This course offers an introduction to contemporary Arabic literature focusing on developments after the seismic period of regional transition within North Africa and the Middle East known as the “Arab spring” (2011). Course readings will include critical essays and literary texts that reflect the forms of cultural reckoning that anticipated and followed the popular uprisings of the period, drawing principally from literary figures across Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Tunisia. Themes explored through the course include questions of political change and anti-authoritarian writing; literary innovations across new media landscapes and censorship regimes; revisionist historical fiction in the wake of major political transitions; and intergenerational influences on rising authors. Texts will be taught in English translation and films screened with English subtitles.