MENA585P

041942

How have Palestinians constructed and maintained their sense of peoplehood across wide geographic expanses over the past century? How do we understand multiple cultural manifestations of Palestinians' life across time and place? How do we compare and contrast Palestinian societies around the world?

This interdisciplinary course examines various dimensions of Palestinian cultures and societies from the late Ottoman period to the present. While major political events figure prominently into our material, we will be primarily concerned with how these events reflect on Palestinians themselves. A central premise of this course is that Palestinians can and should be studied on their own terms, not just in terms of conflict with adversaries.

Topics covered in this course include class intersections and tensions, secularism and religiosity, multiple understandings of resistance, and questions of migration, displacement and transnational modes of identity-building. In addition to academic studies (primarily in the fields of history, anthropology, and cultural studies) we will also examine aspects of Palestinian cultures and societies through digital archival material and multi-modal cultural productions.

GRD - Regular Grades A, B, C, D, E

Graduate

CE - CL (Cross Listed), GIDP - PRIR (Persian and Iranian Studies)

MENA485P