NEHC

<p>This sequence introduces three great empires of the ancient world. Each course in the sequence focuses on one empire, with attention to the similarities and differences among the empires being considered. By exploring the rich legacy of documents and monuments that these empires produced, students are introduced to ways of understanding imperialism and its cultural and societal effects—both on the imperial elites and on those they conquered.</p><p>For most of the duration of the New Kingdom (1550-1069 BC), the ancient Egyptians were able to establish a vast empire and becoming one of the key powers within the Near East. This course will investigate in detail the development of Egyptian foreign policies and military expansion which affected parts of the Near East and Nubia. We will examine and discuss topics such as ideology, imperial identity, political struggle and motivation for conquest and control of wider regions surrounding the Egyptian state as well as the relationship with other powers and their perspective on Egyptian rulers as for example described in the Amarna letters.</p>

This course will provide an overview of Anatolian/Hittite literature, as “defined” by the Hittites themselves, in the wider historical-cultural context of the Ancient Near East. In the course of discussions, we will try to answer some important questions about Hittite inscriptions, such as: why were they written down, why were they kept, for whom were they intended, and what do the answers to these questions (apart from the primary content of the texts themselves) tell us about Hittite society?

This course provides an introduction to the social, political, and cultural history of Mesopotamia, from the origins of writing and cities in Sumer (ca. 3200 B.C.), through the great empires of Assyria, Babylon, and Persia.

Designed for those with no previous knowledge of the Middle East, this course aims to facilitate a general understanding of some key factors that have shaped life in this region, with primary emphasis on modern conditions and their background, and to provide exposure to some of the region’s rich cultural diversity. The course can serve as a basis for the further study of the history, politics, and civilizations of the Middle East.

This course will offer a survey of the main political and social developments in Turkey and Iran since the end of WWI.

Course introduces students to the historical context and specific characteristics of the mass printed press (newspapers, cultural and political journals, etc.) in the Ottoman Empire in the 19th C. We will investigate issues such as content, censorship, production, readership and distribution through secondary reading and the examination of period publications.

The course focuses on the formation of the Ottoman polity as an imperial entity following the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 and up to the end of the sixteenth century. Taking as its thematic center point the ideological, social, cultural, and administrative changes introduced by Sultan Suleyman (1520–1566), the seminar also provides a survey of the institutions of his most extensive of early modern Muslim empires. Themes of particular significance are the changing relationship of religion and state, the development of imperial culture, the rule of law, rivalry with contemporary Christian and Muslim powers, and the transition from universal to regional empire. Reading knowledge of at least one European language recommended.

This course surveys the political, social, and economic history of ancient Egypt from pre-dynastic times (ca. 3400 B.C.) until the advent of Islam in the seventh century of our era.

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 and writing the BA paper. 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 29800 Section 01.

This course will explore the narrative history of Central Asia from rise of the nomadism up to the end of the Central Asian Timurids in the fifteenth century. We will discuss the people who lived there, the political entities that ruled, and the region's role in the pre-modern world. This course assumes that Central Asia can be studied as a cohesive unit of historical inquiry and that its peoples, civilizations, and cultures share common elements that make this approach possible. We will devote considerable effort to problems of historiography and methodology and will explore possible solutions to these problems.