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.
This course features readings in a variety of genres, including historical, literary, and scientific texts.
This course and its sequel EGPT 10102 provide an introduction to the hieroglyphic writing system, vocabulary and grammar of Middle Egyptian, the 'classic' phase of the Egyptian language developed during the Middle Kingdom (circa 2025-1773 BCE) and used until the disappearance of hieroglyphs over two thousand years later.
This sequence deepens and expands the students' knowledge of modern Persian. The goal is to enable the students to gain proficiency in all skills of language acquisition at a higher level. In this sequence, the students learn more complex grammatical structures and gain wider vocabulary through reading paragraph-length texts on a variety of topics related to Persian language, literature, and culture. Students will also be familiarized with Persian news and media terminology. Class meets four hours a week with the instructor and one hour with a native informant who conducts grammatical drills and Persian conversation.
This sequence concentrates on all skills of language acquisition (reading, writing, listening, and speaking). The class begins with the Persian alphabet, and moves to words, phrases, short sentences, and finally short paragraphs. The goal is to enable the students towards the end of the sequence to read, understand, and translate simple texts in modern standard Persian and engage in short everyday conversations. All the basic grammatical structures are covered in this sequence. Introducing the Iranian culture through the texts is also a goal. The class meets four hours a week with the instructor and one hour with a native informant who conducts grammatical drills and Persian conversation.
Spoken Levantine Arabic is a proficiency-based course designed to develop the linguistic skills necessary for personal day-to-day life. The course focuses on spoken rather than Standard written Arabic, and will therefore target primarily the oral/aural skills. Through the knowledge of Modern Standard Arabic and the introduction of colloquial vocabulary, expressions and grammar, the course will build the students’ competence in spoken Arabic. Students will also be introduced to the Levantine culture of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestine.
The first quarter of Intermediate Arabic
This sequence concentrates on the acquisition of speaking, reading, and aural skills in modern formal Arabic.
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…
The goal of Advanced Readings in Arabic (1 and 2) is that students achieve the advanced-low level of reading proficiency, at least, by the end of the two terms, while improving their ability to write and speak fluently in MSA. To accomplish this, we will read, discuss, and enjoy a variety of short modern fiction in Arabic (short stories, novellas, and novels) by twentieth- and twenty-first-century writers. Open to students who have taken Arabic 30203 or 30303 or who have reached a commensurate level.
