22 courses with the subject MESA, each shown exactly as we captured it from the college's catalog, with every element we hold. Where the wording looks broken, that is our reading of the catalog, not the college's text.
Effective Date 03/01/2009 Survey of Central Asian civilizations from the first to the twenty-first centuries, with particular emphasis on nomadism, invasions, conquests, and major religious-cultural developments.
Effective Date 01/19/2018 This course provides the opportunity to offer a new topic in the subject area of Middle Eastern and South Asian studies.
Effective Date 10/03/2016 “Transnational Circuits of Cinema: An Introduction to Middle East - South Asia Film History” - Since its very inception as a traveling fairground attraction, cinema has been a globally-circulating medium. This course begins in the moment of early cinema and proceeds through the contemporary moment, with a focus on Middle East - South Asia genealogies of filmmaking.
Effective Date 08/01/2023 From the ancient history of games like chess and backgammon, to sports like badminton and falconry, to the “Great Game” of imperial conquests, this course offers a theme-based gateway to the long-connected regions of the Middle East and South Asia. Over the semester, we’ll explore this region of the world through short stories, films, tv shows, games themselves, and cameo visits by other faculty–all on the topic of “playing games”!
Effective Date 08/01/2019 Survey of the Indian Ocean history from 8000 BCE to present. Includes rise of major religions in the area, dynamics of trade, including the influence of European expansion and the resistance to it.
Effective Date 01/02/2026 This course offers a semester-long study of Middle Eastern, North African, and South Asian representation and racialization in American popular culture via the superhero genre. Engaging with visual media (comics, television, film), creator talks and interviews, and academic writing, we will think critically about how people and ideas travel across borders.
Effective Date 11/04/2024 New course in Middle Eastern and South Asian studies.
Effective Date 10/03/2017 From arid cities to irrigated fields, hot deserts to high mountains, the Middle East and South Asia encompasses a range of environments for thinking through the relationships between nature and society, people and animals, human and nonhuman worlds.
Effective Date 08/01/2018 “Film Festivals and Global Media Cultures: Middle East- South Asia Spotlight”- With an emphasis on transnational film festival histories and collective media cultures in the Middle East and South Asia, this course offers a semester-long study of film festivals, as an intersection of historical and media industry approaches to cinema. Tie-ins will include comparative analyses of local film cultures and film festivals.
Effective Date 10/30/2016 This course surveys the classics of Islamic mystical writing, spanning from the Middle East to South Asia and the Arabic, Persian, Urdu, and Indian vernacular languages. With an eye to both form and content, we will examine the literary productions - both poetry and prose - of some of the most influential Sufi figures in Islamic history, including Rabi`a, Ibn al-Farid, Rumi, Hafiz, Khusrow, Bulleh Shah, and others. Readings in English translation.
Effective Date 01/29/2025 This course offers a survey of Middle Eastern, North African, and South Asian American comic books, graphic novels, and graphic memoirs. Reading fiction and nonfiction comics, paired with academic and critical writing and other media, we will think critically about what it means for creators of different diasporas and differently marginalized identities to produce art for readers in the United States.
Effective Date 01/01/2026 In this course we will examine the history of astrology, as both a body of knowledge and a process of discovery, from the ancient to the contemporary periods. Astrology played a significant, albeit underappreciated, role in the making of ancient and medieval societies. We will consider astrology’s early global status as a science with immutable laws, and its 17th-century designation as a pseudo-science in Western thought.
Effective Date 01/01/2022 Part one surveys the history of science in the Islamic world, focusing on scientific developments that emerged from the encounter with Greek, Sanskrit, and European cultures. Muslim conceptions of the relationship between science and religion will also be examined. Part two explores contemporary Islamic scientific thought, focusing on Muslim responses to the environmental crisis, utilizing water pollution and India’s Yamuna River as a case study. Requisites Students can’t enroll if previously taken MESA 3559 topic 10 Islam, Science & Environment
Effective Date 09/23/2020 This course is devoted to the longstanding screen histories of A Thousand and One Nights. We will investigate the way in which the text has variously congealed into a cinematic genre in its own right; a catapult for explorations of the fantastic, iterated as the wonders of technology/medium and sensuality; a contested site of negotiating Orientalist desires and stereotypes; and a platform for reflection upon the question of storytelling itself. Requisites Students can’t enroll if previously taken MESA 3559 topic 5 A Thousand and One Nights
Effective Date 09/23/2020 This course explores the cinematic and media worlds of fictional spies. We’ll consider histories of espionage and zoom in on the Cold-War-era heyday of modern espionage and fictional spies. By following the narrative, formal, and historical geographies of spy genres in and beyond the Middle East and South Asia, we’ll connect depictions of espionage and gadgetry to perspectives on seeing and being in the modern world. Requisites Students can’t enroll if previously taken MESA 3559 topic 9 Cine-Media Worlds of Espionage
Effective Date 01/01/2026 New Course in Middle Eastern & South Asian Studies
Effective Date 01/01/2026 How do we know what we know, and why do we feel what we feel, about Israel/Palestine? This course challenges us to reflect on this question by offering key perspectives on both the modern history of Palestine/Israel, on the one hand; and the modern history of film, on the other, through a unique set of “outsider” films about Israel/Palestine from across the Middle East and South Asia.
Effective Date 05/18/2016 New Course (or Topic) in Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies.
Effective Date 01/01/2026 The purpose of this course is to provide students with guidance in developing their undergraduate capstone projects. The initial portion of the course will be heavy on readings, while the latter portion will be structured as a series of hands-on workshops that draw on the insights of the earlier readings, in order to guide students through a semester-long research project of their choosing.
Effective Date 01/01/2010 Independent study in a special field under the direction of a faculty member in MESALC.
Effective Date 01/01/2013 Thesis research under the direction of a MESALC faculty member serving as thesis advisor and a second faculty member serving as second reader. The second faculty member may be from outside MESALC.
Effective Date 09/05/2016 Thesis composition under the direction of a MESALC faculty member serving as thesis advisor and a second faculty member serving as second reader. The second faculty member may be from outside MESALC.
Source: University of Virginia-Main Campus's catalog, linked per course · table learning_unit · CourseShelf publish 59
