Autumn

This sequence concentrates on the acquisition of speaking, reading, and aural skills in modern formal Arabic.

This class provides an introduction to the Babylonian language (Akkadian), a Semitic language spoken and written in Mesopotamia from 2250-50 BCE. The participants will be introduced to grammar of the Old Babylonian period (ca. 19th to 16th BCE) and learn how to read cuneiform script. The reference grammar used for this course is John Huehnergard's A Grammar of Akkadian (third edition).

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 further explore the Standard Babylonian dialect and Neo-Assyrian Cuneiform scripts, 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) and Josephus' Judean Antiquities.

This is the first in a three-quarter sequence that covers the basic grammar and cuneiform writing system of the Hittite language. It also familiarizes the student with the field's tools (i.e., dictionaries, lexica, sign list). Readings come from all periods of Hittite history (1650 to 1180 B.C.).

Based on selected readings from major Ottoman chronicles from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries, the course provides an introduction to the use of primary narrative materials and an overview of the development and range of Ottoman historical writing. Knowledge of modern and Ottoman Turkish required.

First quarter of Advanced Turkish / Elementary Ottoman

First Quarter of Intermediate Modern Turkish.

First Quarter of 1st Year Modern Turkish

This sequence covers the elements of Sumerian grammar, with reading exercises in Ur III, pre-Sargonic, and elementary literary texts.

Themes covered in this introductory course will include: Sufism as an interior personal response to the Qur’an and the numinous; Sufi visions; the psychology, spiritual disciplines and practices of Sufism; Sufism as a social reaction against legalism and literalism in religious institutions; the development of institutions and rituals within Sufism itself (shrines, lodges, orders, rules, etc.); saint worship and hagiographies; the body in Sufism; Sufi poetry; Sufi music; theological attacks against Sufism as an antinomian or heretical movement; modernist critiques of Sufism as escapism from political and social responsibility; and Sufism as perennial de-Islamicized theosophy in the modern middle east and in the west.  In addition to lectures and discussion, students will keep an introspective "sufi" diary, observe or participate in Sufi meditation/contemplation.