New MESAAS Courses Spring 2025
MDES GU4952 Leaving the Ottoman Empire
Nora Lessersohn T 10:10am-12:00pm
This course will examine the experience of Ottoman American communities before, during, and after their migration to the United States, with a particular focus on Ottoman Armenians pre- and post-genocide. Through close readings of the scholarship on Ottoman Armenian, Turkish, Jewish, Arab, and Greek immigration, we will ask: what global forces compelled Ottoman journeys to America (e.g. economic opportunity, Christian imperialism, state-sponsored violence, interethnic strife)? And what ideologies informed the way these migrants were received in a new country (e.g. nativism, nationalism, Orientalism, philhellenism)? In answering these questions and raising new ones, we will also aim to understand how Ottoman American immigration stories both fit into and challenge the existing scholarship on “American immigration” as well as race, whiteness, and citizenship studies. Throughout the course, we will pay special attention to the experience of Ottoman American immigrants in New York City through field trips, museums, and other primary and secondary source materials.
MDES GU4532 Beyond Human in Modern Hebrew Literature
Naama Harel W 2:10pm-4:00pm
“The possibility of pogroms,” claims Theodor Adorno, “is decided in the moment when the gaze of a fatally-wounded animal falls on a human being. The defiance with which he repels this gaze—’after all it’s only an animal’—reappears irresistibly in cruelties done to human beings.” This course traces the development of Modern Hebrew literature, from its fin-de-siècle revival to contemporary Israeli fiction, through the prism of animality and animalization. We will focus on human-animal relations and animalization/dehumanization of humans in literary works by prominent Hebrew authors, including M.Y. Berdichevsky, Devorah Baron, S.Y. Agnon, Amos Oz, David Grossman, Orly Castel-Bloom, Almog Behar, Etgar Keret, and Sayed Kashua. Employing posthumanist and ecofeminist theoretical lenses, we will analyze the bio-political intersections of species and gender, as well as animalization as a process of otherization of marginalized ethnic groups. Throughout the course, we will ask questions, such as: why animals abound in Modern Hebrew literature? Are they merely metaphors for intra-human issues, or rather count as subjects? What literary devices are used to portray animals? How has the depiction of human-animal relations changed in Hebrew over the last 150 years? How do cultural and political frameworks inform representations of human-animal relations? No prior knowledge of Hebrew is required; all readings and class discussions will be in English. Course participants with reading knowledge of Hebrew are encouraged to consult the original literary texts, provided by the instructor upon request.
MDES GU4220 The Arabic Linguistic Tradition
May Ahmar R 12:10pm-2:00pm
The purpose of the Arabic Linguistic Tradition course is to introduce undergraduate and graduate students to the Arabic Linguistic Tradition, starting before Islam and ending in current times. The course maps out the context in which the Arabic language and its predecessors existed, the history of the development of the language, its script, its geographical spread, its linguistic
influences on other languages and scripts throughout the world, as well as its own influences by other languages. The course will also examine the importance of Arabic as a language of
religion, philosophy, sciences, and nationalism. Furthermore, the course will focus on the classical Arabic linguistic categories and fields devised by Arab/Arabic grammarians, and how
we can situate them vis-à-vis modern western linguistic theories. The course will detail some of the language linguistic issues, challenges and secrets, as the language stands on its own, as well as within a euro-centric “modern” linguistic theories framework.
MDES UN2046 Slavery, Race, Racism
Humeira Iqtidar TR 10:10am-11:25am
Contemporary discussions about racism have tended to focus on the experience of North Atlantic slave trade, and theoretical debates tend to rely upon American experiences of racialization. However, there is substantial variation in the contours of racism across time and space. Relatedly, strategies for resistance to racism also vary significantly. It is important to think through the political and theoretical implications of potential differences in experiences and forms of racism in the global south. To this end, this course attempts to provide an insight into both historical and ideational variation. We will engage with historical research as well as the political ideas of particular thinkers grappling with the challenge of modern racism.
At the same time as exploring the variation in historical, regional and ideational debates we will pay considerable attention to the arguments proposed by many global south thinkers about homogenization under global capitalism. The mutual imbrication of modern racism and capitalism has been an important concern for many 20th century Global South thinkers and it is useful to think through their arguments regarding simultaneous homogenization and differentiation built into capitalism. While ‘non-Western’ or Global South thinkers have addressed questions of race and racism in important ways, some have also voiced racist views of their own. The course draws upon scholarship in Postcolonial Theory, Black Marxist and Radical thought, and Comparative Political Theory, as well recent comparative historical research on questions of slavery and racialization.