One-of-its-Kind Middle East Studies Course Brings Region to Classroom, in All its Complexity and Contradictions
In designing the college’s Middle East and Islamic Studies curriculum, the guiding principle was straightforward: “Israel sits smack in the middle of the Middle East, yet most Israelis know too little about what makes it tick,” said Martin Kramer, Shalem President and head of the Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies department. “There is no substitute for a deep familiarity with the living, breathing culture of today’s Middle Eastern countries.” To address the issue, Shalem enlisted the help of a young Arabic-language instructor, El’ad Artzy, in drawing up plans for a one-of-its-kind course on the contemporary culture and context of Middle Eastern countries.
Covering a different Arab or Muslim country every week, the semester-long course will provide students with a unique, all-encompassing window onto the politics, religion, and popular culture in each country. In each successive session, students will be tested on their knowledge, the goal being, in Artzy’s words, “to achieve a high-enough level of cultural fluency that were students parachuted into a given country, they could pass as a native—or close.”
In choosing an instructor for the course, Artzy “demonstrated the very best qualifications,” explained Dr. Kramer. “We needed someone who not only has expansive knowledge of the Middle East, but also a level of comfort with the new media required to access that knowledge and the charisma to pull off an innovative course like this one.” Artzy, who has taught Arab culture at a number of leading Israeli universities and government ministries, was intrigued by the challenge of teaching a “textless” course—or rather, in his words, one whose “texts are those of the new generation: videos on YouTube, online and print magazine articles, and Facebook postings, for example. The challenge is to select, from among the seemingly infinite options, the cultural products that offer the richest insight into the society that gave rise to them.” As an example, he points to the now-defunct Al-Bernameg, a satirical news program hosted by Bassem Youssef, as a bellwether of Egyptian society. “In a five-minute segment, you got it all: politics, economics, the likes, dislikes, and frustrations of a people. It’s a starting point for a meaningful discussion about the forces shaping the modern Middle East, and I’m looking forward to it.”
