Arabic Literary Forms in Translation

Course Description

What is Arabic literature? Beyond the Quran or the Arabian Nights, many Americans share a vague notion of the vast tradition of Arabic literary arts and letters. This course, offered in English translation, invites students of all backgrounds to take a quick dip into the vast ocean of Arabic literature. By the end of the course, students will have gained general knowledge of Arabic literary history, the major literary forms (novel, short story, and poetry) and their pre-cursors. Thoughtfully engaging with literature will no doubt shed light on relevant social, political, and historical issues that continue to impact peoples from the Middle East and North Africa since the middle of the 20th century. But we will also hone our appreciation for the literary and aesthetic contributions of Arabic/Arab litterateurs who inherited a tradition and language over two millennia old.

Course Name: Arabic Literary Forms in Translation

Tuesdays from 7-8PM ET @ Al-Bustan Hub

September 20 – November 22 (10 weeks)

Fee: $225

Course Schedule: 9/20, 9/27, 10/4, 10/11, 10/18, 10/25, 11/1, 11/8, 11/15, 11/22

Course Syllabus: Arabic Literature Course Schedule Al Bustan

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Rawad Wehbe studies Arabic poetry, poetics, and literary theory. He is currently writing a dissertation on the mukhaḍramūn poets who lived between the pre-Islamic and Islamic era, focusing on the network of emotions surrounding the poetic experience of existing in the threshold of transition, known as khaḍramah. Drawing from theories of affect and histories of emotion, he departs from a historical study of the mukhaḍramūn to develop a theory of khaḍramah that seeks to understand how language in poetry hacks human emotions to create meaning across periodizations and literary traditions.

Rawad earned two MA degrees in Arabic from the University of Texas at Austin (2017) and the University of California, Los Angeles (2013). He was awarded a fellowship for the Center of Arabic Study Abroad (2014) in Amman, Jordan. Rawad received a Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship Dissertation Abroad Request (2021), Janet Lee Stevens Award in Arabic and Islamic Studies (2020) and was named a Mellon Graduate Fellow (2019). Also, he was nominated for the Texas Foreign Language Teaching Excellence Award (2017).

His translations of Arabic poetry and literature appear in publications by the Paris Review (forthcoming), Two Lines Press, DoubleSpeak, Words Without Borders, and Inventory.