This course attempts to trace the evolution of alphabetic writing from its inception around 1700 BCE up to the crystallization of modem scripts. Since the alphabet was used primarily by West Semites, we will deal mainly with the history of West Semitic writing, but also with its adoption by other peoples (Greeks and Persians), and we will trace the first phase in the evolution of the alphabet among these peoples.

A foundational question underlying state formation is how we (Homo sapiens sapiens) came to live amid the unprecedented concentrations of domesticated plants, animals, and people that characterize states. From this wide-angle view, the state form is anything but natural or given.

All terrorist groups eventually end. But how? Most modern groups have ended because they joined the political process or local police and intelligence agencies arrested key members. This has significant implications for dealing with the Global War on Terror and suggests fundamentally rethinking post-9/11 U.S. counterterrorism strategy. This class will challenge students to question conventional thinking on security and consider more just responses to modern conflicts.

Although often relegated to the role of slavish cannon fodder for Sparta’s spears, the Achaemenid Persian empire had a glorious heritage. Under a single king, they created the greatest empire the world had ever seen. When in 498BCE the young and feisty democracy in Athens decides to send a small fleet to aid their fellow Greeks in Asia Minor to rebel against the Achaemenid Persians they incurred the wrath of the greatest empire the world had yet known.

In this course, students will learn how to defend ideals which respect the worth of all people. Students will learn how to use modern social science to refute racists, Social Darwinists, Nietzsche, and the meritocracy thesis of The Bell Curve. Students will learn how to argue effectively that the great post-Enlightenment project– justice for all races and classes, the reduction of inequality, and the abolition of privilege– retains its moral dignity and relevance.

Confrontations between the powerless and the powerful are laden with deception – the powerless feign deference and the powerful subtly assert their mastery. Peasants, serfs, untouchables, slaves, laborers, prisoners, and even teenagers are not always free to speak their minds in the presence of power. These subordinate groups instead create a secret discourse that represents a critique of power spoken behind the backs of the dominant.

Beginning with the year 323 BCE, this course chronicles the disintegration of Alexander the Great’s empire following his death in Babylon at age thirty-two. When Alexander the Great bequeathed his empire “to the strongest” (or so legend has it) he set off a funeral contest that shook the world for decades. Murder, marriage, intrigue, and drama all feature prominently in the story.

The goal of this class is to teach students to be effective observers of political communicators in the public sphere. By analyzing the relationship between political actors, communication channels, and the public, students will gain an understanding of the ways in which dominant ideologies shape communication strategies, and an understanding of the ways in which communication strategies shape public opinion.

With an unmatched level of strategic genius, Chinggis Khan would move against both Northern China and the Eastern Islamic world. Leaving both civilizations stunned and millions slaughtered. In one of the most violent outbursts in history, a little-known tribe of Eurasian nomads would break upon the great societies of the Old World like a tsunami. It may have ushered in the modern era, but at what cost?

This class examines thinkers from Plato, Marx and Mill to the present to trace the transition from giving political expression to the good life toward satisfying demands. We will explore how humane ideals, political prudence and economics are necessary to create a just world. The moral: thinkers who cannot argue economics cannot face the greatest challenge of the modern world - namely, how to humanize market capitalism.

This class follows our familiar words and conversations into unfamiliar territory. It takes learners on a journey to distant lands to study the relationship between language and culture and how speakers of different languages perceive the world. Each week, we'll explore a new language and analyze a different cultural-linguistic story that teaches us something about ourselves, the languages that we speak, and the way in which we see the world.

This class will prepare learners to work with a great range of evidence and to consider questions from varied viewpoints. It will help them sharpen their critical thinking skills, conquer any fears they may have of public speaking, and teach them how to make convincing arguments. As learners explore and apply the principles of argumentation and debate, they'll learn how to read academic research papers, examine controversial topics, learn to be critical in academic inquiry, analyze and utilize primary source documents, engage in argumentative discussions, and construct argumentative academic essays. Students should be prepared to have any and all assumptions challenged!

The wars which elevate Rome to superpower status also sow the seed for the downfall of its political system. Money, slaves, ambition, political stalemate, and class warfare prove to be a toxic, bloody mix. Covering Ancient Rome from 133 BCE, this course explores political, social, and economic factors commonly offered to explain the fall of the Roman Republic.

The last great generation of the Roman Republic emerges from the historical mists. The dynamic between Caesar, Cato, Cicero, Crassus, and Pompey forms the axis around which the rest of this tale revolves.

Is there a connection between genius & madness, creativity & insanity? In this class, students will join others in lively discussions as we try to define “normal” and determine whether creativity is ingenuity, inspiration, or insanity. Students will trace the history of social and artistic transgression, read texts from Plato to Poe, and discuss when and why our culture decided to call a madman a genius and a genius mad.

This class challenges students with a radically different approach to political history that presents events from the perspective of stateless peoples and explores the idea of state-making as a form of “internal colonialism.”

Learn the methodology of deciphering ancient scripts and languages and get a chance to crack some of the world’s most famous undeciphered writing systems.

Europe used to be just one corner of the world, and a fairly peripheral one in historical terms. But in the colonial era, Europe set itself up as the center of the world and put together an exploitative system in which other areas were treated as its periphery. This legacy still lives on today in the Eurocentric world maps we hang in our classrooms. This course aims to discuss and analyze maps that show the world from a different angle – strange maps that are delightfully obscure, shockingly partisan, blatantly incorrect, and more, all the while exploring the topics of human & political world geography.