Global Arc

The goal of this course is to familiarize students with the ways that Arabs express themselves when speaking in a formal setting, and to help students gain greater confidence in expressing themselves in Formal Spoken Arabic, a simplified form of Modern Standard Arabic. Attention will also be given to developing native-like pronunciation and grammatical accuracy, as well as to enriching one's socio-cultural understanding of North Africa and the Middle East through discussions of topics ranging from the personal (food, family) to the socio-economic (women's roles, Arab cultural identity, education and illiteracy in the Arab world).

This course will develop students' skills in Moroccan Colloquial Arabic (darija), with an eye to future study in Morocco. In addition to the textbook, students will encounter the language through a variety of contemporary media forms such novellas and telenovelas, ads, music videos, comics and blogs. Topics covered in the course will range from perspectives on personal matters to views on socio-cultural issues. While the main objective will be communicative, emphasis will also be placed on pronunciation and advanced grammatical structures that have been preserved in the Moroccan dialect.

This course is based on thematic instruction featuring audio-visual materials of native speakers discussing their daily lives. Emphasis is on improving fluency in reading and speaking skills used in everyday contexts.

This course will focus on a selection of short plays in Modern Standard Arabic with a view to strengthening skills in reading, speaking, listening and writing along with providing a sense of how theater reflects developments in the political, social and intellectual spheres over the last century. The first portion of each class period will consist of close reading and translation of passages from the assigned pages. The remainder of class will be devoted to discussion, dramatic readings of passages, student presentations and listening activities.

This is an introductory course in a widely spoken Arabic dialect in Morocco called Daarijah where Arabic and Indigenous Tamazight, the language of the Indigenous people of North Africa come together, making this language variety very rich and authentic. Students will learn the language of everyday life of conversation, commerce, administration, family, celebration, politics, spirituality, and literature. It is also familiar far beyond the borders of Morocco, given migration patterns from North Africa to Europe and the Americas. For these reasons, Daarijah is one component to achieving more linguistic and cultural competency in Arabic.

This course develops to a more advanced and natural level the linguistic skills of listening, speaking, and reading through the reading and class discussion of lengthy texts, primarily literary ones. Term papers written in Arabic provide the opportunity to improve composition, and aural comprehension is honed through the use of tapes of Arabic broadcasts, and through viewing films from various parts of the Arab world. Prerequisite: 301 or instructor's permission. Two 90-minute classes.

This course will focus on having students learn to liberate themselves from their dictionaries while reading. Attention will also be given to speaking and listening skills, as well as Arabic-English translation.

This course is designed as an advanced, fourth-year course in Arabic language and culture which may be repeated up to two times, provided the topic is different each time. The course is intended to appeal to students who prefer to study in an Arabic immersion environment, and all aspects of the course will be conducted in Arabic.

Introduces the conventions of major genres of history, belles-lettres and religious thought of the Abbasid era (750-1258 CE). Primary emphasis on reading comprehension and developing confidence in approaching classical sources. Conducted in Arabic, apart from translation exercises, and will also develop skills in writing, through projects, and speaking, through discussions and presentations. Course is divided into one or two-week units, focusing on excerpts from major texts. Students to complete major reading/writing project on a text of choosing.

For students who have a working foundation in the Arabic language - a vocabulary set of around 1500 words and a firm grasp of Arabic syntax. The course is structured around passages in the Qur'an and will expose students to the traditional disciplines of the Arabic language of the Qur'an and its ancillary sciences, i.e., exegesis, recitation, orthography, etymology, philology, morphology, and grammar. Supplementary materials will also include scholarly articles in Arabic and in English regarding the recensions of the Qur'an, their collection and standardization, the seven recitations of the Qur'an, and other related topics.