Upper-level Arabic language students have a new option for continuing their language studies this year with the introduction of Arabic Five, a two-semester fifth-year Arabic language course. Added to meet student demand for upper-level Arabic instruction beyond the fourth year, this new course is a sign of the continuing popularity of Arabic language study at Harvard, at advanced levels in particular. The fall portion of the course (Arabic 242ar) is focused on the Arabic short story, a form with a long, complex, and richly dynamic history in modern Arabic culture, reflecting the social, economic, religious, and political debates that inform Arab intellectual life. The spring portion will be devoted to the study of biographies and autobiographies in modern Arab history and literature and will be taught by Shawwaf Visiting Professor Salim Tamari from Birzeit University.
Arabic 242ar is led by Sami Alkyam, one of two new preceptors to join the Arabic program this fall. Sami comes to Harvard from the University of Wisconsin where he taught Arabic and is working on his doctoral thesis on postcolonial literature. Also joining the Arabic program this fall is Nour Barmada who taught for many years in the Advanced Arabic Field School of the Foreign Service Institute in Sidi Bou Said, Tunisia. She is currently teaching courses in intermediate and advanced Arabic.
While welcoming Sami and Nour, the Arabic program has bid farewell to Senior Preceptor Khaled Al-Masri, who began a position as assistant professor of Arabic at Swarthmore College this fall. Before heading to Swarthmore, Khaled spent the summer teaching in the Harvard Summer Program in Aix-en-Provence, France. Led by founding director William Granara, Gordon Gray Professor of Arabic and director of modern Middle East languages in NELC, the Harvard Aix-en-Provence summer program focuses on Arab and European literary and cultural encounters through language and literature classes in French, Arabic, and English. Applications for next summer’s session (the third year of the program) are due to the Summer School by January 31, 2013.