Global Arc

The Arabian Nights (The Thousand and One Nights) is a masterpiece of world literature. However, its reception and popularity are fraught with challenges and problems. This course traces the origins of this authorless collection, examines its transmission in the Arabic tradition, and its entry into Europe. Students will read some of its most famous story cycles and become familiar with the major debates surrounding them. Besides reading related literary works from medieval Arabic literature, we will look at the influence of the Nights on modern authors and filmmakers. All readings will be in English.

The course will introduce students to the history of the Iranian world through the lens of memory. Organized by theme, students will be introduced to a wide variety of ancient, medieval, and modern sources as they investigate the history of the various elements that are frequently invoked as essential to Iranian identity. The course will attempt to interrogate the notion of "Iranian civilization" through an investigation of a variety of themes ranging from geography and ethnicity to art and humanism to kingship and revolution. Students will work closely with archival and visual material in collections in and around Princeton.

Jerusalem is considered a holy city to three faiths: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In this course, students will learn the history of Jerusalem from its founding in pre-biblical times until the present. Over the course of the semester, we will ask: What makes space sacred and how does a city become holy? What has been at stake - religiously, theologically, politically, nationally - in the many battles over Jerusalem? What is the relationship between Jerusalem as it was and Jerusalem as it was (and is) imagined?

This seminar examines Jews' and Christians' lives in the medieval Islamic world through the lens of religious conversion. In the seventh century, a mix of Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, and pagans lived in the Middle East. Four hundred years later, most of these people's descendants were Muslims. This shift changed what it meant to belong to a religious community, for Muslims and non-Muslims alike. We will examine this enormous historical change and its effects, focusing first on the long process of conversion to Islam after the Arab conquests, and then on the contexts of individual and mass conversions in medieval Islamic societies.

A broad-ranging introduction to pre-modern, modern, and contemporary Islam in light of how Muslims have approached their foundational religious text, the Qur'an. Topics include: Muhammad and the emergence of Islam; theology, law and ethics; war and peace; mysticism; women and gender; and modern debates on Islamic reform. We shall examine the varied contexts in which Muslims have interpreted their sacred text, their agreements and disagreements on what it means and, more broadly, their often competing understandings of Islam and of what it is to be a Muslim.

This course exposes students to the historical, ethnic, linguistic, and cultural factors that have shaped Indigenous Amazigh communities in Tamazgha (North Africa) and its diasporas. It examines the role that Amazigh communities have played in revitalizing their cultures in contemporary Tamazgha and makes visible the acknowledgement the Amazighity of lands in North Africa and complexities of language, cultural identity, and colonialism in the region. Many resources in the source will be taken from the instructor's talks with family members, other Indigenous scholars, and activists in the community.

Fear of the use of oil as a weapon has actuated fateful US polices such as overthrow of an Iranian regime in 1953 and the use of military force in the Persian Gulf since 1984. Yet while the US obsesses about a supply constraint that never materializes, obverse phenomena occur in the Middle East. There, the OPEC cartel was organized to keep over-abundant oil off the market. In this seminar, students will join their professor in surveying the history of Western beliefs about commodities, empire, and wealth.

Provides a framework for understanding the political and economic issues that both challenge and encourage development in the Middle East and Northern Africa. Students will think creatively about the issues raised by designing a development project aimed at tackling a specific problem in a Middle Eastern country. Two lectures, one precept.

An examination of the political dimensions of Islam, involving a study of the nature of Islamic political theory, the relationship between the religious and political establishments, the characteristics of an Islamic state, the radicalization of Sunni and Shi'i thought, and the compatibility of Islam and the nation-state, democracy, and constitutionalism, among other topics. Students will be introduced to the complex and polemical phenomenon of political Islam, using examples drawn mainly, though not exclusively, from cases and writings from the Middle East. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

Prepares NES majors to conduct independent research in Near Eastern Studies by introducing the central questions, debates, and scholarly methodologies that have informed the region's study in varying disciplines (history, comparative literature, religious studies, political science, and anthropology). Includes practical training in academic research and writing: how to design a research project, find and make sense of relevant primary and secondary sources, develop an argument, and write a compelling scholarly paper. Includes museum visits and guest lectures.