Arabic Studies is an interdisciplinary area of research and constitutes a vibrant section within the Modern Languages Department with a large postgraduate population from all over the World, including Indonesia, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq and many more.
The department of Modern languages boasts a vibrant postgraduate community and provides a range of support for its research students.
Arabic Studies has a rich research and teaching culture with projects in diverse disciplines, including language and power and how they manifest in politics, literature, and other aspects of the society. Translation Studies is another vibrant area of research including projects around the concepts of translatability, in an interdisciplinary way involving literature, Transitional Justice, memory, gender studies and many more. Untranslatability, on the other hand, has been another dominant concept in studying the Middle East and North African (MENA) region. Examples of research projects include:
The interdisciplinarity of Arabic Studies involves working in projects, including PhD supervision with researchers in different disciplines, such as Politics. A good example is The Voices of Memory exhibition by Dr Christalla Yakinthou from the Institute for Conflict, Cooperation and Security.
Feminism(s) in its plural form is another vibrant area of research studied by colleagues from different angles. Transnational Feminism Translation looks at the dynamics of the various Feminisms in the MENA region and their intersections with the regional and the global. Events around the theme of Transnational Feminist Translation in relation to the MENA region hosted renowned scholars in the field of Feminist Translation, like Professor Luise Von Flottow (Canadian Feminist School).
The co-supervision scheme provides our postgraduate students with unique opportunities of working with experts from different areas of research such as Memory Studies, for example, on Constructing Arab Women’s Memory of Imprisonment through Testimony. In Law, PhD students have been working on CEDAW and its translation into Arabic. A successful example is the PhD research undertaken by Dr Areen Al Jalal.
Other areas of research include Applied Linguistics and how it intersects with Literature. An example is the research conducted by Mr Ali Shanghity, whose research intersects with Dr Daoudi’s research on e-Arabic, as a new variety of hybrid Arabic.
Teaching
Arabic is one of the vibrant languages taught at the Department of Modern Languages. The classes are very popular among our students. We offer classes at different levels starting from complete beginners to Level Three.