Telegraphs, Tapes & TikTok: Technology and Revolutions in the Modern Middle East

Catalog description

What can the telegraph reveal about the birth of instant messaging in the Middle East? How did cassette tapes capture Egyptian working-class culture? How did radio fuel Afghan anti-imperial resistance? Did TikTok really help ignite youth activism in Iran? This mini course explores nearly two centuries of technological and social change in the Middle East, from the late Ottoman era to the Arab Spring and beyond. We'll examine how tools we often take for granted—telegraphs, steamships, dams, cameras, printing presses, radio, cassette tapes, the internet—shaped political movements, cultural life, and everyday experiences. Through case studies spanning the region (and sometimes beyond), we'll see how technologies travel, acquire meaning, and connect local struggles to global currents. We will follow the migrations of ideas, tools, and people to explore intertwined stories of media, revolution, and identity in the modern Middle East. 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 is open to all students and majors alike, requires no prerequisites, and may be used to count towards the elective requirements for the Science, Technology, and Society minor.