The Global Middle East
Summer Session I: Tuesday/Thursday, 5:30-8:30pm
Instructor: Ada Petiwala
Contact: ap1870@nyu.edu
Location: Zoom
Office Hours: By appointment via e-mail.
Course Description: This course explores the politics and culture of the Middle East through its transnational connections, both within the region and across the globe. Through an interdisciplinary and comparative theoretical approach, we will investigate and question what “local,” “regional,” “transnational,” and “global” mean in the study of an area. The course covers specific historical and contemporary sites of exchange, including Indian Ocean trade networks, Arab migration to Latin America, Third World internationalism and Pan-Arabism, oil urbanization in the Persian Gulf, the politics of satellite television, Bollywood in Egypt, and culinary culture and cookbook politics in Morocco and Palestine. Students will be introduced to theories and methods of conducting multi-scalar, transnational research and develop critical analytical skills by engaging a wide range of sources, including political statements, novels, films, social media posts, and music.
Course Materials: All course materials, including academic article and primary sources, will be provided via links on our course blog: https://globalmiddleeast.blogspot.com/
Class Format: Sessions will generally be divided into three sections. In the first section, I will lecture on themes related to the readings, either providing both the historical context and academic debates that inform the topic of the day or introducing a new theoretical concept. The second section will be student-led, with our discussion leader guiding our conversation with their presentation and discussion questions (see below section for more details). The third section will be dedicated to primary source analysis. Students will be given primary sources to analyze in groups over breakout rooms on Zoom, and will later share their approach to and analysis of the primary source with the entire class.
Evaluation: Students will be evaluated on the basis of:
Class Attendance and Participation (20%): Please enter our Zoom sessions on time and ready to engage in discussion on readings, bringing relevant questions/comments and connecting them to earlier readings and major course themes. Students are expected to do all of the readings and to participate in activities during class. For every missed class, you lose 5% of your attendance and participation grade.
Discussion Leader (10%): During each class, one student will make a 10-15 minute presentation on the readings for the week. Do not summarize the readings. Instead, strive to identify the main themes and arguments of each text, and link those themes with the concepts we have encountered in class. At the end of the presentation, pose 2-3 discussion questions to the class based on the readings.
You can be creative with the presentation. For example, you can identify points on which you disagree. Does the evidence the author cites support the conclusions they reach? Does the reading suggest possibilities for further research? How can this text be productively put into conversation with some of the other texts and discussions we’ve encountered? Did the reading challenge any of your previous notions of the topic? Feel free also to present a contemporary media example or cultural product that engages the topics or themes of the readings.
Each student will be discussion leader twice and have the chance to select which sessions to lead on the first day of class.
Blog Posts and Keywords (20%): For each class, students are expected to write a substantial (250-400 words) paragraph or two drawing connections between the readings assigned for that day. A good blog post will synthesize (not summarize) a few points raised in two or more of the readings and then compare them, connect them to primary sources or lectures, or discuss some themes or concepts that unite them. An excellent blog post will do the above and also raise questions for discussion or constructively respond to another student’s blog post. Separately, in each blog post, students are expected to note 1 keyword or overarching concept that is introduced through the readings of the day and provide a quotation or the context in which the author(s) introduces this concept. The concept can be as broad as colonialism, imperialism, etc. or as specific as a theorization or neologism introduced by the author. This is simply to create an index of concepts and definitions for us to refer back to throughout the course.
Midterm (20%): For the midterm project, each student will explore a different online visual archive related to the Middle East and North Africa (an extensive list can be found here: http://hazine.info/visual-sources-middle-east-north-africa-islamic-studies-online/ and http://hazine.info/blogs-you-should-be-adding-to-your-bookmarks/). I also consider social media accounts such as these (https://www.instagram.com/gulfsouthasia/?hl=en) online archives. The goal is to encourage you to discover the many avenues of conducting research online and to train you to engage with different kinds of primary sources. The midterm will be comprised of a written portion and a presentation. For the written portion, students should research and analyze a particular online collection/exhibition of photographs, paintings, videos, etc. or a disparate set of sources that speak to the same theme. For the presentations, students will “teach” us their method for conducting research in this archive and present their analysis of the primary sources they chose to write about. The written portion of the midterm should be must be submitted by 12pm on Thursday, June 11, 2020 and the presentations will be conducted in class the same day. I will send a separate and more detailed document with instructions for the midterm.
Final Project and Presentation (30%):
Students are required to submit a final project by 12pm on Sunday, July 5, 2020 and present it to the class in a short 15-minute presentation on Thursday, July 2, 2020 (the last day of our course).
The final project can take on multiple forms, depending on your interests, how creative you would like to get, and what kinds of analytical skills you would like to develop. You may write a literature review essay that surveys and compares the main arguments made by different scholars on a particular topic, whether it is a subject we have already covered in class or a new, related interest developed out of the class. You can create a blog, journal, or Instagram account like this one (http://swedenburg.blogspot.com/search/label/kufiya) that documents the movement of a particular Middle Eastern cultural product or phenomenon (clothing/apparel, food product, musical tradition, architectural feature, poetry (like that of Rumi), etc.) as it circulates regionally or globally, or, conversely, a “global” product that circulates within the Middle East, with the caveat that you must include significant written entries accompanying even further significant amounts of images. You may also write a film or novel review, which examines one or more films or novels and then connects it to related readings and material from class. All options should be equivalent to 6-8 pages of writing (1500-2000 words, font size 12, 1” margins) with full citations, a central argument, and engagement with the themes and readings of the course.
I may also consider your suggestions for a final project that is not one of the above, or that is not an essay (such as a podcast or a film), but is the equivalent of an essay’s amount of work. Students must send me an abstract for the final project, including a list of at least four sources you plan to discuss, via email by 12pm on Thursday, June 25, 2020.
Important Considerations:
Plagiarism: Plagiarism will not be tolerated. Any incidents of plagiarism will be reported to the university administration. If you are unsure of what constitutes plagiarism, please refer to http://cas.nyu.edu/content/nyu-as/cas/academic-integrity.html and raise any questions or concerns with me.
Late Assignments: Late assignments will not be accepted without prior approval. To secure prior approval, please bring legitimate and documented explanations.
Accommodations for Students with Disabilities: Students needing academic accommodations because of documented disability should speak with the instructor privately on the first day of class.
Talk to me: If you are having difficulty with the course material, assignments, or any aspect of the course, please reach out to me as soon as possible.
Course Schedule:
May 26, 2020: Globalization and Transnationalism
Frederick Cooper, Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History (University of California Press, 2005), 91-112 (Chapter 4: Globalization)
Arang Keshavarzian and Waleed Hazbun, "Mapping Transnational Networks in the Middle East: Local Logics and Global Processes" (9th Mediterranean Research Meeting, 2008), 1-4.
May 28, 2020: Approaching the Global Middle East
Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 1978), (pp. 1-9).
Zach Lockman, “Introduction” and “Chapter 6: Said’s Orientalism: a book and its aftermath,” Contending Visions of the Middle East: The History and Politics of Orientalism, Second Edition (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009): 1-7; 183-191 [read until “Bernard Lewis Responds” section].
James Gelvin, “Chapter 1: Before the Deluge” and “Chapter 2: The Arab Uprisings and their Fallout,” The New Middle East: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2017), 1-50.
Eric Davis, “10 Conceptual Sins,” http://new-middle-east.blogspot.com/2009/01/10-conceptual-sins-in-analyzing-middle.html.
Optional
Jeremy Adelman, “What is global history now?” Aeon (March 02, 2017) https://aeon.co/essays/is-global-history-still-possible-or-has-it-had-its-moment.
Cyrus Schayegh, “On Scales and Spaces: Reading Gottlieb Schumacher’s The Jaulan (1888),” in Liat Kozma, Cyrus Schayegh, and Avner Wishnitzer (eds.) A global Middle East : mobility, materiality and culture in the modern age, 1880-1940 (London: IB Tauris, 2015), 19-55.
Lila Abu-Lughod, "Do Muslim women really need saving? Anthropological reflections on cultural relativism and its others," American anthropologist 104.3 (2002): 783-790.
Sunaina Maira, "Belly dancing: Arab-face, Orientalist feminism, and US empire," American Quarterly 60.2 (2008): 317-345.
June 2, 2020: Indian Ocean Histories
Nile Green, "Re-Thinking the 'Middle East' After the Oceanic Turn", Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East (2014) 34 (3): 556–64
Matthew S. Hopper, “The Globalization of Dried Fruit: Transformations in the Eastern Arabian Economy, 1860s-1920s,” in James Gelvin and Nile Green (eds.), Global Muslims in the Age of Steam and Print (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014), 158-182.
Nelida Fuccaro, “Pearl Towns and Early Oil Cities: Migration and Integration in the Arab Coast of the Persian Gulf,” in Ulrike Freitag, Malte Fuhrmann, and Nora Lafi (eds.), The City in the Ottoman Empire: Migration and the Making of Urban Modernity (New York: Routledge, 2011), 99-116.
Nidhi Mahajan; Dhow Itineraries: The Making of a Shadow Economy in the Western Indian Ocean. Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 1 December 2019; 39 (3): 407–419 [OPTIONAL]
June 4, 2020: Mediterraneanism(s)
Madeleine Dobie, “For and against the Mediterranean: Francophone Perspectives,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East (2014) 34 (2): 389–404.
Hala Halim, “Introduction,” Alexandrian Cosmopolitanism: An Archive (New York: Fordham University Press, 2013): 1-55.
Dina Ramadan, “The Alexandria Biennale and Egypt's Shifting Mediterranean,” in Adam J Goldwyn and Renée M Silverman (eds.) Mediterranean Modernism: Intercultural Exchange and Aesthetic Development (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016): 343-361.
Sherry McKay, "Mediterraneanism: the politics of architectural production in Algiers during the 1930s." City & Society 12.1 (2000): 79-102. [SKIM]
June 9, 2020: Diasporas in/of/out the Middle East
Alejandro Velasco, Omar Dahi, Sinan Antoon & Laura Weiss, “The Latin East,” NACLA Report on the Americas, 50:1 (2018): 1-7.
Nadim Bawalsa, “Palestine West of the Andes,” NACLA Report on the Americas, 50:1 (2018): 34-39.
Lena Meari, "Reading Che in Colonized Palestine," NACLA Report on the Americas, 50:1 (2018): 49-55.
Gorman, Anthony, and Sossie Kasbarian, “Introduction: Diasporas of the Modern Middle East – Contextualising Community,” in Anthony Gorman and Sossie Kasbarian (eds.), Diasporas of the Modern Middle East: Contextualising Community (Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 2015) 1–28.
“The Argentine Mahjar,” Ottoman History Podcast, March 16, 2018, http://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2018/03/argentine-mahjar.html.
June 11, 2020: Transnational Solidarities
Alex Lubin, “Chapter 4: The Black Panthers and the PLO: The Politics of Intercommunalism,” Geographies of Liberation: The Making of an Afro-Arab Political Imaginary (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014): 111-142.
Vijay Prashad, “Introduction,” “Bandung,” “Cairo,” The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World (New York: The New Press, 2007): XV-3; 31-51; 51-62.
Robert Vitalis, “The Midnight Ride of Kwame Nkrumah and Other Fables of Bandung (Ban-doong),” Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development, 4:2 (2013): 261-288.
June 16, 2020: Foodways (in Progress)
Anny Gaul, “‘Kitchen Histories’ and the Taste of Mobility in Morocco,” Mashriq & Mahjar: Journal of Middle East and North African Migration Studies 6, no. 2 (2019).
June 18, 2020: Media Circulations
Walter Armbrust, “The Ubiquitous Non-Presence of India: Peripheral Visions from Egyptian Popular Cinema,” in Global Bollywood: Travels of Hindi Song and Dance, eds. Sangita Gopal and Sujata Moorti (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008): 200-239.
Ada Petiwala, “Hybridity in Global South Media Production: Between Egypt and India in Gaheem Fel Hend (2016)” [unpublished paper—do not circulate].
Claire Cooley, “Bachchan Superman — Hindi Cinema in Egypt, 1985-1991,” Jump Cut 59 (2019).
Kay Dickinson, Arab Cinema Travels: Transnational Syria, Palestine, Dubai and Beyond (London: BFI/Palgrave, 2016), 119-162.
Marwan Kraidy, “Introduction,” Reality Television and Arab Politics: Contention in Public Life (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 1-21.
June 23, 2020: Tourism
Waleed Hazbun, “Introduction,” Beaches, Ruins, Resorts: The Politics of Tourism in the Arab World, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2008).
Rami Farouk Daher, “Introduction,” in Tourism in the Middle East Continuity, Change and Transformation ed. Rami Farouk Daher (Clevedon: Channel View Publications, 2007).
L.L. Wynn, “Chapter 4: Sex Orgies, a Marauding Prince, and Other Rumors about Gulf Tourism,” Pyramids and Nightclubs: A Travel Ethnography of Arab and Western Imaginations of Egypt, from King Tut and a Colony of Atlantis to Rumors of Sex Orgies, Urban legends about a Marauding Prince, and Blonde Belly Dancers (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007): 127-169.
June 25, 2020: Place Branding: Culture for the Masses
Regina F. Bendix, Aditya Eggert and Arnika Peselmann, “Introduction: Heritage Regimes and the State.” Heritage Regimes and the State. Regina F. Bendix, Aditya Eggert and Arnika Peselmann, eds. (Göttingen: University of Göttingen, 1-21).
Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception.” (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2012). 415-441.
David Gertner and Philip Kotler, “How Can a Place Correct a Negative Image?” Place Branding 1:1 (2004). 50–57
Simon Anholt, “Nation Brand as Context and Reputation.” Place Branding 1:3 (2005) 224–228
Eli Avraham, "Spinning Liabilities into Assets in Place Branding: Toward a New Typology" Place Branding and Public Diplomacy. 10:3, (2014). 174-185.
Robert Govers, “Brand Dubai and its Competitors in the Middle East.” Place Branding and Public Diplomacy. 8:1 (2012). 48-57.
June 30, 2020: Urbanisms
Yasser Elsheshtawy (ed.), The Evolving Arab City: Tradition, Modernity, and Urban Development (London: Routledge, 2008), 258-304.
Ahmed Kanna, Dubai: The City As Corporation (Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press, 2011), 105-134.
July 2, 2020: Students’ Choice and Final Project Presentations
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