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Course Criteria
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3.00 Credits
In this course we will continue to study the essential grammar of Modern Standard Arabic while working to improve the linguistic skills obtained in Elementary Arabic. Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to hold conversations in Arabic with some fluency on a variety of topics while developing an increased vocabulary and cultural appreciation of Arabic-speaking countries.
Prerequisite:
ARAB 101-102 or permission of instructor
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3.00 Credits
As a continuation of ARAB 201, this course will expose students to more of the essential grammar of Modern Standard Arabic while increasing their cultural literacy in Arab civilization. Our main textbook will be Al-Kitaab fii Ta'allum al-'Arabiyya Part II but outside materials from diverse media such as television and newspapers will also be included. Class will be conducted in Arabic.
Prerequisite:
ARAB 201 or permission from instructor
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3.00 Credits
This survey course addresses the main economic, religious, political and cultural trends in the modern Middle East. Topics to be covered include the cultural diversity of the Middle East, relations with Great Powers, the impact of imperialism, the challenge of modernity, the creation of nation states and nationalist ideologies, the discovery of oil, radical religious groups, and war and peace. Throughout the course these significant changes will be evaluated in light of their impact on the lives of a variety of individuals in the region and especially how they have grappled differently with increasing Western political and economic domination. This course is part of the Exploring Diversity Initiative because it compares the differences and similarities between different cultures and societies in the Middle East and the various ways they have responded to one another in the past.
Prerequisite:
Open to all
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3.00 Credits
Arabs have been a part of the tapestry of the United States since the early 19th century. As immigrants to the new world, the identity of this community has largely been defined by changing American understandings of race, ethnicity, and religion. The in-betweenness of this minority group--not exactly white or black, claiming Christian, Jewish and Muslim faiths--and the often contradictory nature of U.S. involvement in the region, has only further confounded Americans in their understanding of this diverse community. This course will use an interdisciplinary approach to explore the rich histories, representations, and cultural production of this American minority group. For the purposes of this survey, we will also consider the narratives of other Muslim minority groups (i.e., Iranians, Pakistanis, Indians, and African American Muslims) within the scope of the Arab American experience. We will look at poems and stories from Arab immigrants in the early to mid 20th century (e.g., the Mahjar poets) and consider, in the context of these writings, issues of xenophobia, assimilation, linguistic, and cultural difference, and Arab American identity in the context of other ethnic groups. Throughout this course we will continue to think about how changing U.S. geo-political interests in the region alter perceptions of Arabs and Muslims in our midst (considering, for example, the 1979 Revolution in Iran and the subsequent hostage crisis, the two Gulf Wars, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, 9/11, Afghanistan, the War on Terror, and Guantanamo). In addition, we will examine representations of this minority and Islam more generally in the media and popular culture (print and broadcast journalism, films, cartoons, popular songs, and videos), as well as Arab cultural forms that seek to self-narrate the Arab experience for an American viewer. At the heart of this course is a desire to not only shed light on what it means to be an Arab or a Muslim or an immigrant, but also to understand the multiple ways in which we conceptualize and seek to define what it means to be American.
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3.00 Credits
Why do the peoples and cultures of Latin America and the Middle East often elicit such passionate responses in the United States and Europe? Some feel threatened, while others are intrigued, but responses to these world regions are seldom neutral. Often seen as exotic and erotic, or as a danger to the way of life of Americans and Europeans, Islam, Arabs and Latin Americans are at the forefront of socio-political debates in the United States and Europe. The origins of this world-view are historical, but are also heavily influenced by contemporary immigration and international affairs. After characterizing Islam as the greatest contemporary threat to "Western" civilization in his infamous essay titled "The Clash of Civilizations," Samuel Huntington subsequently found it necessary to focus on Latinos as the most significant threat to American civilization. By examining literature and film from the Middle East and Latin America, and from these immigrant communities in the United States and Europe, we will go beyond superficial images and inflammatory rhetoric to explore the cultures behind the passions. Among other things, the texts of this course examine the ties between the Arab world and Latin America, and between these two regions and their neighbors to the north. At the heart of this course are the ideas of borders and margins. What does it mean to cross borders or to live on the margins of society? The borders we will discuss will be geographic borders, but also cultural borders that will permit the exploration of the territories between life and death, civilization and barbarism, wealth and poverty, war and peace and other dichotomies that some employ to classify the world but that rarely allow for human sensibilities and the subtle experiences of being. Our texts may include works by writers such as Alurista, Victor Hernandez Cruz, Gloria Anzaldua, Juan Rulfo, Clarice Lispector, Milton Hatoum, Taher Ben Jelloun, Mohamad Choukri, Mahmoud Darwish, Laila Lalami and Tayyib Saleh that treat the human condition at the borders/margins of society. Films may include El Norte, La Mision, Pixote,Midaq Alley, City of God,, Battle of Algiers, My Beautiful Launderette, Crash, Hate and Head On. There will also be a course reader that includes theoretical material on orientalism, tropicalism, nationalism and transnationalism. All readings are in English translation and films have English subtitles.
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3.00 Credits
In this course we will study prominent texts and authors of the modern Arab world. The range of genres and themes of this literature is vast. In particular, we will analyze the debates around modernity and the importance given to social engagement in these texts. Our readings include works by authors that have received some notoriety outside of the Arab world such as Naguib Mahfouz, winner of the Nobel Prize for literature in 1988. We will also read the Iraqi poets Nazik al-Malaika and Badr Shakir al-Sayyab, the Palestinians Ghassan Kanafani and Mahmoud Darwish, and Tayyib Salih from the Sudan. Included in our readings are the famous autobiography by the Moroccan Muhammad Shukri as well as women's literature by Hanan al-Sheikh, Huda Barakat and Nawal Sadawi. All readings are in English. This literature course fulfils the requirements of the Exploring Diversity Initiative (EDI), as it engages the Arab world from a humanistic perspective that aims to promote cultural awareness. A fundamental goal of the course is to engage the diversity of approaches to sexuality, religion, gender and politics that are so prominent in contemporary literature from the Arab world.
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3.00 Credits
This course will be an introduction to Islamic intellectual history with a focus on the themes of God's speech, the relation of reason and revelation, and the vision of a good and just society. The course will begin with a survey of the legacy of Neoplatonic thought in the early Islamic period and the interreligious polemic of Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, philosophers and Muslims. Out of this arose two separated movements in Islam: theology (kalam) and philosophy. In the first portion of the course we will trace the rise of the Mu'tazila movement, their views on 'divine speech' and the Asharite and Maturidi response. We will then turn to the key figures of the classical Islamic tradition, al-Farabi, Ibn Sina (Avicenna), Ibn Rushd (Averroes) and Ibn 'ufayl. In the final portion we will examine the rise of Islamic mystical thought (Sufism) and the complicated interrelations of that rich movement with theology and philosophy in the figures of al-Ghazali, Suhrawardi, Ibn 'Arabi, Mulla Sadra and finally Muhammad Iqbal, "the father of Pakistan."
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3.00 Credits
In this course we will examine the rich, complex and diverse texts of Classical Arabic Literature. The readings include works that have achieved notoriety outside of the Arab world (such as the Quran and One Thousand and One Nights) as well as works by authors largely unknown outside of the Arab world but canonical in Arabic-language culture such as Imru al-Qays, al-Jahiz, al-Ma'arri, Abu Nuwas, al-Hallaj, al-Ghazali and al-Mutannabi. Women's literature in this course includes works by al-Khansa', known for her elegies, and by Wallada bint al-Mustakfi of Cordoba, who contributed to the courtly love poetry of both Europe and the Arab world. Topics for discussion include theological and philosophical queries, erotica, wine, bibliomania and avarice. Our primary texts represent such varied regions as the Arabian Peninsula, Egypt, Abbasid Baghdad, North Africa and Islamic Spain. Chronologically, the texts range from the sixth century CE to the fourteenth century. All readings are in English.
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3.00 Credits
This course examines the cinematic portrayal of revolution, civil war, and nationalist struggles in the Middle East. We will look at how Arab directors have interpreted liberation struggles and nationalist revolutions to include broader cinematic discourses on culture, gender, social conflict, and national identity. In addition, we will consider whether Arab films wrestling with recent history may be viewed as harbingers of the upheaval and optimism brought on by the Arab Spring. In covering such rich ground, this course seeks to provide students with a critical introduction to the language of film while presenting a social and historical context to the major conflicts in the region in the past half-century. We will cover feature film production, documentaries, short films, and digital media. While students will view films from across the region, special emphasis will be given to films pertaining to the Egyptian Revolution. Filmmakers include Yousry Nasrallah, Ibrahim El Batout (Egypt); Moufida Tlatli (Tunisia); Ziad Douerie and Nadine Labaki (Lebanon); Elia Sulieman and Michel Khaleifi (Palestine). The course will highlight many of the amateur digital videos that have been instrumental in exposing both the brutalities of the repressive regimes and the triumphs of the mass mobilizations against them. Class will be conducted in English.
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3.00 Credits
This course is a continuation of Intermediate Arabic. It focuses on expanding the students' knowledge of vocabulary and grammar while stressing the development of reading, spoken, and written skills in Modern Standard Arabic. The material covered in class will include lessons from the Al-Kitaab series, as well as literary and multi-media works. Emphasis will be placed on increasing cultural literacy. Class is conducted in Arabic.
Prerequisite:
Two semesters of Intermediate Arabic or permission of the instructor
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