Literature
Name the three insider accounts that were central to identity formation in their corresponding societies and part of the oral tradition for generations.
What are the Epic of Sunjata, Tales of the Heike, and The Secret History of the Mongols?
The Fourth Crusade invaded this city.
What is Constantinople?
In 1276, Mongols invaded this city.
What is Hangzhou?
Name three kingdoms from medieval and early modern India.
What are the Chola Empire, Vijayanagar, and the Delhi Sultanate?
Lynda Shaffer, Marshall Hodgson, and Kwame Anthony Appiah criticize this specific ethnocentric historical model.
What is Eurocentricism?
This scholar argues that there is no such thing as "Western Civilization" as commonly believed.
Who is Kwame Anthony Appiah?
This event was arguably the first recorded instance of early biological warfare.
What is the Siege of Caffa?
These were the large sea vessels used by the Chinese and Indian seafarers to travel across the Indian Ocean.
What are dhows and junks?
This author wrote the following passage:
"She flares up when the wind is blowing,
and dies when she is water drinking.
Although she is a beautiful female...
she is no woman, although not male."
Who is Amr Khusrau?
The Epic of Sunjata documents the social, political, cultural, economic lives of this group of people.
Who are the Mande people?
This term represents the lowest level of the self in Sufism, and Rumi discusses humans' struggles against this concept in this work of his we read as part of our course material.
What are "nafs" and "Masnavi?"
In his letter to this Daoist master, Chingghis Khan sought his wisdom and tried to recruit him, as well as offering a nomadic critique of a sedentary society.
Who is Changchun?
This literary major work depicts a society in transition from a politically centralized imperial context to a feudal one.
What is the Tales of the Heike?
This belief system considers Vishnu, Shiva, and Allah as the representations of a single deity.
What is the Bakhti Movement?
Marshall Hodgson builds his historical model upon these four "creative core areas" to explain the interrelatedness and interconnectedness of history.
What are Mediterranean-Europe, Mediterranean-Mesopotamia, Indus and Ganges Valley, and Hoang-Ho and Yangtze Valleys?
This scholar critiques the Mercator projections and argues that the manifestations and depictions of the "West" on maps is reflective of ethnocentric power narratives.
Who is Marshall Hodgson?
This is the author of the following passage and the name of the source this passage comes from:
"Others took the opposite view, and maintained that an infallible way of warding off this appalling evil was to drink heavily, enjoy life to the full, go round singing and merrymaking, gratify all of one's cravings whenever the opportunity offered, and shrug the whole thing off as one enormous joke."
Who is Boccaccio and what is "The Decameron?"
This was the capital city of the Mongols in China.
Where is Khanbaliq?
She was the only known female ruler in the history of Delhi.
Who is Razia?
According to this Enlightenment thinker and this 14th-century scholar, language plays a key role in social group formation.
Who are Johann Gottfried Herder and Ibn Khaldun?
This the name of the author who wrote the following passage and the work in which it appeared:
"As I mulled over these ideas over in my mind again, I began to examine myself and my own behaviour as an example of womankind. In order to judge in all fairness and without prejudice whether what so many famous men have said about us is true. I also thought about other women I know, the many princesses and countless ladies of all different social ranks who have shared their private and personal thoughts with me. No matter which way I looked at it and no matter how much I turned the question over in my mind, I could find no evidence from my experience to bear out such a negative view of female nature and habits."
Who is Christine de Pizan and what is "The City of Ladies?"
This was the name of the 1513 artwork by this artist that was shown at our very first lecture and at our last lecture before the midterm.
Who is Albrecht Durer, and what is "Knight, Death, and the Devil?"
This is the name given to the period in medieval Japan that is marked by the institutionalization of feudalism and land-based economy.
What is the Kamakura Period?
He is the founder of Sikhism.
Who is Guru Nanak?
Name one society that Ibn Khaldun would have argued that it has less asabiyyah than the early Yuan Dynasty and one that has more.
What are the Chola Kingdom and the Bedouins?