We will survey popular cultures in the Arabic-speaking Middle East, exploring the Southwest Asia and North Africa region through audio, visual, and literary production. Through cinema, literature, oral traditions, and music, we will consider how communities express cultural, political, and social identities in relation to colonialism, nation-building, and globalization. We will examine anti-colonial movements, the global sixties, the digital age, the Arab Spring, and how youth, women, and minorities challenge dominant social and political forces.