Egypt: A Literary Journey

January 2-21, 2010

ARHU319E/AASP398E/GVPT309G/HONR349D (3 credits)

"Egypt: A Literary Journey" is a course designed to give students the opportunity to travel to Egypt and explore the country through first-hand exposure hand-in-hand with its rich literature. Explore Egypt's culture, politics, and history through Arabic literary classics as well through contemporary works. The reading requirements will focus around works by Naguib Mahfouz, Tayeb Salih, Alaa Al-Aswany, and Nawal El-Saadawi.

This unique opportunity will allow students to travel to both rural and urban areas. Students will travel to sites of ancient Egyptian civilization like the famous Pyramids and Sphinx, the temples of Luxor and Aswan, and to other important Egyptian sites. Students will explore the bustling markets, lavish mosques, and early churches of Cairo, one of the world's largest and most vibrant cities.

While the emphasis of the class is on the literary and geopolitical, students will also learn enough Arabic language to be able to navigate on their own during free time, and will engage in a service-learning project, performing 15 hours of service for a Coptic orphanage in a remote, rural village.

Faculty & Staff

Zein El-Amine, Assistant Director, Jiménez-Porter Writers’ House will lead this program. Zein El-Amine was born and raised in Lebanon and has lived in the U.S. since 1987. A graduate student in the MFA Program in Creative Writing, his poems have appeared in GYST, Penumbra, DC Poets Against the War anthology, and Joybringer. He received first prize in the Tallahassee Writers' Association Annual Poetry and Haiku Contest. El-Amine teaches creative writing at the Art and Learning Center and at the Jiménez-Porter Writers’ House at the University of Maryland. Please contact Professor El-Amine with questions about course content and itinerary.

Miranda Abadir holds a master’s degree in English Language and Literature from the University of Maryland. Miranda's family is based in Cairo, and she has traveled extensively throughout Egypt. She has served as an English teacher in the remote village of Qus in Upper Egypt as part of Coptic Orphans' Serve to Learn program. Miranda speaks the Egyptian dialect fluently and has a strong interest in the politics and literature of the Middle East and North Africa.

For questions about the application, registration and pre-departure logistics, please contact the Study Abroad Office.