Autumn

Advanced Turkish students will develop their language skills in speaking, reading, translating, listening, and writing, while learning about Turkish society and culture at the same time. To address all of these aspects each class is divided into three sections which focuses on a specific skill. Section one is the conversation part: it involves reading (or listening to) short (audio) pieces or phrases on a given topic; section two is reading and translation: students read and prepare pieces from Turkish literature, literature readings are short stories or selected parts from novels; section three is the listening part: by watching parts of a Turkish movie, students' skills in listening and understanding will get faster while we progress through the movie.

This sequence features proficiency-based instruction emphasizing grammar in modern Turkish. This sequence consists of reading and listening comprehension, as well as grammar exercises and basic writing in Turkish. Modern stories and contemporary articles are read at the end of the courses.

The seminar covers the history of the region during the 19th and 20th centuries. It looks at how the modern historiography of modern Middle Eastern studies shaped, and was shaped by, post-colonial studies, subaltern studies, and historical perceptions of urbanity, modernity, Orientlaism, and class. The class will pay heed to the fluid and constructed nature of Arab national culture, and the terminology used by Arab nationalists concerning "revival," and "rebirth." We will explore various "golden ages" Arab nationalists envisioned, like pre-Islamic Semitic empires, the first Islamic state under the leadership of the Prophet Muhammad, the Ummayds, the Abbasids and Muslim Spain, as a way of analyzing the the constructed and temporal nature of national discourses. We will finally examine the distinction between Pan-Arab nationalism (qawmiyya), which considered Arab culture, history, and language as markers of one's national identity, and often strove for political unity with other Arab states; and territorial-patriotic nationalism (wataniyya), which hailed the national cultures of particular Arab states (Egyptian, Iraqi, Lebanese), focusing on their geography, archaeology, and history the key features of national identity.

This class compares between Iraqi and Palestinian histories. While Iraq was a strong state until the 2000s, and Palestine has yet to gain a sovereign statehood, both have much in common; both were British mandates; both maintained strong transnational relationships, and both suffered tremendously from Western intervention and modern forms of imperialism and colonization. Both Iraqis and Palestinians became radicalized in the postcolonial period and use radicalism to challenge both Arab states and Western domination in the region. We will discuss both structural similarities and actual interactions. Conceptually, we will work with ideas about nationalism, transnationalism and Diaspora and try to challenge narratives about Palestinian and/or Iraqi exceptionality.

The course concentrates on the written language and aims at enabling students to use Modern Hebrew for research purposes. The course is designed to enable students to read Hebrew freely. Major grammatical & syntactical aspects will be covered, and students will acquire substantial vocabulary with attention paid to lexical collocations and semantic fields. By the end of the course, students are expected not only to be able to successfully satisfy their departmental language requirements but also to have a great set of skills that would allow them to read any given text, written in Modern Hebrew. (The tern “Modern Hebrew” covers primarily literature from the mid 20th century to current time).

This course is specifically aimed at students having completed the first year of Elementary Akkadian (AKKD 10101–10103), but can be taken by more advanced students as well. Building on the knowledge acquired in the Elementary sequence, this course will explore the Standard Babylonian dialect and the Neo-Assyrian cuneiform script, through a detailed analysis of the Annals of king Sennacherib (704–681 BCE) as they are represented in the ‘Chicago Prism' acquired by J. H. Breasted in 1920 and currently on display in the Assyrian gallery of the Oriental Institute Museum. These include, among other military and building exploits of the king, his campaign to the Levant against Ezekiah, king of Judah — an episode also recounted in the Hebrew Bible (books of Second Kings, Isaiah and Chronicles), Herodotus' Histories and Josephus' Judean Antiquities.

This course explores the intellectual history of the Islamic world from the coming of Islam in the seventh century CE through the development and spread of its civilization in the middle of the tenth. (It is followed in the Winter and Spring quarters by Islamic Thought and Literature II & III). The course covers the historical events of the period in question, the emergence of Islam, and the life of Muhammad, and then moves on to explore Islamic thought and literature: scripture, theology, law, mysticism, philosophy, poetry, and belletrist prose. In addition to lectures and secondary background readings, students read and discuss samples of key primary texts, with a view to exploring Islamic civilization in the direct voices of the people who participated in its creation. All readings are provided in English translation. No prior background in the subject is required.

This course introduces the students to difficult Ottoman narratives from different periods. Please be in touch with the instructor if you are not sure of your level.

The Ottomans ruled in Anatolia, the Middle East, South East Europe and North Africa for over six hundred years. The objective of this course is to understand the society and culture of this bygone Empire whose legacy continues, in one way or another, in some twenty-five contemporary successor states from the Balkans to the Arabian Peninsula. The course is designed as an introduction to the Ottoman World with a focus on the cultural history of the Ottoman society. It explores identities and mentalities, customs and rituals, status of minorities, mystical orders and religious establishments, literacy and the use of the public sphere.

Readings in Advanced Ottoman Historical Texts