Cost and Registration Information

Early Registration Price (April 17 at 10 am – May 4 at 4 pm): $210
Regular Registration Price (May 4 at 4 pm – first day of class): $231

Members, seniors, and students get a 10% discount.

Online registration is closed, but you can still register by phone. Please call (312) 255-3700 to do so.

Excuse our dust!

The Newberry is undergoing an extensive first floor renovation in 2018. This project will be ongoing during the Summer 2018 seminar term. The Adult Education Seminars Program still has use of the basement classrooms, but please check this link frequently for the latest conditions - which exterior doors are open or closed, where to find an accessible entrance, which restrooms are available, etc.

Because of the renovation, the Newberry Bookstore will be closed during the Summer 2018 term. As such, seminar participants will be responsible for acquiring all required texts for their seminars on their own. We apologize sincerely for the inconvenience, and appreciate your understanding. We have put together a list of helpful resources that should make it easy to find the books you need.

Seminar Description

There have been many layers of the so-called “Arab Spring,” which often seems to be an enigma to many in the western world. But filmmakers explored and warned of the turbulence ahead of their time. The intention of this course is to explore the development of Arabic cinema in the last 25 years in countries like Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and more. We will discuss films from Youssef Chahine’s Destiny that predicted extremism movements and earned him Palme d’Or for his lifetime achievements, to Ridha Behi’s The Flower of Aleppo about the civil war in Syria. Five sessions.

Riad Ismat is professor at Northwestern University. He wrote seven television series broadcast by many Middle East and North Africa satellite stations. He is the author of two books on international cinema published in his country.

Materials List

Required:

• DVD movies or excerpts of movies suggested by the instructor.

First Reading:

• There is no reading assignment for the first class.

This class is part of the Newberry’s Adult Education Seminars Program. Learn more about our registration procedures.