Department of History                                      University of Michigan

History 749                                                                  Winter 2006

 

 

 

SYLLABUS

 

 

Course Title:  American Hyperpower and Islamic Radicalism             Instructor:   Juan Cole
Office Hours:    T 11-12                                                      Tel. 763-1599; jrcole@umich.edu

 

 

The class requires the reading and active discussion by all students of the assigned texts.  In addition, each student will write a term paper and do a class presentation on the project.  Students must make available copies of a written text on the Tuesday that falls a week before the oral presentation.  Moreover, all students must submit to Cole a set of comments and critiques on each of these texts, due the day of the oral presentation, so that they may be passed on to the presenter and used to improve the paper.  Students who neglect to make the text available by 11:00 am the Tuesday a week before their oral presentation will be downgraded.  Students who neglect to hand in written comments on each student text will be downgraded. 

 

Seminar papers will be due April 23 without fail; no late papers will be accepted.  The topic of the seminar paper will be chosen by the students in consultation with Cole.  Papers must be based largely on primary sources.  In addition to eyewitness accounts in Middle Eastern languages these may include European sources such as printed or microfilmed diplomatic documents; travel accounts; eyewitness newspaper reports by correspondents in the field; memoirs of principals.  Topics having to do with the past decade may be researched from the Foreign Broadcast Information Service and BBC World Service reports, which will be considered primary, especially where they report politicians' speeches.  Relevant secondary sources must also be mined.  A search in the periodical literature using Index Islamicus is essential. 

 

Required Texts: (Available at Shaman Drum, 313 S. State St., Tel. 662-7407); and in Reserve Reading Room, Undergraduate Library)

 

Husain Haqqani.  Pakistan Between Mosque and Military.  Carnegie Endowment for
         International Peace

Gilles Kepel, Jihad.  Harvard UP.

Rashid Khalidi.  Resurrecting Empire.  Beacon Press

Mahmood Mamdani, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim  Pantheon

Melani McAllister.  Epic Encounters.  U California Press

Richard P. Mitchell.  Society of Muslim Brothers.  Oxford

Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr.  Vanguard of the Islamic.  U California

Denis Sullivan & Sana Abed Qotb.  Islam in Contemporary Egypt.  L. Rienner

 

 

 

 

 

CLASS TOPICS

 

Jan.  10            Orientation

 

Jan.  17            Class Discussion:

                        Mitchell.  Society of Muslim Brothers, first half

                       

 

Jan.  24            Class Discussion:

                         Sullivan & Abed Qotb.  Islam in Contemporary Egypt. 

                       

 

Jan. 31             Class Discussion

                         Nasr.  Vanguard of the Islamic

 

Feb.    7           Class Discussion:

                        Gilles Kepel, Jihad.  Harvard UP

 

Feb.  14           Class Discussion:

                        Haqqani.  Pakistan Between Mosque and Military

 

 

Feb.  21           Class Discussion

                        Mamdani, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim  Pantheon

 

 

Mar    7            Class Discussion

                        McAllister.  Epic Encounters. 

 

March 14         Class Discussion

                        Khalidi.  Resurrecting Empire

 

March 21        Paper Presentation

 

 

March  28        Paper Presentation

 

 

April      4         Paper Presentation

 

 

April     11        Paper Presentation

 

 

April      18      Paper Presentation

 

 

 

 

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