IAFF 6378: Religion & Society in the Middle East
Nathan Brown
What role does religion play in the modern Middle East? How does it inform politics, social relations, and the practice of everyday life? How do the answers to these questions vary across time, space, and other contexts? This course takes these broad questions as points of departure, exploring them from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. Drawing upon recent scholarship in history, anthropology, political science, religious studies, gender studies, and post-colonial studies, it takes a comparative approach to various expressions of Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and other religions, paying particular attention to their historically evolving relationships with one another, and with ostensibly secular ideologies (nationalism, socialism, neo-liberal capitalism, etc.) and institutions like the state.
Taught Spring 2021.