The course attempts to discursively approach the troubling relationship between Islam and west. In order to do so, it deconstructs the discourse of modernity by empirically placing it into the context of Islam and West. In this effort it  traces the lineage of knowledge in this play of power wherein the west as a unified category has historically acted as systematic-assertive in its sustained effort to make this religion moribund. In such an undertaking, the course primarily relies on two contributors, Bernard Lewis and Edward W. Said.

Learning Outcomes

At the end of this course:

1. At the end of the course, students are expected to have basic understating of discursive friction between Occidentalism and Orientalism  
2. Able to view the contemporary International Politics from an Islamic perspective   

Content:

• Introduction to Bernard Lewis and his work
• What Went Wrong? Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response
• The Lessons of the Battlefield
• The Quest for Wealth and Power
• Social and Cultural Barriers
• Modernization and Social Equality
• Secularism and Civil Society
• Time, Space and Modernity
• Aspects of Cultural Change

• Introduction to Edward Said
• Introduction to his work ‘Orientalism’
• The Scope of Orientalism
• Knowing the Oriental
• Imaginative Geography and Its Representations: Orientalizing the Oriental
• Projects
•  
• Redrawn Frontiers, Redefined Issues, Secularized Religion
• Silvestre de Sacy and Earnest Renan: Rational Anthropology and Philological Laboratory
• Pilgrims and Pilgrimages, British and French
• Latent and Manifest Orientalism
• Styles, Expertise, Vision: Orientalism’s Worldliness
• Modern Anglo-French Orientalism in Fullest Flower
• The Latest Phase

Assessment Criteria

1. Attendance and Class Participation: 10 % (75% of attendance would be mandatory to take the final term exams.)
2. Presentation and Assignments: 8%
3. Quiz: 2%
4. Mid Term Examination: 30%
5. Final Term Examination: 50%

Class Days and Timings 

• Monday (11:30-12:30)
• Tuesday (11:00-12:30)

Key Readings: 

Lewis, B. (2002). What Went Wrong Western Impact and Middle Eastern. Oxford : Oxford University Press.

Said, E. W. (1978). Orientalism . New York : Pantheon Books