The course is organized in lectures and discussion sessions. During the lectures, issues, concepts, major developments, actors, and dynamics are introduced while major approaches in the literature are being given. In the discussion sessions, texts related to the subject of the week are discussed. Some guiding questions for reading and analysis of the texts will be given in advance.

This course has four goals:

• to present geographical and ecological characteristics of the steppes of Inner Asia.
• to present social, cultural and economic structure of nomadic societies living in Inner Asian steppes.
• to provide information about the political, social, cultural and religious history of the Turkic people of Inner Asia to the 10th century.
• to examine Turkic people’s relations with the surrounding civilizations.

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

• summarize general characteristics of the Eurasian steppes and various problems of the steppe cultures.
• describe most important peculiarities of nomadic societies of the Inner Asia.
• recognize social, cultural and religious history of the Turkic people of Inner Asia until their adoption of Islam.
• identify main concepts related to early Turkic states to the 10th century.
• determine and evaluate interaction of Turkic people and surrounding civilizations.