FALL 2010 MESAAS Courses

Lecture and recitation. Islamic civilization and its characteristic political, social, and religious institutions and intellectual traditions.

Required of all majors. Introduces theories of culture particularly related to the Middle East and South Asia. Theoretical debates on the nature and function of culture as a symbolic reading of human collectivities. Examines critical cultural studies of the Middle East and South Asia. Enables students to articulate their emerging knowledge of Middle East and Asian cultures in a theoretically informed language.

This course is intended as a Global Core Requirement, introducing Columbia College students to the global phenomenon of colonialism in a broadly introductory, interdisciplinary, and temporally and spatially expansive way. As all other courses in the Global Core, this introductory course to the global phenomenon of Colonialism is organized around a set of primary texts in film, fiction, history, autobiography, and theory produced in or about the regions of the world in which colonialism has had an impact. The purpose of this course is to introduce students to a wide range of cinematic, fictional, historical, autobiographical, and theoretical sources on the global and cross-cultural phenomenon of colonialism.

The concept of "nation" and ongoing "national" struggles still remain potent, despite or perhaps because of unbound globalization. We will consider "nation" in relation to "state" and "diaspora," weighing its implications for literary nation-formation with readings in Armenian Diaspora literature. Theoretical readings from Renan, Bhabha, Anderson, Chatterjee, among others. Primary texts from Shahnour, Vorpuni, V. Oshagan and Beledian in translation.

Through detailed discussions of certain landmarks in Islamic legal history (e.g., origins; early formation; sources of law; intellectual make-up; the workings of court; legal change; women in the law; legal effects of colonialism; modernity and legal reform, etc.), the course aims at providing an introductory but integrated view of Islamic law, a definition, so to speak, of what it was/is.

This course introduces students to major prose and poetic works from the Arabic literary tradition of approximately the last hundred years. Participants are encouraged to consider texts through the prisms of their multiple contexts - the historical, social and cultural, as well as gender and class - while attending to them, in contrapuntal fashion, as works of art.

This seminar is an interdisciplinary exploration of the history of the African continent, examining very closely the colonial and postcolonial periods. Its focus is the intersection of politics, economics, culture and society. Using colonialism, empire, and globalization as key analytical frames, it pays special attention to social, political and cultural changes that shaped the various African individual and collective experiences.

Prerequisites: the instructor's permission. Explores recent studies on the Middle East with explicitly stated theoretical orientations that may be grouped under three broad catagories of nationalism, discipline, and power and resistance. Methodologies as diverse as comparative method, post-structuralism, narrative, and ethnography are not investigated in the abstract but in the context of rich empirical case studies.

Prerequisites: Proficiency in Arabic required. This course studies the production of Arab classicists from among noted grammarians, rhetoricians, poets, theologians, philosophers, historians, statesmen and scientists. It focuses on the cultural production that debates, questions, and interrogates authority and sites of power or legitimizes them. It brings together a number of discourses that cut across disciplines and fields from rhetoric, prose, poetry to theology and economic treatises. It tries to demonstrate how these make up not only the concerns of the state (the court), but also those of competing and conflicting interests and communities.

This course studies a number of autobiographical works; memoirs and reminiscences that are meant to rationalize and sell a writer???s experience. Although repressed accounts, these serve as trajectories for a secular journey rather than one from denial to affirmation. Staunchly established in modernity and its nahda paradigms, most of these writings are secular itineraries that rarely search for faith. They are the journeys of a generation of Arab intellectuals who are facing many crises, but not the crisis of faith. They provide another look at the making of the Arab intelligentsia since the early 20th century and help us discerning the pitfalls and failures, along with successes, that have been wrapping the nation state

A wide-ranging exploration of the multiple dimensions and spaces of textual productions of the Indo-Persian literary civilization, from the 10th to the 18th century, examining major texts written in Persian in South Asia (from the qasidas and the masnavis of Mas'ud-e Sa'd Salman and Amir Khusraw to the linguistic writings of Siraj al-Din Arzu), in the context of larger socio-historical and linguistic developments. Special attention paid to the relationship between Persian as a cosmopolitan language in the Subcontinent and the wider Persian-writing and Islamic world, and on the relevant issues of multilingualism and aesthetic transitions.

This is an advanced undergraduate/graduate history seminar course over thirteen weeks, designed to introduce upper level students to the study of Muslims in colonial India in the nineteenth century. Although dealing with this period, the main focus of this course will be on social, religious and political developments, inspired by, and affecting, India's Muslims in the second half of the century.

A discussion-based seminar exploring the role and use of memory in the broad domain of Persian textual culture, addressing the relationship between memory and literary creation and reproduction, the tradition of memorialistic and (auto)biographical writings, and the construction and reception of historical identity in the literary space. Special attention paid to the development of the tazkira-genre (broadly speaking, "biography") in Iran and South Asia and the role of the representation of the literary past in shaping ideas of "tradition" and "newness" in the eastern Islamic world.

Through varied exposure to Iranian film and fiction, and Persian poetry, this course is designed to introduce students to critical themes and creative effervescence of modern Iranian culture. The course will concentrate on Iranian cultural history of the last two centuries, with particular emphasis on contemporary issues.

A reading course on Literary Theory and Social Theory for students and faculty of MEALAC and the broader Columbia community from the Humanities and Social Sciences, which will take up in greater detail some of the issues of Literary and Social Theories and employ them to think on the research topics of the participants in the seminar. The course is conceived as part of an ongoing project that will acquaint students, who are seriously interested in literary theory, with these thinkers and theoretical traditions in greater depth and detail. The course that will take place next fall will concentrate on works by Walter Benjamin and Georg Lukacs.

PROFICIENCY IN ARABIC REQUIRED. This graduate seminar is conducted entirely in Arabic sources. We will read various passages from the Qur???an in order to highlight the Qur???an???s moral imperatives about ???living in??? nature as well as about the generation of wealth and its distribution within the social order. We will then move on to examine the genre of fiqh (substantive law) with regard to the same themes, examining the moral structures of society in terms of the ethic of ???spending.??? Themes such as ???making money,??? building capital, charity, welfare, etc. will be examined in depth as constituting a system of checks-and-balances, through close readings of the concepts of kasb, zakat, sadaqa, waqf, etc.

The goal of this class is to provide an introduction to the history of Israeli cinema whose interpretation and discussion will also be an in-depth discussion of the main issues engaged by Israeli culture. Cinema provides an interesting vantage point to approach to Israeli culture, as it always expresses a social point of view and its history not only represents the major issues Israel has dealt with since its creation, but is in itself a history of the struggle for hegemony within Israeli culture and society. Each meeting will include an in class screening of one of the major works of Israeli cinema beginning in the 1950's and leading up to "Beaufort" and "Waltzing With Bashir". Preparation for class will consist of the reading of literary and scholarly texts that provide some of the context for the movies and the issues debated within. Discussion will be based on "Reading" cinema as a complex text that allows insight not only to the issues but to the very fabric of their discourses.

Through reading and writing, students will review Arabic Grammar concepts within the context of linguistic functions such as narration, description, comparison, etc. For example, within the function of narration, students will focus on verb tenses, word order, and adverbials. Based on error analysis in the past twelve years that the Arabic Program has been using Al-Kitaab, emphasis will be placed on common and frequent grammatical errors.

Readings and analysis of texts, with discussion of the nature and development of the genres within the context of Islamic thought. One genre covered each term.

This is an introductory course for which no prior knowledge is required. Equal emphasis is given to listening, speaking, reading, writing and grammar. Daily homework includes grammar exercises, short answers, reading, or paragraph writing. Frequent vocabulary and grammar quizzes.

Prerequisite: MDES W1511 or the equivalent. Students who completed First Year Hebrew at Columbia are required to enroll in section 1. New students are placed in section 1 or 2, based on their performance on the placement test. Equal emphasis is given to listening, speaking, reading and writing. Regular categories of the Hebrew verb, prepositions, and basic syntax are taught systematically. Vocabulary building. Daily homework includes grammar exercises, short answers, reading, or short compositions. Frequent vocabulary and grammar quizzes.

Prerequisites: For students who acquired basic knowledge of the language in Hebrew School, and received appropriate scores on the placement test. Equal emphasis is given to listening, speaking, reading and writing. Regular Hebrew verbs, prepositions, and syntax are taught systematically. Vocabulary building. Daily homework includes grammar exercises, short answers, reading, listening to web-casts, or short compositions. Frequent vocabulary and grammar quizzes.

Prerequisites: Hebrew W1513 or W1515 or the instructor's permission. Students are expected to have basic familiarity with regular and irregular verbs in five categories of the Hebrew verb system: Pa'al, Pi'el, Hif'il, Hitpa'el and Nif'al. The course focuses on vocabulary building and on development of reading skills, using adapted literary and journalistic texts with and without vowels. Verb categories of Pu'al and Huf'al are taught systematically. Other verb forms are reviewed in context. A weekly hour is devoted to practice in conversation. Daily homework includes reading, short answers, compositions, listening to web-casts, and giving short oral presentations via voice e-mail. Frequent vocabulary quizzes.

Prerequisites: MDES W4511 or MDES W1515 or MDES W1516 or the instructor's permission. Students are expected to have a good familiarity with the Hebrew verb system, and the ability to read a text without vowels. This is an advanced course focusing on the development of reading skills using authentic, un-adapted literary, journalistic and academic texts. Verb forms are reviewed in context. In addition to the texts read by the whole class, each student completes two independent reading projects in areas of his/her interest. A weekly hour is devoted to practice in conversation. Daily homework includes reading, composition, listening to web-casts, or giving short oral presentations via voice e-mail. Frequent vocabulary quizzes. Two five page term reports on the independent readings.

An introduction to the spoken and written language of contemporary Iran.

Prerequisite: MDES W1710-W1711 or the equivalent. A general review of the essentials of grammar; practice in spoken and written Persian; Arabic elements in Persian; selected readings emphasizing Iranian life and culture; materials from Tajikistan and Afghanistan, Indari.

Prerequisites: MDES W1310-W1311 or the equivalent. A continuation of the study of reading, writing and speaking of Armenian.

An introduction to classical Sanskrit. Grammar and reading of texts.

Reading and grammatical analysis of a literary text, chosen from the dramatic and narrative tradition.

This is an accelerated course for students of South Asian origin who already possess a knowledge of basic vocabulary and limited speaking and listening skills in Hindi. They may not have sufficient skills in reading and writing but are able to converse on familiar topics such as: self, family, likes, dislikes and immediate surroundings. This course will focus on developing knowledge of the basic grammar of Hindi and vocabulary enrichment by exposing students to a variety of cultural and social topics related to aspects of daily life; and formal and informal registers. Students will be able to read and discuss simple texts and write about a variety of everyday topics by the end of the semester.

An introduction to the most widely spoken language of South Asia. Along with an understanding of the grammar, the course offers practice in listening and speaking. The Hindi (Devanagari) script is used for reading and writing.

Prerequisites: MDES W1610-W1611 or the instructor's permission. Continuing practice in listening, speaking, and grammatical understanding. Along with the Hindi (Devanagari) script, the Urdu (Perso-Arabic) script is taught in the class; both scripts are used for reading and writing.

Prerequisites: MDES W1613 or the instructor's permission. Conducted largely in Hindi. Includes reading and discussion of selected literary, social science, historical, and/or journalistic texts. Since the content changes each term, the course may be repeated for credit.

This is a third year (or fifth semester) course in the Hindi-Urdu program that aims to continue building upon the existing listening, speaking, reading, writing and cultural skills in Hindi and Urdu. Students will be expected to expand their vocabulary, enhance their structural accuracy and develop their cultural appropriateness through their enthusiastic participation in classroom activities and immersing themselves in the speech community outside. The objective of the course is to strengthen students??? language skills and to go beyond them to understand and describe situations and people, understand and discuss short stories, news items and events. Writing in the target language will be emphasized throughout as a support skill to enable students to use their diverse vocabulary and grammatical structures. This course will prepare students for Advanced Hindi-Urdu II which will be offered in the spring semester.

Introduces students to the basic grammatical and syntactical skills required to function adequately in a Tamil-speaking environment. Of particular interest to students planning to conduct scholarly research or fieldwork in that region of the world. Introduces students to the rich culture of the Indian subcontinent where Tamil is spoken.

Prerequisites: MDES W1101-W1102 or the instructor's permission. Further develops students' written and oral proficiency in order to allow them to function adequately in a Tamil-speaking environment. Of particular interest to students planning to conduct scholarly research or fieldwork in a Tamil-speaking context. Develops the students' appreciation for the rich culture of the Indian subcontinent where Tamil is spoken.