Comprehensive Exams
The oral comprehensive examination is designed to provide a cross-disciplinary conclusion to the student's course work and total educational experience in the program. Students who reach the stage of the comprehensive examination have already demonstrated mastery of the content of a series of individual courses by passing their respective examinations; the comprehensive examination is not intended to duplicate that process. Rather, the oral comprehensive examination is a vehicle by which the student has the opportunity to demonstrate his or her ability to draw upon and synthesize knowledge across the various disciplines.
A list of 8-10 themes for each concentration is listed below. These themes should be a guide for students in preparing for the comprehensive exams. In addition to the listed themes, examiners may also draw from course material.
Format
The examination is administered by three Arab studies professors (two of them specializing in the student's concentration), selected by the MAAS Director. At least two of these professors are typically selected from among those with whom the student has studied. Normally, each professor asks the student one broad question (with corollary questions). The examination lasts approximately one hour. The student's performance is rated as Pass with Distinction, High Pass, Pass, or Fail. High Pass, Pass, and Fail are determined by majority vote; Distinction is awarded with unanimity only, and only to students who have maintained a minimum grade average of B+ in the MAAS program.
A student who does not pass the oral comprehensive examination is permitted one retake only. It is advisable not to rush into a retake. Ample time to remedy whatever deficiencies the examiners observed should be allowed. In no instance is a retake administered less than one month after the initial examination.
Concentration Themes
Culture and Society
• Theories on identity in the Arab world
• Nationalist projects and ideologies and their relations to Arab culture and society
• Theories about modernity, modernization and tradition and the representation of contemporary Arab culture and society
• Role of family, kin networks and community in contemporary Arab society
• Globalization, change, and development
• Cultural production and expressive culture in the Arab world (literature, music, film, etc.)
• Power, hierarchy and resistance – theories, applications, examples, analysis
• Gender in contemporary Arab society
• Religion in the Arab World
• Anthropology and the production of knowledge about the Arab world
• The role of history and memory in the Arab World
• Religion, secularism and religious authority in the Arab world
Economics (Development)
• Theories and history of development
• The role of international actors and foreign aid in development
• The role of local actors and institutions in development
• The politics of development aid
• Human rights, humanitarianism and development
• Civil society, community and charity organizations, and development
• Education, knowledge production, expertise and development
• Gendered dimensions of development
• Labor, migration and development
• Water, resources and sustainable development
Economics (Business)
• The origin of state intervention in the economy
• Economic development models in the region historically and in the present
• Role of the private sector in contrast to the role of the state controlled companies
• Islamic economics and finance
• Dynamics of economic growth and policy reform
• Population growth and labor market outcomes
• Poverty, inequality, and social safety nets
• Doing business and the investment climate
• Regional integration and the world economy
• Oil markets, national oil companies and international oil companies
• Issues specific to the oil and gas producers of the Middle East [GCC, Libya, Algeria, Egypt]
• Industrialization policies in the Gulf- Value added productions
• Job creation and dependence on foreign labor in the GCC
• The political economy of policy reform
History
• Patterns in the political, economic, social, and intellectual development of the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
• The Arab historiographical tradition
• Colonialism and issues of identity in North Africa and the Arab East
• Issues of class and gender in nationalism and nationalist movements
• Islamic movements, from the Wahhabis to the Muslim Brotherhood(s)
• Major trends in family and society in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with a focus on women and gender
• Institution building in the independent nation states of North Africa, Egypt, the Arab East, and the Gulf
• Nineteenth to twenty-first century imperialistic empires and the Arab world
• The development of Arab social and cultural practices in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
• Ideology, power, and identity in modern Arab history
Politics
• Islam and politics and the rise of Islamist movements
• Authoritarianism and authoritarian states and their dynamics
• Nationalisms and identity politics in the Middle East
• U.S. foreign policy toward the Middle East
• Political economy of the Middle East (oil, rentierism, development, economic liberalization, globalization, labor migration, etc.)
• The Middle East as a regional political system (international relations of the Middle East)
• Arab-Israeli conflict
Women and Gender
• Women, colonialism, and empire (Algeria, Egypt, Syria)
• Women and nationalism, past and present (Egypt, Palestine, Syria)
• The rise of feminism (Egypt and Palestine)
• Women and resistance (Palestine and Algeria)
• Women and war narratives (Lebanon)
• Women and education (Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iraq, and Libya)
• Suffrage (Egypt, Lebanon, and Kuwait)
• Women's health (Egypt and Sudan)
• The veil in modern societies (Morocco, Egypt, and Tunis)
• Women in Islamic law and religious texts (includes Islamic feminism)
• Women and social work (Qatar and Bahrain)
