Undergraduate Module Descriptor

POC2090: Violence, Conflict and Religion in the Middle East

This module descriptor refers to the 2016/7 academic year.

Please note that this module is only delivered on the Penryn Campus.

Module Content

Syllabus Plan

Whilst the module’s precise content may vary from year to year, it is envisaged that the syllabus will cover some or all of the following topics:

1. Introduction to the module: “What is going on in the Middle East?”

2. Drawing a line in the sand? 100 years since Sykes-Picot: the deal that changed the Middle East

3. Making of the Modern Middle East: Nationalism

4. Conflict and Violence: Ethnicity, Identity, and Religion

5. Legacy of Colonialism and Foreign Meddling

6. Economic Challenges

7. Violence, Conflict, and Religion: the case studies

Learning and Teaching

This table provides an overview of how your hours of study for this module are allocated:

Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities	Guided independent study	Placement / study abroad
22	128	0

...and this table provides a more detailed breakdown of the hours allocated to various study activities:

Category	Hours of study time	Description
Scheduled Learning & Teaching activities	11	Lectures and discussion facilitated by the convenor
Scheduled Learning & Teaching activities	11	Seminars guided by questions and readings assigned by the convenor
Guided independent study	37	Reading and preparing for seminars
Guided independent study	36	Research and preparation of student-led seminar
Guided independent study	15	Researching and Preparing for examination practice
Guided independent study	40	Researching and Preparing for unseen examination

Online Resources

This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).

Al-Jazeera-www.english.aljazeera.net

Institute for the Study of War- http://www.understandingwar.org/

Other Learning Resources

Syria: Reckoning (2013, Aljazeera)

ISIS: "Islamic" Extremism? (2014, Mojtaba Masood)

Indicative Reading List

This reading list is indicative - i.e. it provides an idea of texts that may be useful to you on this module, but it is not considered to be a confirmed or compulsory reading list for this module.

Cammett, M. (2015) A Political Economy of the Middle East. Boulder: Westview Press

Dalacoura, K. (2011) Islamist Terrorism and Democracy in the Middle East. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press

Fawcett, L. (ed) (2009) International Relations of the Middle East, Oxford: Oxford University Press

Halliday, F. (1996) Islam and the Myth of Confrontation: Religion and Politics in the Middle East, London: I. B. Tauris

Halliday, Fred (2005) The Middle East in International Relations: Power Politics & Ideology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Kamrava, M. (2011)The Modern Middle East: A Political History Since the First World War. London: California University Press Ltd.

Milton-Edwards, B. (2006) Contemporary Politics in the Middle East. Cambridge: Polity

Said, E. (1978) Orientalism, New York: Vintage Books.