Literature in Persian Language Pedagogy: Melody and Metaphor

In the multifaceted enterprise of language instruction, integrating diverse cultural elements can significantly enhance learners’ engagement and comprehension. This talk explores the innovative pedagogical approach of combining music and literature in teaching the Persian language to both heritage and non-heritage learners, drawing from my personal experience at the University of Toronto Mississauga. Using examples from classical Persian poetry and contemporary Persian music in transregional contexts, I will illustrate methods to utilize musical elements, lyrical content, and literary metaphors to deepen students’ linguistic and cultural understanding. The presentation will highlight specific examples of Persian literary works and their musical adaptations, followed by a discussion of a contemporary trend in Persian music I call “Persianizing Global Jazz,” offering practical strategies for incorporating these resources in the classroom. By examining the linguistic nuances and cultural contexts embedded in songs and poems, I will argue that Persian-language educators can foster a more immersive and holistic language learning environment in a multicultural classroom. Leveraging the mnemonic capacity of literature and music, we can not only engage students in the challenging undertaking of language learning but also ensure they retain the learned content for optimal language performance in the social world.

Aqsa Ijaz is Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream in the Department of Language Studies at the University of Toronto Mississauga where she teaches courses in Persian, Urdu, and Punjabi languages as well as in South Asian humanities. She earned her PhD at the Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University, where she specialized in classical Persian poetry and studied its reception in multilingual contexts of medieval, early modern, and colonial North India. Born and raised in Lahore, Pakistan, Aqsa is a trained classical musician who specializes in the vocal forms of thumri and ghazal, focusing primarily on the intersections of Indian and Persian musical forms. Aqsa’s academic work crosses the thresholds of multiple genres and disciplines. She is a literary scholar with a demonstrated interest in multilingualism, translation, performance, and language instruction with publications in a wide variety of prestigious academic journals. Her language teaching experience over the course of the last eight years includes the teaching of Persian, Urdu, and Punjabi languages to students of diverse cultural and religious backgrounds in Pakistan, the United States, and Canada.  Besides her scholarly work, Aqsa is an essayist and writes for various international publications such as World Literature Today, Herald, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. She is committed to sharing academic research in her field with audiences across the globe for which she serves on the editorial board of the Marginalia Review of Books. Her recent work includes the publication of her English translation of the award-winning French graphic novel, Majnun and Laila: Songs from Beyond the Grave, and more recently an annotated English translation of the 18th-century Persian History of Sindh, entitled The Gift of the Generous.