Spring 2007
REPRESENTATIONS OF THE MIDDLE EAST
Prof. Mehrzad Boroujerdi
PSC 300.M203/MES300.M002 Class Times: M, W: 2:15-3:35
Office: 332 Eggers Hall Classroom: HL 214
Office Hours: Wednesday: 10-12 Office Phone: 443-5877
http://faculty.maxwell.syr.edu/mborouje/ mboroujerdi@maxwell.syr.edu
TA: Todd Fine Office: 027 Eggers
Phone: 443-9914 or (857) 234-0920 e-mail: tdfine@maxwell.syr.edu
Office Hours: Tuesday: 4:00-6:00 PM
COURSE DESCRIPTION : The course will examine the politics of “gazing” and cultural imagination through critical analysis of how the mass media articulates, transmits, promotes and legitimizes knowledge and information about the Middle East. We will explore how the American public and government have viewed the Middle East as an “other” -- an other that is often portrayed as carnal, enigmatic, exotic, unpredictable and violent. At the same time, we will consider how people in the Middle East view both themselves and the outside world. The course will make use of documentaries, films, newspaper and magazine articles – both by Westerners about the Middle East and by Middle Easterners who reside either in the region or in the West. The course will examine representations of bureaucracy, class, culture, gender, genocide, and the ironies of nationalism, revolution, and war. Class discussion will build around themes raised by the visual materials and readings.
You should consider this course a collective exercise in critical thinking. My role, as well as that of the Teaching Assistant, is to steer class discussion and engender an informal participatory class environment where we can all search collectively for a broader understanding of the subject matter. Needless to say, the present structure of the course reflects my focus and interests. However, I welcome a broadening of aims and interests. Please take note of the fact that this syllabus represents the anticipated scheduling of lectures/readings/assignments; changes may be made to suit the actual composition and competencies of the class.
COURSE PHILOSOPHY: A Chinese proverb says that “teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself.” A Western sage (Karl Jaspers) supplemented this maxim by maintaining that “university life is no less dependent on students than on professors. The best professors flounder helplessly at a school where the student body is unfit. Hence, it is all up to the young people who are supposedly entitled to study. They must show themselves worthy of this privilege to the best of their ability.” This course has been organized on the premise that you are worthy of this privilege and that the teacher only opens the door. The success of this course depends entirely on your continued and sustained participation. Therefore, I ask that you be agile participants and intervene as often as possible in class discussion. Please keep in mind that in this course you will be exposed to a wide range of alternative views, some of which may force you to question, rethink, and, if necessary, abandon your present "understanding" of Middle Eastern culture, history and politics. Who knows, by the end of the course you might feel that you have taken part in a serendipitous voyage of discovery!
COURSE REQUIREMENTS: In light of the fact that my presentations will complement rather than reiterate the assigned readings, it is expected that you attend all class meetings. You will be held responsible for all the material we cover in readings, lectures, and films.
Participation: In addition to being physically present, I expect you to be mentally present as well! As such, you should complete all assigned readings before each class meeting so that you are familiar with the concepts, facts, theories, and controversies with which we are dealing. Furthermore, you should try to engage in discussion through the listserv I have set up for this course (Representation@listserv.syr.edu). You and I will use this listserv to (a) post interesting or informative e-mails about the subject matter of the course; (b) share your reflections on the films we have seen; and (c) respond to points and issues raised by the instructors or your peers.
Research/Reflection Papers: You are expected to write a 10 to 15 page, typed, and double-spaced paper in this course dealing with one or more genre of films screened in class. You are expected to explore the artistic, cultural, historical, political, and/or social contribution of at least three films touching the themes of your paper. You can focus on one or two films primarily, but your analysis needs to be contextualized in term of other examples of similar representation through film. I expect you to situate these films in their appropriate cultural and intellectual setting, and develop a thesis about their meaning and function. What I mean here is that I don't want you to be commenting on the artistic quality of the film(s) (good actors, nice cinematography, dazzling scenery, etc). After briefly explaining the film's plot (i.e., melodramatic story), I want you to tell me how should I understand this film in terms of its portrayal of "representations" or "politics of representation" (tradition-modernity, nationalism, revolution)? Does the film tell a universal story? Does the film identify important historical themes and moments? Is the producer/director trying to communicate a certain "message" to the audience (sexism, racism, negative values and cruelties of Middle Eastern culture)? Does the film suggest in a subtle manner themes such as cultural diversity, female empowerment, racial tolerance, ethnic harmony, and the strength of the family? Does the film deal metaphorically or in a brutally honest monologue with such issues as prejudice (against poor, disabled, women, minorities, etc)? Does the film have a very strong motif (i.e., anti-war, anti-Americanism)? Does it reinforce stereotypes and "typecasting" of "others"? What effect did such representations induce in you? Does the film enable you to share and feel the texture of the main protagonist's world? What do you consider to be the "emotional center" of the film?
To answer the above set of questions you need to critically engage in a dialogue with the concepts and ideas raised in the films, class lectures, and assigned/recommended readings. I would also encourage finding other textual resources in the library to use in support of your argument. In addition to having a proper bibliography and footnotes, each paper should follow the “Four C” rule: clear, concise, coherent, and creative. In this course we follow the university’s policy regarding academic honesty (http://provost.syr.edu/academicintegrity_office.asp#policies). Those who engage in plagiarism will get an automatic F and will be referred to university officials for further disciplinary action. Students who may need special consideration because of any sort of disability should make an appointment to see the instructor in private. This paper is due on March 28.
Creative Project: I value and admire creativity. Each student is expected to do a creative project dealing with the theme of representation of the Middle East. You can put together a PowerPoint presentation, draw up cartoons, write a film screenplay or a fictional essay, create a documentary film, construct a public opinion poll, develop a blog, analyze how American Presidents or Secretaries of State have talked about the Middle East in their memoirs, or fashion a creative literary response to one of the films (i.e., stories, poetry about the characters and setting), etc. It might be helpful to you to monitor “representations” of the Middle East as they happen in the mass media for the duration of this semester. You may wish to read a Western newspaper or weekly (i.e., The New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, or the Economist) on a regular basis. If you can read Arabic, Hebrew, Persian or Turkish then feel free to follow a newspaper of your choice in that language. You can maintain newspaper-clipping files throughout the semester in order to add "color" or anecdotes to your projects. Alternatively, following a Middle Eastern blog for the duration of the semester might also help provide material and inspiration (here are a few examples of blogs in Arabic, English, French and Hebrew).
Algeria - http://dzblog.jexiste.fr/dzblog/ Arab World - http://itoot.net/
Bahrain - www.mahmood.tv Gaza http://a-mother-from-gaza.blogspot.com
Egypt - www.bigpharaoh.com http://www.sandmonkeyblog.com/
Iraq - iraqblogcount.blogspot.com Iran - http://blogsbyiranians.com/
Israel - http://israblog.nana.co.il/ Jordan - www.jordanplanet.net
Kuwait - caffeinatedkuwaiti.blogspot.com Lebanon - beirutspring.blogspot.com
Morocco - http://riadzany.blogspot.com/ Saudi Arabia – saudijeans.blogspot.com
Tunisia - http://tuniblogs.com/ Turkey - aegeandisclosure.blogspot.com
UAE - secretdubai.blogspot.com
At any rate, you are encouraged to sit down with the instructor or the TA and talk about your project. We will try to help all students identify a project they will be comfortable with. This assignment is due on April 30.
GRADING CRITERIA
Assignment When Percentage
Classroom & Listserv contribution all the time 20%
Research Paper March 28 40%
Creative Project April 30 40%
REQUIRED TEXTS (available at Orange Student Bookstore and SU Bookstore)
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“A mobile army of metaphors, metonyms and anthropomorphisms…after long use seem firm,
canonical and obligatory to a people: truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that
this is what they are.”
Nietzsche
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CLASS ASSIGNMENTS
Jan. 17: Introduction - The Nature and Structure of the Course
· Syllabus review; questionnaire, orientation quiz
Construction of Otherness
Jan. 22: Comic Look at the Middle East
· Video: Comedy Middle Eastern Style (VC12739; 56 min.)
· Roja Heydarpour, “The Comic Is Palestinian, the Jokes Bawdy,” New York Times (Nov. 21, 2006).
Jan. 24: Orientalism and Representation
· Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 1978), pp. 1-28.
· Mehrzad Boroujerdi, “Other-ness, Orientalism, Orientalism in Reverse, and Nativism,” in Mehrzad Boroujerdi, Iranian Intellectuals and the West (Syracuse University Press, 1996): 1-19.
· Jürgen Link, "Fanatics, Fundamentalists, Lunatics, and Drug Traffickers - The New Southern Enemy Image," Cultural Critique, n. 19 (Fall 1991): 33-53.
· Video: Faces of the Enemy (VC 6509; 57 min.)
Jan. 29: Analyzing Films
· Hamid Naficy, “Autobiography, Film Spectorship, and Cultural Negotiation,” Emergences, no. 1 (Fall 1989): 29-54.
· John C. Eisele, “The Wild East: Deconstructing the Language of Genre in the Hollywood Eastern.”
· Ella Shohat, "Gender in Hollywood's Orient," Middle East Report, n. 162 (Jan/Feb 1990): 40-42.
Recommended:
· Rebecca Stone, “Reverse Imagery: Middle Eastern Themes in Hollywood,” in Sherifa Zuhur (ed.), Images of Enchantment: Visual and Performing Arts of the Middle East (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 1998).
· Kathleen Reedy, “Terrorists, Thieves and Harem Girls: The Influence of US-Middle Eastern Relations on the Portrayal of Arabs in Hollywood.”
· Mas`ud Zavardzadeh, Seeing Films Politically (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991).
· Steven C. Caton, Lawrence of Arabia: A Film's Anthropology (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1999.)
Jan. 31: Imagining The Middle East (I)
· McAlister, pp. xi-42 and chapt. 1
Recommended:
· Lina Khatib, Filming the Modern Middle East: Politics in the Cinemas of Hollywood and the Arab World (London: I.B. Tauris, 2006).
Feb. 5: Imagining The Middle East (II)
· Stanley Hoffman, “Why Don’t They Like Us?” The American Prospect (Nov. 19, 2001).
· Thomas L. Friedman, “Mideast Rules to Live By,” New York Times (Dec. 20, 2006).
· “Oh, Thomas”
Recommended:
· Mark LeVine, Why They Don’t Hate Us: Lifting the Veil on the Axis of Evil (Oxford, OneWorld, 2005).
· Literature from the "Axis of Evil" (New York: New Press, 2006).
Feb. 7: Pop Culture and Representation of “the Other”
· Ayah Bdeir, “That’s All Sheikh: Arab Representations in U.S. Cartoons”
· Kaveh Safa, “Othello in the Islamic Republic,” Emergences, no. 2 (Spring 1990): 131-163.
· Jonathan Lundqvist, “Pictures of Iranian Censorship.”
Recommended:
· Hamid Nafici, “Mediating the Other: American Pop Culture Representation of Postrevolutionary Iran,” in Yahya Kamalipour (ed.), The U.S. Media and the Middle East: Image and Perception (1995).
· Jack G. Shaheen, Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People (New York: Olive Branch Press, 2001).
· Joya Blondel Saad, The Image of Arabs in Modern Persian Literature (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1996).
· Martin Strohmeier, Crucial Images in the Presentation of a Kurdish National Identity: Heroes and Patriots, Traitors and Foes (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2003).
Representation of Gender & Sexuality
Feb. 12: Question of Sexuality
· Video: In My Father's House (Morocco, 1997) [VC 9609; 70 min]
· Negar Azimi, “Prisoners of Sex,” New York Times Magazine (Dec. 3, 2006): 63-67.
· Hassan Fattah, “Beyond Skimpy Skirts, a Rare Debate on Identity,” New York Times (Oct. 19, 2006).
Feb. 14: Question of Divorce
· Video: Divorce Iranian Style (Iran, 1998) [VC 10254; 80 min.]
Feb. 19: Love & Childbearing
· Film: Kadosh (Israel, 1999) [VC 922; 117 min.]
Feb. 21: Conclusion and discussion of Kadosh
· Gabriel Piterberg, “Domestic Orientalism: The Representation of `Oriental’ Jews in Zionist/Israeli Historiography,” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 23, no. 2 (Nov. 1996): 125-145.
Feb. 26: Children and Poverty
· Film: Children of Heaven (Iran, 1997) [DVD 10312; 88 min.]
Recommended:
· Hamid Dabashi, Close Up: Iranian Cinema, Past, Present, and Future (London: Verso, 1998.)
· Hamid Reza Sadr, Iranian Cinema: A Political History (I.B. Tauis, 2006).
· Hamid Naficy, An Accented Cinema: Exilic and Diasporic Filmmaking (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001).
Through “Local Eyes”
Feb. 28: Interrogating a Civil War
· Alone with War (France, 2000) [VC 11630; 58 min.]
Mar. 5: Imagining Arab Nationalism
· Film: Nasser 56 (Egypt, 1996) [VC 10340; 150 min.]
· McAlister, chapt. 2
Mar. 7: Conclusion and discussion of Nasser 56
· McAlister, chapt. 3
Recommended:
· Viola Shafik, Arab Cinema: History and Cultural Identity (Cairo: American University Press, 1998).
Mar. 12 & 14: No classes (Spring Break)
Mar. 19: Banality of Bureaucracy
· Film: Terrorism and Kebab (Egypt, 1992) [VC 10288; 157 min.]
Mar. 21: Conclusion and discussion of Terrorism and Kebab
Recommended:
· Armbrust, Walter. “Terrorism and Kabab: A Carpraesque View of Modern Egypt,” in Sherifa Zuhur (ed.), Images of Enchantment: Visual and Performing Arts of the Middle East (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 1998).
· Film/Novel: The Yacoubian Building (2006)
Mar. 26: Turkish Society Through the Eyes of Prisoners
· Film: Yöl [The Road] (Turkey, 1982) [VC 6534; 90 min.]
Mar. 28: Discussing Yöl (Research/Reflection Papers are due)
Apr. 2: Remembering the Armenian Genocide
· Film: Ararat (Canada, 2002) [DVD 11543; 115 min.]
Recommended:
· Video: Back to Ararat [VC 11647; 96 min.]
Apr. 4: Conclusion and discussing of Ararat
Recommended:
· Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul (Viking Adult, 2007)
Contrasting Images of a Conflict
Apr. 9: Representing the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (I)
· Video: Israel: A Nation is Born (USA, 1997) [VC 8302; 55 min.]
Recommended:
· Film: Exodus (USA, 1960)
Apr. 11: Representing the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (II)
· Video: “Al Nakba: The Palestinian Catastrophe 1948” (Israel and Palestine, 1997) [VC10232; 56 min.]
Recommended:
· Video: Wedding in Galilee (Israel and Palestine, 1987) [VC 6266; 113 minutes]
· Video: Promises (Israel and Palestine, 2001) [VC 10498; 106 min.]
“Covering” The Middle East
Apr. 16: U.S. Media & the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
· Video: Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land (USA, 2004) [DVD 12796; 80 min.]
Apr. 18: Discussing Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land
· McAlister, chapt. 4
Apr. 23: “Covering” the Iranian Hostage Crisis
· Video: Iran: Years of Crisis
· McAlister, chapt. 5
· Edward W. Said., Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World (New York: Vintage Books, 1997): 81-122.
Apr. 25: Arab Media
· Video: Al Jazeera: Voice of Arabia [VC 10862; 52 min.]
· Ibrahim Al-Marashi, “The Dynamics of Iraq’s Media: Ethno-Sectarian Violence, Political Islam, Public Advocacy, and Globalization.”
· Gal Beckerman, “The New Arab Conversation,” Columbia Journalism Review http://www.cjr.org/issues/2007/1/Beckerman.asp
Recommended:
· Video: Control Room [DVD 11919; 86 min.]
Apr. 30: Evaluations & Open Discussion about the Course (Creative Projects are due)
Interesting Sites