Seminar on Global Society IV

This intensive course will be taught over a four-day period in July 2026. The tentative reading list (including films and music) is as follows: [DAY 1] Tamari, Steve. “Who are the Arabs?” Davison, Roderic. “Where is the Middle East?” Foreign Affairs 38:4 (1961): 665-675. Williams, Raymond. “Culture,” Keywords. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985 [1976]. Owen, Roger. “Egypt and Europe: From French Expedition to British Occupation,” in The Modern Middle East: A Reader, edited by A. Hourani, P. Khoury, M. Wilson, 111-124. London: IB Tauris, 2004. Ahmad: A Kuwaiti Pearl Diver Khater, Akram. “Factory Girls, ”and “Emigration,” In Inventing Home : Emigration, Gender, and the Middle Class in Lebanon, 1870-1920. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001. Hage, G. “With the Fig, the Olive and the Pomegranate Trees”, In Politics, Culture and the Lebanese Diaspora, edited by Tabar, P, and Skulte-Ouaiss, J. Newcastle Upon Tyne:Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010; Waiting Out the Crisis [DAY 2] Leila Ahmad, “The Discourse of the Veil,” in Women and Gender in Islam Excerpt from Memoir: A Border Passage by Leila Ahmed. Excerpt from Film: Nasser 56 Excerpt from Nasser, Philosophy of the Revolution (1956) "Egyptian President Abdel Nasser Resigns from Office Following the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, June 9, 1967" in Sources in the History of the Modern Middle East, ed. by Akram Fouad Khater. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. pp. 278-282. Sonallah Ibrahim, That Smell (1966) Film: Four Women of Egypt [DAY 3] Alexis De Tocqueville, “First Report on Algeria (1847)” Fanon, Frantz. “On Violence,” and “Colonial War and Mental Disorders” in The Wretched of the Earth Film: The Battle of Algiers Achille Mbembe, “The Clinic of the Subject,” in Critique of Black Reason, trans Laurent Dubois (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2017 Rashid Khalidi, “Introduction,” “The First Declaration of War,” “The Second Declaration of War, The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance (NY Metropolitan Books, 2020). Amahl Bishara, “Balanced Objectivity” Back Stories: US News Production and Palestinian Politics. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2012. Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, trans. Janet Lloyd (New York: Basic Books, 2015) Excerpts. Leila Katibah, “The Genocide Will Be Automated—Israel, AI and the Future of War,” MERIP 312 (Fall 2024) [DAY 4] Huntington, Samuel. “A Clash of Civilizations?” Foreign Affairs 72:3 (1993): 22-49. Mamdani, Mahmood. “Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: a Political Perspective on Culture and Terrorism, ” American Ethnologist 104: 3 (2001): 766-755. Engseng Ho, “Empire through Diasporic Eyes: The View from the Other Boat, ”Comparative Studies in Society and History Mike Davis, “The Predators of New Orleans,” Le Monde Diplomatique, October 2005. Film: Caché (Michael Haneke, 2005) Adania Shibli, Minor Detail (Novel)

The classes will be taught by a mixture of lecture and seminar. You will each be responsible for one fifteen-minute presentation that highlight the main questions and themes of the day's assignment. You also lead the discussion for another fifteen minutes. You may prepare a power point presentation and/or print out an outline of your presentation and shared with the seminar’s participants. You are responsible for two 500 word-long reading responses to be submitted in class on DAY 2 and DAY 4 of our meetings.

Class attendance is essential. one fifteen-minute presentation & two 500 word-long reading responses.

You are expected to attend all sessions and arrive on time, having already read and prepared questions and comments on the day’s assignments. Please keep in mind that this course will emphasize honing your oral and written critical skills. Listening to your classmates, as well as your active and thoughtful engagements with them are crucial for your standing in the course. You must submit your own work and are not allowed to present someone else’s work, engage in unauthorized collaborations, or draw on any AI programs to assist you in drafting or conceptualizing your own assignments. Please note that laptops and tablets are highly discouraged during class time. Printing out readings and bring them with you to class or downloading them unto E-readers is recommended; if you must use a laptop/tablet your wifi should be turned off through the duration of the seminar. Cell phones should be switched off or put on silent mode before class.