LOC02:48
23:48 GMT
LONDON, Dec 1 (KUNA) -- The British-Kuwait Friendship Society Book Prize held a virtual award ceremony on Tuesday evening to honor the winners of 2020 prizes for the Best Scholarly Work in Middle Eastern Studies.
The Society, founded in April 1996 with an endowment from Abdullah Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah Foundation, awarded the best Book Prize in Middle Eastern Studies to "Electric News in Colonial Algeria."
The book, authored by Arthur Asseraf, a historian of modern North Africa, France and the Mediterranean at University of Cambridge, was published by Oxford University Press in August 2019.
It examines a range of sources in multiple languages across colonial society and offers a new understanding of the spread of news.
News was a whole ecosystem in which new technologies such as the printing press, telegraph, cinema and radio interacted with older media like songs, rumors, letters and manuscripts.
The French government used to watch anxiously over these developments, monitoring Algerians' reactions to news through an extensive network of surveillance that often ended up spreading news rather than controlling its flow.
The second prize for best scholarly work was shared by Leor Halevi's "Modern Things on Trial: Islam's Global and Material Reformation in the Age of Rida" and Luke B. Yarbrough's "Friends of the Emir: Non-Muslim State Officials in Pre-modern Islamic Thought."
Published by Columbia University Press (1865-1935), "Modern Things on Trial" tells the story of the Islamic trials of technological and commercial innovations of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Halevi focuses on the communications of an entrepreneurial Syrian interpreter of the Shari'a named Rashid Rida, who became a renowned reformer by responding to the demand for authoritative and authentic religious advice.
Published by Cambridge University Press in June, 2019, "Friends of the Emir" traced the influence of Jewish, Christian, Zoroastrian and other non-Muslim state officials on Muslim Caliphs.
Yarbrough explores for the first time medieval sources in the realms of law, history, poetry, entertaining literature, administration, and polemic.
On the award ceremony, Kuwait Ambassador and Dean of Diplomatic Corps in the United Kingdom Khaled A. Al-Duwaisan lauded the role of the Book Prize in the cultural relations between both countries.
"The fact that the Abdullah Al-Mubarak Foundation continued awarding this prize annually and successfully over the last two decade signals the strength of the Kuwaiti-British relationship," he affirmed.
Al-Duwaisan, also Chairman of the Friendship Society, wished continuing success for the Prize and its contribution to mutual understanding and scholarship.
On his part, Sheikh Mubarak Abdullah Al-Mubarak said the aim of the prizes is to boost the scholarly works, written in English, and addressing major issues relating to the Arab and Muslim world.
"In so-doing, we aim to build bridges of understanding between the Arab and Western countries," Sheikh Mubarak noted in a press release.
Sheikha Dr. Suad Al-Sabah and Prince Charles, of Wales, are the honorary presidents of the Friendship Society. (end)
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