All courses numbered 500 and above are graduate courses.
HIST 730 Iraq, Egypt, Algeria: Case Studies in the Arab World
Sharkey
Taught as schedule allows (consult the Course Directory)
This reading- and discussion-intensive seminar use historical and political analyses, ethnographic accounts, and studies of mass media to consider and compare the experiences of Iraq, Egypt, and Algeria in the modern period. The focus on these three countries is intended to draw attention to the diversity prevailing within the Arab world as well as threads of common experience among them. Themes to be covered include the meaning and limits of local Arab and Arabic cultures; the import and legacies of Ottoman and Western imperialism; the status of non-Arab or non-Muslim minorities (notably the Iraqi Kurds, Egyptian Copts, and Algerian Berbers); the social impact of new technologies and of political and economic changes on popular culture; and (in the present-day context) the ethics and implications of U.S. intervention in Iraq. The class will culminate in research projects that students individually design and pursue. Some prior familiarity with Middle Eastern or North African studies is assumed.
