25-29 March 2026, Mahdia and Sousse
An international conference on the muwashshah, the zajal/ and the lyric forms of Early Europe
The Higher Institute for Music, University of Sousse, rue Abou Kacem Echabi, Sousse, Tunisia
Proposals of papers are invited for an international conference looking at the history and development of the muwashshah and zajal in the Arabic and Jewish literary and musical culture of medieval al-Andalus.
This conference is effectively the sixth in a series looking at the history and development of Arabic strophic poetry (tawshih). Previous conferences included the Exeter “Colloquium on Muwashshah and Kharja” in 1988 and the SOAS “Conference on Arabic and Hebrew Strophic Poetry and its Romance Parallels” in 2004 and 2020. We are particularly excited that next year’s conference will be held in North Africa, in Tunisia, where we shall be hosted by the Higher Institute for Music, University of Sousse.1 Organised in collaboration with the ICTMD Study Group on Music in the Arab World.
This two-day conference will explore all aspects of that culture from its origins to the present day.
There will also be a dedicated stream which aims to explore the relationship between these verse forms and the lyric forms of Early Europe, a relationship which has long been acknowledged but where little research is currently being done.
The 2026 conference is part of a three-year programme developed together with colleagues in Tunisia, Sicily and Barcelona. Extending from 2026 to 2028, the project will study the circulations of music and song in the period c.1100 to 1350 in a geographical territorial space that includes al-Andalus, Sicily, Southern Italy and North Africa (the latter with a particular emphasis on Tunisia). Specifically, we shall be extending researches into the Andalusi poetic forms and their possible relationship to the Early European lyric (canso/canzone, virelai, ballata, sonnet etc). It is expected that such a mapping will offer new insights into the origins and contextual locations of the Early European lyric.
The first colloquium will take place in Tunisia (in the port towns of Mahdia and Sousse) on 24-29 March 2026. Two days of conferencing activities at the University of Sousse will be followed by an optional programme of musical encounters with local musicians, particularly exploring the historic Sufi musical traditions of North Africa.
This will be an IN-PERSON conference. In a few cases, if unavoidable, it may be possible to organise tele-conferencing for participants who cannot attend in person.
The conference languages will be English and French; contributions in Arabic will be pre-translated.
2. The second colloquium will take place at the University of Palermo, in 2027. It will focus on the poetic culture of Arabs, Jews and Christians in Sicily – both the poetics of exile/diaspora and the poetics of the Sicilian court of Federico II, setting them in their historical contexts.
3. The third colloquium will take place in Barcelona in 2028, where we shall explore the cross-over relations between the musical/poetic cultures of al-Andalus (Islamic, Jewish and Christian) and the trans-border culture of the troubadours.
4. At the halfway point (in 2027) we shall organise a small conceptualising workshop, to be held at the School of Oriental and African Studies [SOAS University of London], in collaboration with colleagues from the Mediterranean Music Studies group of the ICTMD,where we shall seek to draw together the various threads of the project.
As a taster of our proposed concert programme, here is an encounter that we organised in Mahdia in April 2025, between Southern Italian traditional musicians from Calabria and Tunisian Sufi musicians from Mahdia, meeting and playing at the house of Fadhel Sakka.
And for a view of Mahdia and its culture, see:
If you wish to present a paper at the conference, please send an Abstract of not more than 200 words.
Please include the title of the paper and your name and institutional affiliation (if any).
Please also include a brief bio/cv of not more than 100 words.
Proposals should be sent by e-mail to the following address
The deadline for submissions is 15 November 2025.
Expressions of interest in advance of that date are also welcome, since this helps in the general planning process.
The conference is open to the general public. Admission is free but registration is required. To register, write to the address below.
One purpose of our conference is to consolidate ongoing research networks on the topic. If you would like to join the mailing list for this research project, write to the following address:
1. For the proceedings of the 2004 and 2020 SOAS Conferences.
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Mercredi 3 Septembre, 2025