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All Courses in Archaeology and the Ancient World
The list below includes all courses ever taught in Archaeology and the Ancient World or in Old World Archaeology. For a listing of courses being offered in the current academic year, please visit "Current Courses". Past courses can be viewed by year, by instructor or by course title. The alphabetical listing by course title is the fastest way to browse all course websites.
Primarily for Undergraduates
ARCH 0030 Art in Antiquity: An Introduction
What went into the creation of the Parthenon? Who lived in the Tower of Babel? Why do we still care? This course offers an introduction to the art, architecture, and material culture of the ancient world. Things of beauty and of power will be explored, from Egyptian pyramids and Near Eastern palaces, to the 'classical' art of Greece and Rome.
ARCH 0033 Past Forward: Discovering Anthropological Archaeology (ANTH 0500)
Interested students must register for ANTH 0500.
This course offers a broad journey through the human past, from material culture crafted by our evolutionary ancestors to the remnants of the recent historic past. To facilitate this journey, the class explores the methods, concepts, and theories that anthropologists employ in the study of past peoples, places, and things. Case studies stretch across the globe. As a hands-on endeavor, archaeology focuses on tangible evidence. In this course, small-group discussion, laboratory, and field exercises will complement lectures, leading to an understanding of how anthropologists study the past and how that knowledge affects the present. LILE
ARCH 0050 Archaeological Fieldwork
Focuses on the aims, scope, and tools of field archaeology, and the nature of archaeological evidence. Emphasizes interdisciplinary fieldwork techniques and the composition, function, and responsibilities of an excavation staff. Examines systematic versus ad hoc excavations and their respective problems of preservation. Students excavate model sites in a laboratory and present a team report upon completion. Enrollment limited. Written permission required.
ARCH 0100 Field Archaeology in the Ancient World
Always wanted to be Indiana Jones? This course, focusing on the Mediterranean world and its neighbors in antiquity, interprets field archaeology in its broadest sense. In addition to exploring "how to do" archaeology – the techniques of locating, retrieving and analyzing ancient remains – we will consider how the nature of these methodologies affects our understanding of the past.
ARCH 0150 Introduction to Egyptian Archaeology and Art
An introductory survey of the archaeology, art and architecture of ancient Egypt, ranging in time from the prehistoric cultures of the Nile Valley through the period of Roman control. While the course will examine famous features and characters of ancient Egypt (pyramids, mummies, King Tut!), it will also provide a wide-ranging review of the archaeology of this remarkable land.
ARCH 0152 Egyptomania: Mystery of the Sphinx and Other Secrets of Ancient Egypt
The pyramids, tombs, and mummies discovered during the first excavations in Egypt created a colorful but highly romanticized image of this Land of the Pharaohs. More recent archaeological research has unearthed new details about the daily lives of the workers who built those pyramids, or Egypt's cultural and economic connections throughout the Mediterranean. This course will explore how both early and recent archaeology has enriched our perception of the Gift of the Nile, while still leaving more mysteries yet to solve. FYS.
ARCH 0155 'People Without History': Archaeology of Atlantic Africa and the Diaspora
Too often 'Western' historical narratives consider Africans and African Diasporans as 'People Without History'. Such a notion also refers to peoples who cultures do not, or possess few formally written histories. This class employs archaeological evidence in order to dismantle the colonial library, exploring local histories that have been erased, silenced and marginalized, investigating histories of imperialism, colonialism, genocide, slavery, resistance and black nationalism.
ARCH 0156 Architecture and Urbanism of the African Diaspora (HIAA 0770)
Interested students must register for HIAA 0770.
This lecture course introduces the built environments in and of "Africa," from the earliest known examples to the contemporary moment. Through a consideration of texts and images, we will interrogate "Africa" as both a construct and concrete geographical entity characterized by diverse cultures, contexts, and histories. In addition to exploring the content of various architectural and urban traditions, we will approach our topic from the point of view of the theoretical paradigms that have governed the historiographical interpretation of particular periods, regions, and cultures. Readings will be arranged thematically and according to chronology and geography. Weekly one-hour section required. DPLL WRIT
ARCH 0160 Buried History, Hidden Wonders: Discovering East Asian Archaeology
What do Peking Man, human sacrifice, buried armies, lost cities, silk routes and treasure fleets have to do with one another? All are part of the rich and varied legacy of East Asian archaeology, which is today being re-written by spectacular new discoveries little known in the West. Beginning with Asia's earliest hominid inhabitants, this course will explore the emergence of agriculture, early cities, empires, and world trade, in a colorful palimpsest of archaeological discovery.
ARCH 0161 Arts of Asia (HIAA 0021)
Interested students must register for HIAA 0021.
From sacrificial cauldrons to sunflower seeds, and Roman Buddhas to five-toed dragons, this course introduces the incredible diversity of traditions that collectively constitute the arts of Asia. Organized around a series of case studies of exemplary objects, the course explores the temporal, geographic, material, and thematic range of Asian art through the life stories of individual things. Tracing histories of human ingenuity and value, we will examine the ways these things changed the people who saw them and were themselves changed in the process of being seen. And we will come to know them through the ways they change us. WRIT
ARCH 0162 Introduction to Chinese Art and Culture (HIAA 0040)
Interested students must register for HIAA 0040.
ARCH 0163 Ancient China: Art and Archaeology (HIAA 0110)
Interested students must register for HIAA 0110.
An introduction to Chinese art and culture, focusing on recently excavated evidence of material culture from the Stone Age through the Han Dynasty. Students will learn to use the materials and methods of archaeology, art history, and the history of technology, as well as readings in history, literature, and philosophy to interpret excavated materials. Weekly one-hour conference required.
ARCH 0164 The Art of Enlightenment (HIAA 0022)
Interested students must register for HIAA 0022.
This course surveys the history of Buddhist art-making from the earliest representations of the Buddha to the curatorial practices of modern museums. Ranging from the great mandala of Borobudur in Java to the Zen monasteries of Japan, we will examine the complex ways in which theology and scripture interacted with the particularities of time and place in the long development of Buddhist art. Throughout these inquiries, the sensorial qualities of the art will remain at the forefront of our analysis. Together, we will explore the mechanisms by which artists transformed inert matter into powerful implements of the Buddhist dharma. WRIT
ARCH 0200 Sport in the Ancient Greek World
Athletics and sports were as popular and significant in the ancient Greek world as they are today, and so offer an excellent introduction to its archaeology and history. This class will discuss the development of Greek athletics, the nature of individual events, the social implications of athletic professionalism, women and athletics, and the role of sport in Greek education.
ARCH 0201 Sport in the Ancient Greek World (CLAS 0210 O)
Interested students must register for CLAS 0210O.
Athletics and sports were as popular and significant in the ancient Greek world as they are today, and so offer an excellent introduction to its archaeology and history. This class will discuss the development of Greek athletics, the nature of individual events, the social implications of athletic professionalism, women and athletics, and the role of sport in Greek education.
ARCH 0201L Who Owns the Classical Past? (CLAS 0210 L)
Interested students must register for CLAS 0210 L.
This course offers a forum for informed discussion of a variety of difficult questions about access to the classical past, and its modern-day ownership and presentation, seen primarily from the perspective of material culture (archaeology, art, museum displays, etc.). Enrollment limited to 20 first year students. FYS.
ARCH 0203 Who Owns the Past? (ANTH 0066D)
Interested students must register for ANTH 0066D.
Examines the role of the past in the present. Using examples from the U.S. and other parts of the world, we will look at how archaeological evidence is implicated in contemporary cultural and political issues. Students will learn that the past is not just the focus of archaeologists' interest and scientific inquiries, but is also a subject romanticized by antiquarians, mobilized in nation-building, marketed for profit, re-enacted as entertainment, consumed by tourists, and glorified in commemoration. Understanding these different and competing valuations, claims, and uses of the archaeological past will provide an introduction to why the past matters in the present and to the future. Enrollment limited to 20 first year students. FYS.
ARCH 0220 Fake! History of the Inauthentic
What is a fake? Who gets to decide what is authentic? Greek statues, Chinese bronzes, Maya glyphs. Have fraudulent objects always existed? Galileo's signature, a centaur's skeleton, Buddhas bearing swastikas. Are all fakes the same? If not, how are they different? Why do people make forgeries? This course revolves around the history of the inauthentic through a diachronic exploration of objects. WRIT. FYS.
ARCH 0221 Fake: A History of the Inauthentic (HMAN 0900B)
Interested students must register for HMAN 0900B.
What is a fake? Are "fake" and "authentic" absolute and antithetical categories? Who gets to decide what is authentic? Greek statues, Chinese bronzes, Maya glyphs—what gets faked and why? Have fakes always existed? Galileo's moons, a centaur's skeleton, Buddhas bearing swastikas—are all fakes the same? If not, how are they different? Why do people make fakes? Who wins? Who loses? This course revolves around the history of the inauthentic through a diachronic exploration of art objects and other forms of material culture. We will range widely in time and space, focusing primarily on the pre-modern. FYS
ARCH 0250 Intimate Stories
Images tell stories that carry us to imaginary worlds other than our own. An arresting story in pictures engages us deeply, opening the doors of fantastic places and times. In antiquity many architectural monuments displayed pictorial narratives that animated public spaces and enthralled broad audiences. This course explores cultural aspects of visual narrative imagery from Western Asian and Mediterranean worlds.
ARCH 0251 Intimate Stories: Narrative in Ancient Visual Culture (ASYR 0400)
Interested students must register for ASYR 0400.
Images tell stories that carry us to imaginary worlds. A story in pictures engages us deeply, opening the doors of fantastic places and times. In antiquity public monuments displayed visual narratives that animated public spaces, enthralled audiences and delivered state ideologies. This course involves reading narrative imagery from the Middle East and East Mediterranean including magical hunt scenes in prehistoric caves, political tales on Mesopotamian relief sculpture, visions of paradise in Egyptian tombs, Aegean frescoes and Assyrian reliefs of exotic landscapes. Using contemporary perspectives on art, we will explore the material power and everyday significance of pictorial representations as intimate spectacles. FYS. WRIT.
ARCH 0253 Monsters & Demons at the Dawn of Civilization (ASYR 0350)
Interested students must register for ASYR 0350.
What exactly do monsters do for us? Why do we create, deploy, and ultimately destroy them? What might they tell us about the peoples among whom they sprang up and roamed? This first year seminar explores the rise of monsters in the visual and literary arts of the first cities in human history, and their development alongside the growing urbanization of the ancient Near East.
ARCH 0260 Stealing History: Looting, Treasure Hunting and Other Bad Things
How do people get away with it? Who do we blame for it? How do we punish it? "It" is the archaeologists' worst nightmare: looting, treasure hunting, and the other bad things that can happen to the archaeological record - a finite and exhaustible resource. This seminar will consider how objects are looted, sold, and collected, and what mechanisms - legal, moral, military - can be used to prevent such destructive activities.
ARCH 0270 Troy Rocks! Archaeology of an Epic
What do Brad Pitt, Julius Caesar, Dante, Alexander the Great, and countless sports teams have in common? The Trojan War! This course will explore the Trojan War not only through the archaeology, art, and mythology of the Greeks and Romans but also through the popular imaginings of cultures ever since, to figure out what "really" happened when Helen ran off and Achilles got angry and the Greeks came bearing gifts.
ARCH 0293 Postcolonial Matters: Material Culture between Colonialism and Globalization (ANTH 0066T)
Interested students must register for ANTH 0066T.
This course is about things - 'stuff' - as it is about people past and present and their entanglements in and through colonial situations. It explores colonialism past and present through the combined lenses of postcolonial theory and material culture - the emphasis is thus not so much on literary and figurative representations of colonial conflicts and engagements but rather on the material surroundings of people living those colonial worlds. In other words, this course is about what people did and about the things they used to construct their daily lives in colonial situations across the globe and through time. Enrollment limited to 20 first year students. FYS
ARCH 0295 Artifacts in Archaeology: Understanding Material Culture and Ancient Technologies
The manufacture of artifacts distinguishes us from all other species. However, archaeologists often struggle with interpreting material culture. This course will use case-studies to examine the artifacts that archaeologists most commonly recover: lithics, pottery and metallurgy, as well as glass, wood and bone. Students will consider the importance of archaeological material culture and the technological processes that produce these artifacts in aiding us to comprehend our human past.
ARCH 0300 13 Things
The course will explore a range of approaches -- material culture studies, science studies, design studies, consumption studies, the sociology of technology, archaeology, phenomenology -- in dealing with 13 things: the wheel, a Neolithic Megalith, an Ancient Greek perfume jar, the castle of Acrocorinth in Greece, a Moroccan watermill, a map, the pocket watch, barbed wire, the light bulb, a surgical blade, the portable radio, a Leica IIIc 35mm camera, and the personal computer. Returning to the etymology of a thing, the course argues that things are best conceived as gatherings of achievements that are neither wholly exclusive to any single era nor any immediate set of relations.
ARCH 0302 Object Histories: The Material Culture of Early America (HIST 0550A)
Interested students must register for HIST 0550A.
History is not just about people; it is also about things! Come explore the world of early America through the lens of objects--boats, dresses, plows, houses, wagons, watches, silver cups, wigs, blankets, land, gardens, hammers, desks--and the cultures that produced and consumed them. As a first year seminar, this course is designed to engagingly introduce students to the basic concepts of historical study. We will take several field trips to local historical sites, both on and off campus. Our primary focus will be specific objects and their contexts and histories. Enrollment limited to 20 first year students. FYS WRIT P
ARCH 0303 Tiny: Miniature Might and Meaning
Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, Easter Island heads—colossal artifacts are immediately recognizable as embodiments of power; the diminutive—though less theorized among archaeologists, anthropologists, and art historians—is just as potent and alluring. Even across vast stretches of space and time, tiny things enchant and incite wonder. A microscopic Bible, a Renaissance micro-mosaic, a sculpture of hell complete with sinners carved out of a human tooth. This course is a cross-cultural exploration of the power of the miniature, the undersized, the teeny-weeny.
ARCH 0305 Glass from the Past: Glimpses into the History, Technology, and Artistry of Molten Material Culture
Glass is unquestionably a fundamental part of modern life, but what is the story of glass and what makes it special? We will trace the 5000-year history of glass, from its discovery in the third millennium BC to its mass production in the 19th-20th centuries, exploring themes like technology, innovation, and craft. Archaeological and art historical evidence will be combined with anthropological and ethnographic approaches, including discussions with artisans, museum visits, observing glassblowers in action.
ARCH 0307 Gold: The Culture of a "Barbarous Relic" (ANTH 0250)
Interested students must register for ANTH 0250.
An object of obsession for millennia, gold has recently witnessed a polarizing cultural politics. In congressional testimony former Fed Chair Ben Bernanke labeled it a "barbarous relic." Meanwhile a growing minority clamor for a return to the gold standard. Whether among medieval alchemists or modern financial wizards, whether in the eyes of Egyptian Pharaohs or Indian peasants, gold's special qualities have shaped cultural practice. This course explores the shiny yellow metal's cultural history, from its emergence as an object of desire, to the contemporary rejection of its role as the store of wealth resulting in its demotion to just another commodity. DPLL LILE.
ARCH 0310 Death in the Ancient World
Eventually, face it, you are going to die. Yet the attitudes brought to dying and death, and the manner in which human mortal remains are treated, vary immensely through time and space. This class will begin by exploring the anthropology and archaeology of death and by analyzing burial rituals in contemporary society, before turning to the 'death ways' of the ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern worlds.
ARCH 0311 Death and the Afterlife in the Ancient World (RELS 0750)
Interested students must register for RELS 0750.
This course focuses on the evolution of beliefs and rituals related to death in and around the Roman Empire, including Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and Near Eastern cultures. Using an interdisciplinary approach, we combine methodologies from Anthropology, Classics, and Religious Studies. Topics include myths of the afterlife; books of the dead, magic, and death rituals; divinization, heaven, hell, and Last Judgment; and the impact of Christianization on Roman understandings of death.
ARCH 0315 Heritage In and Out of Context
We understand the past in part through a complex blend of artifacts, monuments, and landscapes. Yet each of these categories poses major issues regarding their preservation, conservation and curation, and how we use them to educate and to indoctrinate. This course will not preach any specific line, but encourage students to debate these highly complicated issues. Case studies will include the international diaspora of antiquities from the Enlightenment to the present, the impact of war and revolution, and numerous aspects of museum practice.
ARCH 0320 Media in Archaeology, or Archaeology in Media?
Indiana Jones, Lara Croft, the Discovery Channel: media has, to an unprecedented degree, shaped public perceptions of the discipline of archaeology, its practices and its values. This course will build critical awareness of how the media uses archaeology and how archaeologists use the media, for good and ill. Students will create digital narratives from their own research, and become competent ambassadors for presenting archaeological research and work in a scientific and engaging way.
ARCH 0325 "Dead White Guys": Greco-Roman Civilization and American Identity
Why does classical antiquity matter? How did a group defined as white and European come to represent America's ancestors? And by emphasizing this "heritage," who do we exclude? This course looks at film, popular non-fiction, education policy, public art, architecture, and archaeology, to understand how the myth of Greco-Roman origins was adopted by America's founders, and how this affects issues of race and belonging today.
ARCH 0328 Visual Culture of Medieval Women (HIAA 0430)
Interested students must register for HIAA 0430.
The course considers the visual and material culture of women in the Middle Ages. We will examine women as the commissioners, creators and subjects of medieval art, architecture and popular culture. Case studies will be drawn from across medieval Europe, Byzantium, and Islam. Classes will consider: gendered and feminist perspectives in medieval history, art history and archaeology; the imaging of women in medieval art; archaeological approaches to gender and the analysis of gendered spaces; the art and architecture of female spirituality; and the representation of identity through the body and clothing.
ARCH 0330 Archaeology Under the Volcano
The volcano has come to represent a modern western conception of wild nature -- unpredictable and dangerous, 'red in tooth and claw' -- in authors from Byron to Freud, Derrida to Dickens. Archaeologists have brought similar attitudes to the study of volcanic eruptions such as Vesuvius and Thera in the Mediterranean world, and Xitle and Popocatepetal in Mexico. This course will begin with these literary and archaeological interpretations of volcanoes, then explore other non-western and indigenous perspectives. Our deeply embedded assumption of a sharp divide between 'nature' and 'culture' will be explored and questioned.
ARCH 0332 Classic Mayan Civilization (ANTH 0520)
Interested students must register for ANTH 0520.
Examines the history, culture, and society of the Classic Maya, with special emphasis on Preclassic precursors, dynasties, environmental adaptation, imagery, architecture, urban form, and the Maya Collapse.
ARCH 0334 Introduction to South American Archaeology (ANTH 0505)
Interested students must register for ANTH 0505.
The course examines the development of human cultures in South America, from the first Ice Age settlers to the arrival of the Spanish. Drawing on archaeological and historical evidence, it covers the complex civilizations of the Andex, including the Moche and Tiwanaku polities and the expansionist Inca empire. It also explores the archaeology of foraging societies throughout the continent and of sedentary societies in the Amazon region and northern South America whose complexity has only recently begun to be understood. The course concludes with a study of the Spanish Conquest and the transformation of indigenous societies during the Colonial period. DPLL LILE
ARCH 0335 Archaeology of the Andes
This course provides a survey of the archaeology of the Andean region of South America (parts of modern-day Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Chile, Colombia, and Argentina). From the arrival of the first Americans to the transformation of indigenous societies under Spanish rule, the course will introduce vital 'new World' civilizations such as the Moche and Inka. The course will also explore the politics and practice of archaeological research in the region today.
ARCH 0338 An Archaeology of Native American Art (ANTH 0066U)
Interested students must register for ANTH 0066U.
This seminar is an introduction to the art and material culture of the indigenous peoples of North America. The regional coverage includes the continental United States and Canada, focusing on the peoples of Northeast, Midwest, Southwest, Plains, Pacific Northwest, and the Arctic and Subarctic. Topics addressed include art and artifact, function and symbol, innovation and tradition, and museums and representational practices, ethics and repatriation. Special attention will be given to the changing relations between museums and contemporary Native peoples. The seminar will make extensive use of the archaeological and ethnographic collections of the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology. FYS LILE
ARCH 0340 Bad Things: Archaeologies of New World Vices
Drinking, smoking, prostitution, gambling, chocolate, and witchcraft – this may sound like a lot of fun, but are these bad things? Since the first European contact in the Americas, colonists were introduced to new substances, practices, and worldviews and brought their own vices to new territories. This course will use material culture to analyze the everyday lives of these New World inhabitants who were so good at being bad – and we will discuss how colonial discourse and histories affect our lives today.
ARCH 0351 Introduction to the Ancient Near East
Interested students must register for ASYR 0800.
This course offers an introduction to the study of the political, social and cultural history of the ancient Near East, from prehistory to the end of the Iron age (ca. 330 BC). Both literary sources and archaeological evidence are examined as relevant. Near East is understood here in its widest geographic extent, including primarily the Mesopotamian lowlands, Iranian and Syro-Anatolian highlands, as well as the Levantine coast. The course not only offers a foundational survey of the historical developments in the region, but also addresses the broader methodological and historiographic problems involved in Near Eastern studies. State formation and the development of complex societies, cult practices and cuneiform literary traditions, art, architecture and material culture, issues of landscape and settlement systems, agricultural production, regional and interregional trade, and craft production will constitute the central issues in the course. WRIT
ARCH 0360 East Meets West: Archaeology of Anatolia
The crossroads between East and West in the ancient Mediterranean, Anatolia (modern Turkey) gave rise to the great Hittite Empire, the legendary kings Croesus and Midas, and was the scene of battles between Greeks, Persians, Romans, Byzantines, and Turks for world supremacy. In this course, we survey the archaeological history of human settlement in Anatolia from the Ice Age to the Middle Ages, tracing changes in art, economy, landscape, and religion.
ARCH 0365 Byzantium-Constantinople-Istanbul: A City in Deep Time
Istanbul is one of the largest urban conglomerations in the world, and the only city straddling two continents. It lies on either bank of the Bosphorus, which has been for millennia a bustling maritime thoroughfare. From a boat on the strait one can see not only rising skyscrapers, but also minarets and church-domes, colossal suspension bridges and ancient city walls. This course will explore the rich and turbulent history and archaeology of this enchanting city from the Neolithic to the present. It will offer an in-depth look at urban topography and a survey of the vibrant literature written about Byzantium-Constantinople-Istanbul. WRIT.
ARCH 0370 Archaeology of Mesopotamia (Classics 1170)
A cultural and historical survey of Mesopotamia, tracing its origins and developments from prehistory to 6th-century Babylon. Both archaeological sites and literature are examined, as are works of art and sources for social and political history. Prerequisite: AE 3 or equivalent background in archaeology.
ARCH 0380 Archaeology of Iran (Anthropology 38)
An archaeological survey of the origins and development of the Iranian civilizations. Analysis of settlements, history, art, architecture, and characteristics of specific archaeological sites and their artifacts ranging from prehistoric to the Hellenistic period.
ARCH 0382 Pre-Islamic Empires of Iran (HIAA 0031)
Interested students must register for HIAA 0031.
Introduction to art and architecture of the Ancient Near Eastern empires that flourished between the 6th century BCE and the Islamic conquests of c. 630 CE. We will consider the material culture of the Achaemenids, Seleucids, Parthians, and Sasanians, empires that inhabited primarily the areas of Mesopotamia and the Persian plateau, but spread at times as far afield as the Mediterranean coast, Egypt, the Caucasus, and the Indus Valley. Lectures will prioritize close analysis of the most illuminating art and architecture, so that you leave the course knowing not only the material evidence but also current approaches to interpreting it. WRIT
ARCH 0390 Archaeology of Palestine (Anthropology 49)
Traces the prehistory of Palestine (modern Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan) from its beginnings in the Paleolithic to the end of the Byzantine period. Surveys history of archaeological research in this area, emphasizing significant excavations and their artifacts. Develops an understanding of the art, architecture, and modes of life of humankind from age to age, the changes introduced from one period to another, and causes and effects of those changes.
ARCH 0400 City and Sanctuary in the Ancient World
Examines the physical dimensions of the ancient city and the ancient sanctuary through archaeological evidence with special attention to aesthetic planning, urban planning and management, and the concept of public monumental art as developed in the ancient world.
ARCH 0401 Introduction to Medieval Art and Architecture (HIAA 0140)
Interested students must register for HIAA 0140.
A comparative examination of the three artistic cultures of the medieval Mediterranean: Islam, the Byzantine empire, and the predominantly Christian regions of western Europe. Medieval Jewish art is also treated. Topics include medieval attitudes toward the use of images, the architecture of worship (churches, synagogues, and mosques), royal and domestic art, and instances of contact among all three cultures. Weekly one-hour conference required.
ARCH 0402 Muslims, Jews and Christians in Medieval Iberia (HIAA 0460)
Interested students must register for HIAA 0460.
The cultural diversity of medieval Spain and Portugal is proclaimed by their Christian churches, Islamic mosques and Jewish synagogues. The three distinct cultures that produced these buildings lived together for centuries in medieval Iberia, sometimes in peace, sometimes not. For almost eight centuries (711-1492) writers, scholars and artists emerged from a cultural environment of intellectual borrowing nurtured by uninterrupted contact through marriage, conversion, commerce and travel. This convivencia of Jews, Muslims and Christians will be examined from the perspectives of literature, music, art, architecture, archaeology, and history. WRIT
ARCH 0403 Gothic Art and Architecture (HIAA 0440)
Interested students must register for HIAA 0440.
Examines Gothic art and architecture to explore its sources and "invention" in mid-12th-century France and to trace its varied manifestations in European art to the 16th century. Special attention is given to cathedral architecture and decoration. Weekly one-hour conference required.
ARCH 0404 Cathedrals and Castles (HIAA 0420)
Interested students must register for HIAA 0420.
The course aims to engage critically with the major architectural features of the medieval world: the cathedral and the castle. In addition to examining specific buildings as case studies, we will also interrogate the cultural context and the material culture associated with the construction, use and meanings of these important spaces. The course is arranged thematically rather than chronologically.
ARCH 0405 State of Siege! Walls and Fortifications in the Greek and Roman World
Warfare was endemic in the ancient world, and walls were therefore ubiquitous. This course will examine the most spectacular fortifications of the Graeco-Roman world, from Bronze Age citadels in Greece to the Roman frontiers. We will learn how to build walls and fortresses, how to defend them, and how to breach them by studying some of the best walls and famous sieges of Antiquity.
ARCH 0407 Hadrian's Wall.
Archaeological Skills, Methods, and History
on the Northern Roman Frontier
Explore the archaeology of one of Great Britain's grandest monuments, Hadrian's Wall, from the beginning of the fortification in 122AD to the present. Students will learn the basics of archaeological excavation, survey, and illustration, through hands-on, in-class labs – to understand the real, tangible ways archaeology can teach us about religion, race, the military, politics, architecture, and the everyday lives of people in Roman Britain. Note: this course can fulfill the archaeological methodology (field archaeology) requirement for Archaeology concentrators.
ARCH 0410 Mediterranean Bronze Age
Snake goddesses and bull leaping, labyrinths and gold masks, Linear B and Homeric heroes: these are only some of the most famous things about the Minoan and Mycenaean cultures of Bronze Age Crete and Greece. This class will also explore questions about the historicity of the Trojan War, trade and exchange; ritual landscapes; the origins of writing; death and burial; the eruption of the Theran volcano; and the collapse of the Mycenaean palaces.
ARCH 0412 From Gilgamesh to Hector: Heroes of the Bronze Age
Swift-footed Achilles, god-like Hektor, and Gilgamesh the tall, magnificent, and terrible! They are heroes of the Bronze Age, which produced the world's first cities, empires, and texts. This class explores the concept of "hero" by placing it within its eastern Mediterranean Bronze Age context, using archaeological evidence alongside contemporary and later textual evidence.
ARCH 0415 Of Chiefs, Princesses and Warriors: Exploring Different Iron Ages
This course is about the Mediterranean Iron Age. It examines indigenous communities of the first millennium BC in order to assess critically conventional and often stereotypical representations of Iron Age societies. Themes to be explored include the ever increasing social complexity of chiefdoms and states, princessly burials and warriors, and urban settlements and monumental architecture that allegedly mark the transfer of 'civilization' from East to West.
ARCH 0420 Archaeologies of the Greek Past
From Bronze Age palaces to the Acropolis in Athens and on the trail of Alexander the Great, this course explores the ancient Greek world through archaeology—using art, architecture, and everyday objects to learn about ancient Greek society, from the mysterious to the mundane. It also considers how we experience ancient Greece today, including questions about archaeological practice, the antiquities trade, and cultural heritage. WRIT.
ARCH 0421 Hellenistic Art (HIAA 0330)
Interested students must register for HIAA 0330.
ARCH 0423 Monuments and Monsters: Greek Literature and Archaeology (COLT 0811H)
Interested students must register for COLT 0811H.
ARCH 0425 The Agora: History at the Heart of Athens
Part city hall, part church, part mall, part stadium, part law court, part red light district, the Agora of ancient Athens has seen it all, from Neolithic to modern times. This "marketplace" is most famous for its Classical history, when figures such as Pericles, Socrates, and Demosthenes walked and talked there. This course, however, will consider the long life and impact of this civic space, including its ongoing and often problematic archaeological heritage.
ARCH 0440 Archaeologies of the Ancient "Middle East"
To understand the tensions of the modern Middle East, it is necessary to understand the region's past. This course will explore the archaeological history of Israel, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, not least the political and religious agendas that scholars brought to the study of these lands. Prehistoric and early historic developments will be emphasized: the earliest human occupation, the "Neolithic Revolution", and the rise of social inequality and political complexity.
ARCH 0445 Archaeology of the Bible
If all the places where text and material culture meet, the intersection of the Bible and the archaeology of the Holy Land is among the richest, and the most fraught. This class will explore the agreements, tensions and controversies between these two sources of evidence, from the early days of 'biblical archaeology' to the present.
ARCH 0450 Archaeology of Jerusalem (Judaic Studies 45)
Examines the archaeology of the city of Jerusalem from David's conquest in ca. 1000 B.C.E. through the Crusaders' defeat in 1187 A.D. The contemporary literary sources, as well as the more recent scholarly debates and discoveries, help us understand the material remains of the relevant periods.
ARCH 0451 Jewish Art and Architecture from Antiquity to Modernity (JUDS 0080)
Interested students must register for JUDS 0080.
ARCH 0475 Petra: Ancient Wonder, Modern Challenge
The rose-red city of Petra in southern Jordan is a movie star (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade). It is a tourist mega-hit (over half a million visitors annually). It was recently voted one of the New 7 Wonders of the World. This class will explore the history and archaeology of Petra and debate how best to present and preserve the site, as well as discussing (and planning!) Brown's ongoing fieldwork at this beautiful, but fragile, place.
ARCH 0520 Roman Archaeology and Art
Anyone who has ever watched "Gladiator", "Spartacus", "Life of Brian", or "Bugs Bunny: Roman Legion Hare" has some image of Rome, the Romans and their empire. This course, while exploring and assessing these influential popular preconceptions, introduces a more balanced view of Roman archaeology and art, examining not only the "eternal city" of Rome, but its vast and diverse imperial domain.
ARCH 0521 Roman Art and Architecture: Hadrian to Late Antiquity (HIAA 0380)
Interested students must register for HIAA 0380.
This course examines the surviving environments and artifacts created to suit Roman tastes in the high and late empires. It also provides an introduction to the relationship between Roman art and the art of emerging Christianity. Beginning with a study of Roman art in the high empire, and ending with its demise of Rome as a capital in the fourth and fifth centuries C.E., the course focuses on an especially creative and complex period in Roman visual, cultural and religious history.
ARCH 0522 Roman Art and Architecture: Spectacles and Entertainment (HIAA 0320)
Interested students must register for HIAA 0320.
Spectacles offered the Romans innumerable opportunities for self-definition, on the individual level, the community level, and even the imperial level. Performance art cuts across traditional boundaries between media, and we will examine total ensembles as often as possible. Topics will include the amphitheater and the circus, representations of gladiators and charioteers, the architecture of propaganda and theater, and the triumph of victorious individuals as well as its opposite, the literal defacement of imperial portraits. Domestic spectacles will also be considered, including pleasure boats and vacation homes, dining rooms, gardens and sculpture collections.
ARCH 0523 Roman Art and Architecture: Julius Caeser to Hadrian (HIAA 0340)
Interested students must register for HIAA 0340.
An introduction to the major monuments in Roman art at the point when the Empire emerged up to the time of the creation of the Pantheon. No prior background required.
ARCH 0525 The Other Side of Rome: Daily Life in the Roman Empire
What did the Romans ever do for us? Toilets, bars, firefighters, and dry cleaning, to name just a few things. Surprisingly, daily life in the Roman empire was not too different from our own. This course will examine numerous aspects of Roman life – including housing, street life, shopping, military, sanitation, and even sex – largely from the perspective of the archaeological evidence, especially from some of the best preserved cities, Rome and Pompeii.
ARCH 0530 Hannibal ad Portas! Fact and Fiction on Carthage and the Punic World
"Hannibal stands at the gates": Roman parents would terrify their children with these words. And many others have been haunted by Hannibal Barca: the Carthaginian general still fascinates the European imagination, not least his epic trek over the Alps with three dozen elephants. This course explores fact and fiction about Hannibal and his world, holding up historical and mythical records against hard archaeological evidence.
ARCH 0535 Labor and Technology in the Roman World
Recent television programs like the History Channel's Engineering an Empire depict the Romans as geniuses pursuing a "remarkably advanced" lifestyle, but who were the people behind these technological accomplishments and what were the implications for the average Roman? This course investigates the implications of Roman technology on daily life and labor. Topics include transportation and trade, agriculture, crafts production, mining, sanitation, and warfare. We will also explore issues concerning ancient and modern perspectives on Roman technology and labor. WRIT.
ARCH 0540 Art, Archaeology and Civic Life from the End of the Republic through the Early Empire, 40 BCE-140 CE
This survey course will familiarize students with the art, architecture and literature of Rome during the early Imperial era (ca. 40 BC - AD 140), through investigation of significant sites, monuments and museum collections in Rome and southern Italy.
ARCH 0542 The Visual Culture of Early Modern Rome (HIAA 0560)
Interested students must register for HIAA 0560.
ARCH 0550 Late Roman and Early Christian Art and Architecture
An introduction to the relationship between Roman art and the art of emerging Christianity. The course begins with the Pantheon and ends with the Hagia Sophia.
ARCH 0563 Toward a Global Late Antiquity: 200-800 CE (HIAA 0321)
Interested students must register for HIAA 0321.
Competing empires, the division of the eastern and western halves of Roman territory; long distance trade, the rise of monotheism, the spread of Buddhism: how did these factors affect the art and architecture associated with the Roman west, Constantinople, Ctesiphon, Alexandria, the Han Dynasty capitals, and Gandhara? This course takes an expanded view of Late Antiquity, extending beyond typical that associate the period with the post-classical west, to explore the dynamic creativity and intercultural connectivity of an era once considered a "Dark Age" in a world history. WRIT
ARCH 0600 Introduction to Islamic Archaeology
Muslim societies are built upon a rich archaeological heritage of architecture, artifacts, and sites that stretches more than a millennium and spans a region from Spain to China. This course explores that heritage across time and space for what it can tell us about the various societies that make up the Muslim world of the past. Through examination of various sites as well as hands-on work with a collection of artifacts, this course examines the social worlds of this important religious and cultural tradition.
ARCH 0643 The Architectures of Islam (HIAA 0041)
Interested students must register for HIAA 0041.
Through selected case study examples, the course examines the varied manifestations of Islamic architectures. The course spans fourteen centuries and three continents, and examines religious as well as secular buildings. We will trace the sources and 'invention' of Islamic architecture in the Umayyad dynasty of the seventh and eighth centuries, and will explore its varied manifestations up to the contemporary period. By examining cross-cultural and trans-regional interactions, we will also investigate the relationship between Islamic and non-Islamic architectural traditions. A WRIT
ARCH 0650 Islamic Civilizations
This introduction to ancient Islamic civilization will examine the interrelationship between the Islamic religion and development of Islamic culture. Students will use archaeology, political events, Islamic visual arts, and socioeconomic changes to explore the evolution and institutionalization of Islam, as well as looking at changing political and cultural attitudes and social structure.
ARCH 666 Cult Archaeology: Fantastic Frauds and Meaningful Myths of the Past
The pyramids and Stonehenge built by aliens? The power of the Mummy's Curse? These myths couldn't be true… or could they? Cult Archaeology examines popular and fantastic interpretations of archaeological remains presented in the press and popular media. This course finds the logical flaws in pseudoscientific explanations and the biases that underlie them. Discover the "truth" about archaeology!
ARCH 0676 Pirates of the Caribbean:
Scalawags, Sailors, and Slaves
Avast ye maties! Study the legendary bandits, mischievous scalawags, and barbarous buccaneers that roved the high seas of the Caribbean from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. Through archaeological and historical scholarship, we will explore pirates' everyday belongings, the goods they plundered, the hideaways they called home, the havoc they caused, and the legends they left behind -- including Blackbeard, Captain Morgan, and even Captain Jack Sparrow. We will also investigate the economics behind the rise of piracy, with an emphasis on the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
ARCH 0677 Pirates! Archaeologies of Piracy in the Atlantic World (ANTH 0515)
Interested students must register for ANTH 0515.
The figure of the pirate is an all-time favorite in Western imagination. It has inspired some of the most popular narratives of the past, solidly grounded in classic literature and contemporary visual culture. Focusing on the mid-17th century, the golden age of piracy in the Atlantic World, this course will use historical and archaeological date to investigate the way in which the image of the pirate has been constructed in the West, as an embodiment of cultural, legal, moral and sexual transgression, and as an object of both fascination and fear which is still current in the contemporary, global world.
ARCH 0678 Underwater in the Mediterranean: An Introduction to Maritime Archaeology
Shipwrecks, sunken cargoes, coastal ports: all contribute to our understanding of the maritime world of the past, not least that of the Mediterranean Sea. This course will explore the Mediterranean's ancient seafaring heritage over time, in particular by studying ancient ships and harbors as remarkable examples of social and technological innovation and enterprise. The methodological challenges faced by archaeologists working on underwater and coastal 'sites' will also be examined.
ARCH 0680 Water, Culture, & Power
Water is the source of life. In the midst of global climate change, environmental crises over water resources, and increasingly ubiquitous political debates over water, we are beginning to recognize humans' complete dependence on water. This course investigates our long-term attachment and engagement with water using archaeology, environmental history, and visual, literary and historical sources. From sacred spaces around springs to ancient cities by the sea, we will explore the cultural and political aspects of water beginning with the Last Ice Age and ending with late antiquity.
ARCH 0717 Architecture of the House Through Space and Time (HIAA 0081)
Interested students must register for HIAA 0081.
This undergraduate lecture course focuses on one building type, the house, through time in Mesopotamia, China, Japan, the Islamic world, the African diaspora, India, Britain, Rhode Island, and Germany and France. Houses can be minute or monumental, vernacular or high art, provide minimal shelter or afford the material and psychic satisfaction of home. By studying houses, we can bypass some of architectural history's biases, and explore some of the major debates in the discipline: What is architecture? Who determines what is included/excluded in this category? And on what basis do they make these claims? WRIT A
ARCH 0720 Pilgrimage and Travel in the Ancient World
From Canterbury to Mecca, Rome to Lake Titicaca, throughout history people have traveled far and wide, often under difficult conditions, to visit sacred places. But who were these people, where and why did they go, and how did they get there? This course will explore the practice and pragmatics of pilgrimage, relying on material and literary evidence from modern and ancient case studies around the world. WRIT.
ARCH 0725 Great Migrations: Mobility, Displacement and Material Culture in the Ancient Mediterranean
Migrations are the stuff that (pre)history was made of. This course will track some of the largest and most momentous displacements and movements around the Mediterranean, from earliest prehistory to the Middle Ages. Not all migrations consisted of marauding hordes, so this course will run the gamut from pastoral mobility to island colonization.
ARCH 0730 The Secrets of Ancient Bones: Discovering Ancient DNA
New analyses of ancient DNA preserved for millennia in bones and soils have revolutionized the field of archaeology. Suddenly, archaeologists have gained new insight into human origins and migrations, diseases, agriculture, and even the slave trade. Recent genetic case studies will provide a lens for learning about the archaeology of diverse world regions and time periods, from Oceania to Mesoamerica and from the Paleolithic through recent history. Topics will include: genetic relationships between humans, Neanderthals, and Denisovans; the peopling of the globe; diasporas; extinction and de-extinction; and plant and animal domestication.
ARCH 0740 Revolutions & Evolution in Archaeology
Humankind has had a revolutionary past -- or so archaeology would lead us to believe. The earliest evidence for language, ritual, and the arts -- dating back to the extinction of the Neanderthals -- is branded the "Human Revolution". The time when hunter-gatherers became farmers is known as the "Neolithic Revolution". And when they started living in cities, it was hailed as the "Urban Revolution". This course will explore the historical reasons for labeling "revolutions" in the literature, and consider these revolutions as gradual processes (evolution). WRIT.
ARCH 0750 Women in the Ancient Mediterranean World
Women represent half of humanity, but they have been greatly underrepresented in studies of past cultures. This course examines not only what women of the Near East, Egypt, Greece, and Rome actually did and did not do, but also how they were perceived in society. Focusing on material and visual cultures, but also incorporating historical and literary evidence, we will investigate the complexities of women's lives in the ancient Mediterranean, as well as the roots of modern conceptions and perceptions of women.
ARCH 0770 Food and Drink in Classical Antiquity
Everybody eats - but patterns of eating (and drinking) vary dramatically from culture to culture. This course traces the mechanics of food production and consumption in the ancient Mediterranean world, considers how diet marked symbolic boundaries and gender differences, and in general explores the extent to which the ancient Greeks and Romans "were what they ate."
ARCH 0771 An Anthropology of Food (ANTH 0680)
Interested students must register for ANTH 0680.
An exploration of the human experience of food and nutrition from evolutionary, archaeological, and cross-cultural perspectives. The course will review the various approaches employed by anthropologists and archaeologists to understand diet and subsistence in the past and present. Starting with the evolutionary roots of the human diet in Plio-Pleistocene Africa, we will trace patterns of human subsistence to the present, including the social and health implications of the agricultural revolution. We will then explore modern foodways in cross-cultural perspective, focusing on the interplay of ecology, politics, technology, and cultural beliefs.
ARCH 0775 Farm to Table: Foodways and Gastro-Politics in the Ancient Near East
This course provides an introduction to the culture, economy, and politics of food in the ancient Near East. We will not only investigate the day-to-day mechanics of food production, cooking, and consumption; we will also develop an appreciation for changing food fashions, for the etiquette of eating and drinking, and for the complex world of gastro-politics. We will even explore the ancient kitchen using our own hands, mouths, and stomachs as a guide.
ARCH 0800 Alexander the Great and the Alexander Tradition
This course focuses on a single historical figure, Alexander the Great, using him as a point of departure for exploring a wide range of problems and approaches that typify the field of Classical Studies. How knowledge of Alexander has been used and abused provides a fascinating case study in the formation and continuous reinterpretation of the western Classical tradition.
ARCH 0801 Alexander the Great and the Alexander Tradition (CLAS 0810A)
Interested students must register for CLAS 0810A.
This course focuses on a single historical figure, Alexander the Great, using him as a point of departure for exploring a wide range of problems and approaches that typify the field of Classical Studies. How knowledge of Alexander has been used and abused provides a fascinating case study in the formation and continuous reinterpretation of the western Classical tradition.
For Undergraduates and Graduates
ARCH 1010 Archaeology's Dirty Little Secrets
Admit it -- you wanted to be an archaeologist when you grew up... This course builds on that enthusiasm, while radically expanding your notions about just what archaeology is and just what archaeologists do. This class is a hands-on introduction to the often-fraught process of doing archaeology, and a hands-on collaborative workshop to develop one of Brown's three pilot on-line classes for Coursera, to be offered free to the world in summer 2013.
ARCH 1050 Old World and New World Perspectives in Archaeology
This course examines how archaeologists working on different sides of the world study the past. Archaeology in the Old World and New World has developed on parallel, but separate trajectories. While these approaches share methods and theories, they often interpret archaeological data in contradictory or alienating ways. In this course we will view archaeological topics from both perspectives, using examples from the Mediterranean and Mesoamerica, to try to better understand, and perhaps bridge the gap between some of our differences. Prerequisite: An introductory course in archaeology, either through the Joukowsky Institute or the Anthropology Department.
ARCH 1052 Global Historical Archaeology (ANTH 1620)
Interested students must register for ANTH 1620.
The course examines historical archaeology as a multidisciplinary approach to the study of the historic past. Draws in recent research from different parts of the world, including North America, South Africa, Australia, the Caribbean, and South America, to illustrate historical archaeology's contributions to interpreting peoples' everyday lives and the diversity of their experiences in the post-1500 era.
ARCH 1053 Global Origins of Plant and Animal Domestication (ANTH 1670)
Interested students must register for ANTH 1670.
A seminar providing the basic information on the prehistory of the Circum Artic of Northern Fenno Scandinavia, Russia, and North America. Not open to first year students.
ARCH 1054 Indians, Colonists, and Africans in New England (ANTH 1624)
Interested students must register for ANTH 1624.
The course explores the colonial and capitalist transformation of New England's social and cultural landscapes following European contact. Using archaeology as critical evidence, we will examine claims about conquest, Indian Extinction, and class, gender and race relations by studying the daily lives and interactions of the area's diverse Native American, African American, and European peoples.
ARCH 1056 Indigenous Archaeologies (ANTH 1125)
Interested students must register for ANTH 1125.
This course is an introduction to Indigenous archaeology, sometimes defined as archaeology "by, for and with Indigenous peoples." These approaches combine the study of the past with contemporary social justice concerns. However, they are more than this. In addition to seeking to make archaeology more inclusive of and responsible to Indigenous peoples, they seek to contribute a more accurate understanding of archaeological record. They thus do not reject science, but attempt to broaden it through a consideration of Indigenous epistemologies. This course covers topics as the history of anthropological archaeology, Indigenous knowledge and science, decolonizing methodologies, representational practices and NAGPRA.
ARCH 1057 Southwestern Archaeology (ANTH 1692)
Interested students must register for ANTH 1692.
This course is an introduction to the archaeology of the native peoples of the Southwestern United States and Northern Mexico. It discusses the history of the field and examines how it is currently re-engaging with contemporary native peoples. It emphasizes past and present cultural diversity and traces out long-term continuities in beliefs and practices. Special attention is given to comparing and contrasting three formative cultural systems - Chaco, Hohokam, and Paquimé - that linked the Southwest into a series of broad social, political, and ideological networks. Students will be introduced to the Southwestern collections of the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology. DPLL
ARCH 1100 Archaeology in the Age of Augustus
Rome's first Emperor, Gaius Octavian Augustus, ruled an empire stretching from Spain to Syria, from Britain to Egypt. Students will explore the social, artistic, and political successes and failures of this "golden age" of Rome's past. The course will assess a broad range of topics -- such as the creation of empire, art as propaganda, or the role of women -- within the context of Augustan ideology and history.
ARCH 1101 Age of Augustus: Topography, Architecture, and Politics (CLAS 1120T)
Interested students must register for CLAS 1120T.
Augustus Caesar boasted that he had found Rome a city in brick, but left it in marble. This course explores the transformation of Rome from an unadorned village to the capital of an empire. Was Rome's first emperor trying to fashion himself a Hellenistic monarch on the model of Alexander and his successors? Was he simply operating within republican traditions, which had been established through centuries of aristocratic competition at Rome? Our source materials will include ancient works of art and architecture, literary accounts, maps, and critical urban theory.
ARCH 1105 The Face of Power: Representing Roman Emperors
The infallible Augustus; Nero fiddling as Rome burns; Constantine the Christian emperor: the roster of Roman rulers includes some of ancient history's most beloved and notorious characters. Meet the men (and women!) who ran the Roman state, discover how art and architecture were used to craft a public impression of imperial power, and learn how material and literary sources have shaped emperors' post-classical reputations. This course will give special attention to how emperors attempted to appeal to diverse factions at home, while ensuring their power was legible to enemy competitors abroad.
ARCH 1107 Spectacle! Games, Gladiators, Performance, and Ceremony in the Roman World (HIAA 1304)
Interested students must register for HIAA 1304.
Theaters, amphitheaters, baths, circuses, and imperial residences pepper the former territory of the Roman Empire. Modern films conjure the fantastic, yet ephemeral, events of days long past, amplifying the fascination of these ubiquitous ruins. For the Romans, however, spectacle was not only about fun and games. What really took place in these spaces, and why? Learn to separate fact from fiction as we consider artistic, architectural, and archaeological evidence to understand how and why spectacles were fundamental to Roman daily life. WRIT
ARCH 1120 Pompeii
Pompeii is a dead city. Or is it? This course will explore what we can learn from Pompeii, and the neighboring communities also destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79. We will look at art, architecture (public and domestic), and all the many remains of 'daily life' so uniquely preserved in these buried, but not forgotten, places.
ARCH 1120L Archaeology of Feasting (CLAS 1120L)
Interested students must register for CLAS 1120L.
ARCH 1121 Pompeii: Art, Architecture, and Archaeology in the Lost City (HIAA 1303)
Interested students must register for HIAA 1303.
Buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE, Pompeii stands as a time capsule of city life in the Roman Empire of the 1st century. Exploring the city's grand public baths, theaters, and amphitheaters, its seedy bars and businesses, its temples for Roman and foreign gods, and its lavishly decorated townhomes and villas, this seminar will reconstruct a panoramic view of Roman daily life and consider the Vesuvian region's modern reception since its rediscovery in the 18th century. WRIT
ARCH 1122 Pompeii: Life and Death in the Shadow of Vesuvius (CLAS 1750S)
Interested students must register for CLAS 1750S.
On a late August(?) day in 79 CE, hot ash and lightning rained down on the cities southeast of Vesuvius for more than 12 hours before waves of rock and gases, traveling well over 100 mph, flattened everything in their path. The volcanic eruption was cataclysmic. Death was violent. Whole cities were engulfed, buried, and lost—until the mid-18th century. This course explores the daily life and sudden death of Pompeii and its residents. Topics may include decorative arts, housing, urban design and planning, water management, diet and physical health (using osteology), political life (using graffiti), religion, and urban prostitution.
ARCH 1125 Building an Empire: The Sacred and Civic Architecture of Ancient Rome
The Colosseum, Pantheon, and imperial palaces loom large in our impression of Roman civilization. Roman architecture set the standard for some of the most iconic buildings in the West. This course will examine the rise and development of Roman architectural principles and analyze how they were employed to create such a lasting image of empire. We will consider technological advancements and territorial expansion, as well as the shifting political and religious dynamics that shaped Rome's buildings.
ARCH 1128 The Long Fall of the Roman Empire (HIST 1205)
Interested students must register for HIST 1205.
Once thought of as the "Dark Ages," this period of western European history should instead be seen as a fascinating time in which late Roman culture fused with that of the Germanic tribes, a mixture tempered by a new religion, Christianity. Issues of particular concern include the symbolic construction of political authority, the role of religion, the nature of social loyalties, and gender roles.
ARCH 1140 The Death of the Ancient City? Roman Cities After the Fall of Rome
As in our own increasingly urban-based world, cities were the engines driving the political and economic success of the Roman empire. But what happened to such places after the empire disintegrated and "fell"? This course will explore the varied fate of Roman cities in Late Antiquity (4th-7th centuries C.E.), a period witnessing numerous changes — from political fragmentation and "barbarian" invasion to "Christianization" — that directly impacted both the roles of cities and the organization of urban space.
ARCH 1150 Cities and Urban Space in the Ancient World
This course investigates ancient cities from a comparative perspective. Using contemporary approaches to cities and the production of urban space, we will explore the cities of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece and the Roman Empire with comparisons drawn from regions such as Mesoamerica and China. How were the cities planned in the past and their monumental architecture shaped? How did urban landscapes become layered over time and saturated with shared cultural memories? Enrollment limited to 20. WRIT.
ARCH 1152 Bandits and Barbarians: Exploring Subaltern Resilience and State Power (ANTH 1145)
Interested students must register for ANTH 1145.
In the imaginations of ancient Greeks and Romans, the urban centers of 'civilization' were surrounded by wild lands where barbarians roamed. Even now, mountains, marshes, forests, and deserts are the realms of bandits, primitive tribes, warlords, and terrorists. From 'shepherd-bandits' in highland Sardinia and 'red-faced Gauls' in Roman France to 'marginal tribes' in the Kabyle mountains and the 'wild people' of the Ethiopian borderlands, this course explores peripheral lands through time and across the globe. We will critically examine such stereotypical representations, to understand how their inhabitants carved out their own spaces in the interstices of ancient and modern states.
ARCH 1155 Cities, Colonies and Global Networks in the Western Mediterranean
Urban life as we know it in the Mediterranean began in the Iron Age, a period that witnessed the rise of long-distance networks and the foundation of colonies by several Mediterranean powers. What happened when new settlers, visiting traders, and local inhabitants came into direct and unprecedented contact? This course will explore this and other transformations in the West Mediterranean during the first half of the first millennium BC.
ARCH 1160 The World of Museums: Logistics, Laws, and Loans
This course will examine critically the collection of ancient objects. Through functional, historical, material and aesthetic lenses an analysis of the relationships between the cultural contexts of objects will be examined. Case studies, guest lectures and site visits (virtual and real) will be used to demonstrate evolving theory, practice, law and ethical implications of collecting archaeological objects.
ARCH 1161 Museum Collecting and Collections (AMST 1904U-S02)
Interested students must register for AMST 1904U-S02.
This course will examine critically the collection of ancient objects. Through functional, historical, material and aesthetic lenses an analysis of the relationships between the cultural contexts of objects will be examined. Case studies, guest lectures and site visits (virtual and real) will be used to demonstrate evolving theory, practice, law and ethical implications of collecting archaeological objects.
ARCH 1162 Anthropology in/of the Museum (ANTH 1901)
Interested students must register for ANTH 1901.
This course will provide an introduction to the history, purposes, transformations, and internal workings of museums from an anthropological perspective. Students will learn about museums that focus on natural and cultural history related to anthropological studies of archaeology, human evolution, and world ethnography. It will cover the relevance of anthropological training to careers in the museum field, as well as the importance of conducting anthropological investigations in the museum environment. Enrollment limited to 20.
ARCH 1163 The Art of Curating (MCM 1700R)
Interested students must register for MCM 1700R.
It is sometimes said in contemporary art circles that curators are the new artists. Curating involves a wide range of activities, including research, selection, commissioning, collaboration with artists, presentation, interpretation, and critical writing. This production seminar considers curatorial practice as a form of cultural production, paying particular attention to questions of audience, ethical responsibility, and institutional context. Students give presentations, develop exhibition proposals, and curate exhibitions. Visiting curators present case-studies on recent projects. Readings include Douglas Crimp, Hans-Ulrich Obrist, and Nicholas Bourriaud. Enrollment limited to 40.
ARCH 1164 Methods in Public Humanities (AMCV 1550)
Interested students must register for AMCV 1550.
A survey of the skills required for public humanities work. Presentations from local and national practitioners in a diverse range of public humanities topics: historic preservation, oral history, exhibition development, archival and curatorial skills, radio and television documentaries, public art, local history, and more. Enrollment limited to 50.
ARCH 1170 Community Archaeology in Providence and Beyond
Modern archaeology is about far more than just digging in the dirt. During this seminar, we will discuss how archaeologists can engage with the public—including collaborations with indigenous and local communities, increased multivocality in interpretations, the mass media, museums, educational outreach programs, and the use and abuse of the past by governments and others in power. The second half of this course will involve a hands-on project in the Providence public school system. Enrollment limited to 15.
ARCH 1175 Archaeology Matters! Past Perspectives on Modern Problems
This is not the first era to face many of today's global problems — rising temperatures, sea-level change, sustainability, pollution, fire, water scarcity, urban blight, social violence, and more. Archaeology is more than the understanding of peoples long ago and far away, but a discipline whose long-term perspective could offer potential solutions to current crises. Through case studies and discussion of key issues, this class asks how archaeology – and archaeologists – might just change the world. Enrollment limited to 15.
ARCH 1176 Old News: Antiquity and Current Events (HMAN 1972H)
Interested students must register for HMAN 1972H.
Antiquity is often invoked to manipulate how we view current events. This course will investigate examples of this phenomenon, including the 'spectacles of destruction' of antiquities in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and the couching of the Greek economic crisis in references to Greece's classical past. We will interrogate questions of "who owns the past?," and of how we reckon antiquity's value; we will also investigate how scholars (archaeologists, classicists, et al.) have reacted to these contemporary events. Their stances raise important questions about the past's 'relevance' in the present, but also about the intersections between humanities and the social sciences. Enrollment limited to 20.
ARCH 1177 Occupy Archaeology! Interrogating Inequality, Past and Present
We are the 99%! Black Lives Matter! These rallying cries bring inequality to the front-and-center of western political and media discourses. Yet a social system dividing the haves and have-nots is hardly a modern phenomenon. This course considers injustice diachronically and on a global scale, examining ways in which the material world studied by archaeologists creates — and is created by — social divisions, and critiquing the ways that archaeology as a discipline is a part of the problem. Enrollment limited to 15.
ARCH 1200 Topics in Old World Archaeology and Art
ARCH 1200A Early Italy
Focuses on the Bronze Age background to the emergence of Greek, Roman, and Etruscan Italy in the Iron Age. Emphasizes the results of recent excavations, the problems of contact between the Aegean and Tyrrhenian areas in the Bronze Age, Greek colonization, and the urban development of the Etruscan/Latian region.
ARCH 1200B Pompeii (History of Art and Architecture 1200D, Urban Studies 1210)
Pompeii and its neighboring towns are the best examples for studying the life, art, and architecture of a Roman town. This seminar covers the works of art and the life in the town as reflected in the monuments excavated over the past 250 years.
ARCH 1200C Roman Iberia (Classics 1930, History of Art and Architecture 1200)
The archeology, art, and architecture of Iberia during the Roman presence from the Punic Wars to the beginning of the Arab conquest. The artifacts and monuments discussed will not only represent artistic production from Roman administrative expressions, but also a mixture of styles between indigenous art (such as Celtic) or expressions of syncretism or other cultural symbioses. Enrollment limited. Written permission required.
ARCH 1200D The Portrait (History of Art and Architecture 1200, Classics 1930)
Roman Crafts: The Study of Jewelry, Gems, Coins, Glass, and Silverplate
ARCH 1200E Topography and Monuments of Rome
Rome has been the scene of notable recent discoveries. This course will concentrate on the evidence for the so-called "regal period" but other topics, among them commemorative arches, the topography of the Campus Martius, and Christian basillicas, will also be taken up. A reading knowledge of Italian is highly recommended.
ARCH 1200F City and the Festival: Cult Practices and Architectural Production in the Ancient Near East (History of Art and Architecture 1200)
This course will explore urbanization, formation of urban space, and architectural projects in relation to cult practices and commemorative ceremonies in the Ancient Near East. Investigating case studies from early cities of fourth millenium BC Mesopotamia to Iron Age Syria and Anatolia, we will study processes of the making of urban and extra-urban landscapes in the socio-religious context of festivals. Enrollment limited. Written permission required.
ARCH 1200G Arabia and the Arabs: The Making of an Ethnos (Anthropology 1650)
This course will survey the archaeology and history of the Arabs and Arabia from before their emergence in the historical record to the modern period. Our particular focus concerns their relationship with the rise of Islam as well as the imperial politics of the pre-Islamic Near East. A major issue that frames these inquires is the concept of ethnicity and its projection into the past. Enrollment limited. Written permission required.
ARCH 1200H Islamic Landscapes: Cities, Frontiers, and Monuments (Anthropology 1660, History of Art and Architecture 1200, Religious Studies 1880)
This course will examine the built environments of the Islamic Period Middle East through the growing archaeological and historical record of its cities, frontiers, and monuments. How has the landscape of this region become transformed under by its relationship with a dynamic Islamic tradition? Key issues examined are the notion of the "Islamic city", sacred space, and the spatiality of Muslim/non-Muslim relations. Enrollment limited. Written permission required.
ARCH 1200I Material Worlds: Art and Agency in the Near East and Africa (Anthropology 167, History of Art and Architecture 120)
This course investigates technological processes of artifact production in the material culture of ancient and contemporary Near East and Africa. Archaeological and ethnographic case studies will be explored to understand the social relations behind skilled craftsmanship in architecture and "art". Circulation of craft knowledge, cultural biography of artifacts, constitution of cultural identities and memory through material processes will be central topics. Enrollment limited. Written permission required.
ARCH 1201 Roman Art/Arch Mosaics (HIAA 1200C)
Interested students must register for HIAA 1200C.
Mosaics survive in huge quantities from nearly every corner of the Roman Empire. Despite their prevalence and their often excellent state of preservation, however, mosaics are only beginning to attract the volume of scholarly attention lavished on other media, such as sculpture, architecture and paintings. We will study floor mosaics, wall mosaics and ensembles of opus sectile from across the Mediterranean, considering questions of narrative and contextual display as well as abstraction and medium specificity. Discussions of Medieval, Renaissance and contemporary mosaic art are also welcome.
ARCH 1202 Hellenistic Art: From Alexander to Cleopatra (HIAA 1200)
Interested students must register for HIAA 1200I.
ARCH 1209 The Visual Culture of Medieval Women (HIAA 1430A)
Interested students must register for HIAA 1430A.
Considers women as patrons and producers of medieval art and architecture, and examines the imaging of women in medieval works of art. Topics include: feminist perspectives in medieval history and art history, patronage by royal and aristocratic women, costume and textile production, and the art and architecture of female monastic communities. Optional FLAC French conference offered. Enrollment limited to 25.
ARCH 1211 The Body in Medieval Art (HIAA 1440E)
Interested students must register for HIAA 1440E.
The seminar considers the contradictory aspects of embodiment in the visual and material culture of the Middle Ages. We will examine the veneration of holy bodies through living holy individuals, and through body parts (relics) and the Eucharist enshrined in sumptuous containers. We will look at the iconography of death and resurrection, the representation of the body in painting and sculpture, attitudes toward sexuality, the performance of identity through clothing, and the sumptuary laws that governed clothing and behavior. We will investigate funerary rituals and burial, and the movement of living bodies in dance and in civic and religious processions. Enrollment limited to 25.
ARCH 1212 Charlemagne: Conquest, Empire, and the Making of the Middle Ages (HIST 1976Z)
Interested students must register for HIST 1976Z.
The age of Charlemagne sits at the nexus of antiquity and the middle ages. For two hundred years Charlemagne's family, the Carolingians, welded together fragments of the splintered Roman imperial tradition and elements from the Germanic world to forge a new, medieval European civilization. This seminar examines that process by exposing students to the primary sources, archaeological evidence, and modern scholarly debates surrounding the Carolingian age. Topics include the Carolingians' rise to power; Charlemagne's imperial coronation; interactions with the Islamic and Byzantine worlds; the revival of classical learning; the Church; warfare; the economy; Vikings; and the collapse of the Carolingian Empire. Enrollment limited to 20. Not open to first year students.
ARCH 1213 The Medieval Monastery (HIAA 1440B)
Interested students must register for HIAA 1440B.
The seminar examines the medieval and early modern monastery as a research problem. The course examines the development of the monastery, and investigates the religious and functional aspects of monastic architecture. We will explore historical, art historical and archaeological approaches to monasticism. Instructor permission required. Enrollment limited to 20.
ARCH 1214 The Viking Age (HIST 1031)
Interested students must register for HIST 1031.
For two centuries, Viking marauders struck terror into the hearts of European Christians. Feared as raiders, Norsemen were also traders and explorers who maintained a network of connections that stretched from North America to Baghdad and who developed a complex civilization that was deeply concerned with power and its abuses, the role of law in society, and the corrosive power of violence. This class examines the tensions and transformations within Norse society between AD 750 and 1100 and how people living in the Viking world sought to devise solutions to the challenges that confronted them as their world expanded and changed.
ARCH 1220 Byzantine Archaeology and Art - Material Stories of a Christian Empire
The world of Byzantium is often considered as a dark age separating the glories of Rome and the Renaissance. Yet Byzantium was among the longest living empires in world history, with an artistic and cultural impact felt far beyond its borders. The course will introduce students to a series of art works, architectural masterpieces, and archaeological discoveries that illuminate our understanding of the much underestimated, and much misunderstood, Byzantine Empire.
ARCH 1231 Kings, Courts and Aristocracy (ANTH 1231)
Interested students must register for ANTH 1231.
Explores the nature and variety of kingship, royal courts, and aristocracy through comparative evidence, with strong emphasis on historical data, architecture, and archaeology. Test cases will be examined in Mesoamerica, Europe, Africa, and Asia.
ARCH 1232 The City, the Maroon and the Mass Grave (ANTH 1630)
Interested students must register for ANTH 1630.
How has archaeology contributed to our understanding of the past in the former Spanish colonies? How has this knowledge been presented and made socially relevant in present-day Latin America? This course proposes a critical insight into the achievements and future challenges of historical archaeology in Spanish speaking America, exploring the diverging trajectories that the discipline has had in different countries of the region, and the way in which archaeological knowledge about the colonial, republican, and contemporary periods has been either ignored or assimilated into the development of specific politics of cultural heritage at the local level. LILE
ARCH 1233 Ancient Maya Writing (ANTH 1650)
Interested students must register for ANTH 1650.
Nature and content of Mayan hieroglyphic writing, from 100 to 1600 CE. Methods of decipherment, introduction to textual study, and application to interpretations of Mayan language, imagery, world view, and society. Literacy and Mesoamerican background of script.
ARCH 1234 Lost Languages (ANTH 1820)
Interested students must register for ANTH 1820.
Humans make many marks, but it is writing that records, in tangible form, the sounds and meanings of language. Creating scripts is momentous; writing facilitates complex society and is a crucial means of cultural expression. This course addresses the nature of writing in past times. Topics include: the technology of script; its precursors and parallel notations; its emergence, use, and "death"; its change over time, especially in moments of cultural contact and colonialism; writing as a physical object or thing; code-breaking and decipherment, including scripts not yet deciphered; and the nature of non-writing or pseudo- or crypto-scripts.
ARCH 1235 Vertical Civilization: South American Archaeology from Monte Verde to the Inkas (ANTH 1505)
Interested students must register for ANTH 1505.
This course offers an introduction to the archaeology of indigenous south American Civilizations, from the peopling of the continent around 13,000 years ago, to the Spanish Invasion of the 16th Century C.E. Throughout, we seek to understand the often unique solutions that South America indigenous peoples developed to deal with risk and to make sense of the world around them. Course lectures and discussions focus on recent research and major debates. Weekly sections draw on viewings of artifacts and manuscripts from the Haffenreffer Museum and the John Carter Brown Library. DPLL LILE.
ARCH 1236 Maize Gods and Feathered Serpents: Mexico and Central America in Antiquity (ANTH 1640)
Interested students must register for ANTH 1640.
Mexico and Central America are the cradles of one of the world's most enduring cultural traditions. The modern identity of the region was forged in these ancient traditions and their influence is apparent the world over, particularly in the area of agricultural domesticates (corn, chocolate, and chilies). Their cities (Teotihuacan, Monte Alban, Chichen Itza, etc.) rank among the greatest of the ancient world. This course offers a survey of Pre-Columbian Mexico and Central America, from the early monumental centers of the Olmec to the great Aztec city of Tenochtitlan, and explores how anthropologists and archaeologists investigate Middle America's indigenous past.
ARCH 1237 Pre-Columbian Art and Architecture: A World That Matters (ANTH 1030)
Interested students must register for ANTH 1030.
Survey of ancient art and building in ancient America, with a focus on Mexico, Central America, and the Andes. Underlying concepts include: meaning and method, cosmos and kingship, narrative and symbol, personality and authorship, empire and royal court. Rich collections of the Haffenreffer museum will form the focus of work in the class. DPLL LILE
ARCH 1238 Classic Mayan Civilization (ANTH 1031)
Interested students must register for ANTH 1031.
Examines the history, culture, and society of the Classic Maya, with special emphasis on Preclassic precursors, dynasties, environmental adaptation, imagery, architecture, urban form, and the Maya Collapse.
ARCH 1239 1493: The Spanish Invasion and Its Indigenous Responses in the Americas (ANTH 1491)
Interested students must register for ANTH 1491.
Drawing on historical sources from the John Carter Brown Library and objects from the Haffenreffer Museum, this course re-examines the history of Ibero-American cultural encounters between 1492 and 1700 AD. Students learn to interpret the different perspectives offered by archaeological and historical evidence to create more nuanced accounts of indigenous social history before and after the Spanish invasion. Topics addressed include cultural (mis)communication, disease and ecological change, roles played by people of African descent, and the legacies of conquest in the present. Special emphasis is placed on the Taíno, Mexica, Inka, Maya and Pueblo cultures. DPLL LILE.
ARCH 1250 Minoans and Myceneans: Greece in the Bronze Age
This class offers an introduction to the archaeology and art of mainland Greece, Crete, and the Aegean in the third and (especially) the second millennium B.C. The principal emphasis is on when, how, and why the Minoan and Mycenaean palace-based states first arose in this area, with consideration also of their sociopolitical and economic organization, and their interactions with neighboring cultures.
ARCH 1282 Mediterranean Culture Wars: Archaic Greek History, c. 1200 to 479 BC (CLAS 1210)
Interested students must register for CLAS 1210.
From the end of the Bronze Age to the end of the Persian Wars is a period of considerable change in the Mediterranean and beyond. The Greek polis challenges the powers of the ancient Near East. Over seven centuries we meet Greek writing, Homeric epic, and the first historian (Herodotus). But the Greek world lay on the edges of the Ancient Near East and this course tries to offer a more balanced approach than the typically Hellenocentric perspective of the standard textbooks. CLAS 1210 addresses political, social and economic history. Literary, epigraphical and archaeological cultures provide the evidence. WRIT
ARCH 1283 Society and Population in Ancient Greece (CLAS 1130)
Interested students must register for CLAS 1130.
This interdisciplinary course stresses the importance of social and demographic themes for our understanding of ancient Greek socio-economic history. The course addresses topics that are fundamental to historical demography (mortality, birth rates, and factors that affect them). It draws directly on primary sources (documentary, literary and archaeological) and readings of modern historians that allow us respectively to analyze evidence and contextualize the issues relating to social history and historical demography. The course takes a longue durée approach and incorporates ancient Greek communities in Greece, the Balkans, Asia Minor, and the Black Sea, from the Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman periods. WRIT
ARCH 1287 Holy Places and Sacred Spaces in Ancient Greece (CLAS 1750R)
Interested students must register for CLAS 1750R.
For thousands of years, travelers have been astonished at the physical beauty of Ancient Greek sites such as Olympia, Delphi, and Delos. For anyone who visits these numinous sites, it's easy to see why the Greeks believed that the gods loved them, too. In this course we will be exploring the notion of sacred space in Greek, with emphasis on sanctuaries, topography, archaeological phenomenology, and pilgrimage. We will research and discuss sites and sanctuaries from literary, archaeological, and other material and theoretical perspectives; we will also ask what about certain spaces and places leads us to regard them as 'sacred'. WRIT
ARCH 1300 Greek Architecture
This course will trace the history of Greek Architecture from the Bronze Age through the Hellenistic Period. Emphasis is placed on the Archaic and Classical Periods and on the formation and implementation of the three major Greek orders (Doric, Ionic, Corinthian). Importance is placed on understanding construction techniques and the intricate relationship between form and function of the Greek orders.
ARCH 1310 Ancient Painting†
Examines selected topics in ancient painting with emphasis on the remains of ancient fresco decoration. Topics are Palaeolithic Painting, Aegean Bronze Painting, Etruscan Painting, Greek Painting of the Fifth and Fourth Centuries (text evidence), Roman Painting, Roman Painting as reflected in Mosaic.
ARCH 1430 The Philistines
The Philistines were long considered to be trouble-makers and uncultured; however, recently their true character has been revealed. The origin, culture, social organization, political affiliations, religion, artwork, and technology of the Philistines, who inhabited Palestine during the Iron Age (ca. 1200-734 B.C.E.), will be elucidated through the examination of archaeological data and some textual evidence and pictorial representations.
ARCH 1436 The Archaeology of Jerusalem (JUDS 1610)
Interested students must register for JUDS 1610.
Jerusalem constitutes one of the most important archaeological sites connected to the origins of Judaism, Christianity and Early Islam. In this class we will explore the material remains of the city beginning with David's conquest in ca. 1000 BC through the end of the Ottoman Period in 1917. The contemporary literary sources as well as the more recent scholarly debates and discoveries help us understand the material remains of the relevant periods.
ARCH 1437 The Archaeology of Palestine (JUDS 1615)
Interested students must register for JUDS 1615.
Traces the prehistory of Palestine (modern Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan) from its beginnings in the Paleolithic to the end of the Byzantine period. Surveys history of archaeological research in this area, emphasizing significant excavations and their artifacts. Develops an understanding of the art, architecture, and modes of life of humankind from age to age, the changes introduced from one period to another, and causes and effects of those changes.
ARCH 1438 Jerusalem since 1850: Religion, Politics, Cultural Heritage (JUDS 1620)
Interested students must register for JUDS 1620.
This seminar surveys the history of archaeological exploration, discovery, and interpretation in the contexts of social, political, and religious debates from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, with an emphasis on the post-1967 period. It examines the legal settings and ethical precepts of archaeological activity and the developing discourse of cultural heritage. It analyzes the ongoing struggle to discover and define the city's past, to expose its physical legacy, and to advance claims of scientific validity and objectivity against the challenges of religious zeal and political partisanship, the latter both intimately related though not necessarily limited to the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
ARCH 1440 Synagogues, Churches, and Mosques
Reviews the discoveries and related scholarship of ancient synagogues, churches, and mosques in ancient Palestine. Focuses on their architectural and decorational as well as their spiritual and religious characteristics, and examines how those institutions influenced each other throughout their history of development.
ARCH 1441 Ancient Synagogues, Churches, and Mosques in Palestine (JUDS 1670)
Interested students must register for JUDS 1670.
Reviews the discoveries and related scholarship of ancient synagogues, churches, and mosques in ancient Palestine. Focuses on their architectural and decorational as well as their spiritual and religious characteristics, and examines how those institutions influenced each other throughout their history of development.
ARCH 1443 Pilgrimage and Sacred Travel in the Lands of Islam (RELS 1520)
Interested students must register for RELS 1520.
ARCH 1444 What is Islamic Art (HIAA 1410C)
Interested students must register for HIAA 1410C.
Is there such a thing as modern Islamic Art? This course draws on Brown's Minassian collection of Islamic Art to help clarify these complex questions. Focusing on 3 forms from the collection -manuscripts, painting, and pottery- the course introduces students to key concepts in Islamic Art History. Enrollment limited to 20.
ARCH 1450 The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls
Qumran is one of the most prominent archaeological sites in the world. Its fame derives from its proximity to a series of caves in which some 800 ancient scrolls were found. Scholars have debated the relevance of this site to the histories of Judaism and Christianity. This seminar will examine the debates regarding the character of Qumran through the material finds from old and new excavations conducted at the site itself and in the Dead Sea region. The lectures and readings are intended to stimulate a discussion about how to use texts and material culture for reconstructing the past. Enrollment limited to 20.
ARCH 1475 Petra: Ancient Wonder, Modern Challenge
The rose-red city of Petra in southern Jordan is a movie star (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade). It is a tourist mega-hit (over half a million visitors annually). It was recently voted one of the New 7 Wonders of the World. This class will explore the history and archaeology of Petra and debate how best to present and preserve the site, as well as discussing (and planning!) Brown's ongoing fieldwork at this beautiful, but fragile, place.
ARCH 1481 Environmental History of East Asia (HIST 1820B)
Interested students must register for HIST 1820B.
This is a lecture course on the environmental history of East Asia from prehistory to the present aimed at students with no background in either Asian or environmental history. Because little has been written about Korean or Vietnamese environmental history, it will mostly concern China and Japan, for which there are good textbooks. The course will also incorporate weekly primary source readings, or analysis of artifacts.
ARCH 1482 Power, Profit, and Pillage: The Rise and Fall of Trading Kingdoms in Asia (ANTH 1540)
Interested students must register for ANTH 1540.
A course survey of the pre- and protohistoric archaeology of the eastern half of Asia. Topics include the origins and evolution of agricultural societies, the emergence of village and urban life, and the rise of states and kingdoms. The early states were often characterized and even reinforced by elaborate symbolic and religious systems expressed through ritual, art, and architecture-topics also covered by the course.
ARCH 1483 Arts of Imperial Song (HIAA 1040A)
Interested students must register for HIAA 1040A.
Art and power share a long reciprocal relationship in imperial China. In this history, Song (960-1279) emperors stand out because of their massive collections and their personal practice of calligraphy and painting, as well as their great patronage of contemporary art and material culture. The Song emperors literally created the Chinese national heritage by amassing and, if necessary, manufacturing the great works of the past. As Imperial artists and calligraphers, sometimes working with surrogates and collaborators the emperors and their empresses produced art in unprecedented quantities. We explore these achievements and the processes that produced them in this course. Enrollment limited to 15. Instructor permission required.
ARCH 1484 Attachment to Objects in Chinese Literature (EAST 1950P)
Interested students must register for EAST 1950P.
A seminar investigating interactions between objects and literary composition in China of the 12th to 16th century, exploring 3 core issues: 1st, what do writers about objects reveal about notions of literary art and artifice? 2nd, in what ways are material artifacts endowed with aesthetic and personal meaning? 3rd, what literary and extra-literary factors shaped exchanges of poetry and gift-giving as linked forms of social intercourse? Readings in English translation. Instructor permission required.
ARCH 1490 The Archaeology of Central Asia: Alexander in Afghanistan, and Buddhas in Bactria
Central Asia has been treated as the ultimate frontier zone -- on the fringes of the Mediterranean, the Near East, and India. Scholarly perspectives today are radically changing, with Central Asia emerging as a cultural and political entity in its own right. This course will explore the archaeology, art and history of what is today modern Afghanistan and the formerly Soviet Central Asian Republics, considering the region's development under the Persian empire, the rule of Alexander the Great, and finally of his Greek-named successor kings.
ARCH 1500 Classical Art in the RISD Museum
The RISD Museum's collection of Greek, Etruscan and Roman art will be studied firsthand and in light of recent scholarship in art history, archaeology and museum studies. The course will explore original contexts for museum objects; issues of cultural property and museum ethics; conservation and restoration; design and education components of exhibitions; and notions of historical interpretation in museum display.
ARCH 1518 Women and Families in the Ancient Mediterranean (HIAA 1302)
Interested students must register for HIAA 1302.
What was life like for the women of the ancient Mediterranean? What rights, roles, responsibilities, and expectations defined their lives? Why is the examination of art and architecture such an important source for answering these questions? This course will provide a comparative perspective exploring Greek, Etruscan, and Roman case studies. WRIT
ARCH 1525 Struggle and Domination in the Prehistoric Mediterranean: Sex, Power, God(s)
Humans seek to survive, adapt, develop, and thrive. Yet our species is also prone to power struggles, violence, and domination. This strife can be seen in the findings of the latest archaeological and ethnographic research – which casts doubt on the peaceful, egalitarian societies sometimes imagined in the prehistoric past. This course will examine power and inequality in the prehistoric Mediterranean, considering such vectors as religion, human-nonhuman relationships, monument building, technological innovations, death, and sexuality.
ARCH 1536 Archaeological Ethnographies: Heritage and Community in the Mediterranean (ANTH 1126)
Interested students must register for ANTH 1126.
Archaeologists study objects and (socio-cultural) anthropologists investigate culture is how stereotype and conventions have long had it. As material culture studies have increasingly blurred these boundaries, the distinction is entirely meaningless when it comes to archaeological heritage. Taking its cue from material culture studies, this course explores how local communities experience the material remains from the past and (re)incorporate them into their contemporary lives. DPLL LILE
ARCH 1537 Archaeological Heritage between Politics, Tourism and Local Identities in the Mediterranean and the Middle East
This course explores the developing fields of public archaeology, heritage studies and archaeological ethnographies with case studies drawn from the Mediterranean world and the Middle East. The tensions between archaeological sites and landscapes, their local communities, local governments and archaeological research teams will be studied while tourism and commercial endeavors to make archaeological heritage relevant to global and local audiences will be discussed.
ARCH 1540 Cultural Heritage: The Players and Politics of Protecting the Past
From Antarctica to Zimbabwe, cultural heritage encompasses the very old and the still in use, the man-made and the natural, the permanent and the ephemeral -- even the invisible and the edible. This course will explore issues of modern threats to cultural heritage such as tourism and development, questions of authenticity and identity, and archaeology's intersection with law, ethics, public policy, and economics.
ARCH 1541 ISIS, NAGPRA, and the Academy: Archaeology and Global Issues in Cultural Heritage (ANTH 1580)
Interested students must register for ANTH 1580.
These days cultural heritage is all over the news. The wars in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Libya have led to the destruction of countless sites and museums, and the looting of artifacts on a massive scale. Cultural heritage is a broad term however, and there are people and institutions around the world that have stakes in how it is defined and managed. How then do archaeologists, museum specialists, and others in the academy define, work with, and protect cultural heritage? This course will explore current themes in cultural heritage with an eye to material culture and ethical action.
ARCH 1542 Cultural Heritage, Curation and Creativity (AMCV 1904L)
Interested students must register for AMCV 1904L.
The course examines current theories and practices in cultural heritage work from various international perspectives and places them in dialogue with practices, theories and critical perspectives from the contemporary arts. It offers students the opportunity to participate in a practical and creative cultural heritage project, realizing a curated experience/event/experience within the urban environment of Providence. Questions of material and form; the relationship between language and vision; the role of description in interpretation; and what constitutes learning through visual experience will be considered. Following readings in cultural heritage theory, curatorial studies and critical theory, the course will engage students both intellectually and practically through individual & group curatorial projects.
ARCH 1543 Decolonizing Classical Antiquity: White Nationalism, Colonialism, and Ancient Material Heritage (MGRK 1220)
Interested students must register for MGRK 1220.
Why do the material remnants of classical antiquity still attract public attention and exercise symbolic power? Why have such monuments been "used" by authorities and diverse social groups in the service of often totalitarian agendas? What are the cases where these monuments operate as weapons for resistance? How has colonial, racial, and national modernity shaped the way we understand and experience the materiality of the classical? Finally, how can we decolonise classical antiquity? We will use a diversity of global case studies, including modern Greece and Europe, and a variety of sources, from ethnographically derived performances to digital culture.
ARCH 1545 Trafficking in Antiquities: The Law of the Land
The black-market trade in antiquities is the third largest illicit business in the world, ranking below only drugs and organized crime. Participants include local bands of looters, larger networks (often simultaneously involved in other illegal activities, such as drug trafficking) and dealers all over the globe. This class will trace the patterns of this trade, and the ongoing attempts of the law, at all levels, to prosecute and contain it.
ARCH 1546 The Monuments Men: Embedded Scholars and the Military-Archaeology Complex
In this course, we will examine the entanglement of antiquarians and archaeologists with the military, and the militarisation of monuments and archaeological sites. We will take a long-term historical perspective, from the early modern period to the present: from the Napoleonic expedition to Egypt and the "Monuments Men" in WWII, to the 20th and 21st century invasions and wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. But this is not a historiography course; it is rather an exploration of the ethics and politics of such entanglement.
ARCH 1550 Who Owns the Classical Past? (Ancient Studies 1120, Classics 1550)
The purpose of this course is to offer a forum for informed discussion of a variety of difficult questions about access to the classical past, and its modern-day ownership and presentation, seen primarily from the perspective of material culture (archaeology, art, museum displays, etc).
ARCH 1551 Who Owns the Classical Past? (Classics 1550)
The purpose of this course is to offer a forum for informed discussion of a variety of difficult questions about access to the classical past, and its modern-day ownership and presentation, seen primarily from the perspective of material culture (archaeology, art, museum displays, etc).
ARCH 1570 Cold Hard Cash: The Materiality of Money in Ancient and Modern Finance
Now more than ever we are in need of new perspectives on the value and meaning of money. This course examines the origins of a metal-based financial system in ancient Mesopotamia and the development of finance over time -- including not only the valuation of metal but also of gifts and other commodities. We will prioritize archaeological and anthropological approaches as a way to offer both time depth and insight into today's troubled financial climate.
ARCH 1572 The Economy of the Ancient Greek World: New Approaches (CLAS 1930E)
Interested students must register for CLAS 1930E.
What was the material basis of Greek society? How did trade and commerce link individuals and states and bring Greeks into contact with foreign populations? What was the role of state power in directing exchange and commerce? Was ancient economic activity similar to our idea of "economics" or was it fundamentally different? What ideologies and mentalities governed economic behavior in the ancient world? The goal of this course is to introduce students to the sources and approaches to the study of the economic history of ancient Greece.
ARCH 1575 Lost and Found: Coinage and Culture in the Roman Empire
Coins tend to be overlooked as sources of information about the ancient world, being used principally to date other objects. This is quite short sighted, for coins are themselves rich and revealing archaeological artifacts. Evidence of how coins were made, used, and lost will be explored during the seminar, in connection with recent debates about the ancient economy, the expression of identity through material culture, Roman colonialism and ethics of collecting cultural property.
ARCH 1600 Archaeologies of the Near East
Writing, urbanism, agriculture, imperialism: the ancient Near East is known as the place where earliest agriculture flourished, cities were developed and writing was invented. This course offers a detailed examination of the region's archaeological history and current archaeological practice, in connection with its political engagements including Western colonialism and the formation of nation states. The social and cultural history of the Near East from prehistory to the end of Iron age (300 BC) will also be discussed.
ARCH 1602 The Age of Empires: The Ancient Near East in the First Millennium BC (ASYR 1300)
Interested students must register for ASYR 1300.
The first millennium BC saw a series of empires vying for control of the Near East: the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, and the Greeks of Alexander the Great and his successors. The course will explore the political, social and cultural history of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East under these empires, using evidence drawn from archaeology and ancient texts (in translation).
ARCH 1603 Color and Culture in the Ancient Near East (ASYR 1160)
Interested students must register for ASYR 1160.
This seminar investigates the meaning of color as a culturally mediated and culturally embedded phenomenon using case studies drawn from the civilizations of the ancient Near East and Aegean. Employing contemporary critical theories from cognition, phenomenology, linguistics and material culture studies, we will explore how human beings perceived, categorized and valued color in ways that vary cross-culturally.
ARCH 1605 Holy Spirits: Ancestor Worship in the Ancient Near East and Beyond
Looking at ancestor veneration in both the ancient and the modern world – from Mesopotamia and Egypt, to the Classical World and the Americas – this course will focus on three different angles: individual, communal, and material. We will consider grief, mourning, loss, and death's impact on families, kin, or elites. How did ancestors shape communities' social memories, identities, and religious practices? Finally, we will explore spirits' material traces, examining specific ancestral monuments and landscapes.
ARCH 1606 Imagining the Gods: Myths and Myth-making in Ancient Mesopotamia (ASYR 1100)
Interested students must register for ASYR 1100.
Creation, the Flood, the Tower of Babel--well-known myths such as these have their origins in ancient Mesopotamia, the land between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Using both ancient texts in translatioin and archaeology, this course will explore categories of Mesopotamian culture labeled "myth" and "religion" (roughly 3300-300 BCE), critically examining the ancient evidence as well as various modern interpretations. Topics will include myths of creation and the flood, prophecy and divination, death and the afterlife, ritual, kingship, combat myths and apocalypses, the nature and expression of ancient religious experience, and representations of the divine.
ARCH 1607 Divination in Ancient Mesopotamia (ASYR 1750)
Interested students must register for ASYR 1750.
The interpretation of natural events as portents of good or bad outcomes played an important role in religious, political, scholarly and everyday life in ancient Mesopotamia. In this course we will study Mesopotamian omen literature from textual, scientific, philosophical and cultural viewpoints in order to understand how divination operated and what it was used for.
ARCH 1608 Sacred Spaces and Sacred Times: Religious Travels and Pilgrimages in the Ancient Near East (ASYR 1200)
Interested students must register for ASYR 1200.
The course will focus on the cultural and religious-historical interpretation of physical displacements among sacred places, including urban processions, visits to temples and journeys to sacred places within the context of the Ancient Near Eastern religions. We will attempt to sketch a map of the holy centers and cultic itineraries, focusing on case studies from Babylonia, Assyria and Syria from the third to the first millennium BC as well as comparative case studies from surrounding cultures. These topics will be explored with an emphasis on how written and archaeological sources can be interpreted with the help of theoretical literature.
ARCH 1609 Ancient Babylonian Magic and Medicine (ASYR 1500)
Interested students must register for ASYR 1500.
A survey of ancient magic and medicine focusing on Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq, ca. 2500-300 BCE), with an emphasis on beliefs about the body, health, illness, and the causes of disease, such as witchcraft or angry gods. Topics will include the training of healers, exorcists, and herbalists; concepts of contagion and plague, modalities of treatment, incantations, prayers, and empirical remedies like prescriptions; ancient perceptions of problems like sexual dysfunction, the perils of pregnancy, tooth decay, epilepsy, and mental illness. Readings will be drawn from ancient texts (in translation), archaeology, and parallels with ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, and the Bible. No prerequisites. Not open to first year students. WRIT.
ARCH 1615 Art/Artifact: The Art and Material Culture of Africa
This course surveys the main themes in African art and archaeology. The course introduces students to central issues and controversies concerning method, approach and interpretation in the fields of African art/material culture (pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial), and it explores the various interdisciplinary efforts to address them. The course is designed to familiarize students with a number of approaches – cultural biography, objectification, materiality, regimes of value, primitive art, tourist art, connoisseurship, heritage ethics, cultural property and repatriation.
ARCH 1616 Between Sahara and Sea: North Africa from Human Origins to Islam
From the early stages of human evolution to the present, this course explores the deep past of North Africa. Rejecting the colonialist perspectives typical of the study of the region, we will study its indigenous peoples and their long-term relationships with the Mediterranean, the Near East, the Sahara and Tropical Africa. Students are encouraged to bring their own interests (art, music, literature, technology) to their experience of the class.
ARCH 1618 Barbarians, Byzantines, and Berbers: Early Medieval North Africa, AD 300-1050 (HIST 1963L)
Interested students must register for HIST 1963L.
This class explores the transition from antiquity to the Middle Ages through the lens of western North Africa. Divided internally by theological disputes and inter-communal violence, and subjected to repeated conquests and reconquests from the outside, in this period North Africa witnessed the triumph of Islam over Christianity; the rise and fall of ephemeral kingdoms, empires, and caliphates; the gradual desertion of once-prosperous cities and rural settlements; the rising strength of Berber confederations; and the continuing ability of trade to transcend political boundaries and to link the southern Mediterranean littoral to the outside world. Enrollment limited to 20. Not open to first year students.
ARCH 1620 Conquest to Conversion: The Formation of the Islamic World
How did the Arabs, originally a small group of tribes, come to conquer and rule a vast region from Spain to Iran? And how did their faith – Islam – become a major world religion? Moving between past to present, we will use the evidence of texts, landscapes, architecture and images to examine how an Arab state emerged, to explore what it meant to be Muslim and/or Arab, and to follow the spread of Islam.
ARCH 1621 History of Egypt I (EGYT 1430)
Interested students must register for EGYT 1430.
A survey of the history and society of ancient Egypt from prehistoric times to the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty (ca. 5000-1300 BC). Readings include translations from the original documents that serve as primary sources for the reconstruction of ancient Egyptian history. WRIT
ARCH 1623 Ancient Egyptian Art and Architecture (EGYT 1500)
Interested students must register for EGYT 1500.
Ancient Egyptian art and architecture had a remarkably long history, and much that was produced is amazingly well preserved. Almost anything Egyptian is immediately recognizable today, but developments in most areas were steady and pronounced. To do justice to this subject, a number of experts will cooperate in presenting various topics including monumental buildings and lavishly decorated tombs, as well as the sculpture, painting, and minor arts of all periods from Predynastic to Nubian. The ancient artisans, their materials, and their techniques will be discussed; modern efforts undertaken to conserve and document their work will also be described. Prerequisite: previous course work in Egyptology (e.g. EGYT 1430 or 1440) or written permission of the instructor.
ARCH 1624 Ancient Egyptian Art II (EGYT 1510)
Interested students must register for EGYT 1510.
Considers the art of ancient Egypt's New Kingdom or Empire Period (1500-1100 B.C.). The relief carving and painting of Theban temples and tombs are studied in detail, and the developments leading to the revolutionary Amarna style of art is carefully analyzed. Decorative arts, Tutankhamun's treasures, and recent exciting discoveries are all surveyed. WRIT.
ARCH 1625 Temples and Tombs: Egyptian Religion and Culture
Religion was central to life in ancient Egypt, and this course will examine Egyptian religion through its material culture. Students will explore temples and tombs as the physical settings for priestly ritual and private devotion, including feeding and clothing the gods and communication with the dead. The course will also address evidence for private domestic cult and the overlap between religious and magical practice.
ARCH 1627 Daily Life in Ancient Egypt (EGYT 1465)
Interested students must register for EGYT 1465.
Ancient Egypt is remembered for its grand temples and enduring tombs. Histories too often favor these examples of grandeur, forgetting the daily lives of non-royal ancient Egyptians. This class will investigate the daily lives of these underrepresented ancient Egyptians - craftsmen, servants, women, children - and address concerns such as illness, status, economy, magic and death. Additionally, we will look at the individual and discuss sexuality, love, style and fashion, religious practice and the family. Class format will include lectures and discussions, presentations, and tours through virtual temples which will enable us to reconstruct the daily lives of Ancient Egyptians.
ARCH 1630 Fighting Pharaohs: Ancient Egyptian Warfare
When and why did the ancient Egyptians engage in war? Who was fighting? What were their weapons like and what were their military strategies? What were the political situations that caused them to go to war? How did warfare impact Egyptian society? In studying Egyptian history and society through the pervasive motif of war, we will gain an understanding of the forces that shaped Egyptian culture.
ARCH 1633 Black Pharaohs: Nubian Rule over Egypt in the 25th Dynasty (EGYT 1455)
Interested students must register for EGYT 1455.
The course will cover Egypt's 25th Dynasty (728-657 BC), when rulers of Nubia, located in the region of modern Sudan, added Egypt to their territories. Using a wide range of textual and archaeological evidence, students will learn about the history of famous 'black pharaohs' such as Taharqa and study some of Africa's most impressive archaeological remains. This fascinating period is not well understood and has often been afflicted in the past by racist, colonialist scholarship; using primary sources and recent theory on ethnic identity, this class will re-examine the complex and changing relationship between Egypt and Nubia.
ARCH 1635 The Great Heresy: Egypt in the Amarna Age
At the height of Egypt's power in the New Kingdom, King Amenhotep IV initiated a religious revolution that affected all aspects of Egyptian high culture. Declaring the sun-disc, Aten, to be the sole god, this king changed his name to Akhenaten and moved the capital city to a new site at Amarna. Along with this move came massive shifts in everything from temple worship to art, international relations to funerary religion. This course will set the Amarna period in its context, examining remains from the reign before Akhenaten to the restoration of traditional Egyptian religion under his immediate successors, including King Tutankhamun.
ARCH 1637 Egypt After the Pharaohs: Archaeology and Society in the Coptic and Early Islamic Periods (EGYT 1470)
Interested students must register for EGYT1470.
ARCH 1638 Ethnic Identity in Graeco-Roman Egypt (EGYT 1550)
Interested students must register for EGYT 1550.
Egypt under Greek and Roman rule was the original 'multicultural society', with communities of Egyptians, Greeks, Jews, Romans, Nubians, Arabs and even Indians. This course will explore the sometimes controversial subject of ethnic identity in Egypt 'after the Pharaohs', through a focus on the everyday lives of individual people and communities. Topics will include multilingualism; ethnic conflict and discrimination; and gender and intermarriage. Evidence will be drawn from ancient texts on papyrus as well as recent archaeological excavations.
ARCH 1650 The Etruscans: Italy Before the Rise of the Romans
The Etruscan people dominated the Italian peninsula for centuries before the Romans became a Mediterranean power, but left behind little textual evidence of their culture. Focusing on architecture, artistic production, and funerary practice, we will study the "enigmatic" Etruscans and their contacts with the Greeks and early Romans, and consider their impact on Rome and on modern Italian archaeological scholarship.
ARCH 1666 Archaeologies Out of the Mainstream: From Ancient Aliens to Modern Nationalism
Have you ever wondered what's beyond academic archaeology? Have you ever watched Ancient Aliens, Searching for the Lost Giants or read Chariots of the Gods? "Alternative" archaeologies are the most popular form of presenting the human past. This course will take a critical look at different types of alternative archaeologies, both past and present, to understand how they intersect and interface with academic understandings of archaeology and human history. Be prepared to quell academic prejudices as we delve deep into the culture of alternative archaeologies to rattle our comfort zones and uncover our connections to the most popular forms of human history ever to have been made.
ARCH 1680 Of Chiefs, Princesses and Warriors: Exploring Different Iron Ages
This course is about the Mediterranean Iron Age. It examines indigenous communities of the first millennium BC in order to assess critically conventional representations of Iron Age societies. Themes to be explored include the ever increasing social complexity of chiefdoms and states, princely burials and warriors, and urban settlements and monumental architecture that allegedly mark the transfer of 'civilization' from East to West.
ARCH 1700 Architectural Sculpture of Ancient Greece and Rome
What would Times Square or Rockefeller Center have looked like in antiquity? What would have been advertised, and by whom? This course examines the themes, style, and contexts of the sculptural programs that decorated public buildings from the Greco-Roman world, their connections to other visual media and to the landscape, and their reflections of different cultural, civic, and elite identities.
ARCH 1703 Water and Architecture (HIAA 1910D)
Interested students must register for HIAA 1910D.
The seminar explores the varied ways in which water is manipulated in architecture and urban planning. We examine several case studies, including Roman aqueducts such as the Pont du Gard, medieval urban and monastic hydraulic systems, Renaissance and early modern garden (and fountain) design, and the local examples of Slater Mill and the Providence water supply.
ARCH 1705 The Palaces of Ancient Rome (HIAA 1301)
Interested students must register for HIAA 1301.
This seminar addresses the palatial art and architecture of the ancient Roman Empire. Key themes include the architectural articulation of political power; the role of international relations in expressing cultural power; the interplay of influence among palaces and villas; the art of adornment, luxury, and collecting; the interaction of architecture and landscape, including interior gardens and urban environments; the critical analysis of archaeological evidence, reconstruction, and legacy. WRIT.
ARCH 1707 The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World (CLAS 1120Q)
Interested students must register for CLAS 1120Q.
"Everyone has heard of the Seven Wonders of the World," wrote Philo of Byzantium two millennia ago, and it's still true today. But what is a "Wonder"? And why seven of them? Why make such a list anyway, then or now? This class will use ancient texts, explorers' accounts, and archaeological investigations to travel through several thousand years of history in the Mediterranean and Near Eastern world. We will consider how the Seven Wonders captured past imaginations; the aura of technological achievements; the intersections of history, memory, invention, and myth; and how members of one culture view another culture's monuments.
ARCH 1709 Places of Healing: Memory, Miracle, and Storytelling (HMAN1970D S02)
Interested students should register for HMAN1970D S02.
From antiquity to our day, therapeutic landscapes such as mineral and thermal springs, shrines and churches built at sacred springs, volcanic ash mud baths, rocky landscapes emitting odorous gasses, and ponds filled with medicinal leeches attract health pilgrims who search for healing. Storytelling transformed these into places of memory and pilgrimage. This seminar investigates places of bodily healing and miracle from a cultural studies perspective. The case studies will be drawn from the Mediterranean world and Western Asia (including Lourdes in France, Hierapolis in Southeastern Turkey and the Agiasma churches of Byzantine Istanbul). Enrollment limited to 20 juniors and seniors.
ARCH 1710 Architecture and Memory
Buildings and monuments have been mediators of the past with their powerful presence, either through their turbulent histories, various stories that cling to their stones or the residues of human life that shape them. Memories, imaginations and experiences, collectively shared or individual, give meaning to architectural spaces. This course explores the intersections of memory and architecture through various archaeological case studies from the ancient world.
ARCH 1715 Building Big! Supersized Architectural and Engineering Structures From Antiquity
Sometimes size does matter. The need and desire to "build big", to create colossal architectural or sculptural things, was a constant feature of antiquity, from temples to portraits, from tunnels to fortifications. Who and what lay behind this apparent architectural megalomania? What practical challenges to construction had to be overcome? And how have such monuments affected our understanding, both of the ancient world and of modern means of self-representation?
ARCH 1720 How Houses Build People
Archaeologists usually worry about how people in the past built houses. This course will flip the question on its head and ask: how do houses build people? Just what is a 'house'? What is a 'home'? Making use of an array of regional case studies, from different time periods, we will question how cultural values and norms can be extracted from, and explore the idea of the domestication of humans through architecture.
ARCH 1764 25 Things! 250 Years of Brown's Material Past
Did you know the house of the first president of Brown lies under what is today the Quiet Green? That the statue currently in front of the Ratty has lost his arm — twice? That a network of secret tunnels connects the Rockefeller Library to Carrie Tower? To commemorate the University's 250th anniversary, this course will explore objects from Brown's material past (art works, maps, trees, dining hall trays), using perspectives from a wide variety of disciplines, humanistic and scientific. By its end, the class will choose 25 Things to tell stories of both Brown's history and its future.
ARCH 1768 The Culture of Death in Ancient Rome (CLAS 1420)
Interested students must register for CLAS 1420.
This course examines the way that death and dying were perceived and managed in ancient Roman culture. Primary source readings will include selections from philosophers, poets, inscriptions, and a variety of prose literature (consolations, epistolography, historiography, novels). Secondary literature will focus on demography and social relations, the anthropology of funerary ritual, and material culture, which will be integrated systematically throughout the course, and which will include consideration of artistic representations and iconography, as well the archaeology of Roman mortuary practices.
ARCH 1769 Unearthing the Body: History, Archaeology, and Biology at the End of Antiquity (HIST 1835A)
Interested students must register for HIST 1835A.
How was the physical human body imagined, understood, and treated in life and death in the late ancient Mediterranean world? Drawing on evidence from written sources, artistic representations, and archaeological excavations, this class will explore this question by interweaving thematic lectures and student analysis of topics including disease and medicine, famine, asceticism, personal adornment and ideals of beauty, suffering, slavery, and the boundaries between the visible world and the afterlife, in order to understand and interpret the experiences of women, men, and children who lived as individuals—and not just as abstractions—at the end of antiquity.
ARCH 1770 Grave Matters: The Archaeology of Death, Decay, and Discovery
How do archaeologists study coffins, tombs, and human remains to learn about ancient societies? This course will explore the theory and practice of the archaeology of death. Topics will include the inference of social organization from mortuary remains, the experience of death and dying, social memory, identity, and others. Students will learn approaches to mortuary excavation and consider the politics and ethics of conducting burial archaeology globally.
ARCH 1771 Archaeology of Death (ANTH 1623)
Interested students must register for ANTH 1623.
Examines death, burial, and memorials using comparative archaeological evidence from prehistory and historical periods. The course asks: What insight does burial give us about the human condition? How do human remains illuminate the lives of people in the past? What can mortuary artifacts tell us about personal identities and social relations? What do gravestones and monuments reveal about beliefs and emotions? Current cultural and legal challenges to the excavation and study of the dead are also considered.
ARCH 1772 The Human Skeleton (ANTH 1720)
Interested students must register for ANTH 1720.
More than simply a tissue within our bodies, the human skeleton is gateway into narratives of the past--from the evolution of our species to the biography of individual past lives. Through lecture and hands-on laboratory, students will learn the complete anatomy of the human skeleton, with an emphasis on the human skeleton in functional and evolutionary perspective. We will also explore forensic and bioarchaeological approaches to the skeleton. By the course conclusion, students will be able to conduct basic skeletal analysis and will be prepared for more advanced studies of the skeleton from medical, forensic, archaeological, and evolutionary perspectives. Enrollment limited to 20. Not open to first year students. Instructor permission required.
ARCH 1775 Animals in Archaeology
Food, foe, friend: animals play all these roles, and more, in their relationship to humans, in the past as well as the present. This course will explore how zooarchaeology — the study of animal remains (bones, teeth, and shells) — allows us to reconstruct ancient human-animal-environmental interactions. We will cover a range of topics and analytical techniques, including hands-on sessions for the identification and quantification of faunal remains.
ARCH 1776 Animal Acts (ERLY 1150)
Interested students must register for ERLY 1150.
From the blood-soaked amphitheaters of the Roman Empire to tattooing and other forms of body modification, this course will explore how people, ancient and modern, view animals and what looking at animals reveals about what it means to be human. Examining evidence from a variety of disciplines (archaeology, religious studies, history, philosophy, art, and literature), we will investigate the problematic boundary between "man" and "animal" and challenge the presumed superiority of the "human". WRIT LILE
ARCH 1777 Animals in the Ancient City: Interdependence in the Urban Environment (ERLY 1155)
Interested students must register for ERLY 1155.
In the past, as in the present, humans and animals were city dwellers, living side by side in urban environments. This course will focus on five ancient cities – in India, China, Egypt, Italy and Mexico – to examine the places where human and animal lives intersected in these early metropolises. We will explore how these complex relationships had a pervasive influence on nearly every aspect of urban life: from religious practices, to city planning, to entertainment, to health. LILE WRIT
ARCH 1780 Violence and Civilization: A Deep History of Social Violence
Why do we do violence to one another? This course will foster a sustained and critical reflection on social violence, history and humanity. We will explore social orders through time, together with their practices and moral economies of permissible and impermissible violence. Different conceptions of violence ('symbolic', 'structural', and 'routine') will be considered, in conjunction with their intersections with the many, ambivalent meanings of 'civilization'. No prerequisites required.
ARCH 1787 Alcohol in the Ancient World
From the earliest Neolithic experiments with fermentation to the elaborate drinking cultures of the Classical world, alcohol has infused social life for thousands of years. This course provides an introduction to the production and consumption of beer, wine, and other beverages in the ancient world. Case studies from across the globe demonstrate that alcohol was (and is) a uniquely potent form of material culture, embedded within complex webs of social, political, economic, and ritual activity.
ARCH 1790 The Nature and Culture of Disaster
Our view of nature forms the basis of environmental studies, ecotourism, heritage management, and contemporary debates over global warming that impact both public policy and the very way we lead our lives. This course draws from theorists (such as Douglas, Latour, Strathern and Spivak), as well as recent anthropological test cases from Amazonia, Papua New Guinea, and South Africa to look at how humans in the 21st century view nature in terms of stability, instability and disaster. How should we assess the 'risk culture' in which we currently live?
ARCH 1791 Slavery, Materiality, and Memorialization (AFRI 1050X)
Interested students must register for AFRI 1050X.
The institution of slavery ended in the Americas in the 19th century, but its official conclusion says little about the ways in which its legacies are materially present and memorialized today. This course is designed to place the material aspects of slavery in conversation with less tangible dimensions of how slavery is or isn't remembered and publicly acknowledged. Students will be introduced to the social and economic dimensions of transatlantic slavery, conduct archival research, and visit sites in the Providence area in order to inspire critical dialogue about how the material realities of slavery affect our past, present, and future.
ARCH 1792 The Archaeology of Slavery
No one would question that slavery leaves invisible and painful marks on all individuals and societies touched by it. But slavery leaves behind many physical, recoverable traces as well: plantations, slave forts, slaving wrecks, burial grounds. From such evidence, this course will explore four centuries of slavery in the Atlantic world, asking not only about how people coped in the past, but about the legacy of slavery in our world today.
ARCH 1793 Slavery in the Ancient World (CLAS 1120E)
Interested students must register for CLAS 1120E.
Examines the institution of slavery in the ancient world, from Mesopotamia and the Near East to the great slave societies of classical Greece and (especially) imperial Rome; comparison of ancient and modern slave systems; modern views of ancient slavery from Adam Smith to Hume to Marx to M.I. Finley. Readings in English.
ARCH 1794 Questions of Remembrance: Archaeological Perspectives on Slavery in the New World (ANTH 1625)
Interested students must register for ANTH 1625.
Archaeology of slavery, and particularly that of enslaved African-American communities in what came to be the United States, has been one of the fastest growing areas of archaeological research in the last few decades. This course will look into both classic and current literature on the archaeology of Atlantic slavery in order to understand the development of this archaeological subfield, from an initial focus on the living conditions of slaves on plantation sites to later interests in the processes of consolidation of African-American ethnicities. What are current challenges faced by those investigating the material constitution of African Diaspora through time? DVPS LILE
ARCH 1797 A Migration Crisis? Displacement, Materiality, and Experience (MGRK)
Interested students must register for MGRK.
In the past few years, we have all experienced, most of us through the media, what has been called a migration crisis. And yet, migration as a phenomenon did not appear in 2015; it is as old as humanity, and displacement and contemporary forced migration have also a long history. In this course, we will examine the historical, material and experiential dimensions of contemporary displacement and migration. Many of the examples will be from Greece but also other parts of Mediterranean and beyond, including from the Mexico-US border.
ARCH 1800 Contemporary Issues in Archaeological Theory
This course will explore how archaeologists have placed material remains in the context of human practices, cultural processes and long-term history. Following a brief review of the history of the discipline as a social science, contemporary issues such as social complexity, technology and agency, ideology and narrative, gender and sexuality, production of space and construction of landscapes will be discussed. Case studies of archaeological materials will be drawn mostly from the ancient Western Asian and Mediterranean worlds.
ARCH 1805 The Archaeology of Us: A Material Approach to the Contemporary World
Archaeology is traditionally seen as exclusively concerned with the past. However, the budding field of contemporary archaeology considers that our own material culture and built environment are equally important to examine archaeologically. This course explores materially-oriented approaches to analyzing our contemporary world, from the study of garbage to the destruction of heritage sites by ISIS. Course material will examine geopolitical crises including migration, militarism, inequality, and environmental devastation. Students will engage with local communities and the Providence area.
ARCH 1810 Under the Tower of Babel: Archaeology, Politics, and Identity in the Modern Middle East
Present-day political ideologies profoundly impact our understanding of the past. Here we will explore the use and abuse of archaeological pasts in the modern nation states of the Middle East. What do pharaohs mean to modern Egyptians? Why did Saddam Hussein consider himself the last Babylonian king? This course will explore the role of imagined ancient pasts and cultural heritage in the making of collective identities and state ideologies.
ARCH 1816 Ancient Body (ANTH 1660)
Interested students must register for ANTH 1660.
ARCH 1817 Ancient Christianity and the Sensing Body (RELS 1300)
Interested students must register for RELS 1300.
ARCH 1820 The Location of Theory
Building and unbuilding. Who produces theory? The category of human. Archaeological ethnographies – or ethnographic archaeologies. Can heritage be tangible? Does theory have a topography? These are among the central theoretical questions facing archaeology today. Students will read some of the most influential and innovative works in recent archaeological theory, and question the underlying assumptions and tropes that inform these theories. The course will culminate in the Theoretical Archaeology Group conference, being hosted at Brown in the spring of 2010.
ARCH 1821 (De)Constructing the Other: The Subjectivity of Objects
Archaeologists rely on interpretation of material remains to construct conceptions of humans in the past. This course explores this creation of archaeology's subjects, with a critical eye toward the inherently political nature of this inventive process. Topics include the deconstruction of the "pots to people" analogy, racial and gendered disciplinary bias, and exposing the problems of unequal representation in the discipline. In connecting past, present, and future, this course seeks to develop strategies for building a more equitable and inclusive brand of archaeological method and thought.
ARCH 1822 Anthropology of Place (ANTH 1910B)
Interested students must register for ANTH 1910B.
ARCH 1823 From Worlds in Miniature to Miniature Worlds: Theming and Virtuality (HIAA 1890F)
Interested students must register for HIAA 1890F.
This seminar surveys spaces of consumption that are organized around themes such as theme parks. Miniaturization, in particular, is a prevalent spatial strategy used in themed environments that range in form from historical quarters of cities that are reconfigured as miniature museum-cities to the culturally-themed hyperreal representations that emerge in multi-user virtual environments such as Second Life. What are the different kinds of experience these spaces offer to visitors immersed in their exhibitions? What are the appeals of themed environments and virtual reality technologies they employ? Posing such questions, this seminar explores theming and virtuality both historically and globally. Enrollment limited to 20.
ARCH 1830 Fake! History of the Inauthentic
What is a fake? Who gets to decide what is authentic? Greek statues, Chinese bronzes, Maya glyphs. Have fraudulent objects always existed? Galileo's signature, a centaur's skeleton, Buddhas bearing swastikas. Are all fakes the same? If not, how are they different? Why do people make forgeries? This course revolves around the history of the inauthentic through a diachronic exploration of objects.
ARCH 1835 Inventing the Past: Amulets, Heirlooms, Monuments, Landscapes
Long before archaeology and art-history were academic disciplines, individuals and communities manipulated the physical traces of the past in order to imagine and explain their own antiquity. Who cared about these objects and why? What did pre-modern excavations, catalogues, and collections look like and what do they tell us about our own engagements with antiquities? This course delves into the origins of antiquarianism and archaeology, from pre-history to the Renaissance.
ARCH 1840 Ceramic Analysis for Archaeology
The analysis and the interpretation of ceramic remains allow archaeologists to accomplish varied ends: establish a time scale, document interconnections between different areas, and suggest what activities were carried out at particular sites. The techniques and theories used to bridge the gap between the recovery of ceramics and their interpretation within anthropological contexts are the focus of this seminar. Registration limited to Archaeology and Egyptology concentrators. Others can enroll with permission of instructor, given on the first day of class.
ARCH 1850 Comparative Empires and Material Culture
The political, military, and cultural unit of "empire" has, by now, been the subject of numerous and varied studies. This seminar will explore the tangible effects of empires, that is, the art and architecture created when societies are engaged in what can be viewed as asymmetrical power relationships. In order to understand how conditions specific to empire influence the creation, dissemination, and reception of material culture, this course will examine the artifacts of four different empires—the Roman, the Chinese, the British, and the American—and their unique political, social, and cultural contexts.
ARCH 1852 Material Culture Practicum (ANTH 1621)
Interested students must register for ANTH 1621.
Combines theory with hands-on study of material culture in historical archaeology. Students gain skills and experience in identifying, dating, recording, analyzing, and interpreting artifacts and conduct individual or team research projects. Enrollment limited to 15.
ARCH 1854 Handmade: An Archaeological Exploration of Materials and Making
This interactive course provides an introduction to the archaeology of materials and making. With the goal of developing an embodied appreciation for the archaeological record, we will engage in a series of hands-on activities, each dedicated to the exploration of a different type of material (e.g., clay, stone, wood, and bone). We will also examine theoretical perspectives on the topic and archaeological case studies that highlight the range of techniques employed to transform these materials into objects of use and value. Enrollment is limited to 15.
ARCH 1855 Archaeology and Craft: Experimental Archaeology and the Materials Science of Ancient Technologies
How did people in the past make the things that archaeologists find today? How can archaeologists learn about processes of design, engineering, and technological change from ancient objects? Students will approach production questions cross-culturally through firsthand involvement with craft processes and materials analysis - from raw materials to finished objects. Practicums will range from participation in blacksmithing and kiln design to learning about pyrotechnology, mechanical properties, and archaeometric techniques. The final class project will be an exhibit affiliated with the Haffenreffer Museum. Enrollment is limited to 15.
ARCH 1857 Metals and Engineering Design in the Ancient World
Metals are among the oldest and most ubiquitous materials in human history — just think of the Bronze and Iron Ages. Understanding metal production and uses and the development of metallurgical practices provides a long-term perspective on technological development and innovation. Studying ancient metal objects also reveals how they were designed, and the design principles that ancient engineers and craftsmen may have employed. The course will consist of both a lecture and a laboratory component. Enrollment is limited to 15.
ARCH 1860 Engineering Material Culture: An Introduction to Archaeological Science
Unlikely bedfellows? No way! This course demonstrates how well archaeology (the humanities) and engineering (the hard sciences) can do business together. An introduction to the world of archaeological science, presented from the dual perspectives of material culture studies and materials science. Students will be introduced to a range of methodologies, instrumentation, and interpretive approaches through a combination of hands-on laboratory work, guest lectures, and interdisciplinary group research. Students must have already completed at least two university courses in archaeology, engineering, or any related discipline. Enrollment is limited to 20. Priority will be given to admitting a proportional number of students from archaeology, engineering and related fields.
ARCH 1870 Environmental Archaeology
How has climate change affected the development of human society? How have people changed or destroyed their environments in the past? What does "sustainability" mean over the long term? Environmental archaeology is the study of these questions and more through the use of scientific techniques to analyze soils, plants, and animal remains from ancient archaeological contexts. A combination of class and hands-on teaching will introduce these methods and how they allow us to interpret human-environmental interactions in the past.
ARCH 1872 Environmental Anthropology (ANTH 1555)
Interested students must register for ANTH 1555 (CRN: 27371).
Environmental anthropology is the study of how people interact with environments, past and present. This course explores how humans have affected their environments over time and how environment shapes human culture, employing an interdisciplinary anthropological perspective to illuminate these reciprocal interactions. This course uses a variety of approaches to understand how people interact with environments, employing cultural, biological, linguistic, and archaeological methods. This course covers human adaptation to environmental change from earliest prehistory up to the present day and students will have the opportunity to explore the practical and interpretive dilemmas of environmental challenges of the 21st century and beyond. Enrollment limited to 20 sophomores, juniors, and seniors.
ARCH 1873 Patterns: In Nature, In Society (GEOL 1960F)
Interested students must register for GEOL 1960F.
The shapes of plants and animals, of mountains and shorelines arise because nature dissipates energy as rapidly as possible. These morphological patterns allow description of the energy "landscape" that produced them. Societies and economies show temporal and spatial patterns as well: does the "flow rate" of ideas and of money cause these patterns? We will explore just how "entropy rules."
ARCH 1874 The Anthropocene: The Past and Present of Environmental Change (ENVS 1910)
Interested students must register for ENVS 1910.
Scholars in many disciplines have begun using the term the Anthropocene to signal a geological epoch defined by human activity. This seminar examines the Anthropocene idea from the perspective of environmental history. What activities might have changed the planet – the use of fire thousands of years ago, or agriculture, or fossil fuels? Is the Anthropocene another term for climate change, or does it include pollution and extinction? Is it a useful concept? Drawing on anthropology and the sciences as well as history, we will use the Anthropocene to think through environmental change and the human relationship with the non-human world. WRIT
ARCH 1878 Illustrating and Interpreting the Past: Visual Representation in Archaeology (ANTH 1470)
Interested students must register for ANTH 1470.
Archaeologists investigate culture using material artifacts as evidence about the past, but in order to communicate and compare that evidence, they must turn to technologies of reproduction and representation. This course traces the evolution of archaeological illustration, and its contributions to our knowledge of the past, in the context of technological and intellectual change over time. It explores the most up-to-date methods of archaeological illustration and their current place and future directions in the digital humanities. Working with objects from the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, students will acquire experience in traditional and cutting-edge illustration techniques. DPLL LILE
ARCH 1880 Geofizz!: Archaeo-Geophysical Data Visualization
Geophysical survey data act as primary information for locating archaeological sites, and contribute new perspectives when investigating existing sites. This course will develop students' understanding of basic geophysical processes, through hands-on field-based data acquisition with ground penetrating radar, magnetometry, and resistance survey techniques. We will also experiment with approaches to data management and visualization. The course will conclude with students conducting a comprehensive multi-technique field survey of an archaeological site.
ARCH 1881 An Introduction to GIS and Spatial Analysis for Anthropologists and Archaeologists (ANTH 1201)
Interested students must register for ANTH 1201.
This course serves as an introduction to the concepts, techniques, and (to a lesser extent, the histories) that motivate geographic information systems and their employment in anthropological and archaeological scholarship. GIS brings together traditional cartographic principles, computer-assisted analytical cartography, relational database design, and digital image processing and analysis to enable people to develop geospatial databases, analyze those databases, and use maps and other visual representations as part of this analysis. No previous work in GIS or computer programming is necessary. Previous computer experience with MS Windows operating systems is helpful. DPLL LILE
ARCH 1882 Introduction to Geographic Information Systems for Environmental Applications (GEOL 1320)
Interested students must register for GEOL 1320.
Introduction to the concepts of geospatial analysis and digital mapping. The principles of spatial data structures, coordinate systems, and database design are covered. Related work in image databases also discussed. Extensive hands-on training in ESRI-based geographic information system software will be provided. Focal point of class is the completion of student-selected research project employing GIS methods.
ARCH 1883 Global Environmental Remote Sensing (GEOL 1330)
Interested students must register for GEOL 1330.
Introduction to physical principles of remote sensing across electromagnetic spectrum and application to the study of Earth's systems (oceans, atmosphere, and land). Topics: interaction of light with materials, imaging principles and interpretation, methods of data analysis. Laboratory work in digital image analysis, classification, and multi-temporal studies. One field trip to Block Island. Recommended preparation courses: MATH 0090, 0100; PHYS 0060; and background courses in natural sciences.
ARCH 1884 Remote Sensing of Earth and Planetary Surfaces (GEOL 1710)
Interested students must register for GEOL 1710.
Geologic applications of remotely sensed information derived from interaction of electromagnetic radiation (X-ray, gamma-ray, visible, near-IR, mid-IR, radar) with geologic materials. Applications emphasize remote geochemical analyses for both terrestrial and extraterrestrial environments. Several spectroscopy and image processing labs. GEOL 0230, PHYS 0060, or equivalent recommended.
ARCH 1900 The Archaeology of College Hill
A training class in field and laboratory techniques. Topics include the nature of field archaeology, excavation and survey methodologies, archaeological ethics, computer technologies (such as GIS), and site and artifact analysis and conservation. Students will act as practicing archaeologists through the investigation of local historical and archaeological sites in the College Hill area (e.g. the First Baptist Church of America and the John Brown House).
ARCH 1902 Material Culture (ANTH 1621)
Interested students must register for ANTH 1621.
ARCH 1904A Memories, Memorials, Collections and Commemorations (AMCV 1904A)
Interested students must register for AMCV 1904A.
ARCH 1970 Individual Study Project in Old World Archaeology and Art
Section numbers vary by instructor. Please check Banner for the correct section number and CRN to use when registering for this course.
ARCH 1990 Senior Honors Thesis in Archaeology and the Ancient World
Honors students in Archaeology and the Ancient World who are completing their theses should enroll in this course in their final semester. The subject of the thesis and program of study will be determined by the needs of the individual student. Section numbers vary by instructor. Please check Banner for the correct section number and CRN to use when registering for this course.
Primarily for Graduates
ARCH 2000 Research Methods in Archaeology
Familiarizes beginning old world archaeology and art graduate students and graduate students from neighboring disciplines, as well as advanced undergraduate students, with the methods, history, and bibliography of the field.
ARCH 2006 Principles of Archaeology (ANTH 2501)
Interested students must register for ANTH 2501.
Examines theoretical and methodological issues in anthropological archaeology. Attention is given to past concerns, current debates, and future directions of archaeology in the social sciences.
ARCH 2010 Problems in Old World Archaeology
ARCH 2010A Ancient Numismatics
Deals with problems in ancient numismatics from these topics: introduction of coinage, major coinages of archaic Greece, coinage of 4th C.B.C. in the Greek west and Roman coinage of 3rd C.B.C.
ARCH 2010B Approaches to Archaeological Survey in the Old World (Anthropology 263)
Recent decades have witnessed a marked development of interest in regional approaches to the ancient world and its landscapes. This seminar will explore the history of this development, as well as survey's impact on the work of both ancient historians and archaeologists. Topics to be covered include survey design and methodology, and the wider implications and lessons of regional analysis.
ARCH 2010C Architecture, Body, and Performance in the Ancient Near Eastern World
This seminar investigates the relationship between bodily practices, social performances, and production of space, using case studies drawn from ancient Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and Syria. Employing contemporary critical theories on the body, materiality, and social practices, new theories of the making of architectural spaces and landscapes will be explored with respect to multiple geographical, historical contexts in the Ancient Near East.
ARCH 2010D Archaeology and Religion: Excavating the Sacred from Prehistory to Islam (Religious Studies 2030)
This course explores methodological approaches and theoretical underpinnings of scholarly (and sometimes unpopular) interpretations of the archaeological record as evidence for the religious life of past societies, considering how archaeologists have treated the analytical categories of ritual, religion, ideology, and the sacred. These discussions will be examined through Mediterranean case studies as a key region in the archaeology of religion.
ARCH 2010E Archaeology in the Information Age
Archaeology must circulate the material past in two dimensions. The right combination of image (maps, plans, photographs) and text has long defined professional archaeology. However, the current explosion of digital media has spurred profound shifts in all domains of archaeological practice and documentation. This course encourages reevaluation of archaeological media, which pertains to information technology across the humanities and sciences.
ARCH2010F GIS and Remote Sensing: Advanced Applications in Archaeology
Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and various forms of remote sensing are increasingly essential components of good archaeological practice. This advanced course is intended primarily for students with some background in GIS software, and who have evolved a relevant research project to develop over the course of the term. Less advanced graduate students may enroll with permission of the instructor and will be provided with additional tutorial instruction.
ARCH 2010G Ethical Issues in Archaeology
Graduate students will certainly confront ethical, legal, and professional issues in the course of their own doctoral research and subsequent careers. This seminar offers a forum for open, but well-informed, discussion of a variety of significant ethical problems and dilemmas currently facing the discipline of archaeology worldwide. We will give attention to practical matters arising from archaeological field research, as well as a wide range of difficult questions concerning ownership and presentation of the past.
ARCH 2010Z The Archaeology of Empires (Anthropology 2500, Classics 2070)
Empires have been among the most influential political and social formations in global history. This seminar will explore general literature on imperial genesis, consolidation and decline, as well as considering the specific and unique contributions archaeology and art history can offer to the understanding of empire. A variety of case studies will be explored, with selections depending on student interest.
ARCH 2020 Research Seminar in Greek Art and Architecture
May be repeated for credit.
ARCH 2020A Greek Vase Painting
ARCH 2020B Topography of the City of Athens
ARCH 2020C Pausanias's Guidebook to Greece
ARCH 2020D Greek Painting
Major developments in the history of Greek painting with special emphasis on archaic and classical Greek culture as reflected in vase painting. There will be field trips to area museums which may take longer than class time.
ARCH 2020E Economy and Trade in the Later Bronze Age Aegean and East Mediterranean
Beginning with an examination of the workings of the Mycenaean palace economy, including the evidence of Linear B documents, this seminar will then turn to a more inclusive consideration of trade and exchange involving Aegean states and their counterparts further east, and of the nature and extent of cultural interaction between them during the later Bronze Age (ca. 1600-1100 BC).
ARCH 2030 Research Seminar in Roman Art and Architecture
May be repeated for credit.
ARCH 2030A Late Roman and Early Christian Mosaics
Study of Christian, Jewish, and secular mosaics of the Late Roman period.
ARCH 2030B Problems in Roman Portraiture
ARCH 2030C Roman Copies of Greek Sculpture
Copies of masterpieces of classical sculpture. Since the Renaissance, certain masterpieces of Greek sculpture have become famous through Roman copies. The relationship between copy and original will be investigated along with its relevance to Roman taste.
ARCH 2030D Roman Historical Relief
The scope of this seminar will not be limited to traditional examples of 'Roman historical relief' — that is, architectural reliefs charged with historical and political significance — but will also embrace media such as cameos and silver plate that similarly carry such messages. We will be examining monuments dating from the Roman Republic through Late Antiquity.
ARCH 2030E Roman Sculpture in East Coast Museums
ARCH 2030F The Archaeology of Constantinian Rome
Selected topics related to the monuments of Constantinian Rome, both secular and ecclesiastical.
ARCH 2030G Wall Paintings from Pompeii
Interpretations of Campanian frescoes.
ARCH 2040 Research Seminar in Old World Archaeology
May be repeated for credit.
ARCH 2040A The Cities of the Decapolis
Examines the archeological evidence of the Decapolis, an administrative district or region of Greek cities located in northern Transjordan, southern Syria, and northern Palestine. The sites of most Decapolis cities have been surveyed and several have been extensively excavated. Excavation reports and their scholarly evaluations will form the basis for this course.
ARCH 2040B The Parthenon
ARCH 2040C Value and Exchange
ARCH 2040D Genealogies of Complexity in East Asia (3000-221 BCE)
Despite East Asia's rich archaeological and historical record, its early political (pre)histories have been more sites for theoretical projection than theoretical innovation. Focusing on mainland East Asia, we will engage political theory and its applications in case studies from the Neolithic to the first Empires. Topics will range from mortuary rituals to practices of social violence and sources include both material culture and text.
ARCH 2040E International Cultural Heritage: Creating a Future for the Past
From the Parthenon to Puccini to pizza, cultural heritage can be defined as places, objects, and ideas from the past that have survived to the present. This course will examine the theories, methods, and questions that shape the effort to protect and interpret cultural heritage today as well as responses to them. We will explore issues such as current threats to cultural heritage, the role of tourism and impacts of development, questions of authenticity and identity, international law, ethics, and emerging and non-traditional areas of the field.
ARCH 2040F Public Culture and Heritage in Postapartheid South Africa
This course examines the complex processes whereby issues of culture, race, identity/ subjectivity, globalization, memory and heritage are being reframed and rethought in post-apartheid South Africa. We will be guided by three broad themes: public histories; archives and knowledges; and questions of performance. Of all possible settings, post-apartheid South Africa may present one of the most challenging – at times troubling – contexts through which to consider such public negotiations and meanings.
ARCH 2040G Designing Heritages: From Archaeological Sensibilites to Relational Heritages (AMCV 2654)
Interested students must register for AMCV 2654.
Do you believe in the past? This course takes as its starting assumption that pasts are not temporally distant from today. They are contemporary experiences whose structure and mediation impact how we live in our shared world. This course will explore the intellectual history of archaeological thought and the development of heritage theory. While simultaneously exploring practical design skills, it will provide context to contemporary synergies between art, archaeology and heritage studies through interdisciplinary studies of architecture, art history, cultural criticism, heritage studies and archaeological theory.
ARCH 2040H Imperial Cities
What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem? Tenochtitlan with London? Beijing with Rome? Cuzco with Persepolis? All are capital cities of imperial systems, each shaping and reflecting the nature of the empire, its ruling ideology, and its social and economic infrastructure. The category of "imperial cities", however, must extend beyond these primate centers, to consider the urban networks in play across each empire's territorial reach, and beyond.
ARCH 2041 Mesoamerican Archaeology and Ethnohistory (ANTH 2520)
Interested students must register for ANTH 2520.
Seminar focusing on current issues in the archaeology and history of Mesoamerica, including Mexico and Northern Central America. Draws on rich resources at Brown, including the John Carter Brown Library.
ARCH 2050 Glimpses of Mesopotamian History & Archaeology
A course dealing with the country's ancient history through the ages, giving an account of the most prominent discoveries made and reviewing the leading problems of Mesopotamian archaeology.
ARCH 2090 The Nabataeans† (Anthropology 2010, Sociology 2280)
Interested students must register for Anthropology 2010.
ARCH 2100 Things! The Material Worlds of Humanity
This course explores the relationships between people and things. From archaeology to material culture studies, from philosophy to science studies, we will examine a wide variety of approaches to the world of objects, artifacts, and material goods. Perspectives will include materialist approaches, consumption studies (including notions of fetish), phenomenology, social constructivism, cognitive approaches, actor-network-theory, and more.
ARCH 2105 Ceramic Analysis for Archaeology
The analysis and the interpretation of ceramic remains allow archaeologists to accomplish varied ends: establish a time scale, document interconnections between different areas, and suggest what activities were carried out at particular sites. The techniques and theories used to bridge the gap between the recovery of ceramics and their interpretation within anthropological contexts are the focus of this seminar.
ARCH 2110F Greek Palaeography and Premodern Book Cultures (GREK 2110F)
Interested students must register for GREK 2110F.
Introduction to pre-modern Greek book culture and the study of Greek literary scripts from classical antiquity to the Renaissance. Students become acquainted with the history of books, the context and agents of their production, and the transmission of Greek (classical as well as postclassical) literature. Training is provided in reading and dating different scripts and in editing ancient texts.
ARCH 2112 Roman Epigraphy (LATN 2120A)
Interested students must register for LATN 2120A.
A practical introduction to the study of Latin inscriptions, with emphasis on the reading, editing, and interpretation of texts on stone. Class time will be divided between discussion of various categories of texts in the light of the 'epigraphic habit', literacy, and the sociology of reading in antiquity and hands-on experience with editing inscriptions on stone.
ARCH 2113 Research Seminar in Medieval Art: Representing the Past: Archaeology through Image and Text (History of Art and Architecture 2140)
Interested students must register for the appropriate section of History of Art and Architecture 2140.
ARCH 2114 Archaeologies of Texts (ASYR 2800)
Interested students must register for ASYR 2800.
An interdisciplinary seminar that examines the interplay between ancient texts and archaeology in the study of the ancient world. The emphasis will be on articulating the research methods and assumptions distilled from case studies set in the ancient Near East, Mediterranean, East Asia, and the Americas. Topics will include: canons of literature as/versus ancient inscriptions; materiality of text; texts on display, in deposits, in archives, in libraries, as refuse; literacy and education; practices of documentation and analysis; writing, language, and 'ethnicity'; historical geography; fakes and forgeries; ancient texts and archaeological ethics. No prerequisites. Intended primarily for graduate students.
ARCH 2115 Ancient Mediterranean Scripts: Origins, Contact, Obsolescence
Writing systems abounded in the ancient Mediterranean: Egyptian hieroglyphs, Mesopotamian cuneiform, and the linear scripts of the Aegean are only a few of dozens of systems that people in the region have used to record language over millennia. Who wrote first and why? What "killed" hieroglyphs and cuneiform? What happens when a literate culture comes into contact with another without writing? Why do these questions matter now that the alphabet seems to reign supreme?
ARCH 2116 The Pictured Text (HIAA 2212)
Interested students must register for HIAA 2212.
Writing makes language visible, and thus concerns images. Language also delimits the legibility of imagery. Turning words into images and images into words occurs at great speed around us. This course explores the relation of text and image across world traditions—Chinese, Mayan, Egyptian, Islamic, Greco-Roman, and others, extending up to the present. Topics include: calligraphy, context, scribal practice, the form and shape of writing, including typography, hidden or pseudo-writing, graffiti, and contemporary art.
ARCH 2140 The Marriage of Archaeological Science and Social Theory
What do ceramics, lithics, building materials and metals tell us about the people who used them? Do high-tech analytical methods contribute to a deeper understanding of the past or simply muddy the waters? Theoretically, we will challenge the objectivity of 'science' and the value of archaeological taxonomies, as they relate to the construction of archaeological narratives. The ultimate objective in this course is to access the symmetrical social relationships between people and things, through the medium of the archaeological materials, as understood through the application of scientific techniques.
ARCH 2141 Biomolecular Approaches in Archaeology
This seminar will focus on the key principles of biomolecular techniques used in archaeological research. Topics will include residue analysis, collagen fingerprinting, stable isotopes, and ancient DNA. We will discuss recent advancements in these scientific methods, best practices for collecting samples, how to build collaborations between archaeologists working in the field and in the laboratory, and new possibilities for using cutting-edge methods to address archaeological and anthropological research questions.
ARCH 2142 Facture: East and West (HIAA 2870F)
Interested students must register for HIAA 2870F.
Objects are the tangible outcomes of available means of making. One can't understand the maker's choices unless one understands the maker's practical options. This seminar focuses on the materiality of objects by grounding them in the fundamentals of making material culture in Asia and the West – that is, facture. We explore ceramic technologies; lapidary crafts, and mosaics; metallurgy; painting mediums and surfaces; mass-production, and modules; realized outcomes of computer-assisted design. Instruction includes lecture-demonstrations by guest practitioners and site-visits to foundries, studios, conservation laboratories. Readings span history of technology, science and aesthetics, contemporary writings on the "thingness" of art history. Enrollment limited to 15 graduate students in History of Art and Architecture. Instructor permission required.
ARCH 2145 Technology and Production in Archaeology: Anthropological Foundations and Contemporary Theory
An intensive focus on theoretical approaches to technology and production that have shaped archaeological thinking over the past century and have formed the basis of many of the contemporary issues in the field. Students will read and critically assess key works about concepts of production and technology in various cross-cultural archaeological contexts. Seminar themes include political economy, specialization, technology transfer, cross-craft production, power dynamics, ritual, and tool use.
ARCH 2147 Ancient Technology and Culture: An Exploration
Few things are as emblematic of Roman cultural and political power as aqueducts. But who built them and how? Where did, for example, the technicians responsible for measuring the slope of a water-channel learn their craft and who did they learn it from? Were there any female surveyors? Using an ambitious interdisciplinary approach combining archaeological, epigraphic, and literary evidence this course will explore not just aqueduct-makers, but also such specialists as military-engineers and architects, as well as miners, potters, mosaicists, and quarrymen. The purpose of this course is to explore the cultural impact of technology in the Greek and Roman world. Rather than inspecting merely the tunnel of Eupalinos or the Pont du Gard, we will study the social practices that made such monuments possible, and also the changing social attitudes to the technicians who designed and constructed them.
ARCH 2150 Theoretical Issues in Archaeology
The goal of this seminar is to examine the state of archaeological theory, with special emphasis on archaeological practice and interpretation in the Mediterranean, Egypt and ancient western Asia. While providing some measure of historical overview, the class chiefly offers an opportunity for students to read and critique recent writings that exemplify the variety of contemporary approaches to this subject.
ARCH 2153 Archaeological Ethnography: A Multi-Temporal Contact Zone
In this course, we will examine the emerging field of archaeological ethnography, a shared space of interaction between social anthropologists and archaeologists, and between scholars and the various local communities around archaeological sites. Our main focus will be the Sanctuary of Poseidon on the island of Poros in Greece, the epicenter of a long-term archaeological ethnography project, started in 2007. We will place the site in global comparative perspective, and debate together the challenges in producing an archaeological ethnography monograph.
ARCH 2154 Anthropology of War and Violence in the Archaeological Past (ANTH 2580)
Interested students must register for ANTH 2580.
This course is an overview of anthropological archaeological approaches to war, violence, and peace. We will begin by reviewing past and current social scientific thinking on the past six million years of human war and violence. We will consider in greater detail how anthropological archaeologists conduct research regarding ancient war and violence. Special attention will be given to the role of war and violence in statecraft and the (de)construction of society. We will consider some of the methodologies employed in the study of ancient violence including, landscape archaeology, art and iconography, and bioarchaeology.
ARCH 2155 History, Anthropology, and Archaeology: Disciplinary Dialogues
Archaeology has always occupied an uneasy space between the fields of anthropology and history. This seminar examines the interplay of theories and methods in all three spheres of scholarship, with an emphasis on current inter- and trans- disciplinary research. Several fundamental 20th century dialogues between anthropologists and historians will be reviewed, and key topics in contemporary archaeology explored in relation to those debates.
ARCH 2157 Subaltern Communities: Archaeological Perspectives Beyond Domination and Resistance
Mediterranean (pre)history is usually cast in terms of an inexorable rise of state domination and colonial exploitation under the euphemistic label of 'social complexity'. This seminar will examine and highlight the role of 'people without history' not by simply pitching them as rebels against dominant powers but by exploring the subtle and manifold connections that interweave subaltern communities with hegemonic groups.
ARCH 2160 The Archaeology of Democracy: Social Transformations in Ancient Greece
Between 900 and 600 BCE, profound social transformations took place in Greece, setting the stage for a revolution in political form: by 500, Athens was collectively governed by its citizen body. This course engages with the everyday materialities underlying Greek democracy of this era. Focusing on relationships among people and things, students will reassess of the composition of the demos from the ground up.
ARCH 2165 The "Second Sophistic": Archaeological and Literary Approaches
The cultural phenomenon of the "Second Sophistic" affected both the material fabric and the intellectual life of the eastern Roman empire of the second/third centuries CE. This course will examine how awareness of "Greek" learning (paideia) and the "Greek" past informed people's literary and artistic tastes, as well as their responses to changing political and religious pressures, affecting everything from civic coinage to elite dining habits and even bodily comportment.
ARCH 2170 Archaeology of Greek and Punic Colonization
This course investigates cultural interaction at local and regional scales between 'colonists' and locals, introducing students to a range of case study material across the Mediterranean. This will focus on material from the eighth to sixth centuries BC from Iberia, France, Italy, North Africa, and the Black Sea. Examples of Etruscan colonization will also be explored. The concept of 'colonization' will be critically examined, along with how it has been treated by archaeologists and ancient historians over the past century.
ARCH 2175 Archaeology and Modernity
Past societies, it is commonly supposed, differ fundamentally from our own. From antiquarians and artists to topographers and landscape archaeologists; from travelogues, maps and landscape painting to regional syntheses and survey reports, this course explores the history of archaeology and its relationship to modernity. It engages issues relating to the rise of the nation state, imperialism, and colonialism and the uses of the material past in these processes. It will explore issues related to the antiquity of humankind, the Heritage industry, museums, collecting culture and tourism.
ARCH 2178 Afterlife of Antiquity (HIAA 2440D)
Interested students must register for HIAA 2440D.
This seminar will consider the survival, revival and adaptive reuse of older objects, texts and built spaces in the visual and material culture of successor cultures. We will look critically at the literature on the archaeology of memory, "Renaissance and revival, spolia studies and adaptive reuse." The seminar will examine selected case studies, including the reuse of sculptural elements in the Arch of Constantine, the conversion of Pantheon into a church and Hagia Sophia into a mosque, appropriated elements in the Qutb mosque in Delhi and the adaptation of the Bankside Power Station as the Tate Gallery. Enrollment limited to 20.
ARCH 2180 Memory and Materiality
What is the difference between memory, facts, and knowledge? This course uses memory as a lens through which to view recent critical theory and questions how theories of memory and materiality can be used by archaeologists to better understand the past.
ARCH 2184 Material Culture and the Bodily Senses: Past and Present
How do the senses shape our experience? How many senses are there? How do ancient and modern art and material culture relate to bodily senses? What is material and sensorial memory, and how does it structure time and temporality? Using media and objects, including archaeological and ethnographic collections at Brown and beyond, this course will study how a sensorial perspective on materiality can reshape and reinvigorate research dealing with past and present material culture. Furthermore, we will explore how sensoriality and affectivity can decenter the dominant western modernist canon of the autonomous individual.
ARCH 2185 Sensing Antiquity: New Approaches to Ancient Aesthetics and Sensoria
How did the Greeks and Romans perceive and discuss the beautiful and the ugly? The fragrant or malodorous? The ticklish and the tart? These may seem like difficult questions, even bizarre, and yet, in many ways, those past opinions inform our own experience of the world. This course is an exploration, through archaeological and literary primary sources, of the many ways in which ancient men and women interacted through their senses with the world around them and how they reflected upon that interaction.
ARCH 2200 Evolution of Old World States and Civilizations in Comparative Perspective
The origins, evolution, and nature of ancient states have always constituted central problems of interest to archaeologists and anthropologists, but in recent years they have undergone radical critique. This seminar will consider modern studies on state formation, social structure and change in early states, with a primary emphasis on so-called 'Old World' cases, for example on ancient Mesopotamia and Greece.
ARCH 2225 Beyond Decline and Fall: New Perspectives on the Late Antique Mediterranean
This seminar will examine the Mediterranean from the fall of Rome to the Arab conquests (AD400-700), interrogating models of decline, catastrophe and transformation through the most recent archaeology of the region. We will explore key themes such as decline and fall, post-Roman state-formation, urbanism, rural settlement, Christianisation and ethnic, social and religious identities, and compare the different trajectories of Europe, Northern Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean in this period.
ARCH 2230 Material Networks: Migration and Trade in the Ancient West Mediterranean
This course investigates trans-regional and trans-cultural practices of Mediterranean peoples of the first millennium BC on a comparative basis through the combined lenses of materiality, migration, trade, colonial encounters, hybridization and connectivity or insularity. We will explore how 'things' mediated the experience of ancient Mediterranean peoples, both helping to shape and informed by long-term collective memories of movement, colonization and localization.
ARCH 2235 One Sea for All: Economic, Social and Artistic Interaction in the Medieval Mediterranean
This seminar explores the phenomenon of interaction in the Medieval Mediterranean. We will study how, even in times of conflict, Byzantines created and maintained networks of ideological, commercial and artistic communication with the Arabs, the Slavs, the Latins, and the Ottomans. How did such encounters, among people of such different faiths, languages, and world-views, influence the political, economic and social transformations of the Medieval world?
ARCH 2240 Key Issues in Mediterranean Prehistory
This course's scope is the entire Mediterranean basin, from its first peopling until ca. 500 BC. The focus is on key transformations in economic, social, and political structures and interactions; on explanations for these changes; and on current issues where fresh data or new approaches are transforming our understanding. This seminar is intended for students both with and without prior knowledge of this field, and particularly for those preparing for the Mediterranean Prehistory field exam.
ARCH 2245 Rural Landscapes and Peasant Communities in the Mediterranean
The broad aim of this course is to explore rural settlement and agrarian production in the Mediterranean, both in the ancient and the recent past. The archaeological starting-point is provided by the numerous scatters of surface remains that archaeological surveys across the Mediterranean have collected and that are usually interpreted as 'farmsteads' broadly datable to Classical Antiquity. We will look well beyond these scatters to examine the social and economic significance of rural settlement through comparison with ethnographic and historical rural studies from across the Mediterranean and to explore household and community organisation as well as agrarian production in Classical Antiquity.
ARCH 2250 Island Archaeology in the Mediterranean
The Mediterranean is a world of islands, par excellence, and the island cultures that have developed there over the millennia have great archaeological distinctiveness. This seminar will consider the concept of insularity itself, in cross-cultural archeological, anthropological, and historical perspective. We will then turn to the rich, specifically Mediterranean literature on island archaeology (exploring issues of colonization, settlement, interaction).
ARCH 2255 Coastal Values: Archaeology and Paleoecology of Coastal and Island Environments
People like to live by the water. What characteristics (social, economic, environmental) make coastal environments so attractive? What are the effects of human settlement on these environments? How do societies adapt (or not) to changing coastal environments? This seminar takes an interdisciplinary approach to these questions, applying the lessons of the past to the challenges of the present through an explicitly diachronic, cross-cultural, and data-driven approach to examining human-environmental interaction in coastal settings.
ARCH 2295 State Formation in the Prehistoric Aegean
Outside the Near East and Egypt, Crete and mainland Greece were arguably the first areas within the Mediterranean to witness the appearance in the early second millennium BC of state-level societies. This seminar will critique some classic archaeological and anthropological texts on state formation, before turning to examine the available data on emerging complexity in the Minoan and Mycenaean worlds and theories to account for it.
ARCH 2300 The Rise (and Demise) of the State in the Near East
Discourses on state formation dominate archaeological explorations of Mesopotamia in association with social complexity, urbanization, long-distance trade, and development of writing. Archaeological evidence from the 4th-3rd millennia BC was incorporated into narratives of state from chiefdoms to empires, and linked to its ideologies and political economies. We will unpack this preoccupation with states in academic practice, while exploring case studies from Mesopotamia, Anatolia and the Levant from 9000 to 2000 BC.
ARCH 2310 Cities in the Sand: The Archaeology of Urbanism in Mesopotamia
Images of legendary Mesopotamian cities, now wired with explosives or pockmarked with looters' pits, flit daily across our screens. For more than a century, archaeologists have been working to uncover these early urban centers in Iraq and Syria, where the very idea of the city was first imagined. This seminar offers an introduction to the archaeology of urbanism and a detailed examination of the cities of Mesopotamia – from Uruk and Ur to Babylon and Baghdad.
ARCH 2313 Art & Visual Culture in the Ancient Near East (ASYR 2750)
Interested students should register for ASYR 2750.
Peoples of the Ancient Near East from prehistory to the Hellenistic period produced a unique corpus of production technologies and visual culture. Cultures from Anatolia to the Iraqi southern alluvium, from the Levant to Iran and the Caucasus shared this common pictorial language in a variety of ways. In this seminar, we will investigate bodies of archaeological, architectural and pictorial evidence from the Near East while also debating relevant art and architecture historical methodologies and discourses in direct relationship to that material. Conceptual issues such as narrative, representation, perspective, agency, technology, style, symbolism, landscape, space, and power will be explored. Enrollment limited to 15.
ARCH 2320 Household Archaeology in the Ancient Near East and Beyond
House, home, household, family: defining these terms is not as easy as it might seem, especially across space and through time. After introducing the principles of household archaeology, this class will explore the state of this growing archaeological subfield in the Near East and eastern Mediterranean. We will also draw on developments in New World archaeology in analyzing the potential and problems of household archaeology and in articulating its future directions.
ARCH 2330 Roman Asia Minor: The Empire Goes East
If one is curious about the dynamics of life within the Roman empire, the province of Asia makes an excellent case study. Its numerous urban centers and rural landscapes were socially and economically differentiated and frequently monumentally elaborated, as an increasing amount of varied archaeological data reveal. Asia offers a rich laboratory for exploring issues of provincial development, and ultimately decline, over the course of the empire.
ARCH 2335 In the Wake of Empire: Anatolia after the Hittites, before Alexander
Kings Croesus, Midas, and the much lesser known Warpalawas… Who were these people, when and where did they rule, and why does any of this matter? During the first millennium BCE, Anatolia was an astonishingly varied, multicultural and multilingual environment. This course will tackle head on the myriad archaeological, historical, and even linguistic challenges posed by this fascinating, but often-overlooked period in the history of the region.
ARCH 2340 The Archaeology of the Assyrian Empire: Cities, Landscapes and Material Culture
Ritual, war and conquest! The Assyrian Empire was a powerhouse in the ancient Near East with fearsome military expeditions, sumptuous cult festivals, grand cities, and complex governing systems. This course investigates the archaeology of Assyria from the trading center of Ashur in the second millennium BCE to the collapse of the empire in the 7th c. BCE. Using published excavations, surveys, and texts, we will explore Assyria's material culture, landscape, cult practices and state ideology.
ARCH 2350 Archaeology of the Caucasus
The goal of this seminar is to provide students with an overview of the long-term archaeological record from the Caucasus and its near neighbors, as well as an understanding of the history of research in this area during Imperial Russian, Soviet, and contemporary times. Readings will cover a range of periods, prehistoric and historic, following the interests of the class.
ARCH 2400 Sacred Space: Archaeological and Religious Studies Perspectives
Innumerable cultures, past and present, have singled out specific locales and even whole landscapes as powerful vectors for communicating with the divine. This course will analyze such spaces for their ability to transform body, escape the material plane, and reconstitute social relations and bodily practice. Case studies will largely be drawn from the Mediterranean world and will employ an archaeological attention to the materiality of these sacred spaces. Key concepts will include: ritual practice, landscape production, memory and agency.
ARCH 2404 Archaeology of Ritual (ANTH 2570)
Interested students must register for ANTH 2570.
Many essential theoretical perspectives in anthropology have been built from the study of ritual. For archaeologists, evidence for ancient ritual is abundant, yet the reconstruction of ritual practice and meaning is both challenging and is often neglected in practice. We will take a comparative look at the archaeology of ritual in a global perspective. We will explore a variety of relevant anthropological and archaeological topics including, ritual practice, performance, the sacred (objects, sites, architecture, and landscape), ritual and power, domestic ritual, rites of the dead, sacrifice, and war. And of course, we will probe the question of what exactly constitutes "ritual."
ARCH 2406 The Body in Medieval Art and Architecture (HIAA2440B)
Interested students must register for HIAA2440B.
The seminar considers the contradictory aspects of embodiment in the visual and material culture of the Middle Ages. We will examine the veneration of holy bodies through living holy individuals, and through body parts (relics) and the Eucharist enshrined in sumptuous containers. We will look at the iconography of death and resurrection, the representation of the body in painting and sculpture, attitudes toward sexuality, the performance of identity through clothing, and the sumptuary laws that governed clothing and behavior. We will investigate funerary rituals and burial, and the movement of living bodies in dance and in civic and religious processions. Enrollment limited to 20.
ARCH 2407 Lived Bodies, Dead Bodies: The Archaeology of Human Remains (ANTH 2560)
Interested students must register for ANTH 2560.
Bioarchaeology is the study of human remains from archaeological contexts. We will survey the "state of the art" in bioarchaeology, while exploring its relevance and application to the archaeology of complex societies. We will survey a range of bioarchaeological methods and applications, including paleopathology, stable isotope analysis, population affinity/ancient DNA, perimortem trauma, and body modification. In turn, we will explore how bioarchaeology can be used to approach a wide range of archaeological problems relative to complext societies, including subsistence, economy, migration, urbanism, social inequality, conflict and warfare, and identity. Open to graduate students only. S/NC. LILE
ARCH 2408 Body Arts: The Human Frame as Cultural Expression (ANTH 2011)
Interested students must register for ANTH 2011.
The body is inescapable: humans live with it and through it, sending messages and instating identity. The body remains, and will remain, our principal means of cultural expression. As its guiding proposition, this seminar affirms that body arts have a history and social setting, whether of gesture, clothing, fashion, tattooing, make-up, hair-styles, cranial deformation, jewelry, perfume, dance or other embellishments and subtractions of the human frame. Those arts involve material equipment and a set of theories and dispositions needing close review and appraisal. These come from varied sources, including anthropology, art history, cultural studies, literature history or archaeology.
ARCH 2410 Archaeologies of Place
The concept of place, as a site of human practice in and with the material world, has become foregrounded in humanities and social sciences. This course explores how archaeological and ethnographic research addresses material complexities and cultural meanings of places in the broader context of landscapes. We will investigate critical theories of place and landscape, while working with fieldwork data from the ancient Near East.
ARCH 2412 Space, Power, and Politics (ANTH 2590)
Interested students must register for ANTH 2590.
This course critically examines the politics of space and landscape from an interdisciplinary perspective. After reading key texts in political philosophy and cultural geography, we explore themes in recent scholarship including the spatial production of sovereignty, capital, and political subjectivity and the evolving role of digital cartography in public culture and politics. Case studies are drawn from archaeology, art history, ethnography, cultural geography, and history.
ARCH 2425 Ruins and Ruination: Objects of the Past in the Present
Ruins — the debris and skeletons of monuments from the past —constitute the leftovers of people and places that once were. Yet archaeologists have not thought critically about this seemingly essential concept. Ruins and ruination are fundamental to deeper understandings of culture contact, the rise and fall of civilizations, state power and political factionalism, urbanism, colonialism, capitalism, and deindustrialization. This course will examine, across a broad geographic and temporal scope, ruins as things, as well as ongoing processes, that affect the landscape.
ARCH 2500 Art and Archaeology of Civic Identity
Every urban community in the Greco-Roman world presented itself in a specific way to other communities and to foreign entities. Looking at coins, public monuments, programmatic sculpture, and epigraphic and textual evidence, we will address different concerns related to the formation and propagation of civic identities. Comparative material from other historical periods and theoretical and anthropological literature on group identity, social cohesion, and empire will contextualize the visual and archaeological evidence.
ARCH 2501A Problems in Archaeology: Culture, Contact and Colonialism (ANTH 2500A)
Interested students must register for ANTH 2500A.
Explores the theoretical discourses shaping anthropological approaches and defining archaeological projects on culture contact and colonialism. Attention will be given to examining colonial encounters between Europeans and indigenous peoples as ongoing processes rather than particular historical moments, and to looking at recent efforts at decolonizing archaeological practice.
ARCH 2501C GIS and Remote Sensing in Archaeology (ANTH 2500C)
Interested students must register for ANTH 2500C.
ARCH 2502 Historical Archaeology: From Colony to City (ANTH 2540)
Interested students must register for ANTH 2540.
Examines historical archaeology as a complex field of inquiry that engages multiple sources of evidence and incorporates a wide range of theoretical and methodological approaches. The seminar will consider the range of evidence available to historical archaeologists, and draw on examples from colonies and cities around the world to explore how the richness and diversity of the evidence is used.
ARCH 2511 Circumpolar Archaeology (ANTH 2510)
Interested students must register for ANTH 2510.
ARCH 2540 Roman, Byzantine, and Early Islamic Jerusalem
Jerusalem constitutes one of the most important archaeological sites connected to the origins of Judaism, Christianity, and Early Islam. Early and recent studies and discoveries, as well as old and new theories, will be examined in the seminar with special emphasis on the Roman, Byzantine, and Early Islamic periods. Prerequisite: knowledge in archaeological methodology.
ARCH 2550 Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls
This course is structured as a seminar on the archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls. The site will be examined in its larger geographical, historical, and archaeological context. The goal is to become familiar with the different scholarly interpretations of the site. Prerequisites: solid background in at least one of three fields: archaeology, Judaism, and Early Christianity.
ARCH 2551 Archaeological Research Methods, Theory and Practicum (ANTH 2550)
Interested students must register for ANTH 2550.
ARCH 2552 Museums in Their Communities (AMCV 2220D)
Interested students must register for AMCV 2220D.
This seminar examines in detail the internal workings of museums (of anthropology, art, history, science, etc.) and their place in their communities. Accessions, collections management, conservations, education, exhibition, marketing, research, and museum management are among the topics discussed. Open to graduate students only.
ARCH 2553 Introduction to Public Humanities (AMST 2650)
Interested students must register for AMST 2650.
This class, a foundational course for the MA in Public Humanities with preference given to American Studies graduate students, will address the theoretical bases of the public humanities, including topics of history and memory, museums and memorials, the roles of expertise and experience, community cultural development, and material culture. Enrollment limited to 20 graduate students.
ARCH 2600 Gender and Sexuality in Roman Art
The study of the body and embodiment in Roman art encourages us to make use of multiple theoretical models for interrogating both the art and the bodies involved. Gender and sexuality provide the lenses through which this course will explore a variety of topics (for example, the homoerotic gaze, sexualized spectacles of pain, gendered architectural typologies, and the body in rabbinic imagery) in Roman imperial art.
ARCH 2601 Approaching Women and Gender in Roman Culture
Gender as a hierarchical concept was a fundamental basis of Roman culture, but women often played active roles in shaping political, religious, and social ideologies in both public and private contexts. Drawing on material, visual, and literary evidence, as well as theoretical concepts of gender in the ancient world, this course will examine not only how the concepts of women and gender were constructed and perpetuated, but also how they were simultaneously resisted and subverted.
ARCH 2602 Visual Humor (HIAA 2980 S08)
Interested students must register for HIAA 2980 S08.
Can humor be a serious topic of inquiry? What images made the ancient Romans laugh? What evidence do we have of wit, irony, and visual puns from various cultures? Humor takes many shapes, and can be deployed to many ends. But what are we laughing at? Humor can be subversive or reactionary. When is it consensual? What is the sense of humor in visual art works?
ARCH 2620 All Italia: City and Country in Ancient Italy
This seminar approaches the urban and rural landscapes of peninsular Italy from the Early Iron Age until the Gothic Wars, with the goal being to examine key points of intersection (and departure) between the urban and rural spheres. Overall the seminar aims to contextualize Italian landscapes across both time and space and to that end we will consider issues pertaining to urbanism, economy, production, infrastructure, administration, architecture, and iconography.
ARCH 2640 Hispania: the Making of a Roman Province
How were Roman provinces created and incorporated into the Roman Empire? What traces exist in the archaeological record of the bonds between the provinces and the metropolis? This course approaches the complex issue of colonialism, material culture, change and continuity in connection with the Roman conquest of new territories in the Mediterranean, taking as an example the impressive pool of new archaeological data available from Roman Spain.
ARCH 2710 The Archaeology of Nubia and Egypt
Egypt and Nubia share the distinction of ancient civilizations along the Nile river, but Nubia remains much more poorly known than Egypt. This seminar will examine the archaeology of Nubia, including its relationship to Egypt, from the introduction of ceramics and agriculture to the medieval period. This long-term perspective will allow comparative study of issues such as state formation, imperialism and religious change.
ARCH 2725 The Making of Egypt
In the late 4th millennium, a state and culture recognizably pharaonic in structures rose in the Nile Valley. How was Egypt made, and how can we study the process? This seminar will examine the convergence of the development of monumental architecture, writing, canonical art, and kingship during Egypt's formative centuries from c. 3200-2600 BC. We will study the rapid changes at the start of the First Dynasty in the context of state formation over the longer span of late-Predynastic to Old Kingdom Egypt.
ARCH 2730 Images, Ideology, and Egyptian Warfare (EGYT 2850)
Interested students must register for EGYT 2850.
Images of violence and warfare are pervasive in Egypt, but their interpretation is not straightforward. What relationship is there between such images and historical events, ritual events, and royal ideology? How do such images function? This seminar will examine Egyptian images of violence and warfare from before the New Kingdom. It will take a contextual and comparative approach to discern patterns in the ways such images are used, with the goal being to understand why they were made rather than how they can be used to answer historical questions. .
ARCH 2740 Social Life in Ancient Egypt
This course will draw upon recent discussions in anthropology and sociology that explore issues of identity by examining hierarchies of difference - age, sex, class, ethnicity. We will focus on linking theory with data and discussing modern and ancient categories of identity. Taking the lifecycle as its structure, the course covers conception to burial, drawing on a range of data sources, such as material culture, iconography, textual data and human remains. The very rich material past of of ancient Egypt provides an excellent framework from within which to consider how identity and social distinctions were constituted in the past.
ARCH 2743 Egyptian Art in New England Museums (EGYT 2900)
Interested students must register for EGYT 2900.
This seminar will be an in-depth, in-person study of Egyptian art from before the New Kingdom focusing on the entire life-history of Egyptian art in all available media and genres. The course will alternate between meeting in the classroom and meeting in museums. Classroom days will be devoted to discussion of the contexts, meanings, and uses of Egyptian art. Museum days will be devoted to the close observation of that art, and discussion of both its formal properties and the technological processes that were used in its creation. Consideration of conservation and display will also be of paramount importance.
ARCH 2744 Egyptian Art in New England Museums
This seminar will be an in-depth, in-person study of Egyptian art from before the New Kingdom focusing on the entire life-history of Egyptian art in all available media and genres. The course will alternate between meeting in the classroom and meeting in museums. Classroom days will be devoted to discussion of the contexts, meanings, and uses of Egyptian art. Museum days will be devoted to the close observation of that art, and discussion of both its formal properties and the technological processes that were used in its creation. Consideration of conservation and display will also be of paramount importance.
ARCH 2820 Special Topics in Old World Art and Archaeology
ARCH 2851 Skills Training in Material Culture Studies I
When dealing with material culture, one must possess a solid foundation in a range of skills. How does one document and analyze artifacts, architecture and landscapes, what techniques are appropriate in what cases? How should all this information be securely stored and promulgated? This "hands on" class, intended for students in multiple disciplines, will consider the study of particular types of material or bodies of evidence (e.g., pottery, lithics, epigraphy, numismatics).
ARCH 2852 Skills Training in Material Culture Studies II
When dealing with material culture, one must possess a solid foundation in a range of skills. How does one document and analyze artifacts, architecture and landscapes, what are the appropriate techniques? How should all this information be securely stored and promulgated? This "hands on" class, intended for students in multiple disciplines, will revolve around techniques of documentation and analysis (e.g. architectural drawing, GIS [Geographic Information Systems], data bases and digital media).
ARCH 2857 Archaeology in the Digital Age (ANTH 2201)
Interested students must register for ANTH 2201.
In the 21st Century, digital tools are as integral to archaeological research as the trowel and the field notebook. This course combines essential training in digital archaeology with critical discussions of how digital methods are impacting the conceptual dimensions of archaeological research. Topics include topographic survey, GNSS, tablet-based recording systems, database design, digital photogrammetry, and intermediate level archaeological GIS. Demonstrated proficiency in ArcGIS or open-sourced GIS software (the equivalent of an introductory course, preferably Anthropology 1201) and previous archaeological field experience are prerequisites.
ARCH 2900 Individual Reading
ARCH 2950 Thesis Research
Individual reading for the Master's degree.
ARCH 2960 Individual Reading for Dissertation
Reading leading to selection of the dissertation subject. Single credit.
ARCH 2970 Dissertation Research
ARCH 2980 Preliminary Examination Preparation
For graduate students who have met the tuition requirement and are paying the registration fee to continue active enrollment while preparing for a preliminary examination.
ARCH 2990 Thesis Preparation
For graduate students who are preparing a thesis and who have met the tuition requirement and are paying a registration fee to continue active enrollment. No course credit.

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