Examines how the1001 Nights, popularly known in the West as the Arabian Nights, is transformed and adapted for different media and genres. Focuses on a variety of films, (e.g., The Thief of Baghdad, Chu Chin Chow, Aladdin), illustrations/images (e.g., Doré, Chagall, Matisse), musical and balletic renditions (e.g., Rimsky-Korsakov, Fokine), translations (e.g., Galland, Lane, Burton, Haddawy), and re-tellings of stories (e.g., Poe, Barth, Mahfouz, Sebbar, Zimmerman). Also considers the role of the 1001 Nights in contemporary popular culture.
Founded as a graduate program in 1904 and joining with the undergraduate Literature Concentration in 2007, Harvard’s Department of Comparative Literature operates at the crossroads of multilingualism, literary study, and media history.
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