Catalogue

Middle Eastern Studies

middleeastern.bard.edu
 

Faculty

Ziad Dallal (director), Ziad Abu-Rish, Karen Barkey, Joshua Boettiger, Katherine M. Boivin, Anne Hunnell Chen, Ibrahim Elhoudaiby, Yuval Elmelech, Claire-Marie Hefner, Elizabeth M. Holt, Jeffrey Jurgens, Pınar Kemerli, Joel Perlmann, Dina Ramadan, Shai Secunda, Karen Raizen, Sophia Stamatopoulou-Robbins, Karen Sullivan

Overview

Middle Eastern Studies (MES) promotes the intellectual exploration and analytic study of the historical and contemporary Middle East, from North Africa to Central Asia. MES provides a broad intellectual framework with course offerings cross-listed with history, literature, Arabic, Hebrew, religion, human rights, sociology, anthropology, gender studies, politics, art history and visual culture, and environmental studies. 

Requirements

Students in MES must meet the following requirements before Moderation: enroll in an MES core course, take a second MES course at the 100 or 200 level, and obtain one year of language proficiency in Arabic or Hebrew. At Moderation, students must submit papers on past experience and projected work, as well as an academic paper about the Middle East written in one of their core or elective MES classes. Students also indicate whether they wish to moderate into the Social Studies or Language and Literature Division. At least one member of the Moderation board should be a faculty member affiliated with MES.

After Moderation, students must enroll in an MES junior theory seminar before the senior year that requires a substantial research paper on a topic pertaining to the Middle East. Students take three other electives (200 level and above) to broaden their understanding of the region, one of which should be a 300-level seminar that requires a substantial paper on a topic pertaining to the Middle East. MES students moderating into Languages and Literature are required to complete a second year of Arabic or Hebrew. Students in the Social Studies division are strongly encouraged to continue language study, and coursework should introduce the methodologies of the discipline(s) that will frame their research on the Middle East in the Senior Project. The Senior Project board should include at least one faculty member affiliated 
with MES.

Recent Senior Projects in MES

• “From Nubia to New York: The Politics of Advocacy, Agency, and Land Rights in Proximity to the Temple of Dendur” 
• “Gated Utopias: The American University in Cairo’s New Campus” (w/Human Rights)
• “Persistence, Sacrifice, and Resistance: Life in Occupied Palestine in Three Films by Hany Abu-Assad” (w/Film and Electronic Arts)

Courses

Core courses include but are not restricted to: MES 100, Introduction to Middle Eastern Studies, Religion 106, Islam; Literature 2060, The Arabic Novel; and History 185, The Making of the Modern Middle East. MES electives include: Arabic 101–102, Elementary Arabic; Arabic 201–202, Intermediate Arabic; Arabic 301–302, Advanced Arabic; Hebrew 101-102, Hebrew Language and Culture; Literature 245, Palestinian Literature in Translation; MES/Literature 301, Solidarity as Worldmaking; and Politics/MES 3020, Muslim Political Thought and Anticolonialism; and Anthropology 277, In the Garden of Empire: Nature and Power in the Modern Middle East. MES junior seminars carry the 300-level designation and are chosen in consultation with the student’s adviser. 

Introduction to Middle Eastern Studies
MES 100
CROSS-LISTED: AFRICANA STUDIES, RELIGION
This course provides a foundational understanding of the key historical and contemporary dynamics in the North Africa/Middle East region. Students explore questions of ethnolinguistic diversity, religious practice, gender and sexuality, national identity and state formation, economic development, and the environment. They also learn how major disciplines in the social sciences, humanities, and arts take up the region as a research site. 

Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: The History of Black-Palestinian Solidarity
MES 2030
CROSS-LISTED: AFRICANA STUDIES, AMERICAN AND INDIGENOUS STUDIES, HUMAN RIGHTS, LITERATURE
On August 9, 2014, Michael Brown, an unarmed African American teenager was fatally shot by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. One month earlier, Israel had launched a 50-day offensive on the Gaza Strip. As a militarized police force fired tear gas and rubber bullets on protestors in Ferguson, Gazans tweeted advice on how to deal with such violent tactics. That summer reinvigorated joint efforts between Black and Palestinian liberation movements, which date back to the 1960s. This course examines both movements, situating Black activism within the broader context of decolonial projects throughout the Global South. 

Art, Aesthetics, Modernism in the Arab World
MES 279
CROSS-LISTED: AFRICANA STUDIES, ART HISTORY AND VISUAL CULTURE, HUMAN RIGHTS
Spanning the first seven decades of the 20th century, and focusing on artistic movements from Marrakech to Baghdad, the course traces the development of modern art in the Arab world. Drawing from an archive of primary documents that includes manifestos, artists’ correspondence, diary entries, and guest-book comments, the class considers Arab artists’ and critics’ varied engagements with a global modernism. 

Solidarity as Worldmaking
MES 301 / Literature 301
DESIGNATED: RJI COURSE
The conventional narrative of anticolonial self-determination has often been quick to dismiss radical insurgencies as merely nationalist struggles, focused primarily on nation building. However, recent scholarship on decolonial movements across the Global South suggests that such an approach has obscured the expansive vision and ambitions of anticolonial thinkers and statesmen who sought to both critique and reimagine the existent world order. This seminar examines resistance and liberation struggles—in Cuba, Algeria, Vietnam, South Africa, and Palestine—that shaped processes of decolonization in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. 

Muslim Political Thought and Anticolonialism
MES 3020 / Politics 3020
See Politics 302 for a full course description.

Petroculture
MES 303 / Literature 303
See Literature 303 for a full course description.