Narrating Iraq

Semester and Year	SP 2012
Course Number	IDSEM-UG1694
Section	001
Instructor	Sinan Antoon
Days	Wed
Time	3:30 PM - 6:10 PM
Units	4.0
Level	U
Foundation Requirement	HUM, GLOBAL

Notes/Restrictions

Open to juniors and seniors. Same as ASPP-UT 1019 and MEIS-UA 9112.

Description

Iraqi culture is in a unique state: its cultural production has gradually shifted from Iraq itself to a vast diaspora scattered across the globe, in the Middle- East, Europe, Australia and the Americas. A disproportionate number of Iraqis, about five million-- i.e. one sixth of the entire population— now live outside of Iraq’s borders, often in a stateless limbo. Out-of-place Iraqi intellectuals and artists have been attempting to represent their country’s ongoing devastation and fragmentation, amidst a precarious existence and rapidly shifting definitions of belonging. If Iraq is foundationally a composite of multiple ethnicities, religions, and dialects, cross-border dispersions have introduced new hyphenated identities and cultural syncretisms. This course seeks to offer a transnational framework to examine Iraqi culture(s) as embedded in a complex multi-directional itinerary, between “nation” and its diasporic geographies.

Course Type

Interdisciplinary Seminars (IDSEM-UG)