Impact of an Empire - Period 5

Social Sciences & Humanities Program
Amsterdam, Netherlands

Dates: 1/31/20 - 5/30/20

Social Sciences & Humanities

Impact of an Empire - Period 5

Impact of an Empire - Period 5 Course Overview

OVERVIEW

CEA CAPA Partner Institution: Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands
Primary Subject Area: History
Instruction in: English
Transcript Source: Partner Institution
Course Details: Level 400
Recommended Semester Credits: 3
Contact Hours: 84

DESCRIPTION

This course is about the impact of the Roman Empire, which has been one of the greatest and most long-lasting Empires in world history. It emerged as early as the second century BCE and at its largest it stretched from the Scottish Highlands in the North to the Sahara desert in the South, and from the Atlantic coast in the West to Iraq in the East.

Within this huge territory an enormous diversity of tribes and groups with vastly different ethnic, linguistic and cultural backgrounds were living together. Now one of the key issues in this course is what the impact of the empire was on those pre-existing local communities. How did the change of rule change local affairs and lives of individual people at grass-roots level? In order to make sense of the enormous wealth of both archaeological and documentary evidence that is available, we will use an anthropological approach. In this sense, you might call this course interdisciplinary, as it makes use of the disciplines of archaeology, history and the social sciences.

Just to prevent any possible misunderstanding on the meaning of the term ?impact? in the course title, it should be made clear that this course is NOT about the afterlife of Rome, that is, the impact of Rome on the later medieval and modern history of Europe, Africa and the Near East. However, we will invite you to reflect on current hot issues (such as identity, migration and violence) by considering the similarities and dissimilarities between our modern western society and the Roman world. We will use the Roman example as a way to critically reflect on contemporary society and consider comparison between the Roman world and the globalizing world we live in as an important tool to reach this course goal.

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU Amsterdam) awards credits based on the ECTS system. Contact hours listed under a course description may vary due to the combination of lecture-based and independent work required for each course therefore, CEA?s recommended credits are based on the ECTS credits assigned by VU Amsterdam. 1 ECTS equals 28 contact hours assigned by VU Amsterdam.

This is an Honors course.


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