31612 - Arabic Culture and Literature 2

Learning outcomes

By the end of the course, the student is aware of the significant issues and specific aspects of Arabic literature's history concerning the reference time frame. Students are able to understand and translate texts in the original language. Also, they have acquired the basic theoretical knowledge to deal with the critical interpretation of literary contents, being able to comment on texts and explain them according to multiple methodologies of analysis.

Course contents

While discussing the relationship between tradition and modernity in dialogic terms, students are introduced to different literary text types and some critical approaches to literary composition and analysis (rhetoric/Arabic prosody). The course will provide students with the tools to properly contextualize the texts to reflect on the construction of the literary canon cross-temporally. Further attention will be paid to some genres often placed outside mainstream literature (popular literature, journalism).

Arabic Literature 2
The course is an overview of the Arabic literary production from the Abbasid era to the present day, with particular attention to the evolution of different writing practices (poetry/prose). Among the topics addressed are Ibn al-Mu'tazz and the revolution of the moderns, the feeling of nostalgia between al-Andalus and Palestine, Sufism as the driving force of Islam, and the linkages between popular literature and music.  

Arabic Literature 3
The course aims to explore contemporary Arabic literature. Namely, it will offer thematic insights into journalism, Arabic theatre, and the contemporary Arabic "Rebel" literary production of the '60s and '70s - with particular reference to Egypt, Sham, and Iraq. This shows how this production has contributed to renewing the literary canon, building upon both experimentation and tradition-grounded solutions. 

For both courses, a number of texts in Arabic will be provided during the class and commented on with the help of the instructor. She will help students develop a critical approach to the history of the Arabic literary tradition and its sources.

Mandatory languages are Italian, Arabic, and at least one between English and French, upon choice.

Readings/Bibliography

All sources are available on Virtuale. Throughout the course, students will be informed of possible changes

Bibliography

Arabic Literature 2

Bausani, Alessandro. “Le Lingue Islamiche” in Idem; Biancamaria Scarcia Amoretti [Ed.], Il mondo islamico fra interazione e acculturazione, Roma: Sapienza Università di Roma, 1981, pp. 3-19.

Cachia, Pierre. “Arabic Literatures, "Elite" and "Folk" Junctions And Disjunctions.” Quaderni di Studi Arabi, Nuova Serie, 3, 2008: 135-152.

Chittick, William C. “The Spiritual Path of Love in Ibn al-'Arabi and Rumi.” Mystics Quarterly, 19, 1, 1993: 4-16.

El-Azma, Nazeer. “The Tammūzī Movement and the Influence of T. S. Eliot on Badr Shākir al-Sayyāb.” Journal of the American Oriental Society, 88, 4, 1968: 671-678.

Fontana, Chiara. “The Name of the Key: al-Sakkākī’s Literary Craftsmanship and Pragmatic Poetics in Miftāḥ al-ʿUlūm”, Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies, 25, (1), 2025: 57-87.

Fontana, Chiara. “Craftsmanship in Literature and Literary Craftsmanship in 9th Century Baghdad: Ibn Abī ʿAwn’s (d. 322/934) Kitāb al-tašbīhāt [The Book of Similes] as a Case Study”, Quaderni di Studi Arabi, 20, 2025, 1-39.

Gutas, D., Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early ʻAbbāsid Society (2nd-4th/8th-10th Centuries), Routledge, London and NY, 1998, sezioni scelte.

Homerin, Emil, Filled with a Burning Desire: lbn al-Farid-Poet, Mystic, and Saint, Ph.D. diss., (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1987, sezioni scelte.

Jacobi, Renate, “Ibn al-Muʿtazz: Dair ʿAbdūn. A Structural Analysis,” Journal of Arabic Literature, 6, 1975, 35-56.

Kennedy, Philip F., The Wine Song in Classical Arabic Poetry. Abu Nuwas and the Literary Tradition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1-18.

Lagrange, Frédéric, (2014), “Modern Arabic Literature and the Disappearance of Mujūn: Same-Sex Rape as a Case Study”, in A. Talib, M. Hammond, A. Schippers (a cura di), The Rude, The Bad and the Bawdy, essays in honor of Professor Geert Jan van Gelder, UK, Gibb Memorial Trust: 230-253.

Moreh, Shmuel. “The Shadow Play ("Khayāl al-Zill") in the Light of Arabic Literature.” Journal of Arabic Literature,18, 1987: 46-61.

al-Musawi, Muhsin Jassim, The Medieval Islamic Republic of Letters: Arabic Knowledge Construction, Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2015, sezioni scelte.

Renard, J. (2005). Historical Dictionary of Sufism. Maryland-Toronto-Oxford: The Scarecrow Press, 1-14.

Rizzitano, Umberto. “I danni dell'imitazione della poesia araba preislamica secondo il critico Aḥmad Amīn Bey.” Oriente Moderno, 26, 1/6,1946: 42-49.

Rosenthal, Franz. “The Stranger in Medieval Islam.” Arabica, vol. 44, no. 1, 1997, pp. 35–75

Rustom, Mohammed. “Rumi's Metaphysics of the Heart.” Mawlana Rumi Review, 1, 2010: 69-79

Sells, Michael A., “Bewildered Tongue: The Semantics of Mystical Union in Islam” in Idel, Moshe and McGinn, Bernard [Eds], Mystical Union in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. An Ecumenical Dialogue, UK: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016, pp. 87-124, cit. 88.

Talib, Adam; Hammond, Marle; Schippers, Arie, The Rude, the Bad and the Bawdy: Essays in Honour of Professor Geert Jan Van Gelder, Cambridge UK: Gibb Memorial Trust, 2014, 141-159 and 230-253.

Arabic literature 3

Armes, Roy, “Youssef Chahine and Egyptian Cinema.” The Journal of Cinema and Media,14, 1981: 12-15.

Booth, Marilyn. “Colloquial Arabic Poetry, Politics, and the Press in Modern Egypt.” International Journal of Middle East Studies, 24, 3, 1992: 419-440.

Fontana, Chiara. Poesie di Najīb Surūr. Studio critico e traduzione. AMSActa, 2025.

Fontana, Chiara. “Arabic Poetics and Prosody in Practice: Najīb Surūr’s Experimentalism in ʻKalimāt fī-l-ḥubbʼ [Love Words],” In R.R. Gould, H. Rashwan, N. al-Askari [Eds.] Arabic, Persian, and Turkic Poetics. Towards a Post-Eurocentric Literary Theory, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024: 304-338.

Fontana, Chiara. 2019. Rhetorical Features of Cursing and Swearing in Contemporary Masters of Mujūn: Muẓaffar an-Nawwāb and Najīb Surūr. Romano-Arabica, 19, pp. 99-114.

El-Enany, Rasheed, Naguib Maḥfūẓ: The Pursuit of Meaning (Arabic Thought and Culture), London and New York: Routledge, 1993, sezioni scelte.

Gershoni, Israel, “Egyptian Liberalism in an Age of "Crisis of Orientation": Al-Risala's Reaction to Fascism and Nazism, 1933-39,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 31, No. 4 (Nov.,1999), pp. 551-576.

Haddad, Mahmoud, “The Rise of Arab Nationalism Reconsidered”, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 26, No. 2 (May 1994), pp. 201-222.

Hafez, Sabri, “Cultural Journals and Modern Arabic Literature: A Historical Overview”, Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, 2017, No. 37, (2017), pp. 9-49.

Jacquemond, Richard, Conscience of the Nation, Cairo, The American University in Cairo Press, 2008, sezioni scelte.

Jayyusi, Salma Khaḍra, Trends and Movements in Modern Arabic Poetry, Leiden, Brill, 1977, sezioni scelte.

Kendall, Elizabeth, Literature, Journalism and Avant-Garde, Intersection in Egypt London-New York, Routledge, 2006, sezioni scelte.

Ramadan, Yasmine, ʻThe emergence of the Sixties Generation in Egyptʼ, in Journal of Arabic Literature, 43, 2-3, 2012, 409-30.

Ruocco Monica, “Il teatro e la storia nel Masraḥ al—tasyīs di Sa'd Allāh Wannūs.” Oriente Moderno, Nuova serie, 6, 67, 7/12, 1987: 187-197.

Sibilio, Simone, “The Aroma of The Land. Maḥmūd Darwīsh's Geopoetics of Coffee.” Quaderni di Studi Arabi, Nuova Serie, 10, 2015: 103-124.

al-Tami, Ahmed, ʻArabic Free Verse: The Problem of Terminologyʼ, in Journal of Arabic Literature, 24, 2, 1993, 185-198.

Additional References:

Bachelard, G. [1957] (1994). The Poetics of Space. The Classic Look at How We Live Intimate Spaces. Translated from the French by M. Jolas, with a foreword by J. R. Stilgoe. Bos-ton: Beacon Press, cap. 1, 3-37.

Bordieu, Pierre; The field of the cultural production, transl. by Randal Johnson, New York, Columbia University Press, 1993, sezioni scelte.

Poggioli, Renato, The theory of the avant-garde, Trans. Gerald Fitzgerald. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press, 1968, sezioni scelte.

Quiroga, Horacio. “La patria.” In Idem, Tigre per sempre, Torino, Einaudi, 2022: 169-177.

Excerpts (in Arabic):

Fontana, Chiara. Poesie di Najīb Surūr. Studio critico e traduzione. AMSActa, 2025.

Ibn al-Muʿtazz, Diwān Ibn al-Muʿtazz, Karam al-Bustānī [ed.], Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 1965.

Muẓaffar al-Nawwāb, al-Aʽmāl al-shiʽriyya al-kāmila, London: Dār Qanbar.

Sibilio, Simone, Poesia araba moderna e contemporanea, Roma: Pubblicazioni dell'Istituto per l'Oriente C. A. Nallino, 2022, sezioni scelte.

Teaching methods

Lessons will be held in person

Assessment methods

The course has three graded components: a) attendance and class participation; b) group presentations: students are responsible for leading in-course seminars focused on course topics; c) an end-course oral exam

To take the exam as a non-attending student (also from previous years), please contact the instructor.

 

Students with SLD or temporary or permanent disabilities are advised to contact the relevant University office (https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en) and the lecturer as soon as possible to explore the most effective strategies for attending lessons and/or preparing for examinations.

Teaching tools

Texts, audio-video sources, additional materials provided by the instructor.

Office hours

See the website of Chiara Fontana