The course “Culture and Religion in the Middle East” seeks to develop analytical knowledge and skills that will enable the students to understand cultural and religious conditions in the Middle East in their historical context and in relation to the persistent process of modernization and globalization. Concepts such as culture and religion have been subject to ongoing debate and contestation in the Social Sciences and Humanities. Therefore, the course will take off with conceptual reflections about religion, culture, and modernity before focusing in the later sessions on cases from different fields of studies and the research objectives and approaches related to their examination. Hereby, the students will gain a profound insight into the complexities of Middle Eastern and Islamic cultures, such as various interpretations of Islam, minorities, popular and consumer culture, media, gender and youth issues, migration, and diaspora as well as cultural artifacts. With this, the course will focus on the various cultural and religious aspects in the performance of the social actors in question such as activists, journalists, scholars, migrant communities, minorities, musicians, and many more.