Course Outline | Fall Semester 2015

Introduction:

The division between the humanities and the social sciences is manifest in the ways of knowing

and analyzing the human condition. For the social sciences, the objective is to establish causality

among events by means of a positivist or interpretative methodology that is fashioned after the

natural sciences. In the social sciences, the study of the individual is distinguished along three

dimensions: the homo sociologus (the social individual), the homo economicus (the economic

individual), and the homo politicous (the political individual). This division has culminated in the

establishment of academic social science disciplines that correspond to the tripartite division of

sociology, economics and political science. By contrast the humanities, which include history,

literature, discourse analysis, cultural anthropology, philosophy, linguistics, and the fine arts

rely on an interpretative methodology associated with hermeneutics, critical theory, and

ethnography.

While mindful of European contributions to human knowledge, the purpose of this year-long

course is to expose the student to a wide spectrum of critical thought rooted in the much more

global experiences, including the Arab and Islamic, experiences.

The Social Sciences-Humanities Tension:

At the time of the establishment of the social sciences and humanities as academic disciplines

in the 18th

and 19th

centuries in Europe, the natural sciences provided a model for acquiring

knowledge, including knowledge in the humanities. With the natural sciences asserting their

dominance at the time, the stress was placed on quantitative analysis. Gradually, this moved the

social sciences to adopt a natural-scientific approach to studying humans. As described by one

scholar, this move was carried out at the expense of the humanities as a discipline. Antoine

Msarrah raises this issue facing the potential of the humanities and the prospects of keeping

steps with the approaches of the natural sciences. Msarrah wonders if “the sciences that are

labeled human sciences which are taught in universities worldwide are actually [what we

understand] by the humanities? There are a cluster of factors that impact negatively on the

humanistic aspect of the humanities: [this includes] the nature of the direction of the academic

turn which puts its complete trust in the natural sciences and their efficacy, the shrouding of the

humanities in quantitative and bureaucratic focus, and the relegation of the study of humanities

to the pre-college levels.”1 (Msarrah 2014). In the second half of the 20

th

century, a revival of

interest in the human-centered tradition with emphasis on agency, meaning, reflexive thought,

1 Msarrah, Antoine, “How can the Social Sciences become Human? The Factors that Contribute to the Human Dimension of Social Integration and the Effectiveness of Social Research,” pp. 39-48, The Dialectics of Social Integration and the Building of State and Nation in the Arab World, proceedings of a conference organized by the Arab Centre for Research and Policy Studies in Doha, 2014 [Arabic].

SOSH 601

Issues in Social Sciences and Humanities

I

School Core Compulsory Course

Course Convenors: Dr. Hamid Dabashi and Dr. Abderrahim

Benhadda

Credit Value: 3

Pre-requisites: No pre-requisites

Co-requisites: No co-requisites

Course Duration: 14 weeks; Semester 1

Total Student Study Time: 126 hours, including 42 contact

hours of lectures and seminars.

2

intention and action made their way to the social sciences, mainly sociology, political science,

and anthropology.

Contest over Historical Knowledge:

History, a component of the humanities, is considered to be the guardian of memory, of

collective memory in particular. That is why the aphorism “history is written by the victors,”

commonly attributed to Winston Churchill, assumes special significance and begs the question

“who writes history?” As the means of communication and archival research spread, contestation

over historical knowledge and memory claims enabled many to document history from the

bottom up, so to speak, as seen from the perspective of the vanquished and the oppressed.

Writing history thus becomes part of the struggle within discourse analysis, as evident for

example in the variegated field of subaltern studies.

Rather than adhere to the chronological view of history at the macro level with its sweeping

coverage of events and territory over time, thinkers such as Michel Foucault focused on historical

discontinuity, and emphasized the institutional micro changes that took place in the 18th

century

with the introduction of organizational reforms in schools, hospitals and the taxation system.

All of these reforms aimed at disciplining the populations into behaving in ways that enabled

their control. Although Foucault did not deal with colonial societies as such, Timothy Mitchell’s

book Colonizing Egypt is on among many other examples of using a Foucauldian perspective in

order to shed light on the ways the British Empire managed its occupied territories. Subsequent

historical research on colonialism benefited a great deal from counter narratives about history.

Palestine, for example, provides a rich terrain for exploring the use of memory and archival

material to question the prevailing version of Palestine’s history as elaborated by western and

Israeli authors.

INTENDED LEARNING OUTCOME

1) Subject-specific skills:

The purpose of this course, along with SOSH 602, is to introduce students to the range and

depth of social sciences and the humanities at classical and critical, theoretical and

methodological, levels. In general, it is designed in such a way that will expose students to

various disciplinary, cross-disciplinary, and philosophical perspectives on the wide range of

social sciences and the humanities. The ultimate objective of this course is to cultivate an

intuitive theoretical and methodological response to contemporary issues they face in a vastly

changing and tumultuous world.

2) Core academic skills:

This course, along with SOSH 602, is designed in a manner that will provide the general lay of

the land in the literature. They build on the received disciplinary formations in social sciences

and the humanities but are equally responsive to the factual and emerging realities of a vastly

changing world by allowing them to interface in interdisciplinary and comparative ways. The

principal task of these two courses will thus be not just in consuming available knowledge, but

to change the very regime of knowledge production in and about our region and thereby the

world. The core academic skills developed in these two courses are critical thinking,

theoretical and methodological skills, and creative encounters between history and theory.

3) Personal and key skills:

- Command of theoretical and methodological issues in social sciences and humanities

- Ability to apply such skills to contemporary issues around the world

- Communicate clearly (both in writing and orally);

3

4) Contribution to DI Mission:

This course is designed and delivered in unison with the Doha Institute mission as, “integrating

teaching and learning with scientific research in a manner that prepares its graduates to

become academic researchers and capable professionals in the social sciences, humanities,

public administration and development economics.” It helps its students to master the

theoretical and methodological foundations of social sciences and the humanities in a manner

that will enable them to become “independent thinkers and proficient in using international

scientific standards and modern interdisciplinary research methodologies and tools, and

leading professionals who can advance human knowledge and respond to the needs of the

Arab region, resulting in social, cultural and intellectual development.”

LEARNING/TEACHING METHODS

The course is based on lectures and seminars:

Lecture: These sessions introduce theoretical topics and demonstrate opportunities to apply

the topics to relevant cultural products. The lectures are therefore based on several theories

related to resistance, which provide points of access to analyse relationships between power,

culture and resistance. Students will be introduced to these writers and corresponding

critiques and responses to their work. Extra learning resources, including technical and

multimedia tools such as Power Point presentations, short recordings and videos, notes, etc.,

will be provided for students' use after the lectures.

Seminars: Seminar hours will focus on assigned readings and corresponding discussions on

the significance of selected texts. The readings will be provided to the students before the

start of the semester. The first five sessions will focus on theories of cultural resistance as

related to the subject of each lecture. The second part of the course will address the aesthetics

of resistance in the Arab World, applying approaches discussed in the first half of the course.

Students will give presentations on literary and other artistic works of their choice,

demonstrating their knowledge of the discussed modes of resistance and applying appropriate

theoretical ideas.

ASSIGNMENTS

Regular class participation, attending smaller scale seminars, meeting with the faculty

members during office hours for tutorials are all required for all students, plus a mid-term

book review, and a final paper. The capstone requirement of the course is a research paper

based on the materials read and discussed and additional sources when required.

ASSESSMENT

The final grade is based on (1) Short (500 words) biweekly papers (50%), and a final scholarly

term paper (5000 words) (50%)—which will be assessed based on the lucidity of the argument,

the range of material consulted, and a scholarly citation method.

4

SYLLABUS PLAN

The courses consists of seven lectures and each lecture is accompanied by four hours of

tutorials. The following are the titles of the lectures for the Fall semester. Each session has a

synopsis that describes briefly the focus of the particular session, followed by a bibliography in

English and Arabic.

Title of Lecture Lecturer Date of

Lecture

Seminar Leaders Date of

Seminars

Developments of

Social Sciences and

the Humanities

Elia Zuriek 6th

October

2015

Ismail Nashif

Mouldi Lahmar

Nabil Khattab

Dana Olwan

8th

October

15th

October

The Renaissance and

the Enlightenment in

the Mediterranean

World

Abdelaziz Labib 20th

October

2015 Mohammad Tahar

Al Mansouri

Abdelaziz Labib

Abdelhamid

Henia

Mohammad Afifi

22nd

October

29th

October

Race, Class and

Gender Nijmeh Hajjar 3

rd

November

2015 Imed Bin Labidi

Nijmeh Hajjar

Dana Olwan

Abdelwahab El

Affendi

5th

November

12th

November

Representation of

Self and Other in the

Modern Arabic

Literature

Rasheed El Enany 17th

November

2015 Imed Bin Labidi

Atef Botros Al

Attar

Mohammed Eid

Ayman El

Desouky

19th

November

3rd

December

Issues of Modernity

and Post-Modernity

Hamid Dabashi 8th

December

2015 Abdelaziz Labib

Atef Botros Al

Attar

Raja Bahloul

Mohammed

Mesbahi

19th

December

17th

December

Arts and Sciences in

the Arab-Islamic

Civilization

George Saliba 22nd

December

2015 Abdelaziz Labib

Mohammad Tahar

Al Mansouri

Mohammed

Mesbahi

Abdelhamid

Henia

24th

December

31st

December

Humanism, Post-

Humanism, Human

Rights

Hamid Dabashi 5th

January

2015 Yousef Choueiri

Raja Bahloul

Khalil al-Anani

Imed Bin Labidi

7th

January

2016

14th

January

5

Weeks 1-2 Development of Social Sciences and the Humanities

The humanities can boast of a long, venerable tradition that draws its strength from Greek

philosophy, Islamic philosophy, and the Enlightenment. The evolution of the human sciences

rested on a normative evaluation of the world whose objective is to attain wisdom through deep

and reflexive thought, so as to enable researchers to contribute to the building of a civil society

and tackle the big questions facing humanity.

Beginning with the 19th

century, positivism and the ascendancy of the natural sciences influenced

the social sciences through the use of quantitative techniques such as numbers, statistics,

correlations, and forecasting.

The developments of the social sciences such as economics, political science, and sociology in

the second half of the 20th

century assumed an important role in decision-making and policy

analysis..

The humanities, on the other hand, which drew their inspiration from the fields of philosophy,

languages, and literature adopted an interpretative-critical methodology that is anchored in

ethnography, semiotics, and discourse analysis. Such an approach considered everyday human

conduct as the material upon which social analysis should be based. Over time, such separation

in methodologies was not viewed as definitive, and the current literature seems to suggest ways

in which to adopt a more comprehensive approach to reconciling the two methodologies of the

social sciences and humanities.

:عربيةالاملراجع

االندماج االجتماعي وفاعلية البحث ينساني فانسانية؟ مفاعيل البعد اإل… انطوان نصرى مسرة. "كيف تكون العلوم االجتماعية

االجتماعي": بحوث املؤتمر الذي نظمه املركز العربي لألبحاث ودراسة السياسات؛ جدليات االندماج االجتماعي وبناء الدولة واألمة في

.48-39(. ص. 2014العالم العربي. الدوحة )

.48-39، ص. 2013، 19ع. اضافات،"، مجلة العالم العربي يع فعـلى الوردي والتأصيـل الخلدوني لعلم االجتماحميد الهاشمى. "

حنفي. مقدمة في مستقبل العلوم االجتماعية في الوطن العربي: بحوث املؤتمر الذي نظمه مركز دراسات الوحدة العربية؛ مركز ي سار

لعلم االجتماع )تونس(/أحمد موس ى بدوي )وآخرون(/ البحث في األنثروبولوجيا االجتماعية والثقافية )وهران ـ الجزائر(؛ الجمعية العربية

ص. 438 .(2015تحرير وتقديم: ساري حنفي؛ نورية بن غيريط؛ مجاهدي مصطفى. بيروت: مركز دراسات الوحدة العربية )

.213-13. ص. 2010. مركز دراسات الوحدة العربية، 3محمد عزت حجازي وآخرون. نحو علم اجتماع عربي، ط.

Bibliography:

Judith Butler. “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenemology and Feminist

Theory.” Feminist Theory Reader: Local and Global Perspectives

Raymond Hinnebusch, “Historical Sociology and the Arab Spring,” Mediterranean Politics, 19(1):

133-140.

6

C. Wright Mills, (1959) The Sociological Imagination (pages will be assigned).

Georges Sabagh and Iman Ghazalla, “Arab Sociology today,” Annual Review of Sociology, 12,

1986: 373-399.

Weeks 3-4 The Renaissance and the Enlightenment in the Mediterranean World

After introducing the student to the specificity and exceptionalism of the Mediterranean world

as the meeting place of three continents (Africa, Asia and Europe) and their cultures, and the

meeting place of Arab and Islamic civilizations with Western civilization, the student will be

provided with an entry into understanding the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, and how they

constituted two deciding events that led to transporting the Mediterranean world from being

subservient to the Middle Ages to belonging to the world of modernity.

No doubt there are great historical, scientific, geographic and cultural events which Europe

experienced in the 15 and 16 centuries that laid the foundations for the European Renaissance,

such as the conquering of Constantinople and the departing of its learned men to Italy, the

invention of the printing press which contributed to a revolution in reading due to popularity of

books, and the religious reformation which freed beliefs from their ecclesiastical tutelage. The

Renaissance released two doctrines: Humanism and Reformation. Humanism reflects the

adoration of the literary accomplishments of the old world belonging to the Greeks regarding

the role of man, including his body and mind. Humanism was the result of cross-fertilization

between the Greek-Roman and the Arab-Islamic Renaissance that came at the start of the

European Renaissance. This came at a time when religious reformation, that was based on

criticism of the church from within, simplified and linked religion to the national language and

the removal of the position of the church as an intermediary between God and the believer.

Throughout these changes, the Renaissance paved the way to Enlightenment which was

accompanied with many industrial, social, and political upheavals that ushered in modernity.

This session cautions the student that if Humanism strived to attain the two traditions of the

Greeks and the Romans as a means of redirecting the European mind towards the past so that

it will avoid the pitfalls of the Middle Ages, the Enlightenment strove not to disconnect its

development from previous times, whether this was the old or middle time, in order embark on

a fresh start of “I am therefore I think”. According to this, the Enlightenment has freed the mind

from all mental patronages and transference, so as to enable the individual to occupy a central

place in the universe as an autonomous person.

It is important to remember that the two revolutions of the Renaissance and Enlightenment

impacted in a special way the north-western shores of the Mediterranean, and this what equipped

it to take the initiative in leading the world in commerce, industry, science, and culture. However,

the Eastern and Southern of the Mediterranean world could not join the changes in Humanism,

Enlightenment and reformation, in spite of attempts at reformation. Thus, the center of power

shifted during the two periods of Enlightenment and Renaissance from the eastern-Southern

flank to the north-western shores of the Mediterranean.

:العربية املراجع

.2005سبنسر ليود و كروز، أندرزيجي، عصر التنوير، ترجمة إمام عبد الفتاح إمام، املجلس األعلى للثقافة،

7

.2007كالرك )جي جي(، التنوير اآلتي من الشرق، اللقاء بين الفكر األسيوي والفكر الغربي، ترجمة شوقي جالل، عالم املعرفة، الكويت

.2010تاريخ أوربا من الفيودالية إلى األنوار، الرباط، منشورات كلية اآلداب والعلوم اإلنسانية بالرباط، محمد حبيدة،

.2000لتنوير، ت. بغورة، الزواوي، القاهرة فوكو، ميشيل، ما ا

Bibliography:

Burke, P., The European Renaissance: Centre and Peripheries, 1998.

Stark, Rodney, The Victory of Reason, Random House, NY: 2005.

Burckhardt, Jacob, The Republics: Venice and Florence, The Civilization of the Renaissance in

Italy, translated by S.G.C. Middlemore, 1878.

Stephens, J., Individualism and the cult of creative personality, The Italian Renaissance, New

York, 1990.

Wootton, David. Paolo Sarpi: Between Renaissance and Enlightenment. Cambridge: Cambridge

UP, 1983.

De Donno, Fabrizio, Routes to Modernity: Orientalism and Mediterraneanism in Italian Culture,

1810-1910, University of London - Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, 2010.

Weeks 5-6 Race, Class and Gender

The intersection between race, class and gender has proven to be an enduring feature of social

formations in the pre-industrial, industrial and post-industrial societies. The intersection has been

compounded due to colonialism/colonization, and was followed in the nineteenth and twentieth

centuries with immigration, globalization, and regional conflicts. Colonialism remains the

determining factor that shaped the patterns of stratification, prejudice, types of citizenship rights,

and gender relations in general.

Thus, the past remains very much a part of the present in the areas of culture, economy, politics,

and gender.

العربية: املراجع

.2013بيروت: االسكوا، . عربيةاالسكوا. مكافحة العنف املنزلى ضد املرأة والفتاة : سياسات تمكين املرأة فى املنطقة ال

. 2001ترجمة أحمد حسان، القاهرة: دار العالم الثالث، السيطرة الذكورية. بورديو. بيير

Required Reading:

Ann Laura Stoler (2010), Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power: Race and the Intimate in Colonial

Rule. University of California Press; With a New Preface edition.

8

Cornell West (1994), Race Matters. Vintage; Reprint edition.

Fanz Fanon (1959), Black Skin, White Masks. Grove Press; Revised edition.

Nawal El-Saadawi (1975), Women at Point Zero. Zed Books; 2nd edition.

Randall Kennedy (1998), Race, Crime and the Law. Vintage; Reprint edition.

W.E.B. Du Bois (1903). The Souls of Black Folk. Eucalyptus Press, 2014.

Ann Laura Stoler (1995). Race and the Education of Desire: Foucault’s History of Sexuality and

the Colonial Encounter. Duke University Press Books.

Franz Fanon (1961). The Wretched of the Earth. Grove Press; Reprint edition.

Karl Marx (1975). Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations. International Publishers.

Lila Abu-Lughod (2014). Do Muslim Women Need Saving? Harvard University Press.

Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian (2009). Militarization and Violence against Women in Conflict Zones

in the Middle East: A Palestinian Case-Study. Cambridge University Press; 1 edition.

Spivak Gayati (1994). “Can the Subaltern Speak?” in Colonial Discourses and Post-Colonial

Theory: A Reader, Patrick Williams and Laura Chrisman (eds.). Columbia University Press; 1st

edition pp. 66-111.

United Nation (2014). World Survey on the Role of Women in Development: Gender Equality and

Sustainable Development. United Nations Women.

Weeks 7-8 Representation of Self and Other in the Modern Arabic Literature

In his famous book, Orientalism, Edward Said argues that Europe invented the Orient, created

the East, and that since antiquity the Orient has been for Europe “a place for romance, exotic

beings, haunting memories and landscapes”. Furthermore, the Orient provided Europe with its

“greatest, richest and oldest colonies, the source of its civilizations and languages, its cultural

contestant, and one of its deepest and most recurring images of the Other”. The Orient, he

maintains, “has helped to define Europe as its contrasting image, idea, personality and

experience”. But what about the Orient? What about the Arab world? Has it also invented

Europe, and formed perceptions of it from pure imagination?

The relationship between the Arab world and Europe has been a confrontational one, not just

historically since the Crusades in the Middle Ages, but particularly since the Napoleonic

campaign on Egypt and the Levant towards the end of the 18th

century. This campaign both

ushered European colonialism of the region and exposed the region to the modern world for

the first time, and made it aware of the existence of a completely different cultural system

across the Mediterranean, one which is more advanced in all fields. The result was ambivalence

in the attitude of the Arab Intellectuals who harbored feelings of hate towards the Western

Other as a colonizer, but also admiration for his civilized accomplishments, which Arabs

desired for themselves. This session aims to explore this ambivalence and to follow the

developments in Arab attitudes towards the Western Other in Arabic literature over the past

two centuries.

9

Required Reading:

Said, Edward Orientalism, Penguin Books, London, 1991. (1978)

El-Enany, Rasheed, Arab Representations of the Occident, Routledge, London, 2006.

العربية املطلوبة:النصوص

على الساق ألحمد فارس الشدياق. الساق للطهطاوي،مختارات من: تاريخ الجبرتي، تخليص اإلبريز

، يحيى حقي، قنديل أم هاشم 1938، طه حسين، مستقبل الثقافة في مصر 1938توفيق الحكيم، عصفور من الشرق

، "اكنس الشمس عن ، حنان الشيخ1972ت ، سليمان فياض، أصوا1959، يوسف إدريس، السيدة فيينا 1944

.2000إنها لندن يا عزيزي و 1994السطوح"،

Secondary Sources: Abdel-Malek, Kamal, ed., America in an Arab Mirror: Images of America in Arabic Travel

Literature, an Anthology, 1895-1995, St. Martins Press, New York, 2000.

Abu-Lughod, Ibrahim, Arab Rediscovery of Europe, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New

Jersey, 1963.

AlSayyed, Nezar, and Castells, Manuel, eds., Muslim Europe or Euro Islam, Lexington Books,

Lanham, Maryland, 2002.

Badawi, M.M., Modern Arabic Literature and the West, Ithaca Press, London, 1985.

Boullata, Issa, Critical Perspectives on Modern Arabic Literature, Three Continents Press,

Washington, D.C., 1980.

Brown, Leon Carl, The Surest Path: The Political Treatise of a Nineteenth-Century Muslim

Statesman: a translation of the Introduction to "The Surest Path to Knowledge Concerning the

Condition of Countries" by Khayr al-Din al-Tunisi, translated from the original Arabic with

introduction and notes, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1967.

Gibb, Hamilton A.R., Studies on the Civilisation of Islam, Princeton University Press, Princeton,

New Jersey, 1962.

Grunebaum, G.E.Von, Modern Islam: the Search for Cultural Identity, Greenwood Press,

Westport, Connecticut, 1962.

Herodotus, The Histories, trans. Aubrey de Sélincourt, revised with introductory matter and notes

by John Marincola, Penguin Books, London, 1996.

Hopwood, Derek, Sexual Encounters in the Middle East: the British, the French and the Arabs,

Ithaca Press, Reading, 1999.

Huntington, Samuel P., The Clash of Civilisations and the Remaking of World Order, Simon and

Schuster, New York, 1997.

Hourani, Albert, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age: 1798-1939, OUP, Oxford, 1970.

10

Issawi, Charles, Cross-Cultural Encounters and Conflicts, OUP, Oxford 1998.

Loomba, Ania, Colonialism Postcolonialism, Routledge, London, 2000.

Nash, Geoffrey, The Arab Writer in English: Arab Themes in a Metropolitan Language, 1908-

1958, Sussex Academic Press, Brighton, 1998.

Nielsen, Jorgen, Muslims in Western Europe, 3rd edition, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh,

2004. (1992)

Sharabi Hisham, Arab Intellectuals and the West : the Formative Years 1875-1914, The Johns

Hopkins Press, Baltimore and London, 1970.

.2006العلوي، أوروبا في مرآة الرحلة: صورة اآلخر في أدب الرحلة، األهلية للنشر والتوزيع، سعيد بنسعيد

Weeks 9-10 Arts and Sciences in the Arab-Islamic Civilization

The topic of this session aims at familiarizing the student with the relationship between the

sciences (logic, philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, natural sciences, chemistry, medicine,

pharmacy, biology, botany, and geology), the arts (music, architecture, penmanship, and

calligraphy) and the contribution of translation (from Greek, Persian and Indian), in the

development of these sciences and arts in the Arab-Islamic world. Moreover, the topic aims at

familiarizing the student with the epistemological and philosophical foundations and their

contributions to Arab and Islamic civilization and culture.

:لعربيةااجع املر

.1965ابن ابي اصيبعة، عيون االنباء في طبقات االطباء، تح. ن. رضا، بيروت، مكتبة الحياة،

.1871ابن النديم، الفهرست، تح. فلوجل، ليبزج،

.الخوارزمي، م.ا.، مفاتيح العلوم، القاهرة، ب.ت

.1949الفارابي، أبو نصر، احصاء العلوم، القاهرة،

.2005، بيروت، مركز دراسات الوحدة العربية، 3، 2، 1)مشرف(، موسوعة تاريخ العلوم العربية، ج رشدي راشد،

.2011رشدي راشد، دراسات في تاريخ العلوم العربية وفلسفتها، بيروت، منشورات مركز الوحدة العربية،

.2004ر، هيل، دونالد ر.، العلوم والهندسة في الحضارة اإلسالمية، الكويت، عالم الفك

.2007تاج السر أحمد حران، العلوم والفنون في الحضارة العربية اإلسالمية، مكتبة الراشد،

11

.1990تاريخ العلوم عند العرب، تونس، بيت الحمة،

.2010خليل، ياسين، العلوم الطبيعية عند العرب، دراسة وتحقيق حسن مجيد العبيدي، بيروت، دار البصائر،

Required Reading:

Dallal, Ahmad, Islam (2010), Science and the Challenge of History, Yale University Press.

Saliba, George (2011), Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance, MIT Press.

Sorokin, Petrim and Merton, Robert (1935) “The Course of Arabian Intellectual Development,

700-1300 A.D: A Study in Method,” Isis, 22(2): 516-524

Weeks 11-12 Issues of Modernity and Post-Modernity

The philosophical objective of this session is to make the student understand the

complementarity between modernity and post-modernity, and the receptivity of the one to the

other. If the purpose of modernity was to present a transparent picture of the individual by

means of calls to individualism, rationalism, freedom, humanism, secularism, belief in

progress, trust in the natural sciences, and an objective pursuit by the individual of his goals,

post-modernity reviewed the tenets of modernity with longing for the period preceding

modernity. This was accomplished by stressing that doubt and opaqueness are at the core of

human existence, or for that matter general existence. Post-modernism negated any call for

accepting that there is an end: whether it is the end of the mind, the human being, freedom,

history, morality, truth, objectivism, identity, and the grand narratives. As a result, post-

modernity restored credit to irrationalism and added pluralism to the concepts of the

Enlightenment, culture, and democracy. This way it paved the way for the new liberalism,

globalisation, new world order, and a movement from the self-centered to the communicative

mind. There are those who believe that the modernity project was not accomplished yet

(Habermas), and that it is possible to rehabilitate modernity and improve its mission so as to

complete its project concerning the rights of the individual (Alain Touraine).

راجع:امل

.1998، يناير 4كانط، إيمانويل، إجابة عن السؤال : ما هو التنوير، ت. إسماعيل املصدق، فكر ونقد، ع

.1998، يناير 5فوكو، ميشيل، ما هي األنوار؟ فكر ونقد، ع

Ahmed, S. Akbar. Postmodernism and Islam: Predicament and Promise. London and New York:

Routledge, 1992.

Feenberg, Andrew. Alternative Modernity: The Technical Turn in Philosophy and Sociology.

Berkley: University of California, 1995.

Giddens, Anthony. The Consequences of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992.

Habermas, Jurgen. The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity. Trans. Frederick Lawrence.

Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1992.

12

Huyssen, Andreas. After the Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture, Postmodernism.

Bloomington: Indiana University, 1986.

Lyotard, Jean-Fran ço is. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Trans. Geoffrey

Bennington and Brian Massumi. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984.

Vattimo, Gianni, El fin de la modernidad. Nihilismo y hermenéutica en la cultura posmoderna, tr.

Alberto L. Bixio, Barcelona, gedisa, 1986

Cassirer, E., La philosophie des lumières, Paris, Fayard 1970

Weeks 13-14 Humanism, Post-Humanism, Human Rights

This session is dedicated to these interrelated questions. It will explore the genesis of

humanist thought in the Renaissance, and trace its impact, through the Enlightenment and the

French and American Revolutions, on modern political thought and practice, leading to the

generation of the post-war human rights regime. The session will also examine the debates

generated by these developments, including the Muslim contribution, and the emergence of

new anti-humanist trends in the West.

The objective is to create awareness of the genesis of modern social and political thought, and

emphasise the complex factors and processes which helped shape the modern cultural

universe. The purpose is to highlight both the parallel evolution of Islamic and Western

thought on these themes, and the interactive nature of this process, where mutual influence

was evident from the Renaissance, and more so in the modern era.

Required Reading:

Nietzsche, Ecce Homo (1888), Preface, Why I am so Wise, Why I write such excellent Books

George A. Makdisi, The Rise of Humanism (1990), Chapter 1 and 2

Lynn Hunt, Inventing Human Rights: A History (2008), Introductions, Chapters 1, 2, and 3

AE Mayer, Islam and human rights: Tradition and politics, Westview Press, Boulder, CO: 1991

Ben Golder , ‘What is an anti-humanist human right?’, Social Identities, 16:5, 651-668, 2010.

Andy Miah ‘Posthumanism: A Critical History’, in Gordijn, B. & Chadwick, R., eds., Medical

Enhancements & Posthumanity. New York: Routledge, 2007.

2006، الساقي، نزعة األنسية في الفكر العربي: جيل مسكويه والتوحيدي محمد أركون،

Recommended Reading:

Heidegger’s “Letter on Humanism” (1947)

Primo Levy, If this is Human (1947)

13

J. L. Holzgrefe and Robert O. Keohane (Eds), Humanitarian Intervention (2003)

Jack Donnelly, Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice (2013)

Emile Habiby, The Secret Life of Saeed the Pessoptimist (1974) The whole book

Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish (1975) Parts One, Two, and Three

Michael McCarthy , The Political Humanism of Hannah Arendt, Lanham, MD: Lexington Books,

2012

Lawrence D. Kritzman, ‘Camus's Curious Humanism or the Intellectual in Exile’, MLN 112.4

(1997) 550-575

Edward Said, Humanism and Democratic Criticism (2004)

، املجلد األول، الفصل الثالث، املركز العربي لألبحاث ودراسات الدين والعلمانية في سياق تاريخي، الجزء الثانيعزمي بشارة،

.2015السياسيات،

INDICATIVE READING LIST

Oleg Grabar, The Formation of Islamic Art (1987)

George Saliba, A History of Arabic Astronomy (1994)

George Saliba, Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance (2007)

Sheila S. Blair, The Art and Architecture of Islam, 1250–1800 (1996)

Howard R. Turner, Science in Medieval Islam: An Illustrated Introduction (1997)

Jacob Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (1860)

Hans Blumenberg, The Genesis of the Copernican World (1975)

George A. Makdisi, The Rise of Colleges (1981)

George A. Makdisi, The Rise of Humanism (1990)

Karl Marx, Communist Manifesto (1848)

W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (1903)

Chandra Talpade Mohanty, “Under Western Eyes” (1984)

Georges Sorel, Reflections on Violence (1908)

Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents (1929)

14

Talal Asad, Anthropology & the Colonial Encounter (1973)

Mahmood Mamdani, Define and Rule (2012)

Immanuel Kant, “What is Enlightenment?” (1784)

Theodor Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944)

Nietzsche, Ecce Homo (1888)

Emile Habiby, The Secret Life of Saeed the Pessoptimist (1974)

Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish (1975)

Lynn Hunt, Inventing Human Rights: A History (2008)

Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944)

Eric Hobsbawm, The Invention of Tradition (1983)

Jürgen Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity (1985)