REL 3500 SILK ROAD: THEN AND NOW
This course explores the religious interactions, commercial/technological exchanges, and artistic influences of the Silk Road, which was a vast network of overland trade routes linking Asia with the eastern Mediterranean from late antiquity to the early medieval period. Specifically, this course investigates the cultural conflicts and confluences that occurred when Greek humanism, Persian Zoroastrianism, Indian Hinduism, Chinese Daoism, and pan-Asian Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam came into contact with one another across the Eurasian continent. It also considers the 19th-20th century European adventurers and scholars who first rediscovered yet also exploited the Central, South, and East Asian cultures of the Silk Road, and it critically reflects on the enduring legacy of Orientalism in contemporary society as well.
Course Types
Advanced Studies; Interreligious Studies Elective
Offered
Offered spring.