Turkish

Readings in translation and discussion of texts of Middle Eastern and Indian origin. Readings may include the Quran, Islamic philosophy, Sufi poetry, the Upanishads, Buddhist sutras, the Bhagavad Gita, Indian epics and drama, and Gandhis Autobiography.

This seminar is an exploration of some "great books" from the Middle East and South Asia. We will read books, plays, stories, and poems in English translation that were originally written in Arabic, Persian, Bangla, Sanskrit. From the Thousand and One Nights to an Arabic epic about a warrior princess to the Bhagavad Gita, we will examine themes of storytelling, gender, politics, and the nature of divinity. With the exception of one Sudanese novel, we will be focusing on texts from the premodern period, and our focus will be on how to interpret texts, develop arguments about those texts, and learning about cultures of reading and writing in the past.

This seminar is an exploration of some "great books" from the Middle East and South Asia. We will read books, plays, stories, and poems in English translation that were originally written in Arabic, Persian, Bangla, Sanskrit. From the Thousand and One Nights to an Arabic epic about a warrior princess to the Bhagavad Gita, we will examine themes of storytelling, gender, politics, and the nature of divinity. With the exception of one Sudanese novel, we will be focusing on texts from the premodern period, and our focus will be on how to interpret texts, develop arguments about those texts, and learning about cultures of reading and writing in the past.

This course explores the core classical literature in Chinese, Japanese and Korean Humanities. The main objective of the course is to discover the meanings that these literature offer, not just for the original audience or for the respective cultures, but for us. As such, it is not a survey or a lecture-based course. Rather than being taught what meanings are to be derived from the texts, we explore meanings together, informed by in-depth reading and thorough ongoing discussion.

This course explores the core classical literature in Chinese, Japanese and Korean Humanities. The main objective of the course is to discover the meanings that these literature offer, not just for the original audience or for the respective cultures, but for us. As such, it is not a survey or a lecture-based course. Rather than being taught what meanings are to be derived from the texts, we explore meanings together, informed by in-depth reading and thorough ongoing discussion.

This course explores the core classical literature in Chinese, Japanese and Korean Humanities. The main objective of the course is to discover the meanings that these literature offer, not just for the original audience or for the respective cultures, but for us. As such, it is not a survey or a lecture-based course. Rather than being taught what meanings are to be derived from the texts, we explore meanings together, informed by in-depth reading and thorough ongoing discussion.

This course explores the core classical literature in Chinese, Japanese and Korean Humanities. The main objective of the course is to discover the meanings that these literature offer, not just for the original audience or for the respective cultures, but for us. As such, it is not a survey or a lecture-based course. Rather than being taught what meanings are to be derived from the texts, we explore meanings together, informed by in-depth reading and thorough ongoing discussion.

This lecture course offers a comprehensive and chronological overview of the major masterpieces of art and architecture of the Muslim world between circa 700-1000 AD. Topics concerning the rise of Arabic as the official language of the new Muslim Empire and the aesthetic transformation it went from script to calligraphy, the shaping of sacred spaces and liturgical objects, rulers’ iconographies and urban designs, as well as daily-life objects, will be discussed. Mecca, Madina, Jerusalem, Damascus, Fustat (old Cairo), Qayrawan, Cordoba, Baghdad, Samarra, Balkh, Bukhara and early Fatimid Cairo are the major playgrounds to illustrate particular moments of shifting powers and aesthetic paradigms in the early days of the Muslim empire, suggesting a more differentiate picture of the arts of Islam in the age of imagining a world-wide empire. The past narratives for these regions will be critically presented by both looking at the medieval sources and the modern historiographies for these regions and by highlighting the varied ideologies at play. Taking this critical vein of studying the arts of the early Muslim age, past narratives will be reconsidered, while enhancing our awareness to the complicated, if not sometimes manipulated, processes of giving works of arts meanings and values.

Introduction to Indian civilization with attention to both its unity and its diversity across the Indian subcontinent. Consideration of its origins, formative development, fundamental social institutions, religious thought and practice (Vedic, Buddhist, Jain, Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh), literary and artistic achievements, and modern challenges.

Students must register for a section of ASCM UN2358.

This survey lecture course will provide students with a broad overview of the history of South Asia as a region - focusing on key political, cultural and social developments over more than two millennia. The readings include both primary sources (in translation) and secondary works. Our key concerns will be the political, cultural and theological encounters of varied communities, the growth of cities and urban spaces, networks of trade and migrations and the development of both local and cosmopolitan cultures across Southern Asia. The survey will begin with early dynasties of the classical period and then turn to the subsequent formation of various Perso-Turkic polities, including the development and growth of hybrid political cultures such as those of Vijayanagar and the Mughals. The course also touches on Indic spiritual and literary traditions such as Sufi and Bhakti movements. Near the end of our course, we will look forward towards the establishment of European trading companies and accompanying colonial powers.

This course introduces the Islamic world from the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad (d. 632) to 1500 CE. The Islamic world stretches across a remarkable geographical expanse from modern Spain and Senegal in the west to the north of modern India in the east. Telling one cohesive story out of many histories is therefore challenging, even if we had a full lifetime to devote to it. We cannot include everything and, as with every complicated story worth knowing, what we choose to exclude is important. This semester, we bypass some of the traditional narratives of political and military history, which privilege the rise and fall of dynasties, the rule of great men, and the clashes of armies. We will still organize along political lines, but the focus of our conversations will be the incredible diversity of the various communities in the Islamic world. We approach these histories through primary sources— poems, coins, buildings, etc.—that we will read together in every class meeting. Our goal will be to situate each source in the political, cultural, and religious contexts of its production. This approach will allow us to appreciate premodern Islamic worlds through the centuries.

Through the assignments and conversations in class and section, students will

• Explore the diversity of premodern Islam;
• Analyze primary sources produced in the Islamic world before 1500, both individually and as a class;
• Engage with modern scholarship about Islam in India and Central Asia; the Middle East; North, West, and East Africa; and Southern Europe;
• Construct a source-based argument about the Islamic world before 1500.

Discussion section to accompany the course, MDES UN1003 Premodern Islamic Worlds.

Discussion section to accompany the course, MDES UN1003 Premodern Islamic Worlds.

Discussion section to accompany the course, MDES UN1003 Premodern Islamic Worlds.

Discussion section to accompany the course, MDES UN1003 Premodern Islamic Worlds.

This undergraduate course offered in the context of the Global Core component of the Core Curriculum is an examination of the globally popular HBO series “Game of Thrones” as a prototype for a comparative understanding of the larger question of epics and empires.  In this course we expand the domains of our interests and inquiries far wider and divide our syllabus into four parts: (1) Westeros: The Mythic Empire; (2) Persia:  The First Empire, (3) America: The Last Empire; and (4) On Epics and Empires.  Our objective will be to examine the main themes and overall arch of “Game of Thrones” into wider mythic, heroic, and transhistorical dimensions of our contemporary history.  

Discussion section to accompany the course, "Game of Thrones": On Epics and Empires.

Discussion section to accompany the course, "Game of Thrones": On Epics and Empires.

Discussion section to accompany the course, "Game of Thrones": On Epics and Empires.

Discussion section to accompany the course, "Game of Thrones": On Epics and Empires.

Discussion section to accompany the course, "Game of Thrones": On Epics and Empires.

Discussion section to accompany the course, "Game of Thrones": On Epics and Empires.

Discussion section to accompany the course, "Game of Thrones": On Epics and Empires.

Discussion section to accompany the course, "Game of Thrones": On Epics and Empires.

Discussion section to accompany the course, "Game of Thrones": On Epics and Empires.

Discussion section to accompany the course, "Game of Thrones": On Epics and Empires.

Discussion section to accompany the course, "Game of Thrones": On Epics and Empires.

Discussion section to accompany the course, "Game of Thrones": On Epics and Empires.

This course constitutes the first half of a year-long introduction to Tamil, the official language of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu as well as an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore. In addition to being spoken by almost 80 million people worldwide, Tamil also has an impressive classical past, having served as a language of religious, intellectual, and literary life in South India for nearly two millennia. Assuming no prior experience with the language, this introductory sequence provides students with the grammar, language skills, and cultural context necessary for achieving their individual Tamil language goals, whether they be conducting fieldwork or scholarly research, chatting with relatives back home, or simply waxing poetic over an artful dosai. In order to cultivate students’ reading, writing, speaking, and listening comprehension skills, this course draws upon a wide variety of teaching materials, including the core textbook, oral drills, audio recordings, short films, music videos, memes, and more. No P/D/F or R credit is allowed for this class.

An introduction to the language of classical and modern Arabic literature. No P/D/F or R credit is allowed for this class.

An introduction to the language of classical and modern Arabic literature. No P/D/F or R credit is allowed for this class.

An introduction to the language of classical and modern Arabic literature. No P/D/F or R credit is allowed for this class.

An introduction to the language of classical and modern Arabic literature. No P/D/F or R credit is allowed for this class.

Prerequisites: First Year Arabic I or instructor permission. An introduction to the language of classical and modern Arabic literature. No P/D/F or R credit is allowed for this class.

In Elementary Armenian I, students learn the Armenian script and the basic grammar that will enable them to communicate about topics relating to themselves and their immediate surroundings: family, school, daily occupations, describing people, expressing likes and dislikes, requesting and giving information about themselves and others, proper forms of greetings, etc. They also begin to read signs, advertisements, and develop the skills to read texts like short stories and Armenian fables. No P/D/F or R credit is allowed for this class.

This is an introductory course for which no prior knowledge is required. Equal emphasis is given to listening, speaking, reading, writing and grammar. Daily homework includes grammar exercises, short answers, reading, or paragraph writing. Frequent vocabulary and grammar quizzes. No P/D/F or R credit is allowed for this class.

This is an introductory course for which no prior knowledge is required. Equal emphasis is given to listening, speaking, reading, writing and grammar. Daily homework includes grammar exercises, short answers, reading, or paragraph writing. Frequent vocabulary and grammar quizzes. No P/D/F or R credit is allowed for this class.

This Fall semester introductory Hindi course is the first part of a year-long sequence (Fall and
Spring semesters) designed for true beginners with no prior proficiency in the language. It offers
a comprehensive foundation, starting with the introduction to the Hindi script. The course focuses
on developing proficiency in all key language skills—reading, writing, speaking, and listening—
while cultivating an appreciation for cultural awareness. Through engaging lessons and activities,
students will acquire practical vocabulary and basic sentence structures, enabling meaningful
communication in everyday personal and social contexts. The course also incorporates audiovisual
materials, such as short films and songs, to deepen cultural understanding and enhance
student engagement.

This is a fast-paced course that compresses two years of Hindi into one year. It is for students of South Asian background who already possess limited speaking and listening skills in Hindi or Urdu. Non-heritage students who have some exposure to Hindi or Urdu and South Asian cultures may also take this course.

It begins with an introduction to the Devanagari Script, which enables students to acquire basic reading and writing skills. They then build on their listening and speaking skills. To achieve these goals, students are introduced to a variety of materials, including literature, newspapers, folk tales, jokes, magazine articles, films, songs, commercials, and other kinds of audiovisual materials. These texts are related to language functions in daily personal and social life situations.

It focuses on vocabulary enrichment by exposing students to a variety of cultural topics and developing knowledge of basic Hindi grammar. By the end of the semester, students will develop productive skills in reading, writing, and speaking and will be able to:

• speak about themselves and their environment, and initiate conversations on topics of general interest.

• Understand most of the basic sentence structures of Hindi in formal and informal registers.

• Write correspondence related to daily life, letters, short essays, and compositions on various topics.

• Learn some basic vocabulary related to aspects of Indian life, such as family life, social traditions, and education.

• Initiate and sustain conversations on a range of topics related to different aspects of Indian culture, social, and family life.

On the first day of classes, there will be an interview/placemat test to establish the proficiency level. Please come directly to class. If accepted, the department will register you internally.  

This intensive, fast-paced course condenses two years of Urdu instruction into one year. It is tailored for students of South Asian heritage who possess basic speaking and listening skills in Urdu or Hindi. Non-heritage students with prior exposure to Urdu or Hindi, as well as South Asian cultures, are also encouraged to enroll.

An interview will be conducted on the first day of class to assess speaking and listening comprehension proficiency levels. 

The course begins with an introduction to the Urdu script, enabling students to develop essential reading and writing skills. It then enhances listening and speaking abilities using a diverse range of materials, including literature, newspapers, folk tales, jokes, magazine articles, films, songs, commercials, and other audio-visual resources. These materials are thoughtfully selected to support language development in everyday personal and social contexts.

The curriculum places a strong emphasis on vocabulary expansion, cultural understanding, and a foundational grasp of Urdu grammar. By the end of the first semester, students will have developed practical skills in reading, writing, and speaking. Specifically, they will be able to:

• Speak about themselves, their surroundings, and engage in conversations on general topics.
• Understand and use basic sentence structures in both formal and informal Urdu.
• Write letters, short essays, and compositions on a variety of everyday topics.
• Acquire vocabulary related to key aspects of South Asian life, including family dynamics, social traditions, and education.
• Initiate and sustain conversations about South Asian culture, social life, and family traditions.

In this course we will study the late colonial and early post-colonial periods of South Asian history together. Some of the events we will cover include: the climax of anti-colonial movements in South Asia, WWII as it developed in South and Southeast Asia, the partition of British India, the two Indo-Pakistan wars, and the 1971 Bangladesh War. While we will read selected secondary literature, we will focus on a range of primary sources, including original radio broadcasts and oral history interviews. We will also study artistic interpretations of historical developments, including short stories and films. In this course, we will strive to remain attentive to the important changes engendered by colonialism, while simultaneously recognizing the agency of South Asians in formulating their own modernities during this critical period. We will also seek to develop a narrative of modern South Asian history, which is attentive to parallel and/or connected events in other regions.

Prerequisites: MDES W1210-W1211 or the equivalent. A continuation of the study of the language of contemporary writing. No P/D/F or R credit is allowed for this class.

Prerequisites: MDES W1210-W1211 or the equivalent. A continuation of the study of the language of contemporary writing. No P/D/F or R credit is allowed for this class.

Prerequisites: MDES W1210-W1211 or the equivalent. A continuation of the study of the language of contemporary writing. No P/D/F or R credit is allowed for this class.

Prerequisites: MDES W1210-W1211 or the equivalent. A continuation of the study of the language of contemporary writing. No P/D/F or R credit is allowed for this class.

This course focuses on Modern Hebrew grammar, and verb conjugation in particular. It is designed for students with substantial knowledge of Modern Hebrew. Over the semester, students will systematically review the grammatical patterns of regular verbs (shlemim), and learn the grammatical patterns of the irregular verbs (gzarot), as well as several other grammatical topics. After successful completion of this course, the foreign language requirement will be fulfilled (for students of Columbia College and other academic units that require a 4th-semester proficiency). Successful completion of this course also allows students to register in third-year Modern Hebrew.

This course will prepare you for effective and meaningful communication in all modes. It will consolidate your already acquired listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills and help you acquire higher proficiency in Hindi. You will continue learning common Urdu words in Hindi in the Devanagari Script. The Urdu Script is not taught in this course.
Students will expand their knowledge base of the society and culture of the target languages in this course. They will be introduced to new grammatical structures and will be taught a broad range of vocabulary. They will also be exposed to a variety of authentic materials, including Hindi literature, newspapers, folk tales, films, songs, and other kinds of written and audio-visual materials. This material will be related to language functions in daily personal and social life situations. At the completion of this course, students will be well-equipped to initiate and sustain general conversations. They will successfully handle most of the uncomplicated communications in personal and social situations. Students will also be able to write letters and compositions. The course is based on national standards and proficiency guidelines as set by the American Council of Teaching Foreign Languages (ACTFL).

Prerequisites: Elementary Persian II or the equivalent. This course involves reading, writing, translating, conversation and grammatical foundations for Persian Language (PL). The materials are selected from two books: Āmuzesh-e Fārsi: Intermediate Level (required) and English-Persian Dictionary, plus verb system and charts (recommended). These books are assigned and have to be available to every student. There are also handouts, which will be provided throughout the course. This course serves as intermediate and makes students able to read and compose proper Persian language as well as the colloquial one. No P/D/F or R credit is allowed for this class.

Historians frequently situate Armenia between two powers: between Rome and Persia, then Byzantium and Islam. This class will shake up the usual “between-two-worlds” paradigm, which places Armenia and Armenians in the crosshairs of world powers. Instead, we will study Armenians as active participants in world dramas, at the center of global developments. Our main goal will be to draw upon a variety of sources to tell the story of Armenia and Armenians: histories, poems, art, coins, buildings, etc.  

Goals

• Critically assess what it means to study history. [Why are we learning this?]
• Analyze primary sources, whether written or material. [How can we study this?]
• Engage with modern scholarship on Armenian experiences. [How have other people studied this?]

Prerequisites: minimum GPA of 3.5 in MESAAS courses. The MESAAS honors seminar offers students the opportunity to undertake a sustained research project under close faculty supervision. The DUS advises on general issues of project design, format, approach, general research methodologies, and timetable. In addition, students work with an individual advisor who has expertise in the area of the thesis and can advise on the specifics of method and content. The thesis will be jointly evaluated by the adviser, the DUS, and the honors thesis TA. The DUS will lead students through a variety of exercises that are directly geared to facilitating the thesis. Students build their research, interpretive, and writing skills; discuss methodological approaches; write an annotated bibliography; learn to give constructive feedback to peers and respond to feedback effectively. The final product is a polished research paper in the range of 40-60 pages. Please note: This is a one-year course that begins in the fall semester (1 point) and continues through the spring semester (3 points). Only students who have completed both semesters will receive the full 4 points of credit.

The main task of this course will be to read novels by African writers. But the novel in Africa also involves connections between the literary genre of the novel and the historical processes of colonialism, decolonization, and globalization in Africa. One important question we'll consider is how African novels depict those historical experiences in their themes and plots—we'll read novels that are about colonialism, etc. A more complex question is how these historical processes relate to the emergence of the novel as an important genre for African writers. Edward Said went so far as to say that without imperialism, there would be no European novel as we know it. How can we understand the novel in Africa (whether read or written) as a product of the colonial encounter? How did it shape the process of decolonization? What contribution to history, whether literary or political, does the novel in Africa make? We'll undertake a historical survey of African novels from the 1930s to the present, with attention to various subgenres (village novel, war novel, urbanization novel, novel of postcolonial disillusion, Bildungsroman). We'll attend to how African novelists blend literate and oral storytelling traditions, how they address their work to local and global audiences, and how they use scenes of characters reading novels (whether African or European) in order to position their writing within national, continental, and world literary space.

This is not a class in Theology. It is a class dealing with the Qur’an as a text and its linguistic and cultural significance. The readings will cover various Suwar (chapters) and excerpts dealing with a logical sequence of themes, starting with how the Qur’an defines itself, addresses its audiences, depicts and dialogues with other religions and religious groups, refers to itself as a historical source, especially through storytelling, and ending with how it legislates. They will also cover a choice of Hadiths. By being exposed to such a range of texts, students will gain a basic knowledge of types and structure of Hadith and a general sense of Qur’anic styles, textual arrangements, terminology and concepts. Specifically, the assignments will guide students toward an ability to read these texts in detail by expanding their vocabulary, deepening their understanding of advanced grammar points, and by providing an opportunity to discuss the texts and write about them. Student will also acquire research skills by identifying and working with sources and references.

Advanced instruction in the Armenian dialect. No P/D/F or R credit is allowed for this class.

This third year (or fifth semester) course in the Hindi-Urdu program aims to continue building upon the existing listening, speaking, reading, writing, and cultural skills in Hindi.Students will be exposed to a variety of authentic materials, such as stories, plays, newspapers, magazines, videos, and film clips. They will be expected to expand their vocabulary, enhance their grammatical accuracy, and develop their cultural appropriateness through enthusiastic participation in classroom activities and immersion in the speech community outside.

The objective of the course is to promote meaningful interaction with literary texts and strengthen students’ language skills to understand and describe situations and people in diverse academic settings of modern Hindi. Writing in the target language will be emphasized throughout the semester to enable students to use their diverse vocabulary and grammatical structures. This course will prepare students for “Advanced Hindi-II.”

What is the relationship between homoeroticism and homosociality? How does this relationship form conceptions of gender and sexuality in ways that might be historically unfamiliar and culturally or regionally specific? We pursue these questions through the lens of friendship and its relationship to ideas and expressions of desire, love, and loyalty in pre-modern times. We begin by considering the intellectual basis of the modern idea of friendship as a private, personal relationship, and trace it back to earlier times when it was often a public relationship of social and political significance. Some of these relationships were between social equals, while many were unequal forms (like patronage) that could bridge social, political or parochial differences.

Thinking through the relationships and possible distinctions between erotic love, romantic love and amity (love between friends), we will draw on scholarly works from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, particularly philosophy, sociology, political theory, literature, history, and art history. We will attend to friendship’s work in constituting, maintaining and challenging various social and political orders in a variety of Asian contexts (West, Central, South and East Asian), with comparative reference to scholarship on European and East Asian contexts. Primary source materials will include philosophy, religious manuals, autobiographies, popular love stories, heroic epics, mystical poetry, mirror for princes, paintings, material objects of exchange, and architectural monuments, largely from Islamic and Asian contexts.

While helping students advance their levels of oral and written expression, this course focuses on literature of the modern and medieval periods, with particular emphasis on the development of the modern novella and traditional and new forms of poetry. In addition to literature, students are introduced to a wide variety of genres from political and cultural essays and blogs to newspaper translations of the early 20th century. They will be further exposed to ta´rof in reference to a wide variety of socio-cultural contexts and be expected to use ta´rof in class conversations. Students will be exposed to popular artists and their works and satirical websites for insight into contemporary Iranian culture and politics. No P/D/F or R credit is allowed for this class.

This course constitutes the first half of a year-long advanced reading course in Classical Sanskrit. In 2021-2022, the focus of Advanced Sanskrit will be the genres of literary theory (alaṅkāraśāstra) and belles-lettres (kāvya). Lending equal attention to literary theory and literary practice, this course will introduce students to iconic works of Sanskrit literature along with the interpretive frameworks whereby they were analyzed, relished, and appraised. Literary excerpts may be drawn from an array of subgenres, including courtly epic (mahākāvya), epic drama (nāṭaka), literary prose (gadya), and individual verses (muktaka). Rigorous analysis of primary texts will be supplemented by occasional discussions about what implications the disciplined reading of kāvya may hold for practices such as translation, comparative literature, and transdisciplinarity. Prerequisites: Intermediate Sanskrit II or instructor’s permission. 

This course will focus on the Indo-Islamic literary traditions in South Asia, and particularly in what is now India and Pakistan, focusing on Urdu literature from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The course will emphasize the rhetorical and performative history of poetic forms in the subcontinent (including the forms of the Ghazal and Nauha, among others) and will consider how classical poetic tropes continue to inform contemporary mass culture in India and Pakistan—particularly in the song lyrics of Hindi/Bollywood cinema. The course will also consider more contemporary prose genres of Urdu-language writing (in English translation), including the literature of the Partition and the works of contemporary authors such as Naiyer Masud and Saima Iram.

Through a comparative study of texts in different genres and at different moments in history, students will consider questions such as: What aspects of contemporary literary culture in India and Pakistan can be traced to early establishment of Islamic culture in the region? How have the poetic conventions of Indo-Islamic poetry continued to resonate? How did the interaction of Hindu and Muslim literary, musical, visual, and religious cultures in the Mughal era help to generate the rich profusion of literature and music and cultural tolerance in this period?

Most of our readings in this course will Urdu literature in English translation. We will also, however, read some secondary sources in order to help us better understand the primary sources.

This 4000-level seminar explores the Ottoman Empire with emphasis on the long nineteenth century, while also tracing how the century that followed remained profoundly marked by the afterlives of its institutions, ideas, and the disruptions it set in motion. After an overview Ottoman history and historiography, and an exploration of recent digital humanities trends in Ottoman Studies, the course proceeds in three sections: 1) imperial reconfiguration and crisis, 2) revolution, war, and genocide, and 3) afterlives of empire. Case studies spotlight the empire’s ethno-religious communities, including Arabs, Armenians, Assyrians, Greeks, Jews, Kurds, and Muslim refugees from the Balkans and the Russian Empire. Anchored in The I.B. Tauris Handbook of the Late Ottoman Empire: History and Legacy, the course aims to equip students with the conceptual and historiographical tools needed to critically analyze the Ottoman past and its enduring legacies across the modern Middle East.

This course provides a structured setting for stand-alone M.A. students in their final year and Ph.D. students in their second and third years to develop their research trajectories in a way that complements normal coursework. The seminar meets approximately biweekly and focuses on topics such as research methodology; project design; literature review, including bibliographies and citation practices; grant writing. Required for MESAAS graduate students in their second and third year.

This course is designed to introduce the student to key debates in the study of societies marked by the centrality of settler-native relations: We shall focus on four key debates: (a) how to conceptualize extreme violence, as criminal or political; (b) the relationship of perpetrators to beneficiaries; (c) the significance of human rights institutions, from the Nuremberg Court to the International Criminal Court to the question of decolonization: and (d) the making of a political community of survivors after catastrophe. The class will be organized around several case studies: (a) Ireland; (b) the Americas; (c) Haiti; (d) Australia; (e) the Nuremberg Court; (f) South Africa; and (g) Israel / Palestine.

This course will try to study the development of various aspects of theorization of the secular and the transformations of religion under modernity. It will be mainly based on close textual reading of important theoretical arguments representing important stages in the development of these arguments from the time of the Enlightenment to present day academic debates.

The first section will focus on the emergence of theories of a secular state in European philosophy starting with texts from Spinoza, Hobbes, and Hume. We shall also range over some ancillary texts that illustrate the nature of secularist arguments against religious beliefs and practices. The second section will concentrate on the development of the sociological tradition with focus on the works of Fustel de Coulanges, Max Weber and Ernst Troletsch. A short third section will focus on the establishment of religious studies as an academic discipline by looking at the works of a pioneer of this discipline: Wilfred Cantwell Smith. The fourth section will take up for reading and critical examination four different academic discussions in recent years: stemming from the work of Indian debates on secularism, from academic debates about the anthropology of religion, and especially studies of Islam started by the work of Talal Asad and responses it attracted. Finally, we shall take up critical works which revisit arguments from Weber by Charles Taylor and Hans Joas. The final weeks of the course will be devoted to conclusions drawn from these intersecting readings across historical time and space.

This course is open to Ph.D. students and advanced M.A. students conducting research on
aspects of the modern, culture, politics, and history of the Middle East and adjacent regions. Its
temporal focus is the three centuries from roughly the mid-eighteenth to the mid-twentieth
century, but those whose research deals with other periods are welcome to participate.
The course has three aims. The first is to provide an opportunity to read and engage with some
of the more recent scholarship in the field, especially work published in the last ten years,
organized around several current academic debates. The second is to provide a seminar in
which those preparing a master’s paper, M.Phil. examination list, or Ph.D. prospectus, or a term
paper intended for conference presentation or publication, can develop and present a draft of
their work. We will choose readings to accompany each paper, focusing on recent scholarship
that informs or extends the issues addressed in the research. The course will enable students to
clarify and test the questions that shape their work and better situate them within current
scholarship. The third aim is to train students in the art of framing questions and shaping
debate for an advanced, reading-intensive graduate-level seminar.
The course is intended primarily for MESAAS students. Those from other departments are
welcome but require the permission of the instructor to enroll.