I enthusiastically support the creation of this Forum, which addresses a vastly important academic field.

Shaden M. Tageldin

Divisional Delegate, MLA Delegate Assembly • Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, Department of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature, University of Minnesota

I fully support the creation of this forum.

Hoda El Shakry, Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature

The Pennsylvania State University

Dear Division of Arabic Literature and Culture colleagues:
I’d like to share my post to the MLA draft proposal on group structure, which appears in the comments sections to the overall proposal as well as to the paragraphs on African and Arabic literatures.  I quote:

I deeply appreciate the MLA’s efforts to rethink the organization of its di…[Read more]

I really appreciate the chance to think through this question with colleagues who work in the field/s of Arabic literature and appreciate the comments by Stephen this morning. I really agree with the point that we should think carefully about splitting into more groups–even if on one level they seem to make more sense in terms of some…[Read more]

I certainly appreciate the efforts of the MLA to open spaces of representation for fields and sub-fields that are often immersed in larger configurations. Indeed, classical Arabic, in the context of the MLA, is submerged within Arabic, which tends to be modern.

The problem with parsing two different groups is that, at this point, Arabic studies…[Read more]

Thanks to all of your for this productive and provocative conversation. I would only like to intervene regarding Suha’s point about al-nahdah. I don’t think many folks are “cheering” al-nahdah. The *critical* turn […]