Current Course Offerings: 2025-26 Academic Year

The Achaemenid Persian Empire (550-323 BCE) ruled communities stretching from Egypt and Greece to Central Asia and the Indus River. Persian rule transformed the eastern Mediterranean and Middle East: the Persians conquered the great civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt, they were the first rivals of the Greek world, and they impacted the formation of Judaism. This course will survey the political, cultural, religious, social, and economic history of the Persian Empire. Students will read primary written sources in translation such as Greek historical texts, Egyptian papyri, and cuneiform tablets. Students will also learn about the archaeology of the Persian heartland in Iran, as well as the Persian impact in places like Turkey, Israel, and Afghanistan.

The course provides an overview of medicine and medical practices from ancient Egypt between the 3rd millennium BCE to first millennium CE, primarily drawing on Egyptian evidence. Materials from neighbouring cultures are also included for comparative reasons. The focus of the class is on interpreting and reconstructing ancient healing practices and theories based on original sources (in translation) through a modern methodological approach, combining perspectives from both the humanities and the medical sciences. Both written and material sources are examined and discussed. One of the main objectives of the module is to make students aware of the importance of culture in interpreting ancient medicine.

The history of the hajj (Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca) reflects important political, theological, social, artistic, and technological developments in Middle Eastern and Islamic history. This course begins with an exploration of Mecca as a pilgrimage site before the Islamic era and continues with an examination of how the history of the hajj reflects and intersects with important moments and trends in the history of Muslims around the world from medieval times to the 21st century. We will discuss the significance of the pilgrimage especially during periods of transformation such as the fitna (civil wars) of early Islamic history, the rise of hadith scholars and the ulama as religious leaders in the Abbasid era, the aesthetic and political Ottomanization of the Arab world, British naval domination over the Indian ocean and colonization of India, the evolution the Saudi state and its religious program, pan-Islamic movement in the post-colonial era, and the growth of Muslim minority communities around the world in the 21st century.

Legal systems play an important role in the lives of vulnerable people. Courts both enforce laws which render people vulnerable in the first place and also help protect those same people from further harm. Because legal documents constitute our main source of information about the experiences of lower-status people, they are also important for historians of the Middle East. In this course, we use legal documents to learn about women, slaves, and non-Muslims. Students learn about women’s personal and property rights, their roles as petitioners and witnesses, and the intersection of public legal appearances with modesty concerns. We examine how enslaved people accessed court systems, and how the law treated those who were considered both possessions of others and, at the same time, possessors of free will. Finally, we explore the dhimma system; the existence of separate, non-Muslim laws and courts; and the experiences of non-Muslims in Islamic courtrooms.

Discussions of climate change and its repercussions for modern society have become pervasive in the media and in general social discourse. The past offers a deep timescale within which to examine the plethora of ways in which humans have interacted with their environment and responded and adapted to climate variability in various periods. However, when we find stories about past civilizations and their relationship with their environment in the media, these are almost exclusively framed as stories of unavoidable collapse. Is this legitimate, or over-dramatic? What can we learn from past societies and how they adapted to ancient climate change—or perhaps failed to do so? This course addresses the methods used to reconstruct past climate, the details of what we know about Near Eastern palaeoclimate, and the frameworks of collapse and resilience that are frequently employed in explaining episodes of rapid climate change in the Near East.

The course explores key aspects of the history of women, gender, and sexuality in the Ottoman Empire from the early fourteenth century until the empire’s collapse over the course of the First World War. It examines the experiences of women of various social and religious backgrounds, and the transformation of concepts and expressions of sexuality. Topics include gender and law, the harem as a social and political institution, discourses of sexuality, reproductive politics, women’s movements, labour history, fashion, and gendered experiences of displacement, violence, and war.

Demotic refers to both a stage of the ancient Egyptian language and the associated cursive script, which was in use for over a millennium (from the 7th century BCE to the 5th century CE). Various types of texts were written in Demotic, ranging from epic tales, scientific treatises, and religious texts to court documents, letters, and tax receipts. This course aims to introduce students to Demotic grammar and script. A small selection of original texts will be read once the grammar review is completed.

The course aims at improving reading proficiency in Demotic by studying a wide array of different text genres in original, including literary, para-literary, religious and documentary texts written in early, middle, and late Demotic. This will familiarize students with the grammatical, paleographical, and orthographical developments of the language.

This course focuses on the analysis of representative examples of both poetry and prose from various periods of Turkish literature. Students will gain familiarity with different literary genres, themes, and traditions. Focusing on major works, the course will enhance students' understanding of the cultural context in which the literature was produced. It will also help students further enrich their vocabulary and improve their grasp of grammatical phenomena.

This course examines Israeli society through the lens of Mizrahi experiences as depicted in literature and cinema. "Mizrahi," derived from the Hebrew word for "easterner," refers to Jews with origins in Middle Eastern and North African communities, primarily those who immigrated to the State of Israel after 1948. By engaging with works by Mizrahi authors, thinkers, filmmakers, and poets from the late 19th century to the present, we will explore how Mizrahi perspectives challenge dominant narratives of Israeli national identity and history.

The course introduces key theoretical frameworks for understanding internal Jewish ethnic diversity, including post-colonial hybridity, minor literature, and the longue durée of Arab-Jewish culture. Through close readings of literary texts and critical analysis of cinematic works, students will examine how Mizrahi cultural production responds to, resists, and reimagines Israeli society.

Course description to follow.

It's all Eve's fault! Or is it? For millennia, the character Eve has received the lion's share of the blame for "The Fall" for being the first to eat the forbidden fruit, and there is no question that this has had a negative impact on the treatment of women to this day. Yet Eve as "villain" is not the only possible interpretation of the story of the Garden of Eden. In this course, we will look closely at Eve's appearances in the biblical text and consider the story in its ancient context. We will then consider a wide variety of interpretations of Eve: ancient and modern; Muslim, Jewish, and Christian; scholarly and artistic. All readings will be in English.

Migration is one of the pivotal themes in the Bible and as such has had much resonance in different modes of biblical reception. Modern writers, artists, filmmakers, theologians, and political theorists continue to turn to the Bible to make sense of modern crises of mass migrations and questions of acculturation. The Bible by no means presents a single view of migration. Indeed, it is the diversity of viewpoints, always situated in particular narratives, that makes the Bible such a fertile resource for thinking about migratory experiences. This course focuses on the literary afterlives of biblical migrations with special attention to Joseph’s story, the story of the Exodus, and the Book of Ruth. We will also explore modern adaptations of these texts in art and film.

Thanks to its strategic location between Africa and Asia, its vantage point overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, and its role as a crucial (vital) stop for supplies and water before and after crossing the Sinai Desert, Gaza boasts a rich and complex archaeological and cultural heritage that spans thousands of years, bearing witness to its growth and prosperity during many periods of its history. At the same time, this very location has made Gaza a stage for successive wars throughout history—either to seize control of it or to use it as a passageway for ancient civilizations' armies coming from or heading toward Egypt. The recent conflict in the region has destroyed or threatened many of Gaza’s archaeological sites, meaning that understanding and documenting Gaza’s archaeological significance is of greater importance than ever before. This course will explore the archaeology of Gaza from the earliest periods to the Islamic period, focusing on key sites and examining challenges to heritage preservation in the region.

Course description to follow.

Can there be Hebrew literature beyond the State of Israel? In this course, we will read selected prose and poetry, with special emphasis on novel chapters (all in English) from the last two decades to explore Hebrew literature written in and about places outside Israel and Palestine. Through these texts, we will examine loaded terms like "homeland," "diaspora," and "nation" while exploring how they connect to personal experiences of love, estrangement, belonging, loneliness, and more. Students will explore themes of linguistic exile, Ashkenazi and Mizrahi Jewish heritages, the relationship between Jewish and Israeli identities in the 21st century, and how literature responds and reflects historical developments and crises.

The works selected include texts translated from Hebrew and works originally written in English by Israeli authors, with a special focus on literature about the Israeli experience in North America and Germany. The authors discussed will include Maya Arad, Ruby Namdar, Ayelet Tsabari, Mati Shemoelof, Sayed Kashua, Hila Amit, and others. Alongside these literary works, we will read key theoretical texts in diaspora studies to develop frameworks for understanding cultural movement, identity across borders, and how Hebrew literature positions itself between Middle Eastern and Global North contexts.

No prior knowledge of Hebrew or literature is required.