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Ian Straughn

Islamic Archaeology

Archaeology and Religion

Islamic Landscapes

Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology

 

 

Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology & the Ancient World
Brown University
Box 1837 / 60 George Street
Providence, RI 02912
Telephone: (401) 863-3188
Fax: (401) 863-9423
[email protected]

General Overview

This course will require you to write two short (4-6 pages) essays during the semester.

The first essay will be a specific question related to the course themes. You might think of it more as a take home midterm.

The second paper will ask you to read and analyze some material of your choosing from a list of works which I will provide. Here the task is to take a primary document, site report, or other genre of text and use it to form an argument about the relationship between material culture and identity or the trope of penetrating the unknown lands and peoples of Arabia.

Evaluation

Writing assignments will be evaluated for both content and style. By style I mean that I expect papers to have been rigorously edited and be professional pieces of writing with proper citation formats, page numbers, title pages etc. In terms of content (and this will be the subject of separate handout) what I am looking for is a well structured argument that demonstrates a critical close engagement with the readings. I would much rather a paper that analyzed just two sentences of an article with close attention to language and their relationship to the author’s thesis than a personal commentary or literature review.

Plagiarism will not be tolerated. Any incidents of dishonest work will be reported to your academic advisor and the appropriate dean. I take all these matters seriously. If you feel that you are headed in this direction, see me immediately and we can solve this together, before it leads down the road of disciplinary action.

Essays

Essay #1

Essay #2