28809 - Arabic Language and Civilization

Learning outcomes

The course aims at providing students with basic knowledge of  Arabic Language, focusing especially on commercial and geopolitical terminology, as well as with basic information on  contemporary Arab culture. At the end of the course, students will be able to understand the declensions and conjugations of Arabic and will have a basic knowledge of the main aspects of  contemporary Arab civilization.

Course contents

The course will be divided into three parts, which will be strictly interconnected: Language, Literature and History.

Language (14 hours of lecturing)
Students will be taught basics of Classical Arabic Language (CLA) and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) in reading, writing, phonetics,  morphology, syntax and vocabulary, so as to develop the necessary skills for an effective use of CLA/MSA in simple communication tasks, such as translating short written texts and both “receiving” and “producing” short oral texts. Basic grammar: main forms of nominal declension; first conjugation form of verbs (both in perfect and present tenses). Vocabulary:  technical terminology of geopolitics, law, commerce and economy will specially focused on, so as to let students have “meaningful communication experiences” in those fields, by “decoding” and “producing” simple but proper expressions, according to the specific aims of this course.  A detailed program has already been defined. It will be further developed on the basis of a thorough “context analysis” (seed "Methods) and then it will be distributed to all students at the beginning of the course.

Literature  (8 hours of lecturing)
An outline of the history of Arabic literature will be sketched,  from pre-Islamic times to early twenty-first century. The following items will be paid special attention: pre-Islamic poetry, the Koran; the historical evolution of tafsir (Koranic exegesis) up to the present day; Umayyad poetry; Abbasid period;  relations with Hellenistic culture and with  Latin and Romance cultures in the Middle Ages;  mystical literature; nahda (the "awakening") of Arab culture in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; women's literature from pre-Islamic poetry to present times;  human rights issues of twentieth and twenty-first century literary works .

History (8 hours of lecturing)

Monotheisms. Religions in contact in the Arab Mediterranean World. Egypt as a case study.

The course will outline the historical development of the relationships between different religious trends and communities in the Arab Mediterranean area, from the rise of Islam to nowadays. In order to focus on a determined geographical and historical complex, the Egyptian situation, from the Islamic conquest up to 2011 Revolution, will be the object of a case study. Such choice relies on several reasons. In particular, Egypt was one of the first countries where an Islamic political domination was established, it is also one of the Islamized conutries where the presence of other religious communities (Christians and Jews) has been both demographically and socioculturally important up to very recent times; Egypt has always played a key role in the relationships betweel the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, as well as, since the spread of Islam, between the different regions of the Arab and Muslim world.

 

 

Readings/Bibliography

The following list includes only books in Italian language; on the grounds of specific agreements with the teacher, students will be allowed to refer also on books in other languages (Arabic, Emglish, French, Spanish).

 

Language.

Laura VECCIA VAGLIERI, Grammatica teorica-pratica della Lingua Araba, vol. I,  Roma, Istituto per l'Oriente;

Al-Sayyid al-Badawī, Al kitāb al-asāsī fī ta‘līm al-lughat al-‘arabiyya li-ghayr al-nātiqīn bi-hā. Al-ju'z al-awwal, Cairo, ALECSO – American University in Cairo Press, 2008.

More bibliographical references will be given during the Course; excerpts of Arabic texts analyzed will be collected in a file which will be distributed at the end of the Course.

 

Literature

- D. Amaldi, Storia della letteratura araba classica, Bologna, Zanichelli, 2004.

- I. CAMERA D'AFFLITTO, Letteratura Araba Contemporanea. Dalla nahdah ad oggi, Roma, Carocci, 2007.

More bibliographical references will be given during the Course; excerpts of Arabic texts analyzed will be collected in a file which will be distributed at the end of the Course

 

History

Two texts to be chosen from the following list, through preliminary agreement with the teacher:  

 

-           B. LEWIS, Gli Arabi nella Storia, (tr. it.), Laterza, Bari, 2007

-           C. LOJACONO, Maometto. L'Inviato di Dio, Edizioni Lavoro, Roma, 1995

-           H. HALM, Heinz, Gli Arabi, (tr.it.)  Il Mulino, Bologna, 2006

-           F. CORRAO, Le Rivoluzioni arabe. La transizione mediterranea,  Mondadori, Milano, 2011

-           G. FILORAMO, Islam, Bari, Laterza 2007

-           G. CECERE, La Costituzione Egiziana [1923], Liberilibri, Macerata, 2012

-           M. RODINSON, Maometto, (tr.it.), Einaudi, Torino, 1973

-           A. DI NOLA, Maometto, Newton Compton, 1997

-           A. MAALOUF, Le Crociate viste dagli Arabi,  (tr. it.) SEI, Torino, 1993

-           B. LEWIS, Culture in conflitto. Cristiani, Ebrei, Musulmani alle origini del mondo moderno, Donzelli 2007

-           M. A.  AMIR-MOEZZI (a cura di; ed.it. a cura di Ida Zilio-Grandi), Dizionario del Corano, Mondadori, Milano 2007

-           SCATTOLIN, Giuseppe, Dio e uomo nell'Islam, EMI, Bologna, 2004;

-           SCATTOLIN, Giuseppe, Spiritualità  nell'Islam, EMI, Bologna, 2004;

-           STRAFACE, Antonella, Ortodossia e dissenso nell'Islam, Edizioni Lavoro, Roma, 1998;

-           ARKOUN, Mohammed, La Filosofia araba, (tr.it Aldo Troisi), Xenia, 1995

-           GUTAS, Dimitri, Pensiero greco e cultura araba, (tr. it. Cristina D'Ancona), Einaudi, Torino, 2002

More bibliographical references will be given during the Course; excerpts of Arabic texts analyzed will be collected in a file which will be distributed at the end of the Course

 

Teaching methods

Language. An original teaching methodology is proposed. The grammatical approach which is "traditional" in academic teaching of Arabic language, mainly oriented to develop passive skills in written communication (translation from Arabic into Italian) is combined with the mostly inductive and mimetic approach proposed by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages ​​(Learning / Teaching / Assessment). The latter's guidelines have been of course reviewed according to the peculiar characteristics of the Arabic language and the special objectives of the course. The operational methodology will be further developed on the basis of a thorough “context analysis”, aimed at identifying the special needs of the students of this specific course. Whereas lessons will take place in the second half, the context analysis will be carried out in the first semester, through one or more preliminary meetings.

For Literature and History, in addition to teacher's lecturing,  workshops will be regularly held. On the basis of agreements with the teacher,  each student will present his/her colleagues an in-depth research on a special issue, even not included in the general program of the course

Assessment methods

.1. The final exam will consist of three parts according to the three-folded structure of the Course; Language, Literature and History.

 2. For the Language part, both a written test and an oral exam are required. Passing the writenn text is a precondition for being admitted to the oral exam.

3. For the parts concerning Literature and History, only oral exam are required.

4. Students are allowed to  undergo each part of the exam (Language, Literature, History) in a different session.

5. In that case, the students are free to choose the order of the three parts of the exam, with the only limitations stated at point è (see above) and point - (see below)

6. One single part of the exam (Language; Literature; History) cannot be divided into smaller units.

7.  The final judgement will basically result from the average score of the three parts of the exam. However, activities performed during the Course will be taken into account in order to reach the final judgement.

Teaching tools

In accordance with the Course methodological guidelines (see "Methods"), teaching activity  will be conducted mostly in language lab, also for literature and history. For all parts of the course, suggested "textbooks" will be integrated with several other tools, mostly relying on Arabic sources (videos, press articles, excerpts from literary, religious, legal, political texts). Some of the materials  will be directly "produced" in classroom, which in collaboration with students, thus meeting with different individual learning styles and needs as well as enhancing “mutual learning” opportunities implied by teamwork and cooperative intellectual exchange.  

Office hours

See the website of Giuseppe Cecere