Ted Thornton
Syllabus, Fall, 2008


Meeting Times Miscellaneous Resources
Texts and Study Guides Links to Other Materials
Supplemental Resources Requirements
Other Books Most Recent Blog Posts
Background and Perspective Note on Academic Integrity

 

Meeting Times

U Mod 16 Monday Tuesday Wednesday 2 Thursday Friday
8:00 - 9:20 8:00 - 9:20 9:25 - 10:40 8:00 - 9:20 8:00 - 9:20

 

Required Texts (ordered for Bookstore)

Reza Aslan, No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam (study guide)

Stephen Kinzer, Crescent and Star: Turkey Between Two Worlds, revised edition - 2008 (study guide)

George Packer, The Assassin's Gate: America in Iraq (study guide)

Additional Online Text: Guide to the Arab-Israeli Conflict for the Islamic Middle East Course

Reading and Reading Response Assignments

 

Islamic Middle East Blog Feed

WMR: Ships and gaza - Two Perspectives
Tue, 02 Dec 2008
WMR: Ships and Gaza – Two Perspectives Victoria Wilmarth 12/2/08   I looked at several articles about the same thing from two different sources. CNN has an article titled “Israel Turns Back Gaza Ships” http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/12/01/israel.gaza.aid.ship/index.html and an Israeli Newspaper (Arutz Sheva) had an article called “Muslim World Send Ships to Give Hamas Control of Gaza Coast” http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/128662 The [...]

WMR - “India Warns Pakistan Over Attacks”
Tue, 02 Dec 2008
The Middle East in the News • Cora Lewis, Monday, December 1, 2008 •”India warns Pakistan over attacks” News Article •Al Jazeera, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2008/12/2008121152158798572.html •Article Summary Time – Dec. 1, 2008 Place – Mumbai, India (also Pakistan…) Key People - Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan’s president - Condoleezza Rice, U.S. Secretary of State Vocabulary - Lashkar-e-Tiyaba, a Pakistan-linked Islamist group Main Ideas – At first glance, this [...]

Merhaba From Turkey!
Sat, 22 Nov 2008
Merhaba (Hello!) from Turkey to friends at PA and NMH!  We are in Bursa on the final night of our tour of the interior.   There is a wild wind and rain storm raging as I write.  We have seen, heard, and learned so much.  We look forward to telling you all about it upon our return! All [...]

WMR 5 French Newspaper “L’ONU met en évidence la fragilité de la situation humanitaire à Gaza”
Fri, 21 Nov 2008
Zoe Weinberg November 19, 2008 Article: “L’ONU met en évidence la fragilité de la situation humanitaire à Gaza” Le Monde, French Newspaper http://www.lemonde.fr/proche-orient/article/2008/11/19/l-onu-met-en-evidence-la-fragilite-de-la-situation-humanitaire-a-gaza_1120438_3218.html#ens_id=1106055 Time: November 19, 2008 Place: Jerusalem, Israel Key People:  Secretary General of the UN Ban Ki-Moon, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Summary: Secretary General of UN Ban Ki-Moon called for Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Olmert to share in his “deep [...]

WMR 4 “Deprogramming Jihadists”
Fri, 21 Nov 2008
Zoe Weinberg November 7, 2008 Article: “Deprogramming Jihadists” From New York Times Magazine http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/magazine/09jihadis-t.html Time: November 7, 2008 Place: Saudi Arabia Key People:  Saudi Government, Sheik Ahmad al-Jilani Summary: Programs in Saudi Arabia attempt to use psychology and education to help Saudi men who are former members of a militant Islamic group. The basis of the educational program is discussing the meaning and [...]


 

Supplemental Resources (Some require access via NMH Virtual Desktop)

Current and Recent

On the Middle East

Geography section Islamic Middle East Blog

Marina Ottaway, Nathan Brown, Amr Hamzawy, Karim Sadjapour, Paul Salem, "The New Middle East," Carnegie Endowment  for International Peace, February, 2008

On the Arab World

"The Arabs: Between Fitna, Fawda and the Deep Blue Sea," The Economist, Jan. 12, 2008

"Special Report: The Arab World," The Economist, Oct. 21, 2006

 

On Islam and and the West

Fouad Ajami, "The Clash," New York Times Book Review, Jan. 6, 2008

 

On Lebanon

Background on Lebanon's current political crisis.

 

On Pakistan:

"A Country on the Brink - Pakistan," The Economist, Jan. 5, 2008

John F. Burns, "Benazir Bhutto" (Obituary), New York Times, Dec. 28, 2007

Roger Cohen, "On America's Watch," (Op-Ed piece on Pakistan-U.S. relations in wake of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto), New York Times, Dec. 31, 2007

Steve Coll, "Letter From Pakistan: Time Bomb," The New Yorker, Jan. 28, 2008. 45ff.

William Dalrymple, "Bhutto's Deadly Legacy," New York Times (Op-Ed), Jan. 4, 2007

Carlotta Gall and David Rhohde, "Militants Escape Control of Pakistan, Officials Say," New York Times, Jan. 15, 2008 (on alleged involvement of Pakistan's prime military intelligence agency in supporting militant activity).

"The World's Most Dangerous Place: Pakistan," The Economist, Jan. 5, 2008

Selig Harrison, "Drawn and Quartered," (Op-Ed piece), New York Times, Feb. 1, 2008

(More on Pakistan)

 

On Religion and Politics

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, "Blind Faiths," The New York Times Book Review, Jan. 6, 2008

"The Practice and the Theory: Islam and Democracy," The Economist, Jan. 12, 2008

 

Other Articles:

"Afghanistan and Iraq: Must They Be Wars Without End?," The Economist, Dec. 13, 2007

"Arming Its Friends" (on a new "cold war" between the U.S. and Iran), The Economist, Aug. 4, 2007

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, "The Silence of the Moderates," International Herald Tribune, Dec. 8, 2007

BBC, "Emerging Voice of Mainstream Islam, Oct. 12, 2007 (see also "A Common Word": text of a document written by Muslim scholars articulating the common ground between Islam and Christianity; see also a page on the history of Christian-Muslim polemics).

Roger Hardy, "2008: The Year of Palestine?," BBC, Dec. 31, 2007

Raymond Ibrahim, "The Two Faces of Al Qaeda," The Chronicle Review, Sept. 21, 2007

On the summer 2006 war between Israel, Gaza, and Lebanon, see summary at History of the Middle East Database. See also The New Yorker Lebanon Archive. See also Michael Young, "Hezbollah's Other War," New York Times Magazine, August 13, 2006, 34ff. (accessible only through ProQuest via the NMH Virtual Desktop).

"Islam's Authority Deficit," The Economist, June 30, 2007

Barnett R. Rubin, "Saving Afghanistan," Foreign Affairs, vol. 86, no. 1, Jan.-Feb., 2007

Lee Kuan Yew, "The United States, Iraq, and the War on Terror," Foreign Affairs, Jan-Feb, 2007

 

Other Books

Alaa Al-Aswany, The Yacoubian Building (Egypt background material)

Tony Horwitz, Baghdad Without a Map (study guide)

Raymond Ibrahim, The Al-Qaeda Reader (New York: Doubleday, 2007)

Gilles Kepel, Bad Moon Rising: A Chronicle of the Middle East Today, trans. by Pascal Ghazaleh (study guide)

Gilles Kepel, Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam (study guide)

Rashid Khalidi, Resurrecting Empire: Western Footprints and America's Perilous Path in the Middle East (study guide)

Bernard Lewis, The Crisis of Islam (study guide)

Kirsten E. Schulze, The Arab-Israeli Conflict (study guide)

Michael Sells, Approaching the Qur'an: The Early Revelations (Ashland OR: White Cloud Press, 1999)

Anthony Shadid, Night Draws Near: Iraq's People in the Shadow of America's War (study guide)

Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower (study guide)

 

Background and Perspective

History of Afghanistan

Roger Cohen, "The Ottoman Swede,"New York Times Op-Ed piece, Sept. 13, 2007

Rachel Donadio, "Fighting Words," The New York Times Book Review, July 15, 2007 (see also: Salman Rushdie, the "Cartoon" Controversy," and "Wars of Words and Images.")

Forbidden Iran - PBS Frontline program on Iran in 2008.  More on history of Iran.

David Fromkin, "How the Modern Middle East Map Came to be Drawn," Smithsonian, May, 1991, 132ff. NMH students, on your Virtual Desktops, copy the following search term,

david fromkin AND how the modern middle east map

and paste it into the Search window at InfoTrac Expanded Academic ASAP.

David Fromkin, "Ataturk's Creation." New Criterion 18.8 (April 2000),14. NMH students, on your Virtual Desktops, copy the following search term,

david fromkin AND ataturk

and paste it into the search window at InfoTrac Expanded Academic ASAP. Additional background on Ottoman Empire and on modern Turkey for Fromkin readings. On a new museum to Ataturk in Ankara, see Sabrina Tavernise, "In Complex Times, Turkey Sees a Reassuring Face," New York Times, Jan. 16, 2008.

Jeffrey Goldberg, "After Iraq," Atlantic Monthly, Jan-Feb., 2008

History of Iran

History of Iraq

History of Lebanon

History of Pakistan

Muslim Revivalist Movements

Vali Nasr and Ray Takeyh, "The Costs of Containing Iran: Washington's Misguided New Middle East Policy," Foreign Affairs, Jan-Feb, 2008 (origins of principle of "containment" in U.S. foreign policy)

Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden

Ahmed Rashid, "The New Struggle in Central Asia: A Primer for the Baffled,"World Policy Journal, Winter, 2000/2001

Ahmed Rashid, The Taliban: Exporting Extremism, Foreign Affairs, Nov/Dec, 1999

House of Saud - Web resources for the PBS Frontline show, which we will screen this term. See also Benchmarks in the History of Saudi Arabia and The Wahhabi Movement (at the History of the Middle East Database). See also Josh Pollack, "Saudi Arabia and the United States, 1931-2002," in MERIA, vol. 6, no.3, Sept. 2002.

The Taliban

PBS "Frontline: The Return of the Taliban"

Saudi Time Bomb? -   website devoted to this installment from the PBS Frontline series. See also Benchmarks in the History of Saudi Arabia and The Wahhabi Movement (at the History of the Middle East Database). See also Josh Pollack, "Saudi Arabia and the United States, 1931-2002," in MERIA, vol. 6, no.3, Sept. 2002.

Ted Thornton, "The Political and Religious Landscape of the Middle East at the Dawn of the Twenty-first Century"

Ted Thornton, " Wars of Words and Images" (History of Christian-Muslim Polemics)

 

Miscellaneous Resources

The Egypt of Naguib Mahfouz

Malcolm X:  Letter from Mecca

Notes for film, "The Message"

A Muslim Proof of God's Existence

Glossary of Islamic Terms and Concepts

The Political and Religious Landscape of the Middle East at the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century

World Press Review Online

BBC Debate on French Law Banning the Wearing of Religious Symbols (also)

 

Links to Other Materials (some only through databases licensed to NMH School)

The Qur'an, Sura One: al-Fatiha ("The Opening")

The Qur'an, Sura Two: al-Baqarah ("The Cow")

The Hadith (Sahih Bukhari), "Revelation," Vol. 1, Book 1, Nos. 2 and 3

The Hadith (Sahih Muslim), "Night Journey," Ch. 75, Book 1, No.308

Readings for Discussions of the World After 9/11

 

Requirements (see also Policies and Evaluation Criteria)

1. Participation in class discussions and other activities, such as debates, news reports, and responses to films.

2. Readings in texts and daily writings.  Writings will be read aloud in class and used as the basis for the day's discussions.   Link to "How to Write Responses to Assigned Readings."

3. Book Reviews as assigned.

4. Successful completion of a Semester Project: independent work on an approved topic of choice within the bounds of the course that will include research throughout the semester, an oral report to the class which will be accompanied by a short written report, and a research paper of about ten pages. (25% of final grade).  Project Topics.

5. An exam on the last day of the course.

6. Don't forget to check the course blog and SWIS each day for new posts.

IMPORTANT NOTES APPLYING TO PAPERS SUBMITTED IN THE COURSE:

1.  Review the material on "Academic Integrity" in the School Handbook, especially the paragraph on "Plagiarism." Documentation (footnoting - click here to review how to construct footnotes ) is your most effective safeguard against charges of plagiarism. Train yourself never to cut and paste material from computer files, with the exception of the occasional direct quotation (which should always be surrounded by quotation marks and footnoted). Material you take from other sources and paraphrase (render in your own words) must also be footnoted. A good benchmark to use is to insert a footnote after every quotation and insert at least one footnote per paragraph.

2.  Use only web material from universities, published journals, and other sources that have undergone rigorous editing or peer review and that are widely recognized in academic circles for quality scholarship and authority.   You may not use Wikipedia as a cited source in any papers submitted in this course (more on this in class).  A final reason to be careful about documentation (footnoting and bibliography) is that it authenticates your evidence and lends authority to your paper: i.e. it proves that you did not just make up your evidence; you got it from expert sources. The more expert those sources are, the more authority, weight, and persuasiveness your own paper will carry.

 

Reviewed and selected for inclusion in

 

A database of online Middle East resources


 

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email: tthornton@nmhschool.org

Last Revised: October 16, 2008