Studies in World Literature (301-0-1)

Topic

1,001 Nights

Instructors

Rebecca Johnson
847/467-1365
University Hall 225

Meeting Info

Parkes Hall 223: Mon, Wed 9:30AM - 10:50AM

Overview of class

While in the popular imagination the Thousand and One Nights is often reduced to a few well-known characters, this course will take a wider approach to the collection. Over the quarter, we will read the earliest of these stories, as well as follow the collection's history as an archetypical example of world literature—from its evolution in Arabic oral and manuscript traditions, its eighteenth-century "discovery" and translation into European languages, to its modern afterlives in the novels, film, and visual arts it has inspired. We will consider how the Nights has been used in these works as a vehicle for deeply-considered investigations into narrative form as well as for clichéd and colonially-imbued images of the Middle East. Reading and watching these works next to and against the Arabic originals, we will encounter the vast variety of ways that the Nights has been a source of narrative techniques, literary themes, political allegories, and feminist debates across literary traditions.

Teaching Method

Discussion-based Seminar.

Evaluation Method

Mid-term examination and final paper as well as robust participation.

Class Materials (Required)

Daniel Heller-Roazen and Muhsin Mahdi, eds., The Arabian Nights: Norton Critical Edition (New York: WW Norton & Co., 2009). 978-0393928082.

Yasmine Seale, trans., Aladdin: A New Translation (New York: Liveright/Norton, 2021) 978-1324091110.

Class Attributes

Literature and Arts Foundational Discipline
Literature & Fine Arts Distro Area