Middle East Studies

MES

MES 1120 Art, Culture, and Society in Tehran
Tuesday, Thursday, 1:00 – 2:20 p.m.
Professor: Samine Tabatabaei

This course explores the city as physical and metaphorical space and aggregator of possibilities. It focuses on Tehran, in its historical, geographical, artistic and virtual specificity, and artists who have lived there, including: Kamal-al-molk (and his followers in the early twentieth century; artists associated with Saqqakhaneh (modern school of art) at mid-twentieth-century, artists of the Revolution and the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s and 1990s, and contemporary urban and transnational artists. By examining urban participation, aesthetics, and politics in Tehran across more than a century, the course provokes critical reflection on experience and representations of urban space, citizenry and creativity.
DIAP
WRIT

MES 1968 Approaches to the Middle East
Wednesday, 3:00 – 5:30 p.m.
Professor: Beshara Doumani

This seminar introduces students to the interdisciplinary field of Middle East Studies in the broader context of the history of area studies in the humanities and social sciences. Why and when did the Middle East become an area of study? What are the approaches and topics that have shaped the development of this field? And what are the political implications of contending visions for its future? The readings sample canonical and alternative works and the classes feature visits by leading scholars who research and write on this pivotal and amorphous region.
WRIT


ELECTIVES

Courses that may count towards electives, meet with the Director of Undergraduate Studies to discuss

Anthropology

ANTH 1911 Gender and Sexuality in the Middle East (Nadje Al-Ali)
ANTH 1150 Middle East in Anthropological Perspective (Asli Zengin)

Arabic

ARAB 0100 First-Year Arabic (Mohamed Bayoumi, Elsa Belmont Flores)
ARAB 0300 Second-Year Arabic (Elsa Belmont Flores, Mirena Christoff)
ARAB 0500 Third-Year Arabic (Miled Faiza)
ARAB 0700 Advanced Arabic: Tales of the City (Elsa Belmont Flores)
ARAB 0850 Kalila Wa Dimna: Advanced reading and composition in Arabic (Miled Faiza) course flyer

Archaeology and the Ancient World

ARCH 0530 Hannibal ad Portas! Fact and Fiction on Carthage and the Punic World (Peter Van Dommelen)

Assyriology

ASYR 0800 The Cradle of Civilization? An Introduction to the Ancient Near East (Shiyanthi Thavapalan)
ASYR 1000 Introduction to Akkadian (Matthew Rutz)
ASYR 1600 Astronomy Before the Telescope (John Steele)
ASYR 2310A Ancient Scientific Texts: Akkadian (John Steele) Graduate seminar
ASYR 2430 Akkadian Historical Texts (Matthew Rutz) Graduate seminar

Comparative Literature

COLT 0510K The 1001 Nights (Elias Muhanna) WRIT | DIAP
COLT 0711L The Quran and its Readers (Elias Muhanna) WRIT
COLT 1431B Modern Arabic Poetry (Emily Drumsta) WRIT
COLT 1440R This is Palestine (Emily Drumsta)

Egyptology

EGYT 1310 Introduction to Classical Hieroglyphic Egyptian Writing and Language (Middle Egyptian I) (Maria Almansa Villatoro)
EGYT 1330 Selections from Middle Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts (Aurore Motte)
EGYT 1430 History of Egypt I (Laurel Bestock) WRIT
EGYT 1495 The Science and the Medicine of the Ancient Egyptians (Leo Depuydt & Tyler Roeder)
EGYT 2410 Late Egyptian (Leo Depuydt)

French

FREN 1410T L'expérience des réfugiés: déplacements, migrations (Virginia Krause) WRIT

Hebrew

BHBR 0100 Introduction to Biblical Hebrew (Josiah Bisbee)
HEBR 0100 Elementary Hebrew (Ruth Adler Ben Yehuda)
HEBR 0300 Intermediate Hebrew (Ruth Adler Ben Yehuda)
HEBR 0500 Writing and Speaking Hebrew (Ruth Adler Ben Yehuda)

History

HIST 0244 Understanding the Middle East: 1800s to the Present (Sreemati Mitter) DIAP
HIST 1445 The Making of the Ottoman World, 15th - 20th Centuries
 (Meltem Toksoz)
HIST 1969A Israel-Palestine: Lands and Peoples I (Omer Bartov) WRIT
HIST 2971R Approaches to Middle East History (Beshara Doumani) Graduate seminar

Humanities

HMAN 2400R Tracing Translations: Artistic Migrations and Reinventions in the Early Modern World (Shahzad Bashir & Holly Shaffer) Graduate seminar

Judaic Studies

JUDS 0682 How Bible Became Holy (Michael Satlow)
JUDS 1625 Problems in Israelite Religion and Ancient Judaism
(Saul Olyan)
UNIV 1001 The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Contested Narratives (David Jacobson)
JUDS 1974 Digging for the Bible: Science, Religion, and Politics (Katharina Galor) WRIT

Modern Greek

MGRK 1220 Decolonizing Classical Antiquity: White Nationalism, Colonialism, and Ancient Material Heritage (Yannis Hamilakis) DIAP

Persian

PRSN 0100 Basic Persian (Iraj Anvar)
PRSN 0300 Intermediate Persian Language and Culture (Iraj Anvar)
PRSN 0500 Advanced Persian Language and Culture I (Iraj Anvar)

Religious Studies

RELS 0014 Jesus (Jae Hee Han) WRIT
RELS 0090M Islam, Violence and Media (Nancy Khalek) First-Year Seminar
RELS 0625 Articulating Islam in Southeast Asia (Shahzad Bashir) course flyer
RELS 0835 Black and Brown Religion in America (Nancy Khalek & Andre Willis)

Turkish

TKSH 0100 Introduction to Turkish Language and Culture I (Esra Ozdemir)
TKSH 0300 Intermediate Turkish (Esra Ozdemir)
TKSH 1100A Understanding Modern Turkey Through Film, Literature, and Media (Esra Ozdemir) course flyer

Urban Studies

URBN 1871B Berlin: Global Metropolis (1945-2020) (Katharina Galor)