Natasha Sajé, Ph.D.

Foster Hall 405 Office Phone: (801) 832-2376

Home phone: 474-3579 email: nsaje@westminstercollege.edu

Office Hours: Mondays 3:00-5:00; Tuesdays, 1:00-2:00; Thursdays Noon-2:00; other times by appointment.

E361-01: WORLD LITERATURES IN TRANSLATION: Middle East

Thursdays 4:30-7:20 p.m. (3 credits)

Objectives:

This course gives you a taste of contemporary literature and films from the Middle East, including writers from Israel, Iran, Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. The field is vast, and I’ve organized the material around our visitors, and around themes that run through much of the material: gender, history, religion, land, exile, and the vexed concepts of “east” and “west” themselves. We’ll seek to question what we know and how we know it by close-reading literature (and films) and applying various critical strategies to their understanding and explication. Most important, we shall seek to appreciate literature for the space it provides: space for imagining other ways of being and thinking.

Required texts:

Yehuda Amichai, Selected Poetry

Mahmoud Darwish, The Adam of Two Edens

Nathalie Handel, ed. The Poetry of Arab Women

Najuib Mahfouz, The Day the Leader Was Killed

Orhan Pamuk, The White Castle

Nawal el Saadawi, Woman at Point Zero

Anton Shammas, Arabesques

Babaa Tahir, Aunt Safiyya and the Monastery: A Novel

Abraham Yehoshua, Mr. Mani

(All of these books are available in the library.)

Requirements:

If you have a documented disability, please see me (and the Start Center) right away to discuss accommodations.

1) Regular class attendance, careful reading, participation in class discussions, attending at least one poetry reading on campus, and some in-class or informal writing assignments. Some weeks the reading load is heavier than others—plan ahead. Missing more than two classes precludes an A; missing more than five means failing the class. Call me if you must miss a class; you are responsible for finding out what you missed from a classmate, and for keeping up with any changes in the syllabus. Sometimes we’ll end class early in order to attend poetry readings on campus. I will distribute a class list of phone numbers. For each day of class, bring one discussion question on a piece of paper with your name on it. These will be graded check, check plus, check minus, for thoughtfulness. If you are distributing a one-pager that day, simply type your discussion question at the bottom.) 25% of grade.

2) Attending at least one conference with me where we’ll talk about your progress in the class, your writing, and your final essay or project. You’ll sign up for times spaced throughout the middle of the semester, but you are always welcome to come see me at other times, too. Don’t forget to bring your essays.

3) Four one-page, single-spaced, carefully focused and written and typed response/application/analysis papers. Make copies for the entire class. 40% of your grade. See sample (attached). You may hand these in whenever you like and preferably, on the day we are discussing the texts. (Don’t worry, I’ll take into account when grading the fact that we haven’t discussed the book yet.) One fun way to do these is in the form of letters, addressed to a particular person in the book, the author, or to a student in the class, or me. You can also take on different personae in your letter, writing as if you were one of the characters or an author. For instance, you might want to be Mahmoud Darwish responding to Yehuda Amichai. You can also try applying the theoretical strategies; for instance, do a structuralist analysis of Mr. Mani or a feminist reading of a poem. Or apply one of the handouts on genre and theory to one of the texts, for instance using J. Hillis Miller's definition of narrative as a template to explain The White Castle. Anything is possible as long as it pays close attention to the text(s) and shows you thinking.

5) One 5-8 page synthetic research/literary analysis paper OR project on one of the required or supplementary texts or films. For the one-pagers, “outside research” is optional, but for this paper, it is required. For a model of this kind of writing, see Barbara Parmenter’s Giving Voice to Stones: Place and Identity in Palestinian Literature, on reserve in the library. Consult the MLA bibliography for scholarly work on the text or, and this will be more common because many of these books are not as widely read and written about in this country, you might want to do anthropological or historical or sociological reading to illuminate some aspect. You may want to read two texts against each other; for example, you may read Edward Said’s Orientalism with Orhan Pamuk’s The White Castle. Or read Nawal el Saadawi’s memoir of her month in prison, which exactly coincides with the time frame of the Mahfouz novel. What can you learn by juxtaposing the two texts? What interpretive “framework” are you applying? You may work collaboratively if you like, and you might dream up some less traditional “package” for your work, perhaps a video or a syllabus. At the end of class, you’ll be asked to present your work to the class in some way. Do not simply read a report. Think of some way to involve the class in applying the new information. 25% of grade

6) Take home midterm exam (details will follow): 10% of grade

COLLECT ALL PAPERS TO BE HANDED IN AT THE END OF THE CLASS AS A PORTFOLIO

Grades are based on your work as described above, but how much you improve will also be taken into account when I determine your final grade. I will grade the one-pagers check, check plus, check minus, but will give you a midterm grade and write a paragraph about your work at midterm. Here are the guidelines I use for grading papers (Adapted from Adelstein and Pival, The Teaching Commitment). Note that a paper must earn its grade: it starts with a "0" and works its way up.

1. Organization (10 points)

A. Is the paper about the assigned subject?

B. Does it have a clear, logically developed plan unified around a central thesis?

C. Is the subject adequately limited?

D. Is the paper written from a consistent viewpoint?

E. Does the paper have an effective introduction, conclusion and transitions?

F. Are the paragraphs organized around a topic sentence?

2. Support of Generalizations (10 points)

A. Are relevant examples, illustrations, facts, or other forms of evidence used?

B. Would an intelligent reader accept the evidence used?

C. Are abstract words defined or illustrated?

D. Is the support of generalizations as complete as the time allotted for the assignment will allow?

3. Mechanics/Usage (10 points)

A. Is the paper free of spelling errors? Is it generally free of others?

1. punctuation

2. fragments/comma splices/run on sentences

3. subject-verb agreement

4. pronoun-antecedent agreement

5. errors of case (him for he, etc.)

6. dangling or misplaced modifiers

4. Content (50 points)

A. Is the paper interesting? Do the ideas reveal some maturity of judgment, some insight and critical perception?

B. Has the writer analyzed the subject accurately and thoroughly?

C. Have the writer's conclusions been developed from an objective, logical, comprehensive examination of the subject?

D. Has the writer gone beyond the obvious?

5. Language (10 points)

A. Is it appropriate for the purpose, audience and subject?

B. Are words used accurately and defined where ambiguous?

C. Has the writer avoided cliches and unnecessary repetition?

D. Is the language concrete and clear?

6. Style (10 points)

A. Are unnecessary words eliminated?

B. Is the tone appropriate to the audience, subject and purpose?

C. Does the writer appear to be sincere, reasonable and unbiased?

D. Are sentences varied in length and type? Is passive voice used only where necessary? Is subordination used to signal intended relationships?

Standards for paper grades: (the "B" and "D" papers fall in between)

The A paper not only fulfills the assignment but does so in a fresh and mature way. (It teaches me something!) Every paragraph has a clear purpose. Evidence is detailed, and the organization gives the reader a sense of the necessary flow of the argument. Prose is clear, apt and occasionally memorable. It contains few errors.

The C paper follows the assignment but does so either conventionally or superficially. (I've heard it before.) Adequate evidence is provided, but the reasoning is predictable and/or occasionally flawed. Sentence structure is generally correct, but not very interesting: the writer fails to use subordination, sentence variety, and modifiers to achieve emphasis.

Note: Papers that earn C, D, and F grades tend to have underdeveloped paragraphs.

The F paper could be off the assignment, could fall seriously short of minimum length requirements, or could be plagiarized. The thesis is unclear. Evidence is scarce. Organization is haphazard or arbitrary. The paper may contain numerous errors of grammar, spelling, punctuation, diction or syntax that hinder communication.

Assignments are due on the date next to which they appear. You are responsible for keeping up with any changes in the syllabus. The primary reading assignments are in bold face.

30 August

Introductions: What do we know (and how do we know it?) and what don’t we know about the Middle East and its literatures?

Discuss Edward Said, Orientalism (This is a book of theory you can refer to throughout the semester.) and Jeanine Abboushi Dallal, “The Perils of Occidentalism” (handout)

6 September

topic: identities

Read Anton Shammas, Arabesques

and handout of poems by Naomi Shihab Nye plus pages 243-248 in The Poetry of Arab Women

5:30 Class Visit by Naomi Shihab Nye, followed by

Poetry Reading 7 p.m. Gore Auditorium

13 September

finish discussion of Arabesques

Supplementary reading: dialogue between Shammas, Grossman & Yehoshua in David Grossman’s Sleeping on a Wire (pp250-277).

Salma Khadra Jayyusi, Modern Palestinian Literature (anthology)

Sahar Khalifeh, Wild Thorns and Etel Adnan, Sitt Marie Rose: A Novel (Palestinian novels)

Suha Sabbagh, Palestinian Women of Gaza and the West Bank (essays)

Samih K. Farsounb, Palestine and the Palestinians (essays)

20 September

topic: Palestine

Read Mahmoud Darwish, The Adam of Two Edens

Read Adonis, essay “Poetry and Apoetical Culture” (handout)

5:30 Class visit by Abdul-Rahim Al-Shaikh, Palestinian poet and graduate student at the U of U

Supplementary reading: Barbara Parmenter, Giving Voice to Stones: Place and Identity in Palestinian Literature; Mourid Barghouti, I Saw Ramallah (memoir)

Mahmoud Darwish, Memory for Forgetfulness: August, Beirut, 1982

Taha Muhammed Ali, Never Mind: Twenty Poems and a Story (Ibis, 2000)

Supplementary film, Hamsin, by Daniel Wachsmann (1980) (deals with Arab/Jewish relationships in a rural village.)

Class ends at 7 p.m: Peter Davison reads in Jewett, 7 p.m.

GREAT SALT LAKE BOOK FESTIVAL SATURDAY & SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 23/23

I’ll distribute a schedule.

27 September

topic: Jewish identity and the State of Israel

Read first half of A.B. Yehoshua, Mr. Mani

Read David Grossman, “Acknowledgments” from Sleeping on a Wire (handout)

Supplementary reading: David Grossman, Yellow Wind and Amos Oz, In the Land of Israel

Thomas Friedman, From Beirut to Jerusalem

Stephen Humphreys, The Middle East in a Troubled Time

Albert Hourani, Philip Khoury & Mary Wilson, editors. The Modern Middle East

Supplementary literature on Lebanon and the Civil War:

Etel Adnan, Sitt Marie Rose: A Novel

Hoda Barakat, The Stone of Laughter (novel)

4 October

Skim through Amichai poems: let’s decide which ones to focus on.

Finish A.B. Yehoshua, Mr. Mani

Supplementary reading:

A.B. Yehoshua, The Continuing Silence of a Poet: Collected Stories (Syracuse UP, 1998)

William Cleveland, A History of the Modern Middle East

11 October

topic: Israeli literature. Also: translation and its problems

Read Yehuda Amichai, Selected Poetry

Read Dahlia Ravikovitch, poems (handout) and Chana Bloch, poems (handout)

Read Chana Bloch, Interview (handout in the Writers Chronicle)

Class Visit by Chana Bloch, followed by Poetry Reading, 7 p.m. Nunemaker Place

Supplementary reading: Yehuda Amichai, Open Closed Open

18 October

topic: political oppression, democracy, Arab identity

Read Mahfouz, The Day the Leader was Killed

Supplementary reading: Nawal el Saadawi, Memoir From the Women’s Prison (covers the same time period as the Mahfouz novel)

Naguib Mahfouz, Echoes of an Autobiography

Nawal el Saadawi, Daughter of Isis

Leila Ahmed, Border Passage

Lyn Hejinian and Caryl Phillips read at the Art Barn, 7 p.m.

conferences this week

Take Home Midterm due:

On one single-spaced page, write four paragraphs about the issues we’ve been studying. You may use the books as examples, but your focus should be on the underlying issues or problems. For example, how does the literature, perhaps in comparison to political science or history, approach the problem of identity? Make copies for the whole class.

1) about something you understand completely

2) about something you more or less understand

3) about something you’re less sure of

4) about something that you don’t understand at all (it’s ok to make this last one a question)

25 October

topics: ethnic and religious minorities

Read Bahaa Taher, Aunt Safiyya and the Monastery

Supplementary reading: Stephen Humphreys, The Middle East in a Troubled Time

Albert Hourani, Philip Khoury & Mary Wilson, editors. The Modern Middle East

1 November

topics: gender, reproduction, Islam

Read Laila Baalabaiki, “A Space Ship of Tenderness to the Moon” (handout)

In class: View Leila, Iranian film by Darisu Mehrjui (I expect to be out of town for a conference on this date, but will arrange for someone to show the film.)

Supplementary reading: Mahnaz Afkhami, Women in Exile (introduction)

and Azar Salamat, “Of Chance and Choice”

Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad & John L. Esposito, editors. Islam, Gender and Social Change

Fatima Mernissi, The Veil and the Male Elite: A Feminist Interpretation of Women’s Right’s in Islam

Mahnaz Afkhami and Erika Friedl editors, In the Eye of the Storm: Women in Post Revolutionary Iran (Syracuse UP, 1994)

Amina Wadud, Qur’an and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman’s Perspective

Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad & John L. Esposito, editors. Islam, Gender and Social Change

Fatima Mernissi, The Veil and the Male Elite: A Feminist Interpretation of Women’s Right’s in Islam

8 November

topic: gender, marriage, polygyny, prostitution

Read Naguib Mahfouz, “The Answer is No” (handout)

Read Nawal ed Sadawi, Woman Point Zero

Read Shokuh Mirzadegi, “Setareh in the Mist” (handout, Iranian story)

supplementary reading: Lila Abu-Lughod, Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in Bedouin Society and Lila Abu-Lughod, Writing Women’s Worlds (anthropological studies)

Mahnaz Afkhami, editor. Faith & Freedom: Women’s Human Rights in the Muslim World

Supplementary Iranian films: The Apple, by Samira Makhmalbaf; Googoosh, by Farhad Zamani

Kadosh, Israeli film by Amos Gitai (women and Orthodox Judaism)

Also this week: please skim The Poetry of Arab Women and choose one poem you would like to explicate for the class. The anthology is large, and this will give us a focus.

15 November

topic: Arabic poetry

Read The Poetry of Arab Women.

Supplementary reading:Venus Khoury-Ghata, Here There Once Was a Country

Adonis, The Pages of Day and Night

Conferences & Final Projects

22 November: Thanksgiving: Happy Holiday!

29 November

topic: exile

Read Goli Taraqqi, “A House in the Heavens” (handout, Iranian story)

Read poems by Charles Simic (handout)

Begin reading Orhan Pamuk, The White Castle

Charles Simic poetry reading, 7 p.m. Jewett Auditorium

6 December

topic: east or west? Turkey

Let’s put into question the distinctions we raised early in the course.

Finish Orhan Pamuk, The White Castle

Read poems by Nazim Hikmet and translator’s comment (handout)

Supplementary reading: Latife Tekin, Berji Kristin: Tales from the Garbage Hills (novel about the Turkish underclass)

Supplementary film: Xavier Koller’s Journey of Hope (1990): widely available because it won the “best foreign film” academy award.

FINAL EXAMINATION PERIOD: 6:00 p.m. Thursday 13 December

Write (at home) an overview of your semester's work (1-2 pages, can be handwritten): what did you learn? and hand it in with your portfolio. During this examination period you’ll be sharing your research/longer papers. Let’s talk about having some kind of potluck (Middle Eastern?) dinner (or restaurant dinner at Cedars of Lebanon?) if not tonight, then some other time during the semester.