The Modern Period

From Louis Bonaparte’s 1798 conquest of Egypt to the Algerian War of Independence (1954-1962), colonialism has been a determining force in the shaping of Arab modernity. For almost two centuries, the Arab region has undergone a major restructuring along the nation-state model after the dismantling of the Ottoman empire and the peripheral integration into global capitalism. In the postcolonial period, the region witnessed the rise of various forms of territorial nationalisms, socialist pan-Arab experiments, rentier state models, regional conflicts, neoliberal economic transformations, and popular uprisings. The literary discourses of the region responded to the pressures of the political with sophisticated engagements.

Our class will be organized around four major themes that will be explored through poems, essays, novels, and films. Firstly, we familiarize ourselves with the poetics of the pre-modern Arab world and we explore the question of modernity and its ruptures and transformations. Secondly, we examine the colonial state in the Arab world through travel accounts, essays, and films, and we investigate the questions of governance and sexuality in the colony. Thirdly, we read novels, short stories, and poems that dramatize the postcolonial socialist state in its emancipative potential and failures. Fourthly, we study the contemporary political and economic modalities organized around the neoliberal state. We examine narrative and essayistic engagements with the wave of liberalizations that took place in Arabic countries and we explore the forms of subjectivity it produced. We end with Arab-American poetry to reflect on contemporary issues of migration and exile.