Document Type

Syllabus

Publication Date

Spring 2024

Course Description

The Red Sea region has long been a global nexus—it’s been a shipping and trade route for at least two millennia and it features prominently in the histories of numerous cultures and nation states, including Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, the Tribes of Israel, the Kingdom of Aksum, the Ottoman Empire, and the Persian Empire. Today, the Sea sits at the heart of one of the most complicated political, economic, and ecological regions in the world—it directly bridges two continents, six modern nations, five major world religions, and numerous modern ethnic and language groups. The region has withstood some of the most persistent and wide-spread military conflicts in human history, and yet also boasts some of the oldest surviving examples of human ingenuity in engineering, architecture, and art. The Sea itself is one of the most biodiverse ecosystems in the world, although modern shipping practices, oil extraction, and desalination plants threaten the coral reefs and ocean life that call the Sea home. This course adopts an area studies approach to trace the complex history of the Red Sea region through disparate but interconnected literary, religious, political, and historical texts, from classical civilizations up to the present day. Unpacking the region’s multi-layered literary and cultural past—and connecting that past to the concerns of the present—will require the tools of a modern global studies framework.

Student Outcomes

This course touches on a number of Learning Outcomes from interrelated programs on campus. It is an exploration of Global Studies in practice and will fulfill the Global Learning graduation requirement, which addresses the following Learning Outcomes: 1. Engagement with cultural difference: Gain a critical understanding of perspectives and voices of specific people and places outside of the U.S. 2. Historical/structural analysis: Understand and analyze the complex historical relationships between cultures and identities in a globalized framework. 3. Recognition and development of cross-cultural skills: Develop a self-reflective sensibility towards culturaldifference through the critical understanding of your globally-situated identities and responsibilities. We will explore our Global Learning concepts by reading primary sources from major humanistic and social science disciplines that stem from or relate back to the history and culture of the Red Sea region. One of our most important goals in the class is to recognize that modern problems stem from complex pasts, and no political, ecological, or social movements of the present exist without those pasts—therefore, the solutions to today’s “wicked problems” depend in crucial ways on an understanding of what has gone before, even if it may not be immediately clear to us how or why. However, this is also a W course, and our primary method of exploring Global Studies frameworks and primary sources from the Red Sea region will be through writing and written texts. Like all W courses, this course is a general education course with a focus on the writing process. The majority of our assessed assignments will be practical writing exercises. All gen ed courses, regardless of their home department or program, share common goals. By the end of this course, you will be better able to: 1. Clearly express your ideas and the ideas of others to varied audiences, both in writing and orally. 2. Identify the requirements of a new writing style or format that has been presented to you and produce a clear piece of writing in response. 3. Understand writing projects as a series of tasks, including finding, evaluating, summarizing, analyzing, and synthesizing sources. 4. Possess flexible strategies for generating ideas, drafting, proof-reading, editing, and revising. 5. Understand how to document both primary and secondary sources and why that is important. 6. Develop capacities for clear, thorough, and independent thought that demonstrates the ability to analyze arguments on the basis of evidence and to understand the value and limitations of multiple types of evidence. 7. Be passionate about writing as a means for thinking, communication, expression, and action.

Download

Share

COinS