Central Asia Past and Present/From Alexander the Great to Al Qaeda

Undergraduate / Graduate

Central Asia Past and Present serves as a multi-disciplinary course, spanning anthropology, history and political science. This course introduces students to the fluid, political-geographic concept of Central Asia as well as to the historical and cultural dimensions of this particular and oft-redefined world. My understanding of Central Asia comes from studies of ex-Soviet Central Asia, which includes five independent countries (since 1991) within central Eurasia--the former U.S.S.R. Thus the course encompasses Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan in addition to parts of northern Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and western China (Xinjiang/Sinkiang). Students will familiarize themselves with universal and divergent factors among the Central Asian peoples based on phenomena such as human migrations, cross-cultural influences, historical events, and the economic organization of peoples based on local ecology and natural boundaries. Working together and as individuals, we will study maps and atlases to gain a fuller understanding of historical movements and settlements of the Central Asian peoples.