Villains, Misfits and Tricksters of the Middle East

In this course we adopt the perspective of people who are dominantly constructed as villains and bad guys, or in theological terms as subjects who are dominantly considered as sinners, and therefore not considered good representatives of the 'victimhood discourse' and its politics that have shaped debates around justice and morality, especially since WWII and with a particular focus on the Middle East. The course will address two gaps in the hegemonic victimhood discourses. The first gap centres the sinful, the outcast, and the misfit in an effort to examine their role in the making of societies in the Middle East. It looks at the political, social, and economic exclusion of these figures in an effort to interrogate their communal and citizenship rights. The second gap is concerned with the 'stumbling' personal stories that are full of the predominantly negated practices of the misfits that interrupt the making of hegemonic victimhood discourses.

What does it mean to attend a course about societies from the perspective of people who are dominantly constructed as villains and bad guys, or in theological terms the subjects who are dominantly considered as sinners, who are not considered as good representatives of the victimhood language and politics that have controlled the global aspects of justice and morality specifically since WWII?

This course focuses on the ruins of the constructed and invented civilizations and their entailed languages, histories, faiths, and identities. Ruins are usually regarded as the unwanted piles of dust, rocks, and cement following the destruction of a building, a city, or even a whole country. They are useless and valueless material leftovers, which are usually thrown away far from well-structured and well-organized gardens, houses, universities, and streets. Nevertheless, the work of Walter Benjamin in specific offered another perspective to investigate the rubble and its presumed negativity. Writing against historicity and its linearity, this course will shed light on how rubble disturbs and stumbles the fetishization of how civilizations and their hegemonic ideas are built.

In this regard, this course will try to investigate two interrelated problematics in academia and public life: The first is a gap between the centrality of sinful, the outcast, and the misfit and the to the making of societies in the Middle East on one hand, and the political, social, and economic exclusion of these figures while debating the communal and citizenship rights of the people on the other hand. The second problematic has to do with stumbling personal stories that are full of the predominantly negated practices of the misfits, who interrupt the making of the hegemonic victimhood discourses.