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Fall 2013 Middle East W3260 section 001
RETHINKING MIDDLE EAST POLITCS

Call Number 15016
Day & Time
Location
MW 2:40pm-3:55pm
603 Hamilton Hall
Points 3
Approvals Required None
Instructor Timothy Mitchell
Type LECTURE
Course Description This course examines a set of questions that have shaped the study of the politics of the modern Middle East. It looks at the main ways those questions have been answered, exploring debates both in Western academic scholarship and among scholars and intellectuals in the region itself. For each question, the course offers new ways of thinking about the issue or ways of framing it in different terms. The topics covered in the course include: the kinds of modern state that emerged in the Middle East and the ways its forms of power and authority were shaped; the birth of economic development as a way of describing the function and measuring the success of the state, and the changing metrics of this success; the influence of oil on the politics of the region; the nature and role of Islamic political movements; the transformation of the countryside and the city and the role of rural populations and of urban protest in modern politics; and the politics of armed force and political violence in the region, and the ways in which this has been understood. The focus of the course will be on the politics of the twentieth century, but many topics will be traced back into developments that occurred in earlier periods, and several will be explored up to the present. The course is divided into four parts, each ending with a paper or exam in which participants are asked to analyze the material covered. Each part of the course has a geographical focus on a country or group of countries and a thematic focus on a particular set of questions of historical and political analysis.
Web Site CourseWorks
Department Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies
Enrollment 30 students (60 max) as of 6:50PM Saturday, May 18, 2013
Subject Middle East
Number W3260
Section 001
Division Interfaculty
Open To Columbia College, Engineering and Applied Science, General Studies, School of Continuing Education, Graduate School of Arts and Science, School of the Arts, International and Public Affairs, Barnard, Engineering and Applied Science: Graduate
Campus Morningside
Note STUDENTS MUST REGISTER FOR A DISCUSSION SECTION, MDES W3261
Section key 20133MDES3260W001

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SIS update 05/18/13 18:50    web update 05/19/13 07:30