On February 16 and 17, 2026, the UNESCO Chair in Translating Cultures at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies (KFCRIS), supported by the Literature, Publishing and Translation Commission, hosted a workshop for contributors to its forthcoming edited volume Translating Cultures and Oral Traditions: An Anthology on Intangible Heritage in the Arab World and the Global South. The workshop provided an opportunity for scholars to present their works in progress and to engage in collaborative dialogue in advance of the submission of their articles. The session offered a platform for interdisciplinary exchange regarding the theoretical and practical challenges of engaging with the dynamism of oral traditions from a scholarly perspective. 

The two-day workshop consisted of two sessions in which contributors presented their work and engaged in discussion with their colleagues, sharing feedback and constructive insights with an aim to strengthen their chapters. One session was introduced by UNESCO Chair Dr. Moneera Al-Ghadeer, and the other by research fellow Nouf Almutlaq. Presentations covered a range of diverse intellectual territory as they engaged with the central ideas of the edited volume from a variety of unique positions.

Aligned with the UNESCO Chair’s 2025 theme of “Translating Cultures and Intangible Heritage,” the workshop shared the edited volume’s goal of repositioning the role of translation as central to Arab discourse on oral traditions and folklore. Crucial to this goal’s realization is a movement beyond universal views of orality and towards the theoretical exploration of the unique expressive forms of the world’s diverse spoken traditions. The opportunities for sharing, refinement, and deliberation that the workshop offered its participating scholars will assist the anthology in achieving this goal and in honing a critical awareness of the performative intricacy, epistemological richness, and decolonial imperatives that are central to oral cultures in the Global South.