NES 6723 - [The Arabian Nights: Then and Now]

(crosslisted) COML 6723

Fall. Not offered 2015-2016. 4 credits.

Co-meets with COML 3723/MEDVL 3723/NES 3723.

S. Toorawa.

The medieval Arabic cycle of stories known as The Arabian Nights or The Thousand and One Nights is a classic of world literature. In the first part of the course we will read the Nights and discuss both its dominant themes-deceit, love, sex, revenge, violence, and justice-and its storytelling contexts and antecedents (e.g. the Sanskrit Jataka Tales and the Middle Persian Tales of Bidpai). And in the second part, we will explore the ways in which the Nights’ themes and tales have been adapted and appropriated by authors such as Jan Potocki in Polish, Edgar Allan Poe, John Barth and Mary Zimmerman in English, Jorge Luis Borges in Spanish, and Naguib Mahfouz in Arabic itself; and by filmmakers such as Korda, Pasolini and Barron. All material is in English translation.