Course Description
Through study of selected works of literature, philosophy, visual art, music and other performing arts, this interdisciplinary course presents the student with significant intellectual and artistic achievements of several cultures, including Mesopotamia (Iraq), Anatolia (Turkey), Persia (Iran), and Levant/Palestine (Israel, Syria, Jordan). The class will include a comparison of the values, motifs and aesthetics of these cultures to Western cultural expression. Extensive use will be made of multimedia resources in addition to reading and viewing assignments in specific discipline areas. IAI: HF 904N.
Prerequisite(s)
Appropriate assessment score or ENGL 1422 with a grade of C or better - Must be taken either prior to or at the same time as this course.
At the end of this course, students will be able to:
- Perceive past events and issues as they were experienced by people at the time, to develop historical empathy as opposed to present-mindedness.
- Acquire at one and the same time a comprehension of diverse cultures and of shared humanity.
- Comprehend the interplay of change and continuity, and avoid assuming that either is somehow more natural, or more to be expected, than the other.
- Prepare to live with uncertainties and exasperating, even perilous, unfinished business, realizing that not all problems have solutions.
- Understand the relationship between geography and history as a matrix of time and place, and as a context for events.
Topical Outline
1. Introduction to the Course Material; Visual Arts as Record of Ancient History
2. Prehistory in Mesopotamia; Messages in Rock Art; Symbolism in Animal Narratives, Emerging Social Complexities and Invention of Cuneiform
3. Sumer and Neo-Sumer; The Cityscape and its Temple: Cylinders, Stele, Statuary
4. Akkad and Old Babylon: Narratives of royal ideology: Frescos, Exotica, and Gardens
5. Mesopotamia and Middle Bronze Age in Syria: Mud houses and new architecture; Pasture land: the growth of nomadism, Terracotta figurines—gender, sexuality, materiality, and the body
6. Rock-cut sanctuary in ritual and ceremony; the archeology of performance
7. Neo-Babylon and Achaemenid Persia: Cyrus to Darius III
8. Late Bronze age: Royal ideology, art and technology: new architecture and cities
9. The Assyrian and Persian Empires: Nature as public space: Rock reliefs, Glazed bricks
10. Two Nations: Byzantine Palestine and the ‘Jerusalem Kingdom’ (the State of Israel)
11.Art symbolism in Israel 1948-1988: What is ‘War Art’? What creates culture?
2. Prehistory in Mesopotamia; Messages in Rock Art; Symbolism in Animal Narratives, Emerging Social Complexities and Invention of Cuneiform
3. Sumer and Neo-Sumer; The Cityscape and its Temple: Cylinders, Stele, Statuary
4. Akkad and Old Babylon: Narratives of royal ideology: Frescos, Exotica, and Gardens
5. Mesopotamia and Middle Bronze Age in Syria: Mud houses and new architecture; Pasture land: the growth of nomadism, Terracotta figurines—gender, sexuality, materiality, and the body
6. Rock-cut sanctuary in ritual and ceremony; the archeology of performance
7. Neo-Babylon and Achaemenid Persia: Cyrus to Darius III
8. Late Bronze age: Royal ideology, art and technology: new architecture and cities
9. The Assyrian and Persian Empires: Nature as public space: Rock reliefs, Glazed bricks
10. Two Nations: Byzantine Palestine and the ‘Jerusalem Kingdom’ (the State of Israel)
11.Art symbolism in Israel 1948-1988: What is ‘War Art’? What creates culture?