History, Urbanity and Landscape in the Contemporary Middle East

General Description

How are cities, towns and landscapes interconnected in the postcolonial present? How do histories of imperialism and colonialism leave imprints on landscapes, built environments and the connections between them? This course explores these questions through three weeks of lived experience in contemporary Jordan. Jordan is an ideal space to critically analyze the postcolonial nation state as a political form of landscape-making from the capital city to secondary cities to their coastal and interior hinterlands. Studies will discuss, journal and critically analyze their experience of moving over these landscapes, with journeys through rural and semi-urban landscapes constituting sites of inquiry as much as destinations.

Learning Goals

By the end of the seminar, students will be able to:

1. Critically analyze and historically examine cities and their surrounding landscapes in Jordan in reference to class lectures, activities and field trips.
2. Compare and describe different Jordanian cities and towns in relation to their surrounding landscapes in speech and writing.
3. Contextualize, engage and evaluate historical and contemporary modes and routes of transport in relation to the physical landscape and the built environment.
4. Generate historical arguments about the relationship between urbanity and postcolonial state formation in the Middle East.

Living and Travel Conditions

Students will live in hotels and travel on buses. The program will take place in June which is warm (usually 30s Celsius, but field trips to Wadi Rum and Aqaba can top 40) and dry. The program will be facilitated by Sijal Institute for Arabic Language and Culture in Amman, and will include 18 hours of instruction in Jordanian colloquial Arabic.

Location

Students will begin and end in Amman, the capital of Jordan that has rapidly increased in population and built environment since Jordan became an independent state in 1946. Amman's urban landscape tells the story of the region's modern history, including large communities of Palestinian refugees expelled in 1948 and 1967 and Iraqi and Syrian refugee communities established under conditions of American occupation and civil war. Students will also explore vibrant secondary cities like Salt and Karak that were important Jordan's Ottoman past, and Petra, Wadi Rum and Aqaba, arid and coastal cities crucial to the British colonial and Hashemite national projects. We will focus our inquiries on landscape and politics between, as much as within, these cities.

Prerequisites and Expectation

Preference will be given to students who have taken Stanford courses related to the Middle East, broadly defined both spatially and temporally, but this is not a requirement.  Selected students will be required to attend two meetings with Professor Barakat in the spring quarter and join a Whatsapp group.

Faculty

Dr. Nora Barakat

Professor Barakat specializes in Modern Middle East History and has written a book and multiple scholarly articles focused on the history of landscape, law and human communities in Jordan especially during the late Ottoman period. She has been living in and visiting Jordan, especially Amman but also Karak and Madaba, for the past 25 years and has taught courses on Modern Middle East History in California and the Persian Gulf since 2010.

Grading Basis

Letter Grade