History of Modern Middle East

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

The first semester of a year-long research seminar. We read recent scholarship in early modern and modern Middle East history, with a focus on social and cultural history. We address particular subfields and themes, covering those topical areas that have proven to be of most interest to historians of the Arab World over the past couple of decades: the nature of modern empires, law and society, colonialism and post-colonialism, nationalism and identity, gender and family, sectarianism, political economy and the subaltern, modernities and circulations, and the environment. The fall semester can be taken as a stand-alone course with the permission of the instructor.