Graduate

This course will introduce students to a number of important topics in Eighteenth and nineteenth century Ottoman history, such as the nature of the great local notables, the growing importance of proteges, and the bureaucratic reform.

This course will examine the development of the Turkish state following WWI including questions of economy, institutions, and identity formation. The first quarter make be taken as a free-standing colloquium, or students may take both quarters and produce a research paper.

This course focuses on the recent trends and developments in Ottoman Studies. We examine topics and methodologies in works published in recent years and explore the ensuing debates.

This course, a continuation of Islamicate Civilization I, surveys intellectual, cultural, religious and political developments in the Islamic world from Andalusia to the South Asian sub-continent during the periods from ca. 950 to 1750. We trace the arrival and incorporation of the Steppe Peoples (Turks and Mongols) into the central Islamic lands; the splintering of the Abbasid Caliphate and the impact on political theory; the flowering of literature of Arabic, Turkic and Persian expression; the evolution of religious and legal scholarship and devotional life; transformations in the intellectual and philosophical traditions; the emergence of Shi`i states (Buyids and Fatimids); the Crusades and Mongol conquests; the Mamluks and Timurids, and the "gunpowder empires" of the Ottomans, Safavids, and Moghuls; the dynamics of gender and class relations; etc. This class partially fulfills the requirement for MA students in CMES, as well as for NELC majors and PhD students.

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 course surveys the archaeology and history of the Levant from the time of its earliest human habitation in the Stone Age to the end of the Bronze Age around 1100 BCE.

This class is an in-depth study of western Anatolia’s most important archaeological site during the early first millennium BCE: Sardis, the capital city of the kingdom of Lydia. In addition to learning the archaeology of this site in detail, we will also use it as a foundation to explore neighboring excavations in the region, including Troy, Miletos, Beycesultan, and others.

Afghanistan is the quintessential “crossroads of cultures” where the civilizations of the Near East, Central Asia, South Asia and China interacted over the millennia in a constantly shifting mixture of trade, emulation, migration, imperial formations, and periodic conflict. This complex history of contacts gave rise to some of the most important archaeological, artistic, architectural, and textual treasures in world cultural heritage – encompassing cultures as diverse as the Bronze Age cities of Bactria, the Persian Empire, the easternmost colonies founded by Alexander the Great and his Hellenistic successors, the Kushan empire astride the Silk Road, and the monumental Buddhas of Bamiyan. Although the first excavations began in the 1920’s, there has been only limited fieldwork in Afghanistan, and even this was truncated by the Soviet invasion in 1979 and the subsequent 35 years of continuous war in that country.

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.

At archaeological sites following the invention of pottery roughly 10,000 BCE, ceramics are the single most frequent and ubiquitous class of artifact that archaeologists uncover. This class, which will be conducted in the Oriental Institute Museum as a combination of lectures, discussions, and hands-on interactions with ancient and modern ceramics, surveys the methods and interpretive techniques that archaeologists use when studying this important category of material culture. Specific topics include manufacturing techniques, craft specialization, typology and chronology, production and exchange, scientific analyses, stylistic and functional analysis, and socio-political organization.