Fall 2024 Course Offerings

This intensive Beginning Arabic I course in Modern Standard Arabic is aimed at students without any (or only little) background in Arabic; not suitable for heritage learners. Using multi-media tools, the course is devoted to the four skills of speaking, listening, reading, and writing with a progression throughout the semester from learning of script and phonology to understanding a wide range of texts and topics that build vocabulary, grammar, and general communicative and cultural competence.

The intensive Intermediate Arabic I course is for students who successfully completed ARAB 012 (or equivalent placement). Using multi-media tools, the course expands students’ competence in the four skills of speaking, listening, reading, and writing in Modern Standard Arabic through a variety of texts and topics that aim at promoting students’ acquisition of vocabulary and grasp of grammar to achieve general communication skills and cultural competence. Prerequisite: ARAB 012, or equivalent placement.

This course is designed as an introduction to Islamic civilization and thought and requires no prior knowledge of Islam or Middle Eastern History. It will focus on the political, social and religious institutions that shaped Islamic civilization as well as on the intellectual and scholarly traditions which characterized the Arab and Muslim world from the pre-Islamic time onwards. Beginning with the geographical, cultural and historical context of the rise of Islam, the life of the Prophet, the Qur’an, it will extend through the pre-modern time, with a special emphasis on texts. The readings consist of a selection of translated primary sources as well as complementary background essays. In addition to the political history of this period, we will discuss a wide range of social and cultural themes including the translation movement, science and literature, art and architecture as well as gender issues. Films and Audios will be also solicited. This course fulfills the College HALC (Humanities, Arts, Literature, Culture) requirements for undergraduate students. Required Session: one hour/week discussion session, which will be arranged at the beginning of the semester. Optional Session: one hour/week discussion session in Arabic.

Core: Diversity/Global

SFS/CULP Core

Core: HALC – Humanities, Arts, Literature, Culture

X-List: MVST

Core: Theology

This course focuses on authentic Arabic media, including print media, video, and computer-based materials. Activities include reading/listening for comprehension, and discussion of topics related to current events, politics, economics, society, and culture. Taught in Arabic. Prerequisite: two years of Arabic, or permission of the instructor. Prerequisite: ARAB 112 or placement by exam.

There is no pass/fail option for this course.

The intensive advanced Arabic I course is for students who successfully completed ARAB 112 (or equivalent placement). Using multi-media tools, the course advances students’ competence in the four skills of speaking, listening, reading, and writing in Modern Standard Arabic. Through building vocabulary and grasp of grammar the course aims at enabling students to comfortably access a wide variety of texts and media that allows them to reach advanced communication skills and cultural competence. Prerequisite: ARAB 112, or equivalent placement.
There is no pass/fail option for this course.

This session reviews Arabic grammar concepts from the Intensive Intermediate and Advanced Arabic courses. Students in ARAB1111, ARAB1012, ARAB 2216, ARAB 2217, and ARAB 2218 can register for the zero-credit OR the one-credit section.

ARAB 3303 is offered by departmental faculty on diverse topics in Arabic and Islamic Studies. Select a section, then examine “Cross Listed Courses” for a specific title and course number where a detailed class description and prerequisites can be found.

Cross-Listed Sections:

ARAB 3367

ARAB 4520

This course will focus on the close reading and interpretation of poetry texts including Free Verse and `Ammiyyah Poetry. Literary critical themes include such topics as (post)-colonialism, modernism, committed poetry, the influence of the West, poetry and identity. Final projects will allow students to pursue their individual interests. The instructor will assist students in choosing readings and essay and paper topics appropriate to their levels and interests.

Arabic Proficiency Prep Course

Since its revelation, the Qurʾan has provided spiritual insight, ethical and legal guidance, sacred narratives, and theological principles. In this course, students will be introduced to how women, sex, sexuality, and gender are depicted in the Qurʾan. We will also explore how classical Muslim scholars, contemporary Muslims, and Muslim feminists have approached and interpreted contested issues in the Qurʾan, including veiling, marriage, sexual orientation, and gender identity. Students will read a variety of primary and secondary sources, including the Qur’an and its commentaries, hadith reports, law, literature, and modern Muslim feminist critiques, to learn about some of the historical debates surrounding women and gender that persist today. Throughout this course, we will question how the Qurʾan has been interpreted and appropriated by various claimants to religious authority. We will also assess the subjective values and assumptions of interpreters, including our own, which shape interpretations of the Qurʾan and the formation of the Islamic tradition. This course is designed to offer students an understanding of how the social, political, economic, and intellectual milieu of the classical period contributed to Muslims’ conceptions of gender in the Islamic tradition. In addition, it promotes a more nuanced understanding of how Muslim feminists engage the Qurʾan as a form of resistance against misogynistic Muslim views, colonialism, orientalism, and Islamophobia, all of which marginalize Muslim women.

Core: Diversity/Global DIVG

Taught in English ENGL

X-List: ANTH XANT

X-List: GMST XMVS

Core: Theology XTHE

X-List: WGST XWGS

This course is designed to introduce foundational problems and methods of modern literary studies. Issues to be examined include history, psychoanalysis, formalism and ideological criticism with regard to questions of race, gender, sexuality, and postcolonialism. Seminar discussion format.

This course explores the relationship of Ethics in Islamic Legal Theory. It focuses on the question of how legal theorists of the 5th/11th century conceive human ability to discern good and bad (taḥsīn and taqbīḥ) and whether and if so how they apply this in their definition and modes of identifying the ratio legis (ʿilla) in legal analogy. The course readings are drawn from the legal writings of ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī, al-Dabbūsī, and al-Juwaynī on “good” and “bad” and on their chapters on legal analogy, focusing on their definition and procedures to correctly determine the ratio legis. In addition to the Arabic primary sources, students read scholarly studies on the interplay between ethics and law.