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Course
Descriptions
Course
Catalog
COURSE DESCRIPTIONS
ANTHROPOLOGY
World Cultures: The Middle East
G14.1321. Staff. 4 points.
Images of the Islamic world and Middle Eastern "Orient" have
been crucial in Western social thought. This course covers contributions
of the study of the region to anthropological thought. Topics may
include systems of thought, complex societies, and civilizations:
Islam, Judaism, and Christianity as locally received, changing conceptions
of tribalism, cult, male and female, ethnicity, trust and responsibility,
nation and the person, intellectuals, revolutionaries, reformers
and prophets, colonial rule, imperial design, independence, the
implications of oil wealth, learning, and intensive labor migration.
Gender Politics of the Muslim World (Seminar)
G14.3990. Staff. 4 points.
Practices like seclusion, veiling, and polygyny that are central
to Western images of women are also contested issues within the
Muslim world. This course examines the uses of Islamic textual material
in debates about gender, sexuality, and morality and explores the
interplay of religious, social, political and economic factors in
shaping women's lives in the Muslim world from Malaysia to Morocco.
The perspective is primarily anthropological. Readings concentrate
on the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent although participants
can pursue research on Muslim regions such as Africa and Southeast
Asia that are not represented in the course.
Cities of the Middle East
G77.1626. Gilsenan. 4 points.
The course focuses upon different approaches to the study of cities
of the Middle East, in the colonial and post-colonial periods. It
explores ways in which cities have been represented and written
about, as well as how they have been lived. It looks at spatial
practices and politics, the cultural significance of constructed
forms of space and the conditions under which what was often defined
as the modern and modernity were inscribed in and on urban worlds,
public and private spaces (and the problems of the terms public
and private) that have changed over time, the role of the different
forms of the state, and contests over the use and meaning of the
city. Readings include a small sample of some of the more influential
recent studies of cities and modernity (but including some older
famous essays such as those by Georg Simmel) which occupy a canonical
place in the literature, and anthropological and modern historical
literature on cities in the region, which is read with the modern
general discussions of modernity and the city in mind.
Anthropology for Middle Eastern Studies
G77.1636/G14.1622. Gilsenan. 4 points.
Assesses the contribution of anthropological research to the study
of Middle Eastern history, politics, literature, and civilization.
Special attention is given to applying anthropologically oriented
techniques to research problems. Intended primarily for graduate
students and advanced undergraduates majoring in fields other than
anthropology.
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POLITICS, ECONOMICS, AND SOCIOLOGY
Middle Eastern Government and Politics
G53.2590. Kazemi, Mitchell. 4 points.
This course deals with questions and methods in the political analysis
of contemporary Middle Eastern societies. Among the issues to be
examined are: colonialism and the nature of class and state formation
in the Middle East, agrarian poverty and its consequences, development
as a nationalist ideology, causes of revolution, the politics of
gender and the household, the impact of oil wealth and the struggle
for control of the Gulf, and the politics of religious identity.
Topics in Sociology of the Modern Middle East
G77.1612. Staff. 4 points.
This seminar will address issues within current social science writings
on the Middle East, with a unique topic each semester. Past topics
have included urban-rural dynamics, popular culture, class and gender,
sociology of Islam and social movements, state formation and identity,
and political economy.
Revolutions in the Islamic Middle East
G77.1616. Staff. 4 points.
Comparative survey of revolutionary movements, ideologies, and states
in the Middle East.
Economy of the Middle East
G77.1781 (Identical to G31.1608). Staff. 3 points.
Economic and policy issues facing the states and the peoples of
the region, including the effect of oil on the economies of the
exporting states, industrial and agricultural strategies and experience,
and labor migration.
Economic and Social History of the Middle East
G77.1782. Identical to G31.1609. Staff. 3 points.
Topics in the political economies and social histories of the modern
Middle East.
Financial Markets of the Arabian Gulf
G77.1784 Staff. 4 points.
The premise of the course is that financial markets in non-democratic,
developing countries are fundamentally political and are established
not to provide an intermediary institution between supply and demand,
but as institutions to direct investments to projects and firms
that will lead to maintenance of the political regimes in power.
The course seeks to explain why markets have evolved in their present
form and explore the reality, potentials and limitations of finance
in a given market, focusing on Bahrain, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia.
Includes a four-week simulation of negotiations for the financing
of corporations in the Gulf.
France and Maghreb
G53.2538. Identical to G46.2422. 4 points.
History of Maghreb countries from the 19th century to date. Emphasis
is on France's role and the underlying political, economic and cultural
factors.
Government and Politics of North Africa
G53.2538. Staff. 4 points.
Comparative analysis of selected aspects of state formation, political
identity, development and political discourse in the countries of
Arab North Africa.
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JOURNALISM
Reporting the Middle East
G77.1720. Identical to G54.1720. Staff. 4 points.
Critical approach to the process and forms by which political developments
are brought to the attention of the Western public and the problems
of providing fast, accurate information to a target public whose
knowledge base is usually low or skewed. Provides a theoretical
and practical grasp of current issues, the nature of newsgathering
and reporting in the region and the roles of local media and regional
government.
MIDDLE EAST HISTORY
I. Survey Courses
History of the Middle East 600 to 1200
G77.1640. Husain. 4 points.
The chief economic, social and political institutions of Middle
Eastern societies from the rise of Islam to the beginning of the
13th century.
History of the Middle East 1200 - 1800
G77.1641. McChesney. 4 points.
Introduction to the history of the Islamic world in the half-millennium
before the rise of Europe following a chronological and thematic
frame. Chronologically, it begins with the Mongol invasions of the
13th century and their political and economic legacy. The emergence
of Turkish war bands (the Ottomans in the west, the Jalayir, Qara
and Aq Qoyunlu in the center and the Barlas in the east) of a "world-conquering"
type set the political agenda of the 14th and 15th centuries while
the era of bubonic plague (the 'Black Death') in the middle of the
14th century influences economic and social policies. The final
chronological segment is the "imperial age" (Ottomans, Safavids,
Mughals and Uzbeks) from its zenith in the late 16th century to
its passing in the 18th. Thematically, the course introduces aspects
of the agrarian economies of the Middle East -- especially land
tenure regimes and tax policy, local and international market structures
and monetary systems. Political systems and their constitutional
bases and social stratification (non-ruling elite and the working
population, specifically) form the other two major themes considered.
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History of the Middle East 1750 - Present
G77.1642. Fahmy, Lockman. 4 points.
Survey of the history of the Middle East from 1750 to the present.
History of Muslim Central Asia
G77.1666. McChesney. 4 points.
General survey covering the region of the central Asian republics
from the Muslim conquests in the 8th century to the present. Focus
is on social and economic history.
II. Seminars
Topics in Medieval Islamic History
G77.1646. Husain. 4 points
Topics in medieval Middle Eastern social, cultural, economic, and
political history.
Communities of Knowledge: Medieval Histories
and Identities
G77.1647 Husain. 4 points.
The course aims for a critical engagement with the issues surrounding
the social production and use of knowledge in the pre-Modern Muslim
world. The class will focus on the changing interplay and relationships
between textuality, orality and memory in the dissemination of knowledge
and the construction of its various forms of authority.
Seminar in Ottoman History: Ottoman Socioeconomic
History (1450-1800)
G77.1651. Salzmann. 4 points.
The course intends to furnish students with an understanding of
the broader sweep of Ottoman socioeconomic history between the conquest
of Constantinople/Istanbul and the early 19th century. An introduction
to the important debates animating the last half of the century
of historiography on the early modern period, particularly those
which concern the relationship between "institutions"
(political, legal and religious organizations) and the structure
of Ottoman society and economy. An appreciation of the methodological
issues involved in constructing synthetic and comparative approaches
to the "big" historiographical questions. For example,
the nature of Ottoman political and socioeconomic transformations
after 1600, particularly with respect to economic developments in
Western Europe.
Topics in Late Ottoman History
G77.1652. Salzmann. 4 points.
Topics in the history of the Ottoman Empire from the 18th century
to the First World War.
Seminar in the History of the Modern Middle
East I, II, III G77.1653, 1654. Lockman, Fahmy. 4 points.
Selected topics in the history of the modern Middle East.
Medieval Iran (650 -1500)
G77.1660. McChesney. 4 points.
Principal themes of Iranian history, including a brief survey of
ancient Iran, but focusing on the period since the arrival of Islam
and particularly the rise of the Safavid and the Samanid dynasties
and the Safavid Empire.
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Modern Iran (1800 to the Present)
G77.1661. Chelkowski. 4 points.
History of Iran in the 19th and 20th centuries, focusing on the
internal and external forces that have helped shape modern Iranian
history in its political, economic, social, cultural and religious
dimensions.
Egypt in Modern Times
G77.1664 . Fahmy, Lockman. 4 points.
Modern Egyptian history from the end of the Ottoman-Mamluk period
to the present, largely through an exploration of the scholarly
literature and of various paradigms that have been used to interpret
that history.
Gender, Empire &the Nation in the Middle East
&South Asia
G68.1999. Balaghi. 4 points.
The primary task of this course is to examine the shifting paradigms
of gender in the Middle East and South Asia throughout the process
of building, imposing, resisting and dismantling the empire. The
ruptures of colonialism recast gender relations. The alchemy of
race, gender and ethnicity figured prominently in the formation
of anti-colonial nationalisms. The historical memory of empire continues
to figure prominently in the discourses of post-colonial antifeminist
movements. This course examines the history of women in Iran, India
and Algeria in the 19th and 20th centuries in order to better understand
the interplay of the historical and political networks of colonialism
and nationalism in the lives of women.
History and Memory in the Middle East and South
Asia G68.2000. Balaghi. 4 points.
This course examines the politics of memory at moments of rupture,
dislocation, and displacement. New nations require a raison d'être
that binds the political exigencies of the present with an originary
myth and a historically viable national past. Migration and exile
also give new impetus to the construction of national memories.
National nostalgia helps to determine the border of nation-states
and the frontiers of diasporas. Canonicity (a process that both
writes and elides) is central to the project of nation-building.
Nations and nationalities create and recall memories as a means
of articulating communalism, coalescing distinct identities, and
justifying political positions. Popular memory can serve as an effective
means of resistance to the national canon and its erasures by groups
who are marginalized in the national narrative. Immigrants may deploy
memory as a strategy for creating a bifurcated nationalism: participating
as citizens of one nation-state while maintaining strong ties to
another. Movements of peoples, advances in transportation, and developments
in the new media in the 19th and 20th centuries have given rise
to particular expressions of national memories with commensurate
modes of political behavior. The course will examine the contentious
politics of memory within a variety of locations and analytical
paradigms. How is memory documented by politicians, historians,
anthropologists, literary critics, filmmakers, writers, museum curators,
photographers, and web-designers- This particular examination of
history and memory will allow us to assess moments of national history
in Lebanon, Kurdistan, Palestine, India, and Iran.
Culture, Politics, and History in the Middle East
G68.2005. Balaghi. 4 points.
Increasingly, it would seem, the nexus of culture and politics has come to define the relationship of the Middle East to the West—and the internal understandings of these increasingly polarized societies. This course seeks to complicate and disaggregate the histories of culture and politics in the Middle East. On the one hand, the over reliance on cultural explanations can obfuscate histories of domination and resistance. On the other hand, cultural production helped to shape and was formed by the power struggles of colonialism and nationalism—processes that undergird the very history of the modern Middle East. This course, then, is in essence a history of the modern Middle East through the lens of culture and politics. The course draws on a variety of primary materials (film, graphic novels, art, speeches, novellas) and a range of theoretical readings on cultural studies. Our case studies will include Iraq, Algeria, Egypt, Iran, and Syria. The course is also designed to help students further develop certain skills, including critical thinking, analysis of a variety texts, academic writing, and public speaking.
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Seminar in Safavid History
G77.2551. McChesney. 4 points.
Study of the historiographical issues, the nature and development
of state structures, and the parameters of involvement in the world
economy of the 16th and 17th centuries.
History of Zionism
G57.1512. Hertzberg. 3 points.
The subject of this colloquium/seminar is the history of modern
Zionism from its origins early in the nineteenth century to the
creation of the State of Israel in 1948, with some attention to
the changes in Zionist ideology in the last forty years. The purpose
of the course is to define Jewish nationalism in its modern version,
both in relation to the Jewish past and to other forms of modern
nationalism.
History of Contemporary Israel
G78.1693. Hertzberg. 4 points.
Study of the ideological origins of the State of Israel, its political
history and the formation of its institutions.
Jewish Historiography: The Modern Period
G78.2682. Engel. 3 points.
Examination of major figures, works, and trends in the academic
study of modern Jewish history in the 19th and 20th centuries.
The Crusades: A Reevaluation
G57.2219. Claster. 4 points.
Studies of the history of the Crusades and the Crusader Kingdom
in the context of both the Latin West and the eastern Mediterranean
world. Explores major themes and issues raised by the crusading
movements against a background that provides an understanding of
the era and an understanding of theories proposed by modern historians
to interpret the Crusades. Emphasis is on primary sources - Latin,
Arabic, Jewish and Byzantine (in translation).
LAW, PHILOSOPHY, AND RELIGION
Introduction to Islamic Studies
G77.1700. Peters. 4 points
Approaches and methods used in the study of Islam as a religion
and of Islamic history.
Sufism
G77.1668. Chelkowski. 4 points.
Survey of the origins of the major Sufi figures, practices and movements
from Al Hallaj to the present.
Shi'i Islam
G77.1750. Chelkowski. 4 points.
Survey of the origins, development, forms and significance of Shi'i
Islam.
Jerusalem: The Contested Inheritance
G77.1810 Peters. 4 points.
Islamic Law and Society
G77.1853. Haykel. 4 points.
The aim of this seminar is to expose graduate students to a variety
of writings in and on Islamic Law. The first readings consist of
introductory surveys and recent studies on the theoretical foundations
of Islamic law (usul al-fiqh), followed by substantive legal material
as it is presented in the classical legal manuals, to give a sense
of the way in which Islamic law was traditionally presented and
how these manuals were then used by scholars. Topics to be covered
include: methods and forms of transmission of Islamic legal knowledge
and expertise, Islamic law as it was understood, practiced and enforced,
the treatment of Islamic jurists of marginals and minorities in
theoretical writings as well as historical experience, how norms
were established and enforced and how those who did not fully fit
these were conceived and treated by the law, and attempts to reform
Islamic law in modern times.
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Women and Islamic Law
G77.1854. Haykel. 4 points.
The aim of this course is to acquaint students with the treatment
of women in the theory and practice of Islamic law and to examine
the ways in which Islamic law has been variously defined, invoked,
implemented or not implemented in different contexts. The course
examines the various legal areas pertinent to women: childhood,
education, marriage, divorce, motherhood, inheritance, property
and slavery among others. Students will be exposed to medieval and
modern legal texts regarding the status of women as believers, daughters,
wives, mothers and legal persons. We will take cases from the secondary
literature which explore the condition of Muslim women in historical
situations as well as contemporary ones. Emphasis will be placed
on the strategies women have employed to ensure their legally prescribed
rights in some instances, and examine whether cases exist where
women have sought to transgress "the Law" in order to
achieve a better outcome for themselves. We will look at the ways
in which modern legislation in the Muslim world has treated women
and discuss the debates over their rights and identity which have
taken place amongst feminists (both Muslim and non-Muslim) and Islamists,
and in international bodies such as the United Nations.
Muhammad and the Qu'ran
G77.1857. Peters. 4 points.
A study of the life and teaching of the prophet, an analysis of
the Qu'ran, an introduction of the problems of hadith and a study
of Ibn Ishaq's "Life of the Apostle of God".
Seminar in Islamic Philosophy
G77.3111. Ivry. 4 points.
Problems in medieval Islamic philosophy, in the original texts and
in translation.
Islam in the Modern World
G90.1580. Chelkowski. 4 points.
The 19th and 20th century challenge of Islam to modernism and vice
versa. The effect of colonization and Europeanization on traditional
Islam and the reactions of both modernists and traditionalists within
the Islamic medium.
LITERATURE AND ART
I.Modern Literature
Arabic Literature: Modern Prose and Poetry
G77.1117. Identical to G29.1117. Mikhail. 4 points.
Introduction to the genres of modern Arabic prose and poetry.
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Other Literatures and the New Transnationalism
G77.1122. Dallal. 4 points.
The course focuses on the remarkable rise in third world literary
translation to explore the politics and aesthetics of >global' culture.
Topics include: how literary works are or are not chosen, solicited
or written for translation, censorship and global literary markets,
the politics of reception and the debates about national and international
audiences, the concepts and genres of literature that shape and
authorize new "democratic" cultures, magical realism and
the third world, representations of cultural authenticity and the
gender politics of cultural representation, the idea of unequal
languages, literary practices of bilingualism and how they can reaffirm
or transform cultural and national identity. Contemporary Arabic
literature is examined in conjunction with African, North African,
Israeli, Turkish, Anglo-Indian, Caribbean and Latin American literature
and film as well as a variety of critical essays.
20th Century Arabic Literature in Translation
G77.1710. Identical to G29.1710 Mikhail. 4 points.
Introduction to 20th century Arabic literature.
Modern Arabic Literary Criticism
G77.1777. Identical to G29.1777. Mikhail. 4 points.
Selected topics in 20th century Araic literary criticism.
Drama and the Mass Media in the Arabic World
G77.1778 Mikhail. 4 points.
Investigates the origins of modern Arabic drama and its relationship
with mass media in contemporary Arab societies.
Seminar in Modern Arabic Literature: Translating
Culture: North Africa
G77.3197. Dallal. 4 points.
North African writing is one of the most vibrant and influential
traditions of the Arab World, and in France it is second in popularity
only to French literature. Keen historical debates and negotiations
between diverse linguistic and cultural traditions of the Magreb
make it a site for investigating the forms and politics of cultural
translation and transnationalism. The course traces the literary
and cultural traffic between France and the Magreb in both the colonial
and post colonial periods to explore such issues as the transpositions
of Carthage, the "progress" of aesthetic modes and tastes,
questions of authenticity (sexual, racial and cultural), the politics
of language and the poetry of bilingualism, transnationalism and
the untranslatable. Works by Chateaubriand, Flaubert, Dumas, Daudet,
al-Shidyaq, al-Saffar, al-Tahtawi, Ibn Abi al-Diyaf, Ben Jelloun,
Djebar, Chraibi, Chukri, Sebbar and Bowles (and the film version
by Bertolucci) are read in conjunction with historiographic and
political texts, as well as essays in anthropology, literary and
cultural criticism.
Persian Historical and Biographical Texts
G77.1412. Khorrami. 4 points.
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Persian Literary Prose
G77.1416. Chelkowski. 4 points.
Persian Literary Texts: Drama
G77.1417. Chelkowski. 4 points.
Turkish Literary Texts: Modern Turkish Literature
G77.1514, 1515. Erol. 4 points per term.
Israeli Literature: Memory and Narrative
G78.1585. Feldman. 3 points.
Ideology, Psychology, and Gender:Postmodernism
and the Contemporary Israeli Novel
G78.2720. Feldman. 3 points.
II. Pre-modern Literature &Art:
Medieval Arabic Literature: Prose
G77.1114. Kennedy. 4 points.
Readings in selected authors from the 8th century to the 12th century.
Medieval Arabic Literature: Poetry
G77.1115. Kennedy. 4 points.
Readings in selected authors from the 8th century to the 12th century.
Classical Arabic Literature: Qu'ran and Tafsir
G77.1116. Kennedy. 4 points
Readings from the Qu'ran and Tafsir. Arabian
Nights: East and West and Present
G77.1221. Kennedy. 4 points.
Recognition/Anagnorisis in Arabic, Islamic,
and European Narrative
G77.1124. Identical to G29.1124. Kennedy. 4 points.
Seminar in Medieval Arabic Literature: Andalusian
Texts
G77.3192. Kennedy. 4 points.
Close readings of the internal aesthetics and poetics of Arabic
texts. Andulusian Arabic literature is in large measure the continuation
of a tradition with roots in pre-Islamic Arabia. The course introduces
a literature which both geographically and culturally stood at a
crossroads. The cross-pollination that shaped Andalusian literature
is addressed where relevant, notably in the case of the Arabic origins
of troubadour poetry, a sometimes polemical subject of scholarly
(but mostly ideologically grounded) debate.
Art and Architecture in the Islamic Mediterranean
G43.2015. Soucek. 4 points.
Art &Archaeology of the Cities of Asia Minor
G43.2087. Ratte. 4 points.
Art &Archaeology of Early Iran
G43.2120. Hansen. 4 points.
Origins of Egyptian Art: 4,000 to 2,000 B.C.
Missing ##!!. O'Connor. 4 points.
Byzantine Art of Late Antiquity: Syria
G34.3188. Mathews. 4 points.
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