We attempted during the short course on Arab culture to start understanding aspects of this culture, and compare what we learned to the way we think and behave in the American culture, and as individuals with our own particular family and heritage culture.
We hope that the course was the start of a journey of discovery of ourselves and the other, if Arab culture represented the other to us. For those of us who feel closely associated with Arab culture, the journey of learning hopefully marked a deeper effort to better understand Arab culture objectively and how non-Arabs perceive it.
As I mentioned earlier, the course was just the beginning of the journey of learning and discovering and a tool to create a platform for networking and dialogue among people seeking to know and connect to Arabs and their culture. Having the Internet allows us to continue the learning process beyond the framework and duration of the course. This bog is a vehicle to keep us and others who visit the blog informed what we learned and continue to learn.
For the purpose of this post, please place in the comment section ideas, information, facts, or perceptions on one or more aspects of Arab culture that you learned through the course. Why did you choose to write about that aspect/s? How does that aspects/s of Arab culture compares to yours? I look forward to reading your comments. Please post your comments before Tuesday, November 16.
Please also remember that the Wikipedia article on Arab culture is the responsibility of all of us.
I noticed that some of you have already submitted your entries. If you have not, please do so. I hope that you will continue visiting, editing, and expanding Wikipedia article beyond the duration of this course. You can also submit an entry on Arab culture to Arabic Wikipedia - which does not have a designated page for Arab Culture yet, if you prefer to write in Arabic.
Through this course I have learned that our cultures, although different, have many commonalities. We protect our daughters (and sons), provide for our families to the best of our abilities, and strive to be the best that we can be. Unfortunately, what has been focused on by the government and the media are the differences in the cultures which has led to an "us against them" mentality.
ReplyDeleteWe need now to focus on the "common ground" and find ways to bridge some of the wider gaps in our culture. Perhaps doctors in the U.S. can find a way to balance diabetes and insulin injections with Ramadan and be more understanding of a religion that is not their own (all of the physicians that I asked about this said that it would be very hard to do). Even I know that it is possible, with a little effort on the part of the doctor and patient, to adjust insulin levels to accomodate fasting.
If everyone just made one small attempt to understand another culture just think of the possibilities.....
I think throw this class we found common things between Arabic, Western culture, and there was a lot of understanding of the Arab culture from none Arabic and that because the lack of knowledge and what bad media present about Arabic culture. The readings we had and the dissections we had in class was helpful and fun because we got to reach a lever of understanding that we creat and we all agree that media focuses on bad things only and after all we are not that different. We all look for the best for our life and the people we love, we all are family oriented.
ReplyDeleteI really like what bonks3 said, that would touch many people heart it won’t cause bad things so why not!
I can’t imagine if we all started doing stuff like that how many things would change, it would make a different.
For me, learning about the history of Arabs helped to understand a lot of things about my culture and where it comes from, and i didnt learn that from the books we had i learned it from u professor Nessren and it was amazing!
Although the books didnt provide me with information that i dont already know, but the class and class mates Questions and the dissections we had i learned a lot from it
As intended by the course, being in the class has allowed the beginning of much questioning in what I know in my life. Before this class I knew very little about Arab culture outside of what is presented in the media. I've learned how dangerous not questioning and blindly accepting the media can be. It is interesting though because as a Latina I had always known the negative and very false images that the media portrays about Latinos but I had never really tried to understand that outside of my own cultural realm. I also began to see various other similarities between Latino culture and Arab culture. I would say there are more similarities between Latino culture and Arab culture than Latino culture and American culture. Sometimes as I read I felt like I was reading about things back home.
ReplyDeleteThe choice in books which we read in the class have taught me to be more critical of what I am reading, especially when it claims to represent a culture or a people that the author does not belong to. This can be extremely dangerous because they claim an authentic representation, which as we saw in class was not so accurate. Unfortunately many people read books like these and watch cultural descriptions in the media and believe it without question. Now after this class I am hoping to continue to question and maybe even challenge others to do so as well. This is really important to me especially since I am hoping to do anthropological activist research in the future, and I want to make sure that it is the voices of the people who are heard and not just my own subjective interpretation of who they are.
I found this class to be very interesting and helpful in starting to understand Arab Culture. I came into the class and knew almost nothing about it and I am leaving the course with a clearer understanding of the culture.
ReplyDeleteI am leaving the course though with the understanding that everything I was able to take into the course in the past ten weeks is only a very small, and partially biased, understanding of Arab culture. Everyone has thier own opinion on what the culture is about and more are overlapping but I also cannot over analyze whose opinion is right or wrong. This was really clear in the readings that we did. They are thier own opinions on what the culture is and we have to take it for what they are and with a grain of salt. They are opinions and when talking about culture, what we are esentially dealing with are opnions, not fact and un-fact.
Overall the class was very interesting and informative and the learning atmosphere in the class was something that I really did enjoy.
I definitely thought this class was very interesting and I actually got something out of it. Being an Arab Studies major, I thought I knew a lot about the culture already, but apparently there was a lot more to it than I thought. I learned a lot about how the cultures vary from place to place within the Arab world. I used to group them all together in one big category, "they're all Arabs." Then I realized if you take a closer look there are so many differences within the communities themselves and everything differs the further in you go.
ReplyDeleteI like that it was not only lecture based and class discussions, but there were also opportunities for us to experience things firsthand by going to the Arab Heritage Month lectures and events outside of class as well. I also enjoyed the speaker that came to speak to us about his perspective and experiences in Iraq which gave us the chance to compare our different perspectives from what we learned in class.
in reading about family values and the family structure in arab households especially in the nydell book, a few light bulbs went off. while i noticed that in my household thats the way it was, reading about it from and outsider's perspective made me understand why some things were the way they were when i was growing up. i had many similar "aha!" moments in class discussion like when we were talking about the residue of tribalism in the arab world (i always wondered how my mom knew everyone and their mother.. that woman has the entire palestinian family tree and knows how everyone is related [makes it easy for gossip. haha])
ReplyDeletethis is wasila by the way.
ReplyDeleteThe most pertinent thing I have learned this quarter is the "closeness" of Arab family and friends. I have read how women are always kept "close" to the family through the protection of their brothers and fathers. I have also learned how "close" Arab friends are by consistently and regularly visiting each other. But, most importantly, I was able to understand the "closeness" that entangles Arab families and communities.
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ReplyDeleteAs a whole, I believe each member of this class has expanded their knowledge of Arab culture. I know I have. Throughout this course, we were presented information that was relatively foreign to everyone in one way or another and because of that we were able to better educate ourselves on a topic that we are all interested about. As a result, I truly believe this class was a success. I have studied ‘Middle Eastern’ history and Islamic studies throughout my college career. Because of that factor, I may have had a little more knowledge than others in certain aspects of the topic. Nevertheless, I learned a lot of information from everyone, both in and outside of the classroom, and because of that I would like to thank everyone. I know I may not have been at all of the class meetings, but I did read all of the assignments and everyone’s blog and Ning posts. Although my experience was not the same as most of yours, I still believe I got a great deal out of this class and if I could I would take it over again in a heartbeat.
ReplyDeleteI think the most interesting aspect of Arab culture that I learned during this class regards ‘prison/torture’ literature. I had no idea this style of writing was so popular in the Arab world. I have read "Saddam City" multiple times and have grown very fond of the story. I hope to read more Arab ‘prison/torture’ in the near future—hopefully in its original language, insha’Allah. I also found it very interesting that we were able to find similarities with Arab culture within our own (e.g., Hispanic, Christian, etc.).
Heinz Halm’s "The Arabs: A Short History" and "The Arabs: Journeys Beyond the Mirage" by David Lamb were among my top four books I read this quarter, which includes all of my research readings. The both used awesome sources and delivered their presentations very well. I would recommend these books to anyone that would want to have a better understanding of Arab/Muslim culture. To me, Arab/Muslim culture is the most fascinating culture in the world. The world as we know would not exist without the contributions made by this culture.