Module ARA1038 for 2022/3
- Overview
- Aims and Learning Outcomes
- Module Content
- Indicative Reading List
- Assessment
Undergraduate Module Descriptor
ARA1038: Religious Minorities of the Middle East
This module descriptor refers to the 2022/3 academic year.
Module Aims
You will develop knowledge of the cultural complexity of the Middle East and the environment in which this arose. You will develop your ability to evaluate sources, both for accuracy and for underlying prejudice and bias. You will develop your ability, not only to work within a group of students, but also to ask the right questions from someone with a different cultural outlook. You will learn to use the principle of religious literacy. You will also develop your ability to think about the target audience for your project and what their needs will be.
| On successfully completing the programme you will be able to: | |
|---|---|
| Module-Specific Skills | 1. Demonstrate awareness of the major religious minorities now living in the Middle East 2. Demonstrate understanding of the conditions under which many of the religious minorities developed and of the conditions which currently threaten the survival of some 3. Demonstrate in-depth knowledge of at least one of the religions |
| Discipline-Specific Skills | 4. Evaluate sources critically, especially where the sources do not come from the religions themselves 5. Demonstrate awareness of the variety of disciplinary approaches needed to understand religions which may differ considerably in structure and expression from religions more familiar to us |
| Personal and Key Skills | 6. Through seminar and group work, demonstrate communication and skills, the ability to work in groups, and competency in handling different types of information that might require you to think outside the box 7. Work independently, retrieve, sift and integrate primary and secondary sources, construct coherent arguments, write lucidly, and apply research and bibliographic skills. 8. Demonstrate effective presentation skills |
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.
Buckley, J.J. The Mandaeans: Ancient Texts and Modern People. Oxford: OUP, 20012.
The Great Stem of Souls: Reconstructing Mandaean History. Piscataway: Gorgias, 2006.
Courbage, Y. and P. Fargues. Christians and Jews under Islam. London: I.B. Tauris, 1998.
Dalrymple, W. From the Holy Mountain: A Journey among the Christians of the Middle East. New York: Henry Holt & Company, Incorporated, 1999.
Drower, E.S. The Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran.
Ginkel, J. J. Van, and T. M. Van Lint. Redefining Christian Identity: Cultural Interaction in the Middle East since the Rise of Islam. Leuven: Peeters Publishing, 2006.
Griffith, S. H. The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque: Christians. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007.
J. S. Guest, Survival Among the Kurds: A History of the Yezidis, 2d ed. London: Routledge, 1993.
Joseph, J. Muslim-Christian Relations and Intra-Christian Rivalries in the Middle East: The Case of the Jacobites in an Age of Transition. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983.
Karabell, Z. Peace Be Upon You: Fourteen Centuries of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish Coexistence in the Middle East. New York: Knopf Publishing Group, 2007.
Kreyenbroek, P. G. Yezidism—Its Background, Observances and Textual Tradition. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 1995.
Pacini, A. Christian Communities in the Arab Middle East: The Challenge of the Future. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Rowe, P.S. Routledge Handbook of Middle Eastern Minorities. London: Routledge, 2019.
Waterfield, R. E. Christians in Persia. New York: Allen & Unwin, 1973.
