The Tandem of Language and Literature in a BA Arabic Degree
Prof. Stefan Sperl
Language teaching as part of a BA degree must aim to provide more than language competence because the imparting of communication skills is but one of the objectives of a well-rounded university education in the Arts and Humanities. Other, no less relevant criteria include the provision of cultural and historical awareness as well as ethical and civic understanding, parameters of particular relevance for a degree such as the BA Arabic which has major cross-cultural implications when taught at a European university. Taking account of these premises, this presentation outlines the purpose of introducing students to Arabic literature both classical and modern as part of their BA Arabic degree and aims to show why this should be considered an essential prerequisite for a successful and attractive syllabus.
Stefan Sperl graduated from Oxford (Arabic) and SOAS (PhD 1977), and spent ten years working for UNHCR in Egypt, Sudan and Geneva. He joined SOAS in 1988 and retired in 2018 as Emeritus Professor of Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies. His publications include articles on Arabic, Islamic and Refugee Studies, as well as Mannerism in Arabic Poetry: A Structural Analysis of Selected Texts (1989), Qasida Poetry in Islamic Africa and Asia (with C. Shackle, 1996) and The Cosmic Script: Sacred Geometry and the Science of Arabic Penmanship (with A. Moustafa, 2014) which won the Iran Book of the Year Award (2016). His recent publications are ‘The Qur’an and Arabic Poetry’ (The Oxford Handbook of Qur’anic Studies, 2020), the monograph Faces of the Infinite, Neoplatonism and Poetry at the Confluence of Africa, Asia and Europe with the accompanying website lyrics-of-ascent.net (with Y. Dedes, 2022), and ‘Islamic Spirituality and the Visual Arts’ (The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Islamic Spirituality, 2023). He continues to be actively engaged in research and since 2023 has been teaching Arabic literature courses at the University of Cambridge.