Reflection Week of 10/18

This week's readings really put the issues in a new perspective. Thus far we have been muddling through academic articles each week, learning underlying aspects and factors to social movements and MENA interactions, relationships, and history. The Wickham ad Cook readings really change this I feel. Wickham's in depth analysis of the Nasser regime really puts the current Egyptian situation into a fresh context for me. It allows the issue to be examined from an intensive study of Nasser's regime but at the same time I found Wickham's writing style to be very inviting and simplistic. These two aspects combined allowed me to glean a fresh insight into a hot button issue in the MENA region. Cook takes this aspect to an even greater length, with his first person narrative aspect. It seemed more enjoyable to be told a story and abstract the surrounding situation from that as opposed to being straight up told facts. I don't know, maybe I'm still stuck in a non-collegiate mindset, but to me its still more enjoyable to be told a story and analyze the story for facts than to just be straight up told facts.