It makes such a difference to sit in the front rows of the calls. A friend of mine was taking this same course and was sitting in the back. For him it was boring. Admittedly the 8 AM starting time was challenging for me and not for me. But he thought that the class was monotone, while for me just the opposite. Pictures, videos, music was incorporated into the lectures. Even when they weren’t the content and professor’s mode of lecturing was enjoyable. (Let’s not talk about here whether a lecture should be enjoyable or educational. This class was evidence that it can be done in a way that it is both.) The course more or less was organized around the themes of the Ernst book I described. We had to write 4 essays, one of them being an interview with Rumi. We had a midterm and a final with integrative questions, requiring us more than rebuffing the memorized materials. I also had fin with my honors project, although I was a bit late with it. I wrote a short paper on Sufi dance accompanied a much longer bibliography and an annotated filmography of 35 films. This was the kind of course I enjoy going to school for.Books read for course:
- Annemarie Schimmel: My Soul is a Woman: The Feminine in Islam
- Farid Ud-Din Attar: Conference of the Birds
- Carl W. Ernst: Shambhala Guide to Sufism
- John Renard: Windows on the House of Islam: Muslim Sources on Spirituality and Religious Life