This seminar is an introduction to some dimension of the history of a nation, region, people, culture, institution, or historical phenomenon selected by the respective instructor. Students will come to understand, and develop an appreciation for: the origins and evolution of the people, cultures, and/or political, economic, and/or social institutions of a particular region(s) of the world. They may explore how human encounters shaped individual and collective identities and the political, economic, and social orders of the region/nation/communities under study. Instructors prioritize critical reading, engaged participation, and focused writing assignments.

This seminar aims to explain the conflict between the contemporary Republic of Armenia and Azerbaijan over the territory of Nagorno-Karabagh/Artsakh that erupted into two major wars in the 1990s and then again in 2020. To better understand the roots of this conflict we will look at 19th-century Russian and 20th-century Soviet policies regarding ethnicity and territorial boundaries in the region of the South Caucasus that currently consists of the republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan. We will also examine how nationalism contributed to the creation of the republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan between 1918 and 1920, and how this era served as the beginning of a process of creating ethnically homogenous states in a region that had been highly diverse and intermixed. We will further explore the following questions: What gave rise to ethno-national politics in the South Caucasus? How these politics shaped the historical narratives of each nation, particularly as it relates to efforts to prove the indigeneity of Armenians or Azeris to Nagorno-Karabagh? How those narratives in turn have contributed to the intensification of conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the post-Soviet era? Going against discourses of primordial roots of ethnic or sectarian conflict, this course can help students understand how the modern phenomena of nationalism, the nation-state, and colonialism have contributed to ethnic conflicts anywhere stretching from Central Asia to the Caucasus, from the Middle East to the Balkans.

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Requirements class fulfills