This module is not currently running in 2024 to 2025.
This module traces the development of the Arab novel from 1960 to the present, and examines the work of key novelists from around the Arab world (including Egypt and Iraq). It also examines Arab novels written in European languages, especially in English and French. It reads the novel in historical context, and connects it to questions of decolonization and emancipation, post-colonial disillusionment and political repression, war and fracture, and contemporary immigration. It also focuses on questions of literary form and interrogates the changing relationship between aesthetics and politics.
The first weeks are dedicated to charting the emerging hopes of Arab decolonization after the loss of Palestine in 1948. These set the stage for questions of political and women's emancipation, especially in al-Zayyat's Egypt. With Mahfouz and Ibrahim, an internal critique of Arab decolonization begins to emerge from a social justice perspective. This is also registered on the level of form, where narrative disjuncture and individual alienation become more prevalent. The Arab novel here begins to introduce more modernist elements, while maintaining a predominantly realist framework. The following weeks ruminate on the disappointments of independence, and the emergence of social violence and political prison as tools of state repression. These mark a broader shift in the Arab world, which is captured by the Lebanese Civil War and the rise of the repressive Baath state apparatus. The Arab contemporary novel in Europe is also examined through themes of immigration and memory, faith, identity, and women’s struggle against oppression.
This module will be taught in 10 weekly seminars, each of 2 hours duration.
100% coursework
Week 1: Jabra Ibrahim Jabra, Hunters in a Narrow Street (1960)
Week 2: Latifa al-Zayyat, The Open Door (1960)
Week 3: Naguid Mahfouz, The Thief and the Dogs (1961); Sonallah Ibrahim, That Smell (1966)
Week 4: Tahir Wattar, The Earthquake (1974)
Week 5: Fuad al-Takarli, The Long Way Back (1980)
Week 6: Reading Week
Week 7: Fadhil al-Azzawi, Cell Block Five (1974); Mahmood Said, Saddam City (1981)
Week 8: Hanan al-Shaykh, The Story of Zahra (1980)
Week 9: Assia Djebar, Children of the New World (2006)
Week 10: Leila Aboulela, The Minaret (2006)
On completion of this module students will be able to:
11.1 Demonstrate an informed understanding of prevailing themes and trends in the contemporary Arab novel.
11.2 Demonstrate advanced knowledge of some of the key historical and political issues that matter to contemporary Arab writers.
11.3 Demonstrate an advanced sense of the ways the form of the Arab novel changes over time.
11.4 Relate aesthetic developments in the Arab novel to political and historical changes.
In completing this module students will demonstrate:
12.1 The ability to formulate research questions and hypotheses to address problems across a range of Arab novels from 1960 onwards.
12.2 The ability to interpret and critically evaluate own research and that of others.
12.3 The ability to conduct independent research and demonstrate intellectual independence.
12.4 The ability to construct arguments with regard to different intellectual contexts and aesthetic concepts.
12.5 An understanding of how to use constructive informal feedback from staff and peers and assess own progress to enhance performance and personal skills.
12.6 The ability to work in a self-motived and independent fashion; manage time and workload in order to meet personal targets and imposed deadlines.
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