Introduction to the Modern Middle East

Catalog description

Where is the Middle East, and how have its boundaries been defined and reimagined? What do we really know about a place that has long been a center of creativity, scholarship, and cultural exchange? How have diverse communities across the Middle East engaged with questions of identity, modernity, and tradition? This introductory course examines the history of the region we now call the Middle East by engaging with questions often posed by students encountering it from different perspectives. Rather than treating history as a distant sequence of events, we will explore how people and ideas have moved across national and regional boundaries over time. We will also critically examine the very concept of the "Middle East," considering how colonial histories and geopolitical interests have shaped its meaning and borders. Covering a geographic area that stretches from North Africa to Afghanistan, this course highlights the diversity of political, social, and economic life in the modern Middle East through case studies. Themes such as colonialism, imperialism, decolonization, independence, mass migration, gender, genocide, revolution, and resistance will allow us to connect the region's history to contemporary global issues, including those that shape life in the United States and beyond. As a history course, we will engage with a range of primary sources—including memoirs, music, poetry, literature, and film—to deepen our understanding of the region's past and present. This course is open to all students, whether they have some knowledge of the region or are encountering it for the first time. This course fulfills Dietrich College's "Humanities" general education requirement. Course Website: https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/history/