Minor in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies (MEIS) Research Guide
A research resource guide for students minoring in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies (MEIS) on the Rutgers-Newark campus.
Books in Other Rutgers Libraries
Rethinking Identities in Contemporary Pakistani Fiction by
This book focuses on the way that notions of home and identity have changed for Muslims as a result of international 'war on terror' rhetoric. It uniquely links the post-9/11 stereotyping of Muslims and Islam in the West to the roots of current jihadism and the resurgence of ethnocentrism within the subcontinent and beyond.
Call Number: PR9540.4.K36 2015ISBN: 1137478438Publication Date: 2015-03-04
The Islamic Lineage of American Literary Culture by
Uncovering Islam's formative impact on U.S. literary origins, Jeffrey Einboden traces neglected genealogies of Islamic reception from the Revolution to Reconstruction. Privileging informal engagements and intimate exchanges, the book excavates personal appeals to Islamic sources by pivotalfigures of the early nation - Ezra Stiles, William Bentley, Washington Irving, Lydia Maria Child, Ralph Waldo Emerson - and discovers Muslim discourse woven into the familiar fabric of their letters and sermons, journals and journalism, memoirs and marginalia. Recovering unpublished manuscripts and material witnesses to early U.S. engagement with the Muslim world, Einboden argues that Islamic literature and Middle Eastern languages catalyzed authorial identities in early America, acting as vehicles of artistic reflection, religious contemplation, andpolitical liberation. Reaching to the Middle East to circumvent Europe, key American authors chart new cultural alternatives in their autobiographic prose and poetry, mirroring the defining struggles of the country's first decades through domestic approaches to the Qu'ran, Hadith, and Sufisources.
Call Number: PR129.I75E46 2016ISBN: 9780199397808Publication Date: 2016-09-01
Quran and the Lyric Imperative by
This book argues that the tension between Arabic poetry and the Qur n dating back to the seventh century, when the Qur n was first recited, is a primary generator of meaning in the Arabic Literary Tradition. Four case studies illustrate how this tension is a creative force. What, for example is the relationship between the Qur n, poetry and other genres of Arabic Literature? How are the figures of the prophet and the poet linked in the life and work of 10th-century al-Mutanabb ? How do the Qur n and Arabic poetry depend on each other for their interpretation? How do reading practices associated with the Qur n and Arabic Poetry inform attempts to understand the inscriptions of the Alhambra?"
Call Number: BP131.8.S38 2016ISBN: 9781498520706Publication Date: 2016-04-29
Books in the Dana Library
Classical Islam:A Sourcebook of Religious Literature by
This definitive sourcebook presents more than sixty authoritative new translations of key Islamic texts. Edited and translated by three leading specialists, Classical Islam features eight thematically-linked sections covering the Qur'#65533;n and its interpretation, the life of Muhammad, had#65533;th, law, theology, mysticism and Islamic history. The new edition has been expanded to cover a fuller range of material illustrating the growth of Islamic thought from its seventh-century origins through to the end of the medieval period. It includes illustrations, a glossary, extensive bibliography and explanatory prefaces for each text. Classical Islam is an essential resource for the study of early and medieval Islam and its legacy.
Call Number: BP89.C56 2013ISBN: 9780415505079Publication Date: 2012-12-05
The Medieval Islamic Republic of Letters by
In The Medieval Islamic Republic of Letters: Arabic Knowledge Construction, Muhsin J. al-Musawi offers a groundbreaking study of literary heritage in the medieval and premodern Islamic period. Al-Musawi challenges the paradigm that considers the period from the fall of Baghdad in 1258 to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1919 as an "Age of Decay" followed by an "Awakening" (al-nahdah). His sweeping synthesis debunks this view by carefully documenting a "republic of letters" in the Islamic Near East and South Asia that was vibrant and dynamic, one varying considerably from the generally accepted image of a centuries-long period of intellectual and literary stagnation. Al-Musawi argues that the massive cultural production of the period was not a random enterprise: instead, it arose due to an emerging and growing body of readers across Islamic lands who needed compendiums, lexicons, and commentaries to engage with scholars and writers. Scholars, too, developed their own networks to respond to each other and to their readers. Rather than addressing only the elite, this culture industry supported a common readership that enlarged the creative space and audience for prose and poetry in standard and colloquial Arabic. Works by craftsmen, artisans, and women appeared side by side with those by distinguished scholars and poets. Through careful exploration of these networks, The Medieval Islamic Republic of Letters makes use of relevant theoretical frameworks to situate this culture in the ongoing discussion of non-Islamic and European efforts. Thorough, theoretically rigorous, and nuanced, al-Musawi's book is an original contribution to a range of fields in Arabic and Islamic cultural history of the twelfth to eighteenth centuries. "Muhsin al-Musawi's work systematizes a huge body of primary literary texts and current scholarship under a compelling and original thesis. The Medieval Islamic Republic of Letters will be the starting point for a new generation of scholarship on this six-hundred-year 'republic of letters' that stretched from India to North Africa." --Suzanne P. Stetkevych, Sultan Qaboos bin Said Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies, Georgetown University
Call Number: PJ7535.M87 2015ISBN: 9780268020446Publication Date: 2015-04-15
Writing Islam from a South Asian Muslim Perspective by
This book explores whether the post-9/11 novels of Rushdie, Hamid, Aslam and Shamsie can be read as part of an attempt to revise modern 'knowledge' of the Islamic world, using globally-distributed English-language literature to reframe Muslims' potential to connect with others. Focussing on novels including Shalimar the Clown, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, The Wasted Vigil, and Burnt Shadows, the author combines aesthetic, historical, political and spiritual considerations with analyses of the popular discourses and critical discussions surrounding the novels; and scrutinises how the writers have been appropriated as authentic spokespeople by dominant political and cultural forces. Finally, she explores how, as writers of Indian and Pakistani origin, Rushdie, Hamid, Aslam and Shamsie negotiate their identities, and the tensions of being seen to act as Muslim representatives, in relation to the complex international and geopolitical context in which they write.
Call Number: PR9540.4.C57 2016ISBN: 9781137554376Publication Date: 2015-11-29
Databases
MLA International Bibliography
The MLA International Bibliographyindexes critical scholarship on literature, language, linguistics, folklore, film, and the teaching of language and literature in journal articles, series, monographs, dissertations, bibliographies, proceedings and other materials...Coverage includes criticism and scholarship on literature from all over the world--Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, and North and South America--but excludes Classical Greek and Latin, and other "dead" languages. Folklore is represented by folk literature, music, art, rituals, and belief systems. Linguistics and language materials range from history and theory of linguistics, comparative linguistics, semantics, stylistics, and syntax to translation. Other topics include literary theory and criticism, dramatic arts (film, radio, television, theater), and the history of printing and publishing.