ASTK12141U Politics of Political Islam

Volume 2013/2014
Content

This course focuses on a specific ‘brand’ of politicized religiosity, namely, ‘Political Islam’. With Islamists are slowly representing the ‘new’ political elite in the ‘Post-Spring’ Arab World, questions such as ‘Who are Islamists?’ and ‘What do they want?’ are rampant. Therefore, going beyond the particulars of religious discourse, this course draws on a critical understanding of the notion of ideology as ‘Lived Experiences’ to elaborate the identity and history of Islamists, that have shaped their tactics of contention. Finally, while Political Islam is a broad and multifaceted topic, at the end of the course, rather than a complete knowledge of Islamism, I hope the students to be proficient in the appropriate tools needed to aptly understand Islamist activism.

Topics: Religion and Politics, Ideology, Radicalism, Shia Politicized Religiosity, Women in Islam, Modernist turn in Islamism, Colonialism and Islam, Violence and Social Service in Islamism, Arab Spring, and Islamism in Europe.

Course Schedule:

This course will be held twice a week for a period of 7 weeks.

Assignment (10 ECTS Points):

Students will be evaluated on the basis of a final research paper due at the end of the fall semester.

 

 

Free assignment / written paper (10 ECTS)

(Maximum length of papers)

Curricula 1200 pages of literature

1 Student

 

15 pages      =      5250 words

2 Students

 

25 pages      =      8750 words

3 Students

 

35 pages      =     12250 words

 

 

Learning Outcome

Upon completion of the course, students should:

a)     Be able to rise above politicized academic and public discourses on Islamists and demonstrate a familiarity with a history of their identity

b)     Be able to demonstrate how and why ‘Islamists’ engaging a particular ‘type’ of contention finds legitimacy and credibility in society.

c)      Be able to challenge ‘mainstream’ approaches to studying Islamism and engage in an interdisciplinary approach that draws on non-traditional understandings of religious activism, ideology and rebellion.

d)     Be able to demonstrate empirical knowledge of major strands of Islamist activism in countries such as Egypt, Turkey, Iran, Lebanon and Palestine.

 

Literature

The ideal paper

While it is a non-traditional way of structuring a final paper at this department, for this course I expect the final assignment to go beyond a mundane relaying of the literature covered in class. In the same way, a descriptive essay on a particular empirical case is also not the best structure for the final paper. Instead an ideal paper is one of the following:

a)     It starts with an empirical puzzle and then aims to make a broader theoretical or conceptual argument.

Example: Puzzle: “It is easy to carry out terrorist attacks. Why aren’t there more of them?” Conceptual Argument: “Something unique/particular about the way the subaltern revolts and, through it, hopes to relate to the marginalized around the world”

b)    It starts with a conceptual puzzle and then makes an argument through a case study.

Example: Puzzle: “A Marxist understanding of ideology sees it as being monopolized by the elite? But, do the masses play a role?” Case Study: “The case of the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, even though it was the Secular forces that were once at the help of the Egyptian Arab Spring, demonstrates that the ‘ideology’ that finds credence is determined by the ‘lived experiences’ of the masses”. 

BUT…

While this is format of the ‘ideal’ paper, I do recognize that students don’t have enough space (words) to convincing follow either of the above formats. Nevertheless, what I hope to see is an attempt to structure a paper that is a preliminary incursion into one of the above ways of structuring a research paper.

Lectures and class discussions.
  • Category
  • Hours
  • Class Instruction
  • 28
  • Exam
  • 79
  • Preparation
  • 168
  • Total
  • 275
Credit
10 ECTS
Type of assessment
Written assignment
Written exam
Marking scale
7-point grading scale
Censorship form
External censorship
Criteria for exam assesment
  • The grade 12 is given for an excellent performance displaying a full or almost full command of the course topic and the literature and an excellent ability to discuss, analytically and with critical insight, debates on Political Islam
     
  • The grade 7 is given for a performance displaying a good command of the elements of the course topic and literature and a good ability to discuss, analyze and critique the debates about Political Islam, but also with some weaknesses
     
  • The grade 02 is given for a performance displaying sufficient knowledge of the elements of the course and some ability to discuss debates about Political Islam