Near Eastern Studies

Academic Year: 
2019-20
Address: 
Jones Hall
Phone: 
609-258-4281
Website: 
Department of Near Eastern Studies
Program offerings: 
Ph.D.
M.A.
Director of Graduate Studies
Ph.D.
Michael A. Cook
M.A.
Marina Rustow
Graduate Program Administrator
James LaRegina

Academic department detail

Overview

The Department of Near Eastern Studies (NES) has been a leader in the study of the Middle East since 1927, when it was founded as the Department of Oriental Languages and Literatures. While traditionally the strength of the department has been in the medieval and pre-modern studies of the geographical area that includes the Arab lands, Iran, Israel, and Turkey, greater emphasis has been given more recently to the modern Muslim world in its entirety, including the Caucasus, Central Asia, and South Asia. This development recognizes the many interconnections of the Muslim world and enables NES to offer its students an interdisciplinary program of studies that breaks out of the artificial constraints imposed by the traditional geographical focus.

For students interested in pursuing graduate studies in preparation for academic and other careers, the Department of Near Eastern Studies offers a program of study leading to the Ph.D. There is considerable flexibility in the individual course of study and in the choice of dissertation topic.

For students contemplating careers in government, business, or journalism, where a Ph.D. is not a requirement, the Program in Near Eastern Studies also offers a two-year degree curriculum leading to the M.A. as a final degree. This special program is governed by an interdepartmental committee. The Program Director oversees the student’s course selection, master’s thesis, and examinations.

 

Courses

Permanent Courses

Courses listed below are graduate-level courses that have been approved by the program’s faculty as well as the Curriculum Subcommittee of the Faculty Committee on the Graduate School as permanent course offerings. Permanent courses may be offered by the department or program on an ongoing basis, depending on curricular needs, scheduling requirements, and student interest. Not listed below are undergraduate courses and one-time-only graduate courses, which may be found for a specific term through the Registrar’s website. Also not listed are graduate-level independent reading and research courses, which may be approved by the Graduate School for individual students.

HIS 518 Topics in Middle East History (also
NES 519
) This graduate seminar examines key historiographical and methodological issues in modern Middle Eastern history. Based on student interest, themes and materials may vary. Based on student interest, readings in Arabic will be added where appropriate.
HIS 538 Readings in the Social, Cultural, and Intellectual History of the Modern Middle East (also
NES 517
) This graduate reading seminar explores important works in the history of the modern and contemporary Middle East. Weekly readings consist of scholarly monographs on a particular theme, to be read and discussed in conjunction with related articles and other readings. Students are evaluated on active oral participation, two presentations, one critical book review as well as a longer historiographical essay.
HIS 540 Themes in World History, 1300-1850: The Mediterranean (also
HLS 545
/
NES 548
) This course introduces students to the recent theoretical literature on the history of the sea as well as the current historiography on the early modern (1300-1850) Mediterranean. The Ottoman Empire, the Venetian Republic and North Africa all feature prominently. Students must be able to write a paper based on primary sources. Wide latitude is given in order to accommodate student interest.
NES 500 Introduction to the Professional Study of the Near East A departmental colloquium normally taken by all entering graduate students. It is designed to introduce students to reference and research tools, major trends in the scholarship of the field, and the faculty of the department.
NES 502 An Introduction to the Islamic Scholarly Tradition (also
MED 502
) A hands-on introduction to such basic genres of medieval scholarship as biography, history, tradition, and Koranic exegesis, taught through the intensive reading of texts in Arabic. The syllabus varies according to the interests of the students and the instructor.
NES 503 Themes in Islamic Culture The theme of the course varies from year to year. The format normally includes both the analytical treatment of issues and the reading of texts in Near Eastern languages, especially Arabic.
NES 504 Introduction to Ottoman Turkish An introduction to the writing system and grammar of Ottoman Turkish through close reading of graded selections taken from newspapers, short stories, and travelogues printed in the late Ottoman and early Republican era.
NES 505 Readings in Ottoman Turkish Reading and discussion of texts focusing on key issues in late Ottoman and early Republican history. The course goals are to develop reading skills in Ottoman Turkish and to examine important texts written between 1750 and 1928.
NES 506 Ottoman Diplomatics: Paleography and Diplomatic Documents An introduction to Ottoman paleography and diplomatics. The documents will be in divani and rikca scripts.
NES 511 Introduction to Syriac A systematic introduction to Syriac language. Close reading of selected passages of Syriac texts.
NES 512 Intermediate Syriac Study of selected passages from various genres of Syriac literature. Knowledge of Syriac is required.
NES 513 The Palestine Liberation Organization: The Evolution of a Nationalist Movement The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), founded in 1964, has a history of diverse activity across the Middle East and beyond. We situate the PLO in the Arab-Israeli conflict and contemporaneous nationalist, anti-colonial, and militant movements;study its structure and internal divisions;consider its evolution through key pivot points;analyze its own publications along with critical scholarship. We assess the PLO's successes (e.g. its recognition as "the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people" and its achievements in the Oslo Process) as well as its failures (the lack of a Palestinian state) and contemporary challenges.
NES 516 Problems in Early Modern and Modern North African History This graduate seminar introduces students to problems related to the history of North Africa from the 16th to the beginning of the 21st century. In particular, it explores the crucial issues of chronology: how periods in North African history have been defined and to what extent are they relevant? This seminar focuses on the issue of majority and minorities in North African studies by reviewing recent research on Berbers and Jews in the Maghrib. In a second part, this seminar also surveys recent topics in the relevant literature, such as environmental history, gender studies and religious history.
NES 523 Readings in Judeo-Arabic (also
HIS 563
) An introduction to the reading of Arabic texts written by medieval Jews in the Hebrew script, especially documents from the Cairo Geniza.
NES 528 Persian Historiography from the Mongols to the Qajars This course is designed to introduce advanced students of Persian to later Classical Persian prose from the Mongol conquests of the thirteenth century down to the middle of the nineteenth century, when significant innovations were introduced into Persian literary style. Over the course of the semester, students gain familiarity with texts composed in Iran, India, and Central Asia in a variety of literary genres including history, biography, hagiography, and travelogues. Each week's classes consist of excerpted readings from primary sources along with secondary sources related to the readings.
NES 531 Readings in Classical Arabic Literature A reading of selections of poetry and prose. Problems of narrative, poetics, and the like may be discussed according to the interests of the class.
NES 532 Readings in Classical Arabic Literature A reading of selections of poetry and prose. Problems of narrative, poetics, and the like may be discussed according to the interests of the class.
NES 535 Recovering the Voices of the Oppressed in Middle East and North Africa (also
HIS 505
) Historians of modern North Africa have frequently complained about the scarcity or absence of "local" sources for writing its history. Instead they have often relied on European colonial sources. This course explores this in the context of the voices and testimonies of the oppressed. We first discuss theoretical approaches that aim to recover the voices of such people during pre-colonial, colonial and postcolonial times and then focus on specific North African cases, such as slaves, women, "queers", and victims of authoritarian postcolonial regimes.
NES 539 Studies in Persian Literature 900 - 1200 A.D. An examination of the literature of the second great classical language of Islam through consideration of epics, chronicles, lyric poems, mystical writings, and imaginative tales from the traditional Persian-speaking world¿not only present-day Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan, but also Anatolia, Central Asia and the Indian sub-continent¿with special emphasis on Sufism, connections to the visual arts, and royal symbolism.
NES 540 Studies in Later Persian Literature 1200 - 1800 A.D. An extension of 539 into the early modern period.
NES 543 Readings on World War One and the Middle East The study of the Middle East in World War I has advanced rapidly over the course of the past decade. This course surveys the burgeoning literature on WWI in the Middle East and addresses such questions as how Ottoman strategic performance impacted the war; the experience of "total war" in the Middle East and how it shaped governance; the relationship between war and imperial collapse; and the motives for demographic engineering and mass killing. No prerequisites.
NES 545 Problems in Near Eastern Jewish History: Judaism after the Talmud (also
MED 545
/
REL 548
/
JDS 545
) A study of a number of central problems, historiographical issues, and primary sources relevant to the history of the Jewish minority under Islam in the Middle Ages.
NES 547 Introduction to Arabic Documents (also
HIS 546
) An introduction to hands-on work with medieval Arabic documentary sources in their original manuscript form. Between 100,000 and 200,000 such documents have survived, making this an exciting new area of research with plenty of discoveries still to be made. Students learn how to handle the existing repertory of editions, documentary hands, Middle Arabic, transcription, digital resources and original manuscripts, including Geniza texts currently on loan to Firestone from the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. The syllabus varies according to the interests of the students and the instructor.
NES 549 Documents and Institutions in the Medieval Middle East (also
HIS 509
) Seminar is part of a multi-year collaborative project devoted to reading Arabic documents from the medieval Middle East in Hebrew and Arabic script. Students contribute to a corpus of diplomatic editions, translations and commentaries to be published in the project's collection of texts. We introduce the most common legal and administrative genres: letters, lists, deeds, contracts, decrees and petitions. Our goal is to make this material legible as historical sources by combining philology, diplomatics, attention to the material text, and institutional and social history. Prerequisite: good reading knowledge of classical Arabic.
NES 550 Persian Historiography and Belles-Lettres from the Origins of New Persian to the Mongols Introduces advanced Persian students to Classical Persian prose from the appearance of literary New Persian in the 10th century to the time of the poet Sa'di Shirazi, whose Gulistan was regarded as the culmination of good literary style and a classic in ensuing centuries. Students gain familiarity with a variety of genres including history, geography, travelogues, ethical texts, and hagiography; develop archival skills through an introduction to Islamic codicology; acquire both linguistic competency in working with Classical Persian sources as well as an introduction to the scholarly debates surrounding the works in question.
NES 552 History and Society of Modern Arabia This course examines the history, politics and society of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, perhaps the most important country in both the Arab and Islamic worlds today. Students will be exposed to the Kingdom's complex relationship with political Islam, the global oil market, other Arab and Muslim countries as well as the West. This course will give students a solid overview of the Kingdom's history, politics and society through a careful selection of published and unpublished studies. The aim of the course is to get students acquainted with the history of the Kingdom and the main factors that have played a role in its unfolding.
NES 553 Studies in Islamic Religion and Thought Readings of texts that are illustrative of various issues in Muslim religious thought. The texts are selected according to students' needs.
NES 554 Empire and Nation in Theory and Practice: The Middle East and Eurasia The end of dynastic imperial rule in Eurasia and the Middle East was a seminal event in the history of the twentieth century. This seminar starts by surveying a range of theories of nationalism drawn from varied disciplines. It then asks students to apply them to the historical record using cases drawn from Ottoman, Russian, and occasionally Austro-Hungarian history. The origins of nationalism and the nature of imperial rule are among the topics discussed. The final part of the course compares the nationalizing polices of several post-imperial regimes and revisits the question of whether nationalism is central or epiphenomenal.
NES 555 Themes in Islamic Law and Jurisprudence Selected topics in Islamic law and jurisprudence. The topics vary from year to year, but the course normally includes the reading of fatwas and selected Islamic legal texts in Arabic.
NES 561 Studies in Modern Arab History Selected topics in the history of the Arab East from the 18th century to the present.
NES 563 Comparative Transformations in the Near East and Eurasia Surveys the political, intellectual, social, and cultural transformations of the Near East and Eurasia from the late 17th through the 20th centuries by investigating the responses of the states and societies of those two broad regions to common geopolitical, economic, and intellectual challenges. Course seeks to understand those responses on their own terms, to relate them to each other, and thereby stimulate students to think outside the models and assumptions provided by European historiography.
NES 567 The Politics of the Contemporary Muslim World The course examines and compares the role of Islamist movements, women's rights movements, and Islamic political parties in shaping social and political change across a variety of cases. Case studies draw upon the broader Muslim world, with particular emphasis on movements and parties in Iran, Egypt, Indonesia and Turkey.
NES 573 Problems in Late Ottoman History A study of a number of central problems, historiographical issues, and primary sources relevant to the history of the late Ottoman Empire. Topics vary from year to year.
NES 587 Salafi Islam Salafism and Salafi Muslims have irrupted on the global and Middle Eastern political scenes in the last decade, and are often described by pundits in the media as the enemies of the West and all that is modern. This course will interrogate such common, and mistaken, assumptions, looking more carefully at the medieval theology and law of the Salafi movement as well as the beliefs and actions of its modern and contemporary followers.
REL 509 Studies in the History of Islam (also
NES 510
/
GSS 509
) Themes in Islamic religion are examined.
REL 520 Approaches to Islamic Intellectual History (also
NES 520
) This seminar provides a broad-ranging introduction to and assessment of approaches to pre-modern and modern Islamic intellectual history. How, and with what success, have scholars tried to place particular developments in their varied intellectual, political, socio-economic, and cultural contexts? What constitutes the relevant context and how should one try to mediate among competing ways of accounting for particular intellectual developments? What assumptions - historiographical, sociological, normative - have guided recent work and how do they compare with an earlier generation's scholarship? These are among the questions we address.
REL 542 Islamic Thought and Society, 18th-20th centuries (also
NES 542
) Using primary sources in translation, this seminar introduces students to the thought of key Muslim figures active between the 18th and the 20th centuries. What are the legal, theological, and other traditions with reference to which their writings are to be understood? How do we relate their work to the social and political contexts in which it was produced? How have the questions to which they were responding changed during this time?
REL 586 Religious Authority in Modern Islam (also
NES 586
) How far reaching is the ¿fragmentation¿ of religious authority in modern Islam? How have traditional religious scholars sought to rearticulate their authority in conditions of radical change? On what basis do ¿new religious intellectuals¿ make their claims to authority? How has the state shaped structures of religious authority? What is peculiar to modern Islam so far as conceptions of and contestations over religious authority are concerned? These are among the questions this seminar seeks to examine.
WWS 556F Topics in IR (also
NES 559
) Courses that examine particular issues in international relations. Topics vary according to the interests of the students and the instructors. Fall term courses are numbered 555; spring term courses are numbered 556.