Featured Elective Courses

ANTH 1225 Gendering Migration and Diasporas
Wednesday, 3:00 – 5:30 p.m.
Professor: Nadje Al-Ali
Location TBD

This course will employ a decolonial and transnational feminist approach to explore gender and sexuality as central lenses in our understanding of different forms of migration and diasporas. We will address the various ways that experiences, processes and consequences linked to different migrations are gendered. The course will introduce a range of geographical contexts and empirical examples/case studies with the aim to challenge the US centrism existent in many academic debates. We will analyze relevant power relations and forms of oppression, as well as resistance strategies by migrants, asylum seekers and refugees. The course will use an intersectional lens to explore the way different power configurations interplay in specific contexts, paying particular attention to patriarchy, heteronormativity, nationalism, racism, Islamophobia and class-based inequalities. We will engage economic, political, social, and cultural dimensions, but also the politics of non/belonging, and cultural productions.

RPP

COLT 1310J The Arab Renaissance
Wednesday, 3:00 – 5:30 p.m.
Professor: Elias Muhanna
Location TBD

Explores the 19th-century Arabic cultural renaissance known as the Nahda. Topics include intellectual encounters between Europe and the Middle East, the birth of the Arabic novel, and the rise of Islamic modernism. We will read selections from the works of Shidyaq, Tahtawi, Zaydan, Shawqi, Bustani, and others, alongside historiographical and theoretical texts. At least three years of Arabic required.

RPP | WRIT

ARCH 0440 Archaeologies of the Ancient "Middle East"
Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 2:00 – 2:50 p.m.
Professor: Nour Munawar
Location TBD

To understand the tensions of the modern Middle East, it is necessary to understand the region's past. This course will explore the archaeological history of Israel, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan – not least the political and religious agendas that scholars have brought to the study of these lands. Prehistoric and early historic developments will be emphasized: the earliest human occupation, the origins of cultivation and pastoralism, orientalism, (post-)colonialism, cultural memory, and the rise of social inequality and political complexity.

HIST 0244 Understanding the Middle East: 1800s to the Present
Tuesday, Thursday, 2:30 – 3:50 p.m.
Professor: Sreemati Mitter
Location TBD

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.

RPP

HIAA 1440F Architectural Reuse: The Appropriation of the Past
Friday, 3:00 – 5:30 p.m.
Professor: Sheila Bonde
Location TBD

This seminar will consider the survival, revival and adaptive reuse of older objects, texts and built spaces in the visual and material culture of successor cultures. We will look critically at the literature on the archaeology of memory, “Renaissance and revival” spolia studies and adaptive reuse. The seminar will examine selected case studies, including the reuse of sculptural elements in the Arch of Constantine, the conversion of the Pantheon into a church and Hagia Sophia into a mosque, appropriated elements in the Qutb mosque in Delhi, and the adaptation of the Bankside Power Station as the Tate Gallery.

WRIT

IAPA 1904A Iran and the Islamic Revolution
Wednesday, 3:00 – 5:30 p.m.
Professor: Stephen Kinzer
Location TBD

Shattering events of 1978-80 in Iran unfolded against the backdrop of the previous decades of Iranian history, knowing that history is essential to understanding the revolution. The revolution cannot be appreciated without studying the enormous effects it's had over the last 35 years. This course places the anti-Shah movement and the rise of religious power in the context of Iran's century of modern history. We conclude by focusing on today's Iran, the upheaval following the 2009 election, reformist president election in 2013, and prospects for reconciliation with the US. Enrollment limited to 20 juniors & seniors. Priority given to IR seniors.

WRIT

MES 1400 The Middle East in Berlin: Urban Spaces and Voices
Thursday, 4:00 – 6:30 p.m.
Professor: Katharina Galor
Location TBD

This seminar explores the physical and human landscapes of post-war Berlin: its steadily expanding urban fabric and how it engages with the rapidly changing population make-up. The focus will be on the tension between past and present histories, new German identities, the recent massive migrations, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, and how these social and geopolitical phenomena interact with the city’s urban spaces and monuments. As case studies we will explore the relationship among Germans and three other significant communities: Turks, Israelis, and Palestinians.

RPP | WRIT

TAPS 0800K Islam between Theatre and Performance
Wednesday, 1:00 – 3:50 p.m.
Professor: Kenneth Molloy
Location TBD

This course explores the nuanced relationship among concepts of theatre, performance and Islam in diverse texts and contexts. Our readings cut across disciplinary divides, weaving together theatre history, Islamic intellectual-cultural history, theory of performance, and theory of religion to support a dynamic, critical approach to our field of inquiry. We will discuss how attention to theatricality and performance may enrich our understanding of representations of Islam by Muslims, representations of Islam by non-Muslims, and the relationships between these representations. Taking as a point of departure the extreme opposition between “Islam” and “theatre” that contemporary discourse typically supposes when overlapping these topics, we will evaluate this convention and consider the reasons for its long and continuing prevalence.

Academics