Borders impact all kinds of aspects of our daily lives, and the same was true for peoples in the ancient Near East. This course will analyze premodern societies from the perspective of these boundaries, from “natural” geographic boundaries to the strict registers of action that define the aesthetics of Pharaonic and Near Eastern art. Using cutting edge theoretical approaches developed by anthropologists, geographers, art historians, and archaeologists to study modern (and ancient) border-making, this course will investigate Pharaonic and Near Eastern societies through the prism of the political, cultural, administrative, and economic boundaries they created and maintained.