Global Arc

The course traces the great powers' struggle for control over the Middle East, as it affected Afghanistan. It begins with an introduction to the social and ethnic background, touching on the rise of the tribal Afghan kingdom in the 18th century. It will then focus on the rivalries between Russia and Britain in the 19th century ('the Great Game'), and on those between the Soviet Union and the US in the 20th. We will conclude by studying Washington's support in the 1980's for Islamist groups fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, its consequences, and the Taliban movement.

Spanish Islam profoundly influenced medieval Judaism and Christendom alike - and through them, world civilization - from the Muslim conquest of most of Spain in A.D. 711 to the fall of the last Moorish stronghold in Granada in 1492 - on the eve of Columbus' voyage. Vital debate on modern Spanish identity centers on whether medieval Spain's Muslims and Jews were "foreign" or somehow "Spanish," too. A fruitful but uneasy 800-year coexistence ended in the expulsion of all Muslims and Jews, posing crucial questions regarding the roots of enduring cultural and religious strains in today's world.

An investigation of minority and minorities in the modern Middle East, this course looks at the categories that the social sciences and the humanities have used to frame and analyze the "problem" of minorities well as the historical development and transformation of minority cultures, identities and political practices in a variety of Middle Eastern contexts. Topics covered will include: minorities in the medieval and early modern Middle East; Kurdish communities in Turkey and Iraq; the Armenian historical experience; Shi'i Muslims in the Arab world; Berbers in North America; and Palestinian citizens of Israel.

Beginning with the violent street demonstrations in Tunisia in December 2010, popular protests, violent reprisals, and full scale civil war have brought down the autocratic regimes of Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, and Libya aired on the screens of global news agencies. Only through the eyes of history can we can begin to understand the events of the past decade in a context that takes us beyond the nightly news. This course will cover the Ottoman Empire, North Africa, the Levant, and the Arabian Peninsula and will address themes of anti-Empire, nationalism, socialist, populist, and religious revolutions in the Arab World over the past 300 years.

Drawing on case studies of Middle Eastern wars, this course examines the changing nature of warfare from the second half of the 20th century through the present day. It begins with Clausewitz's theory of war and examples of conventional state warfare in the Middle East, then moves on to cases of insurgency and so-called fouth generation warfare and uses them to test Clausewitz's ideas and less state-centric alternatives. Two 90-minute classes.

To what extent is globalization a new phenomenon? This seminar considers the flow of people (free and enslaved), commodities, and manufactured goods across Europe, Africa and Asia, with a focus on the human and qualitative dimensions. We will touch on the Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean basin, the overland Silk Roads and the Atlantic world; the time-span ranges from the ancient Greeks to the eighteenth century; among the trading diasporas we will consider are Jews and Armenians. Readings include classic and newer studies as well as merchant correspondence and sailors' logs.

Popularized through translations of world-famous poets like the 13th-century Rûmî, the Sufi mystical strain pervaded Islamic culture for a thousand years and played a major historic role in furthering friendly relations between Muslims and other religious communities through endorsement of spiritual tolerance. This two-course sequence examines Sufism's origins, growth, social role, guiding ideas, impact on Islamic literature, and even on medieval European thought as filtered through Spain, and the profound but controversial influence of the Spanish-Muslim Ibn `Arabî (1165-1240) as far as India.

Popularized through translations of world famous poets like the 13th century Rûmî, the Sufi mystical strain pervaded Islamic culture for a thousand years and played a major historic role in furthering friendly relations between Muslims and other religious communities through endorsement of spiritual tolerance. The Spring session of this two-course sequence addresses the overwhelming influence of the Spanish-Muslim Ibn `Arabî (d. 1240 AD) on all subsequent higher Islamic mystical speculation and poetical literature - as far as India.

Syriac is a dialect of Aramaic very similar to the language spoken by Jesus in first-century Palestine. Aramaic-speaking Christians in the Near East soon adopted Syriac as their literary language: by the early fourteenth century Syriac Christianity spread from the western Mediterranean to China. In this seminar we shall be exploring the origins of Syriac Christianity in the Near East and its spread along the Silk Road before 1500.

This seminar examines the evolution of American diplomacy and military policy in the Middle East from the late Cold War through the "Unipolar movement" and 9/11 to the very recent past. Given the militarization of American policy, it pays particular attention to the use of force. It asks why military force has become the defining instrument of US foreign policy in this region, seeks to evaluate the efficacy of America's military interventions, and to identify the sources of American conduct. Prior coursework in international relations and Middle Eastern history is beneficial but there are no prerequisites.