Topics In Anthropology (390-0-3)
Topic
Sexing the Middle East: Gender & Sexuality in the
Instructors
Emrah Yildiz
1819 Hinman Ave, #103
Office Hours: Tuesdays, 1-3pm
Emrah Yıldız joins the Department of Anthropology and the Middle East and North African Studies Program and as an Assistant Professor. His work is a historical anthropology of routes of mobility in the tri-border area among Iran, Turkey and Syria. His research lies at the intersection of historiography and ethnography of borders and their states; ritual practice, visitation and pilgrimage in Islam as well as smuggling and contraband commerce in global political economy.
Meeting Info
University Hall 218: Tues 5:00PM - 7:50PM
Overview of class
Are gender and sexuality useful categories of analysis in contemporary Middle East? What sexual assumptions underpin studies of the Middle East? And what kind of a Middle East grounds gender and sexuality studies in the region? This course engages with queer studies and critical race and feminist scholarship in anthropology, history, and sociology to probe these questions. In this course, we will attend to the formation of "gender" and "sexuality" as categories of sociocultural analysis, surveying the major shifts within the intellectual history of gender and sexuality studies, while interrogating the ways in which race, class, and nationality complicate studies of gender and sexuality and of mobility alike. In other words, if one major question that animates the course is what intersectional studies of mobility have to contribute to historical and anthropological studies of gender and sexuality in the Middle East, the other is what kind of new analytical ground studies of gender and sexuality could open up in sociocultural analysis of mobility, migration and transnationalism across the Middle East and Southwest Asia.
Registration Requirements
Combined undergraduate & graduate course
Learning Objectives
"By the end of the course, students will be able to
• recognize prevalent interpretations of gender and sexuality in the Middle East.
• evaluate core concepts related to transformation of the region through the analytical lens of gender and sexuality
• generate different theories of gender and sexuality by analyzing ethnographic evidence drawn from three Middle Eastern countries"
Evaluation Method
Students will be evaluated on the basis of two short papers (6 to 8 pages for undergraduate participants and 8 to 10 pages for graduate participants) (50%) and class participation (50%). Attendance and active participation are mandatory.
Class Materials (Required)
"All required text with the exception of the following books can be found under files on the course website. The books are available at the NU bookstore for purchase, or at the library on reserve.
Maya Mikdashi, 2022. Sextarianism: Sovereignty, Secularism, and the State in Lebanon. Palo, Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. ISBN-13: 978-1503631557
Evren Savci, 2021. Queer in Translation: Sexual Politics under Neoliberal Islam. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. ISBN-13: 978-1478011361
Sima Shakhsari. 2020. Politics of Rightful Killing: Civil Society, Gender and Sexuality in Weblogistan. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. ISBN-13: 978-1478006657"