CIEE, Amman

This course complements the competency of Modern Standard Arabic achieved in previous studies of Arabic. There are local materials, where students will use Arabic to read and discuss relevant topics in Jordan. Attention is paid to the four language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. During the course, students become familiar with major aspects of the Jordan culture and many traditions related to Jordan in general. The course practices arguing the main ideas of a listening passage and discussing them in the class; expressing oneself verbally without mistakes in different situations using a language comprehensible for native speakers; formulating opinions on news articles or books and discussing issues related to Jordan, climate, economy, and culture; writing a diary and creating text on social, cultural, and political issues of Jordan and the Middle East; distinguishing between words in relation to position in the sentence, applying different grammatical structures, and distinguishing between them including changes in the meaning. 

The course explores the social, political, and economic factors of the water crisis and other environmental issues, along with the challenges and potentials of sustainable development in the country. This course uses Jordan's geopolitical position in the region and the current debates over water management, its nuclear program, its agricultural sector, access to petroleum products, growing urbanism, and exploding population as a lens for exploring local and regional issues of diplomacy and development vis-à-vis environmental issues and policy. While doing so, the course also addresses the politics of the region since Jordan and most of the MENA countries share many resources, especially water, where across borders cooperation and/or conflict play a major role in managing these limited resources. It examines different environmental NGOs and initiatives in an attempt to understand their role in environmental management, protection, advocacy, and awareness. Students also develop a better understanding of the dynamics of environmental activism in Jordan.

This course focuses on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: it looks at the roots and history of the question contextualizing it into regional and international political developments. The course covers the most important events that characterized the conflict providing a solid historic background for analyzing contemporary developments. Moreover, the course analyzes the role of international and regional actors into the making of the conflict while also highlighting the impact of the Palestinian issue into the Arab world. The first class provides the theoretical tools for a critical analysis of the conflict, the different actors, and their political role. This approach challenges the traditional mainstream paradigms around the Arab-Israeli crisis. The following classes are also informed by this critical approach: the analysis of important events such as the Suez crisis, the 1967 and 1973 Wars, the emergence of Palestinian resistance, the impact of the Cold War, and the role of international players explore the political dynamics behind the mere facts. Regional events impacted by the Arab-Israeli conflict such as the Black September and the Lebanese civil war are discussed in
order to highlight the influence and relevance of the Palestinian question on regional politics. Having built a historical background and critical understanding of the conflict, the last part of the course focuses on contemporary events and the emergence of new actors, new diplomatic strategies, as well as the popular mobilization that is characterizing current political developments. Finally, the course discusses possible solutions.