MUSI 008. Music, Politics, and Society in the Modern Middle East: 1922-2016

Home to many of the world’s oldest civilizations and major religions, the Middle East remains a region of remarkable cultural diversity. From the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1922 to the Arab Spring and the current refugee crisis, this vast territory has experienced extraordinary political and social change over the past nearly one hundred years. While often riven by conflict, the Middle East is also a site of ever-renewing intellectual, artistic, and political movements. The musical soundtrack to this constellation of dynamic forces is rich and complex, animated by shifting social environments and ongoing intercultural encounters. Arabs, Turks, Persians, Jews, Kurds, Greeks, Berbers, Armenians, Assyrians, and many other ethno-linguistic and religious identities all claim unique forms of musical expression, mirroring in many cases their environments-rural, urban, desert, coastal, seafaring, nomadic, antiquated, hypermodern, pious, and defiantly secular. In this course we will examine nearly a century of music making in the Middle East focusing on Turkey, Iran, and the countries of the Eastern Mediterranean and North Africa. Readings, audio examples, films, and in-class music making will address the ways that music of the Middle East intersects with religious practices, nationalism, gender, sexuality, language, ethnicity, migration, and protest movements. Through an exploration of elite, popular, folk, and sacred music among others, we will attempt to make sense of the rich and varied soundscapes of the modern Middle East.
1 credit.
Eligible for PEAC
Catalog chapter: Music and Dance: Music

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