Georgetown University: School of Foreign Service in Qatar

INAF 100-70 Politics, Culture, & Technology
Dr. James Reardon-Anderson

This course will be devoted to weekly readings and discussions of books dealing with three aspects of international affairs – politics, culture and technology. Each section of the course will include readings in both fiction and non-fiction that explore common themes around a central question facing all societies in the 21st century. At the end of each section, students will write a five-page paper, exploring a theme of their choice covered in the readings and discussions.

INAF 100-71 On the Frontiers of Islam
Dr. Patrick Laude

In this seminar, we will explore experiences of contact between Islam and the West, as well as ways of understanding and representing Islam in literature and religious thinking that have implications even beyond the boundaries of this religion. This is less a pro-seminar about Islam as such than a discussion of the diversity of images and concepts of this religion and civilization --within and outside of it. The seminar begins with two narratives: the autobiography of a Westerner who embraced Islam in the 20th century (Muhammad Asad, The Road to Mecca) and the literary biography of a Muslim who became a close associate of the Pope in the early 16th century (Amin Maalouf, Leo Africanus). These two works lay the ground for further inquiries into issues of cross-religious communication and further reflections upon the notions of civilization, tradition, modernity and the spiritual and moral dimensions of religion.

INAF 100-72 The West in Crisis
Dr. Elizabeth Zelensky

How was it that Europe, in 1900 the center of the world, by 1945 lay in ruins? What confluence of circumstances caused European civilization to implode amidst the deaths of millions, and then to reorganize itself into heretofore unprecedented new social and political formations, such as Fascism and National Socialism in the west and Communism in the east? What cultural innovations, such as Dadaism, expressionism and surrealism accompanied these changes? And what did it all mean for individual men and women who were living during this time? Through close readings of primary sources we will delineate the basic “anatomy” of this continent-wide revolution from its incipience in 1914 through its aftermath, expressed in post-World War II internationalism and existentialism. We will examine how this seismic shift in political cultures came to be portrayed in literature-poetry, memoirs and fiction, and in dramatic reenactments, both theatrical and cinematographic. Finally, having delineated the basic strata of images – both verbal and graphic – we shall spend the last weeks of the semester tracing the “narrative” of Europe’s demise as a problem in interpretation or historiography.

• 2008-2009 Academic Calendar
• Fall 2008 Schedule of Classes
• Summer 2008 Classes
• Faculty Listings