Our chosen topic, Migrations and Diasporas, seems particularly fitting given the current refugee crisis in the Mediterranean region. The books this year will provide a global context for understanding the causes, mechanisms, and effects of human migrations. We will investigate the ways in which groups of people are integrated into (or excluded from) their new societies. Another question for consideration is how diasporas affect the politics, economies, and cultures of the societies in which they develop.
Wednesday, December 9, 2015
5:00 - 7:00 PM
December Book: The End of Empire: Attila the Hun & the Fall of Rome, by Christopher Kelly
Continuing our exploration of migration, our third book examines the interaction between the Roman Empire and the Huns. This book traces the Huns' migration and settlement on the Great Hunagrian Plain and Attila's interactions with Rome. In addition to the topics of migration and diaspora, this book will address a complex and important time period in World History.
Wednesday, January 13, 2016
5:00 - 7:00 PM
Reading: Slavery and Abolition in the Ottoman Middle East, by Ehud R. Toledano
This book gives us a chance to investigate an institution that is responsible for movements of people across the world throughout history: slavery. In many places and time slavery was more than simply a form of labor relations. It was also often a station that connoted outsider status and otherness. This book will give us an opportunity to look at how East Africans, Central Asians, and Eastern Europeans were brought into the Ottoman Empire.
Wednesday, February 10, 2016
5:00 - 7:00 PM
Reading: TBD
Wednesday, March 9, 2016
5:00 - 7:00 PM
Reading: TBD
Wednesday, April 13, 2016
5:00 - 7:00 PM
Reading: TBD
Wednesday, May 11, 2016
5:00 - 7:00 PM
May Book: TBD