INTRODUCTION TO ISLAMIC CIVILIZATION

THE MODERN MUSLIM WORLD

 

Professor: Dr. Bruce Lawrence

 

COURSE PURPOSE

 

How do we  begin to grasp modern developments and global features of the Muslim world? In this course we will use a variety of pedagogic tools. One will be   summary overviews, of which both Waldman and Hodgson are indispensable for the entire semester. Another is contemporary novels, of which two, one by the Lebanese chronicler, Amin Maalouf, the other by the Algerian feminist, Assia Djebar, will be read and discussed in Spring 2009. Still another is films, and there will be at least two videos shown either in whole or in part during different class sessions. A final device will be the analysis of the modern Muslim world by looking at the most familiar, though unjustified, trope: violence, and for that task I will use my own monograph, Shattering the Myth: Islam Beyond Violence.

 

 

REQUIRED TEXTS

 

Amin Maalouf, Leo Africanus

Marshall G.S. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, vol. 3

Assia Djebar. Fantasia

Bruce Lawrence. Shattering the Myth: Islam beyond Violence

 

 

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

 

1.       Class Attendance:  Each class meeting is crucial, especially since the subject matter covers a vast range of pre-modern and modern history. The class discussions  will build on, but also go beyond, what is stressed in the required reading.

 

2.       The course  material is compactly structured: if you keep up with the reading and attend every class, you will not only master the course content but also have an enjoyable spring. Discipline, never easy, provides its rewards, and they will be evident to you in this course.

 

3.                 Book reports on four of the five major readings. Each will be 4-5 pages in length (double-spaced paper, normal print, numbered pages), and each will count 15% toward the final grade.

 

4.       Final synthesis paper. Longer than the reports (12-15 pages), it will  

          background them and foreground  your own perspective on the

          modern Muslim world. It will require attention to Shattering the

         Myth , but otherwise allow you to develop and express your own

         sense of a collective Muslim future.  It will count 40 % of the final

         grade.