{"id":16029,"date":"2018-04-16T06:43:20","date_gmt":"2018-04-16T10:43:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/?p=16029"},"modified":"2018-04-16T06:43:20","modified_gmt":"2018-04-16T10:43:20","slug":"teaching-with-arabic-literature-in-translation-classical-texts-that-capture-a-sense-of-marvel-wonder-humor-and-above-all-adventure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/teaching-with-arabic-literature-in-translation-classical-texts-that-capture-a-sense-of-marvel-wonder-humor-and-above-all-adventure\/","title":{"rendered":"Teaching with Arabic Literature in Translation: Classical Texts That \u2018Capture a Sense of Marvel, Wonder, Humor, And, Above All, Adventure\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/strong><\/section>\n

Via MLYNXQUALEY<\/a><\/span><\/span> on Teaching with Arabic Literature in Translation<\/a>\u00a0continues with a re-run: a discussion with Sean W. Anthony<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 a historian and\u00a0professor at Ohio State University in the\u00a0Department of Near Eastern Languages & Cultures<\/a><\/em>. I<\/em>n an interview that also appeared on the Library of Arabic Literature (LAL) website<\/a>, Anthony talks about teaching with the LAL texts<\/em>:<\/em><\/p>\n

Which works do you teach from van Gelder\u2019s Classical Arabic Literature anthology, and \u2014 with these works \u2014 what are you hoping to illumine?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

<\/section>\n

Sean Anthony:\u00a0<\/strong>Van Gelder\u2019s anthology is an especially rich and exceptional specimen of the anthology genre for a number of reasons. I\u2019ll just name a couple and get to the point. Principally, it is exceptional because the translations come from a single scholar\u2019s pen\u2014and quite an accomplished scholar, too. The translations, therefore, do not suffer from the unevenness of quality so typical of anthologies. They also have a nice, readable, and modern style. Another thing that I like about the anthology is that it includes formidable Arabic texts that are difficult to translate and that have, therefore, remained long-revered by specialists but neglected by translators. As a result there are many gems in this anthology, but I\u2019ll single out just a few.<\/p>\n

One small section of the anthology I often return to is the collection of early oracles of the pre-Islamic soothsayers. The pre-Islamic\u00a0qa\u1e63\u012bdah,\u00a0<\/em>or ode, usually dominates most discussions of pre-Islamic literature and, as a result, tend to crowd out the oracles. These oracles were composed in a type of rhymed, rhythmic prose called\u00a0saj\u02bf\u00a0<\/em>in Arabic The rhyme and rhythm tends to be the first thing to go in translation; however, van Gelder\u2019s little section manages to explain what\u00a0saj\u02bf\u00a0<\/em>is and to demonstrate how\u00a0saj\u02bf\u00a0<\/em>works pretty well alongside his translations. This is important. Much of the Qur\u02bean is also written in a type of\u00a0saj\u02bf<\/em>, and I find that van Gelder shows how the oracles of the soothsayers and the early Meccan chapters of the Qur\u02bean resemble each other in profound ways structurally. The comparison, however, redounds to the benefit of the Qur\u02bean, too, and is also highly instructive \u2013 the comparison really helps highlight how the message of the scripture elevated and transformed this medium of expression.<\/p>\n

Two texts from the anthology that I often pair are Bashsh\u0101r ibn Burd\u2019s poem lampooning the tribal Arabs and Ab\u016b \u1e24ayy\u0101n al-Taw\u1e25\u012bd\u012b\u2019s prose essay on the superiority of the Arabs. I return to these texts so often because they intrinsically raise the question of who \u2018owns\u2019 Arabic and because our contemporary society is so obsessed with identity\u2014what privileges this or that identity confers, what identities are valorized or which ones are deprecated, how identity relates to societal values such as equality, etc. Both works were written in the shadows of debates over Arab political and cultural supremacy vis-\u00e0-vis the multitudes of non-Arab peoples who populated the vast and cosmopolitan Abbasid commonwealth. They are also great texts for showing how Arabic, much like English, transcends \u2018Arabness\u2019 as a parochial ethnic identity. I\u2019m actually looking forward to introducing the recently published volume by Ibn Qutaybah,\u00a0Excellence of the Arabs<\/em><\/a>, into this mix as well.<\/p>\n

One other selection I\u2019ll mention is the story of Qays and Lubn\u0101, which was excerpted from the\u00a0Kit\u0101b al-Agh\u0101n\u012b<\/em>\u00a0of Ab\u016b l-Faraj al-I\u1e63fah\u0101n\u012b. It\u2019s a G-rated (or \u2018chaste\u2019), tragic love story that offers a nice mix of poetry and prose, but it is also a great story for observing societal change in the post-conquest period and the changes in literary aesthetics that came with these societal upheavals. Love stories and poems aren\u2019t as frivolous as they might seem at first blush, especially tragic ones, as they offer interesting windows into literary critiques of society and its hierarchies. Tragic love stories seem to inculcate the sense that their two protagonists ought to be together but are prevented by an unsympathetic society that ultimately destroys not just their chance at union but also their very persons. The subtext often seems to be: What\u2019s\u00a0wrong\u00a0<\/em>with society that makes their love impossible? Qays and Lubn\u0101, in any case, makes for an excellent specimen for demonstrating this literary dynamic in Arabic literature.<\/p>\n

What sections from the travel books do you use, or do you assign the whole text(s)? Are the students meant to read them one-sided or bilingually? What sorts of discussions have you had around the travel books, and how does travel writing help us understand histories of those writing and those written about? Tim Mackintosh-Smith said he\u2019d like all seventh and eighth graders to read his\u2026I assume you have slightly different discussions than would take place in the middle-school classroom.<\/strong><\/p>\n

SA:\u00a0<\/strong>Firstly, these are fun texts that capture a sense of marvel, wonder, humor, and, above all, adventure. In a university setting, both of these texts get at a fundamental human problem that I enjoy highlighting: How does one write about and represent cultures and peoples other than one\u2019s own? What pitfalls await even a sympathetic observer? I usually assign the entirety of Ibn Fa\u1e0dl\u0101n, and I often single out the passages on China from al-Sir\u0101f\u012b. Both texts give vivid accounts of what diplomacy and trade looked like in the Abbasid period and also how beliefs about geography and classes of people shaped perceptions of the larger world outside the so-called Abode of Islam. Then there\u2019s the texts\u2019 particular strengths. Ibn Fa\u1e0dl\u0101n affords a great opportunity to discuss how conversion and diplomacy intertwine as well as the influx of prestigious Islamic silver to northern lands and contacts with the R\u016bs and Vikings. Al-Sir\u0101f\u012b\u2019s descriptions and tales of trade with Tang China I usually supplement with a discussion of seafaring, an explaination what the hell ambergris is anyway, and a study of historically relevant material finds, especially, Alain George\u2019s\u00a0wonderful study<\/a>\u00a0of the Belitung shipwreck discovered in Indonesia, which contains the remains of an Arabian dhow from circa CE 830.<\/p>\n

How much of the Consorts of the Caliphs<\/em>\u00a0do you use, and why Consorts<\/em>? To get at the possibility of seeing and reconstructing what we know of women\u2019s lives in the times the works were written and compiled?<\/strong><\/p>\n

SA:\u00a0<\/strong>The lives of unfree persons and of women, let alone their voices, pose notoriously formidable challenges for historians of the distant past to reconstruct. In this way,\u00a0Consorts\u00a0<\/em>is an exceedingly precious source. I tend to use the first half of it in my classes on Arabic literature and Abbasid history.<\/p>\n

How have students responded to the works in the Consorts<\/em>, for better or worse?<\/strong><\/p>\n

SA:\u00a0<\/strong>Reactions vary and continue to surprise me \u2013 every teacher learns a great deal from the reactions of his or her students, I think. Some students are puzzled by the form of slavery on display, and some are shocked that slavery existed in this period at all. Others sometimes think that the phenomenon of singing-girls and accomplished court poetesses is foreign and distant. I beg to differ with that second sentiment. How do such women compare, for example, to the child celebrities whose commodified lives seem to solely exist for the propagation of popular culture and its profits? One shouldn\u2019t overdo it, of course, but the discussion is important. Surely, the life of the courtesan\u00a0\u02bfArib differs in fundamental ways from, for example, the likes of a Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus, or even a Justin Bieber. But how exactly? Listening last year to a\u00a0Radiolab podcast on K-Pop<\/a>, I was again struck by how modern some aspects of these women\u2019s lives were.<\/p>\n

And about your own book, The Expeditions<\/em> \u2014 in what classes have you used it, and how?<\/strong><\/p>\n

SA:\u00a0<\/strong>There are several passages that I continually return to: Mu\u1e25ammad\u2019s marriage to his first wife, Khad\u012bjah, and his earliest revelations and experience of persecution in Mecca; his wife \u02bf\u0100\u02beishah\u2019s firsthand account of how rumors of adultery spread against her and how she was exonerated; and passages on the final days of Mu\u1e25ammad\u2019s life and the controversies over his secession, especially as narrated in a speech attributed to the second caliph \u02bfUmar. It\u2019s hard to sum up how or why these stories are important\u2014they become such titanic narratives. I like the version of these stories found in the\u00a0Expeditions\u00a0<\/em>because they are so early and, thus, easily compared with later stories in order to observe how they evolved over time. Such comparative readings are highly instructive when it comes to developing an understanding of how the past is constructed and the role of narrative in that process.<\/p>\n

I use these selections from the\u00a0Expeditions<\/em>\u00a0in my introductory courses (whether to Islam or to Arabic literature) as well as in my more advanced courses on the Qur\u02bean and Islamic political thought because they are foundational narratives. As foundational narratives, revisiting them always proves rewarding in a classroom context because you\u2019re simultaneously equipping students with religious literacy and demonstrating how these old stories remain cherished today and maintain their power to evoke strong responses from us today.<\/p>\n

Sean W. Anthony is Assistant Professor of History at University of Oregon. His books include <\/em>The Caliph and the Heretic: Ibn Saba and the Origins of Shiism and<\/em> Crucifixion and the Spectacle of Death: Umayyad Crucifixion in its Late Antique Context. His research and publications focus on the emergence of Islam and the origins of its sacred and sectarian traditions.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Via MLYNXQUALEY on APRIL 16, 2018\u00a0&\u00a0ArabLit\u2019s ongoing series on\u00a0Teaching with Arabic Literature in Translation\u00a0continues with a re-run: a discussion with Sean W. Anthony\u00a0\u2014 a historian and\u00a0professor at Ohio State University in the\u00a0Department of Near...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,12,1442,103],"tags":[1983],"class_list":["post-16029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arab-culture","category-arabic","category-mashreq","category-translation","tag-sean-anthony"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16029"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16031,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16029\/revisions\/16031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}