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UOB Announces Second Phase of Digitizing Bahraini Folktales with AI
Dr. Dheya Abdulla Al Kaabi, Dean of the College of Arts at the University of Bahrain (UOB) and Associate Professor of Modern Literary Criticism and Narratology, stated that the second phase of the field collection for the Encyclopedia of Tales project is currently focused on the digital transformation of the Bahraini Folktales initiative. This involves employing artificial intelligence technologies to transform the tales into an attractive and sustainable knowledge-based cultural industry.
This announcement was made during a workshop held as part of the UNESCO Chair in Translating Cultures program on Tuesday, December 16, 2025. Presented by Dr. Al Kaabi under the title “Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Age of Digital Transformation: The Folktale as a Significant Cultural Model,” she reviewed methods for preserving intangible cultural heritage amid digital shifts through the field collection project for the encyclopedia “Bahraini Folktales: One Thousand and One Tales.”
Dr. Al Kaabi presented a cultural strategy for fostering cultural innovation and applying it to the preservation of oral narratives (folk tales) at the university and academic institution level across the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. This strategy involves integrating folk literature courses into educational programs.
She also proposed employing modern technology to digitize and market heritage, transforming it into an attractive knowledge-based cultural industry via social media platforms. This approach contributes to preserving the identity of Gulf oral narratives and enhances their sustainability and cultural circulation at regional and global levels for current and future generations.
The strategy is based on creating cultural big data databases to safeguard Gulf folk culture, investing in artificial intelligence technologies, and introducing creative means to utilize heritage in cultural and creative products. This transforms heritage into a genuine added value within the Gulf knowledge economy and achieves the goals of sustainable cultural development stemming from the GCC’s cultural strategy.
Additionally, Dr. Al Kaabi delivered a lecture titled “Oral Narratives and Cultural Innovation in GCC Universities: The Project ‘Bahraini Folktales: One Thousand and One Tales’ as a Proposed Cultural Model.”
It is noteworthy that the “Bahraini Folktales: One Thousand and One Tales” encyclopedia project was supervised by Dr. Diaa Abdullah Al Kaabi, involving one hundred male and female students from the Folk Literature (Folklore) course at the University of Bahrain over ten years. The project resulted in the publication of five large-format volumes comprising approximately 2,500 pages. This field collection is the largest compilation of folk narratives accomplished in the Arab world to date and the first comprehensive field survey of folk tales in the Kingdom of Bahrain.
