Course:

ANTH 369  Middle Eastern Diasporas

Professor:

Jeff Jurgens  

CRN:

15579

Schedule/Location:

Mon       9:10 AM – 11:30 AM Olin 301

Distributional Area:

SA Social Analysis D+J Difference and Justice

Credits: 4

 

Class cap: 15

Crosslists: Global & International Studies; Human Rights; Middle Eastern Studies

This course examines the past and present experiences of people of Arab, Afghan, Iranian, Kurdish, and Turkish backgrounds who reside in Europe and North America, as well as those of Jews of diverse backgrounds who live in Israel and abroad. At the same time, we will explore how and why these groups are commonly regarded as “diasporas,” a term that is itself closely connected with the displacement and dispersion of Jews beginning in the sixth century BCE. Accordingly, we critically investigate not only the history of “diaspora” as a concept, but also the contemporary circumstances that have encouraged its recent prominence in public and scholarly discussion. After all, it was not that long ago that the aforementioned groups often characterized themselves (and were characterized by others) not as “diasporic,” but as “immigrant,” “expatriate,” “refugee,” “exile,” and “ethnic.” What has brought about this shift in terms? How do contemporary diasporas differ from past ones, especially those that emerged before the advent of nationalism and the nation-state? Finally, how are recent diasporic experiences shaped not only by gendered, sexual, class, and religious differences, but also by ongoing imperial projects and practices of racialization? To address these questions, we will work comparatively across national contexts and historical eras, relying on materials from anthropologists, historians, cultural studies scholars, and “diasporans” themselves.

 

Course:

ARTH 107  Arts of Korea

Professor:

Heeryoon Shin  

CRN:

15568

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Olin 102

Distributional Area:

AA Analysis of Art  

Credits: 4

 

Class cap: 25

Crosslists: Asian Studies

This interdisciplinary course explores the history of Korea from ancient times to the present through the lens of art and culture. We will examine intersections of art, religion, and politics in Korea, as well as Korea’s interactions with the larger region of East Asia and beyond. The first half of the course is dedicated to canonical artworks from premodern Korea, designated as national “treasures” by the South Korean government; the second half will shift the focus to the modern and contemporary period to critically examine how such a “canon” and dominant narratives of Korean art history were formulated. Topics include Buddhist art and ritual; landscape and travel; material culture and collecting; female artists and representations of women; visual culture and politics under the Japanese colonial rule; monuments and anti-monuments; art as political activism; and contemporary Korean art within the global art world. Coursework includes exams, weekly responses on Brightspace, a 3-4 page paper, and a digital group project.

 

Course:

ARTH 113  History of Photography

Professor:

Laurie Dahlberg  

CRN:

15500

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    10:10 AM - 11:30 AM Campus Center WEIS

Distributional Area:

AA Analysis of Art  

Credits: 4

 

Class cap: 25

Crosslists: Science, Technology, Society

The discovery of photography was announced in 1839, almost simultaneously by several inventors. Born of experiments in art and science, the medium combines vision and technology. It possesses a uniquely intimate relation to the real and for this reason has many applications outside the realm of fine art; nevertheless, from its inception photography has been a vehicle for artistic aspirations. This survey of the history of photography from its earliest manifestations to the 2000s considers the medium's applications - as art, science, historical record, and document. This course is open to all students and is the prerequisite for most other courses in the history of photography. AHVC distribution: 1800-Present.

 

Course:

ARTS 309  Vibrant Matter: Archives of Contestation and Reanimation

Professor:

Krista Caballero  

CRN:

15926

Schedule/Location:

  Wed     3:30 PM - 6:30 PM New Annandale House

Distributional Area:

PA Practicing Arts  

Credits: 4

 

Class cap: 12

Crosslists: Experimental Humanities

This advanced course will investigate the “aliveness” of archives and collections and what political theorist Jane Bennett describes as vibrant matter – that capacity of things “to act as quasi agents or forces with trajectories, propensities, or tendencies of their own.” We will take up this idea of archives and collections as a kind of lively, vibrant matter while simultaneously exploring ways they reveal which bodies and whose histories matter. Students will work in the media of their choosing to create artwork utilizing archives as a tool for both contestation and reanimation. Alongside this creative making will be an examination of key theoretical texts with emphasis on those that center indigenous scholarship and BIPOC artists. As such, course readings, active participation in class discussions as well as group critique will be key to our investigation. Topics will include: collective memory and erasure; repatriation and decolonization; fragmentation and digital accumulation; the collection and indexing of other species; agency and control. An integral component of this course will also include site-visits to both on and off-campus archives such as the Associated Press in NYC, Hudsonia at the Bard College Field Station, and local historical societies. Prerequisite: at least one 200 level practicing arts course.

 

Course:

ECON 212  Health Economics

Professor:

Michael Martell  

CRN:

15586

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     5:10 PM – 6:30 PM Olin 301

Distributional Area:

SA Social Analysis  

Credits: 4

 

Class cap: 16

This course investigates health, health care services and related policies from an economic perspective.  We will cover theories of the production, supply and demand for health and health care services with special emphasis on the theoretical implications for policy, particularly in the United States.  We will approach the determinants and policy implications of health and health care services through neoclassical as well as alternative schools of thought.  As such, students will develop an understanding of the politics, social context and production of health and well-being.  The course will equip students with the analytical tools necessary for continued intellectual engagement in research and debates surrounding the economics of health. Students will study competing perspectives on the ability of markets to efficiently and equitably provision health care services, the determinants of racial inequalities in health, and linkages between health and the structure of the economy.  We will cover economic theories related to health, such as the economics of information, in addition to institutional approaches that highlight the role of history, context, and politics.  As such, we will pay special attention to the historical development of health care services in the U.S. to provide an institutional account of the economic, historical and political aspects involved with the current health services market.  The course will pay special emphasis to the application of the analytical tools developed in class to current trends and debates in the U.S.  For example, we will critically investigate the causes, consequences, and potential remedies for the uneven burden of COVID-19 across society as well as the political economy of pharmaceutical markets as they relate to the production and distribution of vaccines and other drugs.  We will also assess the widespread use of cost-benefit analysis in the implementation of federal rules and policies addressing public health. We will discuss current healthcare reform proposals including cost control mechanisms as well as those to address issues of equity and ethics in access to (and delivery of) health care. Prerequisite: ECON 100

 

Course:

ECON 227  The Right to Employment

Professor:

Pavlina Tcherneva  

CRN:

15588

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     10:10 AM – 11:30 AM Campus Center WEIS

Distributional Area:

SA Social Analysis D+J Difference and Justice

Credits: 4

 

Class cap: 20

Crosslists: Africana Studies; American Studies; Environmental & Urban Studies; Human Rights; Sociology

In 1944, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt warned, “People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.” Today, the COVID-19 crisis and mass unemployment have once again exposed the pervasive pathologies in the economy, such as inequality, poverty, and discrimination that reproduce systemic racial, gender and environmental injustice. Roosevelt responded to the economic calamity of his time—the Great Depression—with far-reaching economic policies and an appeal for what he called a Second (Economic) Bill of Rights that led with the right to decent and remunerative employment. “Jobs for All” was a signature demand during the Civil Rights era, when Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King insisted that unemployment is a key force for racial subjugation. Today, the Job Guarantee has been called perhaps the most crucial component of the Green New Deal Resolution, a program that ensures a just transition for all workers and an antidote to systemic racial and gender discrimination that emerges from labor markets.  This interdisciplinary course traces the history of the struggle to secure the right to employment for  all. It will focus on the economic, legal, and policy developments in the United States, and will introduce students to some international policy initiatives and innovative programs. A key question for discussion is whether these proposals and concrete policies have advanced the goal of equity and economic justice. Students will read legislative documents, economic analyses, policy proposals, and program reviews.  This course is part of the Racial Justice Initiative, an interdisciplinary collaboration among students and faculty to further the understanding of racial inequality and injustice in the United States and beyond.

 

Course:

GER 214  What Makes Us Think? Critical Judgment and Moments of Crisis

Professor:

Thomas Bartscherer

CRN:

15957

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed    6:40 PM – 8:00 PM Olin 201

Distributional Area:

MBV Meaning, Being, Value    

Credits: 4

 

Class cap: 20

What makes us think? And why does that question matter? Our starting point, in exploring these questions, will be Hannah Arendt’s last book project, The Life of the Mind, in which she asks whether it’s possible that the activity of thinking may condition human beings to abstain from evil-doing. She cites the case of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, whose great moral fault, she argues, was thoughtlessness. We’ll read her book on the Eichmann trial (Eichmann in Jerusalem) and follow how in The Life of the Mind and related texts she tries to discern what makes us think, and what thinking has to do with ethical, political and aesthetic judgments. We will also read some of Arendt’s predecessors and interlocutors, including Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Kafka, Brecht, and Heidegger, and we will look at some recent scholarship on thinking. All readings will be in English. Throughout the semester, we’ll also be considering our contemporary moment, looking for and analyzing specific phenomenon—arising in politics, the arts, and everyday life—that make us think. Arendt argues that the activity of thinking may prevent catastrophes in moments of crisis. We shall see what we think about that.

 

Course:

HIST 136  Surveying Displacement and Migration in the United States

Professor:

Jeannette Estruth  

CRN:

15601

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    6:40 PM – 8:00 PM Olin 201

Distributional Area:

HA Historical Analysis D+J Difference and Justice

Credits: 4

 

Class cap: 22

Crosslists: American Studies; Architecture; Environmental & Urban Studies; Human Rights

This class will explore the twentieth-century American experience through the exercise of hands-on historical research methods. We will delve into the following themes in United States history: labor and markets, wealth and inequality, ethnic identity and race, and gender and the environment. Our tools of exploration will include readings, discussions, music, journalism, poetry, scholarly articles, digital content, and films. Upon successfully completing the course, students will be able to employ the methods of historical practice to navigate present-day questions related to political and social issues affecting contemporary society. Together, we will learn how to articulate opinions, grounded in history, about the politics, culture, and economics of the global United States.

 

Course:

HIST 197  India Under Colonial Rule, 1750-1947

Professor:

Rupali Warke  

CRN:

15661

Schedule/Location:

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

Distributional Area:

HA Historical Analysis  

Credits: 4

 

Class cap: 20

Crosslists: Asian Studies; Global & International Studies

After the demise of the great Mughal empire of India in the eighteenth century, the British gained power which eventually led to two hundred years of colonial rule ruled over South Asia. This course introduces students to the modern history of South Asia between the years 1750 and 1947. Students will learn how South Asia, a region consisting of several contemporary nation-states, came under colonial rule and how the indigenous communities navigated the colonial experience. Some of the main themes that this course explores are – the political rise of the British East India Company (EIC), the influence of western political thought on Indian society, Gandhi’s ideology of non-violence, socio-political movements against caste inequality, the emergence of extremist ideologies, and modernist women’s movements. Through critical primary and secondary textual as well as audio-visual sources, we will explore questions such as – How could the British rule over a culturally alien people for two hundred years? How did South Asians respond to western modernity? What is the significance of Gandhi in Indian history? What happened to caste during colonialism? What were the causes of political conflict between Hindus and Muslims?

 

Course:

HR 235  Dignity and the Human Rights Tradition

Professor:

Roger Berkowitz  

CRN:

15610

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Olin 202

Distributional Area:

MBV Meaning, Being, Value  

Credits: 4

 

Class cap: 22

Crosslists: Philosophy; Political Studies

We live at a time when the claim to human rights is both taken for granted and regularly disregarded. One reason for the disconnect between the reality and the ideal of human rights is that human rights have never been given a secure philosophical foundation. Indeed, many have argued that absent a religiously grounded faith in human dignity, there is no legal ground for human rights. Might it be that human rights are simply well-meaning aspirations without legal or philosophical foundation? And what is dignity anyway? Ought we to abandon talk about dignity and admit that human rights are groundless? Against this view, human rights advocates, international lawyers, and constitutional judges continue to speak of dignity as the core value of the international legal system. Indeed, lawyers in Germany and South Africa are developing a "dignity jurisprudence" that might guarantee human rights on the foundation of human dignity. Is it possible, therefore, to develop a secular and legally meaningful idea of dignity that can offer a ground for human rights? This class explores both the modern challenge to dignity and human rights, the historical foundations of human rights, and modern attempts to resuscitate a new and more coherent secular ideal of dignity as a legally valid guarantee of human rights. In addition to texts including Hannah Arendt's book, The Origins of Totalitarianism, we read legal cases, and documents from international law. This course satisfies the requirement for a core course in the Human Rights Program. This course also satisfies the Philosophy program's Histories of Philosophy requirement. All philosophy majors are required to take two courses fulfilling this requirement, starting with the class of 2025.

 

Course:

HR 263  A Lexicon of Migration

Professor:

Peter Rosenblum  

CRN:

15799

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     10:10 AM - 11:30 AM Olin 101

Distributional Area:

SA Social Analysis D+J Difference and Justice

Credits: 4

 

Class cap: 20

Crosslists: Anthropology; Global & International Studies

Human Rights core course: Migration is one of the most important and contested features of today’s interconnected world. In one way or another, it has transformed most if not all contemporary nation-states into “pluralist,” “post-migrant,” and/or “super-diverse” polities. And it affects everyone—regardless of their own migratory status. This course examines migration from local, national, and global perspectives, with particular emphasis on the developments that are shaping the perception of crisis in the US and Europe. The course also traces the emergence of new modes of border regulation and migration governance as well as novel forms of migrant cultural production and representation. Above all, it aims to provide students with the tools to engage critically with many of the concepts and buzzwords—among them “asylum,” “border,” “belonging,” “citizenship,” and “illegality—”that define contemporary public debates. A Lexicon of Migration is a Bard/HESP (Higher Education Support Program) network course that will collaborate with similar courses at Bard Network  colleges, in addition to courses in the Migration Consortium at Vassar, Sarah Lawrence and Bennington.

 

Course:

HR 269  Slavery, Reconciliation and Repair

Professor:

Kwame Holmes 

CRN:

15667

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     3:30 PM - 4:50 PM Aspinwall 302

Distributional Area:

SA Social Analysis D+J Difference and Justice

Credits: 4

 

Class cap: 15

Crosslists: Africana Studies; American Studies; Historical Studies

(Human Rights Core Course) How does a society heal from a self-inflicted wound? From 1619 to 1864, American chattel slavery sustained American capitalism at the expense of the mental and physical health of enslaved Africans and their descendents.Ulster county has announced their interest in creating a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to address the “ongoing present” of slavery in their community. As a member of that committee, I am inviting students to participate in our work. In the first third of the semester, students will read the latest scholarship on the racialized injury of slavery and explore the history of African American's efforts to win reparations for those injuries. Students will learn about contemporary efforts to redress the wrong of slavery in the United States and abroad.  Finally students will join the work of the commission by researching the history of slavery in the region, and participating in genealogical research on residents with a direct connection the Ulster County's slave past/present. Ultimately, our class will make recommendations to the commission that reflect our understanding of the relationship between reconciliation and reparation.

 

Course:

HR 271  Comparative Settler Colonialism

Professor:

Ziad Abu-Rish  

CRN:

15668

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    11:50 AM – 1:10 PM Olin 301

Distributional Area:

SA Social Analysis D+J Difference and Justice

Credits: 4

 

Class cap: 15

Crosslists: Global & International Studies; Political Studies

This course offers an introduction to settler colonialism as a particular form of colonial rule, process of state formation, and structure of social relations. It begins with a conceptual and theoretical distinction between “settler colonialism” (e.g., the United States, South Africa, and Algeria) and “metropole colonialism” (e.g., British India and French Morocco). The course then shifts to it second part, which explores specific case studies, spending about 1-2 weeks on each case, surveying the most pertinent literature that has adopted the analytic of settler colonialism. Case studies will be determined in consultation with enrolled students, but will primarily draw from any combination of the following potentials: Algeria, Australia, Kenya, Northern Ireland, Palestine, South Africa, and the United States. The final part of the course will attend to the ways in which international law and human rights have historically and contemporarily facilitated and/or challenged settler colonialism as colonial practice or state structure. Students will be expected to provide reading responses, co-create an analytic glossary, and produce a final review essay that analyze two books, each focused on a different settler colonial state.

 

Course:

HR 358  LGBTQ+ Issues/US Education

Professor:

Michael Sadowski  

CRN:

15780

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    3:30 PM – 4:50 PM Henderson Computer Ctr Annex 106

Distributional Area:

SA Social Analysis D+J Difference and Justice

Credits: 2

 

Class cap: 18

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. 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 undergraduate 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. Class will meet for the second half of the semester March 29th – May 24th.

 

Course:

HR 387  Documenting Voter Suppression and Exclusion

Professor:

Lisa Katzman  

CRN:

15811

Schedule/Location:

  Wed     10:10 AM – 12:30 PM Avery Film Center 117

Distributional Area:

SA Social Analysis D+J Difference and Justice

Credits: 4

 

Class cap: 18

This course will serve to facilitate the creation of a video archive that documents voter suppression and exclusion. The archive will be made available to legislators to use, for example, in congressional hearings supporting voting rights legislation, such as the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and future voting rights bills. To develop an informed context for conducting interviews with elderly Black voting rights stakeholders who benefited from the Voting Rights Act (of 1965), as well as multi-generational stakeholders whose access to voting has been adversely impacted by the Supreme Court’s 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision, we will survey the history of voting rights and voting suppression from Reconstruction (and its collapse) through the present, focusing on the Voting Rights Acts of the 1960, the Shelby decision of 2013 that dismantled historic legislation protecting the voting rights of Black Americans, and current efforts in many states to disenfranchise people of color and young voters. As we plan to focus on stakeholders in southern states, students will conduct interviews via Zoom and will edit this material using iMovie or Final Cut. As well as considering a broad array of texts, we will view and discuss a number of films including: Birth of a Nation, episodes of Eyes on the Prize, the PBS series Reconstruction, Kevin Jerome Everson’s Tonsler Park, and Arthur Jaffa’s Love is the Message, the Message is Love. The final assignment for the course will entail the creation of a short film that makes use of edited interviews, archival material, text, and sound. We will also consider the role of public art in connection to social action and how the video documentation students produce in the course (and the short films that develop from it) can be used toward both ends — to raise public awareness of voter suppression and exclusion prior to the 2022 midterm election. Editing experience not required.

 

Course:

HR 388  The Death Penalty in the United States: Draconian or Necessary?

Professor:

Jacqueline Baillargeon  

CRN:

15812

Schedule/Location:

  Wed     3:10 PM – 5:30 PM Henderson Computer Annex 106

Distributional Area:

SA Social Analysis D+J Difference and Justice

Credits: 4

 

Class cap: 18

This course will review the complex history of the death penalty in the United States, from colonial times through the present, with an overview of the social and legal justifications for capital punishment. We will discuss the legal procedures involved in the death penalty today, from charging through execution, including the significant roles played by the victims’ family, prosecutor, defense attorney, trial and appellate judges, jury, and executioner. We will explore some historical and contemporary controversies surrounding the administration of the death penalty, including potential innocence, juveniles, people with intellectual disabilities or mental illness, methods of execution, race and gender biases, costs, and deterrence. Last but not least, we will examine the death penalty in an international context. Where is the death penalty still in use in the 21st century, and where has it been abolished? We’ll look at movements to end the death penalty both in the US and abroad. Films, judicial opinions, legal scholarship, news accounts of executions, and death row autobiographies are among the sources we will turn to in an effort to understand the historical and contemporary meanings of the death penalty.

 

Course:

CC 108 B The Courage to be:  The Face of the Other

Professor:

Joshua Boettiger  

CRN:

15984

Schedule/Location:

Mon   Thurs    1:30 PM - 2:50 PM Olin 307

Distributional Area:

MBV Meaning, Being, Value  LA Literary Analysis in English  

Credits: 4

 

Class cap: 16

The French Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas described ethics as the encounter with the face of the other. But what does it actually mean to encounter the face of another, especially in situations where we see that particular other as a threat – such as in Israel-Palestine or in our polarized American political landscape? What is at stake in our learning to endure this encounter without either fleeing from before the other or attempting to dominate them? These questions point to the possibility of cultivating a courage that comes directly out of lived relationship as opposed to ideology. Our course will begin with an investigation into the work of Levinas, whose philosophy developed directly as a response to the Holocaust, and bring his thought to bear on some of the more vexing issues of our time. We will also approach this conversation from different angles – exploring writings by William James and Hannah Arendt, as well as those of poets C.D. Wright, Ilya Kaminsky, and the contemporary Nigerian writer, Chris Abani, who writes that such encounters hold, “the recognition...that we all stand at the edge of the same abyss.”

 

Course:

HR 354  Reproductive Health and Human Rights

Professor:

Helen Epstein  

CRN:

15611

Schedule/Location:

   Thurs    9:10 AM – 11:30 AM OSUN

Distributional Area:

SA Social Analysis D+J Difference and Justice

Credits: 4

 

Class cap: 20

Crosslists: Africana Studies; Gender and Sexuality Studies; Global & International Studies

Centuries ago, a radical shift in attitudes and norms concerning sexual, reproductive and family life began spreading from one society to another. Scholars call it the Demographic Transition, narrowly defined as a progressive reduction in the size of families and an increase in the survival of children, but its causes and consequences included political turmoil, personal and romantic upheavals, intellectual and artistic movements, the spread of diseases like syphilis and AIDS and new ideas about self and identity. This Open Society University Network course will explore how individuals, groups and governments have responded, and continue to respond, to these changes through policy and social movements related to population growth, contraception, sexually transmitted diseases, sex work and sex trafficking, maternal mortality, abortion, gender violence and other issues. The role of historical context, including the Industrial Revolution, the Cold War, the decolonization of the developing world and the Global War on Terror will be emphasized. This is an OSUN class and is open to Bard students as well as students from multiple OSUN partner institutions.

 

Course:

LIT 2381  Translating Tact

Professor:

Thomas Wild  

CRN:

15935

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    5:10 PM - 6:30 PM Olin 204

Distributional Area:

LA Literary Analysis in English  D+J Difference and Justice

Credits: 4

 

Class cap: 22

Crosslists: German Studies; Human Rights; Written Arts

“Tact” could be regarded as “the art of not treating all things in the same way,” writes translator Kate Briggs: a “fine responsiveness to the concrete”, a manifestation of ‘discretion’ in the sense of ‘to differentiate’, understood as a particular “attentiveness to difference.” In a first step, we will explore this notion as a literary practice through works on and in translation (e.g., Rosmarie Waldrop “Lavish Absence”, Anne Carson “NOX”). In a second step, we will reflect on further political and ethical implications of “tact” by comparing various translations of works by Paul Celan, whose German poems and prose confront the challenge of responding to the Holocaust; correspondingly, we will discuss M. NourbeSe Philip’s translation of a legal record, the only trace of hundreds murdered Africans on the Middle Passage in 1781, into her poem “Zong!”. Is this a breach of tact – to discuss such utterly different historical experiences and artistic responses together, in relation to each other? We will engage with this open-ended question, debated in recent years along the notion of “multidirectional memory” (Michael Rothberg), by considering, e.g., W.E.B. Du Bois’ writing on the Warsaw Ghetto and Hannah Arendt’s account of colonial imperialism in Africa. Further readings will include works by Ilse Aichinger, John Ashbery, Édouard Glissant, William Kentridge, Ann Lauterbach, Fred Moten, Uljana Wolf. In order to reflect on the task of tact for our own writing, this course welcomes to explore a diverse range of critical approaches, including the analytical essay as well as other creative formats and media. All readings will be in English (translation). - Students who wish to discuss German texts in the original are welcome to request an accompanying tutorial.

 

Course:

LIT 279  Japanese Folklore

Professor:

Wakako Suzuki  

CRN:

15715

Schedule/Location:

Mon   Thurs    1:30 PM - 2:50 PM Olin 203

Distributional Area:

FL Foreign Languages and Lit  

Credits: 4

 

Class cap: 22

Crosslists: Asian Studies

This course explores a wide range of cultural expressions from premodern to contemporary Japan: magic, epic narratives, local legends, myth, folktales, fairy tales, urban legends, stories of the supernatural, music, discourses of monsters, images of witches, religious festivals, manga, anime, and film. Rather than focusing on the survey of folklore, we examine its ontological dimension, historical roots and epistemological shifts along with the development of industrial capitalism. Through our discussions and readings, we will also tackle some of the ideas and assumptions underlying the notion of the folk. Who are the folk? From when and where does the concept of a folk people originate inside and outside of Japan? Is the folk still a viable, relevant category today? How does it treat regional versus national identity? As we analyze the construction of this concept, we will consider its implications for the Japanese and our own perception of Japan. By looking at folklore and magic across East Asia, we also move beyond confines of “Japanese” folklore and grapple with critical discourses related to (de)colonization and (dis)enchantment, in relation to re-reading of primitive accumulation and a Marxist-feminist viewpoint. Includes works by Lafcadio Hearn, Yanagita Kunio, Akutagawa Ryunosuke, Enchi Fumiko, Izumi Kyoka, Ueda Akinari, Mizuki Shigeru, Kobayashi Masaki, Kurosawa Akira, Mizoguchi Kenji, Miyazaki Hayao, Shinkai Makoto and many others. The course will be conducted in English, and students who wish to read Japanese texts in the original are welcome to discuss with the instructor. This course is part of the World Literature Course offering.

 

Course:

LIT 2205  Stalin and Power

Professor:

Jonathan Brent  

CRN:

15720

Schedule/Location:

    Fri   3:10 PM - 5:30 PM Olin 201

Distributional Area:

LA Literary Analysis in English  

Credits: 4

 

Class cap: 20

Crosslists: Historical Studies; Russian Eurasian Studies

Josef Stalin was indisputably one of the central political figures of the Twentieth Century.  Inheritor of leadership of the Soviet state after Lenin’s death, he was both directly responsible for his regime’s monstrous criminality and the architect of its survival in the face of internal threats and the Nazi invasion of 1941. Stalin remains an enigmatic presence in world history today.  At his death in 1953, Molotov said that he will live in the hearts of all progressive peoples forever; yet by 1956, his crimes were denounced publicly, his body was removed from the Lenin mausoleum, , and his image erased from Soviet society.  Only with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 did Stalin return to public awareness and now it can be said that he is, paradoxically, fully rehabilitated within contemporary Russian society.   This class will explore the enigma of Stalin and his enduring power through primary documents, biography, and the most recent scholarship.

 

Course:

LIT 3356  Modernism and Fascism: Cultural Heritage and Memory

Professor:

Franco Baldasso  

CRN:

15724

Schedule/Location:

 Tue      3:10 PM - 5:30 PM Olin 303

Distributional Area:

LA Literary Analysis in English D+J Difference and Justice

Credits: 4

 

Class cap: 15

Crosslists: Human Rights; Italian Studies

Is it possible to think of modernity without taking into account fascism? Why were so many modernists, from Ezra Pound to F.T. Marinetti and Gertrude Stein fascinated by fascist dystopia and actively contributed to its propaganda? This course approaches the rise of fascism in Italy as an expression of political and social palingenesis, and focuses on the transnational reach of its memory and cultural heritage. Through the literary works of Anna Banti, Curzio Malaparte, Ennio Flaiano and Maaza Mengiste, and films by Federico Fellini, Lina Wertmüller and Liliana Cavani we will analyze how the memory of fascism and modernism has been shaped according to the needs of the political present and successively contested, reframed, and reused. Still today, fascist heritage haunts the cityscapes of Italy and the countries it occupied in East Africa and the Mediterranean through monuments, modernist architecture, and the isolation of Roman ruins. The course finally examines how visual artists, activists and writers take cues from this difficult heritage, in order to challenge collective memories and the culture of empire. This is an OSUN Collaborative Course taught in cooperation with courses on global modernism offered at the American University of Beirut (Lebanon), Bard College (USA), Bard College Berlin (Germany), BRAC University (Bangladesh), and the Universidad de los Andes (Colombia). Common sessions, lectures, readings, and/or assignments will offer opportunities for connections across the network, but the core teaching of the course will be fully in person. It is also an elective course in the OSUN MA Program in Human Rights and the Arts.

 

Course:

MUS 146  Jazz Histories of Sound and Communication

Professor:

Whitney Slaten  

CRN:

15442

Schedule/Location:

  Wed  Fri   5:10 PM - 6:30 PM Hegeman 102

Distributional Area:

AA Analysis of Art  

Credits: 4

 

Class cap: 20

Crosslists: Africana Studies; American Studies

Jazz history is plural. It begins as histories of expressions by African descendants in the New World, as well as how their sounds and social positions have both attracted and resisted the participation of allies and oppressors in the construction of jazz as American culture. Histories such as these foreground assertions of jazz as both an American sound and the sound of something broader. The various lifeworlds of jazz—local and global, past and present—lead to questions about the music’s folk, popular, and art music categorization. Through a framework of exploring the history of jazz through specific sounds and surrogate communications, this course surveys the development of musical aesthetics set within specific social contexts that reveal how improvisation wields the production and reception of sounds and communications within and beyond the bandstand. Students in the survey course will read, present, and discuss writing about jazz and its periods. Lectures will situate specific media examples of performances across folk, popular, and art contexts, in ways that also foreground the significance of individual and group agency. Examples of race, gender, class, nationality, generation, and their intersections in jazz music will be the focus of the final research paper assignment.

 

Course:

PHIL 360  Feminist Philosophy

Professor:

Daniel Berthold  

CRN:

15632

Schedule/Location:

 Tue      3:10 PM – 5:30 PM Olin 309

Distributional Area:

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

Credits: 4

 

Class cap: 16

Crosslists: Gender and Sexuality Studies; Human Rights

The course will examine a variety of feminist philosophical approaches to issues surrounding modern culture’s production of images of sexuality and gender.  Some background readings will provide a sketch of a diverse range of feminist theoretical frameworks – liberal, socialist, radical, psychoanalytic, and postmodern – with readings from Alison Jaggar, Simone de Beauvoir, Annie Leclerc, Christine Delphy, Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray, Sarah Kofman, and Hélène Cixous.  We will then turn to an exploration of such issues as the cultural enforcement of both feminine and masculine gender identities, the mass-marketing of popular cultural images of sexuality, gender, and race, the urban environment and women’s sense of space, the intersection of feminism and environmentalism, the logic of subjection governing cultural ideals of women’s bodies (dieting, exercise, clothing, bodily comportment), issues of rape, sexual violence and harassment, pornography, and feminist perspectives of different ethnic groups.  We will also screen a number of films and videos, including the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas hearings, Madonna’s “Truth or Dare,” and documentaries on the pre-Stonewall femme-butch bar-scene culture of the 1950s and 60s, anorexia, rape on campus, the pornographic film industry, and several others.

 

Course:

PS 257  Nations, States and Nationalism

Professor:

Sanjib Baruah  

CRN:

15642

Schedule/Location:

  Wed  Fri   10:10 AM – 11:30 AM Hegeman 102

Distributional Area:

SA Social Analysis  

Credits: 4

 

Class cap: 22

Crosslists: Global & International Studies

Nationalism is often thought of as the centrifugal force that led to the dissolution of empire, and nation-states as the anti-thesis of empires and imperialism. However, historically, the relations between nations and empires have been more complicated. Nation-states did not neatly supersede empires; the two had co-existed for a long period. Moreover, while it may be convenient to think of all the member-states of the United Nations as nation-states, many of them have within them a medley of “national” groups and cultures. The course will interrogate the received wisdom regarding the transition from empire to nation and ask critical questions about the global political order that emerged following the crisis of colonial empires in the last century giving particular attention to the discourse of failed states and the new iteration of nation-building that emerged in the West at the beginning of this century that has disturbing affinity with imperial practices.

 

Course:

PS 273  Diplomacy in International Politics

Professor:

Frederic Hof  

CRN:

15643

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     10:10 AM – 11:30 AM Olin 305

Distributional Area:

HA Historical Analysis  

Credits: 4

 

Class cap: 18

Crosslists: Global & International Studies; Human Rights

This course explores the history, complexity and changing nature of diplomacy. Students will gain an understanding of the goals, constraints, and structures of diplomacy: diplomatic corps, embassies, consulates, envoys, and non-traditional diplomats. They will then examine the evolution of these components as new diplomatic tools have appeared: public diplomacy, cyber diplomacy; expeditionary (combat zone) diplomacy, and track II diplomacy. Using case studies drawn from over seventy years of national, multi-national, and international diplomatic efforts to mitigate and ultimately end the Arab-Israeli conflict, students will be exposed to the application of real-world diplomacy under the most complex, contentious, and difficult circumstances. This course will enhance students’ understanding of international relations, foreign policy formulation and implementation, the history of diplomacy, diplomatic tradecraft, and the multigenerational diplomatic efforts to end Arab-Israeli conflict.

 

Course:

PSY 141 C Introduction to Psychological Science

Professor:

Frank Scalzo  

CRN:

15382

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    3:30 PM – 4:50 PM Hegeman 102

Distributional Area:

SA Social Analysis  

Credits: 4

 

Class cap: 22

Crosslists: Mind, Brain, Behavior

How does the mind create the reality we perceive? How do experiences shape the brain, and how do processes in the brain influence thought, emotion and behavior?  This course investigates these and similar questions by studying the science of the human mind and behavior. The course covers topics such as memory, perception, development, psychopathology, personality, and social behavior. A focus is on the biological, cognitive, and social/cultural roots that give rise to human experience. Additionally, the course will consider how behavior differs among people, and across situations.

 

Course:

PSY 220  Social Psychology

Professor:

Kristin Lane  

CRN:

15387

Schedule/Location:

 Tue   Fri   1:30 PM – 2:50 PM Hegeman 308

Distributional Area:

SA Social Analysis  

Credits: 4

 

Class cap: 22

Crosslists: Gender and Sexuality Studies; Sociology

Social Psychology is the scientific study of human thought, behavior, and feelings in their social contexts. This class will survey many of the processes that influence and are influenced by our interactions with others, such as attitude formation and change, conformity and persuasion. We will also use principles of social psychology to understand the ordinary origins of benevolent (e.g., altruism, helping behavior) and malevolent (e.g., aggression, prejudice) aspects of human behavior. Throughout the course, we will emphasize the influence of culture, race, and gender on the topics addressed. Students should have completed Introduction to Psychological Science or its equivalent. This course fulfills the Cluster B requirement for the Psychology Major.

 

Course:

PSY 231  Neuroscience

Professor:

Frank Scalzo  

CRN:

15388

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    10:10 AM – 11:30 AM Hegeman 102

Distributional Area:

SA Social Analysis  

Credits: 4

 

Class cap: 22

Crosslists: Mind, Brain, Behavior

The ability to express thoughts and emotions, and to interact with the environment, is dependent in large part on the function of the nervous system. This course will examine basic concepts and methods in the study of brain, mind, and behavior. Topics include the structure and function of the central nervous system, brain development, learning and memory, emotion, sensory and motor systems, the assessment of human brain damage, and clinical disorders such as schizophrenia, epilepsy and Parkinson’s disease. Prerequisite: Introduction to Psychological Science, Foundations of Mind, Brain and Behavior, Introduction to Neurobiology, or permission of the instructor.

 

Course:

REL 117  Hindu Religious Traditions

Professor:

Hillary Langberg  

CRN:

15615

Schedule/Location:

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

Distributional Area:

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

Credits: 4

 

Class cap: 22

Crosslists: Asian Studies

Hinduism is a living religion with an expansive history. In this course, we will investigate a series of religious movements in India, past and present, which have been collectively labeled “Hinduism.” Students will analyze the roles, myths, and symbolism of Hindu deities in both classical literary texts and visual art. We will also examine foundational concepts from the Vedas (karma, jnana), the paramount importance of the epic literature (Ramayana, Bhagavad Gita), the devotional songs and poetry of the medieval bhakti saints, and the role of Hinduism in Indian politics. Along the way, we also consider ethnographic accounts of how Hinduism is lived in India and the United States today, looking closely at the construction of sacred space through temples and pilgrimage sites. Within these contexts, students will address issues of difference in devotees’ access to worship based on class/caste, gender, and sexual orientation.

 

Course:

SOC 213  Sociological Theory

Professor:

Laura Ford  

CRN:

15647

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     3:30 PM – 4:50 PM Olin Language Center 115

Distributional Area:

SA Social Analysis  

Credits: 4

 

Class cap 22

Crosslists: Human Rights

This class introduces students to classical and contemporary sociological theories. It considers foundational theories that emerged from the social upheavals of modernization in the 19th Century, including those of Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Simmel, and DuBois. The course thus introduces many enduring themes of sociology: alienation and anomie; social structure and disorganization; group conflict and solidarity; secularization and individualism; bureaucracy and institutions, the division of labor, capitalism, and the nature of authority. We then follow these conversations into the contemporary era, examining traditions such as functionalism, conflict theory, rational choice, symbolic interactionism, feminist theory, and critical theory, including thinkers such as G.H. Mead, Robert Merton, Pierre Bourdieu, Jürgen Habermas, and Michel Foucault. Students will learn the key concepts of major theoretical approaches in sociology, and will consider questions such as the relationship between theory and research, and the relationship of social conditions to the production of knowledge.

 

Course:

THTR 367  Race, Class, and Gender in Modern Theater: A Public Writing Seminar

Professor:

Miriam Felton-Dansky  

CRN:

15844

Schedule/Location:

 Tue      12:30 PM - 2:50 PM Fisher PAC Sosnoff Balcony

Distributional Area:

AA Analysis of Art  

Credits: 4

 

Class cap: 15

From reviews to playbill essays to social media posts, modern theater calls upon an ecology of public communication—among audiences, critics, producers, funders, and more. This course invites students to build practical writing skills through the investigation of identity construction in selected twentieth-century plays. Using questions of race, class, and gender as conceptual lenses, we will imagine ourselves as dramaturgs, critics, producers, and art makers, writing and editing collaboratively each week. Our case studies will be international in scope, encompassing modern dramas from Indonesia, Norway, Argentina, and Martinique, as well as U.S.-based musical theater. We will advocate for productions, create contextual materials that invite audiences into theatrical worlds, and engage in public dialogue around theater’s significance as a mode of interrogating identity and situating individuals in communal and collective worlds. Assessment will be based on weekly short-form writing and editing projects.