Fall 2016

The upheavals of the recent years in the Arab countries provoked new forms and aesthetics wich express resistance in literature and arts. This course aims to impart basic theoretical conceptions and approaches as tools to understand the phenomena of resistance, refusal and subversion in cultural, literary and artistic works in the Arab World. The first objective of the course is therefore to recognize and understand established theoretical concepts and reflections on the issue of cultural resistance, not only from the perspective of literary criticism, but also from the disciplines of sociology, political philosophy and cultural studies. The second objective is to apply such tools and theoretical frameworks on contemporary cultural products (literature, film, music, street art, online activism, satire, etc.) in the Arab World. In this respect, the course aims to expand students' knowledge on conventional literary criticism to include a comparative literature approach; literary texts can be compared to other cultural products. The production of artistic works of resistance can therefore be seen as acts of social practice.

This course is open to students of Politics, Sociology, History, Media Studies, among others.