Old books, modern readers: a cultural history from the reading of Kitab al'ibar by Ibn Khaldun

• Grant number: 20/12394-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: March 01, 2021
• End date: February 28, 2022
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History
• Principal Investigator: Samira Adel Osman
• Grantee: Marina Garcia Ferreira
• Host Institution: Escola de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (EFLCH). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus Guarulhos. Guarulhos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Based on translations and secondary sources, this project seeks to map Ibn Khaldun's main work, Kitab al'Ibar. The objective is to start from a cultural history of reading in order to understand the divergences committed by translators and scholars regarding the integrity of the Khaldunian work, also identifying the heterogeneous circumstances that made possible discordant paths from what the author exposed in his introduction, for the editions that followed. Thus, this work focuses specifically on translations into Western languages, to also understand the circumstances that enabled or encouraged the effort for translations: imperialist and orientalist projects, or even nationalisms. We propose a production beyond the analysis of the method or the political, legal, sociological or historical approach of Ibn Khaldun's Prolegomena, as has been done until then. This project is concerned with the dissemination of the work as a whole, from the First Book to the Third, investigating what his circulation and political and intellectual dynamics represented.