One of a group of Indo-European speaking peoples intrusive to Anatolia, the Hittites rose from a modest city state to establish first a kingdom on the central plateau and then an empire that fought with the kings of Babylon and Assyria, the Hurrians, and the pharaohs of Egypt for control of SE Anatolia, Syria and Palestine, and contended with one or more Mycenaean Greek kings over western Asia Minor. One of their many vassal states was Wilusa, certainly to be identified with Troy. The multiethnic Hittite kingdom absorbed heavy cultural influence from many peoples and played a role in transmitting Ancient Near Eastern culture to the Greeks. A combination of factors, including the assaults of the “Sea Peoples”, brought an end to the Hittite Empire shortly after 1200 BCE, but some former subordinate states inherited their name and culture and maintained a degree of independence for several centuries until conquered by the Assyrians. It is these “Neo-Hittite” states that are represented in the “Hittites” of the Old Testament.

Israel is a microcosm of the sign language world.  Within a country about equal in area to New Jersey, Israel contains both a widely dispersed deaf community sign language used in schools, Israeli Sign Language, and a number of much smaller village sign languages, each confined to a single community and used only within its confines.  Our research team was formed to study Israeli Sign Language, but we have also spent the last decade studying and documenting the sign language of the Bedouin village of Al-Sayyid, located near Be’er Sheva, the ancestral home of Abraham.  I will compare the history and structure of these two languages and show how the study of their emergence has provided a variety of insights into language and human nature.

The Best of Both Worlds: Blended Learning in the Language Classroom”

Lecture by Dr. Fernando Rubio

Wednesday, March 06

2:30-4:30 pm

P.O.T 18^th floor, West End

Dr. Rubio has a  PhD in Spanish Linguistics from the State University of New York at Buffalo and he is currently teaching Spanish Linguistics at the University of Utah, where he is also Co-Director of the Second Language Teaching and Research Center. His research interests are in the areas of Applied Linguistics and Teaching Methodologies. In 2009 he was awarded the Utah System of Higher Education (USHE) Exemplary Faculty Use of Technology Award and in 2012 he received the ACTFL Award for Excellence in Foreign Language Instruction Using Technology. He has given talks, keynotes, and workshops on language and technology all over the country.  He has taught online and hybrid language courses for years, including the first foreign language MOOC^* ever taught (currently in progress).

He is the author of two textbooks, Tercer Milenio, Kendall-Hunt, 2009, and Juntos, Cengage (forthcoming) and editor of Hybrid Language Teaching and Learning: Exploring Theoretical, Pedagogical and Curricular Issues, Heinle, 2012.

(*) MOOC: Massive Open Online Course

Israel’s democracy has been often described in academic literature as “unique”, “extreme” or “a significant exception”. Nevertheless it is almost impossible to properly understand the Israeli political experience without recourse to comparative research. In this talk, Harel-Shalev analyzes minority-majority relations in Israel by comparing Israel to other deeply divided societies that have chosen to pursue the democratic path. The lecture will analyze strategies that divided democracies utilize to cope with the complexities of minority-majority relations, while sustaining democratic processes, in the face of religious, ethnic, and national conflicts. Specifically the lecture will focus on the Arab minority in Israel and compare it to other homeland minorities in deeply divided societies, including the Muslim Minority in India, the Albanian minority in Macedonia, the Turkish minority in Cyprus, and the Tamil minority in Sri-Lanka.

AYELET HAREL-SHALEV is a Lecturer at the Conflict Management and Resolution Program and The Department of Politics and Government Department, Ben-Gurion University. During the current academic year, Harel-Shalev is a research Fellow at the Nazarian Center for Israel Studies, and the Department of Political Science, UCLA.

Harel-Shalev is the author of The Challenge of Sustaining Democracy in Deeply Divided Societies - Citizenship, Rights, and Ethnic Conflicts in India and Israel - Lexington, 2010. Her book has won the Israeli Political Science Association (ISPSA) prize for the best book of 2010. A second edition of the book is about to be published in India by Foundation Books and Cambridge University Press, India, 2012/2013. Harel-Shalev specializes in Comparative political studies; Ethnic conflicts; Gender studies; Indian politics and society; and - Israeli politics and society.