Readings in Akkadian literary texts from ancient Mesopotamia.

A continuation of First Year Akkadian I, this class teaches the grammar of the Akkadian language with emphasis on developing skills in the cuneiform writing system and reading of selected texts.

The course will be an introduction to the writing, grammar, and literature of Demotic, the phase of the language in use during the latter periods of Egyptian history.

A continuation of 1st Year Akkadian I, this class builds on the lessons of that class on the grammar of the Akkadian language with emphasis on developing skills in the cuneiform writing system and reading of selected texts. To take this class without first having taken 1st Year Akkadian I requires permission of the instructor.

Thousands of years after the pyramids were built and the last hieroglyphs were written, ancient Egypt remains a source of mystery and intense interest. Why are we so fascinated with ancient Egypt, and what does that fascination reveal about us? This course explores the reception history of ancient Egypt: how people in various periods and areas of the world have thought about ancient Egypt, what it has meant to them, why they were interested in it, and how they brought the ancient Egyptian past into the present. We will focus not on ancient Egypt itself, but on the history of perceptions of, ideas about, and interactions with ancient Egyptian culture. Our investigation will include how Egyptians of later periods thought about their ancient past, as well as European and American representations (and appropriations) of ancient Egypt. A major focus of the course will be the impact of political and cultural relations between Egypt and the West on perceptions and uses of ancient Egyptian culture.
This interdisciplinary course will combine multiple areas of history—intellectual, cultural, and political—and multiple types of sources, including historical writing, literature, film, and opera. Beginning with ancient Greek and Roman visitors to Egypt, we will investigate changing modes of understanding, constructing, and representing ancient Egypt, from the medieval sultans of Egypt to Mozart to W. E. B. DuBois to protesters in Egypt’s 2011 revolution.
Over the course of the semester, we will explore questions such as:
- What does it mean to think of Egypt as African vs. Middle Eastern vs. Mediterranean? Is Egypt Western, Eastern, both, or neither?
- To whom does ancient Egyptian heritage belong? How do colonialism and conceptions of race and ethnicity factor into this question?
- How do the past and the present shape each other? What is the impact of modern politics and culture on perceptions of the past? What role does the past play in the formation of modern political, social, and cultural identities?
- How can we learn about modern problems and concerns from representations of the past?

This course introduces students to selections from the best literary works written in Hebrew over the last hundred years in a relaxed seminar environment. The goal of the course is to develop skills in critical reading of literature in general, and to examine how Hebrew authors grapple with crucial questions of human existence and national identity. Topics include: Hebrew classics and their modern "descendents," autobiography in poetry and fiction, the conflict between literary generations, and others. Because the content of this course changes from year to year, students may take it for credit more than once. This course is conducted in Hebrew and all readings are in Hebrew. Grading is based primarily on participation and students' literary understanding.

The body has long been the focus of social and scientific inquiry, as well as the foundation of religious, philosophical, and artistic thought. This seminar examines premodern and modern notions of the body in the Middle East as they intersect with colonialism, nationalism, religion, labor, law, military, gender, race, medicine, and art. Students use the notion of the body as a "useful" historical category to investigate the broader social, cultural, and political transformations occurring in the Ottoman Empire and Qajar Iran, followed by post-empire and colonial modern Middle Eastern contexts. The course addresses diverse views and theories as manifested in the constructions and practices over the body by using literary texts, primary sources, medical recipes, religious orders, and even public monuments to unearth the role of the body in the making of Middle Eastern history.

Visual expression was first developed in Mesopotamia in the same environment as the invention of writing. This lecture class will introduce the arts of the major periods of Mesopotamian History ending with the "cinematic" effects achieved by the Assyrian artists on the walls of the royal palaces. The strong connection between verbal and visual expression will be traced over the three millennia course of Mesopotamian civilization from the earliest periods through the imperial art of the Assyrians and Babylonians of the first millennium BCE. The class and the assignments will regularly engage with objects in the collections and on display in the galleries of the Penn Museum.

Who could approach and speak with the Sumerian Queen? What rules governed a banquet with the Persian king? What was the most elegant way to drink wine? Where were the women in the Assyrian court? With hundreds of people crammed into a palace, was hygiene important? How were court guests treated? What games were played at court? Is the stereotypical image of the “Oriental” court characterized by lust, backstairs intrigue, flatteries, and secrets sustainable in the light of new evidence and theoretical approaches? The court at the same time is considered as a large amorphous body in a physical location or an institution, or a group of people, or even to particular events. This seminar style course considers Middle Eastern courts from the Sumerians through the Assyrian and Persian empires articulating shared and diverse features. Textual, visual, material and archaeological sources are considered through sociological and anthropological theories and core concepts such as groups, individuals, ultrasociality, proxemics, sociopetal, sociofrugal and purity to name a few. Comparisons with later courts in the Middle East are welcome.

Visual expression was first developed in Mesopotamia in the same environment as the invention of writing. This lecture class will introduce the arts of the major periods of Mesopotamian History ending with the "cinematic" effects achieved by the Assyrian artists on the walls of the royal palaces. The strong connection between verbal and visual expression will be traced over the three millennia course of Mesopotamian civilization from the earliest periods through the imperial art of the Assyrians and Babylonians of the first millennium BCE. The class and the assignments will regularly engage with objects in the collections and on display in the galleries of the Penn Museum.