New Courses

01:013:162 Elementary Urdu I (4) (fall)

This course is designed to give basic knowledge of Urdu to beginners with no prior knowledge of the language. Building upon gradual learning of Urdu vocabulary and script, this course situates Urdu in its socio-cultural context. Along with reading and writing, students will be exposed to contextualized use of Urdu. Instructional methods are specially designed for this purpose and will heighten awareness of South Asian culture. Class lectures will be frequently supplemented by Internet and audio-visual materials from South Asia. Learning strategies will involve active student participation through classroom exercises in Urdu. Practice in listening and comprehending Urdu will also be provided with basic grammar integrated in the learning process.

Syllabus

01:013:186 Elementary Swahili I (4) (fall)

An introduction to Kiswahili, one of Africa's major lingua franca spoken by millions across several nations in Eastern Africa. Using a communicatively-oriented, proficiency-based approach, students will develop basic communicative skills in the language through a combination of classroom activities, take-home and other language assignments. While the initial emphasis will be on the development of audio-oral skills, students will also be introduced to the essentials of reading comprehension and written expression. In addition to the acquisition of a core vocabulary, the student will be prepared to manipulate basic grammatical structures of Kiswahili for purposes of basic communication in a variety of situations. Students will also be introduced to aspects of Swahili and African culture to build cultural awareness and communicative competence.

01:013:342 Modern Arabic Literature (3) (fall)

This course provides an introduction to modern Arabic literature of the nineteenth and twentieth century. We will examine the interaction between social, political and cultural change in the Middle East and the development of a modern Arabic literary tradition. The texts that form the basis of the syllabus deal with major political, social, religious, cultural, and linguistic aspects of modern Arabic society. The course aims to reflect the different spaces of literary development in diverse parts of the Arab world, including North Africa. The questions we will pursue throughout the semester include: How do these Arab writers conceive of "modernity"? How do they conceive of their relation to politics, and how do they understand the role of intellectuals in their societies? Who are the readers (actual or implied) of these texts? Finally, how do these authors relate to the Arabic literary tradition—including its myths and classical texts—and how is it different from the way they relate to the European and American literary traditions?

Syllabus

A Relativist View of the Indian Nation

Presented by: Professor Partha Chatterjee

Elementary Swahili Fall 2022

Faculty News

Haberl Charles Photo

Dr. Häberl is an Associate Professor at the Department of African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian Languages and Literatures (AMESALL). He was born and raised in the State of New Jersey, where he has lived for most of his life, but received his Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from Harvard University.

The undergraduate courses he teaches address subjects such as Middle Eastern languages and literatures (including Arabic and Aramaic), folklore, and minorities in the Middle East. These courses include "Crossroads: Classical Literatures of Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia" and "Introduction to Middle Eastern Folklore".

To learn more about Professor Haberl, please click here.

His most recent book (pictured) is his critical edition, translation, and commentary on the Mandaean Book of John with James McGrath, Ph. D.

Dr. Selim is an Associate Professor at the Department of African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian Languages and Literatures (AMESALL).

Dr. Selim is an award-winning literary translator. She is the recipient of the Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation (2009), the University of Arkansas Translation of Arabic Literature Award (2012) and the National Endowment for the Arts Translation Grant (2018). She is currently working on an English translation of Jordanian author Ghalib Halasa’s 1987 novel Sultana.

Her research focuses mainly on modern Arabic Literature in Egypt and the Levant, with a particular interest in narrative genres like the novel and short story; comparative theories of fiction, and the politics of translation practice in colonial and postcolonial contexts.

To learn more about Professor Selim, please click here.

Her most recent book, Popular Fiction, Translation and the Nadha in Egypt (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019) is on the cultural and literary politics surrounding the translation of the novel into Arabic at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Preetha Mani is an Assistant Professor at the Department of African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian Languages and Literatures (AMESALL). Her current book project titled "The Idea of Indian Literature: Gender, Genre, and Comparative Method," examines Hindi and Tamil short story writing between the 1930s and 1960s to explore how representations of the Indian woman were used to shape ideas of regional and national identity, and experiences of belonging, in the aftermath of Indian Independence. She teaches undergraduate courses including "Introduction to the Literatures of South Asia" and "Women Writers of South Asia ".

To learn more about Professor Mani, please click here.

Her recent article "What Was So New about the New Story? Modernist Realism in the Hindi Nayī Kahānī" can be found here.

Fantasy Literature Fall 2021

Full Time Faculty

All offices are located in the West Wing of the Academic Building, 15 Seminary Place, College Avenue Campus, New Brunswick, NJ 08901.

Lecturers

Welcome

Global Africa and The Humanities Series is an Initiative of The Department of African, Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Literatures (AMESALL) in collaboration with School of Arts and Sciences-Humanities and the Center for African Studies.

Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia

Established in 2 gateway 460px 008 in response to student and community interest, the Department of African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian Languages and Literatures (AMESALL) at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey continues a long tradition of scholarly excellence and innovative teaching in the languages and literatures of Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. We provide instruction in languages such as Akan (Twi), Arabic, Hebrew, Hindi, Persian, Swahili, Turkish and Urdu using the latest methodologies and technologies of heritage and second language learning. In addition, we offer introductory and specialized courses taught in English on a broad spectrum of topics, including literature, folklore and translation.