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CS92PROD
Constantinople: From Rome to Istanbul


COL 128
Spring 2017
Section: 01  
Crosslisting: MDST 128, HIST 230
Certificates: International Relations
Course Cluster: Urban Studies, Christianity Studies

Constantinople was founded by a Roman Emperor Constantine the Great in 330. From there the story gets complicated. Should we account for Constantinople from a Western point of view and call it Roman? Or, should we label it by its Eastern religion and call it Christian? Or, should we see Constantinople's true nature in a transnational Hellenic culture and call it Byzantine? Then, once we've chosen a story to explain the city's nature, how should it end? With the pillaging fourth crusade in 1204, or the Ottoman sack in 1453, or is Constantinople yet alive in modern Istanbul? This course diverges from such narrative frameworks by accounting for Constantinople as, first and foremost, a city. Together we will explore the rich, unevenly distributed, textual and material relics of this medieval metropolis and contribute our finds to a collaborative digital database. Students will draw from this database to craft their own histories, applying both imagination and analysis into a believable and reliable story conveying the diversities and paradoxes of life in The City.
Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: HA COL
Course Format: Lecture / DiscussionGrading Mode: Graded
Level: UGRD Prerequisites: None
Fulfills a Requirement for: (HIST-MN)(HIST)(MDST-MN)(MDST)(MDST-Art/Arch)(MDST-History)(MDST-Lang/Lit)(MDST-Phil/Reli)
Past Enrollment Probability: 75% - 89%

Last Updated on DEC-05-2024
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