This paper draws upon my experience of teaching Middle East politics for a semester in one of the countries of the former Yugoslavia. Its main focus will be on the comparative pedagogical and cultural lessons involved in teaching the Arab-Israeli conflict in a place that itself witnessed intense violence around nationalist and identity issues. What insights can be gained on teaching conflict and conflict resolution in this setting? How are religion, history, and ethnicity as variables in the Middle East interpreted by students? How do students understand and compare the role of external actors (US, Europe, Russia, UN, etc.) in modern nationalist conflicts? The course includes a simulation of the Final Status negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. How will the dynamics of the simulation be affected by the historical context of the former Yugoslavia? What lessons does this offer for teaching the course to students in the United States?

In the roundtable, I will share my experience at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point (UWSP) — a mid-sized state college in the rural Midwest. I will focus on my challenges and opportunities as the sole Middle East specialist working with a distinctive student population. In my position, I am a generalist out of necessity. In most cases, if there is anything students need to learn about the Middle East or Islam, I must teach it. This can be both daunting and rewarding. For example, I am the one who decides what makes up Middle Eastern studies at UWSP. Furthermore, many in the community are interested in the Middle East, so I have a ready audience outside of the university. One significant challenge is that with no other Middle East scholars on campus, I must look to other UW campuses and to other colleges in the region to create a community of scholarly peers. With regard to our student body, UWSP has few minority or foreign students, but there are other ways to measure diversity. Many of our students come from rural communities and small towns. Also, many are the first in their families to attend college. Most significantly, many UWSP students have served in recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—providing a valuable perspective in my classes. I hope that many will find something in these experiences to complement the insights of others on the panel.

The paper describes the process of establishing a new and now thriving Middle East Studies major at Dickinson College, beginning in 2007, in which the two authors were the prime movers. We explain how we secured and deployed a two-year grant from the US Department of Education to create a rich interdisciplinary program that would be sustainable beyond the life of the grant and graduate students ready for a range of careers related to the region. Particular attention is given to the strengths and limitations offered by a liberal arts college environment for such a program, including academic, administrative and financial issues. Among the dimensions addressed are: establishing a credible language component; leveraging and nurturing faculty resources across the disciplines to provide strong and varied core and elective courses; study abroad options; community outreach; and quality control and assessment. Given time constraints, the presentation will focus on some of these issues, leaving the rest for the discussion period.

We have twice offered an on-site undergraduate course, “Imagining Jordan: Myth, History, Identity,” for students from Colorado College, a liberal arts college in Colorado Springs. The course, based in Amman, lasts one month, and grew out of collaboration between a historian of the Middle East without prior experience teaching overseas, and a historian of early modern France with extensive overseas teaching experience. In this session, we will address our approach to teaching an on-site course examining nationalism and the much longer pre-nationalist history of the region. In particular, we address taking best advantage of being on site—in terms of selection of field trip experiences, home stays, and readings—and the logistics of organizing visits, etc., from the United States. As time permits in the discussion period, we hope also to address the benefits of sending two faculty members, even if one is not an expert in the field—or perhaps especially if one is not a regional expert—and how we see our course furthering and challenging the larger learning goals of our liberal arts institution.