Course Goals

1) Knowledge Acquisition:

This course aims to teach the students about the archaeology, history and social worlds of Arabia. This will include knowledge of specific sites, geography, people, events, traditions, as well as religious and social practices. In order to accomplish this goal and reinforce the course lectures and discussions we will maintain on the course wiki a glossary of key terms and images encountered throughout the semester. This document will become the basic study guide for the final exam.

2) Skill Sets:

This course is intended to further develop and assess student’s abilities in key aspects of their academic work including writing arguments, summarizing and critically evaluating readings, as well as participating in debate about transdiciplinary topics such as ethnicity, language and material culture. This training will be attained through a diverse set of assignments including reading response, essays, exams, and participation in discussions both in the classroom and through an integrated web platform. It is central to this course that, as students, you become exposed and contend with a diverse set of sources for understanding and learning about a culture and society that is both temporally and geographically removed from what is familiar.