Symposium Torah and Qur’an Recitation in the Netherlands

Speakers
dr. Dániel Péter Biró (University of Victoria, Canada)
dr. Peter van Kranenburg (Meertens Instituut)
Fred Gales, M.A. (independent anthropologist)

Several reciters from Jewish and Islamic communities will be present for discussion and demonstration.

This symposium will focus on research of Torah and Qur’an recitation as practiced in the Netherlands. Since 2008, researchers at the University of Victoria, the Meertens Institute and Utrecht University have developed tools for computational analysis of te’amim, the Jewish cantillation signs and rules of Qur’an recitation. The research team will give a summary of this computational research, which has been presented at international conferences and in peer-review publications. Employing field-recordings of Torah and Qur'an recitation collected between 2011 and 2016, these investigations are based on a cross-section of contemporary Jewish and Muslim recitation practices. These recordings document established Dutch traditions of recitation as well as influences from newer immigrant communities in the Netherlands. As unique traditions of Jewish and Islamic communities are represented in these field-recordings, the collection exists as a relevant resource for scientific research and an important archive of historical and documentary recordings for communities within the Netherlands and beyond.

Program
15.00h Project Overview Research, and Fieldwork
16.00h Discussions and demonstrations of Torah Reading and Qur’an recitation with members of Jewish and Islamic communities in the Netherlands
16.30h Questions and discussion
17.00h End of the symposium

The languages during the symposium are Dutch and English.

Registration
If you wish to attend the symposium, please register by sending an email to peter.van.kranenburg@meertens.knaw.nl

This work is supported by the Computational Humanities Programme of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, under the auspices of the Tunes & Tales project and the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.