Since 7th October 2023, Palestine has been the scene of a bloodbath, the systematic genocide of Palestinians and soldiers shooting Palestinians because they are bored, so they shoot. However, some European institutions, such as Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, said the situation in the Middle East should not divide us. The question remains: what is and where is this Middle East that divides the European us? Why does Palestine seem to encapsulate the Middle East, and what is the Middle East beyond Palestine? This course addresses these questions to engage with the construction of the Middle East in contemporary history and critically reflect on misrepresentations of the Middle East. This course begins and stays with the perspective of the underrepresented and dispossessed; therefore, it refuses the perspective of the imperial and imperious Dominant and the Apartheid regime. We shall discuss colonialism, Israel’s colonialism and its Apartheid regime, sectarianism, orientalism, Persianism and the Kurdish question to familiarise students with how the Middle East is a product of Western colonial imagination in contemporary history.   

Assessments:

• Freestyle essay: students based on the experience of a student-led class (1) and learning how to engage with histories, regions and peoples through material culture will submit an essay. The essay should engage with historical visual representations of the Middle East and critically examine reductionism, Islamophobia, sexism, racism and Orientalism in those visual representations. Students are encouraged to engage with Middle Eastern artists, poets and visual makers who also critically examine patriarchy, authoritarianism and other problems in their own societies. This assignment constitutes 10% of your final grade, and it should be 1000 words, excluding the bibliography and sources.

• Revolutionary Thinkers: Students practice the course's critical approach and introduction of Edward Said in understanding the misrepresentation of the Middle East in this assignment. Therefore, they introduce a revolutionary and social justice-oriented thinker from the Middle East and spotlight how their critical thinking exposed the misrepresentation and Western dominations of the Middle East. The assignment should introduce the thinker’s biography, publications, histories of activism and the central points of concern and how these points represent/explain/illustrate the Middle East differently. Please consider the points below:

  1)    Students are not limited to any historical period as long as their selected thinkers are from or situated in the Middle East and not other parts of the Muslim world, such as Northern Africa or former Andalusia.

  2)    Their selected revolutionary thinker must be social justice-oriented and not serve authoritarian or exclusionary movements and ideologies. For instance, Ali Shariati, Abdul Karim Soroush, Seyyed Qutub, Ataturk, Khomeini or Anwar Sadat are not accepted figures for this assignment. Students could check with the teacher and discuss their selection.

  3)    Suggested thinkers: Nazik Al Al-Abid, Nawal El Saadawi, Adila Bayhum, Maryana Marrash, Abdullah Öcalan,  Kesire Yildirim, Hala Aldosari, Jamil Sidqi al-Zahawi, Yanar Mohammed, Rezgar Akrawi, Rabab Al-Kadhimi, Naziha al-Dulaimi, Zakia Hakki, Houzan Mahmoud, Zainab Salbi, George Habash, Mahmoud Darwish, Leila Khalid, Hassan Hanafi, Gilbert Achcar, Fadi Bardawil, Nadja Ali, Zahra Ali.

  This assignment constitutes 45% of your final grade, and it should be 2000 words, excluding the bibliography and sources

• The final paper or exam