A new semester has started. I am teaching two courses, one in non-fiction writing and the other in media studies. The latter course I’m calling “Tourist-Theorist-Terrorist” and it deals with a diverse body of literature dealing with the Middle East and Islam. Here is the required reading list for the course: Edward Said, Covering Islam; Ahmad Rashid, Taliban; Edward Said and Jean Mohr, After the Last Sky; V.S. Naipaul, Among the Believers; Orhan Pamuk, Snow; Amitav Ghosh, In An Antique Land; Jon Lee Anderson, The Fall of Baghdad. Additional texts will include essays by Salman Rushdie, Christopher Hitchens, Hanif Kureishi, Pankaj Mishra, and Mahmood Mamdani, as well as several films, to be viewed by students in the library, including “The Battle of Algiers,” “Where is My Friend’s House?, ” and “My Son, the Fanatic.”