Writers of Our Region

Catalog description

Western media tends to produce a one-dimensional view of Middle Eastern cultures. The reality of the people is often very different. How do Middle Eastern writers represent themselves and their societies in fiction? How have they reacted to the dramatic changes in the Middle East from the early twentieth century on? In this course, students will consider the continuities and diversities of North African and Middle Eastern cultures by analyzing modern and contemporary novels and poetry, as well as films, from or about Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon and Palestine. The following issues will be tackled: how do novelists translate the changes of their cultures into literary form? What literary traditions do they draw on? How do these reflect the different movements in Islam, and the other religions of the region? What kinds of worldly and personal representations emerge? How have these been changing recently, notably since the Arab Revolutions? How different are novels written in English or French for a global audience from those written in Arabic? What are the effects of reading them in translation? Do the conventions of Western literary criticism work for all literatures?