Call Number | 12587 |
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Day & Time Location |
MW 1:10pm-2:25pm 614 Schermerhorn Hall [SCH] |
Points | 4 |
Grading Mode | Standard |
Approvals Required | None |
Instructor | Timothy Mitchell |
Type | LECTURE |
Method of Instruction | In-Person |
Course Description | This course examines a set of questions that have shaped the study of the politics of the modern Middle East. It looks at the main ways those questions have been answered, exploring debates both in Western academic scholarship and among scholars and intellectuals in the region itself. For each question, the course offers new ways of thinking about the issue or ways of framing it in different terms. The topics covered in the course include: the kinds of modern state that emerged in the Middle East and the ways its forms of power and authority were shaped; the birth of economic development as a way of describing the function and measuring the success of the state, and the changing metrics of this success; the influence of oil on the politics of the region; the nature and role of Islamic political movements; the transformation of the countryside and the city and the role of rural populations and of urban protest in modern politics; and the politics of armed force and political violence in the region, and the ways in which this has been understood. The focus of the course will be on the politics of the twentieth century, but many topics will be traced back into developments that occurred in earlier periods, and several will be explored up to the present. The course is divided into four parts, each ending with a paper or exam in which participants are asked to analyze the material covered. Each part of the course has a geographical focus on a country or group of countries and a thematic focus on a particular set of questions of historical and political analysis. |
Web Site | Vergil |
Department | Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies |
Enrollment | 81 students (90 max) as of 9:06PM Friday, December 6, 2024 |
Subject | Middle East |
Number | UN3260 |
Section | 001 |
Division | Interfaculty |
Note | Students in MDES UN3260 must register for MDES UN3261. |
Section key | 20241MDES3260W001 |