Syllabus/achievement requirements

Theory and project description

Seminar No. I (August 16th, at UiO): Introduction - What is Research?

  • Booth, Wayne C., Gregory G. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams. The Craft of Research. 3rd ed. Chicago, London: Univ. of Chicago Press, 2008. [pages 1-276].

Seminar No. II (August 21th, at UiO): What is Research? (cont.)

  • Booth, Wayne C., Gregory G. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams. The Craft of Research. 3rd ed. Chicago, London: Univ. of Chicago Press, 2008. [pages 1-276].

Seminar No. III (August 22th, at UiO): What is Research? (cont.)

  • Booth, Wayne C., Gregory G. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams. The Craft of Research. 3rd ed. Chicago, London: Univ. of Chicago Press, 2008. [pages 1-276].

Seminar No. IV (August 28-30that Granavolden): Debating Middle East Studies 

Seminar No. V (August 28-30that Granavolden): Orientalism

Seminar No. VI (August 28-30that Granavolden): The Rentier State

Seminar No. VII (August 28-30th at Granavolden): Authoritarianism in the Middle East

Seminar No. VIII (August 28-30th at Granavolden): Why the Arab Uprisings?

Seminar No. IX (August 28-30th at Granavolden): Research Ethics

Seminar No. X (September 4th at UiO): Neopatriarchy and Gender

Seminar No. XI (September 6th at UiO): Tribalism and Kinship

Seminar No. XII (September 11th at UiO): (Neo)patrimonalism, Clientelism, Informal Rule 

    Seminar No. XIII (September 13th at UiO): Social Movement Theory: The Case of Islamist Movements

    Seminar No. XIV (October 23that UiO): Literature and Politics in the Middle East

    Seminar No.XV (October 25th at UiO): The Politics of Language in the Middle East

    Seminar No.XVI (October 30th at UiO): Project Description Workshop

    Seminar No.XVII (November 1rd at UiO): Project Description Workshop

    Seminar No.XVIII (November 6th at UiO): Project Description Workshop

    Seminar No.XIX (November 8th at UiO): Project Description Workshop (if needed).

    Seminar No.XX (November 13th at UiO): Project Description Workshop (if needed).

     

    Modules:

    Text and Discourse Analysis

    (By Associate Professor Jacob H?igilt)

    Blommaert, Jan. “Context Is/as Critique.” Critique of Anthropology 21, no. 1 (2001): 13–32.

    Fowler, Roger. Language in the News. Discourse and Ideology in the Press. London: Routledge, 1991. [Chapters 1, 5, 7] [Electronically available via Fronter].

    H?igilt, Jacob. Islamist Rhetoric: Language and Culture in Contemporary Egypt. London: Routledge, 2011. [Chapter 4] [Electronically available via Fronter].

    McKee, Alan. Textual Analysis. London: SAGE Publications Ltd, 2003.

    Skinner, Quentin. Visions of Politics: Regarding Method, Volume 1. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2002. [Chapters 5-6] [Electronically available via Fronter].

     

    Field Work Methods

    (By Professor Berit Thorbj?rnsrud)

    (270 pages)

     

    Archive Studies and Historical Methods

    (By Professor Brynjar Lia)

    Methods in Historical Research (Seminar 1 & 2)

    Sources, Archives and Archival Research in the Middle East (Seminar 3 & 4)

     

    Topics in Linguistic Studies

    (By Professor Stephan Guth and Bernt Brendemoen)

    Seminar I (B. Brendemoen)

    Seminar II (S. Guth)

    • Coulmas, Florian: Sociolinguistics: The Study of Speakers' Choices, 2005. Chapter 1 (Introduction: Notions of language), pp. 1-14.
    • Walters, Keith. "Language attitudes". EALL online  (ca. 15 p.)
    • Ferguson, Charles: "Diglossia". Word 15, (1959), pp.325-40.  (16 p.)
    • Coulmas, Florian: Sociolinguistics: The Study of Speakers' Choices, 2005. Chapters 8 (Diglossia and bilingualism: Functional restrictions on language choice), pp. 126-145. 

    Seminar III (B. Brendemoen)

    Seminar IV (S. Guth)

    Optional:

    • Alvestad, Silje and Lutz Edzard. 2009. "The evidence of the living language: normative forms vs. spoken modern Hebrew". In: Alvestad, Silje and Lutz Edzard. Sonority, Optimality and the Hebrew p"ch Forms, pp. 163-201. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

     

    Topics in Literature Studies (all syllabus material available from Fronter)

    (By Professor Stephan Guth)

    Seminar 1 - Fact versus fiction. The “added value” of narrative, or: Why literature matters. The role of the writer in the MENA region.

    • Culler, Jonathan: Literary Theory: A very short introduction. Oxford Univ. Press, 2007. => ch. 2: “What is Literature and Does it Matter?”, pp. 18-41.
    • Abbott, H. Porter: “Narrative and Truth”. = Ch. 11 in id., The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative, 2nd ed., Cambridge Univ. Press, 2008, pp. 145-59.
    • Klemm, Verena: “Different Notions of Commitment (iltizām) and Committed Literature (al-adab al-multazim) in the Literary Circles of the Mashriq”. Arabic and Middle Eastern Literatures, 3 (1) (2000), pp. 51-62.
    • Mehrez, Samia: “Introduction”. In: S.M., Egyptian Writers between History and Fiction, Cairo: AUC Press, 1994, pp. 1-16 and 147-48 (notes)

    Seminar 2 - Literary history (overview), themes and genres in modern Arabic fiction

    • Guth, Stephan. 2013. “Novel, Modern Arabic”. In: Encyclopedia of Islam, 3rd edition (online).
    • Guth, Stephan. 2011. “From Water-Carrying Camels to Modern Story-Tellers, or How “riwāya” Came to Mean ‘novel’: A History of an Encounter of Concepts.” In: Borders and Beyond: Crossings and Transitions in Modern Arabic Literature, ed. K. Eksell & S. Guth, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2011: 147-79.

    Optional:

    • Casini, Lorenzo. 2011. “The Nation, the Narrative Subject, and the European Theme in the Development of the Egyptian Novel”. In: From New Values to New Aesthetics: Turning Points in Modern Arabic Literature, ed. S. Guth & G. Ramsay, vol. I: From Modernism to the 1980s. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2011: 59-70.
    • Hafez, Sabry. 1976. “The Egyptian Novel in the Sixties”. Journal of Arabic Literature, 7 (1976), pp. 68-84.
    • Guth, Stephan. 2011. “Literary Currents in Egypt since the Beginning/Mid-1960s”. In: From New Values to New Aesthetics: Turning Points in Modern Arabic Literature, ed. S. Guth & G. Ramsay, vol. 1: From Modernism to the 1980s, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2011: 85-112.
    • Guth, Stephan.(2007 [2008]). “Individuality Lost, Fun Gained: Some Recurrent Motifs in Late Twentieth-Century Arabic and Turkish Novels”. Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies, 7 (2), pp. 25-49.

    Seminar 3 - West reads East reads West: Orientalism/Occidentalism. Relation to the West in MAL

    • El-Enany, Rasheed. 2009. “Theme and Identity in Postcolonial Arabic Writing”. In: Chewing over the West: Occidental Narratives on Non-Western Readings, ed. Doris Jedamski, Amsterdam: Rodopi (CrossCultures; 119): 1-36.
    • Casini, Lorenzo. 2008. “Beyond Occidentalism: Europe and the Self in Present-Day Arabic Narrative Discourse”. EUI Working Papers RSCAS 2008/30.
    • Holmberg, Bo. 2006. “Adab and Arabic Literature”. In: Literary History: Towards a Global Perspective, vol. 1: Notions of Literature Across Cultures, ed. by A. Pettersson [et al.], Berlin [etc.]: de Gruyter, 2006: 181-205.
    • Rooke, Tetz. 2011. “The Emergence of the Arabic Bestseller: Arabic Fiction and World Literature”. In: From New Values to New Aesthetics: Turning Points in Modern Arabic Literature, ed. S. Guth & G. Ramsay, vol. II: Postmodernism and thereafter, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2011: 201-13.
    • Allan, Michael. 2012. “How Adab Became Literary: Formalism, Orientalism and the Institutions of World Literature”. Journal of Arabic Literature, 43: 172-96.

    Seminar 4 - Starter kit for the analysis of narrative texts

    • Culler, Jonathan. 1997. “Narrative” = ch. 6 in his Literary Theory: A very short introduction, Oxford UP 1997: 82-93.
    • Propp, Vladimir. 2008. Morphology of the Folktale. 19th paperback edition, Austin, TX : UT Press, 2008. => ch. 3: “The functions of Dramatis Personae” (pp. 25-65).
    • Herman, David (ed.). 2009. The Cambridge Companion to Narrative. 3rd ed., Cambridge UP. => ch. 3: H. Porter Abbott, “Story, plot, and narration”, pp. 39-51. / => ch. 7: M. Jahn, “Focalization”, pp. 94-108.
    • Guth, Stephan. Working sheet “How to analyze a piece of fiction”. (1p.)
    Published May 10, 2017 1:29 PM - Last modified Sep. 27, 2017 3:34 PM