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:	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:	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 379  Exhibiting (Im)mobility: Art, Museums, Migration
Professor:	Dina Ramadan
CRN:	15669		Schedule/Location:		Tue      3:10 PM – 5:30 PM Olin 301
Distributional Area:		AA Analysis of Art
Credits: 4						Class cap: 15
Crosslists: Art History; Middle Eastern Studies

Can artists and museums respond to the current refugee crisis? The 21^st century has witnessed the undeniable prevalence of the refugee, the migrant, the stateless, and the politically displaced — categories produced by global capitalism’s uneven distribution of resources. Against this harsh reality, artists and curators have actively engaged with representations of the disposed, and more recently, welcomed refugees into their spaces as part of broader initiatives centered on integration. This class will consider how contemporary exhibitions and artistic projects have sought to integrate the figure of the refugee into the traditionally reified space of the museum and examine the possibilities and limitations of art to transcend cultural and political barriers to generate empathy, and even solidarity. Topics to be discussed include art programming and refugee integration, museum responses to the migrant crisis, attempts to decolonize museums, migration and repatriation, boycott and divestment efforts. This class will be a collaboration between students at Bard College and Middlebury College. Throughout the semester, students will work together to produce an online resource related to the course materials.

 

Course:	HR 386  The Crime of Indifference
Professor:	Gilles Peress
CRN:	15810		Schedule/Location:		Thurs    9:10 AM – 11:30 AM Hegeman 106
Distributional Area:		SA Social Analysis
Credits: 4						Class cap: 18

The 1990s Balkan conflicts, a defining moment in Europe’s history, represent a tipping point in international justice.  The global response emphasized either historical hatreds and the legacy of blood, and therefore the futility of intervention, or the urgency and assumed efficacy of intervention to stop crimes against humanity and genocide. In this new class, we will go beyond this shallow choice and posit the following at the convergence of the two narratives: can we at last both acknowledge the legacy of blood and history, understand the clash of civilizations a la Huntington, map the fault line, and at the same time ask the profoundly ethical question: is the legacy of blood a sufficient rational to commit ourselves a crime, the crime of indifference by abandoning these populations to death in the hundreds of thousands, to rape and unimaginable torture? It is the exploration and the definition of that Crime of Indifference, both in national and international law, that will be the defining thread of this class.  Readings will be drawn from historical, journalistic, and eyewitness accounts of the wars in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s; reports by human rights organizations and activists; media, film, and photographic accounts of events; and the proceedings and decisions of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. We will also be joined by several witnesses, activists, and experts.

 

Course:	LIT 2291  Fictions of Southeast Asia
Professor:	Nathan Shockey
CRN:	15709		Schedule/Location:		Tue  Thurs    11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Olin Languages Center 115
Distributional Area:		LA Literary Analysis in English
Credits: 4						Class cap: 22
Crosslists: Asian Studies

This class explores the vibrant body of literature from and about Southeast Asia and considers the role of fiction in the imagination of modern national and transnational histories. Reading works by local, imperial, immigrant, and diasporic authors, both those written in English and in translation, we will bring a prismatic array of texts into contestation and conversation in order to explore conflicting narratives of colonization, decolonization, war, empire, refugee passages, and the loss of homeland. We will read novels from across Southeast Asia, including the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Malay(si)a, Laos, and Cambodia, as well as stories about those places by British, American, and other Asian writers to think about how acts of storytelling have themselves shaped the region’s contours and fractured histories. Topics will include the polyphonic and polyglottal history of Philippine literature, ghostly memories of the Pacific War, conflicting perspectives on the American War, the effects of global capitalism and multinational trade on everyday life, and attempts by first- and second-generation diasporic and immigrant authors to rectify transformations of culture and memory in the United States. Readings may include works by Jose Rizal, Nick Joaquin, Gina Apostol, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Le Thi Diem Thuy, Tash Aw, Pitchaya Subandthad, Jessica Hagedorn, Kao Kalia Yang, Anthony Burgess, Anthony Veasna So, Joseph Conrad, Bao Ninh, Graham Greene, Eka Kurniawan, Kevin Kwan, and Pramaoedya Ananta Toer, among others. This course is part of the World Literature Course offering.