Before and After Kalīla wa-Dimna: An Introduction to the Special Issue on Animals, Adab, and Fictivity

Abstract

The Abbasid-era textual tradition is full of animals. The variety and range of narratives about animals are brought together here in this special issue. Although Kalīla wa-Dimna is certainly the most famous work to feature talking animals and fictive humans, it is by no means the only one. This special issue of the Journal of Abbasid Studies looks beyond Kalīla wa-Dimna by bringing together articles engaging with this broader tradition of putting animals to work in Arabic texts and, quite often, giving them the ability to talk. These papers are the first fruits of a 2019 workshop at the Freie Universität Berlin entitled Animals, Adab, and Fictivity, organized by Beatrice Gruendler and myself under the auspices of Beatrice Gruendler's ERC project entitled AnonymClassic.