Near Eastern Studies (NEST-GA)

This course will focus on the intricacies of covering the Middle East in a journalistic format. It will delve into critiques of orientalizing journalism and encourage students to recognize their biases to try and mitigate biased reporting. The course will include examples across media platforms including longform, podcast, video, and social media. Guest speakers will expand on their experiences reporting in the Middle East and provide insight into the industry in the region.

In this seminar, students will critically examine the current state of gender and activism in the Middle East and South Asia. The course will focus on economic, political and cultural diversity through the legacy of colonialism and nation building in the region. It will engage with questions of leadership, power, and security, diving deep into the intricacies of the formation and decline of democracies, and the subsequent impacts on marginalized peoples and minorities. This course will rely on various local, national, and international examples to examine power relations and rhetoric between key actors, political movements, and the state.

In this seminar, students will delve into the relationship between citizens and the nation-state by examining case studies across the larger region. The course will analyze the dynamic relationship between state, ritual practices, religion, nomadic populations, and transnational public spheres. It will engage with anthropological literature about revolutions, power transformations, ethnic identity, and religious movements in conversation with state formation and identity.

Through a historical and contemporary lens, students will explore how culture and political formations have shaped one another and evolved in specific case studies in the Middle East. The course will draw upon various disciplines to explore material culture, cultural practices, religion, political formations, and social movements in specific contexts. We will examine many linkages between cultural practices and processes as they enter into the political realm.

Our internship program draws on the resources of New York City as a center of international politics and culture. It provides practical training in the kinds of research and report-writing required for careers in public and non-governmental service, policy research, cultural affairs and political advocacy. It enables you to make professional contacts in fields you are interested in joining and to share your skills with organizations as you explore a particular field or issue. Organizations providing internships include (but are not limited to) human rights organizations, UN agencies and missions, media organizations, policy research groups and other non-governmental agencies. An internship involves 10-15 hours of work per week per semester. You receive up to 4 points towards the degree by registering for the course. Interns must submit weekly progress reports on their internship projects and a mid- and end of semester report.

Independent Study is an opportunity for students to work closely with a faculty advisor on a project related to their area of study. Students must choose a member of the faculty in their area of study. If a student agrees to work with a faculty member at NYU on a research question or independent project, he or she can apply for an independent study for credit (1-4 credits) at the Kevorkian Center. It is imperative that students meet on a regular basis with their faculty advisor throughout the semester in which they are doing the Independent Study.

The purpose of this seminar is to help you toward the completion of your MA thesis. We’ll aim to do this through a series of four workshops across the semester. Collaboration is the guiding principle of this seminar, and to that end we are all tasked with reading each other’s work in a spirit of intellectual generosity but also critical attention. “We talk in company, we write alone.” This has both its drawbacks and benefits, but in reading and commenting on each other’s work this seminar will foster as far as possible a collaborative dimension of writing, the point being that in doing so we improve both our own writing and, crucially, our capacities to read and respond to the work of others. Students are expected to read and engage with their fellow student’s work.

The course will contextualize the study of the Middle East in a historical and comparative framework by starting with an overview of modern history of the region and defining the political construct of the “Middle East.” Discussions will explore contemporary geopolitical interests in the region, modernizing reforms, revolutions, nationalism, politics of gender, and the political dynamics of authoritarianism and democratization, among others. This course will not focus on one country, but rather uses a comparative framework to underline historical patterns, similarities and differences across the wider region to explore

Through a sociological lens, this course will analyze the formation of the “Middle East,” the evolution of colonial legacies, and the social, political, and economic underpinnings in specific case studies from the region. The course will engage with broader sociological theories and methodologies to unpack various themes in the region and identify similarities and differences among case studies specific to the Middle East - as well as what are the trends within Middle Eastern Sociological work.

In this seminar, students will explore the broader history and field of Middle Eastern Anthropology. Through deep reading of ethnographic work (full length monographs and theoretically grounded articles) we will explore many lenses to the region in order to analyze social, political, and economic patterns. The course will help students examine both local and national power relations, social dynamics, religious and nonreligious traditions, ethnicity, and cultural expressions. It will also help students with social theory as it relates to Anthropological work.

In this seminar, students will analyze the political economy of the region over the past several decades with specific attention towards changing demographics, markets, migration, and urbanization that has altered the political and economic landscape. The course will examine historical influences of early Middle Eastern Economies and span to the contemporary moment to explore economic processes that are important today.

This course surveys the history of the modern Middle East from the eighteenth to the twentieth century through a critical examination of some of the key English language historiography of the region. This seminar will focus on themes and analytics in the region, emphasizing social and political transformation emerging from capitalism, colonialism, nationalism, oil economy, and gender regimes in the region. This course encourages students to “think historically” and apply historical methods to their particular research agenda, which they will be able to focus on in their own writing.