2021 – 2022 Course Offerings

Successful completion of ARAB 011 or placement by exam.
The Intensive Beginning Arabic II course continues the sequence of ARAB 011 in teaching Modern Standard Arabic. Using multi-media tools, the course continues to develop students’ skills in speaking, listening, reading, and writing with a progression throughout the semester from understanding simpler to more complex texts and topics that build vocabulary, grammar, and general communicative and cultural competence.

Successful completion of ARAB 111 or placement by exam.
The Intensive Intermediate Arabic II course continues the sequence of ARAB 111 in teaching Modern Standard Arabic. 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.

This course is intended to increase Levantine spoken Arabic proficiency through focusing on intensive practice of interactive functional skills necessary in communicative situations, such as vocabulary retention and retrieval, listening comprehension, and fundamental conversation strategies. It assumes some knowledge of Arabic script and grammatical structure and is designed to enable nonnative speakers of Arabic to communicate actively and appropriately with educated native speakers on a wide range of topics. Prerequisite: at least one year of Modern Standard Arabic.

Successful completion of ARAB 213 or placement by exam.
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.

Successful completion of ARAB 215 or placement by exam.
The Intensive Advanced Arabic II course continues the sequence of ARAB 215 in teaching Modern Standard Arabic. 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.

Successful completion of ARAB 215 or placement by exam.
This is a non-intensive, largely media-based course focusing on developing proficiency in reading and discussion of texts in international relations, history, Islam, and current affairs. In addition to extensive reading, it includes composition exercises, review of Arabic grammar, listening skills, and conversation practice.

This course will cover topics in Arabic Islamic Civilization. It is offered in conjunction with other advanced upperclass undergraduate or over/under class and satisfies ARAB201’s requirement for upperclass students.

As a medium that is entangled in the complex relationship between cultural and artistic production and audience reception, this course introduces Arab cinema as a vehicle through which themes of social significance in Arab society are reflected upon, analyzed, upheld or challenged. This course will survey Arab cinema from different periods and genres, and will consider the ways in which cinema is used to explore themes such as gender and sexuality, national identity, war, displacement, poverty, urbanization, colonialism and religion. Students will learn to analyze films critically and become familiar with the key theoretical elements of modern critical and cultural theory as they apply to film study and criticism. The films screened as part of the course will be analyzed from an aesthetic perspective, but also as socially produced narratives that reveal some of the central tensions and concerns of the culture from which they emerged. Students will be introduced to various genres that characterize Arab cinema such as comedy, drama, documentary, musicals, historical and epic.

Students are required to have Intermediate MSA or permission of instructor. This course explores the language of Arabic business as used in readings, correspondence, and documents. This course prepares high intermediate-level students for successful communication in the Arabic-speaking business world. The course builds upon students’ existing knowledge with an emphasis on practical, real-life business applications of Arabic language vocabulary, structure and functionality. Its aim is to provide students with the basic cross-cultural understanding, and the accuracy in spoken and written communication necessary to effectively participate in the Arabic speaking business world. Course content includes exploration of the methods, vocabulary and techniques of Arabic language communications in finance, marketing, and general commercial transactions.

Islamic Civilization produced authors who wrote on every topic imaginable. This course, open to undergraduates, provides a unique opportunity to read a wide array of classical Islamic texts in translation, covering a variety of topics such as: God and religion, philosophy and science, politics and social values, and the value of individual experience. Throughout the class our goal is not to essentialize one “Islamic” set of values, but to engage with these classical Islamic texts as springboards for reflections of our own about the world we live in and discuss them from a comparative humanistic perspective.

This course will provide students with an introduction to the Qur’an. We will be reading the Qur’anic text closely and comparing different translations. We will also study the history of the text, its revelation, the context in which it originated, it’s compilation, structure, content, process of canonization, central themes and the diverse ways in which Muslims have interpreted it and continue to interpret it today. Students will acquire a close familiarity with the Qur’anic text, its form, style and literary aspects as well as the broader debates on hermeneutics within the study of religion. This course will go beyond approaching scripture as a bounded, collected, literary text, by examining the experiential and material encounters between the Qur’an and Muslim communities. As such, this course will examine the Qur’an as a text and as a revelation that has a history of reception among communities of believers.

Seniors Only.
Others with permission of instructor.

This course explores the syntactic structures of the major topics in modern Arabic varieties. Topics include the syntax of nominals, adjective phrases, prepositional phrases, verb phrases, subjects, verbless sentences, subordinate clauses, coordination and ellipsis, negation, questions, displacement. 

Whether involving the headscarf, intolerance towards homosexuality or sex slavery, discourse over Islam and Muslims is very often tied to questions of gender and sexuality, from the treatment of women and women’s rights to views on LQBTQ+ issues.  In part, this is because any discussion of ‘Islam and women’ is politicized in the context of globalization and the tensions between perceptions of the globalization of Western norms on the one hand and perceptions of cultural authenticity on the other.  In part, this inevitable political dimension exists because gender and sexuality in human society have always been categories and terms developed and wielded in the context of power, whether concerning the distribution of resources, rights to autonomy and movement, or power to define a community’s identity and history.  This course will explore the intersection of power and sexuality in the Islamic tradition, examining case studies in law, literature, society and politics from the early Islamic period to the present day. Students will closely read primary sources in translation, learn how to critically analyze, evaluate and interpret literary texts, artistic expressions, film and critical concepts. This course will require students to engage the readings through in class discussions and written assignments throughout the semester in the form of weekly question posts, three short papers, and a final written essay. Finally, students will be required to engage in a structured in-class debate with their peers. They will deliberate over critical ethical and legal points of views in relation to culture and interpretation. This creative exercise is meant to enable students to both listen and voice their differences, while engaging the diversity of thinking across cultures.

There are few topics as controversial globally and in the United States as poorly understood as ‘The Shariah’. This course will explore the actual nature and history of the Shariah tradition, with special focus on how it is understood and implemented today. It will also investigate the resonance of the Shariah amongst many Muslim populations.

This course introduces the linguistics methodology of the major domains of Arabic linguistics. It covers traditional and current approaches to Arabic linguistic research. The course explores the state of the art of the major domains such as the traditional grammar theory, the current morphological and syntactic theory, the contemporary approaches to studying Arabic sociolinguistic, and the most recent approaches.

Classical Islamic Civilization produced innumerable works of history, literature, science, philosophy, and theology. This class offers the opportunity to familiarize ourselves with a diverse selection of these writings in Classical Arabic, focusing on both canonical names as well as more eclectic authors and genres. Emphasis is given on close readings in Arabic, utilizing the tools of philological study to advance the study of topics of interest in social and intellectual history.

This course addresses the perpetual problem faced by a legal system that is based on a finite body of text (Qur’ān and ḥadīth): How to apply and adapt the limited textual material to an unlimited possibility of legal instances? Based on Arabic texts, we explore works of Islamic legal theorists of the pre-modern period (al-Ghazālī, al-Rāzī, al-Qarāfī, and al-Ṭūfī) that discuss means and methods to attain legal change without straying from the sources of the law. The course material focuses on the principle of maṣlaḥa and the way this concept is employed to find solutions for unprecedented legal situations. Throughout the semester, we investigate the effects different interpretation and integration into the law-finding procedures have on maṣlaḥa’s potential to achieve legal change.

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.

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.

The purpose of this course is to give students who have passed the Arabic proficiency exam another opportunity to further develop their reading, writing, listening and speaking skills. The focus will be on current issues in Arab society and politics featured in the Arab media and social network sites. The materials to be tapped will be primary and secondary, most of which will not be translated, such as film clips, articles, opinion pieces, interviews, statements, government and non-government reports, editorials, blogs, songs, slogans, posters and graffiti. One key feature of the course will be individual or group class presentations and their discussions. It is also the objective of the course that by the end of the semester, students will reach the Superior level rating on the ACTFL scale, i.e. “they can support opinions, hypothesize, discuss topics concretely and abstractly, and handle a linguistically unfamiliar situation”; that their vocabulary will be enriched, their debating skills enhanced.

Within the classical Arabic literary tradition, the textual variants known as Alf layla wa-layla have a truly ambiguous status, at once influential and marginal to the understanding and practice of adab. This course will engage with critical readings of Alf layla wa-layla, set into conversation with texts such as al-Tanoukhi’s al-Faraj ba‘d al-shidda and al-Ramhurmuzi’s ‘Aja’ib al-Hind. Readings will be in Arabic.

What is justice perceived by Muslims and how do Muslim writers articulate their vision of justice throughout the ages? These questions are a common thread in this course which introduces students to wide variety of writings within the Islamic tradition, with an emphasis on the period from the 7th to the 16th century, though also touching on modern Muslim articulations. The course explores the theoretical and practical dimension of how to achieve justice, looks at the way conceptions of justice may change over time, and what factors drive changes in articulation. After situating the Islamic tradition into general conceptions of justice, ranging from Aristotle and Kant to MacIntyre and Walzer, the course focuses on original writings in English translation drawn from different fields of Islamicate writings, covering religious scripture, literary texts, philosophical treatises, historical writings, and legal works that address and reflect conceptions of justice. Students learn how to situate these texts into their intellectual and historical contexts and interpret their authors’ understanding of justice and the world in which they live. The course readings and discussions explore the dynamic interaction between the realm of the religious with literature, politics, law, and philosophy. The course is based on close reading and in-class discussion of these texts, and requires students to write throughout the semester three short papers (5 pages each) on questions raised by the course material as well as a final research paper (15-20 pages).

The purpose of this course is to give students the opportunity to further develop their reading, writing, listening and speaking skills. The focus will be on current issues in Arab society and politics featured in the Arab media and social network sites. The materials to be tapped will be primary and secondary, most of which will not be translated, such as film clips, articles, opinion pieces, interviews, statements, government and non-government reports, editorials, blogs, songs, slogans, posters and graffiti. One key feature of the course will be individual or group class presentations and their discussions. It is also the objective of the course that by the end of the semester, students will reach the Superior level rating on the ACTFL scale, i.e. “they can support opinions, hypothesize, discuss topics concretely and abstractly, and handle a linguistically unfamiliar situation”; that their vocabulary will be enriched, their debating skills enhanced.

Within the classical Arabic literary tradition, the textual variants known as Alf layla wa-layla have a truly ambiguous status, at once influential and marginal to the understanding and practice of adab. This course will engage with critical readings of Alf layla wa-layla, set into conversation with texts such as al-Tanoukhi’s al-Faraj ba‘d al-shidda and al-Ramhurmuzi’s ‘Aja’ib al-Hind. Readings will be in Arabic.

Since its revelation, the Qur’an has served as a source of spiritual insight, ethico-legal guidance, sacred narratives, and theological principles. We will begin with an overview of the Qur’an’s genesis as an oral revelation, its compilation and transformation into a written and canonized text. We will closely read Qur’anic passages and examine their interpretive traditions as well as explore some major themes, such as creation; the phenomenon of prophecy; the relationship between the Prophet Muhammad and biblical prophets; and the varying interpretations of contested verses related to women and gender. We will examine Qur’anic verses and primary Arabic texts in their historical contexts as well as question how they have been interpreted and appropriated by various claimants to religious authority. Throughout the course, we will gauge the subjective values and assumptions of interpreters (including our own) that contribute to interpretations of the Qur’an.

This course will familiarize students with the sources, research tools and methods used in the field of Islamic Studies. We will look at the history of the discipline and survey its major areas of research, covering history, language and literature, the religious sciences (Qur’an, Hadith, law, and theology), as well as philosophy and the social sciences. Students will be exposed to various approaches to the study of Islam and its major debates.

This graduate seminar is a reading-intensive survey of the principal historical sources in Arabic for Middle Eastern social, intellectual, and political history from the 7th to 15th century and beyond.  This survey of Arabic texts and their authors includes: discussion of historical and literary documents, methods of prosopography for Islamic thought and civilization, considerations regarding intellectual history, and assessment of historiographical topics of interest.