Sarah bin Tyeer

Close reading/analysis of medieval Arabic and Persian texts with weekly seminar-style discussion on each text.

I learned about Islam and how it came to be. I learned about its religious background and the important individuals who helped found the Muslim religion. I also learned about researching primary sources about pre-modern Islam, it is difficult and the translations leave information off the table which could be crucial to understanding the source.

The workload was not light, we had to write weekly 1 to 2 pages SINGLE-SPACED discussion posts that she barely (if even) looked at, sometimes not even replying to the email to let us know she had gotten it. On top of that there were two big essays (1 midterm and 1 final, each 12 pages for undergrads and 15 pages for grads) and a class presentation. She gave no indication regarding any of the work, no guidelines for the presentations (which were long - 20 minutes solo and moderating the rest of the 2 hour class), not even giving us a heads-up regarding the upcoming midterm paper supposedly because it is a 4000-level class and we should keep track ourselves - which I guess is technically true, I just wish her analyses had lived up to that 4000-level title... Again no guideline for the papers, VERY harsh grader which I have no problem with at all as long as it is justified - from the very few comments she bothered to leave on my papers, it didn't seem like it was. Even if everything is argued for and supported by secondary sources correctly, she grades down if she doesn't "like" the implications of the argument/doesn't agree with it subjectively. She cancelled class multiple times at the last moment, messing up the reading schedule without bothering to adjust the syllabus, letting us figure it out - also reducing the number of potential discussion posts, knowing very well that we…

A lot of reading but worth it to understand the literature of the region better.

I learned how to understand nuanced disagreements in the various Islamic schools of thought and the perspectives Islamic philosophers and scholars had when they issued fatwas and made certain decisions at different points in history. I also learned about Islamic scholars' innovations in multiple fields, from the medical sciences to astronomy to engineering.

Do NOT take this class if you are actually interested in the arabic literary tradition. Do take it if you're looking for some whitewashed surface-level non-sensical analyses. I was genuinely looking forward to expanding my knowledge of arabic literature and was very disappointed to see that 99% of the readings were egyptian (which is fine but the arab world spans beyond just egypt...) with the remaining 1% being some ultra-westernized modern "arabic" novels. Setting that aside, Professor Bin Tyeer's analytical framework was really terrible, all she did was bring up gender and queer theory when discussing novels that were clearly NOT about that, and it seemed to be the only thing she was receptive to whether in class discussion or in papers... I am all for Judith Butler and the like, but I do think it is problematic of the professor to systematically prioritize 21st century western categories of thought when discussing novels that were written in the SWANA region over 60 years ago, where the main concerns and themes of interest were just not that (in the novels that we read at least). Ironically, she would be reluctant, sometimes even dismissive of the regional post-colonial theorists because deemed too "deterministic", prioritizing instead surface-level "Freudian" analyses (and analysis is a big word, the extent of it was throwing in "eros" and "thanatos"). Her analyses were r…

We learned about historical significance of specific prose and popular themes in Arabic texts throughout different centuries.

Various aspects of premodern Islam - philosophy, art and architecture, religious beliefs, etc.

Absolutely nothing. I had such high hopes for this class and came away with no additional knowledge. I may even be more confused than before taking this class.

I learned a great deal about the premodern history of the Islamicate, from empires, to philosophy, to art and architecture.