Featured Elective Courses

Inspired by Houria Bouteldja’s book White, Jews and Us, which we will read in class, we will read authors who are engaged with generations of (forced) displacement and concomitant fraught cartographies. The class will proceed along lines drawn by two questions: (a) what makes these texts radical and how does their radicalness opens paths of refusal, care and repair of and in shared worlds; (b) how do these authors engage with identities made and remade by displacement and catastrophe, and how imagination, fabulation, remembrance and reclamation of never-completely-lost worlds are mobilized to question these identities, borders and injustices they produce. We will read texts by Ella Shohat, Houria Bouteldja, Saidiya Hartman, Susan Slymovics, Anarkata, Aliyyah Abdur-Rahman, Lital Levy and others.

DIAP | WRIT

No ancient world monument is more iconic than the Egyptian pyramids of Giza. This ONLINE course sets out to be a comprehensive analysis of the Old Kingdom (2575-2150 BCE) pyramids and the material, historical and symbolic context that produced them. How and why were the pyramids built? What was inside them? How was everyday life in the pyramid towns? What kind of rituals were performed in their multiple chambers? This course wants to show the real face of the pyramids and the people who worked on and lived by them.

Not officially acknowledged as a war by France until recently, the Algerian War of independence remains, more than a half-century later, a contested battleground in the French national consciousness. Focusing on depictions of the Algerian War in literature and film we will investigate the many taboos that still endure, most notably around the question of violence and torture, and attempt to reassess the relative “invisibility” of this conflict. Readings will include films by Gillo Pontecorvo, Jean-Luc Godard, Alain Resnais, Agnès Varda, and works by Frantz Fanon, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Benjamin Stora, Claire Etcherelli, Assia Djebar, and Leïla Sebbar. Prerequisite: a course at the 600- or 700-level or equivalent proficiency. Contact the instructor to verify your proficiency if you have not taken French at Brown. Taught in French.

DIAP | WRIT

This seminar investigates the historical bases of some of the major debates which continue to dominate contemporary discussions on the Middle East. These include debates on colonialism and its legacies; problems associated with the post-colonial Middle Eastern state (the "democracy deficit": human rights; oil; political Islam); and arguments about the causes and consequences of some of the major events in Middle Eastern history (the Israel-Palestinian conflict; the Iranian revolution; the Lebanese civil war; 9/11 and the Iraq invasion; and the Arab Spring).

DIAP | WRIT

In this class, we will explore the culture and practice of contemporary Islam in a variety of geographical contexts. From the United States to South Asia, from Europe to the Middle East, we will look at how Islam is practiced, discursively shaped, and represented across a variety of media. We will also introduce and learn about major phenomena including orientalism, colonialism modernity, and the post-modern--what do these terms mean, and why are they relevant to understanding the Islamic world? No previous study of Islam or religious studies is required for this course, and it is open to all undergraduates.

This course will introduce students to modern Turkey and offer a wide range of perspectives on the society and its culture. Each week, we will focus on a single theme such as: family and gender; social classes and their interaction with each other; Istanbul and its neighborhoods; Turkey’s role within Europe; ethnic identities and their recognition by Turkish society; Turkish media and entertainment; modernism and political Islam; important events in the very recent history of Turkey including the Hrant Dink assassination, terror attacks, and the 2016 coup d’état attempt; education and academic freedom; modern literature; specific cultural practices and rituals; foreigners’ perspectives on Turkish society; and modern Turkish sensory experiences including music and cuisine.