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Course Offerings Relevant for Ottoman and Turkish StudiesCourses at MIT(Available for Cross-Registration to Harvard Students)Consult the MIT course descriptions and schedules for confirmation, further information, and course meeting times and places.
4.614 Religious Architecture and Islamic Culture (Revised Content) () Prereq.: -- Units: 3-0-9 You must enter the HASS-D lottery to take this subject. HASS DISTRIBUTION Recitation: MW12:30-2 (3-133) +final Introduces the history of Islamic cultures through their most vibrant material signs: the religious architecture that spans fourteen centuries and three continents -- Asia, Africa, and Europe. Studies a number of representative examples from the House of the Prophet to the present in conjunction with their social, political, and intellectual environments. Presents Islamic architecture both as a full-fledged historical tradition and as a dynamic and interactive cultural catalyst that influenced and was influenced by the civilizations with which it came in contact. N. Rabbat
4.615 The Architecture of Cairo (Revised Content) () Prereq.: -- Units: 3-0-9 Cairo still shines as a major cultural, political, and economic center in its three spheres of influence: the Arab world, Africa, and the Islamic world. This course narrates the history of the city from the initial settlement on the site (640s) to the present, reviews its urban and architectural developments, and connects them to their Islamic and Mediterranean architectural and cultural contexts. N. Rabbat
4.616 Cultural Signification in Architecture () Prereq.: Permission of instructor Units arranged Seminar on the issue of meaning in architecture. Establishes historical and theoretical frameworks for investigations. Analyzes traditions, transformations, and inventions in architecture as a conveyor of messages that transcend the stylistic, formal, and iconographic domains to include an assessment of some of the political, ideological, social, and cultural concerns of the builders and patrons both synchronically and diachronically. Critically reviews the methodologies and theoretical premises of studies on meaning and iconography in architecture. N. Rabbat
4.617 Issues in Islamic Urbanism () Prereq.: Permission of instructor Units arranged Seminar on selected topics from Islamic urban history. Examines patterns of settlement, urbanization, and architectural production in various places and periods from late antiquity to pre-modern times. Discusses the leading factors in shaping and transforming civic forms, structures, and attitudes. Critically analyzes the body of literature concerned with the Ancient, Medieval, and Islamic city-types. Research paper required. Open to qualified undergraduates. N. Rabbat
4.621 Orientalism and Representation (Revised Content) () Prereq.: Permission of instructor Units arranged Recitation: T2-5 (5-216) Seminar on the historiography and politics of representation with special focus on Orientalist traditions in architecture, art, literature, and scholarship. Critically analyzes pivotal texts, projects, and images that informed the cross-cultural encounters between Europe and the ``Orient'' from Antiquity to the present. Discusses how political and ideological attitudes and beliefs informed both the construction and reproduction of European knowledge about the Orient as well as the revisionist ``Oriental'' self-representations. Research paper required. S. Bozdogan, N. Rabbat
4.623 Technology and the Modern Project (Revised Units) () Prereq.: Permission of instructor Units arranged Recitation: M9:30-12:30 (5-216) Introduces technology as a historical, cultural, and philosophical problem integral to the project of modernity. Reviews aesthetic, ideological, and epistemological appropriations of technology in the architectural culture of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, from ``house-machines'' to ``virtual space.'' Focuses on the significance and status of technology in the critical debates concerning modernity -- between dwelling and transience, between alienation and liberation, between critical programs of resistance to instrumental rationality and radical programs to extend the modern project further. S. Bozdogan
4.624 Architecture and Modernization in the Middle East, 19th and 20th Centuries (, ) Prereq.: Permission of instructor Units: 3-0-9 A historical survey of important architectural and urban transformations in the Middle East from the nineteenth century modernizing reforms in the Ottoman Empire to the current crisis of secular nationalisms and the emergence of Islam as a contending project of civilization. Lectures cover such topics as the transformation of architectural education and practice, the introduction of modern architecture and planning, the work of western architects and firms, the emergence of nationalist, regionalist, and Islamicist discourses. Related readings for discussion. S. Bozdogan
4.626 Modern Architecture and National Identity () Prereq.: Permission of instructor Units: 3-0-9 Addresses the role of architecture in the making of modern national identities in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Focuses on construction and symbolism of national styles in architecture in Europe and in colonial/post-colonial contexts outside Europe. Investigates the complex interplay of the utopic and universalist visions of twentieth century modernism and the cultural and political expressions of nationhood through appropriation of history and/or vernacular traditions. Readings of key texts on nationalism, modernity, and identity. S. Bozdogan
4.627 Special Problems in Islamic and Nonwestern Architecture Prereq.: Permission of instructor Units arranged CONSULT INSTRUCTOR 4.628, 4.629 Special Problems in Islamic and Nonwestern Architecture Prereq.: Permission of instructor Units arranged 4.628: CONSULT INSTRUCTOR 4.629: CONSULT INSTRUCTOR Supplementary work on individual or group basis in the history, theory, and criticism of architecture and urban form in the Islamic World. Registration subject to prior arrangement for subject matter and supervision by staff. S. Bozdogan, N. Rabbat
17.405 Seminar on Middle East Politics () (Subject meets with 17.406) Prereq.: -- Units: 3-0-6 17.406 Seminar on Middle East Politics () (Subject meets with 17.405) Prereq.: Permission of instructor Units: 3-0-9 Focuses on evolution of contemporary politics and economics. Divided into four parts: 1) historical background, 2) domestic and regional politics of the Arab East, Iran and the Gulf, the Maghreb, and Israel; 3) energy: the world oil and energy picture; 4) Middle East and world politics: geostrategic shifts, Arab-Israeli conflicts and peace process, the Iran-Iraq war, the Gulf War, and their interaction with energy issues. Graduate students are expected to pursue the subject in greater depth through reading and individual research. N. Choucri
17.558 Political Economy and Technology in the Middle East () Prereq.: -- Units: 3-0-9 Provides a focus on, and context for, technology change, with specific reference to contemporary conflicts and competing ideologies, Islam and politics, post-colonial experiences, and patterns of social pressures. Examines role of technological and scientific institutions. Changing environment of international business is explored, as are patterns of investments in the region. Provides students with interdisciplinary approach to development in the Middle East. Open to undergraduates with permission of instructor. N. Choucri
21A.453 Anthropology of the Middle East (Revised Content) Prereq.: -- Units: 3-0-9 Examines the cultural production of peoples of the Middle East and North Africa. Topics include politics, social organization, gender roles, and the reception and dissemination of sacred narrative. How the West represents the Orient. How power and politics shape culture, narrative, and performance. Also discusses Middle Eastern communities in North America. S. Slyomovics
21A.458J Women in Middle East Studies: Between Literature and Ethnography (New) (Same subject as SP.450J) Prereq.: Permission of Instructor Units: 3-0-9 Lecture: MW1-2:30 (16-220) An introduction to academic studies of women and gender in the Middle East and North Africa, as reflected in the fields of anthropology, oral history, and literature. Are common themes -- e.g., the harem, the desert, the veil -- and modes of expression cross-disciplinary? How do readers determine point of view and positionality, ideology and subjectivity, in fictional, autobiographical, and ethnographic texts? Explores how scholarship in women's studies and gender studies addresses selected issues -- such as activism and human rights -- central to contemporary Middle East studies. S. Slyomovics
21F.032 The ``I'' of the Beholder: Travel Literature and Cultural Encounter in the Western Tradition (New) Prereq.: -- Units: 3-0-9 Uses recent theories in anthropology and psychoanalysis to explore the relationship in the Western tradition between the Self and the Other developed in notable historical, fictional, and autobiographical travel accounts. Examines the ethnographic impulse in itinerant writing. Focuses on this writing's function as a space for conscious and unconscious self-examination by the writer. Texts by Homer, Marco Polo, Columbus, Swift, Voltaire, Fenimore Cooper, Darwin, Conan Doyle, Verne, Conrad, Wells, Lessing, Chatwin, Asimov. Conducted in English. N. Wey-Gómez
21H.601 Islam, the Middle East, and the West () Prereq.: -- Units: 3-0-9 You must enter the HASS-D lottery to take this subject. HASS DISTRIBUTION Recitation: MWF2 (E51-393) +final Surveys the major political, socio-economic, and cultural changes in the Middle East from the rise of Islam to present times (A.D. 600-1990), with special emphasis on Islam's encounter with the West. Examines the rise and fall of Islamic empires, the place of Arabs, Persian and Turkic peoples, and minorities in Islamic society, scientific and technological achievements and their transmission to the West, and the impact of European expansion after 1800. Considers contemporary crises and upheavals facing the Middle East in light of the historical past, including the Arab-Israeli conflict and Islamic populism. H. Sharkey
21H.615 The Middle East in the Twentieth Century () Prereq.: -- Units: 3-0-9 Spring final: THURSDAY, MAY 21 (1:30 P.M. - 4:30 P.M.) in 10-280 Surveys major political, socioeconomic, and cultural changes in post-World War I Middle East. Investigates interwar independence struggles against Europe, followed by the emergence of American-Soviet rivalry, nationalist movements, and the growth of modern states and societies after 1945. Examines contemporary problems in historical perspectives: Arab-Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Lebanon War, oil and regional security, Iranian revolution, Islamic movements. Staff
21H.621 Nationalism in the Middle East () Prereq.: -- Units: 3-0-6 Lecture: MWF11 (4-364) +final The Middle East's experience with nationalism in the twentieth century. Examines theories and varieties of nationalism, imperialism, and revolution. Focus on Arab nationalism: its origins; character of independence movements; place of Palestinian nationalism. Comparisons with other nationalisms in the developing world and in Europe, and with Islamic movements. Open to graduate students. H. Sharkey
21H.631 Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict () Prereq.: -- Units: 3-0-9 Spring final: THURSDAY, MAY 21 (9:00 A.M. - 12:00 NOON) in 5-231 Looks at the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict from the nineteenth century up to the present. The role of ideology, political actors, social history, economic and infrastructural problems, regional and international interaction is explored, as are the prospects for peace after the September 1993 Accord. H. Sharkey
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