LITERARY CULTURES (ARABIC)

The course aims to account for the tension between literary activity and ideological constriction through the analysis of writing and rewriting of pre-modern literature works belonging to the genre Fuerstenspiegel in Arab-Islamic area (esp. Kalila wa-dimna,Sulwan al-Muta' and Fakihat al-khulafa'). Texts in Arabic will be read and analyzed, also taking into account the phenomenon of mouvance in Arabic literature and its dialogic tension with lirerary works and genres coming from different cultural areas.

The student will have to show an adequate knowledge of the history of premodern Arabic literature (and of its possible reinterpretations in the modern period) and of the analitical tools of literary texts based on the use of editions and commentaries, as well as of a technical language.
The student will acquire the ability to contextualize the texts historically and in terms of literary genres, to analyze and interpret them autonomously, using the tools for bibliographic research and the techniques of literary analysis; he also must be able to carry out research and present its results in a clear and structured way.

Knowledge of Standard Arabic; notions of the history of Arabic literature (pre-modern period).

The course will focus on the motif of talking animals and its fortune in premodern Arabic literature according to the educational purposes of the furstenspiegel literature and the literature of fiction more generally. This will serve as a starting point for studying the dynamics of literary activity and the motive of parrhesia (freedom of speech) in the literary spaces of pre-modern Arabic literature.

Passages (in Arabic) from Kalila wa dimna; Ibn Arabšāh, Fākihat al-ḫulafāʼ; Ibn Ẓafar, Sulwān al-muṭā' fī 'udwān al-atbā'; at-Tawḥīdī, al-Imtā' wa-l-mu’ānasa.

Ghersetti, Antonella, Des animaux parlants : modèles littéraires et contraintes idéologiques, in « The Arabist. Budapest Studies in Arabic and Islam », 32 (2013), pp. 3-34.

Bonebakker, Seeger A. 1992. Nihil obstat in story telling? [= Mededelingen van de Afdeling Letterkunde, Nieuwe Reeks, 55 no. 8]. Amsterdam [etc.] : Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenshappen Noord-Hollandsche.

Drory, Dina. 1994. « Three Attempts to Legitimize Fiction in Classical Arabic Literature ». Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 18.146-164.

Gholam-Ali, Karimi. 1975. « Le conte animalier dans la littérature arabe avant le Kalila wa Dimna ». Bulletin d’Études Orientales, 28.51-56.

London, Jennifer. 2008. « How to do things with fables : Ibn al-Muqaffac’s frank speech in stories from Kalīla wa Dimna ». History of Political Thought 2.189-212.

Wagner, Ewald. 1994. « Sprechende Tiere in der arabischen Prosa ». Asiatische Studien 18.937-957.

Test mode includes the presentation of a paper (Power Point) by the student. The paper will be prepared individually or in pairs and will be presented and discussed in the classroom. Moreover, test mode includes a discussion during which the students will demonstrate knowledge of the topics developed during the course and to know how to expose them in a formal way.

Lectures and seminars. Power Point presentations.

Italian

The course includes reading texts in Arabic.

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