Middle East Institute
Spring 2005 Course List
Courses about or related to the Middle East.
The list includes only Graduate level courses.

Middle East Institute

Spring 2005 Course Descriptions^

ISLAMIC EDUCATION IN THE USA

(Teachers College, ITSF 4094.004)

Day/ Time: 5:10-6:50 PM, Wednesdays

Instructor: Lou Cristillo (lfc12@columbia.edu)

This course examines both the formal and informal modalities of religious education to approach a critical understanding of the construction and contestation of Muslim identity and community in the religiously plural landscape of urban America.

From the roots of Muslim alternative schooling in the Nation of Islam in the 1930s, to the emergence of mosque-based “Sunday schools” in communities of the post-1965 new immigration, to the founding of over 200 full-time private schools since the 1980s, the course examines the complex interplay of religiosity and the many social and cultural forces that influence the transmission and transformation of Muslim identity through the variegated processes of formal and informal education.

Guest speakers, documentary films, and fieldtrips to local mosques and private schools in New York City will supplement class lectures and discussions, providing students a full range of stimulating learning experiences both inside and outside the classroom.

HIST OF THE REPUBLIC OF TURKEY (U4892)

Day/ Time: W 2:10pm-4:00pm
Location: 411 International Affairs Building

Instructor: David C Cuthell

This course will examine the origins and development of the Modern Republic of Turkey. It will trace the Republic’s roots from the period of the late Ottoman Empire until the present time. Particular attention will be paid to the transitions from Empire to nation state, changing social norms and the politics of reform and modernity. It will also examine the role of modern Turkey as both historic and contemporary bridge between Europe and the West and the Islamic world and Asia.

LATE OTTOMAN STATE & SOCIETY (History F3922)

Day/Time: TR 2:40pm-3:55pm
Location: 411 Hamilton Hall

Instructor: Richard Bulliet

This course is now being taught by Professor Richard Bulliet!

Three levels of Turkish language courses:

Elementary Turkish II,MWF 9:00-10:30

Intermediate Turkish II, MWF 11:00-12:30

Advanced Turkish II, TR 10:00-12:00

Each course is for four credits. It may be possible to join a class in mid-year, i.e., the spring semester of 2005.Students do not have to commute to NYU campus. The courses are offered here on Columbia campus.

US Foreign Policy Decision-making in the Persian Gulf (INAF U8136)

T 4:10pm-6:00pm
1101 International Affairs Building

Instructor: Gary Sick

The course is US Foreign Policy Decision-making in the Persian Gulf. It is limited to 20 students.

You can find a detailed description of the course and an updated syllabus and bibliography on courseworks <https://courseworks.columbia.edu/>. The course listing is INAF U8136.001.2005.1

For those who are interested in the course, this should answer all your questions about availability, selection and application. I would prefer that you not contact me individually prior to registration, since I am going to be traveling much of the time.

The Legal Culture of Islam (Religion W4635)

Day/Time: W 11-12:50pm
Location: 613 Kent

Instructor: Neguin Yavari

This is an advanced undergraduate/graduate seminar, designed to introduce students to the emergence of legal systems in Islam; the genesis of the shar’ia; and the manner in which Islamic law has affected the practice of Islam. It will focus on the processes by which scriptural interpretations have defined the legal culture of Islam; as well as the impact of secularization and modernity on Islamic law. It will argue against traditional formulations of Islamic law, both medieval as well as modern, which tend to idealize the legal culture of Islam, decontextualizing and dehistoricizing it in the process. It begins with a discussion of the earliest paradigms of authority in Islam, focusing on historical turning points that led eventually to their reformulation. It will turn then to the emergence of political Islam in modern period, and the ramifications of such movements on the functional aspects of the legal culture of Islam.

Here and There in Israeli Culture: (CLME W3642)

Day/Time: TR 2:30-2:45pm

Location: 423 Kent Hall
Instructor: Uri Cohen

Examining the Israeli cultural scene through literature, cinema, theatre, and arts, we will try to take a normal look at an abnormal place. Equipped with some cultural studies theory, we will measure the diversity and feel the tensions that form the culture of a place and people that have essentially been at war for more than a hundred years.

Culture in the Modern Arab World (MDES W3920)

Professor Joseph Massad

Day/Time W 2:10-4:00pm
Location: 405 Kent Hall

Instructor: Joseph Massad

This seminar, designed for seniors, aims to acquaint students with the notion and theoretical understanding of culture and to introduce them to a critical method by which they can study and appreciate contemporary culture in the Arab World. The seminar will survey examples of written and cinematic culture, as well as music, dance, and literary criticism.

Cinema and Revolution in Cuba and Iran (CLME W4033)

Day/Time W 4:10-6:00pm
Location: 207 Mathematics

Instructors: Hamid Dabashi and Richard Peña

Since the victory of the Cuban revolution in 1959, Cuba has created one of the most distinctive and influential national cinemas in the world. Some two decades later, and half a globe away, the Iranian Revolution of 1979 initiated an equally successful cinema with a global presence and widespread influence. The development of these two national cinemas were by no means untroubled: Debates over revolutionary form vs. revolutionary content, popular vs. national cinema, new technologies, global reception, the politics and economics of production and distribution, among a host of related issues have profoundly influenced the constitution of these two national cinemas. This course will look at the role of cultural production in post-1959 Cuba and post-1979 Iran, focusing on their respective cinemas but with complementary explorations of other cultural products.

Culture and Power in Iraqi Literature (CLME G4106)

Day/Time R 11:00am-12:50pm
Location: 309 Hamilton

Instructor: Muhsin al-Musawi

This course attempts to meet the increasing need to know Iraqi culture. Through a number of typical Iraqi texts since the Epic of Gilgamesh, the question of power relations and cultural dynamics will be a way to map out an intellectual itinerary of the most ancient civilization and its subsequent histories until the modern period.

Problem Perspectives of Democracy in the Arab World (CLME G4204)

Day/Time M 11:00am-12:50pm
Location: 402 Hamilton Hall

Instructor: Fawwaz Traboulsi

Students will become acquainted with the issues and problems of democratization in the Arab world. After a historical background, the first part of the course will map the specific forms of authoritarian rule in the Arab world. The second part will evaluate specific cases of democratization in a selected number of Arab countries. The third part will discuss obstacles and stimuli. Finally, the questions of phases and means of transition will be raised.

Representations of Identity and Violence in the Arab World (CLME G4243)

Day/Time T 11:00am-12:50pm
Location: 522B Kent Hall

Instructor: Fawwaz Traboulsi

This course aims to research issues of identity and violence as represented in selected works of literature and art in the Arab world. It is articulated around four themes: i) names and flags in nation building in regime change; ii) images of the Arab ruler; iii) visual impressions of torture; iv) representations of civil wars in literature and art.

Introduction to Political Thought in the Modern Middle East (MDES W42510)

Day/Time TR 9:10-10:25am

Location: 304 Hamilton Hall
Instructor: Scott Morrison

This course surveys selected works of some landmark political thinkers. These authors wrote from the early nineteenth century to contemporary times. They worked in North Africa, the Arab World, Ottoman and Republican Turkey, and Iran.

Arabs/Others in Narrative Encounters (CLME G6221)

Day/Time F 11:00am-12:50pm

Location: 522D Kent Hall
Instructor: Muhsin al-Musawi

This seminar argues the case of Arabs and Otherness in terms of historical and cultural dynamics beyond the simplifications of approval or total rejection. Looked upon in terms of discourse analysis with good use, also, of both Lacan and new-historicism, we study encounter narratives, before reaching “awakening texts,” modernity encounters, and subsequent modernist narration that explodes stereotyping predications.

Studies in Modern Arabic Literature (CLME G6231)

Day/Time T 2:10-4:00pm
Location: 406 Hamilton Hall

Instructor: Noha Radwan

This is a course designed to help students who are at the high intermediate and advanced level of reading in Arabic language to read modern Arabic literary works, in both poetry and prose. Class discussions will focus on the qualities and subtleties of these works that might be lost in translation.

Senses of Death (CLME G6532)

Day/Time T 6:10-8:00pm
Location: 311 Fayerweather

Instructor: Uri Cohen

Death: end or beginning of a body and of the bodies implied in the body politic. This course will not provide answers to these questions, but will rather attempt to understand the terms of the questions as they are put forth in critical discourse and implied in the literary production focusing mainly on Hebrew literature of the Zionist era.

Studying Gender and Sexuality in the Arab World (MDES G8280)

Day/Time: T 4:10-6:00pm
Location: 408 Hamilton Hall

Instructor: Joseph Massad

This course aims to familiarize graduate students with the different methods and approaches that U.S. and European scholars have used to study gender and sexuality in other societies generally, and the way they study them in the context of the Arab world specifically.

Democratization and de-Democratization:

The Middle East in Comparative Perspective (Poli. Sci. G8452)

Day/Time: R 4:10pm-6:00pm
Location: 717 International Affairs Building

Instructor: Mona El-Ghobashy

This colloquium scrutinizes two distinct bodies of literature: major works in the political science democratization literature and major works in the Middle East authoritarianism literature. The goal is twofold: (1) to cull analytical insights from the broader political science literature and test them against dynamics in the Middle East, and (2) to extract some generalizable mechanisms and/or concepts from Middle East cases to challenge and enrich the wider political science literature. Our reflections will be anchored in a plethora of case studies, from 19th century Chinese democracy movements to “stories of democracy” in 20th century Kuwait.

Modern Afghanistan: History, Culture, Politics (INAF U6725)

Day/Time: W 2:10-4:00 PM
Location: IAB 1118

Instructor: Prof. Lawrence Potter

This course will be a weekly seminar, limited to 20 students. It will be a historically-oriented introduction to the culture, politics and international relations of Afghanistan; themes to be addressed include state-society relations, ethnic and tribal diversity, modernization and development, nationalism and political identity, the position of women and religion and the state, as well as Afghan relations with the outside world. Sources include materials from many disciplines including history, anthropology, political science, literature and film.

Developing Kyrgyztan (INAF U8610 Call #: 84289)

Day/Time: W 11.00-12.50PM
Loction: IAB Room 501

Instructor: Rafis Abazov

This course examines political and economic development in Kyrgyzstan in the context of the debates on development of the Third World and transitional countries. This country of 5 million nestled in mountainous valleys of Tian Shan, unknown to the world until the disintegration of the USSR, was called an “Island of Democracy” and “Switzerland of Asia” in the 1990s. Since 1991 it has been one of the largest recipients of international assistance in the CIS (per capita term) and has attracted numerous international NGOs. Recently it became one of the key US allies in the war against international terrorism and a host of one of the largest US military bases in the CIS. Yet, the Kyrgyz government, like many Third World countries, it was plunged by corruption, violations of human rights and growing authoritarianism.