This quarter, I picked up the NELC (Near Eastern Languages and Cultures) major, so I’ve been taking a couple of classes for that. One of my classes, a comparative human development course called Life Course and Generation in Arab Culture, fulfills my NELC requirements, and it’s one of my favorites! I’m lucky enough to be taking three classes that I really love this quarter, but the CHDV one stands out because of the broad range of material that we use in class.
We’ve read everything from ethnographies to anthropological articles to contemporary novels to help us explore how “Arab culture,” a term we are still trying to define, deals with different stages of life. The lecturer, Christine Nutter, conducted two years of fieldwork in Morocco, and hearing her perspective on everything that we’ve studied has been immensely interesting.
Never having taken a class in this department, I was worried that I would be a little out of my element in this class, but my background in NELC has really helped me understand this course in terms of my academic life here at school. My favorite part about the class right now? The fact that my midterm is during seventh week, since I have three other midterms during fifth week. I’d encourage everyone to look into taking a CHDV course at some point, as it really is an interdisciplinary field that’s helped open my eyes to a whole new side of learning!