Middle Eastern Studies (MEIS-GA)

The class is conducted in Modern Standard Arabic. The focus is on all four language skills: speaking, listening, reading and writing.

The class is conducted in Modern Standard Arabic. The focus is on all four language skills: speaking, listening, reading and writing.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Readings in selected authors from the 8th century to the 12th century

Readings in selected poets from the 8th century to the 12th century.

Training in reading texts in medieval Arabic

Introduction to the genres of modern Arabic prose and poetry, with readings in each.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Survey of the history of the Middle East from 1750 to the present

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.

Designed to prepare joint History/MEIS PhD students for their exam in modern Middle Eastern history, with a focus on the 20th century.

Topics in the history of the modern Middle East

A graduate course that explores the making of modern Iran from political, social, cultural, and religious perspectives.

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

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.

Issues and debates in the history and historiography of modern Palestine/Israel.

This course introduces students to various genres of texts produced and circulated within the Islamic tradition.

This course surveys the various genres of writing by medieval Muslims on ethical topics, including theological, philosophical, practical and political as well as ascetic and mystical strands in the developing tradition and their interactions.

Introduction to 20th-century Arabic literature.

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.

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.

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”.

This seminar investigates the origins of modern Arabic drama and its intimate interfacing with mass media in contemporary Arab societies.

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.

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.

Islamic law and its treatment of women in theory and practice

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.

Students will look at the role of nation, gender and empire in the Middle East and South Asia.

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.

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.

This course will examine how poetic thought and practice shapes notions of history, self, collectivity, and change in South Asia and the Middle East. The course considers “poetic knowledge” as a term that might encapsulate the value and meaning of the poetic as a mode of being, seeing and doing in the world. We will delve into the breadth and depth of non-Western literary thought, theory and practice in South Asia and the Middle East, reading key texts by poets, historians, and anthropologists including A. K. Ramanujan, Ann Gold, Lila Abu-Lughod, Steve Caton, and Sheldon Pollock. Alongside, we will read selected, poetic texts in translation from a variety of languages including Braj, Urdu, Persian, Sindhi, and Punjabi. Course themes include poetic knowledge as a reflection on history and society, gender and power in poetic traditions, poetry and political critique, and the relationship between poetic idiom and spiritual subjectivity.

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.

Course listing for MA thesis Prep (fall)

Course listing for MA thesis Prep (spring)

Departmental content Directed Study

Departmental Joint (MEIS/History) Directed Study

Directed Study for Arabic (Fall)

Directed Study for Arabic (Spring)

Directed Study for Arabic (General)

Course listing for Independent Studies

Course listing for DS Arabic Literature (Fall)

Course listing for DS Arabic Literature (Spring)

Selected topics in medieval Arabic literature.

Directed Study for Persian (General)

Directed Study for Persian (Fall)

Directed Study for Persian (Spring)

Directed Study for Turkish (General)

Listing for Directed Readings in Turkish (Fall)

Listing for Directed Readings in Turkish (Spring)

Course listing for Dissertation Prospectus prep

Course listing for Dissertation Prospectus prep

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.

The course is designed to improve students' advanced level reading as well as their written and oral discourse strategies in MSA via authentic texts. Students are trained to read and discuss a variety of topics/themes.