In the Presence of Power: Court and Performance in the Pre-Modern Middle East

Published by New York University Press 2017

In the Presence of Power

Court and Performance in the Pre-Modern Middle East

Edited by: Maurice A. Pomerantz and Evelyn Birge Vitz

https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9781479879366.001.0001

Overview
Contents

About this book

Insights into power, spectacle, and performance in the courts of Middle Eastern rulers

In recent decades, scholars have produced much new research on courtly life in medieval Europe, but studies on imperial and royal courts across the Middle East have received much less attention, particularly for courts before 1500AD. In the Presence of Power, however, sheds new light on courtly life across the region. This insightful, exploratory collection of essays uncovers surprising commonalities across a broad swath of cultures.

The pre-modern period in this volume includes roughly seven centuries, opening with the first dynasty of Islam, the Umayyads, whose reign marked an important watershed for Late Antique culture, and closing with the rule of the so-called “gunpowder” empires of the Ottomans and Safavids over much of the Near East in the sixteenth century. In between, this volume locates similarities across the Western Medieval, Byzantine and Islamicate courtly cultures, spanning a vast history and geography to demonstrate the important cross-pollinations that occurred between their literary and cultural legacies. This study does not presume the presence of one shared courtly institution across time and space, but rather seeks to understand the different ways in which contemporaries experienced and spoke about these places of power and performance. Adopting a very broad view of performances, In the Presence of Power includes exuberant expressions of love in Arabic stories, shadow plays in Mamluk Cairo, Byzantine storytelling, religious food traditions in Christian Cyprus, advice, and political and ethnographic performances of power.

Author / Editor information

Pomerantz Maurice A. :

Maurice A. Pomerantz is Associate Professor of Literature at New York University Abu Dhabi. He is the author of Licit Magic: The Life and Letters of al-Sahib b. 'Abbad.Vitz Evelyn Birge :

Evelyn Birge Vitz is Professor of French and director of Medieval and Renaissance Studies at New York University, and has published widely on medieval and renaissance literature and literary theory.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction Evelyn Birge Vitz and Maurice A. Pomerantz Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part I. Power Performed
1. Performance and Competition of Kingship and Court in Le Voyage de Charlemagne à Jerusalem et à Constantinople Real and Imaginary Encounters between the Medieval West and the Middle East Evelyn Birge Vitz Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	17
2. Bloodthirsty Emperors: Performances of Imperial Punishment in Byzantine Hagiography Stavroula Constantinou Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	30
3. Maydān-i Naqsh-i Jahān The Safavid Isfahan Public Square as “A Playing Field” Babak Rahimi Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	42
Part II. Persuasion
4. Performances of Advice and Admonition in the Courts of Muslim Rulers of the Ninth to Eleventh Centuries Louise Marlow Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	63
5. Conversation as Performance Adab al- Muḥādatha at the Abbasid Court Nadia Maria El Cheikh Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	84
6. Khālid Ibn Ṣafwān An Orator at the Umayyad and Abbasid Courts Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	100
Part III. Entertainment
7. Performing Court Literature in Medieval Byzantium Tales Told in Tents Margaret Mullett Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	121
8. Error and the Abbasid Performer The “Rare Slips” of the Fifth/Eleventh- Century Ghars al-Niʿma al-Ṣābiʾ Maurice A. Pomerantz Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	142
9. Cross- Gender “Acting” and Gender- Bending Rhetoric at a Princely Party Performing Shadow Plays in Mamluk Cairo Li Guo Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	164
Part IV. Delight
10. The Court Cuisine of Medieval Cyprus Food as Table Theater William Woys Weaver Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	179
11. Mystical Poetics Courtly Themes in Early Sufi Akhbār Bilal Orfali Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	196
12. Chaste Lovers, Umayyad Rulers, and Abbasid Writers Jocelyn Sharlet Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	215
Epilogue Evelyn Birge Vitz and Maurice A. Pomerantz Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	243
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	247
List of Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	275
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	279

Language: English
Publisher: New York University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Keywords: Arabic; Court; Iran; Literature; Middle-Eastern; performance; power; premodern

eBook

Published: December 5, 2017
ISBN: 9781479884131