The course will discuss the ways in which images of "Islam and the West" – as real and imaginary entities – were shaped in Western and Arab writings from the late 19th century to the early 21st century, and examine the social and political functions those images played. A vast chronological and intellectual spectrum of scholars will be analyzed, including colonialists, socialists, isolationists, conservatives and neo-cons on the side of the West, and liberals, Marxists, Islamists and Bathists on the Arab side. Particular attention will be given to the "Orientalism debate" and its implications.