Faculty of Arts and Sciences

Tel +961 1 343 002Fax +961 1 744 460Web www.aub.edu.lb/fasEmail fas@aub.edu.lb

ARABIC AND NEAR EASTERN LANGUAGES

Undergraduate Program

Humanities

After GraduationStudents who graduate with a bachelors degree in Arabic have a strong advantage in the Middle East and Gulf region with their grasp of the language.

Students have the opportunity to enter the field of teaching, or publishing and book printing.

Some students combined their degree with media and political science and became prominent news writers and analysts.

Becoming efficient in both English and Arabic, some graduates work in the realm of translation.

To learn more about the Arabic and Near Eastern Languages Department:

Web www.aub.edu.lb/fas/arabic Email arabic@aub.edu.lb

One of the earliest academic units founded at the American University of Beirut, the Department of Arabic and Near Eastern Languages, has groomed an impressive number of some of the most celebrated writers and men of letters in the Arab world.

Sample Courses

The Program follows famous Arabic texts through historical times. By studying the language and recorded texts at different times in history, students can grasp the ways the language has developed and transformed to what it is today.

The program takes students on a journey of the Arabic language beginning their training with a survey of traditional Arabic grammar from classical grammatical texts The Alfiyya of Ibn Malik and al-kitab of Sibawyhi.

Following with the historical time period, students learn and analyze pre-Islamic Arabic poetry of the Heroic Age considering its individual, tribal and mythical codes. They then continue to survey Arabic poetry during the Abbasid period, with a focus on the historical, political and social background. Finally students are exposed to the major factors that shaped modern Arabic prose and poetry, while tracing the phases of development.

Along with the survey of the Arabic language, students have the opportunity to take courses in other near eastern languages such as Biblical Hebrew, Syriac Literature, Persian and Turkish.

The Department seeks to train students in the basic tools of the discipline, namely language and research skills, while exposing them to the essentials of the field, and subjecting everything to the curiosity of the inquiring mind.

CurriculumStudents in the Arabic and Near Eastern Languages department are trained in classical Arabic linguistics and literature.

ARAB 235Andalusian Literature

An introduction to Arabic literature in Islamic Spain. Students read and analyze Andalusian poetry and prose.

ARAB 232Arabic Poetry: The Age of Conquest, Love, and Nostalgia

Looking into the new genres of poetry that blossomed when desert Arabs were deployed outside their peninsula following their conquests.

ARAB 239Modern Arabic Novel

A course on the development of the Arabic novel, along with a survey focusing on the main factors that led to the rise of the novel.

ARAB 240Modern Arabic Drama

A survey of the rise and development of the dramatic literary genre in modern Arabic, with a focus on the main factors that led to the rise of drama.

ARAB 213/214Introductory Biblical Hebrew

A general survey of Biblical Hebrew grammar with special emphasis on the relation between Arabic and Hebrew within the Semitic group of languages.

ARAB 249Sufi Literature

A course introducing students with Sufi literature as of the major aspects in Arabic literature.

ARAB 235Arabic Classical Folk Literature

Covering folktales, the novella in the Arabian Nights, and the hero sagas such as Siran Bani Hilal. The course aims at studying the textual history of this for its language, motives and structures.

The Arabic language is like a beautiful women She never reveals herself all at once. (Source Unknown)