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Course Criteria
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0.00 - 4.00 Credits
The course introduces major issues in the study of contemporary Middle Eastern Politics and Economics, including state formation, the phenomenon of rentier economics, the role of the military and security sector, water and food security, the variance of authoritarianism and democracy, political parties and social movements, as well as the relationship between religion and state. Students may choose to participate in video-conferenced discussions with students from the Middle East and create a video project in lieu of 26% of the grade.
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0.00 - 4.00 Credits
An overview of the issues surrounding global energy supplies, oil's unique economic properties, and its role in shaping the political economy of the Middle East and U.S. strategic interests in the region. We will begin by discussing the basic science and availability of energy sources, the state of technology, the functioning of energy markets, the challenges of coping with global climate change and the key role of the oil reserves in the Middle East. The second part of the course will focus on the history of oil in the Middle East and its impact on societies in the region.
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0.00 - 4.00 Credits
This course examines the political dimensions of Islam. This will involve a study of the nature of Islamic political theory, the relationship between the religious and political establishments, the characteristics of an Islamic state, the radicalization of Sunni and Shi'i thought, and the compatibility of Islam and the nation-state, democracy, and constitutionalism, among other topics. Students will be introduced to the complex and polemical phenomenon of political Islam. The examples will be drawn mainly, though not exclusively, from cases and writings from the Middle East.
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0.00 - 4.00 Credits
The Middle East is more than the story of wars, elites, and ideologies. This class focuses on basic social changes that shaped that region after 1800. Through lectures and in-class discussions of a range of primary sources (literary texts, individual case studies, films, official documents), we examine the social dimensions of large-scale historical processes. These include urbanization, state formation, international trade patterns, and colonialism (19th century), and oil production, war-preparation, labor migration, economic liberalization, gender roles, and nationalism and political Islam (20th century).
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0.00 - 4.00 Credits
This course will examine the history of an often forgotten component of the great waves of migration to the Americas: Arabic-speaking migrants from present-day Lebanon and Syria who scattered through the US and Latin America. Using sources ranging from historical scholarship to memoirs, congressional reports and press articles, we'll consider the social, economic, political, and legal histories of the Middle Eastern men and women who settled in places as varied as Brooklyn and Buenos Aires. Crossing the lines between US, Latin American, and Middle Eastern history, we'll embark on a fascinating journey on the trail of these forgotten migrants.
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0.00 - 4.00 Credits
The course traces the great powers' struggle for control over the Middle East, as it affected Afghanistan. It begins with an introduction to the social and ethnic background, touching on the rise of the tribal Afghan kingdom in the 18th century. It will then focus on the rivalries between Russia and Britain in the 19th century ("the Great Game"), and on those between the Soviet Union and the US in the 20th. We will conclude by studying Washington's support in the 1980's for Islamist groups fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, its consequences, and the Taliban movement into the 21st century.
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0.00 - 4.00 Credits
Drawing on case studies of Middle Eastern wars, this course examines the changing nature of warfare from the second half of the twentieth century through the present day. The course begins with Clausewitz's theory of war and examples of conventional state warfare in the Middle East. It then moves on to cases of insurgency and so called fourth generation warfare and uses them to test Clausewitz's ideas and less state-centric alternatives. The goal of the course is to compel students to think seriously and critically about war and the ways in which it is and is not changing in the twenty-first century.
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0.00 - 4.00 Credits
This course traces Islamic history in South Asia from the first Muslim conquests in India through centuries of alternating Hindu-Muslim understanding and conflict, down to the final occupation of Delhi by the British. The course will provide deeper understanding of the cultural background, social and political roots, and religious outlook of the two modern South Asian Islamic states of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Particular attention will be paid to the attempt at cultural symbiosis under Emperor Akbar in the 16th century, followed by renewed sectarian tension and the collapse of Islamic rule while European sea-powers consolidated their grip.
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0.00 - 4.00 Credits
This course examines the formation and development of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the aftermath of the 1979 revolution. It considers, in particular, how the Iranian regime has adapted to changing domestic and international economic, social and political conditions and sustained itself enface grave social and economic challenges and international isolation. Topics of Discussion include: Factional Politics in the Post-Khomeini Era, Social Movements and Political Reform, Clerical Opposition and Dissident Theology, Changing Interpretations of Religious Law, Missed Opportunities in US-Iran Relations, Iran's role in the post 9/11 Mideast.
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0.00 - 4.00 Credits
Popularized through translations of world-famous poets like the 13th-century Rûmî, the Sufi mystical strain pervaded Islamic culture for a thousand years and played a major historic role in furthering friendly relations between Muslims and other religious communities through endorsement of spiritual tolerance. This two-term course examines Sufism's origins, growth, social role, guiding ideas, impact on Islamic literature, and even on medieval European thought as filtered through Spain, and the profound but controversial influence of the Spanish-Muslim Ibn `Arabî (1165-1240) as far as India.
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