Professor Remke Kruk retired from Leiden University in 2007, but remains active as professor emeritus. She doesn't have a desk at the university anymore. Please send an email if you want to contact her. The above mentioned telephone number is the number of the secretariat.

More information about Remke Kruk

Research

Perhaps my fascination with the field can best be demonstrated by the fact that when I showed a tenth-century Arabic manuscript to a second-year student of Arabic, she could read it without difficulty. This demonstrates the unbroken continuity of the literary tradition, which, along with its vast intellectual range, never ceases to amaze me, and which is a vital factor in understanding contemporary developments. Another thing that fascinates me is the way in which Arabic culture has kept alive and assimilated material from older traditions, incorporating them and sometimes passing them on well into the present. A very different aspect that interests me is the enormously vital, semi-oral popular tradition that existed from medieval times onwards next to the formal literary culture of the elite, and also the way in which this popular tradition nowadays switches without difficulty to new media. 

Teaching

Prof. Kruk teaches courses on classical Arabic literature, Islamic philosophy and science, classical Arabic literary texts, and modern Arabic religious texts.

Key publications

• (2001) "Ibn abi-l-Ash`ath's  Kitâb al-hayawân: a scientific approach to anthropology, dietetics and zoological systematics",  Zeitschrift für die Geschichte der arabisch-islamischen Wissenschaften, 14: 119-68.
• (1999) with Claudia Ott, "`In the Popular Manner';  Sîra-recitation in Marrakesh anno 1997",  Edebiyat, X, 183-198.
• (1996)  The Ancient Tradition in Christian and Islamic Hellenism. Studies on the Transmission of Greek Philosophy and Sciences dedicated to H.J. Drossaart Lulofs on his Ninetieth Birthday, Endress, Gerhard, and Kruk, Remke (eds.), Leiden, 318 pp., index.
• (1995) "History and Apocalypse: Ibn an-Nafîs' justification of Mamluk rule",  Der Islam72, 2, pp. 324-37.
• (1994) "Warrior women in Arabic popular romance: Qannâsa bint Muzâhim and other valiant ladies". Deel I:  Journal of Arabic Literature XXIV, 1993, 3, pp. 213-30. Deel II: id. XXV, 1. 16-33.

More information and contact

Publications