Middle Eastern Studies (MEIS-GA)

MEIS-GA 1005  Advanced Arabic I  (4 Credits)  
Typically offered Fall  
The class is conducted in Modern Standard Arabic. The focus is on all four language skills: speaking, listening, reading and writing.
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: No  
MEIS-GA 1006  Advanced Arabic II  (4 Credits)  
Typically offered Spring  
The class is conducted in Modern Standard Arabic. The focus is on all four language skills: speaking, listening, reading and writing.
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: No  
MEIS-GA 1010  The Language of the Quran  (4 Credits)  
This language course is designed to introduce students to classical, Quranic Arabic, Its vocabulary, style, structure, grammar as well as its centrality in modern? Arabic culture. The course will expose students to short Quranic verses, or suras, in order to acquire vocabulary, understand the construction of classical Arabic sentences, and examine the features of advanced grammar. In addition, students will be introduced to the different recitation styles of the Qur’an. It is a course that will help students pursue further studies of the Qur’an and exegesis, hadith(or the sayings and actions attributed to the Prophet Muhammad), and classical and medieval poetry and prose.
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: No  
MEIS-GA 1020  The Language of the Quran in Daily Life  (2 Credits)  
The Quran is the most holy and influential book in the Arab and Islamic worlds. The language of the Quran has permeated Arab culture, and a lot of its verses have influenced the daily language of the Arab world and have become part of the expressions used to discuss social life, family, economy, politics, ethics and moral values. This class is designed for students who have finished two years of Arabic or have previous exposure to the Quran to study examples of this Quranic influence on the daily Arabic used nowadays and examine how these verses also shape the culture and the thinking of Muslim communities. The class will focus on explaining the linguistic aspects of the verses and the context the verses are used in.
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: No  
MEIS-GA 1107  Advanced Urdu I  (4 Credits)  
Typically offered Fall  
This course offers an overview of the culture of Urdu via authentic texts and is designed to improve students' advanced level reading as well as their written and oral discourse strategies in Urdu.
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: Yes  
MEIS-GA 1108  Advanced Urdu II  (4 Credits)  
Typically offered Spring  
This course offers an overview of the culture of Urdu via authentic texts and is designed to improve students' advanced level reading as well as their written and oral discourse strategies in Urdu.
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: Yes  
MEIS-GA 1112  Media Arabic  (4 Credits)  
Typically offered Fall  
There will be assigned readings of general nature for everyone from many sources including current articles from Arabic magazines, newspapers and journals. Each student according to interest, specialty and/or area of study will read selected materials in that area for oral presentations in class.
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: Yes  
MEIS-GA 1113  Media Arabic II  (4 Credits)  
Typically offered Spring  
There will be assigned readings of general nature for everyone from many sources including current articles from Arabic magazines, newspapers and journals. Each student according to interest, specialty and/or area of study will read selected materials in that area for oral presentations in class.
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: Yes  
MEIS-GA 1114  Medieval Arabic Lit:  (4 Credits)  
Typically offered occasionally  
Readings in selected authors from the 8th century to the 12th century
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: No  
MEIS-GA 1115  Classical Arabic Poetry and Poetics  (4 Credits)  
Typically offered occasionally  
Readings in selected poets from the 8th century to the 12th century.
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: No  
MEIS-GA 1117  Arabic Lit: Modern Prose & Poetry  (4 Credits)  
Typically offered occasionally  
Introduction to the genres of modern Arabic prose and poetry, with readings in each.
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: No  
MEIS-GA 1118  Colloquial Arabic:  (4 Credits)  
Typically offered Fall  
This graduate course teaches a dialect of Arabic (Egyptian, Levantine and Gulf/Iraqi). By virtue of having already studied MSA for two years and adequately developed the language skills familiarity with the sound system, students can benefit from the fast pace of this interactive course, cover a lot of ground and learn the dialect rather quickly in just one semester
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: Yes  
MEIS-GA 1119  Col Arabic Syro-Lebanese  (4 Credits)  
Typically offered Spring  
This graduate course teaches a dialect of Arabic (Egyptian, Levantine and Gulf/Iraqi). By virtue of having already studied MSA for two years and adequately developed the language skills familiarity with the sound system, students can benefit from the fast pace of this interactive course, cover a lot of ground and learn the dialect rather quickly in just one semester
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: Yes  
MEIS-GA 1124  Recog/Anagnorisis in Arabic & European Narrat  (4 Credits)  
Typically offered occasionally  
Investigates narrative epistemology (the themes and dynamic of knowledge, ignorance, and discovery) in Islamic and European narrative from the ancient world to the modern novel.
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: No  
MEIS-GA 1126  Arabic Translation: Theories & Practices  (4 Credits)  
Typically offered occasionally  
This course interrogates the relationship between concepts produced in Translation Studies and scholarship on translation in the Arab context. It dwells on key junctures in the history of translation in the Arab world, primarily the Nahda (or revival/rebirth) through texts by some of its signal figures, as well as recent scholarship on the subject. Workshop sessions allow students to undertake their own translation projects in relation to the theoretical texts assigned.
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: No  
MEIS-GA 1200  Departmental Colloquium  (4 Credits)  
Typically offered occasionally  
In this course MEIS faculty explore issues of analytical paradigms, methods and sources across a range of disciplines and fields with MEIS and joint History/MEIS PhD program students.
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: No  
MEIS-GA 1415  Advanced Persian Contemporary Lit  (4 Credits)  
Typically offered Fall  
The main goal of this course is to increase student efficiency in reading modern fiction. Throughout the semester students will learn new reading techniques, expand their vocabulary, and thus improve their reading speed
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: No  
MEIS-GA 1416  Advanced Persian:  (4 Credits)  
Typically offered occasionally  
The main goal of this course is to increase student efficiency in reading modern fiction. Throughout the semester students will learn new reading techniques, expand their vocabulary, and thus improve their reading speed
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: No  
MEIS-GA 1514  Advanced Turkish: Mod Turkish Lit I  (4 Credits)  
Typically offered Fall  
This is an introduction to the reading and discussion of a variety of genres such as stories, plays, poetry, news articles and opinion columns. Students are taught to read short stories by canonical and well-known writers of Turkish literature
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: Yes  
MEIS-GA 1515  Adv Turkish: Modern Turkish Literature II  (4 Credits)  
Typically offered Spring  
This is an introduction to the reading and discussion of a variety of genres such as stories, plays, poetry, news articles and opinion columns. Students are taught to read short stories by canonical and well-known writers of Turkish literature
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: Yes  
MEIS-GA 1609  Intro to The Qur'An  (4 Credits)  
Typically offered Fall  
A broad graduate-level survey of Qur’anic studies. Topics covered will include current scholarship on the canonization of the text and on its translation; broad readings in the Qur’anic text; and a broad survey of the medieval and modern exegetical literature and the scholarship addressing it. Required readings will be in English, with the option of supplementary sessions on Arabic readings for students who are able and interested.
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: No  
MEIS-GA 1612  Topics in The Sociology of The Mod Middle East  (4 Credits)  
Typically offered occasionally  
This graduate seminar focuses on different topics, theories, and debates related to modern and contemporary Middle Eastern and North African societies. These different topics courses are designed for graduate students in MEIS, NES, and social science and humanities programs.
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: Yes  
MEIS-GA 1618  Transnational Middle East  (4 Credits)  
Typically offered occasionally  
This seminar asks students to consider how the Middle East region is both fashioned through translocal relationships and contributes to the making of multiple geographic scales— the global, imperial, national, urban, and more. The focus will be on the region after 1800 and will include scholarship from multiple disciplines and motivated by various theoretical and political debates.
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: No  
MEIS-GA 1626  Cities of The Middle East  (4 Credits)  
Typically offered Spring  
The aim of the course is to introduce some of the different ways in which scholars of different disciplines and theoretical inclinations have written and write about aspects of modernity and the urban in general. We look at foundational texts on Paris and Vienna in the 19th century as well as at work on modern cities in the Middle East, Malaysia and Indonesia. So we will read works focusing on cities and their transformations, the production and constitution of space and place, planning and power, colonial and post-colonial regimes of space, and everyday spatial practices in very different urban environments. We draw on research by geographers, political economists, historians, sociologists and anthropologists.
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: No  
MEIS-GA 1640  History of The Mid East: 600-1200  (4 Credits)  
Typically offered occasionally  
An overview of the political and cultural history of early Islam, from the rise of Islam through the Umayyad, Abbasid and Fatimid caliphates. Students will read primary sources written by Muslim religious and political elites as well as their Christian and Jewish subjects and neighbors.
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: No  
MEIS-GA 1642  Hist of Mid East: 1750 - Present  (4 Credits)  
Typically offered occasionally  
Survey of the history of the Middle East from 1750 to the present
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: No  
MEIS-GA 1643  Literature of The Field:  (4 Credits)  
Typically offered occasionally  
Designed exclusively to prepare joint History/MEIS PhD students for their exam in modern Middle Eastern history, with a focus on the late 18th and 19th centuries.
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: No  
MEIS-GA 1644  Lit of The Field: Modern Middle East History II  (4 Credits)  
Typically offered Spring  
Designed to prepare joint History/MEIS PhD students for their exam in modern Middle Eastern history, with a focus on the 20th century.
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: No  
MEIS-GA 1654  Seminar in Middle Eastern History  (4 Credits)  
Typically offered occasionally  
Topics in the history of the modern Middle East
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: Yes  
MEIS-GA 1664  Egypt in Modern Times  (4 Credits)  
Typically offered Fall and Spring  
This graduate colloquium explores a number of key issues in the history and historiography of Egypt from the eighteenth century down to the near present. Registration require instructor’s permission
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: No  
MEIS-GA 1687  Prob & Meth in Mideast Studies  (4 Credits)  
Typically offered Fall  
This is the gateway course for all incoming doctoral students in MEIS and the Joint History-MEIS program as well as MA students in the Near Eastern Studies Program. This course is required for all entering graduate students in these programs unless they receive a waiver from their Director of Graduate Studies. The course surveys the field of Middle East studies and explores epistemological, methodological, and theoretical challenges and debates.
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: No  
MEIS-GA 1693  Palestine & the Politics of History  (4 Credits)  
Typically offered occasionally  
Issues and debates in the history and historiography of modern Palestine/Israel.
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: No  
MEIS-GA 1705  Introduction to Classical Islamic Texts  (4 Credits)  
Typically offered occasionally  
This course introduces students to various genres of texts produced and circulated within the Islamic tradition.
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: No  
MEIS-GA 1736  Arab Jews & The Writing of Memory  (4 Credits)  
Typically offered Fall  
The seminar will focus on the writing of Arab-Jewish memory against the backdrop of the dislocation of Jews from Arab/Muslim spaces. The history of colonial partitions and the emergence of competing nationalisms have generated in their take intricate narratives of belonging, where memory is mobilized, performed, and staged from diverse, even opposite perspectives.
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: No  
MEIS-GA 1760  Home and World: A Seminar on Modern Iranian Intellectual Trends  (4 Credits)  
This graduate seminar explores some of the central themes in modern Iranian intellectual history. The primary focus of the course will be the transnational circulation of intellectual discourses in contemporary Iran.
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: No  
MEIS-GA 1770  Topics:  (4 Credits)  
Typically offered occasionally  
Some recently offered topics include “Comparative Approaches to the Literatures of Africa, the ME and the Global South”, “Al-Andalus”, “Early Modern Empires”, History, Fiction and Narrative”, “Religion and Modernity”, “Lived Islam”, “Arab Cities in Literature”, “Global Iranian Revolution, 1978-79”, “Theorizing Mobility”, “The Spirit of Bandung”, “Religion and Politics in the Middle East”, “Fascist Utopias: A Public Humanities Perspective”, “Rethinking Cultural Analysis”, “Gender, National, Empire in the Middle East and South Asia”, “Translation Studies”, “Social Life of Ethics”, “Visual Culture, Capitalism and the Middle East: Entangled Frames of ‘Civilization’”, “Culture, Politics, and History in Middle East: Colonialism After Colonialism”; “Borders and Borderlands”.
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: Yes  
MEIS-GA 1807  Islam and Modernity:  (4 Credits)  
Typically offered occasionally  
This graduate seminar will focus upon the broad question of how societies, predominantly influenced by Islamic traditions, might find a home in the modern world on their own terms. We will discuss the possibility of a critical re-thinking of certain modern conventional modes of thinking about modernity, secularism, and democracy. The class will examine notions of citizenship, religion, and globalization in societies that have been historically influenced by Islamic tradition and institutions.
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: No  
MEIS-GA 1852  Islamic Law & Society  (4 Credits)  
Typically offered occasionally  
This course explores the complex relationships between Islamic legal discourses and institutions and the social contexts that shape and are shaped by them. Focusing on the areas of property law, penal law, and ritual law, we will read scholarship using a range of methodologies to address instantiations of Islamic law in the premodern and contemporary periods.
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: No  
MEIS-GA 1854  Women and Gender in Islamic Law  (4 Credits)  
Typically offered occasionally  
Islamic law and its treatment of women in theory and practice
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: No  
MEIS-GA 1860  Religion and Modernity  (4 Credits)  
This elective course explores the relationship between modernity and secularity considered in a broader historical perspective. It examines relationships between religion, politics, and law. The course will be useful for students of Middle Eastern studies, Islamic studies, religious studies.
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: No  
MEIS-GA 1999  Gender Nation & Empire in Mideast & South Asia  (4 Credits)  
Typically offered occasionally  
Students will look at the role of nation, gender and empire in the Middle East and South Asia.
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: No  
MEIS-GA 2590  Middle Eastern Gov'T and Politics  (4 Credits)  
Typically offered occasionally  
This graduate seminar focuses on different topics, theories, and debates related to political struggles, forms of governance, and social polices in the modern Middle East and North Africa. The course is designed for both graduate students in MEIS, NES, and social science programs.
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: No  
MEIS-GA 2679  Graduate Seminar: The Modern Near East  (4 Credits)  
Typically offered occasionally  
This course explores key issues, historiographical debates and methods in the field of modern Middle Eastern history through critical examination of both older and recent scholarly work as well as current research.
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: No  
MEIS-GA 2725  Problems & Methods in Study of Islam  (4 Credits)  
Typically offered occasionally  
This course provides an overview of the field of Islamic studies, focusing on critical examination of the evolving politics and assumptions of the field and on the yields and advantages of different approaches to the study of Islam. It is intended both for those who are specializing in Islamic studies and those interested in the ways in which various aspects of Islam have been conceptualized in the Western academy.
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: No  
MEIS-GA 2901  MA Thesis Research  (4 Credits)  
Typically offered occasionally  
Course listing for MA thesis Prep (fall)
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: No  
MEIS-GA 2903  Masters Thesis Research  (1-4 Credits)  
Typically offered Spring  
Course listing for MA thesis Prep (spring)
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: Yes  
MEIS-GA 2961  Directed Study in Middle East and Islamic Studies  (4 Credits)  
Typically offered Fall  
Departmental content Directed Study
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: Yes  
MEIS-GA 2962  Directed Study in Middle East Histtory II  (1-4 Credits)  
Typically offered occasionally  
Departmental Joint (MEIS/History) Directed Study
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: Yes  
MEIS-GA 2971  Dir Study in Arabic Lit  (4 Credits)  
Typically offered Fall  
Directed Study for Arabic (Fall)
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: Yes  
MEIS-GA 2972  Dir Std/Arabic Lang I  (4 Credits)  
Typically offered occasionally  
Directed Study for Arabic (Spring)
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: Yes  
MEIS-GA 2973  Directed Study in Arabic  (1-4 Credits)  
Typically offered Fall  
Directed Study for Arabic (General)
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: Yes  
MEIS-GA 2997  Independent Study  (1-4 Credits)  
Typically offered occasionally  
Course listing for Independent Studies
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: Yes  
MEIS-GA 3101  Directed Study Arabic Literature  (1-3 Credits)  
Typically offered occasionally  
Course listing for DS Arabic Literature (Fall)
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: Yes  
MEIS-GA 3102  Directed Study Arabic Literature  (1-3 Credits)  
Typically offered occasionally  
Course listing for DS Arabic Literature (Spring)
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: Yes  
MEIS-GA 3401  Directed Study: Persian Lit I  (4 Credits)  
Typically offered Fall and Spring  
Directed Study for Persian (General)
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: Yes  
MEIS-GA 3403  Directed Study: Persian Language I  (1-4 Credits)  
Typically offered Fall  
Directed Study for Persian (Fall)
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: Yes  
MEIS-GA 3404  Directed Study: Persian Language II  (1-4 Credits)  
Typically offered Spring  
Directed Study for Persian (Spring)
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: Yes  
MEIS-GA 3501  Directed Study: Turkish Language  (1-4 Credits)  
Typically offered occasionally  
Directed Study for Turkish (General)
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: Yes  
MEIS-GA 3510  Turkish Readings  (4 Credits)  
Typically offered occasionally  
Listing for Directed Readings in Turkish (Fall)
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: No  
MEIS-GA 3801  Dissertation Research  (1-4 Credits)  
Typically offered occasionally  
Course listing for Dissertation Prospectus prep
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: Yes  
MEIS-GA 3802  Dissertation Research  (1-4 Credits)  
Typically offered occasionally  
Course listing for Dissertation Prospectus prep
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: Yes  
MEIS-GA 9105  Advanced Arabic I  (4 Credits)  
Typically offered occasionally  
This course focuses on training the Advanced learners of Arabic how to read authentic texts that revolve around different topics/themes. This is followed by analyzing the language of such texts, as well as working independently (whether individually, or in groups) to explore the topic/theme, then, write and present about it in class.
Grading: GSAS Graded  
Repeatable for additional credit: No