Modern Arab State and Society (II): Culture and Literature
MDES 343
Dina Jadallah
Units: 4
Spring Semester: MW 2:00-3:30
Location: VKC 202
Course Instructor: Dina Jadallah
Office: THH 449F
Office Hours: Wednesdays, 10:30 am to 12:30 pm, and by appointment
Contact Info: jadallah@usc.edu
Course Description
This course will examine the dynamics of contemporary state-society relations in the
modern Arab world using culture and literature to illustrate how people of the region construct
meanings locally and present their ideas, struggles, and aspirations. Through their study of select
literary works in translation, students will be exposed to Arab culture, not as a static set of
values, but as a repository of large and sometimes contradictory tools from which persons draw
upon to serve material, economic, and ultimately political interests. By the end of the semester,
students will be able to gain insight into their own assumptions about the region and to engage
with alternate sets of social, political, and personal priorities and perspectives on the world.
These perspectives will be introduced through a study of literature, poetry, film, and other media.
We will use an interdisciplinary framework to discuss literary portrayals of society. A
review of the general historical and socio-political background of the region will allow us to
examine changing cultural trends over time. Focusing on important topics such as ‘modernity,’
nationalism, repression, resistance, conceptualizations of justice, gender, migration and diaspora,
and perceptions of global and domestic forces will help us weigh local experiences in relation to
broader processes.
Course Objectives
1- Introduce students to Arab state and society from the perspectives of culture and literary
representation.
2- Situate literary texts within their respective historical, political, and social contexts.
3- Critique and analyze intellectual, literary, and cultural responses to central challenges in
the experiences of modernity in the Arab world.
4- Engage with the texts as critical and esthetic representations of dynamic state-society
relations.
5- Introduce students to the complex ways culture relates to individual choice, values, ideas,
and the human experience across cultures.
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6- Use primary texts that employ multi-disciplinary approaches by Arab scholars and
intellectuals to relate transformations in the political and social spheres to the search for
personal and cultural identity on the literary and artistic levels.
7- Use culture to present students with environments, customs, issues, and characters that
may be unfamiliar, but through which they can draw parallels to their own experiences.
Course Requirements
Critical Response Essays and Presentations:
Response essays are a chance for students to engage with the scholarly treatment of
socio-cultural and political trends; to respond to a literary work; and/or to compare more than
one work covered in the semester. Essays must engage with the main social, political, cultural,
and historical themes represented in the texts.
During the first week of class, students will choose the topics/days on which they will
write their essays and present them in class. Over the course of the semester, each student is
expected to write 4 short essays (2-3 pages, double spaced, with standard 12 inch fonts and 1
inch margins, paginated, stapled, and reasonably free of spelling and grammatical errors). The
essays must make an argument, summarizing and critiquing the selected readings from the week,
with references to previous readings and / or themes discussed in class where possible. They
must submit their essays Blackboard before class starts on the day on which they are due.
Alternatively, they may email and/or hand in a printed copy of each essay. Please see the
Grading Rubric for this class on Blackboard for suggestions about writing your response essays
and for information about how they will be assessed. Students are expected to give a brief 5-10
minute class presentation and to pose 1-2 questions for class discussion. I do not enjoy chasing
after late papers. Therefore, please hand in papers on their due date. Students will lose 3% for
each day that a paper is late. Papers that are handed in one week after they are due will receive a
failing grade. Please retain an electronic and a hard copy of all the work you submit for this
class for your own record.
In-class Participation:
Attendance and class participation are essential. Please read the assigned texts and come
prepared to discuss them in class.
You are allowed three unexcused absences in a semester. Any more unexcused absences will
result in a one percentage point deduction in your final grade. An excused absence means a
providing me with a note from an appropriate office (coach, doctor, dean). Please let me know as
soon as possible if you will not be attending the class – before and not after the class you will
miss.
Mid-term and Final Exam:
The mid-term is scheduled for Monday, February 22, 2016
The final exam is scheduled for Monday, May 11, 2016, 2-4 pm
Problems that may arise
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If you are experiencing any problems that are affecting your school work and/or class
attendance, please meet with me as soon as possible. Please do not wait until the end of the
semester to inform me about early problems. I will be glad to help you.
Grading
Work for this course will be assessed based on the USC grades system:
https://catalogue.usc.edu/academic/standards/
1. Four critical response essays and class presentations: 10% each, for a total of 40%
2- Attendance and attentive participation in class discussions: 10%
3- Mid-term exam (short answer essays): 20%
4- Final exam (short answer essays): 30%
Required Books
Dwight F. Reynolds, The Cambridge Companion to Modern Arab Culture (Cambridge
University Press, 2015).
Son‘allah Ibrahim, The Committee, Translated by Mary St. Germain and Charlene Constable,
(Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2001).
Ghassan Kanafani, May Jayyusi (translator), Jeremy Reed (translator), All That's Left to You: A
Novella and Short Stories (Interlink World Fiction, 2005).
Tayeb Salih, Season of Migration to the North, trans. Denys Johnson-Davies and Laila Lalami,
(New York Review Books Classics, 2009).
Naguib Mahfouz, translation by Trevor Le Gassick, M. M. Badawi, and John Rodenbeck, The
Thief and the Dogs, (Anchor, 1989).
Randa Jarrar, A Map of Home: A Novel, (Penguin Books, 2009).
Other assigned readings for the course will be posted on Blackboard or are available online –
links provided in the syllabus.
Weekly Readings
Week 1: General Introduction and sign-ups for critical response essays; Overview of
Cultural Trends, Language
1/11: General introduction and sign-ups for response essays and presentations.
1/13: Dwight F. Reynolds, The Cambridge Companion to Modern Arab Culture (Cambridge
University Press, 2015). Reynolds, “Modern Arab culture: introductory remarks,” pp. 1-18.
Reynolds, Chapter 1, Kristen Brustad, “The question of language,” pp. 19-35.
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Week 2: Overview of moral economy and literary expression
1/18: Halim Barakat, The Arab World: Society, Culture and State, (University of California
Press, 1993), Chapter 9, “National Character and Value Orientations,” pp. 181-205.
1/20: Barakat, Chapter 10, “Creative Expression: Society & Literary Orientations,” pp. 206-238.
Week 3: Identity, Diversity, and the Rise of Middle Class Modernity; the Nahda
1/25: Reynolds, Andrew D. Magnusson, ‘Ethnic and religious minorities,’ pp. 36-53.
Keith David Watenpaugh, “Being Middle Class and Being Arab: Sectarian Dilemmas and
Middle-class Modernity in the Arab Middle East (1908-1936),” in Barbara Weinstein and A.
Ricardo Lopez, (eds.) “We Shall Be All:” Toward a Global History of the Middle
Class (Durham: Duke University Press, 2012), pp. 267-286.
Murtaza Hussein, “The Myth of the 1,400 Sunni-Shia War,” Al-Jazeera, July 9, 2013, Available
here.
1/27: Reynolds, Chapter 3, Yoav Di-Capua, “Nahda: the Arab project of enlightenment,” pp. 5475.
Christoph Schumann, “Within or Without? Ameen Rihani and the Transcultural Space between
the "West" and the "East",” in Schumann (ed.), Liberal Thought in the Eastern Mediterranean:
Late 19th Century until the 1960s, Part III, (Brill, 2008), pp. 239-266. Book available at USC:
http://uscp.sirsi.net/uhtbin/cgisirsi/x/0/0/5?searchdata1=4466859{CKEY}. Chapter available on
Blackboard.
Week 4: Nationalism and communal ideals
2/1: Yaseen Noorani, Culture and Hegemony in the Colonial Middle East, (Palgrave Macmillan,
2010). Introduction, pp. 1-22; Sovereign Virtue and the Emergence of Nationality, pp. 23-48.
2/3: Keith David Watenpaugh, Being Modern in the Middle East: Revolution, Nationalism,
Colonialism, and the Arab Middle Class, (Princeton University Press, 2012), Chapter 1
‘Introduction: Modernity, Class, and the Architectures of Community,’ pp. 1-30. Available here.
Elizabeth F. Thompson, “Social Justice in the Middle East,” The Routledge International
Handbook of Social Justice, Michael Reisch, ed. (Routledge, 2014: 61-73).
Week 5: Novel - Alienation, Bourgeois culture and values, Finding frames of reference
2/8: Reynolds, Chapter 6, Mushin Al-Musawi, “Narrative,” pp. 112-134.
Naguib Mahfouz, translation by Trevor Le Gassick, M. M. Badawi, and John Rodenbeck, The
Thief and the Dogs, (Anchor, 1989). Read first half.
2/10: Naguib Mahfouz, translation by Trevor Le Gassick, M. M. Badawi, and John Rodenbeck,
The Thief and the Dogs, (Anchor, 1989). Read second half.
Short Stories: Yusuf Habashi al-Ashqar, “The Banquet,” in Salma Khader Jayyusi, Modern
Arabic Fiction: An Anthology (Columbia University Press: 2005), pp. 174-184.
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Salma Bakr, “Doves on the Wing,” and “Little Things Do Matter,” in Jayyusi, pp. 230-236.
Yusuf Idriss, Wadida Wassef (translator), “The Funeral Ceremony,” (Available here, pp. 38-42)
and “The Cheapest Nights,” in Denys Johnson-Davies, The Essential Yusuf Idriss, (The
American University in Cairo Press, 2009). Available on Blackboard.
Week 6: Novel – ‘Post-’colonialism and national liberation, Individual rebellion and the
search for identity
2/15: President’s Day
2/17:
Tayeb Salih, Season of Migration to the North, trans. Denys Johnson-Davies and Laila Lalami,
(New York Review Books Classics, 2009).
Week 7:
2/22: Mid-term examination (at the start of Week 7)
2/24: Repression and Resistance in Modern Arabic Literature
John Chalcraft and Yaseen Noorani, “Introduction,” pp. 1-20, (available here); and Noorani,
Chapter Three, “Redefining Resistance: Counterhegemony, the Repressive Hypothesis and the
Case of Arabic Modernism,” (pp. 75-99), in Counterhegemony in the Colony and Postcolony,
(Palgrave Macmillan: 2007).
Short Story: Muhammad Barrada, “The Tale of the Severed Head,” in Jayyusi, pp. 237-242.
Yusuf Idriss, Wadida Wassef (translator), “All on a Summer’s Night,” in Denys Johnson-Davies,
The Essential Yusuf Idriss, (The American University in Cairo Press, 2009), pp. 43-59. Available
on Blackboard.
Week 8: Novel and Poetry – Modernism, National Struggle, Repression, Cultural Vacuum,
and Revolutionary Change
2/29: Ghassan Kanafani, May Jayyusi (translator), Jeremy Reed (translator), All That's Left to
You: A Novella and Short Stories (Interlink World Fiction, 2005). Read ‘Introduction’ by Roger
Allen, pp. ix- xix; and All That’s Left to You, pp. 1-50.
3/2: Reynolds, Shawkat M. Toorawa, Chapter 5, “Poetry,” pp. 96-111.
Ahmed Mattar, ‘My Friend Hassan,’ Available here; ‘Our Esteemed Leader’s Dog,’ Available
here; ‘Emir of the Informants,’ Available here; ‘Exiled,’ Available here; ‘A Tear over the Body
of Freedom,’ Available here; ‘Al-Takfir wa al-Thawra /Renunciation and Revolution,’ Available
here.
Week 9: Novel; Repression in ‘liberalizing’ regimes – Encounter with neoliberalism
3/7: Son‘allah Ibrahim, The Committee, Translated by Mary St. Germain and Charlene
Constable, (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2001).
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3/9: Reynolds, Chapter 8, Andrew Hammond, “Cinema and television,” pp. 164-181.
Raymond Baker, “Combative Cultural Politics: Film Art and Political Spaces in Egypt,” Alif:
The Journal of Comparative Poetics No.15 (1995), pp. 6-34. Available here.
Spring Recess: March 13-20
Week 10: Socio-political polarization and economic change through the cinematic and
theatrical lens
3/21: Yacoubian Building. Film available here and here.
3/23: Reynolds, Chapter 9, Dina Amin, “Theatre,” pp. 182-190.
M. M. Badawi, “Introduction,” in Salma Khadra Jayyusi, Roger M. A. Allen, Modern Arabic
Drama: An Anthology (Indiana University Press, 1995), pp. 1-20.
Week 11: Plays. Themes and trends in theater
3/28: Tawfik al-Hakim, “War and Peace,” in Salma Khadra Jayyusi, Short Arabic Plays: An
Anthology, (Interlink Publishing Group, 2002), pp. 196-206.
Walid Ikhlasi, “Pleasure Club 21,” in Jayyusi, Short Arabic Plays, pp. 243-269.
3//30: Riad Ismat, “Was Dinner Good, Dear Sister?” in Jayyusi, Short Arabic Plays, pp. 270295.
Fateh ‘Azzam, “Baggage,” in Jayyusi, Short Arabic Plays, pp. 65-80.
Week 12: Humor; Political Commentary and Subversion
4/4: Reynolds, Chapter 12, “Humour,” Devin Stewart.
Lisa Wedeen, “Ideology and Humor in Dark Times: Notes from Syria,” Critical Inquiry Vol. 39
(Summer 2013). Available here and on Blackboard.
Shahe S. Kazarian, “Humor in the Collectivist Middle East,” Humor Vol. 24 (3) (2011: 329348).
4/6: Muhammad A. Badarneh, "Carnivalesque politics: a Bakhtinian case study of contemporary
Arab political humor," Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 24 (3) (2011: 305 –
327).
Giselle el-Khoury, “Understanding Politics in the Arab World through Naji Al-‘Ali’s Cartoons,”
Muftah, 16 October 2013, Available here and on Blackboard.
Arjan el-Fasse, “Naji al-‘Ali: The Timeless Conscience of Palestine,” Electronic Intifada, 22
July 2004. Available here. Also peruse: Handala.org, “Cartoons” and “Who is Handala?”
Available here.
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Week 13: Gender & Marginalized Constituencies
4/11: Madawi Al-Rasheed, “Economies of Desire, Fictive Sexual Uprisings,” Le Monde
Diplomatique, (May 2011).
Laura Khouri and Seif Da‘na, “Palestine as a Woman”: Feminizing Resistance and Popular
Literature,” The Arab World Geographer, Vol. 16(2) (June, 2013: 147-176).
4/13: Short Story: Nawal al-Saadawi, “The Demise of His Excellency the Minister,” in Jayyusi,
Modern Arabic Fiction: An Anthology (Columbia University Press: 2005), pp. 624-629.
Homa Khalili, “Nawal el Saadawi: Egypt’s Radical Feminist,” The Guardian, April 15, 2015,
Available here.
Selections from Novel – Peripheral Borders, Forging Identity in Rural-Urban Liminal Zones:
Slow violence and the environmentalism of the poor. ‘Abdelrahman Munif, (trans. Peter
Theroux) Cities of Salt, (Cape Cod Scriveners Company, 1987), Chapters 74-77, pp. 576-627.
Available here and on Blackboard.
Short story: Mohamed Khudayir, “Clocks like Horses,” in Denys Johnson-Davies, The Anchor
Book of Modern Arabic Fiction (Anchor Books, 2006), pp. 27-39. Available here and on
Blackboard.
Week 14: Adaptations and Practices - Arab Migration and Diaspora; Arab-American
Novel
4/18: Reynolds, Chapter 15, “Migration and diaspora,” Christina Civantos.
4/20: Randa Jarrar, A Map of Home: A Novel, (Penguin Books, 2009). Read first half.
Week 15: Diasporic novel cont…/ and review for final
4/25: Randa Jarrar, A Map of Home: A Novel, (Penguin Books, 2009). Read second half.
4/27: Review for Final Exam
Final Examination: SET BY REGISTRAR Monday, May 11, 2016, 2-4 pm
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