Competing Networks and Courts of Patronage

This course tackles the Abbasids era poetry. To take this course you must have a little background about this era and you must have passion in poetry, because you’ll mainly take poems written by Abbasid poets from both Abbasid eras (era1 and era 2). At the first week of this course, the professor will talk about the eras prior to the Abbasid one, like Al-ghahileya’s era (pre-Islamic era), Islamic era, and all the way to the Umayyad era and how they reached the Abbasids era (those poets who started their life during the Umayyad era) and what do you think about their ability to change the way of their poems. So in this era their was a poetic renaissance catalyzed by cultural exchange. You’ll mainly study about Bashar (who began to modernize poetry and its topics), Abou-Nawas, Abou-Tamam, and Al-Bohtore, you’ll be taught about their poems and you must memorize some and take notes to use them in writing your papers, also you must be an innovative in writing and expressing your thoughts. You’ll also study briefly in the class about other poets, but you won’t really need to focus on them. By the way in the class you’ll have some debates about them and their poems. Indeed it’s an amazing course that you would really love it and advise others to take it.

Very interesting course, and super easy if you are good at criticizing the poetry. It requires some knowledge concerning the Abbasid Era and the Islamic in general You can end up with a 90 if you are good in expressing your own logical ideas in well organized essays

I personally liked the content and the approach. Its not a very easy course for someone who is not into "adab", it needs few readings, but for someone interested in poetry, this course is one of the few courses at the Arabic department which presents an overview of the Abbasid Era, picking extremely beautiful poems and poets to discuss. The professor is very open towards new approaches and modes of discussion, and unlike other courses, it is somehow a seminar, everyone participates in the class 's discussion,

It is really an awesome course. Grading system is a bit hard, though you can get a really good grade if you focus on what he says in class.

The midterm and final are hard. You need to read about the Abbasid history and remember poems that the instructor talks about in class. The vocabulary is very hard. There is also a paper