Reading – Come From Away

Ethnographic Work and Pop Songs, updated

November 26, 2025November 26, 2025

(photo by M. A. Al Awaid)

A friend jokingly asked if I was going to talk about pop songs in my next book as my books were the only ones they had seen in which an academic author thanked Bernice Johnson Reagon, Bruce Springsteen, Elton John, Josh Ritter, the Muppets, Pink, Prince, and Toby Keith in the acknowledgments. I said yes.

Living where I do research and living overseas for more than eighteen years was sometimes difficult. Sometimes I drive around town with the car windows rolled up blasting the Boss; sometimes the only way to get motivated to sit down and work on a Friday morning is to play Toby Keith. I see listing the songs and singers as a way of being honest about how I do research.

Recognizing that I use pop songs to keep me focused is modeling that researchers do not have to be serious all the time, in the same way I try to model honest behavior for my students. Acknowledging pop songs is similar to my saying to students “I don’t know” or “I am not sure about the spelling of that word.” Sometimes a student will gasp, “YOU DON’T KNOW?” I laugh and explain that there are no spelling bees in Germany because they aren’t needed, but every state in the USA has spelling contents because English spelling can be tricky with all the loan words. So, no, I don’t know how to spell every word in English and I sometimes need to do a quick check to make sure.

About a week after I started on-line teaching I watched the movie Trolls and I loved the song “Get Back Up Again.” All that spring “Get Back” was on constant repeat as I fought unfamiliar tech, attempted new ways of teaching and tried to increase student involvement (“TURN ON YOUR MICROPHONES!”). Now when I hear “Get Back Up Again” I am transported back to those tough weeks in March – May 2020 when I left my apartment once a week to go to the grocery store. Bereft of my café, friends, chats with colleagues, the pool where I went swimming and picnics with the research guys, that saccharine song was my stay-positive mantra.

When I first heard the line “I don’t know when, confused about how as well” from the song “Chasing Cars” by Snow Patrol, I thought: that’s my life as a researcher. I am constantly trying to make sense of what I am seeing and I spend a lot of time living in confusion.

When I used to do teacher-training, I would tell teachers to work from their strengths, be frank when they were lost and ask for help when they needed it. By embracing my inner Top 40 doo-wop persona, I practice what I preach.

from my books:

Researching and Working on the Arabian Peninsula: Creating Effective Interactions. Palgrave Macmillan, 2025
To the singers who helped me through so many long drives late at night on dark roads: Jimmy Buffet, Lucky Ali, Prince, Toby Keith and (just in time) Tortured Poets, as well as “Angel” Sarah McLachlan; “Arms of an Angel” Soweto Gospel Choir; “City of New Orleans” and “My Heros Have Always Been Cowboys” Willie Nelson; “Cloudy Day,” Tones and I; “Gone with the Angels” Shaggy; “Lost and Found” Brooks and Dunn; “Locomotion” Orchestral Manoeuvers in the Dark; “Low” and “Wild Ones” Flo Rida; “Montego Bay” Bobby Bloom; “Ngarra Burra Ferra” Jessica Mauboy, Jade MacRae, Lou Bennett and Juanita Tippens; “Seven Spanish Angels,” Willie Nelson and Ray Charles; and “A World of Your Own” cast of Wonka.

Houseways in Southern Oman. Routledge, 2023

I am grateful for Aida (Broadway and concept albums); “Mama Knows the Highway,” Hal Ketchum; “Unwritten,” Natasha Bedingfield; “La Vie Boheme,” Rent; “Drunk Americans,” Toby Keith; “American Rock ’n Roll,” Kid Rock, “Let the River Run,” Carly Simon, as well as Jimmy Buffet, Pink, Prince, Bob Seger, Shaggy and Tina Turner.

Foodways in Southern Oman. Routledge, 2021

Thanks to Kid Rock (for the slow songs, not the politics, not the rap), Pink, Toby Keith and all the songs picked by Steve Nathans-Kelly which got me through a lot of long drives late at night on dark roads.

Community and Autonomy in Southern Oman. Palgrave Macmillan, 2019

I would like to thank the memory of Gerald Durrell and Lawrence Durrell, whose books pulled me out into the world: Jersey, Cyprus, Rhodes, Provence and Alexandria. I have lived over 15 years overseas and have missed a lot of popular culture, but I am grateful for The Mummy (1932 and 1999 versions), Chariots of Fire (1981), Sahara (2005), Black Gold (2011), Theeb (2014), and A Perfect Day (2016), and “All these Things That I’ve Done” sung by the Killers; “If You’re Going Through Hell” sung by Rodney Akins; “Club Can’t Handle Me” sung by Flo Rida; Elton John, especially “Island Girl” and Aida; Prince, especially “The One U Want to C”; Bruce Springsteen, especially “From Small Things” and “Frankie Fell in Love”; Toby Keith, especially “How Do You Like Me Now,” “Rum is the Reason,” and “Ain’t No Right Way”; Josh Ritter, especially “Getting Ready to Get Down” and “Girl in the War”; Bernice Johnson Reagon; John Denver; Jimmy Buffett; Kid Rock, and the Muppets.

Getting through Covid:

Big Energy – Latto, and the remix with Mariah Carey
Devil with the Blue Dress – Mitch Rider and the Detroit Wheels
Don’t Start Now – Dua Lipa
Duke of Earl – Gene Chandler
Happy all the Time from Elf
Hello, Hello – Elton John
House on Fire – Mimi Webb
I Don’t Feel Like Dancing – Scissor Sisters
Leave before You Love Me – Marshmello and Jonas Brothers
The Lion Sleeps Tonight – The Tokens
Mr Brightside – The Killers
The Other Side – SZA and Justin Timberlake
Pretty in Pink soundtrack
So Happy it Hurts – Bryan Adams
Thunder – Imagine Dragons

Reflections – Dhofari Conversations

Me Talk Pretty Never: Learning Arabic, part 1

Adjusting to Oman: My Dangerous Taxi

Practicalities: Managing a Short Research Trip to the Arabian Peninsula

Practicalities: Managing a Short Business Trip to the Arabian Peninsula

New essay: “’Ghayn is for Ghazal” on “The Arabic Alphabet” website (by Michael Beard)

November 17, 2025

“The Arabic Alphabet” website (written by Michael Beard, illustrated by Houman Mortazavi) – http://alifbatourguide.com/

Ghayn is for ghazal – https://alifbatourguide.com/the-arabic-alphabet/ghazal/

Excerpt:

Shahrazâd’s opening story, the one which initiates the story-telling marathon, famously, keeps replicating itself in miniature. Shahrazâd is telling stories to save her life, but it’s not just her: time after time, in the manner of a fractal, characters in her stories are saved by story-telling too. (There is a beautiful essay by Tzvetan Todorov which says it plainly – that, in the Nights, stories are life. If you’re a character in a fiction, tell a story. What else keeps you alive? The plan is working for Shahrazad.)

In her, by now, familiar opening story, where the merchant, traveling on business, sits down to eat lunch under a tree, it’s familiar ground of traditional story-telling. The self-sufficient individual out alone on the road runs into an obstacle and encounters a challenge. Stories of chivalry in European tradition open that way; they hardly open any other way, with the knight setting off on a quest or perhaps just wandering. The reader is likely to imagine a context where the merchant’s business has taken him to the margin, the غایة , ghâya, limit of human society, a غابة, ghâba, a forest. In that opening scene, when he reaches into his pack, takes out lunch, and eats, innocently throwing the date pits over his shoulder behind him, he is the picture of vulnerability (not a knight out looking for adventure). It suggests (at least for me) a secure world where merchants can travel alone, settling down to غذاء, ghadhâ, food, without fear. When the ‘ifrit appears, huge and menacing, to say the merchant must die, it is enough of a disruption to be horrifying, but it’s funny too, and probably less familiar ground for a traditional story. The monster has a motive for being غضبان, ghad͎bân, angry, though the fact that a flying date pit has killed his son doesn’t register as tragic. We know that sons don’t always resemble their fathers, but an ‘ifrît’s son so fragile that he is killed by a date pit seems an extreme case. (Is this son legitimate?) We also know that we aren’t going to be very frightened by what follows.

The text tells us that everything we’re reading is a spoken story, since we are hearing Shahrzâd’s voice, but the truth is that we are reading it rather than hearing it. This has some advantages. Readers of a story can skip from episode to another, free to speed things up or slow them down. Such is the advantage the alphabet gives us over a listener like King Shahzamân. We can freeze-frame the story, knowing what will happen, and we can be surprised each time we read it (or imagine ourselves surprised, which may be just as good). When the merchant asks for a grace period to settle his affairs and say goodbye to his family, promising to be back at the beginning of the new year, a whole unexpected social world opens up because the‘ifrît accepts, immediately, without an argument. His hyperbolic trust is perhaps as funny as the date pit which kills his son — funny, but it is also, surprisingly, to me, moving. The `ifrît‘s surprising trust is one thing; then when the new year arrives and the merchant actually shows up (thus demonstrating that we can trust him too) we are at the extremes of trust. Exaggeration is funny, but I wonder if it also tells us something about the respect the culture shows for travelers. We expect them to keep their word. It is a world where traveling salesmen are positive figures.

Does everyone know the sequel? While the merchant is waiting to be executed, an old man walks by (the kind of respected mature individual referred to as a shaykh) leading a غزالة, a ghazâla on a chain. (Why just then? Don’t ask. No story, the Chinese proverb says, without a coincidence.) Later there will follow two additional shuyûkh, one with a pair of dogs and one with a she-mule, but it is the ghazâla we remember. In part, of course, the reason is on the surface: a ghazâla is synonymous with beauty.

غزالة is a beautiful word both in its Arabic form and in its guise as a loan word in English, gazelle. In European narrative tradition we are more likely to use the gazelle to characterize elegance of motion, but in Arabic its beauty is in the eyes, which are likely to resemble what Edgar Allan Poe emphasizes when he describes the title character in “Ligeia”: “They were, I must believe, far larger than the ordinary eyes of our own race. They were even fuller than the fullest of the gazelle eyes of the tribe of the valley of Nourjahad.” (In the interest of scrupulous accuracy – Nourjahad doesn’t exist in our world; a note in the edition edited by Hardin Craig notes that the phrase comes from a novel, History of Nourjahad [1767] by Sidney Bidulph, pseudonym of Mrs. Frances Sheridan. Poe almost makes you want to read it.) The esthetic of big eyes is everywhere. Cartoon figures and stuffed animals meant to appeal to our sentiments are often portrayed with oversize eyes. (Over the years Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse evolved eyes which hardly seem to leave room for brains.) I wonder if pandas would still have their reputation of cuteness if they didn’t have those big patches surrounding their eyes, looking as if they were eyes in reality.

New essay: “’Ayn is for Arab” on “The Arabic Alphabet” website (by Michael Beard)

New essay: “Ẓâ is for Ẓarf” on “The Arabic Alphabet” website (by Michael Beard)

New Essay: “Ṭâ Is For Talisman” on The Arabic Alphabet website

Back from Ubar or What to Read if You Insist on Staying Home

October 23, 2025October 23, 2025

I am re-reading Apsley Cherry-Garrard’s The Worst Journey in the World (1922), one of my favorite travel books as it is an excellent description of people clinging to ‘civilization’ in difficult circumstances. This is an essay I wrote in 2004 about travel books.

[O]ur passions are never accidental. We do not by chance…decide to specialize in epaulets (Evan Connell, A Long Desire)

Friends of mine have a little house on a two-acre island in a small lake in quiet Ontario. I woke up one morning there and realized that from that point on, I would be going back – back in the boat to shore, back in my friend’s van across the border to the bus station, back on a bus to the train station, back in a train to the city where I lived, back on the metro to the station near my house, back in a taxi to my house. It amused me, that from that point I was merely retracing steps. As I was about to walk down to the dock, I realized I was on the very outer limit of the web.

In Women’s Ways of Knowing, the authors posit that women feel more comfortable being in the middle of connections (webs) while men prefer the edge. Perhaps one of the reasons I like traveling and reading about traveling, is that I get to go all the way out to edge and peer over. I rather enjoy edges, that moment you realize the limitations. I like ‘you can’t get there from here’ and all those Italian strikes that keep you stranded for days. I love the moment when the subway car goes underground and the annoying guy yelling into his cell phone suddenly pulls it away from his ear with disgust and shoves it into his bag. You get to the farthest point and there you are, stuck; you now have to wait, turn around, finagle, throw a hissy fit.

If I was going to be perfectly honest about it – I’d say close your computer and go buy Road to Oxiana, West with the Night, Three Men in a Boat, Caesar’s Vast Ghost and The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, but I am so seldom able to make people do what they ought to, even when, perhaps especially when, I know what is best. Those are all real travel books, this is a semi-travel essay. But although I’m not promising enjoyment (go read Mark Salzman), you will get a little edification, like it or don’t.

The question is not now, not ever, “why travel?” The solar system travels, Earth travels, you travel. The question is why travel outside of those tiny, minuscule patches of territory you know. “Ahem,” says a voice in the back, “I have lived in Boston all my life, hardly minuscule.”

But do you know where the Tufts college students party, the best Bollywood theater, the real Italian place in Little Italy, where to get your eyebrows threaded, where the cops drink? Do you know Jamaica Plain and Watertown? A person could live in Back Bay their whole life and never know Quincy. Face it, you don’t really know your hometown. You probably don’t even know your neighbors and, if you haven’t been paying attention, you might not even know yourself.

Yet, traveling is not the way to find yourself in any grand scheme: you go along with yourself and your main insights are ‘I hate grey carpeting’ and ‘McDonald’s has better pancakes than Burger King.’ People are always squawking “Paul Theroux” at me, well read his books – what are his insights? He hates it here. It is dirty and the people aren’t nice. And he also hates it over here. It’s dirty. And, quelle surprise, he hates this other place as well. In addition, he hates it over there, too depressing. And, by coincidence, he is unhappy here as well. The people who are impressed with this are mistaking indigestion for insight.

You will get those (very infrequent) moments of revelation, almost all of which will be exasperatingly saccharine. Like me waking up my first morning in Italy and seeing, through a thick fog, a stone wall which enclosed a grove of olive trees (olive trees!) with sheep grazing underneath.

I went to Corfu, Rhodes, Cyprus, and Provence because I was going to write my dissertation on Gerald Durrell and Lawrence Durrell. Then, I spent the night in a sort of bed and breakfast place in Pathos and realized that after six months, I knew pretty much nothing about the Durrells and I would have to expand my focus to all travel writers. If you can’t fail little – fail big.

Most scholarly books on travel writing take some small selection and examine it closely, such as Janice Bailey-Goldschmidt’s and Martin Kalfatovic’s article, “Sex, Lies and European Hegemony: Travel Literature and Ideology,” which sounds like it covers everything a person would need to know. But is it only about European descriptions of travel in India until 1761.

When I was doing my dissertation on travel writing, I read all over the place: Pausanias’ Description of Greece, 2nd century B.C.; Egeria’s Travels, a European abbess’ account of her travels to the Holy Land c. 385 A.D.; Gustave Flaubert, Isabella Bird, James Fenton, Anthony Smith.

I ran through ’Abdallah ibn Battuta’s Travels in Asia and Africa: 1325-1354; Bernal Diaz’s The Conquest of New Spain, a Spanish soldiers’ account of his part in the defeat of the Aztec empire under Hernán Cortés in 1521; Matsuo Basho’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North, and Other Travel Sketches and Back Roads to Far Towns, a Japanese Buddhist monk’s walking tours from the mid to late 1680s.

I adore the English canonicals: Mary Kingsley’s Travels in West Africa, 1897; Apsley Cherry-Garrard’s The Worst Journey in the World, 1922; Laurie Lee’s As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning, 1969; Eric Newby’s A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, 1958.

I read the ones you have to: John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley, 1962; Bruce Chatwin’s In Patagonia, 1977; Jonathan Raban, Mary Morris, Redmond O’Hanlon, Bill Bryson, and Pico Iyer. And the ones I wanted to: Mark Twain, Mark Salzman, Eric Hansen, Tim Cahill, Calvin Trillin, and Robin Magowan.

It’s a measure of my temperament that I deliberately avoided Meriwether Lewis and William Clark’s History of the Expedition under the Command of Lewis and Clark, 1814 and Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, 1841. But I devoured J. R. Ackerley’s Hindoo Holiday: An Indian Journal, 1932; Vikram Seth’s From Heaven Lake: Travels Through Sinkiang and Tibet, 1987; and Anthony Smith’s Blind White Fish in Persia, 1953. What heaven to find No News From Throat Lake by Lawrence Donegan, 2001, Getting Stoned with Savages by J. Maarten Troost, 2006 and Driving Over Lemons by Chris Stewart, 1999.

And then there are the immortals: Gerald Durrell and Lawrence Durrell, Wilfred Thesiger, Dervla Murphy (would someone please knight her? She would probably turn it down but, honestly, the gesture ought to be made); and dear, cranky Amelia Edwards, A Thousand Miles up the Nile, 1877.

I got my Ph.D. and moved to the Middle East to teach. While there, one of the places I wanted to visit was Ubar, a stop on an ancient Arabian trading route whose “refinding” is recounted in breathless, “Entertainment Tonight!” prose in Nicholas Clapp’s The Road to Ubar, 1998. I had thought at one point I was close enough to get to it, but it turned out to be much farther away (slavish attention to maps is the hobgoblin of little minds), but I promised myself that I would figure out how to get to Ubar before I moved back to the States.

This involved finding someone to watch the cat, deciphering out airline schedules, securing hotel reservations, faxing the tour company, getting the right visa: pedestrian, unromantic toils. I woke up on the momentous day and hit the first disappointment, I did not have a “real” tour guide; he was a perfectly pleasant guy, but he wasn’t local and had no good stories. Second disappointment – we weren’t going in a Land Rover. As far as I’m concerned, for land travel it is Land Rover or Land Cruiser pick-up or just stay home.

We drove for hours up through the mountains (I think Eden must have looked like this) and then along through the flat, desiccated landscape until the desert started.

The museum at Ubar was closed, so my guide decided to “show me” the Empty Quarter, the Rub al-Khali, an area of 250,000 squares miles of sand dunes. It is the size of France, Belgium and Holland with sand dunes as high as 925 feet. We continued on the road for a few miles, passed a small collection of derelict buildings, then onto drifting sand where the road disappeared. For about 50 yards. Then the car (did I mention it was NOT a Land Rover?) got stuck. It took us about twenty minutes to get unstuck, then the driver turned right around and we were back on the road, headed back to the hotel.

Perhaps aware that the day was not quite the happy culmination of a year’s hope and expectation, after an hour or so, he pulled off the road, navigating between rock outcroppings until he stopped in front of a small group of stubby, scraggily trees with peeling bark.

“Frankincense!” he exclaimed proudly.

Now this indeed was something. Unexpected and marvelous – to actually see the trees close up, especially since the lore is that they are rigorously guarded. Perhaps the driver took every single tourist to this stand of trees. But it was hidden from the road, without other tire tracks, desolate. A quest fulfilled and an extra, unexpected adventure: it was time to go home. Then I was home and what is there to do at home, except plan the next travel?

Verstehen/ Einfühlen in Arabian Sands (1959): Wilfred Thesiger as Traveler and Anthropologist – 2013

Cultural Refraction: Using Travel Writing, Anthropology and Fiction to Understand the Culture of Southern Arabia – 2009

Research on Travelers and Tourists in Dhofar

“Yemen with Yul,” travel essay published

Me Talk Pretty Never: Learning Arabic, part 2

July 14, 2025July 14, 2025

Me Talk Pretty Never: Learning Arabic, part 1

The first authentic (not classroom) Arabic I understood was in a grocery store: an Omani man asked a clerk “wayn shokolata?” (where’s the chocolate?). I think it was very fitting that my first identification involved candy. It is also fitting that there wasn’t a verb.

Arabic is the fourth foreign language I have studied and, given that I am dyslexic and didn’t really start learning it until I was 42 years old, I am stuck at an odd mix of linguistic abilities. I have inadvertently created my own pidgin.

I know hundreds of Arabic nouns. From teaching literature and metaphors, I know colors, animals, birds and geographical features, but I never remember the words for parts of the body such as arm, foot and ears. I know “eyes” because you need it for metaphors of love, but I have no idea about nose or fingers. I know many words for furniture, types of food, rooms in the house and clothes, but I don’t know the word for “fork.”

I know pronouns and lots of adjectives and thank heavens you don’t need the verb “to be” for basic Arabic sentences: just give a pronoun or noun and a modifier: I happy/ he sick

I can rarely conjugate the verbs ‘to go’ and ‘come’ as fast as I need them so I make do with a pronoun, preposition, noun and time-markers: I to store yesterday. It’s incorrect but I can make myself understood in most situations.

After I had been in Oman for 7 years, I paid for an intensive, 6-week, Arabic language summer school in Muscat. All the students lived in an apartment building and took the bus to school every morning – it was like being in summer camp.

When I got back to Dhofar, the first time I met the research guys I ended up (I can’t remember why) explaining the story of Joseph from the Bible. It was the first time I could do an extended story in Arabic and from then on, I gained more and more confidence telling stories and having long conversations and arguments. I paid for another 4-week Arabic language program at the same school the following year and solidified my low intermediate status.

Now I can talk for hours in Arabic with the research guys, but our communication has aspects of a personal language. For example the verb for “talk” has the root of t-k-l-m, and I grasped that as tatakeleum not conjugated, not inflected for gender or tense – whenever I needed to express anything to do with speech, I throw in that word and they extrapolate the meaning.

And then there is learning in the opposite direction, when you are a native speaker of English on the Arabian Peninsula, you are always relearning your own language. When I bought a slice of “coffee cake” I was surprised that it tasted like… coffee. “Coffee cake” is not supposed to taste like coffee; it’s supposed to taste like butter-sugar-flour-eggs-cinnamon.

When female students said: “My mister told me” I assumed they meant husband or father, but they meant teacher. And I had to grit my teeth at being called “Miss,” not “Miss” with my last name, just “Miss.”

And I had to reexplain English to my students, such as the fact that that they could not use the fun cuss words they heard in movies and songs in the classroom. It was so amusing when a shy, quiet student who never wanted to speak in class would yell “#&*)!” when their books slid off the desk. “No,” I would say shaking my head, “you can’t say that at the university.”

We also a lot of time delineating bear/ bare – profit/ prophet – fair/ fare – merry/ marry/ Mary. I clarify that “I’m sorry” in English means “I am not happy to hear your bad news”; in Arabic it means “I am entirely responsible for the negative event that occurred.” So in English if you tell me your father is sick, I say “I’m sorry” but if I say that to someone in Dhofar they will respond, “Why? You don’t make him ill.” And “How are you?” in English means “I am not planning to slap you in the next five minutes,” not “please tell me all the details of your life.”

But with all my efforts to translation words and meanings, I am often happy to have a language barrier. Sitting in cafés amidst a swirl of languages is relaxing; I don’t have to focus on what someone else is talking about. On picnics, the research guys chat in Gibali, and I could just admire the stars. A few times one of them would offer to teach me Gibali, but an unwritten language is a bridge too far for me.

Adjusting to Oman: My Dangerous Taxi

New Essay: “Ṭâ Is For Talisman” on The Arabic Alphabet website

Practicalities: Managing a Short Business Trip to the Arabian Peninsula

Bibliography for ‘Researching and Working on the Arabian Peninsula’ (2025, Palgrave Macmillan)

Bibliography – Creating Effective Interactions: Researching, Teaching and Working on the Arabian Peninsula (forthcoming, Palgrave MacMillan)

December 4, 2024December 4, 2024

Creating Effective Interactions – Dr. M Risse – working biobibliography

(authors in bold have additional publications which are not included in this list)

Abdul-Jabbar, Wisam. 2024. “Towards a ‘Study at Home’ Education in the Arab Gulf Region: Reterritorializing the ‘Study Abroad’ Mode.” Journal of Gulf Studies 1.1: 21-39.

Abu-Lughod, Lila. 2016/1986. Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society. Berkeley: University of California Press.

—. 2016. “The Cross-publics of Ethnography: The Case of ‘the Muslimwoman’.” American Ethnologist 43.4: 595-608.

—. 2013. Do Muslim Women Need Saving? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

—. 2011. “Seductions of the Honor Crime.” Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 22.1: 17-63.

—. 2008. Writing Women’s Worlds: Bedouin Stories. Berkeley: University of CA Press.

—. 1991. “Writing Against Culture,” in Recapturing Anthropology. Richard Fox, ed. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press. 137-62.

—. 1990. “Anthropology’s Orient: The Boundaries of Theory in the Arab World,” in Theory, Politics and the Arab World: Critical Responses. Hisham Sharabi, ed. New York: Routledge. 81-131.

—. 1989. “Zones of Theory in the Anthropology of the Arab World.” Annual Review of Anthropology 18: 267-306.

—. 1985. “A Community of Secrets: The Separate World of Bedouin Women.” Signs: A Journal of Women in Culture and Society 10: 637-57.

—. 1985. “Honor and Sentiments of Loss in a Bedouin Society.” American Ethnologist 12: 245-61.

Adra, Najwa. 2011. “Tribal Mediations in Yemen and its Implications to Development.” AAS Working Papers in Social Anthropology 19. Vienna: Institut für Sozialanthropologie. 1-17.

Adra, Najwa, Marieke Brandt, Steven Caton, Paul Dresch and Andre Gingrich, eds. 2021. Tribes in Modern Yemen: An Anthology (Denkschriften Der Philosophisch-historischen Klasse 531). Vienna: Institut für Sozialanthropologie der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.

Ahmed, Qanta. 2008. In the Land of Invisible Women: A Female Doctor’s Journey in the Saudi Kingdom. Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks.

Al-Amadi, Dana, Mark David Major, Heba Tannous and Amina AlKandari. 2023. “Diving for the Spatio-functional Qualities of Exclusivity at The Pearl-Qatar.” Habitat International 138. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0197397523001169?via%3Dihub

Al Farsi, Sulaiman. 2013. Democracy and Youth in the Middle East: Islam, Tribalism and the Rentier State in Oman. New York: I.B. Tauris.

Al-Ghanim, Kaltham, Andrew Gardner and Noora Lari. 2023. “Contemporary Women in Qatar: An Ethnographic Study of Their Challenges in Terms of Traditional Applications and Modern Requirements.” Sage Open. 1-17. DOI: 10.1177/21582440231196030

Al-Hajri, Hilal. 2006. “British travelers in Oman from 1627-1970.” Modern Oman: Studies in Politics, Economy, Environment and Culture of the Sultanate. Andrzej Kapiszewski, Abdulrahman al Salimi and Andrej Pikulski, eds. Krakow: Ksiegarnia Akademicka. 63-88.

Al-Hikmani, Hadi and Andrew Spalton. 2021. Dhofar: Monsoon Mountains to Sand Seas – Sultanate of Oman. Chicago: Gilgamesh Publishing.

Al Hussein, Mira. 2022, Nov. 10. “UAE: National Identity and the Social Contract.” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. https://carnegieendowment.org/sada/88371

—. 2021, Dec. 30. “The Economic Contracts of New Gulf Citizenships.” Orient XXI. https://orientxxi.info/magazine/the-economic-contracts-of-new-gulf-citizenships,5265.

—. 2021, Oct. “Citizenship in the Gulf.” Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung Policy Report 40. https://www.kas.de/en/web/rpg/detail/-/content/citizenship-in-the-gulf

—.2021, Sept. 15. “The UAE’s ‘Foreign Talent’ Dilemma.” London School of Economics Blog. blogs.lse.ac.uk/mec/2021/09/15/the-uaes-foreign-talent-dilemma

Al Ismaili, Ahmed. 2018. “Ethnic, Linguistic, and Religious Pluralism in Oman: The Link with Political Stability.” Al Muntaqa 1.3: 58-73.

Al Maazmi, Ahmed. 2021. “The Apocalyptic Hijab: Emirati Mediations of Pious Fashion and Conflict Talk.” Journal of Women of the Middle East and the Islamic World 19: 5–27.

Al Mutawa, Rana. 2024. Everyday Life in the Spectacular City: Making Home in Dubai. Berkely: University of California Press.

—. 2022. “‘We’re Not Like the Newbies’: Belonging Among Dubai’s Long-term Residents.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2022.2142105

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Marielle Risse

Books

Houseways in Southern Oman. Routledge, 2023

This book explains how modern, middle-class houses are sited, designed, built, decorated and lived in with an emphasis on how room-usage is determined by age, gender, time of day and the presence of guests. Combing ethnography and architectural studies, the author draws on over sixteen years of living in the Dhofar region to analyze the cultural perceptions regarding houses and how residential areas fit within the urban areas in southern Oman. Dhofari houses are also compared to houses in other Arabian Peninsula countries and positioned within the theoretical frameworks of the “Islamic city” and the “Islamic house.”

Foodways in Southern Oman. Routledge, 2021

This book examines the objects, practices and beliefs relating to producing, obtaining, cooking, eating and disposing of food in the Dhofar region of southern Oman. The chapters consider food preparation, who makes what kind of food, and how and when meals are eaten. Foodways connects what is consumed to themes such as land usage, gender, age, purity, privacy and generosity. It also discusses how foodways are related to issues of morality, safety, religion, and tourism. The volume is a result of fourteen years of collecting data and insights in Dhofar, covering topics such as catching fish, herding camels, growing fruits, designing kitchens, cooking meals and setting leftovers out for animals.

Community and Autonomy in Southern Oman. Palgrave Macmillan, 2019

This book explores how, in cultures which prize conformity, there is latitude for people who choose not to conform either for a short time and how the chances to assert independence change over time. The main focus is on how the traits of self-control and self-respect are manifested in the everyday actions of several groups of tribes whose first language is Gibali (Jebbali/ Jebali, also referred to as Shari/ Shahri), a non-written, Modern South Arabian language. Although no work can express the totality of a culture, this text describes how Gibalis are constantly shifting between preserving autonomy and signaling membership in family, tribal and national communities.

Publications – scholarly articles and chapters – anthropology/ culture/ travel writing

“Lifeways of Traditional Fishermen in Dhofar, Oman,” in Fish as Food: Lifestyle and a Sustainable Future. Helen Macbeth, ed. International Commission on the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition – Alimenta Populorum series. 2024: 155-170. https://archive.org/details/macbeth-young-and-roberts-ed-fish-as-food-anthropological-and-cross-disciplinary

“An Ethnographic Discussion of Fairy Tales from Southern Oman,” Fabula: Zeitschrift für Erzählforschung / Journal of Folktale Studies / Revue d’Etudes sur le Conte Populaire 60.3-4 (De Gruyter, Berlin) 2019: 318–335.

“Understanding Communication in Southern Oman,” North Dakota Quarterly 84.1 (Special Issue on Transnationalism) 2017: 174-184.

“Generosity, Gift-giving and Gift-avoiding in Southern Oman,” Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 45 (Oxford: Archeopress) 2015: 289-296.

“Understanding the Impact of Culture on the TESOL Classroom: An Outsider’s Perspective,” TESOL Arabia’s Perspective 18.2, 2011: 15-19.

“Cultural Refraction: Using Travel Writing, Anthropology and Fiction to Understand the Culture of Southern Arabia,” Interdisciplinary Humanities 26:1, 2009: 63-78.

Publications – scholarly articles and chapters – literature/ pedagogy

“Using Cultural Understandings to Improve Teaching in Oman,” in Unpackaging Theory and Practice in Educational Sciences. Abdülkadir Kabadayı, ed. Lyon: Livre de Lyon. 2023: 129-141. https://www.livredelyon.com/educational-sciences/unpackaging-theory-practice-in-educational-sciences_595.

“Teaching Paired Middle Eastern and Western Literary Texts,” in Advancing English Language Education. Wafa Zoghbor and Thomaï Alexiou, eds. Dubai: Zayed University Press, 2020: 221-223.

“Teaching Literature on the Arabian Peninsula,” Anthropology News website, October 7 2019. http://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2019/10/07/teaching-literature-on-the-arabian-peninsula/

“Selecting the Right Literary Texts for Middle Eastern Students: Challenges and Reactions,” in Focusing on EFL Reading: Theory and Practice. Rahma Al-Mahrooqi, ed. Muscat: Sultan Qaboos University Press, 2014: 165-188.

“Frosty Cliffs, Frosty Aunt and Sandy Beaches: Teaching Aurora Leigh in Oman,” Ariel: A Review of International English Literature 43.4, 2013: 123-145.

“Who Are You Calling ‘Coddled’?: ‘Cloistered Virtue’ and Choosing Literary Texts in a Middle Eastern University,” Pedagogy 13.3, 2013: 415-427.

“Do You know a Creon?: Making Literature Relevant in an Omani University,” in Literature Teaching in EFL/ESL: New Perspectives. Rahma Al-Mahrooqi, ed. Muscat: Sultan Qaboos University Press, 2012: 302-314.

“Reader’s Guide” for the English version of Khadija bint Alawi al-Thahab’s My Grandmother’s Stories: Folk Tales from Dhofar (Translated by W. Scott Chahanovich, U.S. Fulbright Scholar at Dhofar University, 2009-2010). Washington, D.C: Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center, 2012: 17-23.

Conference Presentations – anthropology/ culture/ travel writing

“Conducting Research on the Arabian Peninsula: Creating Effective Interactions,” Middle East Studies Association Annual Conference. Nov. 14, 2024.

“Windguru and Other Gurus: Fishing off the Coast of Dhofar, Oman,” Navigating the Transcultural Indian Ocean: Texts and Practices in Contact Conference, sponsored by the Rutter Project. June 5, 2024

“Crafting a Home: Interior Home Design in Southern Oman.” Home/Making Symposium, Concordia University. Montreal. May 12, 2023. https://www.concordia.ca/finearts/events/home-making.html

“Good Governance and Open Spaces: How the State and Residents Negotiate the Use of Government Land in Dhofar, Oman.” AnthroState Talks for the European Association of Social Anthropologists Network on Anthropologies of the State. May 4, 2023. https://easaonline.org/networks/anthrostate/talks

“Explorations in the North-west Indian Ocean: The Research Journeys of the ‘Palinurus’ along the Omani Coast in the mid-1800s.” Research Expeditions to India and the Indian Ocean in Early Modern and Modern Times, sponsored by the German Maritime Museum / Leibniz Institute for Maritime History. Nov. 3, 2022.

“Private Lives in Public Spaces: Perceptions of Space-Usage in Southern Oman.” Middle East Studies Association annual conference. Montreal, Quebec. December 2, 2021.

“The Costs and Benefits of Fishing in Southern Oman.” Fish as Food: Lifestyle and a Sustainable Future, annual conference of the International Commission on the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition, hosted at the University of Liverpool. Sept. 1, 2021.

“Ethical Eating in Southern Oman.” Just Food, virtual conference of the Association for the Study of Food and Society; Agriculture, Food and Human Values Society; Canadian Association for Food Studies and the Society for the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition, hosted by the Culinary Institute of America and New York University. June 12, 2021.

“Foodways in Southern Oman,” for the session “Uncovering Truths, Building Responsibility in A Pandemic: Insights from Emerging Monographs at the Nexus of Culture, Food, and Agriculture.” American Anthropological Association. Nov. 9, 2020.

with Keye Tersmette. “Ghurba at Home – Views from Oman.” The Arab World as Ghurba: Citizenship, Identity and Belonging in Literature and Popular Culture, University of Warwick. June 21, 2019.

“Accounts from the Journeys of the Brig ‘Palinurus’ Along the Dhofar Coast in the mid-1800s.” Maritime Exploration and Memory Conference, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, England. Sept. 15, 2018.

“Recent Views on Oman.” British Society for Middle East Studies, University of Edinburgh. July 6, 2017.

“Female, Femininity, Male and Masculinity in the Gibali-speaking Tribes of Southern Oman.” The Gulf Research Conference, Cambridge University. August 2, 2017.

“‘Words Mean Nothing’: Fluency in Language and Fluency in Culture in Anthropology Fieldwork in Southern Oman.” British Society for Middle Eastern Studies, University of Wales. July 15, 2016.

“’Why Would I Hurt a Woman?’: Respectful/ Respecting Women in Southern Oman.” Middle East Studies Association Conference, Denver. Nov. 21, 2015.

“Generosity, Gift-giving and Gift-avoiding in Southern Oman.” British Foundation for the Study of Arabia’s Seminar for Arabian Studies, The British Museum, London. July 27, 2014.

“‘I Do Not Need the Night’: The Gibali Conception of Self-Respect in Southern Oman.” Middle East Studies Association Conference, New Orleans. October 12, 2013.

“They Came, They Saw, They Fought, They Compromised, They Left: The Foreign Military Presence in the Dhofar War (Oman, 1965-1975).” Royal Geographical Society Annual Conference; Edinburgh. July 3, 2012.

“Waiting for [both] the Barbarians”: Tourism in the Dhofar Region of Oman.” Traditions and Transformations: Tourism, Heritage and Cultural Change in the Middle East and North Africa Region; Amman, Jordan. April 6, 2009.

Conference presentations – literature/ pedagogy

“Finding the Right Texts for Teaching Literature, Cultures, and Empathy in the Middle East.” American Comparative Literature Association Conference. April 9, 2021.

“‘I Came to You for Good’: An Ethnographic Discussion of Folk Tales from Southern Oman.” Third Joint Seminar of The Folklore Society and the Royal Anthropological Institute, Royal Anthropological Institute, London. Oct. 26, 2017.

“Antigone, Alcestis, Deanira and Philoketes visit the Empty Quarter: The Reception of Greek Drama on the Arabian Peninsula.” American Comparative Literature Association Conference, University of Utrecht. July 8, 2017.

“‘A Man Was Always Catching Fish’: Fairy Tale Elements in the Ali al-Mahri/ Johnstone/ Rubin Gibali Texts from Southern Oman.” American Comparative Literature Association Conference, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. March 18, 2016.

“Analyzing Arabic Teaching to Improve English Teaching.” TESOL Arabia Annual Conference; Dubai. March 14, 2014.

“John Clare Looks Good in a Dishdash: Linking John Clare to Middle Eastern Poetry.” Modern Language Association Annual Conference, Chicago. January 7, 2011.

“How Can You Hate the Sun?: Translating Western Conceptions of Nature.” Humanities Education and Research Association, Chicago, Illinois. April 9, 2009.

“Do You Have Anything on Cowboys?: Creating a University Library in the Middle East,” with Chris Sugnet. Southwest/Texas Popular Culture Association Conference, Albuquerque. Feb., 2000.

Creative Non-fiction

“Yemen with Yul,” in Emanations 11. Independently published, 2024: 417-429.

“Questions About Food and Ethics,” in Emanations: When a Planet was a Planet. Brookline, MA: International Authors, 2021: 403-408

“Ok Kilito, I Won’t Speak Your Language: Reflections after Reading Thou Shalt Not Speak My Language,” in Octo-Emanations. Carter Kaplan, ed. Brookline, MA: International Authors, 2020: 233-236.

“Predator Anthropologists, Anthropologist Predators: Anthropological Metaphors in Popular Movies,” Open Anthropology Research Repository. Aug. 25, 2020. https://www.openanthroresearch.org/doi/abs/10.1002/oarr.10000333.1

“What’s in Your Bag?” Anthropology News. American Anthropological Association. Oct. 30, 2019. http://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2019/07/23/whats-in-your-bag-2019-edition/

“Living Expat,” in Emanations: Chorus Pleiades. Carter Kaplan, ed. Brookline, MA: International Authors, 2018: 308-318.

“Research in Foreign Cultures,” in Emanations: Foray into Forever. Carter Kaplan, ed. Brookline, MA: International Authors, 2014: 355-358.

“Throwing Children in the Street: Explaining Western Culture to Omanis,” in Emanations: Third Eye. Carter Kaplan, ed. Brookline, MA: International Authors, 2013: 265-274.

“To Learn Arabic, You Have to Talk the Talk,” The Chronicle of Higher Education. May 31, 2012. http://chronicle.com/article/To-Learn-Arabic-You-Have-to/132057

“Your Zimbabwe Stories” and “Memsahib 101,” in Emanations: Sidestepping Academic Dicta into the Higher Ecstatic Ethos. Carter Kaplan, ed. Brookline, MA: International Authors, 2012: 305-312.

“Bringing Theory Home in Oman,” The Chronicle of Higher Education. July 10, 2011: B24.

http://chronicle.com/article/Bringing-Theory-Home-in-Oman/128139/

“In the House of the Infidel or Perfume: The Great Healer,” Button 16, 2011: 6-9.

“For Middle East expats, a fake-holly, not-so-jolly Christmas,” The Washington Post, Dec. 23, 2009: C3.

“An Open Letter to Alice Walker,” The Chronicle of Higher Education. Feb. 20, 2009: B11.

http://chronicle.texterity.com/chronicle/20090220b/?pg=11#pg11

Bibliography – Arabian Peninsula Literature: Fiction, Drama, Poetry and Secondary Sources

December 1, 2024December 14, 2024

This is a selected bibliography of texts related to Arabian Peninsula/ Middle Eastern literature.

[writers who are underlined are major authors with many other publications]

Arabian Peninsula Writing

general

Akers, Deborah and Abubaker Bagader, eds. and trans. 2008. Oranges in the Sun: Short Stories from the Arabian Gulf. London: Lynne Rienner.

Alshammari, Shahd. 2017. Notes on the Flesh. Malta: Faraxa Publishing.

Jayyusi, Salma Khadra, ed. 1988. The Literature of Modern Arabia: An Anthology. London: Kegan Paul International.

Michalak-Pikulska, Barbara. 2016. Modern Literature of the Gulf. Bern: Peter Lang GmbH.

Meguid, Ibrahim Abdel. 2006. The Other Place. Farouk Abdel Wahab, trans. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press.

Wilson, G. Willow. 2012. Alif the Unseen. New York, Grove Press.

also note:

The Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation [https://www.banipaltrust.org.uk/prize/

Banipal Magazine [ https://www.banipal.co.uk/ ] which has special issues on specific countries, for example: Yemen [ https://www.banipal.co.uk/back_issues/73/issue-36/ ]

Emirates

Al Murr, Mohammad. 2008. Dubai Tales. Peter Clark and Jack Briggs, trans. Dubai: Motivate Publishing.

—. 1998. “The Wink of the Mona Lisa” and Other Stories from the Gulf. Jack Briggs, trans. Dubai: Motivate Publishing.

Al-Suwaidi, Thani. The Diesel.

Johnson-Davies, Denys, ed. 2009. In a Fertile Desert: Modern Writing from the United Arab Emirates. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press.

Krishnadas. 2007. Dubai Puzha: When Seagulls Fly Over Dubai Creek. ‎Thrissur, Kerala: Green Books.

Michalak-Pikulska, Barbara. 2012. Modern Literature of the United Arab Emirates. Krakow: Jagiellonian University Press.

Unnikrishnan, Deepak. Temporary People.

Kuwait

Abulhawa, Susan. 2020. Against the Loveless World.

Al Nakib, Mai. 2023. An Unlasting Home. Mariner Books: New York.

Alsanousi, Saud. The Bamboo Stalk.

Oman

Al Farsi, Abdulaziz. 2013. Earth Weeps, Saturn Laughs: A Modern Omani Novel. Nancy Roberts, trans. Cairo: American University of Cairo Press.

Alharthi, Jokha. 2019. Celestial Bodies. Marilyn Booth, trans. New York: Catapult.

Hamed, Huda. I Saw Her in my Dreams.

Ibrahim, Sonallah. 2001. Warda. Hosam Aboul-Ela, trans. Yale University Press: New Haven.

Michalak-Pikulska, Barbara. 2002. Modern Poetry and Prose of Oman. Krakow: The Enigma Press.

Saudi

Al-Khamis, Omaima Abdullah. Al-Bahriyat.

Alireza, Marianne. 2002. At the Drop of a Veil.

Alsanea, Rajaa. 2007. Girls of Riyadh. London: Penguin.

Benyamin. 2021. Goat Days. Joseph Koyippally, trans. Efinito.

Ferraris, Zoe. 2008. Finding Noof. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt: New York.

—. 2010. City of Veils. New York: Little Brown.

—. 2012. Kingdom of Strangers. New York: Little Brown.

Munif, ‘Abd al-Rahman. 1989. Cities of Salt. Peter Theroux, trans. Random House: New York.

Yemen

‘Abd al-Wali, Mohammad. They Die Strangers.

Ba-Amer, Salih. 1988. “Dancing by the Light of the Moon,” in The Literature of Modern Arabia: An Anthology. S. K. Jayyusi, ed. London: Kegan Paul International. 318-22.

Bajaber, Khadija Abdalla. 2021. House of Rust.

Dammaj, Zayd Mutee. 1994. The Hostage. Interlink Books: Northampton, MA.

Hunter, Barry Stewart. 2017. Aden.

Classical/ Pre-Modern Fiction and Poetry

Allen, Roger. 2005. The Arabic Literary Heritage: The Development of its Genres and Criticism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Arberry, A.J. 1965. Arabic Poetry: A Primer for Students. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Farrin, Raymond. 2011. Abundance from the Desert: Classical Arabic Poetry. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.

Irwin, R. 2002. Night and Horses and the Desert: An Anthology of Classical Arabic Literature. New York: Anchor.

Sells, M., trans. 1989. Desert Tracings: Six Classic Arabian Odes by Alqama, Shanfara, Labid, Antara, Al-Asha and Dhu al-Rumma. Middleton, CT: Wesleyan University Press.

Folk/fairy tales

Al Taie, Hatim and Joan Pickersgill. 2008. Omani Folk Tales. Muscat, Oman: Al Roya Press and Publishing House.

al-Thahab, Khadija bint Alawi. 2012/ Stories of My Grandmother. W. Scott Chahanovich, ed. Washington, D.C: Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center.

Behnam, Mariam. 2001. Heirloom: Evening Tales from the East. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

ElMahi, Ali Tigani and Ahmed Mohamed al Khatheri. 2015. “A Folk Story from Dhofar: A Pathway to Indigenous Knowledge.” Journal of Arts and Social Sciences 6.2: 5-12. DOI:10.24200/jass.vol6iss2

Hamad, Abdulsalam. 2006. Omani Folk Tales. Seeb: Al-Dhamri Bookshop.

Johnstone, T.M. 1974. “Folklore and Folk Literature in Oman and Socotra.” Arabian Studies 1: 7-24.

Johnstone, T.M. 1983. “Folk-Tales and Folk-lore of Dhofar.” Journal of Oman Studies 6.1: 123-127.

—. 1978. “A St. George of Dhofar.” Arabian Studies 4: 59-65.

—. 1974. “Folklore and Folk Literature in Oman and Socotra.” Arabian Studies 1: 7-24.

Kamal, M. 1999. Juha: Last of the Errant Knights. J. Briggs, trans. Dubai: Motivate Publishing.

Mershen, Birgit. 2004. “Ibn Muqaarab and Naynuh: A Folk-tale from Tiwi.” Journal of Oman Studies 13: 91-97.

Paine, Patty, Jesse Ulmer and Michael Hersrud, eds. 2013. The Donkey Lady and Other Tales from the Arabian Gulf. Highclere, Berkshire: Berkshire Academic Press.

Tales of the Marvelous and News of the Strange. 2014. Malcome Lyons, trans. London: Penguin.

Todino-Gonguet, Grace. Halimah and the Snake, and other Omani Folk Tales. 2008. London: Stacey International.

Wilson, G. Willow. 2012. Alif the Unseen. New York, Grove Press.

Poetry

al Hajri, Hilal. 2014. The Night is Mine. Khalid al Balushi. trans. Muscat: Ministry of Heritage and Culture.

Al Balushi, Khalid, ed. and trans. 2016. Contemporary Omani Poetry in English. Muscat: Ministry of Heritage and Culture.

Handal, N., ed. 2001. The Poetry of Arab Women: A Contemporary Anthology. New York: Interlink.

Johnstone, T. M. 1972. “The Language of Poetry in Dhofar.” The Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 35.1: 1-17.

Morris, Miranda. 1985. “A Poem in Jibbali.” Journal of Oman Studies 7: 121-30.

Arabic/ Islamic Drama, Fiction and Poetry

Al Aswany, Alaa. 2006. The Yacoubian Building (Egypt). Harper: New York.

Alghosaibi, Ghazi. 1996. An Apartment Called Freedom (Egypt). Leslie McLoughlin, trans. Kegan Paul.

Al-Hakim, T. 1981. Plays, Prefaces and Postscripts of Tawfiq Al-Hakim, Volume One. W. M. Hutchins, trans. Washington D.C.: Three Continents Press.

Carlson, M, ed. 2005. The Arab Oedipus: Four plays. New York: Martin E. Segal Theater Center Publications.

Charara, H, ed. 2008. Inclined to Speak: An Anthology of Contemporary Arab-American Poetry. Fayetteville, AK: The University of Arkansas Press.

Elmusa, S. 2008. Flawed Landscape: Poems 1987-2008. Northhampton, MA: Interlink.

Husni, R. and Newman, D., eds. 2008. Modern Arabic Short Stories: A Bilingual Reader. London: Saqi.

Johnson-Davies, Denys. ed. 2006. The Anchor Book of Modern Arabic Fiction. New York: Anchor Books/ Random House.

Johnson-Davies, Denys, ed. 1994. Arabic Short Stories. Berkeley: University of CA Press.

Kabbani, Nizar. 1999. Arabian Love Poems. B. K. Franieh and C. R. Brown, trans. London: Lynne Rienner.

Kahf, M. 2003. E-mails from Scheherazade. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida.

Kaldas, P. and Mattawa, K, eds. 2009. Dinarzad’s Children: An Anthology of Contemporary Arab American Fiction. Fayetteville, AK: The University of Arkansas Press.

Kamal, M. 1999. Juha: Last of the Errant Knights. J. Briggs, trans. Dubai: Motivate Publishing.

Kanafani, Ghassan. 1998. Men in the Sun and Other Palestinian Stories. Hilary Kilpatrick, trans. Boulder: ‎Lynne Rienner Publishers.

Mahfouz, Naguib. 1990. The Cairo Trilogy. Doubleday: New York.

Mersal, I. 2008. These are not Oranges, My Love. Riverdale, NY: Sheep Meadow Press.

Nye, N. S. 2002. 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East. New York: Greenwillow.

—., ed. 1996. This Same Sky: A Collection of Poems from Around the World. New York: Aladdin.

Qabbani, Nizar. 2006. On Entering the Sea: The Erotic and Other Poetry of Nizar Qabbani. Lena Jayyusi and Sharif Elmusa. trans. Northampton, MA: Interlink Publishing.

Salih, Tayeb. 1995. “The Doum Tree of Wad Hamid,” in Global Voices: Contemporary Literature from the Non-Western World. Arthur Biddle, ed. Eaglewood Cliffs, NJ: Blair Press. 512-522.

Washburn, K. and Major, J, eds. 1998. World Poetry. New York, W.W. Norton.

Williams, D. 1993. Traveling Mercies. Cambridge, MA: Alice James Books.

Literature/ language/ multi-cultural learning

Al Harthi, A. 2005. “Distance Higher Education Experiences of Arab Gulf Students in the United States: A Cultural Perspective.” International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning 6.3: 1-14.

Amin-Zaki, Amel. 1996. “Religious and Cultural Considerations in Translating Shakespeare into Arabic,” in Between Language and Cultures: Translation and Cross-Cultural Texts. Anuradha Dingwaney and Carol Maier, eds. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. 223-44.

Bell, Duncan. 2003. “Mythscapes: Memory, Mythology, and National Identity.” The British Journal of Sociology 54.1: 63-81.

Boyd, F. 2002. “Conditions, Concessions, and the Many Tender Mercies of Learning through Multicultural Literature.” Reading Research and Instruction 42.1: 58-92.

Brooks, W. 2006. “Reading Representation of Themselves.” Reading Research Quarterly, 41, 372-392.

Gatling, Benjamin. 2020, Summer. “There Isn’t Belief, Just Believing: Rethinking Belief as a Keyword of Folklore Studies.” The Journal of American Folklore 133.529: 307-28.

Grosjean, François. 2015. “Bicultural Bilinguals.” International Journal of Bilingualism 19.5: 572–86.

Halstead, J. M. 2004. “An Islamic Concept of Education.” Comparative Education 40: 517-29.

Heble, Ayesha. 2007. “Teaching Literature On-line to Arab students: Using Technology to Overcome Cultural Restrictions.” Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 6.2: 219-226.

Jabra, Jabra. 1980. “Modern Arabic Literature and the West,” in Critical Perspectives on Modern Arabic Literature. Issa Boullata, ed. Washington, D.C.: Three Continents Press. 8-20.

Mazawi, Andreas. 2010. “Naming the Imaginary: ‘Building an Arab Knowledge Society’ and the Contested Terrain of Educational Reform for Development,” in Trajectories of Education in the Arab World: Legacies and Challenges. Osama Abin-Mershed, ed. London: Center for Contemporary Arab Studies and Routledge.

McDermott, Ray and Varenne, Herve. 2007. “Reconstructing Culture in Educational Research,” in Innovations in Educational Ethnography, G. Spindler and L. Hammond, eds. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 3-31.

Michalak-Pikulska, Barbara. 2006. “The Mosaic of Quotations and the Labyrinth of Interpretations: The Problems of Intertextuality in the Modern Literature of the Gulf.” Intertextuality in Modern Arabic Literature since 1967. 187-200.

Ogulnick, K. 2005. “Learning Language/ Learning Self,” in Intercultural Discourse and Communication: The Essential Readings. S. Kiesling and C. Bratt Paulston, eds. Oxford: Blackwell. 250-4.

Ramsey, Gail. 2006. “The Past in the Present: Aspects of Intertextuality in Modern Literature in the Gulf.” Intertextuality in Modern Arabic Literature since 1967. 161-86.

—. 2004. “Confining the Guest Labourers to the Realm of the Subaltern in Modern Literature from the Gulf. Orientalia Succana, 53: 133-42.

Zemrani, Aziza, Deborah L. Trent and Sawsan Abutabenjeh. 2020, Dec. “Cultural Competency Teaching and Practice in the MENA.” AlMuntaqa 3.2: 64-7.

Webb, Allen. 2012. Teaching the Literature of Today’s Middle East. London: Routledge.

Using Creative Writing Prompts in Foreign Language Learning

Teaching: Reflections on Culture Shocks

Teaching Literature and Staying au courant – The Man from Nowhere and the Ancient Greeks

Navigating without Language

Poems

New book – Researching and Working on the Arabian Peninsula: Creating Effective Interactions

August 8, 2024August 8, 2024

I am happy to announce that my 4th book, Researching and Working on the Arabian Peninsula: Creating Effective Interactions, has been accepted for publication at Palgrave Macmillan. I am very grateful to the two anonymous reviewers who gave positive and helpful comments.

This book outlines strategies for current or soon-to-be business professionals, government employees, anthropologists, researchers and teachers to communicate, study and work effectively on the Arabian Peninsula. Using first-person accounts, as well as scholarly research from the fields of anthropology, history, literature, political science and travel writing, this text gives clear advice so long- and short-term visitors can create successful interactions with people from Arabian Peninsula societies. By discussing how the practicalities of work and research intersect with cultural norms, this book fills the gap between guides aimed at the casual tourists and academic texts on narrowly defined topics.

Reflections on Ethnographic Work: Leaving and Learning

Presentation – “Windguru and Other Gurus: Fishing off the Coast of Dhofar, Oman”

Culture Shock – (Not) Being Under Observation

Predator Anthropologists, Anthropologist Predators: Anthropological Metaphors in Popular Movies

New essay: “Ẓâ is for Ẓarf” on “The Arabic Alphabet” website (by Michael Beard)

May 19, 2024May 19, 2024

“The Arabic Alphabet” website (by Michael Beard) – http://alifbatourguide.com/

Ẓâ – http://alifbatourguide.com/the-arabic-alphabet/zaa/

Ẓâ is for Ẓarf

You don’t need to know much about linguistics to hear the difference between a voiced and an unvoiced consonant. English G is the voiced form of our K. English B is the voiced form of P. English D is the voiced form of our T. Those are easy examples. It is possible for a language to make the distinctions very easy to see. When you study Turkish and learn that the consonants B, D, or J (spelled C), become, at the end of a word P, T or CH (spelled Ç), you hardly need to memorize it. It’s easy enough to hear voiced consonants turning into unvoiced ones. Kabâb becomes kebap; Ahmad becomes Ahmet; Persian loan word tâj becomes taç. You can predict the changes by ear without thinking much, without having to know the terms “voiced” and “unvoiced” at all.

As for the pronunciation of Arabic Ẓa, it is the voiced form of Ṣâd. That’s a harder one. Ṣpeakers of Arabic can get it immediately. For speakers of Persian, Turkish, and Urdu, etc. (as in English), Ẓa is (along with Ẓa, Dha and Ḍâd), just another way to say Ẓ.

As for transcription, I’m going for Ẓ. It’s not a completely logical choice, since it’s the same way we transcribed ض,but the stakes are low. (Maybe ض should have been Ḍ anyway.)

continued at http://alifbatourguide.com/the-arabic-alphabet/zaa/

New Essay: “Ṭâ Is For Talisman” on The Arabic Alphabet website

New essay: “D͎âd is for Drubbing” on the Arabic alphabet website

New essay: “Sîn is for Zenith” on the Arabic alphabet website

Reflections on Ethnographic Research: What is Missing and What Changes

September 16, 2023September 22, 2023

I recently read two ethnographic texts about the Arabian Peninsula and was troubled that neither author articulated how their perceptions of the people of who they were studying (or themselves) were changed by their months in-country and years of writing.

The learning curve was perfectly flat – i.e. my conception of the project was X and this is what I found – without any mention of what might have been misunderstood or missed. I am not sure if the years of writing smoothed out the research process so that it appears seamless, or perhaps the researchers did not want to publicize or dwell on lacunas. But I don’t think any anthropological work can ever be complete or finished and it’s better to be clear about what changed/ what’s not there/ what questions weren’t asked, etc. I also think it’s important for authors to reflect on how they themselves have changed.

I wrote a book about food (Foodways in Southern Oman, 2021) and weeks after it was at the publisher I realized I had not been clear on the issue of Dhofaris not talking while they are eating. I was having dinner with someone who would say half a sentence, take a bit of food, chew carefully, then finish the sentence. This meant no one else could talk and, at the end of the meal, this person left one bite on their plate and talked on for 20 minutes as no one could leave the table until everyone was done eating. As I was thinking about their actions, I realized that this kind of conversation-hijacking doesn’t happen in Oman.

I had missed a whole series of interrelated food/ dialog practices and understandings. In Dhofar, there is an understanding that being upset can be physically harmful; for example, children (who can’t yet control themselves) should not be allowed to cry. Another example of this belief is that no one should say or do anything distressing while eating. There should be either no conversation or light/ polite/ general talk.

If someone wants to talk, they can – but side conversations are fine and people are concentrating on the food. When a person is done, they will usually stand up to wash their hands. If someone has something important to say, they will not do it during a meal.

In my book, I didn’t include the insight that a whole series of actions/ tropes which are normal in American culture, such as loud arguments at the dinner table (perhaps with screaming, throwing things or stomping away) are very rare in Dhofar. As is someone saying something dramatic, then calmly drinking or eating while everyone else is in an uproar. Eating should be done in a peaceful atmosphere and the Dhofari way to show fury at the dinner table is usually to not eat and not talk.

And as I read the two ethnographic texts about the Arabian Peninsula and wondered at how the authors didn’t change, I questioned how I would make that articulation about myself. How have I been changed by years of working with one group of tribes in Dhofar?

I would say that I am more patient, although this is not the perception of the men in my research group. And I have adapted the belief from the Dhofari people I know that you should frame learning that a friend is untrustworthy as positive. Even if someone you have been friends with for years betrays you, you should be glad that you finally know understand that person’s character.

I realized I had internalized this belief when I watched the last episode of the long-running series Endeavor. The main character (Morse) and his supervisor/ mentor (Thursday) are investigating the death of drug-dealer and trying to find the body of a long-dead boy. Their work is complicated by the impending marriage of Thursday’s daughter, Joan, to another policeman. Thursday is warned that if he continues to search for the culprits, Joan might be put in danger and Morse is torn between finally telling Joan that he loves her and staying stoic.

At the end, Morse figures out that Thursday is connected to a murder; his long-trusted and respected mentor is revealed as a self-serving hypocritic. Quoting Harry IV, Morse breaks with Thursday as Prince Hal did with Falstaff and, in their final scene, rejects Thursday’s attempt to regain their previous friendship when Thursday refers to Morse by his first name. As it’s clear that they will never speak to each other again, it’s a startling end to nine seasons of watching their camaraderie grow and deepen.

My reaction to Morse’s brush off of Thursday’s last effort at reconciliation was thinking, “oh, it’s a good thing that Morse never told Joan he loved her as there is obviously a flaw in the character of that family and who knows when it would have shown up in Joan.” Then I thought, “that’s the POV of the people I do research with.”

It was an interesting moment as I realized that I should have felt sorry for Morse [he lost his mentor and the woman he loved!] but I have adopted another POV over the years of living in Dhofar. When I have gone to a Dhofari friend with a tale of “this person did this awful thing,” I have gotten two reactions. One is, “That’s good! Now you know how that person is” and “Why you are upset when you already knew that person was bad?”

I joked in my first book about how there is no bad news – it’s like living in Voltaire’s Candide without the skepticism. Leibniz and his phrase “the best of all possible worlds” would be at home in the tribes I work with as the Dhofaris in my research group strive to find a positive outcome from negative events.

The framework is that all knowledge is beneficial. If someone revels themselves to be dishonest, this is a good thing because now you can avoid them. Perhaps you might have continued to be friends with them for years without knowing their true personality, unwittingly trusting a misleading and deceitful person. Or perhaps they might have tried to trick you or someone else out of large sums of money or something important. So you should celebrate the fact that you have learned that they are not good. You should not focus on the pain of this betrayal, but on the happiness of avoiding any further (perhaps worse) treachery.

Reflections on Ethnographic Research – Getting it Wrong

Reflections on Ethnographic Research: Making Adjustments for Positive Multi-Cultural Exchanges/ Events

Reflections on Ethnographic Research: (Not) Asking Questions

Ethnography: Conversations about Men/ Masculinity, part 1

Reflections on Ethnographic Research: Changes within Cultures

Using Cultural Understandings to Improve Teaching, part 2

July 21, 2023August 17, 2023

Using Cultural Understandings to Improve Teaching, part 1

Overview

All people have strong memories of their school days. Sometimes these memories become an inviolate template, so that teachers think “X was a great teacher and she did Y so I must do Y also” or “I was a good student and I did Z, so all of my students must also do Z.” Sometimes when teachers say “this is the ‘best’ way to do it,” they actually mean “this is the way my parents did it,” “this is what I am comfortable with,” “this is what is usual in my culture” or “this is what I learned from my teachers.” This might be useful if the teacher is working in their own culture, but such generalizations may not be helpful when working in a foreign country. Actions that might be seen as beneficial, such as using a student’s name in a sample grammar sentence, might be problematic in Oman where students might resist having their name used in public.

I will discuss five common cultural constructions within Oman which can affect student’s behavior. I am specifically not talking about any particular subject of study, but issues related to classroom management and creating a positive, pro-learning atmosphere.

Understanding Cultural Constructions within High Context Cultures

Oman is a high context culture meaning that most learning about proper social behavior is done by observation, not explicit instruction. When a teacher also comes from a high context culture that has different definitions of what good students do, this can lead to unintended confusion. It is much easier when teachers use low context techniques such as explaining all expectations clearly with written explanations and detailed rubrics.

The more organized and confident a teacher is at the start of the semester, the easier it is to create a positive learning environment. To use Krashen’s terms, when a teacher appears confused or uncertain in high context cultures, students’ affective filter is up, meaning that they students might be anxious to focus on learning.

Worrying about new concepts or new types of assignments can block students from being able to work effectively, so teachers should clarify exactly what is expected. For example, one teacher asked students to do presentations but did not specifically say that students would be interrupted with questions. When the first student was asked a question mid-presentation, they froze up and were unable to answer, nor could they finish the presentation. The rest of the class immediately developed sore throats with raging headaches and stated that they were not able to do their presentations.

Understanding Cultural Constructions of “Power” and “Authority”

Some teachers come from cultures in which teaching is very authoritarian. Teachers speak – students listen. Students do not have the right to question what a teacher is doing or why, much less complain about grades or that they have been treated unfairly. Also, some teachers have the idea that since many Omani cultures are based on tribes, that there are very top-down, repressive cultures, e.g. sheikhs speak and people obey.

This is not the case. Sheikhs might have the last word but it is their duty to listen as part of the understandings within tribes is that the person without power gets to state their case, sometimes emphatically and at length. Also, a good sheikh will not issue commands, but talk in an intelligent way so that the people will agree with him or at least agree to follow a specific course of action.

Oman has many cultures which are oral-based, meaning people talk far more than they read or write. The powerplay of shutting people down without listening to them is rarely used. Further, refusing to discuss an issue can be perceived as being weak. The thinking is: if a person can’t listen and/or debate, maybe it’s because the person knows their case is not defendable. Someone who can’t support their position will try to run away from conversations. Thus a common model of a person in authority is a person who listens and explains their thinking. It is also necessary that their words and actions match each other.

Students expect that their reasons/ excuses will be listened to

Because of this cultural constructions, an Omani student might come to complain or plead for a change in the rule several times. This can frustrate teachers who come from backgrounds in which students should not repeatedly ask for something. In this case, the American communication strategy such as saying “I’m sorry” to defuse a tense situation is helpful, as is setting limits such as saying, “I’m sorry, I would love to discuss this with you but I have to go to class now, I will be back in 1 1 2/ hours and if you are busy then, I will be in my office tomorrow morning at 9am.”

If a student continues to speak, the teacher can restate with questions which will break up the flow of complaints and force students to refocus: “Did I tell you that I wanted to continue the conversation? Did I tell you that I had a class at that time? Did I tell you when I would be back in my office? Did I tell when I would be in my office tomorrow?” The problem is deferred and not escalated.

When a student comes during office hours, I usually write down the exact time they start to speak and let them talk for ten minutes. Then I interrupt and say, “I have listened for 10 minutes, now I would like you to listen for 1 minute.” If I am not going to grant the student’s request to change the rules, I will explain WHY I have that rule, then say, “if you would like to continue to talk, that’s fine, but unless you have NEW information, I need to do some work.” Then I will listen for a few moments, if the student is simply restating their objections, I will start doing desk work such as e-mail and entering attendance without asking the student to leave my office.

Teachers need to explain their reasoning

In some cultures, teachers can make blanket declarations, but it’s easier for students in Oman to have foreign teachers explain the class rules in a clear manner both orally and in writing on the syllabus and on-line teaching program.

One example is that I carefully describe how I grade tests. I turn the cover page over so I don’t see the student’s name. Then I grade all of the first pages together so I can see if students are having any particular problems with one question or if several students have answers that are too similar. Then I re-shuffle the papers and grade all of the 2nd pages, without looking at how a student did on their first page. When I have finished all the pages, I add up the scores and record the grade. I believe the reason I receive very few complaints or petitions about final grades is that I take the time to make sure students know exactly what I am doing with their tests. This allows them to feel more confident that I am being as fair as I can.

A second example happened one semester in which I was given a class to teach and I planned the syllabus alone, thinking I was the only one doing that class. During the add-and-drop period, a second section needed to be opened, but I didn’t know that had happened, nor did the other teacher know I was also teaching the same course. A few weeks into the semester, the fact that the two sections had different assignments became clear and there was some worry that students would complain that my class would be perceived as being more difficult. I said that I felt there would not be any problems because I had spent a lot of time explaining what work I was assigning and why I chose to ask for that work. By taking the time to say why I felt the homework was helpful, students did not feel that they were being treated unfairly.

Do not make false threats

When talking to new teachers, I often give the example of a child crying for a sweet while a parent says no. After a few moments, the parent gives in and hands over the sweet so the child stops crying. The parent has now taught the child to cry. My point is: don’t teach your students to create problems.

Think through realistic assessments and policies for your classes which you can defend. If you need to change something, do it explicitly in front of the whole class, write it on your on-line teaching program and make sure you have a built-in support ready to go. For example, “I was not marking who came to class without the course book but this is turning out to be a problem as many students are coming unprepared, and then bothering other students to share books. This means it’s harder to some students to take notes. So, now I will be checking to see if you have your book and marking that as part of your class participation grade. If you forget your book at home, please come to my office before class and I can lend you a photocopy to use.”

A related topic is that making broad threats only shows students that you cannot be trusted and invites students to attempt to change your mind on ALL aspects of your class. Saying “if you talk during the exam, I will take off 5 points” is not helpful. A teacher who tells students to come to class on time, but then arrives late is teaching students not to trust their words. Some teachers come from cultures in which older people are not expected to always follow their advice, but in Oman the idea of “do as I say, not as I do” can lead to classroom difficulties.

Understanding Cultural Constructions of “Magic Words”

Tied to the above discussion about power, some cultures work with what I term “magic words,” meaning that a teacher can simply say “this will not happen” and (like magic) it does not happen in a manner reminiscent of Gandalf blocking the Balrog by saying, “You cannot pass.” This construction does not work in Oman.

Simply telling students “do not…” will not work effectively. Words have to be connected to specific actions. For example, for a midterm exam, stating “do not cheat” is not useful. A teacher needs to think through the problem and create concrete steps to prevent cheating such as making sure students are seated apart from one another, writing tests with essays questions or having different versions of the test.

Another example is that many students like to solve exam questions in pencil, then go over their answers in pen. This creates a whole series of problems. First, to do this, students will need a pencil, easer and pen. First year students often forget one of those three things, then create havoc by asking loudly to borrow an eraser, etc. Also, some students will not start re-writing until the very end of the exam time, so that you are trying to take exams as students are trying to erase and re-write. If you take the exam still written in pencil, the students are upset and if you give them extra time to re-write, then the other students are upset because they feel that the pencil-using students got extra time.

The way to deal with this is not to say “don’t use pencils” but to be very clear: “If I see a pencil in your hand, I will take it out of your hand.” I also make sure there is blank space on the exam. Once the exam starts, I walk around and take pencils away from students but at the same time, point out the blank space and say, “if you don’t like your answer, cross it out and write a new answer here.” Or if students complain that they circled the wrong answer on a multiple-choice question, I suggest that they draw an arrow to point to the correct answer.

The combination of words, actions and making sure that students know you have thought through the ramifications creates a quiet exam.

Understanding Cultural Constructions of “Patience”

There is a strong Omani emphasis on covering/ hiding feelings and emotions. I believe this is connected to the fact that most Omanis live in multi-generational family homes with 20 or more people. Living in close quarters with so many relatives, creating a peaceful environment is important. This is on contrast to other cultures in which living in nuclear families or alone is common.

Living with so many people requires high levels of patience. For example, if several people want to go on a picnic but one child is sick, the family may delay plans so as not to leave two or three members at home.

Further, in many Omani cultures, getting angry is seen as something that children, not adults, do. A proper adult will not lose their temper but always stay in control of their emotions. Other conceptions of “patience” include not rushing to judge behavior. This means it is usual in Omani cultures to give people second chances and to look at their intentions, not only their actions.

Self-control

Sometimes when I explain the values of patience to teachers, I am told, “But students yell at me! They are not patient” There are a couple of issues at play. One is that the belief that the older the person, the better they should behave, so that a student who loses his temper might think, “I am yelling because I am young, but this teacher is older than me and should not yell at me.”

Perhaps a student is mad because of perceived unfairness, a teacher is requiring something that other students have not done or that other teachers do not ask for (such as coming to class on time). Or a student might be testing the teacher to try to get the teacher annoyed enough to say something wrong, which the student can then use as against the teacher.

So staying calm is absolutely vital. Sometimes the best choice is to explain that you cannot continue the conversation now for X reason, but that you are available to talk at Y time, giving you both some breathing room.

Sometimes you can plan ahead for how to avoid tense situations. You will know that X type of event might induce panic (and hence anger), so you can figure out how to keep a calm atmosphere. For example, the end of exams can be a difficult time for students who do not know the answers. Perhaps, they have been sitting and starting at the exam for over an hour, but when the times comes to give in the paper, they can get upset, try to quickly write something and yell if a teacher tries to take their exam paper. Handled wrongly, the situation can end in tears and/or fury.

Therefore, I make plans to ensure a smooth ending without me having to raise my voice, much less grab a paper away from a student. First, I give verbal warnings about the time such as “you have one hour.” I make those as clear and short as possible, not: “now dear students I want you to know that we have finished half the time and you have one hour remaining.” Simple, short statements are best.

When there is 10 minutes left, I say “you have to finish now, there are ten minutes.” And then when the time is finished, I don’t say, “the time is over, give me your papers.” I say, “time to finish” and then give a count-backwards from 10: 10 – pause – 9 – pause – 8 – pause, etc. When I get to “zero,” I start talking (sometimes singing) very loudly, “let’s go home – let’s go have ice cream – time for tea,” etc. It’s silly and distracting. If someone refuses to hand over their exam, I stand next to them and talk very loudly about how I really want to leave and go have an ice cream. The fact that I am talking loudly means they can’t concentrate; they quickly give up and hand over the paper. The students might be unhappy with how they did on the test, but they do not feel attacked or antagonized.

Believing the Best of a Person

A second issue related to patience is that Omanis often believe a person, especially a younger person, should be forgiven the first time they make a mistake, even if it was a deliberate transgression. Thus Omani students might breezily say “first time/ last time” when, for example, they have cheated on an assignment. A teacher from a culture which believes “do it right the first time” might feel insulted by a student who is not taking a problem seriously. One way to handle these situations is to make a great show of writing down the student’s name and what happened, then saying, “this was your ONE chance to make a mistake. And I have noted it, so if it happens again, then the consequences are…”

Judging on intentions not actions

Something that has really helped me as a teacher in Oman is that I spent two summers learning Arabic from Omani teachers. Being a student in an Omani-led classroom gave me a lot of insights into how teaching and learning is conceived of in Oman.

I was once, painfully slowly, trying to say a sentence in my Arabic grammar class but the Omani grammar teacher kept trying to help by interrupting me with hints. I got really frustrated and yelled “STOP!” He walked to the corner, turned his back to the class and raised his hands over his head (punishment for misbehaving school kids). The other American and European students were appalled but the Omani teacher was not angry with me because he perceived my intention in yelling was to express my exasperation with myself, not an attempt to be rude to him. The action of yelling was rude, but there was no intention to be rude so we kept a good relationship.

From his comments in class it was clear that, to him, it was less rude to shout from frustration than to play with a cell phone in class or sit silently seething. I was making mistakes and inappropriately yelling, but at least I was trying to speak and learn so I was judged positively.

Some students might work out of the same framework. For example, students might whisper questions to each other while a teacher is talking. If a teacher assumes the talking is social (not class-related), the teacher might become angry, making the students also angry as their intention was not to disrupt the class but to understand something. As always, staying calm is the best idea. A teacher can stop talking, look at the students and ask quietly, “is something not clear?”

Understanding Cultural Constructions of “Shame”

In some cultures, involving students in the lessons is seen as a method of improving learning, thus teachers might ask students to write something on the board or use a student’s name in a sample sentence. This can create issues because Omani students are often uneasy when they are singled out, especially in first year university classes. Having special attention paid to one student can also be problematic as many Omanis have very strong memories.

One former student told me how a teacher had made a comment to her about her new purse, then a few days later used that student’s name in a sample sentence about someone who likes to go shopping. That student assumed the teacher was making fun of her and felt unhappy in the class for the rest of the semester. I am sure that the teacher never connected a compliment about a purse to a grammar example but the former student believed that the teacher remembered every comment made to every student and had used her name on purpose.

This is why I suggest that teachers never use their students’ names in example sentences (you can ask your students for a name of someone not in the class) and be careful about personal comments, even if they are compliments.

Further, if a teacher wants students to write on the board, bring six white board markers and have six students (same gender) write at one time for the first few days, then have four write, then two, then it’s fine to ask one student to write.

Or if a teacher wants to have students do presentations, first ask all students to stand in the front of the class and say one simple sentence. The next day ask them to say two simple sentences on an easy topic such “your favorite food.” In this way, you can gradually get the students accustomed to talking in front of the class so that presentations will go smoothly.

One teacher asked students at the end of presentation to evaluate their own work. When another student gave a positive evaluation of their work, the teacher said that they were wrong and the presentation was not well done. Then all the other students refused to do any kind of evaluation of their work. A simple way around this is to ask students to write a short response to their presentations listing one aspect that they think they did well and one aspect that that they could improve on.

Using Cultural Understandings to Improve Teaching, part 3

Using Cultural Understandings to Improve Teaching, part 4