Approaches to Teaching the Works of Naguib Mahfouz
- Editors: Waïl S. Hassan, Susan Muaddi Darraj
- Pages: viii & 226 pp.
- Published: 2012
- ISBN: 9781603291095 (Paperback)
- ISBN: 9781603291088 (Hardcover)
“[A]nyone seeking to broaden the scope of their courses or curricula to include Arabic literature will find this volume to be a very useful source of information, materials, and suggestions.”
—Research in African Literatures
Naguib Mahfouz is the Arab world’s best-known writer and the single most important chronicler and analyst of twentieth-century Egypt. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1988, and since then his work has been increasingly studied in North American university classrooms. This first volume in the MLA series Approaches to Teaching World Literature to focus on an Arab author or Arabic literature provides an introduction to Mahfouz.
In part 1, “Materials,” the editors discuss Mahfouz’s background, influence, and critical reception. In part 2, “Approaches,” the volume’s contributors offer information, resources, and insights for teaching his work. Topics covered include the Arabian Nights tradition in Mahfouz’s work, the challenge of teaching Mahfouz in English translation, the Nasserite intellectual in The Beggar, the image of Alexandria in Miramar, the bitterness of British occupation in Midaq Alley, and the quest of Sufism in “Zaabalawi.”
Roger Allen
Michael Beard
Elliott Colla
Terri DeYoung
Nouri Gana
Hala Halim
Barbara Harlow
Michelle Hartman
Maysa Abou-Youssef Hayward
Nabil Matar
Justin St. Clair
Shaden M. Tageldin
Preface (vii)
PART ONE: MATERIALS
Early Years (3)
Novels and Short Stories (4)
Memoirs, Interviews, and Articles (6)
Mahfouz and Cinema (7)
Mahfouz in Translation (8)
Resources for Teachers (9)
PART TWO: APPROACHES
Introduction (13)
Contexts
Teaching a Seminar on Mahfouz (25)
Teaching Mahfouz as World Literature (41)
Mahfouz’s Novels and the Nation (53)
Enduring Left Melancholia: Mahfouz’s The Beggar and the Nasserite Intellectual (65)
Mahfouz’s Posts (85)
Mahfouz and the Arabian Nights Tradition (105)
Teaching Specific Texts
Hamida’s Options: Egyptian Futures versus British Interests in Mahfouz’s Midaq Alley (118)
Teaching Mahfouz: Style in Translation (130)
Christ and the Abrahamic Legacy in Children of the Alley (144)
Teaching Mahfouz’s “Zaabalawi” (156)
Homage to Ibn al-Fârid: Nostalgia in “Zaabalawi” (164)
Miramar and Postcolonial Melancholia (171)
Miramar: A Pension at the Intersection of Competing Discourses (184)
Notes on Contributors (203)
Survey Participants (205)
Works Cited (207)
Index (223)
“This volume’s usefulness for teachers and students of Mahfouz as well as for undergraduate and graduate courses on the Arabic novel and surveys of Arabic or world literature is beyond question.”
—Adnan Haydar, University of Arkansas
