For a Teaching of the Arabic Literature in the Global Age: Projects and Suggestions
Abstract
The purpose of this article is to raise some questions on the teaching of Arabic Literature in Italian high schools. This teaching is scheduled to be launched in the next years, although the courses’ organization are still far from being fully structured.
The Arabic literature teaching requires a profound renovation. The teachers have to cope with a variety of problems: which syllabus, which methods, which authors and texts to choose for courses? But, more importantly, which teaching approach is to be adopted in the global age, where literature has not only an aesthetic significance but is also of considerable importance from an intercultural and ethical point of view?
Through the presentation of two projects, the author offers some theoretical suggestions to create a learning environment which can be engaging and meaningful for students. The Arabic literature teaching needs to emancipate itself from its orientalistic tinge and become dynamic, student-oriented and up to the standards existing for other European foreign languages teaching.
The Arabic literature teacher cannot be only an arabist, he has to know how to teach literature – i.e. he has to be a 21th-century pedagogue, a literary critic of the global age, a cultural-linguistic mediator and a passionate reader.
Downloads
References
AA.VV., "Utiliser un manuel", Midad — Magazine d’information et de documentation sur l’arabe et sa didactique, 29 (2006): 3.
Albertazzi, Silvia, "Canone", Abbecedario postcoloniale I-II, Ed. Silvia Albertazzi – Roberto Vecchi, Macerata, Quodlibet, 2004.
al-‘Allaq, ‘Ali Jaafar, “al-Sana al-jadida”, al-Karmel, 88/89 summer and fall (2006): 138-9.
Allen, Roger, An Introduction to Arabic Literature (2000), trad. it. La letteratura araba, Ed. Bruna Soravia, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2006.
Amaldi, Daniela, Storia della letteratura araba classica, Bologna, Zanichelli, 2004.
Antoon, Sinan, “Qatarat araq; ‘ala jabin al-layl”, Mawshur muballal bi-l-hurub, al-Qahira, Merit, 2003: 53-5.
Balboni, Paolo E., Le sfide di Babele. Insegnare le lingue nelle società complesse, Torino, UTET, 2003.
Bartuli, Elisabetta, “Narrativa tradotta dall’arabo: quali romanzi per quali lettori”, L’indice dei libri del mese, settembre (2013).
al-Bayati, ‘Abd al-Wahhab, “al-Wilada”, Qamar Shiraz (1976), trad. it La luna di Shiraz, Ed. Valentina Colombo, Genova: S. Marco dei Giustiniani, 2000: 94.
Benvenuti, Giuliana – Ceserani, Remo, La letteratura nell’età globale, Bologna: Il Mulino, 2012.
Camera D’Afflitto, Isabella, Letteratura araba contemporanea. Dalla nahdah a oggi, Roma, Carocci, 1998 (rist. 2004).
Camera D’Afflitto, Isabella (ed.), Narratori arabi del novecento, Milano, Bompiani, 1994.
Eraqi, Monica Mona, “A New High School Social Studies Class: the Middle East, beginning with Turkey”, Teaching the Literature of Today’s Middle East, Ed. Allen Webb (et al.), New York – London, Routledge, 2012: 67.
Gandolfi, Paola, L’arabo a scuola? Progetti di insegnamento per figli di migranti nelle scuole primarie in Europa, Città di Castello, Il Ponte, 2006.
Imbert, Frédéric, “Enseigner la grammaire arabe à l’université: réforme et devoir de réalisme linguistique”, Arabele 2009: Enseñanza y aprendizaje de la lengua árabe = Teaching and Learning the Arabic Language, Ed. Victoria Aguilar – Luis Miguel Pérez Cañada – Paula Santillán Grimm, Murcia, Universidad de Murcia, 2010: 47-62.
Jacquemond, Richard, “Translation and Cultural Hegemony: the case of French-Arabic Translation”, Rethinking Translation. Discourse, Subjectivity, Ideaology, Ed. Lawrence Venuti, London – New York, Routledge, 1992.
Lavinio, Cristina (ed.), Educazione linguistica e educazione letteraria. Intersezioni e interazioni, Milano, FrancoAngeli, 2005.
Luperini, Romano, “L’educazione letteraria”, Educazione linguistica e educazione letteraria. Intersezioni e interazioni, Ed. Cristina Lavinio, Milano, FrancoAngeli, 2005: 35-42.
Nussbaum, Martha Craven, Poetic Justice. The Literary Imagination and Public Life (1995), trad. it. Il giudizio del poeta, Ed. Giovanna Bettini, Milano, Feltrinelli, 1996.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty, Death of a Discipline (2003), trad. it. Morte di una disciplina, Ed. Lucia Gunella, Roma, Meltemi, 2003.
Wahba, Magdi, A Dictionary of Literary Terms (English-French-Arabic), Beirut: Librairie du Liban, 1974.
Webb, Allen (ed.), Teaching the Literature of Today’s Middle East, New York – London, Routledge, 2012.
Copyright Notice
You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work, and to adapt the work. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
