Books and Reading as Elements of Pleasure: The Meaning of a University-Wide Reading Program in an Oral Society in the Middle East

By:
Robin L. Fetherston
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American universities abroad face formidable challenges when introducing students who reside in primarily oral societies to the ideas of reading for pleasure and becoming life-long readers. Like several other Arabian Gulf states, Qatar’s survival until the development of oil and gas depended on pearl diving and fishing, with little emergence of a secular intellectual community. Its oil wealth and subsequent efforts in modernization have developed at such a tremendously rapid pace that it appears the nation has skipped over the traditional format of the secular book while attempting to utilize newer technologies. Thus the digital age is reduced to email and shopping exchanges, and the printed book is confined to school curricula.

This presentation focuses on the establishment in the face of such obstacles in Doha, Qatar, of a university-wide reading program, inspired by the Chicago Library System’s “One Book, One City” project. In a land containing only one substantial public library and where “bookshop” signifies a place that sells knick-knacks, stationery, and pens, and at a satellite campus where all students are artists and designers (typically tactile and visual learners rather than language-oriented), the success of this reading program represents the possibility of developing a reading and book culture and an intellectual community beyond the classroom.


Keywords: Pleasure Reading, School-Wide Reading Programs, Book Culture, Oral Societies, Qatar, Middle East
Stream: Books, Writing and Reading
Presentation Type: 30 minute Paper Presentation in English
Paper: Books as Elements of Pleasure

Robin L. Fetherston

Assistant Professor, Department of English/School of the Arts, Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Qatar
Doha, QATAR

Becoming a teacher of writing and literature was the result of an evolutionary process beginning with an undergraduate degree in learning disabilities with an emphasis on behavioral science. After nearly twenty years as an educator during which I worked with every age group from preschool through adulthood, I took a position at Virginia Commonwealth University’s satellite arts and design school in the Arabian Gulf. Since I arrived three years ago, I have taught research, writing, and literature to Arabic-speaking students at this women’s university. My writing has appeared in magazines, newspapers, and business publications in the United States as well as in both English-speaking and Arabic-speaking local and regional newspapers in the Gulf. Photographic works of mine have accompanied some of my published articles and have been exhibited in the VCUQ Gallery. My areas of current research are in Victorian studies, film, the teaching of writing, and culture. I also am interested in the development of women leaders, particularly in the Middle East.

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