Mamluk Historiography Revisited - Narratological Perspectives - Hardcover

by Stephan Conermann (Editor)

This volume discusses Mamluk historical texts with an emphasis on literary/stylistic analysis, basically ignoring issues of 'factuality' versus 'fictivity'. None of the authors set out to write 'fiction'; nor would their audience have received their accounts as such. The events depicted were a matter of historical record; but their meaning was geared both to contemporary and to general concerns. The fact of telling them is part and parcel of the historian's task; the means of telling them has to do with the historian's choice of style; and style is all-important in conveying meaning. Were these accounts not considered 'true', the purpose behind their telling and the meaning they convey, would, arguably, be lost; but were they not told in the most effective manner, their meaning might not be clearly grasped.

Author Biography

Prof Dr Stephan Conermann teaches the History of the Islamicate World at the Institute of Oriental and Asian Studies, University of Bonn. Prof. Dr. Uwe Baumann lehrt Anglistik/Amerikanistik: Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaft an der Universitat Bonn. Dr. Torsten Wollina arbeitet seit 2014 am Orient Institut Beirut, wo er sich mit der mamlukischen und osmanischen Historiographie beschaftigt und die Herausgabe der Schriftenreihe Beiruter Texte und Studien" (BTS) organisiert. "