Near East Studies

In the 19th century, the Tibetan Plateau was one of the last so-called "blank spots" on European maps, along with other regions of Central Asia. Due to its strategic position in Central Asia and growing economic interests, developing Tibet became an ambitious goal for many Europeans. The seminar examines in what form and with what motives different interest groups such as missionaries, traders, adventurers, scientists and colonial officials acquired and circulated knowledge about Tibet. Why was certain knowledge considered important? How was the collected knowledge interpreted, used and presented? The aim of the seminar is the methodical introduction of the students to colonial history in Asia and the discussion of the role of the so-calledGreat Game between Great Britain and Russia for supremacy in Central Asia, the effects of which reach into the present.
 

Topics include Islamic Reformism (al-Afghani and Abduh), the Arab Renaissance (Tahtawi, Amin), nationalism (al-Husri, Arslan), national culture (Hussein and Mahfouz), Pan-Arabism (Aflaq, Nasser), communism and leftism, Palestine Question (Zurayq, Kanafani), 1967 Critique (al-Azm, Laroui, Mernissi), Islamic Revival, Political Islam, and Arab Liberalism (Jabri, Ibrahim, Saadawi).

This course explores various perspectives on identity and life in Israel. It includes meetings with representatives of Israeli cultural, religious, and national groups to learn from them about their work and life and explore how these experiences shape their identity. Students conduct observation and interview assignments in different locations of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and participate in excursions to other parts of the country to understand the complexity and intersection of culture, language, religion, and national identities in Israel. Students reflect on these experiences, field trips, and course readings through a research report on identity and experience in Israel.

This course engages critical and creative discussions about the various aspects of Jerusalem as a rallying point for the contesting groups in the Middle East. Topics include competing narratives; the clash of ethos; city boundaries and territory; demographic and social challenges; citizenship rights; the national and religious character of the city; Islam and nationalism in the local, regional, and international realms; the Temple Mount/Al-Aqsa controversy and the future of the Old City and the Holy Basin; Arab neighborhoods and the security barrier; and the struggle for sovereignty and negotiating the Jerusalem issue in the peace process. The course provides an opportunity to conduct a simulation of negotiating the future of Jerusalem within the framework of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

This course examines the impacts of disease and disaster on individuals and societies in the Middle East from Medieval times to the 20th century. It uses primary and secondary sources to analyze how the Middle East conceptualized disease and crises, and how they dealt with their effects when they struck. This course trains students in the interpretation of Mesopotamian (Babylonian, Assyrian, and Sumerian) literature in translation. It equips them with both questions and methods, and pays detailed attention to the examination of primary sources.

This multi-disciplinary course covers three broad topics: the architecture and various state and non-state actors of formal peacebuilding processes; negotiation between states as a key diplomatic function; and the phenomenon of third-party mediation in conflict resolution. These topics are covered from both the theoretical and practical perspectives, so the course literature, lectures, and exercises provide a balance between what the academics state and what actual diplomats, mediators, and non-state actors experience in the field of peacebuilding. The course also involves detailed case studies of contemporary conflicts in the Middle East region in order to explore these various processes in action and provide a degree of area studies specialization, including the conflicts in Lebanon, Palestine-Israel, Libya, Yemen, and Syria.

The course is to build upon students’ knowledge and understanding of Modern Hebrew through regular in-class practice with reading, writing, grammar, and conversation skills. In addition to the completion of homework assignments included in the text and unseen. 
Students must have taken an elementary Hebrew class or equivalent. 

This course is part of the LM degree program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. The course is subdivided into two parts. Part one discusses topics including an introduction to the study of the history and culture of the ancient Mesopotamian civilizations (Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians); and introduction to the cuneiform writing; elements of the Sumerian language; a guide to the electronic resources for the study of Sumerian; and reading, translation, and grammatical analysis of elementary Sumerian texts in cuneiform writing. Part two of the course discusses topics including Sumerian royal inscriptions: typology, structure, and contents; and reading, translation and historical-philological comment of Sumerian royal inscriptions in cuneiform writing.

This course provides a key understanding of the historical and ideological foundations of the Islamic Republic’s revolutionary regime and its foreign policy. From the Iranian Revolution in 1979, a turning point in Middle Eastern and global contemporary politics, it overviews the deep changes in the ideological and political landscapes resulting from the establishment of the Islamic Republic: the impact on political Islam, the regional equilibrium, Iran's place in the international community, and the reactivation of rivalries and confessional tensions with neighboring countries. The study of the Iranian political and religious model through a multidisciplinary perspective helps to understand the immediate consequences of the Revolution, its longer-terms effects, and the regional reaction.

This course provides a broad-based introduction to the core themes and ideas of the anthropology of the Middle East, and by extension of the Anthropology of Islam. It begins by exploring the reasons behind the relatively late emergence of the Middle East as an area of study, before moving on to consider such topics as Orientalism, gender, rural versus urban anthropology, the role of religion (traditional and modern), and the forging of a regional subjectivity (as witnessed in the ongoing uprisings throughout the Middle East, the so-called “Arab Spring”). The course stands alone as a regional module, as well as offers an overview of the issues for continued study of the Middle East.