Arabian Nights in Western Lit

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

This course will analyze how the stories of the Arabian Nights have influenced throughout time and continue to influence Western narratives. It will compare some novels from the Western world to the Nights to show how they have recycled the text of the Nights in inventive ways on both the form and the content levels. The class will compare stories from The Nights to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Jorge Borges On Mysticism, and John Barth’s Somebody the Sailor, among others. Finally the course will endeavor to find points of encounter rather than differences between western narratives and the Arabian Nights. This unique approach will raise the question of universality and shared symbols between Arab/Muslim civilization and the West.