preparations for 02 September session

Read these in this order

  1. Maalouf, A. (1985). The crusades through Arab eyes New York: Schocken Books. Forward, Prologue (pp. xiii-xvi) & Epilogue (pp. 261-266)
    What the West remembers as an epic effort to reconquer the Holy Land is portrayed here as a brutal, destructive, unprovoked invasion by barbarian hordes.
  2. Bergquist, R. (2004) The Arab Bridge
    Thus did a Latin translation
    of a Hebrew translation
    of an Arabic commentary
    based upon an Arabic translation
    of a Syriac translation
    of a Greek original
    spark a momentous intellectual movement in medieval Christendom.
  3. Patai, R. (1962). Golden River to Golden Road: Society, culture, and change in the Middle East. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
    Read the Preface and skim the rest.
    The point here is that there is common culture here, despite being overlaid with different languages, religions, peoples, and nations.
  4. T.M. Johnstone, "The Languages of the Middle East", in Sweet, L. E., & American Museum of Natural History. (1970). Peoples and cultures of the Middle East: An anthropological reader. Vol. 1: Depth and Diversity. Garden City, N.Y: Published for the American Museum of Natural History [by] the Natural History Press.
    A short discussion on the languages and their relationships.
  5. Lane, E. W. (1973). An account of the manners and customs of the modern Egyptians. New York: Dover Publications.
    Chapter III. Religion and Laws and Chapter XIII. Character
    Originally published in 1836, this is still a valid look at the deep imbedding of religious culture into every aspect of life. Note the similarities in behavior and in actors with today. Worth reading in depth, but a skim would do.
  6. Maxime Rodinson, "The Western Image and Western Studies of Islam" in Schacht, J., Bosworth, C. E., & Arnold, T. W. (1974). The legacy of Islam. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
    How our image of the peoples of the Middle East was stereotyped by the West's need to define them as "the other" and "the enemy," with stereotypical "evil" attributes. Skim it.

Think about these issues

  1. What is the "Middle East"? How do you define it?
  2. "Middle" in regards to what? "East" in regards to what?
  3. What is eternal in this society?
  4. What is changing?

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