Review: Interpreting the Self: Autobiography in the Arabic Literary Tradition: Interpreting the Self: Autobiography in the Arabic Literary Tradition (original) (raw)
Autobiography in the Islamic World
This course addresses the rhetoric of selfhood. That is, rather than only ideas of the self, it is the linguistic forms of such ideas that will mainly preoccupy us. This emphasis on how language informs the ways in which the self was understood in the past will keep our attention focused on the wider cultures of rhetoric – courtly speech-situations, intimate circles of Sufi adepts, royal harems, trans-national print-communities, modern political parties – in which apparently abstract ideas of selfhood circulated. We will read both biographies and autobiographies to pose the following questions among others: does the act of writing play a constitutive or representative role in the telling of a life? Is the self in question conceived of as unique or as transpersonal? Is it gendered and, if so, how? What are the articulations of individual and public memory? In answering these questions aspects of narrative design, the interplay of poetry and prose, the uses of painting embedded in writing and the logics of genre will form only some of our foci of attention. The text for every week will be paired with an essay or two on it or on the general field or genre it belongs to.
Autobiography in the Islamic World - Graduate course syllabus
2018
This course addresses the rhetoric of selfhood. That is, rather than only ideas of the self, it is the linguistic forms of such ideas that will mainly preoccupy us. This emphasis on how language informs the ways in which the self was understood in the past will keep our attention focused on the wider cultures of rhetoric – courtly speech-situations, intimate circles of Sufi adepts, royal harems, trans-national print-communities, modern political parties – in which apparently abstract ideas of selfhood circulated. We will read both biographies and autobiographies to pose the following questions among others: does the act of writing play a constitutive or representative role in the telling of a life? Is the self in question conceived of as unique or as transpersonal? Is it gendered and, if so, how? What are the articulations of individual and public memory? In answering these questions aspects of narrative design, the interplay of poetry and prose, the uses of painting embedded in writing and the logics of genre will form only some of our foci of attention. The text for every week will be paired with an essay or two on it or on the general field or genre it belongs to.
Religious Autobiography: Al-Munqidh mina al-Ḍalāl as an Example
Millennium Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences
This study examines the autobiographical nature of Abū Ḥamid Al-Ghazālī’s well-known autobiography, Al-Munqidh mina al-Ḍalāl, or shortly Munqidh, as known in the West. The article places Al-Ghazālī’s autobiography within the tradition of autobiographical writing in classical Arabic, particularly religious and mystical autobiographies. Special focus is given to the notion of ‘conversion’ as it is the main plot and theme of the autobiography. The study also aims to show that this autobiography is better understood in light of modern research which emphasizes that this genre, especially in medieval ages, was not only partially shaped by certain values and purposes in the moment of composition, but also was significantly crafted to achieve specific purposes and values. Keywords: autobiography, religious autobiography, Munqidh, conversion
Arabic Autobiography and Ideology: Taha Husayn’s The Days & Sayyid Qutb’s A Child From the Village
This dissertation aims to answer the question ‘how are the ideologies of Taha Husayn and Sayyid Qutb, two Egyptian writers living under British occupation in the first half of the twentieth century, revealed by the form and content of their autobiographies?’ Using two ostensibly polarised thinkers, Sorbonne-educated Taha Husayn and the Islamist intellectual Sayyid Qutb, as case studies this dissertation considers the role of autobiography, as a distinctly modern form of writing, in addressing the problem of modernity in an individual as well as a national context. The dissertation compares the ideologies expressed in the authors’ autobiographies with their other non-fiction work to establish how closely the ideology expressed in the autobiography can be said to be generally reflective of the authors’ ideologies. It then compares the two autobiographies with each other in order to highlight the differences in the political ideologies expressed therein in response to the question of where and how they as individuals, and Egypt as a nation, fit in in a world that was rapidly modernizing along western lines. In both cases, we find that the authors’ choice and treatment of themes and subject matter in their autobiographies reflect to a great degree the ideology they promulgate in their non-fiction. The autobiographies, then, are ideological documents. However, the two authors’ ideologies differ greatly from each other. We find that Taha Husayn’s ideology revolves around his association of western modernity with success. According to Husayn’s ideology, the problems of modernity in Egypt can best be resolved by the spread of enlightenment (in the western sense), by providing people with the necessary moral and intellectual resources to tackle the problems of modern life. Husayn’s autobiography is a success-story that ends in the protagonist’s acceptance into the intellectual arena of Europe. This is given as an example for the rest of the nation to emulate. Sayyid Qutb’s autobiography on the other hand suggests an ideology that is rooted in the moral universe of the Egyptian village. Qutb ideology is Manichean in the sense that he finds an inherent difference in the ‘eastern’ and ‘western’ minds which he does not believe can be reconciled. Qutb’s autobiography therefore hinges upon the attempt to portray ‘authentic Egyptianness’, which is depicted by the Egyptian countryside and the mentality of its rural inhabitants. For Qutb it is imperative that social reform occurs in a way that is not disruptive and harmful to the eastern mentality as he sees it. His autobiography is concerned with showing the harmful results of imposing imported aspects of modern western culture on the eastern mind.
Review of Dwight F. Reynolds, 'Interpreting the Self: Autobiography in the Arabic Literary Tradition
2002
Neo-Assyrian, and this statement admits to a major shortcoming of this book. There is a need for a comprehensive grammar of Neo-Assyrian, with reference to comparative grammars of other Semitic languages and other dialects of Akkadian, and it would be a pity if the present book was considered by scholars to be an adequate treatment of Neo-Assyrian. Having said that, this review commends the author for his industry in collecting the basic data and for the clarity of his presentation. To an Assyriologist used to working in other periods or dialects, such as Late Babylonian, there are some surprising features to be found in Neo-Assyrian grammar. There are many elements of Neo-Assyrian which are immediately recognizable, but numerous others that are suprisingly different. One only has to glance at the paradigms to see these differences: simple features of Akkadian, such as the use of enclitic-ma as a conjunction, are not used in Neo-Assyrian. The phonological rules show many differences between Neo-Assyrian and Babylonian, as noted by the author (pp. 9-39). A good modern analogy would be comparisons between German and Dutch, which are structurally similar and often mutually intelligible in written form, but largely incomprehensible as spoken languages. Is Neo-Assyrian a dialect of Akkadian, or a separate language? This may not be as interesting a question as whether speakers of 'Neo-Assyrian' and 'Neo-Babylonian' would find each other mutually intelligible. Aramaic was probably already widely spoken in Assyria at the time the Neo-Assyrian letters were being written. It would not be surprising, therefore, for certain features of Neo-Assyrian to have been influenced by Aramaic, or vice-versa. The author has pointed out a few parallels in the grammar, but there is much more to be said on the subject. I suggest here a few relevant points for consideration. 1. The discussion of epenthetic vowels (no. 2.4.9) states that 'epenthetic vowels may be ultrashort, as in many other languages, but there is no way to prove this on the basis of orthography', with examples such as li-qi-bi, ba-tiqí-tú, and a-pa-ta-làh (p. 35). More light would be shed on this problem by comparisons with similar forms in Aramaic, and particularly the use of shewa. 2. The author notes the occasional use of the preposition ana ('to, for') to indicate the accusative (p. 77), and this usage of ana with the accusative at the beginning of a sentence can indicate topicalization or emphasis (p. 119). One distinctive feature of Aramaic is the use of proclitic lamed to indicate either the dative ('to, for') or the accusative, and these respective usages merit further comparisons. Von Soden's Grundriss notes this use of ana as an 'Aramaismus' in Neo-Assyrian but only rarely in Neo-and Late Babylonian (¶114e and 144c). 3. In Neo-Assyrian, 'indefiniteness' can be marked by the numeral 'one', e.g. 1-en LÚ .ma-ki-su, 'a tax-collector'. In Aramaic, enclitic aleph marking the determined state became so common that the numeral 'one' (h 1d) became commonly used for the indefinite state, even with enclitic aleph of determination (e.g. h 1d mlk', 'a king'). 4. There is a limited use of the Niphal for passive in Neo-Assyrian, in favour of a more common passive periphrasis form, e.g. le : pušu (3. m. pl. with unspecified subject) instead of linne : piš; see p. 88. This feature of Neo-Assyrian ought to be considered in the light of the complete lack of Niphal in Aramaic (see S. Moscati, An introduction to the comparative grammar of the Semitic languages, Wiesbaden, 1969), p. 126f. 5. The author notes that the precative can be used as a polite form of the imperative, when addressing a superior, e.g. be : li lišpura, 'let my lord write to
Autobiographical Themes in Turkish Literature: Theoretical and Comparative Perspectives
2007
Office hour: Thursday 12.00-1.00 or by appointment McGill University values academic integrity. Therefore, all students must understand the meaning and consequences of cheating, plagiarism and other academic offences under the Code of Student Conduct and Disciplinary Procedures (see www.mcgill.ca/students/srr/honest/ for more information). L'université McGill attache une haute importance à l'honnêteté académique. Il incombe par conséquent à tous les étudiants de comprendre ce que l'on entend par tricherie, plagiat et autres infractions académiques, ainsi que les conséquences que peuvent avoir de telles actions, selon le Code de conduite de l'étudiant et des procédures disciplinaires (pour de plus amples renseignements, veuillez consulter le site www.mcgill.ca/students/srr/honest/). In accord with McGill University's Charter of Students' Rights, students in this course have the right to submit in English or in French any written work that is to be graded. Conformément à la Charte des droits de l'étudiant de l'Université McGill, chaque étudiant a le droit de soumettre en français ou en anglais tout travail écrit devant être noté (sauf dans le cas des cours dont l'un des objets est la maîtrise d'une langue). Description: In this course we will read and open up for discussion what it has meant in different times and spaces in the Muslim world for the self to
1999
In Chapter one, I presented a comparative definition of the meaning of Slrah (PI. Siyar), Tarjamah (Pl. Tarajim), Manaqib, Tabaqat and Maghazi as they were understood in antiquity. I also showed how the meaning of Sirah in modem times has only narrowly developed. Although the method of biographical writing continuously developed in Europe, it hardly progressed in Modem Arabic Literature. The only exception was seen in the writings by the pioneers of enlightenment in Egypt at the beginning of the twentieth century. This change of direction relied on borrowing European methodology in biographical writing. In chapter two, I reviewed the early attempts at writing biographies in the nineteenth 4 M. e. 5 to give additional useful details or simply because chapters of such texts had already been published prior to that year and were known to the readership. At times I would satisfy myself with analysing the part rather than the ý, vhole. This
Autobiographies and Weak Ties: Saʾin al-Din Turka's Self-Narratives
International Journal of Middle East Studies, 2021
As I write this essay, the forty-fourth US President Barack Obama's autobiography titled A Promised Land is the best-selling book in Germany, in both the German and the English editions. This is his second autobiographical work, following Dreams from My Father in 1995. Given Obama's prominent place in our modern political culture, this is hardly surprising, but today's publishers seem to have no specific criteria for deciding whose life and career are worthy of an autobiography. Any moderately successful individual from any walk of life can publish an autobiography today. The popularity of the genre is certainly related to the extreme glorification of individual and personal success in modern society, but it also shapes how we view premodern self-narratives: as a window into an intellectual's individuality and Bildung. This essay questions this convention and explores the opportunities that self-narratives embedded in literary and narrative sources present to histori...