93410 - History And Institutions Of The Modern Middle East (50)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course, students - are able to articulate informed and coherent arguments about the main aspects of Middle Eastern political , social and cultural development in Turkey, Iran and the Arab Middle East by referring to the relevant scholarly literature

Course contents

The course is organized in lectures and seminars, as detailed in the following program. Lectures (26 hours) aim to introduce students to the core contents of the discipline. Seminars (two gropus of students for 12 hours each ) aim to provide occasions for in-depth discussion of class materials and exercises. Accordingly, each student will have 38 hours of in-class instruction. The course format requires student to study indipendentely in order to acquire the course contents outlined during the lectures. Students are also expected to prepare in advance for the seminars, carefully reading the assigned materials so that they can contribute to class discussion and engage actively in presentations of existing scholarship and case studies.

Lectures and seminars will cover the following topics:

Lectures: Introduction to the Study of the Modern and Contemporary Middle East- Defensive Modernization (XIX century): Ottoman Empire, Qajar's Persia and Egypt Compared; WWI ans the Making of the Modern Middle East; the Mandates; the Palestinian Question; the Middle East in the Bipolar World: the Golden Age of Panarabism; the Middle East in the Seventies: multiple trajectories; the Middle East and the end of the Cold War.

Seminars: The quest for 'modernity' in the Middle East (end of XVIII-early XX century); Carving Up the Middle East: 'Artificial States'?; the Israeli New Historians; Reconsidering Nasserism; Regional Patterns of War and Peace in the 70s and the 80s; the Resurgence of Political Islami in the 70s: Comparative Genealogies of Radical Islamism untile the Iranian Revolution (1979).

Readings/Bibliography

For a comprehensive chronological and thematic overview, students are required to study ( see 'core-readings' above)

William Cleveland and Martin Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2016, 6th edition

AND

Karen Armstrong, Islam, a Short History, Phoenix, 2001

The use of the historical maps is highly recommended. A very good selection of maps can be found here:

https://cmes.uchicago.edu/page/maps

Compulsory readings for each seminar with related debate topics and activities will be published on VIRTUALE as well as the ESSAY TITLES.

Instructions for non-attending students (i.e. exam preparation based on independent study ONLY)

Non-attending students are kindly requested to contact the lecturer within 1 month after the beginning of the course to fix an on-line appointment. A first contact will be established and queries about the exam preparation and study methods will be answered. Non attending students are required to study the core texts above (Anderson and Armstrong) and will be assigned a customized bibliography on a topic of their choice among the ones covered during the course.

Teaching methods

The course will be taught by a combination of lectures and seminars featuring individual or group presentations on assigned readings and discussion of key research questions. Active contribution to seminars is considered extremely important and it will be subjected to assessment. Every student will be required to present at least once during the course. Students will be required to base their presentations on compulsory weekly readings, trying to provide critical analysis of these materials, compare and contrast different case-studies, discuss peers' responses, situate their arguments within the relevant scholarly debate and elaborate indipendently on the main conceptual points raised during the lectures.

Assessment methods

The following course components will be assessed:

-two take-home essays (a primary souce analysis paper of 2.500 words and an essay of 3.500 words, notes and bibliography excluded), overall 50% of the final mark

tutorial attendance ( one oral presentation and weekly forum entries), 25% of the final mark

final colloquium, 25% of the final mark

Essays must be typed, double-spaced, properly footnoted and containing a brief- but relevant- final bibliography. Sources- at least 5 among scholarly articles, book chapters, and monographies- must build on weekly compulsory and additional readings. See Clevelands' general bibliography above for useful suggestions.

Essay titles will be announced at the beginning of the course. In general, the first essay should be handed in by the end of week 4, the second one by the end of week 8. Late submissions will be penalized (- 0.25 points a day). Plagiarism should be avoided with the outmost attention: make sure quotations are done correctly.

Teaching tools

PC, videos, maps, slides.

Office hours

See the website of Francesca Biancani