| Language of Instruction |
English |
| Course Type |
Elective |
| Course Level |
Bachelor Degree |
| Course Instructor(s) |
Cihan ÖZPINAR
cozpinar@gsu.edu.tr (Email)
|
| Assistant |
|
| Objective |
This course aims, in the first place, at introducing the students the main social, cultural, and political issues that define Middle Eastern societies from geopolitics down to the everyday lives of ordinary people. Second, its goal is to invite the students to study the dynamics that give way to what we witness in the region at present; hence its aim is to encourage students to initiate a rigorous study and understanding of causation mechanisms at work within varying sub-regional, regional and international contexts of social relations, economics, and politics.
|
| Content |
This is an elective course for sophomore and junior students at Galatasaray University, offered by the Department of Political Science. We adopt an interdisciplinary approach in the study of the Middle East through the lenses of culture, politics, social history, and economics. We start from the vantage point of the Western imagination of the Middle East, and deal with the complex issues regarding minorities or gender relations in the region, which are often subject to reductionist, superficial visions in Global North as well as Global South. By putting historical sociology to work, we will then go on to examine the multiple paths taken in the region from pre-industrial social formations to modern industrial ones with a focus on the patterns of long-term socioeconomic change that historically parallels capitalist development in Europe and North America. We will later delve into different case studies with focuses on major countries and sub-regions—namely Turkey, Iran, and the Arab Middle East with particular focuses on Egypt and the GCC. Finally, we will finish with a review of three major events that are at the heart of many recent developments of significant importance: first, we will go on to look at the dynamics behind the Arab Spring and its consequences; second, we will discuss two sub-regional questions—the Kurdish question and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
|
| Course Learning Outcomes |
Students of this will be able to critically engage with Middle East's interpretation from Orientalist traditions to modern Western media coverage; have an in-depth understanding of long-term socio-economic transformations and state-building processes in the region; and develop a nuanced analysis of region-specific conflicts.
|
| Teaching and Learning Methods |
Term-long reading and writing assignments, backed with theme-specific movie suggestions, are the main instruments of teaching methods. Additionally, students are expected to write peer-reviews for each of their long papers and further engage in deeper academic argumentation.
|
| References |
Ahmad, Aijaz (2008) “Islam, Islamisms and the West,” Socialist Register, vol. 44, Leo Panitch and Colin Leys (eds.), London: Merlin Press, 1–37.
Englert, Sai (2019), “Smoke and Mirrors: Rising Israeli ‘Fascism’ or Forgetting the Labour Zionist Past,” Middle East Critique 28(3), 7–25.
Hanieh, Adam (2018) Money, Markets, and Monarchies: The Gulf Cooperation Council and the Political Economy of the Contemporary Middle East, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 29–62.
Mahmood, Saba (2011) “Religion, Feminism, and Empire: The New Ambassadors of Islamophobia,” in Feminism, Sexuality, and the Return of Religion, Linda Martín Alcoff and John D. Caputo (eds.), Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 77–102.
Robinson, Francis (2011) “Introduction,” in The New Cambridge History of Islam, vol. 5, edited by Francis Robinson, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1–28.
Rodinson, Maxime (1974) Islam and Capitalism, Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 28–58.
Said, Edward W. ([1978]2000) “Introduction to Orientalism,” in The Edward Said Reader, Moustafa Bayoumi and Andrew Rubin (eds.), New York: Vintage, 63–93.
|
