Approaches and Perspectives in MENA Studies (411-0-1)

Instructors

Rebecca Johnson
847/467-1365
University Hall 225

Meeting Info

University Library 4770: Wed 11:00AM - 2:00PM

Overview of class

Course title: Liberation and Form

This course considers aesthetic developments—both material and discursive—in North Africa and the Middle East from the decolonizing movements of the 1960s until the present, tracing how artists, authors, and cultural practitioners articulate through aesthetic forms what it means and what it looks like to be a sovereign territory and a sovereign people. Special attention is therefore paid to the role of form in literary and cultural practice, as we ask how formal operations on canvas, in text, or on screen, for example, articulate a grammar of liberation that seeks to chart new paths towards a decolonial present if not a more fully liberated future with regards not only to political sovereignty but also gender, sexuality, economic, and religious equity. The challenges of navigating these paths through conditions of permanent war and/or its threat necessarily undergird our attention, and readings will draw from a range of historical and contemporary studies and primary sources, as well as secondary sources both critical and theoretical. This course is being run in tandem with "Forms of Liberation and the Liberation of Form" offered at the University of Pennsylvania (History of Art); we will work independently but also explore creative modalities to collaborate across peer institutions when possible.