The first quarter will take the form of a colloquium on the sources for and the literature on the political, social, economic, technological, and cultural history of Western and Central Asia from approximately 1500 to 1750. Classroom presentations and a short paper are required.
This 10-week crash-course surveys Armenian history and elements of culture (religion, mythology and music, manuscript illumination, art and architecture) as well as offer a mosaic of traditions and customs (festivals and feasts, birth and wedding rituals, funerary cult) of Armenia. It also discusses transformations of Armenian identity and symbols of 'Armenianness' through time (especially in Soviet and post-Soviet eras) based on such elements of national identity, as language, religion, art or shared history. Recommended for students with interest in Armenian Studies or related fields, in Area or Civilizations Studies, Art and Cultural Studies, etc.
The course introduces beginning graduate students to the range of basic resources, methods, and analytical tools that must be mastered by those engaging in the study of the Islamic Middle East. As such, it covers the period from the seventh century to the present and is focused on developing professional skills necessary for successful completion of a master's or doctoral program.
This seminar will examine the intersection of culture and Zionism. We will begin by considering the historical formation referred to as "cultural Zionism" and examining its ideological underpinnings. Other topics include: Hebrew revival, the role of culture in the Zionist revolution, Israeli culture as Zionist culture. Readings include: Ahad Haam, Haim Nahman Bialik, S.Y. Agnon, Orly Kastel-Blum, Edward Said, Benjamin Harshav.
Dreams belong to the universals of human existence as human beings have always dreamt and will continue to dream across time and cultures. The questions where do dreams come from and how to unravel a dream have always preoccupied the human mind. In this course we will focus on dreams in the Greco-Roman and Greco-Egyptian cultural environments. We will cover dreams from three complementary perspectives: dreams as experience, dream interpretation and dream theory. The reading materials will include: (a) a selection of dream narratives from different sources, literary texts as well as documentary accounts of dreams; (b) texts which document the forms and contexts of dream interpretation in the Greco-Roman and Greco-Egyptian cultures and (c) texts which represent attempts to approach dreams from a more general perspective by among others explaining their genesis and defining dream-types.
The Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) is a complex anthology of disparate texts and reflects a diversity of religious, political, and historical perspectives from ancient Israel, Judah, and Yehud. Because this collection of texts continues to play an important role in modern religions, new meanings are often imposed upon it. In this course, we will attempt to read biblical texts apart from modern preconceptions about them. We will also contextualize their ideas and goals through comparison with texts from ancient Mesopotamia, Syro-Palestine, and Egypt. Such comparisons will demonstrate that the Hebrew Bible is fully part of the cultural milieu of the Ancient Near East. To accomplish these goals, we will read a significant portion of the Hebrew Bible in English, along with representative selections from secondary literature. We will also spend some time thinking about the nature of biblical interpretation.
This is a two-course sequence that introduces students to theory and method in landscape studies and the use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to analyze archaeological, anthropological, historical, and environmental data. Course one covers the theoretical and methodological background necessary to understand spatial approaches to landscape and the fundamentals of using ESRI's ArcGIS software, and further guides students in developing a research proposal. Course two covers more advanced GIS-based analysis (using vector, raster, and satellite remote sensing data) and guides students in carrying out their own spatial research project. In both courses, techniques are introduced through the discussion of case studies (focused on the archaeology of the Middle East) and through demonstration of software skills. During supervised laboratory times, the various techniques and analyses covered will be applied to sample archaeological data and also to data from a region/topic chosen by the student.
This course provides a survey of the primary literatures of Islamic law and their treatment in modern scholarship. Primary texts read and discussed in class cover the following genres: compendium (mukhtasar), commentary (sharh), legal disputation (jadal), legal theory (usul al-fiqh), legal maxims (qawa'id fiqhiyya), handbooks for judges (adab al-qadi), handbooks for muftis (adab al-mufti), and legal responsa (fatawa). We will read closely selected excerpts from each of these genres and discuss relevant secondary literature in order to contextualize the primary texts thematically and historically and to examine critically the research questions that have thus far animated the modern study of Islamic law. Undergraduate students by instructor permission only.
3 years of Arabic or the equivalent
This sequence introduces students to Kazakh, a Turkic language spoken in Kazakhstan and neighboring countries. The course teaches the fundamentals of grammar and it enables students to read, write, and speak Kazakh. Students will be exposed to the history and culture of Kazakhstan through modern and 19th-century literature, as well as to current events through mass media. The second and third quarters of this sequence and the Intermediate Kazakh sequence (KAZK 20101-20102-20103) are offered based on interest.
The main objective of this sequence is to provide students with the skills necessary to approach modern Hebrew prose, both fiction and nonfiction. In order to achieve this task, students are provided with a systematic examination of the complete verb structure. Many syntactic structures are introduced (e.g., simple clauses, coordinate and compound sentences). At this level, students not only write and speak extensively but are also required to analyze grammatically and contextually all of material assigned.
