SOCIOLOGY 950.2, 1-CREDIT GRADUATE SEMINAR "MIDDLE EAST POLITICS," SPRING 2007
Professor Charles
Kurzman
Department of
Sociology, University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill
http://www.unc.edu/~kurzman/Soc9502.htm
Updated March 23, 2007
Class Sessions:
Thursdays, 2:00-3:30 p.m., 151 Hamilton Hall.
Office Hours:
227 Hamilton Hall, by appointment (919-962-1241,
kurzman@unc.edu)
Course Goals:
1) To introduce students to major trends in the study of Middle East politics.
2) To develop undergraduate syllabi in Middle East politics.
3) To select and test hypotheses from the literature on Middle East politics.
4) Not to overburden the students or instructor, since this
is only a 1-credit seminar.
Course Requirements:
1. Attendance and Participation (10% of final grade).
Class will meet every week for one to two hours.
2. Assigned Reading (not graded directly).
3. Reading Notes, due 24 hours before each class
(30%
of final grade). We will divide up the readings, allowing for overlap,
and submit reading notes via e-mail to the course list-serve -- copying
and pasting
the notes into the text of the message, not sending them as an
attachment.
These notes, approximately 400 words per book or 250 words per article or chapter, should
include:
(a) the full bibliographic citation of the work
(b) the main points of the reading, including summaries
of each chapter or section
(c) definitions of major concepts and examples of their
use in the text
(d) significant quotations and items that you find interesting
(e) answers to the "big questions" identified at the
start of the course
(f) your reactions/questions/critiques/linkages with
other theorists/etc. (these analytical notes should
be set aside from the descriptive notes via brackets).
(g) page references throughout; these notes will serve
as your customized index to the reading. The notes will be graded 2 points
each if complete and turned in on time, 1 point if incomplete or one class
late, and 0.5 points if more than one class late.
4. An undergraduate syllabus on Middle East Politics, annotated with
explanations for your choice of readings and themes, due
April 26, 2007 (15% of final grade).
5. A research proposal or a preliminary research paper, due April 26, 2007 (45 percent of final grade). The research proposal should be about 1000
words, designing a test of some hypothesis in the field of social movement
studies. Sample papers are available from the instructor. Use the following outline for
your paper:
(i) a short and descriptive title. (0 points)
(ii) a paragraph summarizing the entire paper (150 words). (5 points)
(iii) a 350-word discussion of the hypothesis
you plan to test, including extensive references to the readings. (15 points)
(iv) a 150-word justification of your case or data selection,
explaining why this is a particularly worthwhile and feasible place to look for a test of
this hypothesis. (10 points)
(v) a 350-word discussion of the proposed methodology,
concluding with your preliminary or expected findings and how they confirm
or disconfirm the hypothesis. (10 points)
(vi) a list of references cited in the paper, with full
bibliographical information. (5 points)
Class meetings:
1. January 11, 2007. Planning.
No readings.
2. January 18, 2007. Major Texts.
Readings:
1. Dale F. Eickelman and James P. Piscatori, Muslim Politics, 2nd ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004.
or 2. Roger Owen, State, Power and Politics in the Making of the Modern Middle East, 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 2004.
Optional:
1. James Bill, "The Study of Middle East Politics: A Stocktaking," Middle East Journal, Vol. 50, No. 4, Autumn 1996.
2.
Mark Tessler, Jodi Nachtwey and Anne Banda, eds., Area Studies and Social Science: Strategies for Understanding Middle East Politics. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1999.
3. Zachary Lockman, Contending Visions of the Middle East: The History and Politics of Orientalism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
3. January 25, 2007. Uses of the Past.
Readings:
1. Nadia Abu El-Haj, Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2001.
2. Youssef M. Choueiri, Modern Arab Historiography: Historical Discourse and the Nation-State, revised edition. London, UK: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003.
3. Allen J. Frank, Islamic Historiography and “Bulghar” Identity among the Tatars and Bashkirs of Russia. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 1998.
4. Israel Gershoni, Amy Singer, Y. Hakan Erdem, eds., Middle East Historiographies: Narrating the Twentieth Century. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2006.
5. James McDougall, History and the Culture of Nationalism in Algeria. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
6. Yaron Peleg, Orientalism and the Hebrew Imagination. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005.
7. Donald M. Reid, Whose Pharaohs? Archaeology, Museums, and Egyptian National Identity from Napoleon to World War I. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002.
8. Wendy M. K. Shaw, Possessors and Possessed: Museums, Archaeology, and the Visualization of History in the Late Ottoman Empire. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2003.
9. Neil Asher Silberman, Between Past and Present: Archaeology, Ideology, and Nationalism in the Modern Middle East. New York, NY: H. Holt, 1989.
10. Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi, Refashioning Iran: Orientalism, Occidentalism, and Historiography. New York, NY: Palgrave, 2001.
11. Yael Zerubavel, Recovered Roots: Collective Memory and the Making of Israeli National Tradition. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1995.
12. Charles Kurzman, "Weaving Iran into the Tree of Nations," International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 37, No. 1, May 2005, pp. 137-165.
4. February 1, 2007. Nationalism and the Emergence of the Nation-State.
Readings:
1. Soner Çaǧaptay, Islam, Secularism, and Nationalism in Modern Turkey: Who Is a Turk? London, UK: Routledge, 2006.
2. Eric Davis, Memories of State: Politics, History, and Collective Identity in Modern Iraq. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2005.
3. Fatma Müge Göçek, ed., Social Constructions of Nationalism in the Middle East. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2002.
4. Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet, Frontier Fictions: Shaping the Iranian Nation, 1804-1946. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999.
5. Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1997.
6. Abdeslam M. Maghraoui, Liberalism without Democracy: Nationhood and Citizenship in Egypt, 1922-1936. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006.
7. Joseph A. Massad, Colonial Effects: The Making of National Identity in Jordan. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2001.
8. Mansoor Moaddel, Islamic Modernism, Nationalism, and Fundamentalism: Episode and Discourse. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2005.
9. Yuri Slezkine, The Jewish Century. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004.
10. Elizabeth Thompson, Colonial Citizens: Republican Rights, Paternal Privilege, and Gender in French Syria and Lebanon. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2000.
5. February 8, 2007: National Conflict.
Readings:
1. Raymond A. Hinnebusch, The International Politics of the Middle East. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2003.
2. Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, The International Politics of the Persian Gulf: A Cultural Genealogy. London, UK: Routledge, 2006.
3. Fred Halliday, The Middle East in International Relations: Power, Politics and Ideology. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
4. Beverley Milton-Edwards and Peter Hinchcliffe, Conflicts in the Middle East since 1945, 2nd ed. London, UK: Routledge, 2004.
5. Mirjam E. Sorli, Nils Petter Gleditsch and Håvard Strand, "Why Is There So Much Conflict in the Middle East?" Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 49, No. 1, February 2005, pp. 141-165.
6. Morten Valbjorn, "Toward a 'Mesopotamian Turn': Disciplinarity and
the Study of the International Relations of the Middle East," Journal of Mediterraniean Studies, Vol. 14, Nos. 1-2, 2004, pp. 47-76.
More to come.
6. February 15, 2007: Israeli/Palestinian Conflict.
Readings:
1. Elise Boulding, ed., Building Peace in the Middle East: Challenges for States and Civil Society, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1994.
2. Charles D. Smith, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 5th ed. New York, NY: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2004.
More to come.
7. February 22, 2007. Islam and Politics: Radical Islamic Movements.
Readings:
1. Saad Eddin Ibrahim, "Anatomy of Egypt's Militant Islamic Groups: Methodological Notes and Preliminary Findings," International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 12, 1980, pp. 423-453.
2. Graham E. Fuller, The Future of Political Islam. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
3. Gilles Kepel, Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002.
4. Gilles Kepel, The War for Muslim Minds: Islam and the West, by Gilles Kepel. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004.
5. Olivier Roy, The Failure of Political Islam. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994.
6. Olivier Roy, Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2004.
7. Ray Takeyh and Nikolas K. Gvosdev, The Receding Shadow of the Prophet: The Rise and Fall of Radical Political Islam. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2004.
8.
Charles Kurzman, review of Fuller (2003), Kepel (2004), Roy (2004), and Takeyh/Gvosdev (2004).
9. Charles Kurzman, "Bin Laden and Other Thoroughly Modern Muslims,"
Contexts, Vol. 1, No. 4, Fall/Winter 2002,
pp. 13-20 (online version).
10. Charles Kurzman, The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004.
11. Carrie Wickham, Mobilizing Islam: Religion, Activism, and Political Change in Egypt. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2002.
12. Quintan Wiktorowicz, editor, Islamic Activism: A Social Movement Theory Approach. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2004.
13. Mohammed M. Hafez, Manufacturing Human Bombs: The Making of Palestinian Suicide Bombers. Washington, DC: U.S. Institute of Peace, 2006.
14. Ahmed S. Hashim, Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency in Iraq. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006.
15. J. Millard Burr and Robert O. Collins, Alms for Jihad: Charity and Terrorism in the Islamic World. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
16. Fawaz A. Gerges, The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
8. March 1, 2007: Islam and Politics: Liberal Islamic Movements.
Readings:
1. Charles Kurzman, editor, Liberal Islam: A Sourcebook. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1998.
2. Charles Kurzman, editor, Modernist Islam, 1840-1940: A Sourcebook. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2002.
3. Armando Salvatore and Dale F. Eickelman, editors, Public Islam and the Common Good. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2004.
4. Jillian Schwedler, Faith in Moderation: Islamist Parties in Jordan and Yemen. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
5. Azzam S. Tamimi, Rachid Ghannouchi: A Democrat within Islamism. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2001.
6. Hakan Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity in Turkey. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2003.
7. Yeşim Arat, Rethinking Islam and Liberal Democracy: Islamist Women in Turkish Politics. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2005.
8. Hussein Ghubash , Oman: The Islamic Democratic Tradition. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2006.
9. March 8, 2007. State and Civil Society.
Readings:
1. L. Carl Brown, Religion and State: The Muslim Approach to Politics. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2000.
2. Sheila Carapico, Civil Society in Yemen: The Political Economy of Activism in Modern Arabia. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
2. Janine A. Clark, Islam, Charity, and Activism: Middle-Class Networks and Social Welfare in Egypt, Jordan, and Yemen. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2004.
3. Dale F. Eickelman and Jon W. Anderson, editors, New Media in the Muslim World: The Emerging Public Sphere, 2nd ed. Bloomington : Indiana University Press, 2003.
4. A. Nizar Hamzeh, In the Path of Hizbullah. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2004.
5. Saad Eddin Ibrahim, Egypt, Islam and Democracy: Critical Essays, with a New Postscript. Cairo, Egypt: American University in Cairo Press, 2002.
6. Joel S. Migdal, Strong Societies and Weak States: State-Society Relations and State Capabilities in the Third World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988.
7. Augustus Richard Norton, editor, Civil Society in the Middle East, 2 vols. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 1995.
8. Bryan S. Turner, "Orientalism and the Problem
of Civil Society in Islam." Pp. 23-42 in Asaf Hussain, Robert Olson and
Jamil Qureshi, eds., Orientalism, Islam, and Islamists. Brattleboro, VT: Amana Books, 1984.
9. Jenny B. White, Islamist Mobilization in Turkey: A Study in Vernacular Politics. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2002.
10. March 22, 2007. Democratization.
Readings:
1. Nathan J. Brown, Constitutions in a Nonconstitutional World: Arab Basic Laws and the Prospects for Accountable Government. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2002.
2. Rex Bryen, Baghat Korany, and Paul Noble, eds.,
Political Liberalization: Democratization in the Arab World, Vol. 1,
Theoretical Perspectives. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1995.
3. Larry Diamond, Marc F. Plattner, and Daniel Brumberg, editors, Islam and Democracy in the Middle East. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003.
4. Najib Ghadbian, Democratization and the Islamist Challenge in the Arab World. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1997.
5. Yahya Sadowski, "The New Orientalism and the Democracy Debate," Middle East Report, No. 183, 1993, pp. 14-21.
6. Ghassan Salamé, ed.,
Democracy Without Democrats? The Renewal of Politics in the Muslim World. New York, NY: I.B. Tauris, 1994.
7. Special Issue: Democratization in the Muslim
World: Changing Patterns of Power and Authority, Democratization,
June 2006, Vol. 13, No. 3.
8. Mary Ann Tétreault, Stories of Democracy: Politics and Society in Contemporary Kuwait. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2000.
9. Frédéric Volpi, Islam and Democracy: The Failure of Dialogue in Algeria. London, UK: Pluto Press, 2003.
11. March 29, 2007. Enduring Authoritarianism.
Readings:
1. Vali Nasr, Islamic Leviathan. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2001.
2. Gregory Starrett, Putting Islam to Work: Education, Politics, and Religious Transformation in Egypt. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1998.
3. Lisa Wedeen, Ambiguities of Domination: Politics, Rhetoric, and Symbols in Contemporary Syria. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1999.
4. Ellen Lust-Okar, Structuring Conflict in the Arab World: Incumbents, Opponents, and Institutions. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
5. Ellen Lust-Okar, editor, Special Issue on Enduring Authoritarianism: Lessons from the Middle East for Comparative Theory, Comparative Politics, Vol. 36, No. 2, January 2004.
6. Manus I. Midlarsky, "Democracy and Islam: Implications for
Civilizational Conflict and the Democratic Peace," International
Studies Quarterly, Vol. 42, No. 3, September 1998, pp. 485-511.
7. Marsha Pripstein Posusney and Michele Penner Angrist, eds., Authoritarianism in the Middle East: Regimes and Resistance. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2005.
8. Michael Herb, All in the Family: Absolutism, Revolution, and Democracy in the Middle Eastern Monarchies. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1999.
9. The Arab Human Development Report 2004: Towards Freedom in the Arab World. New York, NY : United Nations Development Programme, Regional Bureau for Arab States, 2004.
10. Nicola Pratt, Democracy and Authoritarianiam in the Arab World. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2007.
12. April 5, 2007. Gender.
Readings:
1. Mounira M. Charrad, States and Women's Rights: The Making of Postcolonial Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2001.
2. Lara Deeb, An Enchanted Modern: Gender and Public Piety in Shi'i Lebanon. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006.
3. Nilüfer Göle, The Forbidden Modern: Civilization and Veiling. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1996.
4. Frances Hasso, Resistance, Repression, and Gender Politics in Occupied Palestine and Jordan. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2005.
5. Nikki R. Keddie, Women in the Middle East: Past and Present. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007.
6. Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005.
7. Valentine M. Moghadam, Modernizing Women: Gender and Social Change in the Middle East, 2nd ed. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2003.
8. Valentine M. Moghadam, Globalizing Women: Transnational Feminist Networks, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005.
9. Diane Singerman, Avenues of Participation: Family, Politics, and Networks in Urban Quarters of Cairo. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995.
10. The Arab Human Development Report 2005: Towards the Rise of Women in the Arab World. New York, NY : United Nations Development Programme, Regional Bureau for Arab States, 2005.
13. April 12, 2007. Human Rights.
Reading:
1. Abdullahi Ahmad An-Na'im, "Human Rights in the Arab World: A Regional Perspective," Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 23, 2001.
2. Reza Afshari, "An Essay on Scholarship, Human Rights, and State Legitimacy: The Case of the Islamic Republic of Iran," Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 18, 1996.
3. Mashood A. Baderin, International Human Rights and Islamic Law. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2003.
4. Heiner Bielefeldt, "'Western' versus 'Islamic' Human Rights
Conceptions? A Critique of Cultural Essentialism in the Discussion on
Human Rights," Political Theory, Vol. 28, No. 1, February 2000, pp. 90-121.
5. Heiner Bielefeldt, "Muslim Voices in the Human Rights Debate," Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 17, No. 4, 1995, pp. 587-617.
6. Nathan J. Brown, The Rule of Law in the Arab World: Courts in Egypt and The Gulf. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
7. Eugene Cotran and Mai Yamani, editors, The Rule of Law in the Middle East and the Islamic World: Human Rights and the Judicial Process. London, UK: I. B. Tauris, 2000.
8. Neil Hicks, "Does Islamist Human Rights Activism Offer a Remedy to The
Crisis of Human Rights Implementation in the Middle East?" Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 24, 2002.
9. Ann Elizabeth Mayer, Islam and Human Rights, 4th ed. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2007.
10. Susan Eileen Waltz, "Universal Human Rights: The Contribution of Muslim States," Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 26, 2004.
14. April 19, 2007. Student Research Proposals.
15. April 26, 2007. Review.