tool for interpreting narratives across distinct genres. After a theoretical Introduction this study contains seven chapters: 1) Anagnorisis in the Qur'an and the Life of Muhammad; 2) Joseph as Figure of Disclosure and Avatar of Romance; 3) Synecdoche and Metonymy in early Isma`ili Memoirs; 4) The Arabian Nights -- Part 1: the Fall of the Barmakids and the Cycle of the Two Viziers (recognition and the disclosure of truth in historiography and fiction); 5) The Arabian Nights -- Part 2: Recognition and the Reader; 6) Unmasking Deceit: the picaresque Maqama; 7) "L'Image Juste: Juste un Image": on modern Arabic drama and the novel.

Anagnorisis has been an essential figure in Western poetics. Arabic literature itself does not have an indigenous narrative poetics, therefore the perspective of this study provides a novel point of comparison between Arabic and Western literature. The study is driven by a theoretical paradigm, but provides close in depth readings of a variety of texts, including the modern Arabic novel. The book will be published by Routledge/Curzon Press in the series Studies in Arabic and Middle Eastern Literatures.

Graduate-level Teaching

Courses on: Arabic Poetry and Poetics; Narrative in Islamic Historiography and Fiction; The Arabian Nights; Recognition/Anagnorisis in Arabic and European Narrative (a seminar in comparative poetics); Introduction to Islamic Texts (in Arabic); Andalusian Literature; Qur'an and Tafsir.

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• The Wine Song in Classical Arabic Poetry: Abu Nuwas and the Literary Tradition, Oxford:Clarendon Press (1997)
• "The Maqamat as a Nexus of Interests" in Muslim Horizons, a volume on approaches to medieval Arabic literature, ed. Julia Bray (E.J.W. Gibb Memorial Trust Series, forthcoming)
• "Samuel" in The Encyclopaedia of the Quran (forthcoming)
• "Zuhdiyya" (the Arabic ascetic poem) for The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition
• "Recognition and Metonymy in Early Isma'ili Memoirs -- the case of Ibn Hawshab-Mansur al-Yaman (d. 302/914)", in Islamic Reflections (Essays in Honour of Professor Alan Jones), edd. Robert G. Hoyland & Philip F. Kennedy (forthcoming in E.J.W. Gibb Memorial Trust Series)
• "Reason and Revelation or A Philosopher's Squib (the Sixth Maqama of Ibn Naqiya)" in Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies, vol. 3, 2000, pp. 84-113
• "Some Demon Muse: Structure and Allusion in al-Hamadhani's Maqama Iblisiyya" in Arabic and Middle Eastern Literatures vol. 2. part 1, 1999, pp. 117-37
• "Takhmis" (pentastichic amplifications) in the Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition, vol. 10, 1999, pp. 123-5 Several entries on classical Arabic poetry in Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, eds. J.S. Meisami and P. Starkey, Routledge, 1997
• "Abu Nuwas, Samuel and Levi", in Medieval and Modern Perspectives on Muslim-Jewish Relations, vol. 2, Reading and London, 1995, p. 109-25
• "Perspectives of a Hamriyya --Abu Nuwas' Ya Sa in Festschrift Ewald Wagner zum 65. Geburtstag, eds. Wolfhart Heinrichs and Gregor Schoeler, Beirut, 1994, pp. 258-76
• "The Muslim Sources of Dante?", in The Arab Influence in Medieval Europe, Reading, 1994, pp. 63-82
• Several entries on aspects of wine culture in the medieval Islamic period for The Oxford Companion to Wine, ed. Jancis Robinson, Oxford 1994
• "Labid, al-Nabigha, al-Akhal and the Oryx", in Arabicus Felix (essays in honour of A.F.L. Beeston on the occasion of his 80th birthday), Reading, 1991, pp. 74-89
• "Thematic Patterning in the Muwashshathe Case of the Gazelle Motif", in Poesía Estr?ica, eds. F. Corriente and A. Saenz-Badillos, Madrid, 1991, pp. 201-16
• "Thematic Relationships between the Kharjas, the Corpus of Muwashsha and Eastern Lyrical Poetry", in Muwashsha and Kharja Studies, ed. Alan Jones, Reading, 1991, pp. 68-87

I have written reviews for The Times Literary Supplement, The Journal of Arabic Literature, Research in African Literature, The Journal of the American Oriental Society, and The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society.

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