Courses

Developing the ability to use Arabic functionally and communicatively in context; intensive oral interaction with instructor and fellow students; the basics of the writing system. Classroom track. Not open to native speakers of Arabic. Prereq: Not open to students with 1101.02 or 4 cr hrs of 1101.51. This course is available for EM credit. GE for lang course.

Developing the ability to use Arabic functionally and communicatively in context; intensive oral interaction with instructor and fellow students; the basics of the writing system. Intensive classroom track. Not open to native speakers of Arabic through regular course enrollment, transfer, or EM credit. Prereq: Permission of department. Concur: 1102.02. Not open to students with credit for 1101.01, 1101.02, or 4 credit hours of 1101.51. This course is available for EM credit. GE for lang course.

Developing further language ability through learning how to perform certain functions orally and using them with fellow students; reading and writing passages reflecting their abilities. Classroom track. Not open to native speakers of Arabic. Prereq: 1101.01 or 4 cr hrs of 1101.51. Not open to students with credit for 1102.02 or 4 cr hrs of 1102.51. This course is available for EM credit. GE for lang course.

Developing further language ability through learning how to perform certain functions orally and using them with fellow students; reading and writing passages reflecting their abilities. Intensive classroom track. Not open to native speakers of Arabic through regular course enrollment, transfer, or EM credit. Prereq: Permission of department. Concur: 1101.02. Not open to students with credit for 1102.01 or 4 cr hrs of 1102.51. This course is available for EM credit. GE for lang course.

Building on previously acquired functional abilities; using Arabic to express opinion and feelings; oral interaction in the classroom; reading authentic texts or various genres. Classroom track. Not open to native speakers of Arabic. Prereq: 1102.01, 1102.02, or 4 cr hrs of 1102.51. Not open to students with credit for 1103.02 or 4 cr hrs of 1103.51. This course is available for EM credit. GE for lang course.

Building on previously acquired functional abilities; using Arabic to express opinion and feelings; increased oral interaction in the classroom; reading simplified original texts. Intensive classroom track. Not open to native speakers of Arabic through regular course enrollment, transfer, or EM credit. Prereq: Permission of department. Concur: 2104.02. Not open to students with credit for 1103.01 or 4 cr hrs of 1103.51. This course is available for EM credit. GE for lang course.

This intensive course is intended for heritage speakers and qualified Arabic speakers. It combines three semesters of Modern Standard Arabic into one semester and focuses on the productive skills (speaking and writing). Prereq: To qualify for this course, students are expected to be able to speak and understand well an Arabic dialect. This prior knowledge of a dialect is essential and will be used as a bridge towards learning Modern Standard Arabic. An interview will be conducted by the course instructor in order to establish a proficiency level. GE for lang course.

The Arabic Pronunciation course is designed to improve and perfect the student's pronunciation of Modern Standard Arabic. Students will learn the articulatory features of speech production and ways in which to correct and enhance their oral production. They will gradually be introduced to some basic linguistic terminology of articulatory phonetics. Students will develop functional intelligibility. Prereq: 1103 or equiv., or permission of instructor.

Accelerated introduction to the structure of modern standard and classical Arabic: phonology, morphology, and syntax, with emphasis on development of reading comprehension skills.  pre-requisite: 1103, placement exam, or instructor permission. 

Initiating and sustaining communication, reading and understanding short authentic passages, and writing to express many language functions. Regular classroom track. Not open to native speakers of Arabic. Prereq: 1103.01 or 4 credit hours of 1103.51. Not open to students with credit for 2104.02.

Introduction to the phonology and grammar of the everyday spoken language used in the Eastern Arab World. Prereq or concur: 1103.01 or 1103.02. Not open to students with credit for 4111.

Continued study of the phonology and grammar of the everyday spoken language used in the Eastern Arab world. Prereq: 2111 or 4111. Not open to students with credit for 4112.

A general survey and examination of the socio-cultural structure of the modern Arab world.  Taught in English. This course explores the intersecting political, artistic, and intellectual currents and practices that have shaped contemporary Arab cultures. It is organized as a survey of different cultural phenomena in Arab societies and diasporas including: the Arabic language and its varieties, music, poetry, law, television & cinema, and more. We will critically examine various meanings of the term “culture,” such as social norms, popular culture, and the arts, asking: what is “Arab culture” and how should we study it? In the class, we will engage in self-reflective practices where we examine our experiences and shifting understandings of culture and put these in dialogue with scholarly sources. We will read essays from The Cambridge Companion to Modern Arab Culture (Ed. Dwight F. Reynolds) and engage with literary narrative, poetry, film, music, theater, and architecture from Arab regions. This course takes an active learning approach; we will cultivate a learning community that supports the intellectual development of each member and the whole. Students will play an active role in curating course content. GE Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies, GE Foundation: Race, Ethnicity, and Gender Diversity

Discussion, analysis, and writing about issues relating to Arab-American culture, society, and literature within the context of social diversity in the United States. The first aim of this course is to introduce students to the history and structure of the Arab-American community in the United States, providing in this way a diachronic and synchronic cross-cultural approach to the development of American society. Reading materials derived largely from critical, anthropological, sociological, and literary texts will be discussed from the perspective of important social issues such as gender, class, race, marginality, identity, ethnicity, discrimination, assimilation, acculturation, representation, alienation, and otherness. Through close reading, discussion, and writing assignments, students will think critically about social issues in the United States from the perspective provided by the Arab-American response to the American vision and experience. An overall objective of the course, therefore, is to encourage students to reflect on the social diversity of experience, to think beyond the language and codes of their own culture, and to appreciate and articulate other points of world-view.

Reading and analysis of major works of Arabic literature from the 6th to the 17th centuries including classical poetry, the Qur'an, and the Arabian Nights. This course introduces students, through a series of texts in English translation, to important works representative of pre-modern Arabic literature -- the longest continuous literary tradition in the Western world. These works (including pre- and early Islamic poetry, the Qur'an, Abbasid court and urban literature, Hispano-Arabic poetry and the Arabian Nights) are set in their cultural and historical context through reading assignments and classroom lectures, and they are discussed in some depth with full student participation. Students not only become acquainted with a number of masterpieces of a major and highly influential world literature, while considerably expanding their cultural horizons, but also encounter basic approaches of dealing with translations of those texts. Serious attention will be devoted to the nature of literary evidence and its utilization in support of aesthetic and critical judgments. Prereq: English 1110 (110). Not open to students with credit for 371. GE Foundation: Literary, Visual, and Performing Arts

Reading and analysis of representative works of the 19th and 20th centuries by contemporary Arab women authors. This course explores modern Arabic literature from the 1960s to the present as a space where different understandings of gender and citizenship are analyzed and imagined. Starting with debates about gender and citizenship in the early postcolonial period, we will discuss novels, short stories, and poetry by women writers that speak to different historical and national contexts, such as liberation from colonial powers, the Lebanese Civil War, Palestinian historical memory, and legacies of slavery in the Gulf. We will complement these literary texts with both documentary and narrative film. In each section of the class, we will consider how literary texts intervene in different conceptions of citizenship and social justice. By participating in ongoing scholarly conversations on modern Arabic literature and gender we will also reflect on how our own learning community is generating questions and knowledge. Prereq: Completion of GE Foundation Writing and Information Literacy course. Not open to students with credit for 2702 (372), 2702H (372H), 372, or WGSSt 2702H (372H). Cross-listed in WGSSt. GE Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse and Just World.

Developing reading skills through reading adapted and authentic Arabic texts; selections reflect cultural and literary aspects of Arabic culture. Prereq: 2104.

Study of comparative folklore in the Arab world, including verbal art, material culture, visual self- presentation, and performance. This course will introduce students to a wealth of Arabic folklore, including the lore of Muslim, Christian and Jewish Arabs as well as Berbers, Kurds and other Arab world communities. For the purposes of this course folklore will be defined as traditional expressive culture—verbal art (e.g., myths, legends, folktales, riddles, jokes), material culture (e.g. the construction of local shrines, homes, boats as well as production of pottery, jewelry, embroidery, carpets), visual presentation of self (e.g., applications of henna, tattoos, dress, hairstyles), folk religion, rituals, festivals, and folk music (e.g., lullabies). Emphasis will be not on finished products but on cultural process. Students will look at what Arab world "folk" from different regions, religions and language and ethnic traditions have in common in regard to ethos, world view, practical and aesthetic needs and how they differ. By the end of the quarter it is to be hoped that students will have an enhanced respect for the power of traditional expressive culture, as a medium for understanding the affective dimension of any culture or community, and that of the Arab world in particular. Students will be given the theoretical tools to begin to be able to study other folklore forms and folk communities in which they are interested.

Surveying and examining literary texts, theories, and films that explore the relationship between cultural power, colonialisms and different forms of representation.

Surveying the development and major subjects and thinkers of the most vivid period of Arabic philosophy.

This course on modern Arabic literature and culture in translation focuses on questions of belonging, relationship to space, and migration. It examines how Arabic literary narratives, films, documentaries, and other arts have imagined modes of belonging to spaces such as cities and nations, the natural world (and even the universe!) from the early postcolonial period to the present. Prereq: English 1110. GE Theme: Lived Environments

Readings from The Arabian Nights; the history of the text, translations and literary and cinematic adaptations. The 1001 Nights – popularly known as the Arabian Nights – is a corpus of Arabic stories that rose from relative obscurity to global fame. The origins of the Nights lie in the Islamic Near East, but the versions we know today are a direct result of the translations of anonymous Arabic manuscripts in late-17th century Paris. The vogue for “oriental tales” spread throughout Europe and back to the Islamic world, where subsequently there appeared several greatly expanded Arabic editions of the collection. The Nights is a remarkable example of a shared, global literary heritage that at the same time has played a major part, for better or worse, in shaping Western perceptions of the Arabo-Islamic world. In this course, students will read the original stories, which remain delightful to this day, and come to understand the process by which the corpus of Nights was preserved, expanded, translated, dissemination and even forged. Then we will consider the remarkable diffusion and reception of the tales and their characters, especially in cinema and modern literature. This course is taught in English. Prereq: None GE Foundation: Literary, Visual, and Performing Arts

Continued development of language skills through reading and evaluating a variety of authentic Arabic texts and genres; writing compositions on various aspects of Arabic culture. Prereq: 3105.

Advanced discussion of Arabic morphology and syntax with readings from both modern and classical texts from various genres. Prereq: 4106.

Reading/Listening to contemporary media in Arabic--youth culture, politics, contemporary issues. Prereq: 2104.01 or 2104.02. Not open to students with credit for 420.

A linguistic, literary, and cultural analysis of selected chapters from the Qur'an. In this course, students are introduced to the Qur’an, the foundational text of Islam. After a few background lectures dealing with its historical and linguistic context – including its unique orthographic features –, students undertake a careful, detailed, and analytic reading of selected chapters (suras), with special attention to language, style, and content. Students will become acquainted with fundamental secondary source materials that are essential to an adequate understanding of the Arabic text, drawing on both modern scholarly research and classical Islamic sources. In addition to increasing students’ mastery of Classical Arabic, this course will give students the ability to analyze critically the Qur’an’s original Arabic.

An examination of Arabic-Islamic terminology.

Examination of some general guidelines for translating from Arabic to English or from English to Arabic, depending on the first language of the student. Requires advanced reading proficiency. Prereq: Arabic 3105, or permission of instructor. Not open to students with credit for 615.

Examining and comparing the images of important prophets in the Bible and the Qur'an.

Examining and comparing the cultural travel and translations of the modern experience in the Middle East and Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries. 

Examining critically contemporary responses and revisions of Arab and Muslim classical Humanism.

Analyzing important texts dealing with God, man, knowledge, society, religion and politics; discussing modern approaches and interpretations.