This seminar explores protests, rebellions, insurgencies, and revolutions that have shaped the history of the Middle East from the birth of the three monotheistic religions to this day. Why do people rebel? We will seek answers in the context of religion, ethnicity, language, and race in the long and political history of this wide-ranging human geography. The main focus will be the agency of those who strived for change and modes of resistance, finishing with the 21st-century activisms in labor, LGBTQ+, student, journalist, academic, and political Islamic mobilizations. |