American University in Cairo

This course focuses on histories of Palestine, beginning in the seventh century and ending in the twenty-first. It is based on a comparative approach that engages with primary sources, secondary historical texts, literary narratives, material culture, and cinematic representations. The course provides the historical and theoretical tools to learn about and engage formations of nation and history in Palestine. Its main purpose is to center Palestinian voices and experiences, both before and after 1948. By recovering such narratives, the course contributes to countering the comprehensive erasure of Palestinian history.

This course covers the family as a social institution with emphasis on Middle Eastern characteristics. It also discusses selected aspects of marriage and family life and pays special attention to the social consequences of changing family styles.

This course offers an introduction into the field of comparative politics with specific focus on the government and ideologies, social stratification, and institutions in the Middle East. It also includes a study of the problems of modernization and political development. It studies the similarities and differences between political systems by examining in-depth themes of analysis in order to provide certain patterns and dynamics to create a comparative framework tool in order to better understand the nature and dynamics of governance in the region. Themes include: Arab nationalism, democratization, personal rule, military involvement in politics, the politics of violence, and why civil war emerges. Specific country case studies are used as a basis to provide an in depth framework of understanding and analyzing the Middle East. The course creates an overall framework for students to navigate understanding of the region and develop a better understanding not only of individual political systems, but also an overall knowledge within that realm.

This course explores the various techniques and concepts of ceramics, with an emphasis on basic skills and crafts of clay. The course includes introductory information and experiments in clay free-hand technique related to ceramics arts, starting from making building techniques, glazing techniques, and kiln firing operations. The course introduces ceramic art history and its long-term cultural traditions, as well as contemporary ceramics concepts and ceramics installation arts. It has a minimum of two filed trips to Fustat, an ancient ceramics area in old Cairo, to explore the historical and local craft of ceramic art and Egypt's social history in relation to the field.

This course offers a study of selected topics in high intermediate modern standard Arabic. It emphasizes vocabulary acquisition and increases the command of grammatical and syntactical structures. It further enhances the four language skills (reading, writing, listening, and speaking) through the use of authentic materials that enhance Arabic language competence. The course provides an opportunity to expand the vocabulary and grammar pool and develop both oral and written production through different tasks like presentations based on readings).

Beginning with the Young Turk and Iran’s Constitutional revolutions, this course follows the fate of Middle Eastern societies and states during the twentieth century, with a special focus on colonialism and nationalism; independence movements and decolonization; the Arab-Israeli conflict; society, politics, and culture. It focuses on the social, political, and intellectual history of this period to better understand the genealogy of trends and events that dominate our present time.

This course mainly investigates questions and problems related to theories of human nature and ethics and their interconnectedness. It covers works by key figures in the Classical and Post-Classical periods of Islamic Philosophy including Avicenna, Averroes, Ibn ‘Arabi, al-Ījī and al-Dawwānī, and by figures in Modern and Enlightenment philosophy including Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant and Hegel. Among the main themes the course tackles is the relationship between mind and body and its implications for understanding good and evil as ethical categories in the two traditions, examining the convergences and divergences among them. Methodologically, the class combines both a thematic approach focusing on the main themes in philosophy of mind and its connection with key ethical problems with a historical approach investigating the historical development of these themes and their moral implications. This course is offered to both graduate and undergraduate students with distinct assessment requirements for each; this represents the undergraduate version of the course. 

This course considers the relationship between philosophical reflection and aesthetic practice through the lens of cinema, with the purpose of engaging students of both philosophy and film theory in a cross-disciplinary investigation into cinema. The course draws both from philosophical texts on film, and classical and contemporary film theory. Topics may include epistemological, ontological, and ethical questions about film; the role of memory, subjectivity, identity, and desire in cinema; time, space, and the nature of the image; perspectives on sexuality, gender, and race in film; psychoanalytic, feminist, and postcolonial film theory; and analytic and continental approaches to film and philosophy. This course is offered to both graduate and undergraduate students with distinct assessment requirements for each; this represents the graduate version of the course. 

This course provides a foundational understanding of international relations theories. It discusses how these theories are applied to cases throughout history, establishing a thorough knowledge of the explanatory capabilities and limits of each of the major theories. Prerequisites include introductory coursework in political science and international politics. 

This course is a survey of the architectural output of the Islamic world from from Spain to Indonesia from the 7th century to the present. It presents major examples of religious and secular architecture, including mosques, madrasas, palaces, and caravanserais and offers an insight into different Islamic dynastic styles in their respective geographic territories beginning with the Umayyads in Syria and ending with the contemporary architecture. With the help of visual material and field trips, the course analyzes major monuments with the objective of arriving at an understanding of each dynasty’s contribution in the context of the continuous development that nurtured it. The course facilitates enjoyment of Islamic architecture, provides an understanding of how art historians think and argue with one another, and expands visual memory.