Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Historical survey of Muslim-majority societies and the diverse cultural forms produced within them from the seventh century to the beginnings of the modern period. Topics include literary and artistic expression, architecture, institutions, philosophical and political thought, religious thought and practice.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: MES 260
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Marlow
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Normally alternates with REL 262.
An exploration of urban forms and culture in Muslim societies from Islamic late antiquity to the present. The course examines and critiques concepts of 'the Arab city' and ‘the Islamic city' while focusing on elements of continuity and change in particular cities, such as Damascus, Baghdad, Cairo, Istanbul, Isfahan, Samarqand, Lucknow and Lahore. Topics include migration, settlement, and the construction of new cities; conversion; the emergence of ‘holy cities' as centres for pilgrimage, religious education and Islamic legal scholarship; sacred space and architecture; religious diversity in urban environments; the impact of colonialism; post-colonial developments; modern and contemporary environmental issues; renewal and preservation.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Crosslisted Courses: MES 261
Prerequisites: None. Not open to students who have taken MES 365/REL 365.
Instructor: Marlow
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: This course is also offered at the 300-level as MES 365/REL 365.
Historical study of the Islamic tradition, from its beginnings in Arabia through its shaping in the seventh to tenth centuries in the diverse and newly integrated regions of Western and Central Asia and North Africa. Topics include the sacred sources of the Islamic religious tradition, the Prophet and the Qur'an; the formulation of religious law, ethics, theology, and philosophy; varied patterns of piety and mysticism; and the development of Sunni and Shi'i understandings of Islam and Islamic history. Particular attention to the diversity within the Islamic tradition, its intercultural contacts, and its continuing processes of reinterpretation. The course also addresses approaches, methods, issues, and new directions in the study of Islam and Muslim societies.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Crosslisted Courses: MES 262
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Marlow
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: Normally alternates with REL 260.
A study of the modern history of the Islamic religion and its interaction with historical forces in shaping developments in Muslim-majority societies from the late eighteenth century to the present. The course explores the emergence and evolution of religious movements and discourses in the context of the colonial and postcolonial periods, with particular attention to the histories of modern nation-states, such as Morocco, Egypt, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and Indonesia. Readings encompass a variety of perspectives and address a range of topics, including religious practice, modes of interpretation, matters of governance and the state, economic issues, gender and gender relations, and the participation of women in various arenas of public life. Islam is explored as a diverse and dynamic religious tradition that is responsive to change, and enquires into the divergent understandings of religion represented in a variety of modern and contemporary contexts.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Crosslisted Courses: MES 263
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Marlow
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
How have Muslims, over the course of a millennium and a half and in strikingly different environments and circumstances, conceived of human nature, moral conduct and responsibility, and the good life; and how have they formulated, debated and applied ethical principles? This course explores these questions with reference to the rich materials that have informed the religious cultures of Muslim communities, including the sacred sources of the Qur'an and the Prophet's example, the reception, interpretation and development of late antique moral philosophies and wisdom literatures, the evolving corpora of legal and theological scholarship, and the elaboration of rationally based ethical systems. Issues include charity, the environment, animal welfare, economics, gender and sexuality, medicine and bio-ethics, conflict and dispute resolution.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Crosslisted Courses: MES 267
Prerequisites: None. Not open to students who have taken MES 347/REL 347.
Instructor: Marlow
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: This course is also offered at the 300-level as MES 347/REL 347.
This course is a fast paced experiential introduction to the rich cultural and literary history of Morocco. In addition to language classes in Classical Arabic and Moroccan Arabic, students will get a basic introduction to the Amazigh language and its alphabet in order to enable them to read street signs and decipher some of the graffiti art. Students will also attend lectures given by at least a dozen scholars on topics such as: linguistic diversity and national identity, postcolonial literature, gender and women issues, Moroccan Jewish heritage and history, Amazigh activism, and the complexities of contemporary schools of thought within Islam. Students will also have a chance to travel to southern and central Morocco in order to put the texts they are reading in context and engage with local scholars in small discussion seminars.
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: Three semesters of Arabic or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Aadnani
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Winter
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Winter
Notes: Not offered every year. Subject to Provost's Office approval.
Love in its myriad manifestations constitutes a central and perennial theme in the literary and artistic repertoires of Arabic- and Persian-speaking societies. This course explores the varied, subtle vocabulary and the versatile, multivalent imagery linked with the themes of love and longing in Arabic- and Persian-language literature and film. In different times and places, how have men and women writers and directors used the themes of love and longing to depict and critique concepts of gender and gender relations, and social and political inequalities? How have men and women writers and filmmakers in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries both continued and disrupted earlier literary and poetic discourses of love? How have modern filmmakers engaged with and reworked classical stories of transgressive love? Divided roughly equally between literary and cinematic works, the course explores treatments of love and longing in, for example, early Arabic poetry and the Quranic text, philosophical and medical treatises, narrative cycles (for example the Thousand and One Nights), epic (notably the Persian Shahnameh or ‘Book of Kings’), lyric poetry (Rumi, Saadi, Hafez), modern verse, and film, including films by Dariush Mehrjui, Youssef Chahine, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Abbas Kiarostami, Rakhshan Bani-Etamad and Shirin Neshat.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Crosslisted Courses: MES 271
Prerequisites: None. Not open to students who have taken MES 371/REL 371.
Instructor: Marlow
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course is also taught at the 300-level as MES 371/REL 371.
Intertwined with the political history of the modern Middle East are the dramatic cultural and social changes that have shaped how many Middle Easterners live their lives and imagine their futures. This course explores the historical contexts of the changing constructions of femininity and masculinity in different Middle Eastern settings from World War I to the present. Such contexts include nationalist and Islamist movements; economic, ecological, and demographic change; changing conceptions of modernity and tradition, individual and family, and public and private space; and state violence and civil war. Primary sources will focus on the self-representations of Middle Eastern men and women as they engaged with what they considered the major issues of their times.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: MES 293
Prerequisites: None.
Instructor: Kapteijns
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
An exploration of themes of resistance and dissent in the literatures and cultures of North Africa and the Middle East since the early 1980s. Topics include the rise of democratic movements, such as political parties, associations, and NGOs; the role and importance of Islam to the identity of contemporary nation-states in the region; the status of women and minorities in the ideologies of the movements under study; and the status and implications of dissent. Materials studied include works of fiction and nonfiction, films, speeches, song lyrics, and online publications.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: ARAB 310
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Aadnani
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes:
This course examines how trailblazing, subversive and iconoclastic writers and directors in North Africa made space in their oeuvre to shed light on the lived experiences of marginalized groups. Focusing on a selection of texts, both literary and cinematic, covering the period from the late 1960s to the present from Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia, we will explore how these writers and filmmakers engage with marginalized communities in their societies. The course will focus on questions of decolonization, indigenous rights, gender and sexuality, politics, and artistic expression.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: At least one course in literature or film.
Instructor: Aadnani
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature
Typical Periods Offered: Summer
Notes:
How have Muslims, over the course of a millennium and a half and in strikingly different environments and circumstances, conceived of human nature, moral conduct and responsibility, and the good life; and how have they formulated, debated and applied ethical principles? This course explores these questions with reference to the rich materials that have informed the religious cultures of Muslim communities, including the sacred sources of the Qur'an and the Prophet’s example, the reception, interpretation and development of late antique moral philosophies and wisdom literatures, the evolving corpora of legal and theological scholarship, and the elaboration of rationally based ethical systems. Issues are likely to include charity, the environment, animal welfare, economics, gender and sexuality, medicine and bio-ethics, conflict and dispute resolution.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Crosslisted Courses: MES 347
Prerequisites: Open to Juniors and Seniors who have taken at least one unit in Middle Eastern Studies or Religion, and permission of the instructor. Not open to students who have taken MES 267/REL 267.
Instructor: Marlow
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: This course is also offered at the 200-level as MES 267/REL 267.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
This course provides an in-depth exploration of the Palestinian Israeli conflict from a comparative and social justice perspective. Our goal is to provide an analysis of events to engage in constructive academic debates. The class begins by contextualizing the study of the Middle East within the broader scope of comparative politics and Peace and Justice studies. Next, we focus on the origins of the conflict: the debate about 1948, the consolidation of the Israeli state, and the development of Palestinian and Israeli political and military organizations. The course then delves into different dimensions of the conflict: regional geopolitics, international relations, environmental debates, gender activism, terrorism, and the “Wall.” The last portion of the class considers peace negotiations, conflict mediation, compromise, and solutions: the refugee question, Jerusalem, TRCs, and the role of the United States.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: POL 2359,MES 358
Prerequisites: PEAC 104 or PEAC 217/POL2 217 or PEAC 204 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Hajj
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
How have Muslims understood the relationship between religion and politics at different moments in Islamic history? This seminar explores the interplay of religious principles and ritual practices with discourses of political legitimation and socio-political dissent in Muslim contexts. With examples drawn from the earliest period of Islamic history to the present day, the course examines religious authority and political leadership in Sunni and Shi'i contexts; the evolving religious-political meanings of the caliphate and the imamate; concepts of justice and injustice; power, authority and gender; dynastic rule and monarchy; and the position of Muslims living in non-Muslim-majority states. Particular attention to twentieth- and twenty-first-century responses to and appropriations of the pre-modern Islamic religious and political heritage.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: MES 359
Prerequisites: At least one course in Religion, Middle Eastern Studies, History or Political Science, or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Marlow
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy; HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
An exploration of the study and representation of Islam and West Asia/the Middle East in European and American scholarship, literature, arts, and journalism, from the Middle Ages to the present. Topics, studied in historical context, include medieval European images of Islam, translations of sacred texts and literary works, religious polemic, colonial histories and correspondence, Orientalism and post-Orientalism, new and emerging scholarship, the modern press and popular culture. Students will participate in focused discussion of primary sources and works of criticism, including Edward Said's Orientalism, and will undertake individual and group-based research projects.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: MES 361
Prerequisites: Open to Seniors, Juniors and Sophomores who have taken at least one unit of Middle Eastern studies, or by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Marlow
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
An exploration of law in theory and practice in Muslim communities from the early Islamic period to the present day. How have Muslim societies developed legal principles, discourses and practices? How have different kinds of law – the religious law or shari'a, legal rulings issued by the state, customary law – interacted at different times and in different localities? What have been the roles of scholars, jurists and judges? How have legal discourses and local practices interacted with issues of social and economic status, gender and sexuality? Areas of concentration include law in the diverse societies of the early modern empires (Ottoman, Safavid, Mughal), the legal interventions of colonial powers and their legacies, and contemporary legal discourses among Muslims in Muslim-majority and non-Muslim majority settings.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 16
Crosslisted Courses: MES 363
Prerequisites: One unit at the 200 level in Religion, Middle Eastern Studies, History, Political Science or a related field.
Instructor: Marlow
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
Filmmakers in the modern Middle East and North Africa have been at the forefront of intellectual engagement with their societies’ major challenges. By narrating the lives of individuals caught in historical circumstances not of their choosing, they have addressed issues such as incomplete decolonization and economic exploitation, cultural and political dogmatisms, the politicization and policing of religious, gender and sexual identities, foreign intervention and occupation, and dictatorship, civil war, and displacement. We will engage with the form, content, and historical contexts of a range of films and analyze how they leverage aesthetic, affective, and effective image, speech, and sound to persuade their audiences.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: MES 364,CPLT 364
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructors. At least one course in Middle Eastern Studies (apart from Arabic language) will be required and preference will be given to Seniors and Juniors.
Instructor: Aadnani (Middle Eastern Studies), Kapteijns (History)
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
An exploration of urban forms and culture in Muslim societies from Islamic late antiquity to the present. The course examines and critiques concepts of 'the Arab city' and ‘the Islamic city' while focusing on elements of continuity and change in particular cities, such as Damascus, Baghdad, Cairo, Istanbul, Isfahan, Samarqand, Lucknow and Lahore. Topics include migration, settlement, and the construction of new cities; conversion; the emergence of ‘holy cities' as centres for pilgrimage, religious education and Islamic legal scholarship; sacred space and architecture; religious diversity in urban environments; the impact of colonialism; post-colonial developments; modern and contemporary environmental issues; renewal and preservation.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 20
Crosslisted Courses: MES 365
Prerequisites: One unit in Middle Eastern Studies or Religion, or permission of the instructor. Not open to students who have taken MES 261/REL 261.
Instructor: Marlow
Distribution Requirements: HS or REP - Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: This course is also offered at the 200-level as MES 261/REL 261.
This is a research seminar about the history of “Greater Syria” (modern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Israel/Palestinian Authority) from the perspective of its cities, especially Aleppo, Amman, Beirut, Damascus, Haifa, and Jerusalem. Focus on the impact of the Ottoman Empire's mid-nineteenth-century Tanzimat (or modernization) reforms; the Empire's demise after World War One, and European Mandate rule (French in Lebanon and Syria, and British in Trans-Jordan and Palestine). Themes include: changes in governance and the administration of Islamic law; localism, Arab nationalism, sectarianism, and changes in communal identities and inter-communal relations; migration, urban and demographic growth, and the transformation of urban space; Jewish nationalism and immigration, and the impact of World War Two.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: MES 366
Prerequisites: By permission of the instructor to students with some background in History and the Middle East.
Instructor: Kapteijns
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
An exploration of the experiences and writings of Muslim travelers from the Middle Ages to the present in West, South, East, and Central Asia, North Africa, Europe, and America. Focus on the wide range of cultural encounters facilitated by journeys for purposes of pilgrimage, study, diplomacy, exploration, migration, and tourism, and on the varied descriptions of such encounters in forms of literary expression associated with travel, including poetry, pilgrimage manuals, narrative accounts, letters, memoirs, and graffiti. Authors include al-Biruni, Ibn Jubayr, Ibn Battuta, Evliya Çelebi, al-Tahtawi, Farahani, Abu Talib Khan, Asayesh.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: MES 367
Prerequisites: Open to juniors and seniors, students who have taken at least one unit in Middle Eastern studies, and by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Marlow
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy; LL - Language and Literature
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
This research seminar purposefully brings Africa north and south of the Sahara into a unified frame of study. It focuses on African cultural expressions such as music, song, literature, fashion, photography and film, digital creations, museums, and architecture in the period 1900 to the present. The themes structuring the syllabus are: colonialism, nationalism, and modernity; constructions of gender; identities, and the changing environment. You will learn about important concepts and themes in African historiography and cultural studies, and a wide range of relevant texts. Explorations of African subjectivities and narrative agency in all their complexity are central to the intellectual trajectory of this class. Research papers will engage with a particular kind of text or form of African culture across regions.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: MES 368
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor required. Normally open to juniors and seniors who have taken a 200-level unit in history and/or a 200-level unit in a relevant area/subject.
Instructor: Kapteijns and Aadnani (Middle Eastern Studies)
Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature; HS - Historical Studies
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
A crucial aspect of modern and contemporary international history is the large-scale violence against civilians that has marked recent civil wars throughout the world, from former Yugoslavia to Rwanda, and from Ireland to Sri Lanka and China. Though such violence is often labeled “ethnic” or “religious,” its causes are much broader. This research seminar will focus on: the causes and consequences of both state-perpetrated and communal violence; the scholarly (and legal) debates about how to approach political/social reconstruction in the aftermath of such large-scale violence, and the ethics of the representation of violence by historians and other authors/creators. Drawing on the conceptual readings and case studies of the syllabus, students will design a research paper about a particular conflict chosen by them.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Crosslisted Courses: MES 369
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Kapteijns
Distribution Requirements: HS - Historical Studies
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: For IR-History students, this course will fulfill the HIST 395 capstone requirement.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: MES 360 and permission of the department.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring; Fall
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Love in its myriad manifestations constitutes a central and perennial theme in the literary and artistic repertoires of Arabic- and Persian-speaking societies. This course explores the varied, subtle vocabulary and the versatile, multivalent imagery linked with the themes of love and longing in Arabic- and Persian-language literature and film. In different times and places, how have men and women writers and directors used the themes of love and longing to depict and critique concepts of gender and gender relations, and social and political inequalities? How have men and women writers and filmmakers in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries both continued and disrupted earlier literary and poetic discourses of love? How have modern filmmakers engaged with and reworked classical stories of transgressive love? Divided roughly equally between literary and cinematic works, the course explores treatments of love and longing in, for example, early Arabic poetry and the Quranic text, philosophical and medical treatises, narrative cycles (for example the Thousand and One Nights), epic (notably the Persian Shahnameh or ‘Book of Kings’), lyric poetry (Rumi, Saadi, Hafez), modern verse, and film, including films by Dariush Mehrjui, Youssef Chahine, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Abbas Kiarostami, Rakhshan Bani-Etamad and Shirin Neshat.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Crosslisted Courses: MES 371
Prerequisites: At least one course in Religion or Middle Eastern Studies, or permission of the instructor. Not open to students who have taken MES 271/REL 271.
Instructor: Marlow
Distribution Requirements: REP - Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Typical Periods Offered: Every other year
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes: This course is also taught at the 200-level as MES 271/REL 271.