Arabic

Listening Acts: Contemporary Tunisian-Andalusi Musical Politics
Rachel Colwell - University of California, Berkeley

As novelists, poets, playwrights, and essayists, and as founders of influential literary salons, individuals from Greater Syria were key contributors to the Arabic literary awakening. By turning the spotlight on to one of these writers – the pioneering writer, poet, and artist Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931) – Waïl Hassan will share with the Middlebury community his groundbreaking research on the reception and translation of Kahlil Gibran’s work in Brazil, one of the most important centers of Arabic literary production in the diaspora.

Public talk: Translating Arabic Poetry, Pre-Islamic to Modern: Creative Challenges and Opportunities. 

Discussing his recently published book, Leaks, Hacks, and Scandals: Arab Culture in the Digital Age (Princeton UP 2019), Tarek El-Ariss explores the way modes of confrontation, circulation, and writing shape contemporary knowledge production and critiques of power. Focusing on a new generation of activists and authors from the Arab world and beyond, El-Ariss connects Wikileaks to The Arabian Nights, Twitter to mystical revelation, cyberattacks to pre-Islamic tribal raids, and digital activism to the affective scene-making of Arab popular culture.

Professor Orit Bashkin (University of Chicago) will discuss her new book Impossible Exodus: Iraqi Jews in Israel (Stanford University Press, 2017). Professor Bashkin’s book is co-winner of the 2018 Nikki Keddie Book Award from the Middle East Studies Association. The lecture will relate the experience of tens of thousands of Arabic-speaking Iraqi Jews who migrated to Israel between 1949-1951, and will survey their struggle for resettlement and civil rights during the 1950s, as well as the discrimination they faced from the Israeli government and Ashkenazi Jews.

Hands-on translation workshop: Literary Translation for Students of Arabic: A Hands-On Workshop. 

A hands-on translation workshop in which all students will translate the same text. Afterward, everyone will workshop the translations together as a group, discussing the merits and drawbacks of the various solutions the students have found. This workshop is open to all students, not only those with a background in Arabic.

This lecture examines aspects of gender politics in Arabic mahjar (émigré) literature in select works of prose fiction by Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931) and Mikha’il Naimy (1889-1988), alongside that of one of their lesser-known female contemporaries, ‘Afifa Karam (1883-1924), whose works offer a unique window into “al-nahda al-‘arabiyya fi Amrika,” or the Arab renaissance in America.

AN EVENING WITH THE WINNER OF THE INTERNATIONAL PRIZE FOR ARABIC FICTION

Middlebury College and the International Prize for Arabic Fiction are proud to present an evening of Arabic literature as part of the FIRST US IPAF BOOK TOUR

Featuring:

Saud Alsanousi, author of the IPAF-winning novel The Bamboo Stalk
Jonathan Wright, award-winning translator of The Bamboo Stalk

Sponsored by: Department of Arabic, Middle East Studies, Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs, Department of English

About the prize:

THIS EVENT IS CANCELLED

Group discussion of these main guiding questions:
What are gender-neutral pronouns in the Arabic language?
What would students like to see happen in the Arabic classroom to ensure gender inclusivity?
Ask any questions about gender in “Arab culture” / dismantling stereotypes without judgment.

Arabic Music, Beyond the Exotic: Contemporary Arabic Music Concert: