Spring

“The first man on moon”, “the first Thanksgiving” or “the first kiss” – our society is still fascinated and remembers the exact moment something happened for the first time. The history of the Ancient Near East, especially the ancient civilization of Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), is quite rich of such “firsts in history”.
From the moment, writing is discovered there is an abundance of textual record, covering the first documents about politics, law, and economics. The first private documents allow us a glimpse into what living and dying were life like more 5000 years ago.

This class will explore what the cultural conditions of those innovations are and how innovations transform societies and why it matters to study ancient civilizations.

By discovering primary sources (in English translation), the fascination of reading those texts for the “first” time will be experienced. Visits at the Oriental Institute Museum will link textual record and object-based inquiry.

This course covers the period from ca. 1700 to the present. It explores Muslim intellectuals' engagement with tradition and modernity in the realms of religion, politics, literature, and law. We discuss debates concerning the role of religion in a modern society, perceptions of Europe and European influence, the challenges of maintain religious and cultural authenticity, and Muslim views of nation-states and nationalism in the Middle East. We also give consideration to the modern developments of transnational jihadism and the Arab Spring.

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.

An ethnomusicological survey of the traditional musical cultures associated with the indigenous inhabitants of Central Eurasia.

The course provides a general introduction to the theology and ritual practice of Ancient Egypt from the Predynastic Period to the late Roman Empire (ca. 3100 BC to AD 543).  Illustrated lectures will  survey primary mythology, the nature of Egyptian “magic,” the evolving role of the priesthood, the function of temple and tomb architecture, mummification and funerary rites, the Amarna revolution and the origins of monotheism, as well as the impact of Egyptian religion on neighboring belief systems.  Students will read a wide array of original texts in translation in addition to modern interpretive studies.  Course requirements include two (2) papers and a final exam.  In the first paper the student should discuss in 5-10 pages a specific deity or temple site.  The second paper should contain a concise analysis (5-10 pages) of a theological issue pertinent to class discussion and readings.  All topics must be cleared in advance with the instructor. Proper bibliographies and footnotes are expected, and any internet sources must be cleared with the instructor.

Designed for those with no previous knowledge of the Middle East, this course aims to facilitate a general understanding of some key factors that have shaped life in this region, with primary emphasis on modern conditions and their background, and to provide exposure to some of the region's rich cultural diversity. The course can serve as a basis for the further study of the history, politics, and civilizations of the Middle East.

This course will cover the history of the Fatimid (Shiite) caliphate, from its foundation in the North Africa about 909 until its end in Egypt 1171. Most of the material will be presented in classroom lectures. Sections of the course deal with Fatimid history treated chronologically and others with separate institutions and problems as they changed and developed throughout the whole time period. Readings heavily favored or highly recommended are all in English.

This is a course about the rise of the graphic novel and comics culture in the Middle East. We will apply key theoretical materials from the field of comics studies to help us understand the influences, motivations and interventions of these graphic narratives in their cultural contexts. While we will primarily focus on the Arabic-speaking regions of the Middle East, the course will also include texts from Iran, Turkey, and the US and Europe.

This two-quarter seminar is offered as part of an ongoing collaborative research project called “Coping with Changing Climates in Early Antiquity: Comparative Approaches Between Empiricism and Theory,” developped jointly at the University of Chicago, the University of Michigan and Purdue University. Using a shared syllabus at the three institutions, and some joint sessions in the form of webinars, the seminar will cover the theoretical framework that allows for an in-depth understanding of the relations between human societies and their environments, and on social response to change in their social, political and environmental climates (Winter quarter); it will present a series of case studies in three key geographic areas: Egypt and Nubia; the Eastern Mediterranean and Anatolia; and Mesopotamia (Spring quarter). Students will be exposed to cross-cultural approaches and will be able to interact with partners at other institutions through an online discussion group. Students will have the opportunity to work collaboratively (2-3 students) within their institution and across institutions on a research project of their choice, whose results will be presented at a poster session during the project's final conference in 2020, and will then be exhibited at the three partner institutions in the course of Academic Year 2020-2021.

This course is part of the new curricular initiative Course Cluster on Climate Change, Culture and Society. Using primarily case studies from the Ancient Near East (from prehistory to the first millennium BCE) as a basis for discussion, the course will investigate the nature of the relationship between human societies and their environment, with a specific focus on situations of climatic change. Students will be invited to reflect on discourses on human-environment interactions from Herodotus to the IPCC, on notions such as environmental or social determinism, possibilism and reductionism, societal collapse and resilience, and on recent academic trends at the crossroads of Humanities, Social Sciences and Environmental Studies. This will allow them to develop critical skills that nurture their reflexions on current debates on anthropogenic climate change and the Anthropocene.

This course will provide an overview of Anatolian/Hittite literature, as “defined” by the Hittites themselves, in the wider historical-cultural context of the Ancient Near East. In the course of discussions, we will try to answer some important questions about Hittite inscriptions, such as: why were they written down, why were they kept, for whom were they intended, and what do the answers to these questions (apart from the primary content of the texts themselves) tell us about Hittite society?