Fall 2017 EES Courses: Mount Holyoke College – European Studies Resource Guide

FYSEM-110MU-01: Multicultural Families, with Donald Weber
This course examines the various ways the multicultural family in contemporary American, British, European, and South African culture is imagined by writers and filmmakers. Issues to be explored include: generational conflict, the struggle to ‘break away,’ and the claims of memory and nostalgia. Above all, the course seeks to explore the range of cultural forms in which these themes find expression.

FYSEM-110RR-01 & -02: Remembering as Reconciliation in the Wake of Violence, with Karen Remmler
We explore how memorialization and reconciliation take place in societies that have experienced extreme violence. How do survivors, perpetrators and their descendants record the experience of atrocity through testimonials and memorials in ways that contrast with ‘official’ national narratives of the past? In what ways does memorialization end cycles of violence without re-triggering trauma?
How does restorative justice, for example, address feelings of despair or guilt that get passed down from one generation to another? Our transnational study will include examples from Germany, Japan, Rwanda, and Cambodia primarily, with other examples included based on student interest.

FYSEM-110SK-01: Shakespeare, Then and Now, with Amy Rodgers
A 2016 interactive article in The New York Times “Culture” section claimed via its title, “There Is No Escaping Shakespeare.” Showing over fifty clips gleaned from film, television, and music videos, the piece aptly demonstrated how Shakespeare permeates various levels of not only Anglophone culture but global culture as well. Rather than simply studying Shakespeare’s works in their own historical context, we will explore them as entities that travel through various media, historical periods, and cultural contexts. Why do so many authors, filmmakers, video artists, painters, songwriters, composers, and choreographers continue to adapt Shakespeare’s works? How does “Shakespeare” accrue new meanings through the process of translation across language and media, and how do such adaptive strategies allow Shakespeare’s work to remain current even four hundred years after they were written?

FYSEM-110VT-01: Jack the Ripper and the Making of Late-Victorian London, with Desmond Fitz-Gibbon
In the summer and fall of 1888, a series of gruesome murders captured the attention of Londoners and brought questions of class, gender, race and social-economic change to the forefront of public debate. Though the culprit was never identified, Jack the Ripper became synonymous with the perceived dangers of late-Victorian London. Using newspapers, periodicals, police archives, and other sources from the period, this course will set students on an historical investigation of the “Whitechapel Murders,” seeking to understand the event, its historical context, and the way historians have interpreted its meaning.

FYSEM-110WP-01: How Words Change Worlds: Writers, Politics, and Power, with Stephen Jones
Jean Paul Sartre tells us words are like ‘loaded pistols.’ They have the power to transform worlds and inspire revolutions. Focusing on the power of language and the ideas they carry, we will look at writers as agents of social and political change. How do governments and society react to their work (censors, the media, readers?). We have two goals: to examine the interaction between aesthetics and politics, and the relationship between writers and governments. We will include some of the ‘greats’ such as Rousseau, Swift, Orwell, Sartre, Andrei Platonov, Solzhenitsyn, Rushdie, and Chinua Achebe.

LANGUAGES:

English:

ENGL-211-01 / THEAT-281-01: Shakespeare, with Amy Rodgers
A study of some of Shakespeare’s plays emphasizing the poetic and dramatic aspects of his art, with attention to the historical context and close, careful reading of the language. Eight or nine plays.

ENGL-213-01: The Literature of the Later Middle Ages, with Wesley Yu
This course will examine a variety of English works and genres written in the thirteenth through fifteenth centuries. Our concentration will be principally on the Gawain-poet, Chaucer, Langland, Margery Kempe, and Lydgate. Most of our readings are in Middle English.

ENGL-214CM-01: Topics in Medieval Studies: ‘The Curious Middle Ages,’ with Wesley Yu
While influenced by Augustine’s warning that worldly inquiry could endanger the pilgrimage of the soul, medieval literature contains many instances of curious looking. Exploring the medieval desire to know, this course considers how the period’s tendencies toward spiritual and metaphysical thought are balanced against its fascinations with the observable world. We will study the ways allegories, travel narratives, romances, and dream visions intersect with natural philosophy, historiography, cartography, and architecture. Literary analysis is the basis for our investigative work to uncover the epistemological impulses that inform medieval art and literature.

ENGL-239WH-01: Novels of the Later Eighteenth Century: ‘Worthy Hearts and Saucy Wits,’ with Kate Singer
Eighteenth-century England witnessed the birth of the novel, a genre that in its formative years was both lauded for its originality and condemned as intellectually and morally dangerous, especially for young women. We will trace the numerous prose genres that influenced early novelists, including conduct manuals, epistolary writing, conversion narratives, travelogues, romance, and the gothic. In doing so, we will concomitantly examine the novel’s immense formal experimentation alongside debates about developing notions of gender and class as well as the feeling, thinking individual. Authors may include Richardson, Fielding, Sterne, Walpole, Burney, and others.

ENGL-319SR-01: The Renaissance: ‘Literature and Science, 1516-1674,’ with Suparna Roychoudhury
This seminar traces intersections between literary art and scientific knowledge at the dawn of modernity, when the difference between “art” and “science” was anything but clear. We will read prominent works of English Renaissance literature (Shakespeare, Donne, Milton) alongside various scientific and philosophical writings (Lucretius, Bacon, Descartes) as well as major milestones of the Scientific Revolution (Vesalius, Copernicus, Galileo). In so doing, we will ponder what connects aesthetic and empirical forms of truth. Topics will include magic and the occult, alchemy, astronomy, anatomy and medicine, atoms and theories of matter, the scientific method, natural history, and technology.

ENGL-347-01: Modern Urban British Novel, with Nigel Alderman
As London and the British novel enter the new millennium, both are sites of competing histories, traditions, and agendas. This course will map the city’s progress from the center of an empire to a node in the global world’s economy, and chart the twentieth-century novel’s movement from realism to postmodernism and beyond. Beginning by contrasting the realist London of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes with Virginia Woolf’s modernist version in Mrs. Dalloway, we will go on to trace the development of the post-1945 British novel.

ENGL-354-01: Vindicated: The Wollstonecraft-Shelley Circle, with Kate Singer
The dynamic mother-daughter duo of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley is often read as part of the “Godwin-Shelley circle,” a cadre of writers circulating around their respective literary husbands. This course will place them at the center of literary innovation, examining their expansive work in multiple genres. Asking what it means to be ardent and provocative women writers during this period, we will discuss their radical politics, their gender theories, and their ideas about literature intervening in the public sphere. We will also consider short pieces by others in their circle, potentially including Godwin, P. Shelley, Mary Hayes, Mary Robinson, Claire Claremont, and Byron.

French:

FREN-215-01: Intermediate Level Courses in Culture and Literature: Introduction to the Literature and Culture of France and the French-Speaking World, with Elissa Gelfand
This course introduces students to literature and culture from a variety of perspectives. It will increase confidence and skill in writing and speaking; integrate historical, political, and social contexts into the study of literary texts from France and the French-speaking world; and bring understanding of the special relevance of earlier periods to contemporary French and Francophone cultural and aesthetic issues. Students explore diversified works – literature, historical documents, film, art, and music – and do formal oral and written presentations.

FREN-219-01: Intermediate Level Courses in Culture and Literature: Introduction to the French-Speaking World, with Samba Gadjigo
This course introduces the literatures of French-speaking countries outside Europe. Readings include tales, novels, plays, and poetry from Africa, the Caribbean, Canada, and other areas. Discussions and short papers examine the texts as literary works as well as keys to the understanding of varied cultures. Students will be asked to do formal oral and written presentations.

FREN-225-01: Intermediate Level Courses in Culture and Literature: Introduction to Contemporary Culture and Media of France and the French-Speaking World, with Christopher Rivers
This course will introduce students to contemporary popular culture in France and the French-speaking world, largely through the study of recent (post-1990) best-selling novels, popular music, and feature films. Students will be asked to give formal oral presentations based on up-to-date materials gathered from the Internet and/or French television and to participate actively in class discussion.

FREN-341NE-01: Courses in Francophone Studies: ‘Revisiting the Negritude Movement: Origins, Evolution, and Relevance,’ with Samba Gadjigo
In the interwar period, 1920-1940, black students from Africa and the Caribbean met in Paris to pursue their education. Galvanized by the colonial situation at home and the political situation in France, Aimé Césaire (Martinique), Léopold S. Senghor (Sénégal), and Léon Damas (French Guyana) formed the cultural movement called Négritude. This course will survey the emergence, goals, evolution, achievements, and legacies of that movement. Discussions will be based on major texts by the founders. Their influence on the works of a new generation of African and Caribbean writers will also be examined.

German Studies:

GRMST-223MV-01: Topics in German Studies: ‘Monsters, Villains, and Vamps,’ with Nora Gortcheva
Uncanny experiences, Doppelgangers, insect-like creatures, clay monsters, sexual predators, and robot seductresses — these are some characters we will encounter on this journey through German texts and films. Students will expand their reading skills in German, deepen their command of literary and visual analysis, and review advanced grammar structures.

Italian:

ITAL-201-01: Intermediate Italian through Film, with Morena Svaldi
A review of Italian through film. Cultural and linguistic aspects of five to six films and related readings will be the focus of this course and the starting point for class activities, conversation, written exercises, and grammar review. This interdisciplinary approach offers students an opportunity to explore Italian culture deeply, while at the same time improving their reading, writing, and speaking skills. The course also features regular conversation sessions with language assistants who are native speakers.

ITAL-222-01: Italian Modernity: Introduction to Modern Italy, with Martino Lovato
This course is an introduction to the major cultural movements of modern Italy, from Leopardi to Verga, Calvino and Pasolini. It surveys the major cultural and historical currents from the eighteenth century to the present. Representatives of romantic, realist, decadent, modernism and futurist works will be studied in their cultural and historical contexts. Class discussions, written work, and movie screenings are aimed at developing skills in oral expression and expository writing in Italian.

Russian and Eurasian Studies:

RES-210-01: Great Books: The Literature of Nineteenth-Century Russia, with Peter Scotto
In no other culture has literature occupied the central role it enjoyed in nineteenth-century Russia. Political, social, and historical constraints propelled Russian writers into the roles of witness, prophet, and sage. Yet, far from being limited to the vast, dark ‘Big Question’ novels of legend, Russian literature offers much humor, lyricism, and fantasy. We will focus on the Russian novel as a reaction to western European forms of narrative and consider the recurring pattern of the strong heroine and the weak hero. Authors will include: Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Chekhov.

Spanish:

SPAN-330SL-01: Advanced Studies in Identities and Intersections: ‘Spain and Islam,’ with Nieves Romero-Diaz
This course will explore questions and concerns regarding the “Islamic constant” of Spanish history. We will focus on four major political and cultural contexts: the co-existence and conflicts among Jews, Muslims, and Christians in Medieval Iberia; the “moriscos” (converted Muslims) of Imperial Spain (sixteenth-seventeenth centuries); Spanish orientalism and colonial enterprises in Africa between the end of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth centuries; and the question of the Muslim emigrants in contemporary Spain. Readings will include literary texts, political and legal documents, historical accounts, and other cultural material such as architecture, film, and documentaries.

ANTHROPOLOGY:

? ANTHR-105-02: Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, with Elif Babül
Introduces the analysis of cultural diversity, including concepts, methods, and purposes in interpreting social, economic, political, and belief systems found in human societies.

ANTHR-235-01: Development of Anthropological Thought, with Matthew Watson
This course will review the key issues and paradigm shifts in the development of anthropology from its foundations in classical thought through its emergence as an independent discipline to its coming-of-age in the 1960s. The readings will include works from the American, British, and Continental traditions.

? ANTHR-316LW-01: Special Topics in Anthropology: ‘Ethnographies of Law,’ with Elif Babül
This seminar focuses on the anthropological study of the legal field. The class will begin with a survey of some classical texts that underpin the legal thought in the modern era. We will then see how anthropologists contributed to the study of law by conceptualizing it as part of larger socio-political processes and as a field that includes social relations, processes, and practices. The students will learn how some key legal issues such as dispute management, decision making, and reconciliation are actualized in diverse cultural and social settings, to think critically and evaluate legal processes in a multicultural setting and in plural societies.

ART HISTORY:

ARTH-100WA-01 & -02: Western Art 1400-2000, with Paul Staiti
An introduction to painting, sculpture, and architecture in Europe and America from the Renaissance to the present. Classes are organized around five focused topics: Renaissance Florence; the artist in the seventeenth century; art and revolution; nineteenth-century abstraction. Lectures will be complimented by class discussion and short films.

ARTH-231-01: Northern Renaissance Art, with Christine Andrews
This course covers the arts in Northern Europe during a time of upheaval. We will look at developments in panel painting, manuscript illumination, printmaking, and sculpture from the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries–examining shifting patterns of patronage and production along with shifting styles, techniques, and media. We will consider major artists like Jan van Eyck, Albrecht Durer, and Pieter Bruegel, as well as seismic cultural shifts such as the print revolution, the emergence of the woman artist, the Reformation, and the origins of the art market.

ARTH-271-01 / ASIAN-271-01: Arts of Islam: Book, Mosque, and Palace, with Michael Davis
Through investigation of major works produced in the Muslim world between the seventh and seventeenth centuries from Spain to India, this course explores the ways in which art and architecture were used to embody the faith, accommodate its particular needs, and express the power of its rulers. Topics include the calligraphy of the Qur’an, illustrated literature, the architecture of the mosque, and the aristocratic palace.

ARTH-290AP-01: Issues in Art History: ‘Ancient Painting and Mosaic,’ with Bettina Bergmann
The course treats the themes, techniques, and contexts of painting and mosaic in the ancient Mediterranean. From Bronze Age palaces to early Byzantine churches, surfaces were embellished with frescoes, pebbles, glass and jewels. These might be rendered in complex geometric shapes or with mythological scenes. Portable vases displayed elegantly drawn figures. We will examine the unique effects of each medium by working with original objects in the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum.

ARTH-290TH-01 / CLASS-231-01: Issues in Art History: ‘The City of Athens from Theseus to Alaric,’ with Mark Landon
A detailed survey of the principal surviving monuments and the overall architectural development of the city of Athens from its origins in the Bronze Age to the end of the 4th century C.E. The archaeological evidence will be discussed against a broader cultural and historical background, with an emphasis on the specific people and events that helped to shape the city and the general social and political circumstances that gave the monuments meaning.

ARTH-302PA-01: Great Cities: ‘Reimagining Paris,’ with Michael Davis
This seminar studies medieval Paris, the largest city in Europe, royal capital of France, and home to a renowned university. We meet the city through its surviving buildings, visual arts, and literature. Using digital tools we will reconstruct key lost buildings in a process that casts participants in the role of builder, demands careful evaluation of evidence and encourages creative imagination.

ARTH-310CA-01: Seminar in Ancient Art: ‘The Lure of the Past: Collecting Antiquity,’ with Bettina Bergmann
The seminar studies the collecting and display of Greek and Roman objects from antiquity to the present. We will look at current and past controversies about plunder and cultural patrimony. Students will engage in firsthand study of coins, vases, statues, portraits, frescoes, and mosaics and conduct advanced research on their original functions and contexts. Trips to museum collections will offer opportunities to assess installations of ancient objects in modern settings.

ECONOMICS:

ECON-210-01: Marxian Economic Theory, with Lucas Wilson
Introduction to the Marxian theory of capitalism, as presented in the three volumes of Capital. Marxian theory is applied to analyze the causes of contemporary economic problems, such as unemployment and inflation, and the effectiveness of government policies to solve these problems. Comparisons made between Marxian theory and mainstream macro- and microeconomics.

ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES:

ENVST-150DV-01: Introductory Topics in Environmental Studies: ‘Introduction to the Histories and Theories of Development,’ with Kevin Surprise
What is so compelling about the idea of development? Why does it fail much of the global south? Do colonialism and capitalism have anything to do with it? Why do hunger, poverty, inequality, unemployment, and ecological crises persist in the so-called developed world? What are the parameters of the proposed solutions to underdevelopment such as neoliberal market reforms versus those of alternative models? What are the connections between development and environmental issues? development and war? Can development be sustainable? Are gender and race incidental or central to these issues? This course engages these questions through readings, lectures, discussions, and writing assignments.

ENVST-210-01: Political Ecology, with Kevin Surprise
This course will explore the historical, political, economic, social, and cultural contexts in which human-environment interactions occur. We will cover critical topics and trends in the field of political ecology, from its early manifestations to more recent expansions. Using case studies from the global south and north, we will discuss factors that shape social and environmental change across scales from the personal to the global, and we will examine the role of gender, race, class, and power in struggles over resources. Students will become familiar with the academic debates in which political ecologists are engaged, and they will apply the concepts discussed in a case of their choice.

GEOGRAPHY:

GEOG-208-01: Global Movements: Migrations, Refugees and Diasporas, with Sara Hughes
The voluntary and involuntary movement of people around the globe is the focus of this course on migrations, refugees, and diasporas. Questions of borders, nativism, transnationalism, the global economy, and legality thread through this course as we consider the many social, cultural, environmental, economic, and political factors shaping decisions to leave a home or homeland. Historical and contemporary case studies, compelling theoretical texts, and geographic perspectives on these topics collectively animate our discussions.

FILM STUDIES:

FLMST-370CN-01 / ITAL-341CN-01: Topics in National/Transnational Cinemas: ‘Catastrophe and Rebirth in Italian Cinema: from Dolce Vita to Trumpusconi,’ with Martino Lovato
In this course, we will look at contemporary Italy through the cinema of, among others, Rossellini, De Sica, Visconti, Pasolini, Fellini, Antonioni, the Taviani Brothers and Sorrentino. We will discuss Italian cinema masters’ interpretation of the social and political development of modern and contemporary Italy, focusing on the resistance against catastrophe and disempowerment: from post-war rebirth to the contemporary migration crisis and rise of political populism.

FLMST-370EF-01 / GRMST-331EF-01: National/Transnational Cinema: ‘Moving Europe: Film in Global Context,’ with Nora Gortcheva
This class explores major tendencies in European film from 1945 to the present. We approach the canon of European art cinema, discuss various genres (drama, youth film, comedy, sci-fi), movements such as Italian Neorealism, New Waves (French, Czech, German, Romanian), and migrant and accented cinemas. We pay special attention to movement as a repeating motif. As we investigate filmic representations of class, gender, and race across various national contexts, we challenge a vision of Europe — and of its cinema — as coherent and static. Instead, we uncover European film cultures on the move — in constant crisis and process of redefinition.

HISTORY:

HIST-151-01: Modern and Contemporary Europe, with Desmond Fitz-Gibbon
Surveys the major movements and developments in Europe during the era of European expansion and dominance–from the devastations of the Thirty Years War to the Second World War–and up to the current era of European Union. Topics include: the French Revolution and the birth of nationalism; the scientific and industrial revolutions; the modern history of international relations; imperialism, fascism, the Holocaust, the two World Wars, and the present and potential roles of Europe at the dawn of the twenty-first century.

HIST-228-01 / CLASS-228-01: Ancient Rome, with Geoffrey Sumi
Ancient Rome and its empire can be viewed both as a measure of human achievement and a cautionary tale of the corrupting effects of unbridled power. This course covers the history of Ancient Rome from its mythologized beginnings (753 BCE) to the rise and spread of Christianity under the Emperor Constantine (312 CE). Topics include the creation and development of Rome’s republican form of government as well as its eventual transition to monarchy, the causes and consequences of the acquisition of empire, the role of the army in administering the provinces and defending the frontiers, the image of emperor, the economy, and religion.

HIST-240-01 / JWST-240-01: The Holocaust in History, with Jeremy King
An attempt at understanding the Nazi-led assault on Europe’s Jews. Course units include an exploration of origins, both German and European; an analysis of the evolving mechanics of genocide (mobile killing squads, death camps, etc.); comparisons (Germany proper vs. Poland, the Holocaust vs. other instances of state-sponsored mass murder); legal dimensions; and an introduction to the politics of Holocaust remembrance since 1945.

HIST-244-01: European Public Policy, West and East, with Jeremy King
In 1968, the USSR commenced a strategy of consumerist depoliticization in its European satellites. Around the same time, states on the other side of the Iron Curtain saw the postwar era of rapid economic growth and social consensus close. This course, reaching across the revolutionary break of 1989 up to the present, raises questions of convergence and continuity in European public policy, West and East. Paired case studies from a variety of countries in fields such as energy, the environment, minority rights, and housing serve to clarify rules and patterns to the politics of policy, from Cold War to European Union and beyond.

HIST-373-01 / ENVST-377-01: Cartography and Exploration in Early North America, with Christine DeLucia
This course examines the history of mapping: what maps show, and what places the practice of cartography tends to erase, distort, or conceal. It focuses on the landscapes of early North America, where the representation and use of space was hotly contested by Natives, European settlers, and Africans. The course’s topics include indigenous mapping traditions and concepts of sacred space, European navigational strategies during the ‘Age of Discovery,’ early urban planning, and scientific/military depictions. The course will teach strategies for employing maps as primary sources, and ways of understanding the historical and ideological circumstances of their production and circulation.

MUSIC:

MUSIC-147D-01 / DANCE-127-01: Early Music Ensembles: ‘Renaissance and Baroque Dance I,’ with Nona Monáhin and Margaret Pash
Sixteenth- through eighteenth-century European social dance, contemporary with the eras of Elizabeth I and Shakespeare in England, the Medicis in Italy, Louis XIV in France, and colonial America. The focus will be on learning the dances, supplemented by historical and social background, discussion of the original dance sources, and reconstruction techniques.

MUSIC-283-01: History of Western Music II, with Adeline Mueller
The third in a three-semester survey of Western music history, Music 283 examines the cultures of art music in Europe and the Americas from 1900 to the present day, focusing on the evolution of styles and genres and the changing roles of composers, performers, and audiences.

PHILOSOPHY:

PHIL-201-01: Philosophical Foundations of Western Thought: The Greek Period, with James Harold
An introduction to ancient Greek philosophy, focusing mainly but not exclusively on the works and ideas of three Athenian philosophers who worked and taught in the period between the Persian Wars and the rule of Alexander the Great, more than 2,300 years ago: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Topics to be discussed include: What is the nature of the self? What is truth, and how can it be known? What kind of life should we live? We will work to understand each philosopher’s responses to these questions, but we will also learn to develop our own answers. We will take care to place these figures and their works in their historical and cultural context.

POLITICS:

POLIT-209-01 / RES-240-01: Contemporary Russian Politics, with Stephen Jones
Russia was transformed by communist revolution into a global superpower that challenged the dominant ideologies of liberalism and nationalism. It became a powerful alternative to capitalism. In 1991, this imperial state collapsed and underwent an economic, political, and cultural revolution. What explains the Soviet Union’s success for 70 years and its demise in 1991? What sort of country is Russia as it enters the twenty-first century? Is it a democracy? How has Russia’s transformation affected ordinary people and Russia’s relationship to the West?

POLIT-232-01 / IR-232-01: Introduction to International Political Economy, with Christopher Mitchell
This course examines the theory and practice of the politics of international trade and economics, focusing on the spread of global trade, global financial flows, causes and effects of globalization and migration, and the intersection of trade and environmental issues. Major themes include tensions between the developed and developing world, various development strategies, and the impact of a rising China on both the developed North American and European economies and developing economies.

POLIT-363-01 / IR-363-01: Political Economy of the European Union, with Christopher Mitchell
This course examines the political, economic, and cultural forces driving debates around the creation, expansion, and reform of the European Union. It examines the economic and political logic for integration, as well as the cultural and economic challenges pushing against integration, and provides an in-depth look at the specific challenges facing the EU.

POLIT-366-01: International Migration, with Kavita Khory
This course examines migration and transnational processes from a comparative perspective. It focuses on the relationship between globalization and international migration, with special attention to transnational networks and diaspora politics. We will explore major theories, forms, and patterns of migration in global politics; the involvement of diaspora organizations in the politics of host and home states; and the implications of migration and refugee flows for state sovereignty, national identity, and citizenship. We will conclude by analyzing the key debates and framing of immigration policies and models of citizenship in Europe and the United States.

POLIT-391DC-01: Pivotal Political Ideas: ‘Democracy and its Critics,’ with Ali Aslam
Today democracy has acquired an unquestioned moral legitimacy, but the ubiquity of democratic states risks obscuring what is central to the practice of democracy. In this course, we will examine democracy as a historical tradition through its critics and defenders. Key historical moments will include 5th century BCE Athens, the Atlantic revolutions (France, US, Haiti), as well as 19th and 20th century Anglo-American debates about the democratization and expansion of state powers.

RELIGION:

RELIG-258BD-01: Topics in the Study of Christianity: ‘The Body, Sex, and Early Christianity,’ with Luis Salés
An introduction to early Christian understandings of the body and sex that aims at familiarizing students with a culturally and geographically diverse range of relevant primary sources and at equipping students with the critical-theoretical methodologies necessary to analyze, interpret, and assess these sources in their historical context. Students will read sources penned between the first and seventh centuries CE within the geopolitical limits of the Roman and Persian Empires and originally written in Greek, Latin, Syriac, and Coptic. The course will be supplemented with theoretical literature, including feminist, gender, and postcolonial theory, discourse analysis, and so on.