This course offers an introduction to Akkadian, the language of ancient Babylon. The first half of the course introduces students to the basic concepts of Akkadian (old Babylonian) grammar and the cuneiform script. In the second half students consolidate their knowledge of the language by reading selections from classic Babylonian texts, such as the famous law code of King Hammurabi and the Epic of Gilgamesh.

Modern Hebrew literature evolved as a poetic struggle over the boundaries of Israeliness, Hebrew language, and Jewish identity; it sprang up on fault lines of gender, ethnicity, sexuality, nationality, and religion. This course takes us on a journey through Hebrew literature and its relationship with Israeli society from early Jewish immigration to Palestine through the spoken word archive of contemporary Mizrahi poets. We also encounter pioneering queer authors, Palestinian-Israelis, and a Vietnamese-Israeli poet. Readings are supplemented by pivotal films. All readings and films are in English translation; knowledge of Hebrew not required.

How does political upheaval - especially in the form of revolution - shape memoir? This course focuses on the work of writers, particularly those of Middle Eastern origin who live in the Americas (Mexico, the United States, and Cuba) to explore this question. It pairs their memoirs with other examples of their writing (letters, eulogies, and essays) and artistic production to study issues of post-coloniality, gender, race, and nationalism.

This course aims to provide an introduction to Southeast Asia and its prominent place in global history through a series of encounters in time; from Marco Polo in Sumatra to events in such buzzing cities as Bangkok, Jakarta and Hanoi. For the early modern period we will read various primary sources, before turning to consider a series of diverse colonial impacts across the region (European, American and Asian), and then the mechanisms underpinning the formation of some of the most vibrant, and sometimes turbulent, countries on the world stage.

This intensive reading seminar situates recent monographs from a variety of disciplines against the backdrop of extant scholarly literature and broader intellectual debates that continue to shape the field of Middle East studies, in general, and Middle East history, in particular.

HUM 248 will introduce students to the multi-faceted literary and cultural production of a region that at one point stretched from the Iberian Peninsula to the Indus Valley. Starting at the tail end of the Abbasid Empire up to the rise of nation-states in the 20th century, students will learn of the different power dynamics that shaped the region's diverse ethnic, religious, linguistic, and ultimately national communities, and their worldviews. Readings will include literary works written originally in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Hebrew.

Jerusalem is considered a holy city to three faiths: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In this course, students will learn the history of Jerusalem from its founding in pre-biblical times until the present. Over the course of the semester, we will ask: What makes space sacred and how does a city become holy? What has been at stake - religiously, theologically, politically, nationally - in the many battles over Jerusalem? Is a city that is so deeply contested doomed to endless tension or does history offer more hopeful precedents?

Overview of the intersection of the politics and economics of the modern Middle East and North Africa. Study political and economic development and underdevelopment of region's diverse states by exploring the ways in which political institutions affect economic performance and those in which economic conditions influence political events. You'll build on rich historical literature, interdisciplinary theoretical frameworks, and multi-methods empirical studies to think critically about the determinants that lead to underdevelopment vs. development, chaos vs. stability, regime survival vs. overthrow, and political opening vs. stability.

Instead of defining Islam simply, abstracted from history and politics, recent scholarship calls for an approach that makes every-day practical interpretations, practices and living social relationships central towards understanding the religion as an integral part of modern life. This course explores how Islam was profoundly influenced by colonial rule and post-colonial nation state building with its modernist socio-political arrangements in schools, court systems, government administration and heritage. These institutional foundations shaped life in the modern Muslim World whilst also generating revolutionary Islamist movements in turn.

What began as street protests in Tunisia in 2010 sparked a revolutionary wave across the Arab world. Mass mobilizations, violent reprisals, and civil wars eventually ousted longstanding autocratic rulers. Why did so many ordinary people desire such profound change? What alternatives to the old regimes did they see? What did they achieve? Only through a historical lens can we answer these questions and understand in a way that takes us beyond images from the nightly news. This course covers revolutions in the Middle East and No. Africa and address themes of social movements, state building, development, and democracy over the past 200 years.

The Caucasus has served as a contested borderland from time immemorial and has fascinated outsiders for nearly as long. It is today a tense and explosive region. This course surveys the history of both the north and south Caucasus. It begins with an overview of the region's geography, peoples, and religions. It then examines in more detail the history of the Caucasus from the Russian conquest to the present day. Topics covered include ethnic and religious coexistence and conflict, imperial rule, imagery and identity, literature, Sovietization, the formation of national identities, and pipeline politics.

Why is Iran so often in the headlines? Why is what happens in Iran matters so much to the rest of the world? In this course, we try to find some answers to questions about Iranian politics, culture, recent history and society. The class covers Iran's long twentieth century, from the rise of the constitutional revolution to the Islamic revolution of 1979 and its aftermath.

Overview of the issues surrounding global energy supplies, oil's unique physical and economic properties, and its role in shaping the political economy of the Middle East and U.S. strategic interests in the region. Discuss availability of energy sources, the state of technology, the functioning of energy markets, the challenges of coping with global climate change and the key role of the oil reserves in the Middle East. Then focus on the history of oil in the Middle East and its impact on societies in the region.

This course explores how feminist thought & activism circulates globally by examining a variety of feminist movements in the Middle East & North Africa. Beginning with modern feminist thought and activism in mid-19th century Syria & Egypt, we'll trace feminist movements in various contemporary contexts, from Morocco, Iran, Turkey, Tunisia, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon & Egypt in the 20th century, to women's participation in the Arab Spring and transnational Islamic movements in the 21st century. We'll map the local and geopolitical discourses that have shaped regional feminisms, and ask how local feminisms are transnational or global.

Read select texts by the following authors: Ibn Khaldun (from the part of the `Ibar on the Berbers), Jahiz, Ibn Battuta, Qalqashandi, Mas'udi, Ibn Kathir, Ibn al-`Arabi, Haydar al-Amuli, Ibn `Abd Rabbihi, Ibn Hazm, Maqrizi, and early modern authors.

An introduction to Ottoman paleography and diplomatics. The documents are in divani and rika scripts.

This course explores ethnographic approaches to the study of gender, Islam, and inequality. It surveys the theoretical approaches used to study the intersection of religious practices, gender, and sexuality. Topics include religious women's agency; queer and transgender agency; self and subjectivity; religious law, ethics and politics; governance and the state; and progress, secularism, imperialism and modernity.

Introduction to the Judeo-Arabic documents of the Cairo Geniza, including personal and business letters of the tenth through thirteenth centuries. Students learn the Hebrew alphabet, the peculiarities of middle Arabic, diplomatic technique, research methods, manuscript paleography, digital tools and the existing literature.

This course covers Arabic literature of the Mamluk and Ottoman periods, the post-Abbasid era that is sometimes referred to as 'postclassical." We read specimens of poetry, prose, maqamat, and travelogues with eye to their relationship with the so-called "classical" works and genres. Students become familiar with the main poets and writers of this period and the new kinds of genres that develop. Students are welcome to suggest further readings from the period. The course is taught in Arabic. The equivalent of a minimum of four years of Arabic instruction is required.

This course is designed to introduce advanced students of Persian to later Classical Persian prose from the Mongol conquests of the thirteenth century down to the middle of the nineteenth century, when significant innovations were introduced into Persian literary style. Over the course of the semester, students gain familiarity with texts composed in Iran, India, and Central Asia in a variety of literary genres including history, biography, hagiography, and travelogues. Each week's classes consist of excerpted readings from primary sources along with secondary sources related to the readings.

Palestine and Israel Studies is/are among the most deeply contentious fields of research within Middle Eastern Studies, corresponding to the polarized politics the field studies. Even naming the subject is controversial. Does it constitute one research field or two? Which languages and traditions must one understand to research the subject? What are the appropriate frames of reference: Jewish history, Arab history, Ottoman Studies, Middle East Studies, nationalism, antisemitism, colonialism, racism? In this seminar, we read some of the latest and most field-defining works of scholarship in Palestine and Israel Studies.

The study of the Middle East in World War I has advanced rapidly over the course of the past decade. This course surveys the burgeoning literature on WWI in the Middle East and addresses such questions as how did Ottoman strategic performance impact the war; what was the experience of "total war" in the Middle East and how did it shape governance; what was the relationship between war and imperial collapse; and what are the motives for demographic engineering and mass killing? No prerequisites.

An introduction to medieval Near Eastern legal cultures that focuses on the intertwined development of Jewish and Islamic law from late antiquity until the twelfth century. We consider both legal writings such as codes and responsa and evidence for practices in state and communal courts. Geared both to students interested in legal history and to students interested in using legal texts and documents for general historical research.

This course aims to survey a variety of historical and religious texts in Arabic. Some of the texts that will be studied have been edited and published, others remain in manuscript form.

This course offers students an overview of modern Middle Eastern politics. The course will first provide a historical analysis outlining the conditions that shape the formation and consolidation of authoritarian rule in modern Middle Eastern states. We will examine the political economy of the region, Islamic politics, state-society relations, wars, and other topics as probable explanatory variables to authoritarian persistence. Through case studies, the course will also focus on the impact of authoritarian rule on the political economy, civil societies, and opposition movements in the region.

In Western media and popular discourse, Sufism, or the mystical tradition in Islam, is often portrayed as the 'soft-side' of Islam and contrasted with the harsh 'legalism' of the Shari`a or Islamic law. In this class, we will try to interrupt this portrayal through a rigorous exercise of textual and conceptual interrogation. We will explore the institutional and intellectual history, meditation and disciplinary practices, poetry and literature, as well as orientalist and neo-imperialist representations of Sufism. A major emphasis of this course will be on closely reading and analyzing Sufi texts from a range of genres in translation.

This course explores the theory and practice of slavery in Muslim societies from the 8th century up through the 20th. We use case studies; read primary sources in translation; explore the intersection of sex, gender and slavery; and try to recover the experiences of the enslaved. Who were the Islamic abolitionists? Why did many European colonial authorities actively perpetuate slavery? Why did legal slavery last until 1962 in Saudi Arabia? What is the legacy of slavery in Muslim societies? How are the formerly "invisible" descendants of African slaves in the Middle East advocating for recognition?

This seminar provides a survey of Islamic political thought from its beginnings in the 7th century to the present. What are the key debates in the history of Islamic political thought - on conceptions of government, on religion and politics, on power, on non-Muslims? How did political thought develop in various Arab, Iranian, and Indian contexts? What transformations has it undergone since the late 19th century? How does the legacy of political thought inform political and religious contestations among Muslims today? These are among the questions we will address in this seminar.

How did Islamic law shape social interactions and social categories in Medieval Muslim societies? The `ulama' were part of their own social/economic contexts. They engaged in commerce, owned property, bought, sold, and manumitted slaves, married and divorced and had children by wives and female slaves. How much influence did the elite `ulama', the jurists who shaped Islamic law, have on the social and economic practices of both elites and of ordinary Muslims and non-Muslims? We make use of documents, legal texts, and some narrative sources. Students also work in Rare Books and Special Collections.

This seminar focuses on Islamic thought and society during the 17th and the 18th centuries. Our key concerns are two: to understand what Islam, and Islamic thought, looked like in the late medieval and the early modern world; and to think about how we should try to approach the study of Islam in that world. A good deal of our focus is on South Asia, though we also read about other regions, including Iran and the Arab Middle East. The required readings are in English. For those interested, some weeks might have supplementary readings in Arabic as well.