This course introduces students to more recent scholarly approaches to the study of translation. The course follows a thematic and chronological development of the major theories in the field of TS in relation to other disciplines of the humanities and social sciences, including literary, philosophical, historical, political and sociological approaches. Through discriminating, critical engagement with theory and its scholarly and practical applications, this course invites students to think critically and reflectively about the complexity and implications of the choices they have to make as translators and scholars.

This is a practical course which introduces students to subtitling (interlingual and SDH). Students are introduced to norms and conventions of both subtitling types: tempo-spatial constraints, timing, condensation, verbal and non-verbal cues, punctuation, positioning and segmentation. Students see how subtitles are a form of inter-semiotic mediation and learn how to apply appropriate strategies in view of the source text and intended audience (hearers or deaf viewers). Students also learn how to handle culture-specific difficulties in subtitling.

This course introduces students to the transadaptation of filmic visual content and dialogue for non-lip-synched dubbing, voice over or audio description. The language of instruction and of activities is both Arabic and English. Students learn to create scripts and to deal with a range of linguistic, cultural, semiotic and technical issues when producing voicing scripts; e.g. re-segmentation and the use of standard dubbing/voicing symbols. Students will work with a variety of genres: documentaries, interviews, cartoons, movies.

In this course, students will refine their understanding of international norms in SDH and AD to consider their applicability to the Arab context. Students will also address AVT for access as “transadaptation,” in which multimodal communication strategies and multiformat materials are used to reinforce multisensory engagement with knowledge and culture. Students will also interact with local stakeholders in cultural settings, as well as in organizations working with people with special needs towards the development of collaborative projects.

This course prepares students to write their thesis, whether research- or practice-oriented. It builds on all they have learned in previous courses and leads them through the main areas of research in Audiovisual Translation, the principles of designing research projects, reviewing the literature and writing research proposals. They will also learn the skills and requirements for writing translation commentaries for the purposes of writing a practice-oriented thesis that consists of a translation accompanied by a theoretically-informed and evidence-based analysis.

This course extends the essential skills acquired previously to a more professional level, with experience in a wider range of genres, as well as serious cultural and linguistic challenges. Students will develop their professional practice further and learn to work with the specific standards and practices that are current in the Arabic-speaking world. Students will also be encouraged to reflect critically on prevailing standards and consider ways in which the market can be induced to value greater quality more highly.

This unit follows on from AVT 625 and extends the skills acquired to a more professional level while also introducing students to the actual recording and production of lip-synchronized revoiced AV products. Students will tackle more complex translation and adaptation tasks, learning to deal with a variety of cross-cultural issues, such as the rendering of dialect, slang, taboo language. Students will also learn to adapt for closely lip-synched dubbing.

This course will take on new topics with specific aims as required by the program

This is a largely practical course which introduces students to the techniques of various modes of audiovisual translation, including subtitling, dubbing and accessibility. Students will be introduced to the formal and discursive features of these modes: the temporal and spatial constraints, synchronisation, verbal and non-verbal cues, etc. Students will be encouraged to analyse how these branches of audiovisual translation function as a form of inter-semiotic communication and inter-linguistic mediation and reflect on the implications of choosing the most appropriate strategies.

The Internship aims to help develop HSS MA students’ professional competence and understanding of the translation industry in a structured period of practical-work based learning.

Designed like an independent study, this course supports students in their endeavor to conduct research in the field of Audiovisual Translation Studies. Students can produce a research-based thesis or a translation and commentary thesis of up to 15,000 words. The thesis should display the student's ability to collect/assess data, build an argument; and critically apply the main theories in their area of study.

There are two main pillars of this beginner 1 course: the pinyin system for pronunciation and the basic radicals for recognizing the most frequently used Chinese characters. Students are to practice pinyin until they can record what they hear in Chinese and turn them into characters in a machine-assisted application for recognition. In this regard, mastering basic radicals help students choose right words. The main goal of the course is to lay a solid foundation for further Chinese learning.

In this course, students will expand vocabulary, acquire basic sentence structures and patterns, and learn new expressions and grammatical points through repeating the key words in the texts and applying them to communicative situations. The course is designed for students to recognize more Chinese characters and their related vocabulary. Social media such as WeChat and WhatsApp are used to input pinyin and then choose targeted words, in order to increase students’ recognition speed and accuracy of Chinese characters.

This course prepares students to develop a broad understanding of the theories, concepts, debates and impacts of digital culture. The course reflects the emerging discourses of digital humanities (incl. heritage). Students will be introduced to key debates and contemporary issues. The course will also expand the theory to the exploration of the concrete impact of the digitization onto different dimensions and sectors of society such as, but not limited to: women, e-health, online media and music, data, literature, etc.

Digital communication has transformed many aspects of representation and broadcasting, challenging existing roles, methodologies and practices of the media industry. This course will examine both theoretical and practical aspects of digital media and communication. Through real-life examples and case studies focusing on the Middle East, students will explore the impact of user-generated content and social media, the role of digital cultures in political transformations, the effect of mass digitization, and challenges in digital publishing.

The Digital Humanities is a huge and growing field spanning many disciplines and skill sets. The focus of this course is on tools and methods that allow students to collect, create and analyze textual corpora as purveyors of stories, information. This is the point of view often taken by analysts who work for universities, think tanks and intelligence agencies who seek to understand cultural trends and mindsets from volumes of digital texts. For such analysts, close reading is an indispensable part of their work and computing tools help focus their reading while reading helps refine their understanding of the computer output. The course will give students intensive practice with methods and tools for collecting and analyzing corpora of text at the word and sentence level, and with working with large scalable dictionaries. The students will be also introduced to an array of practical Digital Humanities Tools and Applications

There is now widespread recognition that digital technologies have profoundly changed the way we produce content, share information, interact with each other’s, develop and commercialize products and services, create knowledge or financial value, while defining new environments for these functions to flourish. The course discovers how political, social, economic, financial powers and knowledge are reshaped in our contemporary digital era. The course introduces students to the need of digitalization, continuously developing platforms and the fundamental knowledge of emerging new realities.

This course provides students with a comprehensive foundation of layout and design principles to integrate digital media essential for effective print-based and web based business publications. The students will learn the graphic terminology, type specification, and evolution of the printed piece from concept to final printed project. An overview of the industry standard software will be introduced to understand the basics of web pages creation, page layout and design and various methods of reproduction for print and electronic delivery.

This course aims to study how the ‘cyberspace’ theory and ‘new media’ have empowered societies to impose change and development on regional or global scales in a variety of domains. The course introduces the students to the effective role of social media ranging from websites, social networking apps, and collaborative platforms to promote and state positions toward theoretical fields, such as: empowerment of minorities, racism, feminism, global crises, climate and environmental change, emerging industries, peer-to-peer production, urbanism, and self-development.

This course addresses the needs of a growing cultural heritage industry; it provides opportunities to develop skills in which the material or tangible objects and digital culture relate. The course focuses on a wide spectrum of topics, starting with archaeology, arts, museum collections, historical data archiving, and built heritage. This course explores the techniques of how the tangible heritage is represented, transmitted and perceived in the digital world

This course is an introduction to the most important problems involved in Human Language Technologies (HLT) with a focus on the Arabic language. We will present the techniques and resources used and the theories they are based on. The course includes an overview of Natural Language applications. We will also explore the relationship between language and technology including language learning and speech technologies. Topics include machine translation, automatic speech recognition and generation, dialog systems as well as language technologies

This course will provide students the technical skills necessary to conduct quantitative research in digital humanities and societies. In particular, this course will introduce students to the basic coding skills needed to be considered in any professional career nowadays. As an introductory programming course, we will introduce common practices to extract and collect raw data from a variety of digital sources, to organize, clean, explore, analyze, visualize and interpret such data, and to infer sensible information and draw conclusions

This course explores a broad spectrum of perspectives on the digital humanities engage with a variety of digital humanities tools in order to choose the most appropriate technology to facilitate different work in different situations in order to develop familiarity with a range of digital humanities projects, as well as the ability to evaluate the tools and methods involved in creating those projects and become more thoughtful.

This course provides analytical tools and frameworks to help students gaining a sound understanding of the potential and place of new developments and knowledge production in social media and digital industries. Students will appreciate the importance of innovation as a target and the way knowledge management will contribute to this innovation. Students will see knowledge as a commodity and how this commodity can be managed

This module combines practical and academic skills for students with no prior knowledge of the region to engage with contemporary debate on the ideas of digital propaganda, PR, and surveillance. It is designed for those interested in being able to tackle concerns about fake news, media distortions, and information hegemony in both the Middle East and the wider global context. The course consists of lectures, class discussions/seminars and student presentations. The module is suitable for interdisciplinary pathways, and incorporate current debates in both media and politics

The course is called “Digital Writing” because it will employ state of the art technology that allows students to investigate their writing patterns in terms of topical structure and the various textural gestures (stance, sentiment, emotion, mood, register cues, genres cues) writers can use to embellish the topical structure.

The Digital Humanities and Societies program requires students to either undertake an internship or an independent research project. This course allows students to explore their specific research interests within a relative field through a research agenda. The student will work closely with academic advisor and supervisor to implement this project within a given time period. The project may be capitalized on for the purposes of the thesis.

The Digital Humanities and Societies program requires students to either undertake an internship or an independent research project. This course allows students to explore their specific research interests within a relative field through a research agenda. The student will work closely with academic advisor and supervisor to implement this project within a given time period. The project may be capitalized on for the purposes of the thesis.

Designed like an independent study, this course supports students in their endeavor to conduct research in the field of Digital Humanities. Students can produce a research-based thesis or a project-based thesis of up to 15,000 words or equivalent. The thesis should showcase the student's ability to collect/assess data, build an argument; and critically apply the main theories in their area of study. The thesis is an opportunity for students to gain the requisite skills necessary for writing a publishable article.

The French Beginner 1 course is designed to provide learners with sufficient linguistic competencies to understand and use daily expressions frequently used in any part of the French-speaking world with the goal of satisfying immediate needs. This course corresponds to A1.1 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) and Novice Low-Mid on the scale of the American Council of Teaching Foreign Languages.

This French Beginner 2 course continues the Beginner series and builds upon French Beginner 1. It is designed to provide learners with the linguistic competencies to understand and use a wider range of daily expressions frequently used in any part of the French-speaking world with the goal of satisfying immediate needs. This course corresponds to A1.2 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) and to Novice High on the scale of the American Council of Teaching Foreign Languages (ACTFL).

This course examines the humanities from the standpoint of global interconnections. Using historical, literary, linguistic, and philosophical approaches to cultural criticism, reception and production, we study the major traditions of critical theory, including semiology, deconstruction, feminism, psychoanalysis, phenomenology, the Annals School and the Frankfurt School. Concerned with how the world gives itself to appearances, these epistemological methods allow us to tease out the critical charge embedded in the notion of culture itself.

This course focuses on the student's research proposal and an initial exploration of the literature review. Under the supervision of their supervisor, Students are expected to finalize the writing of an extended thesis proposal of 8000 words (excluding the references) that will include the following sections: The background of the research, the rationale and motivation for their proposed research, the proposed theoretical framework and an initial literature review section.

This course examines the ways in which interdisciplinarity is practiced in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Students will be exposed to research projects undertaken across contemporary fields of knowledge – including but not limited to the digital humanities, intercultural communication, translation and interpreting, cultural heritage, women and gender studies, sciences and technology studies – and yet inheriting from traditional “disciplines” that have founded the Humanities and Social Sciences (philosophy, literature, linguistics, law, sociology, political science, etc.). Class discussion will be tailored towards mapping the different types of knowledge integration and their tension with knowledge specialization (mono-, anti-, multi-, inter-, trans-disciplinarity). Exposure and discussion, the two pillars of this course, will equip students to critically reflect on the potentials and limitations of interdisciplinarity in the endeavor to bridge the gap between Society and the Humanities and Social Sciences.

This course introduces scholarly approaches to the study of intercultural communication that have been developed since the inception of this field of enquiry (including religion, ethnicity, race, nationality and ethics). Through discriminating, critical engagement with theory and its scholarly and practical applications, students will think critically and reflectively about the complexity and implications of the choices that intercultural communication actors have to make across settings and will be encouraged to identify the key challenges that lie ahead for intercultural communication in our multicultural societies.

This course prepares students to conduct research in Intercultural Communication with the necessary research methods and tools provided by Humanities and Social Sciences. Epistemological foundations of qualitative and quantitative research and major ethical and political issues in research will be provided. Linkages between broader theoretical and conceptual issues and alternative hypotheses will be provided to organize knowledge, construct ideas and present various arguments. Hands-on experiences for research design, data collection and analysis, and writing of research findings will be provided.

This course introduces students to the challenge of managing communication across national, religious, occupational, gender boundaries in different intercultural settings and to equip them to develop the right skills and mindset to approach intercultural communication.

This course prepares students to work as intercultural communication actors in community settings, with a particular focus on health care, social services, non-governmental settings, where intercultural communication is key to avoid cultural, linguistic and systemic discrimination. Students will be introduced to the ethical questions raised by intercultural communication in these settings, to the main differences between the role of mediators and interpreters (the two main intercultural communication-related occupations in community settings) and will extensively practice their intercultural mediation and interpreting skills

This course engages students in examining and applying the basic concepts of stylistics and discourse analysis to different communication contexts, text types and genres. The course is intended to enhance students’ competence in analyzing and manipulating grammatical, stylistic and rhetorical features of language in multimodal communicative situations. Students will gain insight into, and develop the necessary skills to apply, the different tools and approaches to discourse analysis in various social and cultural settings.

This course prepares students to work as intercultural communication actors in the profit and non-profit sectors, with a particular focus on business where intercultural communication is key to face the challenges posed by cultural difference to Human Resources, organizational communication, public relations processes. Students will be introduced to the possible difficulties posed by cultural differences in organizations, and will acquire the necessary consulting and management skills to engage in intercultural negotiations and in diverse teams.

This course will develop media literacy to access and evaluate content development and sharing on digital and social media platforms. Research on content creation and its impact on intercultural settings in Qatar will be core. It will offer opportunities for app development, fit for communication processes on Qatari and MENA platforms. Interdisciplinary reflection on the intercultural aspects of digital media will be enhanced in the framework of digital content creation and e-applications to critically approaching identity, acculturation and intercultural communication.

This course will reflect on the challenges of today`s increased global cross-border communication between different cultures and specifically on the communication processes that can be used during interactions in conflict situations between different cultures. Communication strategies will be analyzed. It will explore conflict prone dimensions in intercultural interactions, and design methods for successful communication in conflict situations. As a case study, it will analyze and test cultural management strategies in multicultural business environments and the methods of efficient problem solving.

This course is offered in the format of the Bridging the Gap Medical Interpreters training offered by WCM-Q and is designed by the US Public Health Services to improve access to healthcare. To meet the need of Qatar's diversified population and to conform to accreditation standards, this WCM-Q based course offers Interpreter skills, Medical Interpreters Code of Ethics, Role of Medical Mediator Interpreters in healthcare settings, Culture and its impact on interpreting, Communication skills and appropriate advocacy, and Medical terminology.

At the end of this joint TISD-WCM-Q course, students will be able to value the impact of diversity in healthcare particularly in Qatar. Define in contemporary terms: culture, cultural competence, patient-centered care and cultural humility. Differentiate between cultural competence and patient-centered care. Describe how culture influences both patients and provider’s interactions and expectations. Recognize the effect of bias and stereotyping on healthcare quality and describe strategies to reduce their effect.

The widespread notion of equality of opportunities requires that the issue of discrimination and inclusion be studied so as to find solutions for barriers that hinder people from full access to basic spheres of life, such as healthcare, education, employment, information, culture and/or entertainment. This course aims at introducing students to issues of Diversity, Inclusion and Accessibility from the slant of communication and (dis)ability, leading them to develop innovative communication strategies to enhance equitable access solutions in diverse contexts.

The Intercultural Communication program requires students to either undertake an internship or an independent research project. This course allows students to explore their specific research interests within intercultural communication studies. The student will work closely with the supervisor to implement this project within a given time period. The project may be capitalized on for the purposes of the thesis.

This course takes a cultural and historical approach to politics of the Middle East; it investigates the nature of political authority and the complex relationship between religion, traditions, social movements, class structures, and the challenges Middle East societies faced from colonialism and globalization. The course provides a critical appraisal of normative paradigms and approaches through which the Middle East has been studied, the narratives covering its history, how knowledge has been organized, and the repercussions of particular approaches and theories.

This course examines the major theoretical paradigms in critical social theory and economic development. It gives focus to assumptions made on social and economic development, and examines the evolution of different schools of thought and theoretical constructs. The approach of the course is interdisciplinary, combining insights from sociology, economics, political science and history. It applies models and methodologies through which historical processes can be conceptualized with respect to the ideological frameworks that guide social power and development policy.

This course will introduce students to the hackneyed and complex notion of interdisciplinarity and to the ways in which it has been theorized in Interdisciplinarity Studies and practiced in Women, Digital and Translation Studies. It will invite students to develop their interdisciplinary skills in critical and reflexive ways.

This course prepares students embarking on social science research with the necessary research methods and techniques to conduct, evaluate and communicate research. The course examines the epistemological foundations of qualitative and quantitative research, in addition to ethical and political factors in research. It familiarizes students with research design, research methods and data collection. It also introduces linkages between broader theoretical and conceptual issues and alternative hypothesis through which to organize knowledge, construct ideas and present various arguments.

This course analyses the contemporary Gulf States from the perspectives of politics, political sociology, economics and international relations. It seeks to locate the states in an international context in order to identify and evaluate the manner in which their policies have evolved. This course will seek to achieve this through an interdisciplinary analysis of the subject manner. It gives focus to the challenges faced and policy responses. The course will conclude with an examination of the challenges of economic, political and security reform in the Gulf States.

The “Beginner 1 Spanish course” is designed for the beginner students with no previous experience in Spanish. The main objectives of this course are to help students develop effective communication skills in Spanish through the elementary development of the four basic language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing), while focusing on and critically examining cultural aspects, values and other aspects of everyday life in Spanish-speaking nations. Spanish will be the language of instruction.

This course continues the Beginner series and builds upon Spanish Beginner 1. The main objectives of this course are to help students develop effective communication skills in Spanish through the elementary development of the four basic language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing. During the course, students learn to give instructions about how to get somewhere and describe places; ask for and tell the time and talk about schedules; talk about daily routines and how often they do something; talk about tastes and preferences, and talk about recently past actions.

This course introduces students to the main approaches that have developed in the field of Translation Studies. Beginning with an overview of pre-20thC translation theory, the course follows a chronological trajectory of the development of the major theories in the field, including theories of equivalence, translation products and processes, functionalist approaches, discourse and register analysis, systems theories, norm theory and descriptive translation studies. Through discriminating, critical engagement with theory and its scholarly and practical applications, this course invites students to think critically and reflectively about the complexity and implications of the choices they have to make as translators and scholars.

Pragmatic Translation is a foundation practice-oriented course designed for students with little or no background in translation. It aims at developing in students the basic skills and knowledge to perform translation tasks to the required standard in this class, in classes running in parallel and later in other more advanced classes. Translation practical work focuses on four text types: technical, financial, literary and media (audiovisual) texts. Both Arabic and English are used as languages of instruction, as appropriate. Analyzing and discussing Arabic texts requires the use of Arabic, and the same holds for English.

This course engages students in examining and applying the grammar and stylistics of Arabic discourse in written and oral forms. It will enhance students’ competence in manipulating various grammatical, stylistic and rhetorical features of Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). Students are taught to compose and comprehend prose in MSA. Through practical exercises, students will learn to apply relevant analytical tools and use relevant textual conventions in their own writing. Oral communication is also practiced in informal class discussion and formal presentations.

This course introduces scholarly approaches to the study of translation that have been developed over the last two decades. Students will think critically and reflectively about the community of translators and interpreters. They will engage with the complexity and implications of the choices that translators have to make on a daily basis.

This is a practice-oriented course intended to prepare students for a professional career in the translation market, either as in-house or freelance translators, working with various IGO's and NGO's. The course deals with various types of institutional texts produced by multilingual organizations. Using their linguistic skills and applying theoretical insights gained from other courses, students will be trained to research institutional translation topics, prepare appropriate terminology glossaries and produce professional translations of real source texts generated by IGOs and NGOs.

This is a practical course that introduces students to a selection of language technology tools with a focus on their professional practice. These will range from widely-used open access tools to the industry standard SDL TRADOS (Getting Started level). Students will create and manage translation memories and terminological databases. They will integrate the use of corpora into their translation practice. They will also reflect on the role of machine translation and its application.

This course explains the basic principles of terminology and the use of term bases. The theoretical part discusses terminology theory, concepts, definitions, the structure of terminological records, ISO standards and the major international term base formats that are publicly available. It treats concept models and state-of-the-art software and it describes the way in which large translation services make use of term bases. The practical part consists of terminology software exercises (development and maintenance of term bases).

This course builds on previous methodological and theoretical courses and equips you with the necessary knowledge to carry out your thesis in the second year, whether research- or practice-oriented. Through a review of the main areas of research and inquiry in Translation Studies (TS) and you will learn the principles of designing research projects, reviewing the literature and writing research proposals.

This course equips students with the necessary skills for translating texts used in the commercial and business environment. Students will be introduced to styles, formats and functions of commercial texts and will develop methods for dealing with them. Special emphasis will be placed on the difficulties encountered in translating business texts, requiring specific skills and techniques. Contrastive features of commercial texts are examined and related to the translation process. The course also explores the importance of culture in commercial translation.

This is a practice-oriented course prepares students for a professional career in media translation. It deals with different forms, modes and genres of media texts, focusing in particular on political and economic texts. Students analyze and critically assess various media texts, including hard news reports, investigative reports, interviews, editorialized commentaries, editorials and TV news scripts. Using linguistic skills and applying theoretical and practical insights, students will be trained to produce professional translations of texts generated by media outlets.

This course will cover the following aspects of literary translation: Features of literary texts: analysis & translation approaches; style in literary translation; approaches to translating literary genres: poetry, theater, fiction, speeches; translating titles; translating metaphors and figures of speech; culture, politics, ideology; the problem of linguistic variety: register, dialect, slang; using footnotes; the working translator: tools & resources, publication. Class discussion is conducted in both Arabic and English.

This course examines intercultural issues central to translation studies today. Studying translation in different cultures and historical contexts, the course highlights the significant role that translators have played in enriching national languages, spreading religious creeds, and framing intellectual and political encounters across linguistic communities. Students are introduced to the current theoretical debates on translation and intercultural communication. Special emphasis is placed on the role of translation in the construction of the foreign as a primary tool of representing/misrepresenting cultural others.

This course aims at providing students with extensive experience in translating legal texts from English into Arabic and vice versa. It introduces students to the textual and rhetorical standards adopted in various legal texts in Arabic and English. It develops in students the critical thinking and research skills needed to successfully deal with legal translation quality assessment (revision), including the importance of legal terminology, text function, and intercultural contexts (since law is part of culture).

This course will take on new topics with specific aims as required by the program.

The Internship aims to help develop HSS MA students’ professional competence and understanding of the translation industry in a structured period of practical-work based learning

Designed like an independent study, this course supports students in their endeavor to conduct research in the field of Translation Studies. Students can produce a research-based thesis or a translation and commentary thesis of up to 15,000 words. The thesis should display the student's ability to collect/assess data, build an argument; and critically apply the main theories in their area of study.

Providing an overview of core concepts, debates and developments in the field of women and gender studies, this course underscores shifting paradigms (e.g. from ‘women’ to ‘gender’ studies) in our theoretical understanding of the subject. Themes, such as intersectionality, the social construction of gender, transnationalism, solidarity, patriarchy, discrimination, empowerment, embodiment, performativity etc., are highlighted through an interdisciplinary framework that positions gender within various power structures institutionalized in the media, political sphere, labor market and/or field of cultural production.

This course evaluates economic development theories from a gender perspective focused on the role of women in the MENA region. Providing a critical overview of women in the workforce, the course questions the institutional context in which gender is articulated in the household sphere and in the labor market. The persistent gender gaps in labor force participation rates (against rising educational outcomes for women) is also considered from a perspective which contrasts the modern discourse with its regional, historical antecedents.

This course will familiarize and equip students with research methods and skills relevant to women and gender studies. It focuses on qualitative methods, and draws from feminist approa-ches to science, epistemology and knowledge production. Students will receive training in re-search design, concepts, methods (interviews, participant observation, etc.), ethical require-ments, critical writing skills. The course will enable students to evaluate different methods and assess their relevance to their own research projects. The course aims at developing a well-designed research proposal.

Students are expected to analyze core themes characterizing the field, such as the honor and shame complex, Islamic feminism, relational selves, patriarchal bargains, kinship, etc. While focused on gender and women’s issues in the Middle East, the subject will also be linked to the core developments in the field of anthropology, such as the shift from neo-positivist to interpretive and reflex Feminist Perspective stances.

Designed to study the connection between society, culture, and law, this course examines citizenship, women, gender and family law. It asks whether laws pertaining to women and gender can be universalized. It also questions whether gendered law is a product of cultural, economic or political forces. What are the differences between positive, natural and customary laws? What is “full legal equality” and what role does context play in determining legal priorities? Do theories of liberation, equality and citizenship meet practice?

This course investigates innovative gender theory perspectives pertaining to the digital realm. Studying social media, digital activism, digital human relationship platforms and sexuality, we consider the impact of the latter on gender narratives, representation and embodiment in real-life urban and rural social environments. Students will learn how digital technologies challenge current understandings of gender theories, provoke new forms of knowledge in the digital realm and work to transform systems of gender oppression.

Exploring the interrelations between women, the state and modernity, this course critically appraises the tensions surrounding the transformation in the status of Arab women. Modernity and nationhood are given special consideration as the driving ideologies framing gender relations in the region today. Engaging with the issues requires zooming in on the gendered legacies of colonialism, nation-state building; state feminism; the debate on ‘authenticity’; religious and secular movements; patriarchal bargains; and gendered violence and war.

This course traces the history of the family in the Middle East, from pre-modern to modern times. A comparative lens is cast on dominant forms of kinship (tribes and clans) in their urban, rural and Bedouin settings. The impact of modernization, globalization and modern economies on kinship institutions is also examined in terms of the rise of the individual and the nuclear family. The concomitant discourse provoked on gendered identities, reproduction and sexuality is the focus of research and discussion.

This course explores the intersection of media and feminist theory by investigating the portrayal of Arab women in both Middle Eastern and global media. Coverage of such topics as sex trafficking, rape, domestic violence, religion, and local/regional politics is analyzed alongside claims of the marginalization of feminine voices and narratives. Lastly, students will consider the role of women in producing media and the barriers they continue to face when entering media.

Introducing students to timely, innovative and cutting-edge topics, methods and theories in the field of Arab Women’s Studies, this course is research-led. As such, its precise content will depend on the expertise of faculty and the research interests of students. The scope of research is thus wide, ranging from topical subjects, such as women’s participation in the Arab revolutions, to pioneering feminist research methods, such as auto-ethnography, to state-of-the-art theoretical developments in the field of women and gender studies.

The Women, Society and Development program requires students to either undertake an internship or an independent research project. This course allows students to explore their specific research interests within a relative field through a research agenda. The student will work closely with academic advisor and supervisor to implement this project within a given time period. The project may be capitalized on for the purposes of the thesis

Providing an introduction to the academic and comparative study of the world’s religious traditions through gendered analysis, this course engages in a thematic examination of the beliefs, practices, institutions, and cultural expressions of the World’ major Religions. It will address how sacred power, sacred story, ritual, sacred space and time, religious experience, religious ethics and morality shape women’s lives. What is the relationship between gender, religion, politics, and social conflict across and between religious traditions?

This course provides an overarching survey of world history, from the ancient to the early-modern eras, exploring several key themes in the fields of gender and identity studies. The goal of the course is to assist students in understanding the critical significance of gender, sexuality, and identity to historical world events and to the ways in which they continue to impinge on the contemporary world.

This course explores various strands of feminist conceptual frameworks with a focus on Women’s Studies and Feminist Studies in the MENA region. The aim is to integrate feminist theory with a selection of literary and cinematic works produced mainly by women writers and filmmakers in this region (including a few films made by male filmmakers), in order to investigate the cultural, social and political significance of their creative expressions, and the extent to which these works address issues at stake in their societies.

The Women, Society and Development program requires students to either undertake an internship of do an independent research project. This internship course is the opportunity to skills within a workplace setting, and also to gain experience in an organization, which is focused on issues relating to the degree program’s scope.

Designed like an Independent Research Project, this course supports students in their endeavor to conduct research in the field of Arab women studies. Students can produce a research-based thesis or a project-based thesis of up to 15,000 words. The thesis should showcase the student's ability to collect/assess data, build an argument; and critically apply the main theories in their area of study. The thesis is an opportunity for students to gain the requisite skills necessary for writing a publishable article.