The following courses have been suggested by Early Cultures faculty as especially relevant to interested students. Courses marked with an asterisk have also received PEC funding for additional programming. Many of our Affiliated Departments also include course listings for the current year, as well as past or future years, on their websites. To view all courses being offered at Brown University in the current academic year, visit the university's online listings, Courses@Brown.
Program in Early Cultures
Relevant Courses (2019-2020)
ANTH 1030: Pre-Columbian Art and Architecture: A World That Matters
Survey of ancient art and building in ancient America, with a focus on Mexico, Central America, and the Andes. Underlying concepts include: meaning and method, cosmos and kingship, narrative and symbol, personality and authorship, empire and royal court. Rich collections of the Haffenreffer museum will form the focus of work in the class.
Stephen D Houston
ANTH 1125: Indigenous Archaeologies
This is an intro. to Indigenous archaeology, sometimes defined as archaeology "by, for and with Indigenous peoples." These approaches combine the study of the past with contemporary social justice concerns. However, they are more than this. In addition to seeking to make archaeology more inclusive of and responsible to Indigenous peoples, they seek to contribute a more accurate understanding of archaeological record. They thus do not reject science, but attempt to broaden it through a consideration of Indigenous epistemologies. This course covers topics as the history of anthropological archaeology, Indigenous knowledge and science, decolonizing methodologies, representational practices and NAGPRA.
Robert W Preucel
ANTH 1720: The Human Skeleton
More than simply a tissue within our bodies, the human skeleton is a gateway into narratives of the past--from the evolution of our species to the biography of individual past lives. Through 2 lecture and hands-on laboratory, students will learn the complete anatomy of the human skeleton, with an emphasis on the human skeleton in functional and evolutionary perspective. We'll also explore forensic and bioarchaeological approaches to the skeleton. By the course conclusion, students will be able to conduct basic skeletal analysis and will be prepared for more advanced studies of the skeleton from medical, forensic, archaeological, and evolutionary perspectives.
Aviva Cormier
Alejandra Roche Recinos
alejandra_rocherecinos@brown.edu
ANTH 1830: The Pictured Text
Writing makes language visible, and thus concerns images. Language also delimits the legibility of imagery. Turning words into images and images into words occurs at great speed around us. This course explores the relation of text and image across world traditions—Chinese, Mayan, Egyptian, Islamic, Greco-Roman, and others, extending up to the present. Topics include: calligraphy, context, scribal practice, the form and shape of writing, including typography, hidden or pseudo-writing, graffiti, and contemporary art.
Stephen D Houston
Jeffrey C Moser
ANTH 2501: Principles of Archaeology
Examines theoretical and methodological issues in anthropological archaeology. Attention is given to past concerns, current debates, and future directions of archaeology in the social sciences.
Andrew K Scherer
ANTH 2590: Space, Power, and Politics
This course critically examines the politics of space and landscape from an interdisciplinary perspective. After reading key texts in political philosophy and cultural geography, we explore themes in recent scholarship including the spatial production of sovereignty, capital, and political subjectivity and the evolving role of digital cartography in public culture and politics. Case studies are drawn from archaeology, art history, ethnography, cultural geography, and history.
Parker VanValkenburgh
parker_vanvalkenburgh@brown.edu
ARCH 1792: The Archaeology of Slavery
No one would question that slavery leaves invisible and painful marks on all individuals and societies touched by it. But slavery leaves behind many physical, recoverable traces as well: plantations, slave forts, slaving wrecks, burial grounds. From such evidence, this course will explore four centuries of slavery in the Atlantic world, asking not only about how people coped in the past, but about the legacy of slavery in our world today.
Rui Gomes Coelho
ARCH 1870: Environmental Archaeology
From Neanderthals on the brink of extinction to the smog of the Industrial Revolution, humans have been impacted by the environment for millions of years. How has climate change affected the development of human society? How have people adapted to their environments in the past? What does "sustainability" mean over the long term? Environmental archaeology is the study of these questions through the use of scientific techniques to analyze soils, plants, artifacts, and human and animal remains from ancient archaeological contexts. These methods 4 will be introduced with an eye toward how they allow us to interpret human-environmental interactions in the past, as well as the present and future.
Zachary Dunseth
Laurel Hackley
ARCH 1879: A World in Color: Seeing and Experiencing Colors in Ancient Times
Filtered through the lens of western aesthetics, history books often describe the past in black and white. Scholars even receive death threats for asserting that marble statues were not pristine white in antiquity. But imagining the ancient world in all its colors is to see a fuller picture of the art, fashion, values, and struggles of the past. This class investigates the meaning of color as a culturally mediated and charged phenomenon, using not just art historical approaches, but contemporary critical theory, linguistics, and economics.
Shiyanthi Thavapalan
ARCH 1890: Lost Languages
Humans make many marks, but it is writing that records, in tangible form, the sounds and meanings of language. Creating scripts is momentous; writing facilitates complex society and is a crucial means of cultural expression. This course addresses the nature of writing in past times. Topics include: the technology of script; its precursors and parallel notations; its emergence, use, and "death"; its change over time, especially in moments of cultural contact and colonialism; writing as a physical object or thing; code-breaking and decipherment, including scripts not yet deciphered; and the nature of non-writing or pseudo- or crypto-scripts.
Felipe A Rojas Silva
ARCH 2250: Island Archaeology in the Mediterranean
The Mediterranean is a world of islands, par excellence, and the island cultures that have developed there over the millennia have great archaeological distinctiveness. This seminar will consider the concept of insularity itself, in cross-cultural archaeological, anthropological, and historical perspective. We will then turn to the rich, specifically Mediterranean literature on island archaeology (exploring issues of colonization, settlement, interaction).
John F Cherry
ARCH 2625: Broken Pots to GDP: Economies of the Roman World
Rome developed one of the most complex and extensive economic systems of the pre-industrial era, and debates on the nature and scale of this system have intensified in recent years due to an influx of archaeological data. This course examines a diverse range of material from across the Roman world as we explore the impact that recent archaeological discoveries and new methodological developments have had on our understanding of the Roman economy.
Candace M. Rice
ARCH 2740: Social Life in Ancient Egypt
This course will draw upon recent discussions in anthropology and sociology that explore issues of identity by examining hierarchies of difference - age, sex, class, ethnicity. We will focus on linking theory with data and on discussing modern and ancient categories of identity. Taking the lifecycle as its structure, the course covers conception to burial, drawing on a range of data sources, such as material culture, iconography, textual data and human remains. The very rich material past of ancient Egypt provides an excellent framework from within which to consider how identity and social distinctions were constituted in the past.
Laurel D Bestock
CLAS 1120G: The Idea of Self
Literature gestures us toward a certain kind of knowledge not quite psychological, not quite philosophical. We read widely in the classical and medieval traditions in order to gauge the peculiar nature of what this knowledge tells us about experience and the ways in which expressions of selfhood abide or are changed over time. Authors include but are not limited to Sappho, Pindar, Catullus, Horace, Augustine, and Fortunatus.
Joseph Michael Pucci
Jeremy Fischer
CLAS 1205: The Long Fall of the Roman Empire
Once thought of as the "Dark Ages," this period of western European history should instead be seen as a fascinating time in which late Roman culture fused with that of the Germanic tribes, a mixture tempered by a new religion, Christianity. Issues of particular concern include the symbolic construction of political authority, the role of religion, the nature of social loyalties, and gender roles.
Jonathan P Conant
CLAS 1210: Mediterranean Culture Wars: Archaic Greek History, c. 1200 to 479 BC
From the end of the Bronze Age to the end of the Persian Wars is a period of considerable change in the Mediterranean and beyond. The Greek polis challenges the powers of the ancient Near East. Over seven centuries we meet Greek writing, Homeric epic, and the first historian 7 (Herodotus). But the Greek world lay on the edges of the Ancient Near East and this course tries to offer a more balanced approach than the typically Hellenocentric perspective of the standard textbooks. CLAS 1210 addresses political, social and economic history. Literary, epigraphical and archaeological cultures provide the evidence.
Graham J Oliver
CLAS 1930B: Dying God
The figure of the dying god (like Adonis, Osiris, or Attis), embodying both beauty and tragedy, has exerted a fascination from ancient times to the present day. His worship was sometimes central to the community, sometimes marginal, yet compelling in its "outsider" status. His myths invited meditations on love and death in various modes from comedy to epic. This course, through the great mythological texts of Greece and Rome as well as modern literature and art, will explore the figure in all its variety, along with Christian adaptations and recent interpretations. There will be writing assignments.
CLAS 2000: Proseminar in Classics
Introduction to standard research methods and tools in major subdisciplines of classical philology and ancient history. Required of entering graduate students. Survey of various subdisciplines in order to become familiar with field and scholarly principles.
Stephen E Kidd
EGYT 1430: History of Egypt I
A survey of the history and society of ancient Egypt from prehistoric times to the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty (ca. 5000-1300 BC). Readings include translations from the original documents that serve as primary sources for the reconstruction of ancient Egyptian history.
Laurel D Bestock
EGYT 1495: The Science and the Medicine of the Ancient Egyptians
This course presents a survey of the science and medicine of the ancient Egyptians in light of the primary sources. Only fields of learning represented in some systematic way in the primary sources are deemed worthy of study, mainly four: mathematics, medicine, astronomy, and time-reckoning. Zoology, botany, chemistry, architecture, etc., are not discussed. The Egyptians probably had some notion of the kinds of knowledge on which these subjects focus. But no systematic treatment of any survives in the extant sources and none probably ever existed. There are no prerequisites for this class.
Leo Depuydt
ASYR 1600: Astronomy Before the Telescope
This course provides an introduction to the history of astronomy from ancient times down to the invention of the telescope, focusing on the development of astronomy in Babylon, Greece, China, the medieval Islamic world, and Europe. The course will cover topics such as the invention of the zodiac, cosmological models, early astronomical instruments, and the development of astronomical theories. We will also explore the reasons people practiced astronomy in the past. No prior knowledge of astronomy is necessary for this course.
John M Steele
Erica Meszaros
HIAA 1212: The Pictured Text
Writing makes language visible, and thus concerns images. Language also delimits the legibility of imagery. Turning words into images and images into words occurs at great speed around us. This course explores the relation of text and image across world traditions—Chinese, Mayan, Egyptian, Islamic, Greco-Roman, and others, extending up to the present. Topics include: calligraphy, context, scribal practice, the form and shape of writing, including typography, hidden or pseudo-writing, graffiti, and contemporary art.
Stephen D Houston
Jeffrey C Moser
HIAA 1305: Pre-Columbian Art + Architecture
Survey of ancient art and building in ancient America, with a focus on Mexico, Central America, and the Andes. Underlying concepts include: meaning and method, cosmos and kingship, narrative and symbol, personality and authorship, empire and royal court. Rich collections of the Haffenreffer museum will form the focus of work in the class.
Stephen D Houston
HIAA 1882: Indigenous Art, Issues and Concepts
This seminar will map out the field of indigenous art with an emphasis on artworks from English-speaking settler colonial countries, concentrating on Native North American and Aboriginal Australian artists. We will approach indigenous art theoretically, outlining major 10 issues and concepts of this global topic. Units will include defining indigeneity and indigenous art terms, anthropology in relation to art, and curatorial practice. We will begin by addressing the concept of indigeneity through legal and sociopolitical frameworks, continuing with museological display of indigenous art across time, and seeing how museums are working to better contextualize their anthropological collections.
Marina Tyquiengco
HIAA 2212: The Pictured Text
Writing makes language visible, and thus concerns images. Language also delimits the legibility of imagery. Turning words into images and images into words occurs at great speed around us. This course explores the relation of text and image across world traditions—Chinese, Mayan, Egyptian, Islamic, Greco-Roman, and others, extending up to the present. Topics include: calligraphy, context, scribal practice, the form and shape of writing, including typography, hidden or pseudo-writing, graffiti, and contemporary art.
Stephen D Houston
Jeffrey C Moser
RELS 1105: Kabbalah: An Introduction to Jewish Mysticism
In the 12th and 13th centuries, new ways of approaching Judaism sprung up in France and Spain that would come to be known as “kabbalah.” These new approaches expressed aspirations for mystical illumination and elaborated vast mythological narratives about divine and demonic beings. The kabbalists radically departed from the then-conventional understandings of Judaism, particularly those of philosophers like Maimonides. However, they also claimed to find their new worldviews in the tradition’s most ancient texts. This course will introduce students to kabbalah’s founding period, focusing on primary texts (in translation), especially the Zohar, the magnum opus of classical kabbalah.
Nathaniel A Berman
RELS 1315: Religious Authority in an Age of Empire
How does one live in a hostile Empire? How do you carve out a niche? Where do you allow the Empire in and where do you draw a hard line? Such were the questions that both Jewish and Christian communities faced at various times in the Roman Empire. In this course, we will look at the variety of ways that both communities negotiated with and against Empire. We will read texts across religious lines, including gospels, gnostic texts, Rabbinic literature, apocalypses, and Church orders. To sharpen our thinking, we will also read literature associated with post-colonial critical thought.
Jae Hee Han
RELS 1380C: Law and Religion
In our arguably “post-secular” age, conflicts over the relationship between religion and law have again moved to the forefront of international debate. In a multicultural and globalized world, such conflicts often provoke contestation over the very possibility of universal definitions of either “religion” or “law,” let alone their proper relationship. Our interdisciplinary inquiries on these questions will include concrete legal disputes in domestic and international courts; theoretical debates over the construction of “religion” in fields such as anthropology, religious studies, and philosophy; and historiographical controversies about the relationship between “secularization” and sovereignty, particularly in light of the legacy of colonialism.
Nathaniel A Berman
Caleb Murray
RELS 2000: Theory of Religion
Critical examination of major approaches to the study of religion, especially those of the anthropology and the history of religions, with attention to issues in current debate.
Thomas A Lewis
RELS 2350D: Studies in Japanese Religions
Intensive study of the history of Japanese religions with attention to major scholarly issues in the field.
Janine T Anderson Sawada
HIST 1200C: History of Greece: From Alexander the Great to the Roman Conquest
In 334 BCE, the 22-year-old Alexander crossed over to Asia and North Africa perhaps already in his own mind to conquer the known world, thus changing the history of the West forever. The values of a small, if intensely introspective, people (the Greeks) became the cultural veneer for much of West, as the period became known as the Hellenistic (“Greekish”) Age. It led to the spread of a monotheistic idea, a profound belief in individualism, alienation from central power, and yet, conversely, the creation of natural law and human rights, along with a deep desire for universalism.
Kenneth S Sacks
HIST 1272E: Paris: Sacred and Profane, Imagined and Real
Paris has been called the capital of modernity, the capital of the nineteenth century, and the capital of the black Atlantic. This course explores how Paris grew from a small settlement into a vast city with an enormous global impact. Covering the settlement of the Celtic Parisii in the mid-third century BCE through the present, the course investigates the dynamic relationship between urban space, public activism, racism, and colonialism. It also considers who has been excluded from the city’s complex mythology and how these myths impacted experiences of the “other” (including people of color, low-income people, Jewish people, and women).
Charles Carroll
HIST 1331: The Rise and Fall of the Aztecs: Mexico, 1300-1600
This course will chart the evolution of the Mexica (better known as the Aztecs) from nomads to the dominant people of central Mexico; examine their political, cultural, and religious practices (including human sacrifice); explore the structure and limitations of their empire; and analyze their defeat by Spanish conquistadors and their response to European colonization. We will draw upon a variety of pre- and post-conquest sources, treating the Aztecs as a case study in the challenges of ethnohistory.
HIST 1340: History of the Andes from Incas to Evo Morales
Before the Spanish invaded in the 1530s, western South America was the scene of the largest state the New World had ever known, Tawantinsuyu, the Inca empire. During almost 300 years of colonial rule, the Andean provinces were shared by the "Republic of Spaniards" and the "Republic of Indians" - two separate societies, one dominating and exploiting the other. Today the region remains in many ways colonial, as Quechua- and Aymara-speaking villagers face a Spanish-speaking state, as well as an ever-more-integrated world market, the pressures of neoliberal reform from international banks, and the melting of the Andean glaciers.
Jeremy R Mumford
HIST 1956A: Thinking Historically: A History of History Writing
Philosopher George Santayana famously warned that “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Ten years later, industrialist Henry Ford perhaps even more famously dismissed that notion: “History is more or less bunk.” What we mean by history and how we construct and use it are essential questions in all societies. Thinking Historically explores how we view and employ the past. The course examines major ways of interpreting the past through a survey of historians and methods and studies how history is produced, used, and misused, by professionals as well as by the public.
Kenneth S Sacks
HIST 1964S: Islands of the Mind
Islands command an outsized place in history and imagination. They can drive politics and economies, inspire worldviews and fantasy, and impel movements of people. The power of islands has been brought to life in narratives about fictional figures like Sinbad, Odysseus, and Robinson Crusoe, and it has shaped the experience of many peoples, including premodern Pacific Ocean indigenous navigators and contemporary migrants in the Mediterranean. Using sources ranging from ancient epics and medieval books of islands to contemporary fiction and film, this seminar combines history and literary arts to explore the diverse meanings and roles islands have had for centuries.
Amy G Remensnyder
Carole Maso
ANTH 1240: RELIGION AND CULTURE
Global events in recent years seem to defy the commonsensical idea that religious traditions would decline or disappear in the modern epoch. We examine classic theories and methods in the study of religion to understand the continuing vitality of spiritual contemplation, asceticism, myths, rituals, magic, witchcraft, experiences of healing, and other ways of thinking and acting that are typically associated with (or against) the concept of religion.
Bhrigupati Singh
ANTH 1623: ARCHAEOLOGY OF DEATH
Examines death, burial, and memorials using comparative archaeological evidence from prehistory and historical periods. The course asks: What insight does burial give us about the human condition? How do human remains illuminate the lives of people in the past? What can mortuary artifacts tell us about personal identities and social relations? What do gravestones and monuments reveal about beliefs and emotions? Current cultural and legal challenges to the excavation and study of the dead are also considered.
Patricia Rubertone
ANTH 1750: BIOARCHAEOLOGY AND FORENSIC ANTHROPOLOGY
Bioarchaeology and forensic anthropology have common methodological roots (human osteology) but are oriented to answer very different questions. Both are grounded in the anthropological sub-disciplines of biological anthropology and archaeology. The focus in bioarchaeology is advancing our understanding of the human experience in the past. Bioarchaeologists study a range of topics including health, violence, migration, and embodiment. Forensic anthropology is a form of applied anthropology that is employed to document and interpret human remains in medico-legal contexts. The course will survey both fields while instructing in the methodologies and approaches of each. The course complements The Human Skeleton (ANTH 1720).
Aviva Cormier
ANTH 1910B: ANTHROPOLOGY OF PLACE
The anthropology of place serves as a unifying theme for the seminar by bridging anthropology’s subdisciplines and articulating with other fields of knowledge. Through readings and discussion, students will explore how place permeates people’s everyday lives and their engagement with the world, and is implicit in the meanings they attach to specific locales, their struggles over them, and 2 the longings they express for them in rapidly changing and reconfigured landscapes.
Patricia Rubertone
ANTH 2020: METHODS OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL RESEARCH
A seminar on the methodological problems associated with field research in social and cultural anthropology. Designed to help students prepare for both summer and dissertation research.
Sarah Besky
ANTH 2050: ETHNOGRAPHY
Each week this class will study classic and contemporary ethnographies - as well as studies from sociology, journalism, and history - that achieve ethnographic results, but will require discussion to determine what they "are". We will carefully examine the methods involved in research for the books and how the ethnographies were written. Ethnographies will be chosen for their importance in anthropology and other fields, and will cover a broad range of topical and geographic contexts.
Matthew Gutmann
ANTH 2515: MATERIAL MATTERS
In the past decade there has been a growing interest in the study of material culture as an explicitly interdisciplinary endeavor involving the fields of anthropology, archaeology, art history, literary theory, museum studies, and philosophy, among many others. These perspectives exhibit a range of approaches to interrogating how people make things, how things make people, how objects mediate social relationships, and how inanimate objects can be argued as having a form of agency. This graduate seminar is designed to encourage reflection upon material culture and its influence in shaping our lives.
Robert Preucel
ANTH 2520: MESOAMERICAN ARCHAEOLOGY AND ETHNOHISTORY
Seminar focusing on current issues in the archaeology and history of Mesoamerica, including Mexico and Northern Central America. Draws on rich resources at Brown, including the John Carter Brown Library.
Stephen Houston
ANTH 2800: LINGUISTIC THEORY AND PRACTICE
An introduction to theoretical and methodological issues in the study of language and social life. We begin by examining semiotic approaches to language. We turn to classical research on language as a structured system - covering such topics as phonology and grammatical categories - but we focus on the implications of such work for broader social scientific and humanistic research. We then consider areas of active contemporary research, including cognition and linguistic relativity, meaning 3 and semantics, pronouns and deixis, deference and register, speech acts and performativity, interaction, verbal art and poetics, reported speech, performance, and linguistic ideology.
Michael Berman
ARCH 1425: ARCHAEOLOGY, MATERIALITY, AND NATIONAL IMAGINATION IN ISRAEL AND GREECE: A COMPARATIVE APPROACH
Israel and Greece have had very different histories and yet in both cases their constitution as nation states is intricately linked to conceptions of antiquity and the practices of archaeology. In this course we will examine prominent figures and central projects in Greece, Palestine and Israel from the 19th to the 21st c. and ask questions such as: What were the foundational genealogical myths in each case? How important is religion and how is it interwoven with antiquity and archaeology? How does colonialism intersect with nationalism in this relationship, and what are the colonizing effects of archaeology itself?
Yannis Hamilakis
Raphael Greenberg
ARCH 1792: THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF SLAVERY
No one would question that slavery leaves invisible and painful marks on all individuals and societies touched by it. But slavery leaves behind many physical, recoverable traces as well: plantations, slave forts, slaving wrecks, burial grounds. From such evidence, this course will explore four centuries of slavery in the Atlantic world, asking not only about how people coped in the past, but about the legacy of slavery in our world today.
Rui Gomes Coelho
ARCH 2105: CERAMIC ANALYSIS FOR ARCHAEOLOGY
The analysis and the interpretation of ceramic remains allows archaeologists to accomplish varied ends: establish a time scale, document interconnections between different areas, and suggest what activities were carried out at particular sites. The techniques and theories used to bridge the gap between the recovery of ceramics and their interpretation within anthropological contexts are the focus of this seminar. This course will include hands-on, lab-based materials analysis of ceramics and their raw materials.
Peter van Dommelen
ARCH 2184: MATERIAL CULTURE AND THE BODILY SENSES: PAST AND PRESENT
How do the senses shape our experience? How many senses are there? How do ancient and modern art and material culture relate to bodily senses? What is material and sensorial memory, and how does it structure time and temporality? Using media and objects, including archaeological and ethnographic collections at Brown and beyond, this course will study how a sensorial perspective on materiality can reshape and reinvigorate research dealing with past and present material culture. 4 Furthermore, we will explore how sensoriality and affectivity can decenter the dominant western modernist canon of the autonomous individual.
Yannis Hamilakis
ARCH 2740: SOCIAL LIFE IN ANCIENT EGYPT
This course will draw upon recent discussions in anthropology and sociology that explore issues of identity by examining hierarchies of difference - age, sex, class, ethnicity. We will focus on linking theory with data and on discussing modern and ancient categories of identity. Taking the lifecycle as its structure, the course covers conception to burial, drawing on a range of data sources, such as material culture, iconography, textual data and human remains. The very rich material past of ancient Egypt provides an excellent framework from within which to consider how identity and social distinctions were constituted in the past.
Laurel D Bestock
ASYR 1010: INTERMEDIATE AKKADIAN
This course is the second semester of an intensive, yearlong introduction to the Akkadian (Babylonian/Assyrian) language. Students will deepen their knowledge of the cuneiform writing system and continue to develop their grasp of Akkadian grammar. Readings from Mesopotamian texts in the original language and script will include, among others, selections from the Laws of Hammurapi, Assyrian historical texts (such as the accounts of Sennacherib's siege of Jerusalem), and the story of the Flood from the Standard Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh. Prerequisite: Introduction to Akkadian (ASYR 0200 or ASYR 1000) or permission of the instructor.
Matthew Rutz
ASYR1725: Scientific Thought in Ancient Iraq
This course will investigate a variety of ancient scientific disciplines using primary sources from ancient Mesopotamia (modern Iraq). By reading the original texts and studying the secondary literature we will explore the notion of scientific thought in the ancient world and critique our own modern interpretation of what “science” is and how different traditions have practiced scientific methods towards a variety of aims. Looking at a range of disciplines will allow us to compare and contrast the different ways in which scientific thinking is transmitted in the historical record.
John Steele
ASYR2420: Akkadian Divinitory Texts
This course offers focused study of the most significant Akkadian divinatory texts from the second and first millennia BCE. Readings will come for the major genres of Mesopotamian divination found at sites throughout the ancient Near East. Emphasis will be placed on matters of textual transmission, reconstruction, and interpretation. We will read texts in the cuneiform script (copies, photographs, and, when possible, actual tablets) and work to place the material in meaningful historical, social, and cultural contexts. Knowledge of Akkadian cuneiform required.
Matthew Rutz
ASYR2700: Special Topics in Ancient Sciences
This course will be a topics course containing a detailed technical and cultural study of an area of science in a culture of the ancient world. Although intended for graduate students, undergraduate students who have taken EGYT 1600 or AWAS 1600 or a similar course may be admitted at the instructor's discretion.
John Steele
CLAS1120B: EPIC POETRY FROM HOMER TO LUCAN
Traces the rich history and manifold varieties of the genre of epic poetry in the literatures of ancient Greece and Rome beginning with Homer's Iliad and Odyssey (VII c. B.C.) and ending with Lucan's Civil War (I. c. A.D.). Masterpieces such as Virgil's Aeneid and Ovid's Metamorphoses are included. Original sources read in translation.
Pura Nieto Hernandez
CLAS1120L: ARCHAEOLOGY OF FEASTING
CLAS 1120P: EXPERIENCING THE ROMAN EMPIRE: LIFE IN THE ROMAN PROVINCES
This course explores the experiences of people living in the Roman Empire through archaeological and textual evidence, seeking to understand how Roman imperialism shaped the daily life of its residents, from Spain to Mesopotamia and from Scotland to Egypt. We will address themes such as imperialism, identity, globalization, and Romanization as we investigate provincial urbanism, economies, rural settlements, the military, art, and religion from a number of different case studies in order to understand how the Roman Empire both shaped and was shaped by those living within its territory.
Candace Rice
CLAS1160: CLASSICS OF INDIAN LITERATURE
This course will introduce, in English translations, the most powerful examples of the literature of India. The course will introduce students to India’s unparalleled literary richness by reading selections of the best poetry, drama, and narrative literature of Indian civilization from any of its many languages (Sanskrit, Tamil, Hindi, Bengali, etc., and English), ancient and modern.
David Buchta
CLAS1220: THE FALL OF EMPIRES AND RISE OF KINGS: GREEK HISTORY 478 to 323 BC
The Greek world was transformed in less than 200 years. The rise and fall of Empires (Athens and Persia) and metamorphosis of Macedon into a supreme power under Philip II and Alexander the Great provide the headlines. The course covers an iconic period of history, and explores 6 life-changing events that affected the people of the eastern Mediterranean and the topics that allow us to understand aspects of life and culture of the peoples of the eastern Mediterranean. and through these transformations, offers insights into the common pressures that communities confronted.
Graham Oliver
CLAS1750P: HOMICIDE, REVENGE, & MARITAL DISASTERS: RECEPTION OF GREEK DRAMA IN ROME, ENGLAND, & JAPAN
We examine theater and its relation to society, particularly, its reflection of legal culture (detections of murderers, adulterers, and young lovers); we also examine law’s ‘theatricality’ (‘productions’ of trials). (2) We also explore more broadly how dramas were performed, using as comparanda Japanese Noh and Kabuki (in each, for example, we find all-male casting). (3) Attention is also directed toward twentieth century receptions of these plays; we focus largely on Japanese productions, particularly of Yukio Ninagawa, mastermind of Japanese theater who directed numerous Greek tragedies and Shakespearean plays in different venues, absorbing and subverting phenomena of traditional Japanese theater.
Adele Scafuro
EGYT 1100: ANCIENT VOICES: THE LITERATURE OF ANCIENT EGYPT
In 1800 BCE, the ancient Egyptian writer Khakheperreseneb declared that he could not write anything new because everything had already been said. By then, ancient Egypt had already established a complex body of literature that continued to develop over the next several millennia. This course examines literary, religious, historical, and philosophical writings from ancient Egypt, ranging in date from 2400 to 250 BCE, in order to investigate how those texts can enrich our understanding of Egyptian culture and how they relate to broader literary traditions from the ancient world. Selected texts include adventure tales, love poetry, myths, and autobiographies. No prerequisites.
Margaret Geoga
EGYT 1320: INTRODUCTION TO CLASSICAL HIEROGLYPHIC EGYPTIAN WRITING AND LANGUAGE (MIDDLE EGYPTIAN II)
Continuation of a two-semester sequence spent learning the signs, vocabulary, and grammar of one of the oldest languages known. By the end of this introductory year, students read authentic texts of biographical, historical, and literary significance. The cornerstone course in the Department of Egyptology - essential for any serious work in this field and particularly recommended for students in archaeology, history, classics, and religious studies. Prerequisite: EGYT 1310.
EGYT 1440: HISTORY OF EGYPT II
A survey of the history and society of ancient Egypt from the Ramesside Period to the Roman conquest (ca. 1300-30 BC). Readings include translations from the original documents that serve as primary sources for the reconstruction of ancient Egyptian history.
Leo Depuydt
EGYT 1465: LIFE ON THE NILE: ANCIENT EGYPT BEYOND THE PHARAOHS
The history of ancient Egypt is marked by the names of their great pharaohs and monumental buildings. But what about ordinary people who made up the majority of this fascinating culture, yet are not well represented in historical narratives? This course will explore what we know about the daily life of non-royal Egyptians by looking at the primary texts (in translation), art, and material culture of ancient Egypt. We will look at various categories of population, such as children, craftsmen, women, soldiers; and discuss such issues and topics as households, growing up, family, education, love, clothing, medicine, magic, and leisure.
Silvia Stubnova
EGYT 2210: INTRODUCTION TO COPTIC
Coptic, the last stage of the ancient Egyptian language, was written with essentially Greek alphabetic characters. An introduction to Sahidic, which is perhaps the best represented of the Coptic dialects. Sahidic grammar is explained, and some texts, mainly of a biblical and patristic nature, are read. Open to undergraduates with the consent of the instructor. No prerequisites, but a knowledge of Middle Egyptian or Greek would be helpful.
Leo Depuydt
EGYT 2300: READINGS IN ANCIENT EGYPTIAN
Advanced readings in ancient Egyptian texts in the original script and language. Readings will be selected from a particular genre, historical period, or site. This course is intended primarily for graduate students and may be repeated for credit. A reading knowledge of ancient Egyptian is required. A reading knowledge of both German and French is strongly recommended but not required.
Aurore Motte
GREK1050C: SOPHOCLES
An introduction to the study of Athenian tragedy. Thorough translation of one drama, with attention to literary analysis. Rapid survey of other Sophoclean plays.
Adele Scafuro
GREK1100: ADVANCED HOMER: THE ODYSSEY
Pura Nieto Hernandez
It is hard to imagine a more joyful way to acquire excellent control of Homeric Greek than by reading, in its entirety (if possible), Homer's wonderful and captivating work, the Odyssey. Though it can be a little time-consuming initially, students quickly become familiar with the syntax and the vocabulary, and find great pleasure in immersing themselves in this thrilling masterpiece.
GREK1820: GREEK LITERATURE SURVEY AFTER 450 BCE
Surveys Greek literature after 450 BCE. Authors studied include Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Herodotus, Thucydides, as well as the literature of the fourth century and beyond. Emphasis on literary interpretation and the intellectual currents of the times. Extensive readings in the original.
Stephen E. Kidd
GREK2020D: THUCYDIDES
Books I and VIII: language, mode of thought, and methodology; how the work was composed, historical problems; supplementary sources: epigraphical, literary.
Johanna Hanink
GREK2110F: GREEK PALAEOGRAPHY AND PREMODERN BOOK CULTURES
Introduction to pre-modern Greek book culture and the study of Greek literary scripts from classical antiquity to the Renaissance. Students become acquainted with the history of books, the context and agents of their production, and the transmission of Greek (classical as well as post-classical) literature. Training is provided in reading and dating different scripts and in editing ancient texts.
Byron MacDougall
HIST 1210A: THE VIKING AGE
For two centuries, Viking marauders struck terror into hearts of European Christians. Feared as raiders, Norsemen were also traders and explorers who maintained a network of connections stretching from North America to Baghdad and who developed a complex civilization that was deeply concerned with power and its abuses, the role of law in society, and the corrosive power of violence. This class examines the tensions and transformations within Norse society between AD 750 and 1100 and how people living in the Viking world sought to devise solutions to the challenges that confronted them as their world expanded and changed.
Jonathan Conant
HIST 1820B: ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY OF EAST ASIA
This is a lecture course on the environmental history of East Asia from prehistory to the present aimed at students with no background in either Asian or environmental history. Because little has been written about Korean or Vietnamese environmental history, it will mostly concern China and Japan, for which there are good textbooks. The course will also incorporate weekly primary source readings, or analysis of artifacts.
Brian Lander
HIST 1956E HOW AND WHY WE TALK ABOUT THE PAST: THEORY AND METHOD IN HISTORY
This is a class about historical method and theory. Among other topics, we examine the problem of testable, falsifiable and accumulating historical knowledge; how the internet is changing both 9 research methods and the presentation of knowledge; the ways that big subjects such as revolution and slavery are deployed for global vs national histories; the relationship of local history and the history of every-day activities to “larger” historical agendas; and how human population genetics is re-writing history. We read different kinds of historical prose, including books by several Brown historians, alongside fiction, including children’s picturebooks.
Jeremy Mumford
HIST 1963Q: SEX, POWER, AND GOD: A MEDIEVAL PERSPECTIVE
Cross-dressing knights, virgin saints, homophobic priests, and mystics who speak in the language of erotic desire are but some of the medieval people considered in this seminar. This course examines how conceptions of sin, sanctity, and sexuality in the High Middle Ages intersected with structures of power in this period. While the seminar primarily focuses on Christian culture, it also considers Muslim and Jewish experience.
Amy G Remensnyder
HIST1976C: ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, MINERAL: ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORIES OF NON-HUMAN ACTORS
More than other sub-fields of history, environmental history approaches non-human actors as agents in their own right. This forces a radical reconceptualization of the nature of the subject. What happens to our understanding of the past (and the stories we tell about the past) if we posit that mountains think, mosquitos speak, and dogs dream? Drawing on Science and Technology Studies, Thing Theory, and Animal Studies, this course examines such questions by decentering the human and elevating non-human actors within narratives of interactive networks. Short written assignments build on each other to culminate in a research project in environmental history.
Nancy Jacobs
HIST 1978B BEARER OF LIGHT, PRINCE OF DARKNESS: THE DEVIL IN PREMODERN CHRISTIANITY
Satan. Lucifer. The Prince of this World. The personification of evil in the Abrahamic traditions has gone by many names and titles. To premodern Christians, the devil was not an abstract entity; they felt the real presence of Satan and his demonic army all around them. This course explores the devil as a dynamic concept evolved in accordance with cultural and political priorities. It looks at the relationship between the premodern Christian perceptions of personified evil and the Jewish and Islamic traditions. It will also look at the ways in which misogyny and racism shaped ancient and medieval demonologies.
Charles Carroll
LATN1040B: VIRGIL: AENEID
Close reading of selections from all twelve books of Virgil's epic.
Andrew Laird
LATN1120D: ALCUIN
Alcuin lived a life of wide variety and accomplishment, not least as an important member of Charlemagne's inner circle and, like many at court, he wrote widely and in multiple genres. From his enormous output this course will focus on the large collections of poetry and letters. We will attend in both gatherings to theme, tone, style, and allusivity and, where appropriate, we will ponder alternate readings in a collection that has not been edited since the late nineteenth century.
J. Pucci
LATN1150: LATIN PROSE COMPOSITION
Review of the basic tenets of Latin syntax, composition, and style. English to Latin translation exercises will shore up composition skills, as we study the stylistic traits of seven Roman authors: Cato, Caesar, Cicero, Sallust, Livy, Seneca, and Tacitus. The course will proceed chronologically according to author. Class time will be spent on translation exercises and review, as well as the identification of the stylistic and syntactic characteristics of the seven authors under study.
Jeri DeBrohun
LATN2050: THEBES AT ROME: OVID, SENECA, STATIUS
This seminar studies the significance of Thebes, and the mythological stories associated with it, in the epic and dramatic poetry of the early Empire. The themes of civil war, identity (familial and political), and relations of power central in Theban mythology were useful for Romans to “think with” in the political, social, and cultural climate of the 1stc. CE.; also, the poets’ emphasis on Thebes provided a useful foil to that on Troy represented especially by Vergil’s Aeneid. We will focus in particular on Ovid Metamorphoses 3 and 4, Seneca’s Theban plays, and Statius’ Thebaid.
Jeri DeBrohun
MGRK2200: MODERN GREEK FOR CLASSICISTS AND ARCHAEOLOGISTS
This graduate level course promotes the acquisition and further refinement of the necessary translingual and transcultural skills to prepare students in the fields of Classics and Archaeology to carry out research in Greece and Cyprus. In addition, it involves training in linguistic skills that will enable students to study closely a range of texts of relevance to these disciplines. Primary emphasis will be on the development of reading, oral and aural skills using a variety of text and web based materials, of discipline specific content but also in professional and other communicative contexts of cultural currency.
Elissavet Amanatidou
RELS 1000: METHODS IN RELIGIOUS STUDIES
Intensive introduction to classical and contemporary theories of religion and the principal methods for the study of religion. Junior seminar for religious studies concentrators.
Stephen Bush
RELS1050G: ON THE MARGINS: JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN NON-CANONICAL TEXTS
Larry Wills
RELS 1325A: EDUCATING BODIES IN ANCIENT CHRISTIANITY
Education in the ancient Mediterranean world served multiple purposes. It formed citizens, moral and ethical agency, and religious identities. It took place in a variety of settings and through diverse disciplinary methods, physical, intellectual, and social. This course will examine the primary modes of instruction through which ancient Christians undertook self-formation: the family, the civic community, monasteries, and liturgical communities. Seminar. Prior coursework in early Christianity (RELS 0400 or 0410) or Classics recommended.
Jae Hee Han
RELS 1325C: THE VIRGIN MARY IN CHRISTIAN TRADITION
Who was the Virgin Mary? How did she become important, when and to whom? What was inherited? What was new? How were Mary’s meanings demonstrated? A study in the developing theological and devotional traditions regarding Mary the Mother of Jesus, focused on the first thousand years of Christian history. Major theological positions; relationship to pre-existing religious practices and goddess traditions; the role of popular violence; Marian piety; Marian relics; Mary as cultural metaphor. Seminar format.
Susan Harvey
RELS 1440B: THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF JAPANESE BUDDHISM
J. Thumas
This course explores the history of Japanese Buddhism through archaeological sites, artifacts, and interpretations. It aims to introduce students to the major contours of Japanese Buddhist history by examining the relationships between religious transmission, belief, ritual, and material culture. We will first focus on the major issues surrounding material culture in the study of Buddhism, and religion more broadly. The remainder of the course will consist of an survey of the chronological transmission and development of Buddhism in Japan in the early and medieval periods through case studies of specific sites, objects, architectural features, sculpture, and human remains.
RELS1500: FROM MOSES TO MUHAMMAD: PROPHETS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD
The figure of "the Prophet" forms the backbone to many of history’s major religions. From well-known prophets like Moses and Muhammad to more obscure figures like Mani, ancient prophets claimed to have unique access to God(s). Yet the concept of prophethood, and its twin, “prophecy,” was as diverse as those who claimed its mantle. This seminar will explore ancient discourses of prophethood and prophecy from the Ancient Near East up to the early medieval era. Our reading selection will include the Hebrew Bible, apocalypses, Greek theories of divination, the Manichaean corpus, the Qur’an, and other “non-canonical” texts.
Jae Hee Han
RELS1530F: THE HISTORY OF EMOTIONS AND MEDIEVAL ISLAMIC TRADITION
In this advanced course (open to graduate students) we will explore the history of emotions in contemporary historical theory and scholarship in conjunction with medieval Islamic tradition literature and medieval biographical and hagiographical texts. The goals of the course are to understand how emotions have been studied by historians and scholars of religion and to apply a history of emotions approach to our readings of medieval Islamic texts. Prior courses in Islamic studies required, knowledge of Arabic or other primary-text language strongly preferred.
Nancy Khalek
RELS2100E: LITERATURE OF THE EARLY SECOND TEMPLE PERIOD
A close reading of selections from surviving literary texts of the late sixth century (e.g., Isaiah 56-66, Zechariah 1-8, Haggai) and and the fifth century (Ezra-Nehemiah, Malachi). Prerequisite: An advanced knowledge of biblical Hebrew and permission of the instructor.
Saul Olyan
UNIV2460: INTRODUCTION TO DIGITAL HUMANITIES
This course will introduce graduate students with the emerging field of digital humanities. We will cover some theoretical issues relating to digital humanities, but the main focus is practical. We will cover the elements of good project design and implementation, including standards, data architecture, access, preservation, usability, and grant-writing while also reviewing a suite of useful tools. Students will develop their own projects throughout the semester. No previous experience is assumed and all disciplines are welcomed. Instructor permission only.
Michael Satlow
SANS1020 EARLY SANSKRIT PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION
Reading in Sanskrit of selections from the Upanishads, Bhagavad Gītā, Dharmasāstras, etc. Prerequisite: SANS 0200.
David Buchta