Emnerapport ARA4505 – Høst 2012

1. Ble emnet stort sett gjennomført etter planen?
Siden emneansvarlig hadde fritak fra undervisning høst 2012 ble emnet undervist av gjennomføringsstipendiat Nele Lenze som nettopp hadde levert sin doktorgradsavhandling om internettliteratur i de arabiske gulfstatene. Med hensyn til studentens interesse ble hovedvekten lagd på ‘participatory culture’, sosiale medier, og sensur.

2. Statistikk for emnet:
hvor mange studenter tatt opp : 1
tok eksamen : 1 (bestått)

3. Beskriv kort eventuelle behov for endringer til neste gang (pensum,forelesninger, vurderingsform eller annet)
Ingen endringer er nødvendig i forhold til gjeldende emnebeskrivelsen. Sammenlignet med tidligere semestre er det sannsynlig at det kommer til å bli mer fokus på Facebook og Twitter, i tråd med utviklingen i feltet, men dette dekkes av emnebeskrivelsen og vil uansett lagd opp med hensyn til studentene som tar kurset.

4. Periodisk studentevaluering: 
Siden det var bare en student var studentevaluering basert på fortløpende tett kontakt og gjensidige tilbakemeldinger gjennom semesteret, noe som er mest naturlig i denne situasjonen.

1. feb. 2013

Albrecht Hofheinz

Periodic evaluation Autumn 08

The course ARA4505 -- normally taught annually -- was held for the fourth time at UiO in fall 2008. In fall 2007, it had not been given since the teacher was on sabbatical leave. The present report is therefore only concerned with the Fall 2008 when only one student took the course. This was largely due to the fact that only very few master students in Arabic were actually present in Oslo in F08 (cf. a similar situation in Fall 2005). Content-wise, there was no change from the published course description during the semester, even if the fact that there was only one student made possible a very focussed and intensive seminar where the student's interests could be taken into account to a very large extent. Feedback from the student and the result obtained in the exam (A) confirm this 'intensity' which has also led to an MA project that will be further pursued over the coming years.

The course continues to be demanding in terms of the amount of Arabic texts students are asked to work with. These texts are not listed on the "recommended reading list" which only includes secondary literature, since they are largely a factor of students' own research interests. At the beginning of the semester, students have to choose a country that they will then use to study various aspects covered in the course (Internet infrastructure and diffusion, censorship, popular sites, discussion forums, blogs, secular and Islamic political sites, etc). As part of their training towards writing a master thesis, they have to learn to survey material and select cases to analyse, and follow through with monitoring, analysis, brief weekly assignments, an oral presentation of the draft term paper including a handout, and finally, the 10-p term paper. Students signing up for the course need to be able to read Arabic at reasonable speed and prepared to engage in "independent" but guided research on a modest scale (i.e. finding and formulating own interests, finding and surveying appropriate material, devising research hypotheses and strategies, presenting results orally and in written form). In Fall 2008, this functioned very well without having to be formalised. With a possible return to a greater number of students in the future, some of these learning goals should perhaps be written into the course description. 
 

Albrecht Hofheinz