The Silk Roads retain a persistent place in our notions of intercultural exchanges and the exotic. But while stories of these realms relate great details of monks and merchants traversing the continent, the communities and cultures of Central Asia have too often been deemed mere highways of powers at the edges of Eurasia, defined solely through their interactions with, and intrusions from, the civilizations of China, Persia, and the Mediterranean. Through a series of ancient oasis towns and regional regimes of central Eurasia, this course aims to give greater agency to those at the heart of the continent, and discuss the ways in which they shaped the spread and development of technologies, religions and modes of art in an increasingly globalized pre-modern world. Students will explore the character and contexts of long-distance trade goods, hybrid luxury items, palaces of multi-cultural rulers, and monuments of multiple religions.