Divided Cities

Professor: Jeff Jurgens  

Course Number: ANTH 219

CRN Number: 10339

Class cap: 22

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Olin 102

Distributional Area:

SA  Social Analysis  D+J Difference and Justice

Crosslists: Environmental & Urban Studies

This class offers an introduction to modern cities and everyday urban life, with a central focus on cities that are both socially and spatially divided. On the one hand, we will examine how political-economic inequalities and collective differences (organized in relation to race, color, gender, sexuality, class, [dis]ability, and other social categories) are expressed in geographic boundaries and other aspects of the built environment. On the other, we will explore how state agencies, real estate developers, activists, residents, and other social actors make and remake city spaces in ways that reinforce, rework, challenge, and refuse the existing terms of inequality and difference. The class will revolve around case studies of cities around the world (e.g., Istanbul, Rio de Janeiro, and Tel Aviv) as well as cities in the US (e.g., Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and St. Louis). More broadly, we will trace the history of urban segregation from a perspective that is both transnational and committed to the pursuit of racial justice (as well as other forms of societal transformation). This class builds on assigned reading in anthropology and other disciplines, critical writing and discussion, and focused film viewing. At the same time, it is an Engaged Liberal Arts and Sciences (ELAS) class that provides students with an opportunity to reflect on urban theorizing through collaborations with community partners in Kingston and other cities.

Post-Apartheid Imaginaries

Professor: Yuka Suzuki  

Course Number: ANTH 275

CRN Number: 10341

Class cap: 22

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    10:10 AM - 11:30 AM Olin 203

Distributional Area:

SA  Social Analysis  D+J Difference and Justice

Crosslists: Africana Studies; Global & International Studies; Human Rights

South Africa and Zimbabwe have been marked by one of the most brutal systems of racial segregation ever seen in the world. Before Independence, the distinction between white and black signaled the stark difference between a life of guaranteed comfort and privilege on the one hand, and a life of limited access to inferior land, education, housing, and employment on the other. Following decades-long struggles for liberation, both countries worked to reinvent themselves, crafting new national narratives of cross-racial, cross-ethnic unity. This course explores what it means to imagine postcolonial nationhood in the context of clearly visible and deep inequality. We consider the politics of land redistribution and resettlement in contexts where the vast majority of arable land remains under white ownership after Independence. We look closely at the charismatic authority of politicians like Jacob Zuma and Robert Mugabe, alongside the intensification of ethnic discourses that culminated in genocide in Zimbabwe. Other topics include intersections between race and gendered violence, the rise of witchcraft and the occult, student protest movements, rooibos tea economies, and paradoxes of white African belonging. This course fulfills the Difference & Justice requirement through its examination of the ongoing effects of apartheid in southern Africa. 

Ethnography of Law and Affect

Professor: Andrew Bush  

Course Number: ANTH 377

CRN Number: 10343

Class cap: 15

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

 Tue      5:10 PM - 7:30 PM Olin 310

Distributional Area:

SA  Social Analysis  D+J Difference and Justice

Crosslists: Human Rights; Middle Eastern Studies; Study of Religions

Ethnographic method offers a unique perspective on how ordinary affects in daily life give shape to legal processes in different social contexts. This course moves beyond asking what the law says, or how the law makes us feel, to also ask how we give feelings to law. The course begins with introductory material in legal studies that highlight the role of the forgotten, suppressed, or critical tendencies internal to law (Goodrich, Minkkinen). We then study the transformations of love, solidarity, vengeance, forgiveness, and grief that appear in legal processes in civil courts in Iran (Osanloo), LGBT social movements in Myanmar (Chua), Islamic legal forums in Morocco (Pandolfo), or Peruvian truth and reconciliation processes (Rojas-Perez). Combining affect theory, legal studies, and ethnography we seek to challenge common assumptions about what law is and how law works. 

Painting II Queering the Canon

Professor: Jonathan VanDyke  

Course Number: ART 202 JVD

CRN Number: 10597

Class cap: 12

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

 Tue      2:00 PM - 5:00 PM Fisher Studio Arts Barn

Distributional Area:

PA  Practicing Arts   

Crosslists: Gender and Sexuality Studies

When is a painting “queer?" In this intermediate painting class, students will be guided in composition-building methods and material explorations that move "against the grain" of painting conventions. Investigations of the painterly process will be augmented by readings and discussions exploring a lineage of LGBTQ+ artists. Research will include focused explorations of queer practices that intersect with those of marginalized communities globally. Students will consider how artistic practices have intertwined with social and political activism. Participants will explore a series of structured prompts; they will conclude the semester by pursuing independent projects with queer-oriented themes. Some prompts will include expanded painting practices that fold in other media. Prerequisite: Painting 1 or permission of the instructor. Note: this class requires a supplies kit priced at approximately $100; additionally, students will need to possess basic painting materials (oils and/or acrylics).

Understanding Social Media

Professor: Fahmid Haq  

Course Number: ARTS 208

CRN Number: 10681

Class cap: 22

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    10:10 AM - 11:30 AM New Annandale House

Distributional Area:

AA  Analysis of Art   

Crosslists: Experimental Humanities

Doing social media projects practically and analyzing their role critically are two main objectives of the course. This course will raise some critical question that evolve around social media which will include – surveillance and privacy, labor, big data, misinformation, cyborg and cyberfeminism. Topics will include the socio-historical perspectives regarding technology and society, the nature and characteristics of different social media such as Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, snapchat and more, big data capitalism and imperialism, civic engagement through digital platforms, mainstream media’s compelling realities to be more ‘social’, misinformation, racism and right-wing authoritarianism in social media, the role of social media influencers, branding and social media marketing and an exploration for a true social media. The course will draw from a broad range of social theory including communication and cultural theories, political economy and media anthropology to critically evaluate the impact of social media on human relationships, activism, branding, politics, news production and dissemination and identity formation. Theoretical notions such as hyperreality by Jean Baudrillard, network society by Manuel Castells and digital labor by Christian Fuchs will be discussed in the class. As ‘prosumers’, students will create social media projects and analyze some trendy cases evident in different platforms.

Dura-Europos and the Problems of Archaeological Archives (Part 1)

Professor: Anne Chen  

Course Number: ARTH 318

CRN Number: 10098

Class cap: 15

Credits: 2

Schedule/Location:

  Wed     9:10 AM - 11:30 AM Fisher Studio Arts ANNEX

Distributional Area:

AA  Analysis of Art   

Crosslists: Classical Studies; Experimental Humanities; Human Rights; Middle Eastern Studies

What silences do archaeological archives unintentionally preserve? In what ways do power and privilege influence the creation and shape of archaeological archives, and dictate who has access to them? How might new technologies help us begin to rectify inequities of access? Once called by its excavators the “Pompeii of the East,” the ancient archaeological site of Dura-Europos (Syria) preserves evidence of what everyday life was like in an ancient Roman city. The site is home to the earliest Christian church building yet found, the most elaborately decorated ancient synagogue known to date, and testifies to the ways in which ancient religions and cultures intermingled and inspired one another. Yet since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011, the site has been irreparably compromised for future archaeological exploration. More than ever, our knowledge and understanding of the site's ancient phases will depend almost entirely upon archival information collected in the course of archaeological excavations that took place 100 years ago when Syria was under French colonial occupation. In this hands-on practicum course focused on the case-study of this fascinating archaeological site, students will not only learn what we know of Dura-Europos as it was in antiquity, but will also think critically about issues central to the use and development of archival resources more generally. Coursework will center around firsthand engagement with data, artifacts, and archival materials from the site, and will allow students the opportunity to develop guided research projects that ultimately contribute toward the goal of improving the site’s accessibility and intelligibility to users worldwide. The methods and critical perspectives explored in this class will be particularly relevant to students interested in exploring careers in GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives and museum) fields. This course is offered by default as a 2-credit class that meets approximately eight times during the semester (precise meeting schedule to be set at the beginning of the semester); however, students interested in earning a full 4-credits have the option of adding a 2-credit tutorial (must be arranged in consultation with the professor in the beginning of the semester). AHVC distribution: Ancient.

Introduction to Indigenous Feminist Critiques and Geographies

Professor: Margaux Kristjansson  

Course Number: AS 222

CRN Number: 10180

Class cap: 22

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    3:30 PM - 4:50 PM Olin 202

Distributional Area:

SA  Social Analysis  D+J Difference and Justice

This course considers the writing and organizing of Indigenous feminists in the Americas and globally over the past two centuries. Students will analyze place, state power, gender, race and capitalism through the analytics offered by Indigenous women and non-men. We ask: what is colonialism, and how does it persist through claims over Native lands? How are colonialism, capitalism and racism gendered? How is place connected to embodiment? We will deconstruct colonial images of and desires to ‘know’ Indigenous women and non-men and move towards a critical analysis of heteropatriarchy, colonialism and capitalism. Texts by: A Simpson, Belcourt, Silko, Hunt, Million, Green, Maracle, Goeman, Miles, Lethabo-King, Chrystos, J Simpson.

Courage To Be: The Freedom to Write

Professor: Jana Mader  

Course Number: CC 108 C

CRN Number: 10332

Class cap: 22

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Olin 107

Distributional Area:

MBV SA  Meaning, Being, Value Social Analysis  D+J Difference and Justice

Crosslists: Human Rights; Literature

When we think of courageous writing, we may think of reporters on the front lines: taking notes while bullets rain from the sky, interviewing civilians in the rubble of destroyed communities. But courage also goes beyond the battlefield: undercover investigators infiltrate an organization or an individual from the inside to hold those in power accountable, such as in cases against organized crime groups like the Mafia or religious organizations like the Catholic Church. In a military dictatorship with censorship, as in Nazi Germany in the 1930s, writing a poem on a particular subject led to exile or imprisonment. In this course, we will explore different forms of courageous writing: from investigative journalism to undercover investigations to writing under censorship or in exile. We will critically examine the political context of different time periods, from ancient governments to contemporary times in various countries, e.g., the U.S., Canada, Germany, Italy, Iran, France, South Africa, etc. Texts include Nellie Bly’s Ten Days in a Mad-House, Marquis de Sade’s The 120 Days of Sodom, Nadine Gordimer’s Burger's Daughter, Roberto Saviano’s Gomorrah, Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses, Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem, Ida B. Wells’ Anti-Lynching Campaign, Günter Wallraff’s The Lowest of the Low, and poems by Bertolt Brecht and Heinrich Heine. We will also take a look at the role of PEN America and its Freedom To Write Award, the history of book banning and book burning, and the ethical implications of undercover investigations. This course includes lectures, dinners, and other activities undertaken in common with the other sections of this Common Course.

Keywords for Our Times: Understanding Israel/Palestine

Professor: Michelle Murray  

Course Number: CC 120 A

CRN Number: 10629

Class cap: 30

Credits: 2

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    1:30 PM - 2:50 PM Reem Kayden Center 103

Distributional Area:

HA SA  Historical Analysis Social Analysis   

This course will critically explore the ongoing conflict between Israel/Palestine with a focus on Gaza, and the vocabularies we use to understand it.  The Hamas attacks of October 7th and the Israeli military response have sparked intense debate and renewed interest in some of the most contested ideas that organize our politics, society and culture:  What are the conditions of possibility in Israel/Palestine that have led us to this point?  How does the frame of “war” shape our understanding of this conflict, and what forms of political violence does this frame legitimate or render invisible?  How have concepts like self-defense, terrorism, genocide, apartheid, settler colonialism, and others been used to understand the current situation?  To answer these questions and others, this course will use the framework of “keywords” to interrogate the vocabularies we use in the conversations we have with each other about this conflict.  Keywords are short essays that explore the meaning–and importantly, the shifting meaning–of important terms in our culture and society.  They are meant to help individuals understand the concepts and ideas they encounter in their daily interactions with others and observe in our public discourse, to map controversies and disagreements about them, and to treat these terms as sites of unresolved contestation.  The Keywords for Our Times course initiative aims to bring faculty from a range of disciplines together to help students understand the histories of and contestations around important concepts and ideas that define our contemporary moment, and to stimulate informed dialogue within our community. 

Keywords for Our Times: Understanding Israel/Palestine

Professor: Michelle Murray  

Course Number: CC 120 B

CRN Number: 10630

Class cap: 20

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    1:30 PM - 2:50 PM Reem Kayden Center 103

Distributional Area:

HA SA  Historical Analysis Social Analysis   

This course will critically explore the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine in Gaza and the vocabularies we use to understand it.  The Hamas attacks of October 7th and the Israeli military response have sparked intense debate and renewed interest in some of the most contested ideas that organize our politics, society and culture:  What are the conditions of possibility in Israel/Palestine that have led us to this point?  How does the frame of “war” shape our understanding of this conflict, and what forms of political violence does this frame legitimate or render invisible?  How have concepts like self-defense, terrorism, genocide, apartheid, settler colonialism, and others been used to understand the current situation?  To answer these questions and others, this course will use the framework of “keywords” to interrogate the vocabularies we use in the conversations we have with each other about this conflict.  Keywords are short essays that explore the meaning–and importantly, the shifting meaning–of important terms in our culture and society.  They are meant to help individuals understand the concepts and ideas they encounter in their daily interactions with others and observe in our public discourse, to map controversies and disagreements about them, and to treat these terms as sites of unresolved contestation.  The Keywords for Our Times course initiative aims to bring faculty from a range of disciplines together to help students understand the histories of and contestations around important concepts and ideas that define our contemporary moment, and to stimulate informed dialogue within our community.

Dancing Migrations: Tracing Mexico's Points of Access and Departure

Professor: Yebel Gallegos  

Course Number: DAN 360

CRN Number: 10428

Class cap: 15

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Fisher Performing Arts Center CONFERENCE

Distributional Area:

AA  Analysis of Art   

Human migration has been a constant force shaping history. In many ways, human movement has created opportunities for culture to evolve and thrive. Together, we will examine how dance as a resilient art form has adapted and transformed due to migration and cross-cultural exchanges. This course moves away from a traditional Euro-U.S.-centric approach to dance history and explores ritual and concert dance from a Mexican perspective. Offered as a seminar-style course, readings by Diana Taylor, Gloria Anzaldúa, Elizabeth Schwall, and David Delgado Shorter, among others, combined with discussions, movement explorations, and visits by guest speakers will deepen our knowledge and understanding of dance as a global art form. There will be weekly writing, a mid-term project proposal, and a final project.

Queer Economics

Professor: Michael Martell  

Course Number: ECON 359

CRN Number: 10326

Class cap: 16

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

  Wed     9:10 AM - 11:30 AM Olin 304

Distributional Area:

SA  Social Analysis  D+J Difference and Justice

Crosslists: Gender and Sexuality Studies

This seminar traces and interrogates the past, present, and future of the development of queer economics – with particular attention to the possible epistemological and social impacts of the economics discipline becoming more queer and LGBTQ+ inclusive. The course will include three somewhat overlapping modules. First, we will study how LGBTQ+ individuals experience the economy. We will also investigate the extent to which hierarchy in the discipline has led to a pattern of production – and regulation – of economic knowledge that is heteronormative. We will also engage with criticisms of this bias from queer political economists (of which there are but few). By interrogating hierarchy, and the structures that reproduce it, students will also develop mechanisms and suggestions for interventions to promote greater inclusion throughout the ranks of the academy. Topics and readings will cover:  The current state, and historical origins of, the economics profession being less diverse (demographically and methodologically) than its similar social sciences. The relationship between hierarchy within economics to its culture, climate, and queer representation. The consequences of poor diversity and climate on knowledge. The history of the engagement of economists with queer issues and the queer community; the current state of queer economics knowledge and methodologies. Prerequisites: Econ 100 and Economic Perspectives or Economic Thought or Instructor Approval

Reframing Reality: Doc Prac II

Professor: Fiona Otway  

Course Number: FILM 315

CRN Number: 10461

Class cap: 12

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

   Thurs    1:30 PM - 4:30 PM Avery Film Center 333

Distributional Area:

PA  Practicing Arts   

How can documentary filmmaking open a portal for learning about ourselves and the world we live in? This advanced production course is designed as a laboratory to explore curiosities, complexities and conundrums. We will use documentary filmmaking as a means to articulate provocative, nuanced, juicy questions about how the world works and what it means to be human. In the process, we will interrogate how power is embedded in authorial voice, question how documentary grammar can be used to subvert or reify metanarratives, probe the relationship between form/content and process/end product,examine the intersection of filmmaking and social justice, challenge our own assumptions and the assumptions of others. We will use filmmaking exercises, field research, writing, theoretical readings, screenings, critiques, and class discussions to build creative muscles. Skills and ideas introduced in "FILM 278: Documentary Film Workshop" (Fall 2023) will be expanded and deepened through the completion of a more ambitious documentary project this semester. Advanced students who did not take FILM 278 but would like to take this course should email fotway@bard.edu one paragraph explaining their interest in taking this course and their video production background. All students are expected to have prior experience with video camera operation and editing. This production class fulfills a moderation requirement.

The Global Middle Ages II, c. 1000–1600

Professor: Nathanael Aschenbrenner  

Course Number: HIST 102

CRN Number: 10199

Class cap: 22

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    10:10 AM - 11:30 AM Olin 201

Distributional Area:

HA  Historical Analysis   

Crosslists: Global & International Studies; Medieval Studies

This course will examine c.1000–1600 CE across Eurasia, Africa, and the Americas, exploring major changes in religion and warfare, the rise of new empires and thickening webs of commerce, conquest, and consumption across the globe. From the religious violence of crusades and pogroms, to the Mongol sweep across Eurasia; from the emergence of new racial categories and prejudices to projects of cultural celebration like the Renaissance; from the conquest and colonization of the Americas and the robust trade in spice, sugar, textiles, and human beings—the course will focus on the mobility of commodities, ideas, and practices throughout an increasingly connected world. Through diverse literary, material, and artistic evidence, students will encounter the experiences of people from vastly different regions and will learn to identify new connections through this dynamic period.

U.S. History in the Long 19th Century

Professor: Shay Olmstead  

Course Number: HIST 104

CRN Number: 10328

Class cap: 22

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Hegeman 106

Distributional Area:

HA  Historical Analysis   

In the 130 years after its founding—during what is called the Long Nineteenth Century—the United States experienced tremendous changes to its political, economic, and constitutional frameworks. U.S. citizens lived through major demographic and geographic shifts, rapid technological growth, the mass displacement of Indigenous nations, and the turmoil of a Civil War. This survey course will explore this history from many angles, anchoring broad discussions of politics, economy, and war in the lived experiences of actual people and especially focusing on the ways unlanded men, yeomen farmers, women, free and enslaved African Americans, Indigenous peoples, industrial workers, and recent immigrants asserted their rights to participate in, shape, and belong to this new nation.

Before and after Islam: Arabia and the Horn of Africa in the First Millennium CE

Professor: Valentina Grasso  

Course Number: HIST 108

CRN Number: 10196

Class cap: 22

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     5:10 PM - 6:30 PM Olin 201

Distributional Area:

HA  Historical Analysis   

Crosslists: Africana Studies; Middle Eastern Studies

Islam was not an alien product of Arabia nor of the first millennium. It emerged in a pivotal area both for the exchange of goods and ideas. This course serves as an introduction to the history of both shores of the Red Sea in the first millennium CE. Through a focus on the interactions between empires and Scriptural traditions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) within the historical frame of the first millennium, the course aims to incorporate the history of the Red Sea into the study of the so-called “Late Antiquity”. The first half of the course will examine the history of pre-Islamic Arabia and the Horn of Africa, from the kingdom of Saba and Himyar in South Arabia to that of Aksūm in today’s Ethiopia and Eritrea. The rise of Islam, the formation of the Islamicate World, and the effects of these events on East Africa will be the focus of the second half of the course. Large attention will be paid to archaeological sources, including (but not limited to) epigraphical material, buildings, statuettes, and numismatics, as well as to modern representations of Arabia, East Africa, and Islam.

Deserts and steppes: from the Xiongnu to the Mongol Empire

Professor: Valentina Grasso  

Course Number: HIST 214

CRN Number: 10305

Class cap: 22

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     3:30 PM - 4:50 PM Olin Languages Center 118

Distributional Area:

HA  Historical Analysis   

Crosslists: Middle Eastern Studies

From the words of the Western Han historian Sima Qian (145–86 BCE) to the 2014 Netflix series Marco Polo, the people inhabiting the deserts and the steppes of Eurasia have played a significant role in the common imaginary. This course will focus on the history of Central and East Asia from the fourth century BCE to the fourteenth century. Beginning with an analysis of the Xiongnu Empire, “the first steppe empire in history”, and ending with an overview of the Mongol Empire, the largest contiguous one, the course will pay attention to the formation and collapse of political entities in the region, including that of the Rouran and the Göktürk Khaganates. Emphasis will be laid on the interaction between diverse cultures in the period and on the formation of trading nodes and missionary activities in the area. The final classes will cover ancient and contemporary cinematic representations of the people encountered during the courses, with a special focus on Genghis and Kublai Khan.

The Beautiful Game: A Global History of Soccer

Professor: Lloyd Hazvineyi  

Course Number: HIST 392

CRN Number: 10415

Class cap: 15

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

 Tue      8:00 AM - 10:20 AM OSUN Course

Distributional Area:

HA  Historical Analysis   

Crosslists: Global & International Studies; Human Rights

Soccer has enthralled and excited many audiences throughout the centuries. From the factory workers in Victorian England, to colonial prisoners such as Nelson Mandela incarcerated on Robben Island, to the streets of Sao Paulo Brazil, soccer has been one of the most consequential and celebrated sports. This course takes the position that soccer is more than just a game, and invites students to consider and examine the cultural, social and political meanings which societies around the world have attached to the beautiful game. The class situates the global history of soccer in the context of themes which include industrialization, settler colonialism, race, segregation, empire, violence and corruption. As such, the class engages explicit political dimensions of soccer such as Catalan nationalist ambitions in Spain, which are often expressed in the Spanish derby, the El Classico between Barcelona (from the Catalan region) and Real Madrid (from Madrid). The class also explores how soccer became entangled in anti-apartheid and anti-colonial struggles across the African continent. Through class readings, discussions and documentary screenings, students will be expected to examine and comment on how dominant ideas about race, belonging, as well as social hierarchies have been negotiated on the field of play. The class foregrounds questions which seek to understand the role of sport in society, interrogating how soccer has not only mirrored society’s prejudices, but has often reproduced them.

Introduction to Disability Studies

Professor: Erin Braselmann  

Course Number: HR 109

CRN Number: 10204

Class cap: 20

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    3:30 PM - 4:50 PM Reem Kayden Center 102

Distributional Area:

SA  Social Analysis  D+J Difference and Justice

This course will serve as an introduction to disability studies as an interdisciplinary field. The intent is to provide an overview of different conceptions and construction of disability throughout society and how disabled people are affected by such. The course will take an intersectional approach in analyzing and critiquing social systems and manifestations of disability through critical disability theory. Specifically, the course will focus on the history of disability and the disability rights movement, medical and social models of disability, accessibility and accommodations, disability policy and the legal landscape, representations of people with disabilities in culture, and more. Students will learn to think critically about disability in a variety of contexts. Students will also develop a better understanding of systems of power and oppression as they relate to disability and accessibility. Course readings may include, but not be limited to, works by: Judy Heumann, Alice Wong, Keith A. Mayes, Sonya Huber, Eli Clare, Simi Linton, Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Robert McRuer, Matthew J. Wolf-Meyer, Jasbir K. Puar, David J. Connor, and Ronald J. Berger. Course content will include narratives, essays, articles, podcasts, and film or other media. 

A Human Right to Homes or Homelessness

Professor: Kwame Holmes  

Course Number: HR 278

CRN Number: 10616

Class cap: 22

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Reem Kayden Center 200

Distributional Area:

SA  Social Analysis  D+J Difference and Justice

Crosslists: American & Indigenous Studies; Environmental & Urban Studies

This seminar in homelessness and human rights will be organized by two interrelated questions: 1. How have antipoverty and Human Rights activists attempted to establish a right to shelter in Western nation-states? 2. How does homelessness, as a lived/observed/ignored experience, expose “the home,” domesticity, the single family dwelling, and the private sphere are themselves generative of multiple human rights crises? We’ll begin with foundational settler colonial projects and their trans-historical work to locate “unsettled” indigenous populations, emancipated “vagrants,” and “landless vagabonds” outside of moral, legal and national community We’ll engage the emergence of the term (and social problem) “homelessness” as both a compassionate and anxious response to a rapidly expanding, domestically untethered, sometimes disabled, other times queer, cis male (and masculine presenting) population at the turn of the 20th century. We’ll think homelessness through the feminine, exploring the challenges divorced women, single mothers and trans femmes in securing shelter in the 1960s and 1970s. We’ll read the testimony of folks who move “seamlessly” between friends’ couches, parking lots, roadside motels, warming shelters and county jails. We’ll interrogate how, at extremis, homelessness resists Western norms that demand we lock visible evidence of financial precarity and emotional variability behind the doors of one’s residence, to shroud them within appropriate dress and to obscure them with layers of “clean” odor (as defined by personal hygiene product manufacturers). We’ll expose the consequences of mass-production of single family homes for global climate. And we’ll study the work of activists for tenant’s rights, squatters rights and a constitutional right to sleep under the open sky.

Does Might Make Right?

Professor: Thomas Bartscherer  

Course Number: HR 346 OSU

CRN Number: 10636

Class cap: 15

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

 Tue      9:10 AM - 11:30 AM OSUN Course

Distributional Area:

MBV  Meaning, Being, Value   

Speaking at the United Nations in September, 2021, U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield noted that in ratifying the Charter of the UN and adopting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the member states were disavowing the idea, as she put it, that "might makes right," and committing themselves instead to "a new set of self-binding principles" that aim to "prevent conflict, alleviate human suffering, defend human rights, and engage in an ongoing dialogue to improve the lives of all people." Her remarks evoke a famous passage from an English translation of the Greek historian Thucydides, often cited as the classical statement of political realism: "The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must." In this course, we will focus on the vibrant debate over the question of whether "might makes right" that occurs in the literary, historical, and philosophical writings of Athens in the fifth century BCE. Most of the texts we read will be ancient, but the questions they address are of urgent contemporary concern. We will look at the original context of that passage, wherein Thucydides conducts a subtle analysis of the claims of justice against the prerogatives of force. We will also see how this debate plays out in the philosophical writings of Plato and Aristotle and in contemporaneous literary texts, including the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. We will also compare material in ancient texts from other traditions, including the Buddhist Edicts of Asoka, the Hebrew Bible, and the Christian New Testament. Our aims will be: to see how these cultures, so different from the one that brought forth the UN?s Universal Declaration, grappled with this enduring dilemma; to trace the influence of the these ancient texts on modern conceptions of human rights; and to bring these diverse perspectives to bear on our own thinking about "might" and "right." All readings will be in English. This is an OSUN Online Class, taught online and open to Bard students and students from OSUN partner institutions.

LGBTQ+ Issues in US Education

Professor: Michael Sadowski  

Course Number: HR 358

CRN Number: 10672

Class cap: 15

Credits: 2

Schedule/Location:

    Fri   11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Reem Kayden Center 101

Distributional Area:

SA  Social Analysis  D+J Difference and Justice

Crosslists: Gender and Sexuality Studies

This course will examine both the history and contemporary landscape of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and related (LGBTQ+) issues in U.S. education, with an emphasis on recent "Don't Say Gay" and anti-trans legislation at the state level. Students will explore the legal, political, pedagogical, and empirical questions that have been central to this field over the last three decades, such as: What are the rights of LGBTQ+ students and educators, and what are the obstacles to their being realized? What strategies have been successful in advocacy for more LGBTQ+ positive schools, and what lessons do they hold for future change? What do LGBTQ+ supportive school environments look like, and what does research tell us about their effectiveness? Although K–12 schooling will be the primary focus of the class, we will also examine the landscape of higher education vis-à-vis LGBTQ+ issues. As a final project, students will present an “educational change plan,” in which they envision how they might contribute to positive change in an area related to this relatively nascent field.

Queer of Color Critique

Professor: Kwame Holmes  

Course Number: HR 397

CRN Number: 10617

Class cap: 15

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

Mon      1:30 PM - 3:50 PM Reem Kayden Center 200

Distributional Area:

SA  Social Analysis  D+J Difference and Justice

Crosslists: Africana Studies; American & Indigenous Studies; Gender and Sexuality Studies

In his seminal 1996 book, Aberrations in Black, Roderick Ferguson launched queer of color critique.  Ferguson revealed that queer theory had failed to think through racialized political economic of normative sexuality and that Marxist theory had failed to account for the exchange and use values attached to the material labors and cultural representations of non-white bodies. In short, dominant social theory had not provided any language that helped queer scholars and activists from a range of racial and ethnic backgrounds to describe their intersecting marginalization vis a vis the dominant culture ortheir experiences of alienation within their minoritarian category.  In Ferguson’s wake came Black Queer, Asian American Queer, Indigenous Queer and Latin(e) Queer subfields of study and theorization.  This advanced readings course will introduce students to the foundational texts of these disciplines and teach them how to deploy them as interpretive tools which reveal previously unknown dimensions of four human rights crises in the United States: Mass incarceration, settler colonialism, reproductive justice and immigration/deportation policy.  Students will be asked to write a weekly response essay, co-lead one discussion and prepare a final essay, artistic project or activist intervention in consultation with the professor.  This course will fulfill the American and Indigenous Studies junior seminar requirement.

Like Family: Domestic Worker Characters in Fiction

Professor: Marina van Zuylen  

Course Number: LIT 282

CRN Number: 10377

Class cap: 22

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    3:30 PM - 4:50 PM Olin 205

Distributional Area:

LA  Literary Analysis in English   

Crosslists: Human Rights

This course will delve into the idea that female domestic workers (maids, nannies, cooks), often portrayed as invisible and powerless, can also wield considerable influence and authority over their employers, affecting the structure of everyday life. Far from only being consigned to the margins of storytelling, mere backdrop to the narrative, our examples will show these workers in different light. Starting with excerpts from the comedic tradition where the "servant" uses role reversals to subvert traditional social hierarchies (Terence, Cervantes, Molière, Kundera), we will then tackle the ethical and social implications of figures that are both part of and excluded from the household. Self-destructive loyalty (Flaubert, A Simple Heart, Ishiguro, Remains of the Day), skewed hierarchies (Szabo, The Door, du Maurier, Rebecca), Class warfare (NDiaye, The Cheffe, Slimani, The Perfect Nanny), cultural upheavals (Faizur Rasul, Bengal to Birmingham). This course is part of the World Literature offering.

Radical Reading: Nganang's Historical Fiction

Professor: Ursula Embola  

Course Number: LIT 369

CRN Number: 10388

Class cap: 14

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

 Tue      3:10 PM - 5:30 PM Olin 304

Distributional Area:

LA  Literary Analysis in English   

Crosslists: Africana Studies; Human Rights 

"Radical Reading: Nganang's Historical Fiction" is a reading-intensive course that introduces students to contemporary texts in English translation penned by award-winning Cameroonian-American author Patrice Nganang. Students taking this course will develop an appreciation of the historical, cultural, thematic, and aesthetic preoccupations expressed within Nganang's trilogy of historical fiction novels centered on Cameroon's development into a West/Central African nation over the course of the 20th century. A key question that sits at the heart of this course is the following: "How is the literary genre of historical fiction employed by Nganang in the work of crafting a Cameroonian national identity, and how is that work complicated by the specificity of the Cameroonian multicultural, multilingual, and postcolonial situation?" The course seeks to use Literature as a means of decolonizing African history and is designed to provide students with exciting and challenging new learning experiences which they can easily apply to other areas of their academic journeys. This course is part of the World Literature offering.

Introduction to Philosophy: Evil in Ethics

Professor: Archie Magno  

Course Number: PHIL 124

CRN Number: 10207

Class cap: 22

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Olin 203

Distributional Area:

MBV  Meaning, Being, Value   

Crosslists: Study of Religions

This course will take up some of the central questions of ethics: How should we organize our lives? Is there such thing as a consistent criterion of right or wrong? Can we control our emotions, and if so, how should we do it? Is virtue possible, and how is it different from vice? But there is a special angle under which the course will address these questions, namely: what should we not do and why? Is there such thing as "evil"? How do we deal with an offense or an enemy? What is temptation, and does one have always to resist it? Is one responsible for one’s own trauma? The paradox of our culture is that, focused as it is on enjoyment and personal success, its political and social imaginary is filled with demonic “axes of evil” and the cultivated emotions are those of depression or anxiety. Why is this happening? Are the current cultural rituals efficient in dealing with unpleasant expectations and memories? What are the conditions for tolerance or intolerance with regard to evil? We will try to approach if not answer these difficult questions during the course. An interdisciplinary set of readings combines philosophy, psychology, and cultural studies. It includes such authors as St Augustine, Kant, Hegel, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Freud, Arendt, Levinas, Žižek, Simona Forti, and others. Requirements include participation, an interpretive essay (2000-2500 words), and a research paper (4000-5000 words).

Introduction to Philosophy: Slavery

Professor: Jay Elliott  

Course Number: PHIL 129

CRN Number: 10208

Class cap: 22

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     8:30 AM - 9:50 AM Olin 203

Distributional Area:

MBV  Meaning, Being, Value  D+J Difference and Justice

Crosslists: Africana Studies; Classical Studies; Human Rights

How can one human being own another? Today many of us regard slavery as the ultimate example of an unthinkable evil. Yet we also live in a society powerfully shaped by the institution and aftereffects of slavery, and recent events have shed renewed light on the enduring legacy of slavery in the United States. Our focus will be on two major slave societies: Greco-Roman antiquity and the modern Atlantic. We will seek to understand slavery and its enduring effects through these two slave societies and the interrelations between them. A special focus of our course will be the historically deep connection between philosophy and slavery. Many of the founding figures of Western political thought – including Aristotle, Locke, and Hegel – produced justifications of slavery that are often ignored today but that raise profound questions about the intellectual legacies of these canonical thinkers. Alongside these philosophers, we will also approach the inner life of slave societies through a variety of other sources, including letters, plays, autobiographies, and legal codes. Throughout the course we will consider a range of questions, including: how has slavery been intellectually justified and maintained in slave societies? How does the practice of slavery intersect with ideas about nature, work, property, sex, race, nationality and belonging? How do thinkers within slave societies come to develop critiques of slavery? What does it mean for slavery to end? This course fulfills the Difference and Justice requirement. Courses meeting this requirement are intended to further students’ understanding of diverse forms of thought and experience, especially those that are marginalized in conventional academic discourse. In this course, we will juxtapose a long tradition of theorizing and legitimizing slavery in Western political thought with texts that critique slavery and give voice to the lived experiences of enslaved people. The aim of the course is to understand how the terrible injustice of slavery is possible and to cultivate modes of thinking that can help us to comprehend and resist it. 

Power, Diplomacy, and Warfare in Global Affairs

Professor: Frederic Hof  

Course Number: PS 273

CRN Number: 10279

Class cap: 18

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     10:10 AM - 11:30 AM Olin 307

Distributional Area:

HA  Historical Analysis   

Crosslists: Global & International Studies; Historical Studies

This course explores the evolving nature of state power in the 21st century, the history, complexity, and changing nature of diplomacy in the projection of state power, and the evolution of warfare from the time of Napoleon to the present, with emphasis on the utility of military force as an instrument of state power projection.  The objective is to illuminate the relationship between force and statecraft in the modern (post-Napoleonic) era, focusing on the uses and limitations of military force.  Students will emerge from this course with a solid grasp of “hard”, “soft,” and “smart” power as defined principally by Joseph Nye, an understanding of the goals, history, constraints and structures of diplomacy, and a firm grasp of the state-people-army revolution introduced by Napoleon, its doctrinal codification by Clausewitz, its application in the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War, and the catastrophic results of total industrial warfare in two world wars.  Students will likewise become familiar with what General Sir Rupert Smith labels “war among the people,” the prevailing form of armed conflict since 1945 and the principal challenge to the utility of military force.

American Anthropocenes and the Politics of Nature

Professor: Bill Dixon  

Course Number: PS 286

CRN Number: 10275

Class cap: 22

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    10:10 AM - 11:30 AM Olin 205

Distributional Area:

SA  Social Analysis   

Crosslists: Environmental Studies; Environmental & Urban Studies; Philosophy; Science, Technology, Society

This course will reconsider the politics of climate change by way of an inquiry into ancient, early modern, and contemporary conceptions of “nature.” In the first part of the course, we will rethink the nature/politics relationship in conversation with some canonical texts and thinkers, including Genesis, Prometheus Bound, Aristotle, Lucretius, Saint Paul, Baruch Spinoza, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Nietzsche, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and Emma Goldman, among others. In the second part of the course, we will consider three contemporary accounts of politics and nature – cosmopolitanism (Martha Nussbaum), post-secularism (Jacques Derrida), and “the new materialism” (Jane Bennett and Bruno Latour) – and focus on their respective understandings of democracy and the ethical status of nonhuman animals. In the final part of the course, we will shift our attention to the present-day United States and critically examine how various social movements, zoos, corporations, religions, digital media, films, and several American Presidents have imagined themselves to be agents for - and against – climate policy. We will ask what difference the idea of nature – situated as a philosophically, religiously, and politically contested concept – might make to the lived experience of citizenship in the US, as both climate change and climate politics are accelerating and globalizing. 

Political Violence and Terrorism

Professor: Christopher McIntosh  

Course Number: PS 352

CRN Number: 10283

Class cap: 15

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

Mon       12:30 PM - 2:50 PM Olin 308

Distributional Area:

SA  Social Analysis   

Crosslists: Global & International Studies; Human Rights

The September 2001 terrorist attacks irrevocably changed US politics and foreign policy, giving rise to nearly two decades of war, expanded surveillance domestically and abroad, the use of torture and indefinite detention and a targeted killing policy conducted primarily via drone strikes around the globe. More recently, the January 6th attacks on the US Capitol evidenced what can happen when white nationalism, hate, and right wing ideologies are perpetuated by powerful political actors. While neither is a new phenomenon, it’s only relatively recently that terrorism and right wing violence have come to dominate the US national security agenda. Political violence, terrorism, and the propagation of hate-based ideologies have a long history in the United States This seminar will provide a theoretical and empirical examination of this type of violence as a political phenomenon. The first part of the course explores the conceptual and theoretical debates surrounding political violence within the United States and abroad typically characterized as terrorism. Topics discussed will include the distinctions between terrorism and other forms of political violence, individual and group motivations for using terrorism to achieve political goals, the role of religion and ideology in motivating terrorist groups, and the importance of state sponsorship in supporting terrorist activity and individual acts of violence like hate crimes. The second part of the course will address the challenges of government responses, including the strengths and weaknesses of counterterrorist tools such as military force, diplomacy, intelligence and law enforcement, the relationship between violence and democracy, and the role of the international community. In the final part of the course we will situate the contemporary US experience with terrorism, right wing violence and hate crimes in a comparative and historical perspective.

Gender in the History of Psychological Disorders

Professor: Elena Kim  

Course Number: PSY 216

CRN Number: 10075

Class cap: 16

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Hegeman 106

Distributional Area:

SA  Social Analysis   

This course examines the history of abnormal psychology from the perspective of women’s experiences within this field. We will explore the role that psychiatry has played in defining and shaping what has been considered ‘normal female’ as opposed to ‘normal male’ behavior. The course begins with the history of conceptualizing the ‘female madness’ starting from the witchcraft persecution in Europe to the emergence of diagnostic categories such as “neurasthenia’ and ‘hysteria’ which were frequently applied to women in the 19 th and early 20 th centuries. We will discuss biological explanations used to explain mental disorder in women and associated psychiatric practices of the past. The key point of the course is to look at how gender roles and stereotypes may have contributed to definitions of mental illness with varied impacts on women and men. For example, we will read materials about how women who deviated from their ascribed gender roles were continuously likely to be categorized as ‘insane’. In the second part of the course, our focus will be on how diagnoses have changed over time and the modern day gender biases still found in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). Intersections of gender with race, class and sexual subjectivity in the history of abnormal psychology will be examined throughout the course. Prerequisites: Introduction to Psychological Science or permission of the instructor. This course fulfills the Cluster A requirement for the psychology major.

Cognitive Psychology

Professor: Tom Hutcheon  

Course Number: PSY 230

CRN Number: 10077

Class cap: 22

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Reem Kayden Center 111

Distributional Area:

SA  Social Analysis   

Crosslists: Mind, Brain, Behavior

Cross-listed: Mind, Brain, Behavior. Cognitive psychology is the study of mind: how we perceive the world, remember, represent knowledge, acquire new information, become aware of our emotions, make plans, reason, and use language. In this course we examine the empirical foundations that determine our understanding of mind, including classic research designs, recent advances in computational modeling, philosophical perspectives, and changes in cognition throughout the lifespan. The course, which fulfills the Cluster C requirement for the Psychology Program, also considers the neural underpinning of these topics. Enrollment is open to students who have completed Introduction to Psychological Science, Introduction to Neuroscience, or Foundations of Mind, Brain, and Behavior.

Deviance and Social Control

Professor: Jussara dos Santos Raxlen  

Course Number: SOC 207

CRN Number: 10226

Class cap: 22

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Hegeman 308

Distributional Area:

SA  Social Analysis  D+J Difference and Justice

All societies establish norms of conduct for their members, and in all societies, some individuals violate these norms and experience sanctions for doing so. A sanction may be a reward or punishment for behaving in such a way. However, not all violations of norms are sanctioned. The sociological study of deviance examines how certain people and behaviors come to be defined and labeled as deviant in certain contexts. The course addresses four critical questions: Who or what defines and decides what norms must be upheld, and what is deviant? How do those responsible for identifying and sanctioning deviant behavior understand or explain the sources and causes of deviance? What are the consequences for deviants of being so identified and treated? And lastly, how is deviant behavior socially controlled informally (e.g., by the family, peers, or fashion) and through formal organizations (e.g., by the state, law, schools, and police)? Students will learn to critically analyze the problems of definition, identification, explanation, and social reactions to violations of institutional expectations. Throughout the course, we will discuss how issues of class, race, gender, and cultural and historical contexts relate to deviance to understand how standards of normality and deviance always involve relations of power and unequal opportunities to partake in the rewards of living up to the standards of social respectability. Topics include mental illness and mental disabilities; addiction; non-conforming sexualities; cults; anti-establishment subcultures; youth and delinquency; crime and policing; and public debates about controversial topics, such as sex work, abortion, and gun control.