30046 - Arab Literature 1 (2nd cycle)

Learning outcomes

Students have in-depth knowledge on the history of modern Arabic literature, with specific emphasis on the relationship between literary texts and the historical, artistic, and linguistic milieu. They know how to use different critical methodologies for the analysis and interpretation of the literary text

Course contents

The course seeks to provide students with an introductory, extensive overview of Arabic contemporary literature and namely the Arabic “Rebel” literature from the 1960s and 1970s (Egypt, Sham, Morocco). An in-depth focus on the interplay between literature (poetry/novel) and arts like theater and cinema would be provided. 

Readings/Bibliography

1. Supporting Materials  - provided by the instructor.

Adūnīs, al-Thābit wa-l-mutaḥawwil, 4 vols. Beirut, Dār al-Sāqī, 1994, sezioni scelte.

Beinin, Joel; Lockman, Zachary, Workers on the Nile: Nationalism, Communism, Islam and the Egyptian Working Class 1882 – 1954. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 1998, sezioni scelte.

De Joung, Terry, ʿA New Reading of Badr Shākir al-Sayyāb’s “Hymn of the Rain,”ʾ in Journal of Arabic Literature, 24, 1, 1993, 39-61.

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

Gana, Nouri, “Enduring Left Melancholia: Maḥfūẓ’s The Beggar and the Nasserite Intellectual”, in Approaches to teaching the works of Naguib Maḥfūẓ, ed. Wail Seddiq Hassan & Susan Muaddi Darraj, New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2012: 65-84.

Greenberg, Nathaniel, The Aesthetic of Revolution in the Film and Literature of Naguib Mahfouz (1952-1967), Washington DC: Lexington Books, 2014,

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.

Kilito, Abdelfattah, L'Auteur et ses doubles: Essai sur la culture arabe Classique, Paris, Seuil, 1971, sezioni scelte.

Mandūr, Muḥammad, Fī al-mizān al-jadīd, Cairo: Dār Nahḍat Miṣr li-l-Ṭibāʿ wa-l-Nashr, 1971, sezioni scelte.

Mehrez, Samia, Egyptian writers between History and Fiction, Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 1994, sezioni scelte.

al-Malāʾika, Nāzik, Qaḍāyā al-shiʿr al-muʿāṣir, (1^st ed. 1962), Beirut: Dār al-ʽIlm li-l-Malāyyīn, 2004, sezioni scelte.

al-Musawi, Muhsin J., Arabic Poetry: Trajectories of Modernity and Tradition London and New York, Routledge, 2006, sezioni scelte.

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

Ouyang, Wen-chin, Poetics of Love in the Arabic Novel: Nation-state, Modernity and Tradition, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012, sezioni scelte.

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

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

Shukrī Ghālī, al-Muntamī: Dirāsāt fī Adab Najīb Maḥfūẓ, Cairo: Dār al-Ma‛ārif, sezioni scelte.

Study Materials will be available on Virtuale. Students will be informed about possible variations throughout the course. 

Teaching methods

In person lessons

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.

Teaching tools

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

Office hours

See the website of Chiara Fontana