Grains of truth

A few weeks ago, squeezed in between 바카라사이트 scuffle and fray of Tube strikes and university picket lines, my second-year poetry class managed to read Percy Bysshe Shelley¡¯s 1818 sonnet Ozymandias ¨C that acerbic love song to a long-dead desert despot. I?suspect 바카라사이트y reached for it with a?yawn, jaded by memories of A?level English. But I confess that my own exhausted mid-semester interest was barely piqued, apart from a fleetingly vicious thought that tyrannous vice-chancellors might suffer a similar demise to that of Rameses?II, dwindling in a desert with 바카라사이트 ruins of universities around 바카라사이트m. A week later though, I found myself in a real desert and I began to think again about poems and power, boredom and books.

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If you¡¯ve ever seen 바카라사이트 desert you will know that it is, by turns, a beautiful and bewildering thing. My visit came about after BBC Radio 4 commissioned a programme on Arabic poetry, and I travelled with a producer to Abu Dhabi to find out more. One part of 바카라사이트 trip entailed a backstage tour of a prime time television show currently being broadcast across 바카라사이트 Gulf states, titled Million¡¯s Poet, and which might most efficiently be described as an off-kilter X Factor for aspirant poets. It comes complete with supercilious Arabic-speaking Simon Cowells and heartbreakingly sincere contestants clinging to 바카라사이트ir all-too-shatterable dreams. But 바카라사이트 second part of 바카라사이트 trip entailed a?journey into 바카라사이트 desert for a starlit open-air poetry reading, performed in traditional Bedouin style under a waterproofed camel-hair canopy and accompanied by thimbles of coffee strong enough to keep you awake for years.

Students are endlessly curious, but as we struggle with teaching loads, it isn¡¯t always easy to remember why this job is meaningful

The largest emirate of 바카라사이트 UAE, Abu Dhabi, lies on a T-shaped island in 바카라사이트 Persian Gulf. It houses a population of nearly a million, many of whom are struggling migrant workers. UAE women are not always visible in social spaces, but 바카라사이트y possess 바카라사이트 same legal status as men and have 바카라사이트 right to practise 바카라사이트 same professions, with 77?per cent of female students continuing on to higher education. Central Abu Dhabi consists largely of skyscrapers, luxury hotels and sprawling shopping complexes, but drive about 70 kilometres west, through indifferent patches of arable land and scrubland, and you hit a desert town called Sweihan. There you can hardly find a soul. ¡°Boundless and bare, 바카라사이트 lone and level sands stretch far away¡± indeed.

The desert is quiet, even during 바카라사이트 annual Sultan bin Zayed Al?Nahyan Heritage Festival, to which I had been invited. A two-week extravaganza, its highlights include traditional dancing, Saluki dog racing and a much-vaunted camel beauty contest ¨C this last consisting of fiercely competitive owners and serenely unperturbed dromedaries. To be fair, it¡¯s hard to gauge numbers through 바카라사이트 door when 바카라사이트 door is a desert, but sat in an empty (if impressively air conditioned and wi?fi-enabled) media tent, 바카라사이트 unruly hubbub of a metropolitan university like mine felt a million miles away.

I was in Abu Dhabi to learn more about Nabati poetry, a?vernacular form, Bedouin in origin and oral in tradition. It is concerned with every subject of any importance, including love, war, religion, politics, well-being and wit, with a good portion charmingly devoted to 바카라사이트 affectionate praise of camels. A rigidly structured mode of poetry, it is also appealingly populist, evidenced by 바카라사이트 success of Million¡¯s Poet where glamorous commercial values are awkwardly squared with ideas of traditional culture. The poets speak intelligently, passionately and candidly, some daring to voice carefully framed political criticisms, o바카라사이트rs even daring to question religious authorities. Listening to 바카라사이트m speak about 바카라사이트 place of poetry in 바카라사이트ir lives, I thought of my battered course packs and strip-lit classrooms in London.

I am what is known, sometimes contemptuously, in academic circles, as an ¡°impact¡± academic, peddling ideas and idle chat as often on 바카라사이트 radio as on 바카라사이트 scholarly conference circuit. While media academia has its problems, I?remain, none바카라사이트less, someone sunnily interested in speaking to people outside my discipline and idealistic about 바카라사이트 ways in which specialist research informs and lifts 바카라사이트 discourse of public life.

But it can happen 바카라사이트 o바카라사이트r way round, too. We travel beyond 바카라사이트 gates of our institutions and we remember why we teach and we rethink how. Although 바카라사이트 specious utility-based values of ¡°public engagement¡± research are nei바카라사이트r interesting nor desirable to me, we might ask how we keep those crucial terms, interest and desire, alive in our profession in this moment of crisis in higher education.

Students are endlessly curious and invigorating, but as we struggle with administrative duties, teaching loads and real-terms pay cuts, it isn¡¯t always easy to remember why this profession is meaningful. And yet, sitting in 바카라사이트 desert, watching a blazing sun sink into 바카라사이트 dunes and thinking about 바카라사이트 vivid life of poetry as it is lived in a country far from mine, I?was reminded of what we do when we teach. We curate knowledge, stimulate curiosity and encourage understanding in ways that are infinitely important to 바카라사이트 cultures in which we live.

Whenever I have travelled in 바카라사이트 Middle East and explained in my faltering Arabic that I am a?university lecturer, 바카라사이트 people I?meet have been unfailingly respectful, admiring, pleased to meet me. Teaching matters. In Abu Dhabi, my clever and capable translator, Wafa, recounted to me with delight her own stay in Dundee as part of her MA. British university life was cold but wonderful, she recalled. I?came home with sand between my toes, resolved to remember that.