Take a look at one of the following resources on Arabic literature (placed on reserve for your use in the Davis Family Library), and then prepare a 1-2 page typed response to the following questions/tasks. Please be prepared to speak about your results for five minutes or so on Monday.
- How is modern Arabic literature studied? What are questions are posed? What themes come to the fore in the analysis of modern Arabic literature?
- Provide two precise/meaningful/aesthetically pleasing words from your reading that you haven’t used previously that you’d like to use in future expository writing.
- Provide citation of a sentence or paragraph that you believe is well or beautifully constructed and/or persuasive. Describe why this is the case.
- Relate something new that you’ve learned from your skimming of one of these books that you believe might be significant to the study of Arabic literature and/or intrigues you personally.
- Is there a topic or an approach to reading the Arabic novel that particularly appeals to you and that you’d like to explore further?
In order to complete this assignment, the following books are being held on reserve for you:
Stefan Meyer, The Experimental Arabic Novel
Muhsin al-Musawi, The Postcolonial Arabic Novel
Semah Selim, The Novel and the Rural Imaginary in Egypt
Matti Moosa, The Origins of Modern Arabic Fiction
Hoda Elsadda, Gender, Nation and the Arabic Novel
Issa Boullata, Critical Perspectives on Modern Arabic Literature
Sabry Hafez, The Genesis of Arabic Narrative Discourse
Note: I expect this assignment to take you no more than 90 minutes of concentrated working time to complete. Once 90 minutes have elapsed, you may cease work on this assignment at whatever point you’ve reached.