Fall MES-Coded Courses:
MES 0750: Forced Displacement: History, Ecologies and Impacts
TTh 10:30am-11:50am, Watson Institute, rm 114
Prof. Vikram Thakur
Course covers the basis, processes and consequences of forced displacement in an interdisciplinary and historical perspective. Forced displacement is unintended mobility of humans in large groups who move out of their place of origin for extended periods or often permanently. It has played a vital role in shaping our modern world. Drivers of forced displacement have persisted while others subsided. Wars, religious persecution and targeting of specific ethnic groups displace millions annually. Forced displacement is implicated in the creation of nation states, altering group identities and organizing people, and the responses of the host community, the state and wider world.
MES 1055: Zionism and some of its Jewish Critics: Political, Philosophical, and Theological Perspectives
Mondays 3-5:30pm, Sayles Hall 105
Prof. Adi Ophir
Course Description Zionism is an idea, an ideology, a national movement that sought to solve “the Jewish question” in Europe, a political project that morphed into a political regime, a mighty colonial force, a form of Jewish secularization and an engine for religious revival. As such Zionism has been accompanied with criticism from its inception. The first part of the seminar will study of Zionism through the eyes of some of the major thinkers who shaped its ideology and practices. The second part will look at Zionism through the eyes of some of its (more and less sympathetic) Jewish critics.
MES 1200: Visual Politics in the Contemporary Middle East
MWF 11-11:150, Sayles Hall 105
Prof. Hanan Toukan
This course examines the power and function of visual cultural production in contemporary Arab society. The aim of this course is to offer students the opportunity to grapple with the most fundamental debates in the study of the cultural politics and visual cultures of the Arab region. The course will contextualize the region’s visual cultures within wider debates and scholarship on the construction of subjectivities, the distribution of power, the formation of identity and belonging, and culture and representation in image circulation and contemporary artistic production. Emphasis is on translation and reception in a global context and transnational frame.
MES 1300: Intellectual Change: From Ottoman Modernization to the Turkish Republic
Tuesdays 4-6:30pm, J. Walter Wilson 303
Prof. Meltem Toksoz
A critical survey of Ottoman intellectual history in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Modernization, formation of the modern state and issues of nationalism and other ideologies of the time will form the main framework, analyzing their political, social and cultural impact on intellectual and academic production in the Ottoman Empire and through the making of Republican Turkey. It is a history of mentalities organized around four thematic/chronological modules, each representing a set of concepts, ideas, movements as well as facts and problems, which will be compared to the larger world of modern state formation both in thought and practice.
Fall Courses that count as Foundational for the Concentration:
MES 1200: Visual Politics in the Contemporary Middle East
MWF 11-11:150, Sayles Hall 105
Prof. Hanan Toukan
This course examines the power and function of visual cultural production in contemporary Arab society. The aim of this course is to offer students the opportunity to grapple with the most fundamental debates in the study of the cultural politics and visual cultures of the Arab region. The course will contextualize the region’s visual cultures within wider debates and scholarship on the construction of subjectivities, the distribution of power, the formation of identity and belonging, and culture and representation in image circulation and contemporary artistic production. Emphasis is on translation and reception in a global context and transnational frame.
COLT 0812H: Literary Bestsellers of the Islamic World
MWF 9am-9:50am, Watson Institute rm 114
Prof. Elias Muhanna
Who read what during the golden age of Islamic civilization? What were the page-turners, must-read classics, and viral texts of the Islamic world? In this course, we explore works of poetry, epic, satire, fantasy, and allegory by such figures as Jahiz, Mutanabbi, Hafez, Nizami, Abu Nuwas, and others.
HIST 0244: Understanding the Middle East: 1800s to the Present
TTh 2:30pm-3:50pm in Salomon Center 003
Prof. Sreemati Mitter
This course is an introduction to the history of the modern Middle East from the mid-19th C to the present. Readings and topics are structured chronologically, and emphasize the key events and turning points in the political and economic history of the region. The goal of the course is to understand how the Middle East, as it is today, has been shaped by the events of the past.
MES XLIST:
Arabic
ARAB 0100 First-Year Arabic
ARAB 0300 Second-Year Arabic
ARAB 0500 Third-Year Arabic
ARAB 0700 Advanced Arabic: Tales of the City
ARAB 1100: Love, Revolution and Nostalgia in Modern Arabic Poetry
ARAB 1990B: Advanced Egyptian Arabic: Displacement and Diaspora in a Modernizing Egypt
Archaeology
ARCH 0150 Introduction to Egyptian Archaeology and Art
ARCH 2153 Archaeological Ethnography: A Multi-Temporal Contact Zone
Assyriology
ASYR 0310 Thunder-gods and Dragon-slayers: Mythology + Cultural Contact – Ancient Mediterranean and Near East
*Fulfills Capstone Requirement
ASYR 0800 The Cradle of Civilization? An Introduction to the Ancient Near East
ASYR 1400 Introduction to Sumerian
Classics
CLAS 0660 The World of Byzantium
*Fulfills Capstone Requirement
CLAS 1120E Slavery in the Ancient World
Comparative Literature
COLT 0510K The 1001 Nights
*Fulfills Capstone Requirement
COLT 0812H Literary Bestsellers of the Islamic World
*Fulfills Capstone Requirement
COLT0812I Anxieties of Origins in the Fictions of the Maghreb
*Fulfills Capstone Requirement
COLT 1310G Silk Road Fictions
*Fulfills Capstone Requirement
COLT1610U Women’s Writing in the Arab World
*Fulfills Capstone Requirement
Development Studies
DEVL 1802R The History and Politics of Development in the Middle East
*Fulfills Capstone Requirement
Egyptology
EGYT 1310 Introduction to Classical Hieroglyphic Egyptian Writing and Language (Middle Egyptian I)
EGYT 1330 Selections from Middle Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts
EGYT 1410 Ancient Egyptian Literature
*Fulfills Capstone Requirement
History of Art and Architecture
HIAA 0041 The Architectures of Islam
*Fulfills Capstone Requirement
History
HIST 0244 Understanding the Middle East: 1800 to Present
HIST 0244 Understanding the Middle East: 1800s to the Present
HIST 1960Q Medicine and Public Health in Africa
HIST 1965Q Anti-Semitism, Anti-Judaism, Anti-Zionism: Historical Connections and Disconnections
HIST 1968 Approaches to the Middle East
*Fulfills Capstone Requirement
HIST 1969A Israel-Palestine: Lands and Peoples I
*Fulfills Capstone Requirement
HIST 1979K The Indian Ocean World
International Relations
INTL 1802Q Iran and the Islamic Revolution
*Fulfills Capstone Requirement
INTL 1803K Media Wars: The Middle East
*Fulfills Capstone Requirement
Judaic Studies
JUDS 0050M Difficult Relations? Judaism and Christianity from the Middle Ages until the Present
*Fulfills Capstone Requirement
JUDS 0100 Elementary Hebrew
JUDS 0300 Intermediate Hebrew
JUDS 0500 Writing and Speaking Hebrew
JUDS 1625 Problems in Israelite Religion and Ancient Judaism
Music
MUSC 0045 Music, Nation, and Identity in the Middle East
Political Science
POLS 1822I Geopolitics of Oil and Energy
*Fulfills Capstone Requirement
Persian
PRSN 0100 Basic Persian
PRSN 0300 Intermediate Persian Language and Culture
PRSN 0500 Advanced Persian Language and Culture I
Turkish
TKSH 0100 Introduction to Turkish Language and Culture I
University Courses
UNIV 1001 The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Contested Narratives