Columbia University in the City of New York · Courses
MDES UN
43 courses with the subject MDES UN, each shown exactly as we captured it from the college's catalog, with every element we hold. Where the wording looks broken, that is our reading of the catalog, not the college's text.
MDES UN1001CRITICAL THEORY: A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE4.00
The purpose of this foundational course is to introduce Columbia undergraduate students, in the context of their Global Core curriculum, to the seminal field of critical theory. The historical domain of this course is within the last century and its geographical spectrum is global. European critical thinkers are included in this course but not privileged. Thinkers from Asia, Africa, Europe, North, South, and Latin America, are examined here in chronological order and in equal democratic footing with each other. This course as a result is decidedly cross-cultural, one step forward towards de-alienating critical thinkers from around the globe and the issues they address without pigeonholing them as something “other” or “different.” The course is designed and offered in the true spirit of the “Global Core.” The purpose of the course is to reach for the common denominator of serious critical thinking about the fate of our humanity and the health of our social relations in an increasingly fragile world—where the false binaries of “the West” and “the Rest” no longer hold. The roster of critical thinkers we will examine is by no means exhaustive but representative. Any number of other critical thinkers can be added to this roster but none of those we will examine can be excluded from them. The course is divided into thirteen successive weeks and for each week a number of seminal, original, and groundbreaking texts are identified. Each week we will examine selected passages from these texts. The course is designed as a lecture course, and my lectures are based on the totality of these texts but students will be assigned specific shorter passages to read
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
MDES UN1030“Game of Thrones”: On Epics and Empires4.00
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
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
Introduces students to the basic grammatical and syntactical skills required to function adequately in a Tamil-speaking environment. Of particular interest to students planning to conduct scholarly research or fieldwork in that region of the world. Introduces students to the rich culture of the Indian subcontinent where Tamil is spoken. No P/D/F or R credit is allowed for this class
This course constitutes the first half of a year-long introduction to Classical Sanskrit, the translocal language of religious, intellectual, and literary life in South Asia for nearly two millennia. Assuming no prior experience with the language, this introductory sequence provides students with the grammar, reading strategies, and cultural context necessary to begin accessing the language’s many rich textual traditions, including scripture (sruti), epic (itihasa), poetry (kavya), drama (na?aka), systematic thought (sastra), and more
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
Prerequisites: MDES W1510, or the equivalent, based on performance on the placement test. Prerequisites: MDES UN1501, or the equivalent, based on performance on the placement test. Continued introduction to Hebrew, with equal emphasis on all languages skills. (See MDES UN1501.) 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
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
Prior to “conflict resolution,” there is conflict. But what is conflict and how do we understand it? This introductory lecture course proposes to explore established objects in their presumed ties to the fact and concept of “conflict.” We will inquire into the nature of conflict as well as into the kinds of conflicts that operate, or seem to operate, perhaps even to structure, the understanding of race, of region, and of religion. We will attend to the solidity and fragility of geographic divisions (regional and trans regional conflicts), their history (modern / premodern, colonial / pre- and post-colonial), the emergence of race (racial and ethnic conflicts), the pertinence of religions (religious strife and violence), their relation to political associations (religion and politics, religion and nationalism) and to other social and/or economic divisions (class, gender). We will interrogate the analytic and descriptive value of keywords like war, enmity, dispute, division, partition. We will also reflect on disciplinary tensions and divisions toward an understanding and perpetuation of conflict. Finally, we will think about the possibility and impossibility of “speaking with the enemy.”
MDES UN2012Finding Happiness: Readings in Arab-Islamic Texts4.00
The quest for happiness predates writing itself. In this course, we read together some of the monumental and foundational texts that questioned, interrogated, but also defined and redefined happiness from the premodern Arab-Islamic tradition. Is happiness an absence of something or the presence of something? Is it found or actively pursued? Is one happy being alone or in a society? Are friends necessary to our happiness? Is the perfection of the self, morals, and character happiness? Emphasis lies on the exploration of the themes of the assigned works through close reading and discussion. The course will pay additional attention to the contextualization of the texts. Emphasis lies on the active study of the assigned works through close reading, discussion, and creative assignments
MDES UN2042South Asia at the Crossroads of Empires3.00
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 W1101-W1102 or the instructor's permission. Prerequisites: MDES W1101-W1102 or the instructor's permission. Further develops students' written and oral proficiency in order to allow them to function adequately in a Tamil-speaking environment. Of particular interest to students planning to conduct scholarly research or fieldwork in a Tamil-speaking context. Develops the students' appreciation for the rich culture of the Indian subcontinent where Tamil is spoken. No P/D/F or R credit is allowed for this class
Fee: Language Resource Center Fee - 15.00 This course constitutes the first half of a year-long reading course designed to give students the tools necessary for advanced study in Classical Sanskrit. Readings in epic (itihāsa), poetry (kāvya), systematic thought (śāstra), and commentary (vyākhyāna) will introduce students to a variety of important genres and their distinctive conventions. A focus upon the Sanskrit tradition’s own categories of analysis—grammatical, commentarial, and prosodic—will enable students to begin to make sense of original Sanskrit texts as generations of the tradition’s own readers have. No P/D/F or R credit is allowed for this class. Fall 2026: MDES UN2401 Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment MDES 2401 001/10963 T Th 10:10am - 12:00pm 609 Martin Luther King Building Jay Ramesh 4 2/15
Prerequisites: MDES W1511 or the equivalent. Prerequisites: 1st Year Modern Hebrew II or the equivalent and instructor's permission. Equal emphasis is given to listening, speaking, reading and writing. Regular categories of the Hebrew verb, prepositions, and basic syntax are taught systematically. Vocabulary building. Daily homework includes grammar exercises, short answers, reading, or short compositions. Frequent vocabulary and grammar quizzes. No P/D/F or R credit is allowed for this class
Prerequisites: MDES W1512. Prerequisites: Second Year Hebrew: Intermediate I or instructor permission. Equal emphasis is given to all language skills. Irregular categories of the Hebrew verb, prepositions and syntax are taught systematically. Vocabulary building. Daily homework includes grammar exercises, short answers, reading, or writing short compositions. Frequent vocabulary and grammar quizzes. (Students completing this course fulfill Columbia College and Barnard language requirement.) 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
Prerequisites: Permission of instructor. Hebrew for Heritage Speakers I forms part of a year-long sequence with Hebrew for Heritage Speakers II. The course is intended for those who have developed basic speaking and listening skills through exposure to Hebrew at home or in day-school programs but do not use Hebrew as their dominant language and have not reached the level required for exemption from the Columbia language requirement. Heritage speakers differ in the degree of their fluency, but their vocabulary is often limited to topics in daily life and many lack skills in reading and writing to match their ability to converse. The course focuses on grammar and vocabulary enrichment, exposing students to a variety of cultural and social topics in daily life and beyond. By the end of the semester students are able to read and discuss simple texts and write about a variety of topics. Successful completion of the year-long sequence prepares students to enroll in third-year modern Hebrew. No P/D/F or R credit is allowed for this class
Prerequisites: MDES W1517 Prerequisites: Hebrew for Heritage Speakers I Hebrew for Heritage Speakers II forms the second part of a year-long sequence with Hebrew for Heritage Speakers I. The course is intended for those who have developed basic speaking and listening skills through exposure to Hebrew at home or in day-school programs but do not use Hebrew as their dominant language and have not reached the level required for exemption from the Columbia language requirement. Heritage speakers differ in the degree of their fluency, but their vocabulary is often limited to topics in daily life and many lack skills in reading and writing to match their ability to converse. The course focuses on grammar and vocabulary enrichment, exposing students to a variety of cultural and social topics in daily life and beyond. By the end of the semester students are able to read and discuss simple texts and write about a variety of topics. Successful completion of the year-long sequence prepares students to enroll in third-year modern Hebrew. No P/D/F or R credit is allowed for this class
Prerequisites: (MDES UN1601) and (MDES UN1602) MDES W1610-W1611 or the instructor's permission. 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: MDES W1610-W1611 or the instructor's permission. This is a second-year (fall and spring semesters) course. Students practice reading and writing in Devanagari and continue to improve their proficiency in Hindi to: • Successfully handle most uncomplicated communicative tasks and social situations. • Initiate, sustain, and close a general conversation. • Write letters and short compositions and read consistently, fully understanding simple connected texts dealing with personal and social needs. • Get the main ideas and information from texts, including description and narration. 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 relate to language functions in daily personal and social life situations
This course offers an expansive journey through the forms, pleasures, and meanings of Indian cinema. It explores the plural beginnings of popular film; the many competing cinemas produced across India; the diverse protagonists (from vamps to vigilantes) that populate the imagined entity named ‘national cinema’; and the varied audiences addressed by these cinemas. Over the course of the semester, we will watch 15 of the most iconic narrative films produced in India, including Diamond Queen (1940), Awara (1951), Deewar (1975), Roja (1992), Mahanagar (1963), and Bandit Queen (1994). As we voyage with the dynamic, shifting codes and priorities of India’s fiction filmmaking, we also shadow the emergence of the Indian nation and contestations of its coherence
Gandhi is in two senses an extraordinary figure: he was the most important leader of anti-imperialist movements in the twentieth century; yet, his ideas about modernity, the state, the industrial economy, technology, humanity’s place in nature, the presence of God - were all highly idiosyncratic, sometimes at odds with the main trends of modern civilization. How did a man with such views come to have such an immense effect on history? In some ways, Gandhi is an excellent entry into the complex history of modern India - its contradictions, achievements, failures, possibilities. This course will be primarily a course on social theory, focusing on texts and discursive exchanges between various perceptions of modernity in India. It will have two parts: the first part will be based on reading Gandhi’s own writings; the second, on the writings of his main interlocutors. It is hoped that through these exchanges students will get a vivid picture of the intellectual ferment in modern India, and the main lines of social and political thought that define its intellectual culture. The study in this course can be followed up by taking related courses in Indian political thought, or Indian politics or modern history. This course may not be taken as Pass/D/Fail
Required of all majors. Introduces theories of culture particularly related to the Middle East, South Asia. and Africa. Theoretical debates on the nature and function of culture as a symbolic reading of human collectivities. Examines critical cultural studies of the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa. Enables students to articulate their emerging knowledge of Middle East, South Asian, and African cultures in a theoretically informed language
The History of the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskala) in 19th century Europe and the development of Zionism through the current peace process between the state of Israel and the Arab states and the Palestinian national movement. Provides a historical overview of the Zionist-Palestinian conflict to familiarize undergraduates with the background of the current situation. No P/D/F or R credit is allowed for this class
With an interdisciplinary perspective, this course seeks to expand the understanding of past pandemic crises and recent, lived pandemics such as COVID-19. COVID-19 has brought up urgent questions about how we can understand and historicize pandemics and trace the changing relationship between disease and its vectors, humans and their environments. This course seeks to expand the understanding of past and recent pandemics through a historical lens that traces the deep seated racial and class disparities, social and cultural stigma, and political responses and control that they were expressed and deployed during these historical crises. It seeks to understand and analyze pandemics as representing complex, disruptive and devastating crises that effect profound transformations in ideas, social and economic relations and challenge interdependent networks and cultures. Pandemics are balanced in a global-local flux between dramaturgic, proliferating, contagious outbreaks; and endemic, chronic infections that have prolonged periods of latency before again remerging through new transmissions. They also serve as a crucial lens to analyze a range of historical connections, ensions and movements ranging from colonialism and the politics of borders, global capitalism and labor, migration and mobility, decolonization and development, and neoliberalism and global health politics
MDES UN3121Literature and Cultures of Struggle in South Africa3
CC/GS/SEAS: Partial Fulfillment of Global Core Requirement Generations of resistance have shaped contemporary life in South Africa -- in struggles against colonialism, segregation, the legislated racism known as apartheid, and the entrenched inequalities of the post-apartheid era. Two constants in this history of struggle have been youth as a vanguard of liberation movements and culture as a "weapon of struggle." As new generation of South African youth -- the "born frees" -- has now taken to the streets and social media to "decolonize" the university and claim their education as a meaningful right, this course traces the ways that generations of writers, artists, and activists have faced censorship, exile, and repression in an ongoing struggle to dismantle apartheid and to free the mind, "the most powerful weapon in the hands of the oppressor" according to Black Consciousness activist Steve Biko. This course traces the profoundly important roles that literature and other cultural production (music, photography, film, comics, Twitter hashtags like #rhodesmustfall and #feesmustfall) have played in struggle against apartheid and its lingering afterlife. Although many of our texts were originally written in English, we will also discuss the historical forces, including nineteenth-century Christian missions and Bantu Education, as well as South Africa's post-1994 commitment to being a multilingual democracy, that have shaped the linguistic texture of South African cultural life. Spring 2026: MDES UN3121 Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment MDES 3121 001/14220 M W 2:40pm - 3:55pm 413 Kent Hall Jennifer Wenzel 3 31/60
This course examines a set of questions that have shaped the study of the politics of the modern Middle East. It looks at the main ways those questions have been answered, exploring debates both in Western academic scholarship and among scholars and intellectuals in the region itself. For each question, the course offers new ways of thinking about the issue or ways of framing it in different terms. The topics covered in the course include: the kinds of modern state that emerged in the Middle East and the ways its forms of power and authority were shaped; the birth of economic development as a way of describing the function and measuring the success of the state, and the changing metrics of this success; the influence of oil on the politics of the region; the nature and role of Islamic political movements; the transformation of the countryside and the city and the role of rural populations and of urban protest in modern politics; and the politics of armed force and political violence in the region, and the ways in which this has been understood. The focus of the course will be on the politics of the twentieth century, but many topics will be traced back into developments that occurred in earlier periods, and several will be explored up to the present. The course is divided into four parts, each ending with a paper or exam in which participants are asked to analyze the material covered. Each part of the course has a geographical focus on a country or group of countries and a thematic focus on a particular set of questions of historical and political analysis
This course aims at students improving further their language proficiency. It aims at students getting introduced to the long and continuous literary history of Tamil by reading non-contemporary Tamil writings, sometimes the ancient Tamil literary works.
This course aims at students improving further their language proficiency. It aims at students getting introduced to the long and continuous literary history of Tamil by reading non-contemporary Tamil writings, sometimes the ancient Tamil literary works. African Language Courses (Pulaar, Swahili, Wolof) *for Arabic Language Courses, see Middle Eastern Languages, above
MDES UN3331URBAN SPACE ＆ CONFLICT IN MIDDLE EAST3.00
This course explores how civil war, revolution, militarization, mass violence, refugee crises, and terrorism impact urban spaces, and how city dwellers engage in urban resilience, negotiate and attempt to reclaim their right to the city. Through case studies of Beirut (1975-present), Baghdad (2003-present), Cairo (2011-present), Diyarbakir (1914-present), Aleppo (1914-present), and Jerusalem (1914-present), this course traces how urban life adjusted to destruction (and post-conflict reconstruction), violence, and anarchy; how neighborhoods were reshaped; and how local ethnic, religious, and political dynamics played out in these cities and metropolises. Relying on multi-disciplinary and post-disciplinary scholarship, and employing a wealth of audiovisual material, literary works, and interviews conducted by the instructor, the course scrutinizes how conflicts have impacted urban life in the Middle East, and how civilians react to, confront, and resist militarization in urban spaces
Explores the cultural landscapes of Islamic Central Asia up to the 18th c. Russian conquests, introducing the wide and changing array of meanings that both Islam and Central Asia could take on in this context. Against the association of Central Asia with a periphery, this course restores the centrality of Central Asia to the spheres of exchange that held together a broader Islamic imaginary, including Persian literatures, Sufism, political thought, and the visual arts. Focuses on the empires of the Ghaznavids (977-1186), Mongols (1206-1370), Timurids (1370-1507), and early Mughals. Readings are English translations of primary sources, and modern scholarship to contextualize and theorize these sources. Central questions include: how these texts reflect and shape community, how they mark and make sense of difference, the ways in which they understand and relate to their past(s), and the values that they hold to be most central. No prerequisites.
This course introduces the Indian Ocean as a region linking the Middle East, East Africa, South and Southeast Asia. With a focus on both continuities and rupture from the medieval to the modern period, we study select cultures and societies brought into contact through interregional migration and travel from the 10th to 20th centuries. Different types of people - nobles, merchants, soldiers, statesmen, sailors, scholars, slaves - experienced mobility in different ways. How did different groups of people represent such mobilities? What kinds of political, economic, and social cooperation, accommodation or conflict did different Indian Ocean encounters engender? We read some of the newest humanities and social science scholarship, as well as primary sources ranging from manuscript illustrations, sailor’s stories, merchant letters, travelogues, pilgrimage accounts, colonial documents, memoirs, and diplomatic accounts
This lecture course introduces students to the power and meaning of popular visual cultures of South Asia. Visual culture is a crucial arena for the enactment of social transformations and the creation of collective imaginaries. We will track such varied modern media types as calendar art, photography, film, architecture, clothing, and religious festivals, loosely following key chronological signposts in the shared histories of the subcontinent. Together, we will practice a new way of understanding history and society – a visual way that will make us aware of the diversity of hopes, fears, and dreams that comprise South Asia. Designed for students with a basic understanding of South Asian history, the course aims to familiarize you with key methodological approaches in visual culture studies and current debates in South Asian art history and media theory.
This seminar offers an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the history of African cities. It cuts across disciplinary boundaries of history, geography, anthropology, political and cultural sociology, literature and cultural studies, to explore the vaious trajectories of urbanization on the continent.
Prerequisites: the instructor's permission. This seminar, designed for seniors, aims to acquaint students with the notion and theoretical understanding of culture and to introduce them to a critical method by which they can study and appreciate contemporary culture in the Arab World. The seminar will survey examples of written and cinematic culture (fiction and autobiography), as well as music, dance, and literary criticism in the contemporary Arab world. Students will be reading novels, autobioghraphies and literary criticism, as well as watch films and listen to music as part of the syllabus. All material will be in translation. Films will be subtitled. Songs will be in Arabic
Through detailed discussions of certain landmarks in Islamic legal history (e.g. origins; early formation; sources of law; intellectual make-up; the workings of court; legal change; women in the law; legal effects of colonialism; modernity and legal reform, etc.), the course aims at providing an introductory but integrated view of Islamic law, a definition, so to speak, of what it was/is. Please note, this course must be taken for a letter grade
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 MESAAS honors seminar offers the opportunity to undertake a sustained research project working closely with an individual faculty adviser. It also enables you, as part of a small group of MESAAS students working with the seminar instructor, to develop the skills of academic research and writing and learn how to collaborate with peers and create an engaged intellectual community. This 3-point seminar continues the work begun in the Fall semester of the senior year in MDES 3960 Honors Thesis Seminar Part 1
