Strange Powers: Energy in the Modern Middle East

Catalog description

Do energy needs determine the shape of society, or the other way around? Is there such a thing as an energy transition, and if so, what drives such a change? What is the relationship between our ways of thinking and the energy regimes that have prevailed at different points in history? This course reframes the Middle East in modern global history (1750–present) from the perspective of different energy sources: water, wood, coal, oil, gas, wind, and sun. It highlights the production, circulation, and consumption of energy in processes of capitalist development; state construction (and destruction); imperialism, mass politics, and cultural difference; formation and maintenance of citizenship and migration regimes; and authoritarian rule. If global heating will render much of the Middle East uninhabitable by the end of the century, how did we get here and what does the future hold?