NEHC

This course introduces students to the Hittite Empire of ancient Anatolia. In existence from roughly 1650-1200 BCE, and spanning across modern Turkey and beyond, the Hittite Empire is one of the oldest and largest kingdoms of the ancient world. We will be examining their history and their political and cultural accomplishments through analysis of their written records – composed in Hittite, the world’s first recorded Indo-European language – and their archaeological remains. In the process, we will also be examining the concept of “empire” itself: What is an empire, and how do anthropologists, archaeologists, and historians study this unique kind of political formation? This course therefore has two goals. First, students should emerge with a broad familiarity of the historical trajectory of the Hittite Empire and its neighbors from the beginning of written records to the empire’s post-collapse cultural regeneration in the early first millennium BCE. Second, students should acquire a sense of imperialism as a general phenomenon for analysis. No prior knowledge of Anatolian or Near Eastern history is required.

This course offers a critical introduction to the study of the relationship between human societies and their environment, with a specific focus on situations of rapid climatic change (RCC) in early historical periods. Students will be invited to reflect on discourses about climate and its influence on human societies from Herodotus to the IPCC; on notions such as environmental or social determinism, possibilism and reductionism, societal collapse and resilience; and on recent academic trends at the crossroads of Humanities, Social Sciences and Environmental Studies. Alternating lectures (Tu) and discussion sessions (Th), the first half of the quarter introduces the notion of “climate,” from its origins in Classical Greece to the present, and how this concept has been (and still is) used to define human groups and their history; it also offers an overview of the theories and methods that shape our current understanding of climate change and its effect on societies (past and present). The second half of the quarter is devoted to case studies, with a specific focus on the Ancient Near East (from prehistory to the first millennium BCE). Students will be asked to present the readings and participate in classroom discussions; write an article summary; and conduct a personal research (midterm annotated bibliography and research proposal; final essay) on a topic of their choice, which needs not be limited to the Ancient Near East.

This course offers a critical appraisal of the concepts of empire and imperialism in the historiography of ancient Mesopotamia and Iran to address political formations that developed (and vanished) during the first millennium BCE, with a focus on the Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, and Achaemenid empires. This seminar will explore the nature of power, control, and resource management in these early empires, and how they served as the blueprint for the later imperial formations of Classical and Late Antiquity. Students will address a substantial part of Mesopotamian and Iranian history and study in depth some key historiography issues for the history of Antiquity. Primary documents will be read in translation and the course has no ancient language requirements. However, some readings of secondary literature in common academic languages (especially French and German) are to be expected. Students will be asked to present the readings and participate in classroom discussions; write a book review; and conduct a personal research on a topic of their choice (midterm annotated bibliography and research proposal; final essay). This course fulfills the requirements of a survey course in Mesopotamian civilization as defined by the Ancient PhD programs in NELC and the MA program in the CMES.

Taking as its central theme the cultural situatedness of the earliest systems of mathematics and astronomy -- from their origins in ancient Mesopotamia (Iraq, c. 3400 BCE) until the Common Era (CE) -- this course explores topics in mathematical language and script, metrology, geometry and topology, music theory, definitions of time, models of stars and planets, medical astrology, and pan-astronomical hermeneutics in literature and an ancient board game. Pushing against boundaries separating the humanities and social and physical sciences, students discover how histories of science and mathematics could be decisively shaped not merely by sensory experience or axiomatic definition, but also by ideas and imagery derived from the cultures, societies, and aesthetics of their day.

The course will take its start from combing the “Histories” and “Politics” sections, and their commentaries, and listings of the recently published Inventory of the Ottoman Palace Library of Sultan Bayezid II of 1502-1503 (Treasures of Knowledge:  An Inventory of the Ottoman Palace Library (1502-1503/1503-1504), eds. G. Necipoglu, C. Kafadar, C.H. Fleischer, 2 vols., Brill 2019), to develop a map of the Arabic, Persian, and Turkish historiographical and political theoretical terrain that formed the foundation of the early modern Islamic understanding of history as science, and its mobilization in the interest of reestablishment of universalist sovereignty in the sixteenth century and beyond.  It will then proceed to selected readings in original languages, selections to be determined by linguistic capacities and focus of participants.

In this course, we will investigate and discuss prevalent topics in the philological and linguistic study of Semitic languages. The weekly topics will touch on the major sub-categories of grammar and focus on methodology.

This course will discuss current trends in research for 19th and early 20th C Ottoman and Turkish history

In consultation with a faculty research adviser and with consent of the Director of Undergraduate Studies, students devote the equivalent of a one-quarter course to the preparation of their Research Project. Students are required to submit the College Reading and Research Course Form. Please indicate that you wish to register for NEHC 29995 Section 01 with the Director of Undergraduate Studies. 

Required of fourth-year students who are majoring in NELC. This is a workshop course designed to survey the fields represented by NELC and to assist students in researching andcompleting their Research Project. Students must get a Reading and Research form from their College Adviser and complete the form in order to be registered. Signatures are needed from the adviser and Director of Undergraduate Studies. Please indicate on the form that you wish to register for NEHC 29899 Section 01.

This seminar/colloquim focuses on the transformation of the Muslim Ottoman principality into an imperial entity--after the conquest of Constantinople in 1453--that laid claim to inheritance of Alexandrine, Roman/Byzantine, Mongol/Chinggisid, and Islamic models of Old World Empire at the dawn of the early modern era. Usually taught as a two-quarter reseach seminar, this year only the first quarter is offered, with a 15-20 paper due at the end. Special attention is paid to the transformation of Ottoman imperialism in the reign of Sultan Süleyman the Lawgiver (1520-1566), who appeared to give the Empire its "classical" form. Topics include: the Mongol legacy; the reformulation of the relationship between political and religious institutions; mysticism and the creation of divine kingship; Muslim-Christian competition (with special reference to Spain and Italy) and the formation of early modernity; the articulation of bureaucratized hierarchy; and comparison of Muslim Ottoman, Iranian Safavid, and Christian European imperialisms. The quarter-long colloquium comprises a chronological overview of major themes in Ottoman history, 1300-1600. In addition to papers, students will be required to give an oral presentation on a designated primary or secondary source in the course of the seminar.