Soundscapes of the Middle East
Scholars have started to question the conspicuous “silence” pervading many academic works that privilege one sense – sight – to the detriment of all others. This class builds upon these efforts by critically engaging the writings of historians, anthropologists, ethnomusicologists, and media experts with the aim of uncovering how the study of sound may enrich our understanding of the modern Middle East. Beginning with an overview of sound studies, we consider where multi-sensory scholarship on North Africa, the Levant, and the Gulf fits into this burgeoning field of inquiry. After situating the Middle East within a body of literature that is at once innovative and interdisciplinary, we then shift to exploring several key themes, including religion, biography, popular culture, mass media, gender, space, and the environment, in relation to the region’s diverse soundscapes. We listen to the call to prayer in Cairo, jazz in Istanbul, ballads in Beirut, the din of warfare in Iraq, and the sounds of the “Arab Spring,” among many other acoustic items, to gain a greater appreciation of the centrality of sound in people’s everyday lives and its significance in the domain of Middle Eastern studies.
The Making of the Modern Middle East
This panoramic course surveys major developments in Middle East history, politics, and society. Covering more than two centuries, we move across an expansive geography encompassing North Africa, the Levant, the Arabian Peninsula, and Central Asia. Throughout this journey, we pay particular attention to five key themes: imperialism, modernization, nationalism, Islam, and revolution. In the process of navigating these topics, we develop a more nuanced understanding of the Middle East and a greater appreciation of the insights offered by primary sources, from poems to songs to motion pictures, into the region’s dynamic past. We begin with a basic question – what and where is the Middle East? – prior to exploring the impact, importance, and mechanics of empires (Ottoman, French, British, Russian). Once elucidating this imperial backdrop, we study sweeping reforms, struggles for independence, and the fashioning of nation-states, before examining a series of revolutionary moments, America’s presence in the Middle East, and the “Arab Spring” and its aftermath. Whenever possible, we strive to illuminate ordinary people, as opposed to only elite actors, who contributed to the making of the modern Middle East.
The Middle East in Film
Films depicting the Middle East routinely draw mass audiences and shape popular perceptions of the region the world over. The very same productions, however, are all too often understood by observers as mere entertainment. In this class, we consider what movies, if treated critically, may teach us about Middle East history. Beginning with a brief introduction to film and media studies, we contemplate where the Middle East fits into this field of inquiry. Once establishing how we approach motion pictures and the Middle East throughout the term, we navigate a number of key themes together, from war, memory, and migration to (mis)information, revolution, and representation. Along the way, we watch everything from indie films to big budget blockbusters. Regardless of the exact form these projects assume, all of the pictures we explore generate debate and discussion around the past and present. Among the topics we cover are the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, European colonialism, and America’s legacy in the Arab world. To assist us on this journey across the Middle East and well beyond its boundaries, we engage several primary sources, which empower us to partake in conversations that traverse languages, national borders, historical eras, and artistic genres, enabling us to view the Middle East in a new way.
History of Technology in the Middle East
In this seminar, we explore the impact, significance, and surprising stories of numerous technologies throughout Middle East history. We cover devices we often take for granted as well as things that command our attention. Cameras, clothing, and the internet, dams, motion pictures, and modes of transportation, all surface in readings that transcend any single historical genre, bridging the local and the global, the social and the cultural, the intellectual and the environmental. The scope of this course is panoramic. In traversing nearly two centuries, from the Ottoman Empire to the present day, we examine a wide array of case studies that unfold across the Middle East and travel further afield. To assist us on this journey, we conduct close readings of several primary sources, from photographs to music videos to social media posts. These materials inspire lively discussions that engage larger themes, including modernity, mediation, power, politics, infrastructure, and identity. By the end of the term, it is clear that the trajectories of objects, small and large, were essential to the making of the modern Middle East.
Media and Cultural Politics in the Middle East
How might media and popular culture not only complement what we already know about the past, but reshape our knowledge of it? In this course, we dive into a wide array of case studies that cross disciplinary boundaries and geographical borders. Drawing upon the work of historians, anthropologists, sociologists, and ethnomusicologists, our journey spans the long twentieth century and take us from the streets of Algiers and cabarets of Cairo to recording studios in Los Angeles and further afield. Along the way, we engage key theorists, from Frantz Fanon to Benedict Anderson, and Middle East scholars generating new theories, from “media capitalism” to the “leaking subject.” Likewise, we explore several themes, including colonialism, national identity, religion, gender, solidarity, revolution, and the body. In scrutinizing these diverse concepts, we unpack conversations between scholars on a weekly basis and across class sessions. In doing so, we elucidate a dynamic field’s development and consider how we might contribute to prevailing discussions on the region. By the end of the term, it is clear that media and cultural politics played significant roles in the making of the modern Middle East.
