This course is designed to critically re-examine both the role of intellectuals in the modern Arab world and the political events that shaped their thinking. Through readings of selections of their works (in Arabic and/or in translation) the course introduces some leading thinkers of the Arab renaissance and Muslim revival of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Literary circles and social networks of intellectuals will be examined to shed light on the constitution and socialization of different groups of intellectuals in the late Ottoman and colonial periods. Topics will include secularism, Islamic revival, liberalism, nationalism, gender, cosmopolitanism, and anti-colonialism. Seminar discussions will focus on intellectuals as prisms through which political events and social structures of the modern Middle East are analyzed. Written assignments will be based on interpretations of Arabic texts (English translation optional): autobiographies, novels, essays, newspaper articles, speeches, poems, or lyrics.