ENROLL

Yaron Klein

This course is an exploration of the world of the Thousand and One Nights, the most renowned Arabic literary work of all time. The marvelous tales spun by Shahrazad have captured and excited the imagination of readers and listeners--both Arab and non-Arab--for centuries. In class, we will read in Arabic, selections from the Nights, and engage some of the scholarly debates surrounding this timeless work. We will discuss the question of its origin in folklore and popular culture and the mystery of its "authorship," as well as the winding tale of its reception, adaptation and translation. Readings and class discussions will be in both Arabic and English.

Prerequisite: Arabic 206

Jeff Snyder

This is a research and design seminar for educational studies concentrators. It focuses on a contemporary issue in American education. Recent seminars have been on educational reform and reformers, service learning, literacy leaders in education, education and the emotions, and personal essays about education. Some off campus work with public school students and teachers is an integral part of the seminar.

Prerequisite: Educational Studies minor or instructor permission

Extra Time required.

Noah Salomon

This course rethinks how we understand Africa through attention to the role of Islam and Arabic culture in its past and present. Through religious texts, novels, and critical commentary from the continent, students will get a strong introduction to key trends in Islamic thought and activism, while exploring how attention to them might reshape our perceptions of both its history and present. Equally addressing Africa as geographic space and analytic category, we will examine its features--from the Sahara to the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean, and beyond--not as barriers, but as sites of complex, creative and often fraught exchange with the broader Muslim world.