Identification and Analysis of Mainstream Discourses in the Modern Middle East and North Africa (20th Century)

The social and political conditions of the Middle East and North Africa have appeared intricate and multifaceted since the emergence of the Eastern Question and the beginning of the Great Game. This region continues to remain profoundly overwhelmed with change, struggle, controversy, war and conflict. Contradictions and interactions between national and religious identities, traditional and religious values, on the one hand, and modernisation and the values of modernity, on the other, have been among the fundamental reasons for fluctuation and instability in the region throughout the 20th century.

We aim to examine what discourses were dominant, how they emerged and transformed over the period, as well as what semantic constructs and socio-political institutions they created in the Modern Middle East. Using literature, public media and cinema as well as history of the region, students will identify the discourses that formed and/or constructed various 'truths' of self-perceptions.