Minorities and Sectarianism are two categories that are commonly used in contemporary political and social analysis of the Modern Middle East. The course will look at the historical events and processes that have led to the emergence of such social structures that are more often the product of modern politics than markers of essential historical difference. We will analyze the roots of ethnic and religious diversity and their manipulation by colonial and post-colonial governments, and at the politics of self-assertion by minority groups in the Middle East and North Africa during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.