CLAS 488 - Priests, Prostitutes, and Conquerors: Modern Imagination and the Ancient Near East

This course focuses on the ancient history of the Middle East prior to the rise of Christianity and Islam. In reflecting on modern agendas and assumptions that have defined a certain image of "the classical world" in distinction to that of "the ancient Near East", we take a critical approach to Mesopotamian, Anatolian, Levantine, and Persian history from the development of writing to the conquest of Alexander the Great (fourth millennium to fourth century BCE).