AFRC740 - RES SEM IN MIDDLE EAST: SLAVERY IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA

SPRING 2016: This graduate research seminar is created to explore the history of slavery in the Middle East and parts of Africa, from the reign of the Ottoman ruler Suleiman the Magnificent, through the spread of Ottoman rule to the Arab world, to Iran and the Gulf, and throughout the Nile Valley, to the legacies of many different trades in slavery in the contemporary Middle East. Students will be asked to think seriously about how slavery impacted Middle Eastern societies, and how this phenomenon has been studied. The material we will use will draw from historians of the Middle East, the narratives of slave-owners and former slaves, and from the historiography of other fields of study, notably Africana and African Studies. We will also begin to explore the visual culture of slavery, in art, in photography and in film.