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This course is aimed at ensuring that students critically engage with three core concepts, namely, violence, armed groups and the Middle East, their confluence and subsequently their impact on contemporary politics in the region. The seminar will begin with the question, ‘‘how’ should we study the three concepts?’ thus providing for the theoretical and intellectual basis for understanding individual armed figurations in the region and their ‘struggle’ in balancing violent and non-violent means of opposition and rebellion. While the course does traverse through the empirical literature on the most prominent groups in the Middle East, its primary aim is to teach students how to study armed groups. Here is a list of preliminary topics we will be discussion. Students will be expected to write a final paper at the end of the semester:
a) How to study violence?
b) Studying the Middle East: Searching for (new) heuristic tools.
c) Who are armed groups? Reactionary or Creative?
d) Beyond Ideology: Time to focus on ‘Lived Experiences’.
e) Hamas.
f) Fatah.
g) Islamic Jihad.
h) PKK.
i) Houthi Army.
j) From Violence to Non-Violence: The Story of the Muslim Brotherhood.
k) Armed Opposition and the Arab Spring.
*** Please note that this course is will be held twice a week for a total of 7 weeks (as opposed to 14)
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