Interactive Educational Sessions at Yale University Art Gallery
MJ Program Poster
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NEH/ALA Bridging Cultures Muslim Journeys 'Let's Talk About It' grant Reading and Discussion book series, 2013-2014
The Arabian Nights by ISBN: 9780393331660Publication Date: 2008-05-17Now as sumptuously packaged as they are critically acclaimed-- new deluxe trade paperback editions of the beloved stories. Husain Haddawy's rapturously received translation of The Arabian Nights is based on a landmark reconstruction of the earliest extant manuscript version. Readers of this classic will also want to own Sindbad, a collection of four later stories associated with the Arabian Nights tradition, including "Sindbad the Sailor" and "Aladdin and the Magic Lamp."
The Conference of the Birds by ISBN: 9780140444346Publication Date: 1984-07-03The acclaimed translation of a magnificent work of Persian poetry--now updated with new material Composed in the twelfth century in northeastern Iran, Farid Attar's great mystical poem is among the most significant of all works of Persian literature. A marvelous, allegorical rendering of the Islamic doctrine of Sufism, it describes the pilgrimage of the world's birds in search of their ideal king, the Simorgh bird, and the arduous journey they take to reach him. This masterly translation preserves the poem's rhymed couplet form and nuances of language.
Snow by ISBN: 0307700887Publication Date: 2011-10-18The Nobel Prize-winner's second novel to appear in an Everyman edition is a spellbinding story of a poet seeking his lost love in a remote Turkish town riven by religious conflict and cut off from the world by a blizzard. Returning to Turkey from exile in the West, Ka is driven by curiosity to investigate a surprising wave of suicides among religious girls forbidden to wear their head scarves in school. But the epicenter of the suicides, the eastern border city of Kars, is also home to the radiant and newly divorced Ýpek, a friend of Ka's youth whom he has never forgotten and whose spirited younger sister is a leader of the rebellious schoolgirls. As a fierce snowstorm descends on Kars, violence between the military and local Islamic radicals begins to explode, and Ka finds his sympathies drawn in unexpected and dramatic directions.
Dreams of Trespass by ISBN: 0201489376Publication Date: 1995-09-04"I was born in a harem in 1940 in Fez, Morocco... " So begins Fatima Mernissi in this exotic and rich narrative of a childhood behind the iron gates of a domestic harem. In Dreams of Trespass, Mernissi weaves her own memories with the dreams and memories of the women who surrounded her in the courtyard of her youth-women who, deprived of access to the world outside, recreated it from sheer imagination. Dreams of Trespass is the provocative story of a girl confronting the mysteries of time and place, gender and sex in the recent Muslim world.
Minaret by ISBN: 0802170145Publication Date: 2005-08-19Leila Aboulela's American debut is a provocative, timely, and engaging novel about a young Muslim woman -- once privileged and secular in her native land and now impoverished in London -- gradually embracing her orthodox faith. With her Muslim hijab and down-turned gaze, Najwa is invisible to most eyes, especially to the rich families whose houses she cleans in London. Twenty years ago, Najwa, then at university in Khartoum, would never have imagined that one day she would be a maid. An upper-class Westernized Sudanese, her dreams were to marry well and raise a family. But a coup forces the young woman and her family into political exile in London. Soon orphaned, she finds solace and companionship within the Muslim community. Then Najwa meets Tamer, the intense, lonely younger brother of her employer. They find a common bond in faith and slowly, silently, begin to fall in love. Written with directness and force, Minaret is a lyric and insightful novel about Islam and an alluring glimpse into a culture Westerners are only just beginning to understand.
More Information
We’d like to invite you to join our National Endowment for the Humanities “Let’s Talk About It” reading and discussion group that is sponsored in collaboration with Yale University PIER Program and Yale Art Gallery. It’s a unique opportunity to read from the Literary Reflections collection from our NEH/ALA Muslim Journeys grant and participate in five scholar led discussions. We have roughly set the dates on Tuesday evenings at 6:30 p.m. as follows:
Gateway Community College, GCC Library & Learning Commons, New Haven, CT
Literary Reflections
- The Arabian Nights: 09/24/2013
- The Conference of the Birds: 10/29/2013
- Snow: 11/05/2013
- Dreams of Trespass: 02/11/2014
- Minaret: 04/15/2014
Read more about the Literary Reflections theme
From formal poetry and the oral tradition of public storytelling to the more contemporary forms of memoir and the novel, many Muslim authors have posed questions about Muslim piety and identity. What does it mean to be a good Muslim? What does Islam require of women and men? How should a good Muslim behave within society? Does Islam promote specific political norms or practices?
The readings for this theme can be seen as literary reflections on questions such as these. Islam has long provided a source of inspiration through which Muslims experience, understand, and guide their everyday lives. In the works featured here, answers to these questions differ from one reading to the other, as each reflects the society in which it is written. Together they reveal how Muslims living at different times and in different places have interpreted Islamic traditions to meet their distinctive cultural realities and spiritual needs.
Still there are common threads that tie the readings together. The Arabian Nights, for example, is a cultural touchstone, serving in many subsequent literary works of the Muslim world as a source of inspiration for navigating between tradition and modernity, as the sanctuary of an idealized past in troubled times, or as a foil for exploring tensions between a secular establishment and the cultural revival of the Islamic faith in a globalized world. And, as each of these books considers various, contrasting, pathways toward transcendent faith and worldly identity, the mystical overtones of Muslim Sufi philosophy serve to complement formal religious requirements and local conditions.
Susan Chenard, Clara Ogbaa & Renee Gaines
Info about Interactive Educational Sessions
The interactive education sessions will be in Arts of Islam, African Art, and Indo Pacific Collection, Yale University Art Gallery, 1111 Chapel Street, New Haven, CT 06510
To participate, please fill out the registration form above. For any questions, please contact Prof. Susan Chenard 203-285-2045, schenard@gatewayct.edu
Muslim Journeys Literary Reflections
