FYS 107.02 U.S. Orientalism Fall 2014 Tuesday & Thursday 8:30am-9:45am Sondheim 204 Instructor: Dr. Autumn Reed Email: autumn2@umbc.edu Office: Administration Building, Room 913 Office Phone: 410-455-1099 Office Hours: By appointment “All knowledge that is about human society, and not about the natural world, is historical knowledge, and therefore rests upon judgment and interpretation. This is not to say that facts or data are nonexistent, but that facts get their importance from what is made of them in interpretation… for interpretations depend very much on who the interpreter is, who he or she is addressing, what his or her purpose is, at what historical moment the interpretation takes place.” ― Edward Saїd, Covering Islam, 154-5 Course Description Welcome to U.S. Orientalism! In this course we will explore the concept of Orientalism through the lens of the United States’s changing representations of the Middle East since the mid-19 th century to the present. Together we will interact with a variety of U.S. cultural artifacts, including art, literature, music, film, television, periodicals, editorial cartoons, comics, and video games to identify and assess Orientalism. Using each cultural artifact as a model, we will distinguish how gender, sexuality, race, class, nation, and religion intersect in U.S. cultural productions of the Middle East. We will cover 5 thematic units in the course: 1. Introduction to Orientalism 2. Orientalism from 1850-1900 3. Orientalism from 1900-1945 4. Orientalism from 1945-2001 5. Orientalism from 2001-Present In each unit, we will address manifestations of Orientalism in U.S. representations of the Middle East by first examining the historical context of U.S/Middle East relations followed by an analysis of select cultural artifacts from that period. The goal of this course is to help you engage with issues that touch our and others’ lives personally and politically and to develop ways of thinking and acting to address them in nuanced, conscious, and accountable ways. In order to achieve this and the objectives stated below, we will use a variety of learning materials: fictional and non-fictional readings, lectures, 1