Identity and Globalization in the Ancient Mediterranean

In this course students will engage with modern social science research on cultural globalization as well as with the texts and cultures of the ancient Mediterranean, broadly construed (Greece, Rome, Egypt, the Levant, Mesopotamia, etc.). Students will explore how intercultural contact in the ancient Mediterranean set the stage for local globalization processes and served as the origin for modern globalization. Moreover, students will gain the tools to compare and contrast how people in the ancient and modern worlds reacted to intensive globalization and define their identities against it.