Undergraduate Module Descriptor

ARA2001: From Holy Text to Sex Manuals in the Medieval Middle East

This module descriptor refers to the 2019/0 academic year.

Module Aims

The module aims not only to give you an idea of the most important themes and authors within a highly influential literary tradition (sc. Classical Arabic literature) and its historical contexts, but also an awareness of issues that are essential to an understanding of all world literature, namely translation theory and practices, the construction of the author’s identity, the manner in which texts signal their truth value (i.e. do they present themselves as fact or fiction), and the effects of cross-genre and cross-cultural influences on literary traditions broadly speaking. These skills are essential to a scholar of history or literature dealing with primary texts in a comparative fashion.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

This module's assessment will evaluate your achievement of the ILOs listed here – you will see reference to these ILO numbers in the details of the assessment for this module.
On successfully completing the programme you will be able to:
Module-Specific Skills1. Demonstrate specialist knowledge of crucial themes in Classical Arabic literature and Medieval Middle Eastern history, and their relationship to similar themes and trends in Medieval and Renaissance Europe.
2. Demonstrate critical understanding of the intersection between religion, literature, and historiography in the Near and Middle East.
3. Demonstrate an awareness of translation practices in Arabic literature and beyond.
Discipline-Specific Skills4. Critically analyse primary sources.
5. Demonstrate knowledge and application of some central ideas in both literary theory and in historiography.
6. Demonstrate specialist knowledge of critical debates surrounding world literature in general and as applied specifically to the Arabic literary tradition.
7. Collate data from a range of sources, both primary and secondary.
Personal and Key Skills8. Apply theory to texts and contexts.
9. Demonstrate critical and analytical skills.
10. Rank sources and structure arguments.
11. Identify a topic; select, comprehend, and organise primary and secondary materials on that topic with little guidance.