Middle Eastern, South Asian, And African Studies · Columbia University
Fair grader, 3, 6 page essays and then a final paper.
Three response papers (4 pages, double spaced) engaging with one or more of the texts assigned. Extremely lenient guidelines. One final paper, 14 pages, which can be an extension of one of your previous response papers. Heavy reading each week, but doable.
Really enjoyed the class and learned a lot. Having very little knowledge about the Middle East, this class taught me so much. Prof. Mouradian is a very engaging professor and prolific in the field. He creates a safe space for all thoughts and is super intelligent
Khatchig is very much a celebrity in his niche field and it was amazing getting to learn from him. He assigned enriching readings and the lectures were highly engaging, definitely showed his expertise and I learned a lot. While the class is a 4000 level, I took it as a first year and did very well. He genuinely cares about you as a student and especially his office hours are a good time to learn more from him. He has an inconsistent treatment of each case study of genocide (focuses on different parts of each of them), but all very interesting angles and does an excellent job of grounding the course at the beginning with discussions of memory, anger, apology, denial, etc. Great course, easier than I expected but still taught me a lot.
3 response papers, 1 final research paper ~15-20 pages, participation and attendance
Three response papers and one final paper (12-15 papers). Response papers were a great opportunity to think more meaningfully about the readings and were pretty short (4 pages each). Grading was not at all harsh.
Urban Space and Conflict the Middle East is one of my favorite classes I have taken at Columbia! I'm shocked there aren't any reviews as Professor Mouradian is super kind and knowledgable and managed to teach us a ton of information without ever making it feel like a burden. He gave very helpful feedback on all the papers, the workload was reasonable, and I actually really enjoyed writing my final paper. This was my first MESAAS/history-adjacent class and it inspired me to take more classes in the department and I'm now considering concentrating in MESAAS. I highly recommend this class to anyone considering it!
I'm a senior who took War, Genocide, and Aftermath in the fall of my freshman year and it's perhaps the best class I've taken at Columbia to this day. I can't speak highly enough of Professor Mouradian. He's brilliant, a fantastic (and funny!) lecturer, and an extremely warm person. Readings were very interesting and the load was pretty reasonable. Seriously, take this class!!!