This essay examines tarab, an Arab musical tradition deeply rooted in the Near East region, and evaluated by listeners based on its emotional effect. Tarab culture has been influenced by westernization, forces of globalization, postcolonial nationalism, and modernism since the early 20th-century, which significantly changed the face of this musical culture by the end of the century. The main focus of this essay is discussing the cumulative effects of tarab’s musical and non-musical elements that together produce the emotional transformation experienced by the performers and the listeners.  To understand that emotional transformation, the relevant aspects of music psychology and philosophy to tarab music are discussed through a number of findings, such as musical expressiveness through the aesthetic surface, anticipatory arousal which results from familiarity and knowledge, the aesthetic appeal of unpleasant emotions such as sadness, openness to experience and aesthetic appreciation that indicates sensitivity to art and beauty, empathetic and sympathetic engagement with the persona imagined in the music, and dissociation from ordinary consciousness and absorption in the musical experience.

Diss. : Geschichtswissenschaften : Berlin, B.R.D. : 1977-78. - Bibliogr. p. X-XIV. Index. -

Consacré à un instrument de musique et à deux de ses maîtres, ce travail de recherche s’inscrit dans une approche historique, organologique et analytique. Le qānūn, cordophone traditionnel à cordes pincées, est le socle de l’ensemble instrumental dénommé takht qui est inhérent à la tradition musicale artistique du Mashriq à l’époque de la Nahḍa (Renaissance arabe 1898-1939). Soumis à cette époque, à des mutations organologiques de même, qu’à des transformations dans la grammaire musicale, en rapport avec les processus acculturatifs et modernistes de l’entre-deux-guerres, le style de l’improvisation instrumentale ou taqsīm au qānūn connaît une évolution significative. Celle-ci est étudiée dans cette thèse en tenant compte de l’organologie historique et systématique de l’instrument, du mode de jeu instrumental, de l’histoire de cette tradition musicale et en s’appuyant sur l’analyse de la transcription d’exemples enregistrés sur disques 78 tours de deux grands maîtres de cet instrument : Muḥammad al-‘Aqqād (1849-1930) et Muḥammad ‘Abduh Ṣāliḥ (1912-1970). / This research, which uses historical, organological and analytical approaches, is solely concentrated on a musical instrument and two of its masters. The qānūn is a traditional chordophone where strings are plucked; it is the base of the instrumental ensemble called takht which is inherent to the musical artistic tradition of the Mashriq during the Nahḍa period (Arabic Renaissance 1898-1939). Subjected to many organological changes during this period, and subjected to many transformations in the musical grammar with respect to acculturation and modernism between the two wars, the improvisational instrumental style, known as qānūn taqsīm saw a significant evolution. The latter is studied in this thesis, bearing in mind the historical and systematic organology of the instrument, the performance mode, the history of this musical tradition, as well as relying upon the analysis of transcriptions of recorded examples of 78 RPM of the two great masters of the instrument: Muḥammad al- ‘Aqqād (1849-1930) and Muḥammad ‘Abduh Ṣāliḥ (1912-1970).

The aim of this thesis is to describe forms of Greek religion in the context of Graeco-Bactrian kingdom. The lack of written sources is typical for the region, my analysis is therefore based on archaeological evidence. The first part of my thesis introduces the archaeological sources connected to the religion. A material culture of Graeco-Bactrian kingdom mixes both Greek and local traditions. The second part of the thesis analyses the formation of the Graeco-Bactrian religious identity. I compare the situation with other Hellenistic states, especially with Syria, using postcolonial models based on theories by Rachel Mairs and Irad Malkin. It seems that Graeco- Bactrian kingdom does not differ from other parts of Hellenistic world. The absence of Greek temples is especially remarkable, I suppose that Hellenistic religion inclined to respect local religious traditions. On the other hand, Hellenistic identity did not depend on Greek religion but on Greek education.