A survey of the modern Middle East with special emphasis on the experiences of ordinary men and women as articulated in biographies, novels, and regional case studies. Issues covered include the collapse of empires and the rise of a new state system following WWI, and the roots and consequences of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the Iranian revolution and the U.S.-Iraq War. Themes include: the colonial encounter with Europe and the emergence of nationalist movements, the relationship between state and society, economic development and international relations, and religion and cultural identity.

This course key issues facing Muslims in the modern world with an emphasis on gaining an understanding of how Muslims view themselves and the world in which they live. Beginning with a discussion of the impact of colonialism, we will examine Islamic ideas and trends from the late colonial period until the present. Readings include religious, political and literary writings by important Muslim figures and focus on pressing issues in the Islamic world an beyond: the place of religion in modern national politics; the changing status of women; constructions of sexuality (including masculinity); pressing issues in bioethics; Islam, race and immigration in America; the role of violence; and the manifestations of religion in popular culture.

Since the early medieval period, Jews have been known as "the People of the Book". Yet the books they produced and consumed changed drastically over time and place, spanning a variety of known genres and inventing new ones. These works, in turn, shaped the texts, ideas, and lives of Jews and others for millennia, spawned vast commentary traditions, and inspired new works. This course engages prominent Jewish texts, such as the Hebrew Bible, Rabbinic Literature, the works of major medieval philosophers, pre-modern intellectuals, and modern authors, situating them in their literary, cultural, and social contexts, and examining their later reception.

A broad introduction to the history of Jewish civilization from its Biblical beginnings to the Middle Ages, with the main focus on the formative period of classical rabbinic Judaism and on the symbiotic relationship between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

This course is designed to further the language skills learned in Beginning Malayalam. Direct and indirect speech, passive voice, postpositions, and rules of joining words, will be included. Reading and discussion of texts from current Malayalam literature (essays, narration, short stories, and poems) will be a major portion of the course.

This course is designed to develop skills in reading, writing, and speaking. It will focus on the alphabet, basic vocabulary, nouns (cases, gender and number), verbs and their basic tenses, numerals, rules of joining words, adjectives, adverbs, and sentence structure. Guided conversation will be a part of every class. Students will receive considerable training in speaking and writing their own sentences and paragraphs.

This course is designed to develop skills in reading, writing, and speaking. It will focus on the alphabet, basic vocabulary, nouns (cases, gender and number), verbs and their basic tenses, numerals, rules of joining words, adjectives, adverbs, and sentence structure. Guided conversation will be a part of every class. Students will receive considerable training in speaking and writing their own sentences and paragraphs.

To this day, we have found no evidence of a language developing in total isolation from other languages. Most languages arein constant contact with other languages with the consequence that they can shape and influence each other. However, everylanguage evolves in a distinct linguistic ecology and this means that the circumstances of language contact and the socioculturalrelationships involved in each contact situation vary considerably, leading to a range of different outcomes. This course offers athorough introduction to the field of contact linguistics including a detailed overview of contact situations and their linguistic andsocial consequences. The topics under study are: bilingualism (including code switching), multilingualism, morpho-syntactic andphonological transfer, structural diffusion, convergence, pidginization & creolization, language shift and language death. We willparticularly focus on the cognitive processes involved in contact situations and will explore them, using descriptive, theoretical andexperimental approaches.

To this day, we have found no evidence of a language developing in total isolation from other languages. Most languages are in constant contact with other languages with the consequence that they can shape and influence each other. However, every language evolves in a distinct linguistic ecology and this means that the circumstances of language contact and the sociocultural relationships involved in each contact situation vary considerably, leading to a range of different outcomes. This course offers a thorough introduction to the field of contact linguistics including a detailed overview of contact situations and their linguistic and social consequences. The topics under study are: bilingualism (including code switching), multilingualism, morpho-syntactic and phonological transfer, structural diffusion, convergence, pidginization & creolization, language shift and language death. We will particularly focus on the cognitive processes involved in contact situations and will explore them, using descriptive, theoretical and experimental approaches.

This course is an upper level undergraduate/graduate seminar in neurolinguistics. We will explore language in the brain through readings and discussions.