Life Course and Generation in the Arab World

Life Course and Generation in the Arab World CHDV 26234 Monday/Wednesday 3:00-4:20 (This course counts for the CHD B and C undergraduate specializations).

Instructor: Christine Nutter El Ouardani Email: [email protected] Office Hours: By appointment.

Course Description:

In this course we will examine families, life transitions, and intergenerational relationships across the Arab world. We will consider not only how discrete age categories such as childhood, youth, or old age have been transformed in the current moment by socio-political and economic trends in the region, but also how these factors shape the dynamic between generations. In taking this interdisciplinary life course approach to understanding the Arab world, we will examine a wide-range of anthropological, sociological, psychological, and historical texts, as well as at least one novel.

In addition to providing an overview on the literature that has been written about the life course in the Middle East, we will also consider the following questions throughout the course: To what extent is there a unified experience of life course development across the Arab world? Are developmental stages emerging from psychological science applicable in the Arab world and in what ways have these stages been appropriated by these populations? In what ways can we represent “Arab” experience to avoid Orientalist stereotypes that have often characterized work on lives in the Arab world?

Assignments and Course Requirements: Final grades will be based on fulfilling the following requirements:

Attendance and Class Participations: Attendance is mandatory. More than two absences will affect one’s final participation grade. Students are expected to engage in classroom discussions of readings. Students should read all assigned texts and be prepared to engage in active discussions of these texts during class.

Reading Responses: To help you prepare for class discussion, once a week (except for Weeks 1, 2, and 3), you will be required to write short, informal responses to the assigned texts. You may choose whether to post a response on either Monday or Wednesday. You will post your responses to the blog section of the course website on Chalk by 9am each Monday or Wednesday. There is a 150-word minimum for these responses. Students are encouraged to read each other’s responses in advance of class and to draw on them during class discussion.

Midterm: The midterm will be a 4-6 page take-home paper in which I will ask you to develop an argument by comparing and contrasting at least two of the texts we are reading for the course.

1 Final Paper: In the final 7-10 page paper, I will ask you to choose a text outside of the course readings (a novel, a film, an ethnography, policy papers, etc.) and develop an argument about the text using one of the theoretical perspectives we have developed in the class. I am quite flexible on the format and topic of this paper, so do let me know if you have a specific interest you would like to pursue in writing this paper. I will ask you to submit a one-paragraph summary of your text and topic at least two weeks before the paper is due.

Late Assignments: Late papers will be docked one grade per day. Late reading responses will only receive half credit.

Grading: The final grade will be determined based on the following criteria:

Class Attendance and Participation: (30% of final grade) Reading Responses: (20%) Midterm: (20%) Final Paper: (30%)

Course Policy on Laptops:

I do not allow the use of laptops or other electronic devices during class. Research has demonstrated that not only does internet use decrease the retention of course material and participation of the laptop user, but significantly reduces the retention of material by “bystanders” who are in the line of sight of the user.

Required Texts Gregg, Gary. 2005. The Middle East: A Cultural Psychology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (This book is also available as an E-book through the library.)

Hamdy, Sherine. 2012. Our Bodies Belong to God: Organ Transplants, Islam, and the Struggle for Human Dignity in Egypt. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Inhorn, Marcia. 2012. The New Arab Man: Emergent Masculinities, Technologies, and Islam in the Middle East. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Matar, Hisham. 2006. In the Country of Men. New York: The Dial Press.

These texts will be available at the Seminary Co-op. All other readings are available online through the Chalk site. I reserve the right to add or delete texts throughout the course.

2 Schedule

Introduction:

January 6 Introduction and Course Overview

January 8 Life Course and Generation

Gregg, Introduction, pp. 3-10.

Cole, Jennifer and Deborah Durham. Introduction: Age, Regeneration, and the Intimate Politics of Globalization. In Generations and Globalization, Youth, Age, and Family in the New World Economy. Indiana University Press, pp. 1-27.

Johnson-Hanks, Jennifer. 2002. On the Limits of the Life Cycle in Ethnography: Toward a Theory of Vital Conjunctures. American Anthropologist, 104: 865-880.

January 13 What is the “Arab World”?

Keddie, Nikki 1973 “Is there a Middle East?” IJMES 4(3):255-271.

Bates, Daniel and Amal Rassam. 2000. Communal Identities and Ethnic Groups. In People and Cultures of the Middle East, 2nd edition. Pearson, pp. 90-119.

Gregg, Chapter 3 and 4, 44-133.

January 15 Orientalism and Stereotype

Edward Said. 1979. Introduction. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books, 1- 30.

Gregg, Chapter One, pp. 13-43.

January 20 No Class-Martin Luther King Day

January 24 Childhood

Gregg, Chapters 4-6, pp. 136-250.

January 27 Children and Authoritarian Regimes

Matar, pp. 1-149.

3 Recommended:

Hammoudi, Abdellah. 1997. Introduction. Master and Disciple: the Cultural Foundations of Moroccan Authoritarianism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 1-9.

January 29 Children and Violence in the Arab World

Matar, pp. 150-246.

February 3 Childhood and Education

Abi-Mershed, Osama. 2010. Introduction: The Politics of Arab Educational Reforms. In Trajectories of Education in the Arab World: Legacies and Challenges. Routledge, pp. 1-13.

Gunther, Sebastian. 2010. The principles of education are the grounds of our knowledge: Al-Farabi’s philosophical and Al-Ghazali’s spiritual approaches to learning. In Trajectories of Education in the Arab World: Legacies and Challenges, pp. 13-35.

Eickelman, Dale. 1978. The Art of Memory: Islamic Education and the Art of Reproduction. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 20: 485-516.

February 5 Childhood and Education

Sobhy, Hania. 2012. The de-facto privatization of secondary education in Egypt: A study of private tutoring in technical and general schools. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 42: 47-67.

Boutieri, Charis. 2012. In two speeds (a deux vitesses): Linguistic pluralism and Educational Anxiety in Contemporary Morocco. International Journal of Middle East Studies, 43: 443-464.

Adely, Fida. 2012. “God made beautiful things”: proper faith and religious authority in a Jordanian High School. American Ethnologist, 39: 297–312.

February 10 Adolescence El Shakry, Omnia. 2011. Youth as Peril and Promise: The Emergence of Adolescent Psychology in Post-War Egypt. International Journal of Middle East Studies, 43: 591-610.

Dhillon, Navtej, Paul Dyer, and Tarik Yousef. Generation in Waiting: An Overview of School to Work and Family Formation Transitions. In Generation

4 in Waiting: The Unfullfilled Promise of Young People in the Middle East. Eds, Navtej Dhillon and Tarik Yousef. 11-38.

Gregg, Chapter 7, pp. 252-288.

February 12 Everyday Lives of Arab Youth

Schielke S. 2009. Ambivalent commitments: troubles of morality, religiosity and aspiration among young Egyptians. Journal of Religion in Africa. 39(2): 158–85.

Deeb L, Harb M. 2013. Choosing both faith and fun: youth negotiations of morals norms in South Beirut. Ethnos: 1-22.

Daly, Sunny. 2010. Young Women as Activists in Contemporary Egypt: Anxiety, Leadership, and the Next Generation. Journal of Middle East Women's Studies 6: 59-85.

Recommended:

Suad Joseph. 1994. “Brother/Sister Relationships: Connectivity, Love, and Power in the Reproduction of Patriarchy in Lebanon. American Ethnologist 21: 50-73.

February 17 Youth at Risk

Peteet, Julie. 1994. Male gender and rituals of resistance in the Palestinian intifada: A cultural politics of violence. American Ethnologist, 21: 31-49.

Pandolfo, Stefania. 2007. ‘The Burning’: Finitude and the Politico-Theological Imagination of Illegal Migration. Anthropological Theory, 7: 329-363.

Rhodes, Curtis, Haytham Mihyar, and Ghada Abu Al-Rous. 2011. Social Learning and Community Participation: Youth at Risk in Two Marginalized Neighborhoods in Amman, Jordan. In Arab Youth: Social Mobilisation in Times of Risk. Samir Khalf and Roseanne Saad Khalaf, Eds. London: Saqi Books.

February 19 Adulthood: Dating and Marriage

Singerman, Diane. 2011. The Negotiation of Waithood: The Political Economy of Delayed Marriage in Egypt. In Arab Youth: Social Mobilisation in Times of Risk. Samir Khalf and Roseanne Saad Khalaf, Eds. London: Saqi Books.

5 Karkabi, Nadeem. 2011. Couples in the Global Margins: Sexuality and Marriage between Egyptian men and Western women in South Sinai. Anthropology of the Middle East, 6: 79-97.

Gregg, Chapter 8, 288-325

February 24 Adulthood: Marriage Midterms Due.

Guest Lecturer.

February 26 Adulthood: Reproduction and Infertility

Inhorn.

March 3 Adulthood: Reproduction and Infertility One paragraph description of final paper text and topic due.

Inhorn.

March 5 Old Age: Health, Healing, and Dying

Baglar, Rosslyn. 2013. “Oh god, save us from sugar": an ethnographic exploration of diabetes mellitus in the United Arab Emirates. Medical Anthropology, 32: 109-125.

Abu-Lughod, Lila. 2005. Interpreting Culture(s) after Television: On Method. In Dramas of Nationhood: The Politics of Television in Egypt. University of Chicago Press, pp. 29-53.

Ghannem, Farha. 2014. Contested Traditions: Gender and Mourning Practices in Egypt. In Everyday Life in the Muslim Middle East, 3rd ed. Indiana University Press.

Read the first half of the Hamdy.

Read the second half of the Hamdy.

March 17 Final Papers Due at 9am.