Autumn

The course concerns the ways Jewish history has been constructed and conceptualized in the State of Israel since 1948. It will examine academic and para academic research, popular history books, TV series, educational programs, national archives and public ceremonies.

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 900 to 1750. Specific topics will vary and focus on the Turks and the Islamic world, the Mongol universal empire, the age of Timur and the Turkmens, and the development of the "Gunpowder Empires." The second quarter will be devoted to the preparation of a major research paper.

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 ""nahda," “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 sequence explores the thought and literature of the Islamic world from the coming of Islam in the seventh century C.E. through the development and spread of its civilization in the medieval period and into the modern world. Including historical framework to establish chronology and geography, the course focuses on key aspects of Islamic intellectual history: scripture, law, theology, philosophy, literature, mysticism, political thought, historical writing, and archaeology. 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 creating it. All readings are in English translation. No prior background in the subject is required. This course sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies.

Imagining the Text: Books and Manuscripts in the Ancient Middle East offers a unique perspective within the larger paradigm of approaches to the written word known as the “History of the Book.” While many such courses look only briefly at pre-printed textual material, this course will provide an overview on the use of texts from antiquity (from the earliest writing to the Middle Ages) in the Middle East. Site visits to local repositories will provide hands-on experience with papyri, clay tablets, parchment, vellum, and rare books. Readings and discussions will explore what is meant by the term “text” in order to deeply investigate the methodologies of book history and textual criticism.The course will be organized around two primary themes: methodology and pre-print manuscript culture. During the first five weeks, we will look at how texts are studied, thereby setting a foundation for looking at actual examples in the second part of the course. The central component of the course will be spent deeply studying the pre-print manuscript culture from across the ancient Middle East in a roughly chronological order. We will devote significant time to the transmission of texts in the ancient Mediterranean world, an area of particular interest to me that is rarely covered with such depth in a "book history" class. During this time, we will have several site visits to area institutions to see firsthand treasures from their collections, including cuneiform tablets preserving the epic of Gilgamesh, papyrus copies of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Coptic prayer books, Syriac hagiographies, ancient Greek biblical manuscripts, medieval monastic literature, and much more. In the final weeks of the course, we will turn to the early revolution of paper and print technology.

The course introduces students to Islamic texts of the first two centuries, covering early Islamic poetry, history, sira, hadith collections, law, theology, and political polemics. In the process, we address the overall questions of how and to what extent historical events and ideas of the early period can be reconstructed, what hitherto un- or underused sources might be at our disposal, and what approaches and methods could be appropriate for examining these sources.

This course is designed to acquaint the student with the basic problems and concepts as well as the sources and methodology for the study of premodern Islamic history. Sources will be read in English translation and the tools acquired will be applied to specific research projects to be submitted as term papers. Offered in alternate years.

This course employs English translations of ancient Egyptian literary texts to explore the genres, conventions and techniques of ancient Egyptian literature. Discussions of texts examine how the ancient Egyptians conceptualized and constructed their equivalent of literature, as well as the fuzzy boundaries and subtle interplay between autobiography, history, myth and fiction.

This sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies. This sequence introduces three great empires of the ancient world. Each course in the sequence focuses on one empire, with attention to the similarities and differences among the empires being considered. By exploring the rich legacy of documents and monuments that these empires produced, students are introduced to ways of understanding imperialism and its cultural and societal effects—both on the imperial elites and on those they conquered.

This sequence does not meet the general education requirement in civilization studies. This sequence surveys the archaeology and art of the Near East from prehistoric times to the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Each course in the sequence focuses on a particular cultural region.