CLASS 1154 - MEDITERRANEAN CROSSROADS

Minimum Credits: 3
Maximum Credits: 3
This course takes a place-based, diachronic approach to the study of Mediterranean interconnectedness, from the perspective of the main Sicilian island and indeed the very notion of islandness. As Godfrey Baldacchino has written in the introduction to his seminal A World of Islands: "islands suggest themselves as terrae nullius, empty spaces, waiting, wanting, to be possessed: potential laboratories for any conceivable and uninhibited human project, in thought or in action...But: the small, remote and insular also suggests marginality, being on the edge, being out of sight and so out of mind, situations which can expose the weakness of mainstream ideas, orthodoxies, and received wisdoms, while fomenting alternatives to the status quo. Any dominant paradigm is supposedly weakest at its periphery." Baldacchino's insights invite us to think deeply about Sicily's position with regard to the Mediterranean and its components, as a locus of exchange, commerce, conquest, mobility, and travel. Reflecting on Mediterranean islandness and the multicultural history of Sicily permits us to scrutinize the processes of transregional interconnectedness, mobility, and exchange that are hallmarks of historical globalization. Islands connect, but also divide; they are sites where identities are not only forged, but also blended and challenged; they offer a microcosm in which global issues may be observed and studied.
Academic Career: Undergraduate
Course Component: Lecture
Grade Component: Letter Grade

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