What can we learn about the Middle East by examining media? What can we learn about media by studying institutions of production and practices of consumption alongside media texts themselves? In this course, we will read ethnographies of media from the Middle East, look at and listen to media, and read key texts in anthropological theory on media and language. We will study: (1) media such as film, television, and music that have played a role in consolidating, contesting, and complicating colonial and postcolonial states and patriarchal norms, (2) cultural products such as Qur’anic recitations, poetry, and music that are the product of regional and global circuits, and (3) new and small media like graffiti, tweets, and poetry that have been central to the Arab Revolts and other recent political movements.