Search

This article offers a reflection on the writing of the sīra , the "life of the Prophet," based on the study of the catalogs of the Egyptian National Library and the Library of al-Azhar. The cross-analysis of the classifications of medieval and modern sciences, and the categories used by cataloguers at the end of the 19th century and in the first half of the 20th century, shows that the sīra was irreducible to the "biography of the Prophet," and covered a much larger set of texts. The rest of the article offers a description of the corpus of 491 works of sīra and the 1,119 manuscripts and printed matter which are its material manifestations. We come to the conclusion that this corpus can be used to describe the culture of the sīra in Egypt and in the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire. Two results appear particularly important: the constitution of series of texts (basic text, commentaries, glosses) makes it possible to describe a major part of the culture of commentary in the Ottoman period; the examination of the corpus also offers an interesting perspective on the transition between manuscript culture and printed culture in 19th century Egypt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with a reading of HOLZ, a woodcut magazine by Olivier Deprez and Roby Comblain, who is also in charge of the exhibition of this work which is meant to be seen as much as to be read. It analyzes the place of this both hybrid and medium-specific project in the career of the artiste, highlighting the many correspondences with Deprez's commitment to engraving as a visual technique but also as a storytelling technique. The article also examines the singularities of the treatment of the book as object in light of the contemporary crisis of the book, in literature as well as in comics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a reflection on the concerns surrounding the appropriation of digital reading devices. Reading is specific activity, very stereotyped. With a deeper study, reading proves to be a heterogeneous and complex activity. Its objective is to create meaning. The history of reading highlights constantly evolving relationships between the intellectual practices of the reader, the reading goal and the medium. This extended development is leading today to the digital reading. Without meeting the affordance of the paper, the horizon of the possible of digital reading remains vague. Its future seems to focus on two shapes: the hypertext book or the application book. The transition from paper to digital devices is guiding a dematerialisation of the content, which affects its constitution. It takes now the advantages of the computable abilities specific to digital technologies. It is worth considering the development of reading tools exploiting computation. The idea is to find a solution to the lack of usability of the digital technology with digital tools, helping the reader. Leaving without sensory clues of the paper, the location of the reader is a critical point of the digital book. Putting together, the digital reading annotations are a base for the production of computational clues. Useful depending on the reading strategies, such a tool must be used wisely in order not to degrade the reading process. These tools imply to be careful about learning digital reading skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On sight of the constant and rapid multiplication of the dictionaries, we necessarily ask: what's the good of that? Could one forget an elementary and basic common saying: Not many, but much? Well, in this study, you will find an original approach, for the sole purpose of coming out of the gutter, as one say, out of the routine and of the stagnation in which revel the publishing houses, by editing one in the row without bringing anything new to the users, but simply profiting the user's necessity to have a dictionary on his/her table, whether it is in relation to pupils or students, to translators or other intellectuals, open to the world and to the foreign languages. At the end of this demonstration, one could realize that one must undertake to do something, otherwise the living languages will change into dead languages... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]