Studies of Culture and Society in the Modern Middle East (P02499)

? Credit Points : 20 ? SCQF Level : 11 ? Acronym : LLC-P-P02499

This course is designed to offer students an opportunity to become acquainted with modern Middle Eastern culture and society in more detail than allowed by the existing courses offered by the department. Although it is not possible, even desirable, to ignore the political dimension of Middle Eastern society, the course will focus rather on different aspects of social and cultural life, including its high, everyday, material aspects. In some sense therefore it will complement the Middle Eastern Politics course as currently taught. However, the primary aim of the course will be to complement postgraduate offerings in Middle Eastern Studies, which are currently more heavily weighted to classical and religious studies than to the modern period. It will also seek to provide some exposure to a number of different sub-fields of Middle Eastern and other scholarship such as literature, the arts, material culture, film, media, gender and urban studies.

The course will be team-taught and involve a number of staff who are able to contribute in ways according to their knowledge and expertise. The central focus of the course will be exploring the emergence, development and critique, of the construction of national society and culture in the Middle East. This focus will be explored using themes such as “ethnic and religious minorities”, “urbanization”, “trauma and social conflict”, and “education,” through which the students will engage with theoretical issues and a wide range of media and genres to obtain an understanding of these themes through cultural practice and representation. Thus the course will be interdisciplinary, bringing historical, literary, cinematic and ethnographic texts together to explore different aspects as they relate to the development of the national of modern Middle East culture and society.

Entry Requirements

? This course is not available to visting students.

Subject Areas

Home subject area

Asian Studies, (School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures, Schedule G)

Delivery Information

? Normal year taken : Postgraduate

? Delivery Period : Semester 2 (Blocks 3-4)

? Contact Teaching Time : 2 hour(s) per week for 10 weeks

Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes

Familiarity with a selection of key works and understanding of crucial theoretical and aesthetic issues. Ability to conduct in-depth, critical analysis and comparative studies of a body of works in relation to current theoretical debates.