Image courtesy of Ahmed Alzohairy.
Alzohairy’s doctoral project focuses on two early Arabic literary works: Risālat al-Ghufrān by al-Maʿarrī and Risālat al-Tawābiʿ wa-l-Zawābiʿ by Ibn Shuḥayd. The project enables a better understanding of Arabic literary criticism from within its own tradition. Instead of using only modern categories, Alzohairy focuses on how pre-modern Arabic scholars themselves understood language, imagination, and literature. During his research trip supported by the Mosafer fellowship, he examined several manuscripts at Princeton University Library, especially Yatīmat al-Dahr by Abu Mansur al-Thaʿalibi.