REVISED: 4/2/09
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All courses worth 4 credits unless noted
Please be sure to check prerequisites and other enrollment limitations
Femme Fatale - LAIC 3311
Colette Brooks, 2:00 pm - 3:40 pm
This course examines the iconic femme fatale figure as she appears in dramatic literature and pop culture from the Greeks to the present day. Students explore the question of why this alluring but treacherous siren has persisted, with scant alteration, over centuries. What is threatening about her, and to whom? How does this archetype stand in relation to the lives women typically lead?
Virginia Woolf once observed that women were accorded a power in literature that they were never allowed in life. Why? Students read plays, see Hollywood movies, and look at related literature in such fields as psychology and cultural studies.
Beauty and the Cyborg - LCST 2100 A
Susan Sherman, MW 8:00 am - 9:40 am
In recent years, largely as a reaction to the need for a body of theory to cope with the demands of new technologies and, consequently, new art forms, the concept of beauty has emerged once again as a topic of discussion. Because the question of beauty has been traditionally tied into oppressive racial and gender stereotypes, this discussion has profound social consequences.
Concurrently, debates concerning the relationship of human and machine, what constitutes masculinity and femininity, the mind-body duality have been brought to the forefront. Students combine reading materials with instruction in the practical use of new technologies, including digital photography and computer-generated imagery, to explore these issues both in theory and practice.
Globalization, Media, and Gender -- LCST 3121
Tuija Parikka
Cultures and economies are mingling and becoming interdependent. Goods, services, technologies, cultural forms, ideas, and people are flowing in novel ways, though the meaning and consequences of this globalization are contested. This course examines globalized media representations and discourses, particularly in relation to gender. It starts with theories of global media, the knowledge economy, and global media cultures. It then focuses on post-feminism and popular culture as shaping, and being shaped by, new languages of belonging and identification as these have emerged in music, soap opera, television, and the Internet. Central methods of investigation include critical media theory, visual analysis, and relevant case studies. Prerequisite:
Introduction to Cultural Studies.
Europe's Long Nineteenth Century, from the French Revolution to the Great War LHIS 2058
Ann-Louise Shapiro 14:00-15:40 MW
This course examines the emergence of modern Europe from the French Revolution of 1789 to the
Great War of 1914-18. According to historian Eric Hobsbawm, the nineteenth century witnessed
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more fundamental changes in the social and material conditions of life than did the preceding thousand years. This course examines these changes, looking at the far-reaching consequences of political revolution and industrial transformation. It traces the development of identities of gender, class and race, the growth of cities, and the emergence of a new, urban mass culture. It examines nation- building and imperial expansion, and explores the ideological frameworks -- liberalism, socialism, romanticism, nationalism through which people made sense of their world. It concludes with an investigation of the dark side of the modern, as European conflicts erupted in world war.
Citizenship in America: Gender, Race, and Collective Identity - LHIS 3113 A
Elaine Abelson, TR 
 2:00 pm - 3:40 pm
This seminar explores the history of American women from the early republic to the present day, focusing on three periods: the aftermath of the Revolutionary War, the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, and the decades following WWII. Students examine social, economic, and political issues among and across groups of women and men in order to explore and evaluate structures of inequality, racial categories, and sexual identity. The course focuses on reading and analyzing primary sources and examining how historians use these sources to write history. The goal is to develop critical and analytical skills and to understand the racial and gender dimensions of
American history--the processes by which a White Man's Republic was initially constituted and subsequently challenged.
Shaping of the Modern City -- LHIS 3003
Elaine Abelson 10:00-11:40 TR
Contrary to popular belief, myth, and political rhetoric, cities and urban forms have been central to
American life and experience. From the colonial period to the present day cities have occupied a significant place in the forward thrust of the American empire; in economic, social and cultural development; and in the American imagination. While many of the great urban concentrations created in the 19th century have lost their industry, their tax base, and in some cases their population, new and quite different cities, suburbs, and exurbs have emerged. This course will examine historically those forces which have given shape to American cities and urban consciousness; we will consider how ideas about the city (and the countryside) changed as
Americans confronted the industrial, the post-industrial, and, more recently, the global city.
Politics of Difference - LHIS 4507 * 3 Credits
Aristide Zolberg, M 4:00 pm - 5:50 pm
Prerequisite(s): Open to Juniors and seniors only.
Quite unexpectedly, at the dawn of the 21st century, issues of "difference" have emerged in the central political arena of many states, both long-established and post-colonial, with democratic as well as authoritarian regimes, occasionally leading to major conflicts. Many of these reflect challenges to unequal institutional arrangements concerning language, religion, gender, or ancestry of established populations arrived at in earlier periods; but some reflect a broadening of differences occasioned by recent immigration. The course considers these matters in a comparative perspective, drawing examples from North America, the European Union, and sub-
Saharan Africa, with emphasis on "differences among differences" -i.e., normatively fair solutions to differences of gender, language, religion, and ancestry entail significantly different institutional arrangements. It also takes into consideration "global interactivity," i.e. that the internal political dynamics of a given country are often significantly affected by developments elsewhere.
Crosslisted with the New School for Social Research.
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Victorian Masculinities -- LLSL 2662
Herb Sussman 8:00-9:40 TR
The course examines the origins of contemporary masculinities in British nineteenth-century literature. Students read literature dealing with the self-made man; male-male friendship; the divided male self; aestheticism; gay culture; and the hero or Empire. Readings include such works and authors as Dickens, Great Expectations; Robert Browning's poetry; Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde;
Walter Pater; Wilde, Picture of Dorian Gray; Dracula; Kipling; poetry of Empire; H. Rider Haggard,
She.
From Adorno to Sontag - LLSL 2526
Noah Isenberg, F 
 12:00 pm - 2:40 pm
This course provides a broad survey of 20th- and early 21st century literary and cultural criticism, with considerable emphasis on scholarly method and theoretical orientation. It charts the developments made in the name of Russian Formalism, New Criticism, Marxism, feminism, deconstruction and post-Colonialism, while also focusing on the tradition of non-academic criticism, of intellectual journalism, the personal essay and belles letters. Among the diverse critics examined are Theodor W. Adorno, Roland Barthes, Walter Benjamin, Judith Butler, Jacques Derrida, Terry
Eagleton, T.S. Eliot, Michel Foucault, Siegfried Kracauer, Edward Said, Viktor Shklovsky, and
Susan Sontag. This course includes a required online component.
The Psychology of Women -- LPSY 3117
Catherine Bitney MW 12:00-13:40
This course uses a multidisciplinary lens to examine the intersection of women and psychology in the United States. Topics include the historical under-representation of women in psychology as a profession, the exclusion of women as subjects within research, the diagnosis of women with particular disorders, and issues currently affecting women’s mental health. Students examine how identities including race, ethnicity, class, disability, sexual orientation, and gender expression intersect to impact women’s psychological well-being. Materials for the course include visual media/film, poetry, fiction, academic journals and the DSM-IV-TR (the current classification system for psychiatric disorders).
Women's Spirituality and Contemporary Religion -- LREL 2051
Katherine Kurs TR 14:00-15:40
Beginning with the second wave of the feminist movement in the early 1960s, this course explores the contours of women ’ s spirituality within mainstream and alternative religious traditions in contemporary America, including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Wicca/neo-Paganism, and
Buddhism. Using essays and texts by Euro-American women and women of color, traditionalists, reformers, and radicals, we will consider a range of issues at the intersection of religion and gender including: the role of hierarchy and authority; the individual in relation to her religio-spiritual community; inclusivity and the boundaries of normative religious practice; tradition, innovation, and continuity; the role of ritual and concepts of the sacred; and issues involving race, power, class, and social justice.
Biology of Beauty, Sex and Death -- LSCI 2830
Katayoun Chamany MW 16:00-17:40
Advances in technology have pushed basic scientific research into the public eye. In this century,
Botox has been engineered to remove wrinkles and body odor, but the active agent is one of the
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deadliest bio-warfare tools. Stem cells promise hope of regeneration and eternal life, but human cloning remains controversial. The rate of sexually transmitted disease infections continues to escalate and some have been linked to cancers that are threatening female populations in the developing world. Video clips and news articles kick off each of three modules, while readings of research and news articles, op-eds, and textbook selections provide students with the background needed for informed decisions. Each module culminates with a capstone experience that requires the student to formulate an action plan in the form of a policy report, research proposal, or letter to a policy maker.
Power + Knowledge: Introduction to the History of Science -- LHIS 2023
Orit Halpern 10:00-11:40 TR
This course will examine the relationship between science, technology, and society through a historical lens. Our main focus will be to expose how ideas of nature, culture, and the human have changed over time; and to interrogate the implications of these epistemological shifts. This historical inquiry will develop a critical approach to understanding complex socio-technological systems in the present. Exploring topics such as eugenics, bio-technology, and computing we will interrogate how historical study helps us politically and ethically engage with the most pressing contemporary questions concerning how we use, and imagine, our technical future. The course will pay particular attention to the historical construction of race, gender, sexuality, and to the transformations between human beings and machines.
Understanding Inequality -- LURB 3038
Orville Lee F 15:00-17:40
This course centers on the definition of inequality and the politics of social policy in the United
States, with a particular emphasis on the urban context. Readings and discussions explore the following topics: the semantic and institutional origins of the welfare state; the relationship between inequality, race, and urban life; the impact of political activism and community organizing on social policy and inequality; gender and economic inequality; and debates over the effectiveness of social policies intended to alleviate economic inequality. This course satisfies some of the requirements in
Literary Studies: Writing concentration.
Introduction to Feminist Thought and Action
Ann Snitow -- ULEC 2510
Feminism is not a single-voiced, coherent body of doctrine but rather a proliferation of thinking and actions in response to what seems to be the near-universal fact of women’s subordination, past and present, in societies which arrange gender relations in a wide variety of ways. Feminism’s lack of unity as a movement has been a strength and a weakness, and organized resistance to sexism has come and gone. Right now, in both the United States and internationally, there is renewed critical self-consciousness about gender. This course examines a variety of feminisms that have evolved in the last 35 years—exploring key debates and tracking both the growth of feminist movements and their confrontations with backlash. Students discuss readings on reproduction, the gendering of work, the “sex wars” in feminism, theoretical takes on “the death of feminism,” controversies about the relevance of feminism in different parts of the world, the meaning (and strengths and weaknesses) of the “identity politics” of race and gender, recent discussions of “the body,” etc. The course includes visiting speakers, films, and several field trips.
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All courses worth 3 credits unless noted
Please be sure to check prerequisites and other enrollment limitations
Jane Austen and the Romantic-Era Novel -- NLIT3237
Carolyn Berman, Weds., 4 - 5:50 p.m.
Somerset Maugham wondered how “the daughter of a rather dull and perfectly respectable father” and “a silly mother" managed to write Pride and Prejudice. In this course, we explore the mystery of one of Britain‘s greatest writers by reading Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Manfield Park, and
Persuasion, as well as sections from her Letters. Keeping a historical perspective in mind, we address critical responses to Austen beginning with Charlotte Brontë‘s dismissal of her as “a carefully fenced, highly cultivated garden.” We discuss Austen‘s aesthetic genius: her precise prose, her superb use of wit and irony, and her moral certitude combined with a comic use of chance. We examine how the author embraced the female conventions of her day, and how, in more subtle ways, she challenged them. Was W.H. Auden correct in his assessment: “Beside her
Joyce seems innocent as grass”?
Foundations in Gender Studies -- NHUM3061
Tracyann F. Williams Thursdays, 6-7:50 PM
What does it mean to think critically about gender and sexuality in a period of cultural instability?
We examine the broad topics and controversies which, historically, have come to define “Women's
Studies,” and those that have contributed to the recent shift to the broader designation, "Gender
Studies" especially in the social sciences and humanities. Important factors contributing to this shift are discussed—for example, the influx of gay, lesbian, and transgender studies, the impact of multicultural feminist thought, the rise of postmodernism and critiques of identity politics, and the emergence of "men's studies." We learn the critical framework for thinking about questions related to gender. Central to the course is an examination of personal narratives--memoirs, autobiographies, oral histories, ethnographies, photographs--and their relation to experience, identity, politics, and social change.
The Origins of Secular Society: A Jewish Intellectual History -- NHUM3502
Gina Walker, Tues., 6 - 7:50 p.m.
How did secular pluralism evolve? What are the experiences that fostered early European multicultural toleration? Were there particular historical crises from which the necessity to tolerate others‘ perspectives emerged? We respond to these questions by examining an alternative narrative to traditional Western intellectual history. We consider how in times of great oppression and persecution some Jewish thinkers advanced a contingent appreciation of religious as well as cultural difference as a matter of expedience and, in some cases, secular conviction. One inadvertent effect of some of these reactions was to take critical distance from religion altogether.
We look at several historical contexts in the history of toleration to identify idiosyncratic reactions by individual Jewish thinkers and actors, and the differences between women and men. Readings include selections from works by Moses ben Maimon or Maimonides (1135-1204); Menahem ben
Solomon Ha-Me‘iri (1249-1316); Jean Bodin (1529/1530-1596; Glückel of Hameln (1646-1724);
Solomon Maimon (1753-1800); Baruch Spinoza (1632-77); Hertha Ayrton, née Marks (1854-1923); and modern commentators on the history of toleration and Jewish intellectual history.
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Performing Gender: Paris in the Roaring Twenties -- NHUM3035
Terri Gordon *Online* 08/31-12/18
The Jazz Age in Paris was, in the words of Maurice Sachs, “the decade of illusion.” It was the era of dancings, le bal nègre, Mistinguett, the Charleston, Josephine Baker, and jazz; it was the era of
Cocteau, Picasso, Man Ray, Kiki, and the Russian ballet; it was the era of Paul Poiret, Coco
Chanel, and the flapper. This course provides a cultural overview of Paris in the Roaring Twenties, with a focus on the representation of women on stage and in literary texts. Our study includes surrealist art and literature, avant-garde film, performance art, jazz music, and cultural criticism.
We examine a number of paradigms that arise in the literature of the period, from “the New
Woman” to the female phantom to the machine woman to the Black Venus. We pay close attention to both primary sources and cultural reception. Slides of art and lithographs of the period are shown. Readings include Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast, Colette’s Cheri, Breton’s Nadja,
Djuna Barnes’ Nightwood, and Langston Hughes’ poetry. There is a creative, role-playing component to the course as well.
Passing: (Re)Constructing Identity -- NHUM3031
Tracyann Williams, Weds., 6 - 7:50 p.m.
Passing, a term traditionally used to describe fair-skinned Blacks posing as whites, is, in fact, part of a broader cultural phenomenon that has its origins in the pursuit of .the American Dream. For the sake of economic comforts, racially, ethnically, and sexually diverse individuals submerge certain aspects of their identity in order to pass into the community of whiteness. Passing comes with obvious advantages, but for some, great personal sacrifice. We read Helen Fremont’s memoir detailing the ethnic (and religious) journey taken by her parents, Nella Larsen’s multilayered novel
Passing, and Diane Wood Middlebrook’s biography of gender-crossing jazz musician Billy Tipton.
We examine how particular individuals become white while whiteness remains unattainable by others. We draw on whiteness studies, an interdisciplinary field that decenters hegemonic markers connected to white dominance, and through this lens, we explore the racial, ethnic, and sexual biases embedded in our culture that have propelled individuals to reinvent themselves. At the dawn of the 21st century, these biases are supposedly less potent. We test this assumption by examining passing in the contemporary context.
Love and Lust in Chinese Literature and Film -- NHUM3006
I-Hsien Wu Tuesdays, 6-7:50
This seminar explores the notions of love and desire in late-imperial, modern, and contemporary
China. Often translated as love, passion, emotion, or feeling, qing is one of the key terms in traditional Chinese culture, which continues to influence literature and film today. In the early
Confucian context, qing was to be controlled by rites. In 16th-century popular imaginings, however, it inspired lovers to give their lives, and was thought capable of restoring to life those who had so died. From the late-19th to the mid-20th century, qing was often part of revolutionary national discourse, and, with the introduction of Western cultures, the concepts of love and lust were further complicated. We study how literary and cinematic works manifest and construct dynamics of love, lust, sentimentality, sensuality, sexuality, and eroticism, and how narratives of desire reflect specific historical moments and respond to particular cultural phenomena. Readings include short stories, tales, poems, and excerpts from full-length novels (The Plum in the Golden
Vase and The Story of the Stone) as well as drama (The Story of the Western Wing and The
Peony Pavilion). Films include Farewell my Concubine, In the Mood for Love, and Lust, Caution.
All works are read in English.
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Rational to Radical Dissent -- NHIS3861
Gina Walker, Weds., 6 - 7:50 p.m.
The Protestant demand for the “right to private judgment” places responsibility on individual
Christians to interpret the Scriptures according to their own reason. Recent scholarship reveals that heterodox understandings produced by such private interpretations proved to be a pivotal force in the emergence of the freedom to dissent as a value of civil society. This course considers the tangled evolution of the concept of the right to private judgment from Martin Luther's defiant insistence on personal spiritual choice through its influence on modern understanding. We consider three historical case studies: the Religious Wars between French Catholics and Huguenots
(French Protestants) in sixteenth century France, the consequent invention of the virtual Republic of Letters, and the effects of Huguenot skepticism on early modern liberal thought. We turn to the
English Civil War in the next century to trace the effects of religious intolerance in acts of regicide, abolition of the monarchy, and uneasy truces between anarchy and order. Finally, we track the grassroots struggles of late 18th century British Rational Dissenters to cast off their second class status as citizens that led to radical reinterpretations of patriotism (many supported the American colonists‘ fight for Independence), abolition of the Slave Trade, expansion of the franchise to working class men, and some attention to the “wrongs of women.”
Gender, Knowledge, Opportunity: Women and the Making of Modernity 1702-1902 NHIS2890
Gina Luria Walker
This course examines the ambitions, struggles, and achievements of a group of women intellectuals that produced new knowledge that contributed to modern understanding. We concentrate on British and American women and their complex cultural inheritance, with reference to female scholars in adjacent cultures. Our chronological reach, 1702–1902, begins with the reign of Queen Anne of England, continues through Victoria’s rule when women were first admitted to
British universities and Parliament passed the groundbreaking Married Women’s Property Acts
(1870 and 1882), and concludes with the emergence of “the New Woman” and her controversial demands for unprecedented freedoms at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. We consider the relation between gender and genre in light of emerging academic discourses, the explosion of
Science –including astronomy, birth control technology, and photography, the expansion of print culture, and the impact of these innovations on gender relations. We investigate new perspectives on the interactions of male thinkers with their female contemporaries. We assess women’s proposals for female education in light of their own experiences as autodidacts and amid pervasive social anxiety about learned women. We ask, what opportunities did women create for themselves? Have these endured?
History of Poverty -- NHIS3470
Fiore Sireci, Tues., 6 - 7:50 p.m.
The concept of poverty has alternated between a representation of virtue, as in the early Christian and monastic traditions, and a sign of personal weakness, as in the individualist doctrines that are so familiar today. This course examines the historical reality and the image of poverty. We look at living conditions, as well as the laws and institutions affecting the poor, at select points in British,
French, and American history, and the role that the "lower" social classes have played in making that history. We study the issue of poverty as it came into public consciousness in early modern
Britain through powerful texts and visual art. We examine institutional responses, both private and governmental, such as debtor's prisons, foundling hospitals, and the rise of "philanthropy." We then look at the role of the disenfranchised in France during the Revolution and beyond, and the fictional
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representation of these groups in Les Miserables and in the later La Boheme. Finally, we devote the second half of the course to American policy and perception from the Great Depression to the present day.
Identity and Social Theory -- NSOC3502
Aleksandra Wagner, Thurs., 6 - 7:50 p.m.
Social theory, both classical and contemporary, has always wrestled with the issue of identity, seeking to interpret and explain the social processes and political struggles by means of which individual and collective identities are construed. Since the dawn of modernity, the question of human identity, who we are as individual and collective beings, is no longer seen as a fixed, stable or ascribed position. We begin with a discussion on self-identity in late modernity. We then explore several theoretical frameworks that deal with the question of identity as a social and cultural construction. We analyze the conceptualizations of class and status in the legacies of social theory; we examine feminist thought as it addresses the categories of women and gender, and the complexities of identity politics; and we consider how sociology informed by psychoanalytic theory can generate new strands of discussion on identity in the 21st century.
Music, Women, and Gender -- NMUS3591
Sonya Mason Thursdays, 4-5:50 PM
Rather than adding a list of long-forgotten matriarchs to our historical roster, modern feministbased musicology has sought to understand the effects of gender and sexuality within a larger cultural and political framework. It seeks not to provide new histories, but to add to the understanding and appreciation of great music through context and the social codes of the language of music. This course traces important female musicians, from the spiritual Hildegard von
Bingen in the Middle Ages through the indomitable Cosima Wagner to current leading ladies such as Madonna and Björk. We examine many of the scholars and critics currently at the forefront of this field of inquiry.
Feminist Economics -- NECO 3891
Miriam Rehm
This course prepares students to analyze mainstream economic theory from a feminist perspective, and to participate in public policy discussions of alternatives. Feminist economics criticizes mainstream economics for assuming a single, representative, perfectly rational agent, who allocates time between labor and leisure. If economic theory ignores women, then this has direct consequences for their social opportunities and material well-being. If unpaid household work is excluded from analysis and defined as unproductive, then inequality and the dependence of caregivers, mostly women, is reinforced. The course examines different viewpoints within feminist economics, looking at theories of labor and the role of institutions, for example, to uncover the place of women in economic thought. We consider various areas where the one-sided focus of economic thinking impacts women’s lives, such as employment, poverty and unequal income distribution, health care, development, trade, and taxation, and discuss suggestions for policy alternatives.
Eating Disorders: Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa and Obesity
Beatrice Kraemer, Thurs., 4 - 5:50 p.m., NPSY3845
Eating is an essential part of life. Not only does it ensure survival, but it is also connected to pleasure and life quality. Yet, almost everybody has, at least at some point, in their lives engaged
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in some sort of unusual eating patterns or experienced some kind of supposedly unusual attitudes and feelings toward eating. Under what circumstances do these turn into Anorexia, Bulimia
Nervosa or Obesity? The seminar introduces students to the study of these eating disorders, asking: How are these disorders defined and differentiated from unusual eating habits? Why do they affect mostly women? Do they exist in other cultures? We examine factors that cause and maintain the disorders, reading theories from socio-cultural, feminist, biological and psychological perspectives. Finally, we consider the definition and outcomes of treatment, prevention, and services available to those affected by eating disorders.
Sexuality: The Psychology of a Social Construction -- NPSY 3840
Larry Iannotti
Foucault criticized traditional understandings of sexuality, arguing that desire is not a pre-existing biological entity but instead it is created from historically specific social constructs and practices. It is clear that sexuality is an extremely potent ingredient in group and individual socialization; the creation of personal identity; and the formation of political and religious ideologies. Psychological theory and research into human sexuality is not immune from these socio-political forces. Starting from this notion, the course examines basic psychological understandings of human sexuality in all its diversity. The course explores the psychological, physiological and socio-cultural variables associated with sexual behavior, sexual identity and sexual health. Students develop an understanding and appreciation of key aspects of human sexuality and sexual behavior throughout various life-stages. Attention is given to the ways in which racial, ethnic, gender, ethical and lifestyle issues impact conceptualization, assessment and treatment of sexuality within a psychological framework.
Hero(ines) -- NCOM3450
Kathleen Sweeney, Thurs., 8 - 9:50 p.m.
Since the mid-nineties, multi-age, multi-gendered superheroes/heroines have multiplied in popular culture. X-Men, Spiderman, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Hayao Miyazaki’s animeeacute; shoju girls & these myriad hero(ine)s with supernatural powers have evolved with digital technology.
What relevance does the profusion of superhero icons have to global culture and millennial identity? In this course, projected images and icons from art history, film, television, and the
Internet are a springboard for analysis of the shifting definitions of the heroic in pop mythology.
Japanese manga and American comic books are explored. These are compared to tabloid news, supermodel, and superstar worship and to real news coverage of everyday acts of heroism, with a discussion of the notion of the hero in the wake of 9/11. Students create a sketchbook/journal in response to our themes and have the option of producing a final critical essay or a multimedia project in video, photographic, sound installation, or comic book form.
Identity and Social Theory -- NSOC3502
Aleksandra Wagner, Thurs., 6 - 7:50 p.m.
Social theory, both classical and contemporary, has always wrestled with the issue of identity, seeking to interpret and explain the social processes and political struggles by means of which individual and collective identities are construed. Since the dawn of modernity, the question of human identity, who we are as individual and collective beings, is no longer seen as a fixed, stable or ascribed position. We begin with a discussion on self-identity in late modernity. We then explore several theoretical frameworks that deal with the question of identity as a social and cultural construction. We analyze the conceptualizations of class and status in the legacies of social theory;
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we examine feminist thought as it addresses the categories of women and gender, and the complexities of identity politics; and we consider how sociology informed by psychoanalytic theory can generate new strands of discussion on identity in the 21st century.
All courses worth 3 credits unless noted
Please be sure to check prerequisites and other enrollment limitations
Women: Renaissance to Present - PLDS 3123 D
Jane Necol, W 3:00 pm - 5:40 pm
Description forthcoming
Visual Culture and the Radical 60s – PLVS 3699
Susan Sherman
Prerequisite: Open to: Juniors and Seniors only
By the late 1960s, the term "cultural revolution" had become commonly used in the United States by artists and writers who consciously defined themselves as agents of artistic and social change- artists who lived their art, pronouncing "ivory tower formalism" and architecture of the past, decreeing that issues of "art and politics” should be fought out in the classroom of the streets. In this class we will examine how the visual permeated every aspect of the revolutionary art of the
Sixties from its early years with "underground" filmmakers like Ron Rice and Harry Smith, to the merging of dance and visual art at the Judson Church with Yvonne Rainer and Robert Morris, to the "9 evenings of Art and Engineering," the poets' theater, Fluxus, the birth of off-off Broadway theater, the happenings of Carolee Scheeman, poetry itself, and continuing into the political
"underground" of the middle and late Sixties with its posters and 8mm documentaries, photojournalism, and alternative magazines and newspapers. Starting with the Civil Rights
Movement and emerging arts movements of the '50s, we will explore this "renaissance" in its historical and social context, considering along the way the Beats, the Hippie, New Left, Anti-War and Student Movements, and the struggles for national liberation (third world, women's, gay).
Senior Seminar: Public & Private Space – PLSD 4080
Jane Necol
Prerequisite: Open to Seniors Only
In an exploration of what an artist or designer's responsibility is to society and to him/herself, we attempt to articulate how public and private meaning are created and valued as these "social spaces" affect us all. To that end, we will examine several areas of global visual culture with the emphasis on contemporary painting and sculpture, and monuments and public art. We will also study the limits of personal expression with an emphasis on the body, drawing examples from performative art, photography and popular culture. In other words, visual art will be our lens through which we study and discuss themes such as collective memory, the urban and global environment, politics, race and gender. Students are invited to develop topics of their own interest in relation to the concepts of the course and their studio work for their papers and presentations.
Field trips are planned. Overall we will enhance our skills in critical thinking, analysis and writing while gaining insights into contemporary art and its cultural underpinnings.
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Dress & Culture – PLFS 2333
Tiffany Webber
Prerequisite: Open to Sophomores and Juniors Only
This course will explore the socio-cultural significance of dress by examining issues integral to our understanding of dress and society such as gender and sexuality, aging, race and ethnicity, religion, politics, media, and technological innovations. By looking at historic and contemporary dress practices as well as the fashion system within their cross-cultural contexts, students will gain an increased awareness of the multiple meanings of dress and appearance.
All courses worth 3 credits unless noted
Please be sure to check prerequisites and other enrollment limitations
Development Economics
Lopamudra Banerjee, R 4-5:50pm
This seminar on Development Economics explores the interconnections between income inequality, poverty and economic vulnerability. We start with the microeconomics of welfare analysis to examine how resources are distributed amongst identical agents who have the freedom to choose, and how inequality arises in the presence of asymmetries of power, differences in identities (race, caste, gender and ethnicity), disparities in geographic settlements and incomplete information (risks and uncertainties). In this, we discuss how inequality, deprivation and vulnerability constitute each other. We present the alternative measures of poverty, inequality, and vulnerability; and study how these concepts relate to different countries and communities. In addition, we examine the issues of efficiency, equity and justice that arise in the context of income distribution.
Politics of Difference -- GHIS 5133/GPOL 5133
Ari Zolberg, M 4-5:50pm
Cross-listed with Eugene Lang College. Please see earlier description.
Affective States: On the Politics & Histories of Sentiments -- GHIS 6133/GPOL 6133
Ann Stoler, T 4-5:50pm
This course focuses on US history to examine current permutations of historiographical interests, practices, and methodologies. Over the last few decades, US history has been a particularly fertile ground for rethinking the historical, although many of these topics are applicable to the study of other nations and societies. American history has been largely rewritten by a generation of scholars who experienced the 1960s and its aftermath and have viewed America's past as a field of inquiry and contest of great political urgency. Identity politics, the culture wars, and other forms of organization and debate have also endowed history with unprecedented public resonance in a culture that has been notoriously amnesiac. We explore major trends and controversies in
American historiography, the multicultural moment in historical studies, the emergence of race and gender as cardinal categories of historical analysis, the enormous preoccupation with popular culture, the impact of memory studies on historical thinking, and the recurrent agonizing over
American exceptionalism and consequent recent attempts to break the nation-state mold and to
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globalize American history. Another focus will be the intersection of analytical strategies borrowed from the social sciences and literary studies with methods and epistemologies of historicization that originated from the historical profession. This course should be taken during a student's first year in the Historical Studies program. Cross-listed with GPOL 6133.
Historiography & Historical Practice -- GHIS 6133/GPOL 6133
Oz Frankel, M 4-5:50pm
This course focuses on US history to examine current permutations of historiographical interests, practices, and methodologies. Over the last few decades, US history has been a particularly fertile ground for rethinking the historical, although many of these topics are applicable to the study of other nations and societies. American history has been largely rewritten by a generation of scholars who experienced the 1960s and its aftermath and have viewed America's past as a field of inquiry and contest of great political urgency. Identity politics, the culture wars, and other forms of organization and debate have also endowed history with unprecedented public resonance in a culture that has been notoriously amnesiac. We explore major trends and controversies in
American historiography, the multicultural moment in historical studies, the emergence of race and gender as cardinal categories of historical analysis, the enormous preoccupation with popular culture, the impact of memory studies on historical thinking, and the recurrent agonizing over
American exceptionalism and consequent recent attempts to break the nation-state mold and to globalize American history. Another focus will be the intersection of analytical strategies borrowed from the social sciences and literary studies with methods and epistemologies of historicization that originated from the historical profession. This course should be taken during a student's first year in the Historical Studies program. Cross-listed with GHIS 6133.
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