LHIST5218 Humanity Transformed: The Axial Age in Ancient Eurasia Course Descriptor

Course Overview

In this course students study the intellectual and religious revolutions that took place in Northern Africa, Europe and Asia in the first millennium BCE, the so-called “axial age”. It explores the world of the early empires and the first stirrings of challenges to the existing societal orders. The course investigates the ideas put forward by thinkers such as Confucius, the Buddha, the Jewish prophets and Greek philosophers but also silenced and forgotten voices of women and people from outside the empires. 

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

Knowledge and Understanding

Subject Specific Skills

Transferable and Employability Skills

Teaching and Learning

This course has a dedicated Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) page with a syllabus and range of additional resources (e.g. readings, question prompts, tasks, assignment briefs, discussion boards) to orientate and engage students in their studies.

The scheduled teaching and learning activities for this course are:

Lectures/seminars 

40 scheduled hours – typically including induction, consolidation or revision, and assessment activity hours.

• Version 1:all sessions in the same sized group

OR 

• Version 2: most of the sessions in larger groups; some of the sessions in smaller groups

OR

Directed study  

4-12 scheduled hours, the exact number varying according to the balance of 1:1s, 2:1s, or small groups. The plan will be confirmed by the start of the course, taking into account student numbers and the proposed topics, readings, and specific tasks. 

Faculty hold regular ‘office hours’, which are opportunities for students to drop in or sign up to explore ideas, raise questions, or seek targeted guidance or feedback, individually or in small groups.  

Students are to attend and participate in all the scheduled teaching and learning activities for this course and to manage their directed learning and independent study. 

Indicative total learning hours for this course: 150 

Assessment

Both formative and summative assessment are used as part of this course, with purely formative opportunities typically embedded within interactive teaching sessions, office hours, and/or the VLE.

Summative Assessments

For the written assessment, students will assemble and critically assess information, analysing the connections between cultural, societal, economic, religious and philosophical ideas.   

Further information about the assessments can be found in the Course Syllabus.

Feedback

Students will receive formative and summative feedback in a variety of ways, written (e.g. marked up on assignments, through email or the VLE) or oral (e.g. as part of interactive teaching sessions or in office hours). 

Indicative Reading

Note: Comprehensive and current reading lists are produced annually in the Course Syllabus or other documentation provided to students; the indicative reading list provided below is for a general guide and part of the approval/modification process only. 

• The Axial Age and it’s Consequences, edited by Robert N. Bellah and Hans Joas. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press, 2012.
• Confucius, The Analects (Lun Yü), trans. D. C. Lau (1979). London: Penguin Books.
• Ian Provan, Convenient Myths: The Axial Age, Dark Green Religion, and the World That Never Was. Baylor University Press, 2013.

Indicative Topics

Note: Comprehensive and current topics for courses are produced annually in the Course Syllabus or other documentation provided to students; the indicative topics provided below are used as a general guide and part of the approval/modification process only.

• Ancient Egypt: The Revolution of Ahkenaten 
• The Teachings of Confucius 
• India in the Age of the Buddha
• Silenced Voices: Women in the Axial Age

Critiques of the ‘Axial Age’.