Master of Arts in Arabic Language and Literature
Hybrid
Courses
Common Core
MTR500Research Methodology
3 credits
This course improves student skills in writing research proposals and conducting basic research. It enables students to become critical readers of professional literature and develop a critical spirit of inquiry by providing a structured way of thinking about information studies problems and their resolutions. Thus, students will practice writing a typical research proposal which includes: thesis statement/hypothesis, context, variables, literature review, research methods, outlining, results, and so forth. They will also apply basic aspects of quantitative and qualitative analyses within the frame of research proposals. The purpose of this course is to provide students with research training: knowledge and skills. It includes theoretical and methodological teachings, in addition to practical applications. It introduces students to research techniques and analysis methods, and provides them with the methodological framework required to write a research paper or a thesis. The course also includes a purely technical and formal objective: empowering students to apply the rules of research presentation in accordance with what is required by the University, or even on a universal scale, through the implementation of practical work adapted for this purpose (using methodology books, reviewing dissertations or theses, project outlines to be submitted, reports on the proceedings of defense sessions, etc.).
LLA520Seminar: Contemporary Culture and Civilization
2 credits
This seminar aims, through a diachronic approach, and starting from the relationship between thought, language and civilization, to shed light on the great trends, movements and schools which have marked, with the passing centuries, Arabic society and culture, and this from within literary texts and founding documents.
Specialization
LLA512Seminar Linguistics I
3 credits
The aim of this course is to make the students aware of the importance of studying linguistics theory in order to be acquainted with the grammatical efforts of former Arab grammarians (al khaliil bin Ahmad, Sibawaih Ibn Jinny) who analyzed, in their books, the Arabic language through a scientific methodology which does not differ from the linguistic methodology adopted by the generative and transformational grammar. Topics include, but are not limited to, the grammaticality of sentences, the definition of human language, the linguistic competence, and the nominal phrase.
LLA612Seminar: Arabic Linguistics II
3 credits
This seminar introduces students to the fields of applied linguistics. It explores how children from infancy to the early school years learn their first language and presents an overview of psychological research and theory on language acquisition. It also covers applications of various branches of linguistics to the methods and approaches of teaching Arabic language.
LLA610Seminar: Arabic Literature II
3 credits
The aim of the seminar is to define the features of major literary genres: poetry, prose, and drama. The design of the course involves the explanation and modes of analysis of the different types of each genre.
LLA623Seminar: Civilization and Literature Topics
2 credits
The course is designed to focus on major issues in literature, such as gender, racial, ethnic, religious, political, colonial and postcolonial culture and multiculture. This course aims to raise the students’ awareness of the interrelationship between literature and society in all of its facets.
LLA621Seminar: Comparative Literature
2 credits
This seminar will acquaint the students with basic methods and concepts of criticism through close reading of key texts (lyric poetry, drama, short fiction) by major authors. It will offer the students the chance to investigate what constitutes the field of comparative literature. They will trace the history of the discipline and explore traditional as well as recent areas of research, such as interdisciplinarity and global and multicultural comparativism. Students will investigate how to more fluently cross the boundaries of disciplines and national literatures. The course involves a thorough reading and understanding of the background, history, and literature associated with world literatures.
LLA511Seminar: Literature I
3 credits
The aim of the course is to define the features of major literary genres: poetry, prose, and drama. The design of the course involves the explanation and modes of analysis of the different types of each genre. It focuses on contemporary authors and on current fields of interaction between arts, sciences and literature.
LLA523Seminar: Modern Theater
3 credits
The seminar focuses on the esthetics of drama and distinguishes between modern and contemporary drama writing and classical drama poetics. It analyzes Lebanese and Arab theater from pragmatic and intercultural perspectives.
LLA522Textual Approaches
3 credits
This course aims to help students to approach the literary texts, understanding them by using the modern criticism, studying the form of texts, structure, linguistic style, and evaluating them as performance text meant for production. Students will research and study literary elements of narrative forms, and storytelling traditions of different cultures.
LLA521World Literature
3 credits
This course introduces students to the diverse genres of international literature and to masterworks produced by Arabic authors. It will help students to read, analyze, and research diverse and significant literary texts. Genres studied include fiction (novels and short stories), drama, comedy, lyrical literature, imagined story, speech, poetry and prose.
Capstone
LLA690AMaster Dissertation
6 credits
The dissertation, which consists of 100 to 150 pages, crowns the completion of the Master’s degree by elaborating upon an Arabic literature subject. Students will learn to manage the difficulties of writing a scientific work supported by appropriate research and one that is presented in a rigorous and clear manner. Through the dissertation, the students must successfully prove that they master the components of the methodology required to achieve a scientific work, and that they are able to analyze, argue, illustrate, and defend a thesis, as well as validate a problem, relying on strong and authentic documents and bibliographic references.
Mission
The mission of Master of Arts in Arabic Language and Literature is to enable students to reach highly professional aims in literary criticism and language analysis, as well as in producing texts and discourses in the field of academic research. Advances in the latter are conditional on an extended knowledge of global literature, literary criticism, and linguistics.
Program Educational Objectives
1. Graduates are trained to carry out research in the areas of Arabic language and literature.
2. Graduates are trained to compare key literary texts and important writers with texts and writers of world literature.
3. Graduates are trained in writing Master's theses (choosing a subject, formulating a research question and a literature review, designing an outline, writing and implementing a methodology).
Program Outcomes
Students will:
a. Apply the rules of the methodology in conducting scientific research.
b. Apply technical and formal rules of the methodology in the presentation of scientific articles.
c. Locate the place of different cultures, in particular the movement of universal civilizations.
d. Identify the impact and reciprocal influences between Arab civilization and other universal civilizations.
e. Relate the contribution of language to modern and contemporary Arab literary studies.
f. Examine the contribution of Arabic literature to global literature.
g. Apply various types of textual approaches.
h. Evaluate Arabic literature and its relationship to foreign literature in a comparative perspective.
i. Examine the impact of modern drama on contemporary Arab societies.
j. Propose new topics and formulate research questions for MA theses.