Posts and Responses

Many of you attended the Arabian Nights festival held on campus this week and enjoyed good food, good music and Arabic Poetry.  I’m so pleased with the enthusiasm I’m seeing in all of you.  Our attendance at lectures, films and other activities can only enhance the opportunities to learn in this course.  Please feel free to comment on your experience with ‘immersion’ in readings, films, maps, current events and any of the other paths to learning that have been employed in this course.  What has been MOST useful to you?  Most fun?  Most interesting?  Enhanced your learning?

Several of the readings and films we’ve read and seen present women in ways that shatter the stereotype of the powerless, Middle Eastern female.  What examples have been most important  and instructive for you? 

Several students attended Tuesday’s lecture at the Jefferson, but came away with different impresssions.  Please take some time to summarize and reflect on what you learned at this lecture (being sure to respect the opinions of others in the process).  Thanks again to Chandana and the Office of International Education for this great opportunity.

In his recent text, “The Modern Middle East”, Mehran Kamrava states:

“It is often suggested in the Western press that Middle Easterners either must side with the forces of growth and progress (rashly equated with westernization) or remain in the clutches of the dead hand of tradition.  This view is based on a notion of non-Western cultures as static and unreflective, stifled by authoritarian doctrines and unchanging consensus on social, moral, and intellectual issues.  The hand of tradition, however, turns out to be more animated (and more manipulated) than one might suppose.  Even in the most stable societies, cultural consensus is partially offset by ambiguities within the traditions and by diverse strategies of interpretation.”

What examples can you think of (from readings, film, or class discussions) that break down notions of tradition?