INTRODUCTION TO THE MODERN MIDDLE EAST (NMC278)

Near and Middle East Civilizations, U of T

2023 -

This course is an introduction to the modern history of the region of North Africa and West Asia commonly known as the Middle East – from the early-19th-century until the present. It offers an in-depth “overview” of central questions about historical processes of social and institutional reforms, militarization, secularization, colonialism, expert practices, resistance, and the making of citizens, publics, subjects, and politics.

The course begins in the mid-19th-century, a period of state-building, intellectual revival, and global imperialism. We will focus on the Arab, Ottoman and Persian worlds to follow the processes of social and institutional reforms, militarization and the refashioning of divine authority. We will then move on to the study of colonialism, expert practices, resistance, the making of citizens, publics, subjects and politics.

The questions that frame the course, which proceeds chronologically, include: How did global forces and local dynamics coalesce to shape the politics of the modern Middle East?  How might we understand the region’s history from the 19th-century without resorting to the reductive framework of “modernization”? How were global scientific, cultural and ideological trends woven together with local ideas about authority, community and the state?