Erin Pettigrew

How have the inhabitants of the Middle East and Africa conceived of social difference? Beginning in Late Antiquity and then with the spread of Islam into the Middle East and North Africa, this course will explore the social, cultural and political contingencies that gave rise to ethnic and racial identities within and beyond the Muslim world. How did these identities and categories change over time and in which ways were they impacted by the Indian Ocean, Atlantic, and Saharan slave trades, local social and political factors, European colonialism and then de-colonization in the twentieth century? What are the terms and meanings attached to skin color or social difference in the Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, Berber, Swahili, Songhai, Amharic, or Turkish speaking worlds? How are these constructed and controlled? Who gave these categories meaning and why? What are the obstacles to discussing and identifying race particular to the histories of these regions, their peoples, and their histories? In order to answer these questions, the course will draw extensively on primary sources, historical research, as well as theoretical writings on race and ethnicity.

The capstone seminar is designed as a workshop offering graduating seniors a communal environment in which to conceptualize, share and refine a year-long research project, self-designed in consultation with a faculty advisor. In this semester, particular attention will be paid to the organization and practice of research as well as evidence, method and scholarly habit and process. The fall semester culminates in the presentation of significant writing (at least 20 pages/6000 words) toward the final scholarly product, the written and publicly presented capstone. Each student should also be working with their faculty advisor throughout the semester, submitting drafts to their advisor and working with her/him on the research process.

Prerequisite: Declared Arab Crossroads Studies major and senior standing

The spring semester of the ACS Senior Capstone is composed of the student working in close consultation with a faculty member on their capstone project. It is expected that the student will meet weekly with their advisor.

Prerequisite: ACS-UH 4000

The desert has been imagined as a barrier, a dry ocean, a bridge, and a hyphen between various ecological and cultural spaces across the globe. Drifting, parched tides of sand and vast, empty landscapes have made it seem uninhabitable and a metaphor for exile, difficult journeys, spiritual reflection, and death. This course explores the ways in which the desert has been depicted and experienced in various historical, cultural, and geographic contexts - from the Sahara to the Mojave, from the origins of Abrahamic religions to Burning Man, from desert oasis to urban food desert. This course will also consider the future of deserts and global challenges posed by climate change, desertification, and resources (water, oil, solar). Students will encounter the desert through diverse sources that include film, literature, soundscapes, musical performances, environmental and social history, artistic production, fieldtrips, and travel writings. So, even while the desert is an environmental reality that makes inhabitation difficult, it is still a space of demographic, cultural, and economic activity and exchange.

Prerequisite: Must be an NYU Abu Dhabi student and have not completed the Core: Colloquium requirement.

In this course, we will examine human fertility as a socially situated phenomenon, emphasizing the ways in which history, tradition, technology, politics and economics affect people’s ideas and actions concerning having (or not having) children; and how people carve out their own life courses and fertility choices despite these constraints. The course will explore reproductive politics, technologies, and trends from a global perspective. What are reproductive politics? How do reproductive technologies, from IUDs and birth control pills to IVF and abortion, become tools of personal freedom in some contexts and tools of coercion in other contexts? What are the politics of alternative paths to parenthood, such as adoption, and the politics of opting out of reproduction, no matter its basis, as seen in childfree movements? What are the emotional, political, and economic gains and costs of fertility management and reproduction?

Prerequisite: Must be an NYU Abu Dhabi student and have not completed the Core: Colloquium requirement.

This course is a broad survey of African history. The course will explore the African past in its diversity. Students will explore the continent's political complexity and social creativity across a period of several millennia. The class will consider the impact of gender, religion, healing practices, trade, mobility, and the environment on major historical developments in Africa before the continent's colonization by European imperialistic powers, through the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and up to the contemporary period. The course will also introduce students to African history's methodology and to the use of linguistic, material, and oral sources in the writing of history.

How is history written? This course offers a survey of the major theories and practices that have defined history as a scholarly discipline, and as a way of writing, over the last fifty years. Students are introduced to the major theoretical and narrative perspectives that have shaped historiography: to the kinds of historical questions that drive the research agendas of contemporary historians; and to the kinds of historical literature historians write, including analytical, narrative, scholarly, popular, and experimental. How do historians find and interpret their sources? How do they engage with existing scholarship while still striving to push their discipline forward? What methods do they apply to communicate the results of their research to other scholars and to a wider public readership? Students will learn to evaluate a wide array of different historical sources (including written documents, material artifacts, oral histories, and visual culture). They will also gain experience in meeting the challenges of writing their own works of historical scholarship, producing an original piece of written history by the end of the semester.

Prerequisite: Reserved for Junior standing or above.

The objective of this course is to trace and understand the history of Islam as a religious tradition and Muslim societies in Africa as part of a larger world. This course surveys the history and historiography of Islam in Africa from its arrival in North Africa in the seventh century through the present day in postcolonial Africa while also paying attention to continuing points of contact and exchange between Muslims in Africa across the Sahara as well as the Atlantic and Indian Ocean worlds. Students will examine the history of Islam in Africa in light of issues such as conversion, interactions with other religious traditions, reform movements, slavery and race, education, gender, European colonial rule, and postcolonial politics. Possible sources for the course include Arab geographical and travel accounts, juridical texts debating social categories of race, slavery and gender, regional chronicles reflecting the interface between Islam and local African religious traditions, colonial reports revealing fears of Islam as a unifying force across empires, and audio recordings of religious sermons.

The History Capstone Seminar guides students through the capstone writing process. The course helps students identify the challenges of conducting long-term historical research and writing and develop strategies for meeting those challenges. Course assignments help students complete the project in stages, in collaboration with each student's capstone advisor, and clarify the specific expectations for submitting a polished work of historical scholarship for review. The course combines writing workshops and individualized review sessions with structured time for research and writing.

Prerequisite: HIST-UH 2010 (or HIST-UH 3010 for students writing a capstone project in History) and senior standing

The capstone experience provides seniors with the opportunity to work closely with a faculty mentor and to conduct extensive research on a topic of their choice. The program consists of a capstone seminar, taken in the first semester of the senior year, and a year-long individualized thesis tutorial. During the capstone seminar, students define a thesis topic of their choice, develop a bibliography, read broadly in background works, and begin their research. In the tutorial, students work on a one-to-one basis with a faculty director to hone their research and produce successive drafts of a senior thesis. The capstone experience culminates in the public presentation of the senior thesis. Students may also elect to participate in a College Capstone Project with students majoring in other disciplines in the arts, and the natural and social sciences. Collaborating students work with a faculty member to define the overall goals of the Capstone Project, as well as the particular goals of each participant.

Prerequisite: HIST-UH 4000