The Silk Road, often characterized as the world’s first great superhighway, linked China and Japan to the Mediterranean World across Central Asia from ancient times, via caravans and bazaars, to modern periods via new transportation and communication networks. As much of an idea as a reality, its role in world history is unique and complex.  The peoples along the way not only traded luxury goods, but also ideas, religions, art, culinary and musical traditions. Through lectures, reading and films, we will explore the trade links between East and West, and the material traded along the way.   Primary-source literature will help us understand the great ideas and movements of the times-Buddhism, Islam, Christian crusading and Mongol expansion. Students may choose final topics that draw on the "old" silk road or the "new" silk road.

What are “human rights”?  This course explores the development of international law and human rights from the late 1700s to the present, examining how the meaning of  “human rights” has shifted over time.  While the course is anchored in the United States, it will analyze broader global debates over “human rights” that were sparked by slavery, imperial conquest, migration, genocide, the law of warfare, the creation and disappearance of states, gender violence,  and mass expulsions.  Who defined human rights and what mechanisms were developed to address abuses?  The course takes both a “bottom up” and a “top down” approach.  It pays close attention to how individuals and groups--the victims of abuses--shaped international law and human rights.  It also examines the responses of both governmental (the State Department, the United Nations, the World Court) and non-governmental organizations (e.g. Amnesty International) in negotiating treaties, holding trials and hearings, investigating and processing claims, and creating new international standards and conventions on human rights.

**Elective for History, Justice Studies

Hidden History and New England Material Culture

The course features intensive examination of specialized topics in American Public History and Museum Studies, introducing the theory and methodology of Material Culture: the study of history through the analysis of buildings, human-created landscapes and artifacts made and used in New England. Emphasis will be on readings that reflect fresh trends in research strategies or interpretive direfctions and encompass exploration of c urrent methodologies and "best practices" employed by those involved in the study, interpretation, and display of material culture objects.