Identity Pols of Modern MENA

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

The course aims to address the issues which underpin the construction and the reconstruction of identity in the modern Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. This will include the issues of political identities in its various forms such as national, transnational, religious, ethnical, cultural, and modern personal identity. How do the emergence of identities challenge or answer the domestic cultural context of modern MENA states? What role is played by the representation or recreation of identity politics in shaping regional foreign policies? This course aims to explore these questions in the context of the modern MENA region, where it has been broadly observed to be shaped and re-shaped through the rise of different ideological identities. In considering key questions and debates about the cultural evolution of the modern MENA countries, the interaction of cultural, national, and religious memberships within and across the politics of these polities will be studied. This course will examine the fundamental issues which established the various political identities in a modern MENA society while simultaneously introducing students to core concepts and ideas which will form part of the foundations for the study of the region’s politics.