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The course is designed to familiarize students with ethnographic writings about contemporary Middle Eastern societies. Analyzing the region through the lenses of anthropology and sociology, the course aims to introduce students to the debates that dominate the research on the region, and which are also relevant to other human societies, such as religion, gender, revolutions, social inequality, and arts. The course aims to expand the understanding of the region that goes beyond the thesis of cultural specificity of the Middle East and to establish the ground for comparison of social, cultural, and historical phenomena.
Format: The course consists of 13 class meetings and is divided into four teaching blocs. The teaching blocs correspond to large debates that dominate the research on the region: 1 – Middle East and the West; 2 – youth cultures; 3 – the arts and media; 4 – the state and social inequality. Based on the obligatory readings, the discussion in the class will be guided along three main concepts: gaze; agency; and body. Class meetings will combine lecturing, discussions, and presentations. The working language of the course is English. Obligatory readings will be made available on the course’s Moodle page. Poslední úprava: Kotalová Karolína, Bc. (15.10.2023)
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Learning aims:
Poslední úprava: Kotalová Karolína, Bc. (15.10.2023)
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Attendance and Participation (Reader’s Response):
Since the course is designed as a seminar, student attendance and participation is paramount. Students are expected to come to the class prepared. To be prepared means that you have read the text thoroughly, reflected critically on its content, and prepared a ½- to 1- page long reading response that you would be ready to share in the class with the others. Questions that should guide you in writing the reader’s response are included in the class schedule. Preparation for discussion includes identifying puzzling aspects of the text, highlighting passages for analysis, and raising questions for debate. Joining in class discussion is vital. I know that not everyone has the same level of comfort with joining in class discussion. If this is an area of challenge for you, come and see me early in the semester and we can try to work on some strategies for your involvement.
Mid-term assignment: book review Students have to submit a book review of approximately 700-1000 words. Choose the book from the list at the end of this document. The book review needs to respond to the following questions: 1 – What is the main argument/ or the main story of the book; 2 – What are the methods and empirical data used, and how they influence the focus and the conclusion of the book? 3 - Describe the larger historical or sociological tradition in which the author positions herself/himself and how the main argument contributes to it, challenges it or confirms it. 4 – Could you think of examples of comparable phenomena in other societies, including your own?
Final Essay
At the end of the term, students have to submit a final essay. The essays should be 2000-3000 words long. Writing an essay is intended to give you a chance to: 1 – show that you have read and understood a selection of the obligatory readings; 2 – read beyond the obligatory texts; 3 – make an argument for or against a certain point backed up by the materials of the readings. An excellent essay is the one that discusses the question from multiple angles, presenting the arguments for and against. An excellent essay is also the one that is back by as many obligatory readings as possible. Below is a list of questions, from which you can choose one. You are free to formulate your own question if you prefer, but such an alternative essay question needs to be discussed with and confirmed by the course instructor.
1 – The legacy of the type of knowledge production that Edward Said calls Orientalism still impacts everyday life and politics in the Middle East. Discuss!
2 – Confronted with the questions regarding the human rights record, the Egyptian president ‘Abd al-Fatah al-Sisi responded that human rights is a Western privilege. Is he right? Discuss!
3 - The majority of women across the Middle East now wear a headscarf. Is veiling a form of women’s oppression or a form of emancipation? Discuss!
4 – Arab culture: between commodification and authenticity. Discuss!
5 - Can religious piety be considered as a particular form of a sub-culture?
Poslední úprava: Kotalová Karolína, Bc. (15.10.2023)
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Abu Lughod, Lila (2002) “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? Anthropological Reflections on Cultural Relativism and its Others”, American Anthropologist, vol. 104, No. 3, 783-790. Abu-Lughod, Lila L. (2005) Dramas of Nationhood: The politics of television in Egypt, The University of Chicago Press. (Chapter 3 and 4). Allen, Lori (2009) Martyrs Bodies in the Media. Humans Rights, Aesthetics, and the Politics of Immediation, American Ethnologist, 36 (1). El Chazli, Youssef (2012) On the Road to Revolutions. How “depoliticized” Egyptians became revolutionaries? Revue Française de Science Politique, 5, vol. 62. Ghannam, Farha (2011), Mobility, liminality, and embodiment in urban Egypt, American Ethnologist, 38/4. Martinez, José Ciro and Omar Sirri (2020). Of Bakeries and Checkpoints. Stately Affects in Amman and Baghdad, Society and Space, Vol. 38 (5), 849-866. Mitchell, Timothy (1989). “The world as exhibition,” Contemporary Studies in Society and History, 31(2), 217-236. Mrázek, Jan (2017). “Returns to the Wide World: Errant Bohemian Images of Race and Colonialism,” Studies in Travel Writing, 21:2. Schielke, Samuli (2015). “I Want to be Committed. Short-lived Trajectories of Salafi Activism in Egypt”. Ricerca Folklorica 69. Sehlikoglu, Sertaç (2016) Exercising in Comfort. Islamicate Culture of Mahremiyet in Everyday Istanbul, Journal of Middle Eastern Women’s Studies, 12 (2). Seikali, Sherene (2021). “The Matter of Time”. Publicbooks.org, January 29, 2021. Accessible on: https://www.publicbooks.org/the-matter-of-time/ Shannon, Jonathan H. (2003), Sultans of Spin: Syrian Sacred Music on the World Stage, American Anthropologist, Vol. 105, No. 2. Book list for book review assignment Samuli Schielke, Migrant Dreams: Egyptian Workers in the Gulf States (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2020. Lucie Ryzova, The Age of Efendiya. Passages to Modernity in National Colonial Egypt. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Lila Abu Lughod, Veiled Sentiments. Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society. California: University of California Press, 2016. Farha Ghannam, Live and Die like a Man. Gender Dynamics in Urban Egypt. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013. Toby Matthiesen, Sectarian Gulf: Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the Arab Spring that Wasn’t, Stanford University Press, 2013. Joseph Massad. Desiring Arabs. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. Salwa Ismail, Rethinking Islamist Politics. Culture, the State and Islamism. London: I.B. Tauris, 2006. Poslední úprava: Andrlová Jarmila, Mgr. (22.08.2023)
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lass Schedule
Week 1: Introduction to the course
Week 2: Orientalism
Obligatory readings: Jan Mrázek (2017). “Returns to the Wide World: Errant Bohemian Images of Race and Colonialism,” Studies in Travel Writing, 21:2. Sherene Seikali (2021). “The Matter of Time”. Publicbooks.org, January 29, 2021. Accessible on: https://www.publicbooks.org/the-matter-of-time/
Additional readings: Edward Said (1978) Orientalism. Vintage Books. (Introduction, Chapter 1 and 2) Frantz Fanon (2008) Black Skin, White Masks. Pluto Press (Introduction, Chapter 1)
Questions for Reader’s Response:
Week 3: Does Arab Culture Exist?
Obligatory readings: Timothy Mitchell (1989). “The world as exhibition,” Contemporary Studies in Society and History, 31(2), 217-236.
Additional readings: Lila Abu-Lughod. (1991) “Writing against Culture,” in R. G. Fox (ed.) Recapturing Anthropology: Working in the present. School of American Research Press. Clifford Geertz (1973) The Interpretation of Cultures. Selected Essays (New York: Basic Books) (Part 1)
Questions for the Reader’s Response:
Week 4: Western Intervention and Human Rights Politics
Obligatory readings: Lila Abu Lughod (2002) “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? Anthropological Reflections on Cultural Relativism and its Others”, American Anthropologist, vol. 104, No. 3, 783-790.
Lewis Turner (2016) “Are Syrian Men Vulnerable Too? Gendering The Syria Refugee Response”, Middle East Institute, available at http://www.mei.edu/content/map/are-syrian-men-vulnerable-too-gendering-syria-refugee-response.
Additional Readings:
Didier Fassin (2011) Humanitarian Reason. A Moral History of the Present. California: University of California Press (Introduction and Chapter 1)
Luc Boltanski (2009) Distant Suffering. Morality, Media and Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (Part 1).
Questions for the Reader’s Response:
Week 5: The Role of Religion.
Obligatory readings: Samuli Schielke (2015). “I Want to be Committed. Short-lived Trajectories of Salafi Activism in Egypt”. Ricerca Folklorica 69.
Additional readings: Saba Mahmood (2005) Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. Princeton: Princeton University Press (Chapter 1). Marie Vannetzel (2017) The Muslim Brotherhood’s “Virtuous Society” and State Developmentalism in Egypt: The Politics of “Goodness”, in Development as a Battlefield, Irene Bono, Beatrice Hibou (eds.) (Brill), 220-244.
Questions for the Reader’s Response:
Week 6: Gender, Intimacy and Family
Obligatory readings: Sertaç Sehlikoglu (2016) Exercising in Comfort. Islamicate Culture of Mahremiyet in Everyday Istanbul, Journal of Middle Eastern Women’s Studies, 12 (2).
Additional readings: Lila Abu Lughod (2011) Seductions of the “Honor Crime”, Differences, vol. 22 (1) Nefissa Neguib (2015) Nurturing Masculinities: Men, Food, and Family in Contemporary Egypt (Texas, Austin: University of Texas Press) (Introduction and Chapter 1)
Questions for the Reader’s Response:
Week 7: Understanding Revolutions
Obligatory readings: Youssef El Chazli (2012) On the Road to Revolutions. How “depoliticized” Egyptians became revolutionaries? Revue Française de Science Politique, 5, vol. 62.
Additional readings:
Walter Armbrust (2019) Martyrs & Trickster. An Ethnography of the Egyptian Revolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press) Lucie Ryzova (2020), The Battle of Muhammad Mahmoud Street in Cairo: The Politics and the Poetics of Urban Violence in Revolutionary Time, Past & Present, no.247. Lisa Wedeen (1999) Ambiguities of Domination. The University of Chicago Press (Chapter 1 and 3).
Questions for the Reader’s Response:
Week 8: The Arts and Cultural Distinction
Obligatory readings: Jonathan H. Shannon (2003), Sultans of Spin: Syrian Sacred Music on the World Stage, American Anthropologist, Vol. 105, No. 2. Additional Readings: Hanan Toukan (2021) The Politics of Art: Dissent and Cultural Diplomacy in Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan (Stanford: Stanford University Press) (Chapter 1 and 2) Marlene Schäfers (2018) “It Used to Be Forbidden”: Kurdish Women and the Limits of Gaining Voice, Journal of Middle Eastern Women’s Journal, 14 (1). Lila Abu Lughod (1986), Veiled Sentiments. Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society (California: California University Press) (chapters 5, 6, 7) Questions for the Reader’s Response:
Week 9: Film screening: Letters from Paradise: Egypt-Vienna (Daniela Swarowski and Samuli Schielke).
Week 10: Social Media and Technology
Obligatory readings: Nevola, Luca. 2016. Love, Mobile Phones and the Codification of Intimacy in Contemporary Yemen, Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 9 (2):147-164.
Additional Readings: Lila Abu-Lughod, L. (2005) Dramas of Nationhood: The politics of television in Egypt, The University of Chicago Press. (Chapter 3 and 4) Lori Allen (2009) Martyrs Bodies in the Media. Humans Rights, Aesthetics, and the Politics of Immediation, American Ethnologist, 36 (1).
Questions for the Reader’s Response:
Week 11: Encountering the State
Obligatory readings: José Ciro Martinez and Omar Sirri (2020). Of Bakeries and Checkpoints. Stately Affects in Amman and Baghdad, Society and Space, Vol. 38 (5), 849-866.
Additional readings: Michel Foucault (1977) Discipline and Punish: the Birth of the Prison (London: Penguin) (Part 3) Salwa Ismail (2006) Political Life in Cairo’s New Quarters: Encountering the Everyday State, Minnesota University Press. (Chapter 2)
Questions for the Reader’s Response:
Week 12: Social Class and Mobility
Obligatory readings:
Farha Ghannam (2011), Mobility, liminality, and embodiment in urban Egypt, American Ethnologist, 38/4.
Additional Readings: Amélie de Renard (2011) Gender, Class, Nationality, and Women’s Access to Public Places in Ryad, Societés Contemporaines 84 (4) Anouk de Kohen (2009) Global Dreams: Class, Gender, and Public Space in Cosmopolitan Cairo (Cairo: AUC) Christa Salamander, Consuming Damascus. Public Culture and the Construction of Social Identity (chapter 8 from the book Damascus: Old and New).
Questions for the Reader’s Response:
Week 13: Final Session: Discussion in Preparation for the Final Essay
Mid-term assignment: book review
Students have to submit a book review of approximately 700-1000 words. Choose the book from the list at the end of this document. The book review needs to respond to the following questions: 1 – What is the main argument/ or the main story of the book; 2 – What are the methods and empirical data used, and how they influence the focus and the conclusion of the book? 3 - Describe the larger historical or sociological tradition in which the author positions herself/himself and how the main argument contributes to it, challenges it or confirms it. 4 – Could you think of examples of comparable phenomena in other societies, including your own? lass Schedule
Week 1: Introduction to the course
Week 2: Orientalism
Obligatory readings: Jan Mrázek (2017). “Returns to the Wide World: Errant Bohemian Images of Race and Colonialism,” Studies in Travel Writing, 21:2. Sherene Seikali (2021). “The Matter of Time”. Publicbooks.org, January 29, 2021. Accessible on: https://www.publicbooks.org/the-matter-of-time/
Additional readings: Edward Said (1978) Orientalism. Vintage Books. (Introduction, Chapter 1 and 2) Frantz Fanon (2008) Black Skin, White Masks. Pluto Press (Introduction, Chapter 1)
Questions for Reader’s Response:
Week 3: Does Arab Culture Exist?
Obligatory readings: Timothy Mitchell (1989). “The world as exhibition,” Contemporary Studies in Society and History, 31(2), 217-236.
Additional readings: Lila Abu-Lughod. (1991) “Writing against Culture,” in R. G. Fox (ed.) Recapturing Anthropology: Working in the present. School of American Research Press. Clifford Geertz (1973) The Interpretation of Cultures. Selected Essays (New York: Basic Books) (Part 1)
Questions for the Reader’s Response:
Week 4: Western Intervention and Human Rights Politics
Obligatory readings: Lila Abu Lughod (2002) “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? Anthropological Reflections on Cultural Relativism and its Others”, American Anthropologist, vol. 104, No. 3, 783-790.
Lewis Turner (2016) “Are Syrian Men Vulnerable Too? Gendering The Syria Refugee Response”, Middle East Institute, available at http://www.mei.edu/content/map/are-syrian-men-vulnerable-too-gendering-syria-refugee-response.
Additional Readings:
Didier Fassin (2011) Humanitarian Reason. A Moral History of the Present. California: University of California Press (Introduction and Chapter 1)
Luc Boltanski (2009) Distant Suffering. Morality, Media and Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (Part 1).
Questions for the Reader’s Response:
Week 5: The Role of Religion.
Obligatory readings: Samuli Schielke (2015). “I Want to be Committed. Short-lived Trajectories of Salafi Activism in Egypt”. Ricerca Folklorica 69.
Additional readings: Saba Mahmood (2005) Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. Princeton: Princeton University Press (Chapter 1). Marie Vannetzel (2017) The Muslim Brotherhood’s “Virtuous Society” and State Developmentalism in Egypt: The Politics of “Goodness”, in Development as a Battlefield, Irene Bono, Beatrice Hibou (eds.) (Brill), 220-244.
Questions for the Reader’s Response:
Week 6: Gender, Intimacy and Family
Obligatory readings: Sertaç Sehlikoglu (2016) Exercising in Comfort. Islamicate Culture of Mahremiyet in Everyday Istanbul, Journal of Middle Eastern Women’s Studies, 12 (2).
Additional readings: Lila Abu Lughod (2011) Seductions of the “Honor Crime”, Differences, vol. 22 (1) Nefissa Neguib (2015) Nurturing Masculinities: Men, Food, and Family in Contemporary Egypt (Texas, Austin: University of Texas Press) (Introduction and Chapter 1)
Questions for the Reader’s Response:
Week 7: Understanding Revolutions
Obligatory readings: Youssef El Chazli (2012) On the Road to Revolutions. How “depoliticized” Egyptians became revolutionaries? Revue Française de Science Politique, 5, vol. 62.
Additional readings:
Walter Armbrust (2019) Martyrs & Trickster. An Ethnography of the Egyptian Revolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press) Lucie Ryzova (2020), The Battle of Muhammad Mahmoud Street in Cairo: The Politics and the Poetics of Urban Violence in Revolutionary Time, Past & Present, no.247. Lisa Wedeen (1999) Ambiguities of Domination. The University of Chicago Press (Chapter 1 and 3).
Questions for the Reader’s Response:
Week 8: The Arts and Cultural Distinction
Obligatory readings: Jonathan H. Shannon (2003), Sultans of Spin: Syrian Sacred Music on the World Stage, American Anthropologist, Vol. 105, No. 2. Additional Readings: Hanan Toukan (2021) The Politics of Art: Dissent and Cultural Diplomacy in Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan (Stanford: Stanford University Press) (Chapter 1 and 2) Marlene Schäfers (2018) “It Used to Be Forbidden”: Kurdish Women and the Limits of Gaining Voice, Journal of Middle Eastern Women’s Journal, 14 (1). Lila Abu Lughod (1986), Veiled Sentiments. Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society (California: California University Press) (chapters 5, 6, 7) Questions for the Reader’s Response:
Week 9: Film screening: Letters from Paradise: Egypt-Vienna (Daniela Swarowski and Samuli Schielke).
Week 10: Social Media and Technology
Obligatory readings: Nevola, Luca. 2016. Love, Mobile Phones and the Codification of Intimacy in Contemporary Yemen, Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 9 (2):147-164.
Additional Readings: Lila Abu-Lughod, L. (2005) Dramas of Nationhood: The politics of television in Egypt, The University of Chicago Press. (Chapter 3 and 4) Lori Allen (2009) Martyrs Bodies in the Media. Humans Rights, Aesthetics, and the Politics of Immediation, American Ethnologist, 36 (1).
Questions for the Reader’s Response:
Week 11: Encountering the State
Obligatory readings: José Ciro Martinez and Omar Sirri (2020). Of Bakeries and Checkpoints. Stately Affects in Amman and Baghdad, Society and Space, Vol. 38 (5), 849-866.
Additional readings: Michel Foucault (1977) Discipline and Punish: the Birth of the Prison (London: Penguin) (Part 3) Salwa Ismail (2006) Political Life in Cairo’s New Quarters: Encountering the Everyday State, Minnesota University Press. (Chapter 2)
Questions for the Reader’s Response:
Week 12: Social Class and Mobility
Obligatory readings:
Farha Ghannam (2011), Mobility, liminality, and embodiment in urban Egypt, American Ethnologist, 38/4.
Additional Readings: Amélie de Renard (2011) Gender, Class, Nationality, and Women’s Access to Public Places in Ryad, Societés Contemporaines 84 (4) Anouk de Kohen (2009) Global Dreams: Class, Gender, and Public Space in Cosmopolitan Cairo (Cairo: AUC) Christa Salamander, Consuming Damascus. Public Culture and the Construction of Social Identity (chapter 8 from the book Damascus: Old and New).
Questions for the Reader’s Response:
Week 13: Final Session: Discussion in Preparation for the Final Essay Poslední úprava: Kotalová Karolína, Bc. (15.10.2023)
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