VT: Topics in Cultural Interpretation & Intellectual History

Examination of the different interpretive frameworks that have been used to study Middle Eastern peoples, cultures and topics through readings from ancient, medieval and contemporary sources that describe or define elements of Middle Eastern cutlure or propose research models for the interpretation of Middle Eastern topics. All materials will be in English but will include a wide range of Middle Eastern and Western original and scholarly sources; all will illustrate by example the wide range of ways that Middle Eastern peoples, cultures, times, and places have been interpreted and transmitted. Examples of topics may include the following: The Crusades Then & Now; Interpretations of Jerusalem Through Time; Literary Depictions of the Middle East; Studies in Orientalism.

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