One Thousand and One Shahrazads: The Heroine with a Thousand Faces - Sayed Elsisi

Thursday, March 27, 2025 12:00 PM to 1:30 PM EDT
Horizon Hall, #5225 or Zoom

Dr. Sayed Elsisi is a specialist in Arabic literature, culture, and cinema. He taught as an assistant professor of Arabic literature and culture at the University of Maryland (2010- 2019). Prior to that, he taught at Harvard University (2007-2010), The American University in Cairo (2000-2007). He also worked as a researcher and an editorial assistant for Alif (Journal of Comparative Poetics) 2000-2007.

Although The Arabian Nights, also known as One Thousand and One Nights, has been the subject of extensive scholarly inquiry, this unparalleled literary work continues to attract further scholarly engagement through innovative analytical frameworks and profound interpretative approaches. This literary masterpiece, which required over a millennium to achieve its current form, serves as an exemplary entry point into Arab cultural paradigms. As a seminal work within the canon of world literature, it has been scrutinized from a plethora of analytical vantage points. This book project seeks to re-examine the text and to interrogate several prevailing notions and interpretations concerning The Arabian Nights.

One prevalent misinterpretation of The Arabian Nights, for instance, ertains to the erotic or explicit language present in various narrative. vhich has resulted in many scholarly analyses categorizing these tale as mere expressions of eroticism. This research endeavors to unveil the concealed Sufi (mystical) dimensions of these tales. A rigorou examination of the figurative language employed, along with it implications within the cultural and religious contexts, unveils a vast intellectual landscape that encourages a rethinking and reevaluation of the text. Furthermore, this book project aspires to investigate and challenge alternative conceptions associated with The Arabian Nights encompassing themes such as the evolution of heroism from patriarcha representations to feminized interpretations, the journey as a the picorical embodimat of claization, an rithe various inematic and narrative frameworks.

 

Zoom Invite: https://gmu.zoom.us/j/95924488074