This course deals with the samurai in Japanese history and culture and will focus on the period of samurai political dominance from 1185 to 1868, but it will in fact range over the whole of Japanese history from the development of early forms of warfare to the disappearance of the samurai after the Meiji Restoration of the 19th century. The course will conclude with a discussion of the legacy of the samurai in modern Japanese culture and the image of the samurai in foreign perceptions of Japan.

Topics Vary

Topics Vary

Topics vary

Topics vary

Topics vary

Topics vary

This course offers an overview of the cultural history of Rus from its origins to the eighteenth century, a period which laid the foundation for the Russian Empire. The course takes an interdisciplinary approach to the evolution of the main cultural paradigms of Russian Orthodoxy viewed in a broader European context. Although this course is historical in content, it is also about modern Russia. The legacy of Medieval Rus is still referenced, often allegorically, in contemporary social and cultural discourse as the Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian societies attempt to reconstruct and reinterpret their histories. In this course, students learn that the study of the medieval cultural and political history explains many aspects of modern Russian society, its culture and mentality.