Political Islam: A Narrative of Ideology, Revivalism, and Conflict with Roby C. Barrett

Political Islam: A Narrative of Ideology, Revivalism, and Conflict with Roby C. Barrett

• This is a 10-meeting virtual class using the Zoom platform.
• Tuesdays, Feb 18, 25, March 4, 11, 18, 25, April 1, 8, 15, 22
• 5:30-7pm CT
• Please note: This class is not offered asynchronously, so recordings will not be available if you miss the live session

This course discusses the political, economic, and socio-cultural aspects of Islamic development from its inception in the 7th century. It examines the rise of factionalism in its earliest forms and carries the discussion into the contemporary period. The premise is that Islam is a multifaceted, diverse umbrella of many competing and conflicting groups and this diversity and adaptability, similar to that of Christianity, has led to its spread. It examines the schools of Islamic thought and law, sectarianism, and the challenge of the West within the various historical contexts. The course is less concerned with the religious forms of faith than with Islam as an ideological backdrop for the justification of geo-political, economic, and socio-cultural actions and movements. It is 10 sessions 90 minutes each.

INSTRUCTOR BIO

Dr. Roby C. Barrett is former Foreign Service Officer with an intelligence and special operations background and served in North Africa, Yemen, the Levant, and Arabia. He is a Scholar and Gulf expert with the Middle East Institute, Washington, D.C. Originally trained as a Russia and Soviet expert, Dr. Barrett has over forty years of hands-on experience in the Middle East and is a security expert on the region. Barrett is the author of numerous books and articles on the Middle East and Southwest Asia including The Cold War in the Greater Middle East: U.S. Foreign Policy under Kennedy and Eisenhower (2007), The Gulf and the Struggle for Hegemony: Arabs, Iranians, and West in Conflict (2016), the nine-article “Series on Gulf Security” for Manara Magazine at Cambridge University (2020–2022), and nine monographs for US Special Operations Command. As former graduate and research fellow at the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich and Oxford, Dr. Barrett holds a Ph.D. in Middle Eastern and South Asian history from the University of Texas at Austin.

HND VALUE STATEMENT

Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this program, do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities or Humanities North Dakota. However, in an increasingly polarized world, we at Humanities North Dakota believe that being open-minded is necessary to thinking critically and rationally. Therefore, our programs and classes reflect our own open-mindedness in the inquiry, seeking, and acquiring of scholars to speak at our events and teach classes for our Public University. To that end, we encourage our participants to join us in stepping outside our comfort zones and considering other perspectives and ideas by being open-minded while attending HND events featuring scholars who hold a variety of opinions, some being opposite of our own held beliefs.

Humanities North Dakota classes and events are funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities