SYLLABUS
MIDDLE EAST ETHNOGRAPHY
Discourse, Politics, and Culture
Anthropology 2690
S. Caton
Fall 2019
Peabody 12, W 12-2:45
Office, Tozzer 318
Tel. 5-1886
Off. Hr’s:T 2:30-3:30
Course Description
Graduate students and undergraduate students are welcome. No previous
background in anthropology or Middle East studies required.
By ethnography is meant a genre of writing in social anthropology. The hallmarks
or characteristic features of this genre will be spelled out as more and more such
ethnographies are read. I have chosen texts published in the last two to three years, not
earlier, and so they represent, more or less, the kinds of questions researchers in the area
are working on now. The course is not a history of the anthropology of the region, only a
slice of it in the most recent past. Finally, the texts have been chosen for their varied
topics (education, religion, war, heritage, environmentalism, nationalism, etc.) and for
broad coverage of the region, and we will read them in clusters to draw out some
interesting, and perhaps unexpected, connections between them. Among the questions we
might ask of this literature are: How is ethnography conceived or written? Which themes
seem to predominate and why? Do they collectively constitute what might be called a
“field” of Middle East anthropology? Do they address other disciplines besides
anthropology (for example, history)? How well do they speak to concerns that include
academic anthropology but are broader than it?
There are inevitable omissions which have to do with what has been published
recently. Thus, the ethnographies happen to be overwhelmingly on Arab societies
(though there is a broad sweep of these).
This course has three basic aims. First, for students who are not specialists of the
Middle East but wish to know something more about it, the readings will afford a rich
and varied glimpse into many aspects of the area’s contemporary life. Second, for
anthropology concentrators and graduate students whose research focuses on the Middle
East, it will give them the chance to read “cutting-edge” ethnographic literature recently
published in their discipline that they have to be familiar with. Third, the course will ask
whether and to what extent these ethnographic texts can address an audience outside of
anthropology or academia, a question of some urgency given U.S. entanglements that are
not only affecting the region but ourselves.
Class Participation. This is a seminar; therefore, the burden of discussion is borne
by students. Attendance is mandatory. Students will take turns presenting on an
ethnographic text, after which the rest of the class will discuss their reactions to the text.
In other words, in one week pre-assigned students (usually 2) will present on a work for
an hour and the rest of the class will then comment on it in the second hour of class.
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Depending on availability and accessibility I will try to arrange for skype or in-person
interviews with the authors and the class.
Writing Assignments. There are two writing assignments. One is a book review of
one of the assigned books (or an acceptable alternative), of NO MORE than 1500 words,
using the standard citation format of IJMES (International Journal of Middle East
Studies). The book to be reviewed will be OTHER than the book on which the student
gives an oral in-class presentation. The second writing assignment will be a longer essay
(ten pages maximum) and options will be discussed with the instructor in mid-October
(after the break). Among my suggestions are: a longer book review essay (as in the New
York Review of Books where several books on the same or similar topic are reviewed at
once); a literature “review” that might form part of your pre-dissertation field prospectus;
a paper on some topic that you find interesting in the course readings and cuts across
several of the works; a mock proposal for field research inspired by the readings; and
other options may be entertained with the instructor’s consent. This paper will be due at
the end of Reading Period.
Grading: In-Class Presentation 20%; Book-Review 30%; Final Essay 50%.
Books on Order at the Coop are (in alphabetical order of author’s last name):
Course Schedule
Campbell, Madeline Otis. Interpreters of Occupation: Gender and he Politics of
Belonging in an Iraqi Refugee Camp (2016)
De Cesari, Chiara. Heritage and the Cultural Struggle for Palestine (2019)
Doostdar, Alireza. The Iranian Metaphysicals: Explorations in Science, Islam and the
Uncanny (2018)
Günel, Gökçe, Spaceship in the Desert: Energy, Climate Change, and Urban Design in
Abu Dhabi (2019)
Monterescu, Daniel and Haim Hazan. Twilight Nationalism: Politics of Existence at
Life’s End (2018)
Pandolfo, Stefania. Knot of the Soul: Madness, Psychoanalysis, Islam (2018)
Parla, Ayse. Precarious Hope: Migration and the Limits of Belonging in Turkey (2019)
Peutz, Nathalie. Islands of Heritage: Conservation and Transformation in Yemen (2018)
Pursley, Sara. Familiar Futures: Time, Selfhood, and Sovereignty in Iraq (2019)
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Vora, Neha. Teach for America: American Universities, Liberalism, and Transnational
Qatar (2018)
Schedule of Seminar Meetings
9/4 Course Introduction
9/11 What is fieldwork? What is ethnography?
9/18 Doostdar, Alireza, The Iranian Metaphysicals: Explorations in Science, Islam and
the Uncanny
9/25 Pandolfo, Stefania. Knot of the Soul: Madness, Psychoanalysis, Islam
10/2 Peutz, Nathalie. Islands of Heritage: Conservation and Transformation in Yemen
10/9 De Cesari, Chiara. Heritage and the Cultural Struggle for Palestine
10/9 Campbell, Madeline Otis. Interpreters of Occupation: Gender and he Politics of
Belonging in an Iraqi Refugee Camp
10/16 Pursley, Sara. Familiar Futures: Time, Selfhood, and Sovereignty in Iraq (2019)
10/23 Günel, Gökçe, Spaceship in the Desert: Energy, Climate Change, and Urban
Design in Abu Dhabi
10/30 Vora, Neha. Teach for America: American Universities, Liberalism, and
Transnational Qatar
11/6 Monterescu, Daniel and Haim Hazan. Twilight Nationalism: Politics of Existence at
Life’s End
11/13 Parla, Ayse. Precarious Hope: Migration and the Limits of Belonging in Turkey
11/20 Pandolfo, Stefania. Knot of the Soul: Madness, Psychoanalysis, Islam
11/27 THANKSGIVING BREAK
12/4 Wrap-Up
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