Literature, Mediality and the Public Sphere in the Arab Middle East: Transhistorical Perspectives, 19th-21st Century
(Literatur, Medialität und Öffentlichkeit im arabischen Nahen Osten in transhistorischer Perspektive, 19.-21. Jh.)
S 095226 (MA, Modul „Literatur und Ästhetik“) Di 14-16h
In the last decades, the Arab world has witnessed the emergence and broad diffusion of ‘new’ media, most prominently the Internet. Apart from socio-political effects, the opportunities provided by these media have also fostered the emergence of new modes of cultural expression, literary styles, and genres as well as new layers of readers and writers. Likewise, during and after the Arab uprisings, various cultural and artistic practices usually looked upon as subcultural forms, particularly those created in public spaces such as graffiti and street art, attracted the attention of a wider audience.
ʻNewʼ media, however, is by no means a recent phenomenon. This seminar will explore the relation between medium, literature and arts, and the public sphere in the Arab world from a transhistorical perspective. We will deal with various phenomena, such as the emergence of Arab theater and the Arabic novel (mostly serialized in the emerging periodical press) in the late 19th century; mid-20th-century cultural debates on committed art, Avantgarde journals and experimental political theater; the cooperation between poets (often writing in the vernacular) and singer-composers, or other forms of oral transmission of poetry; as well as recent developments related to digital media. Depending on the participants’ interests, other topics, such as audiovisual media, e.g., radio, TV, photography and film, can be included.
During the seminar, we will discuss both general issues, such as the relation between literature, medium and the public sphere (Habermas, Sartre and beyond), and questions related to specific cases: How does the choice of a medium affect form and function of literature and culture? What is the effect on producers and audiences? How does the use of new communication technologies affect the conditions of literary and cultural production, distribution and reception? And how are cultural debates shaped by the use of different media?
The seminar is open for students of other literary studies programs (MA NTS, BAPS, Kulturpoetik and others). The texts we will discuss are either translated to or originally written in English, thus the knowledge of Arabic is not mandatory. In case all participants speak sufficiently German, the class may be held in German.
Please note: Several talks dealing with literature, culture and mediality will be presented as part of the conference of the Union Européenne des Arabisants et Islamisants (UEAI) which will be held at our institute, Sept. 10-13, 2018 (https://www.uni-muenster.de/ArabistikIslam/tagungen/UEAI29.html). You are welcome to attend!
Central issues of the seminar are discussed in:
- G. Ramsay: Blogs & Literature & Activism: Popular Egyptian Blogs and Literature in Touch, Wiesbaden 2017; T. Pepe: “When Writers Activate Readers: How the Autofictional Blog Transforms Arabic Literature”, in: Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies 15 (2015), 73-91; S. -A. Naguib: “Engaged Ephemeral Art: Street Art and the Egyptian Arab Spring”, in: Transcultural Studies 2 (2016), https://heiup.uni-heidelberg.de/journals/index.php/transcultural/article/view/23590/17362; Y. Albers: “The Empty Chair: On the Politics of Spectatorial Situatedness in the Performances of Rabih Mroué”, in: F. Pannewick, G. Khalil (eds.): Commitment and Beyond: Reflections on/of the Political in Arabic Literature since the 1940s, Wiesbaden 2015, 317-332; E. Kendall: Literature, Journalism, and the Avantgarde, London 2006; F. Pannewick: Das Wagnis Tradition: Arabische Wege der Theatralität, Wiesbaden 2000; E. Holt: “From Gardens of Knowledge to Ezbekiyya after Midnight: The Novel and the Arabic Press from Beirut to Cairo, 1870-1892”, in: Middle Eastern Literatures 16.3 (2016), 232-248; N. Al-Bagdadi: Vorgestellte Öffentlichkeit: Zur Genese moderner Prosa in Ägypten, 1860-1908, Wiesbaden 2010; Ph. Sadgrove: The Egyptian Theatre in the Nineteenth Century (1799-1882), Reading 1996; I. Makdisi: Theater and Radical Politics in Beirut, Cairo, and Alexandria: 1860-1914, Washington 2006.
- Lehrende/r: Barbara Winckler