Scribner Seminar Program
Course Description
Serious Fun: Sports in the Modern Middle East
Instructor(s): Murat Yildiz, History
What insights can sports offer into the Middle East? This course is structured around investigating this central question. In the past decade and a half, scholars from an eclectic array of disciplinary backgrounds—anthropology, history, political science, and sociology—have explored the emergence, spread, and growing popularity of different sports across the Middle East. Scholars have produced a rich body of literature that enables us to explore the thought-provoking question that sociologist Tamir Sorek asked in 2019: “Is there such a thing as a Middle Eastern sport?” Rather than searching for an ‘authentic’ regional sport, the course examines the discursive and institutional dynamics of sports across urban centers of the Middle East. Building on the insights of sports historian Robert Edelman, the course foregrounds the ways in which sports were/are simultaneously “serious” and “fun” in the Middle East. We will examine how educators, government administrators, commentators, athletes, and regular people viewed sports as joyous activities that also promised to create healthy and strong citizens over the past hundred years.
Course Offered: