This course surveys key developments in the history of the Middle East, a highly diverse region spanning from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, and whose history is closely entangled with transformations in different parts of the world, from Southeast Asia to Latin America. We will focus on a set of themes that are as relevant to this region’s premodern and modern history as to our world today: movement and migration, culture and media, gender, and discrimination and socioeconomic relations. The historical trends and topics that we will cover include transformations in Islamic thought and arts, the expansion of the caliphates and Muslim Spain, Ottoman imperial life, Western colonialism and nationalist movements, 20th - century politics and the war on terror, and the 2011 “Arab Spring.” At the same time, we will learn about the ways in which the Middle East has been portrayed, by whom, and why, including the notion of orientalism, racialization, the “clash of civilizations” framework, and humanitarianism today, for example in the context of the so-called “migration crisis” in the Middle East and the Mediterranean basin. Throughout the course, we will examine numerous primary sources (texts as well as images and music) and put into practice original research and analytical methods in history. The course materials include academic secondary sources (book chapters and articles) as well as a select number of films and novels.