Spring 2025
CMCU 3397 – Muslim Women & The West
Taught by Dr. Shenila Khoja-Moolji
Muslim women often appear in Western imagination as oppressed, silent, and victimized. This course offers an alternate account of Muslim women by centering texts and aesthetics produced by them, along with ethnographic studies that give us a glimpse into their lives in the West. We encounter Muslim women through non normative frames of agency, joy, community-building, and care. We observe the myriad ways in which they construct preferred futures against racist, capitalist, and heteronormative logics. A major thrust of the course is studying the lifeworlds of Shia Muslim women (a minority interpretive community within Islam).
UNXD 1200 – Race, Power, Justice
Taught by Dr. Shenila Khoja-Moolji
This course provides a campus-wide common curriculum that will introduce Georgetown undergraduates to the university’s history and relation to the city, nation, and world, with an emphasis on issues of race, power, and justice. It will also introduce students to experts, conversations, and resources across campus and in the Washington, DC region that address issues of race, power, and justice. It will model having constructive conversations on difficult issues and help to provide students with a sense of Georgetown’s diverse community. The course will meet twice a week for six weeks. Every week, all four hundred students will convene together for a shared event, like a live performance or panel discussion, and then students will convene in smaller discussion sections, each led by a member of the faculty, to discuss the shared event and complementary readings.
CMCU 4110 – Saudi Arabi at a Crossroads
Taught by Dr. Taghreed Alsabeh
Saudi Arabia stands at a crossroads, balancing its traditional tribal structure, the influence of its ruling family, its immense wealth from oil reserves, its religious significance as the home of Islam’s two holiest sites, and its strategic alliance with the United States. This course explores Saudi Arabia’s unique characteristics and how they impact the country’s political landscape, particularly regarding the development of democracy. Students will analyze why Saudi Arabia’s political system differs from other Arab countries’ political regimes that were impacted by the democratization wave during the Arab Spring period, which led Saudi Arabia to survive the wave. The course will examine the challenges and prospects for democratic reform in the country.
CMCU 4190 – Majoritarianism and Minority Rights in South Asia
Taught by Dr. Badar Khan-Suri
The course aims to provide an Asian response to the debate over the rise of ethno-nationalism, majoritarianism, and the challenges to minority rights. The case of India sheds light on specific reasons behind the decay of democracies. Moreover, the course will investigate how and why ethnoreligious majorities have been weaponizing their discourse against minorities. At the center of this discourse is the Hindutva ideology. The course will examine whether it represents an exclusionary vision. Moreover, the course will investigate whether such an ideology perceives minorities as a threat. Finally, the course will explore how democracy interacts with these dynamics—whether it mitigates or amplifies tensions arising from ethno-nationalism.