Book Talk with Prof. Dr. Ulrike Freitag "A History of Jeddah"

26 October 2021, 7 pm (CEST)
Online via Zoom

Known as the 'Gate to Mecca' or 'Bride of the Red Sea', Jeddah has been a gateway for pilgrims travelling to Mecca and Medina and a station for international trade routes between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean for centuries. In conversation with DAFG Board Member Wolf R. Schwippert, Prof. Dr. Ulrike Freitag presents her critically acclaimed biography of the city A History of Jeddah — The Gate to Mecca in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries  (Cambridge University Press, 2020). Seen from the perspective of its diverse population, the study traces its urban history and cosmopolitanism from the late Ottoman period to its present-day claim to multiculturalism, within the conservative environment of the Arabian Peninsula.

Ulrike Freitag is Director of Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient and Professor of Islamic Studies at Freie Universität Berlin. She is author of Indian Ocean Migrants and State Formation in Hadhramaut (2002) and co-editor of several volumes on urban history, including Urban Violence in the Middle East (2015).             

The online event will be conducted as a webinar using the software "Zoom". The number of participants is limited. Please register until 26 October 2021 here: https://tinyurl.com/4c38p3sb . After registering you will receive the corresponding access data.

For more information, please see the invitation. his event is organised in cooperation with the Leibniz Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO) and the Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies.