This course will explore the origins, the history and, most importantly, the literary and cinematic art of the struggle that has endured for a century over the region that some call the Holy Land, some call Eretz Israel and others call Palestine. We will also consider religious motivations and interpretations that have inspired many involved in this conflict as well as the political consequences of world wars that contributed so greatly to the reconfiguration of the Middle East after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, and after the revelations of the Holocaust in Western Europe. While we will rely on a textbook for historical grounding. the most significant material we will use to learn this history will be films, novels, and short stories. Can the arts lead us to a different understanding of the lives lived through what seems like unending crisis?

This course will explore the origins, the history and, most importantly, the literary and cinematic art of the struggle that has endured for a century over the region that some call the Holy Land, some call Eretz Israel and others call Palestine. We will also consider religious motivations and interpretations that have inspired many involved in this conflict as well as the political consequences of world wars that contributed so greatly to the reconfiguration of the Middle East after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, and after the revelations of the Holocaust in Western Europe. While we will rely on a textbook for historical grounding. the most significant material we will use to learn this history will be films, novels, and short stories. Can the arts lead us to a different understanding of the lives lived through what seems like unending crisis?

This course will explore the origins, the history and, most importantly, the literary and cinematic art of the struggle that has endured for a century over the region that some call the Holy Land, some call Eretz Israel and others call Palestine. We will also consider religious motivations and interpretations that have inspired many involved in this conflict as well as the political consequences of world wars that contributed so greatly to the reconfiguration of the Middle East after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, and after the revelations of the Holocaust in Western Europe. While we will rely on a textbook for historical grounding. the most significant material we will use to learn this history will be films, novels, and short stories. Can the arts lead us to a different understanding of the lives lived through what seems like unending crisis?

Analysis of the political use of force, both in theory and in practice, through analytical readings and study of selected wars. Readings include Sun Zi, Kautilya, Machiavelli, Clauseqitz and other strategists. Case studies vary but may include the Peloponnesian War, the Mongol conquests, the Crusades, the Crimean War, Russo-Japanese War, World War II, Korea, or the Falklands, among others, with focus on initiation, strategic alternatives, decision and termination. Some discussion of the law of war and international attempts to limit it.

This course offers a broad introduction to the history of medieval Europe roughly from the fourth century CE, when Roman civilization faced a series of crises that led to its eventual fall in the West and ushered in the Middle Ages, to the sixteenth century, when European society entered a new early-modern phase. As this is a long period, we will focus on themes that will help us explore some of the most important historical problems related to the period: why was it that a sophisticated and militarily superior Roman empire could fall to "barbarians"? How did political power transform into a feudal model? What did it mean to be a medeival knight? The Middle Ages are known as "an age of faith" but, at the same time, it was an age of questioning that invented the modern university--what roles did faith and knowledge play in the medieval world? It was also a time where many cultures, races and religions came into contact, both at home and in efforts at exploration and conquest. How did medieval culture handle difference, and how did that influence early-modern and even modern approaches? The class will involve a mixture of lecture and discussion, and will include visits to local museum and manuscript collections to provide students first-hand contact with the visual and material culture of medieval Europe.

A broad introduction to the history of Jewish civilization from its Biblical beginnings to the Middle Ages, with the main focus on the formative period of classical rabbinic Judaism and on the symbiotic relationship between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

This course concentrates on the economy of Europe in the Early Modern Period, 1450-1750. It was a time of great transition. Europe developed from an agriculturally-based to an industrially-based economy, with attendant changes in society and culture. From subsistence-level productivity, the European economy expanded to create great surfeits of goods, with attendant changes in consumption and expectation. Europe grew from a regional economic system to become part--some would say the heart--of a global economy, with attendant changes in worldview and identity. Economic intensification, expansion, globalization, and industrialization are our topics, therefore. Beginning with economic organizations and practices, we will consider how these changed over time and influenced society and culture. The course takes as its point of departure the experience of individual, working men and women: peasants and artisans, merchants and landlords, entrepeneurs and financiers. Yet, it argues outward: from the particular to the general, from the individual to the social, from the local to the global. It will suggest ways in which the economy influenced developments or changes that were not in themselves economic, shaped, and deflected economic life and practice.

This course concentrates on the economy of Europe in the Early Modern Period, 1450-1750. It was a time of great transition. Europe developed from an agriculturally-based to an industrially-based economy, with attendant changes in society and culture. From subsistence-level productivity, the European economy expanded to create great surfeits of goods, with attendant changes in consumption and expectation. Europe grew from a regional economic system to become part--some would say the heart--of a global economy, with attendant changes in worldview and identity. Economic intensification, expansion, globalization, and industrialization are our topics, therefore. Beginning with economic organizations and practices, we will consider how these changed over time and influenced society and culture. The course takes as its point of departure the experience of individual, working men and women: peasants and artisans, merchants and landlords, entrepeneurs and financiers. Yet, it argues outward: from the particular to the general, from the individual to the social, from the local to the global. It will suggest ways in which the economy influenced developments or changes that were not in themselves economic, shaped, and deflected economic life and practice.

This course concentrates on the economy of Europe in the Early Modern Period, 1450-1750. It was a time of great transition. Europe developed from an agriculturally-based to an industrially-based economy, with attendant changes in society and culture. From subsistence-level productivity, the European economy expanded to create great surfeits of goods, with attendant changes in consumption and expectation. Europe grew from a regional economic system to become part--some would say the heart--of a global economy, with attendant changes in worldview and identity. Economic intensification, expansion, globalization, and industrialization are our topics, therefore. Beginning with economic organizations and practices, we will consider how these changed over time and influenced society and culture. The course takes as its point of departure the experience of individual, working men and women: peasants and artisans, merchants and landlords, entrepeneurs and financiers. Yet, it argues outward: from the particular to the general, from the individual to the social, from the local to the global. It will suggest ways in which the economy influenced developments or changes that were not in themselves economic, shaped, and deflected economic life and practice.

The United States was not inevitable. With that assumption as its starting point, this course surveys North American history from about 1500 to about 1850, with the continent's many peoples and cultures in view. The unpredictable emergence of the U.S. as a nation is a focus, but always in the context of wider developments: global struggles among European empires; conflicts between indigenous peoples and settler-colonists; exploitation of enslaved African labor; evolution of distinctive colonial societies; and, finally, independence movements inspired by a transatlantic revolutionary age.