COURSE CONTRIBUTION TO PROGRAM
Throughout the course, students will learn how different forms of conflict, both violent and non-violent, have structured the modern Middle East. Moreover, we will approach the multiple patterns of security/insecurity that mark the region, from insurgent groups to state practices and gender inequalities. In sum, the course aims to disentangle the global, regional, and local dynamics of conflict and (in)security that are involved in making the politics of the Middle East.
CONTENT
1. The Modern Middle East: Conceptualising Political Violence in Historical Perspective
This first session provides an overview of the course and introduces the main concepts that will come across the remaining sessions. In particular, we will interrogate the role of violence and security in the Middle East and explore the ways in which these two define the international, regional, and local politics of this region. We will also examine the different forms of societal organisation and patterns of state-society interaction in the Middle East. Ultimately, the session aims to provide a solid understanding of the state system in the Middle East and how it came about. |
2. The Question of Palestine This third session departs from the conceptual focus of the previous two and opens the analysis of, arguably, the most influential issue in the modern history of the Middle East: the question of Palestine. Throughout the session, we will review the origins of the conflict and its relationship with broader regional politics. Ultimately, the session seeks to explore the effects of the conflict upon the relationship between land and identity through Palestine¿s violent geography. |
3. Global War, Insurgency and Terrorism in Iraq Can we speak of the 2003 Iraq War as a Global War? What are the different types of violence Iraq has experimented since then, and how can we approach them as a global phenomenon? Crucially, this session brings up the problem of terrorism through an analysis of ISIS. It does so through an examination of the causes, forms, and consequences of its emergence in Iraq, seeking to provide a sociological and historical understanding of terrorism. |
4. The Arab Spring and the Many Faces of the Syrian Civil War
We will devout this fourth session to the analysis of the various waves of revolution and counterrevolution that the region has experienced since 2011. How can we understand the effects and dynamics of civil war? Which are the mechanisms that make local issues international disputes? In this regard, we will dissect the Syrian Civil War, paying attention to the interplay between international and local factors that trigger violent processes. Special attention will be put on the Kurdish issue, as one of the most pressing and challenging dynamics that the Syrian civil war has placed on the map of the Middle East once more. |
5. Regional Power Politics: Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia Turkey, Iran, and Saudi Arabia are key players of the contemporary Middle Eastern regional order. With different historical trajectories, identities, and ideological orientations, all three countries are deeply involved in defining the course of the region¿s most important conflicts. How are the conflicts in Syria and Yemen affecting the relationship between these great powers? What is sectarianism and how to understand its role in defining the region¿s order? |
6. Multiple Insecurities in Lebanon and Concluding Remarks Which are the factors that make Lebanon a fragile yet resistant country? This session will hinge on a critical observation of two crucial concepts, namely, sovereignty and insecurity and will call for more attention to be placed in non- traditional scales of insecurity through gender analysis. The last part of the session will recap the course and ask the students to reflect on the future challenges the region will be facing in the future. |
Methodology
Methodologically, this course seeks to interrelate conceptual and empirical analyses through concrete case studies. Students will see how global, regional, and local dynamics merge in defining the politics of each of the studied countries while, at the same time, learn how to articulate key concepts in the study of different forms of conflict.
Students are expected to do the readings prior to the session in which these are allocated, at least through skim-reading Most readings are book introductions or articles, and therefore allow the student to have a basic grasp of the question we are dealing with in that session.
Throughout the sessions, students' participation and engagement with the subject will be expected and encouraged. All sessions will provide different material (news, audiovisual material, etc.) to stimulate doubts, questions, and debate among peers.
Bibliography
ADDITIONAL GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
Andrés Mourenza and Ilya U. Topper, La Democracia es un Tranvía: El Ascenso de Erdogan y la Transformación de Turquía (Península: 2019).
Andrew Arsan, Lebanon: A Country in Fragments (London: Hurst and Company, 2018).
Bassel Salloukh, Rabie Barakat, Jinan S. Al-Habbal et al. (eds.), The Politics of Sectarianism in Postwar Lebanon (London: Pluto, 2015).
Beverley Milton-Edwards, Contemporary Politics in the Middle East (Cambridge and Malden: Polity, 2011).
Charles Tripp, The Power and the People: Paths of Resistance in the Middle East (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).
Christine Sylvester, War as Experience: Contributions from International Relations and Feminist Analysis (London and New York: Routledge, 2013).
Christopher Davidson, Shadow Wars: The Secret Struggle for the Middle East (London: One World, 2016).
Edward W. Said, Orientalism (London: Penguin, 2003).
Emma Sky, In a Time of Monsters: Travels Through a Middle East in Revolt (London:
Atlantic Books, 2019).
Gilbert Achcar, The People Want: A Radical Exploration of the Arab Uprising (London: Saqi, 2013).
Harriet Allsopp, The Kurds of Syria (London and New York: IB Tauris, 2015).
Ian Black, Enemies and Neighbours: Arabs and Jews in Palestine and Israel, 1917-
2017 (London: Penguin, 2017).
Ignacio Álvarez-Ossorio, Siria: Revolución, Sectarismo y Yihad (Madrid: Catarata,
2016).
James A. Reilly, Fragile Nation, Shattered Land: The Modern History of Syria (London and New York: IB Tauris, 2019).
James Barr, A Line in the Sand: Britain, France, and the Struggle that Shaped the Middle East (London: Simon and Schuster, 2011).
James L. Gelvin, The Israel-Palestine Conflict: One Hundred Years of War (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014).
James Wynbrandt, A Brief History of Saudi Arabia (New York: Checkmark Books, 2004).
Javier Valenzuela, Crónica del Nuevo Oriente Próximo (Madrid: Catarata, 2012). Jean-Pierre Filiu, From Deep State to Islamic State: The Arab Counter-Revolution and
its Jihadi Legacy (London: Hurst and Company, 2015).
Lila Abu-Lughod, Do Muslim Women Need Saving? (Harvard University Press: 2015).
Louise Fawcett, International Relations of the Middle East (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019).
Meir Margalit, Jerusalén, la Ciudad Imposible: Claves para Comprender la Ocupación Israelí (Madrid: Catarata, 2018).
Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassan, ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror (New York: Regan Arts, 2015).
Mikel Ayestarán, Oriente Medio, Oriente Roto: Tras las Huellas de una Herida Abierta (Barcelona: Península, 2017).
Mohammed Ayoob, The Many Faces of Political Islam: Religion and Politics in the Muslim World (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2008).
Nader Hashemi and Danny Postel, Sectarianization: Mapping the New Politics of the Middle East (London: Hurst and Company, 2017).
Nelida Fuccaro (ed.), Violence and the City in the Modern Middle East (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2016).
Rania Abouzeid, No Turning Back (London: One World, 2018).
Raymond Hinnebusch and Adham Saouli (eds.), The War for Syria: Regional and International Dimensions of the Syrian Uprising (London and New York: Routledge, 2020).
Robert Fisk, The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East (London: Harpert Collins, 2005).
Roger Owen, State, Power and Politics in the Making of the Modern Middle East (London and New York: Routledge, 2004).
Tareq Y. Ismael and Jaqueline S. Ismael (eds.), Government and Politics in the Contemporary Middle East: Continuity and Change (London and New York: Routledge, 2011).
William Shepard, Introducing Islam (London and New York: Routledge, 2009).
