The course aims to provide students with knowledge of the fundamental features of the contemporary history of the Islamic countries of the Mediterranean area from the nineteenth century to today through three analytical perspectives:
1. the chronological perspective, providing students with the coordinates for orienting themselves in the periodization of Islamic history also in relation to the periodization criteria used for European history;
2. the global perspective through which the student will be able to place the historical events of this region in the broader European and world international context;
3. the comparative cultural perspective through which the student will be able to understand the cultural specificities of countries with an Islamic majority and the specificities of Arab-Islamic culture, art, literature in relation to European culture.
Some insights of the course will be dedicated to the following topics:
1. the study of modernization processes and the transformation of Islamic institutions in the contemporary age (caliphate, national states in the Turkish-Arab area);
2. cultural relations between the Islamic world and Europe with particular reference to the phenomenon of Orientalism in European art and culture;
3. the relationship between archeology and colonialism in the territories of North Africa and the Middle East.
4. Gender issues in the Arab-Islamic culture.
5. Inter-religious and inter-cultural dialogue between Islam, Christianity and Judaism.

Reference books
1. Marcella Emiliani, Medio Oriente. Una storia dal 1918 al 1991, Roma-Bari, Laterza or Peter Mansfield, A History of the Middle East, Penguin

2. Jane Lydon, Uzma Z. Rizvi, Handbook on Postcolonial Archaeology, Left Coast Press, Introduction, plus three chapters

Suggested readings:
Amin Maalouf, In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong, Arcade
Bernard Lewis, Europe & Islam, AEI
Roy, Olivier, Holy Ignorance: When Religion and Culture Part Ways, Oxford University Press