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Writing the “Torturable Body”: Torture and Corporal Punishment in Middle Eastern Literatures- Dozent/in
- Philipp Winkler, M.A.
- Angaben
- Seminar
Rein Präsenz
2 SWS
Gaststudierendenverzeichnis, Studium Generale, Gender und Diversität, Kultur und Bildung, Erweiterungsbereich, Unterrichtssprache Deutsch
Zeit und Ort: Di 12:00 - 14:00, SP17/01.19
- Voraussetzungen / Organisatorisches
- An- / Abmeldung in FlexNow 01.04.2024 bis 30.04.2024.
An-/Abmeldung zu den Prüfungen in FlexNow
Anbindungen:
BA Islamischer Orient: Vertiefungsmodul I und II, Intensivierungsmodul, Studium Generale
MA Arabistik: Modul MA Ar 01, 02, 03 und 05 (ohne Prüfung) sowie im Erweiterungsbereich Module MA Ar 09 und 10 bzw. nach Absprache
Elite-MA: Module PHist 10, 11, 12; Module PSpLit 3 und 4, außerdem im Erweiterungsbereich Modul D2 (written paper) und Modul D3 (portfolio).
- Inhalt
- Since early modern times, as Foucault has shown, physical tortures and punishments have become gradually replaced by other forms of penalization and dealing with delinquency; in the modern age of democracy and human rights, torture is generally outlawed and perceived as a “primitive” relic from the “dark Middle Ages”. Despite this official banning, torture is still enormously widespread and continues until this day in many countries. It has just moved from the limelight of public squares to behind the walls of dark prison cells in remote secret detention centers. This poses specific problems for its representation: how is it possible to talk about something that officially never took place and of which there are no records?
In the Middle East, regimes of different kinds (monarchical, military, socialist, Islamist etc.) of the 20th and 21th centuries (as well as several non-state actors) have used (and continue to use) torture on a massive scale in their persecution of political enemies. Literature, especially within the genre of prison literature, has been a way for many of the victims to process, express and publicize the things that had happened to them.
Due to the tabooed nature of the issue and the suffering involved, talking about torture – as a sujet of literary production as well as a topic for academic research and discussion – is an issue full of pitfalls and hence needs to be approached with utmost caution; critical self-reflection will thus be crucial to the seminar. Since the acme of colonialist and orientalist discourses (and continuing until today), graphic representations of public corporal punishment were used to represent “the Orient” as barbaric, cruel, backward – and therefore in need of Western tutelage. Furthermore, there is a long and manifold tradition of a certain “fascination” with torture practices than cannot hide a certain voyeuristic pleasure in dealing with the subject. These and other problems need to be carefully reflected in order to avoid reproducing them while talking about torture in the Middle East.
Keeping these difficulties in mind, the seminar will enquire how this extreme experience can be represented, talked about and understood. It will therefore look at religious, legal, autobiographical, journalistic and fictional ways of representing torture, while being guided by a set of several related questions with regard to the topic: How do writers try to explain and understand their being subjected to such extreme violence? How do they represent the physical and psychological scars that remain? In what ways does writing and talking about torture contribute to a healing process? How are the torturers represented in writing? Do victims from different backgrounds (Islamists, Marxists etc.) perceive their experiences in different ways?
Regular attendance and thorough preparation of the texts are required. The seminar will be held in English, German, or both, according to the language skills and preferences of the participants.
+++ WARNING: The seminar will feature graphic descriptions of violence!+++
- Empfohlene Literatur
- al-ʿAlawī, Hādī: Min tārīḫ at-taʿḏīb fī-l-Islām. Dimašq: Dār al-Mādā lil-ṭibāʻa wa al-našr. aṭ-Ṭabʿa ar-Rābiʿa 2004 [Al- Aʿmāl al-Kāmila 3].
Bairaqdār, Faraǧ: Ḫiyānāt al-luġa wa-'ṣ-ṣamt. taġrībatī fi suǧūn al-muḫābarāt as-Sūrīya. Bairūt: Dār al-Jadīd, aṭ-Ṭabʿa aṯ-ṯānīya 2012.
al-Ḥāǧǧ Ṣāliḥ, Yāsīn: Bi-'l-ḫalāṣ yā šabāb. 16 ʿāmman fi 's-sujūn as-Sūrīya. Bairūt: Dār as-Sāqī 2012.
Elimelekh, Geula: Arabic Prison Literature. Resistance, Torture, Alienation, and Freedom. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2014.
Foucault, Michel: Discipline and Punish. The Birth of the Prison. London: Penguin Books 2020.
Rejali, Darius M.: Torture and Modernity. Self, Society, and State in Modern Iran. Boulder: West View Press 1994.
Taleghani, R. Shareah: Readings in Syrian Prison Literature. The Poetics of Human Rights. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press 2021.
- Englischsprachige Informationen:
- Title:
- Writing the “Torturable Body”: Torture and Corporal Punishment in Middle Eastern Literatures
- Credits: 5
- Zusätzliche Informationen
- Erwartete Teilnehmerzahl: 10
- Institution: Professur für Arabistik
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