CVSP 204 Final, Fall 1997

AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF BEIRUT CIVILIZATION SEQUENCE PROGRAM ~ FINAL EXAM: C.S. 204 Time: 2 Hours ~ Jan. 25, 1997 Dr. M. Amyuni Choose ONE of the following topics and write a clear and coherent essay substantiated from our C.S. 204 readings. Refer to specific points and examples from our texts. Write clearly and intelligently. Don't be afraid to be critical and to judge for yourself after you present the authors’ points of view. The Arab World as seen by Mahfouz & Tayeb Salih A great contemporary novelist affirms that: Literature that is not the breath of contemporary society, that dares not transmit the pains and fears of that society, that does not warn in time against threatening moral and soctal dangers-such literature does not deserve the name of literature; it is only a facade. Discuss it in view of what we have examined, in Midaq Alley and Season of Migration to the North. Then carry the main issues you have selected & examine them in the Arab World to-day. Il. On_Alienation _ Alienation according to Erich Fromm is originally feeling cut off idols of various forms: gods, state, church, family, possessions etc... Man transforms himself into a thing and instead of feeling a creative person, hé feels the object of those idols to which he has transferred his power. Select a few authors and characters from C.S. 204 in both the West and the Arab World and study the reasons for feeling alienated and an outsider. Proceed clearly & rationally for you may want to insert your examples in specific time & place and within socio-economico-political contexts. On Twentieth Century Western Man/Woman and Eastern Man/ Woman As C.S. 204 students you're properly equipped to study Civilization and Its Discontents and Man's Fate as reflections of the stages of civilization that their respective authors had reached at the time their works were produced. Study some aspects, some issues that show Freud and Malraux in these two works first as recipients of a rich Western tradition, and second as breaking new grounds in many ways, as mirroring new attitudes, new beliefs, new types of relationships (political, religious, professional, emotional etc...etc...). Then Study some of the elements chosen above; within our Arabic unit; do these elements have any relevance to the worlds of Mahfouz and Tayeb Salih? Could you find parallels and contrasts between part (a) & (b)?