History

What are the distinctive features of our “modern” civilization? A partial list would include representative democracy, political parties, nationalism, religious pluralism and secularization, mass production, rapid technological change, consumerism, free markets, a global economy, and unceasing artistic experimentation. All these characteristically modern things became established in the 19th century, and most of them were pioneered by Europeans. Yet in Europe, with its ancient institutions and deeply-rooted traditions, this new form of civilization encountered greater resistance than it did in that other center of innovation, the United States. The resulting tensions between old and new in Europe set the stage for the devastating world wars and revolutions of the 20th century. In this course, we will examine various aspects of the epochal transformation in ways of making, thinking, and living that occurred in Europe during what historians call the “long 19th century” (1789–1914). We will also survey the political history of the period and consider how the development of modern civilization in Europe was shaped by the resistance it encountered from the defenders of older ways. During the first semester, we will consider events and developments that transpired between 1760 and 1860: the French Revolution and conquests of Napoleon, the flourishing of Romanticism, the appearance of modern industry in Great Britain, the emergence of the principal modern political ideologies (conservativism, liberalism, socialism), and the revolutions of 1830 and 1848. In the spring, we will look at subsequent developments up to 1914: the unification of Italy and Germany, the rise of mass politics, imperialism, and the outbreak of World War I. We will also examine trends in thought and in the arts, such as French Impressionism, fin de siècle irrationalism, and the post-1890 avant-garde.

Can the biography of Black leaders replace the history of African Americans? Or does biography raise of the problem of the "Great Man" theory of history? In terms of history, what is gained and what is lost in the biographical approach? In this lecture, students will consider this question as they examine the recent award-winning biographies of Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. Du Bois, Ida B. Wells, Rosa Parks, Fannie Lou Hamer, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, and so forth. Students will look at the lives of several artists and writers to explore different definitions of leadership. The weekly readings will be complemented by weekly film screenings, placing Black leadership in historical context.

This course examines Latin America in the making. From the time of Andean ayllus to the contemporary battles between the populist left and the populist right, this lecture course offers a survey of the more than five centuries of the history of the region that we know as Latin America. The course will examine the rise and fall of the Aztec and Inca empires, the colonial order that emerged in their stead, independence from Iberian rule, and the division of the empire into a myriad of independent republics or states searching for a “nation.” In the second part of the course, by focusing on specific national trajectories, we will then ask how the American and Iberian civilizations shaped the new national experiences and how those who made claims on the “nation” defined and transformed the colonial legacies. In the third and final portion of the course, we will study the long 20th century and the multiple experiences of, and interplay between, anti-Americanism, revolution, populism, and authoritarianism. We will ask how different national pacts and projects attempted to solve the problem of political inclusion and social integration that emerged after the consolidation of the 19th-century liberal state. Using primary and secondary sources, fiction and film, the course will provide students with an understanding of historical phenomena such as mestizaje, caudillismo, populism, reformism, corruption, and informality, among other concepts key to the debates in contemporary Latin America. The course meets for one weekly lecture and one weekly group conference. Aside from mandatory attendance and participation, the requirements for the course include an individual exam, a collaborative research project, and a primary source analysis.

South Asia, a region at the geographic center of the world’s most important cultural, religious, and commercial encounters for millennia, has a rich history of cultural exchanges. Its central location on the Indian Ocean provided it with transnational maritime connections to Africa and Southeast Asia, while its land routes facilitated constant contact with the Eurasian continent. The region has witnessed numerous foreign rules, from the early Central Asian Turkic dynasties to the Mughals and, finally, the British. After gaining independence from British colonial rule, the region was eventually partitioned into three different nations—India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh—each with its distinctive form of government. South Asia has produced a significant diaspora worldwide, preserving its cultural heritage and creating further cultural exchanges with the adopted nations, thereby influencing global culture. Despite facing development challenges and political instability, South Asia is rapidly developing within the capitalistic world economy and becoming an important player on the global scene, both politically and culturally. This course will provide students with a survey of South Asia from the era of the early Indus Civilization to the present. Lectures and sources will trace major political events and the region’s cultural, ecological, and economic developments that have significantly shaped South Asian history. Students will analyze both primary and secondary sources, enhancing their understanding of this diverse society. They are expected to engage in lectures, reading, class discussions, group work, and writing to examine the major themes and debates in South Asian history and develop sound arguments.

Close your eyes and listen. The human experience is highly sonic. Along with touch, hearing is among the most personal of our bodily senses. Now, you may hear the sound of passing cars, a lawnmower outside, or the murmur of voices from the hallway. But does race have a sound? What does Jim Crow sound like? Are there sonic dimensions to Black Power? Can popular music propel social movements, or can we hear social change? This lecture guides students through a survey of color and sound. We will explore historical case studies where concepts of race and recorded music collide. Through a careful analysis of a variety of cultural texts—including memoirs from specific artists and critical reviews of albums—and a consideration of contextual historical events and phenomena, students will consider how popular culture and music have shaped concepts of race and ethnicity over the 20th century.

In a global landscape pocked by genocide, wars of choice, piracy, and international terrorism, what good is international law? Can it mean anything without a global police force and a universal judiciary? Is “might makes right” the only law that works? Or is it true that “most states comply with most of their obligations most of the time”? These essential questions frame the contemporary practice of law across borders. This lecture provides an overview of international law—its doctrine, theory, and practice. The course addresses a wide range of issues, including the bases and norms of international law, the law of war, human-rights claims, domestic implementation of international norms, treaty interpretation, and state formation/succession.

When World War II ended, Europe was a continent of displaced peoples. It was a continent on the move: returning POWs, emigrating Displaced Persons, refugees, and arriving occupation soldiers. The postwar period is sometimes dubbed a history of the unwinding of populations, the return or resettlement following the logic of nation states. Yet the assumption that, once that was done and the Cold War started, populations stayed put until 1989 is misleading. Successive attempted revolutions in the East begat more political refugees. Decolonization and industrialization resulted in the immigration and recruitment of non-native European populations, as well as the return of European colonial settlers. In addition, Europeans moved to the cities, turning the continent from one in which almost half the population lived in the countryside in 1950 into a predominantly urbanized one within the span of 30 years. Political crisis abroad, Europeanization, the fall of the Iron Curtain, and globalization led to still more mobility. The so-called migration crisis of 2015 is, thus, but one of a series of migratory events and, by far, not the largest. This lecture introduces students to the history of Europe, both east and west, since 1945. The movements of peoples and borders will provide students with insight into political, cultural, and social developments of the continent following the defeat of the Third Reich.

“The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge,” according to F. Scott Fitzgerald, “is always the city seen for the first time, in its first promise of all the mystery and the beauty of the world.” While poetic, this romantic rendering, however, eludes the social struggle that pervades New York City’s history. Conversely, the City seen on the silver screen can bring its contradictions into sharp focus. From this perspective, New York City appears as a complicated metropolis, replete with power dynamics along lines of race, gender, and sexuality. In this lecture, students will explore ways in which cinematic representations of New York City map onto distinct permutations and arcs in the City’s history. Each week, we will locate a specific film within a web of historical meaning. This is not a film-studies class, per se; rather, using cinema as a point of departure, we will explore the rich cultural history surrounding specific films. We will think about the connections between films and public policy, poetry, journalism, fine art, popular music, and more. Students will learn to derive historical insights through the analysis of film. Movies like Dog Day Afternoon (1975), for example, signal the rise of mass incarceration and the militarization of NYPD units; but the film also gives expression to the emerging LGBTQ movement and transgender subjectivity. Similarly, lesser-known gems, such as Baby Face (1933), can help illustrate the complex social and cultural terrain through which some women achieved power and independence in Depression-era New York.

History is replete with rabid pogroms, merciless religious wars, tragic show trials, and even genocide. For as long as people have congregated, they have defined themselves, in part, as against an other—and have persecuted that other. But history has also yielded systems of constraints. So how can we hope to achieve a meaningful understanding of the human experience without examining both the wrongs and the rights? Should the human story be left to so-called realists, who claim that power wins out over ideals every time? Or is there a logic of mutual respect that offers better solutions? This lecture examines the history of international human rights and focuses on the claims that individuals and groups make against states in which they live.

In 1900, China was a faltering empire ruled by an autocratic foreign dynastic house and an entrenched bureaucracy of Confucian officials. Its sovereignty heavily battered and its territory compromised by foreign powers, China was commonly called “The Sick Man of Asia.” In 2000, China was a modern nation-state ruled by an authoritarian party and an entrenched bureaucracy of technocrats and administrators. With a surging economy, swollen foreign reserves, dazzling modern cities, and a large and technologically advanced military, China is regularly predicted to be the next global superpower. Yet, the path between these two startlingly different points was anything but smooth. China’s 20th century was a tortuous one. Policymakers, elites, and the common people oscillated between the poles of reform and revolution—bouts of wild radicalism alternated with more sober policies—as they pursued changes that they hoped would bring a better society and nation. This class examines some of the major events and personalities of this arduous century and its momentous political, social, and cultural changes. We will learn and apply skills of historical analysis to primary documents (in translation), some fiction, and film. Along the way, we will encounter a rich cast of characters, including Sun Yat-sen, China’s “national father”; colorful warlords; corrupt bureaucrats; fervent intellectuals; protesting youths; heroic communist martyrs; the towering and enigmatic chairman Mao; long-suffering peasants; and fanatical Red Guards. These men and women made and remade modern China. This class is history and, thus, is not primarily concerned with contemporary China; but, by the end of the year, students will be well-equipped with an understanding of China’s recent past, knowledge that will help immeasurably in making sense of today’s China as it becomes increasingly important in our globalized economy and society. This seminar is open to first-year students as a First-Year Studies course, as well as to sophomores, juniors, and seniors as an open seminar. All students will complete an individual research (conference) project each semester; these projects will be guided through one-on-one meetings. For those taking this class as an FYS, conferences in the fall semester will consist of biweekly individual meetings, with a group session held on alternate weeks to discuss matters concerning all FYS students (e.g., the nature of academic work in general and the various skills related to conference work, such as research, reading, writing, and editing). All conferences in the spring, for all students, will be on the regular biweekly individual schedule.

“But if you ask me what offices they may fill, I reply—any. I do not care what case you put; let them be sea-captains, if you will,” Margaret Fuller wrote in Woman in the Nineteenth Century in 1845. Not 10 years later, Fanny Fern’s autobiographical protagonist tells her daughter, when asked if she would write books when a woman, “God forbid,” because “no happy woman ever writes.” In this seminar, we will discuss what US women writers imagined they could be and why they wrote (happy or not). We will read both major and forgotten works of literary activism from women writers of the 19th and early-20th centuries, focusing around issues of gender and gender convention, race, racial prejudice and enslavement, immigration, migration and national identity, class and elitism, sex and sexuality. Course readings will mainly be primary sources, coupled with historical essays to help contextualize them. Emphasis will be placed on choosing women writers outside of the mainstream, who actively worked with their writing to change the status quo—to “reconstruct” womanhood.

For decades, historians sought the origins of Jim Crow in the South; however, Jim Crow was born on the stage and in the streets of places like New York City. Thus, recent historiography focuses serious attention on the rise of the Jim Crow North, beginning with northern slavery and the Atlantic Slave Trade in important port cities such as Boston, Philadelphia, and New York. Some historians think that interrogating those neglected northern roots will fill serious gaps in our knowledge of how racial oppression took shape in American democracy.

How does an individual’s gender expression determine how s/he/they receive health care in Africa? In what ways does gender influence who provides health care, the kind of care that they offer, or the social determinants of peoples’ health? In the 19th, 20th and early-21st centuries, African citizens, refugees, and internally displaced persons have had to cope with a range of health care challenges. These include: high levels of disability as a result of car accidents and work-related injuries; disruptions to health care services and food provision, stemming from war or political unrest; lack of supplies and access to quality care, resulting from neoliberal economic policies; and, most recently, the challenges of food insecurity due to seasonal locust infestations. These concerns paint a bleak picture of the status of health and health care provision in Africa. Epidemics like ebola and cholera complicate conditions for people seeking to improve the quality of their health. In addition, pandemics like HIV/AIDS and now COVID-19 have transformed demographics and gender relations in both predictable and unexpected ways. Despite these challenges, millions of African men, women, and children find ways to survive and respond creatively in order to address their needs for health and well-being. This class is organized around the understanding that the idea of “good health” is a useful critical lens through which to analyze gender-related questions. How do women, men, and LGBTQ+ individuals organize, navigate, and seek care in order to attain good health? What historical, political, and economic factors influence the provision of quality health care? How have African citizens, governments, faith communities, activists, and indigenous healers responded to the challenges associated with disease and the goal of maintaining good health? Because the African continent is massive and every country is complex and diverse, this class will use case studies from countries such as Rwanda, South Africa, Nigeria, Tunisia, Ethiopia, and Kenya to answer these questions. In addition, students will be able to choose other African countries to study in depth in order to gain as broad a picture as possible of this complex and important topic. While we will primarily focus our inquiries by using historical works, we will actively monitor innovations in African countries resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic with the goal of developing a deeper understanding of what it takes to maintain a sense of “good health” in Africa.

This community-partnership course will bring students closer to Latin American oral history writing in order to write their own community-based narratives. Since the advent of military and repressive regimes in late 20th-century Latin America, social scientists and historians have turned to oral histories. By interviewing eyewitnesses to reconstruct the past and act upon the present, oral histories originally served to document the stories of both oppressors and oppressed but, since then, have expanded in scope and purpose. Building on existing rich oral traditions in the region, this course will first explore the methodologies of Latin American colonial chroniclers, popular educators, activists, and professional historians to understand the historical origins and context of production of different oral histories, as well as their academic and political use. Then, focusing on the history of late 20th-century Chile and its transition from socialism to neoliberalism, students will read, view, or listen to different oral history-based narratives, including life histories, documentaries, biographies, and truth and reconciliation commissions, among others. By doing so, the course will help students both get a glimpse of Latin American history and assess and develop skills to craft their own narratives based on the observation of, and participation in, the Yonkers community. The third and final part of the course will be devoted to workshop the narratives produced by students. Throughout the semester, students will have the opportunity to work with a particular community organization in Yonkers. Students are expected to develop a conference project based on their work with the community, using the oral-history questions, tools, and problems learned and discussed in the seminar. The conference project may take any format, including essays, podcasts, short videos, timelines, and interactive maps.

East Asia, like much of the globe, has been powerfully shaped by the arrival, presence, and activity of imperialist power in the region. In both China and Japan, in fact, nationalism is founded on resistance to the encroachments of Western imperialism. Both nations cast themselves as victims to the rapacious West. And yet, often unnoticed by patriots and pundits, both China and Japan are deeply indebted to their own domestic imperialisms, albeit in very different ways. Relying on a wide range of course materials (historical scholarship, paintings, lithographs, photographs, literature, and relevant primary sources), this course is an intensive investigation of the contours of Asian imperialism, covering the colonialism of the Qing dynasty (1644–1911), the aggressive Western expansion in the 19th century, and the Japanese Empire (1895-1945). We will ask what features (if any) these very different empires shared and what set them apart from each other. How and why were Asian empires built, how did they end, and what legacies did they leave? We will excavate the multiethnic Qing imperium for how it complicates China’s patriotic master narrative. Does Qing ethnic policy toward native Miao tribes differ from Western powers’ Civilizing Discourse? What are the legacies of Qing colonialism for China’s modern nation-state? The Qing campaigns to subjugate the Mongols in the northwest and the colonization of the untamed southwest both predated the arrival of the Westerners and the Opium War (1839-42). How does that impact our understanding of the clash between China and the rapidly expanding West? We will trace earlier academic views on the classic confrontation between these two presumed entities before examining more recent revisionist formulations on the Western penetration of China. What were the processes of Western intrusion, and how did Western imperialism come to structure knowledge of China? And finally, we will turn to the Japanese Empire. What were its motivations, its main phases, and its contradictions? Should we understand it as similar to Western imperialism or as an alternative, something unique? What are the implications of both those positions? To understand the Japanese Empire in both its experiential and theoretical dimensions, we will range widely across Japan’s possessions in Taiwan, Korea, and Manchuria. The questions and topics in this seminar will complicate the master narratives that prevail in both East Asia and the West, not to delegitimize or subvert Asian sovereignties but, rather, in order to understand the deeply embedded narratives of imperialism within those sovereign claims in order to see how those narratives (and their blind spots) continue to frame and support policies and attitudes today.

“New York is the greatest city in the world—and everything is wrong with it.” This headline, which ran in January 1965 in the New York Herald Tribune, speaks to the duality that many people felt regarding New York City during the mid-20th century—a sentiment that continues today: The City can be a lovely place to experience, but it is not without its problems. And by the end of the 1960s, New York was plagued with problems. Population flight to the suburbs and deindustrialization eviscerated tax revenues. Municipal austerity and privatization policies undercut the public programs. A city that had built a reputation on urban liberalism was now at a crossroads at the dawn of the ’70s. Perhaps most consequential, within this nexus of urban crises, was the City’s image reflected in popular culture that informed opinions of New York and exacerbated the perception of the City’s decline. This seminar explores the politics and culture of New York City during the 1970s. What do representations in popular culture, from cinema to comic books, say about the state of the City in that decade? Did those images match the reality of urban experiences at the time? What political ends did those images serve, and what consequences did they have for the future? Students will learn to outline the resonance of municipal policies, from urban renewal to the militarization of police, as they are reflected in popular culture. Historians will help guide our analysis of politics and culture—but, ultimately, students will interpret primary sources for themselves, developing a deeper understanding of this pivotal decade and how it shaped the future of New York City. In addition to in-class discussions, students will meet weekly with the instructor for individual conferences.

This course examines the experience of people living in the Soviet Union and other socialist states via things. Objects under socialist regimes were supposed to be transformative, turning yesterday’s backward peasants into new socialist men and women. Communism promised unheard-of abundance, but those who lived under the system often suffered from severe shortages. Things from outside of the communist world often took on an aura of forbidden fruit. People learned a variety of tricks to survive and, today, are even nostalgic for many of its trappings. Beginning with a reading of theoretical texts to get us thinking about how to think through stuff, we will proceed to look at a number of cases in Soviet history where objects are key to the story. Each week, students will be responsible for a short written response, 250-500 words, and providing two questions to feed our discussion. At the end of the semester, each student will design a display for a virtual museum of the Soviet Union, in which they will use one or more objects to tell a story about Soviet history. At the center of this course is the idea that all objects are the products and markers of social, political, and economic change that are filled with meaning—even if those meanings are not obvious or can be highly variable.

Around 398, Christian bishop and theologian Augustine of Hippo produced one of the most influential books of all time—The Confessions—a lengthy meditation on events during the first 33 years of Augustine’s life, undertaken in an effort to comprehend how God acted through those events to transform an ambitious but confused young Roman, attracted by the exotic Asian cult of the Persian prophet Mani, into a dedicated Christian. Augustine’s book is arguably the first real autobiography ever written, and the author’s profound exploration of his own motivations and feelings led William James to term Augustine the “first modern man.” The Confessions also served as the model for hundreds of other spiritual autobiographies written over the course of the next 1,600 years, including masterworks such as The Life of St. Teresa of Ávila, Leo Tolstoy’s Confession, and Thomas Merton’s Seven Storey Mountain. In this course, students will read and discuss these and other classics of Christian autobiography. Students will also be invited to examine a number of comparable works by writers who stood at the periphery of the Christian tradition or outside of it altogether, including William Wordsworth’s Prelude, Vera Brittain’s Testament of Youth, The Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, and M. K. Gandhi’s The Story of My Experiments With Truth. These readings are gripping, because they attempt a uniquely challenging feat: to capture the history of an individual soul’s relations with the Infinite through the language that we use to describe our everyday experience. We will combine detailed literary analysis of the autobiographies with an examination of their content in the light of recent writing on the problem of religious language. Conference projects may address a wide range of topics in the general area of the history of religion and religious expression.

The goal of this class is to introduce students to the best practices of oral history interviewing, theory, and methodology. Around the world, oral history has been used to uncover the perspectives of marginalized groups and to challenge “official” historical narratives. Oral history is a mainstay of social history, helping researchers uncover voices that might otherwise be ignored and giving people the opportunity to “speak back” to the past. In this regard, oral history is a crucial method in a historian’s toolkit. Life histories enable us to focus on individual experiences and consider the historical significance of one person’s life. Long used by anthropologists and sociologists, life-history methods continue to be rediscovered by historians seeking to enrich their understanding of the past. Conducting oral-history research involves a great deal more than sitting back and pressing “play” on a recording device. Researchers must approach their work with knowledge, rigor, respect, and compassion. Toward the goal of developing substantive research skills, this class will focus on several important questions associated with oral history: What is the role of memory, and how does memory function in the process of conducting oral history? What is the role of intersubjectivity, and how much does the researcher influence the interview process? How should researchers catalog and disseminate their work to make it accessible to a wide audience? What are the political and ethical considerations of doing oral-history or life-history research, and how are they different from other types of history methodologies? Final projects for this class may include podcasts, film, creative work, or an analytical paper.

Though our nation was born in conflict and is sustained by conflict, the present always seems inevitable; surely, the United States of 2024 is but the flowering of the seeds planted so many centuries ago. To imagine that the Revolutionary War ended in failure and that the Founding Fathers were hanged and the names of loyalists such as Hutchinson and Arnold were as much on our lips as Washington, Adams, and Jefferson seems blasphemous. Or to imagine celebrating the loyalist William Franklin as a hero, rather than his father Benjamin, seems utterly absurd. The world just wouldn’t be what it is if, instead of calling ourselves American, we identified ourselves as Canadian. The melodic themes of liberty, dissent, and equality would seem less lyrical if Americans could no longer claim them as their own. But would our understanding of American identity be richer if we viewed these themes as forged in conflict? To this end, the course will focus on those groups who were on the losing side of major political conflicts from the American Revolution to the Civil War—namely, the loyalists, the Anti-Federalists, the Federalists, the Whigs, and the Confederacy. The course will also consider the ultimate losers in these conflicts—those who were denied political rights altogether and, thus, even the possibility of victory. What did the treatment of those different political groups reveal about the extent of—and limits to—American acceptance of dissent? How did a culture that placed a premium on success and achievement regard loss and defeat? How was the South able to turn the defeat of the Confederacy into a badge of honor and a source of pride through the idealization of The Lost Cause? What was the long-term legacy that those losing groups left behind? When viewed from this perspective, were those groups really losers at all? After all, without the Anti-Federalists, there would have been no Bill of Rights in the Constitution. Ultimately, the course aims to cultivate a “tragic” perspective that goes beyond viewing history in terms of winners and losers, heroes and villains, and instead recognizes that, in the final analysis, we are all in bondage to the knowledge that we possess.

We were told that George Washington never told a lie and confessed to his much-chagrined father that he chopped down the fabled cherry tree. Was this the myth to inspire trust in the “Founding Fathers” and the infant democracy? But the myths continue. For more than two centuries, the “Founding Fathers” have been a touchstone for American identity. Americans have expressed their fascination with the “Founders,” not only in the political arena but also in the realm of fiction in works ranging from James Fenimore Cooper’s novel, The Spy, to the HBO series John Adams and the Broadway musical Hamilton. What is the source of this fascination? But, most importantly, who were the “Founders” that have such a hold on the American historical imagination—and what did they actually stand for? The course will explore these questions by looking at the different ways that the “Founders” have been represented in film and fiction from their own time to the present. We will consider a variety of media, including novels, art, plays, films, and television. We will look at how these fictional portrayals reflected larger cultural changes, as well as the different political and social purposes that they served. Would the musical glorification of Hamilton have been a hit during the Great Depression? We will also examine the extent to which these portrayals conformed to historical reality, using them to look more broadly at the relationship between history and fiction. What can fiction contribute to historical understanding, and what are its limits as a medium of historical representation?

This seminar course will examine both the historical and the cultural context of Mainland Chinese cinema from 1949 to the present. The course will be focused on full-length feature films from the People’s Republic of China, providing an eclectic mix of movies covering socialist propaganda of the high Maoist period (1949-76), the critical stances of the “Fifth Generation” (of graduates from the Beijing Film Academy) in the 1980s and early 1990s, the more entertainment-focused films of post-Deng (2000s) China, as well as contemporary art films that are largely seen outside of the commercial exhibition circuit. This wide variety of films will open up questions of cinematic representations of Chinese identity and culture in at least four major modes: socialist revolutionary (1949-76), critical reflections on China’s past and the revolution (1982-1989), what one might call neoliberal entertainment (1990-present), and the more underground art cinema that has emerged as mainstream Chinese cinema has become increasingly commercial. Along with the close analysis of films (their narrative structure, audiovisual language, relationship to other films from both China and beyond), the course will deal with Confucian legacies in Chinese society, communist revolutionary spasms and the censorship system, and the more open market and ideology of the post-Mao reform era. Assigned readings will be varied, as well. Several key movies will be paired with their textual antecedents (e.g., LU Xun’s New Year’s Sacrifice will be read alongside HU Sang’s by the same title, while LI Zhun’s The Biography of LI Shuangshuang will accompany the 1962 movie that followed). Appropriate readings will cover important historical background in some detail; for example, the Great Leap Forward (1959-62) and the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) are both crucial events for understanding the revolutionary experience, while the latter is particularly relevant for its impact on reform-era filmmakers. Other readings will focus specifically on cinema, ranging from broad historical overviews on the material/financial conditions of production, distribution, and exhibition to close analyses of individual films, the transition from socialist to postsocialist cinema, the construction of “Chineseness” as an object for the Western gaze, and the avant-garde/independent responses to the current global/commercial Chinese cinema. This course is an open super-seminar (capped at 30 students), meeting once a week for 2.5 hours in order to facilitate in-depth discussions of paired material; for example, two movies or a movie and significant historical texts (either primary or secondary). In addition to this weekly class time, film screenings (one or two per week) will be required. For conferences, students will be divided evenly between the two professors, using the regular model of biweekly meetings.

Marches, walkouts, and occupations roiled the campus of San Francisco State University in the fall of 1968. Among the organizers’ demands was the institution of the first Black studies department in the country. More than 50 years later, Black studies has both reshaped existing disciplines and formed departments in colleges across the nation. How might returning to this history reshape our understanding of Black studies, of student movements, of American universities, and of history more generally? This interdisciplinary course seeks to answer these and more questions by studying the archival documents on Black studies at Sarah Lawrence alongside history, literature, film, and theory. In this course, students will participate in a traditional seminar and will spend one session a week in the campus archives. The latter will both engage students in rigorous archival research and result in a conference project helping to narrate the understudied history of Black studies at Sarah Lawrence. Authors and filmmakers may include W. E. B. Du Bois, Nella Larsen, Zadie Smith, Spike Lee, Robin Kelley, and more.

This course introduces students to the fascinating history of Yonkers through the fields of public history and museum studies. The fact that Yonkers is situated in close proximity to New York City provides unique opportunities for Yonkers residents. At the same time, this sometimes means that the treasures of Yonkers are obscured by its better-known neighbor. In this class, students will develop a deeper understanding of the history, culture, and people of Yonkers by focusing on the meaning of place. We will begin the class by closely collaborating with staff at the Hudson River Museum, a major arts and cultural institution in Yonkers that is recognized nationwide. Students will study how the museum developed and the place that the museum occupies in the city’s cultural landscape. In addition to touring historic sites like Philipse Manor Hall, Sherwood House, and Untermeyer Gardens, students will study the history of places that are important to Yonkers residents, including the Dunwoodie Golf Course, the Old Croton Aqueduct, Greystone Bakery, and McClean Avenue. We will tour and analyze the city’s burgeoning public art scene in addition to learning more about some of Yonkers’ unique neighborhoods. Our ultimate goal will be to use multimedia approaches to create a “Museum in the Streets,” highlighting the people and places that make Yonkers a unique and dynamic city.

As climate change has emerged as a fixture in our news cycle, week after week, our society has grown increasingly aware of the various impacts that humans have had on the environment—to say nothing of the extent to which environmental transformation has been fundamentally reshaping human experience. As obvious as these interactions might seem to us today, it was only in recent decades—inspired by the new environmentalism of the ’60s and ’70s—that historians and social scientists began to explore how to narrate the past by focusing primarily on human beings’ complex, ever-evolving relationship with the nonhuman world. This course will provide a broad introduction into this new “environmental history,” adopting a global lens through which to excavate the historical relationship between the human and nonhuman worlds. Along the way, we will explore a number of approaches to three broad themes: the effects (both intended and unintended) of human societies on the environment; the role of nonhuman “nature” in the unfolding of human history; and the evolution of ideas (religious, cultural, intellectual) about nature and the environment. Though we will trace these themes fairly far back into history, the course will focus most of its attention on the so-called “Anthropocene” era—the period since the Industrial Revolution in Europe—which witnessed the rapid globalization of capitalist modernity and the advent of expansive overseas colonial empires. This seminar will participate in the collaborative interludes and other programs of the Sarah Lawrence Interdisciplinary Collaborative on the Environment (SLICE) Mellon course cluster.

The Indian Ocean is the third-largest ocean in the world and contributes almost 30 percent to the total oceanic realm of our planet. Current scholars have defined the Indian Ocean to include the oceanic and littoral spaces in the southwest from the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa, to the Red Sea in the north, then horizontally through to the South China Sea in the east, and down to Australia in the southeast. Commerce around the Indian Ocean continued as a web of production and trade that spanned across the ports of India, the Middle East, Africa, Southeast Asia, and Europe. Indian Ocean ports were the fulcrum of maritime trade that precipitated spontaneous transcultural interactions between traders and inhabitants of different geographic regions who mingled there to exchange commodities. Ships followed monsoons or seasonal wind patterns, and sailors were obliged to wait at length for return departures from ports, which was a significant cause of cultural transfer. Various religions, including Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism, were mobile across the Indian Ocean networks; and extant beliefs, practices, and material cultures are evidence. The study of the Indian Ocean World (IOW), as some historians have termed it, is a newly emerging field in world history. New evidence from historical research of the last 30 years has recovered the lost significance of this region, which was the center of a robust and complex trade and cultural network for a millennium and that continues today. This course is designed to provide students with a survey of Indian Ocean world history from the medieval to the colonial era. Lectures and sources will help students deepen their knowledge of peoples and cultures around the Indian Ocean and gain a wider appreciation for the transnational trade and cultural and religious networks that existed there. Students will learn to examine that globalization is not a modern phenomenon but, rather, an ongoing aspect of the Indian Ocean. Each week, students will evaluate sources that explore the discrete regions of the Indian Ocean, their people, and the religious networks, commercial exchanges, migrations, and political events that they engender to make a complex and dynamic connected history. Students are expected to engage in lectures, reading, class discussions, group work, and writing to examine the major themes and debates in Indian Ocean history and develop sound arguments.

The ideas of John Locke were deeply influential to the development of American government and society. But while Locke may have helped popularize the concept of representative democracy, serving as a North Star for the framers of the US Constitution, he also authored white-supremacist texts that reaffirmed a body of knowledge known today as “race science,” as well as a series of colonial laws that solidified African American slavery in the New World. Such “slave laws” retained their power well after the American Revolution. This lecture traces key currents of race ideology and the belief in white superiority and Black inferiority within the bedrock of the American political landscape. Through a study of primary source documents, guided by an interdisciplinary array of scholarly readings, students will be exposed to the ways in which white-supremacist thought has provided an intellectual foundation supporting a system of white wealth, power, and privilege. Students will explore how racist ideas have shaped crucial concepts related to American democracy.

This seminar looks at the history of the Soviet Union through the lens of ethnonational diversity. To be a Soviet person, one had to be identified by “nationality” (closer to our understanding of ethnicity), a category that outlasted class. Soviet policy toward different nationalities varied widely from 1917 to 1991, ranging from the aggressive promotion of indigenous cadres and cultures to the deportation of whole nationalities. The USSR was the largest country in modern history and the first attempt to build a communist state, yet it ended up as a union of federal republics organized along national lines. The nation was supposed to be the vehicle that ushered people through Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist phases of historical development, yet the nations that constituted the Soviet Union outlasted it. We will look at the ways in which Soviet conceptions of nationalities shaped the Soviet project and how being a member of one or another nationality impacted people’s fates. Our readings begin with a brief overview of the diversity of the Russian Empire on the eve of revolution and continue to address the major events of Soviet history through to the continued relevance of the history of Soviet nationalities policies today.

Between the triumph of the Enlightenment in the mid-18th century and the rise of Romanticism in the 1790s lies a span of time, extending roughly from 1760 to 1800, populated by a variety of writers who foreshadowed the end of the Enlightenment without being truly “Romantic.” Many of the most exciting and influential works of literature and thought produced in the 18th century were products of this ambiguous period. For want of a better name, scholars have labeled some of these works “pre-Romantic.” It might be more useful to think of them as products of an “edgy Enlightenment”—a late, adventurous phase of the Enlightenment whose representatives had begun to question the Enlightenment’s own cherished beliefs and, in some cases, to discard them. In this course, we will read a number of the most famous texts produced by writers of the “edgy Enlightenment,” as well as two texts produced outside the period that are equally “edgy” in their own way. More than half of the works we are reading are narratives of travel—a genre of literature of which 18th-century Europeans were extremely fond. Three describe real journeys: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s Turkish Embassy Letters, The Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Alexander von Humboldt’s journal of his famous scientific expedition to the wilder parts of South America. Two other texts are accounts of imaginary journeys: Diderot’s comic novel, Jacques the Fatalist and His Master, and Goethe’s novel of an aspiring actor’s personal development, Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship. I am also assigning two plays by the great German dramatist Friedrich Schiller, some amusing verses written in a mixture of Scots and standard English by the Scottish poet Robert Burns, and a couple of philosophical essays by Immanuel Kant. Students may pursue conference projects on a wide range of topics in European history, philosophy, or literature.

How does a chronic illness affect a person’s orientation to the everyday? What are the social and political forces that underpin life in a homeless shelter? What is the experiential world of a blind person, a musician, a refugee, or a child at play? In an effort to answer these and like-minded questions, anthropologists have become increasingly interested in developing phenomenological accounts of particular lived realities in order to understand—and convey to others—the nuances and underpinnings of such realities in terms that more general social or symbolic analyses cannot achieve. In this context, phenomenology offers an analytic method that works to understand and describe in words phenomena as they appear to the consciousnesses of certain peoples. The phenomena most often in question for anthropologists include the workings of time, perception, selfhood, language, bodies, suffering, and morality as they take form in particular lives within the context of any number of social, linguistic, and political forces. In this course, we will explore phenomenological approaches in anthropology by reading and discussing some of the most significant efforts along these lines. Each student will also try their hand at developing a phenomenological account of a specific social or subjective reality through a combination of ethnographic research, participant observation, and ethnographic writing.

The visual arts and architecture constitute a central part of human expression and experience, and both grow from and influence our lives in profound ways that we might not consciously acknowledge. In this course, we will explore intersections between the visual arts and cultural, political, and social history. The goal is to teach students to deal critically with works of art, using the methods and some of the theories of the discipline of art history. This course is not a survey but, rather, will have as its subject a limited number of artists and works of art and architecture that students will learn about in depth through formal analysis, readings, discussion, research, and debate. We will endeavor to understand each work from the point of view of its creators and patrons and by following the work's changing reception by audiences throughout time. To accomplish this, we will need to be able to understand some of the languages of art. The course, then, is also a course in visual literacy—the craft of reading and interpreting visual images on their own terms. We will also discuss a number of issues of contemporary concern; for instance, the destruction of art, free speech and respect of religion, the art market, and the museum. Students will be asked to schedule time on weekends to travel to Manhattan on their own or in the College van to do assignments at various museums in New York. You will need to leave several hours for each of these visits and will keep a notebook of comments and drawings of works of art. There will be weekly conferences first semester and biweekly conferences second semester in the first-year studies.

This course will examine the use of mythic imagery in the visual arts of the Greeks and peoples of ancient Italy from the eighth century BCE to the beginning of the Roman Empire. We will consider all visual artistic media—both public and private. We will focus largely on problems of content or interpretation, with special attention to the role of patronage in the choice and mode of presentation of the mythic themes. In order to appreciate the underlying cultural or religious significance of the myths and their visual expression, we will also examine the relation of the artworks to contemporary literature, especially poetry, and the impact of significant historical events or trends.

Fall: Homeric and Archaic Greece
In the fall semester, we will examine the earlier Greek development from the Geometric to the Archaic periods, focusing on the paradigmatic function of mythic narratives—especially the central conception of the hero and the role of women in Greek religion and society. Group discussion will concentrate on the social function of myth and myth in early Greek poetry, as well as key historical or political developments such as the emergence of tyranny and democracy.

Spring: From Classical Greece to Augustan Rome
The spring semester will begin with examining the use of myth during the Classical period, focusing on the impact of the prolonged conflict with the Persian Empire and the great monuments of Periklean Athens. We will then consider Greek myth in the later Classical and Hellenistic periods and the absorption of Greek myth by the Etruscans and early Romans. The course will conclude with the adaptation of Greek myth within the emerging Roman Empire. Group discussion will focus on the relation between myth and an emerging Greek conception of history and ethnography and, finally, on the interrelation of poetry and art in Augustan Rome.

This course will explore the art and architecture of Spain and of Latin America as its lands emerged from colonialism to forge strong independent identities. We will focus on selected topics, including extraordinary artists such as El Greco, Velázquez, Goya, Cabrera, and Aleijadinho, as well as on complex issues surrounding art and identity in contested and textured lands—in particular, Casta painting, colonialism, and arts of revolution and national identity. Students may, if they wish, extend their conference work to later artists (e.g., Diego Rivera, Frida Khalo, José Bedia, Belkis Ayón, among others).

Fall: Early Christian Art and Architecture
In the fall, this course will examine the emergence and development of Christian art in the Mediterranean and Europe during the later ancient and early medieval periods. Here, this development will be considered directly in connection with the emergence and eventual dominance of Christianity itself within the Roman Empire, with appropriate attention to Christian religious belief and theology as a significant factor in the artistic development. The course will consider all artistic media but primarily painting, sculpture, and architecture. We will begin by assessing how art and architecture were used to project the power and ideology of the Roman Empire, both in the public and in the private sphere. We will then examine how existing traditions of Roman art were gradually adapted to create a specifically Christian artistic production, first in the private sphere and then in a public, more monumental setting as the Roman state began officially to embrace and promulgate Christianity. In the fall, the course will focus largely on the western regions of the Roman Empire up to and just beyond its collapse in the course of the fifth century.

Spring: Byzantine Art and Architecture From Theodosius to the Fall of Constantinople
In spring, we will focus on the further development of Christian art and architecture in the surviving East Roman or “Byzantine” Empire, beginning at the turn of the fourth and fifth centuries and focusing extensively on the apogee of Byzantine art in the so-called “Age of Justinian.” Here, we will consider not only the art of the imperial center of Constantinople but also the regional variations in the early Byzantine development across the Balkans, Anatolia or Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, North Africa, and Egypt. As the semester progresses, we will then consider the impact of an emerging and expanding Islamic Empire on a gradually shrinking Byzantine world. We will study the effect of these changes on the nature and output of artistic production in the regions that Byzantium struggled to retain while also considering the repeated impact of Byzantine art on the medieval art of western Europe. The course will culminate with the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks in 1453.

This course looks closely at the art museum as a site of contest and critique: How are museums not neutral spaces but, rather, powerful institutions that shape narratives about the objects that they collect and display? Readings will consider the origins of the modern art museum in Europe in the 17th century and explore how the conventions of display impacted art’s reception and meaning. We will analyze histories of institutional critique to look at how artists have taken aim at the museum as a site of discursive power, raising questions about the kinds of value judgments that go into determining what counts as art. We will look closely at current discourses of decolonizing the museum, weigh how museums should confront their colonizing histories of systemic racism, and explore histories of exhibitions of Indigenous and African and African Diasporic art, as well as how museums shape historical memory. This course will include field trips and conversations with visiting speakers. Because this course considers the historiography of art, some previous course work in art history is required; but with its broad coverage, this course will have something for everyone regardless of their background.

East Asia, like much of the globe, has been powerfully shaped by the arrival, presence, and activity of imperialist power in the region. In both China and Japan, in fact, nationalism is founded on resistance to the encroachments of Western imperialism. Both nations cast themselves as victims to the rapacious West. And yet, often unnoticed by patriots and pundits, both China and Japan are deeply indebted to their own domestic imperialisms, albeit in very different ways. Relying on a wide range of course materials (historical scholarship, paintings, lithographs, photographs, literature, and relevant primary sources), this course is an intensive investigation of the contours of Asian imperialism, covering the colonialism of the Qing dynasty (1644–1911), the aggressive Western expansion in the 19th century, and the Japanese Empire (1895-1945). We will ask what features (if any) these very different empires shared and what set them apart from each other. How and why were Asian empires built, how did they end, and what legacies did they leave? We will excavate the multiethnic Qing imperium for how it complicates China’s patriotic master narrative. Does Qing ethnic policy toward native Miao tribes differ from Western powers’ Civilizing Discourse? What are the legacies of Qing colonialism for China’s modern nation-state? The Qing campaigns to subjugate the Mongols in the northwest and the colonization of the untamed southwest both predated the arrival of the Westerners and the Opium War (1839-42). How does that impact our understanding of the clash between China and the rapidly expanding West? We will trace earlier academic views on the classic confrontation between these two presumed entities before examining more recent revisionist formulations on the Western penetration of China. What were the processes of Western intrusion, and how did Western imperialism come to structure knowledge of China? And finally, we will turn to the Japanese Empire. What were its motivations, its main phases, and its contradictions? Should we understand it as similar to Western imperialism or as an alternative, something unique? What are the implications of both those positions? To understand the Japanese Empire in both its experiential and theoretical dimensions, we will range widely across Japan’s possessions in Taiwan, Korea, and Manchuria. The questions and topics in this seminar will complicate the master narratives that prevail in both East Asia and the West, not to delegitimize or subvert Asian sovereignties but, rather, to understand the deeply embedded narratives of imperialism within those sovereign claims in order to see how those narratives (and their blind spots) continue to frame and support policies and attitudes today.

This seminar course will examine both the historical and cultural context of Mainland Chinese cinema from 1949 to the present. The course will be focused on full-length feature films from the People’s Republic of China, providing an eclectic mix of movies covering socialist propaganda of the high Maoist period (1949-76), the critical stances of the “Fifth Generation” (of graduates from the Beijing Film Academy) in the 1980s and early 1990s, the more entertainment-focused films of post-Deng (2000s) China, as well as contemporary art films that are largely seen outside of the commercial exhibition circuit. This wide variety of films will open up questions of cinematic representations of Chinese identity and culture in at least four major modes: socialist revolutionary (1949-76), critical reflections on China’s past and the revolution (1982-1989), what one might call neoliberal entertainment (1990-present), and the more underground art cinema that has emerged as mainstream Chinese cinema has become increasingly commercial. Along with the close analysis of films (their narrative structure, audiovisual language, relationship to other films from both China and beyond), the course will deal with Confucian legacies in Chinese society, communist revolutionary spasms and the censorship system, and the more open market and ideology of the post-Mao reform era. Assigned readings will be varied, as well. Several key movies will be paired with their textual antecedents (e.g., LU Xun’s New Year’s Sacrifice will be read alongside HU Sang’s by the same title, while LI Zhun’s The Biography of LI Shuangshuang will accompany the 1962 movie that followed). Appropriate readings will cover important historical background in some detail; for example, the Great Leap Forward (1959-62) and the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) are both crucial events for understanding the revolutionary experience, while the latter is particularly relevant for its impact on reform-era filmmakers. Other readings will focus specifically on cinema, ranging from broad historical overviews on the material/financial conditions of production, distribution, and exhibition to close analyses of individual films, the transition from socialist to postsocialist cinema, the construction of “Chineseness” as an object for the Western gaze, and the avant-garde/independent responses to the current global/commercial Chinese cinema. This course is an open super-seminar (capped at 30 students), meeting once a week for 2.5 hours in order to facilitate in-depth discussions of paired material; for example, two movies or a movie and significant historical texts (either primary or secondary). In addition to this weekly class time, film screenings (one or two per week) will be required. For conferences, students will be divided evenly between the two professors, using the regular model of biweekly meetings.

The periodic table displays the chemical elements according to the structure of their atoms and, consequently, their chemical properties. The periodic table also represents a treasure trove of fascinating stories that span both natural and human history. Many of the elements on the table have influenced key historical events and shaped individual lives. In this course, we will tour the periodic table and learn how the stories of the discovery and investigation of the elements fuse science with human drama—from murders to cures for deadly diseases and from new technologies to the fall of civilizations. Our studies will include readings from traditional science textbooks and history books, as well as works of literature and poetry. This is a seminar course with two 90-minute class meetings per week. Individual conference meetings will be weekly during the first six weeks of the fall semester and biweekly thereafter.

This yearlong course, based on the professor’s new book—Legal and Political Foundations of Capitalism: The End of Laissez Faire?—introduces students to the emerging Law and Political Economy tradition in economics. The course will deal with four interrelated questions: (1) What does economic regulation mean? (2) What is the relationship between institutions, legal ones in particular, and the economy? (3) How does one theoretically analyze the nature of property rights, money, corporations, and power? (4) How does rethinking the relationship between law and the economy challenge conventional ideas about the nature of economic regulation? The course will seek to understand the nature of power and its relationship to institutions, especially legal ones, by considering property rights and money, the business corporation, constitutional political economy, the links between “free markets” and authoritarianism, colonialism and race, and inequality as it intersects across class, race, and gender lines. We will deal with these questions by focusing on the insights of the Original Institutional Economics and American Legal Realists and their relationship to the classical political economy tradition (especially Adam Smith and Karl Marx). The Law and Political Economy framework will be contrasted with the insights of New Institutional Economics, with the latter’s basis in neoclassical economics. Core questions that will be addressed include: What is laissez faire, and does legal-economic history show any proof of its existence? What is assumed when dueling perspectives advocate “more” or “less” government intervention; and are these, in fact, false binaries that distract from core questions of public policy and key challenges such as climate instability, growing inequality, and threats to democracy? No prior background in economics is required.

What assumptions, methodologies, values, vision, and theoretical foundations do microeconomists incorporate and rely upon for analyzing economic behavior at the individual level? What insights, knowledge, inferences, and/or conclusions can be gleaned through examining characteristics of individual firms, agents, households, and markets in order to understand capitalist society? How do our theories of individual and business behavior inform our interpretation of distributional outcomes? Among other topics, this yearlong seminar in microeconomics will offer an inquiry into economic decision-making vis-à-vis: theories of demand and supply, the individual (agents), households, consumption (consumer choice); theories of production and costs; theories of the firm (business enterprise, corporations); theories of markets and competition; prices and pricing theory; and public policy. This course will provide a rigorous analysis of theory and policy in the neoclassical and broad critical political economy traditions. A central theoretical issue will be an engagement of the “governments versus markets” dichotomy, which is at the heart of neoclassical economics. This important theme will be addressed by investigating the rival treatments of institutions in neoclassical economics (New Institutional Economics) and the Law and Political Economy tradition. Among other topics, we will analyze how these different approaches to institutions and the economy study cost-benefit analysis, Pareto optimality, business competition, and the Coase Theorem. The spring semester will incorporate the study of business history.

In this yearlong seminar course, we will explore the history of the US labor movement from its beginnings in the colonial society of the 1600s to the “globalized” cities of the 2020s. Beginning with the involuntary labor arrangements that structured the continent’s economy from the 1600s to the Civil War, we will focus on the international workers’ movement against slavery: abolitionism. The abolitionist struggle will take us from the first rebellions of involuntary workers to the Civil War and the Reconstruction era. From there, we will consider the strikes, uprisings, and organizations of the late 19th- and 20th-century industrial labor movement, beginning with the Great Upheaval of 1877 and ending with the postindustrial urban uprisings of 1967. We will consider the peak of “big labor” during the mid-20th century, alongside the peak in Cold War-era US imperialism that structured the economy during that time. We will begin the spring semester by thoroughly considering the major structural shifts in the US economy that began in the 1970s, generally referred to as a combination of “globalization” and “neoliberalism.” These shifts degraded job quality and worker power, relegating the working class to service positions in the “global city” structure. In responding to these shifts, we will consider numerous autonomous unions and “worker centers” that have sprung up to address the new issues of this new economy in the past 20 years. We will also focus on broader 21st-century people’s struggles—like the Anti-Globalization Movement, Occupy Wall Street, and Black Lives Matter—and how these movements relate to the ongoing workers’ movement. Requirements for the course include discussion posts, short papers, and a group presentation. For the course’s major project, students will have two options. The first is writing two connected final essays, one for each semester. The second is engaging in a yearlong research project, which can be focused on service learning and in-the-field placements with local worker centers and unions, if students wish. Students will meet with the instructor every other week for individual conferences, depending on the student’s needs and the progress of their conference projects. Required texts may include: Strike! by Jeremy Brecher, The Many-Headed Hydra by Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker, An African-American and Latinx History of the United States by Paul Ortiz, The Global City by Saskia Sassen, New Labor in New York by Ruth Milkman and Ed Ott, and Labor Law for the Rank and Filer by Staughton Lynd and Daniel Gross.

Feminist economics arose as a critique of the androcentric and Eurocentric assumptions underlying mainstream (neoclassical) economics. But over the past 30 years, feminist economics has developed into a coherent perspective in its own right. Feminist economics acknowledges and investigates power differentials in both the home and the market on the basis of race/ethnicity, gender, class, sexual orientation, nation, and disability status. It takes seriously the crucial economic impact of caring labor (both paid and unpaid) in both the home and the broader community. And it proposes alternate measures of economic success that emphasize bodily integrity, human agency, sustainability, and human rights. We will begin this course with a brief exploration of the historical context for the development of feminist economics; i.e., the rise of feminist movements in both the developed world and the Global South. We’ll then examine the differences between feminist and mainstream neoclassical economics by examining questions such as: What do we mean by "the economy”? Do transactions and activities have to be monetized to be "economic”? How is caring labor (both paid and unpaid) conceptualized in economics, and how does the performance of this labor impact one's status in both the labor market and the household? The answers to these and similar questions will help us to reconceptualize economics to take account of all of the labor necessary to reproduce individuals and social/economic structures. Finally, we’ll apply this reconceptualized, feminist economics to questions of economic policy. We’ll examine a number of case studies, including:

• the persistence of occupational segregation and wage differentials by gender and race and policies to mitigate these inequalities;
• the impact of domestic violence and other forms of nonmarket coercion on economic outcomes;
• the impact of reproductive control (or the lack thereof) on the economic trajectories of both individuals and societies; and
• the (re)conceptualization and measurement of economic development and growth.

In addition to class participation, requirements for the course will include frequent short papers on the readings, leading class discussions (in pairs), and participation in group presentations. In lieu of a traditional conference paper, students may elect to participate in an on- or off-campus service-learning project.

As we want to engage in individual and collective efforts toward sustainable and climate-change mitigating solutions, this workshop offers an opportunity for students to explore the multiple ways in which “sustainability” can be fostered and developed at an institution like Sarah Lawrence College. Students will work in small groups on a variety of projects and produce research and educational material that can lead to concrete and actionable proposals for the College and our community to consider. Students will determine their own areas of interest and research, from energy and water-usage monitoring to composting solutions, recycling/reusing and consumer sobriety, landscaping choices, pollinators and natural diversity, food growing, natural and human history of the land, and community collaborations, to name a few. As part of their project effort, students will engage with College administrators who are actively working toward sustainable solutions, as well as student, staff, and faculty groups such as the Warren Green vegetable garden, the Sarah Lawrence Interdisciplinary Collective on the Environment (SLICE), and the Sustainability Committee. We will also explore the possibility of writing grants in coordination with other actors at the College. This workshop will meet once a week for one hour. It is offered as pass/fail based on attendance and a group project that will mostly be developed during our meeting time. It is open to all students, including first-year students. All skills and areas of expertise are welcome, from environmental science to writing and visual and studio arts—but any interest in issues of sustainability and a strong sense of dedication will suffice!

The way people move through cities is undergoing a transformation across the globe. As urban populations surge, particularly in developing countries, Millennials and Gen Z are gravitating toward central cities with robust public transportation systems. The rise of cycling, micromobility, and the expansion of bike-sharing and electric scooter systems are reshaping urban mobility. Despite plenty of controversy, we cannot ignore Elon Musk's electrification innovations, as well as sharing economy disruptors such as Uber, offering new possibilities for sustainable urban travel. Cities, however, still grapple with severe congestion, the alarming toll of traffic accidents, and escalating carbon emissions—all of which pose serious threats to our planet. We will delve into key topics such as the design and planning implications of urban sprawl versus compact cities, congestion pricing, transit-oriented development, cycling and pedestrian infrastructure, and public transport systems from light to high-speed rail. We will also address urban design for sustainable streets, such as traffic calming measures and plaza development, as well as emerging technologies including drones and aviation technology. Throughout the course, we will focus on examples from the United States, Europe, Latin America, and Asia, analyzing how global transportation trends influence local communities and contribute to the development of sustainable cities. We will also have field trips within the metro region to explore some of these innovations in New York. You will have the opportunity throughout the semester to conduct research on the transportation history and innovation in a global city. The goal of the class is to equip students with the knowledge and skills to foster green, healthy, sustainable transportation systems and cities for the future.

In the years following its emergence in the late 1800s, film quickly became an enormously popular art form, as well as a large and lucrative industry. The American film industry had reached worldwide dominance and began to exercise an enormous influence upon American culture. Focusing primarily on films produced by major Hollywood studios, this course will examine the relationship between the artistic and industrial sides of film, as well as the cultural impact and implications of its status as popular and “mass” art. Course sessions will include an introduction to the terminology and techniques used to analyze films, as well as the fundamentals of academic writing and research. During the first semester, our focus will be on the rise of Hollywood cinema as both an industry and a set of storytelling techniques, with a particular emphasis on the ways that cinema shaped American identity, ideology, and culture. We will consider, in particular, how film raised questions about the relationship between “high” and “mass,” or “popular,” arts and how different forms of filmmaking both determined and destabilized these categories. Other topics to be covered in the first semester will include the role of race, gender, and class in representation and spectatorship, the development of distinct film genres, and the role played by Hollywood during key moments in 20th-century history (Great Depression, World War II). Topics to be covered during the second semester will include the relationship between film and other media (television, Internet), the role of technology in shaping film form and content, the decline of the Hollywood studio system, the relationship between Hollywood studios and African American filmmakers and audiences, and the changing role of Hollywood in American life from 1960s to the present. During the fall semester, students will meet with the instructor weekly for individual conferences. In the spring, conferences will take place on a biweekly basis.

This seminar course will examine both the historical and cultural context of Mainland Chinese cinema from 1949 to the present. The course will be focused on full-length feature films from the People’s Republic of China, providing an eclectic mix of movies covering socialist propaganda of the high Maoist period (1949-76), the critical stances of the “Fifth Generation” (of graduates from the Beijing Film Academy) in the 1980s and early 1990s, the more entertainment-focused films of post-Deng (2000s) China, as well as contemporary art films that are largely seen outside of the commercial exhibition circuit. This wide variety of films will open up questions of cinematic representations of Chinese identity and culture in at least four major modes: socialist revolutionary (1949-76), critical reflections on China’s past and the revolution (1982-1989), what one might call neoliberal entertainment (1990-present), and the more underground art cinema that has emerged as mainstream Chinese cinema has become increasingly commercial. Along with the close analysis of films (their narrative structure, audiovisual language, relationship to other films from both China and beyond), the course will deal with Confucian legacies in Chinese society, communist revolutionary spasms and the censorship system, and the more open market and ideology of the post-Mao reform era. Assigned readings will be varied, as well. Several key movies will be paired with their textual antecedents; e.g., LU Xun’s New Year’s Sacrifice will be read alongside HU Sang’s by the same title, while LI Zhun’s The Biography of LI Shuangshuang will accompany the 1962 movie that followed. Appropriate readings will cover important historical background in some detail; for example, the Great Leap Forward (1959-62) and the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) are both crucial events for understanding the revolutionary experience, while the latter is particularly relevant for its impact on reform-era filmmakers. Other readings will focus specifically on cinema, ranging from broad historical overviews on the material/financial conditions of production, distribution, and exhibition to close analyses of individual films, the transition from socialist to postsocialist cinema, the construction of “Chineseness” as an object for the Western gaze, and the avant-garde/independent responses to the current global/commercial Chinese cinema. This course is an open super-seminar (capped at 30 students), meeting once a week for 2.5 hours in order to facilitate in-depth discussions of paired material; for example, two movies or a movie and significant historical texts (either primary or secondary). In addition to this weekly class time, film screenings (one or two per week) will be required. For conferences, students will be divided evenly between the two professors, using the regular model of biweekly meetings.

This course is designed to enlighten our creative consciousness, using music and nonfiction filmmaking as tools for liberation. Music and other sonic experiences are intrinsically connected to how we witness, experience, and tell nonfiction stories. In this course, we will examine work where the score itself plays a character while creating films of our own inspired by the soundtrack as a living piece of our form. Broken into groups, students collectively create a five-minute film that invites the viewer into subjects that are engaging and new while challenging the binary and often Western notion of what storytelling can be. The role that music and sound can play as a form of protest, meditation, and transformation is at the heart of our visual experience. In the spirit of global movements toward a more just and sustainable world, this course infuses a cinematic quest for truth in storytelling with the undeniable power that music brings to our understanding of a moment in time a scene, a relationship, and ourselves. From American Utopia to Amazing Grace and Gimme Shelter, students will screen, discuss, and be inspired to create work that challenges all of the senses.

This is an open course designed to enlighten our creative consciousness, using music and nonfiction filmmaking as tools for liberation. Music and other sonic experiences are intrinsically connected to how we witness, experience, and tell nonfiction stories. In this course, we will examine work where the score itself plays a character while also creating films of our own inspired by the soundtrack as a living piece of our form. Broken into groups, students collectively will create a five-minute film that invites the viewer into subjects that are engaging and new, while also challenging the binary and often Western notion of what storytelling can be. The role that music and sound can play as a form of protest, meditation, and transformation are at the heart of our visual experience. In the spirit of global movements toward a more just and sustainable world, this course infuses a cinematic quest for truth in storytelling with the undeniable power that music brings to our understanding of a moment in time, a scene, a relationship, and ourselves. From American Utopia to Amazing Grace and Gimme Shelter, students will screen, discuss, and be inspired to create work that challenges all of the senses.

In this yearlong seminar, we will begin by examining competing paradigms and approaches to understanding “development” and the “Third World.” We will set the stage by answering the question: What did the world look like 500 years ago? The purpose of this part of the course is to acquaint us with and to analyze the historical origins and evolution of a world political economy of which the "Third World" is an intrinsic component. We will thus study the transition from feudalism to capitalism, the rise of merchant and finance capital, and the colonization of the world by European powers. We will analyze case studies of colonial "development" to understand the evolving meaning of this term. These case studies will help us assess the varied legacies of colonialism apparent in the emergence of new nations through the fitful and uneven process of decolonization that followed. The next part of the course will look at the United Nations and the role that some of its associated institutions have played in the post-World War II global political economy, one marked by persistent and intensifying socioeconomic inequalities as well as frequent outbreaks of political violence across the globe. By examining the development institutions that have emerged and evolved since 1945, we will attempt to unravel the paradoxes of development in different eras. We will deconstruct the measures of development through a thematic exploration of population, resource use, poverty, access to food, the environment, agricultural productivity, and different development strategies adopted by Third World nation-states. We will then examine globalization and its relation to emergent international institutions and their policies; for example, the IMF, World Bank, AIIB, and WTO. We will then turn to contemporary development debates and controversies that increasingly find space in the headlines—widespread land grabbing by sovereign wealth funds, China, and hedge funds; the “global food crisis”; epidemics and public-health challenges; and the perils of climate change. Throughout the course, our investigations of international institutions, transnational corporations, the role of the state, and civil society will provide the backdrop for the final focus of the class: the emergence of regional coalitions for self-reliance, environmental and social justice, and sustainable development. Our analysis of development in practice will draw upon case studies primarily from Africa but also from Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the United States. Conference work will be closely integrated with the themes of the course, with a two-stage substantive research project beginning in the fall semester and completed in the spring. Project presentations will incorporate a range of formats, from traditional papers to multimedia visual productions. Smaller creative projects are also a component of the course, including podcasts, videos, art, music, and other forms. Where possible and feasible, students will be encouraged to do primary research during fall study days and winter and spring breaks. Some experience in the social sciences is desired but not required.

Where does the food we eat come from? Why do some people have enough food to eat and others do not? Are there too many people for the world to feed? Who controls the world’s food? Will global food prices continue their recent rapid rise; and, if so, what will be the consequences? What are the environmental impacts of our food production systems? How do answers to these questions differ by place or by the person asking the question? How have they changed over time? This course will explore the following fundamental issue: the relationship between development and the environment—focusing, in particular, on agriculture and the production and consumption of food. The questions above often hinge on the contentious debate concerning population, natural resources, and the environment. Thus, we will begin by critically assessing the fundamental ideological positions and philosophical paradigms of “modernization,” as well as critical counterpoints that lie at the heart of this debate. Within this context of competing sets of philosophical assumptions concerning the population-resource debate, we will investigate the concept of “poverty” and the making of the Third World, access to food, hunger, grain production and food aid, agricultural productivity (the Green and Gene revolutions), biofuels, the role of transnational corporations (TNCs), the international division of labor, migration, globalization and global commodity chains, and the different strategies adopted by nation-states to “‘develop” natural resources and agricultural production. Through a historical investigation of environmental change and the biogeography of plant domestication and dispersal, we will look at the creation of indigenous, subsistence, peasant, plantation, collective, and commercial forms of agriculture. We will analyze the physical environment and ecology that help shape but rarely determine the organization of resource use and agriculture. Rather, through the dialectical rise of various political-economic systems such as feudalism, slavery, mercantilism, colonialism, capitalism, and socialism, we will study how humans have transformed the world’s environments. We will follow with studies of specific issues: technological change in food production; commercialization and industrialization of agriculture and the decline of the family farm; food and public health, culture, and family; land grabbing and food security; the role of markets and transnational corporations in transforming the environment; and the global environmental changes stemming from modern agriculture, dams, deforestation, grassland destruction, desertification, biodiversity loss, and the interrelationship with climate change. Case studies of particular regions and issues will be drawn from Africa, Latin America, Asia, Europe, and the United States. The final part of the course examines the restructuring of the global economy and its relation to emergent international laws and institutions regulating trade, the environment, agriculture, resource-extraction treaties, the changing role of the state, and competing conceptualizations of territoriality and control. We will end with discussions of emergent local, regional, and transnational coalitions for food self-reliance and food sovereignty, alternative and community-supported agriculture, community-based resource-management systems, sustainable development, and grassroots movements for social and environmental justice. Films, multimedia materials, and distinguished-guest lectures will be interspersed throughout the course. One farm/factory field trip is possible if funding/timing permits. The lecture participants may also take a leading role in a campus-wide event on “the climate crisis, food, and hunger,” tentatively planned for spring. Please mark your calendars when the dates are announced, as attendance for all of the above is required. Attendance and participation are also required at special guest lectures and film viewings in the Social Science Colloquium Series approximately once per month. The Web Board is an important part of the course. Regular required postings of short essays will be made here, as well as follow-up commentaries with your colleagues. There will be occasional short, in-class essays during the semester and a final exam at the end. Group conferences will focus on in-depth analysis of certain course topics and will include short prepared papers for debates, the debates themselves, and small-group discussions. You will prepare a poster project on a topic of your choice, related to the course, which will be presented at the end of the semester in group conference, as well as in a potential public session.

Why this course and speaker series/community conversations now? The rise of the New Right is a critically important phenomenon of our time, shaping politics, policies, practices, and daily life for everyone. The insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, is only one egregious expression of long-term ideas and actions by a newly emboldened collective of right-wing ideologues. The violent challenges to the realities of a racially and ethnically diverse America is not a surprise. Nor is the normalization of White Power politics and ideas within mainstream politics and parties. The varied nature of the New Right’s participants—their ideologies, grievances, and goals—requires deep analysis of their historical roots, as well as their contemporary manifestations. The wide range of platforms and spaces for communicating hate, lies, and calls for violence against perceived enemies require their own responses, including the creation of platforms and spaces that offer analysis and alternatives. Seriously engaging the New Right, attempting to offer explanations for its rise, is key to challenging the authoritarian drift in our current political moment and its uncertain evolution and future. To do so requires our attention. It also requires a transdisciplinary approach, something inherent to our College and to geography as a discipline, be it political, economic, cultural, social, urban, historical, or environmental geography. The goal of this seminar, one that is accompanied by a planned facilitated speaker series and community conversations, is to build on work in geography and beyond and engage a wide array of thinkers from diverse disciplines and backgrounds, institutions, and organizations. In addition to teaching the course itself, my hope is that it can be a vehicle to engage our broader communities—at the College and in our region, as well as by reaching out to our widely dispersed, multigenerational alumni. Pairing the course with a subset of facilitated/moderated speaker series, live-streamed in collaboration with our Alumni Office, offers the chance to bring these classroom conversations and contemporary and pressing course topics, grounded in diverse readings and student engagement, to a much wider audience and multiple communities. In this class, we will seek to understand the origins and rise of the New Right in the United States and elsewhere as it has taken shape in the latter half of the 20th century to the present. We will seek to identify the origins of the New Right and what defines it, explore the varied geographies of the movement and its numerous strands, and identify the constituents of the contemporary right coalition. In addition, we will explore the actors and institutions that have played a role in the expansion of the New Right (e.g., courts, state and local governments, Tea Party, conservative think tanks, lawyers, media platforms, evangelical Christians, militias) and the issues that motivate the movement (e.g., anticommunism, immigration, environment, white supremacy/nationalism, voter suppression, neoliberal economic policies, antiglobalization, free speech). This is a reading-intensive, discussion-oriented, open, large seminar in which we will survey a broad sweep of the recent literature on the New Right. While the class focuses most specifically on the US context, conference papers based on international/comparative case studies are welcome. Students will be required to attend all associated talk and film viewings; write weekly essays and engage colleagues in conversation online the night before seminar; and write two short research papers that link the themes of the class with their own interests, creative products, research agenda, and/or political engagement. Students will also do two associated creative projects/expressions. Transdisciplinary collaborative activities across the College and community are encouraged. Film, performance, written commentary, podcasts, workshops, and other forms of action can provide additional outlets for student creative projects and engagement.

This course aims at improving and perfecting the students’ speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills, as well as their knowledge of Italy’s contemporary culture and literature. In order to acquire the necessary knowledge of Italian grammar, idiomatic expressions, and vocabulary, a review of all grammar will be carried out throughout the year. As an introduction to modern Italian culture and literature, students will be introduced to a selection of short stories, poems, and passages from novels, as well as specific newspaper articles, music, and films in the original language. Some of the literary works will include selections from Umberto Eco, Italo Calvino, Natalia Ginzburg, Gianni Rodari, Marcello D’Orta, Clara Sereni, Dino Buzzati, Stefano Benni, Antonio Tabucchi, Alberto Moravia, Achille Campanile, and Elena Ferrante. In order to address the students’ writing skills, written compositions will be required as an integral part of the course. All material is accessible on MySLC. Conferences are held on a biweekly basis; topics might include the study of a particular author, literary text, film, or any other aspect of Italian society and culture that might be of interest to the student. Conversation classes (in small groups) will be held twice a week with the language assistant, during which students will have the opportunity to reinforce what they have learned in class and hone their ability to communicate in Italian. When appropriate, students will be directed to specific internship opportunities in the New York City area, centered on Italian language and culture.

This is an introductory queer and feminist studies course that centers the intellectual work of theorists within the traditions known as Black Feminism and Queer of Color Critique with the US academy. Each week, we will take up a key debate or concern within the interdisciplinary field of women, gender, and sexuality studies, pairing influential works from the past alongside contemporary scholarship. We’ll visit work by scholars including, but not limited to, Sara Ahmed, Gloria Anzaldúa, Joshua Chambers-Letson, Barbara Christian, Cathy Cohen, the Combahee Collective, Roderick Ferguson, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Saidiya Hartman, Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Vivian Huang, E. Johnson Patrick, Audre Lorde, Cherríe Moraga, José Muñoz Esteban, Jennifer Nash, C. Snorton Riley, Hortense Spillers, and Patricia Williams. Some topics will include survival, loss, care, “the academy,” archives, identity politics, respectability, and language. Conference projects will be based on archival research at the Sarah Lawrence College Archives. Students will meet every two weeks at the SLC library in one of four conference groups organized around overarching topics of concern and debate from the class, including “identity and intersectionality,” “institutionality and the academy,” “violence, resistance, and care,” and “emotion.” Alongside individual seminar projects, these four research groups will each produce a co-authored archival “finding aid,” a guide for future scholars who visit the SLC Archives.

This course will examine literature written by late 19th- and 20th-century Italian women writers. In the newly unified Italy, middle-class women began in great numbers to access and contribute to literature as both readers and writers. The increasing presence of women writers caused great upheaval, as the male literary establishment viewed the potential for a disruption to the canon. The anxiety caused by their presence is visible in the manner in which they were dismissed as imitating male literary models, accused of excessive sentimentality and self-disclosure, or dubbed by critics il pericolo roseo, “the pink danger” (L. Zuccoli, Corriere della sera, March 24, 1911). Yet, many of these women writers reveal sophistication in their ability to experiment with genres and styles and engage with some of Italy’s literary movements (e.g., verismo, futurism, magic realism, neorealism) and intellectuals, as well as crucial historical events such as fascism and World War II. As we will see, they often question or reverse traditional depictions of femininity. They show an awareness of the social roles and expectations demanded of them and often interrogate such roles and some of the tropes present in the works of the time (e.g., the femme fatale, the self-sacrificing wife and mother). Many of them assert their own defiant voice and their own perspective as women writers, (re)claiming a place in the canon of Italian literature. In this course, we will explore how their works address social issues related to family, marriage, and women’s changing roles, as well as the place of women’s writing in the Italian literary canon. Our readings will include works by Marchesa Colombi (M. A. Torriani), Sibilla Aleramo, Grazia Deledda, Ada Negri, Rosa Rosà, Paola Masino, Renata Viganò, Joyce Lussu, Anna Banti, Anna Maria Ortese, Alba de Céspedes, Elsa Morante, Natalia Ginzburg, and Dacia Maraini. These works will be examined in dialogue with the literary production and ideas of male or canonical authors. Primary sources will range from fiction (novels, short stories, and fictional diaries) to autobiographical texts, poems, plays, and newspaper articles; these sources will be supplemented by secondary readings on women’s literature and history and on occasion by films. No previous knowledge of Italian is required. Students proficient in Italian may opt to read sources in the original. Conference topics may include the study of a particular author, literary text, or topic relevant to the course and that is of interest to the student. As an FYS course, students will meet individually in conference with the instructor/don every week until October Study Days and every two weeks after that.

Are human beings capable of self-government? What does that require? As modern authoritarian movements imperil democratic institutions, norms, and the rule of law, ancient Greek tragedies illuminate values and aspirations underpinning democracy and modern liberal ideals of justice, equality, and universal human rights. Tragedy and democracy emerged simultaneously in ancient Athens in the late 6th century BCE and flourished throughout the 5th century BCE. Ancient Greece never achieved egalitarian politics or anything close to universal human rights, but Athenian tragedies emphasize the essential equality of all human beings in our vulnerability to suffering and death. Surviving plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides dramatize the costs of tyranny, anger, vengeance, and cruelty—to perpetrators, as well as to victims. Commending honesty, generosity, and compassion, tragedies locate nobility not in genetic inheritance, group affiliation, socioeconomic status, numerical superiority, or even moral or ideological convictions but, rather, in our conduct as individuals. Tragedies expose the consequences of human words and actions, as characters make choices conducive to success or failure for themselves and their communities. State-sponsored and publicly performed, tragedies made self-reflection and self-criticism a fundamental feature of Athenian democratic politics and society. “What should I do?” encapsulates the central question of every ancient Greek tragedy and every moment of our own lives. This course is designed for anyone interested in understanding the false promise of authoritarianism and appreciating the origins, goals, and possibilities for a free, humane, equitable democratic society.

Powdered, ruffled, and bewigged, the ghosts of the 17th- and 18th-century playhouse still stalk the stages, screens, and red carpets of the global entertainment industry. After a period of suppression by a puritan government, London theatres came roaring back to life in the 1660s, thanks in part to England’s first professional female actors—by some accounts the original modern celebrities—and the reign of a king, Charles II, who was besotted with drama and the people who made it. Over the coming century, the practice and theory of the theatrical arts would be thoroughly and durably transformed, and a new dramatic canon would be consolidated through both print and repertory enactment. Theatre was not only big business in Enlightenment Europe but also, arguably, the representative art form of the age. Part of the public’s fascination with stagecraft lay in the unsettling questions it raised about the nature of performance itself, not only as a form of artistic practice but also as an element of social and political life: What if, for instance, our putatively God-given identities (king and subject, wife and husband) were merely factitious roles that could be adopted or discarded at will? This yearlong “large seminar” considers how authors and theatrical professionals from the 1660s to the 1790s imagined the potential of performance to transform—or sometimes to reinforce—the status quo, with a look ahead to major films, mostly from classical Hollywood, that inherited and adapted the legacy of Restoration and 18th-century entertainments. Our primary emphasis will be on plays, with a survey of major Enlightenment Era comedies (some of the funniest and most outrageous ever written), parodies, afterpieces, heroic tragedies, imperial pageants, sentimental dramas, and Gothic spectacles by authors such as William Wycherley, George Etherege, John Dryden, Aphra Behn, Susanna Centlivre, John Gay, Henry Fielding, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and Elizabeth Inchbald. We will also consider nondramatic writing on performance and theatrical culture, including 18th-century acting manuals, racy theatrical memoirs, and a “masquerade novel” by Eliza Haywood, in addition to films by directors such as Frank Capra, Howard Hawks, Ernst Lubitsch, Oscar Micheaux, F. W. Murnau, Lois Weber, and Billy Wilder. Wigs are not required.

Theatre emerges from social rituals; and as a communal exercise, theatre requires people to work together toward a common purpose in shared and demarcated physical space. Yet, the very notion of “character,” first expressed in the indelibly defining mask of the ancient Greek protagonist, points paradoxically toward the spirit, attraction, and trial of individuation. And so we have been given Medea, Hamlet, and Tartuffe, among the many dramatic characters whose unique faces we recognize and who speak to us not only of their own conflicts but also of something universal and timeless. In the 19th century, however, the Industrial Revolution, aggressive capitalism, imperialism, Darwinism, socialist revolution, feminism, the new science of psychology, and the decline of religious clarity about the nature of the human soul—all of these, among other social factors—force the question as to whether individual identity has point or meaning, even existence. Henrik Ibsen, a fiercely “objective” Norwegian self-exile, and Anton Chekhov, an agnostic Russian doctor, used theatre—that most social of arts—to challenge their time, examining assumptions about identity, its troubling reliance on social construction, and the mysteries of self-consciousness that elude resolution. The test will be to see how what we learn from them equips us—or fails to do so—in a study of August Wilson, an African American autodidact of the 20th century, whose plays represent the impact, both outrageous and insidious, of American racism on “characters” denied identity by definition.

From Karen Tei Yamashita’s novel, I Hotel, to Emmanual Han’s photographic series, America Fever, contemporary Asian American artists and writers have often mined the historical record for creative inspiration. In this course, we will explore how 20th- and 21st-century Asian American novelists, poets, photographers, and painters have turned to the arts in order to reimagine major events in US history. Beginning with the Gold Rush (1848-1855) and concluding in the early 2000s, our chronology will be expansive, as we pay particular attention to how artists and writers have turned to their chosen media forms in order to craft more inclusive representations of American history. At the same time, we will interrogate the ethical implications and historical limitations of reconstructing and reimagining the past—especially in relation to themes of migration, violence, erasure, and identity. In reading across time periods and genres, students will ultimately develop a deeper understanding of the key themes and methods that inform the interdisciplinary field of Asian American studies. Likely artists will include: Stephanie Shih, Martin Wong, Zarina, Albert Chong, Hung Liu, Linda Sok, and Phung Huynh. Likely authors will include: C. Pam Zhang, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Ocean Vuong, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Mohsin Hamid. Readings will be supplemented by primary sources and mini lectures, which will contextualize our creative readings within larger socio-historical frames.

Marches, walkouts, and occupations roiled the campus of San Francisco State University in the fall of 1968. Among the organizers’ demands was the institution of the first Black studies department in the country. More than 50 years later, Black studies has both reshaped existing disciplines and formed departments in colleges across the nation. How might returning to this history reshape our understanding of Black studies, of student movements, of American universities, and of history more generally? This interdisciplinary course seeks to answer these and more questions by studying the archival documents on Black studies at Sarah Lawrence alongside history, literature, film, and theory. In this course, students will participate in a traditional seminar and will spend one session a week in the campus archives. The latter will both engage students in rigorous archival research and result in a conference project helping to narrate the understudied history of Black Studies at Sarah Lawrence. Authors and filmmakers may include W. E. B. Du Bois, Nella Larsen, Zadie Smith, Spike Lee, Robin Kelley, and more.

Philosophy began with the Greeks as the pursuit of freedom of mind—as a rebellion against bondage to conventional belief. But is freedom of mind possible? And to what does it amount? This course, the first half of a yearlong sequence, focuses on the different ways the Greek philosophers and their Roman heirs understood freedom of mind. We will travel from the pre-Socratics through Plato, the Stoics, the Epicureans, and the Skeptics. Students will be expected to come to each class with a written question on the reading, which I may ask them to read aloud at the beginning of class in order to stimulate discussion. They may also be asked to participate in brief group presentations of the reading. The writing requirements for the class will have two components. The first of these will be made up of a short paragraph on the reading for each class and each group conference and should include the written question on the reading; the rest of the paragraph should either develop this question further or pose a further question or questions about the reading. At the end of the semester, you will be expected to submit a log of these short paragraphs, with your three favorites at the beginning of the document. The second writing requirement will be for a paper, or papers, outlining a portion of the reading and posing questions along the way. Through discussion, we will decide on the focus of these papers.

This course will continue the investigation undertaken in the fall course. For a description, see Freedom of Mind: Ancient Philosophy, fall semester; theme and writing requirements will be the same as for that course. Our focus will shift, however, to medieval and modern philosophy, with attention to Averroes (Ibn Rush’d), Montaigne, Descartes, and Shaftesbury. Either course may be taken independently, but students are, of course, invited to take both.

Does life have a purpose, a meaning? What does it mean “to be”? What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be a woman (or to be a man)? What does it mean to be Black (or to be white)? What makes us into who we are? What distinguishes each of us? And what, if anything, is in common to all of us? These and other questions are raised by existentialist philosophy and literature, mostly through interrogation of real-life experiences, situations, and “fundamental emotions” such as anxiety, boredom, loneliness, and shame. In the first half of this course, we will get acquainted with the core tenets of existentialist thought by reading two of its most influential figures: Jean-Paul Sartre (France, 1905-1980) and Martin Heidegger (Germany, 1889-1976). In the second half, we will analyze texts by authors who set out to expand or challenge these core tenets on the grounds of their experiences of oppression. These authors are Simone de Beauvoir, Frantz Fanon, and Jean Améry. Group conference will meet weekly and play a central role in this course. In it, we will mostly read literary texts or watch films that are relevant to the work of the above-listed authors. Conference material will include stories by Franz Kafka, Albert Camus, and Ralph Ellison and films such as The Battle of Algiers (1967) and Monsieur Klein (1977).

Nietzsche, in the Preface to The Genealogy of Morals, begins by attacking “English moralists.” By “English moralists” he means, I propose, David Hume in his An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. After reading the Preface and Part One of the Genealogy, we shall turn to Hume’s Enquiry in order to understand Nietzsche’s criticism and to see whether we think it is justified. Students will be required to bring a written question to each class and to present short sections of the reading. Writing requirements will consist of a log of the written questions, two outlines of portions of the reading that they present in class with questions and objections, and a conference paper.

Decolonial theory offers an intervention in standard familiar narratives about historical progress and social value. Decolonial theory also opens up conversations about what kind of future we can imagine. This seminar aims to delve into three interconnected concepts crucial for grasping the philosophical foundations of decolonial theory: Eurocentrism, modernity, and progress. After considering these foundations, we will be interested in how decolonial theory forces us to reflect on philosophy itself, its history, as well as its methods and practices. The course will be divided into three main parts. First, we will critically analyze Kant's and Hegel's ideas regarding historical progress to reveal the underlying Eurocentrism in their perspectives on enlightenment, rationality, freedom, and modernity. The second part will address the significance of Aníbal Quijano's statement that even though "formal colonial status has ended, coloniality has not." We will explore how this idea, embraced by many decolonial theorists, is a fundamental element of their efforts to uncover the underlying power of racism operating within the foundational structure of the "new world." In the third part of the course, we will explore how decolonial theory aims not only to “delink” from the knowledge framework imposed by the West but also to “reconstitute” new ways of living in a society where there is no universal standard to judge one's freedom and life. We will learn the fundamental ideas of Fanon, Césaire, Spivak, Lugones, Maldonado-Torres, Wynter, and Iman. These thinkers present alternative ways of existence without predetermined universal essences that all must adhere to be considered humans.

On the first night, we will look up and see the stars. By the last, we will know what makes them “shine,” how they came to be, and their ultimate fates. In between, we will survey the universe and humankind’s investigations of it—from ancient navigation to modern cosmology. In addition to the stars themselves, we will learn about solar-system objects such as planets, asteroids, moons, and comets; the comparative astronomy of different eras and cultures; the properties, lifetimes, and deaths of galaxies, quasars, and black holes; and theories and evidence concerning the origin, evolution, and fate of the universe. In addition to readings and examination of multimedia material, students will be members of teams conducting astronomical observation and experiments—at first with an astrolabe, then a simple telescope, and finally with the most powerful telescopes on and around the Earth. Emphasis will be placed on modes of scientific communication, so that each student will participate in debates, present posters, write papers, and participate in the peer-review process. In addition, students will experience famous astronomical debates through role-play. Since science is a collaborative process, group work—both small and large—will be a central feature of this course.

Despite frequent pleas from President Biden and even (former) Speaker McCarthy for national social and political unity and the rise of groups like Bridge USA, Third Way, and No Labels, the seemingly never-ending sociopolitical polarization appears to be the new norm in American political life—and it may not have reached its violent peak back in January 2021. To many politicians, pundits, and others alike, the social and political scene in the United States in the 21st century appears to be one of turmoil, disagreement, division, and instability. We regularly hear about a polarized and deadlocked political class; we read about increasing class and religious differences—from the alleged divides between Wall Street and Main Street to those who are secular and those who are religious; and we often see disturbing, dangerous, and violent images and actions from various politically-oriented groups. This seminar will explore the puzzle of how to move on from this divided state. While the course will briefly examine the veracity of these recent impressions of the American sociopolitical scene, we will center our course on the question: Is policymaking forever deadlocked, or can real political progress be made? Moreover, what are the social and policy implications of polarization? How does President Biden govern in this Trumpian political epoch, and are the political parties representing the will of the people? What about the impact of the 2022 elections? What are we to make of the frequent calls for change and for healing America’s divisions? This seminar seeks to examine these questions and deeper aspects of American political culture today. After reviewing some basics of the political economy, we will study American political cultures from a variety of vantage points—and a number of different stories will emerge. We will cover a lot of ground—from America’s founding to today. We will look at numerous aspects of American social and political life—from examining the masses, political elites, Congress, and policymaking communities to social movements, the media, and America’s position in a global community—all with a focus on policy and moving the country forward. This course will be driven by data, not dogma. We will use modern political-economy approaches based in logic and evidence to find answers to contemporary public-policy problems and questions of polarization. We will treat this material as social scientists, not as ideologues.

The President is the most prominent actor in the US government, and developing an understanding of how and why political leaders make the choices that they do is the goal of this course. Presidents must make countless decisions while in office and, as presidential scholars George C. Edwards III and Stephen J. Wayne explain, “Executive officials look to [the presidency] for direction, coordination, and general guidance in the implementation of policy...Congress looks to it for establishing priorities, exerting influence...the heads of foreign governments look to it for articulating positions, conducting diplomacy, and flexing muscle; the general public looks to it for...solving problems and exercising symbolic and moral leadership....” This course will examine and analyze the development and modern practice of presidential leadership in the United States by studying the evolution of the modern presidency, which includes the process of presidential selection and the structure of the presidency as an institution. We will then reflect on the ways in which presidents make decisions and seek to shape foreign, economic, and domestic policy, which will be based on a variety of literatures, ranging from social psychology to organizational behavior. We will look at the psychology and character of presidents in this section of the course. We will also explore the relationship of the presidency to other major governmental institutions and organized interests. We will pay particular attention to how presidents have attempted to expand presidential power and the various struggles that the White House has had with the ministry, Congress, the Judicary, and global institutions such as the United Nations. We will pay particular attention to a particular set of presidents: Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, and Donald Trump. We will conclude by examining the post-9/11 era of Bush, Obama, and Trump, where each of these presidents have greatly sought to increase the power of the Oval Office relative to other branches of government. While the course is open to all students, the workload is intense and prior background in American history and politics is preferable.

There was a reason why Edmund Burke famously called the press “The Fourth Estate” of government during a debate in Parliament in 1787 and why it remains true. For all its self-proclaimed and often real independence, the press is as much a part of the power systems that run society, politics, and the economy as the executive, the legislature, and the judiciary; political and social organizations; the police; churches; and corporations. With that in mind, this course will examine the role of the press (now newspapers, radio, TV, and an endless array of digital outlets) in the creation and perpetuation of anti-Black racism in the United States. Even with the most well-meaning attempts to stay above the fray, the media is not merely a passive pipeline for events and data. They construct the news and, in doing so, are as much as part of the institutions of racism as any other group with power and privilege in a racist society. How do the media reflect the social, economic, and political currents of the day; and how, in turn, do the media influence them? This is not a practicum class in journalism, but we will study and ask questions about journalistic practices, institutions, and language structure to see how the language and agenda of racism were reflected in journalism. Do journalists, in turn, perpetuate that language and, in fact, foster it either wittingly or passively? Do the media help sustain overt and systemic racism, even as many cover, with obvious approval, things like the civil-rights movement of the 1960s and the Black Lives Matter movement of today? Readings for this class will include large parts of two books: The History of White People, by Nell Irwin Painter, and White by Law, by Ian Haney Lopez—but will primarily be original news and opinion content from the late 19th century until today. Students should be prepared to consume media coverage every day—mainstream and otherwise and from left, center, and right—and bring examples to class on a weekly basis to discuss with the group. Class participation is vital in this class, along with an eagerness to read widely and to do research. There will be two short essays and, of course, the mandatory conference project.

This yearlong seminar course offers a unique perspective on the history of the United States, focusing on the social movements that have significantly influenced this nation and its policies. Despite the consistent dominance of the wealthy ruling class, people’s movements have persistently advanced—and at times achieved—social justice. We will delve into the formation of these movements, their tactics, and their lasting effects, making the course directly relevant to the social issues of today. In the fall, we will begin by focusing on the revolutionary Atlantic uprisings of the 18th century that led up to the revolutionary abolition of slavery throughout much of the Americas, as well as the Federalist counter-revolution that preserved slavery in the United States. Considering how the civil disobedience tradition laid the foundations for democratic currents in the United States will lead us to a people’s understanding of abolitionism, including a focus on the Underground Railroad and the guerrilla warfare that led up to the Civil War. Our second unit will focus on the blossoming of the women’s rights movement and the eventual “progressive” turn in US governance in the early 20th century as a result of a great deal of radical agitation. We’ll finish the semester focusing on the labor movement’s major uprisings and strikes, noting how these movements led up to the New Deal era and the mid-20th century’s social order. The first half of the spring semester will then take up the many people’s movements against this order throughout the 1960s-1970s, including the Civil Rights movement, Black Power, Chicano rights, prisoner’s rights, the LGBTQ movement, the antiwar movement, environmentalism, and second-wave feminism. We’ll then track these movements forward into the following decades, as we consider ACT UP, Earth First!, the LA uprising, the Anti-Globalization movement, and immigrant rights. Finally, we’ll consider people power in the recent decades of the 21st century, including recent movements for economic and racial justice and recent movements against fascism and colonialism. By the end of the year, we’ll have established a comprehensive, comparative understanding of social movements in US history. Requirements for the course include daily participation, discussion posts, and group presentations. For the conference project, the simplest path will be to work on a final research essay for each semester. We can work out other options for those students looking for a different path, including a yearlong major essay, visual projects, or creative work. Major texts may include A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn, The Moral Property of Women: A History of Birth Control Politics in America by Linda Gordon, Poor People’s Movements by Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward, Incarcerating the Crisis by Jordan Camp, Power to the Poor: Black-Brown Coalition and the Fight for Economic Justice by Gordon Mantler, and An African-American and Latinx History of the United States by Paul Ortiz.

The Hebrew Bible stands at the foundation of Western culture. Its stories permeate our literature, our art...indeed, our sense of identity. Its ideas inform our laws, have given birth to our revolutions and social movements, and have thereby made most of our social institutions possible (as well as the movements to remove them). What is this book? How was it written? Who wrote it? Who preserved it for us? Why has all or part of this body of literature been considered holy to the practitioners of Judaism and Christianity? Four thousand years ago, various groups from small tribe-wandering nomads would get together and tell stories. These stories were not preserved on stone tombs but, rather, in the hearts and memories of the people to whom they belonged. We will read the collection of traditions in a book called Genesis and compare these stories with other texts (written in mud and stone), such as The Epic of Gilgamesh and The Babylonian Creation Epic, which were contemporary with biblical traditions. We will read the Biblical epic of liberation, Exodus; the historical books that weave theology into a history of a nation; and the oracles of the great Hebrew Prophets of Israel—those reformers, judges, priests, mystics, and poets to whom modern culture owes its grasp of justice. We will trace the social, intellectual, and political history of the people formed by these traditions from the Late Bronze Age until the Roman Age. The conferences for this course will meet weekly until October Study Days and then biweekly for the rest of the school year.

This course will provide a survey of the history of the Jewish people, beginning with the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE and ending with the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 CE—an event which some scholars have argued represented the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the modern world. The class will be focused on two central questions: Firstly, what does it mean when a community that was once oriented around the Temple and the Holy Land went into exile and had to reconstitute itself as a community grounded in the text and the book? Secondly, what does it mean for the Jews to be a people; and how does the idea of peoplehood relate to emergent concepts of nationhood, religion, race, and ethnicity? The class will focus heavily on the emergence of the form of rabbinic literary interpretation known as midrash and the diverse modes of reading Jewish texts that emerged after the destruction of the Temple; the place of Jews under both Christian and Muslim rule; and the forms of Jewish philosophy, literature, and mystical thought that flourished in these differing cultural contexts. We will discuss the historical development of Jewish law (halakhah), how it emerged through contested interpretations of Jewish texts, and how legal concepts had to evolve to respond to the changing sociopolitical conditions under which Jews lived. Though the class will discuss anti-Jewish persecution and violence across the centuries, we will also focus on moments of cultural interchange and cooperation. Students will read both primary sources, including rabbinic texts and Jewish philosophical and mystical treatises, as well as selected secondary source materials. This course is designed to be taken as part of a two-semester sequence with Jewish History II in the spring semester, but students are permitted to enroll in only one semester or the other, based on interest.

This course will provide a survey of the modern history of the Jewish people, beginning with the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 and continuing until the present day. In so doing, we will focus heavily on the question of what modernity itself means and how modern concepts—such as nationalism and the nation-state, race and ethnicity, religious liberty, and individualism and collectivism—were, in many senses, defined in relation to the Jewish people, with Jewish minority communities serving as test cases for questions of what it means to be a modern human. The class will focus extensively on the process of Jewish emancipation and citizenship and on the philosophical and cultural changes underpinning this process. Yet, we will not focus merely on Jews as passive observers of these historical processes but, rather, as active agents shaping their own histories and their own struggles for rights. We will examine ways in which Jewish law had to be adapted to fit into emergent concepts of civil law and how Jews responded to and contested some of those changes. The class will delve into the relationship of Jews to Enlightenment philosophy, the emergence of distinctively Jewish political ideologies such as Zionism and Bundism, and the relationship of Jews to both European and Middle Eastern nationalisms. We will discuss the Holocaust, but we will situate it in relation to broader historical processes of nationalism and violence; and we will discuss the relationship of Jews in Europe to Jews in the Middle East and North Africa. Though not primarily a class on contemporary Israeli politics, we will discuss the formation of the modern state of Israel and the way in which the founding of the Jewish state shapes the identity of Jews who have chosen in remain in diaspora. Throughout the semester, we will continually ask these central questions: What does it mean to be a modern human, and how does the concept of modernity necessarily construct itself in relation to the Jewish people? This course is designed to be taken as part of a two-semester sequence with Jewish History I in the fall semester, but students are permitted to enroll in only one semester or the other, based on interest.

Texts commonly seen to contain “mystical elements” have to do with the desire on the part of the reader to “know,” experience, or “be with” God, along with the author’s attempt to properly demarcate the boundaries within which these desires can be fulfilled. Christian mysticism is perhaps best thought of as erotic theology; it concerns the aspect of theology that involves the desire for God. Recognizing this, we must also be acknowledged that inherent to this theology is a profound paradox. What is desired must be conceived. It must be held in the grasp of one’s understanding in order to be attained. While this is fine for an orange or even wealth and power, it is much more problematic when the object of desire is God, the creator of the universe. Theologians in the Early Church developed a language of desire and specific sets of practices involving one’s lifestyle and prayer in order to resolve this paradox and fulfill the desire. Early Christian theologians began to ponder this paradox with a synthesis of a Biblical theology of divine revelation (i.e., the revelation of God as preserved in the Biblical canon, symbolized in both the revelation of YHWH on Mt. Sinai and in the incarnation of the Divine Logos as Jesus of Nazareth) and Platonic rhetoric with respect to the expression of a desire for the ultimate good, truth, or beauty. The mystery is informed, on the one hand, by the anthropology of desire set forth by Plato in, for example, the Symposium and the Phaedrus. Educated in the Hellenistic world, the Early Church Fathers took these ideas for granted and attempted to find common ground with their Christian inheritance. As such, we will begin our study by applying ourselves to this general background, including the phenomenon of Gnostic Christianity. We will then move on to encounter the great early Christian writers—such as Origen and Athanasius of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa, Psuedo-Dionysius, Ambrose of Milan—and conclude our study with a lengthy look at what, for Western culture, is the seminal work of Augustine of Hippo.

In this lecture, students will be introduced to key areas of study in the sociology of “deviance,” detention, and illegality. We will be taking a global and transnational perspective on examining the ways in which social groups define, categorize, and reinforce deviance and illegality, from the treatment of minority and persecuted groups to the detention and expulsion of populations such as undocumented migrants and refugees. Students will learn about foundational theories and concepts in the field, starting with a reading of Émile Durkheim’s classical study of suicide and the idea of anomie, followed by Robert Merton’s strain theory and then contemporary ones such as conflict theory, labeling theory, and the infamous “broken-windows” theory. The class will take a critical approach to reflecting and challenging ideas about deviance and illegality by examining global and transnational forms of population governance, such as ongoing mutations to human rights and the technocratic management of displaced populations through humanitarianism around the world. We will be reading about major sectors of transnational deviance and crime, including industrial fishing and trafficking on the high seas (Ian Urbina’s The Outlaw Ocean), exploitation and profiteering through international logistics (Carolyn Nordstrom’s Global Outlaws), and transnational sex work and trafficking (Christine Chin and Kimberly Hoang). This critical lens is intended to help us understand how different groups and populations are rendered “deviant” or “illegal” for the purposes of management and control (or political leverage) and to what extent groups themselves are able to resist or challenge those categorizations. Finally, we will be looking at how social movements and acts of resistance can produce widescale changes in societies toward the treatment and categorization of people seen as “deviants,” “criminals,” or “illegals”—including struggles against apartheid, hunger strikes in prisons, and protest movements for undocumented groups. Additionally, we will be discussing how social transformations wrought by three years of living under a global pandemic has led to the emergence of new forms of deviance related to biopolitical and biotechnological notions of population health and well-being. For conference work in this lecture, students will work in groups to produce portfolios of research on an area of study related to deviance, detention, and illegality. Each portfolio will include presentations and discussions of the chosen area of study, as well as critical essays written by each student that bring in conceptual and theoretical discussions drawn from the class.

In public discourse, we are bombarded with assertions of the newly “global” nature of the contemporary world. This assertion assumes that former stable categories of personhood, ideational systems, nation, identity, and space are now fragmented and transcended by intensified travel, digital technology, and cross-cultural contact. This seminar is based on the premise that people have traveled throughout history; current global moves are but the most recent manifestation of a phenomenon that has historically occurred in many forms and places. This long(er) view of mobility will allow us to rethink and reexamine not only our notions of travel but their shifting connotations and significance across time and space. We will explore how supposed stable categories—such as citizen, refugee, nation, and commodity—are constructed and consider several theoretical approaches that help us make sense of these categorizations, the processes accompanying their normalization and dissemination, and their underlying assumptions. Our questions will include: What are the political, navigational, and epistemological foundations that go into mapmaking and schemas of classification? How do nomads change into settled city dwellers or wageworkers? How does time become disciplined? How does travel change into tourism? How do commodities travel and acquire meaning? What is the relationship between legal and illicit moves? How do technologies of violence, such as weapons and drugs, circulate? What is the meaning of their circulation in different contexts? How do modern technologies enable time/space compression? What are the shifting logics of globalization? What is their relationship to our notions and constructions of authenticity, subjectivity, and identity? During the fall semester, we will begin by developing an analytical approach toward our topic (which we will continue to develop throughout the year). We will then consider the implications of classification, categorization, and mapping. For the remainder of the semester, we will follow the travel(s) of ideas, commodities, and people. In the process, we will begin to think about questions of time/space compression. In the spring, we will return to some of the themes of the fall semester but examine them in a different context and through a different lens. Among our concerns in the spring semester will be issues of fusion and hybridization in cultural practices regarding people and things (e.g., food, music, romance, families); shifting places (e.g., borders, travel, and tourism); time/space compression through new technologies of travel and communication; and drugs, terror, violence, and poverty. As our sources, we will rely primarily on interdisciplinary analytical writings but will also include travel narratives, literature, and films.

The concept of space will serve as the point of departure for this course. Space can be viewed in relation to the (human) body, social relations and social structures, and the physical environment. In this seminar, we will examine the material (social, political, and economic) and metaphorical (symbolic and representational) dimensions of spatial configurations in urban settings. In our analysis, we will address the historical and shifting connotations of urban space and urban life and their material dimensions. In our examination of spatial relations within urban settings, we will also examine practices and processes whereby social “space” is created, gendered, revisioned. “Space,” in this latter sense, will no longer be seen solely as physical space but also be (re)viewed through the construction of meanings that impact our use of and relations in both physical and social settings. While economic factors will continue to be of significance to our analysis, we will emphasize extra-economic relations and constructs—including power, gender, and sexuality. The focus will encompass both macroanalyses and interrogation of everyday life, including the significance of public-private distinctions. In the latter part of the seminar, particular attention will be paid to attempts by scholars and activists to open up space both theoretically and concretely. Although the analytical questions at the core of this seminar lend themselves to an analysis of any city, our focus in class will be largely, although not exclusively, on New York City. Students are encouraged, however, to examine the relevance of our readings to other spaces, including places in which they have lived. In their conference work, students can elect to study space- and place-making in different contexts and/or with respect to themes that are of particular interest to them.

This seminar offers a deep dive into the multifaceted world of social connections that span across national borders, challenging the traditional notions of space, identity, and community. The seminar’s core focus is on understanding how transnational networks operate within and influence various spheres of global society, including migration, economic practices, digital communication, and social movements. Through a critical examination of these networks, the course aims to shed light on the complexities of global interconnectedness, the role of technology in facilitating transnational ties, and the implications of these networks for social change and policy-making. In order to become equipped with a nuanced understanding of global social dynamics, students will engage with contemporary sociological theories and methodologies to analyze the formation, evolution, and impacts of transnational social networks in order. The seminar will incorporate a range of scholarly articles, book chapters, and case studies to explore topics such as the dynamics of diaspora communities and their influence on homeland politics; the economic ramifications of transnational remittances; the role of social media in fostering transnational activism and solidarity; and the impacts of transnational networks on cultural identity and integration processes. Readings include works by Alejandro Portes and Min Zhou on the concept of “social capital” within immigrant communities, Arjun Appadurai's theories on the cultural dimensions of globalization, Faranak Miraftab's notion of “transnational relationality,“ and Manuel Castells’ insights into the network society.

This is a course about sports as practice, which is used here in a multiple sense. As an embodied activity, sporting practice is felt and experienced in and through the body, which is its primary but not sole “habitus”—a term the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu popularized when elaborating on his notion of “cultural capital.” In this course, taking the sporting body and Bourdieu’s concept of habitus (taste, habits, skills, dispositions) as our point of departure, we will examine sports and its habitation of worlds that reach far beyond the individual (body) in both time and space. We will examine sports along multiple axes: as a collective and/or individuated activity; as a source of leisure and recreation; as a source of profitable employment; as a site of identity and nation-building projects; and as a space that engenders transnational mobilities and interconnections, as well as ruptures. In its commoditized contemporary form, sports is more often than not controlled by big money and/or the state and is part and parcel of what Debord refers to as the “society of the spectacle,” a site of production, consumption, and entertainment. The complex relationship between sports as experienced through the body and as a set of disciplinary practices will allow us to think through the relation of the individual, the collective, and institutionalized power, linking these to questions of body politics. Taking seriously the internal dynamics and meaning of sports, we will engage sports as a contradictory field, as both a productive space and a space of consumption. Our readings will include scholarly works, sports journalism, films, documentaries, and other primary sources. Possible conference topics include sports and politics; analysis of particular sports events (e.g., Olympics, women’s basketball, World Cup); (auto)biographies and/or oral histories of athletes; sports and protest; “fitness,” health, and the body; gender, race, sexuality, (dis)ability and sports; nationalism(s), national “styles” and sports; and the phenomenology of sports.

What might it mean for a writer to be useful to a state? How have states used writers, witting and unwitting, in projects aimed at influence and hegemony? How might a state make use of language as a weapon? What might it mean for a writer to attempt to avoid being useful to a state? How might a state inflect and influence the intimacy between a writer and what we may write? In this class, we’ll discuss an array of choices that writers have made in relation to state power, focusing particularly on the United States from just after World War II until the present. You'll be asking to read excerpts from five books: Joel Whitney’s Finks: How the CIA Tricked the World’s Best Writers; Frances Stonor Saunders’s The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters; Eric Bennett’s  Workshops of Empire: Stegner, Engle, and American Creative Writing During the Cold War; Vivian Gornick’s The Romance of American Communism; and Peter Dale Scott’s long poem, Coming to Jakarta. Group conferences will function as writing workshops and to offer feedback on your letters in progress, in addition to various writing exercises. This is not a history or a literature class; our lens will be that of a writer, using deep study and playful practice to figure out the dilemmas and best practices of the present.

From Milton (Satan) to Dryden to Dr. Johnson to Coleridge to De Quincey to Melville (Ahab) to Woolf to Auden to Jerome Robbins, Leonard Bernstein, and Stephen Sondheim to Kurosawa (Throne of Blood and Ran) to Peter Brook (The Mahabharata) to Julie Taymor to Taylor Swift...writers, artists, performers, and thinkers in the West, the East, and the South have gained enormous mileage by appropriating, purloining, replying to, adapting, being enraged by, and escaping Shakespeare—or merely by living under his shade. We will plunge into the enormous and still billowing artistic energy generated by this person. We will look at eight major plays, one a week, from every phase of his career—with a sampling of their critical and scholarly paraphernalia—and examine the writerly problems he faced and how he solved them and examine closely his incomparable rhetorical skills. We will try to pluck the heart out of the mystery of this most mysterious artist in order to help ourselves as artists. Conference projects, designed to be presented to the class, can comprehend poetic responses, fictive or dramatic responses, films and multimedia concoctions, or critical or essayistic responses to the entire body of work or to one of its many elements. It has been said that Shakespeare invented the idea of the human. We will think about this. Sonnet sequences are welcome.