Shati' Tea and Falafel Shop, Gaza

Arabic and the "adab" cultural literature of liberation. A course outline to celebrate the massive rally in Gaza today to protest the non-invitation of Hamas to the Annapolis meeting of Olmert, Abbas, and Bush scheduled for tomorrow.

I would very much like to put together a course in Arabic that would introduce students rapidly to the « classics, » in Arabic, (which should include Euclid, Aristotle and even Homer, in Suleiman Bustani’s translation, since the Semitic speaking world was not only Hellenized for a long period, but also re-transmitted the Hellenic classics to Europe.)

To animate such a course, I envision using the techniques the British use in teaching English (the CELTA method): that is, introducing each lesson by a « theme » or « context » and then teaching speaking before showing the written version on the white-board. For Arabic, I would put together a text with pictures with realistic, natural formal Arabic « visits to » or « contextual themes on » the major centers where Arabic is the first or second language.

My current position teaching English in Saudi Arabia, a country which draws Arabic speakers from diverse areas of Africa and Asia, gives me an opportunity to make tape recordings and collections of authentic « realia » in formal Arabic.

Here is a rough outline of the main cultural points I would like to include in my course. As you may notice, the « moderns, » whom I have put after a colon, are based on an appreciation of the « liberation » narratives of the post-colonial world as outlined in Edward Said’s Culture and Imperialism. Since a good deal of the « best » in this new literature happens to be from Arabic Africa and Palestine-Syria, it makes sense to introduce students to as expansive a view of the world as possible when teaching Arabic culture.

1. Algeria. Revolt of Emir Abd al Qader in Girgi Zaidan’s novels; Kateb Yasine, Franz Fanon
2. Tunis. Ibn Khadun; Khayr al-Din, Bairam at-Tunisi
3. Syria. Umayyad Mosque of Damascus; Usama Ibn Munqidh, An Arab Syrian Gentleman; Adonis
4. Palestine. Hebrew written in Arabic in Geniza Documents, Albright, The Archaeology of Palestine; Arafat’s 1974 Speech to the U.N. Mahmoud Darwish
5. Greece. Iliad, Poetics; Declaration of Havana in Arabic, published in Greece 2007
6. Iran. Kalila wa Dimna, Jahiz, Sufis like Omar Khayyam and Fitzgerald translation; Ali Shariati
7. Italy. Avicenna; Nallino (Italian orientalist who gave lectures in Cairo)
8. France. Averroes Thomas Aquinas; CLR James (Black Jacobins), Cesaire’s Discours sur le Colonialism Maxime Rodinson’s Israel: A Colonial Settler State?
9. Afghanistan-Samarqand Nasr ad-Din at-Tusi; Lenin’s Imperialism and To See the Dawn
10. Iran (Khawarizm). Avicenna’s Al-Shifa, Khuwarizmi’s Algebraic Geometry classic; Revival of liberation: Arafat’s speech when invited by the Iranian Revolution that overthrew the Shah.
11. Iraq. Farabi, Jahiz; Antonious
12. Sudan. Mahdi Uprising; Tayib Saleh
13. Somalia. 9th century expansion of food/farming/ Arabic speaking Somalis on Al-Jazeera
14. Ethiopia Asmara ruins; Amharic, the oldest, continually spoken Semitic language (Wilvinson)
15. Saudi Arabia. Koran; Abd Ar-Rahman Munif’s Cities of Salt
16. Egypt. Orabi uprising of 1882 in Jergi Zaidan; Neguib Mahfouz
17. 14th Century Egypt. Arabian Nights, Maqrizi; Khitat Tawfiqiyya of Ali Basha Mubarak
18. 20th Century Egypt. Afghani, Abdu; Antonius, Tahtawi Hoda Sha’rawi (To See the Dawn)
19. Spain Translation of Euclid, Almagest, Farabi by Gerard of Cremona; Don Quixote and the Maqamat of Badi’ al-Zaman
20. West Africa. Morabitun (Senegal) conquest of Spain; Chinua Achebe
21. India. Feminist remnants in Arabian Nights; Rabindranath Tagore, Nationalism; Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children and essays on Satanic Verses in Mahfouz, Darwish and Munif
22. Great Britain and the US. Canterbury Tales, Michael Scott and the Toledo translation of Al-Khuwarizmi’s Algebra Khalil Gibran Elia Madi; Irving’s Tales of the Alhambra, James Joyce’s Ulysses, Naomi Shihab Nye, Salma Khadra al-Juyushi, Edward Said.
23. The Americas. Marti, Garvey, W.E.B Dubois; Neruda
24. Pakistan. Eqbal Ahmed; Faiz Ahmed Faiz; Essay by Said on Pakistani reporter on Al-Jazeera who spoke fluent Arabic.

Sincerely,




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