Arab Crossroads Studies (ACS-UH)

How have anthropologists encountered, written about, and produced the ''Arab world'' over the past century? Beginning with early Western travelers' imaginaries of Arabia and ending with a reflection on the role of anthropology in the Arab world (and more globally) today, this course provides an introduction to the anthropological project and to the everyday realities of people living in the region. Through ethnography, literature, film and fieldwork, we will explore such topics as Orientalism and its legacy; constructs of youth, gender, family and tribe; poetry and mediation; generational and social change; oil, development and globalization; transnational labor, migration and diaspora; Indian Ocean networks; pilgrimage and piety; the Islamic Revival; faith, medicine, and bioethics; displacement and dispossession; refugees and human rights; and the Arab uprisings.

This course provides an overview of Arabic literature since the nineteenth century. The transformation of poetic form and the emergence of modern genres, such as drama, the novel, and the short story, will be examined in relation to classical Arabic and European genres. We will also discuss the relationship between aesthetic developments and their historical, political, and intellectual contexts.

At the crossroads between Asia, Africa and Europe, the region that Europeans and North Americans labeled ''The Middle East'' presents a dynamic and heterogeneous landscape of peninsulas and isthmuses, republics and monarchies, oil producing countries, and labor exporting nations. This course examines the recent history of the region from the mid-18th century until the Arab uprisings of 2010-2012. We explore the last Islamic empires, the intrusion of European colonial powers, the modernist, nationalist and Islamic reactions to aggression, the creation of authoritarian systems of power and the multiform protests that have shaken them. The Egyptian, Iranian, Palestinian, and Saudi experiences are examined more closely.

Architecture in the Arab World underwent profound changes in the last two centuries. Colonial rule in the 19th century brought revivalist styles that mimicked European historicism. Independence in the 20th century gave rise to the more forceful ideals of modernity, progress, and nationalism (or Pan-Arabism) as framers of architectural expression. The end of the 20th century witnessed the resurgence of Islam as identity, and movements like vernacular revival, critical regionalism, then postmodernism guided architecture in its response to this turn. Recent challenges - such as urban and ecological depredations, unprecedented wealth in the Gulf and socioeconomic disparities everywhere - provoked Arab architecture to explore other sociocultural outlooks, environmentalist orientations, historic preservation, as well as branding strategies. This course will review the recent history of architecture in the Arab world from the perspective of identity politics. It will reconstruct the stages of its evolution and examines how it managed to incorporate diverse architectural, theoretical, political, technological, and socioeconomic currents within its still-vibrant historicist core.

This class is an introduction to Quran as literature. The Quran is a book that has become a source of spiritual guidance and law for a billion and a half people the world over. The course focuses on the Quran as sacred history, as part of oral or even visual performance, as document of religious community formation in late antiquity, and as site of Muslim hermeneutical activity. During this interaction between the students and the "Quran-as-text," we will study the history of its compilation, narrative structure, rhetorical strategies, major themes; connections to and departures from the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, Quran commentary and exegesis, translation and the problems associated with it, and literary aspects.

Islam changed and shaped the Middle East, the Mediterranean world, and South Asia following its emergence in the seventh century. Muslims subsequently developed and expressed their faith in the disciplines of law, theology, and mysticism, even as their religious communities fractured into a variety of Sunni and Shi'a groups. This course focuses on primary sources to examine the richness of Islamicate civilization in the pre-modern world, including inter-religious relations as well as political and economic trends.

How have the inhabitants of the Middle East and Africa conceived of social difference? Beginning in Late Antiquity and then with the spread of Islam into the Middle East and North Africa, this course will explore the social, cultural and political contingencies that gave rise to ethnic and racial identities within and beyond the Muslim world. How did these identities and categories change over time and in which ways were they impacted by the Indian Ocean, Atlantic, and Saharan slave trades, local social and political factors, European colonialism and then de-colonization in the twentieth century? What are the terms and meanings attached to skin color or social difference in the Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, Berber, Swahili, Songhai, Amharic, or Turkish speaking worlds? How are these constructed and controlled? Who gave these categories meaning and why? What are the obstacles to discussing and identifying race particular to the histories of these regions, their peoples, and their histories? In order to answer these questions, the course will draw extensively on primary sources, historical research, as well as theoretical writings on race and ethnicity.

Prehistoric Arabia has long been one of the most mysterious regions of the ancient world, presenting numerous challenges for human occupation. The field of Arabian archaeology has boomed since the late-1970s, challenging standard narratives of the development of societies in the Middle East. This course introduces students to the archaeology of Arabia through classroom sessions, site visits in the UAE, and fieldwork at the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Bat, Oman. The class will begin with an introduction to the history of the UAE and Northern Oman. We will focus our study on the Bronze Age (c. 3100-1600 BC), when the area was known as Magan and was an important player in international affairs with neighboring polities in Mesopotamia, Iran, and the Indus. Classroom discussions will be illustrated by visits to the sites of Tell Abraq, Hili, and Mleiha in the UAE. Students will then participate hands-on in the archaeological excavation of a 5,000-year-old house by joining the ongoing excavations at Bat. The course will conclude at NYUAD with a discussion of the politics of cultural heritage as archaeological sites across the Gulf are developed for tourism. NOTE: Pending feasible international travel conditions, this course will include a trip/seminar in Oman.

What does it mean to identify as a "feminist" or an "Islamist" in the MENA region today, and to what extent are those terms philosophically and politically compatible? Is feminism itself - and movements for gender equality and LGBTQ rights in the region more broadly - a legacy of colonialism and Western influence/ intervention? Or do such movements have local, organic roots expressed through Islamic texts and history, and even Islamist forms of political activism? How can we appraise the track record of so-called Islamist movements (e.g.: Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, Turkey's AK Parti, Tunisia's Ennahdha Party, and Morocco's Freedom and Justice Party and Al-Adl wal Ihsan movement) on promoting women's rights and gender inclusivity in comparison to states, secularly oriented political movements, and jihadist movements in the region? Students in this course will explore these questions by critically engaging with historical texts and country case studies, in addition to materials produced by and about feminist, Islamic, and Islamist actors.

Politics of Heritage in the Arab World: How does one reckon with difficult pasts? How is "the past" preserved, recovered, commemorated, embodied, erased, marketed, and consumed in Arab-majority countries? This course examines the presence and significance of the past in the national imagination, state-building projects, and everyday life in the MENA region. Drawing on anthropological and historical scholarship, community-based engagements, and ethnographic assignments, we study the politics of heritage, history, and collective memory through an exploration of embodied and gendered memories; structural nostalgia; invented traditions; national commemorations; museums; archaeological sites; contested sites; and the construction and destruction of tangible, intangible, and World Heritage. We analyze how the practice of heritage utilizes historical materials, expressions, and entanglements to assemble and mobilize a more sustainable present in anticipation of growing resource scarcity and other uncertainties. And we come to recognize why heritage - always less about the preserved past than it is about the emergent future - is a form of political engagement with the world's most critical and imminent concerns. This field colloquium includes a regional seminar on Socotra Island, where we will camp and enjoy a digital detox. This course includes a regional academic seminar to Socotra. This course will be offered in January-Term 2025.

This class is divided roughly into two broad sections: in the first half of the semester samples of the Qur'an are read, translated and analyzed for orthographic and phonetic features, as well as structure and meaning and basic aspects of variegated styles within the developing scripture. Early Surahs are read, as well as, later, samples of narrative and, in the last section, of legalistic (i.e. Medinan) materials. In the second half of the semester we read examples of Hadith and Qur'anic exegesis, highlighting throughout the styles and protocols of this literature. The Hadith come mostly out of Bukhari and the Sirah of the Prophet; and the exegesis includes readings from Baydawi, Qurtubi, Razi and Qushayri (the last being an example of mystical hermeneutics).

In this course we will explore the literary languages of Arabic and as well as various political and socio-economic issues via a selection of short stories that hail from geographically diverse authors. Being attentive to detailed readings of texts, their contexts, and the social and political environments within which the authors composed them, we will engage with these short stories via reading, analytical writing, debates, and listening activities. While aiming to avoid the monolithic approach of reading stories as social documents that reflect or mirror their societies, in this course will be concerned with the aesthetics of the Arabic literary narratives as well as how the socio-economic and political issues evoked in the stories will be of relevance to the broader realms of Middle Eastern Studies. Tradition vs. modernity, the individual in opposition to the state, and gender issues are just some of the themes that we will discuss. In addition to the short stories, the class will engage with complimentary materials such as open source online videos and articles to expand on our knowledge of specific Arabic cultural and sociological phenomena.

How do we understand the present-day significance of the past interactions of the Abrahamic Faiths? Are current ideals of tolerance a productive lens to use to understand and evaluate relations between Jews, Christians, and Muslims? From the beginning of the 8th to the beginning of the 17th century, Islam played a crucial role in the history of the Iberian Peninsula. Today this period is often portrayed as one of inter-religious harmony, while al-Andalus is simultaneously mourned in contemporary Islamist discourse as a lost paradise. In this course, using historical, religious, and literary writings from all three faith communities, we will investigate the rich and complex history of al-Andalus, focusing on the changing relationships between Muslim, Christian and Jewish communities. The course will include three film screenings and a visit to the Abrahamic House on Saadiyat Island.

Connecting three continents for four centuries, the Ottoman Empire brought locations as far flung as Yemen, Tunisia and Bosnia into the same cultural, legal and economic space. This course explores the Empire's legacy in what has come to be known as the Middle East and beyond. After examining themes in Ottoman history starting in the 13th century through to World War I, we will discuss the Empire's legacy in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, revisiting our ideas about nation-states, constructions like the Middle East and the Arab World, and the boundaries between East and West.

Mysticism is an integral aspect of every religious tradition. In recent years, however, Sufism or Islamic mysticism has often been described as somehow separate from Islam itself. In this course we will investigate the historical origins of Sufism and the nature of the long-standing tension between certain Sufi practices and the Muslim legal establishment. We will also chart the evolution of Sufism from personal spiritual practice and experience to the establishment of mystical brotherhoods in which, depending on time and place, a large portion of Muslim society participated. Finally, we will turn to the continued importance that Sufism has played in the Muslim World (including the Arab Gulf) and the United States during a period in which its practices have come under criticism. Sufi authors examined will include Rumi, al-Hallaj and Ibn al-Arabi.

This course surveys 19th and 20th century events in the Middle East to examine the interplay between nationalism and gender in early modernist debates, anticolonial movements, and state building in Egypt and Iran. Critical reading of primary sources is used to navigate historiography on women in Iran's 1906 Constitutional Revolution, Egypt's 1919 Nationalist Revolution, the 1936 Arab Revolt in Palestine, Arab nationalism, Islamism, and the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Themes of 'cultural authenticity' and 'politics of dress' are unpacked to ask how women used their roles as 'cultural carriers' to strike bargains with changing patriarchal forces in their societies? Pahlavi reforms and Arab membership in the International Alliance of Women feature to illustrate how notions of 'westernization' and neocolonialism complicated these bargains. Highlighting the role of myth and memory in defining national identity, stories that did not fit dominant narratives of the time are explored to ask how do we 'decolonize content' to ensure that we do not replicate some of these inequalities in our own studies?

This course posits Islamic architecture as a design category, a process that developed over the last two centuries. Starting in the late 18th-century, Western architects began to document historic Islamic architecture and adopt it in their designs. An efflorescence followed with the preponderance of revivalist movements in late 19th-early 20th century. After an interval during which a vocal international modernism dominated in the late colonial and nationalist periods, Islamic architecture came back with the rise of post-modernism, critical regionalism, and vernacular revival in the 60s-70s. Recent concerns and opportunities further expanded its purview and established its place in the global architectural discourse. The course examines the historical background that led to the emergence of Islamic architecture in design. It analyzes the diverse pursuits over time to accommodate new political, cultural, technological, socioeconomic, and environmental factors in its core architectural and intellectual criteria. It concludes with anticipating its future directions as they can be read in the Aga Khan Award of Architecture and the Gulf experiments with glitzy parametric architecture.

Roughly one third of the Middle East population today is between 15 and 29 years old - a demographic "bulge" which has brought Middle Eastern youths at the forefront of media and government concerns both at the regional and global scale. But from the figure of the young jihadist to that of the Arab spring revolutionary, dominant perceptions of these youths often fall into highly polarized archetypes. Moving the focus away from politics and religion, this course explores the everyday worlds of Middle Eastern youths and the complex interactions - with institutions, peers and family members - which characterize their daily lives. By analyzing multiple youth cultures divided along the lines of gender, ethnicity, religious affiliation, or social class, students will address the diversity of Middle Eastern youths and question the universality of age categories. A large space will also be devoted to the voices of Middle Eastern youths themselves, from Egyptian literature and Emirati cinema to Moroccan hip-hop. These cultural productions will allow students to look at the way Arab youths use globalized artistic genres to address regional issues and express their fears, hopes and desires.

The Palestinian cause is perhaps one of the longest running struggles for independence and self-determination. It is widely known as the "Israeli - Palestinian Conflict". Divergent narratives compete to establish rights to the land of Palestine. This course will examine the history of colonization of Palestine from the 1880s onward using the lens of settler colonialism. The aim is a critical engagement with how colonialism has manifested in Palestine and how it continues to do so until today. The course examines the various mechanisms that work to entrench settler colonialism, such as foreign aid, neoliberal economics, and the Oslo Peace Accords. Lastly, the course will explore forms of resistance in Palestine and possibilities for a just solution and discuss their potentials and limitations.

What is Gender? What is Sexuality? What do they have to do with biological sex or sex-acts? This course examines different gender and sexual identities in the Arabic speaking world, and the social, political and cultural contingencies that gave rise to them. All identities are always-already gendered. We begin with the basic concepts, theories and controversies that underpin this claim. We then grapple with the diversity of ways in which Arab cultures have constructed and performed genders and sexualities through notions of marriage, fertility, same-sex love and desire, masculinity and femininity, and how these constructions intersected with race, class, morality, respectability, piety, and other norms of ideal or acceptable social behaviour. Our sources include cartoons and advertising, pre-Islamic poetry, the modern Arabic novel, postcolonial civil codes, Islamic jurisprudence, autobiography and film. From the construction of Arab genders and sexualities we move to how genders and sexualities have, in turn, powerfully constituted Arab identities and societies: from literary and artistic canons like Orientalism to the colonization of Algeria in 1832 and the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

This seminar introduces students to the main theoretical and epistemological trends in the study of the Arab crossroads region, and offers practical examples of the methodologies used by scholars in the humanities and the qualitative social sciences. We begin with the strengths and weaknesses of area studies, and the politics of producing knowledge on a region of global economic and political importance, then turn to specific areas of research that have attracted attention in the fields of history, anthropology, literature, and politics, before exploring the various methodological approaches used by practitioners of these fields. The course culminates in an extended research proposal for a capstone project.

The capstone seminar is designed as a workshop offering graduating seniors a communal environment in which to conceptualize, share and refine a year-long research project, self-designed in consultation with a faculty advisor. In this semester, particular attention will be paid to the organization and practice of research as well as evidence, method and scholarly habit and process. The fall semester culminates in the presentation of significant writing (at least 20 pages/6000 words) toward the final scholarly product, the written and publicly presented capstone. Each student should also be working with their faculty advisor throughout the semester, submitting drafts to their advisor and working with her/him on the research process.

The spring semester of the ACS Senior Capstone is composed of the student working in close consultation with a faculty member on their capstone project. It is expected that the student will meet weekly with their advisor.