Week 1: Where is Mesopotamia, Near East, Middle East? Imperialism and the politics of defining a region. January 25 Friday.

Week 2. Archaeology, politics and the “presence of the past” in the Middle East

Week 3. Landscapes of the Near East

Week 4. Prehistory: the Neolithic in the Near East

Week 5. Towards urbanization and social complexity: Uruk Period in Southern Mesopotamia

Week 6. From memory to history: the urban, literate cultures of southern Iraq

Week 7. Vision, visuality and the cult image: Mesopotamia in the Early Bronze Age

Week 8. Akkad and Sumer: narratives of royal ideology

Week 9. Cities and nomads along the Euphrates: Syria in the Middle Bronze Age

Week 10. Greetings to my brother! Late Bronze age in the Levant and the Hittite Empire