Spring 2009 Undergraduate Course Descriptions
Listed alphabetically by Course Title. Additional information may be available from the linked department.
Following each description, in parentheses ( ), are the SCA majors for which the course fulfills a requirement, abbreviated as indicated:
AF = Africana Studies
AM = American Studies
APA = Asian-Pacific-American Studies,
GSS = Gender & Sexuality Studies
LAT = Latino Studies
MET = Metropolitan Studies
SCA = Social & Cultural Analysis
African-American English II V18.0800 (R.Blake)
Same as Linguistics V61.0046
African American English is a distinct dialect of American English that has influenced U.S. and world cultures. Yet, from an educational perspective, its speakers have faced well-documented educational challenges. This course will explore contemporary social, linguistics and educational issues that arise for speakers of African American English in the United States. Topics covered include a history of African American language behavior, politics and policies around the language, teacher education, language attitudes, culture and curriculum, and controversies about African American English in the schools. We will also consider how the educational issues surrounding African American English compares to other languages, and dialects of English. Students will have an opportunity to conduct original research. (AF,AM)
African American History Since 1865 V18.0796
Same as History V57.0648
**Recitation Required
Survey of the experience of African Americans from the Civil War to the present, including themes such as freedom and equality, migratory movements, cultural contributions, military participation, civil rights activism, black power, and contemporary conditions. Topics include the Reconstruction, white supremacy, black thought and protest, Washington and Du Bois debate, rise of the NAACP, World War I, the Harlem Renaissance, communism, World War II, civil rights, black power, black nationalism, and blacks and Reagan. (AF, AM)
African Conflicts: Role of the UN in Prevention & Management V18.0180-001
The course offers a critical study of causes of violent conflicts in Africa, distinguishing between systemic or structural conditions, proximate or enabling factors, and immediate triggering events. This will include examination of the nature and ingredients of violent conflicts between societies or nations compared to peace and describe the processes and stages through which violent conflicts escalate out of peaceful conditions. We will examine apparatus used by UN, third parties and national actors to prevent and mitigate conflicts in differing functional areas. Finally, the course addresses a concern about the role of UN in African conflicts and the effects these events have had in socio-economic and political developments in the continent. (AF)
The African Diasporas in the Mediterranean Lands V18.0180-003
During the last decades the Mediterranean Basin has become one of the fulcra of a mass-migration movement that engages a great number of nations. Many of the people involved in these migratory patterns are of African descent. Yet, the African presence in southern Europe is not new. Before the Atlantic slave trade, the most significant African presence in southern Europe was the Moors who occupied and ruled much of Spain. But this is not the only relevant historical experience. Fred Wilson’s exhibit, Black Venezia at the 2003 Venice Biennale, documents the presence of black in Venice since Othello. Fred Wilson’s U.S. pavilion dealt with Renaissance Venice and the role black Africans played in what was then the most cosmopolitan and ethnically diverse city in the world. Wilson exhibition served not only to reveal the existence of a people in a place whose presence was often unnoticed and undocumented. The exhibit combines painting depicting blacks in Venice since the renaissance with photographs of black in the present. As Di Maio (2001) noticed, the photographs and painting were arranged in a way such that every subject is looking at another subject in order to create a sense of community and connection between the different parts of the African Diaspora, both spatially and temporally. This symbolic image of different spatially and temporally Diasporas looking and confronting each other is the core of the course of the course on African Diaspora in the Mediterranean lands. By focusing on the contemporary development of this heritage, the course contextualizes the African Mediterranean Diaspora putting its peculiarities in relation to other African diasporas. The course follows a comparative approach in perspective and interdisciplinary. (AF)
AIDS Activism and Queer Counterpublics V18.0493 (F. Roberts)
This seminar provides students with both a rigorous overview of the history of AIDS activism in the United States as well as an introduction to the frontlines of contemporary queer grassroots political activism around HIV/AIDS here in New York City. Through our reading material, we will pay attention to the unique and richly varied forms that queer “activism” around the AIDS epidemic has taken including examples from photography and visual art, film and video, direct action protests, theater, literature, and cultural criticism. These historical readings will be supplemented by guest lectures from representatives from community-based organizations currently engaged in activism around AIDS: the Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC), the Visual AIDS Project, Gay Men of African Descent, and People of Color in Crisis (P.O.C.C.). Students will also be introduced and encouraged to develop research papers in the Royal S. Marks AIDS Activist Video Collection of the NY Public Library. Students should be prepared to spend some time outside of class in collaboration with community organizers. (GSS)
Ancient Egyptian Art V18.0822
Same as Fine Arts V43.0110
Traces developments in the sculpture, painting, and architecture of ancient Egypt from pre-dynastic beginnings through the Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms (3100-1080 B.C.). Special emphasis on Egyptian art in the context of history, religion, and cultural patterns. Includes study of Egyptian collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Museum. (AF)
Anthropology of Language V18.0703
Same as Anthropology V14.0017 Contact that dept. for description.
(GSS)
Asian American Soundscapes: Politics of Sounds, Silence, and Race V18.0380-002
The goal of this course is to introduce students to the emerging field of "Sound Studies" and its various critical methodologies of listening. We will consider how scholars ask questions about sound, and what important intellectual and political questions might a sound-centered analysis help to answer. In particular, this course will ask students to consider how sound produces, transmits, and circulates racial knowledge about Asian Americans. How do gongs, pentatonic melodies, and repeating parallel fourths articulate Asianness within a system of sound/race/power? How does the sonic articulation of power differ from visual articulations of power? As the semester proceeds, we will consider the ways in which soundscapes are sites of subject-making, cultural and political contestation, as well as sites of hegemonic racial knowledge. Throughout the semester, students will research an Asian American soundscape of their choice. The readings and class discussions will lay the theoretical groundwork for their final papers, an ethnography of their soundscape. (AM,APA)
Asian Americans and War - V18.0365
Same as V57.0654 and V33.0321
Examines Asian American history and contemporary culture using the theme of “war” as an organizing principle. It considers not only the sociopolitical effects of actual war—between Asian nations, between the United States and Asian nations, and civil wars in Asia—on immigration to the United States but also the myriad meanings of war and their social and cultural implications for Asian Americans. It examines the ways in which wars have transformed Asian American social organization and influenced shifting alliances, multiple sense of belonging, and racial representations in the United States during World War II and Vietnam as well as the metaphorical presence of war in everyday life. (AM, APA)
Black Female Travel in Afro-Caribbean and Afro-American Literature V18.0180-004
This course explores Black female travel in both African American and Afro-Caribbean Literatures. We will focus on Black women writers and how they complicate the notion of travel and cross-cultural relationships in various genres including fiction, non-fiction, memoir, essay, and poetry. Travel within these genres is conceived of broadly, cross-culturally, and within the experiences of the African Diaspora and Black women. Therefore, travel discourses include migration, travel for work opportunities, travel for education, mystical travel or sci-fi travel, tourism or travel for leisure/pleasure (including sex or romance tourism, heritage tourism, and Diaspora tourism). We will read texts that deal with migration from the Caribbean to the United States, Black intra-U.S. migration, and various travel narratives. Overall, the goal of this course is to understand how African American and Afro-Caribbean women writers trouble the boundaries of genre, identity, and nation through their writings about Black female travel. Thus, we will examine how the discourses of race, gender, class, and sexuality illuminate their strategies and vexing of boundaries. Do these writers create, in the words of Carole Boyce Davies, radical Black diasporic subjectivity? How do these writers deal with the politics of location, mobility, and nationality? We will consider a range of possible readings for these narratives, but the focus will be feminist and postcolonial. (AF, GSS)
Black Feminism V18.0156 NEW: Pending Approval
This course explores the production and practice of black feminism in the late 19th and 20th century America. We will carefully consider the relationship between social movements and critical theories of power produced by African American women and men over time. We will be examining the written work and the activism of African-American women and will look at the way that theory and practice historically intersected around questions of race gender and power. We are concerned with appreciating black women's critical roles in building, sustaining, and leading black and interracial social movements in the U.S. By situating our readings around major social movements such as the anti-lynching campaigns, the Harlem Renaissance, Garveyism, the Civil Rights movements, or current struggles around globalization, we will be in the position to reconsider the importance of black feminist activism over time and space and to consider the ways in which systems of oppression both produce and block black feminist consciousness. (AF,GSS)
Cantonese II – Elementary V18.0332
An introduction to Cantonese with an emphasis on the spoken and written language and conversational proficiency as a primary goal. The course emphasizes grammar, listening comprehension, and oral expressions. It is designed to give beginning students a practical command of the language. Upon completion of the course, students can expect to converse in simple sentences and recognize and write about 350 Chinese characters. Students with passable conversation ability or native speakers from Cantonese-speaking communities should not enroll in this course. (APA)
Cantonese II - Intermediate V18.0334
This is an advanced-level language and culture course following Elementary Cantonese. At this level, when the basic skills and working vocabulary have been mastered, emphasis is placed on the linguistic rules to enable students to communicate with more competence. The lessons focus not only on language, but also use a holistic approach and incorporate discussions on history, current events, literature, pop culture, and native values. Because language is key to connecting with community concerns, the course also includes field trips to Chinatown and other Cantonese-speaking neighborhoods. (APA)
Cinema & Psychoanalysis - Topics in German Film V18.0721-001
Same as German V51.0253
This course is intended as an introduction to the theory and practice of psychoanalysis. We will read texts from the classical Freudian school and watch landmark films from Germany and Hollywood as we attempt to examine our daily involvement and investment in the two institutions. Our central theoretical concerns will be the simultaneous invention and expansion of cinema and psychoanalysis as twin sciences/ institutions of mental development and their common literary genealogies. (GSS)
Cities in a Global Context V18.0602
**Recitation required
What is a Global City? How does a global perspective shape our understanding of urban spaces, and the politics of creating social and spatial order in cities? This course draws on ethnographic examples from a range of cultural and geographic contexts to explore twenty-first century urbanization. Through examples that range from Shanghai to Sao Paulo, we will trace how issues like equity, migration, violence, ecology, and citizenship can inform an understanding of modern cities. (MET)
Community Empowerment V18.0613
Empowerment is defined as those processes, mechanisms, strategies, and tactics through which people, as well as organizations and communities, gain mastery over their lives. It is personal as well as institutional and organizational. This course addresses these issues in a wide variety of community settings. It is designed to be challenging and rewarding to those students interested in helping people work together to improve their lives. (MET)
Concepts In Social And Cultural Analysis V18.0001.001 (P.Harper)
**Recitation required
Counts as MAP Social Science requirement.
This course is a gateway to all majors offered by the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis (SCA), and as such focuses on core ideas common to all the fields of study within the department. The course surveys basic approaches to a range of significant analytical concepts (e.g., Society, Culture, Place, Nature, Difference, Power, Knowledge), each one considered within a two-week unit. Owing to variation in instructors from semester to semester, there will sometimes be slight alteration in the concepts covered in different terms. (AF,AM,APA,GSS,LAT,MET,SCA)
Cultural Politics of Food V18.0380-001
Everyone eats, but we all have different tastes. How is food a form of cultural expression and cultural practice? Why do certain foods gain notoriety while others are forbidden or deemed inedible? How is "taste" constructed and transformed over time, and how does it differ across communities? This course examines food as a site of social formation and cultural production and consumption. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, we will explore the ways in which gender, class, ethnicity, and cultural difference intersect in food. (AM,APA)
Dangerous & Intermingled: Subaltern New York V18.0380.004
Permission of instructor (via email) and prior research experience required
Same as Gallatin K20-1480.001.
In the world of moralists, intermingled New York has and still represents the epitome of danger and evil about the American experiment-the public intermixture of classes, genders, races, sexualities, spiritualisms, and devil knows what else!#? As elite Protestants created a refined European-affected "high brow" culture, they also created their "other"-a transgressive, lowly city of shadows, miscegenation, and impurity. The docks, the Bowery, the Five Points, Greenwich Village, LES/Loisaida, Chinatown, and Harlem were all forged against the repressed imaginings of the powerful and distinguished. This people's Gotham, this disdained intertwined underworld of music, slang, jokes, songs, stories, foodways, and marvels of people, from different cultures and subcultures seeing, touching, smelling, tasting, speaking/listening, and living amongst each other will be the focus of this advanced research seminar. Prior original research experience required.
(AM, APA, LAT, MET, SCA)
Deconstructing Obama: Race, Class, Politics and the Media V18.0180.006
Deconstructing Obama: Race, Class, Politics and the Media: This seminar will use the historic campaign of Barack Obama as a mirror to probe the persistent yet ever changing role of race in American politics. Students will examine media coverage of the campaign and look the conservative backlash to the Obama candidacy and the mythology or reality of Post-racial American society. The seminar will host guest speakers who were involved in the news coverage of the campaign. The course will be taught by Professor David Dent, author of In Search of Black America and the forthcoming The American Extreme. He has written for many publications, including The New York Times Magazine, Black Renaissance Noire, The Washington Post, Salon and many other publications. (AF, AM)
Disability and Sexuality in American Culture V18.0481-002
How do we define a "normal" body? A healthy body? How do we define abnormal or unhealthy bodies? This course will examine disability as it is culturally-constructed, experienced, and represented by analyzing the complicated cultural significance of embodiment. We will examine major strands of disability theory, relating them to and understanding them through disability history, lived experience, activist movements, and cultural production. Although medical institutions have constructed disability and disease through ideas of cure and rehabilitation, we will analyze cultural meanings of disability and ability in mainstream and independent film, television, memoir, popular literature, and stand-up comedy. Through the lenses of queer, disability, and feminist theory, we will not only interrogate the issue of sexuality in the lives of people with disabilities, but also we will think critically about the role of disability and able-bodiedness in constructing norms of gender and sexuality. Students will perform cultural critique using the tools of disability and queer studies to analyze the cultural construction of "healthy" and "unhealthy" bodies, normal/abnormal bodies, dis/ability, sexuality, and mental capacity. (AM,GSS)
Feminism and Theatre V18.0726
Same as Dramatic Literature V30.0240
This class will ask how feminist theory has shaped theatre studies, and if feminism is still relevant for the study and practice of theatre. Within these endeavors, we will interrogate the shift between theatre and performance, between textuality and embodiment, and between theory and practice. We will focus on key issues such as the historical prostitutionalization of women performers, the complex definitions of various types of feminisms, challenges posed by feminists of color such as the relevance of the body, and being in a “post feminist moment.” The class will dialectically engage the perils of performance for women, as well as the potential for empowerment through feminist theatre. Please note that this is a theory laden class focused on feminist thought; as a result, gender studies will be a relevant but less central epistemology. (GSS)
Filipino - Elementary II V18.0322
Prerequisite: V18.0321 Elementary Filipino I or equivalent.
Having acquired basic grammatical and syntactical skills in Elementary Pilipino I, the aim and focus of this course is to practice that knowledge in daily conversation, while further developing the ability to use more complex sentences. This semester will concentrate on verbs and the unique way they are used in Tagalog. The students will, at the same time, expand their understanding to facilitate reading, speaking, and writing skills. They will familiarize themselves with Tagalog as a living tongue by examining the cultural and historical contexts within which it evolved. (APA)
Filipino – Intermediate II V18.0324
Prerequisite: V18.0323 Intermediate Filipino I.
At this level, when the basic skills and working vocabulary have been mastered, emphasis can be placed on the linguistic rules to enable the student to communicate with more competence. There is also focus on translation. Lessons use a holistic approach and incorporate discussions on history, current events, literature, pop culture, and native values. To observe and experience the language at work, the course includes field trips to Filipino centers in the New York-New Jersey area as well as invited guests who converse with students in Filipino about their life and work. (APA)
Gender and Choices V18.0719
Same as Economics V31.0252
Examines important economic influences on decisions women make concerning labor force participation and family. Theory of labor market behavior and discrimination, as well as public policy options. (GSS)
Globalization: Economic & Social History of Africa V18.0180-002
This course stresses the importance of differing economic regimes for understanding the overarching issues driving African history, including colonialism, nationalism, development, dependency, and conflict. It will emphasize the agency of Africans, exploring those economic activities independently undertaken by Africans, including the development of West Africa’s
cocoa, coffee, and palm oil industries. But it will also consider economic changes which required European capital, technology, and skills. It will demonstrate how colonialism accelerated economic and social processes including urbanization, the creation of wage-earning proletariats, labor migration, and the segregation of African ‘reserve’ areas - correlating economic transformations with political and social developments. This course has a strong focus on globalization. It will show that the eras of imperialism and independence brought the continent into an increasingly globalized network of economic relations. It will examine Africa’s economic and social interactions with other regions (in particular its connections with the Middle East) and the important role of migration for African economies. Some themes will include, (1) the Zanzibari slave trade in East Africa, (2) Arab, Lebanese, and Indian middleman communities throughout the continent, and (3) African migration to and remittances from the West and other regions. (AF)
Hausa II V18.0181-002
The course focuses on semi-novice and intermediate levels of Hausa Language, and aims to help students assimilate and apply the basic vocabulary of words, grammatical structures and expressions of the language. It is a linguistic as well as a cultural trip to the heart of West Africa with specific attention to the Hausas. (AF)
History & Literatures of the South Asian Diaspora V18.0313
Same as History V57.0326, English V41.0721
America is not always the answer. This class offers an introduction to the many and varied fictions that have been produced by diasporic South Asians across the globe over the last 150 years: in Australia, Africa, Europe, Caribbean. Our exploration of the poetics of immigration will involve looking at writers of canonical renown (VS Naipaul, Anita Desai), as well as younger voices such as Anjalika Sagar, Hanif Kureishi, Hari Kunzru and Rana Dasgupta. Liberal use will be made of independent and avant-garde cine-essays, and there will be a broad range of critical and creative texts, including neglected genres such as science fiction and comics. Particular attention will be paid to the diverse geographies of Asian migration ¬ be they plantations, dance floors, restaurants, call centres. Themes to be addressed include abjection, globalisation, the impact of 9/11 and techno-servitude. (APA)
The Immigrant Imagination V18.0380-003
This course explores how contemporary immigrant experiences are expressed through visual culture. In this class, we will examine a variety of expressive forms--including film, video, photography, and performance--produced by recent immigrants, and will consider the ways that they function as a type of “migration narrative.” By doing so, we will make connections between visual representations and other modes of narration, including literary and musical. We will ask: How do visual practices¬from filmmaking to graffiti-ing¬operate within immigrant communities as a mode of story-telling or history-making? How have immigrants employed visual culture to narrate their cross-cultural movements, community-building efforts, political struggles, and cultural memories? (AM, APA)
Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the New Immigration V18.0807 (formerly V18.0545)
Same as E52.0531 (formerly E53.1545 and E53.2545)
** Recitation required
The objective of this course is to introduce students to a sampling of recent theoretical and empirical work, in various academic disciplines, dealing with immigration. We will achieve this objective by systematically examining very recent research in comparative and interdisciplinary perspectives with a particular focus on the emerging Inter American migration system. Students will learn about the most recent trends of Latin American, Caribbean and to a lesser extend Asian migration to the US, and will compare the nature of current immigration scholarship in the United States to developments in other postindustrial settings. An examination of the comparative materials will highlight isomorphic conditions --as well as differences-- in immigration debates, policies, processes, and outcomes.
This course will be interdisciplinary. We shall examine recent data and theoretical work in a variety of fields such as economics, education, law, policy, psychology, sociocultural anthropology, sociolinguistics, and sociology. (AM, LAT)
Internship Program Seminar V18.0042 (2 pts), plus 10 hours Fieldwork V18.0040 (2 pts)
Open to juniors and seniors, majoring in SCA programs only.
Application and meeting with Director of Internships required
The internship complements and enhances the formal course work of the SCA majors. Students intern at agencies dealing with a range of issues pertaining to their major and take a co-requisite seminar that enables them to focus the work experience in meaningful academic terms. The goals of the internship are threefold: (1) to allow students to apply the theory they have gained through course work, (2) to provide students with the analytical tools, and (3) to assist students in exploring professional career paths.
Participants must be pre-approved by the director of internships prior to registration.
(AF,AM,APA,GSS,LAT,MET,SCA)
1. General Internship Seminar & Fieldwork (sections
001, 002)
Internship areas: Arts, government, education, youth, social welfare, health, etc.
2. General Internship Seminar & Fieldwork (sections
003)
Internship areas: The environment, economic development, housing, planning, preservation, etc.
3. Public Interest Law Internship Seminar & Fieldwork (section
009)
Internship areas: Legal Aid, legal defense (criminal/civil), equal opportunity, etc.
Introduction to Black Urban Studies V18.0105
Same as History V57.0090
**Recitation required
Cities have played an important role throughout African history and have even been crucial to the way diasporic contexts are constituted: from the metropolises of Ancient Egypt and the urban centers of well-known west African civilizations (like Ghana, Mali, Songhai) to cities like Port-au-Prince, Havana, and Georgetown in the Caribbean. In attending to the way actors constitute wealth and power—in accounting for the way proximity structures interpersonal experiences—this course uses ethnographic, historical, and literary texts to theorize the Afrodiasporic city. We will explore the contours of these urban matrices through special attention to certain historical categories that, while problematic, prepare us to theorize the way Afrodiasporic populations have experienced history (e.g., the precolonial, the colonial, and the postcolonial). Overall though, instead of proceeding in a manner that is strictly chronological, students will consider the Afrodiasporic urban experience thematically, through a diverse array of readings. This course though will pay particular attention to the way urban contexts have shaped the historical experience of African-descended (or black) people in the U.S. (AF,MET)
Introduction to Gender and Sexuality Studies V18.0401
**Recitation required
This course examines some major strands of gender and sexuality and studies, relating them to and understanding them through the American cultural history of gender and sexuality. This class analyzes historical changes in the social organization and cultural meanings of gender, sexual practices, desires, and bodies in the United States. In this class, you will become familiar with the field of gender and sexuality studies as we examine the establishment of various sexual norms throughout history, from 19th century America to the present. While gaining familiarity with theories of gender and sexuality, we will analyze the contested boundaries drawn between same-sex socializing, friendship, and desire; cultural conflicts over prostitution and racialized and sexualized violence; disability, notions of “normal bodies,” medical knowledge, and sexuality; and the emergence of and historical contingence of heterosexuality and homosexuality as prominent modes of understanding sexual experience, identity, politics, and cultural representation. (GSS)
Irish & Irish America: Five Points: Fiction, History, and Events V18.0721-002
Same as Irish G58.1441
If you see Marin Scorcese’s film or read Kevin Baker’s novel and tyler Anbinder’s history, how much do you really know about the New York Irish? This seminar will explore how one small neighborhood – the Five Points in New York City’s old Sixth Ward – and events that happened there – like the 1863 Draft Riots – have been used to define and mythologize the urban and ethnic for more than a century. Students will examine the available primary evidence (which has changed over time) and then interrogate its use in a range of literary, visual, historical, and cinematic works. They will attempt to separate fact from fiction, the history in fiction, and the make-believe masquerading as history, towards a hermeneutic for the New York Irish. The goal is to learn how to know the past from our present perspective. (MET)
The Latinized City V18.0540 (A.Davila)
This course examines the Latinization of urban landscapes in New York City and beyond. It considers the economic and political factors that have historically fueled the immigration of Latin American peoples to U.S. cities, their incorporation into U.S. society and culture, and the impact of global economic restructuring of U.S. cities on urban race/ethnic relations and cultural politics. Other topics include the contestation of space and power in the global cities, issues of immigration and citizenship, and the politics of languages. Students also develop fieldwork projects geared to discovering the history and present-day landscapes of Latino New York. (AM, LAT, MET)
Latino Politics V18.0541-001
Course will provide a survey and critique of contemporary Latino Politics in two broad segments. In the first segment, students will engage key readings within Latino Politics as a distinct sub-field of Political Science. Students will examine Latino electoral processes, identity formations, public opinion, and civic engagement at the local, national and transnational level. In the second segment, the emphasis will be placed on understanding the different conceptions of politics and empowerment that underlie the study of a heterogeneous Latino polity from within and beyond the discipline of Political Science. The course will utilize readings derived from the political experiences of Latinos from Mexico, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Central and South America. (AM,LAT)
Latino Youth: Migration & Policing in the Americas V18.0541-002
This course will focus on understanding the politics of migration and crime control and its impacts on Latino youth and communities in a transnational perspective. The course will explore the intersections between globalization, hegemony, policing, race, migrant and youth resistance movements from a cross-national and transnational perspective. Special emphasis will be placed on understanding the ideological and structural processes that sustain the hybridization of migration and crime control policies and practices as they are applied to migrants and Latino youth in Los Angeles, New York, Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. (AM,LAT)
Making of a Caribbean Poem V18.0780-001
Same as Comp Lit V29.0132 Contact that dept. for description.
(AF)
MAP World Cultures: Contemporary Latino Culture V55.0529
**Recitation required
MAP In this course we will study today’s Latino cultural expressions and identities in historical perspective. We will begin with an overview of Latin American cultural theory going back to the time of the Spanish conquest, and including such thinkers as Bartolomé de las Casas, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Simón Bolívar, José Martí and José Vasconcelos. We will then trace the development on Latino cultural experiences in the United States during the 20th century, with special attention to the dramatic political and cultural movements of the 1960s and 1970s. The latter part of the course will address Latino cultural theories and practices in the contemporary period; of central concern will be the idea of a pan-ethnic “Latino” identity encompassing all of the diverse national groups. We will study instances of this new situation in music, literature, performance and media representation. (LAT)
Medieval Misogyny V18.0481-001
Beginning with the biblical story of creation and moving through the powerful gendered tradition established by Saint Paul, this course will look at key texts of the Western Middle Ages (in modern English translation) in which men lay down the law, and occasionally, women talk back.
Among other works we will take up the letters of Abelard and Heloise, the fictive but larger than life Wife of Bath, and the imagined feminine utopia of Christine de Pizan. (GSS)
Modern America V18.0798
Same as History V57.0010
**Recitation required
Main developments in American civilization since the end of the Civil War. Topics: urbanization; industrialization; American reform movements (populism, progressivism, the New Deal, and the War on Poverty); immigration; and the role of women and blacks in American history. Beginning with 19th-century American expansion through the Spanish-American War, traces the rise of America to world power, including World Wars I and II and the Cold War. Emphasizes broad themes and main changes in American society.(AM)
The Movement for Civil Rights V18.0180
This is a study of the struggle to end racial segregation and discrimination in the former slave societies of the United States. The course will focus on the “American” side of what W.E.B. DuBois called the Afro-American “double-consciousness – the desire to become a part of “America“- personified by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (AF, AM)
New York City: A Social History V18.0831
**Recitation required
Same as History V57.0639
Examines key themes in the social history of New York City: the pattern of its physical and population growth, its social structure and class relations, ethnic and racial groups, municipal government and politics, family and work life, and institutions of social welfare and public order. (AF, AM, MET)
Postmodern Travel Fiction V18.0572
This class studies travel narratives by post-World War II authors and film makers of the Americas, including the Caribbean. It is designed to investigate the relationships that exist between travel narratives and the legacy of colonialism in the Americas; between the concept of "freedom" embodied in travel writing and the ideology of conquest engraved in historical memory; between lost idealism of youth and melancholic romps across continents; between literary representation and the perpetuation of racialized myths about North and South America. It explores the gendered dynamic of traveling across the Americas and writing about it as well. How are our notions about freedom and mobility tied to sexuality? Why do the protagonists of these novels and films—be they white, black, Latino, Asian-American, or indigenous—"go West," South, East, or North? Why do they ping-pong among these geographic and symbolic poles? What are the evaluative meanings assigned to the cartographically given spaces these protagonists choose to visit and these authors/directors choose to revise in their novels and films?
Central to this course is a consideration of the political significance of representation. What are the psychic and social effects of these authors'/directors' representations of places and races of people in their novels? How might autobiographical desire of the authors underwrite the journeys of these texts' protagonists? What do we make of the images of "the West," of "ol' Mexico", of "mother Africa," and of "exotic Asia" that these protagonists inevitably confront and/or perpetuate in their travels? In some cases, authors unwittingly participate in a literary "expansionism" and "Manifest Destiny" analogous to imperial expansion by Europeans in the Americas. In other cases, authors and film makers respond to the effects of this literal imperialism with their own alternative travel narratives representing different kinds of migrations and interpretations of freedom. In all cases, these authors/directors and their narratives have contributed to a re-figuration of the construct of identity in a post-modern Americas, where temporal, geographic and psychic distances between the self and the other have collapsed. Consequently, this course also investigates the rise of the postmodern aesthetic in travel writing and films, and its role in representing these new, discordant proximities. This postmodern aesthetic emerges after the nuclear devastation of World War II and the failure of modernity to deliver on its promises. Consequently, most of the authors we study consciously adopt postmodern aesthetics as a form of protest writing. Writ large, we are asking ourselves how identity is constructed by the authors in a post-modern "Americas"? Theoretical essays on modernism, post-modernism, and subjectivity by Foucault, Freud, Jameson, Habermas, and Hall will supplement our fiction reading and film viewing. (LAT)
Race City Cinema: An Overview V18.0680-001
The course is organized around three analytical sites: ‘race,’ city, and cinema. While we are interested in exploring the relations between the three, ‘race’ is the governing term. The course strategy is to investigate changing theories and practices of ‘race’ as they have been developed in particular cities in moments when racial issues have intensified: e.g., 19th century European metropoles and their colonies, Berlin of the Third Reich, Los Angeles in 1992, post-9/11 New York, contemporary Palestine and Israel. ‘Race’ will be seen to operate complexly in its intersections with gender, sexuality, class, nationality, ethnicity, religion, age, and geographical and historical location. We will use films to explore how racialized identities are produced cinematically, whether in support of, or as a contestation of, hegemonic racial formations. A major thematics of the course is that racialized events occurring in the past are intimately related to those occurring in the present and future: thus, the approach to ‘race’ is necessarily relational, comparative, and global. The specific question focusing our investigations is how, by virtue of being produced as a member of a particular ‘race,’ do some inhabitants of cities acquire institutionalized power over the lives and life-opportunities of others, thus potentially jeopardizing their well-being and survival? (MET)
Religion, Sexuality & American Public Life V18.0812
Same as Religion V90.0646
The United States was founded on the promise of religious freedom, and yet, at their base U.S. laws and policies regulating sexual life derive much of their rationale from specifically religious notions of "good" versus bad "sex," what bodies are "for," and what kinds of human relationships are valuable. What are the implications of this entanglement between sex and religion for debates over such contested issues as homosexuality, same-sex marriage, abortion, and sex education? If sex is a "special case," does this contradict cherished constitutional principles of church/state separation and freedom of religious practice? Is "being" gay necessarily at odds with "being" religious and, even, with "being" American? As a way into these questions we will consider a range of case studies, situating each in its deeper historical context. (AM, GSS)
Research Methods in Metropolitan Studies V18.0651
**Recitation required -- Formerly V18.0020, V99.0501
Open to juniors and seniors only. Prerequisite for Met majors: At least one Introductory course.
This course explores the theory and practice of methods commonly used in social and cultural approaches to metropolitan research. Through investigating a variety of methods and applying them to a multiplicity of sites we will consider not only how urban research is conducted, but also how particular methods produce different kinds of knowledges. We begin from the premise that there is no single or universal ‘truth’ of the city and that its reality is the product of contesting practices. Thus rather than identifying one method that fits all, we develop a comparative perspective, considering how particular methods inform research from the beginning as well as effecting conclusions that can be drawn at the end: or, as stated otherwise by David Harvey, “The language of any question has an awkward habit of containing the elements of its own response.” Each method will have advantages and disadvantages. The purpose of the course is to assist you in determining which method best suits the research question you choose to investigate. An important goal of the course is to work individually and collaboratively to produce a multiplicity of site-generated knowledges that facilitate informed praxis. (MET)
Senior Research Seminar: The Long War: Rethinking the 20th C V18.0090
This senior seminar provides students with the opportunity to develop individual or group research projects broadly organized around the theme of war in 20th century America -- its economic, ethical, social, cultural, psychological and political implications and impacts. During the initial weeks, we will study a set of shared readings that illustrate diverse theoretical and methodological approaches to questions of war and society in contemporary and historical perspective. The greater part of the course will focus on the development of individual and group research projects, writing and student presentations. (AF, APA, GSS, LAT,MET,SCA)
Sex, Gender, and Language V18.0712
Same as Linguistics V61.0021
This course will examine gender from a multidisciplinary perspective and in particular as a sociolinguistic variable in speech behavior. How do linguistic practices both reflect and shape our gender identity and how these reflect more global socio-cultural relationships between the sexes? Do women and men talk differently? To what degree do these differences seem to be universal or variable across cultures? How do dominant gender-based ideologies function to constrain women's and men's choices about their gender identities and gender relationships? How does gendered language intersect with race and class-linked language? How is it challenged by linguistic "gender bending"? What impact does gendered language have on the power relationships in given societies? We will also, more briefly, examine gendered voices -- and silences -- in folklore and in literature, and in the new turn in life writing, such as that of academic women and in coming-out stories. Can language reform be instrumental in avoiding the downgrading of women? Finally, we will examine the constructionist argument that anatomy need not be linguistic destiny, that is, that, instead of assuming that women and men behave in certain ways linguistically, might we ask how particular linguistic practices contribute to the production of people as "women and men"? (GSS)
Sex, Gender, and the Bible V18.0743
Same as Religious Studies V90.0019
This course investigates a series of problems regarding the mutual constitution of male and female in the Hebrew Bible. Through close readings of a range of biblical texts (narrative, law, wisdom literature), we address such issues as the absence of the goddess in monotheism, the literary representation of women and men, the construction of gender ideals, and the legislation of sex and bodily purity. (GSS)
Swahili II – Intro to V18.0122
Prerequisites: Intro to Swahili I
HAKUNA MATATA. Building upon the basic concepts of communicative Swahili, this course moves one level higher. It reiterates and reinforces the basic concepts and adds more building blocks to introduce compound and complex structures. The skills hitherto attained are concretely expressed in short descriptive essays written in Swahili. (AF)
Swahili II – Intermediate V18.0124
Prerequisites: Intro to Swahili I and II, Intermediate Swahili I.
The focus of this course is to enable students to communicate fluently in Kiswahili by applying the knowledge acquired in the beginner’s levels and intermediate I level. Students are expected to carry out bidirectional conversations and negotiate technical language. Although at this level students have mastered some intricacies of Kiswahili grammar and a wide range of vocabulary from various topics, more vocabulary and grammatical will skills will be applied. Therefore, students will be enriched with idiomatic expressions, colloquial expressions and vocabulary, proverbs and Kiswahili sayings used in everyday speech so as to equip them to face the real challenge of the language. Additionally, students will be involved in reading literary and non literary works and analyzing them at their level as well as engage in simple creative and technical writing, and translations. The cultural aspect of language will be integrated and emphasized in most topics. (AF)
Transnational Politics of Love, Intimacy & Family V18.0481-003
Over the past decade, political campaigns for same-sex marriage, lesbian and gay parenthood, transgender rights and recognition of diverse family bonds have achieved astonishing gains and unleashed inflammatory passions in many parts of the world. This seminar will examine some of these conflicts over radically different conceptions of love, intimacy and family. We will explore the contributions of different regimes of gender, sexuality, race, economy and national interests to recent transformations and struggles over intimacy in three distinct political contexts--the United States, South Africa and among an unusual ethnic minority culture (the Mosuo) in southwestern China. The U.S. and South Africa present almost opposite legal and social responses to same-sex marriage and polygamy. The unique, ancient Mosuo matrilineal family system separated love and sexuality from domesticity and traditionally did not include marriage, After surviving coercive Cultural Revolution campaigns to impose marriage, the Mosuo have turned their family system into a lucrative tourist attraction.
Students will design individual or group research projects that explore conflicts over the changing meaning and value of marriage, parenthood, family or intimacy among members of diverse social and racial groups and sexualities in the US, South Africa, and/or China, or in another society about which a student already has sufficient background. Students will present their research projects during the final sessions of the course. (GSS)
Urban Economics V18.0751
Same as Economics V31.0227
The city as an economic organization. Urbanization trends, functional specialization, and the nature of growth within the city; organization of economic activity within the city and its outlying areas, the organization of the labor market, and problems of urban poverty; the urban public economy; housing and land-use problems; transportation problems; and special problems within the public sector. (MET)
Urban Environmentalism V18.0631
This course examines some of the many environmental issues facing people living in cities and towns around the world. It focuses on the practical, everyday realities of these issues, why they exist, and what
can and should be done to change them. It uses these particularities to consider larger questions about the relationship between human society and the natural world in the urban context. Employing the analytic tools of sociology, the course grapples with ideas from economics, political science, philosophy, geography, and natural science to develop a theoretical framework for understanding environmental issues facing cities today. (MET
Yoruba II V18.0181-001
This is a continuation of Yoruba 1, therefore a minimum of one Semester hours or its equivalent experience in Yoruba language is required. The main objective is to further sharpen the Yoruba linguistic acuity that the student acquired at the introductory level. By the end of the course, the student should be able to: (1) to read, write and understand simple to moderately complex concepts in Yoruba; (2)minimally understand and be understood in Yoruba; (3) and advance in knowledge of the Yoruba culture. (AF)
Writing New York V18.0757
Same as English V41.0180
**Recitation required
An introduction to the history of New York through an exploration of fiction, poetry, plays, and films about the city, from Washington Irving’s A History of New York to Frank Miller’s graphic novel The Dark Knight
Returns. Two lectures and one recitation section each week. (AM, MET)
