History

In this course, students engage critically with key historical, cultural, and conceptual developments in Persian history and civilization. They study the texts (in translation) and aspects of the material culture of Iran in order to analyze the methodologies of specific writers, historians, historiographers, artists, patrons, or audiences who crafted various cultural signifiers. In the process students are encouraged to situate those developments within their specific historical and cultural contexts. In this way, students gain an understanding of how Persia developed, both as a nation and as a concept. This course develop students' analytical skills and their ability to read historical texts and literary texts, together with visual images. The course also brings students an awareness of how Iran influenced, and was influenced by, other societies, and identify the changing role the country has played on the international scene.

The 19th century saw a dramatic reversal of fortunes for Korea. From the longest-ruling dynasty in East Asia (518 years), the demise of the Choson dynasty (1392-1910) precipitated the loss of national sovereignty as Korea was colonized by Japan. Subsequent events - including colonial industrialization, the struggle for independence, and the division of the peninsula into North and South - have only added to the challenge of evaluating the legacies of the Choson dynasty. How did Confucianism influence Korean society? Why did Korea fail to maintain its sovereignty in the nineteenth century? What are the roots of capitalism in Korea? What set North Korea on a different trajectory than the South? This course answers these questions through a survey of the major historical issues that have shaped Korean society and culture from the early modern period through to the present. As well as covering developments in Choson society and Korea's turbulent experience of imperialism, capitalism, nationalism, conflict, and political change, this course also introduces students to the major historical debates that have shaped our knowledge of Korea today.

The millennium following the collapse of the Roman Empire saw the development in Europe of a radically new form of civilization now called "medieval." With its nuns and monks, knights and nobles, troubadours and artists, plagues and famines, crusades and cathedrals, and cities and castles, the Middle Ages left an indelible mark on the western world. Rome, the city of the Popes, played a key role in medieval western civilization and was the center of a long-lasting tradition of pilgrimage to the apostles' and martyrs' relics preserved in its many churches. This course is intended as a broad survey of medieval culture and history with a specific emphasis on Rome. The course takes advantage of the city's abundance of medieval monuments and works of art: mosaics and paintings, sculptures, and religious architecture, which are analyzed in comparison to the artistic production of the rest of Europe, the Byzantine East, and other cultural contexts such as the Islamic world. The reading of relevant historical and literary texts completes the course.

This course explores the concepts of nation and identity in modern France via its cultural, political, and intellectual history. It examines key ideas developed by some of the most influential modern French thinkers. Each week students consider a handful of central ideas, contained in short slogans or quotations, which is then developed more fully in accompanying texts. Students discuss the ideas developed in these texts, relating them to broader course questions and to their own experience in contemporary Paris.

Japan, as recent history has powerfully illustrated, is one of the world’s most earthquake-prone countries. Today it is also one of the best prepared to face such extraordinary seismic risk. This was not always the case.

Using earthquakes as a window into Japanese society, this course examines when, how, and why contemporary Japan became a nation prepared for disaster as we know it today.  The course explores interconnections between nature, politics, education, economics, ideology, and the built environment in new and exciting ways. It considers earthquakes as events that not only cause suffering and devastation, but occurrences that inspire opportunism and unleash contestation. The themes and questions we explore remain relevant to Japan today.

This course will adopt an interdisciplinary approach and use a range of primary source material to explore topics including vulnerability and resilience; survivor accounts; visual representations of destruction in art and media; relief; reconstruction; political use of catastrophe; commemoration; disaster education and training.

Students will acquire a sophisticated understanding of the following: how earthquakes have been interpreted, explained, and remembered in Japanese culture and society; how governments use disasters and reconstruction processes that follow for political purposes; how and why earthquakes often expose underlying tensions in society and result in competing visions for post-disaster rebuilding and the future. Students completing this course will have a detailed understanding of how disasters have shaped Japanese history, culture, and society.