Oberlin Center for Convergence (StudiOC)

Arab and Islamic Historical Memory: Cinema, Language, and Museums

This learning community will address how historical memory about the Arab and Islamic past is constructed and represented at different venues today. 

Zeinab Abul-Magd.

Photo credit: Tanya Rosen-Jones '97

Zeinab Abul-Magd

Mahmoud Meslat.

Photo credit: Tanya Rosen-Jones '97

Mahmoud Meslat

Arab and Islamic Historical Memory: Cinema, Language, and Museums

Offered Fall 2022

This learning community explores how Arab societies remember and narrate the major events of their ancient, Islamic, colonial, and recent past through cultural media such as films and poetry and institutions such as state-managed museums. Students will engage with the cultural institutions and products that are central to the construction of the historical past. Through immersion in the Arabic language, they will gain an understanding of how important language study is for the understanding of cultural practices. 

Both HIST 207OC and ARBC 101OC are required for this learning community. Students enrolled in either course will be eligible to join an International Winter Term course in Cairo in January 2023 titled “Museums, Memory, and Politics in Egypt.”

Instructors

Course instructors for this learning community are Professor of History and Chair of International Affairs Zeinab Abul-Magd and Visiting Instructor of Arabic Mahmoud Meslat.

Zeinab Abul-Magd, Instructor

HIST 207OC: Cinema, Memory, and Politics in Egypt
Meets: Monday and Wednesday, 3:00 PM - 4:15 PM

Arab cinema often narrates the historical memories of a great civilization that went through splendid and hard times over long centuries. As the Egyptian film industry is the oldest and most popular in the region, many Egyptian movies tell epic stories of ancient, biblical, Islamic, colonial, nationalistic, and recent past through various ideological lenses and for different political aims. Through a carefully selected collection of Egyptian films (with English subtitles), this course examines how Arab filmmakers based in Egypt constantly remember, construct, and display their eventful history in illustrious movies. Students enrolled in this course will be entitled to join an International Winter Term course in Cairo in January 2023 titled “Museums, Memory, and Politics in Egypt.”

 

Mahmoud Meslat, Instructor

ARBC 101: Beginning Arabic
Meets: TBD 

This course provides a thorough introduction to Arabic language and culture, presuming no previous knowledge of Arabic. It begins with the alphabet and number system and engages students in reading, writing, speaking, and listening on a range of topics such as self-identification, family, travel, food, housing, weather, and history. By the end of the semester, students will have reached the Novice Mid/High level of proficiency in Arabic based on the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines. It will include participation in film screenings, a museum field trip, and the “Arab Culture Day.” Students enrolled in this course will be eligible to join an International Winter Term course in Egypt in January 2023.