An Afghan woman creating anti-corruption graffiti in Kabul
Up-to-date Syllabus Here
Afghanistan is a place often spoken about, but so rarely heard from. That you are taking this class means you have the intellectual will to reverse this problematic pattern! Afghanistan is worth our critical attention for reasons well beyond its importance to US foreign policy: its multifaceted history, its dynamic music, art, and fiction, its amazing cuisine, its growing diaspora in North America (including here in the Pacific Northwest), and its linguistic and cultural diversity. This course will situate Afghanistan in its historical, political, literary, religious, artistic, and social contexts with the hope that students will develop nuanced and grounded perspectives on a country that in fact defies all easy stereotypes
How’s this course good for your life?
Through learning about a particular country (Afghanistan), we are also cultivating critical thinking skills that you will draw on in your professional and personal life well beyond the university. By critical thinking, I mean the ability to keep our assumptions about peoples and cultures in check, the ability to identify ethnic, religious, linguistic, and cultural difference as a byproduct of broader social systems and not unchanging traits attributed to large groups of people, the ability to approach complex subjects such as religious practices not just with intellectual curiosity but also with a wide range of understanding and empathy. This exercise will only succeed if we engage with the cultural and historical specificity of our subject at hand. Critical thinking is a never-ending process of individual and societal growth