| | 01 | M-W-F-- | 9:00A-9:50A | TBA | Tamir | May 1 2025 1:00PM - 3:00PM | 15 | 3 | 0 | | |
| 02 | M-W-F-- | 10:00A-10:50A | TBA | Tamir | May 1 2025 1:00PM - 3:00PM | 15 | 5 | 0 | | |
| 03 | M-W-F-- | 11:00A-11:50A | TBA | Weinberg | May 1 2025 1:00PM - 3:00PM | 15 | 13 | 0 | | |
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| | 01 | MTWRF-- | 10:00A-10:50A | TBA | Bennis | No Final | 15 | 10 | 0 | | |
| 02 | MTWRF-- | 11:00A-11:50A | TBA | Bennis | No Final | 15 | 7 | 0 | | |
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| | 02 | MTWRF-- | 10:00A-10:50A | TBA | Jain | No Final | 15 | 8 | 0 | | |
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| | 01 | MTWR--- | 3:00P-3:50P | TBA | Jenott | May 1 2025 1:00PM - 3:00PM | 15 | 4 | 0 | | |
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| | 01 | TBA | | TBA | [TBA] | See Department | 0 | 0 | 0 | | |
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| | 01 | M-W-F-- | 12:00P-12:50P | TBA | Weinberg | May 1 2025 1:00PM - 3:00PM | 25 | 18 | 0 | | |
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| | 01 | M-W-F-- | 9:00A-9:50A | TBA | Tarbouni | Paper/Project/Take Home | 15 | 8 | 0 | | |
| A | ---R--- | 9:00A-9:50A | TBA | Tarbouni | No Final | 15 | 0 | 0 | | |
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| | 01 | M-W---- | 11:30A-12:50P | TBA | Green | Paper/Project/Take Home | 20 | 20 | 3 | | |
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| | Description: | Pakistan is the second largest Muslim nation and the sixth most populous country in the world. First imagined as an anti-majoritarian and anti-imperial idea, the nation came to be split between East and West Pakistan, with a hostile Indian nation dividing the country. The subsequent emergence of Bangladesh, from within, exposed the complexities of US imperial and Indian power, colonialism, identity, ethnicity, race, nationalism and repression. More recently, the War on Terror has once again exploited the ethnic and cultural conflicts produced by world histories of power and resistance.
The events of the past two hundred years have undoubtedly and violently exacerbated the politicization of social and cultural identities. This course situates Pakistan in the context of pre-colonial social formations, British colonialism, internal colonialism, US imperialism, the Cold War, Soviet interests, Indian regional hegemony and then turns to the powerful and diverse struggles launched by its own citizens against these external forces. How did successive empires construct and politicize social identities, and how did people contest and adapt these? How did caste, gender, race and religion shape empire and anti-imperial histories?
Our sources will be historical, ethnographic, and literary. We will cover topics such as colonial fantasies, decolonization, the political uses of social categories of tribe, caste, language and gender, the political economy of militarism, terrorism, 'development', activism, diasporic formations, poetry, music and art. The course will deepen our collective understanding of a critical series of developments in world history. Just as crucially, we will build a framework within which to address the stereotypes about Pakistan that dominate popular and media discourses today.
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| | 01 | -T----- | 3:00P-5:50P | TBA | Chandra | Paper/Project/Take Home | 15 | 14 | 0 | | |
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| | 02 | -T-R--- | 1:00P-2:20P | TBA | Jain | No Final | 12 | 3 | 0 | | |
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| | 01 | M-W---- | 11:30A-12:50P | TBA | Tarbouni | Paper/Project/Take Home | 0 | 23 | 0 | | |
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| | 01 | M-W-F-- | 3:00P-3:50P | TBA | Shah | May 1 2025 6:00PM - 8:00PM | 15 | 4 | 0 | | |
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| | Description: | The Arab world is a region in flux. Its borders have been drawn and redrawn multiple times since the Arab Revolt (1916-1918) which brought an end to the Ottoman Empire amidst the global conflict of World War I. Although the primary goal of the Arab rebels was to establish an independent and unified Arab state, instead, the Arab-majority Ottoman territories were carved up into a number of mandates controlled by the French and British empires. In response, multiple strains of Arab nationalism emerged across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), reaching a cogent phase following World War II. Soon after, French and British control over the region deteriorated and collapsed. The period of decolonization and the decades after were characterized by the formation of several new sovereign states accompanied by political factionalism, numerous oil crises, war, and mass migration. Since then, the formal political structures that define nation states have been precariously constituted in the MENA region.
In this seminar, students will discover how artists and other cultural contributors living in the Arab world and diaspora have narrated, mediated, and shaped these pivotal moments in history and, vice-versa, how these moments influenced their work. This course encompasses a broad range of media, treating painting, sculpture, photography, installation, film, cartoons, graphic novels, street art, and social media as parts of one continuous visual landscape. In addition to the methods of art history, this course also incorporates literary, museological, archaeological, and philosophical perspectives. As a result of this interdisciplinary approach, students will come to understand that visual creation in the region has been shaped by forces that have often pulled in opposite directions: the legacy of colonialism and early nation formation; cultural and religious tradition and Modernism; cosmopolitanism and isolationism; artistic innovation and acts of iconoclasm and censorship. Students will also gain a good overall grasp of the modern and contemporary political and cultural history of the Middle East and North Africa.
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| | 01 | M-W---- | 4:00P-5:20P | Kemper / 103 | Murphy | Paper/Project/Take Home | 40 | 22 | 0 | | |
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| | 01 | M-W---- | 11:30A-12:50P | TBA | Barmash | May 6 2025 10:30AM - 12:30PM | 30 | 16 | 0 | | |
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| | 01 | M-W---- | 1:00P-2:20P | TBA | Jain | No Final | 10 | 2 | 0 | | |
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| | Description: | What is Jewish literature? While we begin with -- and return to -- the traditional question of definitions, we will take an unorthodox approach to the course. Reading beyond Bellow, Ozick and Wiesel, we will look for enlightenment in unexpected places: Egypt, Latin America, and Australia. Recent works by Philip Roth, Andre Aciman, Simone Zelitch and Terri-ann White will be supplemented by guest lectures, film, short stories and significant essays. We will focus on issues of language, memory and place. Background knowledge is not required, though it is warmly welcomed. |
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| | 01 | M-W---- | 10:00A-11:20A | TBA | Berg | Paper/Project/Take Home | 16 | 3 | 0 | | |
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| | 01 | -T-R--- | 1:00P-2:20P | TBA | DIALLO | Paper/Project/Take Home | 15 | 17 | 2 | | |
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| | Description: | This course presents an historical assessment of the GWOT from the perspective of its major participants: militant, Salafi Islamists, especially al-Qaeda and its affiliates and offshoots including ISIS, and the nation states that oppose them, namely, the United States and its allies. It seeks to answer such questions as what is militant Islamism and how has it interpreted jihad to justify committing terrorist acts in the name of restoring the caliphate? What is the nature of the GWOT and how has it become the new rubric of war in the 21st century? We cover the rise of militant, Sunni Islamism in Egypt during the 1960s and '70s, Islamic jihad in Afghanistan during the 1980s, the origins of "al-Qaeda" in 1988, jihad in Bosnia, Chechnya, Algeria, and Sudan during the 1990s, al-Qaeda terrorist attacks against the U.S. during the 1990s, 9/11 and the Bush Doctrine, the war against the Taliban and the hunt for Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan in 2001-02, and the subsequent spread of Islamic jihad in South and Southeast Asia, the Middle East, North and East Africa, Western Europe, and the United States, and the respective nation states' responses. The course concludes with an analysis of the current state and likely future of the GWOT. Just how long will this conflict last, and in what ways, how and why is it likely to end? |
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| | 01 | -T-R--- | 1:00P-2:20P | TBA | Knapp | Paper/Project/Take Home | 15 | 15 | 19 | | |
| 02 | -T-R--- | 2:30P-3:50P | TBA | Knapp | Paper/Project/Take Home | 15 | 15 | 17 | | |
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| | 01 | M-W-F-- | 10:00A-10:50A | TBA | Tarbouni | Paper/Project/Take Home | 12 | 6 | 0 | | |
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| | 01 | M-W---- | 4:00P-5:20P | TBA | Jay | Paper/Project/Take Home | 20 | 20 | 10 | | | Actions: | | Books | | Syllabus | | Syllabi are provided to students to support their course planning; refer to the syllabus for constraints on use. |
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| | 01 | M-W-F-- | 1:00P-1:50P | TBA | Weinberg | May 1 2025 1:00PM - 3:00PM | 19 | 5 | 0 | | |
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| | 01 | M-W---- | 2:30P-3:50P | TBA | Warren | Paper/Project/Take Home | 20 | 20 | 0 | | |
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| | Description: | Between 1939 and 1945, German troops invaded, occupied and destroyed major parts of Europe to create a new order based on the Nazi world view. A central aim of the Nazi project was the destruction of European Jewry: the killing of people and the annihilation of a cultural heritage. This destruction was embedded in a larger regime of violence against Roma, Slavs, people with disabilities and others, and implicated a range of people. The course facilitates an understanding of the origins, dynamics, and results of the Nazi extermination regime; survival and resistance strategies of Jews and other persecuted groups in Western and Eastern Europe; migration movements triggered by the Holocaust and World War II; local responses to antisemitism and racialized murder, and other issues. Lectures introduce students to recent trends in the study of the history and memory of the Holocaust including a focus on the global implications of the Nazi genocide, the role of gender and sexuality for experience and memory, attention to the interethnic relationships in German-occupied Europe, and the relevance of Holocaust memory for current societies. |
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| | 01 | M-W---- | 9:00A-9:50A | TBA | Walke | Paper/Project/Take Home | 80 | 18 | 0 | | |
| A | ----F-- | 9:00A-9:50A | TBA | Walke | Paper/Project/Take Home | 20 | 5 | 0 | | |
| B | ----F-- | 10:00A-10:50A | TBA | Walke | Paper/Project/Take Home | 20 | 9 | 0 | | |
| C | ----F-- | 9:00A-9:50A | TBA | Walke | Paper/Project/Take Home | 20 | 2 | 0 | | |
| D | ----F-- | 10:00A-10:50A | TBA | Walke | Paper/Project/Take Home | 20 | 2 | 0 | | |
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| | 01 | M-W---- | 4:00P-4:50P | TBA | Zuehlke | May 7 2025 1:00PM - 3:00PM | 18 | 11 | 0 | | |
| A | ----F-- | 1:00P-1:50P | TBA | Zuehlke | No Final | 999 | 4 | 0 | | |
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| | Description: | We will investigate the biblical book of Exodus in both its original significance in the ancient Near East and its later meanings for Jews, Christians, and Muslims in societies around the world. Why did its narratives and ideas about law and justice and religion resonate so strongly both in biblical times and afterwards? Which assumptions did the biblical authors make about writing stories and poetry? What is the historical reality of the Exodus? How did the biblical Israelites conceive of their religious practices and institutions? We will also explore how Exodus and the celebration of Passover has been, and continues to be, a crucial source of identity in Jewish and Christian circles. How has Exodus been re-imagined and transfigured multiple times, and how has the Passover celebration reflected transformations in the understanding of the Exodus? We will analyze many types of expression influenced by Exodus: historical sources, liturgy, art, commentaries, theology, literature, film, mysticism, and music. |
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| | 01 | M-W---- | 10:00A-11:20A | TBA | Barmash | May 5 2025 10:30AM - 12:30PM | 30 | 1 | 0 | | |
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| | Description: | Jewish literature includes highly fascinating travel accounts and autobiographies that are still awaiting their discovery by a broader readership. In this course, we will explore a broad range of texts originating from the Middle Ages to the 19th century. They were written by both Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews hailing from countries as diverse as Spain, Italy, Germany, and the Ottoman Empire. Among the authors were pilgrims, rabbis, merchants, and one savvy businesswoman. We will read their works as responses to historical circumstances and as expressions of Jewish identity, in its changing relationship to the Christian or Muslim environment in which the writers lived or traveled. Specifically, we will ask questions such as: How do travel accounts and autobiographies enable their authors and readers to reflect on issues of identity and difference? How do the writers produce representations of an "other," against which and through which they define a particular sense of self? This course is open to students of varying interests, including Jewish, Islamic, or Religious Studies, medieval and early modern history, European or Near Eastern literatures. All texts will be read in English translation. Please note: L75 559 is intended for graduate students only. |
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| | 01 | -T-R--- | 2:30P-3:50P | TBA | Jacobs | Paper/Project/Take Home | 20 | 20 | 4 | | | Actions: | | Books | | Syllabus | | Syllabi are provided to students to support their course planning; refer to the syllabus for constraints on use. |
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| | Description: | In the public perception, modern Jews divide into two subethnic groups: Ashkenazi and Sephardi, or European and Middle Eastern Jews. However, this is an oversimplification that does not do justice to the diversity and complex history of Jewish identities, which are often multilayered. Strictly speaking, Sephardi Jews trace their ancestral lines or cultural heritage to the medieval Iberian Peninsula, present-day Spain and Portugal. That said, according to some scholars, Sephardi Judaism did not even exist before the general expulsion of Spanish Jewry in 1492 and is the result of their subsequent migrations within the Mediterranean and transatlantic worlds.
We will start with an introduction into the history of Spanish Jews prior to 1492, asking to what extent memories of pre-expulsion Iberia are at the heart of Sephardi identity. We will then follow the migratory path of Sephardi exiles to North Africa, Italy, the Ottoman Empire, the Netherlands, and the Americas. The questions we will explore include: in what sense did Sephardim form a transnational community? How did they transmit and transform aspects of Spanish culture in form of Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) language and literature? How did they become intermediaries between Christian Europe and the Ottoman Empire? What was their role in Europe's transatlantic expansion and the slave trade? How did Ottoman and North African Jews respond to European cultural trends in the nineteenth century and create their own forms of modernity? How did the Holocaust impact Sephardi Jews? |
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| | 01 | -T-R--- | 11:30A-12:50P | TBA | Jacobs | Paper/Project/Take Home | 15 | 15 | 2 | | | Actions: | | Books | | Syllabus | | Syllabi are provided to students to support their course planning; refer to the syllabus for constraints on use. |
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| | Description: | Be it sati or enforced widowhood, arranged or love marriage, the rise of national leaders like Indira Gandhi and Kamala Harris, or the obsession with "fair" skin, caste shapes possibilities and perceptions for billions. In this class we combine a historical understanding of the social caste structure with the insights made by those who have worked to annihilate caste. We will re-visit history with the analytic tools provided by the concepts of compulsory endogamy, "surplus woman," and "brahmanical patriarchy," and we will build an understanding of the enduring yet invisible "sexual-caste" complex. As we will see, caste has always relied on sexual difference, its ever-mutating power enabled by the intersectionalities of race, gender and class. We'll learn how caste adapts to every twist in world history, increasingly taking root outside India and South Asia. We will delve into film and memoir, sources that document the incessant injustices of caste and how they have compounded under globalization. The class will research the exchange of concepts between anti-race and anti-caste activists: how caste has shaped the work of prominent anti-racist intellectuals and activists in the United States such as W.E.B. DuBois and Isabel Wilkerson and in turn, the agenda and creativity of groups such as the Dalit Panthers. Finally, the course will build a practical guide to engaging with and interrupting caste in the context of the contemporary global world today. Waitlists controlled by Department; priority given to WGSS majors. Enrollment cap 15. |
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| | 01 | -T-R--- | 10:00A-11:20A | TBA | Chandra | Paper/Project/Take Home | 15 | 18 | 0 | | Desc: | Waitlists controlled by Department. Priority given to WGSS majors. Enrollment capped at 15. |
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| | Description: | This course will cover the history of food and drink in the Middle East to help us understand our complex relation with food and look at our lives from perspectives we intuitively feel or by implication know, but rarely critically and explicitly reflect on. Food plays a fundamental role in how humans organize themselves in societies, differentiate socially, culturally, and economically, establish values and norms for religious, cultural, and communal practices, and define identities of race, gender, and class. This course does not intend to spoil, so to speak, this undeniably one of the most pleasurable human needs and activities, but rather to make you aware of the social meaning of food and reflect on how food shapes who we are as individuals and societies. We will study the history of food and drink in the Middle East across the centuries until the present time, but be selective in choosing themes, geographic regions, and historical periods to focus on. Please consult the instructor if you have not taken any course in the humanities. Enrollment priority given to seniors and juniors. |
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| | 01 | M-W---- | 3:00P-4:50P | TBA | Yucesoy | Paper/Project/Take Home | 12 | 12 | 5 | | |
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| | Description: | Although it is today primarily associated with oil, the Arabian peninsula was for most of its history defined by water: its surrounding seas, its monsoon-driven winds, and its lack of water in its vast and forbidding interior deserts. As home to the major holy cities of Islam and a key source of global oil, the region has played an important role in the Western European and North American imagination. Despite being relatively sparsely populated, the peninsula hosts millions of believers each year on the annual Muslim pilgrimage, and it has been the site of major wars and military occupations by European, American, and other Middle Eastern countries for much of the
20th and 21st centuries. It has been an outpost of the Ottoman Empire, a center of British colonialism and (at Aden) an axis of its global empire, the location of Egypt's "Vietnam" (its long war in Yemen in the 1960s), the Gulf Wars I and II, and the recent wars in Yemen, to name just a few of the major conflicts. Often depicted as unchanging until caught up by the influx of massive oil wealth, this region is frequently characterized as a place of contradictions: home to some of the world's largest skyscrapers and also the most inhospitable and largest sand desert in the world, known as "the Empty Quarter"; the location of crucial American allies and the home of al-Qa'eda founder `Usama Bin Laden. In this course, we will examine the development of the peninsula historically to understand these contradictory images. We will investigate changes in the following arenas: environment and society; colonial occupation; newly independent states; the demise and development of key economic sectors (pearling; shipping; agriculture; oil; finance; piracy); political regimes; resources such as water, oil, and date palms; the growth of oil extraction infrastructure and its effects on the political regimes and societies in the region; the emergence of new Gulf cities; Islamic law; women's rights; human rights debates; and religious and ethnic minorities. |
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| | 01 | -T-R--- | 11:30A-12:50P | TBA | Reynolds | Paper/Project/Take Home | 22 | 22 | 10 | | |
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| | Description: | What is 'the West'? Where did this notion come from? How did the West then imagine and study 'the East'? Edward Said coined the term "Orientalism" to describe Western fear and fascination with the societies of the Middle East and Asia, or the "Orient." For centuries, travelers, traders, scholars, and diplomats regarded the Orient as a place of mysticism, backwardness, licentiousness, and repression. As they did so, they constructed an idea of 'the West' as its opposite: secular, rational, liberal etc. The power to represent Middle Eastern and Asian societies for audiences back home translated into the power to colonize. In this class, we explore the history and politics of Western depictions of the Orient particularly of the Middle East and Islam. We examine the ways that the production of knowledge about these societies enabled European colonialism. We also consider to what extent the study of the Middle East in the US today is any different and, if so, how? |
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| | 01 | M-W---- | 11:30A-12:50P | TBA | Warren | Paper/Project/Take Home | 20 | 14 | 0 | | |
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| | Description: | This course is an introduction to Israeli politics, set within the tension between a Jewish, liberal, and democratic nation-state and serving as a case study for politics in polarized and divided societies. Following an introduction to the Jewish and democratic state, the course will include three main sections: a theoretical introduction to Israeli society, an overview of the Israeli political system, and a focus on several policies illuminating challenges within polarized and divided societies. Throughout the course, we will analyze various policy drivers, mechanisms, and implications and discuss their relevance for other democratic states with divided societies. Together, we will try to make sense of real-time news coming from Israel as we deepen our knowledge of polarization, politics, and Israel and gain skills to participate in political conversations. Please note: L75 385 is intended for Undergraduate students; L75 585A is the section for Graduate Students. |
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| | 01 | -T-R--- | 4:00P-5:20P | TBA | Hendin | Paper/Project/Take Home | 40 | 7 | 0 | | | Actions: | | Books | | Syllabus | | Syllabi are provided to students to support their course planning; refer to the syllabus for constraints on use. |
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| | Description: | This course introduces education in Israel, using it as a case study to examine education values, policies, and practices in deeply divided societies. Israel's Jewish and democratic character will serve as a necessary context. The course is divided into two main sections: the first focuses on the core values that shape education systems and policies, while the second addresses three key education policy issues-core curriculum, segregation and integration, and free speech. Throughout the course, we will critically examine the potential for shared core values in a public education system that serves a divided society. We will explore how policies can either reduce or reinforce disparities and divisions. Finally, we will consider how the Israeli experience is relevant to other democratic states with deeply divided societies facing similar challenges. As we explore the Israeli case together, students will have the opportunity to analyze pieces of their own educational experience alongside education policies in the US. The course will allow students to deepen their knowledge of education, divided societies, and Israel and gain skills to form independent knowledge-based opinions on the role of education in diverse and divided societies. Please note: L75 390 is intended for Undergraduate students; L75 590A is the section for Graduate Students. |
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| | 01 | -T-R--- | 11:30A-12:50P | TBA | Hendin | Paper/Project/Take Home | 30 | 7 | 0 | | |
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| | 01 | ----F-- | 9:00A-11:50A | TBA | Cassen | Paper/Project/Take Home | 20 | 1 | 0 | | |
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| | Description: | Since the long amorphous War on Terror, Muslims have been a constant presence in Western news media, typically cast in a negative light as political others who are backwards, threatening, and inherently prone to violence. This pattern has long been replicated in films where Muslims are static and dehumanized perpetrators of violence, or as symbols of a backwards and depraved culture, antithetical to liberal values and interests. In recent years however, Muslims have become increasingly visible in the American and British entertainment industries, as protagonists and producers of their own media, including G. Willow Wilson's Ms. Marvel, Hulu's Ramy, and Netflix's Man Like Mobeen. In this seminar, we explore a selection of recent American and British media projects created by Muslim writers, actors, musicians, and comedians. We pair these projects with scholarship on religion in the media and TV studies analyzing Muslim representation and storytelling in contemporary popular culture. We will evaluate these works on their own terms, noting the ways in which gender and racial hierarchies dictate who gets to represent American and British Muslims, while also assessing how these new media both disrupt and further reify Muslims' construction as religious and political outsiders. |
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| | 01 | ---R--- | 3:00P-5:50P | TBA | Ali | Paper/Project/Take Home | 15 | 8 | 0 | | |
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| | Description: | In the course students will improve their Hebrew by learning about Israeli cinema and about Israeli society and culture, as it is reflected in cinema. Cinema, being a true populist art-form, is the art-form, one could argue, that is most entwined with culture and society. Therefore, through the films we will learn about the history of Israel and its complicated geo-political and social circumstances, which provide a fascinating setting for the tensions that create art and cinema. Throughout the semester we will watch films that depict the struggles of the nascent Israeli society, the causes for the rising tensions between Israel the Palestinian people, and other societal complexities that have been addressed in Israeli films. We will explore themes of nationhood, social exclusion, militarization, sexual identity, and the lasting impact the Holocaust has had on Israeli society.
The goal is the improvement of advanced level Hebrew, but a lot of culture and history will provide really important context and background for Israeli cinema and the uses of modern Hebrew.
PREREQ: Grade of B- or better in L74 401W Fourth-Level Modern Hebrew I or placement by examination. |
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| | 01 | M-W---- | 11:30A-12:50P | TBA | Tamir | Paper/Project/Take Home | 10 | 5 | 0 | | |
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| | 01 | M-W---- | 10:00A-11:20A | TBA | Warren | Paper/Project/Take Home | 19 | 5 | 0 | | |
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| | 01 | -T-R--- | 2:30P-3:50P | TBA | Reynolds | Paper/Project/Take Home | 15 | 15 | 17 | | |
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| | 01 | M-W---- | 1:00P-2:20P | TBA | Yucesoy | Paper/Project/Take Home | 15 | 15 | 3 | | |
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| | 01 | TBA | | TBA | Bennis | See Instructor | 0 | 0 | 0 | | |
| 03 | TBA | | TBA | Tarbouni | See Instructor | 0 | 0 | 0 | | |
| 04 | TBA | | TBA | Yucesoy | See Instructor | 0 | 0 | 0 | | |
| 05 | TBA | | TBA | Warren | See Instructor | 0 | 1 | 0 | | |
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| | 01 | TBA | | TBA | [TBA] | See Instructor | 0 | 0 | 0 | | |
| 02 | TBA | | TBA | [TBA] | See Instructor | 0 | 0 | 0 | | |
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