The Modern Middle East: Struggles for Power and Justice

Catalog description

This course is an introduction to the modern Middle East, spanning from the 18th century to the present. It focuses on struggles—individual and collective—for power and justice. At times, these struggles overlap: when groups seek to overthrow the existing authority and install a more just one in its place. Other times, they diverge: when groups or individuals seize power for their own interests, or seek justice by reforming the existing order (rather than toppling it). These struggles illuminate the shifting material and ideological conditions within the Middle East over the past three centuries or so: in other words, over what are people struggling, and why? By focusing on struggles for power and justice, this course emphasizes the Middle East as a dynamic region shaped by numerous stakeholders and challengers, rather than a space with an essential or homogenous character.