Approaches to Teaching the Thousand and One Nights
- Editor: Paulo Lemos Horta
- Pages: 214
- Published: 2023
- ISBN: 9781603295970 (Paperback)
- ISBN: 9781603295963 (Hardcover)
The Thousand and One Nights, composed in Arabic from the eighth to the fourteenth centuries, is one of the world’s most widely circulated and influential collections of stories. To help instructors introduce the tales to students, this volume provides historical context and discusses the many transformations of the stories in a variety of cultures. Among the topics covered are the numerous translations and their impact on the tales’ reception; various genres represented by the tales; gender, race, and slavery; and adaptations of the stories in films, graphic novels, and other media across the world and under conditions of both imperialism and postcolonialism. The essays serve instructors in subjects such as medieval literature, world literature, and Middle and Near Eastern studies and make a case for teaching the Thousand and One Nights in courses on identity and race.
Preface (vii)
PART ONE: MATERIALS
Contexts (3)
Texts (9)
Film and Popular Culture (17)
The Instructor’s Library (21)
PART TWO: APPROACHES
Introduction (27)
Contexts of Origin
The Thousand and One Nights as Arabic Literature (32)
The Thousand and One Nights and Rethinking Arabic Literature (40)
The Textual Tradition of the Thousand and One Nights: Teaching the Collection’s Complexity (48)
The Thousand and One Nights as Urban Literature (57)
The Nights as Crime Fiction: Teaching “The Tale of the Murdered Girl” (66)
The Tales as World Literature
“Ali Baba” and “Aladdin” as Modern World Literature (75)
Travels with the Tales of Sindbad (84)
Controversies
Shahrazad’s Gender Lessons (90)
Reading Race and Racism in the Thousand and One Nights (97)
Race, Gender, and Slavery in the Arabian Nights (106)
The Thousand and One Nights in World Film History (112)
Intertexts
Teaching the Arabian Nights through Graphic Novels (119)
The Thousand and One Nights in American Film and Fiction (132)
The Thousand and One Nights and Mediterranean Framed Narrative Traditions (140)
Intertextual Labyrinths: Borges and the Nights (146)
Contexts of Circulation
The Thousand and One Nights as Nigerian Literature (153)
Orality and Performance of the Thousand and One Nights (161)
The “Thousand and Second Night” Motif (173)
Notes on Contributors (181)
Works Cited (185)
