English 434-0-20 Early Modern Sexualities: Studies in Shakespeare and the Early Drama
How can we practice the history and analysis of sexuality in early modern Europe? Is sexuality best described by a continuity of models, or alterity and historical difference? To what extent can we discuss "sexuality" in relation to "identity" in the pre-modern era? To address these complex questions, and to begin to ask new ones, we will concentrate on a range of exemplary literary and historical texts from around 1600 in England. We will be interested to explore both the multiple forms and functions of desire, eroticism, sex, gender, etc., in this culture, as well as the terms, methods, and theories we now use to read the sexual past. We will be particularly interested in gaining fluency in the languages of early modern identities and desires: sodomy, tribadism, friendship, marriage; bodies, their parts, and their pleasures. We will centrally engage recent critical controversies in the field over the utility of historicism in sexuality studies. We will interrogate sex/gender's intersections with categories such as race, religion, social class, and nation, and we will engage the emerging scholarship in early modern trans* studies.
English 441-0-20 Green Materialisms - 18th Century Literature
This course introduces students to a sequence of "materialisms" worked out from the 18th century to the present. While readings and discussions will gravitate toward contemporary Marxist and post-Marxist ecological thought (including the afterlives of ideas like "primitive accumulation" and "metabolic rift" in recent feminist, anti-colonial, and environmental frameworks), we will also spend time looking at the writings and influence of earlier thinkers whose controversial materialisms have returned to critical attention in recent decades (e.g. Lucretius, Spinoza, Herder). A guiding aim of the course is to assemble a fuller sense of the historical and conceptual underpinnings of first-world environmentalism; so we will ask what "matters," and to whom, in part by putting "greenness" under scrutiny as a critical category. Readings will emphasize theory and philosophy, but occasionally cross into poetry and science as well.
MSLCE 525-0-26 Media Meet Technology: Ethnographies of Media Practices in the Americas
The winter 2022 iteration will examine recent book monographs which adopt an ethnographic stance to analyze media practices in one of ten countries across the continent: Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, the United States, and Venezuela. We will pay special attention to cross-national patterns of similarity and difference in topical foci, theoretical framing, mode of argumentation, and interpretation of findings. We will view the continent as being both singular and plural, with many sources of heterogeneity that coexist alongside multiple nexus of various kinds of overlap. Thus, we will interrogate the assigned readings trying to unpack which media practices might be unique to each national or subnational setting, and which ones might be shared across one or more of them. In addition, because ethnography is both a process—a methodological orientation with its associated intellectual sensibilities—and a product—a resulting text that entails a series of argumentative, evidentiary and interpretive choices shaped by the encounter of authors, editors, reviewers, and imaginary and actual readers within various institutional environments—we will devote a significant part of our weekly conversations to discuss the challenges and opportunities afforded by ethnographic writing.
MTS 525-0-21 Environment and Climate Issues in MTS
This Ph. D. seminar investigates environmental and climatological issues in relation to the field of Media, Technology, and Society. The seminar is organized into five themes: Land, Sea, Sky, Animals, Humans. In addition to readings, discussions, screenings, and in-class presentations, students will conduct research relevant the themes of the class and their own research trajectories. PHD STUDENTS ONLY.
SESP LRN 451-0-23 Global Histories of Engineering Education
In this course we examine what role engineering education plays, has played historically, and could play in mediating dynamics of power, in(equality), and (in)justice in society across global contexts. A wave of recent scholarship has examined the nefarious impact of new technologies on racial equity (Benjamin, 2019; Noble, 2018), social and economic justice (Eubanks, 2018), teaching and learning processes in schools (Watters, 2021), and on the health and survival of the planet itself (Crawford, 2021). Learning about the politics of technologies, and the technologies of power, is thus emerging as one of the most significant needs in education. Building from Science and Technology Studies (STS) perspectives, in this course we shift our analytic focus to the politics of engineering education institutions (Lucena, 2013; Riley, 2003). What are the historical, cultural, and political forces operating on these institutions? How do they cultivate particular kinds of engineering identities? We will ground these inquiries through case studies of specific engineering education institutions in diverse global contexts (Indonesia, India, Denmark, Iran, Chile, Kenya, and the US). Across the cases, we will carefully examine how themes such as modernization, globalization, nationalism, and militarism have shaped the content, character, and ontology of engineering education. Ultimately, we will work towards a critical, global understanding of the power, responsibility, and possibilities for socially just and ethical engineering education.
Soc 406-3-1 Contemporary Theory in Sociological Analysis
Modernity has become a contested term. This class investigates how various thinkers have conceived of what it means to be "modern" or "post-modern," critiques of modernity that have profoundly shaped our images of it, and skeptics who challenge the idea of modernity. It also includes sections that investigate in detail what I call "mechanisms" of modernity: procedures, devices, approaches or strategies that people adopt or promulgate in their efforts to be rational, manage uncertainty and conflict, or attain efficiency in various institutional arenas.
