NELC3560 - Gunpowder, Art and Diplomacy: Islamic Empires in the Early Modern World

Status
X
Activity
LEC
Section number integer
401
Title (text only)
Gunpowder, Art and Diplomacy: Islamic Empires in the Early Modern World
Term
2024A
Subject area
NELC
Section number only
401
Section ID
NELC3560401
Course number integer
3560
Meeting times
CANCELED
Level
undergraduate
Instructors
Oscar Aguirre Mandujano
Description
In the sixteenth century, the political landscape of the Middle East, Central Asia, and India changed with the expansion and consolidation of new Islamic empires. Gunpowder had transformed the modes of warfare. Diplomacy followed new rules and forms of legitimation. The widespread use of Persian, Arabic and Turkish languages across the region allowed for an interconnected world of scholars, merchants, and diplomats. And each imperial court, those of the Ottomans, the Safavids, and the Mughals, found innovative and original forms of expression in art and literature. The expansion of these Islamic empires, each of them military giants and behemoths of bureaucracy, marked a new phase in world history. The course is divided in four sections. The first section introduces the student to major debates about the so-called gunpowder empires of the Islamic world as well as to comparative approaches to study them. The second section focuses on the transformations of modes of warfare and military organization. The third section considers the cultural history and artistic production of the imperial courts of the Ottomans, the Mughals, and the Safavids. The fourth and final section investigates the social histories of these empires, their subjects, and the configuration of a world both connected and divided by commerce, expansion, and diplomacy.
Course number only
3560
Cross listings
HIST1300401
Fulfills
Cross Cultural Analysis
Use local description
No