MES 4.02 History of Technology in the Middle East
What may cassette tapes teach us about the creation of Egyptian culture? How may cameras assist us in picturing the past and archiving the present in the Arab world? And what is the relationship between online communities and offline activism in Iran? In this class, we will explore the impact, significance, and social life of numerous technologies throughout Middle East history. We will cover devices we often take for granted as well as things that command our attention. Cameras, radios, and records, dams, the Internet, and electrical grids, printing presses, clothing, and modes of transportation, will all surface in readings that transcend any single historical genre, bridging the local and the global, the social and the cultural, the intellectual and the environmental. The scope of this course is consciously panoramic in nature. In traversing nearly two hundred years of history, we will examine a wide array of case studies that unfold across the Middle East and occasionally travel further afield.
Instructor
Simon