Introduction

Link to syllabus

Link to WDI

Link to C-Tools

Introductory Comments

Housekeeping: Roll, adds/drops, office hours, syllabus

Grade based on exams and papers

Comments on textbook and readings

Major themes: Geography and History, and:

Economic: Petroleum/Midas curse, Population, Urban,

Agriculture, Migration, Inflation and Stabilization

Social: Gender, Tribes and Minorities, Islamists

Geographical coverage (maps), chronological coverage

Not much on:

current events of Arab-Israeli conflict

US policy towards region

MENA map

Mid-East I

Jordan, Israel, West Bank & Gaza

Spread of Islam, 650-1500

Boundaries of the (Muslim) Middle East, 800, 1550, 1880

Note: Expansion into France by 800 a.d.Expulsion from Spain 1492(Ottoman) expansion into Constantinople/ Istanbul in 1453, and up to Vienna ~1600

These maps underplay the establishment of Islam in western Africa, and evidently do not pretend to display the expansion of Islam into the Indian subcontinent, China, Indonesia, Phillipines, etc.

800

1550

1880

Edward Said

Born in East Jerusalem, to aChristian family

Was professor of comparativeliterature at Columbia U. in New York.

Wrote Orientalism in 1978.

Had been a member ofPalestinian Council, wasquite critical of Arafat

Died of cancer 2003.

Short version of Said’s Critique in Orientalism

Orientalists simplified (using crude stereotypes) Muslims, within a context of their cultural inferiority to Western Europeans

People from “the Orient” were depicted as sexual demons

More contemporary Orientalists have worked with a hidden agenda, basically pro-Israel and anti-Arab. Their analyses reflects this bias.

People from the Middle East have suffered because their stories have been told by these Orientalists. It is time to let them be their own representatives.

Said and Daniel Barenboim

Barenboim conducting a concert in Mathaf Cultural House, in Gaza, May 2011.

Source: New York Times

Said practicing rock throwing

Examples of “Orientalist” Paintings

Delacroix: Sardana

Renoir

Gerome-Whirling Dervish

Gerome

Gerome

T. E. Lawrence

Lawrence of Arabia Poster

Link to Juan Cole, on the movie

Yul Brynner

King Mongkut