The Bill and Carol Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry
Emory University
2009-2010 Great Works Seminars
The Arabian Nights
The Arabian Nights continue to enchant, enthrall, and captivate audiences with their complex history as a collection, their
manifold connections with Indian, Persian, Arab, and European culture, and their rich variety of resonant themes. They are at
once entertaining and puzzling, posing difficult problems for scholars of literary texts in many traditions.
This Great Works seminar will read and discuss the “greatest hits” of The Arabian Nights, including the frame tale, tales from
the early, Baghdadi cycle, The City of Brass, Sindbad, Aladdin, Ali Baba, and Ma’aruf the Cobbler from the late, Egyptian cycle
of stories. Many intriguing topics and themes will be explored.
The seminar will be led by Professor Devin Stewart of Emory’s Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies and
will meet from 7:00pm–9:00pm on the following Wednesday evenings: January 20, February 3 & 17, March 3 & 17 and April
7, for six sessions. Professor Stewart received a B.A. degree in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University (1984),
completed the CASA program in Arabic at the American University in Cairo (1985), and earned a Ph.D. in Arabic and Islamic
Studies from the University of Pennsylvania (1991).
Everyone from the Atlanta community is welcome and invited to join us for this seminar. There are no prerequisites other
than a love of literature. For further information and to reserve seating on a “first-come basis,” contact Professor Stewart at
dstewar@emory.edu, 404.727.2133 or the Fox Center at chi@emory.edu.
We are grateful to the National Endowment for the Humanities for its support of this program. Any views, findings,
conclusions or recommendations expressed in these seminars do not necessarily reflect those of the National Endowment for
the Humanities.