ISLAM AND THE WEST - IRS367/IRS667 Spring 2021

Go over syllabus and course requirements. Discussion of the terminology, definitions, and paradigms that are relevant for the study of ‘Islam and the West.’ Discuss how to sign up for student presentations.

Features of the Arab peninsula prior to the advent of Islam, the life of Islam’s prophet Mohammed through the first three centuries of the religion’s spread.

Multiple perceptions of the Crusades, their social, economic, political, and relations between the "Islamicate World" and the "West."

Cultural and Scientific Exchanges. The impact of European geographical expansion on global dynamics and the Islamicate world.

Individual migration and conversion in the early modern period. Cultural exchanges and expectations, perceptions, and experiences of those traversing the borders between Islamicate world and Europe.

Comparative summary and analysis of events transpiring in the Islamicate world from the post-classical age through the Age of Revolutions.

Challenges faced by the Islamicate world in the years immediately preceding and following Napoleon's invasion of Egypt.

A deliberation of the concepts of modernization and westernization in the nineteenth century Islamicate world. Institutional changes and cultural negotiations.

The Great War, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and the making of the Modern Middle East.

Contemporary media representations of Islam and Muslims and whether or not they perpetuate assumptions of civilizational dichotomies.