The last two decades have seen a great expansion of research on Arabic popular literature, especially on epic novels (sīras). This went hand in hand with a very rapid development of the digitization and dissemination of Arabic manuscripts in the various libraries, museums and academic institutions around the world. Researchers find themselves more and more often faced with large corpora that challenge them as to the adequacy of their methods of approach and analysis of their subject. Indeed, while the obstacle represented in the 20th century by the difficulty of accessing the manuscript has fallen, if only partially, the abundance of manuscript sources available online today creates new both methodological and epistemological. What to do with this colossal material now accessible to anyone who wants to use it? For the same sīra, one can easily have very many copies at hand. For the longest sīras, each copy is presented in the form of a series of manuscripts, homogeneous or heterogeneous, which can represent several tens of thousands of folios. Whether analytical or comparative, codicological or historical, narrative or philological, the studies carried out on these corpora, especially those that require access to the entire text, require solid and efficient methods to handle these new research objects.

This workshop brings together practitioners who have dealt with manuscripts both before and after the digital transition. It thus presents itself both as feedback and as a space for reflection. It will address the impact of the latest technical advances on research in Arabic literature and on the work habits of specialists. At the same time, it will reserve a special place for the methodological tools to be developed, or even invented, in the years to come to approach, process and exploit the large manuscript corpora, while taking into account the impact that this may have on the way of thinking about research training in this area. To see the other side of the problem, participate in this discussion of libraries that have carried out or are carrying out large-scale digitization operations, in order to question the strategies in place, their objectives, their results and above all their possible links with the world of research.

Convenor:
Farah Bushra, P.h.D Sorbonne University, UMR 8167 Orient and Mediterraen, PRCE, Departement of Arabic Studies, Lyon 2

Chair:
Eric Vallet, Strasbourg University, Professor of Arabic Studies

Ibrahim Akel, Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3 University
Median Literature Manuscripts Preserved in Syria Today

Youssef Al Hamada, Professor, Louis-Le- Grand High School, Chair Superior of Arabic Studies
Sīrat al-amīra Ḏāt al-himma.The first steps on the long road to scholarly publishing

Géraldine Chatelard, Policy Officer for relations with Middle-East and chief of project " Libraries of Orient",
Bibliothèque nationale de France ( BnF)
Digitisation and Digital Dissemination Policies at the National Library of France (BnF), and Research on Arabic Manuscripts: Challenges and Prospects for Collaboration

Zuzana Gasakova, COmenius University, Bratislava
Characteristic Features of the Manuscripts of Sīrat Sayf ibn Dhī Yazan

Iyas Hassan, Professor of Middle Arabic Litterature, Sorbonne University, UMR 8167 Orient and Mediterraen,
Institut Français du Proche-Orient
Towards a collective model of the critical edition: Reflections on the Alexandre Project (2022-2025)

Farah Bushra, P.h.D Sorbonne University
Sayf bin Dhī Yazan on line: Reflection on the methods of gathering, classifying and analysing a large corpus of digitized manuscripts

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