“I curse my own child but I hate whoever says Amen”

Our personal family histories and the lived experiences of growing up as part of a family shape our values, aspirations, economic fortunes, preferences and aversions and touch the very core of who we are and how we interact with the world. The family is so conspicuous a social institution that we often take it for granted as a natural formation. In this course, we will explore how this powerful form of social organisation has ruled the lives of Middle Eastern men, women and children, and has been shaped by their choices and visions. We will investigate how the institution that we recognise today as the modern family has come into being in the context of regional variations of capitalism, colonialism, modern state formation, nationalism and the women’s movement. Together we will read a variety of primary documents such as newspaper articles, published manuscripts, autobiographies, family photos, court records, and medical literature from the modern Middle East to explore how the family was discursively and materially created and made to appear as a natural phenomenon. We will ground these investigations of primary material with secondary readings from the increasingly sophisticated field of Middle East family history, and the more established discipline of family history in the modern world.