Istanbul is the only city in the world located on two continents. Byzantine, Ottoman, and Turkish cultural legacies allow the city to be read as a 'palimpsest', a multi-layered urban text of multiple, even contradictory meanings. Istanbul is an ideal site to explore imperial history, Islam and Christianity, migration, East/West relations, and cosmopolitanism. Through interdisciplinary sources in history, culture, theory, and politics, students will examine a variety of urban, architectural and social spaces including churches, mosques, public squares, and ethnic neighborhoods. Taught in English.
