Paper short abstract:

Oral stories are tremendously important to Qatari culture, but to date few have been preserved in writing. Our student-faculty collaboration documented Qatari folktales for future study. In this presentation, the students will read selections and discuss their experiences of fieldwork in Qatar.

Paper long abstract:

Supported by a grant from the Qatar National Research Fund, a collaborative student-faculty research team from Qatar University and Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar was formed to collect and document Qatari folktales. These oral stories are tremendously important to Qatari culture, but to date no English language collections exist for international study. Due to rapid modernization and profound social, cultural, and economic change within the country, the urgency of documenting folktales is key to preserving the oral traditions and narrative memory of the region.

Guided by faculty mentors, the student researchers recorded folktales told by the grandparent generation of Qataris, transcribed the narratives in Arabic and translated them to English, retaining the rhythms of Qatari dialect. By compiling these folktales as a bilingual collection in both Arabic and English, we hope to share Qatar's rich oral traditions with a global audience, to support the preservation of Qatari heritage for its citizens and residents, and to encourage further folklore scholarship on Qatar.

In this presentation, the students will read selections of the stories and discuss their experiences of fieldwork in Qatar.