Thursday 21 October, 2010

The lecture of ‘thinker and mortal to death’ Jalal Toufic concerns ‘two or three things he is dying to tell us about A Thousand and One Nights.’

Two or Three Things I’m Dying to Tell You about The Thousand and One Nights
“Morning overtook Shahrazâd, and she lapsed into silence … The king thought to himself, ‘I will spare her until I hear the rest of the story; then I will have her put to death the next day.’” Borges errs when he writes: “Why were there first a thousand [the apparently Persian version: Hazar Afsana, the thousand tales] and later a thousand and one?” It is confounding that despite all his flair Borges should miss the displacement from tale in the Persian version to night in the Arabic one: I consider that the first title refers to the stories Shahrazâd tells, while the second refers to the nights, the one thousand nights of the one thousand unjustly murdered previous one-night wives of King Shahrayâr plus his night with Shahrazâd, a night that is itself like a thousand nights.

Jalal Toufic is the author of Distracted (1991; 2nd ed., 2003), (Vampires): An Uneasy Essay on the Undead in Film (1993; 2nd ed., 2003), Over-Sensitivity (1996; 2nd ed., 2009), Forthcoming (2000), Undying Love, or Love Dies (2002), Two or Three Things I’m Dying to Tell You (2005), ‘Âshûrâ’: This Blood Spilled in My Veins (2005), Undeserving Lebanon (2007), The Withdrawal of Tradition Past a Surpassing Disaster (2009) and Graziella: The Corrected Edition (2009). Several of his books are available for download at his website: http://www.jalaltoufic.com. He has taught at the University of California at Berkeley, California Institute of the Arts, the University of Southern California, and, in Lebanon, Holy Spirit University; and he currently teaches at Kadir Has University in Istanbul.

Please note: Due to being refused a visa, Jalal Toufic will be giving his lecture via Skype.

Supported by Stanley Picker Trust and Visiting Arts.

Concessions and members are kindly asked to show proof or ID when collecting tickets on the night.

Whitechapel Gallery Patrons, Associates and Exhibition Patrons can reserve up to two free tickets to public events by e-mail to supporters@whitechapelgallery.org.

Advance booking for this event is now closed. To purchase tickets, please come to our information desk where tickets will be on sale from 6pm tonight.

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