This is a free event, and tickets can be booked here.

University of Reading,Historians generally credit Napoleon with introducing the printing press to the Arab world when he invaded Egypt in 1798. Although Napoleon did bring printing presses — and Arabic type — to Egypt, the story of Arabic and Persian printing is much older and the contribution of both cultures to the art of printing is still very much under investigation. 

This one-day symposium looks at the history of printing across the Arabic and Persian worlds from block printing in the fourteenth century to twenty-first century digital type design, and includes talks on calligraphy, type and typography, printing history, newspapers, books and printed ephemera and the cultural impact of the printed word.

SPEAKERS: Geoffrey Roper, University of Cambridge (retired) The slow development of printing in the Arabic scrip: were 'technical' problems the cause or consequence?; Emanuela Conidi, University of Reading, Challenges for the Arabic script in the transition from pen to metal; Borna Izadpanah, University of Reading, Early Nasta’liq movable-type printing in India and Egypt; Thomas Milo, Amsterdam, + Onur Yazicigil, Sabancı University, Istanbul, The pivotal role of Arabic script grammar in the transition from manual to mechanised text production; Mohsen Keiany, Birmingham City University, The early lithographic illustrated book in Iran; Lucie Ryzova, University of Birmingham, Free floating words: the social landscapes of print in colonial Egypt; Ulrich Marzolph, University of Göttingen, The printing press as an agent of tradition in Iran: printed material in nineteenth-century Iran; Nile Green, University of Birmingham Institute of Advanced Studies, Distinguished Visiting Scholar from the University of California, Los Angeles, Between Bombay and Tokyo: Muslim printing in an Imperial Indian Ocean; Arezou Azad, University of Birmingham, Medieval Arab manuscripts; Martin Killeen, University of Birmingham, Arab and Persian printing in the Cadbury Research Library.

A pdf of the programme for the symposium can be downloaded here

This event is sponsored by The University of Birmingham, Birmingham City University and the Bibliographical Society .