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.

There will be a lecture by Dr. Oliver Leaman, Zantker Professor of Judaic Studies at UK. He writes mainly on Islamic and Jewish philosophy and culture. He is the author most recently of Islamic Philosophy (2009), Judaism (2011) and Controversies in Contemporary Islam (2013). He is currently working on a project studying the links between religion and art in modern culture. The event is free and open to the public.

Excited about Homecoming? Want to learn more about what it was like at UK 60 years ago?





Join Mr. Gene DuBow, class of 1953, president of Zeta Beta Tau and Hillel, in a program sponsored by the UK Jewish Studies program for a trip down memory lane. There will be a brief film showcasing archival materials of UK over the years and Mr. DuBow will offer remarks on Jewish life at UK in the 1950s. The discussion will be followed by an open Q and A session and light refreshments.

Start #ukhomecoming weekend off right; don't miss today's talk from Mr. Gene Dubow, Class of 1953 alum, President of Hillel and ZBT.  TODAY-- 2pm , DMB Theater in the Marksburgy Building. There will be FREE COOKIES and COFFEE :) Those of you coming from off-campus there will be a limited number of vouchers available for parking structure 5, first come/first served.

Here is a link to the location of the Marksbury Building

http://ukcc.uky.edu/cgi-bin/dynamo?maps.391+campus+0633



 

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.