Fall 2017 EES Courses: UMass Amherst – European Studies Resource Guide

FFYS-197ARC2-01: Architectural Drawings of Utopia, with Sandy Litchfield
This seminar will explore the utopian visionary drawings of artists and architects throughout western history. From the geometric plans of ancient cities to the visionary architectural drawings of the last century, this course will trace the virtual renderings of “no place” in radical visionary architecture. As common themes and diverse conceptions become evident, we will consider the dissonance between dream and reality, fiction and function, idealism and totalitarianism. How do these pictures reveal the differing social concerns of their time? including economic, aesthetic, technical and environmental? What kind of an impact have these drawings had on contemporary designers, planners and policy makers? The first half of the course will introduce students to a sequential narrative of utopian drawings up until the early 20th Century. In the second half of the semester, students will research their own topic (chosen in consultation with instructor) and present imagery to the class along with discussion points.

FFYS-197GER3-01: Situationism, with Jonathan Skolnik
Situationism was a conceptual art movement that began in Europe in the late 1950s. Influenced by Dada and Surrealism as well as by the Freud/Marx/Nietzsche synthesis associated with the ?Frankfurt School?, the Situationists in turn inspired the Paris 1968 student protests and the PuNk aesthetic of the 1970s. This course introduces beginning students to their theory and artistic practice through excerpts of texts and short films (Richter, Vinet, Smithson, Debord, Freud, Nietzsche). It is an ideal beginning course for students interested in modern philosophy and social-cultural theory.

LANGUAGES:

English:

ENGLISH-144-01: World Literature in English, with Sohini Banerjee
In this course, we will be studying global Anglophone (English-speaking) urban fiction from the 20th and 21st century representing a selection of cities across the world. Journeying across the globe through New York, Johannesburg, London, Lahore and Lagos, among others, we will analyze the rhythms of lived experience that these cities produce and the histories they create, considering both the successes and pitfalls of urban construction. Cities have always been viewed as important centers of commerce and culture: spaces which promise prosperity but are also essentially unequal, irreparably divided and policed. While cities have influenced and inspired literary output in exciting and innovative ways, literature too has both directly and indirectly influenced the depiction and representation of the urban experience. Through close reading, we will think critically about the ways in which these global cities were born and built and how they shape the lives of those within them. This course will seek to uncover the answers to questions about the connections of lived experiences, literature, and urbanity, including:
(1) How do the unique geo-locations of cities frame the culture and politics within these cities?
(2) In what ways do issues of gender and sexuality intersect with narratives of urbanity?
(3) How do cities become a network of spaces controlling the rhetoric of development and modernity?
(4) How do authors write the lofty and fractured experience of the global city?
(5) What are the poetics and politics of writing cities?
Possible authors may include: Teju Cole, Orhan Pamuk, Ivan Vladislavic, Zadie Smith, Yvonne Vera, Chris Abani, Lauren Beukes, amongst others.

ENGLISH-201-01: Early British Literature & Culture, with ?
The growth of English literature from the Middle Ages to the end of the 17th century, with emphasis on major writers in historical context, major works as responses to the social and political situations and revisions of earlier literary visions.

ENGLISH-202-01: Later British Literature & Culture, with Adam Colman
The development of British literature from the Enlightenment of the 18th century through the Romaticism and Realism of the 19th century to the Modernism of the early 20th century; literary response to scientific and industrial changes, political revolution and the technical and social reordering of British society.

ENGLISH-221-01: Shakespeare, with Adam Zucker, includes Discussion Sections (01AA, 01AB, 01AC, 01AD, 01AE, 01AF)
A study of Shakespeare’s dramatic art and poetic style through a representative selection of plays.

ENGLISH-358-01: The Romantic Poets, with Joselyn Almeida-Beveridge
Poetry of Blake, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, and Byron read in detail. Political, religious, and psychological frames of critical reference brought to bear in order to define the consciousness of English romanticism and its contribution to modern poetry.

ENGLISH-363-01: Modern British Drama, with Daniel Sack
Intensive study of major British and Irish dramatists from the 1890s to the 1950s, such as Pinero, Jones, Shaw, Wilde, Granville Barker, Synge, Yeats, Gregory, O’Casey, Coward, Eliot, Beckett, and Pinter. Close readings of plays; consideration of the relationship between popular and experimental forms, intellectual issues, and cultural and social contexts.

ENGLISH-365-01: 20th-Century Literature of Ireland, with Malcolm Sen
Nineteenth-century background: the Irish Renaissance; such major figures as Yeats, Synge, Joyce and O’Casey; recent and contemporary writing.

ENGLISH-366-01: Modern Poetry, with Ruth Jennison
Examination of some of the major poems written in America, England and Ireland from the beginning of World War I to the end of World War II. Poets vary; usually include Yeats, Frost, Stevens, Williams, Eliot, Pound, H.D., Hart, Crane, Langston Hughes, Cummings, Jeffers, and Wilfred Owen. Background lectures in the poetry of Dickinson, Whitman, Hopkins, Hardy, and Robinson.

? ENGLISH-391SG-01: Shakespeare’s Global Afterlife, with ?

? ENGLISH-469-01: Victorian Monstrosity, with Kirby Farrell, includes Lab Section 01LL

ENGLISH-494MI: Virtual Medieval: Fiction & Fantasy in the Middle Ages, with Jenny Adams
What is medieval? Most people learn very little about the foggy period that lies between the end of the Classical era and the start of the Renaissance. What we do learn usually consists of stereotypes. Jousting, chivalry, repression of women, religious fervor, medical ignorance, lice, Crusades, King Arthur, economic injustice, knights, ladies, and plague: such words, concepts, images predominate. How were these stereotypes produced? How are they reinforced or challenged on-line? What is their relationship to the ways the medieval world saw itself? In each module we will take up texts, objects, and concepts that have constructed and reconstructed our ideas about the Middle Ages. Our goals: to consider the ways we use objects and texts to construct history; to explore the relationship between academic and popular depictions of the medieval; and to think about the ways we might work across the academic/popular divide in order to offer competing views of the past.

French & Francophone Studies:

FRENCH-ST-280-01: Love and Sex in French Culture, with Patrick Mensah
Course taught in English. This course offers a broad historical overview of the ways in which love and erotic behavior in French culture have been represented and understood in the arts, especially in Literature and, more recently, in film, from the middle ages to the twentieth century.

FRENCH-ST-350-01: French Film, with Emmanuel Buzay
This French film survey course in English will introduce a variety of French films (with English subtitles) of different genres dating from the 1930s to the present, which we will interpret on their own terms, in relation to other films, and with respect to their specific historical contexts of time and place. At the end of this course, you will be able analyze films and their different genres as cultural products, identify the values transmitted within these works of art, critically discuss films with the technical vocabulary of film analysis, and interpret films as complex creative works within their specific settings of time and place in French history. To this end, we will focus on food and meals and how this theme reflects economic realities, national obsessions, behavioral conventions, and societal transformations.

FRENCH-ST-384-01: Themes in French Literature & Intellectual History, with Eva Valenta
Course taught in French. Major contributions of French writers over the centuries to an exploration of the human condition. Focus on various aspects of the relations between such intellectual inquiry and the evolution of literary forms and genres.

FRENCH-ST-388-01: Francophone Civilization Outside France, with Patrick Mensah
Course taught in French. Introduction to culture and political forces that shaped French-speaking regions outside of Europe, and idea of francophonie. Topics may include: history and ideology of French colonialism; cultural, as distinct from political, colonialism; cultural nationalism; bilingualism and its social, cultural, and linguistic consequences.

? FRENCH-ST-427-01: Renaissance Poetry, with Philippe Baillargeon

German Studies:

GERMAN-363-01: Witches: Myth and Reality, with Kerstin Mueller Dembling
This course focuses on various aspects of witches/witchcraft in order to examine the historical construction of the witch in the context of the social realities of women (and men) labeled as witches. The main areas covered are: European pagan religions and the spread of Christianity; the “Burning Times” in early modern Europe, with an emphasis on the German situation; 17th-century New England and the Salem witch trials; the images of witches in folk lore and fairy tales in the context of the historical persecutions; and contemporary Wiccan/witch practices in their historical context. The goal of the course is to deconstruct the stereotypes that many of us have about witches/witchcraft, especially concerning sexuality, gender, age, physical appearance, occult powers, and Satanism. Readings are drawn from documentary records of the witch persecutions and witch trials, literary representations, scholarly analyses of witch-related phenomena, and essays examining witches, witchcraft, and the witch persecutions from a contemporary feminist or neo-pagan perspective. The lectures will be supplemented by related material taken from current events in addition to visual material (videos, slides) drawn from art history, early modern witch literature, popular culture, and documentary sources. Conducted in English.

GERMAN-375-01: The Third Reich, with Jonathan Skolnik
Historical, political, economic, and cultural development of National Socialism and its consequences, World War II, and the Holocaust. Readings supplemented by films. Conducted in English.

GERMAN-379-01: Germany Today, with Ela Gezen
This course examines historical, political, social and cultural developments, movements, and transformations in Germany since reunification. Students explore the fall of the Berlin Wall, Holocaust memory and memorialization, the GDR past, reunification, multiculturalism, environmentalism, and how Germans engage with these topics in literature, film, exhibits, memorials, and the media. In addition to the primary sources, course materials will include secondary sources on German history, politics, society, and culture. Conducted in English.

? GERMAN-390D-01: Fascism and Film, with Barton Byg

Italian Studies:

ITALIAN-285-01: Introduction to Italian Culture, with Andrea Malaguti
The class, entirely conducted in English, gives an overview of Italian culture through the aspects that most crucially influenced world culture: geography, material culture, food, lyrical poetry, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the courts, politics, opera, and democratic reaction to dictatorship. Authors include Dante, Boccaccio, Machiavelli, Castiglione, Verdi, and Gramsci.

? ITALIAN-303-01: Writing on Language, with Arturo Figiola
Course taught in Italian: Readings and discussions will be in Italian; written assignments for most students will be in English, as this course satisfies the departmental jr. year writing requirement. Students examine various genres of Italian cultural expression, including poetry, song, the short story, theater, cinema, the novel, and, to a limited extent, art history. Emphasis is placed on developing and refining students’ written critical responses to the objects of study. Each year the thematic content of the course will vary. Students should contact the designated instructor to apprise themselves of forthcoming thematic content. (Past thematic emphases have been ‘La Cultura e la letterature del Mezzogiorno d’Italia’, ‘Il paesaggio letterario italiano’, etc.)

ITALIAN-350-01: Italian Film, with Andrea Malaguti
Course taught in English. Re-examines Italian neo-realism and the filmmakers’ project of social reconstruction after Fascism. How Italian film produces meanings and pleasures through semiotics and psychoanalysis, so as to understand the specific features of Italian cinema, its cultural politics, and the Italian contribution to filmmaking and formal aesthetics. This course is a historical overview of how the most modern form of visual and narrative art responded to Italian culture, i.e. one of the richest traditions in painting, mosaic, and theater. From silent movies to current productions, the history of Italian film parallels and documents also the history of a modern nation, from pre-industrial to post-industrial economy.

ITALIAN-497EM-01 / 597EM-01: Expressions of the Modern, with Roberto Ludovico
This course addresses the notion of “Modernity” in Europe through the wide rage of its expressions in different fields such as philosophy, literature, figurative arts, music, etc. Italian Modernism will be presented against the backdrop of the European modernist movement, emphasizing its constant dialogue with other national cultures, as well as with its own cultural tradition and contemporary social and political situation.

Spanish & Portuguese Studies:

? PORTUG-497S-01: Portuguese Media Studies, with Luiz Amaral

SPANISH-321-01: Literary Currents in Spain II, with Guillem Molla
Introduction to Spanish literature from 1700 to the present; emphasis on literary currents and their relation to culture and history of the period. Representative drama, poetry, and narrative.

SPANISH-397PP-01: Spanish Cinema, with Barbara Zecchi
Analysis of several films by some of the most important Spanish directors from the sixties to the early 21st Century, in the context of Spanish history, society, culture and politics. Special attention will be given to films by Buñuel, Saura and Almodovar. The following topics will be analyzed: representation of gender; history; filmic narrative; role of religion; sexual and sociopolitical repression; violence and transgression; and other topics. Films have sub-titles. Course taught in English.

? SPANISH-597LT-01: Literary Theory in the Spanish-Speaking World, with David Rodríguez Solás

Russian:

? RUSSIAN-197S-01: Russian Songs, with Robert Rothstein
An opportunity to learn and learn about Russian songs: folk, popular, decadent and revolutionary.

Scandinavian:

? SCANDIV-265-01: Scandinavian Mythology, with ?
The evolution from primitive, shamanistic ritual to the sophisticated, multifaceted cosmology of the Vikings. Emphasis on the various aspects of mythology during the first millennium A.D. The myths and legends associated with members of the Nordic pantheon through written sources, archaeological evidence, and findings in the field of comparative mythology. Conducted in English.

ANTHROPOLOGY:

? ANTHRO-297GC-01: Gaelic & Celtic Heritage, with Jean Forward
This course will explore and analyze the perpetuation of Gaelic/Celtic cultural heritage. Throughout the Celtic diaspora, Gaelic/Celtic cultural heritage is claimed by communities, individuals and states. Focusing on the British Isles and Nova Scotia, Canada, students will utilize the holistic anthropological lens to study how archaeology, mythology, language and tourism contribute to perpetuating cultural heritage.

HISTORY OF ART & ARCHITECTURE:

? ART-HIST-115-01: Visual Art, Artists, & Cultures, with Walter Denny
The discipline of art history and the tools of visual analysis it employs. Focus on issues such as Classicism, “primitive” art, realism, and modernity, presented in roughly chronological order. Discussion of these issues in relation to contemporary visual culture.

ART-HIST-305-01: Early Medieval Art, with Sonja Drimmer
Designed as an introduction for undergraduate and graduate students, the aim of this course is to provide a comprehensive survey of early medieval art and architecture from the third trough the tenth centuries. This course recognizes the religious, political, and socioeconomic contexts in which medieval art and architecture were produced, and although the material is organized chronologically, lectures will emphasize key themes, including: the origins of Christian images, the changing depictions of Christ, the contested place of images in religious worship, the relationship between text and image, the role of patrons and politics, the liturgical function of the object, and the art of imperial propaganda.

ART-HIST-310-01: Art & City-State: Early Renaissance Italy, with Monika Schmitter
Chronological survey organized by city rather than artist to provide a stronger sense of the social context in which works of art were produced. How city-states develop distinctive artistic styles, and how different govenmental systems favored various forms of patronage. Cities include: Naples, Rome, Siena, Florence, Milan, Mantua, Ferrara, Padua, Urbino, and Venice. Central themes: the revival of interest in classical antiquity and the development of the mathematical system of one-point perspective.

ART-HIST-323-01: European Art, 1780-1880, with Gülru Çakmak
This course explores European art and visual culture in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with an emphasis on painting, sculpture, drawing, prints, and photography. We begin with the festive yet decadent Rococo, which leaves its place to Neoclassicism’s utopian search for a new world in the second half of the eighteenth century. We then investigate the emergence of Romanticism from a deep disappointment with Enlightenment ideals as it transforms into a fascination with the dark recesses of the human psyche. Realism ushers in new themes of contemporary life in the aftermath of the Revolution of 1848. Our survey will culminate at the birth of modernism in the second half of the nineteenth century with Impressionism and Post-Impressionism.

ART-HIST-324-01: Modern Art, 1880-present, with Karen Kurczynski
This course takes a new and interactive look at 20th Century art, from the move toward total abstraction around 1913 to the development of Postmodernism in the 1980s. We examine the impact on art of social and political events such as World War I, the Russian Revolution, the rise of Fascism, the Mexican Revolution, the New Woman in the 1920s, World War II, the Cold War, and the rise of consumer culture. We will investigate the origins and complex meanings of movements such as Fauvism, Cubism, Dada, Surrealism, Mexican Muralism, Abstract Expressionism, and Pop Art. We will reconsider and reevaluate major issues in Modern art and culture such as the evolution of personal expression, the recognition of non-western culture in Euro-America, the interest in abstraction as a universal language, new technologies in art, the politics of the avant-garde and its attempts to reconnect art and life, issues of gender, race and representation, the role of myth and the unconscious, and the dialogue between art and popular culture.

ART-HIST-327-01: Contemporary Art, with Karen Kurczynski
Addresses the history of contemporary art since 1980 from a western perspective, but in a global context. Introduces students to major issues in contemporary art and criticism such as conceptualism, new media, earth art, postmodernism, neo-expressionism, institutional critique, identity politics, political interventions, installation art, ecology, globalization, relational aesthetics, and the role of consumerism and the art market.

ART-HIST-342-01: 19th Century Architecture: Reference, History, Technology, with Timothy Rohan
This lecture class surveys the practice of architecture in Europe and America from 1750 to 1914. It looks at the economic, social and political forces that led to the creation of new building types, institutions and technologies peculiar to the nineteenth-century by focusing on figures and movements such as Schinkel, Ruskin, Viollet-le-Duc, Frank Lloyd Wright, Haussmann’s Paris, Olmsted’s Central Park, the Gothic Revival, Arts and Crafts, and Art Nouveau. A particular emphasis will be placed upon the architect’s role as a critic seeking social reform.

ART-HIST-347-01: Islamic Art & Architecture I, with Walter Denny
History of Islamic art from its origins in the Byzantine and Sasanian traditions of the Near East, to its development under the Arab Empire and under subsequent Turkish and Persian dynastic patrons through the 13th century. The Islamic world from Spain to India; with emphasis on the central Islamic lands of the Near East. Media include architecture, painting, textiles, ivories, ceramics, glass and crystal, and others seldom encountered in the study of Western art. Background in either art history or Near Eastern history useful.

ART-HIST-397C-01: 19th Century Art: Canova/Duchamp, with Gülru Çakmak
This undergraduate seminar explores the onset of modernity in sculpture from the late 18th- to the early 20th-century in works by Canova, Degas, Rodin, Picasso, Duchamp, and others. From Degas’ Little Dancer Aged Fourteen to Rodin’s Gates of Hell, what sort of specifically modern desires motivated the production of sculpture? What kinds of new experiences did modern sculpture offer? In a world where sensory perception was proven to be manipulable and easily stimulated by new technologies, how did art define aesthetic experience? Our overarching theme will be sculptural experimentation with form, color, and material in an effort to destabilize preconceived expectations of viewers. The course will culminate in a student-curated digital exhibition.

CLASSICS:

CLASSICS-100-01 or CLASSICS-100H-01: Greek Civilization, with Melissa Mueller
Survey of ancient Greek literature, art, and society. The major Greek states (Mycenae, Sparta, Athens, Macedonia) and their political and cultural development from Neolithic to the Classical and Hellenistic periods, emphasizing Greek influence on Roman and later western civilization.

CLASSICS-102-01: Roman Civilization, with Eric Poehler
Survey of ancient Roman literature, art, and history. The expansion of Rome and its political, social, and cultural development through the Republic to the Empire, emphasizing Roman influence on later western civilization.

CLASSICS-262-01: Roman Voices, with Virginia Closs
Various voices of ancient Roman literature in translation, including selections from the poetry of Lucretius, elegiac and lyric poets, Vergil, Ovid, and Juvenal; from the historians Livy and Tacitus; and from the prose works of Petronius and Apuleius. Their meaning and wisdom for later generations.

CLASSICS-335-01: Women in Antiquity, with Teresa Ramsby
Lives, roles, contributions, and status of women in Greek and Roman societies, as reflected in classical literature and the archaeological record.

COMMUNICATION:

? COMM-297CF-01: Contemporary Folklore Studies, with Stephen Olbrys Gencarella
This course serves as an introduction to folklore studies with a special focus on its intersection with social and cultural theory. The word “folklore” usually refers to traditional expressive practices, ranging from verbal arts (such as proverbs and legends) to material culture (such as costumes and handicrafts) to customs (such as rituals and festivals). But as this class demonstrates, the study of folklore has changed over the years. We now recognize that all communities, not just traditional ones, have folklore. Similarly, we now understand folklore to be an ever-evolving phenomenon that responds to its time of creation and speaks to the future. Alongside conceptual frameworks, this class also introduces students to the ethnography of folklore performances; that is, it asks them to practice methods of studying both special events and everyday expressions of self. Key ideas in this class include community, identity, tradition, worldview, and power. It will examine four general approaches to folklore studies: a focus on genres, groups, performances, and critical perspectives. It introduces students to various theories of interpreting folklore and encourages them to understand it as a form of artistic communication that serves significant political and ethical purposes.

COMM-494BI-01 and COMM-494BI-99AA: Countercultural Films, with Bruce Geisler
An exploration of the counter-cultural movements of the 1960s and 70s and later, hosted by someone who was there and lived to tell the tale. Through the medium of documentary and fiction films, we will delve into the musical, sexual, artistic, political and spiritual upheavals that rocked America and Europe back then and that continue to reverberate today.

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE

? COMP-LIT-121: International Short Story, with Maria Barbon (Section 01), Xu Li (Section 03), Hyongrae Kim (Section 04), Noor Habib (Section 05), Hande Gurses (Section 07), Jeffrey Diteman (Section 08) [graduate student faculty profiles]
This class offers an introduction to the short story as a literary genre. It will cover a wide variety of texts, particularly — but not exclusively — from the Anglo and Latin American traditions from the 19th century until the present. All works will be read in translation. The main objective of the class is to teach students the analytical tools how to read, interpret, and discuss short stories. Further, it aims at improving critical writing skills and your awareness of the world. We will explore the cultural context and the power relations operative within each individual story, especially with reference to race, class, and gender.

? COMP-LIT-141 or COMP-LIT-141H: Good & Evil: East/West, with Fan Wang (Section 01), Maryam Ghodrati (Section 07) [graduate student faculty profiles]
This course will explore the concepts of Good and Evil as expressed in philosophical and theological texts and in their imaginative representation in literature, film and television, photography, and other forms of popular media. Cross-cultural perspectives and approaches to moral problems such as the suffering of the innocent, the existence of evil, the development of a moral consciousness and social responsibility, and the role of faith and spirituality will be considered. A range of historical and contemporary events and controversies will be discussed in relation to these issues including immigration, war, gender and sexuality, and new technologies.

COMP-LIT-144-01: War Stories, with Jim Hicks (Section 01), includes Discussion Sections (02AA, 02AB, 02AC, 02AD, 02AE, 02AF, 02AG)
An inquiry into the representation of war in the late 20th century, this course will focus largely on a single conflict, the recent war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. We will examine a variety of media: photography, theater, poetry, and narrative, as well as testimonials and documentaries. Our discussions will also respond to readings grounded in theory rather than context.

COMP-LIT-319-01 / ENGLISH-319-01 / JUDAIC-319-01: Representing the Holocaust, with Jonathan Skolnik, includes Discussion Sections (01AA, 01AB, 01AC, 01AD, 01AE, 01AF, 01AG)
Major writers, works, themes, and critical issues comprising the literature of the Holocaust. Exploration of the narrative responses to the destruction of European Jewry and other peoples during World War II (including diaries, memoirs, fiction, poetry, drama, video testimonies, and memorials).

? COMP-LIT-382-01: Cinema and Psyche, with Kathryn Lachman
Exploration of contemporary international cinema through film history and psychoanalytic theory. Focus on comparative representations of nationality, childhood, and social dislocation. Topics addressed: inscriptions of the autobiographical; trans-cultural readings of visual texts; cinematic constructions of gender and subjectivity; dreams, fantasy, and memory; the “family romance.” This course explores representations of childhood and family in contemporary world cinema, placing particular focus on migration, war, and social movements.

ECONOMICS:

ECON-305-01: Marxian Economics, with Deepankar Basu
Introduction to Marxian theory and modern political economy. Logic and methods of Marxian analysis of economic change; comparisons between Marxian and non-Marxian theories.

FILM STUDIES:

FILM-ST-397T-01: Tragic Cinema, with ?
This course examines the idea of “tragedy,” both as a genre and as a mode of cultural expression. On the one hand, much of the time will be focused on considering cinema’s reception (i.e., adaptation, appropriation, reworking) of traditional tragedy. This will involve looking at instances of tragic theater–including Greek, Roman, early modern, modern–and at their reincarnation on the screen. On the other hand, this course explores the more general question of whether or not tragedy, as it is traditionally understood, continues to work as an effective or legitimate genre in the modern era, or whether it has in fact been replaced by other expressive modes, like melodrama. We will consider as well how cinema Has influenced and affected our notion of what it means to say something is “tragic.”

HISTORY:

HISTORY-100-01: Western Thought to 1600, with Daniel Gordon, includes Discussion Sections (01AA, 01AB, 01AC, 01AD, 01AE, 01AF)
This course covers the origins of Western Civilization in the Mediterranean world and its development in Europe to the Protestant Reformation. It explores the achievements and disasters of the ancient world: democracy, republicanism, art, architecture, philosophy, literature, war, slavery, and despotism. It also explores Europe after the fall of the Roman Republic: Christianity, feudalism, plague, exploration, conquest, renaissance, and reformation. This lecture course focuses on major thinkers and schools of thought from ancient times through the age of the Reformation. Authors include: Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Old Testament, New Testament, Augustine, Aquinas, Christine de Pisan, Machiavelli, Leonardo da Vinci, and Montaigne. The course also covers the modern interpretations of certain older texts; for example, the debate in the 19th and 20th centuries about how to interpret particularly violent sections of the Old Testament.

HISTORY-101-01: Western Thought Since 1600, with Jennifer Heuer, includes Discussion Sections (01AA, 01AB, 01AC, 01AD, 01AE, 01AF)
Major historical developments from the beginning of secular state systems in the 17th century, with emphasis on Europe. Topics include the Scientific Revolution, Enlightenment, nationalism, socialism, diplomacy and war. Coverage extends to the declining role of Europe in world affairs since World War II.

HISTORY-120-01: Latin America: Colonial Period, with Andrew Dausch
General view of the cultural, economic, and political development of Latin America, 1492 to 1824. Topics include the Iberian and Indian backgrounds; Spanish and Portuguese imperial organization; role of Indians, Blacks, and Europeans in the New World; the coming of independence.

HISTORY-180-01: Western Science & Technology I, with Brian Ogilvie, includes Discussion Sections (01AA, 01AB, 01AC)
Focus on the birth of Western science in the rational cosmology of the ancient Greeks, on its transmission to medieval Europe, and its eventual overturning in the Scientific Revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries. History 180 and its companion History 181 have two goals: first, to explore the ways in which science and technology have helped various Western societies make sense of, and manipulate, their worlds and themselves; and second, to appreciate how science and technology reflect their historical periods and contexts. History 180 explores the Greek fascination with modeling the cosmos and with the nature of formal scientific explanation; the assimilation and refinement of ancient Greek science in the Islamic world; the role of Scholasticism and the medieval university in the institutionalization of scientific thought; and the creation of a new quantitative framework of experience by Renaissance explorers, engineers, artisans, mathematicians, and natural philosophers. History 181, offered in the spring, covers the centuries from the Scientific Revolution to the Space Age. Both parts are designed to meet the University’s requirements for General Education and Historical Studies by introducing you to subjects and perspectives you might not otherwise encounter, and by offering opportunities for the exercise of skills of reading, writing, and analysis. They should also open up a fascinating past and help us all become critically informed participants in and consumers of modern techno-science.

HISTORY-247-01: Empire, Race & the Philippines, with Richard Chu
This course compares the colonial legacies of Spain, Japan, and the United States in the Philippines while examining local reception, resistance, and negotiation of colonialism.

HISTORY-297U-01: History of Refugee Politics, with Andrew Dausch
This course surveys major refugee crises of the past 75 years to provide a historical backdrop for understanding contemporary challenges surrounding refugees from war, environmental collapse, economy, and politics. Starting with the massive displacement of 40 million Europeans resulting from WWII and the establishment of the U.N. High Commission on Refugees, we will examine causes, popular responses, policy proposals, and outcomes of previous crises involving decolonization in Africa and Asia, the break-up of the Soviet Union, and war in the Middle East. Attention will also be given to migrant and exile communities and how these communities exert a transnational political influence.

HISTORY-303-01: The Later Middle Ages (1100-1350), with Anna Taylor
This course is a historical survey of Spain during the later middle ages. The class begins during the highpoint of the al-Andalus or Islamic Spain and concludes following the great Reconquest of the peninsula by Christian kingdoms. Throughout the semester we will address cultural, political and social developments with particular emphasis on the interactions between different ethnic and religious groups. The period under study represents an important turning point in global history and one that continues to have relevance to the present day.

HISTORY-317-01: The Russian Revolution, with Audrey Alstadt
The revolutionary period in the Russian Empire from circa 1900 to the revolutions of 1917 and the mechanisms of establishing Soviet power. The 19th century intellectual and social trends that form the basis of later revolutions. The Russian Empire and the USSR as multinational empires; the non-Russian as well as Russian populations; the differences in their thought and experiences in all revolutions, the civil war, and relationship to Russian power.

HISTORY-330-01: English History to 1688, with Barry Levy
The growth of monarchy, struggle for parliamentary liberty and individual freedom, English Reformation, Puritanism, English Civil War, and Glorious Revolution. The importance of dominant personalities of William the Conqueror, Henry II, Edward I, Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, and Cromwell. Changes in English society.

HISTORY-349H-01: Topics in European History: Sex & Society, with Jennifer Heuer
This honors course examines the social organization and cultural construction of gender and sexuality. We will look at how women and men experienced the dramatic changes that have affected Europe since 1789 and consider how much these developments were themselves influenced by ideas about masculinity and femininity. We will explore topics such as revolutionary definitions of citizenship; changing patterns of work and family life; fin-de-siecle links between crime, madness, and sexual perversion; the fascist cult of the body; battle grounds and home fronts during the world wars; gendered aspects of nationalism and European colonialism, and the sexual revolution of the post-war era.

HISTORY-393N-01: Germany Since 1945, with Jon Berndt Olsen
This course will offer a comparative study of East, West, and post-1990 united Germany. The course will explore the history and politics of contemporary Germany and look at the evolution of political and cultural life in the two German states and united Germany. Topics covered will include: the division of Germany; cultural life in East and West; popular protest movements; the environmental movement; coming to terms with the past; unification; immigration; and other related topics.

HISTORY-394EI-01: Human Rights & Energy in Eurasia, with Audrey Altstadt
Our topic is the politics and impact of energy (especially oil and gas) on democratization and human rights in the Caspian basin in historical and current strategic context. We begin with an examination of the hydrocarbon industry generally and in this region, then move to examine human rights and democratization in the five Caspian littoral states: Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Russia and Iran and a few neighboring ones such as Uzbekistan. We will consider globalization and strategic thinking, expressions of radical religious thought and politics, US/European energy and human rights policies. Readings for the class come from both the countries we will study and from reports by outsiders such as NGOs, international economic and political organizations, scholars of the region or topics such as finance or energy. In discussion and writing, we will critically review these materials and explore pluralistic perspective both among sources and compared to our own assumptions and previous impressions or experiences. Our topic is analysis of policies that strive to explore and analyze, and possibly reconcile energy needs and policies to upholding human rights in producer states.

JUDAIC & NEAR EASTERN STUDIES:

JUDAIC-101: The Jewish Experience I, with Ralph Melnick (Section 01) and Susan Shapiro (Section 02)
A survey of the literature and culture of the Jewish people in the formative years of its history. Emphasis on the development of Judaism in the biblical, Graeco-Roman, and rabbinic periods. Final unit treats the Jewish life-cycle and the system of religious practices.

JUDAIC-102-01: The Jewish Experience II, with Aviva Ben-Ur
The life and history of the Jews in the medieval and modern worlds. Topics include Jewish-Christian relations; development of Jewish philosophy and mysticism; Jewish life in Eastern Europe; the Holocaust; State of Israel; Jews and Judaism in North America.

JUDAIC-318-01: Family & Sexuality in Jewish History, with Jay Berkovitz
An examination of transformations in the Jewish family and attitudes toward sexuality in Judaism, from antiquity to the present. Topics include love, sexuality, and desire in the Bible and Talmud; marriage and divorce through the ages; position and treatment of children; sexuality and spirituality in the Kabbalah; sexual stereotypes in American Jewish culture and Israeli society. Interdisciplinary readings draw on biblical and rabbinic literature, comparative Christian and Islamic sources, historical and scientific research on family and sexuality, and contemporary fiction.

MIDEAST-362-01: Religion & Politics in the Early Modern Middle East, with Malissa Taylor
Are politics and religion inseparable in Islamic societies? Are the problems facing the Middle East today attributable to a lack of a robust tradition of secularity? For many scholars, the failure of Islam and politics to disentangle themselves in the early modern period (1400-1800) represents a key divergence in the historical trajectories of the Middle East and the West: a divergence that helps to explain Western stability versus Middle Eastern crisis. In contrast to such assessments, this course will question whether we have underestimated the scope and the significance of changes to the relationship between political and religious authority that occurred in the Middle East in the early modern period. Instead of presenting the region as a place where politics and religion were inextricably joined and destined to remain that way, this course will focus on the abrupt discontinuities of the period and the reconfiguration of what was deemed religious versus what was deemed political. The course is primarily chronological in organization. We will survey transformations in the institutions, social movements, political writings and imperial policies of the Ottoman Empire and Iran from roughly 1400 to 1800. In particular, we will focus on the intersection of political dissent and popular piety, the emergence of a new Sunni and Shiite political identity, and the growth of new practices and conceptions of sovereignty. The main theme of the course is that constellations of religious and political authority are always in flux, always contested, and that trajectories are changeable. As we examine these changes, we will try to delineate the contradictory legacies that this period left behind and its impact on the present world.

MUSIC, THEATRE:

Music:

MUSIC-300H-01: History of Music: Ancient Greece – 1700 (colloquium)
The history of Western European art music from ancient Greece to 1700. Reading, listening, score study.

MUSIC-301H-01: History of Music: 1700-1900 (colloquium)

Theatre:

THEATER-321-01: Renaissance & Neoclassical Representation, with Harley Erdman
Development of the professional theater in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries. Reading and analysis of plays in their theatrical and cultural contexts.

PHILOSOPHY:

PHIL-320-01: History of Ancient Philosophy, with Vanessa de Harven
An introduction to the history of Greek philosophy; emphasis on Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.

PHIL-336-01: Existential Philosophy, with Ernesto Garcia, includes Discussion Sections (01AA, 01AB)
An introduction to the main themes of Existentialism through seminal writing by Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Sartre.

PHIL-595K-01: Kantian Ethics, with Ernesto Garcia

POLITICAL SCIENCE:

POLISCI-171-01: Introduction to Political Theory, with Barbara Cruikshank, includes Discussion Sections (01AA, 01AB, 01AC, 01AD, 01AE, 01AF, 01AG, 01AJ, 01AK)
Introduction to the Western tradition of political theory; focus on particular problems and issues through a reading of classical and non-traditional texts. Topics include political obligation, justice, feminism, individuality, friendship, community, civil disobedience, power, others.

POLISCI-270-01: Ancient Political Thought, with Nicholas Xenos
Introduction to Western political thought. Classical Greek political philosophies; their evolution from Socrates to Stoicism; the confrontation of the Greek tradition and Hebraic outlook via Christianity as seen in Augustine and Aquinas. Exploration of the relationship of political theory to history, drama, prophecy, and theology.

POLISCI-281-01: Comparative Political Economy, with Regine Spector, includes Discussion Sections (01AA, 01AB, 01AC)
This course introduces core political economy concepts from both classical and modern thinkers while engaging in contemporary debates about the relationship between states and markets. Students will read Smith, Marx, List, Polanyi, Keynes, Hayek, and others, as well as engage with questions such as: What is political economy? Why and how do capitalist systems differ? Why are some countries wealthier and more prosperous than others? What is the role of the state in the economy, market, and development? These questions will be answered using examples from countries in the modern industrial, developing, and post-socialist worlds.

POLISCI-291D-01: Democracy and Citizenship, with Adam Dahl
This course explores central themes in democratic theory including civic participation, political representation, liberalism, republicanism, deliberation, immigration, pluralism, power, civic identity, and race and class inequality. In engaging with historical and contemporary texts, students will be encouraged to reflect on the meaning of democratic citizenship. Readings draw from Aristotle, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Dewey, Walter Lippmann, James Madison, Iris Marion Young, Jurgen Habermas, Alexis de Tocqueville, Sheldon Wolin, and Judith Shklar.

SOCIAL THOUGHT & POLITICAL ECONOMY:

STPEC-189-01: Introduction to Radical Social Theory, with Graciela Monteagudo
This is an introductory course to radical social theory (formerly STPEC 190A). Our focus is the history of social thought in the West, and the post-colonial critiques of some of these ideas. In this course, students will learn that “radical” means “at the root,” and radical social theory is theory that explains the roots of social inequalities and proposes ways of transforming society to achieve justice.

STPEC-391H-01 and 492H-01: Focus Seminar II, with Svati Shah
Postcolonialism has generally referred to the study of the histories, politics, economics, literature and social milieus of nations within Latin and South America, Africa and Asia. While these continental regions are also variously referenced as “the Third World” and “the Global South,” the frame of ‘postcolonialism’ marks scholarship that has placed the history of colonialism and its aftermath at the center of our understanding of places that are often marked as being in a lesser relation to the “developed” world. Understanding hugely influential Marxist social movements and theories is essential to understanding how and why the postcolonial world comes to be, the challenges that activists working in countries in these regions face, and what the possibilities of mobilizing against right wing populism there might entail. The seminar will be taught from a feminist, queer and anthropological perspective, while focusing on foundational works on postcolonialism and its relationship with Marxist politics, theories, and movements. These include works by Marx, Trotsky, Gramsci, Goldman, James Trouillot, Goldman, Beverley, Mbembe, Fanon, Nandy, and the Subaltern Studies Group.

WOMEN, GENDER, AND SEXUALITY STUDIES:

WGSS-391R-01: Race, Sexuality, Imperialism, with Elizabeth Williams
From the late 1400s, Europe embarked on program of conquering and colonizing wide swaths of the globe. As the institutions of slavery and imperialism developed, new ideas about racial and sexual identities developed to facilitate European ambitions. Colonial powers sought to control reproduction, regulate interracial sex, and police sexual mores and practices. Meanwhile, Europeans like the dancer and spy Mata Hari enacted fantasies of “exotic” sexualities. This course will consider how racial and sexual identities developed in tandem. Students will learn how ideas about race and sex facilitated colonial projects, as well as how colonized peoples reclaimed these discourses to enact resistance. We will also consider how race and sexuality continue to influence transnational relationships today, through processes like tourism, the “war on terror,” and global LGBTQ rights organizations.