2020-2021

Arabic Through Extensive Reading
In this course, students will read a whole work, most often, but not exclusively, a novel or play. Nevertheless, the course advances student proficiency in all 4 skills.
Naturally, reading is a central activity of this course. Students in the Intermediate High range* can expect to either feel more solidly comfortable in that level, or to go beyond it to the Advanced level. Students will improve their writing through a number of essays/reflections on the novel.
The course is taught in Arabic, so, students will be negotiating meaning amongst themselves by discussing the novel. In addition, the presentational mode will be exercised in a series of prepared class presentations. To improve their listening skills, students will work on video materials connected to the novel, testing their abilities through worksheets.
While no new grammar will be introduced in a formal manner, as students read the novel and use the writing book, they will be reviewing grammar studied earlier.

In addition to the novel, students will benefit from guest speakers in our classroom.

Arabic Through Debate

Taking debate as its central fulcrum, the course will develop all 4 language skills. Its language goals are served through preparing students to debate a number of issues of public interest.
Why “debate”?
a) Because debating, arguing, making claims, supporting claims with evidence, are all authentic activities that we all practice on a daily basis; debating is a relevant real-life skill;
b) Because the debate process pulls practitioners into all 4 language skills: debaters must read on the proposition topic, they must prepare their arguments in writing, they must clearly speak to an audience, and they must listen carefully to their team mates and to the arguments of the opposing team. In the process, they will be immersed in Arab culture (targeted expressions and historical references, of-the-moment issues, etc.)

Course Objectives
a) Expanding student vocabulary and structures into the abstract, analytic realm, i.e., placing them solidly in the advanced ACTFL levels (see the descriptions of the ACTFL standards and levels here: https://www.actfl.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/public/ACTFLProficiencyG…
b) Improving student speech techniques: pronunciation, intonation/voice modulation, pausing, emphasis, gesturing, visual communication;
c) Improving listening and writing skills and expanding them to include topics of general and academic interest;
d) Through a thoughtful selection of debate propositions, exposing students to some salient social, cultural, and political themes of importance to the Arab public.
e) Sharpening the logical argumentative skills of students.

This course is part of a sequence that is designed to take students to a solid Advanced proficiency in Modern Standard Arabic. It does this by clustering materials that serve all 4 language skills around three cultural themes. The class adheres to a 90% Arabic instruction. Students will move forward in their ability to listen to and understand spoken MSA, to read a variety of authentic texts (literary and other), and to speak and write more easily on topics of general and professional interest. By the end of the course, and surely, by the end of the academic year, students should be comfortable functioning at the Intermediate High-Advanced Low level of language proficiency. See the descriptions of the ACTFL standards and levels here: https://www.actfl.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/public/ACTFLProficiencyG…

This is a course for the advanced student of Arabic, focusing on improving listening comprehension and instilling an awareness of the social associations accompanying different speech styles. Through intensive exposure to a variety of authentic oral texts (talk shows, songs, soap operas, films, news shows, ads, comedy skits, etc.), students will delve into current social and political issues, as well as become sensitive to code switching between MSA and colloquial (all the major dialects). Through these texts, we will examine the themes of diglossia and code-switching; gendered discourse; urban-rural differences; class differences; youth language. A heavily aural course, class activities will involve student presentations (group and solo), discussion groups, and a final oral presentation project.

More than 6000 cuneiform documents from a single Late Bronze Age site, ancient Nuzi, dating to a period of only about 150 years, yield unparalleled insights into everyday life in the ancient world. This course will use these resources to explore a series of legal and social phenomena, both private and public, including family/status (marriage, divorce, inheritance, adoption), judicial process (trials, lawsuits), public corruption, political events, and more.

This course provides undergraduate and graduate students with an introduction to the use of animal bones in archaeological research. Students will gain hands-on experience analyzing faunal remains from an archaeological site in the Near East. The class will address theoretical and methodological issues involved in the use of animal bones as a source of information about prehistoric societies. The course consists of lectures, laboratory sessions, and original research projects using collections of animal bone from archaeological excavations in southeast Turkey. Topics covered include: 1) identifying, ageing and sexing animal bones; 2) zooarchaeological sampling, measurement, quantification, and problems of taphonomy; 3) analysis of animal bone data; 4) reconstructing prehistoric hunting and pastoral economies, especially: animal domestication, hunting strategies, herding systems, seasonality, and pastoral production in complex societies.

This course provides an introduction to the background and development of the first urbanized civilizations in the Near East in the period from 9000 to 2200 BC. In the first half of the course we will examine the archaeological evidence for the "Neolithic Revolution" - the first domestication of plants and animals and the earliest Neolithic village communities in the "fertile crescent" - the Levant, Anatolia, Mesopotamia and western Iran. The second half of the course will focus on the "Urban Revolution" - the economic and social transformations which took place during the development from, village based communities to the emergence of the urbanized civilizations of the Sumerians and neighboring groups in Mesopotamia during the fourth and third millennia BC.

As part of a three-quarter sequence, this second quarter we finish the grammar and start reading Hittite texts, introducing the student to the various genres that Hittite literature has to offer. We will continue the introduction of important tools of the field and students will acquire further routine in reading cuneiform.

The goal of this class is to get an overview of Hittite literature, as “defined” by the Hittites themselves, in the wider historical-cultural context of the Ancient Near East. Some of the most important questions we can ask ourselves in reading ancient texts are: 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 — in our case — Hittite society?

This class introduces the student to the grammar and texts of the Hurrian language. In addition we will read a number of representative texts in Hurrian.