(USEK-Lebanon) October 22-23, 2015
(INALCO-Paris) October 19-20, 2016
(UIT-Kénitra -Morrocco) October 26-27, 2017
(Languages of the colloquiums: French, Arabic and English)

Participating Institutions:
INALCO – CERMOM- LACNAD -Paris
Holy Spirit University of Kaslik (Lebanon)
Ibn Tofail University (Morrocco)- Laboratoire langage et société- CNRST-URAC 56

Preparatory Committee:
Sobhi Boustani, Professor, INALCO,
Aboubakr Chraibi, Professor, INALCO
Marie-Aimee Germanos- MCF, INALCO
Joseph Chraim, Professor, USEK
Leila Messaoudi, Professor, UIT

Keywords: Point of contact, miscegenation, reconciliation, evolution, transformation
Arab poetic, narrative and sapiential traditions, from dialect or “popular” expression, accompanied the evolution of literary writing from birth. Although they are a key part of heritage and the literary landscape, they were often considered a paraliterary variant, that is devalued compared against the literature called "scholarly" (poetry and prose) written in standard Arabic. An objective view of classical and modern literature in the Arab culture is far from ignoring the live appearance of these traditions and their more and more prominent role in literary and cultural fields. Given the great interest in these traditions - (written and oral poetry and ancient and modern prose) - in most Arab countries, their study within the academic community is required to determine their place and whether they are to be considered of indispensable literary value.

Our research center CERMOM-INALCO took the initiative in December, 2011 to organize two study days devoted to a part of this literature (articles will be published soon). Aware of its wealth and its regional diversity, it has, at this first meeting, proposed further subsequent meetings approaching this literature in its regional particularities and from multiple viewpoints.

Since these literary traditions evolve largely in reference to cultures and regional customs, we built our project in collaboration with the universities of Mashreq and Maghreb to compare the approaches and to determine the combination of literary popular traditions: poetic and narrative.
This literature will be analyzed in its evolution (from classical epoch to the present), its regional diversity and its generic diversity.

The Holy Spirit University of Kaslik in Lebanon is indeed an ideal partner for this project. Active for many years in the publication of texts of this literature covering several literary genres, it is working to safeguard this heritage and highlight its wealth. It will host the first meeting on 22 and 23 October, 2015, about the first axis:
1- Dialectal Literature: Poetry and its variants; Lebanese theater: Multidisciplinary approach
- Written dialect poetry
- The oral dialect poetry: zajal (1); malḥûn; Nabtî for the Gulf and the different harmonic poetic (mawwâl, ‘atâba, shrûqî...)
- Song and Araboperetta
- Theatre (Mashreq)

The INALCO (Paris) teaches all variants of the Arabic language, and the two research centers, CERMOM and LACNAD, are making a major research area from the poetic and narrative dialect and popular traditions in the Arab world. They will host the second meeting on October 19-20, 2016, about the second axis:
2- The Narrative Tradition: Multidisciplinary Approach
- The great works of the classical period: Zîr Salem ; Banû Hilâl ; Baybars, Mille et une nuits…
- Tales in the classical and modern tradition
- The modern stories written in dialectal Arabic
- The dialect in the modern Arabic novel
- Theatre (Maghreb)

The University of Ibn Tofail Morocco and principally the Laboratoire langage et société are very active in this area. They make these traditions a priority in their research and publications; they will host the third meeting on October 26-27, 2017, around the following axis:
3- Popular literature and society: What corpus? What features?
This theme will be addressed through:
- Proverbs
- Tales and variants
- zajal (2).

Applications for papers for the first conference (October 22-23, 2015) should be sent before April 10, 2015 by email to: Sobhi Boustani and Joseph Chraim,
Sobhi.boustani@wanadoo.fr ; josephchraim@usek.edu.lb

Abstracts (300 words) will be accompanied by the name of the participant, his institution, and addresses: postal and electronic.

The response will be given before May 22, 2015.