By Sarah D. Shields (NHC Fellow, 2006–07) Self-determination, imported into the Middle East on the heels of World War I, held out the promise of democratic governance to the former territories of the Ottoman Empire. The new states that European Great Powers carved out of the multilingual, multiethnic, and multireligious empire were expected to adhere … Continued
This seminar explores the historical contexts leading to the eruption of the uprisings known as the Arab Spring in early 2011. After a brief introduction to politics in Tunisia, Egypt, and Syria, we turn to the flowering of music, art, graffiti, poetry, film, and digital media that gave expression to the revolutionary unrest. This seminar … Continued
Arabs have largely been ignored in narratives of American history, appearing only at its shady margins. Nineteenth-century Orientalist representations, a century of stereotyped Hollywood images, and decades of militarized encounters in the Middle East have formed and fed a concept of “the Arab” as “the Other”: someone both physically and morally alien to America, harboring … Continued