Thinking with bell hooks and Paulo Freire: A Syllabus for the Digital Middle East

The final essay is approximately 3,000 words on a series of games, gaming, or social media phenomenon using methods of either ethnography, comparative analysis, computational social science, or discourse analysis. We will workshop your essay drafts on 5/10. You will also have an opportunity to present in person or record a video essay on your idea in the form of a short lightning talk. For the final product, you may choose to write an empirical essay

Thinking with bell hooks and Paulo Freire: A Syllabus for the Digital Middle East 3 this type of praxis affords an empathetic approach to teaching, classroom problem-solving, and community building that ultimately lends itself to student knowledge on the lived experiences of Middle Eastern communities.
The Digital Middle East course will also create a space for curiosity, critical, and ethical thinking where meaningful interaction outside the dominant philosophies of academic knowledge by deemphasizing top-down learning structures and even anthropological tourism.It is through this praxis that students understand the historical and current struggle against injustice in these societies, usually outside dominant paradigms of knowledge, that creates moments of resistance within societies on edge with the status quo.Despite the syllabus actively situating grades and percentages, a withdrawal from learning and praxis, the course will ask the imperative and mundane: "how did you learn?" and "what grade do you deserve?"This de-emphasis on grading, I urge (much like bell hooks) to imagine how education can be a practice of freedom like movements and non-movements in Middle Eastern societies during the Arab Spring, Gezi Park Protests, and the 2009 Green Revolution in Iran (hooks; Bayat).Through a transgressive critical digital pedagogy students will hone their social media, blogging, meme creation, and tweet searching skills and will accomplish learning tasks.The technical skills that students will walk away with include pixlr editing tools for memes, video editing tools, and WordPress.I am therefore advocating for skills labs in lieu of homework and at the same time engaging students in critical thinking through intentional content in a flipped classroom.Students will have the opportunity to accomplish small tasks such as reading excerpts and writing up initial responses to technical and Middle Eastern socio-historical content, while also having the freedom to intellectually engage with other students and finish tasks expeditiously.By self-actualizing and collaborating with one another, I will be able to teach the role of orientalism and othering as it appears among scholars, in media, and in popular observers of the Middle East so that students will think beyond the paradigms of white saviourism and examine neoliberal thinking that drives educational biases.While this requires a rudimentary understanding of Edward Said's Orientalism, and Gayatri Spivak's "Does the Subaltern Speak?" students will find ways to seriously learn these concepts through processes of play.
Through comparing video games to creating blogs, I argue that through the pedagogical approach of a flipped classroom, students will have a community-oriented learning environment to explore and play with interactive multimedia.The Digital Middle East course will thus afford students to creatively engage in the subject matter, and understand the positionality of cultures, peoples, religions, and nation-states in the Middle East.I believe that taking this approach, both I as a teacher and the students will collaboratively build out concepts or themes based on the content through digital technologies.This way, I may mentor, but also show that I am willing to create community with my students through my own willingness to experiment, express, and even make mistakes.Giving space for experimentation and error is the edge where learning begins.For the practical elements of the syllabus, together we can think through problems, and provide technical solutions.Some limitations of this course may include a digital divide, meaning lack of access to online resources, or even other barriers that students experience day-to-day.Therefore, it is imperative to address socio-economic as well as other needs early on during the course.Scaffolding in opportunities for students to express needs is therefore imperative to teaching this course.This may consist of an initial questionnaire at the beginning of the course to simply inquire what students may need to overcome throughout the quarter or semester and continuous teacher-student debriefing to hear what they are getting out of the content.Though I plan to teach this course sometime in 2023, I am questioning the implications and importance of a potential flipped classroom.I also am critical of how to use digital tools and the implication of the syllabus, while also creating a free and available tool kit to academics in and outside my university after the course.My praxis seeks to situate affect, emotion, and sentiment for both the subject matter and the students' experience (Ahmed; Barad; Berlant; Berlant and Stewart; Stewart).As such, a student may walk away with a better understanding of the complexities of interaction in online and offline spaces.To accomplish this objective, the course must institute critical digital pedagogy as a method to marry practice with theory and critically think about institutions and social barriers, while holistically weighing society, ideology, technology, and politics (Friend et al.).

Learning Objectives
The course will provide the following knowledge for students:

Course Structure
Before each class, I will post a short lecture and students will engage in online discussion on Canvas about the materials.Throughout the quarter, students will interact on Canvas each week on the course readings in class.
This will give students an additional opportunity to interact with their colleagues and to think digitally yet critically about the Digital Middle East.Classroom time will be used to learn technical skills and integrate course concepts into digital projects.The course will be enriched by two field trips to the Media Arcade for resources on digital access and an opportunity to play games at the HUB Gaming Lounge (funded by NELC).

Course Materials and Platforms
This course does not have a textbook.All materials and tutorials will be provided through the Canvas page.
The assigned games will be provided to the students.

Course Assignments
Weekly Discussion Board Posts (50%): For the weekly posts, you will have the opportunity to discuss the readings and the digital artifacts on Canvas, work together to solve digital problems, and ask questions.This requires one original post (approximately 100 words), and then two response posts to your classmates.These are due each Tuesday by 11:59 pm, starting with week 2.

Digital Object Essay or Video Essay (20%)
The mid-term essay or video is approximately 1,000 words on a chosen digital artifact, which can be either a game, set of memes, or hashtag, pertaining to the Middle East.You will write or record a critical essay on the object using course content.The essay is due on 5/3 at 11:59 pm.
To provide introductory knowledge on the Digital Middle East and its meanings.
To show students the important social media trends in the Middle East.
To assist students in understanding the transformations and disjunctions in Arab, Iranian, and Turkey's social media usage and culture industries.
To expose students to dominant discourses on the study of social media and video games, including cultural, theoretical, and comparative frameworks.
To familiarize students on transnational engagement of diaspora communities through social media.
To critique the role of the culture industry in creating narratives for the state.
To learn critical thinking skills when using social media, blogging using WordPress, and video gaming.

Final Essay (30%)
The final essay is approximately 3,000 words on a series of games, gaming, or social media phenomenon using methods of either ethnography, comparative analysis, computational social science, or discourse analysis.We will workshop your essay drafts on 5/10.You will also have an opportunity to present in person or record a video essay on your idea in the form of a short lightning talk.For the final product, you may choose to write an empirical essay, or one based on a theoretical topic.This essay is due during finals week on 6/9 by 11:59 pm.

Tentative Weekly Course Schedule
IDEAH • Vol. 3, Iss. 4 (Open/Social/Digital Humanities Pedagogy, Training, and Mentorship 2021) Thinking with bell hooks and Paulo Freire: A Syllabus for the Digital Middle East 4