The Making of the Modern Middle East (I

PS Political Science & Politics, 2013

This course will focus on the history the Southwest Asia / North Africa region (commonly referred to as the “Middle East”) from the period from prior to the rise of Islam to the rise of the Ottoman and Safavid Empires in the 13th-15th centuries of the Christian Era (CE). Students will be introduced to the political, cultural, and social dimensions of the region framed against a historical narrative in three sections. Each section will feature a short writing component, quizzes, and an examination at the end. This course will emphasize the concept of history-as-inquiry. High school history survey courses tend to teach history as a set of facts to which there are right answers and wrong answers. This course will not only examine what we know about the Southwest Asia / North Africa region during this pivotal period, but also to ask the questions of how we know what we know about it. What kinds of evidence exist to prove “what happened”? Are historians in agreement on this? The first section will deal with the Rise of Islam and the Umayyad and Abbasid Empires. Islamic civilization will form a key component of our exploration of this region, and we will spend some time discussing key figures, concepts, and events in its development. Who was Muhammad? What is the Qur’an? What is the difference between Sunni and Shi’a, and when those differences appear? The second section will look at Everyday Life in the Islamic World. Here, we will examine the lived experience of average people during this period. How did Muslims experience their faith on a practical level? What did one do for fun? What did people eat, and where? What did art and architecture look like? What happened in a medieval university? What did people do when they got sick? What was it like to be a non-Muslim living in these so-called “Islamic” states? The third section will look at the period From the Fall of the Abbasids to the Gunpowder Empires. Here, we will examine a couple of turbulent centuries that saw the fall of the Abbasid empire and the Umayyad state in Spain and the new powers that rose to their their places after the Crusades and Mongol invasions. We’ll also examine the impact of the Black Death and the arrival of the Turkic peoples in the region before examining the rise of the two so-called “Gunpowder Empires,” the Ottomans and Safavids.

2024

Course Description The Middle East Studies Cornerstone is a required seminar for students beginning the Middle East Studies MA Program. Its aim is to introduce students to the study of the Middle East from a multidisciplinary perspective. The course is designed to provide a shared language for researchers in the field, introduce them to the evolution of the field itself from its genesis as “Oriental Studies” to the present, and help them understand the different “ways of knowing” that each discipline or professional approach brings to the study of the region. Each class session highlights distinctive issues of research design, methodology, or disciplinary perspectives. The seminar format combines lectures with discussions, with an emphasis on students' active participation and presentations.

This course traces the major cultural, political and economic developments that shaped the modern Middle East from the 19th century to the present time. This period has witnessed several variant transitions from universal empires to settler colonies, tribal monarchies, national republics, and revolutionary states of various sorts. Accordingly, we focus on ways in which regional actors dealt with changing political circumstances, economic and social transformation, and territorial conflicts. The majority of class time consists of an interactive lecture format, whereby I present and discuss with you a variety of historical topics in rough concert with assigned readings. The material presented in lectures constitutes a significant portion of several quizzes, as well as midterm and final exams. The secondary readings are meant to supplement lectures. Some class time is devoted to primary source discussion, provided through certain readings posted on Canvas.

This paper explores the possibilities of engaging in cross-disciplinary research to generate social studies curricula that disrupt singular historical constructions about the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), specifically for US high school teachers and students. As part of a larger multi-sited study that investigated and analyzed the common categories used to describe and teach MENA in US World History textbooks, the team engaged in multidisciplinary scholarship on the region to (1) review and analyze the five most widely adopted high school World History textbooks in the US; (2) share analyses with researchers and experts in the fields of MENA studies, history, and religion; (3) synthesize and integrate innovative scholarship on the region for potential curricula; and (4) generate robust alternative curricula for Grades 9-12 teachers. The authors, consequently, consider how educational research spurs innovative and culturally relevant curricular interventions for high school teachers. We argue thorough analysis of existing textbooks, informed by deep understandings of contested versions of historical events, should undergird social studies curriculum development. We suggest multidisciplinary and transnational collaboration can inform curricula in order to respond critically to singular narrations of peoples, cultures, and histories of a region.