AP/RLST 4813 3.00

The Arabian Nights: Morality, Sexuality, and Strategies of Interpretation

This course examines the history of the reception and interpretation of The Arabian Nights, from its first appearance in Galland’s 1701 translation to its modern editions by Husain Haddawy in 2008. Interdisciplinary in approach, this course exposes students to concepts derived from the contemporary discussions of the problems of originality, authorship, translatability, and the reception of the Arabian Nights.

In the first part of the course (sessions 1-4), students acquire the theoretical and methodological tools necessary for a critical examination of different visual and textual versions of the stories from The Arabian Nights. In the second part of the course (sessions 5-15), students examine individual tales in conjunction with scholarly works that focus on story-telling techniques and narrative strategies of The Arabian Nights. In their analysis of selected stories, students focus on the concepts of morality, sexuality, spatiality, and gender. In the third part of the course (sessions 16-24), students examine different visual and textual renditions of the most popular tales from The Arabian Nights (Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, Sindbad, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves). Students pay special attention to the European reception of these tales and the attempts by European ethnographers, linguists, historians and visual artists to represent their content as non-fictional, historical accounts of Arab society, Oriental sexuality, Islamic religiosity, and so on.

RELIGIOUS TRADITION(S) COVERED: Islam

This course is offered as both 3.00 and 6.00.

Course Category: Religion, Literature, and the Arts