HIST 694B Historiography of Medieval Islam
This course introduces graduate students to the major problems, scholarly debates, and methodological approaches to the study of the history of the pre-Ottoman Islamic Middle East. General areas covered include the historical origins and development of Islam and Islamic intellectual disciplines, the Islamic Middle East in its Late Antique and Mediterranean contexts, and basic theoretical orientations to the study of both non-western and pre-modern societies.
The course welcomes both specialists in Middle Eastern history and historians of other regions. As such, the themes studied throughout the course strike a balance between those focused on "internal" aspects of Islamic history and those that branch into other areas of world history, particularly connections between the Islamic Middle East, Byzantium, and the Latin West. Perspectives and insights from other historiographical areas that aid us in the study of Middle Eastern history are encouraged and welcome.