Hello everyone,

I am also glad that the MLA is reconfiguring its divisions and area studies, but I have misgivings about the new proposed groupings. First, I don’t see in what way the new structure is not euro-centric. If you look at the Western lit. groups, they have multiple subgroups and in many ways they retain their old structure and number…[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]

Dear Katherine, thank you for bringing up an important point. The politics of selecting certain texts to be translated and marketed in the West is rather interesting, and I think a good number of scholars have […]

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 […]

Hello Samer and everyone in the group,

Not sure whether this is a new shift or not, but I think modern Islamic literature and fiction have  been understudied.  The impetus to cheer the Nahda  has clouded our […]