Comparative Literatures of the Middle East

Admission requirements

• Propedeutic exam of the BA Midden-Oostenstudies

• In addition, students in the language tracks (Arabic, Persian, Turkish and Hebrew) need to have completed all trackspecific courses of BA 2 (1st semester and buitenlandsemester or schaduwprogramma).

Description

This course analyses the making of the modern Middle East through the literature of its four main language groups, Arabic, Hebrew, Persian and Turkish. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Middle East was a land of ‘old cultures’ but ‘new states’: each of the main language groups possessed rich, centuries-old literary traditions, while they confronted new challenges of organising nation states and creating new national identities for the modern period. The state creation and national identity building projects across the 20th century created the Middle East as we know it today, and Middle Eastern literature gives rich insight into the region’s nations and nationalism that cannot be understood via political sciences alone. The literature reveals the ways in which the region’s cultural producers, across the spectrum from states to writers to rebels, meld old traditions with their new nations, and their experiences of state building reflect the changing meaning of ‘the nation’ across time and space.

This course studies the development of national literatures in the modern Middle East from a comparative perspective: we trace the process of national identity building as revealed through literary production in the Arab world, Iran, Israel and Turkey, and we relate the literary texts to the seminal periods of the development of the respective nations. The course is comparative, and we will compare and contrast the processes of national identity building by asking the same questions of the different bodies of literature:

a) How do authors contribute to the process of national identity construction?
b) How do authors represent the idea of ‘the nation’?
c) What cultural traditions feature in the definition of the new nation states, and how did the uses of ‘tradition’ change over the process of state formation? What does the use of literary traditions tell us about the national identities of modern Middle Eastern states?
d) How and where did literature act as a form of resistance to the new nation state construction projects?

The course begins with an introductory lecture on literature and nationalism. It is followed by 3-week sessions on each of the four language groups, during which students will read literary texts (poetry, short stories and/or excerpts from novels) and secondary readings about Middle Eastern literature and theoretical readings about the nation and nationalism.

In addition to the lectures, weekly preparation and end of semester paper, language-track students will read a short novel (c. 120 pages) in the original language via self-study, guided in an additional weekly reading class, followed by a Translation Test at the end.
Non-language students will read translations of two novels (minimum 400 pages total) and prepare a reading report due after the Examination Week.

Course objectives

The student will
a) become familiar with modern Arabic, Hebrew, Persian and Turkish literature, both poetry and prose;
b) be introduced to the modern significance of the classical literary traditions for each language;
c) learn how to use literary theory of the nation, post-colonialism and nostalgia to analyse literature and place it in its cultural and social context;
d) evaluate concepts of ‘tradition’, ‘modernity’, the state and the poetics of nostalgia; and
e) for language students read a complete novel in the original language; or
f) for non-language students read 2 complete novels (in translation) from two of the four languages covered on this course.

Timetable

The timetables are available through My Timetable.

Mode of instruction

• Lecture

• Seminar

• Seminar: additional class for language students

The course load on the right is for students in the language tracks.

For students in the tracks Islamstudies and Moderne Midden-Oostenstudies the course load is as follows:

• Lecture: 26

• Paper: 20

• Other examinations: 62

• Self-tuition: 32

Assessment method

The final mark for the course is established by determining the weighted average of the following:

Resit

Students are entitled to resit the Comparative Essay. The Instructor will assign a new essay question to each re-sitting student. Students are not allowed to prepare the same essay question as used in their initial submission of the Comparative Paper.

Exam review

If a student requests a review within 30 days after publication of the exam results, an exam review will be organized.

Reading list

In preparation for the course, students are advised to read the following text which will be discussed throughout the class:

• Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities. London: Verso, 1991.

Students may also wish to consult the following:

• Badawi, M. M. (ed), Modern Arabic Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1992.

• Ouyang, Wen-Chin, Politics of Nostalgia in the Arabic Novel. Edinburgh, Edinburgh UP, 2014.

• Said, Edward, Culture and Imperialism. New York: Vintage Books, 1994.

Registration

Enrolment through MyStudyMap is mandatory.
General information about course and exam enrolment is available on the website

Contact

• For substantive questions, contact the coordinator (dr. P.A. Webb) listed in the information bar on the right.

• For questions about enrolment, admission, etc, contact the Education Administration Office de Vrieshof.

Remarks

Please note that the additional course information is an integral part of this course description.