Courses

This course approaches the 'Persianate World' as a connected social and material zone stretching from the Balkans to Bengal and reaching into the borderlands of China and the coast of Oman. We will view this region through the lens of 'connected history' to understand how diverse societies were integrated by shared social practices, circulating commodities, and administrative norms. Spanning from the post-Mongol era to the colonial transformations of the twentieth century, the course investigates the mechanisms that made and linked these lands. We will look past the 'Gunpowder Empires' to examine the networks of poets, artists, and merchants alongside the journeys of pilgrims, laborers, refugees, and enslaved people who moved across these routes. By tracing these mobilities and the bureaucratic tools that regulated them, students will gain insight into a non-Western model of globalization. The course concludes by examining how colonial rule and modern nationalism reshaped these connections and how historical legacies continue to shape contemporary geopolitics in the Middle East and Asia.