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Course Catalog

African Am. ST. 101-6-21 – Black Creativity in the Digital Age

New Media Black Aesthetics. This course will examine the many ways Black artists, writers, and cultural workers have responded to the aesthetics and politics of the internet age. Over the quarter, we will address the question: how have Black art and aesthetics changed (and what continuities remain) over the past three decades of vast technological, economic, political, and cultural transformations? This class will examine how the internet/new media has shaped Black artistic production across a range of fields: literature, film, visual art, theater and performance, music, and comedy. Additionally, we will study how social media platforms can themselves be understood as artistic/aesthetic forms (i.e. the meme, the GIF, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, #BlackTwitter). Particular attention will be paid to the relationship between contemporary Black art/popular culture and social movements such as #BlackLivesMatter, Black feminism, abolitionism, internationalism, and #RhodesMustFall.

Am St 310-0-30 – Viruses and Viral Media, Studies in American Culture

What are viruses? Are they living or dead? How does news media affect their influence on the world? And why do we say news "goes viral?" Designed for Medill and non-Medill students alike, Viruses and Viral Media will study how viruses intersect with race, sexuality, disability, economics and the news media. Historically and contemporarily, the course will look at how actual viruses and infectious diseases (such as tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, Ebola, Hepatitis C, influenza and SARS-CoV-2) have been covered in the global press. We will consider how certain groups of humans have been depicted as viruses themselves, such as how Jewish/disabled/queer/Roma people were described by the German and US press circa WW II; how African Americans were described in the US press circa Jim Crow; and how Muslim, Mexican and migrant people are described in press and social media now. We will also consider how and why popular news "goes viral." Students will work in research groups to study viruses and virality in the news throughout the term.

Amer St 310-0-30 – Viruses and Viral Media

What are viruses? Are they living or dead? How does news media affect their influence on the world? And why do we say news "goes viral?" Designed for Medill and non-Medill students alike, Viruses and Viral Media will study how viruses intersect with race, sexuality, disability, economics and the news media. Historically and contemporarily, the course will look at how actual viruses and infectious diseases (such as tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, Ebola, Hepatitis C, influenza and SARS-CoV-2) have been covered in the global press. We will consider how certain groups of humans have been depicted as viruses themselves, such as how Jewish/disabled/queer/Roma people were described by the German and US press circa WW II; how African Americans were described in the US press circa Jim Crow; and how Muslim, Mexican and migrant people are described in press and social media now. We will also consider how and why popular news "goes viral." Students will work in research groups to study viruses and virality in the news throughout the term.

Amer. St. 310-0-20 – Asian American Digital Cultures

From daily communications to magisterial announcements, from classrooms to war zones, from health records to national legislation, from labor to entertainment, and from dating, marriage, to everything in-between, how do certain institutions, spaces, subjects, and normalized practices reflect and reproduce hierarchies of race, gender, class, sexuality, nationality, and ability using electronically mediated technologies? How have glowing screens, code, and algorithms become so dominant? Perhaps even necessary? To our lives, and how does this impact Asian American identities, communities, movements, and experiences? In this class, we will explore the multiscalar formations of Asian American digital cultures in the following ways: social media platforms, video games, advertising, viral videos and memes, "hook-up" apps, surveillance, privacy, "the right to not exist," anti-fans, and sex work.

Anth 101-6-21 – Pathologies of Power

At the height of the 2013-2016 West African Ebola pandemic, it was often said that the fears of the disease globalized more quickly than the disease itself. Similar claims were made about Covid-19 in the months leading to global spread of this still evolving viral disease. These kinds of statements - and the proliferation of official efforts to both define and control epidemics - show the significance of cultural, social, political and economic dimensions of mass disease events. This seminar privileges a critical medical anthropology perspective on the dynamics of epidemics and pandemics: from defining and naming an event a pandemic, to the ongoing dynamics of disease transmission to prevention and control. Together, we will investigate these pathologies of power: how complex interactions among social, cultural, political, economic, and environmental factors influence the natural history of infectious disease and public health efforts to understand and address them. The seminar focuses on contemporary issues with the explicit purpose of addressing questions of equity and justice.

Anthro 101-6-22 – DNA and Society: Posibilities and Pitfalls

Recent advances in genetic analysis have opened up new opportunities to examine how genes influence our health and our potential, and to investigate our family roots. Although these are revolutionary advances, the scientific implications of genetic research are not always as straightforward as press releases and media coverage imply; and in some domains genetic research raises thorny new ethical and other societal questions. In this discussion-based seminar, we will critically read several recent books that tackle various dimensions of the social lives of our DNA, augmented by additional scientific, popular and journalistic readings. We will address questions that sit at the interface of genetics and society, such as: How do our genes really influence our health? What are the problems with the concept of genetic race, and why do scientists who study race describe race as a social construct? How do new genetic approaches help us dig deeper into our ancestries, and what are the societal and ethical implications of those approaches? Readings for this class will not require specialist knowledge of biology or genetics, but will benefit from a curiosity about science and a willingness to engage in critical analysis and discussion.

Anth 101-6-23 – Six Millennia and Counting

In this first-year seminar you will develop and refine your critical thinking and writing skills. You will do so by reading and writing about a quintessential human space: the city. Today, more than half of the world's population lives in urban areas. The growth of modern cities suggests that humans thrive in urban environments. Cities, however, are a relatively recent phenomenon in history. Further, cities are not essential for human survival. Then, why do cities dominate the modern world? Drawing broadly on scholarship in anthropology and other disciplines, we will read about the characteristics of urban life in human history, from the first experiments with urbanization 6,000 years ago to contemporary global cities. This course is not intended to be an introduction to anthropology or to urban studies. This seminar will be a workshop in which you will be introduced to college-level modes of thinking, writing, and arguing through reading and writing about cities.

Anth 290-0-21 – American Suburbs: Race, Class & Placemaking

This course will explore U.S. suburbia through an anthropological lens. In addition to the study of the history of suburban development and sprawl, this course examines ethnographies, film, and popular media to explore major themes related to suburban landscapes: the construction of the American suburb in the national imaginary; the relationship between the city and the suburb; race and racial formation; class and mobility; gender and generation; and shifting demographics, politics, and labor in contemporary suburbs.

Anth 290-0-22 – North Africa Through Film

This course introduces students to everyday life in North Africa through feature and documentary film, with an emphasis on North African filmmakers. The southern Mediterranean region is often considered an appendage of the Muslim Middle East, but it merits study on its own, given its French colonial past and its connections to both sub-Saharan Africa and Europe. Readings draw from anthropology, literature, biography, popular culture, and film studies. Thematic foci include ethnic minorities and majorities, migration, gender, law, human rights, and religion. Students develop analytical skills, especially in regards to perspective and bias in both image production and audience reception. One class meeting per week is devoted to lecture and discussion of readings, and the other class meeting to discussion of the week's film. Films will be available streaming on Canvas and watched outside of class.

Anth 290-0-23 – Race, Gender & Sexuality in Science and Anti-Science

TBD

Anth 370-0-20 – Anthropology in Historical Perspective

Major schools of thought in social, archaeological and biological anthropology over the last century.

Anth 390-0-22 – Sexing the Middle-East: Gender and Sexuality

Are gender and sexuality useful categories of analysis in contemporary Middle East? What sexual assumptions underpin studies of the Middle East? And what kind of a Middle East grounds gender and sexuality studies in the region? This course engages with queer studies and critical race and feminist scholarship in anthropology, history and sociology to probe these questions. In this course, we will attend to the formation of "gender" and "sexuality" as categories of sociocultural analysis, surveying the major shifts within the intellectual history of studies in gender and sexuality, while interrogating the ways in which race, class, and nationality complicate studies of gender and sexuality and of mobility alike. In other words, if one major question that animates the course is what intersectional studies of mobility have to contribute to historical and anthropological studies of gender and sexuality in the Middle East, the other is what kind of new analytical ground studies of gender and sexuality could open up in sociocultural analysis of mobility, migration and transnationalism across the Middle East and Southwest Asia.

Anth 390-0-27 – Archaeologies of Africa for the 21st Century

In this class, we will consider how information gleaned from archaeology in Africa can be used to address some of the main challenges of the 21st century, including decolonization, climate change, food security, and poverty. Rather than approaching Africa's past in terms of chronological developments, we will critique the lenses through which the past has been viewed, as well as how historical inequalities have shaped the practice of archaeology in the continent. We will consider case studies from around the continent that examine ancient responses to climate change and poverty, and how they might inform present day challenges. We will also consider how movements to decolonize the study of Africa's past chart a different future both within the continent and across the globe.

Anth 390-0-30 – Nationalism & Archaeology in the Americas

What role has archaeology played in the emergence and consolidation of modern nation-states in the Americas? Across the world, states use monuments and archaeological artifacts to present national narratives in museums, ancient sites, and online platforms. In the Americas, nation-states have controlled who has access to the material remains from the past while transforming buildings, historic places, monuments, and artifacts into national patrimony. In the process of creating national patrimony, nation-states often estrange Indigenous communities from their landscapes and their cultural heritage. In this course, we will examine the role of archaeology in the creation and preservation of national identities in the Americas from the 18th century to the present. In weekly readings and discussions, we will learn about the institutionalization of archaeology as a state-sponsored discipline, the development of archaeological sites as national monuments and tourist destinations, the display and interpretation of artifacts in museums and heritage sites, and the monopolization of tangible cultural heritage by the state. Ultimately, we will evaluate the intersections of identity and politics throughout the history of the Americas.

Anthro 101-6 – First Year Seminar - Biological Thought & Action

Science is a process by which people make sense of the world. Scientists examine evidence from the past, work to understand the present, and make predictions about the future. Integral to this process are the methods they use to collect and analyze data, as well as the ways in which scientists work together as a community to interpret evidence and draw conclusions. In this class, we will take a multidisciplinary approach to examining biological thought and action and their social remifications.

Anthro 101-6-21 – First Year Seminar - Modern Plagues

At the height of the 2013-2016 West African Ebola epidemic, it was often said that the fears of the disease globalized more quickly than the disease itself. These kinds of statements - and the proliferation of official efforts to control Ebola outbreak in West Africa and elsewhere - show the significance of cultural, social, political and economic dimensions of epidemics. This first-year seminar privileges a critical medical anthropology perspective on the dynamics of epidemics: from disease transmission to prevention and control. Together, we will investigate how complex interactions among social, cultural, political, economic, and environmental factors influence the natural history of infectious disease and public health efforts to understand and address them. The seminar focuses on contemporary problems and issues with the explicit purpose of addressing questions of equity and justice.

Anthro 101-6-21 – Perspectives on Primates

In the movies, lemurs dance, capuchins slap people in the face, and apes take over the world. We have a fascination with non-human primates due the many similarities we share. Beyond being constantly faced with images of our closest living relatives, however, our lives are substantially influenced by our similarities with other primates and how they are interpreted. Whether or not we think of humans as 'just another primate' or as completely unique among the primates can shape our conception of ourselves and our societies. It can also shape our attitudes toward primate research, conservation, and beyond. In this course we will explore perspectives on human-primate similarities and how they influence our understanding of human aggression, xenophobia, gender roles, sexual behavior, and more. Using writing and discussion, we will also explore how unique humans really are compared to other primates. At the end of this course you will have an appreciation for primate diversity and the complex history of primate research. You will be able to describe how different humans really are from other primates, and you will be able to pinpoint how primate research and perspectives on primates influence your daily life. Most importantly, you will be able to explain how science has broad social ramifications.

Anthro 101-6-21 – Madness and Media: Culture and Mental Health

In an age of unprecedented global distress, what is the role of media in shaping discourses, representations, and experiences of mental illness? Western psychiatric frameworks are increasingly defining mental health/illness around the world via multilateral health organizations that intervene across cultural contexts to treat mental distress, and are also circulated via Western media narratives that shape the meanings people associate with mental health and illness. What other narratives of mental health might be told? What experiences of distress and resilience are obscured by these dominant frameworks? In this course, students will learn about the ways in which cultural meanings and social structures shape mental distress and how it is expressed and experienced by people across time and context. We will critically examine dominant U.S. models of mental health and illness, and trace the global spread of these models. We will ask what underlying cultural assumptions and expectations about self, personhood, emotion, mind, body, well-being and success are embedded in these narratives and explore how representations in film and television serve to reflect, reinforce, or re-imagine such assumptions. Through a combination of engagement with scholarship on culture and mental health, media studies, and our own critical analyses of media objects from film and television, we will explore these questions and work to generate creative and collaborative ideas about how to rewrite media narratives in order to better reflect the broad spectrum of experience.

Anthro 101-6-22 – Biological Thought & Action

Science is a process by which people make sense of the world. Scientists examine evidence from the past, work to understand the present, and make predictions about the future. Integral to this process are the methods they use to collect and analyze data, as well as the ways in which scientists work together as a community to interpret evidence and draw conclusions. In this class, we will take a multidisciplinary approach to examining biological thought and action and their social ramifications. We will seek to understand science as a social pursuit: the work of human beings with individual, disciplinary, and cultural differences, and requiring tremendous investments in training and equipment. Does it matter that participation in science is more accessible to some than to others? How do biases, assumptions, uncertainty, and error manifest in scientific work? What is the history of scientific values such as objectivity and reproducibility? The course will conclude by investigating current topics of public debate.

Anthro 101-6-22 – Biological Thought and Action

Science is a process by which people make sense of the world. Scientists examine evidence from the past, work to understand the present, and make predictions about the future. Integral to this process are the methods they use to collect and analyze data, as well as the ways in which scientists work together as a community to interpret evidence and draw conclusions. In this class, we will take a multidisciplinary approach to examining biological thought and action and their social ramifications. We will seek to understand science as a social pursuit: the work of human beings with individual, disciplinary, and cultural differences, and requiring tremendous investments in training and equipment. Does it matter that participation in science is more accessible to some than to others? How do biases, assumptions, uncertainty, and error manifest in scientific work? What is the history of scientific values such as objectivity and reproducibility? The course will conclude by investigating current topics of public debate

Anthro 101-6-22 – Biologial Thought & Action

Science is a process by which people make sense of the world. Scientists examine evidence from the past, work to understand the present, and make predictions about the future. Integral to this process are the methods they use to collect and analyze data, as well as the ways in which scientists work together as a community to interpret evidence and draw conclusions. In this class, we will take a multidisciplinary approach to examining biological thought and action and their social ramifications. We will seek to understand science as a social pursuit: the work of human beings with individual, disciplinary, and cultural differences, and requiring tremendous investments in training and equipment. Does it matter that participation in science is more accessible to some than to others? How do biases, assumptions, uncertainty, and error manifest in scientific work? What is the history of scientific values such as objectivity and reproducibility? The course will conclude by investigating current topics of public debate.

Anthro 101-6-22 – Biocultural Perspectives on Water Insecurity

The first objective of this course is to introduce students to the many ways that babies and young children are fed around the world, including breastfeeding, bottle feeding, and complementary (non-milk) foods. We will discuss the health and social consequences of each mode of infant and young child feeding (IYCF), and what the international recommendations, i.e. best practices are. The second objective is to explore why there is such variety in infant feeding worldwide. These discussions will be guided by the socio-ecological framework, in which biological, socio-cultural, and psychosocial characteristics of the individual, household, community, and national policy are considered. Influences on infant feeding will be broadly considered. To do this, we will draw on literature in global health, ethnography, evolution, and public policy. We will also consider the representation of infant feeding in popular culture. The third objective of this course is to develop critical thinking and writing abilities. These will be developed through a series of short weekly writing assignments and an in-class presentation on a recent infant feeding news item.

Anthro 101-6-23 – Fantastic Archaeology - Science and Pseudoscience

Did astronauts from another planet establish ancient civilizations on Earth? Were the Americas discovered by Columbus, a Ming dynasty fleet or by Vikings much earlier? Did the Maya Aztec build their pyramids to resemble those of dynastic Egypt? Television is replete with stories of ancient aliens and archaeological mysteries. The impact of such alternative realities on society and history cannot be discounted. They have been used to support nationalistic agendas, racial biases, and religious movements, all of which can have considerable influence on contemporary society. In this course, we will study "fantastic" stories, puzzles, hoaxes, imaginative worlds and alternative theories. We will learn when, how and what kinds of evidence these alternative theories have used to fascinate the public and illustrate their hoaxes. We will question such theories by using critical thinking and analytical tools to diagnose what is fact and fiction. We will utilize the surviving evidence that archaeologists find to understand cultural contact and interactions.

Anthro 101-7 – Biological Thought and Action

Freshman seminar for students in the NU Bioscientist Program that addresses the history, ethics, and longstanding challenges of research in human biology and health. Co-listed with Bio Sci 115.

ANTHRO 211-0-1 – Culture and Society

Often, anthropology is talked about as the study of human culture, where it originates, how it is transmitted, how it changes. But what is "culture"? Rather than a universal, one-size-fits-all answer, anthropologists today seek to understand how ideas and actions interact within specific social contexts. Through a focus on ethnography, the fundamental method of our field, students will learn how to conduct research into the processes that shape the social world, emphasizing human agency in relation to sociohistorical, economic, political, and environmental forces. A key feature will be to denaturalize notions such as "common sense," reinterpreting what we might know from our own contexts, as a starting point to understand others. Students will have the opportunity to practice anthropological research through multiple possible modalities, both face-to-face and online.

Anthro 214-0 – Archaeology: Unearthing History

This course is an introduction to the anthropological subfield of archaeology, its theories and methods, and the political and social issues that arise when we study human pasts. In this course, we look at the history of the discipline and its theoretical underpinnings, as well as methodological topics including how archaeologists create research designs, discover and excavate sites, and analyze artifacts and features. We will also explore how archaeology confronts and deals with contemporary issues critical to the archaeological project and the communities that archaeologists engage with: e.g. heritage preservation and Indigenous/community rights, Black lives and Black histories, environmental degradation and sustainability, feminist archaeology and gender equality. Throughout the course, students will learn about archaeological case studies from around the globe and from a variety of historical periods.

Anthro 214-0-1 – Archaeology - Unearthing History

This course is an introduction to the anthropological subfield of archaeology, its theories and methods, and the political and social issues that arise when we study human pasts. In this course, we look at the history of the discipline and its theoretical underpinnings, as well as methodological topics including how archaeologists create research designs, discover and excavate sites, and analyze artifacts and features. We will also explore how archaeology confronts and deals with contemporary issues critical to the archaeological project and the communities that archaeologists engage with: e.g. heritage preservation and Indigenous/community rights, Black lives and Black histories, environmental degradation and sustainability, feminist archaeology and gender equality. Throughout the course, students will learn about archaeological case studies from around the globe and from a variety of historical periods.

Anthro 214-0-1 – Archaeology: Unearthing History

This course is an introduction to the anthropological subfield of archaeology, its theories and methods, and the political and social issues that arise when we study human pasts. In this course, we look at the history of the discipline and its theoretical underpinnings, as well as methodological topics including how archaeologists create research designs, discover and excavate sites, and analyze artifacts and features. We will also explore how archaeology confronts and deals with contemporary issues critical to the archaeological project and the communities that archaeologists engage with: e.g. heritage preservation and Indigenous/community rights, Black lives and Black histories, environmental degradation and sustainability, feminist archaeology and gender equality. Throughout the course, students will learn about archaeological case studies from around the globe and from a variety of historical periods.

Anthro 214-0-1 – Archaeology: Unearthing History

This course is an introduction to the anthropological subfield of archaeology, its theories and methods, and the political and social issues that arise when we study human pasts. In this course, we look at the history of the discipline and its theoretical underpinnings, as well as methodological topics including how archaeologists create research designs, discover and excavate sites, and analyze artifacts and features. We will also explore how archaeology confronts and deals with contemporary issues critical to the archaeological project and the communities that archaeologists engage with: e.g. heritage preservation and Indigenous/community rights, Black lives and Black histories, environmental degradation and sustainability, feminist archaeology and gender equality. Throughout the course, students will learn about archaeological case studies from around the globe and from a variety of historical periods.

Anthro 221-0-20 – Social and Health Inequalities

What is a more important predictor of how long you will live, the genes you inherit from your parents, or the zip code of where you grew up? This course aims to answer this question, as well as others, regarding the origins of social disparities in health in the U.S. The course will also consider the broader global context, and ask why the U.S. spends so much money on health care but lags behind many nations in key indicators of population health. It will examine how social stratification by race/ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, education, and neighborhood quality shapes our biology and the health status of individuals, families, and populations; and, conversely, how health itself can be a fundamental determinant of key social outcomes such as educational achievement.

Anthro 232-0-20 – Myth and Symbolism

This course is an introduction to three of the leading theories about the nature and meaning of myth: psychoanalytic, functionalist, and structuralist. Each of these three approaches will be considered primarily through the writings of their respective founders: Sigmund Freud, Bronislaw Malinowski, and Claude Levi-Strauss. Lectures will be primarily concerned with explaining these three theories. Examples of how these theories can be applied to the analysis of specific myths will largely be drawn from the Old Testament Book of Genesis.

Antro 240-0 – Anthropology of Money

A survey of cultural and ethnographic approaches to money and finance. Topics of investigation include “primitive money,” the uses of money in religious and ritual practices, social and cultural meanings of numbers, mobile money, crypto-currency and other alternative currency systems, and the politics of central banking. Prerequisite: None

Anthro 290-0-1 – Race, Gender and Sexuality in Science and Anti-Science

Is race "real"? Do men and women have different brains? Is sexuality a choice (and should that matter)? This course examines the way these and other questions have been taken up in scientific discourse and how, in turn, scientific discourse has become a battleground in political disputes over trans rights, gender equality, and racial justice in the United States and beyond. We will approach race, gender, and sexuality as biosocial constructs, exploring their roles in debates about the relationship between biology and society, nature and culture, human similarity and difference, and knowledge and politics. Course modules will: contextualize how cultural understandings of human difference have shaped—and still impact--the development of Western science; examine contemporary scientific questions related to sex, gender, race, & sexuality, genetic diversity, medicine, technology, and the role of science in contemporary politics; explore how social inequalities can become embodied and produce biological effects; and interrogate the contemporary politicization and instrumentalization of scientific discourses related to race, gender, and sexuality, including by White supremacist, anti-trans, and anti-feminist movements.

Anthro 290-0-2 – Food in Culture and Society

This class explores food in all its cultural and social dimensions. Lectures and readings will begin with the deep history and origins of our foods, with a focus on ancient foods of the Americas; then, we turn to the social, economic and political organization of the modern food industry, from industrial production and fast-food empires to small-scale local farms and restaurants; and last, the cultural significance of food, whether as cherished ethnic tradition or in the rise (and fall?) of celebrity chefs, cooking shows and competitions. Individual research projects will allow an in-depth study of a favorite (or least favorite) food, and experiential assignments will take students out of the classroom and into local and regional stores, restaurants, and markets to meet the people who make and sell our food.

ANTHRO 290-0-21 – Japanese Culture and Society

This course offers an anthropological introduction to Japanese society and culture through a critical investigation of a wide range of films, from Yusujiro Ozu's classic films to Hayao Miyazaki's animated films and various documentary films contemporary Japan. Topics of investigation include war and peace, kinship and marriage, education, work and workplaces, gender and sexuality, nationalism and nostalgia, ethnic minorities, aging society, and techno-scientific utopia and dystopia.

ANTHRO 290-0-22 – Beyond the Binary: Transgender and Race

This course is a 200-level, introductory course that explores racial formation and the boundaries and binaries of gender. This course will overview approaches to understanding gender norms and categories, as well as consider experiences, living, and contestations beyond these binaries. Particularly through reading trans, genderqueer, and gender nonconforming histories, identities, experiences, and politics, this class will consider the possibilities and problems of categorizing "the beyond." We will discuss shifting conceptualizations of "normal" gender, and what is assumed to defy this "normal" as embedded in the intersecting histories and legacies of race, class, sexuality, nationality, and ability. For instance, what is the relationship between race and gender that specifically shapes and forms the boundaries of gender in the US - both historically and in the contemporary moment? What is the enduring role and stakes of scholarship and discourses in the social sciences, such as anthropology, that seeks to frame the boundaries of gender? How does power in social, cultural, and political arenas impact these discourses? This course aims to recognize and understand these contested histories of gender through the lens of our current moment, and we will consider the potential and limits of visibility, representation, and inclusion that trans activism and liberation, particularly from the legacies of trans of color communities, has continued to challenge within coercive gender systems.

Anthro 290-0-23 – Economic Anthropology

Economic anthropology refers to the anthropological study of political economy. The term political economy itself first appeared in in eighteenth century debates in industrial revolutionary England over the economic policies the state were to pursue. While classical economists such as Adam Smith formulated arguments for free trade in that particular context, they assumed that the hand of the state, whether to encourage free trade or to suppress it through colonial monopolies, was always in the game. By contrast, late nineteenth century neoclassical economists posited a pure, independent realm of the economy and economic behavior, which could be understood apart from politics and the modern nation-state. Most contemporary anthropologists of economic life retain the earlier, classical meaning of political economy, understanding economic facts and behavior to be embedded in larger socio-cultural contexts and firmly tie to politics, kinship and family, race and ethnicity, gender relations and colonial rule.

This course provides an anthropological introduction to four organizing concepts in political economy, namely commodity, labor money and property through close readings of foundational thinkers like Karl Marx, Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Polanyi, Adam Smith and their current interlocutors in anthropology and allied disciplines. The course tracks how the political life of economic phenomena and the economic contours of political life have been understood dynamically and in radically varying ways over time and space. The course attends in particular to the development of political economic thought and practice in the context of European colonialism's "primitive accumulation," and to ongoing cross-pollination among Marxist, postcolonial, and anthropological critique in the study of "the economy."

Anthro 290-0-24 – Food and Culture

All humans have similar nutritional requirements, yet the diversity of food preferences across the world is virtually unlimited. In the first part of this class, we will explore why people choose to eat some foods and not others. The second portion of the class will examine change and continuity in foodways through the lenses of identity and inequality. Rather than being arranged by world region, this class is arranged topically in order to bring different cuisines in conversation with one another. Case studies cover a wide stretch of the world, from Africa to the Americas to Asia and Europe.

Anthro 290-0-3 – Technology, Power and Justice in the Anthropocene

Our lives are configured through the routinized functioning of infrastructures that mostly remain invisible until they break down. Material infrastructures such as roads, bridges, grids, and dams connect people, places, ideas, and things across time and space. They promise spatial and social connectivity, environmental control, technological modernization, and development in the age of Anthropocene defined as the era in which human activities play a dominant role in environmental changes. However, they also lead to uneven access to resources, prevent mobility, and produce injustices and socio-political conflicts. This course will scrutinize infrastructures to discuss their social, political, and environmental lives. We will read and discuss anthropological studies that examine how infrastructures are constructed, used, maintained, and repaired in everyday life. In this exploration, we will pay specific attention to power relations, social meanings, and environmental transformations that shape and are shaped by infrastructures. Conceptual themes include, among others, urban citizenship, state power, social conflicts, securitization, violence, community building, and ecology. These themes will be explored through the focus on water systems, renewable energy, road projects, waste facilities, oil extraction, housing, and other infrastructures. We will pay specific attention to infrastructure and its politics in the Global South, through readings and other course materials on regions such as the Middle East and North Africa, South East Asia, Africa, and South America. The course will also cover new understandings of infrastructure beyond material systems; we will discuss the new perspectives that approach social relations and nature as infrastructures that sustain human and non-human life.

Anthro 306-0-20 – Evolution of Life Histories

This course introduces life history theory as an integrated framework for understanding the biological processes underlying the human life cycle and its evolution. After constructing a solid foundation in life history theory and the comparative method, the class will address questions such as: Why do humans grow and develop much more slowly than other primate species? Why do we have so few offspring? What is the significance of puberty? What is the function of menopause? In-depth analysis of several case studies will allow the class to examine in detail the utility of life history theory for explaining aspects of human development and behavior from an evolutionary perspective.

Anthro 307-0-20 – Anthropology of Peace

Cultural and ethnographic approaches to peace, peace building and peace activism. Topics of investigation include the concept of “peaceful societies,” cultural mechanisms for conflict resolution, truth and reconciliation, the relationship between peace and commerce, and the role of literature, art and material culture in peace activism.

This course includes one guest lecture on global peace activism to be scheduled outside of the normal class meeting times. Students are required to attend the event and prepare two or three questions for the guest speaker.

ANTHRO 307-0-20 – Anthropology of Peace

What is peace? Peace often sounds either too abstract or too na?ve in a world filled with inequality, injustice and violence. And yet, peace continues to serve as a framework for many forms of global engagement, from international activities at elementary schools to humanitarian action and high-level diplomatic negotiations. The anthropology of peace takes seriously all these levels of aspiration for peace and seeks to identify divergent loci of peace and peace-building in today's complex world. The course offers a broad survey of anthropological approaches to peace, including ethnographic studies of "peaceful societies," cultural mechanisms for dispute and conflict resolution, compensation, truth and reconciliation commissions, the relationship between peace and commerce, and the role of literature, art and material culture in peace activism. In this survey, we will be introduced to a variety of concrete efforts to foster peace and peaceful relationships. The course will also include two special events featuring examples of global peace activism.

Anthro 315-0 – Medical Anthropology

How do Anthropologists understand and investigate the social and cultural contexts of health and illness? This course will examine the diverse ways in which humans use cultural resources to cope with pain, illness, suffering and healing in diverse cultural contexts. In addition, we will analyze various kinds of medical practices as cultural systems, examining how disease, health, body, and mind are socially constructed, how these constructions articulate with human biology, and vice versa. The course will provide an introduction to the major theoretical frameworks that guide anthropological approaches to studying human health-related behavior. Theory will be combined with case studies from a number of societies, from India, Japan, Brazil, and Haiti to the U.S. and Canada, enabling students to identify similarities across seemingly disparate cultural systems, while at the same time demonstrating the ways in which American health behaviors and practices are socially embedded and culturally specific. The course will emphasize the overall social, political, and economic contexts in which health behavior and health systems are shaped, and within which they must be understood.

Anthro 315-0-20 – Medical Anthropology

How do Anthropologists understand and investigate the social and cultural contexts of health and illness? This course will examine the diverse ways in which humans use cultural resources to cope with pain, illness, suffering and healing in diverse cultural contexts. In addition, we will analyze various kinds of medical practices as cultural systems, examining how disease, health, body, and mind are socially constructed, how these constructions articulate with human biology, and vice versa. The course will provide an introduction to the major theoretical frameworks that guide anthropological approaches to studying human health-related behavior. Theory will be combined with case studies from a number of societies, from India, Japan, Brazil, and Haiti to the U.S. and Canada, enabling students to identify similarities across seemingly disparate cultural systems, while at the same time demonstrating the ways in which American health behaviors and practices are socially embedded and culturally specific. The course will emphasize the overall social, political, and economic contexts in which health behavior and health systems are shaped, and within which they must be understood.

ANTHRO 316-0-20 – Forensic Anthropology

This course provides a broad overview of forensic anthropology, an applied sub-field of biological anthropology. Forensic anthropology focuses traditional skeletal biology on problems of medicolegal significance, primarily in determining personal identity and assisting in the cause of death assessment from human remains. In this course we will discuss the full range of issues associated with human skeletal identification from trauma analysis to the identification of individuals in mass disasters. These problems will serve as a model for understanding the broader aspects of applied anthropology.

Anthro 327-0-20 – Historical Archaeology

Historical Archaeology is a field archaeology that focuses on the past 500 years and addresses a myriad of questions including, identity, European colonialism, resistance, capitalism, and power. This course will explore the history of different peoples in the Americas through the study of the material remains they left behind: architecture, burials, food remains, clothing and jewelry, etc. Attention will be focused on the presentation and/or exclusion of groups in depictions of history and in the creation new identities (ethnogenesis) in different parts of the Americas. It will also consider the ways in which power and economy intersect with other forms of identity, such as class, gender, and sexuality. The course will survey a variety of communities, concentrating on Indigenous Peoples, as well as people of European, African and Asian descent in American contexts. While there will be course material which touch on French and Iberian colonial contexts, class projects will primarily draw on study of artifacts and communities in the Eastern United States and the Anglophone Caribbean.

ANTHRO 327-0-20 – Archaeology of Ethnicity in Americas

Historical Archaeology is a field archaeology that focuses on the past 500 years and addresses a myriad of questions including, identity, European colonialism, resistance, capitalism, and power. This course will explore the history of different peoples in the Americas through the study of the material remains they left behind: architecture, burials, food remains, clothing and jewelry, etc. Attention will be focused on the presentation and/or exclusion of groups in depictions of history and in the creation new identities (ethnogenesis) in different parts of the Americas. It will also consider the ways in which power and economy intersect with other forms of identity, such as class, gender, and sexuality. The course will survey a variety of communities, concentrating on Indigenous Peoples, as well as people of European, African and Asian descent in American contexts. While there will be course material which touch on French and Iberian colonial contexts, class projects will primarily draw on study of artifacts and communities in the Eastern United States and the Anglophone Caribbean.

Anthro 329-0-1 – Archaeology and Nationalism

Archaeology and nationalism have been closely intertwined at least since the idea of the nation-state emerged in Europe following the French Revolution. Archaeology offers nationalist agendas the possibility of elaborating historical records and extending the past far into prehistory. Its results can be displayed in museums and accessed online. In turn, nationalism has contributed to the development of archaeology as a modern discipline within colonial contexts and problematic theories around race. Global heritage and institutions such as UNESCO's World Heritage Centre have reshaped the political landscape of archaeological sites while introducing new tensions around equitable access to resources and the consequences of increased tourism.
This course explores the role of archaeology in creating and elaborating national identities over the last two centuries, emphasizing the critical evaluation of historical and archaeological sources. Issues include the professionalization of archaeology; national museums and practices of display and interpretation; archaeological sites as national monuments and tourist destinations; cultural property legislation and controversies; and archaeology and monuments under totalitarian regimes.

Anthro 332-0 – Anthropology of Reproduction

Marriage and reproduction throughout the world, particularly the developing world and Africa. Conjugal strategies, fertility, contraception.

Anthro 343-0-1 – Anthropology of Race

This course provides an introduction to discussions of race and ethnicity within anthropology. We will discuss racialization - the process by which people are assigned to categories of race and the associated stereotypes and traits tied to those categories. Because race is a social construct, anthropology is well-situated to examine how racial categories are created and made impactful through historical and social practice. Throughout the course, will examine racial categories, where they come from, how they vary across societies, and what they are used to signify or mean. With readings from the four main subfields of anthropology, students will learn about ideas and conceptualizations of race through biological, cultural, linguistic, and archaeological approaches. The course will begin by complicating and contradicting the idea that racial categories are in any way natural, scientific, or innate. We will examine the history of these categories and the process of creating and maintaining racial categories. While the course does examine racial categories across globally situated projects, we will focus especially on the United States context. The course will conclude with some models and discussions of anti-racist approaches within anthropology.

Anthro 343-0-20 – Anthropology of Race

Anthro 359-0 – The Human Microbiome and Health

Discussion-based analysis of cutting edge research on the microbes associated with the human body and their impacts on health. Consideration of historical, social, and political influences on observed patterns.

Anthro 359-0-1 – The Human Microbiome and Health

Did you know that all the microbes on and in your body weigh as much as your brain? And they can influence your body almost as much as your brain? They can determine how much weight you gain on a certain diet or whether you develop the symptoms of an autoimmune disease, and they can even affect your mood and behavior. Although we have long known the importance of microbes in the context of disease, recent advances in technology have opened up an entirely new field of research that is transforming perspectives on human health. In this course, we will explore the human microbiome beginning with an overview of different types of microbes and the methods we use to study them. Following that, the majority of the course will be dedicated to exploring new research on the microbes of the skin, mouth, gut, and uro-genital tract and their impacts on human health. We will also consider the influence of geography, politics, social structures, and culture on global patterns in the human microbiome and health.

Anthro 370-0-1 – Anthropology in Historical Perspective

Rather than attempting the impossible, an overview of the whole history of the discipline of anthropology, this course will focus on one particular problem, the relationship between theory and ethnographic description in cultural Anthropology. The course will attempt to survey the development of certain schools of thought in the discipline since the mid-nineteenth century: evolutionism; historical particularism; structural-functionalism; culture and personality; cultural materialism; interpretive anthropology. In order to examine the ways in which each of these theoretical approaches affects the ways in which anthropologists choose to describe what they observe, the class will read a series of ethnographies (or excerpts from larger works) written at different times from different points of view.

Anthro 370-0-1 – Anthropology in Historical Perspective

Major schools of thought in social, archaeological and biological anthropology over the last century.

Anthro 370-0-20 – Anthropology in Historical Perspective

Rather than attempting the impossible, an overview of the whole history of the discipline of anthropology, this course will focus on one particular problem: the relationship between theory and ethnographic description in cultural Anthropology. The course will attempt to survey the development of certain schools of thought in the discipline since the mid-nineteenth century: evolutionism; historical particularism; structural-functionalism; culture and personality; cultural materialism; interpretive anthropology. In order to examine the ways in which each of these theoretical approaches affects the ways in which anthropologists choose to describe what they observe, the class will read a series of ethnographies (or excerpts from larger works) written at different times from different points of view.

Anthro 382-0-20 – Political Ecology

This class is an introduction to Political Ecology, a multidisciplinary body of theory and research that analyzes the environmental articulations of political, economic, and social difference and inequality. The key concepts, debates, and approaches in this field address two main questions: (1) How do humans' interactions with the environment shape power and politics? (2) How do power and politics shape humans' interactions with the environment? These questions are critical to understanding and addressing the current issues of climate change, the Anthropocene, and environmental justice. Topics discussed in this class will include environmental scarcity and degradation, sustainability and conservation, and environmental justice. Readings will come from the disciplines of geography, anthropology and archaeology. Case studies will range from the historical to the present-day. No prior background in the environmental sciences is needed to appreciate and engage in this course.

Anthro 382-0-20 – Political Ecology

This class is an introduction to Political Ecology, a multidisciplinary body of theory and research that analyzes the environmental articulations of political, economic, and social difference and inequality. The key concepts, debates, and approaches in this field address two main questions: (1) How do humans' interactions with the environment shape power and politics? (2) How do power and politics shape humans' interactions with the environment? These questions are critical to understanding and addressing the current issues of climate change, the Anthropocene, and environmental justice. Topics discussed in this class will include environmental scarcity and degradation, sustainability and conservation, and environmental justice. Readings will come from the disciplines of geography, anthropology and archaeology. Case studies will range from the historical to the present-day. No prior background in the environmental sciences is needed to appreciate and engage in this course.

Anthro 383-0-20 – Environmental Anthropology

Anthropology has had a long, storied relationship with questions of nature and culture, society and environment, during which time a variety of theoretical approaches have been developed. This class will review these intellectual developments and recent trends with the aim of giving students toolkits for analyzing present-day environmental concerns.

ANTHRO 383-0-20 – Environmental Anthropology

Environmental anthropology is a more recent outgrowth of ecological anthropology, which emerged in the 1960s and 70s as an empirically-based focus on systemic human-environment relationships, especially as they pertain to patterns of social change and adaptation. Environmental anthropology became more prominent in the 1980s, and is typically characterized by research on communities' engagements with contemporary environmental issues. Environmental anthropology has greater commitments to advocacy, critique, and application than ecological anthropology, but as we'll see in this course, the proliferation of "new ecologies" (as opposed to "new environmentalisms") denotes the continued synergy between ecological and environmental anthropologies.
This course is divided into two parts. Part I will provide an historical overview of the development of environmental anthropology. We will cover some of the most influential research trends in the field: environmental determinism, cultural ecology, systems ecology, ethnoecology, historical ecology, political ecology, and post-humanist ecology. Part II will then pivot to the application of environmental anthropology knowledge to some of the most pressing environmental issues facing the contemporary world: population pressure, capitalist consumption patterns, biodiversity conservation, sustainable agriculture, climate change, and environmental justice.

Anthro 390-0 – Anthropology of Money

What is money? How do people use money in the real world? How are technological innovations changing people's perceptions of money? This course introduces anthropological perspectives on economy and society through a variety of ethnographic studies of money and finance. Topics of discussion include "primitive money," the uses of money in religious and ritual practices, social and cultural meanings of numbers, mobile money, crypto-currency and other alternative currency systems, and the politics of central banking.

Anthro 390-0-1 – Nature, Culture and Environmentalisms

This course examines anthropological treatments of the concept of nature and human relations with the natural environment. We discuss how conceptions of nature are always shaped, transformed, and produced by social relations. Course materials focus primarily on ethnographies on the intersections of political ecology, science studies, and postcolonial critiques. Course topics include the history of the Western nature-culture opposition and its critics, as well as recent scholarship on such topics as food studies, the social life of forests, race and the genome, human-animal interactions, and interspecies relations.

Anthro 390-0-1 – Cities and Nuclear Weapons

The risk of nuclear war is increasing, from North Korea's nuclear program to Russia's threat to use tactical nuclear weapons in its war with Ukraine. The nuclear arms race is also gaining momentum, as evidenced by China's growing nuclear arsenal and the U.S. "nuclear modernization" program. Cities have always been considered targets for nuclear attack. This advanced course in the anthropology of peace examines the role of cities—city leaders and city residents—in the politics of nuclear weapons through the lens of a broader vision of security in which global nuclear security is inextricably linked to local, national, and regional concerns such as racism, gender inequality, economic inequality, environmental crisis, and memories of past violence. The course introduces students to the history of the development of nuclear weapons, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, various bilateral and multilateral frameworks for nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament, key concepts, theories, and policy tools related to nuclear security, and the evolution of anti-nuclear activism, particularly from the "nuclear freeze" movement of the 1980s to the current global campaign to abolish nuclear weapons. The course will also offer opportunities to hear from a wide range of guest speakers, including defense and security experts, atomic bomb survivors, peace activists, and local government officials. There are no prerequisites for the course, and no prior knowledge of anthropology or security studies is required. Students from all majors and schools are welcome.

Anthro 390-0-2 – Witches, Bots & Trolls: Misinformation

This course surveys the social scientific study of misinformation in society. We will query the past to learn about how misinformation has evolved over time as a sociocultural feature of human societies. We will interrogate the present to examine how misinformation figures in the defining political, social, and economic problems of our time. And we will imagine the implications of misinformation for the future and explore our agency in shaping that future. We will draw on case studies, documentaries, and anthropological and social scientific literature on rumor and gossip, conspiracy theories, post-truth politics, deradicalization, and social media to explore topics and concepts such as "fake news," digital populism, algorithmic bias, weaponized disinformation, the "infodemic," deep fakes, and more. Case studies may include COVID-19, election, and climate change denialism; political conspiracy theories from the French Revolution to QAnon; troll farms and other tactics of information warfare; and the role of misinformation in current controversies over sexual and racial politics.

ANTHRO 390-0-21 – Evolutionary Medicine

Many diseases of contemporary society, including ailments like obesity, diabetes, and depression, have only emerged as major health issues in recent human history. In addition, different human groups or ethnicities vary markedly in the burden of these conditions, with factors like poverty, inequality and discrimination consistently predicting who is most affected. What might account for these common findings? In this course we explore two related ideas to gain insights into these issues. The first is that many modern ailments may be viewed as an imbalance between modern life ways and those which shaped our biology during much of human evolution. The second is that differences in factors like inequality and discrimination, which trace to political, economic, and historical factors, help explain why some groups tend to be more affected by these imbalances than others. We will begin by reviewing foundational concepts in evolutionary biology, molecular biology, anthropology and human evolution, revealing why our bodies by necessity come equipped with biology that is responsive to the environments that we inhabit. We will then use these principles to explore case studies that illustrate the power of evolutionary principles to shed light on why we get sick, including the role of social, economic and political factors as drivers of major disparities in disease burden.

Anthro 390-0-21 – Biocultural Perspectives on Water Insecurity

The first objective of this course is to introduce students to the many ways that water impacts our world. We will discuss what the international recommendations for safely managed water are and the health and social consequences of water insecurity. The second objective is explore why there is such variety in water insecurity worldwide. These discussions will be guided by the socio-ecological framework, in which dimensions ranging from the individual to the geopolitical are considered. Influences on access to water will be broadly considered; we will draw on literature in global health, ethnography, the life sciences, and public policy. The third objective is to develop critical thinking and writing abilities to reflect on the multi-dimensional causes and consequences of water insecurity and the appropriateness of potential solutions.

Anthro 390-0-22 – Contraceptive Technologies

One of the topics in social science that has been as contentious as it has been enduring has been human fertility and attempts to control it through technological means. Underlying nearly all these discussions are those such as the following: tensions between individual vs societal control, rights vs. obligations, differing interests among sexual and reproductive partners (and their families), morality/religion, potential profits to be gained by appropriating sexual/fertility technology and intervention, and attempted manipulations of highly contextualized understandings of technology and intellectual property across time and place. To mine this rich subject, this class will examine relevant debates that have arisen in classic literatures in anthropology, sociology, demography, law, and history. Of additional interest will be several very recent topics that have surged to the fore in debates over the meaning of new technologies of cultural/symbolic reproductive control. Examples will include legal entanglements governing reproduction and the transfer of technologies across national and international borders, debates over contraception and its alleged links to pathologies of vaccines and sexually transmitted diseases, and struggles over funding for fertility control for rich vs. poor, and dilemmas of reproduction in the age of gender and partnership fluidity. Regional emphases will be broad. Of special interest will be Africa, Western Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, and the US.

Anthro 390-0-22 – Archaeology of Food and Drink

Food is a universal requirement for humans to survive, yet different cultures have developed radically divergent cuisines. In this course, we will use archaeology to explore the diversity of human foodways, and the various roles food has played throughout time. You will learn about topics like the 'real' Paleo diet, how the Incas used beer at parties to build social alliances, and how Columbus's discovery of the Americas spurred global scale shifts in food and agriculture. The course begins with an overview of how anthropologists and archaeologists study food, and then moves through time, beginning with our hunting and gathering ancestors and ending with colonialism.

ANTHRO 390-0-23 – Race Across Time in Latin America

This seminar will track both the shifts and continuities in racial ideologies operating in Latin America since the colonial period, following the work of historians and anthropologists. The course will consider impact of these ideologies on subject formation by reviewing their progression over time through theoretical arguments and evidence from case studies. Because race has been central to the forms of power and authority that first undergirded the colonial system and later birthed the many Latin American nations, we can trace a continued line of transmission of racialized ideologies that structure inequality in the region. Using a cultural and linguistic anthropological framework, we will approach these racial categories as composites of markers of otherness that include skin color, clothing, kin affiliations, occupation, among others. The course moves progressively from research about the early colonial period and forward chronologically until the 20th century, with a final discussion of migrant trajectories to the US. Topics covered will include variations in how race is defined and invoked in context, identity as a performative effect, coloniality as an ongoing process, and the role of historical memory in post-colonial Latin America.

Anthro 390-0-23 – Political Anthropology

This class is an introduction to Political Ecology, a multidisciplinary body of theory and research that analyzes the environmental articulations of political, economic, and social difference and inequality. The key concepts, debates, and approaches in this field address two main questions: (1) How do humans' interactions with the environment shape power and politics? (2) How do power and politics shape humans' interactions with the environment? These questions are critical to understanding and addressing the current issues of climate change, the Anthropocene, and environmental justice. Topics discussed in this class will include environmental scarcity and degradation, sustainability and conservation, and environmental justice. Readings will come from the disciplines of geography, anthropology and archaeology. Case studies will range from the historical to the present-day. No prior background in the environmental sciences is needed to appreciate and engage in this course.

Anthro 390-0-23 – Archaeology of Sustainability and Collapse

This course is a seminar that uses archaeological case studies from the past to interrogate human-environment relationships across time and space, including the present and the future. The emphasis here will not be on learning environmental archaeology methods. Instead, we will be focusing on how archaeologists think about key environmental concepts, including climate change, sustainability, and resilience. We will discuss examples of "failure" and "success" in the long history of human-environment interactions, and see if there's room for nuance along the way. We will also use this course as an opportunity to consider how archaeology can contribute to environmental sustainability and environmental justice efforts. Prior coursework in archaeology is not required to appreciate this class or do well, but would be helpful.

Anthro 290-0-24 – Fire and Blood: Resources, Energy, and Society

Climate crisis, directly linked to CO2 emissions from centuries of burning fossil fuels, has brought energy resources to the center of public attention. This course will survey works of anthropology, history, and geography as well as films and novels to understand how various resources and energy systems relate to sociocultural practices and politics throughout the world. Focusing on one energy resource each week, Fire and Blood will examine how uranium, wind, coal, light, oil, water, and other materials are made into sources of power?both physical and political. It will trace the movement of resources from the subsoil, atmosphere, or riverbeds to pipelines, power plants, dams, turbines, or other kinds of energy infrastructures; and finally, to the electrified streets of urban Mumbai, the wastelands of Navajo County, or the melting ice sheets of the Arctic. After discussing the toxic legacies of fossil fuels and nuclear things, we will end the course by reading texts on "energy transition" and post-carbon futures. By the end of the course, each student will have produced a research paper on an existing, past, or planned energy resource project of their choice from anywhere in the world.

Anthro 390-0-24 – Biocultural Perspectives on Water Insecurity

The first objective of this course is to introduce students to the many ways that water impacts our world. We will discuss what the international recommendations for safely managed water are and the health and social consequences of water insecurity. The second objective is explore why there is such variety in water insecurity worldwide. These discussions will be guided by the socio-ecological framework, in which dimensions ranging from the individual to the geopolitical are considered. Influences on access to water will be broadly considered; we will draw on literature in global health, ethnography, the life sciences, and public policy. The third objective is to develop critical thinking and writing abilities to reflect on the multi-dimensional causes and consequences of water insecurity and the appropriateness of potential solutions.

Anthro 390-0-24 – Language, History, Truth

This seminar will apply a linguistic anthropological approach to understanding how social facts are determined by historical trajectories and, in parallel, how events in the past are narrated into history via a set of specific discursive and social processes. We will identify historical ideologies embedded in understandings of colonization in the Caribbean, the struggle for Indigenous rights in the Andes, and radical political thought in the US, and find points of intersection between them. We will consider their impact in subject formation by attending to their social, political, and economic effects. Because a monopoly over truth (and especially historical truth) has been central to the forms of power and authority that undergird ongoing systems of neocolonialism, we will consider the actors and institutions that develop, codify, and transmit notions that individuals—as members of different social collectivities—believe to be true. What can we learn about how "truth" settles, and thus unlearn some of the exclusionary practices embedded within the production of knowledge? The course will seek to develop a methodology that pairs linguistic and discursive analyses with basic ethnographic approaches. Focus topics will include colonization, social media, and governance.

Anthro 390-0-26 – Witches, Bots & Trolls

This course surveys the social scientific study of misinformation in society. We will query the past to learn about how misinformation has evolved over time as a sociocultural feature of human societies. We will interrogate the present to examine how misinformation figures in the defining political, social, and economic problems of our time. And we will imagine the implications of misinformation for the future and explore our agency in shaping that future. We will draw on case studies, documentaries, and anthropological and social scientific literature on rumor and gossip, conspiracy theories, post-truth politics, deradicalization, and social media to explore topics and concepts such as "fake news," digital populism, algorithmic bias, weaponized disinformation, the "infodemic," deep fakes, and more. Case studies may include COVID-19 and climate change denialism, political conspiracy theories from the French Revolution to the Red Scare to Pizzagate, troll farms and other tactics of information warfare, and the role of misinformation in current controversies over "gender ideology," trans rights, and critical race theory.

Anthro 390-0-26 – Witches, Bots & Trolls

This course surveys the social scientific study of misinformation in society. We will query the past to learn about how misinformation has evolved over time as a sociocultural feature of human societies. We will interrogate the present to examine how misinformation figures in the defining political, social, and economic problems of our time. And we will imagine the implications of misinformation for the future and explore our agency in shaping that future. We will draw on case studies, documentaries, and anthropological and social scientific literature on rumor and gossip, conspiracy theories, post-truth politics, deradicalization, and social media to explore topics and concepts such as "fake news," digital populism, algorithmic bias, weaponized disinformation, the "infodemic," deep fakes, and more. Case studies may include COVID-19 and climate change denialism, political conspiracy theories from the French Revolution to the Red Scare to Pizzagate, troll farms and other tactics of information warfare, and the role of misinformation in current controversies over "gender ideology," trans rights, and critical race theory.

ANTHRO 390-0-27 – Fire and Blood: Political Ecologies of the Environ

What kinds of tools would help us understand urgent global issues we are facing today, ranging from global pandemics and climate emergency, wildfires in California and Australia, hurricanes in Puerto Rico and Louisiana, occupational diseases in South Dakota and Toronto, or urban infrastructure crises in Mumbai and Senegal? Over the past three decades, political ecology has emerged as a powerful interdisciplinary tool for understanding and critiquing global ecological change. Political ecology seeks to unravel the political forces at work in environmental processes on a global scale. It is a powerful strategy for reinserting politics into apolitical or "greenwashed" discussions of ecology and the environment and unsettling common-sense understandings of "the environment" or "nature" as separate from the social and the cultural. It is also an essential tool to understand how disparate-seeming places, events, and living entities in the world are intimately linked to each other in often uneven ways. In this course, we will critically approach topics such as resource extraction, conservation, carbon management, natural disasters, sanitation politics, and human-animal-plant relations. In doing so, we will explore the gendered and racialized ways and the ongoing histories of slavery, colonialism, imperialism, and capitalism through which environmental and energy politics operate in our societies today.

Anthro 390-0-28 – Archaeology & Nationalism

Archaeology and nationalism have been closely intertwined at least since the idea of the nation-state emerged following the French Revolution. Archaeology offers nationalist agendas the possibility of filling in national historical records and extending the past far into prehistory. Its results can be displayed in museums, occupy entire sites, and be readily accessible online ?thus potentially reaching many new audiences beyond traditional print media. In turn, nationalism has contributed significantly to the development of archaeology as a modern discipline.

Drawing on new critical approaches and examples selected from a wide geographical range, this course explores the role of archaeology in the creation and elaboration of national identities from the eighteenth century to the present day. Issues include the institutionalization of archaeology; the development of museums and practices of display and interpretation; the creation of archaeological sites as national monuments and tourist destinations; cultural property legislation and repatriation of artifacts; and archaeology and monuments under totalitarian regimes.

ANTHRO 390-0-28 – Becoming Planetary: Earth, Power, Imagination

"Planetary" has increasingly come to capture the imagination and apprehension of people around the world. It has also been receiving special attention in the critical social sciences and humanities as a concept that captures the relationship between social life and the Earth. Our planet is going through massive changes in its climate and ecosystems. At the same time, humans have become a major force that has been shaping the dynamics of the planet. Taking this interdependence between social life/humans and the planet, this course explores the ways in which social sciences and the humanities are responding to the entanglement of humanity and our planet. Understanding our planet as the product of a dynamic planet, self-organizing over deep time, we will explore how the social and political processes of fire use, mining, disease, slavery, colonialism, extraction, trade, and extinction have powerfully shaped and have been shaped by inhuman planetary formations. One main task of the course will be to understand how racialized and economic inequalities have made their mark on Earth through the reorganization of planetary processes.

Anthro 390-0-29 – Earth Politics & Poetics: Knowing, Shaping & Imagining

"Planet Earth" has a political and social history. The Copernican turn and geological notions of deep time, for example, radically shifted understandings of the Earth, time, and humans' relationship to them. Whole Earth images first generated by the Apollo Space missions in the late 1960s and 1970s have been the characteristic form of planetary imagination during the late twentieth century. Earthrise and The Blue Marble images enabled humans to imagine the planet as an interconnected whole against the backdrop of the Cold War and environmental disasters. They have been crucial to the emergence of a "global consciousness" and became famous icons of the global environmental movement, depicting the planet as the common home of humans as one species. The power of these images has not decreased, yet other forms of representation and imagination have emerged as well. The development of Google Earth or advanced climate modeling systems, for example, mark a different notion of Earth, characterized by dynamic, heterogeneous, and open systems. This course examines such shifting notions of the Earth by tracing how practices and discourses of geopolitics, political theory, cartography, population studies, climate modeling, deep ocean sensing, outer space exploration and mining, and science fiction literature, have come to sense, know, represent, and imagine the planet since the 18th century. In doing so, this course also surveys shifting socio-political currents, from the intersection of the military-industrial complex and techno science to how climate crisis, Anthropocene debates, and Earth Systems analysis reflect further shifts in the ways the planet is understood today. Tracing these shifts in planetary representation and imagination is also crucial to understanding how core concepts such as "humanity" and "species" are made and unmade. Understanding the deeply mediated processes behind planetary depictions is not only central to making sense of contemporary politics and policies that propose to shape the future, but also to imagining alternative worlds and futures beyond our grim ecological predicament.

Anthro 390-0-29 – Workshop in Health Humanities

TBD

Anthro 390-0-32 – How Art, Images and Senses Shape Science

What does gentrification sound like? What is the role of smell or color in shaping ideas of racial difference in contemporary cities? Does public art challenge or reinforce social hierarchies in urban spaces? This course examines how aesthetic expressions and practices such as urban design and architecture, public art and graffiti, and public performances shape struggles over rights to the city. For example, we will learn how indigenous migrants from Latin America paint murals to challenge anti-indigenous racism and erasure in Los Angeles and how urban developers in Delhi use aesthetic judgments of the working poor to justify their forced removal from public spaces. While aesthetics are commonly associated with the visual qualities of people and things, this course will explore multi-sensory aesthetic experiences and judgments, such as noise control initiatives in Tapei and the racial politics of smell in New York City. Students will have the opportunity to develop arts and media-based final projects that examine urban aesthetics through methods that include but are not limited to sound/smell maps, comics, podcast episodes, performances, or art installations. By the end of the course, students will be able to critically analyze the aesthetic politics of the urban built environment within and beyond dominant visual-centric approaches.

Anthro 390-22 – Detection, Investigation, Diagnosis

In this course, we examine the relationship between science and society, via close study of three socio-cultural practices: detection; investigation; and diagnosis. Specifically, we will be posing questions about: how various forms of scientific knowledge are produced and legitimated; the regimes of evidence guiding these practices; how expertise and experts emerge; and how "facts" and "truth" are adjudicated. In so doing, we will learn about how scientific knowledge shapes and reflects our social relations, material conditions, and subjectivities. Throughout the course, we will reflect upon the value of anthropological methods and theories for studying scientific practice.

Art Hist 255-0-1 – Introduction to Modernism

What is modernism? Why did artists in Western Europe in the late nineteenth century stop making realistic images of the world and instead start experimenting with form to the point that they invented abstract art? How did artists from other parts of the world reject or transform it? Modernist art arose in the historical period we call modernity, defined by colonialism and imperial expansion; industrialization; urbanization; revolution and mass war; the rise of mass commodity culture, spectacle and technology; and the emergence of the art market as we know it today. From the late 19th C to the mid-20th C, we will examine the key modernist "isms": Impressionism, Cubism, Dadaism, Surrealism, Suprematism, Purism, Constructivism, Socialist Realism, and Abstract Expressionism, as well as how they were reworked in the art of some of the non-European cultures to which they were often indebted.

Art Hist 318-0-1 – Ancient Art: Its Modern Classification & Display

How do institutions such as museums, along with other created contexts such as websites and archaeological sites developed as tourist destinations, shape and construct our notions of the past? How are these institutions enmeshed with broader cultural and political agendas regarding cultural identity and otherness, the formation of artistic canons, and even the concept of ancient art? This course explores modern strategies of collecting and display of material culture from ancient Egypt, the Middle East, Greece, and Rome, both in Europe and the United States and in their present-day homelands.

The course approaches the construction of ancient Mediterranean, Egyptian, and Near Eastern art through modes of reception over the past two centuries. By analyzing programs of collecting and display, it seeks to understand both the development of modern scholarship in ancient art and the intersection of institutional and scholarly programs. Topics examined include the historical development of modern display practices in public and private museums; notions of authenticity and identity; issues of cultural heritage and patrimony; temporary and "blockbuster" shows; virtual exhibitions and museums; and the archaeological site as a locus of display. Chicago-area museums will provide important resources for studying firsthand examples of temporary and long-term installations.

Art Hist 318-0-1 – Exhibiting Antiquity

How do institutions such as museums, along with other created contexts such as websites and archaeological sites developed as tourist destinations, shape and construct our notions of the past? How are these institutions enmeshed with broader cultural and political agendas regarding cultural identity and otherness, the formation of artistic canons, and even the concept of ancient art? This course explores modern strategies of collecting and display of material culture from ancient Egypt, the Middle East, Greece, and Rome, both in Europe and the United States and in their present-day homelands.

The course approaches the construction of ancient Mediterranean, Egyptian, and Near Eastern art through modes of reception over the past two centuries. By analyzing programs of collecting and display, it seeks to understand both the development of modern scholarship in ancient art and the intersection of institutional and scholarly programs. Topics examined include the historical development of modern display practices in public and private museums; notions of authenticity and identity; issues of cultural heritage and patrimony; temporary and "blockbuster" shows; virtual exhibitions and museums; and the archaeological site as a locus of display. Chicago-area museums will provide important resources for studying firsthand examples of temporary and long-term installations.

Art Hist 349-0 – Early Modern Art: Materiality and Experience

The materiality of art is evident and central to how art looks, how it means, and how it endures. This new course is intended as an introduction to the materiality of objects and works of art made during the early modern era (c. 1400-1700) and to concepts for understanding and interpreting them. Works in a variety of materials, ivory, wax, woods, feathers, shells and mother-of-pearl, oil paint, lacquer, metal, fresco, stone, porcelain and earthenware populate a series of case studies drawn from European, Mesoamerican, and East Asian workshops. In addition to learning about what goes into making an early modern work of art, students will trace the geographies of materials, and the ways in which materials, format, and durability all affect the viewer's experience. Students will read, analyze, and discuss current research on the makings of art, on theories of the materiality of art, and problems in art conservation and will participate in close examination of works in museum and special collections. Our specific focus is on the materiality of early modern art works, and on what sorts of experiences that materiality represents. How were the materials sourced? acquired? prepared? valued? appreciated? This course will introduce students to some of the central topics in early modern art history as it is practiced by scholars/historians *and* by archaeologists, museum curators, archivists, and conservators. Students will be introduced to a wide data set of objects and art works, and will learn how to analyze, articulate, discuss, and research aspects of their materiality. Rather than focusing on memorization, this course encourages using concepts from a set of assigned readings to reflect on the objects we discuss together. Students will work in small groups and as a class to advance their own vocabulary for and understanding of early modern materiality.

Art Hist 368-0-1 – Art & The Place of Nature in Modernity

How did we get into this mess? The idea that human beings are separate from something called "nature" which they can and should dominate and control is one of the most pervasive ideas in modern Western culture—meaning European and North American culture since the end of the Middle Ages. Over hundreds of years, alongside and intertwining with the development of capitalism and colonialism (for the "indigenous" was often placed on the side of nature), Western culture produced artificial divisions between human and nonhuman nature. Artists and scientists alike aspired to equal nature's powers and eventually exploit and "conquer" it—or "her," since "Nature" has often been gendered female—with the tools of technology. How did this come about? How did nature push back? This course attempts an alternative, ecological history of Western art from the perspective of how art has depicted, defined, constructed, and reckoned with nature. What is nature and the natural? How do nature and art mutually define one another? What does it mean when art rejects nature? Without attempting to be comprehensive, the course will work through carefully selected case studies—some of them student-generated—in landscape, still life, and figure painting; scientific illustration; garden and landscape design; and photography. We will read accessible scholarship and primary texts in art theory and natural science. We will try (and undoubtedly not fully succeed) to come to terms with how this history is reflected in contemporary ecological and epidemiological crises. The course will be taught as a combination of lecture, discussion, and student presentations. It does not require prior knowledge but does hope for your attentive engagement and intellectual curiosity. Written work includes short papers, take-home midterm, and a an 8-10pp final paper.

Art Hist 368-0-1 – Art & The Place of Nature in Modernity

How did we get into this mess? The idea that human beings are separate from something called "nature" which they can and should dominate and control is one of the most pervasive ideas in modern Western culture—meaning European and North American culture since the end of the Middle Ages. Over hundreds of years, alongside and intertwining with the development of capitalism and colonialism (for the "indigenous" was often placed on the side of nature), Western culture produced artificial divisions between human and nonhuman nature. Artists and scientists alike aspired to equal nature's powers and eventually exploit and "conquer" it—or "her," since "Nature" has often been gendered female—with the tools of technology. How did this come about? How did nature push back? This course attempts an alternative, ecological history of Western art from the perspective of how art has depicted, defined, constructed, and reckoned with nature. What is nature and the natural? How do nature and art mutually define one another? What does it mean when art rejects nature? Without attempting to be comprehensive, the course will work through carefully selected case studies—some of them student-generated—in landscape, still life, and figure painting; scientific illustration; garden and landscape design; and photography. We will read accessible scholarship and primary texts in art theory and natural science. We will try (and undoubtedly not fully succeed) to come to terms with how this history is reflected in contemporary ecological and epidemiological crises. The course will be taught as a combination of lecture, discussion, and student presentations. It does not require prior knowledge but does hope for your attentive engagement and intellectual curiosity. Written work includes short papers, take-home midterm, and a an 8-10pp final paper.

Art Hist 395-0-3 – Museums: Collecting the World in Early Mod Europe

What do the ostrich egg cup, agate pomander, coral, and other objects laid out on the table in this painting have to do with one another? Their luster, rarity, and highly worked surfaces and combinations of material signal their appeal as unusual things, attractive to early modern European collectors of cabinets of curiosities, also called Kunst- and Wunderkammern. Assembled across Europe from the mid-16th century through to the early 18th century, collections encompassed such varied items as natural specimens, art works, foreign goods, and sometimes musical and scientific instruments. The wide-ranging variety of objects in van Roerstraeten's, Still Life with Ostrich Cup and the Whitfield Heirlooms may seem random to our eyes today but allude to a culture of collecting in which a microcosmic scope was the ideal.

This seminar will offer an opportunity to explore the types of objects, practices, and motivations that shaped early modern collections, primarily in northern Europe, through a series of case studies anchored in objects at the Art Institute and will meet primarily at the museum. We will address the roots of early modern Kunst- and Wunderkammer collecting practices, and examine several of the best-preserved records, including treatises, catalogues, and inventories (in modern editions). Objects at the Art Institute will afford first-hand observation and inquiry into the structure and aesthetics of early modern collections in addition to investigation into material and display. We will also examine representations of collections and of the sorts of objects they encompassed as well as the legacy of early modern collections in the origins of public museums. Through discussion and individual research, we will consider how cabinets, the objects and images of the type that would have been collected for cabinets, and their materials were enmeshed in a variety of social and political contexts including networks of collectors, diplomacy, and colonial projects.

Art History 101-6 – First Year Seminar - Everest: Altitude & Attitude

Mountains of trash, littered empty oxygen bottles, corpses covered in snow and ice for decades, deep within crevasses or left in the open to serve as path markers, blackened frostbitten fingers, toes and noses, later amputated, $45-130K per attempt paid to commercial climbing companies, including an $11K fee to the Nepalese government. At least 296 deaths on the mountain are known to have occurred, a third of them Nepalese Sherpas engaged as guides and porters to carry supplies, set the ropes and metal bridges and assist the wealthy climbers. Every year, about 1000 people attempt to reach the 29,029 (and still growing) peak; more than a third turn back, despite the upfront, prepaid cost. Why do they come? Do they know why, themselves? What are the rewards and motivations for attempting it? In the past century and a half, there have been both national and personal pride invested in being the first, or one of the only. But for most of human history, climbing into the "death zone" was considered suicidal and avoided at all costs. Even today, most of the people who live in the Himalayas consider it an unnecessary sacrilege to trample on the goddess, Chomulungma, and do it only regretfully to support their families via adventure tourism. This course will examine the geology of Everest, explore different perspectives on the history of attitudes toward it, as well as the motivations, costs and rewards for those who attempt to climb it today.

Art History 369-0-1 – Media Archeologies of Art and Science

At key moments throughout the intertwined histories of art and science, the emergence of new technologies transformed the possibilities of perception, representation, and knowledge alike. The field of media archaeology seeks to reconstruct the social contexts, cultural impacts, and imaginary horizons of these moments by investigating obsolete media technologies like the X-ray or the hologram.

Grounded in the Block Museum's exhibition, The Heart's Knowledge: Science and Empathy in the Art of Dario Robleto, the course positions Robleto's creative practice as an entry point into the field of media archaeology. Robleto's inquiries into the histories of medical visualization, sound recording, and 19th-century visual culture will dovetail with readings and course materials that showcase various critical and artistic approaches to scientific media. Combining lectures, discussions, and student presentations, each week will examine a different set of objects and topics, such as maps, magic lantern projectors, silent films, early computer animation, planetariums, and virtual reality. Through film viewings, archival/study room visits, and guest lectures, students will enjoy the opportunity to materially engage with analog media technologies, and to interface with artists and scholars practicing diverse forms of media archaeology.

Course requirements include short written assignments, an in-class presentation, and a final paper (with option for creative component). Students will be asked to individually attend at least one exhibit, archive, or screening outside of class.

Art History 386-0-1 – Photograpy and Africa

This course examines the role of photography in shaping and transforming ideas of Africa—its peoples, cultures, and geographies—from the late nineteenth century to the present. Across colonial and post-colonial contexts, we will examine how artists, amateur and professional photographers, exhibitions, and publications variously register and respond to social, cultural, and political changes on the continent. Through course readings, lectures, and study room visits to the Herskovits Library of African Studies and the Block Museum of Art, we will engage a range of forms including advertisements and popular magazines, colonial ethnography, film, modern and contemporary art, and photojournalism.

Art History 389-0-1 – Ottoman & Qajar Photography in the Age of Oriental

From the first announcement of its invention in 1839, photography was linked with the Middle East, where it immediately became a tool of European imperialism in the Ottoman Empire and Qajar Iran. In the nineteenth century, photography served Europe's pictorial transformation of the Ottoman and Qajar worlds into the imaginary "Orient," characterized by backwards spirituality, perverse sexuality, and violent tyranny (hence ripe for European intervention). At the same time, photography was also taken up by a wide array Ottoman and Qajar subjects—from sultans and shahs to artists, scholars, and the Muslim middle classes—who adapted photography's powers to their own ends.

This course traces the impacts of Ottoman and Qajar culture, politics, and social history on photography's development as a technology of representation in the nineteenth century. By focusing on photography's entangled history with European colonialism in the Middle East and North Africa, this course highlights Orientalism as both a source of inspiration and a site of contestation for Ottoman and Qajar photographers (and their subjects). The course examines a wide range of photographic genres, including royal portraiture, studio photography, ethnographic photography, and archaeological photography, as well as the many fascinating processes and materials of nineteenth-century photography, from the daguerreotype to photolithography.

Art History 390-0-1 – Resourcing Empire: Colonialism and Modern Architecure

This seminar will explore the entangled histories of colonialism and architectural modernism, from the mid-nineteenth century until the 1960s, at the onset of mass decolonization across the Global South. The course will look beyond the "laboratory" narrative of modernism as colonialism's import, paying close attention to the role of local aesthetic and material practices, building technologies, environmental knowledge, and labor in the design of the colonial environment. Exploring stylistic forms of modernism and design theory in the imperial metropole, this course will also trace the European appropriation of indigenous cultural and material traditions and technical innovations. Expanding the scope of analysis beyond the urban scale, the seminar will situate the unique territorial character of colonial expansion during this period, and its reliance on emerging transregional infrastructures, within the broader framework of the industrialized "resource frontier." Our inquiry into the built environment of the colonial past and its relationship to architecture's modernity will be guided by contemporary debates and critical discourse that offer nuanced perspectives on the interlocking struggles over reparation, restitution, and the politics of memory.

Art History 390-0-3 – Art, Ecology and Politics

In a time of growing awareness of severe environmental crisis, how do artists (and how do we) make change while avoiding despair? This class focuses on ways artists and activists who are motivated by ecological concerns, but also by optimism about the difference they can make, have adapted artistic strategies to address environmental issues over the course of recent decades. Blurring the boundary between art and activism, or art and environmental remediation, they have taken up themes of sustainability and materiality, "collaborated" with natural processes, and addressed crises from industrial toxins to global warming. In this course we address key themes in environmental art, considering art, ecology, and politics in relation to issues that include gender, race, poverty, territory, and indigeneity. The course will unfold in conjunction with a performance and class visit by a Kaplan artist in residence and will also involve one or more field trips. Along with class participation and periodic short writing assignments, work will include group and individual final projects.

Art History 460-0-3 – Studies in 20th & 21st Century Art

How do media impact our sense of such fundamental concepts as personhood, time and space, and social life? How do new technologies transform sensory experience at different moments in history? This course provides an introduction to the field of theoretical writings within the humanities addressing the nature of media and the role of technology in twentieth- and twenty-first century western cultures. The course will be divided roughly into two halves: one portion devoted to foundational texts (Benjamin, McLuhan, Haraway) and to key terms (media, mediation, cyborg, digital, networks, etc.); and a second portion attentive to more contemporary work. Throughout our task will be to grasp these texts on their own terms, to put them into conversation with other texts and contexts, and to trace their relation to other texts in media theory and beyond. Requirements will include a short presentation, a short paper, and a longer paper.

ASIAN AM 220-0-1 – Asian Americans and Third World Solidarity

In this course, we will explore the concepts and theories for analyzing the historical study and legacies of Third Worldism and its relationship to Asian America. The course begins with laying the historical foundations for the emergence of Third World solidarities in the 1960s and 1970s, before turning to the components of Third World feminisms and the movements' contemporary legacies. The course's final project will be to create an Instagram resource guide, as we engage critically with the possibilities and limits of social media throughout the course.

Asian Amer 360-0-21 – Trans Surgeries in Transnational Contexts

This course is situated at the intersection of theoretical, cultural, medical, and commercial online discourses concerning the burgeoning Gender Affirmation-related surgeries presented online and conducted in Thailand. Using Gender, Queer, Trans, Asian American, and Digital Humanities Theories, we will discuss the cross-cultural intersections, dialogues, refusals, and adaptions when thinking about medical travel to Thailand for gender/sex related surgeries. We will examine Thai cultural/historical conceptions of sex and gender, debates concerning bodies and diagnoses, and changes in presentations of sex/gender related surgeries offered online. We will also explore how digital archives are created and managed. Investigating transcripts of live interviews, medical discourses, and an archive of web images offering GAS surgeries produced by Thais for non-Thais will serve as axes for investigating this topic.

Asian Am 376-0 – Techno-Orientalism

Techno-Orientalism names a variant of Orientalism that associates Asians with a technological future. This seminar will explore how Techno-Orientalist tropes are used by, played with, and rewritten by Asian American authors. We will study how twentieth-century and contemporary issues of technology, globalization, and financial speculation collide with a history of yellow peril and Asian Invasion discourse, as well as how these tensions manifest in figures and tropes such as robots, aliens, and cybernetics. Texts include poetry, novels, short stories, comics, and film.

Asian Am St - 303-0-20 – Race, Mental Health and Healing Justice

Race, Mental Health, and Healing Justice explores how constructions of race, class, gender, and sexuality are intimately connected to issues of mental health and chronic illness in a range of institutional and societal settings. Readings for the coursework include Frantz Fanon, Esme Weijun Wang, Aurora Levins Morales, Mariame Kaba, DSM-V, and Alternatives to Calling Police During Mental Health Crisis. Drawing from postcolonial, black feminist theory, women of color theory, critical refugee studies, and disability justice, this course focuses on how healing justice as a theoretical and methodological framework offers openings to address issues of state violence and cultural disease to imagine and manifest healthier sustainable futures.

Asian Am St - 376-0-3 – Techno-Orientalism

Techno-Orientalism names a variant of Orientalism that associates Asians with a technological future. This seminar will explore how Techno-Orientalist tropes are used by, played with, and rewritten by Asian American authors. We will study how twentieth-century and contemporary issues of technology, globalization, and financial speculation collide with a history of yellow peril and Asian Invasion discourse, as well as how these tensions manifest in figures and tropes such as robots, aliens, and pandemics. Texts include poetry, novels, short stories, comics, and film.

Asian Am St 360-0-1 – Asian American Sexualities

"Sexuality"—as potential, productive, perverse, political, and pleasurable— is taken up in this course as a profoundly dynamic node of power and knowledge. This interdisciplinary course interrogates how "Asian American sexualities" are taken up as a problematic and/or analytic in history, performance, public health, film, sociology, anthropology, literature, and art to discuss diaspora and migration, activism and HIV/AIDS, intimacy and pornography, gender and labor. This course asks, "What are the possibilities and potentialities of Asian American sexualities? How do Asian American sexualities inform our thinking about how we understand, relate to, and imagine the world and what we want it to be?"

Please be aware some texts and media might be too explicitly violent, graphic, or sexual for some students.

This course requires attendance events outside of the scheduled class time

Asian Amer St 360-0-1 – Trans Related Medical Surgeries in Thailand

This course is situated at the intersection of theoretical, cultural, medical, and commercial online discourses concerning the burgeoning Gender Affirmation-related surgeries presented online and conducted in Thailand. Using Gender, Queer, Trans, Asian American, and Digital Humanities Theories, we will discuss the cross-cultural intersections, dialogues, refusals, and adaptions when thinking about medical travel to Thailand for gender/sex related surgeries. We will examine Thai cultural/historical conceptions of sex and gender, debates concerning bodies and diagnoses, and changes in presentations of sex/gender related surgeries offered online. We will also explore how digital archives are created and managed. Investigating transcripts of live interviews, medical discourses, and an archive of web images offering GAS surgeries produced by Thais for non-Thais will serve as axes for investigating this topic.

Asian Lang 240-0-20 – The End of the World: South Korean Fictions, Films

What does one talk about when one talks about disasters? Whose world ends in "end of the world" narratives? This course invites students to read and watch South Korean and diasporic narratives centered around disasters, both real and fictional, to engage questions of politics, representation, and inequalities that shape disaster narratives. Ranging from disasters of the past to more contemporary ones such as pandemics and Sewol ferry, the disasters examined in this course have sparked complex conversations surrounding a more just society and the doomed end of the "normal." Engaging scholarship on disasters, speculative fictions, critical race theory, and gender studies, the course introduces students to the varied academic and cultural responses to disasters and the underlying stakes that drive these responses. Students will be assigned a variety of texts to analyze, such as film, novels, webtoons, and news, as well as choosing a disaster narrative of their own interest to examine. No prior knowledge of Korean culture or language are required to take this course. Students are expected to actively participate in class and work in groups on collaborative projects. Assignments will consist of short essays and a creative final project.

Asian Lang 300-0-20 – Religion and the Body in China

This seminar explores the place of the body in Chinese religion, from the ancient period to the present day. In the course of this exploration, we seek to challenge our presuppositions about a seemingly simple question: what is "the body," and how do we know? We open by considering themes of dying and the afterlife, food and drink, health and medicine, gender and family. We then turn to Daoist traditions of visual culture that envision the human body as intimately connected with the cosmos and picture the body's interior as a miniature landscape populated by a pantheon of gods. We read ghost stories and analyze the complex history of footbinding. Finally, we conclude with two case studies of religion and the body in contemporary China, one situated on the southwestern periphery, the other in the capital city of Beijing. Throughout the quarter, we investigate how the body has mediated relationships between Buddhist, Daoist, and popular religious traditions. By the course's end, students will gain key resources for understanding historical and contemporary Chinese culture, and new perspectives on what it means to be religious and embodied.

Asian Lang and Cultures 240-0-20 – The End of a World: South Korean Fictions, Films

What does one talk about when one talks about disasters? Whose world ends in "end of the world" narratives? This course invites students to read and watch South Korean and diasporic narratives centered around disasters, both real and fictional, to engage questions of politics, representation, and inequalities that shape disaster narratives. Ranging from disasters of the past to more contemporary ones such as pandemics and Sewol ferry, the disasters examined in this course have sparked complex conversations surrounding a more just society and the doomed end of the "normal." Engaging scholarship on disasters, speculative fictions, critical race theory, and gender studies, the course introduces students to the varied academic and cultural responses to disasters and the underlying stakes that drive these responses. Students will be assigned a variety of texts to analyze, such as film, paintings, novels, webtoons, and news, as well as choosing a disaster narrative of their own interest to examine. No prior knowledge of Korean culture or language are required to take this course. Students are expected to actively participate in class and work in groups on collaborative projects as well as producing two short papers. Waitlist will be enabled for the course, and all inquiries to the instructor once the course is full should state relevant coursework and why you wish to take the course for permission number considerations.

Asian Lang and Cultures 322-0-20 – Video Games in Japanese Culture

This course places video games in the context of Japanese cultural history from the 1990s to the present. It aims to furnish the historical and conceptual contexts necessary to interpret how games reflect upon the crises faced by Japan at the turn of the new millennium. The course centers on a series of dominant narrative paradigms and subcultural tropes—apocalyptic fantasy, world-type, survival, etc.—and asks how these are rendered in game form. While our focus is ultimately on games as a form of narrative, we aim also to understand how the active and interactive nature of the game medium shapes the meanings that these texts convey.

Asian Lang Cul 322-0-21 – Cyber-Japan

This course explores the interaction between cybernetic technologies and cultural production in modern Japan. We focus on how visual and literary media have been used to represent such technologies (robotics, cybernetics, and the Internet) as well as how these technologies have shaped Japanese culture in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The notion of the "cyber" - its origins in cybernetics and ensuing proliferation of meanings - forms the conceptual core of the course. After considering early definitions of this term, we turn to how Japanese manga, animation, film, and cultural theory explore the ways in which cybernetic technologies, like cyborgs and cyberspace, have expanded our understanding of human subjectivity and agency, transformed social relations, and blurred boundaries between the human and the animal, the biological and the artificial, and the physical and non-physical.

Asian Lang-Cul 392-0-20 – Media in East Asia

The seminar is designed to foster dialogues between Media Studies and Area Studies. The key questions we will be asking are: What is media and its relationship to our subjectivity? How are media practices in East Asia related to the formation of certain subjectivities and cultural identities? How are these practices related to our everyday experience and immersion in the contemporary global media landscape? What are the social contexts and histories that propel us to study East Asia (East Asian media in this case)? Who constitutes this we? How do we study East Asia while avoiding an orientalist lens in our analysis and othering the other? While learning about various media practices in East Asia, students will be asked to be self-reflective in considering these questions.

ASTRON 102-0-1 – Milky Way Galaxy

We cover the structure of the galaxy, star formation, interstellar clouds and dust, star clusters, neutron stars, and black holes, the Galactic Center and different types of galaxies. The class is for non-science majors who want to take a more detailed course on the Galaxy than Astron-120. However, the initial material is generally the same as offered in all our 100 level courses, how telescopes work and how to interpret the information carried by light to tell us about what we have observed.

Bio Sci 101-6-01 – Promises & Perils: The Social Reality of Biology

The word biology describes both the characteristics and processes of life and living organism, as well as the discipline that studies these. Like all the natural sciences, the study of biology is a data-driven endeavor, concerned with describing, predicting and understanding natural phenomena based on evidence from observation and experimentation. But like all human activities, it does not exist in objective isolation, but rather within a societal context. And biological phenomena, such as infection and disease, interact with non-biological elements of human society. This course aims to contextualize the study of biology towards a better understanding of how social and cultural histories and dynamics have had a profound effect on both biological research as well as biological phenomena, and how social, political and economic parameters influence the impact of scientific breakthroughs and the outcomes of biological events such as epidemics. The topics we will cover, among others: the cultural, political and societal barriers to reaping the benefits of biological research; the damaging legacies of racism, sexism and colonialism on the biological research enterprise; the role of communications in the field of biology; and select biological topics in evolution, genetics and disease. Students will learn from press articles, academic literature and non-fiction books (The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot; Pandemic, by Sonia Shah).

Bio Sci 101-6-01 – Promises and Perils: The Social Reality of Biology

The word biology describes both the characteristics and processes of life and living organism, as well as the discipline that studies these. Like all the natural sciences, the study of biology is a data-driven endeavor, concerned with describing, predicting and understanding natural phenomena based on evidence from observation and experimentation. But like all human activities, it does not exist in objective isolation, but rather within a societal context. And biological phenomena, such as infection and disease, interact with non-biological elements of human society. This course aims to contextualize the study of biology towards a better understanding of how social and cultural histories and dynamics have had a profound effect on both biological research as well as biological phenomena, and how social, political and economic parameters influence the impact of scientific breakthroughs and the outcomes of biological events such as epidemics. The topics we will cover, among others: the cultural, political and societal barriers to reaping the benefits of biological research; the damaging legacies of racism, sexism and colonialism on the biological research enterprise; the role of communications in the field of biology; and select biological topics in evolution, genetics and disease. Students will learn from press articles, academic literature and non-fiction books (The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot; Pandemic, by Sonia Shah).

Bio Sci 101-6-03 – Values of Biodiversity

One of the major challenges of our changing world is the loss of biological diversity. An overwhelming majority of people agree that we should work to save biodiversity, but their views are largely based on vague, positive feelings about nature rather than concrete justifications. This course investigates those concrete justifications. The first half of the course sketches out the argument for preserving biodiversity (i.e., "thinking globally"). The second half of the course focuses on the practice of ecological restoration in forest preserves a few miles from campus (i.e., "acting locally") not merely as a way to preserve biodiversity, but as a path to redefining a sustainable relationship between nature and culture. The readings for the course range from classics of environmental writing to recent research papers in the primary scientific literature. Biodiversity also needs to be experienced directly, so we will take a field trip to a local forest preserve where we will roll up our sleeves and help restore a native habitat and see how much biodiversity means to the people with whom we live and work.

Bio Sci 101-6-05 – Wonders of Biology

At the molecular level, life is a chemical engine so complex that it makes everything humans have invented and built look like child play. Through a mix of lectures, workshops and writing assignments, the seminar will explore some of the wonders that are at the core of biological systems. The goal is to inspire you, and to illustrate how studying biology yields insights that are mirrored in seemingly unrelated things like social media, architecture, airline route design, computer sciences, or sociology to name but a few. Materials needed: laptop, iPad, or smartphone with internet capability.

Bio Sci 339-0-20 – Critical Topics in Ecology and Conservation

This course will provide students with the conceptual and theoretical framework within the field of plant ecology (especially plant biology) and conservation. This seminar-style class is based on reading and discussion of historical and contemporary primary literature. It will provide you with the opportunity to think critically and discuss your thoughts within a structured yet informal setting and will provide them with a basic background in reading and writing scientific papers.

BIO SCI 347-0-20 – Conservation of Biology

Conservation biology is an integrated science based primarily on ecology, with important contributions from genetics, evolution, and biogeography, as well as nonbiological disciplines, including economics, politics and ethics. The first half of the course will address the definitions, origins, and patterns of biological diversity; explore why the maintenance of biodiversity in natural and unnatural ecosystems is fundamentally important to the continued well-being of humans and other species; examine the context and causes of extinction. The second half of the course will deal with strategies and tactics for preventing or ameliorating the loss of biodiversity. Specific topics will include: the biology of small populations including population viability analysis; the selection, design, and management of protected areas; ecological restoration; conservation design, legislation, and other higher-level strategies.

Bio Sciences 339-0-20 – Critical Topics in Ecology and Conservation

This course will include reading and writing about conservation issues for both scientific and general audiences, as well as discussions around primary literature and popular media around conservation. Class activities will include small and large group discussions, and other opportunities for active learning, as well as lectures from the course instructors and guest lectures from experts in the different conservation fields.

Bio Sci 101-6 – First Year Seminar - Values of Biodiversity

One of the major challenges of our changing world is the loss of biological diversity. An overwhelming majority of people agree that we should work to save biodiversity, but their views are largely based on vague, positive feelings about nature rather than concrete justifications. This course investigates those concrete justifications.

Black Studies 380-0-20 – What's Tech Got to Do with It: Race and Resistancee

Discussions of race in the digital humanities are often approached through a focus on the digital divide. This course will explore the study of race and technology beyond that introductory narrative. Instead, students will understand how the logics and infrastructure of computer technologies perpetuates racial inequalities in the day to day lives of people of color. Using the methods of queer theory, feminist theory and black studies, a central focus will be interrogating the consequences and affordances of technoculture, and more importantly, the cultural, and epistemological contributions to media and information technology by black and other communities of color. The syllabus is organized by theme and examines foundational texts starting in the 1990s up until our contemporary moment.

Bmd Eng 380-0-01 – Medical Devices, Disease and Global Health

An examination of the intersection of technology and the delivery of health care in resource-poor environments, especially in Africa.

Chem 105-6 – Sci Writing for Non-Tech Audience

In this course, we will read and discuss works on technical subjects written for a general audience with no special scientific training; the authors we will be reading include Sam Kean, John McPhee, Don Norman, Richard Rhodes, and Lewis Thomas. Although the course is not targeted exclusively to science majors, students enrolling in it should have enough of a background in the fundamental sciences to feel comfortable writing about technical topics.

Chem 105-6-01 – Sustainability Meets Environmental Justice

Environmental (justice) events continuously pepper the headlines - including these from the past week: "Chemical Giant Escaped Paying for Its Pollution", "Dozens Drown in India and Nepal as Monsoon Season Fails to End" and "As Drought Conditions Worsen, California Expands State of Emergency." These occurrences and others - including local ones - will be foregrounded in class readings, discussions, field trips, and assignments. What sustainable solutions are available to mitigate such disasters? What actions can we take to prevent future ones? How can the 12 Principles of Green Chemistry and Engineering be utilized to create a more sustainable future for all? Students will examine behaviors of individuals and institutions, analyzing how those actions contribute to the success or failure of a sustainable and environmentally just future. Students will use various forms of media to communicate their findings to the Northwestern community and beyond, culminating in student-directed projects and presentations.

Chem 105-6-01 – The Science Behind Oppression

Biased interpretations of scientific results have been used to justify racial and gender oppression for centuries. It was often argued that people of different races and different genders were fundamentally different, and as such their roles in society should differ as well. Today, many people reject the claim that race and gender have substantial effect on a person's abilities or capacity, but how did we get here? More importantly, how did science help facilitate these claims in the first place?

In this course, we will explore the role of science in historical oppression based on race and gender. We will identify key scientific studies and their subsequent legacy to reveal the precarious nature of scientific interpretation in the hands of biased individuals. We will discuss how power structures can infiltrate scientific integrity and propose safeguards to prevent this kind of infiltration in the future.

Chem 105-6-01 – Sustainability Meets Environmental Justice

Sustainability Meets Environmental Justice: "Climate Change Comes for the Freezers - A Key Tool for Alaska Natives." This headline, from earlier this month, highlights the increasing severity and frequency of environmental events that are also evolving into environmental in-justice crises. Occurrences like this - including local ones - will be foregrounded in class readings, discussions, field trips, and assignments. What sustainable solutions are available to mitigate such disasters? What actions can we take to prevent future ones? How can the 12 Principles of Green Chemistry and Engineering be utilized to create a more sustainable future for all? Students will examine behaviors of individuals and institutions, analyzing how those actions contribute to the success - or failure - of a sustainable and environmentally just future. Students will use various forms of media to communicate their findings to the Northwestern community and beyond, culminating in student-directed projects and presentations.

Chem 105-6-01 – The Science Behind Oppression

The Science Behind Oppression: Biased interpretations of scientific results have been used to justify racial and gender oppression for centuries. It was often argued that people of different races and different genders were fundamentally different, and as such their roles in society should differ as well. Today, many people reject the claim that race and gender have substantial effect on a person's abilities or capacity, but how did we get here? More importantly, how did science help facilitate these claims in the first place?

In this course, we will explore the role of science in historical oppression based on race and gender. We will identify key scientific studies and their subsequent legacy to reveal the precarious nature of scientific interpretation in the hands of biased individuals. We will discuss how power structures can infiltrate scientific integrity and propose safeguards to prevent this kind of infiltration in the future.

Chem 105-6-02 – The Scientist and the Science: Exploring Communication

The scientist and the science: exploring effective scientific communication through graphic novels:
Clear and concise communication is highly valued in many STEM fields. Whether conveying the technical details of an experiment for a colleague or translating the impact of a study for the public, scientists need to know how to discuss complex ideas with different audiences. This course analyzes the goals of scientific writing by examining texts that represent different levels of communication, including how to use the visual language of comic books for conveying complex scientific ideas.

Chem 105-6-02 – Science and the Scientist: How We Communicate

Science and the Scientist: How we communicate complex ideas, from comic books to journal articles: exploring effective scientific communication through graphic novels: Clear and concise communication is highly valued in many STEM fields. Whether conveying the technical details of an experiment for a colleague or translating the impact of a study for the public, scientists need to discuss complex ideas with different audiences. This course analyzes the goals of scientific writing by examining texts that represent different levels of communication, including how to use the visual language of comic books for conveying complex scientific ideas.

Chem 306-0-01 – Environmental Chemistry

In this course, students will gain a solid understanding of the science, economics, and more importantly the environmental impact associated with various technologies, including, but not limited to natural gas, nuclear, wind, etc. Climate change and the potential impact and mitigation will be considered throughout the course.

Chem Eng 382-0-20 – Regulatory Sciences in Biotechnology

Course topics cover the intersection of science, engineering, and biotech regulatory compliance. Includes: federal regulations for drug product development, regulatory compliance processes and organizational structure, interface between biotechnology processes and regulatory sciences, global harmonization of regulations, and regulatory documentation.

Drug product development is a process with an inherent low probability of success that takes about 13 years and 2.6 billion dollars from lead discovery to product launch. Regulatory science is a discipline that helps drug companies and regulatory agencies to make science-based risk/benefit decisions on a new molecular entity (NME) that eventually leads to a decision on its approval. The rapidly growing science-based approach will to increase probability of success and decease drug development costs. The regulatory sciences in biotechnology course will provide a unique educational experience at the intersection of science, engineering, and regulatory compliance. Topics such as federal regulations for drug product development, regulatory compliance processes and organizational structure, interface between biotechnology processes and regulatory sciences, global harmonization of regulations, and regulatory documentation will be covered in this course. One part of this course will be delivered as lectures, case-studies, and workshops and the other will be delivered as a hands-on, practicum team project in biotech regulatory science. The class will feature several guest lectures from professionals in the biotech and pharma industry.

Chemistry 105-7-01 – Science and the Scientist: How We Communicate

Clear and concise communication is highly valued in many STEM fields. Whether conveying the technical details of an experiment for a colleague or translating the impact of a study for the public, scientists need to discuss complex ideas with different audiences. This course analyzes the goals of scientific writing by examining texts that represent different levels of communication, including how to use auditory podcasts and the visual language of comic books for conveying complex scientific ideas.

CHI FIELD ST 387-0-1 – Field Studies in the Environment, Science and Sustainability

With Chicago as the field, FSESS will focus in particular on questions of science and sustainability within urban landscapes and beyond. We will explore how conflicting political, economic, and social interests and values contend for influence and exert power in the realm of environmental governance. We will look at how the local, regional, national, and international institutions, non-governmental organizations, experts, interest groups, and the public interact in defining environmental problems, and formulating and implementing solutions. Drawing on students' internship experiences, we will also discuss how concepts such the environment, sustainability, and green technology are defined and constructed in practice. Field Studies in Environment, Science, and Sustainability should be especially appealing to anyone interested in exploring the big issues facing the environment, understanding the environmental policy process, and doing something about the planet's changing environments.

Chicago Field St 387-0-1 – Field Studies in Environment, Science and Sustainability

With Chicago as the field, FSESS will focus in particular on questions of science and sustainability within urban landscapes and beyond. We will explore how conflicting political, economic, and social interests and values contend for influence and exert power in the realm of environmental governance. We will look at how the local, regional, national, and international institutions, non-governmental organizations, experts, interest groups, and the public interact in defining environmental problems, and formulating and implementing solutions. Drawing on students' internship experiences, we will also discuss how concepts such the environment, sustainability, and green technology are defined and constructed in practice. Field Studies in Environment, Science, and Sustainability should be especially appealing to anyone interested in exploring the big issues facing the environment, understanding the environmental policy process, and doing something about the planet's changing environments.

Chicago Field St 392-0-1 – Field Studies in Public Health

Do diseases like Covid-19 actually see race? What does history tell us about the public’s health and how can we predict the future based on where we have been? This course will provide an introduction to the field of Public Health and focus on promoting health equity. Students will explore the global and local history of Public Health as well as its intersection with race and racism, housing, poverty and violence. Using theory alongside the practical experience of their internships, they will unpack the complexities of Public Health and gain an understanding of the potential roles they can play within the field.

Chicago Field St. 387-0-1 – Environment, Science and Sustainability

TBD

Chicago Field Studies 392-0-20 – Field Studies in Public Health

Do diseases like Covid-19 actually see race? What does history tell us about the public’s health and how can we predict the future based on where we have been? This course will provide an introduction to the field of Public Health and focus on promoting health equity. Students will explore the global and local history of Public Health as well as its intersection with race and racism, housing, poverty and violence. Using theory alongside the practical experience of their internships, they will unpack the complexities of Public Health and gain an understanding of the potential roles they can play within the field.

Civ Eng 303-0 – Environmental Law and Policy

An introduction to important aspects of environmental law and policy. A wide range of environmental topics are covered, with a focus on national environmental policy as implemented through major federal environmental statutes.

Civ Eng 303-0-20 – Environmental Law and Policy

An introduction to important aspects of environmental law and policy. A wide range of environmental topics are covered, with a focus on national environmental policy as implemented through major federal environmental statutes.

Civ Eng 361-2-20 – Public and Environmental Health

Current problems in public and environmental health, such as the worldwide burden of major infectious diseases, emergence of new pathogens, and environmental reservoirs of infectious organisms.

Civil and Env Engineering 303-0-20 – Environmental Law and Policy

TBD

Classics 320-0-2 – Ancient Medicine: Greek and Roman History

We will study the theory and practice of Greek and Roman medicine, looking at ancient texts in translation, ancient artifacts and materials, and some modern scholarship. As a term project, students will learn to think as ancient physicians, diagnosing and prescribing treatments for patients from the Hippocratic case studies. During class discussion, we will engage critically with primary sources and examine the differences between ancient and modern science from a balanced historical perspective. We will also investigate the social, cultural, and economic forces that have affected the development of western medicine throughout its history.

Classics 330-0-1 – The Roman Economy as a Historical Perspective

It is perhaps unsurprising that our own time - obsessed as it is with GDP growth, the ups and downs of the stock market, inflation rates, the trade deficit - produces scholarship that studies the ancient Roman economy. This scholarship has made us increasingly aware of how different Rome was from the modern world. This course will focus on what that difference means for the realities of everyday life, both past and present. Questions to be addressed are: What did economic growth mean for the economy of the Romans? Can we even measure it? What role did energy consumption play in economic performance? What was the role of social class in business? What was the influence on the economy of a demographic regime in which life expectancy was low? How was trade conducted over long distances without fast means of communication and transportation? What was the role of technology and technological progress in the economy?

Classics 330-0-2 – Ancient Economy

It is perhaps unsurprising that our time - obsessed as it is with GDP growth, the ups and downs of the stock market, inflation rates, the trade deficit - produces scholarship that studies the ancient Roman economy. This scholarship has made us increasingly aware of how different Rome was from the modern world. This course will focus on what that difference means for the realities of everyday life, both past and present. Questions to be addressed are: What did economic growth mean for the economy of the Romans? Can we even measure it? What role did energy consumption play in economic performance? What was the role of social class in business? What was the influence of a demographic regime with low life expectancy? How was trade conducted over long distances without fast means of communication and transportation? What was the role of technology and technological progress in the economy?

Classics 397-0-1 – Exhibiting Antiquity

How do institutions such as museums, along with other created contexts such as websites and archaeological sites developed as tourist destinations, shape and construct our notions of the past? How are these institutions enmeshed with broader cultural and political agendas regarding cultural identity and otherness, the formation of artistic canons, and even the concept of ancient art? This course explores modern strategies of collecting and display of material culture from ancient Egypt, the Middle East, Greece, and Rome, both in Europe and the United States and in their present-day homelands.

The course approaches the construction of ancient Mediterranean, Egyptian, and Near Eastern art through modes of reception over the past two centuries. By analyzing programs of collecting and display, it seeks to understand both the development of modern scholarship in ancient art and the intersection of institutional and scholarly programs. Topics examined include the historical development of modern display practices in public and private museums; notions of authenticity and identity; issues of cultural heritage and patrimony; temporary and "blockbuster" shows; virtual exhibitions and museums; and the archaeological site as a locus of display. Chicago-area museums will provide important resources for studying firsthand examples of temporary and long-term installations.

Comm St 246-0-20 – Intro to Health Communication

People who understand communication are uniquely positioned to solve health related problems, and their services are increasingly in demand. As such, this course is designed to familiarize you with the theory and research on communication in health and illness contexts, focusing on how messages from interpersonal, organizational, cultural, and media sources affect health beliefs and behaviors. We will explore communication in health care delivery, health care organizations, as well as health promotion and disease prevention. By taking this course, you will become a more mindful, educated, and effective health communicator.

Comm St 246-0-20 – Intro to Health Communication

Introduction to health communication. Key areas of the field, with focus on providers, patients and their families, hospital networks, nonprofit organizations, and government agencies.

Comm St 295-0-20 – Black Feminist Health Science Studies

Black feminist health science studies is a critical intervention into a number of intersecting arenas of scholarship and activism, including feminist health studies, contemporary medical curriculum reform conversations and feminist technoscience studies. We argue towards a theory of Black feminist health science studies
that builds on social justice science, which has as its focus the health and well-being of marginalized groups. Students will engage feminist science theories that range from explorations of the linguistic metaphors of the immune system, the medicalization of race, to critiques of the sexual binary. We will use contemporary as well as historical moments to investigate the evolution of "scientific truth" and its impact on the U.S. cultural landscape.

Comm St 246-0-20 – Intro to Health Communication

People who understand communication are uniquely positioned to solve health related problems, and their services are increasingly in demand. As such, this course is designed to familiarize you with the theory and research on communication in health and illness contexts, focusing on how messages from interpersonal, organizational, cultural, and media sources affect health beliefs and behaviors. We will explore communication in health care delivery, health care organizations, as well as health promotion and disease prevention. By taking this course, you will become a more mindful, educated, and effective health communicator.

Comm St 351-0-20 – Technology and Human Interaction

We are surrounded by technologies that support our everyday interactions. Facebook and Twitter provide persistent services for exchanging personal information, Snaps can be compiled into stories that provide insight about your last 24 hours, ubiquitous and tangible computing environments allow objects to adapt to our everyday experiences, and new collaboration technologies enable people to work together on projects when they are thousands of miles apart. The design of such systems, however, is not simply a technical question. In order to successfully create these systems, we need to understand how people work, play, and communicate with one another in a wide variety of situations. This course illustrates the practice of understanding human interactions that take place both with and through technology; and it explores the design, creation and evaluation of technologies to support such interactions. Course topics include: design processes, prototype construction and technology evaluation techniques. Specialized topics may include social software and collaborative systems, value-sensitive design, and agent-based technologies. No programming experience is necessary. There will be occasional labs to explain technical content. Course requirements include short hands-on exercises, two exams, and a group project.

Comm St 383-0-20 – Media, Communication and Environment

Exploring, understanding, and researching questions and issues related to the environment and climate through the study of media and communication.

Comm St 388-0-20 – Internet and Society

This course explores the evolution of digital media and its effects on self and society, with a focus on the historical shift away from one-way mass media toward more customized, participatory digital media. Through readings, blogging, class discussion and a final project, students are encouraged to think broadly about how digital communication technologies are impacting politics, media, business and culture and what this means for us at the individual and societal level.

Comm St 394-0-20 – Looking for Climate Change

This class satisfies the CS394 requirement for the undergraduate major. CS394 seminars bring together a small group of students and an instructor in a seminar format, with the goal of each student completing a longer written project or equivalent. In our seminar, we will look for and write about contemporary issues, ideas, and representations of climate change.

Comm St 394-0-20 – Media Messages, Ideology and Formation of Popular Culture

We live in an increasingly mediated world. From the ways we socialize with friends and family, to the way we engage in work and leisure, to the way we procure food— media and technology play a key role in structuring our everyday lives and activities. In turn these media objects, and the messages which they communicate, play a key role in shaping our understanding of the social, political, and economic systems around us. But how, in what ways, and to what extent does media structure our social realities? And further, what role do we as individuals and as audiences play in both getting meaning from and giving meaning to the media messages?
Throughout this course, we will attempt to answer these questions as we examine the way mass media messages get constructed, circulated, and repurposed throughout popular culture; as well as the way these media messages help structure popular understandings of ideology within society. Beginning with early theorization on the relationship between media and society and the concept of media effects and medium theory, we will trace the way theories about the relationship between mass media and the audience have evolved within the field of communications studies, from a one-sided theory of media effects, to a cultural exchange between the needs and wants of audiences as specifically-socially located agents. Throughout this course, we will also interrogate how media messages become ‘popular' and what characteristics of media messages lend themselves to popular, pleasurable, and negotiated readings. In line with the goals of this Communications Studies 394 writing seminar, throughout the course students will also be learning how to go about conceiving, developing, and crafting their own original research papers. Students will engage in in-class peer review workshops and short writing assignments that will help guide them in the research and writing process. In addition, students will learn skills that they will be able to apply in their future academic work and writing.

Comm St 394-0-21 – The Hazards of Computing

Whether we are working, communicating with friends, seeking romance, reading the news, or simply amusing ourselves, we now often rely on computational tools to support our everyday lives. This reliance will only grow deeper with the expansion of artificial intelligence and other new technologies. But what happens when computers fail us? This course explores the hazards of computing, particularly with respect to exacerbating broader societal issues such as discrimination, inequity, public health, and the climate crisis. Each week will explore a different type of hazard through historical and contemporary examples. Students will write a final research paper analyzing the role of computers in a hazard or disaster of their choice, from any time (past, present, or future) and at any scale (personal, communal, or societal).

Comm St 394-0-22 – Science Communication: A Compassionate Scientist's

With the increasing threats to the future of our planet and humanity, including global warming, preventable diseases, and limited resources, effective science communication is the ethical responsibility of all scientists. However, effective and ethical science communication is only possible with compassion, willingness to engage with the public, and making meaningful connections. Throughout the quarter students will learn more about tools they need to be better communicators. They will also work on their topic of interest as it relates to science communication and craft a fifteen-page final paper, while also learning more about skills related to developing a research paper.

Comm St 395-0-22 – Science, Policy & Communication

Explores processes by which values, attitudes, social structures, institutions, and media influence public engagement with controversial science and technology issues and the implications for public policy.

Comm St. 246-0-20 – Intro to Health Communication

People who understand communication are uniquely positioned to solve health related problems, and their services are increasingly in demand. As such, this course is designed to familiarize you with the theory and research on communication in health and illness contexts, focusing on how messages from interpersonal, organizational, cultural, and media sources affect health beliefs and behaviors. We will explore communication in health care delivery, health care organizations, as well as health promotion and disease prevention. By taking this course, you will become a more mindful, educated, and effective health communicator.

Comm St. 246-0-20 – Intro to Health Communication

People who understand communication are uniquely positioned to solve health related problems, and their services are increasingly in demand. As such, this course is designed to familiarize you with the theory and research on communication in health and illness contexts, focusing on how messages from interpersonal, organizational, cultural, and media sources affect health beliefs and behaviors. We will explore communication in health care delivery, healthcare organizations, as well as health promotion and disease prevention. By taking this course, you will become a more mindful, educated, and effective health communicator.

Comm St. 294-0-22 – Climate Change Communication

Study in seminar format of a topic in communication. Assignments emphasize expository writing.
Please download a free copy of the One Book One Northwestern selection for this year at this link.
https://nuinfo-proto12.northwestern.edu/onebook2021/student-engagement/download-ebook/index.html

Comm St. 295-0-20 – Black Feminists Health Science Studies

Black feminist health science studies is an emergent subfield and critical intervention into a number of intersecting arenas of scholarship and activism. Students in this course will examine important issues in healthcare and science by analyzing some of the foundational assumptions in the field of medicine. We will use contemporary as well as historical moments to investigate the evolution of "scientific truth" and its impact on the U.S. cultural landscape. Students will engage theories that range from explorations of the linguistic metaphors of the immune system, the medicalization of race, to critiques of the sexual binary, all in an effort to uncover some of the beliefs that have become central to science. Students will work to make their learning accessible to people outside the institution by creating podcast episodes that address current issues in this area.

Comm St. 351-0-20 – Technology and Human Interaction

Facebook and Twitter provide persistent services for exchanging personal information, Snaps can be compiled into stories that provide insight about your last 24 hours, ubiquitous and tangible computing environments allow objects to adapt to our everyday experiences, and new collaboration technologies enable people to work together on projects when they are thousands of miles apart. The design of such systems, however, is not simply a technical question. In order to successfully create these systems, we need to understand how people work, play, and communicate with one another in a wide variety of situations. This course illustrates the practice of understanding human interactions that take place both with and through technology; and it explores the design, creation and evaluation of technologies to support such interactions. Course topics include: design processes, prototype construction and technology evaluation techniques. Specialized topics may include social software and collaborative systems, value-sensitive design, and agent-based technologies. No programming experience is necessary. There will be occasional labs to explain technical content. Course requirements include short hands-on exercises, two exams, and a group project.

Comm St. 383-0-20 – Media, Communication and Environment

This course focuses on exploring, understanding and researching questions and issues related to the environment and climate through the study of media and communication. Topics include electronic waste and outer space debris, environmental security, the digitalization of the wilderness, outdoor and recreational activities in conjunction with media technologies and electronic information networks, ways of representing and communicating environmental and climatological issues through such examples as climate change communication, weather forecasting, documentaries and feature length fictional film, television and similar media, examples of environmental and climatological-themed government media and communication, and media-communication-environment in everyday life and pop culture.

Comm St. 394-0-20 – Power and Inequality in the Digital Age

In this seminar course, we investigate the relationship between technology, specifically the Internet, and social inequality. The advent of the Internet has brought along opportunities for positive societal impact, from collective production and sharing of resources to social interaction between physically distanced members of marginalized groups. Yet, the Internet has also proven to have consequences that increasingly affect individuals' opportunities and life outcomes in terms of mental, physical, and social well-being. In this course, we explore how the Internet leads to the (re)production of systemic inequalities and think critically about the roles of various actors involved, such as governments, big tech firms, and end users. Throughout the course, you will learn about, analyze, and discuss key theoretical approaches and conceptual tools at the intersection of social inequality, power, and the Internet. Between in-class discussions and the research paper, you will have plenty of opportunities to apply class concepts to social issues as well as your own experiences. Ultimately, the topic of this course is a medium through which we will learn about consuming and producing academic writing. The essence of this course lies in building writing skills through a combination of lectures, workshops, and individual work cumulating in a long-form research proposal. It is important to note that our starting position will be that so-called "good writing" is a fallacy. Instead, authoring a coherent text is hard work that mainly consists of getting ideas onto paper and editing in an iterative fashion. Through the act of workshopping, the community of this class will prove to be vital to pushing all our thinking and writing. You won't leave this class "a good writer," but you will leave with the skills necessary to provide and receive high-quality feedback.

Comm St. 395-0-20 – Environmental Art and Advocacy

This course examines the use of visual and media arts for public advocacy regarding environmental concerns. Primary attention is given to photography, as that work is used in many other media, but we also can consider video, film, exhibitions, installations, performances, interactive media, and other arts, platforms, or projects. Environmental issues can include global warming, pollution, animal protection, water preservation, public health, and environmental justice, among others. Students will work individually and together on representative or innovative projects in environmental advocacy.

Comm St. 395-0-21 – Social Media, Technology and Mental Health

This course will examine the relationship between social media, technology, and mental health. Students will explore and critically analyze social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and blogs) and technology (apps, online therapy, video games) used to address mental health concerns. Conversely, students will scrutinize social media, technology, its impact on mental health and wellness, with special attention paid to topics such as social comparison and online self-presentation.

Comm St. 395-0-23 – Environmental Art and Advocacy

This course examines the use of visual and media arts for public advocacy regarding environmental concerns. Primary attention is given to photography, as that work is used in many other media, but we also can consider video, film, exhibitions, installations, performances, interactive media, and other arts, platforms, or projects. Environmental issues can include global warming, pollution, animal protection, water preservation, public health, and environmental justice, among others. Students will work individually and together on representative or innovative projects in environmental advocacy.

Communication St 295-0-20 – Afro Feminist Futures

This course invites students to explore feminist speculative fiction as a site for social justice
advocacy. Students will read classic feminist and afrofuturist science fiction as they prepare
their own original short stories for publication. Drawing heavily on the work of feminist
afrofuturist Octavia Butler, students will engage imaginative narratives that allow them to
think through solutions to the problems of our time. Students will explore the genre
elements of short stories and speculative fiction, ultimately integrating these lessons into
their own short stories. This is a writing and reading intensive class.

Communication St 394-0-21 – The Hazards of Communication

Whether we are working, communicating with friends, seeking romance, reading the news, or simply amusing ourselves, we now often rely on computational tools to support our everyday activities. But what happens when these tools fail us? This course will explore "the hazards of computing" — social and ethical issues related to social media, machine learning, and other types of computer systems. It will emphasize that computing often exacerbates broader issues related to mental health, misinformed publics, political corruption, discrimination, and the climate crisis. Each week will explore a different type of hazard through historical and contemporary examples, using documentaries, films, academic readings, as well as general-audience materials to encourage careful source evaluation. Students will write a 20-page research paper analyzing the role of technology in an issue or activity of their choice, from any time (past, present, or future) and at any scale (personal, communal, or societal).

Communication St 395-0-21 – The Experience of Illness

This course examines the experience of chronic illness from the perspective of the ill person. It introduces the trajectory model of chronic illness, a model that sees health as the result of a stable alignment of body, self, and life story. It uses this model to understand adherence to medical regimens and to describe how it is possible to heal from chronic illness without being biomedically cured of the underlying disease.

Comp Lit 202-0-24 – Analyzing Freud - Interpreting Culture

This class will take a look at the life and work of the groundbreaking Viennese psychologist Sigmund Freud from a comparative and interdisciplinary angle. Almost 80 years after his death, Freud's legacy continues to be controversial: some claim that his theories are no longer relevant in the light of new research, whereas others defend his theories and/or expand upon the implications and influence of his ideas, in the realm not only of psychology, medicine, and neuroscience, but also in the fields of sociology, cultural studies, philosophy, literary studies, criminal justice, queer and gender studies, communications, and many more. What is certain, however, is that, one way or another, Freud's theories and ideas have marked the world for all time. This class will read fundamental texts from Freud's body of work in dialogue with texts by Freud's near and distant predecessors and followers, both to situate Freud in his historical and cultural context, and to think through the many different kinds of questions that Freud's work addresses.

Comp Lit 207-0-1 – Intro to Critical Theory

In this class, we will focus on the foundations of critical theory in the works of Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, and Weber, paying particular attention to the methods they deploy in the treatment of moral and religious phenomena. We will conclude with a section on Charles Mills and contemporary Critical Race Theory. Lectures will primarily involve a close analysis and discussion of the readings.

Comp Lit 301-0-30 – Culture in a Changing Climate

This course is designed around creative responses to climate change and other environmental crises in recent literary, cinematic, and artistic works from different sites around the world. We will pay close attention to how familiar aesthetic forms and the critical methods used to understand them are (or are not) changing in the face of overlapping existential environmental crises. Are there specific genres or media best suited to addressing climate change and helping to inspire political action? What are the effects of identifying or writing within a "new" literary genre such as "climate fiction"? Can we speak of similar modes in other media: is there such a thing as "climate cinema" or "climate art"? And if there is, how do these categories shape both the art that gets made and how we understand it?

Comp Lit 302-0-20 – Tales of Oil and Water

What can a dystopian film like 2015's Mad Max: Fury Road tell us about how to change our actions, today? How can we recognize urgent questions from our own world in such a surreal cinematic assault on the senses? How do such imaginary prophecies of near-future worlds "memorialize" the present? As interlocking narratives of globalization, resource competition, and ecological crisis collide in the news, the natural resources on which human lives and social relationships depend have increasingly preoccupied recent fiction, film, and criticism. Whether it's a question of "too much" or "not enough", of deluge or scarcity, the tales we will read and watch together in this course depict resource wars and dystopian imaginaries through everyday, intimate events and encounters. They zoom in, in other words, from geopolitical power struggles caused by oil and water, to their effects on a human scale, helping us see how our actions count in both distantly mediated and effectively immediate ways. Featuring stories composed of fast-paced action, futuristic sci-fi, film noir mystery, devastating satire, and the aesthetics of the surreal, these works cannot be captured by a single mood. Instead, they collectively intensify our awareness of the ecological path we are on, as if to say: remember this tomorrow. Our discussions of essays, novels, stories and films will be guided by how each represents pressing problems of compromise and control, agency and activism, competition and coexistence, in a "now" viewed as the future's past.

Comp Lit St. 207-0-20 – Introduction to Critical Theory

In this class, we will focus on the foundations of critical theory in the works of Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, and Weber, paying particular attention to the methods they deploy in the treatment of moral and religious phenomena. We will conclude with a section on Charles Mills and contemporary Critical Race Theory. Lectures will primarily involve a close analysis and discussion of the readings.

Comp Lit Studies 307-0-20 – Studies in Gender, Sexuality and Representation

TBD

Comp. Lit. St. 305-0-01 – Studies in Film, Media and Visual Culture

In this course we will study literary and critical writings about cinema during the 1920s and 30s, learning about the global circulation of films and of ideas about cinema in the historical context of the period. In addition to France, we will also consider (and students will have the opportunity to do research on) texts and films from elsewhere in Western Europe, the Soviet Union, East Asia, and Latin America. We will read several classics of early film theory that try to define cinema and its potential as an art and/or a mass medium. Beyond film criticism in the narrow sense, these texts ask broader questions about the relationship between art and technology, entertainment and politics, perception and reality. We will also read several works of poetry and fiction that responded in formally innovative ways to the experience of cinema. Films may include: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), The Kid (1921), A Page of Madness (1926), Un Chien andalou (1929), São Paulo, Symphony of a Metropolis (1929), A Propos de Nice (1930), and An Amorous History of the Silver Screen (1931). Literary authors may include Blaise Cendrars, Patricia Galvão, and Carlos Oquendo de Amat; critics and scholars: Walter Benjamin, Sergei Eisenstein, Jean Epstein, Miriam Hansen, Imamura Taihei, and Liu Na'o

Comp. Lit. St. 305-0-20 – Cyber Japan

This course explores the interaction between cybernetic technologies and cultural production in modern Japan. We focus on how visual and literary media have been used to represent such technologies (robotics, cybernetics, and the Internet) as well as how these technologies have shaped Japanese culture in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The notion of the "cyber" - its origins in cybernetics and ensuing proliferation of meanings - forms the conceptual core of the course. After considering early definitions of this term, we turn to how Japanese manga, animation, film, and cultural theory explore the ways in which cybernetic technologies, like cyborgs and cyberspace, have expanded our understanding of human subjectivity and agency, transformed social relations, and blurred boundaries between the human and the animal, the biological and the artificial, and the physical and non-physical.

Comp. Lit. St. 305-0-21 – Cinemas of Care

This course examines the representations of care in a wide range of films from Iran, Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, India, and China among others. Through close readings of these films, we will consider the ways through which care intersects with gender, race, nationality, and class. What does care mean? What is the relationship between care and narrative? How does film shape or challenge our understanding of care? To respond to these questions, the seminar brings together cultural products and critical texts across time, languages, and geographies. Ultimately, our objective is to think critically about how care is culturally constructed and represented.

Comp. Lit. St. 383-0-20 and 21 – Foucault

Participants will acquire a foundational competency in the concepts and central texts of Michel Foucault, the Participants will acquire a foundational competency in the main concepts and texts of Michel Foucault, the most broadly influential late-twentieth-century French philosopher. We will foreground the aspects of Foucault's approach that have most impacted inquiry and critique in the arts, humanities, and social sciences, giving special attention to the fields of gender and sexualities studies, and Black studies. Thematically, the course will focus on Foucault's writings on sexuality, madness, health, prisons, delinquency, families, power, biopolitics, surveillance, selfhood and individuality, knowledge, and truth. Conceptually, we'll debate and apply core Foucauldian concepts such as: archaeology and genealogy; discipline and biopower, the productivity and plurality of power; the social importance of "abnormality;" the conditions under which freedom is also a form of "subjection"; the conditions of social resistance and transformation; the historical a priori; and epistemic rupture. We'll critically assess the contribution of Foucault's major works (including History of Madness, Discipline and Punish, The Order of Things, History of Sexuality). In addition to weekly excerpts, students will read their own choice of one of these works as the basis of their final paper. Students should expect to post weekly contributions to class debate. most influential late-twentieth-century French philosopher.

Comp. Lit. St. 411-0-20 – Cinema at the end of Film: Theories, Histories, Media

What is cinema in the 21st century? What can it still do? This course will explore the afterlives of cinema in the digital age by turning to theorists and practitioners who have addressed the ques-tion of technology in terms of both aesthetics and politics. We will read texts from a variety of fields, including film and media theory, feminist/queer theory, critical race theory, and post-autonomist Marxism. At the same time, we will consider the way filmmakers such as John Akomfrah, Harun Farocki, Jean-Luc Godard, and Hito Steyerl have negotiated cinema's role and envisioned its po-tential in a global image economy.

Computer Sci 396-0-2 – Computing, Ethics and Society

TBD

Earth 102-6 – Climate Change: The Scientific Evidence

Anthropogenic climate change represents a massive global experiment. In this course we will discuss the scientific evidence for anthropogenic climate change, including atmospheric composition changes, sea level rise, melting ice sheets, temperature records, and extreme weather events such as hurricanes.

EARTH 102-6-01 – Sustainability and Social Justice

The challenge of sustainability to "meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" has evolved over the past few decades. This course will introduce fundamental concepts of sustainability, consider the application of these concepts in diverse societal, economic, and cultural settings, and explore the potential of climate science and sustainable development to act as forces for environmental and social justice.

Earth 102-6 – First Year Seminar: Sustainability & Social Justice

Sustainability and Social Justice: The challenge of sustainability to "meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" has evolved over the past few decades. This course will introduce fundamental concepts of sustainability, consider the application of these concepts in diverse societal, economic, and cultural settings, and explore the potential of climate science and sustainable development to act as forces for environmental and social justice.

EARTH 105-0-01 – Climate Catastrophies in Earth History

The objective of this course is to introduce students to the fundamental components of the Earth system, the atmosphere, hydrosphere and solid Earth, and more importantly, examine how these components interact in response to internal and external influences to control climate. Within this Earth systems context, we will explore how climate is changing today, how it has changed, sometimes catastrophically in the geologic past, and how it may change in the future.

Earth 106-0-01 – The Ocean, the Atmosphere & Our Climate

Most of our planet's surface is blanketed by ocean. The dynamic nature of the oceanic environment and how it influences the Earth as a whole will be explored in this course. The interconnectivity of ocean characteristics (chemistry, physics, geology, biology) will be stressed. This class will be held through synchronous, remote lectures and labs. All classes will be recorded for those not able to participate in synchronous learning. Optional, in-person, outdoor activities are possible during scheduled class times.

Earth 203-0-01 – Earth System History

This course covers the evolution of the Earth's dynamic systems and its record through geologic time. Emphasis of this course is centered on the physical, chemical and biological components of the Earth system that interact to regulate Earth's surface environment and how these processes have changed through time. Topics include the systems approach to Earth science, the co evolution of life and Earth's surface environment, the carbon cycle and its relationship to climate, Snowball Earth events, and mass extinctions.

Earth 342-0-01 – Contemporary Energy and Climate Change

The increasing worldwide demand for energy presents a number of complex interdisciplinary challenges, from resource depletion to climate change. This class will challenge students to answer the question, How shall we power the world in the 21st century? We will examine the history and geography of energy use; links between energy and climate change; challenge of sustainability; and the fundamental science of climate change. This is a fully remote, asynchronous class. Synchronous, remote sessions may be offered, but will be optional and appropriately scheduled for different time zones.

Earth 390-0-06 – Natural Hazards Policy

Defending society against natural hazards is a high-stakes game of chance against nature, involving tough decisions. How should a developing nation allocate its budget between building schools for towns without ones and making existing schools earthquake-resistant? Does it make more sense to build levees to protect against floods, or to prevent development in the areas at risk? Would more lives be saved by making hospitals earthquake-resistant, or by using the funds for patient care? What should scientists tell the public when, as occurred in L'Aquila, Italy, and Mammoth Lakes, California, there is a real but small risk of an upcoming earthquake or volcanic eruption? This course uses general principles and case studies to explore how we can do better by taking an integrated view of natural hazards issues, rather than treating the relevant geoscience, engineering, economics, and policy formulation separately. We will consider thought-provoking questions that confront the complex issues involved.

Earth 390-0-07 – Mineral Resources

Mineral Resources: This course provides an introduction to the field of economic geology. Broad topics include resource evaluation, the global distribution and formation of economic deposits, and mine waste in the environment. Topics in resource evaluation will include an introduction to the economic principles behind metals production and consumption, ore body description, the statistical approach to sampling deposits and the determination of cut-off grades. A large portion of this course is dedicated to understanding the physical and geochemical processes that concentrate earth materials into metallic deposits, industrial mineral and salt deposits, and fossil energy materials. The course will conclude with an examination of mining-related environmental issues such as acid mine drainage, heavy metal contamination and the deep disposal of dangerous waste.

Earth & Plantary Sci - 102-6-01 – Sustainability and Social Justice

Sustainability and Social Justice: The challenge of sustainability to "meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" has evolved over the past few decades. This course will introduce fundamental concepts of sustainability, consider the application of these concepts in diverse societal, economic, and cultural settings, and explore the potential of climate science and sustainable development to act as forces for environmental and social justice.

Earth and Planetary Sci 342-0-01 – Contemporary Energy and Climate Change

The increasing worldwide demand for energy presents a number of complex interdisciplinary challenges, from resource depletion to climate change. This class will challenge students to answer the question, How shall we power the world in the 21st century? We will examine the history and geography of energy use; links between energy and climate change; inequities in climate impacts; challenge of sustainability; and the fundamental science of climate change.

Earth and Planetary Sci. - 114-0-01 – Evolution and the Scientific Method

The scientific method is explored through the role it has played in the development of evolutionary thought. The course tracks the history of evolutionary theory from its earliest origins to the modern consensus, and in so doing, provides examples of scientific method as practiced in biology, geology, physics, and chemistry. It is the story of one of the greatest paradigm shifts in the history of human thought, and is designed to serve the needs of a broad spectrum of non-science majors seeking to satisfy the Area I distribution requirement. Review of evolutionary theory and its scientific, philosophical, social and religious impacts. Pre-lecture quizzes (CANVAS) and two exams.

Earth and Planetary Sci. - 180-0-01 – Fantasy Worlds - How to Build Your Own Planet

The formation and evolution of rocky planets. Introduction of physical concepts common in the lives of planets as they are in our everyday lives: gravity, heat transport, magnetism, and others. Students will apply these concepts to build their own unique planet, and will present their creation at a culminating poster presentation.

Earth Planet Sci 114-0-1 – Evolution and the Scientific Method

The scientific method is explored through the role it has played in the development of evolutionary thought. The course tracks the history of evolutionary theory from its earliest origins to the modern consensus, and in so doing, provides examples of scientific method as practiced in biology, geology, physics, and chemistry. It is the story of one of the greatest paradigm shifts in the history of human thought, and is designed to serve the needs of a broad spectrum of non-science majors seeking to satisfy the Area I distribution requirement.

Earth Sciences - 114-0-01 – Evolution and the Scientific Method

The scientific method is explored through the role it has played in the development of evolutionary thought. The course tracks the history of evolutionary theory from its earliest origins to the modern consensus, and in so doing, provides examples of scientific method as practiced in biology, geology, physics, and chemistry. It is the story of one of the greatest paradigm shifts in the history of human thought, and is designed to serve the needs of a broad spectrum of non-science majors seeking to satisfy the Area I distribution requirement.

Earth Sciences 102-6-02 – Earth is Out to Kill You

In this seminar, we will learn about some of the most devastating natural disasters in Earth's recorded history. We will explore the science and the human toll of earthquakes and volcanoes - frequent reminders from our dynamic planet that it has little respect for human life. We will cover current events, as exemplified by recent destructions in Haiti and Spain, as well as historical events such as the Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755 which kicked off the Age of Enlightenment, and the volcanic eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815 which led to the Year Without a Summer, and which gave us Dracula and Frankenstein. There will be several writing assignments on science-related topics. In the words of Voltaire, bemoaning the Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755: "Come, ye philosophers, who cry, "All's well," And contemplate this ruin of a world."

Econ 307-0-20 – Economics of Medical Care

This course applies theoretical and empirical tools of microeconomics to the study of health insurance and the health care sector. We will consider topics such as the design and financing of health insurance, the design and interpretation of clinical trials, the behavior of non-profit and for-profit hospitals, the role of competition in the health care market, the determinants of health care spending and the sources of technological change in the health care sector, and the effects of government regulations. We will also study the role of adverse selection and moral hazard in health care markets, both theoretically and empirically. Asynchronous components: Students are expected to attend classes live via Zoom. Students who cannot attend classes live (e. g. due to time zone or internet connectivity issues) will get access to video recordings. Students will have at least a 24 hour window to complete the midterm and final exam.

Econ 307-0-20 – Economics of Medical Care

This class will help students understand the key economic forces that have shaped the US health care and health insurance industry. What role do the particularities of health care and health insurance as economic goods play in explaining the size and growth rate of the health care sector? What's the effect of private incentives, adverse selection, moral hazard, and regulation? What's the effect of different organizational structures of health care provision? What can we learn from comparing the US health care / health insurance system to other countries' systems? Students will learn that these issues are important in the current public policy discussion.

Econ 307-0-20 – Economics of Medical Care

This class will help students understand the key economic forces that have shaped the US health care and health insurance industry. What role do the particularities of health care and health insurance as economic goods play in explaining the size and growth rate of the health care sector? What's the effect of private incentives, adverse selection, moral hazard, and regulation? What's the effect of different organizational structures of health care provision? What can we learn from comparing the US health care / health insurance system to other countries' systems? Students will learn that these issues are important in the current public policy discussion.

ECON 307-0-20 – Economics of Medical Care

This class will help students understand the key economic forces that have shaped the US health care and health insurance industry. What role do the particularities of health care and health insurance as economic goods play in explaining the size and growth rate of the health care sector? What's the effect of private incentives, adverse selection, moral hazard, and regulation? What's the effect of different organizational structures of health care provision? What can we learn from comparing the US health care and the health insurance system to other countries' systems? Students will learn that these issues are important in the current public policy discussion.

Econ 307-0-20 – Economics of Medical Care

This class will help students understand the key economic forces that have shaped the US health care and health insurance industry. What role do the particularities of health care and health insurance as economic goods play in explaining the size and growth rate of the health care sector? What's the effect of private incentives, adverse selection, moral hazard, and regulation? What's the effect of different organizational structures of health care provision? What can we learn from comparing the US health care / health insurance system to other countries' systems? Students will learn that these issues are important in the current public policy discussion.

Econ 307-0-20 – Economics of Medical Care

This class will help students understand the key economic forces that have shaped the US health care and health insurance industry. What role do the particularities of health care and health insurance as economic goods play in explaining the size and growth rate of the health care sector? What's the effect of private incentives, adverse selection, moral hazard, and regulation? What's the effect of different organizational structures of health care provision? What can we learn from comparing the US health care / health insurance system to other countries' systems? Students will learn that these issues are important in the current public policy discussion.

Econ 307-0-20 – Economics of Medical Care

This class will help students understand the key economic forces that have shaped the US health care and health insurance industry. What role do the particularities of health care and health insurance as economic goods play in explaining the size and growth rate of the health care sector? What's the effect of private incentives, adverse selection, moral hazard, and regulation? What's the effect of different organizational structures of health care provision? What can we learn from comparing the US health care / health insurance system to other countries' systems? Students will learn that these issues are important in the current public policy discussion.

Econ 307-0-20 – Economics of Medical Care

This class will help students understand the key economic forces that have shaped the US health care and health insurance industry. What role do the particularities of health care and health insurance as economic goods play in explaining the size and growth rate of the health care sector? What's the effect of private incentives, adverse selection, moral hazard, and regulation? What's the effect of different organizational structures of health care provision? What can we learn from comparing the US health care / health insurance system to other countries' systems? Students will learn that these issues are important in the current public policy discussion.

Econ 307-0-20 – Economics of Medical Care

This class will help students understand the key economic forces that have shaped the US health care and health insurance industry. What role do the particularities of health care and health insurance as economic goods play in explaining the size and growth rate of the health care sector? What's the effect of private incentives, adverse selection, moral hazard, and regulation? What's the effect of different organizational structures of health care provision? What can we learn from comparing the US health care / health insurance system to other countries' systems? Students will learn that these issues are important in the current public policy discussion.

Econ 315-0-30 – Economic History Growth Development

In this course, we explore to what extent differences in institutions can explain differences in economic development and economic growth. We take a broad approach to institutions and examine both formal institutions such as constitutions, law, and property rights and informal institutions as such customs, traditions, and codes of conducts. A key feature of these institutions is that they rarely change and crucially affect economic behavior. For instance, lack of clearly defined property rights reduces the ability to obtain credit, and a lack of trust reduces the willingness to engage in economic exchanges. We first focus on understanding better why a specific set of institutions emerged and which sets of institutions have fostered economic development historically. We then discuss the importance of the persistence of institutions for current differences in economic development and economic growth. Last, we will study which institutional changes preceded the rapid economic growth in China and South Korea.

ECON 323-1-20 – Economic History of the US Before 1865

The course examines the economic and institutional development of the United States from colonial times to the Civil War. It focuses on questions related to differential patterns of development across the Americas and the US, devoting specific attention to labor market institutions, its divergence across North and South, and the role of Slavery in the development of the American Economy.

Econ 323-2-20 – Economic History of the US 1865-Present

The course examines the economic development of the United States since the Civil War to the present. It focuses on both long-term economic trends (like technological advance and industrialization) and the economic causes and consequences of particular events (like the Great Depression).

Econ 323-0-20 – Economic History of the US 1865-Present

The course examines the economic development of the United States from the Civil War to the present. It focuses both on long-term economic trends (like technological advances and industrialization) and the economic causes and consequences of particular events (like the Great Depression). A specific focus will be on domestic and international migration, cities, railroads, and the Second Industrial Revolution.

Econ 323-2-20 – Economic History of U.S. 1865-Present

The course examines the economic development of the United States since the Civil War to the present. It focuses on both long-term economic trends (like technological advance and industrialization) and the economic causes and consequences of particular events (like the Great Depression).

Econ 324-0 – Western Economic History

Western European developments, 1750 to the present: demographic, technical, social, and economic change. Prerequisites: 281, 310-1, 311.

Econ 324-0-20 – Western Economic History

This course will deal with the economic history of Europe in the Twentieth Century, such as growth, economic crises, unification, and the economics of war. The readings will consist of a number of books and essays.

Econ 324-0-20 – Western Economic History

This course examines economic development over the long-run, with a focus on the transition to modern economic growth in the Western world. Topics include Malthusian stagnation, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, the demographic transition, and globalization and the great divergence. Along the way, we will discuss long-run changes in inequality, technology, and labor force participation, as well as the role of institutions in economic development, and the interaction between economic conditions and political power. Much of the class will be focused around analyzing recent research on these topics. The class will also involve a writing component aimed at improving students' ability to write critically and concisely about economic topics.

Econ 324-0-20 – Western Economic History

This course examines economic development over the long-run, with a focus on the transition to modern economic growth in the Western world. Topics include Malthusian stagnation, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, the demographic transition, and globalization and the great divergence. Along the way, we will discuss long-run changes in inequality, technology, and labor force participation, as well as the role of institutions in economic development, and the interaction between economic conditions and political power. Much of the class will be focused around analyzing recent research on these topics. The class will also involve a writing component aimed at improving students' ability to write critically and concisely about economic topics.

Econ 326-0-20 – The Economics of Developing Countries

This course examines the causes of global poverty and low levels of economic development, as well as some policy solutions to these problems. The emphasis will be on microeconomic issues. We will ask such questions as "Do the poor under-invest in education and health?" and "What types of public policies can be used to improve the well-being of people living in developing countries?" Other topics include microfinance, informal insurance, corruption, and the productivity of firms in developing countries. An important objective is to learn how to use both the theoretical and empirical tools of economics to investigate the questions above. Therefore, econometric techniques and theoretical models will feature prominently in the course.

Econ 327-0 – Economic Development in Africa

Economic change in sub-Saharan Africa, emphasizing current issues and policies in their historical contexts. Agriculture and rural development, industrialization, and international economic relations. Prerequisites: ECON 281-0, ECON 310-1, ECON 310-2, ECON 326-0.

Econ 327-0-20 – Economic Development in Africa

This course will examine the central issues of development economics with a geographical focus on Sub-Saharan Africa. Our methodological approach will be to use primary data and rigorous empirical methods to examine patterns of economic activity and to evaluate the effectiveness of development policies and programs. The class will be organized around weekly presentations of student research on 8 key questions of development in Africa. This year, the focus of our work will be on Nigeria.

Econ 342-0 – The Economics of Gender

Analysis of gender differences in employment, earnings and division of labor in the household. Family, labor market, discrimination, segregation, historical and international conditions, and antidiscrimination legislation. Prerequisites: 281, 310-1,2.

Econ 342-0-20 – Economics of Gender

In this course, we will look into the many different facets of the economics of gender. We will study economic decisions that individuals and households face from a unique gender perspective. The topics we will cover include, among others: the status of women around the world, education, marriage, fertility, labor supply, household decision-making, and discrimination. The class will put an emphasis on applied microeconomic theory and empirical analysis. A combination of econometric techniques and theoretical models will feature prominently in the course. For each topic, we will study concrete examples emanating from all over the world, and make an intensive use of statistics and econometrics. We are also very much interested in understanding the relationship between research and public policy recommendations. Asynchronous components:Class material will be delivered through a combination of both asynchronous recordings (when applicable) and synchronous Zoom meetings (the later will happen at the scheduled class times). There are a series of class activities that require synchronous participation at the scheduled class time. The exams, and possibly some in-class quizzes and exercises, will be synchronous: students must take them at the designated class time. Elements of a "flipped classroom" model will be used whereby students should review some recorded materials before class, and then class sessions emphasize synchronous participation and Q&A that will enhance learning. The substantial synchronous components are central to the learning objectives of the course.

Econ 342-0-20 – The Economics of Gender

In this course, we will look into the many different facets of the economics of gender. We will study economic decisions that individuals and households face from a unique gender perspective. The topics we will cover include, among others: the status of women around the world, education, marriage, fertility, labor supply, household decision-making, and discrimination. The class will put an emphasis on applied microeconomic theory and empirical analysis. A combination of econometric techniques and theoretical models will feature prominently in the course. For each topic, we will study concrete examples emanating from all over the world, and make an intensive use of statistics and econometrics. We are also very much interested in understanding the relationship between research and public policy. By the end of the quarter you hopefully will have a solid microeconomic framework within which to analyze important issues in economics from a gender perspective. There will be a series of empirical papers to read for this course.

Econ 342-0-20 – Economics of Gender

In this course, we will look into the many different facets of the economics of gender. We will study economic decisions that individuals and households face from a unique gender perspective. The topics we will cover include, among others: the status of women around the world, education, marriage, fertility, labor supply, household decision-making, and discrimination. The class will put an emphasis on applied microeconomic theory and empirical analysis. A combination of econometric techniques and theoretical models will feature prominently in the course. For each topic, we will study concrete examples emanating from all over the world, and make an intensive use of statistics and econometrics. We are also very much interested in understanding the relationship between research and public policy. By the end of the quarter you hopefully will have a solid microeconomic framework within which to analyze important issues in economics from a gender perspective.

ECON 352-0-20 – Economics of Networks

Social and economic networks are an essential part of the fabric of modern life. Some examples: the complex trading networks that underlie modern financial markets and supply chains; social media platforms; networks of personal connections that help people find jobs. These networks profoundly affect the economy and society more broadly: for instance, financial interdependencies are critical in economic crises, while rumors on Twitter have come to play a central role in our politics. How can we make sense of these phenomena as individuals, within companies, and as policymakers? This course teaches models from the economics and statistics of networks that are essential to the task. Topics include the diffusion of information and rumors, racial segregation, and the network origins of recessions. We emphasize how network models relate to key ideas from microeconomics.

Econ 371-0-20 – Economics of Energy

The goal of this course is to understand the functioning and regulation of energy markets. The energy sector is a vital input to the economy. It is often highly concentrated, generating concerns about competition, and a big emitter of greenhouse gases and other pollutants, generating concerns about the environment. As a consequence, the energy sector is subject to substantial economic and environmental regulation. We will use economic theory and empirical evidence to analyze the real-world operation of electricity, oil, and natural gas markets. These tools will allow us to critically understand how these markets are regulated. We will examine policies in a range of current topics. For example: Why has the performance of electricity markets been debated? Who pays the bill of carbon regulation? What are the pros and cons of renewable energy policies? What are the prospects for energy efficiency improvements? The course will draw upon material taught in Economics 310-1, 310-2, and 281, with the tools from Econ 310-1 and 281 being absolutely essential. Asynchronous components:Videos and materials available asynchronously. Exam will be synchronous. Synchronous participation will enhance the learning and therefore is highly encouraged if possible. Participation is required but no penalty for reasonable justifications. Students will need to compensate their participation by actively participating in the asynchronous online discussions.

Econ 371-0-20 – Economics of Energy

The goal of this course is to understand the functioning and regulation of energy markets. The energy sector is a vital input to the economy. It is often highly concentrated, generating concerns about competition, and a big emitter of greenhouse gases and other pollutants, generating concerns about the environment. As a consequence, the energy sector is subject to substantial economic and environmental regulation. We will use economic theory and empirical evidence to analyze the real-world operation of electricity, oil, and natural gas markets. These tools will allow us to critically understand how these markets are regulated. We will examine policies in a range of current topics. For example: Why has the performance of electricity markets been debated? Who pays the bill of carbon regulation? What are the pros and cons of renewable energy policies? What are the prospects for energy efficiency improvements? The course will draw upon material taught in Economics 310-1, 310-2, and 281, with the tools from Econ 310-1 and 281 being absolutely essential.

Econ 372-0-20 – Environmental Economics

The environment and our natural resources are scarce yet their values are quite hard to determine. Furthermore, there are a variety of problems with the incentives to use them well. Using the tools of microeconomic analysis and some econometrics, this course will define and examine "environmental problems" in terms of economic efficiency. We will also discuss the methods (and shortcomings of these methods) used by economists and policymakers to place dollar values on environmental amenities (since such valuations will determine what policy options are deemed "efficient"), such as benefit-cost analysis. Then we will apply these tools to look at a particular set of environmental problems caused by negative externalities transmitted through naturally occurring amenities, and the effects of the policies we construct in response to these problems. NOTE: This class is not open to students who have taken Economics 370: Environmental & Natural Resource Economics.

ECON 372-0-20 – Environmental Economics

The environment and our natural resources are scarce yet their values are quite hard to determine. Furthermore, there are a variety of problems with the incentives to use them well. Using the tools of microeconomic analysis and some econometrics, this course will define and examine "environmental problems" in terms of economic efficiency. We will also discuss the methods, and shortcomings of these methods, used by economists and policymakers to place dollar values on environmental amenities, since such valuations will determine what policy options are deemed "efficient", such as benefit-cost analysis. Then we will apply these tools to look at a particular set of environmental problems caused by negative externalities transmitted through naturally occurring amenities, and the effects of the policies we construct in response to these problems. NOTE: This class is not open to students who have taken Economics 370: Environmental & Natural Resource Economics.

Econ 372-0-20 – Environmental Economics

The environment and our natural resources are scarce yet their values are quite hard to determine. Furthermore, there are a variety of problems with the incentives to use them well. Using the tools of microeconomic analysis and some econometrics, this course will define and examine "environmental problems" in terms of economic efficiency. We will also discuss the methods (and shortcomings of these methods) used by economists and policymakers to place dollar values on environmental amenities (since such valuations will determine what policy options are deemed "efficient"), such as benefit-cost analysis. Then we will apply these tools to look at a particular set of environmental problems caused by negative externalities transmitted through naturally occurring amenities, and the effects of the policies we construct in response to these problems. NOTE: This class is not open to students who have taken Economics 370: Environmental & Natural Resource Economics.

Econ 373-0 – Natural Resource Economics

Evaluation of economics models and public policy concerning natural resources such as farming, fisheries, forests, minerals, ores and fossil fuels. Prerequisites: ECON 281-0, ECON 310-1, ECON 310-2. (Students may not receive credit for both ECON 370-0 and ECON 373-0.)

Econ 420-0-20 – European Economic History

TBD

Economics 101-7-20 – Why Gender Matters in Economics

TBD

Economics 307-0-20 – Economics of Medical Care

This class will help students understand the key economic forces that have shaped the US health care and health insurance industry. What role do the particularities of health care and health insurance as economic goods play in explaining the size and growth rate of the health care sector? What's the effect of private incentives, adverse selection, moral hazard, and regulation? What's the effect of different organizational structures of health care provision? What can we learn from comparing the US health care / health insurance system to other countries' systems? Students will learn that these issues are important in the current public policy discussion.

Economics 307-0-20 – Economics of Medical Care

This class will help students understand the key economic forces that have shaped the US health care and health insurance industry. What role do the particularities of health care and health insurance as economic goods play in explaining the size and growth rate of the health care sector? What's the effect of private incentives, adverse selection, moral hazard, and regulation? What's the effect of different organizational structures of health care provision? What can we learn from comparing the US health care / health insurance system to other countries' systems? Students will learn that these issues are important in the current public policy discussion.

Economics 323-1-20 – Economic History of the U.S. Before 1865

TBD

Economics 323-2-20 – Economic History of the U.S. 1865 to Present

The course covers the economic and financial development of the United States since the Civil War to the present. Topics include race, education, gender, financial panics, the Great Depression, immigration, innovation, health and the World Wars, among others. The course looks at American economic history since 1865 from four different angles: first, by examining the causes and consequences of important historical events; second, by dissecting the phenomenon of historical persistence and economic scarring over time; third, by discussing whether and how one can draw "lessons from history"; and fourth, by analyzing to what extent economic history can serve as a "laboratory" to test economic theory. The class also seeks to introduce students to modern research designs in empirical economics.

Economics 324-0-20 – Western Economic History

This course examines economic development over the long-run, with a focus on the transition to modern economic growth in the Western world. Topics include Malthusian stagnation, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, the demographic transition, and globalization and the great divergence. Along the way, we will discuss long-run changes in inequality, technology, and labor force participation, as well as the role of institutions in economic development, and the interaction between economic conditions and political power. Much of the class will be focused around analyzing recent research on these topics. The class will also involve a writing component aimed at improving students' ability to write critically and concisely about economic topics.

Economics 372-0-20 – Environmental Economics

The environment and our natural resources are scarce yet their values are quite hard to determine. Furthermore, there are a variety of problems with the incentives to use them well. Using the tools of microeconomic analysis and some econometrics, this course will define and examine "environmental problems" in terms of economic efficiency. We will also discuss the methods (and shortcomings of these methods) used by economists and policymakers to place dollar values on environmental amenities (since such valuations will determine what policy options are deemed "efficient"), such as benefit-cost analysis. Then we will apply these tools to look at a particular set of environmental problems caused by negative externalities transmitted through naturally occurring amenities, and the effects of the policies we construct in response to these problems. NOTE: This class is not open to students who have taken Economics 370: Environmental & Natural Resource Economics.

English 101-6-20 – Ecological Reading

While examining the metaphor of the ecosystem in scholarship (holistic analysis, wholeness, interdependence, diversity, intersecting contexts etc.), the seminar will use texts from different parts of the planet to read and write about the representations of the natural world, especially as affected by human activities. What are the benefits of studying a literary text against the background of its production and in conversation with others with which it resonates? How can we be specific about our singular object of analysis without missing the bigger picture? How are energy flows, cycles, and sustainability represented in literary texts? How can we engage with literary texts about the environment beyond the classroom setting? How do we integrate environmental activist work in academic scholarship while remaining rigorous and objective? As we grapple with these questions, we will use different methods of reading literary and theoretical texts from an ecological perspective. We will also experiment with various methods of academic presentation.

English 101-6-22 – Clouds, Carbon, Weather

From hurricanes to polar vortexes and wildfires, in recent years, weather has frequently appeared in headlines throughout digital and print media. Accompanied by accelerations in global heating, unpredictable seasonal cycles, and political inaction, it has become increasingly clear that not only how weather is spoken about but also the weather events themselves are deeply political. In this freshman seminar, we will consider a variety of contemporary representations of weather from art to fiction to poetry and film to explore the relationship between weather as material event and weather as political context. Where does weather begin and end? What happens when weather becomes not just a mysterious force but an actively produced by-product of industrial expansion? What is "totalizing" about both weather and politics?

English 101-6-22 – Sick Girls and Hardy Heroines

Ill women are scattered across the pages of literature, from swooning ladies in sentimental novels to cancer patients in popular fiction. Illness acts as narrative momentum, as a metaphor for social "ills," and as a signifier of tragic virtue in an individual character. Focusing on the 18th and 19th centuries, this class will examine how the tropes of illness in popular literature pertains to our broader cultural assumptions about illness, health, and gender. How do traits associated with femininity resemble literary representations of illness, and vice-versa? How might we locate or analyze femininity in representations of ill men? How do these tropes change over time? What happens if health, rather than illness, becomes a primary marker of virtue? And what does all of this mean for us today? How has the construction of ill femininity been bound up in whiteness, and how has this contributed to systemic and medical racism? What is the relationship between the representation of ill femininity and contemporary "wellness culture"—or even contemporary feminism?

English 101-6-22 – How We Think About Cities

Whether you come from a small town or rural area, or have always lived in Chicago or some other large city, you likely have heard cities both praised and scorned. Great restaurants and violent crime, economic opportunity and political corruption, music festivals and homelessness, cities seem to embody all of the prevailing social divisions and contradictions. In this course, we will think critically about cities by examining how they are represented in fiction and film. What is the city's relationship to the surrounding area? What types of thoughts and behaviors does it seem to call for? What kinds of encounters are typical? In short, what happens when we treat cities more as "characters" than "settings," when we think of Las Vegas as a party animal (What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas), or New York as a cultured gadabout (The city that never sleeps), or Detroit as pugnacious and defiant (Detroit vs. everybody)? We will begin with two cities that are sharply defined by internal divisions, those in the television series Derry Girls and the film Blade Runner 2049. From there, we will compare two representations of Las Vegas (The Hangover and Fear and Loathing), and ask what kind of freedom is on offer and what is the cost of such freedom? Finally, we will visit post-Katrina New Orleans (Treme) and the multicultural London of filmmaker Steve McQueen and author Zadie Smith (Small Axe and NW).

English 101-6-24 – Lake Michigan and Chicago

Northwestern's campus and Chicagoland sit on the edge of one of the planet's most important sources of fresh water. In this course, we will study the culture, environment, and urban history of Chicagoland from the standpoint of Lake Michigan. Our attentions will range from the witnesses to the end of the last Ice Age to our own view of how climate change effects the Great Lakes. However, we'll focus especially on the history and culture of Chicago as it was shaped by proximity to the Lake, and how human decisions have shaped the lake in turn. Although this course is offered in the English department, it is a highly interdisciplinary course which includes readings drawn from literature, geography, history, architecture, journalism, and environmental studies. First-year students will gain a research-oriented introduction to study and life at Northwestern through the situation of its local cultural history and environment. Weather permitting, we will frequently hold class outdoors at the lakeside, and we may take excursions to notable coastal sites.

English 101-6-24 – Bioinsecurities: Race, Empire and Postcolonial

This reading-intensive first year seminar will consider how colonialism and contagion together produce racialization in science fiction. In the year of the pandemic, European nations voted for strict vaccine export control measures, effectively slowing down access to medications for the Global South. Phrases like "vaccine nationalism" as well as "vaccine passports" have become commonplace. This twilight zone of deepening crises, and the imperial paranoid imaginary of what Neel Ahuja calls "bioinsecurities," have long been represented by science fiction authors. Keeping a firm eye on epidemiology, race, and imperialism, this course charts a path along genre-bending, speculative fictions that imagine contagion and infection from the late-nineteenth to the early twenty-first century. Contagion emerges not just as a moral panic or embodied paranoia about infection, but as a method of relationality that draws tightly controlled, governmentalized worlds around raced and differentiated bodies. We will think about how these fictional netherworlds produce new subjectivities of life, death, and living death. Alongside science fictional as well as speculative novels, spanning postcolonial as well as US writing, we will also watch films like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, District 9, Arrival, World War Z, and Contagion.

English 105-6-20 – Race and Technology

While the primary focus of our course will be improving your writing, we will do so by asking questions regarding our evolving relationship with technology and whether it alters the ways in which "race", ethnicity, and culture are performed in society. The primary focus is on the ideology of "race" as a social construction, and how might technological advances in social media, virtual reality, Siri, and Alexa change the way we collectively think about the world and our relationships within it? Does the emphasis in late capitalism on technological design have the power level playing fields and guide us into a post-racial society? Should technological design be working in the "best interest" of humanity? Should a post-racial society even be a goal that we should be aspiring to?

English 105-6-23 – Eco-Fiction and Human Metamorphosis

We are all familiar with public discourse about environmental concerns: Descriptions of a future where familiar landscapes have been transformed into alien vistas, newly dangerous and hostile to human life. Recent eco-fiction, however, challenges that familiar narrative, proposing ways that we humans may find ourselves transfigured along with the world around us. In this class we will engage with accounts of such human metamorphosis, considering the horror narratives of HP Lovecraft, the hyper-empathy of Octavia Butler, the "new weird" landscapes of Jeff Vandermeer's Area X and other texts. Film viewings will include Pixar's 2008 Wall-E and James Cameron's 2009 Avatar and/or Netflix's 2021 Don't Look Up. Course readings/viewing will include brief readings from literary criticism, selections from Hope Jahren's, "The Story of More," as well as popular films.
We will also consider practical topics such as how University library resources and experts can help students locate and evaluate key sources and develop authoritative arguments.

English 105-6-23 – Humans and Other Animals

While the primary focus of our course will be improving your writing, we will do so by asking questions regarding our evolving relationship with technology and whether it alters the ways in which "race", ethnicity, and culture are performed in society. The primary focus is on the ideology of "race" as a social construction, and how might technological advances in social media, virtual reality, Siri, and Alexa change the way we collectively think about the world and our relationships within it? Does the emphasis in late capitalism on technological design have the power level playing fields and guide us into a post-racial society? Should technological design be working in the "best interest" of humanity? Should a post-racial society even be a goal that we should be aspiring to?

English 105-8-23 – Ecofiction and Human Metamorphosis

We are all familiar with public discourse about environmental concerns: Descriptions of a future where familiar landscapes have been transformed into alien vistas, newly dangerous and hostile to human life. Recent eco-fiction, however, challenges that familiar narrative, proposing ways that we humans may find ourselves transfigured along with the world around us. In this class we will engage with accounts of such human metamorphosis, considering the children's stories of Dr. Seuss, the hyper-empathy of Octavia Butler, the "new weird" landscapes of Jeff Vandermeer's Area X and a selection of other short works. Film viewings will include Pixar's 2008 Wall-E and Buožytė and Samper's 2022 dystopian fantasy, Vesper. Course readings/viewing will include brief readings from literary criticism. We will also consider practical topics such as how University library resources and experts can help students locate and evaluate key sources and develop authoritative arguments. This course will use a traditional grading structure. Content warning: Some readings include references to sexual violence, self-harm, and suicide.

English 274-0 – Introduction to Native American and Indigenous Literatures

Native American & Indigenous literatures are currently in the midst of what some scholars call a “second Native American Renaissance.” By this, they refer to the novels like Tommy Orange’s (Cheyenne and Arapaho) There There and Louise Erdrich’s (Turtle Mountain Ojibwe) The Round House, and the books of poetry, like Natalie Diaz’s (Mojave/Gila River) Postcolonial Love Poem, which have won national awards, as well as to TV shows like Reservation Dogs that are widely popular among Indigenous viewers and receiving much critical acclaim. 

But where did this “second Native American Renaissance” come from? What was the “first” Native American Renaissance?  This course will offer an introduction to Native American & Indigenous literatures, with an eye both to the current flourishing of literatures and to their long histories. We will look at the variety of media and genres in which Native American & Indigenous literatures appear, including birchbark pages, pamphlets, pictographic texts and digital platforms, as well as autobiography, political petitions, novels, and short stories. And we will develop a vocabulary for reading, analyzing, and discussing these literatures using key terms and concepts from Native American and Indigenous Studies, including sovereignty, kinship, resurgence, decolonization, and land.

English 274-0-01 – Intro to Native American and Indigenous Literatures

Native American & Indigenous literatures are currently in the midst of what some scholars call a "second Native American Renaissance." By this, they refer to the novels like Tommy Orange's (Cheyenne and Arapaho) There There and Louise Erdrich's (Turtle Mountain Ojibwe) The Round House, and the books of poetry, like Natalie Diaz's (Mojave/Gila River) Postcolonial Love Poem, which have won national awards, as well as to TV shows like Reservation Dogs that are widely popular among Indigenous viewers and receiving much critical acclaim.
But where did this "second Native American Renaissance" come from? What was the "first" Native American Renaissance? This course will offer an introduction to Native American & Indigenous literatures, with an eye both to the current flourishing of literatures and to their long histories. We will look at the variety of media and genres in which Native American & Indigenous literatures appear, including birchbark pages, pamphlets, pictographic texts and digital platforms, as well as autobiography, political petitions, novels, and short stories. And we will develop a vocabulary for reading, analyzing, and discussing these literatures using key terms and concepts from Native American and Indigenous Studies, including sovereignty, kinship, resurgence, decolonization, and land.

English 281-0-20 – Topics in Postcolonial and Comparative Literatures

This course examines economic development over the long-run, with a focus on the transition to modern economic growth in the Western world. Topics include Malthusian stagnation, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, the demographic transition, and globalization and the great divergence. Along the way, we will discuss long-run changes in inequality, technology, and labor force participation, as well as the role of institutions in economic development, and the interaction between economic conditions and political power. Much of the class will be focused around analyzing recent research on these topics. The class will also involve a writing component aimed at improving students' ability to write critically and concisely about economic topics.

English 283-0-01 – Intro to Literature and the Environment

How is it that the natural world has seemed to writers across time as both comforting and terrifying, a pastoral refuge or a dark threat? How have literary myths of a "green world" spurred us to think about what precisely separates "the human" from other worlds around us? Are humans a part of nature or an exception to it? How do our ideas about nature impose distinct worlds, with distinct rules and rights, on humans, nonhumans, and the places we cross paths, sometimes without knowing it? Tracking these questions through literary forms ranging from Edenic stories and origin myths to Shakespearean drama, Romantic poetry, the modernist novel, and science fiction, students in this course will unearth the unexamined grounds of "green" thought as it appears in literary environments (as well as film, mass media, and the popular imagination). The course will give students an introduction to the "environmental humanities" and a deep dive into the storied concept of "nature," while offering an unusual and broad background on classic literary themes of belonging, justice/ethics, freedom, wilderness, and the everyday.

English 300-0-20 – Close Encounters of the Third Kind: Alien Life

The idea of the extraterrestrial emerged around the same time that humankind began to turn its thoughts seriously to space exploration. What might happen in an encounter between the human and the utterly alien inspired a proliferation of works across literature and film particularly interested in dramatizing this moment of contact, and how it might transform the lives of those involved. Such encounters might entail a painstaking struggle towards peaceful communication, or inspire utopian prospects for community-making. Other narratives, however, portray the event of humanity's exposure to life beyond Earth as potentially cataclysmic. Considering these possibilities, we will investigate how the categories of human and alien in fiction fall along familiar racialized and gendered lines, as well as how these all-too human categories are magnified and refracted by the figure of the extraterrestrial, or non-human. In turn, we will ask how the alien exposes alternative categories for reflecting on our humanity. As we read, we will reflect on what it means to consider science fiction as less artistically sophisticated, less serious than literary fiction, when it has always been invested in reimagining the stories we tell about ourselves. What space did first contact stories in particular afford these writers to reimagine erotics, environmental thought, utopian politics, and social care? We will moreover investigate the popularity of the extraterrestrial as a trope in 20th- and 21st-century pop culture, and what this figure reveals about our political anxieties on a global scale, our concerns surrounding seemingly exponential leaps in technological advancement, and our ambivalence about the human capacity for destruction and creation.

English 313-0-20 – Science Fiction

This course provides a literary introduction to science fiction. Beginning with its 19th century origins in gothic fiction and adventure narratives, we will trace the development of science fiction through its early 20th century boom as a pulp form, its mid-century emergence as a recognizable literary genre, and its late 20th century adoption as a venue for exploring identity politics. How have longstanding genre themes like technological innovation and futuristic social progress endured or changed over time? How have explorations of race, gender, and sexuality been important to the genre's development? How has sci-fi shaped the wider social world in realms like scientific research, political rhetoric, fan cultures, and popular media? We will consider these questions as we survey a selection of novels and short stories by major science fiction authors.

English 313-0-20 – Studies in Fiction

This class will investigate the roots of the modern science fiction novel as it emerged in the post-war period of the 20th century through the lens of three major, prolific writers of the period: Samuel R. Delaney, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Octavia E. Butler. These three writers have only recently begun to be recognized for making vital contributions not only to science fiction—historically disparaged as a popular, pulpy genre—but literature more broadly. Science fiction is conventionally viewed as an overwhelmingly white, male-dominated genre, but Le Guin, Butler, and Delaney prove the contrary: variously female, Black, and queer, each of these writers proved formative to the genre's development in their fearless explorations of race, gender, sexuality, and ability during the 1960's and 70's. We will read major works across each writer's oeuvre to analyze their particular contributions to how we define science fiction as a narrative category. What does it mean to consider genre fiction as less artistically sophisticated, less serious than literary fiction, when sci-fi has always been invested in reimagining the stories we tell about ourselves? Butler, Le Guin, and Delaney each interrogate traditional ideas of narrative conflict and form, in addition to the ways we might imagine our collective future by unflinchingly facing our present moment. What space did science fiction afford these writers to reimagine erotics, environmental thought, utopian politics, and social care? We will approach these questions by considering the depiction of science in these novels, and how these posited technologies intersect with experiments in race, gender, and sexuality, keeping in mind the genre's coexistence with civil rights and feminist movements across the country.

English 324-0-20 – Blood and Bloodshed in the Middle Ages

Whether it causes fear or fascination, blood holds a mysterious sway on the modern imagination. From those who faint at the sight of it, to those who love vampire movies and gory thrillers, to those who study and analyze it in labs, this strange substance serves as a constant source of conflict, anxiety, and ideology. Representations of blood in medieval literature were just as fraught. Medieval people saw the substance as alternately miraculous and polluting, life-giving and death-bringing, a marker of difference and a symbol of unity. Blood had the capacity to reveal whether a person was sick or healthy, whether they were sexually active, what god they worshipped, and even whether they were guilty of murder. If it was shed on a battlefield it was considered valiant; if it was shed from the bodies of virgins or martyrs it was considered holy; if it was shed during childbirth or menstruation it was considered polluting; and if it was shed in pursuit of love it was considered romantic. In this class, we will explore these complex and often contradictory representations of blood and bloodshed in medieval literature. By approaching this topic from a range of genres and sources (chivalric romance, crusade chronicles, medical compendia, and vampire movies) and theoretical perspectives (queer theory, disability theory, race theory), we will use blood as a starting point for exploring broader questions about gender, religion, culture, and individuality. Moreover, we will consider how medieval assessments of blood value, purity, and pollution continue to shape constructions of identity today.

English 338-0-21 – Early Modern Sexuality: Studies in Renaissance Literature

This course explores the history of sex and sexualities -- in all their variety -- in English Renaissance literature and culture. Before the homo/hetero divide, before what Michel Foucault calls as "the implantation of the perverse," before genders in their modern forms, what were the routes, locations, effects, and politics of sex and desire? 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, asexuality, gender, gender-identification, etc. in this culture, as well as the terms, methods, and theories we now use to read the sexual past. We will gain fluency in the seemingly familiar but simultaneously foreign languages of early modern identities and desires: sodomy, tribadism, friendship, marriage; bodies, their parts, and their pleasures. We will interrogate sex/gender's intersections with such categories as race, religion, social class, and nation, and we will think through some new scholarship on trans* identities in early modern culture.

English 357-0-20 – British Children's Fantasy - 19th Century British Fiction

It is said that the Victorians invented the idea of childhood: an idyllic state of wonder, play, imagination, and innocence. The orphans, adventurers, tricksters, and runaways in Victorian children's novels befriend animals, outsmart pirates, soar through the London sky, and fall down rabbit holes. What made these stories so popular in the nineteenth century, and why do they continue to enchant readers today? This course will explore key works of the Victorian literature canon to consider how these various narratives reflect rapidly transforming conceptions of childhood during the nineteenth century. From Lewis Carroll's playfully puzzling Alice's Adventures in Wonderland to Rudyard Kipling's novel of colonial espionage, Kim, Victorian children's novels offer a unique perspective on a world in the grip of profound political, economic, and religious change. As we read, we will also reflect on the categories of the human and the animal, the nature of child sexuality, the distinctions drawn between innocence and maturity, as well as differences in gender, race, class, and disability. How does the constructed representation of "the child" speak to the desires, ambitions, and anxieties of a given historical moment? And what does the very category of children's literature suggest about literature's purpose and value?

English 357-0-20 – Madwomen in the Attic: Insanity, Gender and Authority

The climax of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre hinges on a shocking revelation that other writers have been rereading and even rewriting ever since. Brontë's iconic Gothic tale of "madness," and that concept's inflection by gender, race, and nationality, has become central to our ideas about difference and power. Tracing the afterlives of Brontë's confined madwoman through twentieth-century reimaginations of the trope, including Shirley Jackson's Haunting of Hill House, Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea, and recent films such as Hereditary, this course will examine how "insanity" has been seen as a category useful for regaining (and sometimes blocking) political and literary agency. Putting these texts and films in dialogue with critical responses by Michel Foucault, Gayatri Spivak, and others, we will explore the knotty question of how madness shapes our culture's narratives about gender and authority.

English 369-0-20 – Animal, Animism, Animality -Studies in African Literature

This course focuses on the representations of animals, animism, and animality in select African texts to examine the major developments in African literatures. While discussing various theoretical statements, we will assess the place of the non-human in the African thought. We will discuss work by well-known authors (e.g., Wole Soyinka, Bessie Head, J.M. Coetzee, Abulrazak Gurnah, and Ngugi wa Thiong'o), fiction and poetry by important but neglected authors (e.g., Saida Hagi-Dirie Herzi and Henry ole Kulet), and works by emergent writers who deploy animality as a trope to explore the relationship between the human and the non-human. Subtopics will include ecology, biopolitics, slavery, race, diaspora, intra-African immigration, science fiction, queerness, and ubuntu. Theoretical texts include works by Wangari Maathai, Achille Mbembe, Rosi Braidotti, Harry Garuba, Kyle White, Frantz Fanon, and Cajetan Iheka.

English 374-0-20 – What is an Indigenous Book?

In 1893, the Potawatomi writer Simon Pokagon circulated a birchbark book, The Red Man's Rebuke (also titled The Red Man's Greeting), which was printed to circulate at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. Pokagon strongly criticized the Fair's celebration of Columbus's "discovery" of the Americas in the book's text, but Pokagon's words are not the only form this critique takes. The birchbark pages, the illustrations, the process by which the books were made and printed: these elements extend Pokagon's critique to questions of environmental destruction, political sovereignty, and gendered experiences of colonialism. This class asks: What is an Indigenous book? We will learn and practice methods for reading materiality (what is paper made of?) and process (who printed the books? Prepared the pages? Circulated them for sale?). In doing so, we will examine how Indigenous writers and artists experiment with the materials of bookmaking to make the book form part of its meaning. We will examine how critically questioning the book form can decenter individual authors; raise questions about many people who participated in making, circulating, reading, and keeping books; and orient us to the trees and plants out of which books are made. This is an experimental, hands-on course where we will not only learn methods for making books but practice them as well. We will learn how to look at Indigenous books that take various forms: these include codices that open like accordions or fans; printed or sewn designs on birchbark; contemporary artist books that combine graphic arts with ancient book forms or that embed material objects like bullets on a page, or books that look like the thing they are about. We will understand processes of making and circulating books and how to connect those processes to the literary meanings on the page. We will consult these very cool and very special books during class sessions at NU's Special Collections and at other libraries, and the class will also include engagement with letterpress printing, as well as discussions with Potawatomi scholars and artists about birchbark books and other objects.

English 375-0-20 – Techno-Orientalism, Topics in Asian Am. Lit

Techno-Orientalism names a variant of Orientalism that associates Asians with a technological future. This seminar will explore how Techno-Orientalist tropes are used by, played with, and rewritten by Asian American authors. We will study how twentieth-century and contemporary issues of technology, globalization, and financial speculation collide with a history of yellow peril and Asian Invasion discourse, as well as how these tensions manifest in figures and tropes such as robots, aliens, and pandemics. Texts include poetry, novels, short stories, comics, and film.

ENGLISH 378-0-21 – Environmental Justice in Black and Indig. Women's Lit

While ecocriticism has not always considered the lived experience of women of color, literary texts by African American and Native American women have found ways of theorizing their own versions of environmental and spatial justice. Reading leading theorists like Rob Nixon and Edward Soja side by side with Jesmyn Ward's post-Katrina novel Salvage the Bones, 2011, Toni Jensen's stories about oil and fracking on Indigenous lands, and poetry by Nikky Finney and Heid E. Erdrich, this class interrogates how literature can inform our understanding of environmental injustice and different types of violence. It grounds the discussion in a longer history of colonial extraction and Indigenous dispossession, racism, structural neglect, and ongoing residential segregation by discussing Zora Neale Hurston's 1937 hurricane novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, and looking at Zitkala's influential 1924 report on the settler defrauding of Osage Indians for their oil-rich lands.

English 381-0 – Contagious Narratives, Literature & Medicine

In her monograph Contagious, Priscilla Wald writes, "Disease emergence ineluctably evinces human interconnections on global scale, but the stories of disease emergence fashion the terms in which those connections make sense" (270). For Wald, and for others, understanding the narratives of contagion can help us understand the cultural and social work that diseases do in the world. In this independent study, we will investigate how authors imagine the lifeworlds of those in the grip of contagious outbreak. The course will move in three sections. Beginning with HIV/AIDS epidemic, we will examine Tony Kushner's masterwork, Angels in America. In the second section, we will extracts from some of the most famous nonfiction writing on disease outbreak, including the work of John Barry, Laurie Garrett, and Richard Preston. In the final section of the course, we will examine fictions of virality unmoored from the real world, including Colson Whitehead's novel Zone One, Francis Lawrence's film I am Legend, and Junot Diaz's "Monstro." Throughout, we will engage with important secondary literature from scholars including Priscilla Wald, Ramzi Fawaz, Neel Ahuja, Adia Benton, and others. We will be especially attentive to how race, gender, and sexuality relate to notions of susceptibility to disease, how these categories organize government response, and how solidarity within and between these communities has reorganized political and cultural responses to contagion.

English 381-0-20 – Literature & Medicine

For millennia, literature has helped to represent and define the experience of illness. It has given voice to suffering and dramatized diagnoses and treatments that are inseparable from their cultural history. From Victorian notions of "moral insanity" to contemporary focus on personalized care, this course examines two centuries of writing on the tangled relationship between illness and narrative, norm and pathology, and diagnosis and treatment. It revisits the rise of the asylum and of the case study; the rhetoric of addiction and the demand for rest cures; the testament of patients, including as patient power; the rise of biomedicine and psychopharmacology; and the transformation of ordinary conditions into treatable disorders. Designed for students wanting to pursue a career in the health professions, the course is also for those drawn to science and literature, the history of medicine, medical ethics, the politics of diagnosis, and how literature shapes our understanding of health and illness.

ENGLISH 381-0-20 – Intro to Disability Studies in Lit & Medicine

The field of disability studies grew out of the rights-based activism that led, in the United States, to the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990. Yet, as disability theorists have observed, "western" literature has long been obsessed with disability as metaphor, character trait, and plot device. This course will serve as an introduction to the application of disability studies in literature. We will explore a range of questions: how do we approach the representation of disability in texts by non-disabled authors? How do we differentiate, or should we, between disability and chronic illness, or between physical and mental disabilities? Can literary representation operate as activism? How do we parse the gap between disability as metaphor and lived experience? What does literature offer disability studies, and why should disability studies be a core method for studying literature? Readings will be divided between theoretical texts and primary sources. Students will learn to grapple with complex sociocultural and literary analysis, as well as to make space for their own primary source readings.

English 381-0-20 – Intro to Disabilty Studies - Literature and Medicine

The field of disability studies grew out of the rights-based activism that led, in the United States, to the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990. Yet, as disability theorists have observed, "western" literature has long been obsessed with disability as metaphor, character trait, and plot device. This course will serve as an introduction to the application of disability studies in literature. We will explore a range of questions: how do we approach the representation of disability in texts by non-disabled authors? How do we differentiate (or should we?) between disability and chronic illness, or between physical and mental disabilities? Can literary representation operate as activism? How do we parse the gap between disability as metaphor and lived experience? What does literature offer disability studies, and why should disability studies be a core method for studying literature? This is a methods class, and readings will be divided between theoretical texts and primary sources. Students will learn to grapple with complex sociocultural and literary analysis, as well as to make space for their own primary source readings.

English 381-0-20 – Illness and Feminity: Fictions and Facts

Ill women are scattered across the pages of literature, from swooning ladies in sentimental novels to cancer patients in popular fiction. Illness acts as narrative momentum, as a metaphor for social "ills," and as a signifier of tragic virtue in an individual character. From the 19th century to the present, this class will examine how the tropes of illness in popular literature pertains to our broader cultural assumptions about illness and gender. How do traits associated with femininity resemble literary representations of illness, and vice-versa? How have these associations changed over time? How has the construction of ill femininity been bound up in whiteness, and how has this contributed to systemic and medical racism? What is the relationship between the representation of ill femininity and contemporary "wellness culture"? How might we locate or analyze femininity in representations of ill men? What about mental illness? Our readings will be split between popular representations of illness in novels and writings by ill authors, and we will consider how literary tropes are or are not reappropriated by the latter.

English 381-0-20 – Introduction to Disability Studies in Literature and Medicine

The field of disability studies grew out of the rights-based activism that led, in the United States, to the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990. Yet, as disability theorists have observed, "western" literature has long been obsessed with disability as metaphor, character trait, and plot device. This course will serve as an introduction to the application of disability studies in literature. We will explore a range of questions: how do we approach the representation of disability in texts by non-disabled authors? How do we differentiate (or should we?) between disability and chronic illness, or between physical and mental disabilities? Can literary representation operate as activism? How do we parse the gap between disability as metaphor and lived experience? What does literature offer disability studies, and why should disability studies be a core method for studying literature? Readings will be divided between theoretical texts and primary sources. Students will learn to grapple with complex sociocultural and literary analysis, as well as to make space for their own primary source readings.

English 381-0-20 – Intro to Disability Studies in Literature

The field of disability studies grew out of the rights-based activism that led, in the United States, to the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990. Yet, as disability theorists have observed, "western" literature has long been obsessed with disability as metaphor, character trait, and plot device. This course will serve as an introduction to the application of disability studies in literature. We will explore a range of questions: how do we approach the representation of disability in texts by non-disabled authors? How do we differentiate (or should we?) between disability and chronic illness, or between physical and mental disabilities? Can literary representation operate as activism? How do we parse the gap between disability as metaphor and lived experience? What does literature offer disability studies, and why should disability studies be a core method for studying literature? Readings will be divided between theoretical texts and primary sources. Students will learn to grapple with complex sociocultural and literary analysis, as well as to make space for their own primary source readings.

English 381-0-20 – Literature and Medicine

Some forays into fictional narratives are escapist; they allow us an imaginative respite from our daily reality. Other narrative adventures run in the opposite direction: through fiction, they allow us to engage with present difficulties with greater insight; acuity; context; and (perhaps most importantly) company, reminding us that we are not the first to face even seemingly unprecedented terrors. This course has been organized in the latter spirit, in hopes that engaging intellectually with literary and artistic responses to plagues and pandemics of the past will afford us new intellectual, historical, and effective resources for understanding our present and very recent past. We will look to literary narratives of plague and pandemic as a way to contextualize, historicize, and deepen our comprehension of the way the COVID-19 pandemic has changed our social, economic, cultural, and imaginative realities. Texts will span seven centuries of plague literature, including selections from Boccaccio's Decameron (1348-53) and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (1380s); Thomas Dekker's The Wonderfull Yeare (1603); Daniel DeFoe's A Journal of the Plague Year (1722); Edgar Allan Poe's "Masque of the Red Death" (1842); Jack London's The Scarlet Plague (1912); José Sarmago's Blindness (1997); Colson Whitehead's Zone One (2011); Ling Ma's Severance (2017); and Carmen Maria Machado's "Inventory" (2018).

English 381-0-21 – Medicine, Race and Gender

We often think of the humanities and sciences as opposite pursuits. While the humanities seem to focus on subjectivity and feeling, we see the sciences as objective and fact-based. Yet attending to the history of medicine demands a troubled acknowledgement that medical inquiry both shapes and is itself shaped by cultural assumptions about race and gender. Indeed, critics have pointed time and again to how the seeming impartiality of medical fact reveals biases about which kinds of bodies feel pain and who is prone to certain diseases, distinctions that have been assigned moral and social meaning. In this class, we will read literature about medical encounters in order to investigate how ideas about race and gender shape medical experiences. How do these individual accounts reflect larger structural injustices? What kinds of barriers and assumptions do women and people of color face when they receive treatment? What about people seeking gender affirming care? Beginning with the nineteenth century and moving towards the present day, we will examine the surprising history of how medical knowledge often depended on the exploitation of racialized bodies, grapple with the tangled enmeshment of femininity and illness, and explore how claims about medicalized bodies became a metric for citizenship.

English 385-0-20 – Science and Representation: Topics in Combined Studies

When you write up a lab report, you probably don't approach it as a literary exercise. Today we take science writing as an objective, transparent transcription of experimental data. However, during the Scientific Revolution in Europe and Britain, literary form was vital to the transmission and popularization of new experimental methods. Indeed, literary representation was necessary to help people conceive new sensory worlds at microscopic, sub-microscopic, or planetary scale. In HUM 370/ ENG 385, we will explore the centrality of literary representation to pivotal new technologies in the early modern emergence of experimental science: the microscope, the air-pump, the telescope, and the distillation apparatus. These technologies did not only challenge fervently held convictions about the natural world endorsed by the Bible, Aristotle, and Ptolemy, among other authorities. They also demanded new representational modes able to communicate concepts and vivify experiences inassimilable to old ways of understanding. How can the pervasive agency of atmospheric pressure be figured in language? What words make the magnified body of a flea familiar, even beautiful? Why poeticize the chemical reactions involved in refining a new global commodity, sugar? What political viewpoints accompany Copernican visions of possible planetary worlds?

We will explore how literary technology was as integral to the New Science as experimental technology. Throughout, we will approach western science not as universal knowledge but as highly situated practice, whose multifarious economic, extractive, and imperial investments are woven into the fabric of its literary representation. We will dedicate significant time to satires of the new science, whose critical counter-representations of the frivolity, futility, or cruelty of experimental method illuminate the deep and ongoing stakes of science's relation to literature,

English 385-0-21 – Literary Animals from Noah's Ark to Shakespeare

Before the nineteenth-century ideas of extinction and evolution, writers considered the earth's number of species to be unchanging. How were relations across this fixed set of creaturely kinds understood, and how was the diversity of these life-forms explained? What claims did these creatures have on humans, and what might earlier understandings of their entitlements reveal about assumptions concerning "us" and "them" now? Focusing on English Renaissance literature, this course will explore the teeming possibilities for thinking across species - before a starker "the human/animal divide" took shape. We'll map different approaches to natural history, ranging from re-readings of Genesis, to lawsuits filed against insects, to complaint poetry written in animal voices, to the night-rule of cats on the rooftops of London, to Shakespeare's animals (in their natural habitats of forest, field, and fantasy too), and then to the explicit pursuit of "human empire" over creatures with rise of seventeenth-century science. Finally, to consider what animals might say about all this, we'll end by analyzing a 2014 production called King Lear with Sheep (a staging of King Lear ... yes, with real sheep).

English 385-0-22 – Fiction and the Internet

This course explores the ways recent American fiction has imagined the internet -- primarily the print novel but also short stories, electronic literature, and film. The course will proceed by reading one novel per week discussing the ways literature expresses, worries about, adapts, or pointedly distorts dimensions of online experience. One of the course's broader concerns will be the question of how literature approaches the internet's broad capacity to trouble what feels real or what even counts as reality. A consideration of genre will also be central to our collective inquiries since we will read text across an eclectic range of generic traditions: from science fiction and the gothic novel to queer fiction, the web comic and graphic novel, and electronic literature. Likely authors will include Allie Brosh, Nick Drnaso, Jarret Kobek, Xta Maya Murray, Lauren Oyler, Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries, Juan Martinez, Jane Schoenbrun, and Jia Tolentino. Assignments will include analytical essays.

ENGLISH 385-0-23 – Information Overload!

This course explores the anxiety, exhaustion, and unease brought on by information technologies. We will trace emotional responses to technological change, from the shock of the printing press to the malaise of the present "information economy." How did new text technologies reshape language and society? Who is permitted access to certain kinds of information and why? We will take a hands-on approach to these questions by pairing literature that addresses the anxieties of technology, like the scifi linguistics of Arrival and the postapocalyptic Shakespeare of Station Eleven, with book history and digital humanities techniques designed to manage information. Students will learn how books are made, how search algorithms work, and how to analyze text with code.

English 386-0-20 – Frankenstein's Hideous Progeny

When Mary Shelley released the revised edition of Frankenstein in 1831, she referred to her groundbreaking and popular novel as her "hideous progeny" which she hoped would nonetheless "prosper" in the world. She could not have imagined the extent to which Frankenstein would persist in popular culture. This class will consider the retellings, adaptations, appropriations, and parodies of Frankenstein. We will consider what aspects of Shelley's novel have survived in the popular imagination, and what we have changed. Why did the creature turn from a well-spoken, self-educated subject into a green, non-speaking monster? What lessons have we drawn from Dr. Frankenstein's ill-fated experiment? When and how have marginalized writers (re)claimed the creature as a figure of the oppressed? Why has Shelley's sentimental and atmospheric gothic novel inspired so much levity and humor? From the 1931 film adaptation to Susan Stryker's expression of trans rage in "My Words to Victor Frankenstein" (1994); from the beloved parody Young Frankenstein (1974) to Victor LaVelle's graphic novella series Destroyer (2017-), there seems to be no bottom to the relevance of Shelley's classic novel. This class will consider questions of authorship, originality, and novelty. In addition to reading Frankenstein and its progeny, students will learn how to analyze media on the basis of historical context and genre norms.

English 386-0-21 – Modern Monsters: 20th and 21st Century Horror

Monstrosity is ubiquitous in contemporary popular culture. The ghosts, zombies, vampires, poltergeists, and extra-terrestrials that populate this course's syllabus register that modern fascination. From classic horror by H. P. Lovecraft, probing at the margins of civilization, through Angela Carter's monstrous fables, to recent novels and movie adaptations such as Let the Right One In and Coraline, this course grapples with the taboo forms of subjectivity, filiation, and national identity that monsters embody. Analyzing fiction by Shirley Jackson and Neil Gaiman, blockbuster films such as The Shining and Alien, as well as parodies like What We Do in the Shadows, students will explore what representations of monstrosity reveal about our understandings of self, family, and nation. In addition to classic and contemporary examples of cinematic and literary horror, we will explore the genre through multiple scholarly frameworks, including psychoanalysis and disability studies.

English 386-0-21 – Robots Real and Imagined

Will you support our future robot overlords? Robots have long played a significant role in our cultural imagination, from the earliest science fiction to dozens of recent shows and movies. And with recent advancements in robotics and AI, they are playing an ever-greater role in our everyday life. This course will delve into the cultural history of the robot, beginning with the coining of the term in the 1920 play R.U.R. and moving to contemporary depictions from Blade Runner to Janelle Monáe's Dirty Computer. How do robots serve as mirrors reflecting our own concerns about our humanity? How do cultural depictions of robots as Others—both monstrous and salvific—meditate on questions of race, class, gender, and sexuality? The course will explore cultural anxieties around AI and robotics, their increasing indistinguishability from humans, our ever-greater reliance on them, and the inevitability of robot world domination.

Env Pol - 390-0-23 – Maple Syrup and Climate Change

As the earth's climate changes, maple trees and the maple syrup industry in the U.S. and Canada are being affected, in both good and bad ways. The class will cover these effects, their impact on Native American and non-Native communities, the maple syrup industry, and maple species themselves through articles and readings. We will also cover other aspects of Native American food sovereignty happening across the United States and Canada. Students will work in groups, to collect data from three maple species on campus and examine sugar ratios, sap flow rates, and ambient temperature and precipitation: along with a focus on species differentiation, soil nutrients, and campus micro-climates. The final product for the class would be a group data report. A copy of the report will go to facilities management to be added to their campus tree inventory.

Env Pol 390-0-20 – Envionmental Anthropology

Environmental anthropology is a more recent outgrowth of ecological anthropology, which emerged in the 1960s and 70s as an empirically-based focus on systemic human-environment relationships, especially as they pertain to patterns of social change and adaptation. Environmental anthropology became more prominent in the 1980s, and is typically characterized by research on communities' engagements with contemporary environmental issues. Environmental anthropology has greater commitments to advocacy, critique, and application than ecological anthropology, but as we'll see in this course, the proliferation of "new ecologies" (as opposed to "new environmentalisms") denotes the continued synergy between ecological and environmental anthropologies.

This course is divided into two parts. Part I will provide an historical overview of the development of environmental anthropology. We will cover some of the most influential research trends in the field: environmental determinism, cultural ecology, systems ecology, ethnoecology, historical ecology, political ecology, and post-humanist ecology. Part II will then pivot to the application of environmental anthropology knowledge to some of the most pressing environmental issues facing the contemporary world: population pressure, capitalist consumption patterns, biodiversity conservation, sustainable agriculture, climate change, and environmental justice.

Env Pol 390-0-21 – Political Ecology

This class is an introduction to Political Ecology, a multidisciplinary body of theory and research that analyzes the environmental articulations of political, economic, and social difference and inequality. The key concepts, debates, and approaches in this field address two main questions: (1) How do humans' interactions with the environment shape power and politics? (2) How do power and politics shape humans' interactions with the environment? These questions are critical to understanding and addressing the current issues of climate change, the Anthropocene, and environmental justice. Topics discussed in this class will include environmental scarcity and degradation, sustainability and conservation. Readings will come from the disciplines of geography, anthropology and archaeology. Case studies will range from the ancient, to the historical and the present-day. No prior background in the environmental sciences is needed to appreciate and engage in this course. Co-Listed with Anthro 390-0-23

Env Pol 390-0-21 – Ocean and Costal Law and Policy

The world's oceans are essential to life on earth, yet ever-more increasingly imperiled by an array of anthropogenic stressors, including pollution, overexploitation of resources and climate change. This class will focus on both the threats posed to ocean and coastal ecosystems, as well as the impacts on marine living resources. The course will also examine the role of national (with a focus on the United States) and international law in addressing threats to the world's oceans.

Env Pol 390-0-21 – Intro to Ethnobiology Theory and Practice

This class is an introduction to the growing field of Ethnobiology which is the scientific study of dynamic relationships among peoples, biota, and environments. As a multidisciplinary field, ethnobiology integrates anthropology, geography, systematics, population biology, ecology, mathematical biology, pharmacology, conservation, and sustainable development. This class will cover the origins and evolution of ethnobiology theory and practice ranging from folk science, polymaths, taxonomic and colonial practices, the rise of Indigenous science methods, and the contemporary focus on creating networks among researchers of various disciplines to face the challenges of rapid ecological change and shifting political economies.

Env Pol 390-0-22 – U.S. Environmental Politics

Political problems associated with human impact on natural environment; pollution, natural resources, public lands, land use, energy, and population.

Env Pol 390-0-22 – Climate Change Law and Policy

This course examines the potential role of the law in confronting climate change from an institutional and policy perspective, examining the role of treaties, national legislation (in the United States), sub-national responses and judicial and quasi-judicial fora. Among the topics that will be addressed include the science associated with climate change, the role of key international climate treaty regimes, including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement, national and state and local responses to climate change in the United States, the role of litigation in confronting major emitters, and the potential role of climate geoengineering approaches. It will also seek to help students develop critical skills of analysis of treaty provisions, legislative language, and court decisions, public speaking and cogent writing.

Env Pol 390-0-23 – Environmental Policy and Culture

Native American Environmental Issues and the Media introduces students to indigenous issues, such as treaty-based hunting, fishing, and gathering rights; air and water quality issues; mining; land-to-trust issues; and sacred sites. These issues have contributed to tension between Native and non-Native communities and have become the subject of news reports, in both mainstream and tribal media. We will focus on how the media cover these issues and how that coverage contributes to the formation of public opinion and public policy. Students will read and analyze newspaper and on-line news reports and view and critique broadcast news stories and documentaries about Native environmental topics. Co-listed with Journalism 367-0-20

Env Pol 390-0-23 – International Wildlife Law and Policy

Many scientists and policymakers believe that we are on the cusp of the world's sixth great extinction spasm, driven almost entirely by anthropogenic factors, including habitat destruction, unsustainable trade, the introduction of invasive species, and the looming specter of climate change. This course explores the role of international law in addressing the biodiversity crisis and efforts to protect wildlife species. An ancillary objective is to provide students with a foundation in international law, including skills in analyzing treaty provisions.

Env Pol 390-0-24 – Science and Knowledge in Global Climate Governance

Despite decades of climate science research, current climate action remains limited in its ability to effectively mitigate the impacts of climate change. Efforts to reduce emissions are well-intentioned attempts to avoid the most severe effects of climate change, but have yet to spur the magnitude of action required. In this course we will explore the intersections of climate science, traditional ecological knowledge, and climate justice to unpack how different knowledge systems inform and impact effective climate governance and policy. Often unrecognized in science and policy arenas, traditional ecological knowledge generates insights for strengthening efforts to effectively address climate change. In this course, we ask: to what extent and how do different knowledge systems gain and lose traction in different climate policy arenas? How, why, and with what effects are the science and policy of climate change far removed from the people most vulnerable to its impacts? Is the exclusivity of science—marginalization of knowledge systems and extricating climate science from climate change experiences—the greatest threat to effective climate action? And, how might policy arenas facilitate the introduction, deliberation, and circulation of plural worldviews and knowledge systems?

Env Pol 390-0-24 – Media, Earth and Making a Difference

The central question of this course is: What Makes a Difference? Analyzing a variety of works of media addressing environmental themes, including works drawn from advertising and marketing, we will consider different types of environmental messaging and attempts to mobilize public moral engagement. Specifically, we will be looking at strategies for implementing media interventions as moral interventions. Discussion taken up in this class will include evaluating the comparative value of media messaging that emphasizes individual action and personal responsibility, versus messaging that promotes collective action, policy, and structural changes. Students will consider and debate what constitutes authentic "green" messaging versus mere corporate "greenwashing." Throughout, we will ask what kind of media we need in what has been called the "Anthropocene" (a time when humans are now a major geologic force affecting the future of the planet). When motivating public moral engagement in climate crisis, are the solutions being offered those that the planet will actually "register" or "notice" on a global scale? If not, what kinds of "media interventions" do we need to be making and how? Course content will include discussion of media interventions as moral interventions, media activism for social change, eco-media responses by religious communities and organizations, participatory digital culture, and the challenges of addressing environmental crisis in the distraction economy and what has been called the "post-truth era." Students will have the opportunity to learn by doing, proposing and crafting their own environmental media interventions as the course's final project. This course is about taking action and making a true difference.

Env Pol 390-0-25 – Climate Geoengineering

Climate change is the keystone environmental issue of this generation, and most likely for many generations to come. While the world community and individual countries have formulated policies to address climate change, these policies are almost universally recognized as being wholly inadequate to effectuate the objective of the Paris Agreement to hold global temperatures to well below 2ºC above pre-industrial levels, and pursue efforts to limit increases to 1.5ºC. This has led to increasing calls for research and development, and potential deployment, of so-called "climate geoengineering" options, defined as "deliberate large-scale intervention in the Earth's natural systems to counteract climate change." This includes "solar radiation management" (SRM) approaches that seek to cool the Earth by deflecting income solar radiation back to space by approaches such as dispersing sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere and brightening clouds, as well as carbon dioxide removal (CDR) approaches that seek to capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it, or utilize it for production of products or energy. These options include nature-based solutions, e.g. tree planting or enhancing soil uptake of carbon, direct air capture through the use of filtration systems, and ocean-based approaches.

Env Pol 390-0-25 – Water in Arid Lands: Israel and the Middle East

This seminar will explore how the availability of water has shaped the development of civilizations and driven innovation in water technologies. The course will investigate historical dimensions of water in Israel and the Middle East, focusing on ancient civilizations and the water infrastructures that are essential tools in aiding the development of water-poor societies. We will use this historical context as a stepping-stone to transition into a more recent history of the Middle East, focusing on the challenges that the nascent state of Israel faced following the influx of millions of immigrants. We will then examine efforts to develop the necessary water resources needed to support the burgeoning population as well as the irrigation projects designed to convert barren desert land into cultivated agriculture. This more recent history will help to set the stage for discussions regarding geopolitical conflicts over land and water that continue to this day. We will evaluate regional climate and water in the context of current and future geopolitical conflicts, reviewing recent advances in water technologies spurred by these limitations as well as the potential development of combined social and technological solutions for long-term water sustainability in Israel and the Middle East. We will end the course with discussions regarding opportunities for global translation of innovative water technologies and water-management solutions developed in Israel to other water-poor regions. In addition, the course will host a one-day conference featuring international experts. It will explore how water access and control contributes to trans-boundary politics and how recent advances in Israeli water technologies may serve as a model for sustainable water development in other water-poor regions of the world.

Env Pol 390-0-26 – Climate Change Communication

This course focuses on exploring, understanding, and researching questions and issues related to the environment and climate through the study of media and communication. Topics include electronic waste and outer space debris; environmental security; the digitization of the wilderness; outdoor and recreational activities in conjunction with media technologies and electronic information networks; ways of representing and communicating environmental and climatological issues through such examples as climate change communication, weather forecasting, documentaries, and feature-length fictional film, television and similar media; examples of environmental and climatological-themed government media and communication; and media-communication-environment in everyday life and pop culture. Student classwork includes lecture material, readings and audiovisual screenings, discussions, providing relevant discussion materials, and producing a research paper-project relevant to the topics and themes of the course.Assignments emphasize expository writing. Co-Listed with Comm St. 294-0-22. Please download a free copy of the One Book One Northwestern selection for this year at this link. https://nuinfo-proto12.northwestern.edu/onebook2021/student-engagement/download-ebook/index.html

 

Env Pol 390-0-26 – Archaeologies of Sustainability and Collapse

This course is a seminar that uses archaeological case studies from the past to interrogate human-environment relationships across time and space, including the present and the future. The emphasis here will not be on learning environmental archaeology methods. Instead, we will be focusing on how archaeologists think about key environmental concepts, including climate change, sustainability, and resilience. We will discuss examples of "failure" and "success" in the long history of human-environment interactions, and see if there's room for nuance along the way. We will also use this course as an opportunity to consider how archaeology can contribute to environmental sustainability and environmental justice efforts. Prior coursework in archaeology is not required to appreciate this class or do well, but would be helpful.

Env Pol 390-0-26 – Environmental Justice in Black and Indigenous Women's Literature

While ecocriticism has not always considered the lived experience of women of color, literary texts by African American and Native American women have found ways of theorizing their own versions of environmental and spatial justice. Reading leading theorists like Rob Nixon and Edward Soja side by side with Jesmyn Ward's post-Katrina novel Salvage the Bones (2011), Toni Jensen's stories about oil and fracking on Indigenous lands, and poetry by Nikky Finney and Heid E. Erdrich, this class interrogates how literature can inform our understanding of environmental injustice and different types of violence. It grounds the discussion in a longer history of colonial extraction and Indigenous dispossession, racism, structural neglect, and ongoing residential segregation by discussing Zora Neale Hurston's 1937 hurricane novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, and looking at Zitkala-Ša's influential 1924 report on the settler defrauding of Osage Indians for their oil-rich lands.

Env Pol 390-0-27 – Red Power - Indigenous Resistance in the US and Canada

In 2016, thousands of Indigenous water protectors and their non-Native allies camped at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in an effort to block the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. That movement is part of a long history of Native activism. In this course, we will examine the individual and collective ways in which Indigenous people have resisted colonial domination in the U.S. and Canada since 1887. In addition to focusing on North America, we will also turn our attention to Hawai?i. This course will highlight religious movements, inter-tribal organizations, key intellectual figures, student movements, armed standoffs, non-violent protest, and a variety of visions for Indigenous community self-determination. This course will emphasize environmental justice.

Env Pol 390-0-27 – Parks and Pipelines: Indigenous Environmental Justice

This seminar explores how the relationship between the United States and Indigenous people has shaped the environments, ecosystems, and physical landscapes we live in today. Through engagement with a variety of digital resources including maps and digital media, we will learn how the environment of what is now the United States was managed by Indigenous people before and throughout colonization, how Indigenous people have been impacted by the environmental policies of the United States, and how Indigenous resistance and activism have shaped both the environmental movement in the U.S. as well as contemporary Indigenous political thought. In discussion, we will break down the politics, economics, and ethics of this history, challenging ourselves to think critically about the land we live on and its future. In lieu of a final paper, this course will include a digital, public-facing final assignment.

Env Pol 390-0-28 – The Politics of Scarcity

TBD, Co-listed with Soc 376-0-21

Env Pol 390-0-28 – Animal, Animism, Animality in African Literature

This course focuses on the representations of animals, animism, and animality in select African texts to examine the major developments in African literatures. While discussing various theoretical statements, we will assess the place of the non-human in the African thought. We will discuss work by well-known authors (e.g., Wole Soyinka, Bessie Head, J.M. Coetzee, Abulrazak Gurnah, and Ngugi wa Thiong'o), fiction and poetry by important but neglected authors (e.g., Saida Hagi-Dirie Herzi and Henry ole Kulet), and works by emergent writers who deploy animality as a trope to explore the relationship between the human and the non-human. Subtopics will include ecology, biopolitics, slavery, race, diaspora, intra-African immigration, science fiction, queerness, and ubuntu. Theoretical texts include works by Wangari Maathai, Achille Mbembe, Rosi Braidotti, Harry Garuba, Kyle White, Frantz Fanon, and Cajetan Iheka.

Env Pol 390-0-29 – Hazards, Disasters and Society

This course examines how socioeconomic and environmental factors work together to cause hazards and disasters in human society. In this course we learn the main concepts about disaster such as preparedness, vulnerability, resilience, response, mitigation, etc. We learn that a disaster does not have the same effect on everyone (all groups of people), and factors of social inequality such as race, ethnicity, class, and gender, make people more vulnerable to impacts of disasters. Also, this course, with an interdisciplinary perspective, analyzes disasters in the global North and South. This is a discussion-intensive course for advanced undergrad students. The classes are the student-centered with an emphasis on collaborative learning. The class meetings will consist of lecture, discussion, presentations, teamwork, activities, video/audio materials and projects.

Env Pol 390-0-30 – The Natural and Supernatural in Southeast Asia

This course examines the ways in which different Southeast Asian peoples have conceived of what we might think of as the natural world - the environment; and the supernatural world - various religious traditions and cosmologies; and the continuous interplay between the two. Together we will explore the Kahiringan tradition of the Ngaju Dayak people from Central Kalimantan in Indonesia; representations of nature in the textual traditions and temple paintings of the Vessantera jataka in Myanmar and Thailand; Ilongot headhunting and historical reckoning; and the hydraulic landscape of Bali's water temples. Our goal will be to understand the kinds of conceptual and practical resources Southeast Asians have brought to understanding and controlling the world in which they have lived.

Env Pol 390-0-31 – Energy in American History

Energy is both ubiquitous and invisible: ubiquitous because little that modern Americans do every day does not involve some use of energy, and invisible because this constant flow of energy allows people to take it for granted. This class will look at different energy systems in American history, focusing on their social, cultural, political, and environmental consequences. Although the course will begin well before the fossil fuel era it will focus primarily on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries—the age of coal and oil.

Env Pol 390-0-32 – The End of the World: South Korean Fictions, Films

What does one talk about when one talks about disasters? Whose world ends in "end of the world" narratives? This course invites students to read and watch South Korean and diasporic narratives centered around disasters, both real and fictional, to engage questions of politics, representation, and inequalities that shape disaster narratives. Ranging from disasters of the past to more contemporary ones such as pandemics and Sewol ferry, the disasters examined in this course have sparked complex conversations surrounding a more just society and the doomed end of the "normal." Engaging scholarship on disasters, speculative fictions, critical race theory, and gender studies, the course introduces students to the varied academic and cultural responses to disasters and the underlying stakes that drive these responses. Students will be assigned a variety of texts to analyze, such as film, novels, webtoons, and news, as well as choosing a disaster narrative of their own interest to examine. No prior knowledge of Korean culture or language are required to take this course. Students are expected to actively participate in class and work in groups on collaborative projects. Assignments will consist of short essays and a creative final project.

Env Pol 340-0-1 – Global Environments and World History

Environmental problems have become part and parcel of popular consciousness: resources are being depleted at a record pace, human population levels may soon cross the eight billion threshold, extreme poverty defines the majority of people's daily lives, toxic contaminants affect all ecosystems, increasing numbers of species face extinction, consumerism and the commodification of nature show no signs of abating, climate changes are wreaking havoc in different places every year, and weapons and energy systems continue to proliferate that risk the planet's viability. This introductory lecture course is designed to help students understand the relatively recent origins of many of these problems, focusing especially on the last one hundred and fifty years. Students will have an opportunity to learn about the environmental effects of urbanization, industrialization, population growth, market economies, empire-building, intercontinental warfare, energy extraction, and new technologies. They will also explore different environmental philosophies and analytic frameworks that help us make sense of historical change, including political ecology, environmental history, science studies, and world history. Finally, the course will examine a range of transnational organizations, social movements, and state policies that have attempted to address and resolve environmental problems. Co-Listed with History 376-0-20.

Env Policy and Culture 212-0-20 – Environment and Society

Our climate is rapidly changing. Rising sea levels and increasing ocean acidity, higher temperatures, more droughts, melting glaciers, wilder weather patterns, and mounting environmental disasters mean that climate change is increasingly visible in our daily lives. What role does human society play in these changes, and what consequences does society suffer as these changes occur? This course is an introduction to environmental sociology during which we will employ an intersectional, sociological perspective to look beyond the scientific basis for environmental problems to understand the social roots of environmental issues. We will cover a variety of topics in environmental sociology, including new directions in sustainable development and how actors such as corporations, the media, and social movements impact public opinion and environmental issues. Further, we will critically examine the gendered, racial, and socioeconomic production of disparate environmental risks.

Env Policy and Culture 309-0-20 – American Environmental History

TBD

Env Policy and Culture 390-0-20 – Contemporary Issues in Energy

TBD

Env Policy Culture 212-0-20 – Environment and Society

TBD

Envr Pol 212-0-1 – Environment and Society

Overview of the interactions between societies and the natural environment. Examines both key environmental problems, like climate change and oil spills, and possible solutions, and the roles played by different social structures and groups in shaping both issues.

Envr Pol 309 – American Environmental History

This course will survey American history from the colonial era to the present with two premises in mind: that the natural world is not simply a passive background to human history but rather an active participant, and that human attitudes toward nature are both shaped by and in turn shape social, political, and economic behavior. The course will cover formal schools of thought about the natural world - from transcendentalism to the conservation and environmental movements - but also discuss the many informal intersections of human activity and natural systems, from European colonialism to property regimes, migration and transportation, industry, consumer practices, war, technological innovation, political ideology, and food production.

Envr Pol 336-0-1 – The Climate in Crisis, Policies and Society

Climate change is the worst environmental problem facing the earth. Sea levels will rise, glaciers are vanishing, horrific storms will hit everywhere. After looking briefly at the impacts of climate change on natural and social environments both in the present and near future, we then consider how to best reduce climate change and how to adapt to its impacts. Issues of climate justice, divides between the global North and South, social movements, steps taken in different countries and internationally, and the role of market and regulations are addressed. Climate change is a disaster, the worst environmental problem facing the earth: sea levels will rise, glaciers are vanishing, horrific storms will hit everywhere. What can be done to reduce climate change and to adapt to its impacts? Climate justice, divides between the global North and South, social movements, climate deniers, and the role of the market and regulations are addressed.

Envr Pol 340-0-1 – Global Environments and World History

Environmental problems have become part and parcel of popular consciousness: resources are being depleted at a record pace, human population levels just crossed the seven billion threshold, extreme poverty defines the majority of people's daily lives, toxic contaminants affect all ecosystems, increasing numbers of species face extinction, consumerism and the commodification of nature show no signs of abating, climate changes are wreaking havoc in different places every year, and weapons and energy systems continue to proliferate that risk the planet's viability. This introductory lecture course is designed to help students understand the relatively recent origins of many of these problems, focusing especially on the last one hundred and fifty years. Students will have an opportunity to learn about the environmental effects of urbanization, industrialization, population growth, market economies, empire-building, intercontinental warfare, energy extraction, and new technologies. They will also explore different environmental philosophies and analytic frameworks that help us make sense of historical change, including political ecology, environmental history, science studies, and world history. Finally, the course will examine a range of transnational organizations, social movements, and state policies that have attempted to address and resolve environmental problems. This year, we will also explore questions of environmental health, disease ecologies, spillover events, and Covid-19.

Envr Pol 390-0-20 – Environmental Anthroplogy

Co-Listed as ANTHRO 383-0-20                                                                                                                                          Anthropology has had a long, storied relationship with questions of nature and culture, society and environment, during which time a variety of theoretical approaches have been developed. This class will review these intellectual developments and recent trends with the aim of giving students toolkits for analyzing present-day environmental concerns.

ENVR POL 390-0-20 – Environmental Anthropology

Anthropology has had a long, storied relationship with questions of nature and culture, society and environment, during which time a variety of theoretical approaches have been developed. This class will review these intellectual developments and recent trends with the aim of giving students toolkits for analyzing present-day environmental concerns.

Envr Pol 390-0-21 – International Environmental Law and Policy

Global environmental problems, including the looming threat of climate change, the biodiversity crisis, and increasing pressures on ocean ecosystems due to human activities, have become pressing concerns in recent decades. In response, a sophisticated architecture of global governance has emerged, including through the establishment of hundreds of multi-lateral treaties to confront these threats. As a consequence, nation-States have begun to cooperate with each other to an unprecedented extent, although not without facing significant obstacles, and not without domestic political agendas sometimes delaying or thwarting progress at the international level. This class examines the array of legal regimes, politics, governance processes and policy tools that have emerged in the arena of global environmental law and politics. We will focus on a number of different discrete international environmental problems, as well as how international environmental law is formulated and enforced at the international level.

Envr Pol 390-0-21 – Climate Change Law and Policy

Climate change is the keystone environmental issue of this generation, and most likely for many generations to come. It now appears inevitable that temperatures will increase this century by more than 2?C, and perhaps by substantially more than 3?C, with the inertia of the system ensuring that temperatures will continue to increase for centuries thereafter even under scenarios of total decarbonization. Climate change is already posing serious risks for both human institutions and natural ecosystems. These risks will seriously escalate throughout this century, especially if the world community fails to substantially increase its commitment to addressing greenhouse emissions, inadequately allocates resources to adaptation, or, perhaps, fails to commit itself to technological approaches to remove carbon from the atmosphere.

ENVR POL 390-0-21 – International Environmental Politics

TBD

Envr Pol 390-0-22 – Climate Change Law and Policy

This course focuses on international treaty regimes for responding to climate change as well as the role of domestic law, with a focus on the United States. It includes a review of the history of international responses to climate change, highlights the negotiations, what is agreed, what is outstanding, and where the fault lines exist, and then examines efforts at integrating climate change into various international institutions. The course also examines the role of a range of international organizations such as the World Trade Organization, the World Intellectual Property Organization, regional bodies, international river and lake basin organizations, the UN Security Council, and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. On the domestic side of the equation, it focuses on national, regional, and state-based legislation and regulations to address climate change, including the policies of the Trump administration.

Envr Pol 390-0-22 – Earth, Politics and Poetics

Co-listed as ANTHRO 390-0-29                                                                                                                                                   "Planet Earth" has a political and social history. The Copernican turn and geological notions of deep time, for example, radically shifted understandings of the Earth, time, and humans' relationship to them. Whole Earth images first generated by the Apollo Space missions in the late 1960s and 1970s have been the characteristic form of planetary imagination during the late twentieth century. Earthrise and The Blue Marble images enabled humans to imagine the planet as an interconnected whole against the backdrop of the Cold War and environmental disasters. They have been crucial to the emergence of a "global consciousness" and became famous icons of the global environmental movement, depicting the planet as the common home of humans as one species. The power of these images has not decreased, yet other forms of representation and imagination have emerged as well. The development of Google Earth or advanced climate modeling systems, for example, mark a different notion of Earth, characterized by dynamic, heterogeneous, and open systems. This course examines such shifting notions of the Earth by tracing how practices and discourses of geopolitics, political theory, cartography, population studies, climate modeling, deep ocean sensing, outer space exploration and mining, and science fiction literature, have come to sense, know, represent, and imagine the planet since the 18th century. In doing so, this course also surveys shifting socio-political currents, from the intersection of the military-industrial complex and technoscience to how climate crisis, Anthropocene debates, and Earth Systems analysis reflect further shifts in the ways the planet is understood today. Tracing these shifts in planetary representation and imagination is also crucial to understanding how core concepts such as "humanity" and "species" are made and unmade. Understanding the deeply mediated processes behind planetary depictions is not only central to making sense of contemporary politics and policies that propose to shape the future, but also to imagining alternative worlds and futures beyond our grim ecological predicament.

Envr Pol 390-0-23 – Maple Syrup and Climate Change

Sesipâskw'pêskân is the Nehiywa (Cree) word for a maple sugar camp. It's the time in between late winter and early spring when families gather to collect maple sap, and to harvest fish, beavers, and early spring plants, or at least it used to be. As the earth's climate changes, maple trees and the subsequent maple syrup industry in the U.S. and Canada are being affected, in both good and bad ways. To compound this, the demand for maple syrup is rising in Asia. The class will cover these effects, their impact on Native American and non-Native communities, the maple syrup industry, and maple species themselves. Students will work in groups, to collect data from three maple species on campus and examine sugar ratios, sap flow rates, species differentiation in sap quality, the presence of heavy metals, soil quality, bud development, and bloom times in relation to campus micro-climates, ambient temperature and precipitation. Students would also learn about how to utilize outdoor space as an informal science classroom and develop community based citizen science methods and curriculum. The final product for the class would be a group data report. A copy of the report will go to facilities management to be added to their campus tree inventory.

Envr Pol 390-0-23 – Ethics and the Environment

Co-listed as PHIL 268                                                                                                                                                                                This course is an introduction to central concepts and problems in environmental ethics. We will devote particular attention to the question of moral standing, or in other words, the question of who or what is deserving of ultimate moral consideration. Topics to be discussed include the ethical treatment of animals, the value of non-sentient life, individualism versus holism in ethics, climate change and the ethics of geoengineering, and whether and why anthropocentrism might be a problem in environmental ethics.

Envr Pol 390-0-23 – Ethics and the Environment

Co-listed as PHIL 268                                                                                                                                                                                This course is an introduction to central concepts and problems in environmental ethics. We will devote particular attention to the question of moral standing, or in other words, the question of who or what is deserving of ultimate moral consideration. Topics to be discussed include the ethical treatment of animals, the value of non-sentient life, individualism versus holism in ethics, climate change and the ethics of geoengineering, and whether and why anthropocentrism might be a problem in environmental ethics.

Envr Pol 390-0-23 – Maple Syrup and Climate Change

As the earth's climate changes, maple trees and the maple syrup industry in the U.S. and Canada are being affected, in both good and bad ways. The class will cover these effects, their impact on Native American and non-Native communities, the maple syrup industry, and maple species themselves through articles and readings.

Envr Pol 390-0-24 – Ocean and Coastal Law and Policy

This course focuses on laws, policies and the decision-making process related to coastal and ocean resources in the United States, and internationally. Through examination of treaties, statutes, cases, administrative materials, and academic articles, we will explore issues such as coastal land use, offshore energy, ocean pollution, the impacts of climate on ocean/coastal ecosystems, marine mammal conservation, and fisheries management.

Envr Pol 390-0-25 – The Politics of Disaster

The term "natural disaster" conjures images of tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanoes, and other powerful forces of nature that strike without warning, inflicting massive suffering on a powerless and unsuspecting populace. We now have several decades' worth of research from the social sciences and humanities showing that so-called "natural" disasters are not very natural at all. Instead, they are deeply political and profoundly man-made. This course adopts a historical and global approach in order to denaturalize disaster. From famines in British India to earthquakes in post-colonial Peru, from floods in New Orleans to nuclear disaster in Japan, we will see how disasters expose and exacerbate pre-existing inequalities, inflicting suffering disproportionately among those groups already marginalized by race, class, gender, geography, and age. These inequalities shape not only the impact of the disaster but the range of responses to it, including political critique and retrenchment, relief and rebuilding efforts, memorialization, and planning - or failing to plan - for future disasters of a similar kind. The course culminates in a unit on the contemporary challenge of anthropogenic global climate change, the ultimate man-made disaster. We will consider how memories, fears, and fantasies of past disasters are being repurposed to create new visions of what climate change will look like.

Envr Pol 390-0-26 – Archaeologies of Sustainability and Collapse

This course is a seminar that uses archaeological case studies from the past to interrogate human-environment relationships across time and space, including the present and the future. The emphasis here will not be on learning environmental archaeology methods. Instead, we will be focusing on how archaeologists think about key environmental concepts, including climate change, sustainability, and resilience. We will discuss examples of "failure" and "success" in the long history of human-environment interactions, and see if there's room for nuance along the way. We will also use this course as an opportunity to consider how archaeology can contribute to environmental sustainability and environmental justice efforts. Prior coursework in archaeology is not required to appreciate this class or do well, but would be helpful.

ENVR POL 390-0-26 – Becoming Planetary: Earth, Power, Imagination

"Planetary" has increasingly come to capture the imagination and apprehension of people around the world. It has also been receiving special attention in the critical social sciences and humanities as a concept that captures the relationship between social life and the Earth. Our planet is going through massive changes in its climate and ecosystems. At the same time, humans have become a major force that has been shaping the dynamics of the planet. Taking this interdependence between social life/humans and the planet, this course explores the ways in which social sciences and the humanities are responding to the entanglement of humanity and our planet. Understanding our planet as the product of a dynamic planet, self-organizing over deep time, we will explore how the social and political processes of fire use, mining, disease, slavery, colonialism, extraction, trade, and extinction have powerfully shaped and have been shaped by inhuman planetary formations. One main task of the course will be to understand how racialized and economic inequalities have made their mark on Earth through the reorganization of planetary processes.

ENVR POL 390-0-27 – Fire and Blood: Resources, Energy, Society

What kinds of tools would help us understand urgent global issues we are facing today, ranging from global pandemics and climate emergency, wildfires in California and Australia, hurricanes in Puerto Rico and Louisiana, occupational diseases in South Dakota and Toronto, or urban infrastructure crises in Mumbai and Senegal? Over the past three decades, political ecology has emerged as a powerful interdisciplinary tool for understanding and critiquing global ecological change. Political ecology seeks to unravel the political forces at work in environmental processes on a global scale. It is a powerful strategy for reinserting politics into apolitical or "greenwashed" discussions of ecology and the environment and unsettling common-sense understandings of "the environment" or "nature" as separate from the social and the cultural. It is also an essential tool to understand how disparate-seeming places, events, and living entities in the world are intimately linked to each other in often uneven ways. In this course, we will critically approach topics such as resource extraction, conservation, carbon management, natural disasters, sanitation politics, and human-animal-plant relations. In doing so, we will explore the gendered and racialized ways and the ongoing histories of slavery, colonialism, imperialism, and capitalism through which environmental and energy politics operate in our societies today.

Envr Pol 390-0-28 – The Visual Language of Protest

The year 2020 has witnessed a series of crises in which protest has been both effectively and creatively used and also, at times, demonized. This class examines themes in the visual language of protest in the United States since the 1960s, with particular emphasis on recent political movements and topics that will include climate change and global climate justice and responses to police violence, prisons, and antiblackness, and may also include Indigenous sovereignty, antifascism, disability and trans rights, activism around Covid19, and other efforts. We will bear in mind relationships to more traditional forms of art like painting and sculpture as well as print media and social media; we will also discuss theories of collective action and questions of force and violence as well as nonviolence, but the main focus is on modes of creativity connected to protest. The organizing principle will be specific tropes and media of protest: for example, tree-sitting, tents and occupations; the megaphone, sound, and music; bicycles, automobiles, pushcarts, floats, and other vehicles; the mask; giant puppets; parties and pleasure; coffins, memorials, and the Grim Reaper; stenciling, graffiti, murals, and mark-making; video and social media; and other modes of performance and strategies for producing visibility. Class will be held remotely; if possible, we may have one or two optional socially distanced field trips. Following a short sequence of introductory readings, students in small groups will participate in researching imagery and themes that they will present to the class as a whole for group discussion. The final project will involve small groups each making contributions to the curating of a collective "guidebook" of protest imagery, format to be determined. Work will be assessed both collectively and individually.

ENVR 390-0-28 – Ocean and Coastal Law and Policy

This course focuses on laws, policies and the decision-making process related to coastal and ocean resources in the United States, and internationally. Through examination of treaties, statutes, cases, administrative materials, and academic articles, we will explore issues such as coastal land use, offshore energy, ocean pollution, the impacts of climate on ocean/coastal ecosystems, marine mammal conservation, and fisheries management.

ENVR POL 390-0-29 – Special Topics: Natural Disasters

From earthquakes to hurricanes, fires to floods, we tend to think of natural disasters as spontaneous occurrences. The word disaster originates in the idea of being born under an unlucky constellation or struck down by an uncaring universe. When homes are flooded or crops are destroyed, we see the natural world encroaching on lives and livelihoods in seemingly unpredictable and certainly unwanted ways. But are these disasters truly a product of nature? In this class, we will engage with the complex history of natural disasters: how people experience and rationalize these events, how communities respond to them, and how the causes of disaster are explained by various stakeholders, from victims to insurance companies. By the end of the quarter, students will have developed historical, cultural, and theoretical tools for understanding the nature of the natural disaster.

ENVR POL 390-0-30 – Cyborg Environmentalism: Technology and the Natura

When was the last time you hiked without a smartphone? What can playing video games teach us about interacting with nature? If you didn't post a picture of a tree in the forest, did you really see it? In this course, digital humanities theory and practice are taught through the lens of environmental studies and political ecology, using cyborg theory to explore how the relationship between humans and the natural world is increasingly shaped by and mediated through digital technologies. This course explores theoretical concepts like connective memory, our relationship to social media and mobile photography, and digital colonialism, grounding them in tangible examples of digital humanities projects. This course will primarily use seminar style discussion with some lecture and workshops.

Envr Policy and Culture 212-0-20 – Environment and Society

Our climate is rapidly changing. Rising sea levels and increasing ocean acidity, higher temperatures, more droughts, melting glaciers, wilder weather patterns, and mounting environmental disasters mean that climate change is increasingly visible in our daily lives. What role does human society play in these changes, and what consequences does society suffer as these changes occur? This course is an introduction to environmental sociology during which we will employ an intersectional, sociological perspective to look beyond the scientific basis for environmental problems to understand the social roots of environmental issues. We will cover a variety of topics in environmental sociology, including new directions in sustainable development and how actors such as corporations, the media, and social movements impact public opinion and environmental issues. Further, we will critically examine the gendered, racial, and socioeconomic production of disparate environmental risks.

Envr Policy and Culture 212-0-20 – Environment and Society

Our climate is rapidly changing. Rising sea levels and increasing ocean acidity, higher temperatures, more droughts, melting glaciers, wilder weather patterns, and mounting environmental disasters mean that climate change is increasingly visible in our daily lives. What role does human society play in these changes, and what consequences does society suffer as these changes occur? This course is an introduction to environmental sociology during which we will employ an intersectional, sociological perspective to look beyond the scientific basis for environmental problems to understand the social roots of environmental issues. We will cover a variety of topics in environmental sociology, including new directions in sustainable development and how actors such as corporations, the media, and social movements impact public opinion and environmental issues. Further, we will critically examine the gendered, racial, and socioeconomic production of disparate environmental risks.

Envr Policy and Culture 309-0-20 – Amercian Environmental History

TBD

Envr Policy and Culture 337-0-1 – Hazard, Disaster and Society

TBD

Envr Policy and Culture 337-0-1 – Hazard, Disaster and Society

This course examines how socioeconomic and environmental factors work together to cause hazards and disasters in human society. In this course we learn the main concepts about disaster such as preparedness, vulnerability, resilience, response, mitigation, etc. We learn that a disaster does not have the same effect on everyone (all groups of people), and factors of social inequality such as race, ethnicity, class, and gender, make people more vulnerable to impacts of disasters. Also, this course, with an interdisciplinary perspective, analyzes disasters in the global North and South. This is a discussion-intensive course for advanced undergrad students. The classes are the student-centered with an emphasis on collaborative learning. The class meetings will consist of lecture, discussion, presentations, teamwork, activities, video/audio materials and projects.

Envr Policy and Culture 338-0-1 – Environmental Justice

TBD

Envr Policy and Culture 340-0-20 – Global Environments and World History

Environmental problems are today part and parcel of popular consciousness: resources are being depleted at a record pace, human population levels have crossed the seven billion threshold, extreme poverty defines the majority of people's daily lives, toxic contaminants affect all ecosystems, increasing numbers of species face extinction, consumerism and the commodification of nature show no signs of abating, and weapons and energy systems continue to proliferate that risk the planet's viability. This introductory lecture course is designed to help students understand the relatively recent origins of many of these problems, focusing especially on the last one hundred and fifty years. Students will have an opportunity to learn about the environmental effects of urbanization, industrialization, population growth, market economies, empire-building, intercontinental warfare, energy extraction, and new technologies. They will also explore different environmental philosophies and analytic frameworks that help us make sense of historical change, including political ecology, environmental history, science studies, and global history. Finally, the course will examine a range of transnational organizations, social movements, and state policies that have attempted to address and resolve environmental problems.

Envr Policy and Culture 340-0-20 – Global Environments and World History

TBD

Envr Policy and Culture 360-0-1 – Animal Law

TBD

Envr Policy and Culture 384-0-20 – Political Ecology

TBD

Envr Policy and Culture 390-0-20 – Environmental Justice in Modern South Asia

Environmental Justice in Modern South Asia is an undergraduate class on the unequal experiences and effects of environmental change in South Asia, drawing primarily on case studies from India. Since at least the early 1990s, rapid economic growth, massive infrastructural projects, democratic transformations and global threats of climate change have characterized the South Asian region. Such political, economic, and ecological processes come together to worsen the lives and livelihoods of marginalized people typically. They tend to intensify their vulnerability to environmental degradation, with historical structures of inclusion and exclusion profoundly shaping how natural resources are accessed and distributed. While the regional focus is on South Asia, at the heart of this course is a broader concern that environmental questions are always questions of equality and social justice. The class will examine how issues of justice and nature are framed within law and official policy debates, within social movements and right-based struggles, as well as within people's moral imaginations and everyday lives. The following questions will guide the class:

• What environmental problems arose in South Asia through accelerated economic development across the 20th century and early 21st century?
• Who suffered the most, why, and how were they affected, socially, culturally, and materially?
• What strategies for justice and sustainability emerged?
• How is environmental justice understood across activists, policymakers, and ordinary people whose lives are most in danger?

Envr Policy and Culture 390-0-20 – Culture in a Changing Climate

This course will offer an introduction to creative responses to climate change and associated environmental problems in recent literary, cinematic, and artistic works from around the world. We will pay close attention to how aesthetic forms and the critical methods used to understand them are (or are not) changing in the face of overlapping, existential environmental crises. Are there specific genres or media best suited to addressing climate change and helping to inspire political action? What are the effects of identifying or writing within a "new" literary genre such as "climate fiction"? Can we speak of similar modes in other media: is there such a thing as "climate cinema" or "climate art"? And if there is, how do these categories shape both the art that gets made and how we understand it?

Envr Policy and Culture 390-0-21 – Sociology of Disaster

The term ‘natural disaster' conjures images of tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanoes, and other powerful forces of nature that strike without warning, inflicting massive suffering on a powerless and unsuspecting populace. We now have several decades' worth of research from the social sciences and humanities showing that so-called "natural" disasters are not very natural at all. Instead, they are deeply political and profoundly man-made. This course adopts a historical and global approach in order to denaturalize disaster. From famines in British India to earthquakes in post-colonial Peru, from floods in New Orleans to nuclear disaster in Japan, we will see how disasters expose and exacerbate pre-existing inequalities, inflicting suffering disproportionately among those groups already marginalized by race, class, gender, geography, and age. These inequalities shape not only the impact of the disaster but the range of responses to it, including political critique and retrenchment, relief and rebuilding efforts, memorialization, and planning - or failing to plan - for future disasters of a similar kind. The course culminates in a unit on the contemporary challenge of anthropogenic global climate change, the ultimate man-made disaster. We will consider how memories, fears, and fantasies of past disasters are being repurposed to create new visions of what climate change will look like.

Envr Policy and Culture 390-0-22 – U.S. Environmental Politics

Political problems associated with human impact on natural environment; pollution, natural resources, public lands, land use, energy, and population.

Envr Policy and Culture 390-0-22 – International Env Law and Policy

TBD

Envr Policy and Culture 390-0-22 – Climate Change Law and Policy

This course examines the potential role of the law in confronting climate change from an institutional and policy perspective, examining the role of treaties, national legislation (in the United States), sub-national responses and judicial and quasi-judicial fora. Among the topics that will be addressed include the science associated with climate change, the role of key international climate treaty regimes, including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement, national and state and local responses to climate change in the United States, the role of litigation in confronting major emitters, and the potential role of climate geoengineering approaches. It will also seek to help students develop critical skills of analysis of treaty provisions, legislative language, and court decisions, public speaking and cogent writing.

Envr Policy and Culture 390-0-23 – International Environmental Politics

TBD

Envr Policy and Culture 390-0-24 – Media and the Environment

With daily reports of super storms, heat records, species declines, and melting arctic ice, there is a global recognition that we are living in an era of environmental crisis. What role does the media play in that crisis? Media production depends upon the expenditure of large amounts of energy and natural resources. Media devices contain toxic materials and take part in a culture of obsolescence that sends increasing amounts of "high tech trash" to the landfill. Media content has often developed in close connection to advertising, and so has taken part in the creation of an unsustainable consumer culture. Despite marketing rhetoric that characterizes digital technologies as weightless, virtual, and environmentally clean, we learn more every day about the energy, resource, and labor costs that undergird the Internet. At the same time, media communication can function to increase awareness about environmental issues, can substitute for other kinds of high-carbon activities like international travel, can foster communication between humans and animals, and can aid in the fight for environmental justice, as well as a host of other social and cultural benefits. How can we make sense of the complicated equation of environmental cost and benefit in media culture? This course will explore intersections of media and environment, considering media about the environment, media in the environment, and media as environment. It will cover a variety of media forms and examine how they shape our perception of the environment and foster environmental action. We will consider topics such as theories of media ecology; definitions of the "Anthropocene" epoch; the materiality of media infrastructure; media's role in raising environmental consciousness and promoting environmental justice; advertising and consumer culture; wildlife documentary; ecocritical aesthetics; environmental history; indigenous media; representations of landscape and soundscape; and animals as media performers. We will assess multiple forms of media (film, television, videogames, podcasting, sound art, infographics, and more) from a range of critical frameworks. We will consider numerous genres of environmental media as well, including apocalyptic and eco-disaster narratives, eco-comedies, "toxic" dramas, environmental melodrama, conspiracy thrillers, documentary, and animation.

Envr Policy and Culture 390-0-24 – Nature, Culture and Environmentalisms

TBD

Envr Policy and Culture 390-0-24 – The World That Fossil Fuels Made

This course will examine energy use in American history, ranging from the use of wood and water in colonial times, to animal-derived oils and fossil fuels in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, to nuclear in the late-twentieth century, and finally to the search for alternative sources in recent decades. We will consider not only how human use of various forms of energy has affected the non-human environment but also what particular energy regimes have meant for the social, political, and material lives of Americans at different points in history.

Envr Policy and Culture 390-0-25 – Water in Arid Lands: Isreal and the Middle East

This seminar will explore how the availability of water has shaped the development of civilizations and driven innovation in water technologies. The course will investigate historical dimensions of water in Israel and the Middle East, focusing on ancient civilizations and the water infrastructures that are essential tools in aiding the development of water-poor societies. We will use this historical context as a stepping-stone to transition into a more recent history of the Middle East, focusing on the challenges that the nascent state of Israel faced following the influx of millions of immigrants. We will then examine efforts to develop the necessary water resources needed to support the burgeoning population as well as the irrigation projects designed to convert barren desert land into cultivated agriculture. This more recent history will help to set the stage for discussions regarding geopolitical conflicts over land and water that continue to this day. We will evaluate regional climate and water in the context of current and future geopolitical conflicts, reviewing recent advances in water technologies spurred by these limitations as well as the potential development of combined social and technological solutions for long-term water sustainability in Israel and the Middle East. We will end the course with discussions regarding opportunities for global translation of innovative water technologies and water-management solutions developed in Israel to other water-poor regions. In addition, the course will host a one-day conference featuring international experts. It will explore how water access and control contributes to trans-boundary politics and how recent advances in Israeli water technologies may serve as a model for sustainable water development in other water-poor regions of the world.

Envr Policy and Culture 390-0-26 – Hazards, Disasters and Society

This course examines how socioeconomic and environmental factors work together to cause hazards and disasters in human society. In this course we learn the main concepts about disaster such as preparedness, vulnerability, resilience, response, mitigation, etc. We learn that a disaster does not have the same effect on everyone (all groups of people), and factors of social inequality such as race, ethnicity, class, and gender, make people more vulnerable to impacts of disasters. Also, this course, with an interdisciplinary perspective, analyzes disasters in the global North and South. This is a discussion-intensive course for advanced undergrad students. The classes are the student-centered with an emphasis on collaborative learning. The class meetings will consist of lecture, discussion, presentations, teamwork, activities, video/audio materials and projects.

Envr Policy and Culture 390-0-27 – Media, Earth and Making a Difference

The central question of this course is: What Makes a Difference? Analyzing a variety of works of media addressing environmental themes, including works drawn from advertising and marketing, we will consider different types of environmental messaging and attempts to mobilize public moral engagement. Specifically, we will be looking at strategies for implementing media interventions as moral interventions. Discussion taken up in this class will include evaluating the comparative value of media messaging that emphasizes individual action and personal responsibility, versus messaging that promotes collective action, policy, and structural changes. Students will consider and debate what constitutes authentic "green" messaging versus mere corporate "greenwashing." Throughout, we will ask what kind of media we need in what has been called the "Anthropocene" (a time when humans are now a major geologic force affecting the future of the planet). When motivating public moral engagement in climate crisis, are the solutions being offered those that the planet will actually "register" or "notice" on a global scale? If not, what kinds of "media interventions" do we need to be making and how?

Envr Policy and Culture 390-0-29 – Hazards, Disasters and Society

This course examines how socioeconomic and environmental factors work together to cause hazards and disasters in human society. In this course we learn the main concepts about disaster such as preparedness, vulnerability, resilience, response, mitigation, etc. We learn that a disaster does not have the same effect on everyone (all groups of people), and factors of social inequality such as race, ethnicity, class, and gender, make people more vulnerable to impacts of disasters. Also, this course, with an interdisciplinary perspective, analyzes disasters in the global North and South. This is a discussion-intensive course for advanced undergrad students. The classes are the student-centered with an emphasis on collaborative learning. The class meetings will consist of lecture, discussion, presentations, teamwork, activities, video/audio materials and projects.

Envr Policy and Culture 390-0-30 – Art, Ecology and Politics

In a time of growing awareness of severe environmental crisis, how do artists (and how do we) make change while avoiding despair? This class focuses on ways artists and activists who are motivated by ecological concerns, but also by optimism about the difference they can make, have adapted artistic strategies to address environmental issues over the course of recent decades. Blurring the boundary between art and activism, or art and environmental remediation, they have taken up themes of sustainability and materiality, "collaborated" with natural processes, and addressed crises from industrial toxins to global warming. In this course we address key themes in environmental art, considering art, ecology, and politics in relation to issues that include gender, race, poverty, territory, and indigeneity. The course will unfold in conjunction with a performance and class visit by a Kaplan artist in residence and will also involve one or more field trips. Along with class participation and periodic short writing assignments, work will include group and individual final projects.

Envr Policy and Culture 390-0-31 – Environmental Anthropology

Environmental anthropology is a more recent outgrowth of ecological anthropology, which emerged in the 1960s and 70s as an empirically-based focus on systemic human-environment relationships, especially as they pertain to patterns of social change and adaptation. Environmental anthropology became more prominent in the 1980s, and is typically characterized by research on communities' engagements with contemporary environmental issues. Environmental anthropology has greater commitments to advocacy, critique, and application than ecological anthropology, but as we'll see in this course, the proliferation of "new ecologies" (as opposed to "new environmentalisms") denotes the continued synergy between ecological and environmental anthropologies. This course is divided into two parts. Part I will provide an historical overview of the development of environmental anthropology. We will cover some of the most influential research trends in the field: environmental determinism, cultural ecology, systems ecology, ethnoecology, historical ecology, political ecology, and post-humanist ecology. Part II will then pivot to the application of environmental anthropology knowledge to some of the most pressing environmental issues facing the contemporary world: population pressure, capitalist consumption patterns, biodiversity conservation, sustainable agriculture, climate change, and environmental justice.

Envr Policy and Culture 390-0-33 – Climate Change Law and Policy

"Climate Change Law & Policy" This course examines the potential role of the law in confronting climate change from an institutional and policy perspective, examining the role of treaties, national legislation (in the United States), sub-national responses and judicial and quasi-judicial fora. Among the topics that will be addressed include the science associated with climate change, the role of key international climate treaty regimes, including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement, national and state and local responses to climate change in the United States, the role of litigation in confronting major emitters, and the potential role of climate geoengineering approaches. It will also seek to help students develop critical skills of analysis of treaty provisions, legislative language, and court decisions, public speaking and cogent writing.

Envr Policy and Culture 390-0-34 – International Wildlife Law and Policy

"International Wildlife Law & Policy" Many scientists and policymakers believe that we are on the cusp of the world's sixth great extinction spasm, driven almost entirely by anthropogenic factors, including habitat destruction, unsustainable trade, the introduction of invasive species, and the looming specter of climate change. This course explores the role of international law in addressing the biodiversity crisis and efforts to protect wildlife species. An ancillary objective is to provide students with a foundation in international law, including skills in analyzing treaty provisions.

Envr Policy and Culture 390-0-35 – Native American Environmental Issues and the Media

This course introduces you to Native American environmental issues, such as treaty-based hunting, fishing, and gathering rights; air and water quality issues; mining; land-to-trust issues; and sacred sites with a particular emphasis on the First Nations in the Great Lakes region. In addition, it will also provide connections to corresponding international Indigenous environmental issues, and the responses and debates across science research, news and international policy contexts. The seminar focuses on how the media cover Native American environmental issues and how that coverage contributes to the formation of public opinion and public policy. The seminar provides the critical tools to analyze current environmental struggles; to understand the controversies within a cultural context; and to make informed decisions about issues that affect us all. The central case study of the seminar will be water and fishing rights for Indigenous Peoples, and how they are part of larger land rights issues. Over the past two decades the issue of tribal sovereignty has become front-page news. From major confrontations over pipelines affecting Tribal Reservations mobilizing Indigenous people and their allies around the world, to battles over whaling rights and mining of tar sands, to sulfide mining adjacent to Tribal Reservations, to disputed land claims in the Northeast and battles in the West over water, fracking, and grazing, the rights of Native governments to exercise their sovereignty remains in the new century at the cultural, political, and legal core of American contemporary history. These and many more issues—air and water quality standards, treaty rights, and land-into-trust—have contributed to tension between Native and non-Native communities, and have become the subject of news reports, in both mainstream and tribal media. The goals of this seminar are to understand how tribal sovereignty and treaty rights inform contemporary environmental issues; to identify source selection, bias, and framing in mainstream and tribal media accounts; to analyze and critique mainstream and tribal media accounts for accuracy and bias; and finally gain intercultural knowledge and competence through a final project that explores the intersection of Native environmental issues and the media.

Envr Policy and Culure 390-0-28 – Food and Culture

All humans have similar nutritional requirements, yet the diversity of food preferences across the world is virtually unlimited. In the first part of this class, we will explore why people choose to eat some foods and not others. The second portion of the class will examine change and continuity in foodways through the lenses of identity and inequality. Rather than being arranged by world region, this class is arranged topically in order to bring different cuisines in conversation with one another. Case studies cover a wide stretch of the world, from Africa to the Americas to Asia and Europe.

Envr Sci 202-0 – The Health of the Biosphere

This course studies the growth of populations and their interactions in ecological communities. Topics include: the ecological niche; projections of population growth, including the history of human growth, harvesting populations, and population viability analysis of endangered species; interactions among species, including competition, predation, and disease transmission; measuring the diversity of ecological communities; the effects of diversity on energy flow. More advanced topics will also be addressed, including the biodiversity-stability relationship, the economic values of biodiversity and ecosystem function, and the biology and management of metapopulations in fragmented habitats. Recommended Background: MATH 220

Envr Sci 203-0-01 – Humans and the Environment

Environmental science is the interdisciplinary study of how humans interact with the living and nonliving parts of their environment. In this course, we will examine current environmental challenges, such as the conservation of biodiversity, the sustainable production of energy, and the implications of human population growth. A case study approach will be used to emphasize the processes of scientific inquiry and discovery.

Envr Sci 203-0-01 – Humans and the Environment

Environmental science is the interdisciplinary study of how humans interact with the living and nonliving parts of their environment. In this course, we will examine current environmental challenges, such as the conservation of biodiversity, the sustainable production of energy, and the implications of human population growth. A case study approach will be used to emphasize the processes of scientific inquiry and discovery.

Envr Sc 203-0-1 – Humans and the Environment

Environmental science is the interdisciplinary study of how humans interact with the living and nonliving parts of their environment. In this course, we will examine current environmental challenges, such as climate change, the conservation of biodiversity, the sustainable production of energy, and the implications of human population growth. A case study approach will be used bringing in dimensions of ethics, justice, law, economics, policy, culture, and more, in compliment to the understanding of the geosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, and atmosphere functions and condition.

ENVR SCI 390-0-05 – Global Change Ecology

Global environmental change has significant impacts on social and ecological systems around the world. Global Change Ecology is an emerging field that aims to understand the ecological implications of environmental change, especially anthropogenic climate change, and to assess risks under future global change. In this course, students will review the basics of the earth system and climate change before investigating how organisms in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems respond to climate change. Finally, we will consider the impacts of future climate change and the implications for conservation policy and adaptation management.

TBD 101 – TBD 101

TBD

French 105-6-20 – The Fiction of Climate Change

Rising seas, extreme temperature variations, and life-threatening storms: these are among the building blocks of Climate Fiction (Cli-Fi), a new literary genre that takes up the challenge of climate change in the Anthropocene, the proposed epoch in which human beings significantly impact the geological and ecological systems of the planet, to imagine the future to which climate change might give rise and the human beings who will confront it. Climate change novels ask: how might climate change transform the world in which we live? What will the world be like in the future, and what will it mean to the human beings who live in it? The alternative visions of the future elaborated in the works of Cli-Fi often combine characteristics of science fiction with elements of other genres, including the romance, the thriller, and the adventure tale. In addition to inquiring into the issue of how and with what literary means these novels manage to imagine the future, we will also seek to understand: if and how literature imagines a process as widely taken to be "unimaginable" as is climate change, whether fiction might further human knowledge or awareness or if it might modify human actions in the world. We will engage in close and detailed reading of some of the most compelling contemporary Cli-Fi novels and learn to write critically about them.

French 105-6-20 – Re-Enchant and Repair

What does it mean to be human, and how will recent advances in technology and climate change radically transform our humanity? How might we "re-enchant" our understanding of the human beyond limited views that have shaped the West historically through colonialism and imperialism? How might we imagine a humanism that would be centered on repair, care, sustainability, and justice? This seminar will examine several literary works of science fiction and seminal theories of humanism and post-humanism to address these questions. Embracing a historical approach, we will explore various conceptions of the human and subjectivity from the discovery of the New World to the present day. We will trace how redefining humanism entails addressing problems pertaining to theories of the affects and emotions, media, and technology while looking at the intersection of race, gender, and sexuality.

Gbl Health 301-0-20 – Intro to International Public Health

This course introduces students to pressing disease and health care problems worldwide and examines efforts currently underway to address them. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the course identifies the main actors, institutions, practices and forms of knowledge production characteristic of what we call "global health" today, and explores the environmental, social, political and economic factors that shape patterns and experiences of illness and healthcare across societies. We will scrutinize the value systems that underpin specific paradigms in the policy and science of global health and place present-day developments in historical perspective. Key topics will include: policies and approaches to global health governance and interventions, global economies and their impacts on public health, medical humanitarianism, global mental health, maternal and child health, pandemics (HIV/AIDS, Ebola, H1N1, Swine Flu), malaria, food insecurity, health and human rights, and global health ethics.

GBL HEALTH 301-0-21 – Intro to International Public Health

This course introduces students to pressing disease and health care problems worldwide and examines efforts currently underway to address them. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the course identifies the main actors, institutions, practices and forms of knowledge production characteristic of what we call "global health" today, and explores the environmental, social, political and economic factors that shape patterns and experiences of illness and healthcare across societies. We will scrutinize the value systems that underpin specific paradigms in the policy and science of global health and place present-day developments in historical perspective. Key topics will include: policies and approaches to global health governance and interventions, global economies and their impacts on public health, medical humanitarianism, global mental health, maternal and child health, pandemics (HIV/AIDS, Ebola, H1N1, Swine Flu), malaria, food insecurity, health and human rights, and global health ethics

Gbl Health 302-0-1 – Global Bioethics

Global health is a popular field of work and study for Americans, with an increasing number of medical trainees and practitioners, as well as people without medical training, going abroad to volunteer in areas where there are few health care practitioners or resources. In addition, college undergraduates, as well as medical trainees and practitioners, are going abroad in increasing numbers to conduct research in areas with few health care resources. But all of these endeavors, though often entered into with the best of intentions, are beset with ethical questions, concerns, and dilemmas, and can have unintended consequences. In this course, students will assess these ethical challenges. In so doing, students will examine core ethical codes, guidelines, and principals - such as solidarity, social justice, and humility - so they will be able to ethically assess global health practices in a way that places an emphasis on the core goal of global health: reducing health inequities and disparities.

GBL HEALTH 302-0-20 – Global Bioethics

Global health is a popular field of work and study for Americans, with an increasing number of medical trainees and practitioners, as well as people without medical training, going abroad to volunteer in areas where there are few health care practitioners or resources. In addition, college undergraduates, as well as medical trainees and practitioners, are going abroad in increasing numbers to conduct research in areas with few healthcare resources. But all of these endeavors, though often entered into with the best of intentions, are beset with ethical questions, concerns, and dilemmas, and can have unintended consequences. In this course, students will explore and consider these ethical challenges. In so doing, students will examine core global bioethical concerns - such as structural violence - and core global bioethical codes, guidelines, and principals - such as beneficence and solidarity - so they will be able to ethically assess global health practices in a way that places an emphasis on the central goal of global health: reducing health inequities and disparities. With an emphasis on the ethical responsibility to reduce disparities, we consider some of the most pressing global bioethical issues of our time: equity, fairness, and climate change. Particular attention is given to the ethics of research during a pandemic and access to vaccines and therapies for Covid-19.

Gbl Health 309-0-1 – Biomedicine and World History

This lecture course uses the Covid-19 pandemic - including its socio-economic and racial dimensions - as a point of departure to study the history of global health and biomedicine in comparative terms. We will break up the quarter into four segments during which we will consider: 1) when and why infectious diseases "unified" the globe and with what consequences; 2) how empires, industries, war, and revolutions helped spread biomedical ideas, experts, and tools around the world; 3) what function institutions of transnational and global health governance have played in setting medical priorities and sustaining health norms across continents; and 4) why and how clinical trials, the pharmaceutical industry, and narcotics have become so intimately intertwined. Because the world around us has already been radically altered by SARS-coV-2, you will have an opportunity to place in historical context this pandemic's roots and its ongoing cycles. You will also be given a chance to apply insights from the readings - about histories of racial segregation, reproductive politics, militarization, and police powers - to this pandemic. Lectures and readings cover all world regions: Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, North America, Asia, Europe, and the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

Gbl Health 321-0-1 – War and Public Health

This course draws on perspectives from anthropology and related social scientific fields to provide a comparative overview of the impact of armed conflict on public health and health care systems worldwide. Drawing primarily on examples from recent history, including conflicts in the Balkans, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East, we will explore warfare as a crucial sociopolitical determinant of global health disparities and consider organized efforts to respond to the health impacts of mass violence. Key topics that we will consider include variations in the relationship between warfare and public health across eras and cultures; the health and mental health impacts of forced displacement, military violence, and gender-based violence; and the roles of medical humanitarianism and humanitarian psychiatry in postwar recovery processes. Through close readings of classic and contemporary social theory, ethnographic accounts, and diverse research on war, health, and postwar humanitarian interventions, this course will encourage you to build your own critical perspective on war and public health anchored in history and the complexities of real-world situations.

Gbl Health 322-0-1 – The Social Determinants of Health

This upper-level seminar in medical anthropology examines the role of social markers of difference including race, class, nationality, gender, sexuality, age and religion in current debates and challenges in the theory and practice of global health. We will explore contemporary illness experiences and therapeutic interventions in sociocultural and historical context through case studies from the US, Brazil, and South Africa. Students will be introduced to key concepts such as embodiment, medicalization, structural violence, the social determinants of health, and biopolitics. Central questions of the seminar include: How do social categories of difference determine disease and health in individuals and collectivities? How is medical science influenced by economic and political institutions and by patient mobilization? How does social and economic inclusion/exclusion govern access to treatment as well as care of the self and others? The course will provide advanced instruction in anthropological and related social scientific research methods as they apply to questions of social inequality and public health policy in both the United States and in emerging economic powers. The course draws from historical accounts, contemporary ethnographies, public health literature, media reports, and films.

Gbl Health 325-0-1 – History of Reproductive Health

The history of reproduction is a large subject, and during this course we will touch on many, but by no means all, of what can be considered as part of this history. Our focus will be on human reproduction, considering the vantage points of both healthcare practitioners and lay women and men. We will look at ideas concerning fertility, conception, pregnancy, miscarriage, childbirth, birth control, abortion, and assisted reproduction. Because, at a fundamental level, reproduction is about power - as historian Amy Kaler (but by no means only Kaler), pointed out, "[c]ontrol over human reproduction is eternally contested, in zones ranging from the comparative privacy of the conjugal bedroom to the political platform and programs of national polities" - we will pay attention to power in reproductive health. And, since the distribution of power in matters of reproduction has often been uneven and unequal - between men and women, between colonizing and Indigenous populations, between clinicians and lay people, between those in upper socioeconomic classes and those in lower socioeconomic classes - we will pay particular attention during this class to struggles over matters of reproduction as we explore historical changes and continuities in reproduction globally since 1900.

GBL HEALTH 325-0-1 – History of Reproductive Health

The history of reproduction is a large subject, and during this course we will touch on many, but by no means all, of what can be considered as part of this history. Our focus will be on human reproduction, considering the vantage points of both healthcare practitioners and lay women and men. We will look at ideas concerning fertility, conception, pregnancy, miscarriage, childbirth, birth control, abortion, and assisted reproduction. Because, at a fundamental level, reproduction is about power - as historian Amy Kaler, but by no means only Kaler, pointed out, "[c]ontrol over human reproduction is eternally contested, in zones ranging from the comparative privacy of the conjugal bedroom to the political platform and programs of national polities" - we will pay attention to power in reproductive health. And, since the distribution of power in matters of reproduction has often been uneven and unequal - between men and women, between colonizing and Indigenous populations, between clinicians and lay people, between those in upper socioeconomic classes and those in lower socioeconomic classes - we will pay particular attention during this class to struggles over matters of reproduction as we explore historical changes and continuities in reproduction globally since 1900.

GBL HEALTH 390-0-24 – Native Nations, Healthcare Systems and U.S. Policy

Healthcare for Native populations, in what is currently the U.S., is an entanglement of settler colonial domination and the active determination of Native nations to uphold their Indigenous sovereignty. This reading-intensive, discussion-based seminar will provide students with a complex and in-depth understanding of the historical and contemporary policies and systems created for and by Native nations. We will focus on the legal foundations of the trust responsibility and fiduciary obligation of the federal government outlined in the U.S. Constitution and Supreme Court decisions. To gain a nuanced perspective, students will study notable federal policies including the Snyder Act, the Special Diabetes Programs for Indians, Violence Against Women Act, and Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act  Additionally, state policy topics will include Medicaid expansion and tobacco cessation and prevention.

Gbl Health 390-21 – Native Nations, Healthcare Systems and US Policies

Healthcare for Native populations, in the what is currently the U.S., are an entanglement of settler colonial domination and the active determination of Native nations to uphold their Indigenous sovereignty. This reading-intensive, discussion-based seminar will provide students with a complex and in-depth understanding of the historical and contemporary policies and systems created for and by Native nations. We will focus on the legal foundations of the trust responsibility and fiduciary obligation of the federal government outlined in the U.S. Constitution and Supreme Court decisions. To gain a nuanced perspective, students will study notable federal policies including the Snyder Act, the Special Diabetes Programs for Indians, Violence Against Women Act, and Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). Additionally, state policy topics will include Medicaid expansion and tobacco cessation and prevention.

Gbl Hlth 301-0 – Introduction to International Public Health

This course introduces students to pressing disease and health care problems worldwide and examines efforts currently underway to address them. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the course identifies the main actors, institutions, practices and forms of knowledge production characteristic of what we call "global health" today, and explores the environmental, social, political and economic factors that shape patterns and experiences of illness and healthcare across societies. We will scrutinize the value systems that underpin specific paradigms in the policy and science of global health and place present-day developments in historical perspective. Key topics will include: policies and approaches to global health governance and interventions, global economies and their impacts on public health, medical humanitarianism, global mental health, maternal and child health, pandemics (HIV/AIDS, Ebola, H1N1, Swine Flu), malaria, food insecurity, health and human rights, and global health ethics.

Gbl Hlth 301-0-20 – Introduction to International Public Health

This course introduces students to pressing disease and health care problems worldwide and examines efforts currently underway to address them. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the course identifies the main actors, institutions, practices and forms of knowledge production characteristic of what we call "global health" today, and explores the environmental, social, political and economic factors that shape patterns and experiences of illness and healthcare across societies. We will scrutinize the value systems that underpin specific paradigms in the policy and science of global health and place present-day developments in historical perspective. Key topics will include: policies and approaches to global health governance and interventions, global economies and their impacts on public health, medical humanitarianism, global mental health, maternal and child health, pandemics (HIV/AIDS, Ebola, H1N1, Swine Flu), malaria, food insecurity, health and human rights, and global health ethics.

Gbl Hlth 301-0-20, 21 – Intro to International Public Health

This course introduces students to pressing disease and health care problems worldwide and examines efforts currently underway to address them. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the course identifies the main actors, institutions, practices and forms of knowledge production characteristic of what we call "global health" today, and explores the environmental, social, political and economic factors that shape patterns and experiences of illness and healthcare across societies. We will scrutinize the value systems that underpin specific paradigms in the policy and science of global health and place present-day developments in historical perspective. Key topics will include: policies and approaches to global health governance and interventions, global economies and their impacts on public health, medical humanitarianism, global mental health, maternal and child health, pandemics (HIV/AIDS, Ebola, H1N1, Swine Flu), malaria, food insecurity, health and human rights, and global health ethics.

Gbl Hlth 301-0-20 – Global Bioethics

Global health is a popular field of work and study for Americans, with an increasing number of medical trainees and practitioners, as well as people without medical training, going abroad to volunteer in areas where there are few health care practitioners or resources. In addition, college undergraduates, as well as medical trainees and practitioners, are going abroad in increasing numbers to conduct research in areas with few health care resources. But all of these endeavors, though often entered into with the best of intentions, are beset with ethical questions, concerns, and dilemmas, and can have unintended consequences. In this course, students will assess these ethical challenges. In so doing, students will examine core ethical codes, guidelines, and principals - such as solidarity, social justice, and humility - so they will be able to ethically assess global health practices in a way that places an emphasis on the core goal of global health: reducing health inequities and disparities.

Gbl Hlth 301-0-20 – Intro to International Public Health

This course introduces students to pressing disease and health care problems worldwide and examines efforts currently underway to address them. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the course identifies the main actors, institutions, practices and forms of knowledge production characteristic of what we call "global health" today, and explores the environmental, social, political and economic factors that shape patterns and experiences of illness and healthcare across societies. We will scrutinize the value systems that underpin specific paradigms in the policy and science of global health and place present-day developments in historical perspective. Key topics will include: policies and approaches to global health governance and interventions, global economies and their impacts on public health, medical humanitarianism, global mental health, maternal and child health, pandemics (HIV/AIDS, Ebola, H1N1, Swine Flu), malaria, food insecurity, health and human rights, and global health ethics.

Gbl Hlth 301-0-21 – Introduction to International Public Health

This course introduces students to pressing disease and health care problems worldwide and examines past and current efforts to address them. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the course identifies the main actors, institutions, practices and forms of knowledge production characteristic of what we call "global health" today, and explores the environmental, social, political and economic factors that shape patterns and experiences of illness and healthcare across societies. We will scrutinize the value systems that underpin specific paradigms in the policy and science of global health and place present-day developments in historical perspective.

Gbl Hlth 302 – Global Bioethics

This course introduces students to pressing disease and health care problems worldwide and examines past and current efforts to address them. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the course identifies the main actors, institutions, practices and forms of knowledge production characteristic of what we call “global health” today, and explores the environmental, social, political and economic factors that shape patterns and experiences of illness and healthcare across societies. We will scrutinize the value systems that underpin specific paradigms in the policy and science of global health and place present-day developments in historical perspective. 

Gbl Hlth 302-0-20 – Global Bioethics

Global health is a popular field of work and study for Americans, with an increasing number of medical trainees and practitioners, as well as people without medical training, going abroad to volunteer in areas where there are few health care practitioners or resources. In addition, college undergraduates, as well as medical trainees and practitioners, are going abroad in increasing numbers to conduct research in areas with few health care resources. But all of these endeavors, though often entered into with the best of intentions, are beset with ethical questions, concerns, and dilemmas, and can have unintended consequences. In this course, students will assess these ethical challenges. In so doing, students will examine core ethical codes, guidelines, and principals - such as solidarity, social justice, and humility - so they will be able to ethically assess global health practices in a way that places an emphasis on the core goal of global health: reducing health inequities and disparities.

Gbl Hlth 302-0-20 – Global Bioethics

Global health is a popular field of work and study for Americans, with an increasing number of medical trainees and practitioners, as well as people without medical training, going abroad to volunteer in areas where there are few health care practitioners or resources. In addition, college undergraduates, as well as medical trainees and practitioners, are going abroad in increasing numbers to conduct research in areas with few healthcare resources. But all of these endeavors, though often entered into with the best of intentions, are beset with ethical questions, concerns, and dilemmas, and can have unintended consequences. In this course, students will explore and consider these ethical challenges. In so doing, students will examine core global bioethical concerns - such as structural violence - and core global bioethical codes, guidelines, and principals - such as beneficence and solidarity - so they will be able to ethically assess global health practices in a way that places an emphasis on the central goal of global health: reducing health inequities and disparities. With an emphasis on the ethical responsibility to reduce disparities, we consider some of the most pressing global bioethical issues of our time: equity, fairness, and climate change. Particular attention is given to the ethics of research during a pandemic and access to vaccines and therapies for Covid-19.

Gbl Hlth 302-0-20 – Global Bioethics

Global health is a popular field of work and study for Americans, with an increasing number of medical trainees and practitioners, as well as people without medical training, going abroad to volunteer in areas where there are few health care practitioners or resources. In addition, college undergraduates, as well as medical trainees and practitioners, are going abroad in increasing numbers to conduct research in areas with few healthcare resources. But all of these endeavors, though often entered into with the best of intentions, are beset with ethical questions, concerns, and dilemmas, and can have unintended consequences. In this course, students will explore and consider these ethical challenges. In so doing, students will examine core global bioethical concerns - such as structural violence - and core global bioethical codes, guidelines, and principals - such as beneficence and solidarity - so they will be able to ethically assess global health practices in a way that places an emphasis on the central goal of global health, reducing health inequities and disparities. With an emphasis on the ethical responsibility to reduce disparities, we consider some of the most pressing global bioethical issues of our time: equity, fairness, and climate change. Particular attention is given to the ethics of research during a pandemic and access to vaccines and therapies for Covid-19.

Gbl Hlth 302-0-21 – Global Health

Global health is a popular field of work and study for Americans, with an increasing number of medical trainees and practitioners, as well as people without medical training, going abroad to volunteer in areas where there are few health care practitioners or resources. In addition, college undergraduates, as well as medical trainees and practitioners, are going abroad in increasing numbers to conduct research in areas with few healthcare resources. But all of these endeavors, though often entered into with the best of intentions, are beset with ethical questions, concerns, and dilemmas, and can have unintended consequences. In this course, students will explore and consider these ethical challenges. In so doing, students will examine core global bioethical concerns - such as structural violence - and core global bioethical codes, guidelines, and principals - such as beneficence and solidarity - so they will be able to ethically assess global health practices in a way that places an emphasis on the central goal of global health: reducing health inequities. With an emphasis on the ethical responsibility to reduce inequities, we consider some of the most pressing global bioethical issues of our time: equity, fairness, and planetary health. Particular attention is given to the ethics of research during a pandemic and equitable access to vaccines and therapies for Covid-19. Beatriz will not be use ungrading for this course but each student will create an assignment bundle.

Gbl Hlth 307-0-1 – International Perspectives on Mental Health

This course will explore issues of mental health in cross-cultural, international perspective and examine the impact of psychological illness on the global burden of disease. Students explore the following questions: how do cultural systems of meaning and behavior affect the vulnerability of individuals within the population to mental illness and the mental illnesses to which they are vulnerable? How does culture influence the way that mental illness is expressed and experienced and how does this affect our ability to measure psychological illness cross-culturally? How do cultural factors affect the way that mental illnesses are diagnosed and labeled, and the degree to which they are stigmatized? And how do such factors affect our ability to create effective public health interventions? Finally, how do healing practices and the efficacy of particular treatments vary across cultures? By examining these and related questions, in the context of specific mental illnesses including schizophrenia, depression, and PTSD students are exposed to a unique set of ideas otherwise unrepresented in the current global health curriculum. Mental health is crucially linked to physical health, and represents an enormous global health burden in its own right. It is crucial, therefore, that global health students be introduced to central issues related to epidemiology and intervention in this area.

Gbl Hlth 322 – The Social Determinants of Health

This upper-level seminar in medical anthropology examines the role of social markers of difference including race, class, nationality, gender, sexuality, age and religion in current debates and challenges in the theory and practice of global health. We will explore contemporary illness experiences and therapeutic interventions in sociocultural and historical context through case studies from the US, Brazil, and South Africa. Students will be introduced to key concepts such as embodiment, medicalization, structural violence, the social determinants of health, and biopolitics. Central questions of the seminar include: How do social categories of difference determine disease and health in individuals and collectivities? How is medical science influenced by economic and political institutions and by patient mobilization? How does social and economic inclusion/exclusion govern access to treatment as well as care of the self and others? The course will provide advanced instruction in anthropological and related social scientific research methods as they apply to questions of social inequality and public health policy in both the United States and in emerging economic powers. The course draws from historical accounts, contemporary ethnographies, public health literature, media reports, and films.

Gbl Hlth 322-0-1 – The Social Determinants of Health

This upper-level seminar in medical anthropology examines the role of social markers of difference including race, class, nationality, gender, sexuality, age and religion in current debates and challenges in the theory and practice of global health. We will explore contemporary illness experiences and therapeutic interventions in sociocultural and historical context through case studies from the US, Brazil, and South Africa. Students will be introduced to key concepts such as embodiment, medicalization, structural violence, the social determinants of health, and biopolitics. Central questions of the seminar include: How do social categories of difference determine disease and health in individuals and collectivities? How is medical science influenced by economic and political institutions and by patient mobilization? How does social and economic inclusion/exclusion govern access to treatment as well as care of the self and others? The course will provide advanced instruction in anthropological and related social scientific research methods as they apply to questions of social inequality and public health policy in both the United States and in emerging economic powers. The course draws from historical accounts, contemporary ethnographies, public health literature, media reports, and films.

Gbl Hlth 322-0-20 – The Social Determinants of Health

This upper-level seminar in medical anthropology examines the role of social markers of difference including race, class, nationality, gender, sexuality, age and religion in current debates and challenges in the theory and practice of global health. We will explore contemporary illness experiences and therapeutic interventions in sociocultural and historical context through case studies from the US, Brazil, and South Africa. Students will be introduced to key concepts such as embodiment, medicalization, structural violence, the social determinants of health, and biopolitics. Central questions of the seminar include: How do social categories of difference determine disease and health in individuals and collectivities? How is medical science influenced by economic and political institutions and by patient mobilization? How does social and economic inclusion/exclusion govern access to treatment as well as care of the self and others? The course will provide advanced instruction in anthropological and related social scientific research methods as they apply to questions of social inequality and public health policy in both the United States and in emerging economic powers. The course draws from historical accounts, contemporary ethnographies, public health literature, media reports, and films.

Gbl Hlth 322-0-20 – The Social Determinants of Health

The human body is embedded into a health framework that can produce hypervisibility, invisibility, or both. This upper-level course in social science and medical anthropology examines the role of social markers of difference, including race, class, gender, sexuality, age, and religion, in current debates and challenges in the theory and practice of global health. We will explore recent illness experiences, therapeutic and self-care interventions, and health practices and behaviors in socio-cultural and historical context through case studies in the U.S., Brazil, and South Africa. The purpose of this course is to introduce students to key concepts such as embodiment, medicalization, structural violence, social determinants of health, biopolitics, health equity, and an ethic of care. Central questions of the course include: How do categories of "Othering" determine disease and health in individuals and collectives? How is medical science and care influenced by economic and political institutions and by patient trust? How do social and economic inclusion/exclusion control access to health treatment and self-care and care of others? This course focuses on the linkages between society and health inequalities in the U.S. and economic powers. It offers a forum to explore policy application with a particular emphasis on definitions that form social factors. This course utilizes historical accounts, contemporary ethnographies, Twitter threads of health experiences, public health literature, media reports, TedTalks, and films to bring to life the "why's" of health differences.

Gbl Hlth 324-0-1 – Volunteerism and the Ethics of Help

Since the early 2000s, there has been an exponential increase in the number of foreigners volunteering in low-income communities, within orphanages, clinics, schools, and communities. This expansion has been echoed by locals, who are also providing voluntary labor in a variety of locales throughout their communities. This class explores the discourses and practices that make up volunteering and voluntourism, from the perspectives of volunteers, hosts, and a range of professional practitioners both promoting and critiquing this apparent rise in "the need to help". What boons and burdens occur with the boom of volunteer fervor world-wide? Why do people feel the need to volunteer, and what consequences do these voluntary exchanges have on the volunteers, and on those communities and institutions that are subject to their good intentions? What are the ethics and values that make up "making a difference" amongst differently-situated players who are involved in volunteering? Given that volunteers often act upon best intentions, what are the logics that justify philanthropy and the differential standards by which volunteers are judged based on where they go and how they engage in volunteering? This class seeks out some answers to these questions, and highlights why the increased concern for strangers that undergirds volunteering should also be, in itself, cause for our concern.

Gbl Hlth 325-0-1 – History of Reproductive Health

The history of reproduction is a large subject, and during this course we will touch on many, but by no means all, of what can be considered as part of this history. Our focus will be on human reproduction, considering the vantage points of both healthcare practitioners and lay women and men. We will look at ideas concerning fertility, conception, pregnancy, miscarriage, childbirth, birth control, abortion, and assisted reproduction. Because, at a fundamental level, reproduction is about power - as historian Amy Kaler (but by no means only Kaler), pointed out, "[c]ontrol over human reproduction is eternally contested, in zones ranging from the comparative privacy of the conjugal bedroom to the political platform and programs of national polities" - we will pay attention to power in reproductive health. And, since the distribution of power in matters of reproduction has often been uneven and unequal - between men and women, between colonizing and Indigenous populations, between clinicians and lay people, between those in upper socioeconomic classes and those in lower socioeconomic classes - we will pay particular attention during this class to struggles over matters of reproduction as we explore historical changes and continuities in reproduction globally since 1900.

Gbl Hlth 325-0-1 – History of Reproductive Health

The history of reproduction is a large subject, and during this course we will touch on many, but by no means all, of what can be considered as part of this history. Our focus will be on human reproduction, considering the vantage points of both healthcare practitioners and lay women and men. We will look at ideas concerning fertility, conception, pregnancy, miscarriage, childbirth, birth control, abortion, and assisted reproduction. Because, at a fundamental level, reproduction is about power - as historian Amy Kaler (but by no means only Kaler), pointed out, "[c]ontrol over human reproduction is eternally contested, in zones ranging from the comparative privacy of the conjugal bedroom to the political platform and programs of national polities" - we will pay attention to power in reproductive health. And, since the distribution of power in matters of reproduction has often been uneven and unequal - between men and women, between colonizing and Indigenous populations, between clinicians and lay people, between those in upper socioeconomic classes and those in lower socioeconomic classes - we will pay particular attention during this class to struggles over matters of reproduction as we explore historical changes and continuities in reproduction globally since 1900.

Gbl Hlth 390-0-1 – Population and Reproductive Health

This course will examine the ways in which population growth concerns in Africa, Asia and Latin America have evolved over time towards a more woman-centered approach. Debates continue between demographers and advocates of “sexual and reproductive health and rights.” In the meantime, family planning policies and programs have broadened from their original medical focus that prioritized quantitative measurement and the views of providers. Today, they can address quality of care from the client’s perspective, gender power dynamics including male involvement in decision-making, attention to both married and unmarried young people, and even efforts to increase the empowerment of women and girls. Students will learn about past and current challenges to advancing reproductive health in the global South, advances (and gaps) in knowledge about what works, and efforts towards reaching the United Nations goal of ensuring “universal access to sexual and reproductive health care services” by the year 2030.

Gbl Hlth 390-0-2 – Managing Global Health Challenges

Disease knows no borders. Both pathogens and lifestyles move around the world and the people of every country share the risks.   The responsibility for ensuring the public health rests with governments at local, national and international levels.   Public health interventions require cooperation and partnerships at each level and with civil society organizations, corporations, businesses and individuals.  Advances in technology can significantly reduce the burden of disease and improve the quality of health and life.  To effectively address global health challenges, technology must be integrated into health systems in ways that are both appropriate and sustainable.  These interventions are affected by public policies, availability of resources and theories of public health and disease.  Existing health organizations are increasingly challenged by the scope and magnitude of the current and future threats to public health such as the AIDS pandemic; the emergence of new and more virulent infectious diseases; the threats of bio-terrorism; growing resistance to antibiotics; lack of basic infrastructure of water, sanitation and inadequate access to drugs in developing countries; and overabundance of foods and complications from affluence, leading to health problems such as diabetes in higher income countries.  This course will examine the global epidemiology of these diseases and threats to the populations of the world, and the current technological and organizational strategies that have been established to respond.  A series of diseases and geographical regions will be analyzed to consider how the international community uses technology and organizes its response to current problems in global public health.  Special attention will be given to examples of effective technologies and intervention strategies.

Gbl Hlth 390-0-20 – Native American Health Research and Prevention

Native nations in what is currently the United States are continuously seeking to understanding and undertake the best approaches to research and prevention with their communities. This course introduces students to the benefits and barriers to various approaches to addressing negative health outcomes and harnessing positive social determinants of health influencing broader health status. Important concepts to guide our understanding of these issues will include settler colonialism, colonialism, sovereignty, social determinants of health, asset-based perspectives, and decolonizing research. Students will engage in a reading-intensive, discussion-based seminar, drawing upon research and scholarship from a variety of disciplines including public health, Native American and Indigenous Studies, anthropology, sociology, history, nursing, and medicine.

Gbl Hlth 390-0-21 – Community Based Participatory Research

Oftentimes we hear of research done on communities. Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is a research paradigm that challenge researchers to conducted research with communities. In this reading intense discussion-based course, we will learn the historical and theoretical foundations, and the key principles of CBPR. Students will be introduced to methodological approaches to building community partnerships, research planning, and data sharing. Real-world applications of CBPR in health will be studied to illustrate the benefits and challenges. Further, this course will address culturally appropriate interventions, working with diverse communities, and ethical considerations in CBPR.

Gbl Hlth 390-0-22 – Methods in Anthropology and Global Health

This class will provide rigorous guidance on how one moves through the scientific process, from articulating scientific questions to answering and presenting them in a way that your audience can really relate to. We will do this using data a large dataset. Specific skills to be developed include human subjects training, formal literature review, hypothesis generation, development of analytic plans, data cleaning, performing descriptive statistics, creation of figures and tables, writing up results, scientific poster creation, and oral presentation of results. This course will be a terrific foundation for writing scientific manuscripts, theses, and dissertations.

Gbl Hlth 390-0-22 – Native Nations, Healthcare Systems and US Policy

Healthcare for Native populations, in what is currently the U.S., is an entanglement of settler colonial domination and the active determination of Native nations to uphold their Indigenous sovereignty. This reading-intensive, discussion-based seminar will provide students with a complex and in-depth understanding of the historical and contemporary policies and systems created for and by Native nations. We will focus on the legal foundations of the trust responsibility and fiduciary obligation of the federal government outlined in the U.S. Constitution and Supreme Court decisions. To gain a nuanced perspective, students will study notable federal policies including the Snyder Act, the Special Diabetes Programs for Indians, Violence Against Women Act, and Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). Additionally, state policy topics will include Medicaid expansion and tobacco cessation and prevention.

Gbl Hlth 390-0-22 – Biocultural Perspectives on Water Insecurity

The first objective of this course is to introduce students to the many ways that water impacts humans around the world. We will discuss what the international recommendations for safely managed water are and the health and social consequences of water insecurity.

The second objective is to explore why there is such variety in water insecurity worldwide. Influences on access to water will be broadly considered; we will draw on literature in global health, ethnography, the life sciences, and public policy. These discussions will be guided by the socio-ecological framework, in which dimensions ranging from the individual to the geopolitical are considered.

The third objective is to develop critical thinking and writing abilities to reflect on the multi-dimensional causes and consequences of water insecurity and the appropriateness of potential solutions. This will be accomplished through carefully reading the articles and book chapters we have lovingly selected, writing weekly reflection pieces, preparing a short in-class presentation on recent events in the media, and contributing to discussions and case studies of water insecurity.

Gbl Hlth 390-0-23 – Health Care Under Socialism and Postsocialism

This course introduces students to ideas and concepts of health care and social protection during socialism and post-socialism in Eastern and Southeastern Europe. The course will explore systems based on the principle of "health for all" and their transformation during the so-called post-socialist transition from state-planned to market-oriented economies. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, we will examine the complex relationship between socialist heritage and the influence of neoliberal policies on health care systems in former socialist states, with a special emphasis on the former Yugoslavia. Key course topics include: socialist governance and health care policy; the politics of post-socialist "transition;" the neoliberalization of health care and social protection policies; patients and their rights in the new order; informal economies and clientelism; and challenges in access to healthcare for marginalized social groups. Throughout the course, students will be encouraged to think critically about the political-economic, ethical, and cultural complexities of health care under socialism and the neoliberal transition.

Gbl Hlth 390-0-23 – Medical Heroes and Villians

House. Grey's Anatomy. The Constant Gardener. Frankenstein's Monster. Paul Farmer. Josef Mengele. The Tuskegee Trials. Healthcare workers, and physicians and nurses in particular, have long held sway in the popular imagination as heroes, villains, and even complicated anti-heroes. What can we learn about the societal values we place on medicine, and medical personnel, by exploring the ways that medical heroes and villains are depicted to wide public audiences, or the ways they write about themselves? What do these fictional and non-fictional accounts have to tell us about societal celebrations, anxieties and ambiguities relating to medicine? How might we contemplate the ways societal norms relating to race, gender, sexuality, place of origin, ability, and other identifiers become mapped onto the stories the public consumes relating to medicine? What can these stories tell us about anxieties regarding life and death, technology, science, and culture? Who is portrayed as hero, who as villain, who as victim, and who as backdrop to the narrative? What perspectives are often silenced or left in the backdrop in these popularly-consumed narratives about medicine? In this course, we will read and view fictional, dramatized, and non-fiction narratives aimed at wide public audiences. In so doing, we will use medicine as a lens on a wide array of societal ambiguities, potentialities, inequalities and silences. NOTE: Students will be exposed to some stories and cases they may find disturbing. Co-listed with Humanities 370-3-20

Gbl Hlth 390-0-23 – Silent But Loud: Negotiating Health

To be "healthy" is a complex obstacle course that many individuals living in certain bodies have to navigate. Black bodies, for example, are often the tied to (un)health because they are stereotyped as in need to be controlled, managed, and "guided" into healthfulness. In the U.S., these narrow stereotypes are just a few of the ways Black bodies get defined. In this course, we will move beyond those restrictive stereotypes, guided by questions such as, "How does culture define health?", "How does the food pipeline affect the health of certain bodies?" and "What does it mean to live in an obesogenic environment?" In this course, we examine the connection between health, culture, food, and environment with a focus on what is silenced and what is loud when generating "fixes" for "diseased" bodies. Silence refers to the disregard and dismissiveness of the narratives and experiences around the oppressions attached to the health of certain bodies. Yet, this silence echoes as Loud when connected to their culture, food, and environment when discussing diseases highlighted in Black bodies such as obesity, hypertension, and diabetes.

Gbl Hlth 390-0-23 – Health Care Under Socialism and Postsocialism

This course introduces students to ideas and concepts of health care and social protection during socialism and post-socialism in Eastern and Southeastern Europe. The course will explore systems based on the principle of "health for all" and their transformation during the so-called post-socialist transition from state-planned to market-oriented economies. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, we will examine the complex relationship between socialist heritage and the influence of neoliberal policies on health care systems in former socialist states, with a special emphasis on the former Yugoslavia. Key course topics include: socialist governance and health care policy; the politics of post-socialist "transition"; the neoliberalization of health care and social protection policies; patients and their rights in the new order; informal economies and clientelism; and challenges in access to healthcare for marginalized social groups. Additionally, we will discuss the complex relationship between socialist legacy and neoliberal transformation regarding the response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the former socialist states. Throughout the course, students will be encouraged to think critically about the political, economic, ethical, and cultural complexities of health care under socialism and the neoliberal transition.

Gbl Hlth 390-0-24 – Native American Health Research and Prevention

Native nations in what is currently the United States, are continuously seeking to understanding and undertake the best approaches to research and prevention with their communities. This course introduces students to the benefits and barriers to various approaches to addressing negative health outcomes and harnessing positive social determinants of health influencing broader health status. Important concepts to guide our understanding of these issues will include settler colonialism, colonialism, sovereignty, social determinants of health, asset-based perspectives, and decolonizing research. Students will engage in a reading-intensive, discussion-based seminar, drawing upon research and scholarship from a variety of disciplines including public health, Native American and Indigenous Studies, sociology, history, and medicine. This course does not focus on nor teach traditional Native medicine or philosophies as those are not appropriate in this predominately non-Native environment.

Gbl Hlth 390-0-24 – Hazards, Disasters and Society

This course examines how socioeconomic and environmental factors work together to cause hazards and disasters in human society. In this course we learn the main concepts about disaster such as preparedness, vulnerability, resilience, response, mitigation, etc. We learn that a disaster does not have the same effect on everyone (all groups of people), and factors of social inequality such as race, ethnicity, class, and gender, make people more vulnerable to impacts of disasters. Also, this course, with an interdisciplinary perspective, analyzes disasters in the global North and South. This is a discussion-intensive course for advanced undergrad students. The classes are the student-centered with an emphasis on collaborative learning. The class meetings will consist of lecture, discussion, presentations, teamwork, activities, video/audio materials and projects.

Gbl Hlth 390-0-25 – Hazards, Disasters and Society

This course examines how socioeconomic and environmental factors work together to cause hazards and disasters in human society. In this course we learn the main concepts about disaster such as preparedness, vulnerability, resilience, response, mitigation, etc. We learn that a disaster does not have the same effect on all groups of peoples, and factors of social inequality such as race, ethnicity, class, and gender, make people more vulnerable to impacts of disasters. Also, this course, with an interdisciplinary perspective, analyzes disasters in the global North and South. This is a discussion-intensive course for advanced undergrad students that is  student-centered with an emphasis on collaborative learning.

Gbl Hlth 390-0-26 – Environmental Justice

This course examines how environmental problems reflect and exacerbate social inequality. In this course, we learn the definition of environmental (in)justice; the history of environmental justice; and also examples of environmental justice will be discussed. We will learn about environmental movements. This course has a critical perspective on health disparities in national and international levels. How environmental injustice impacts certain groups more than others and the social and political economic reasons for these injustices will be discussed in this course.

Gbl Hlth 390-0-26 – Hazards Disasters and Society

This course examines how socioeconomic and environmental factors work together to cause hazards and disasters in human society. In this course we learn the main concepts about disaster such as preparedness, vulnerability, resilience, response, mitigation, etc. We learn that a disaster does not have the same effect on everyone (all groups of people), and factors of social inequality such as race, ethnicity, class, and gender, make people more vulnerable to impacts of disasters. Also, this course, with an interdisciplinary perspective, analyzes disasters in the global North and South. This is a discussion-intensive course for advanced undergrad students. The classes are the student-centered with an emphasis on collaborative learning. The class meetings will consist of lecture, discussion, presentations, teamwork, activities, video/audio materials and projects.

Gender St 233-0-20 – Gender, Politics and Philosophy

This class introduces students to a variety of philosophical problems concerning gender and politics. Together, we'll read classic and contemporary texts that examine questions such as: what is gender -- and how, if it all, does it relate to or differ from sex? What does it really mean to be a woman or a man -- and are these categories we'r e born into or categories that we become or inhabit through living in a particular way under specific conditions? Human history all the way up to the present seems to be rife with asymmetrical relations of power that relegate those marked out as women to a subordinate position -- what explains this? What would it mean to over turn this state of affairs -- and which strategies are most likely to accomplish this task? And to what extent is it possible to grapple with all of the above questions -- questions of gender, sex and sexuality -- without also, at the very same time, thinking about how they relate to questions of class and race? Readings will include selections from Simone de Beauvoir, Iris Marion Young, Sandra Bartky, bell hooks, Patricia Hill Collins, Judith Butler, Talia Bettcher, and others

Gender St 250-0-20 – Race, Gender and Sexuality in Science and Anti-Science

Is race "real"? Do men and women have different brains? Is sexuality a choice (and should that matter)? This course examines the way these and other questions have been taken up in scientific discourse and how, in turn, scientific discourse has become a battleground in political disputes over trans rights, gender equality, and racial justice in the United States and beyond. We will approach race, gender, and sexuality as biosocial constructs, exploring their roles in debates about the relationship between biology and society, nature and culture, human similarity and difference, and knowledge and politics. Course modules will: contextualize how cultural understandings of human difference have shaped—and still impact--the development of Western science; examine contemporary scientific questions related to sex, gender, race, & sexuality, genetic diversity, medicine, technology, and the role of science in contemporary politics; explore how social inequalities can become embodied and produce biological effects; and interrogate the contemporary politicization and instrumentalization of scientific discourses related to race, gender, and sexuality, including by White supremacist, anti-trans, and anti-feminist movements.

Gender St 331-0-21 – Gender, Health & Medicine

In this course, we will examine the way gender organizes health and medicine, as well as how the medical system and health practices create and organize gender. Using interdisciplinary research with a focus on sociological studies, we will interrogate the social, institutional, and biological links between gender and health. We will discuss health inequalities between women, men, and trans* individuals from different race, ethnic, and class backgrounds, using sociological research to understand why these inequalities and forms of difference emerge and are sustained. We will explore how modern Western medicine views male and female bodies and defines their health and illnesses accordingly. Students will complete two short research projects over the term in which they use different data sources (interviews and media content) to examine gendered perceptions of health, health behaviors, help-seeking behaviors, and experiences with medical institutions.

Gender St 331-0-22 – Gender and Politics

This class will investigate how gender shapes politics and policy, and how these in turn shape gender, primarily in the United States. I aim also to provide comparative and global context. Gender is conceptualized as a set of relations, identities and cultural schema, always constituted with other dimensions of power, difference and inequality (e.g., race, class, sexuality, religion, citizenship status). We will analyze the gendered character of citizenship, political participation and representation, social rights and economic rights.

Gender St 332-0-20 – Health Activism, Gender, Sexuality and Health

TBD

Gender St 332-0-20 – Health Activism

How do conceptions of "health" relate to ideological assumptions about gender, race, class, and sexuality? In this course, we will explore this question through a close examination of a range of activist movements that have attempted to challenge contemporaneous conceptions of health and models of disease. Case studies will include the 19th century birth control and eugenics movements, 1970s-era women's health movement(s) and Black Panther Party "survival (pending revolution) programs", ACT UP and AIDS activism, reproductive rights/justice movement activism, breast cancer and environmental activism, mental health activism in the era of psychopharmacology, and recent/ongoing "mutual aid" projects. In each case, we will consider how activists frame the problem, the tactics they use to mobilize a diverse group of social actors around the problem, and their success in creating a social movement that challenges contemporary medical models and the ideological assumptions that inform them. The course also introduces students to recent interdisciplinary scholarship on social movements.

Gender St 332-0-21 – Beyond Porn: Sexuality, Health and Pleasure

Threesomes. Squirting. Vibrators. Butt plugs. Multiple orgasms. You may have seen them in pornography, but have you ever wanted to study and talk about sex, and specifically, how to have a satisfying sex life? Many people look to pornography not just for entertainment, but also for education about what satisfying sexual encounters look like. Unfortunately, much of what people learn from pornography doesn't lead them to healthy and satisfying sexual encounters and relationships. This lecture class isn't actually about pornography. It goes beyond many presumptions about sex and pleasure depicted in pornography and popular culture, in order to equip students with information that can lead to more satisfying and healthy sexual experiences across their lifespan, regardless of how they identify, or who or what they like. The course also familiarizes students with a wide spectrum of human identities, practices, and attitudes towards sex and sexuality. Topics covered include: physiological and biological sex; gender; sexual orientation; homophobia and heterosexism; navigating sexual risks in a sex-positive way; sexual health disparities; sexual desire, arousal, and response; solitary sex & sex with others; sex toys; unconventional sexual practices; intimacy and effective communication; sexuality & aging; sexuality, disability & intimacy; sexual problems and solutions; sexual pleasure as part of sexual health; sexual harassment and violence; selling sex; and yes, a brief unit on problematics and possibilities in pornography.

Gender St 332-0-21 – Race, Gender, Sex and Science

How do developments in the life sciences affect our understandings of who we are, how we differ, and how social inequalities are created, perpetuated, and challenged? This seminar explores how scientific claims and technological developments help transform cultural meanings of race, gender, and sexuality. Conversely, we will consider how cultural beliefs about race, gender, and sexuality influence scientific knowledge and medical practice. By studying controversies, we will explore the dynamic interplay among expert findings, social identities, and political arguments.

Gender St 361-0-23 – Medicine, Race and Gender

We often think of the humanities and sciences as opposite pursuits. While the humanities seem to focus on subjectivity and feeling, we see the sciences as objective and fact-based. Yet attending to the history of medicine demands a troubled acknowledgement that medical inquiry both shapes and is itself shaped by cultural assumptions about race and gender. Indeed, critics have pointed time and again to how the seeming impartiality of medical fact reveals biases about which kinds of bodies feel pain and who is prone to certain diseases, distinctions that have been assigned moral and social meaning. In this class, we will read literature about medical encounters in order to investigate how ideas about race and gender shape medical experiences. How do these individual accounts reflect larger structural injustices? What kinds of barriers and assumptions do women and people of color face when they receive treatment? What about people seeking gender affirming care? Beginning with the nineteenth century and moving towards the present day, we will examine the surprising history of how medical knowledge often depended on the exploitation of racialized bodies, grapple with the tangled enmeshment of femininity and illness, and explore how claims about medicalized bodies became a metric for citizenship.

Gender St 373-0-21 – Gender, Space & Transnational Cinemas

Is the mall the best place to hide during a zombie apocalypse? What might a vengeful spirit wandering the city have to do with postcolonial futures? What forms of queer relationality are generated on the verge of environmental collapse and the end of capitalism? This course explores the relationship between gender and space in both the representations and sociocultural histories of film and media in a transnational context. We will begin by tracing the cinema's indispensable role in constituting women's mobility and spectatorship in urban space in the early 20th century Western metropolis, and consider the continued relevance and limitation of this framework for understanding gender and spatiality in contemporary media cultures. Through a series of dwellings, including the housewife's kitchen, the madwoman's attic, the abandoned mall, and the apocalyptic forest, we will interrogate the dynamics of labor and play, quotidian and fantastic, subjectivity and identification by putting questions of gender and sexuality to the intersectional concerns of race, class, and nationality. Potential texts include: Jeanne Dielman (Chantal Akerman, 1974), Rouge (Stanley Kwan, 1987), A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Ana Lily Amirpour, 2014), Severance (Ling Ma, 2018), Weathering with You (Makoto Shinkai, 2019).

Gender St 374-0-20 – Imagining the Internet: Gender, Sexuality and Digital Technology

Much recent fiction, film and theory are concerned with representing the internet and the World Wide Web. Sometimes cyberspace is depicted as a continuation of previous media such as television, cinema or telephone, but often it is envisioned as a new frontier. This course will examine the ways in which virtual media appears in cultural discourses. We consider how technological objects and tools participate in shaping elements of our culture that may appear natural, logical, or timeless. Our guiding questions will include the following: In what ways are these narratives shaping collective perceptions of the internet? How have virtual technologies challenged experiences of language, gender, community and identity? We will focus on social networking, gaming, artificial intelligence, and literary and filmic representations of these. Following a Cultural Studies model for inquiry, this course will be project-based and experiential. Your attendance and participation are mandatory. No experience needed, only a willingness to take risks and share work.

Gender St 374-0-20 – Imagining the Internet

Much recent fiction, film and theory are concerned with representing the internet and the World Wide Web. Sometimes cyberspace is depicted as a continuation of previous media such as television, cinema or telephone, but often it is envisioned as a new frontier. This course will examine the ways in which virtual media appears in cultural discourses. We consider how technological objects and tools participate in shaping elements of our culture that may appear natural, logical, or timeless. Our guiding questions will include the following: In what ways are these narratives shaping collective perceptions of the internet? How have virtual technologies challenged experiences of language, gender, community and identity? We will focus on social networking, gaming, artificial intelligence, and literary and filmic representations of these. Following a Cultural Studies model for inquiry, this course will be project-based and experiential. Your attendance and participation are mandatory. No experience needed, only a willingness to take risks and share work.

Gender St 382-0-20 – Afro Feminist Futures: Race, Gender and Sexuality

This course invites students to explore feminist speculative fiction as a site for social justice advocacy. Students will read classic feminist and afrofuturist science fiction as they prepare their own original short stories for publication. Drawing heavily on the work of feminist afrofuturist Octavia Butler, students will engage imaginative narratives that allow them to think through solutions to the problems of our time. Students will explore the genre elements of short stories and speculative fiction, ultimately integrating these lessons into their own short stories. This is a writing and reading intensive class.

Gender St 390-0-20 – Witches, Bots and Trolls: Misinformation

This course surveys the social scientific study of misinformation in society. We will query the past to learn about how misinformation has evolved over time as a sociocultural feature of human societies. We will interrogate the present to examine how misinformation figures in the defining political, social, and economic problems of our time. And we will imagine the implications of misinformation for the future and explore our agency in shaping that future. We will draw on case studies, documentaries, and anthropological and social scientific literature on rumor and gossip, conspiracy theories, post-truth politics, deradicalization, and social media to explore topics and concepts such as "fake news," digital populism, algorithmic bias, weaponized disinformation, the "infodemic," deep fakes, and more. Case studies may include COVID-19, election, and climate change denialism; political conspiracy theories from the French Revolution to QAnon; troll farms and other tactics of information warfare; and the role of misinformation in current controversies over sexual & racial politics.

Gender St. 101-6-20 – Sick Girls and Hardy Heroines

Ill women are scattered across the pages of literature, from swooning ladies in sentimental novels to cancer patients in popular fiction. Illness acts as narrative momentum, as a metaphor for social "ills," and as a signifier of tragic virtue in an individual character. Focusing on the 18th and 19th centuries, this class will examine how the tropes of illness in popular literature pertains to our broader cultural assumptions about illness, health, and gender. How do traits associated with femininity resemble literary representations of illness, and vice-versa? How might we locate or analyze femininity in representations of ill men? How do these tropes change over time? What happens if health, rather than illness, becomes a primary marker of virtue? And what does all of this mean for us today? How has the construction of ill femininity been bound up in whiteness, and how has this contributed to systemic and medical racism? What is the relationship between the representation of ill femininity and contemporary "wellness culture"—or even contemporary feminism?

Gender St. 321-0-21 – US Women's History 1865-Present

This course explores the history of women in the United States from 1865 to the present. Adopting an intersectional approach, we will examine women's changing roles as wage earners, mothers, and activists. We will also explore how prevailing ideas about race, gender, work, and the family shaped women's lives, in both the public and private arenas.

Gender St. 331-0-20 – Sociology of Gender and Sexuality

This course is an opportunity for students to critically examine what is often a taken-for-granted aspect of social life: gender. This course will involve learning about gender as well as applying gender theory. We will study a variety of theoretical approaches to the study of gender, with particular focus on ethnomethodological, post-structural, macro-institutional, and intersectional approaches to the topic. By the end of the term, students will be able to 1) describe and compare theoretical anchors for the study of gender and 2) in writing, demonstrate mastery of two theoretical approaches to gender and apply one theory to a topic of their choosing. Prior course experience in gender/sexuality studies (by way of taking Gender & Society or other course work) is strongly advised.

Gender St. 351-0-20 – Gender, Sexuality and the Carceral State

This course explores the rise of the carceral state in the United States with particular attention to ethnographic, sociolegal, feminist, queer, and transgender theoretical approaches to the study of prisons. The course centers on girls, women, and LGBT people's experiences with systems of punishment, surveillance, and control. In addition, students will learn how feminist and queer activists have responded to institutions of policing and mass incarceration; investigate how they have understood prison reform, prison abolition, and transformative justice; and consider the political, ethical, and methodological concerns that policing, and mass incarceration raise.

Gender St. 361-0-22 – Science Fiction and Social Justice

This course will examine major utopian and dystopian texts in relation to social justice issues in the twentieth and twenty-first century, while following the stories of artists, organizers, and communities that have used speculative world-building to imagine livable, sustainable futures. We will focus on how feminist, anarchist, LGBTQ, and Afrofuturist art and activism have contributed to a substantial critical discourse on the intersections of science, technology, ecology, war, race, gender, sexuality, health, and ability. We will further examine how artists and activists have understood religion as both impediment and partner to social justice work, while alternatively embracing, subverting, and defying religious authority. We will attend to how religious myths and imagery are sampled and remixed by science fiction authors to plot an alternative course for world history.

Gender St. 382-0-21 – Mothers and Reproductive Justice

The role of the mother appears as a "universal" and given category. But who is allowed to be a mother? This course highlights discourses of motherhood that emerge out of women of color feminisms and literary works from the 1980s to the present. I challenge students to read motherhood as a heterogeneous, generative, and at times contradictory relational subject position that allows women of color to challenge white feminism and reclaim their children, both biological and non-biological, from the State that seeks to rupture their relationship. Students will ponder the following questions: how do women of color feminisms complicate and challenge white feminism's concepts of motherhood and its intersection with race, gender, and sexuality? How do labor and care shape the position of the mother? How do literary writers extend and interrogate motherhood as a productive locus to care for others? Each week, the students will read a canonical literary text paired with a theoretical text. For their final assignment, students have the choice to produce a critical or creative work that engages with either or both the literary and theoretical works we have read.

Gender St. 390-0-20 – Queering Cartology: Reimagining the Map

What do you imagine when you picture a map of the world? Usually this brings to mind a two-dimensional image depicting landmasses, water, and borders, perhaps with labels of continents or countries. This is not the only possible way to represent the world around us, and our traditional map-making conventions have their own logics, based in social norms and assumptions. This class begins by examining the history of cartography, or map-making, and key feminist and queer critiques of the traditional map as static and androcentric. We will discuss the rapidly expanding queer geography and queer cartographies literature, incorporating discussions from Black feminist geography, phenomenology, and queer and feminist critiques of science and objectivity. We will examine naming/labeling conventions, the politics of representation, and approaches to visual and non-visual representation of spaces. Bringing in materials on queer migration, we will discuss bodies and movement as immersed in landscape. Throughout the course, we will examine queer mapping projects from scholars, artists, and activists that re-envision what a map can depict. What are the ways we can re-imagine how we represent spaces and places in the world around us? What does it mean to "queer the map"? How do technology and digital tools allow for new approaches? Students will read literatures from disciplines including geography, anthropology, gender and sexuality studies, and more, and have opportunities to create creative works that re-imagine what a map can look like and represent.

Gender Studies 220-0-20 – Sexual Subjects

This interdisciplinary introductory lecture/discussion course surveys the sprawling topics of sex, sexuality, and sexuality studies. It is one of two courses intended as introductions to the Gender and Sexuality Studies major. In addition to considering the multiple ways in which sexuality is simultaneously a somatic fact, a locus of identity; a site of regulation, contestation, and sociability—and, of course, an arena of pleasure—explicit attention will also be paid to the work of Northwestern scholars in different disciplines (history, sociology, anthropology, literature…) and the ways they formulate and attempt to answer questions about sexuality. Major questions will include: what makes a body male or female, homosexual or heterosexual, "normal" or "deviant" and how have the answers to those questions changed over time? Is the history of sexuality one of increasing liberation? How is the policing of sexual behavior related to the (re)production of other social categories such as race, gender, and adolescence?

Gender Studies 331-0-21 – Political Sociology: Focus on Gender

This class will investigate how gender shapes politics and policy, and how these in turn shape gender, in the United States and other countries, situated in global context. Gender is conceptualized as a set of relations, identities and cultural schema, always constituted with other dimensions of power, difference and inequality (e.g., race, class, sexuality, religion, citizenship status). We will analyze the gendered character of citizenship, political participation and representation, social rights and economic rights. We aim to understand gendered politics and policy from both "top down" and "bottom up" perspectives. What do states do, via institutions of political participation and representation, citizenship rights and policies, to shape gender relations? How do gender relations influence the nature of policy and citizenship? How has feminism emerged as a radical challenge to the androcentrism and restricted character of the democratic public sphere? And how has anti-feminism come to be a significant dimension of politics? We expand on conventional conceptions of political participation and citizenship rights to include the grassroots democratic activism that gave birth to modern women's movements. We explore how women's political efforts have given rise to the creation of alternative visions of democracy, social provision and economic participation, as well as reshaping formal politics and policies. And, finally, we will take advantage of the fact that we are in the middle of an election to examine some of the gendered aspects of the political landscape in the contemporary United States.

The course readings feature different types of materials - original documents, scholarly books and articles, a textbook, policy reports, popular non-fiction work on aspects of gender, policy, politics and society. These are supplemented by films and online resources.

Gender Studies 332-0-21 – Race, Gender, Sex and Science

What is the scientific status of our ideas about race? How are medical and legal ideas invoked in determinations about people's gender identities? Overall, how do developments in the life sciences affect our understandings of who we are, how we differ, and how social inequalities are created, perpetuated, and challenged? This seminar explores how scientific claims and technological developments help transform cultural understandings of race, gender, and sexuality. Conversely, we will consider how cultural beliefs about race, gender, and sexuality influence scientific knowledge and medical practice. We will take up a series of controversies from the recent past and present to explore the dynamic interplay between expert findings, social identities, and political arguments.

Gender Studies 341-0-20 – Trans-Related Medical Surgeries in Thailand

This course is situated at the intersection of theoretical, cultural, medical, and commercial online discourses concerning the burgeoning Gender Affirmation-related surgeries presented online and conducted in Thailand. Using Gender, Queer, Trans, Asian American, and Digital Humanities Theories, we will discuss the cross-cultural intersections, dialogues, refusals, and adaptions when thinking about medical travel to Thailand for gender/sex related surgeries. We will examine Thai cultural/historical conceptions of sex and gender, debates concerning bodies and diagnoses, and changes in presentations of sex/gender related surgeries offered online. We will also explore how digital archives are created and managed. Investigating transcripts of live interviews, medical discourses, and an archive of web images offering GAS surgeries produced by Thais for non-Thais will serve as axes for investigating this topic.

Gender Studies 374-0-20 – Imagining the Internet, Gender, Sexuality and Digital Technologies

Much recent fiction, film and theory are concerned with representing the internet and the World Wide Web. Sometimes cyberspace is depicted as a continuation of previous media such as television, cinema or telephone, but often it is envisioned as a new frontier. This course will examine the ways in which virtual media appears in cultural discourses. We consider how technological objects and tools participate in shaping elements of our culture that may appear natural, logical, or timeless. Our guiding questions will include the following: In what ways are these narratives shaping collective perceptions of the internet? How have virtual technologies challenged experiences of language, gender, community and identity? We will focus on social networking, gaming, artificial intelligence, and literary and filmic representations of these. Following a Cultural Studies model for inquiry, this course will be project-based and experiential. Your attendance and participation are mandatory. No experience needed, only a willingness to take risks and share work.

Gender Studies 390-0-20 – Witches, Bots and Trolls

This course surveys the social scientific study of misinformation in society. We will query the past to learn about how misinformation has evolved over time as a sociocultural feature of human societies. We will interrogate the present to examine how misinformation figures in the defining political, social, and economic problems of our time. And we will imagine the implications of misinformation for the future and explore our agency in shaping that future. We will draw on case studies, documentaries, and anthropological and social scientific literature on rumor and gossip, conspiracy theories, post-truth politics, deradicalization, and social media to explore topics and concepts such as "fake news," digital populism, algorithmic bias, weaponized disinformation, the "infodemic," deep fakes, and more. Case studies may include COVID-19 and climate change denialism, political conspiracy theories from the French Revolution to the Red Scare to Pizzagate, troll farms and other tactics of information warfare, and the role of misinformation in current controversies over "gender ideology," trans rights, and critical race theory.

Gender Studies 390-0-21 – Viruses and Viral Media

What are viruses? Are they living or dead? How does news media affect their influence on the world? And why do we say news "goes viral?" Designed for Medill and non-Medill students alike, Viruses and Viral Media will study how viruses intersect with race, sexuality, disability, economics and the news media. Historically and contemporarily, the course will look at how actual viruses and infectious diseases (such as tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, Ebola, Hepatitis C, influenza and SARS-CoV-2) have been covered in the global press. We will consider how certain groups of humans have been depicted as viruses themselves, such as how Jewish/disabled/queer/Roma people were described by the German and US press circa WW II; how African Americans were described in the US press circa Jim Crow; and how Muslim, Mexican and migrant people are described in press and social media now. We will also consider how and why popular news "goes viral." Students will work in research groups to study viruses and virality in the news throughout the term.

German 232-0-1 – The Theme of Faust Through the Ages

"To sell one's soul," "to strike a bargain with the devil," or even "to beat the devil at his own game"? these expressions and similar ones continue to enjoy undiminished popularity. For more than five-hundred years the legend of Faust has served as means to express the daring and danger of pursuing an aspiration even if it comes at the cost of one's "soul." The specter of a "Faustian bargain" often appears when narratives identify individuals whose inordinate achievements are both destructive and self-destructive. The theme of Faust provides a perspective in which one must thus reflect on the highest and lowest values. Dr. Faustus has undergone many mutations since he first appeared in central Europe around the early sixteenth century. This class will begin with a question at the foundation of the Faust legend: what is a "soul," and what is worth? While examining these and kindred questions about the nature of the self, the class will continually reflect on what we are doing when we evaluate a work of art in relation to the culture of its "time" or "period." In addition to listening to some musical compositions and reading some shorter texts, we will examine the earliest versions of Faust, which derives from the beginnings of the Protestant Reformation and then proceed to read Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's great drama of cosmic knowledge and sexual seduction, Faust I, followed by selections from its strange sequel Faust II, in which Faust invents paper money and then becomes a real-estate developer or social-engineer who wants to reorganize the very nature of our planet. We will ask what Goethe, near the end of his life, gave to "world literature" (a term of his own invention) when he presented his final version of Faust as a man committed to a total terrestrial transformation that inadvertently destroys innocent lives. As a conclusion to our analysis of Goethe's Faust, we will read two very different kinds of poetic responses, Paul Celan's "Death Fugue" and Carol Ann Duffy's "Mrs. Faust." And in the final two weeks of the class we will view three versions of the Faust legend for our times, beginning with the story of the bluesman Robert Johnson, as represented in Peter Meyer's Can't You Hear the Wind Howl?, followed by Sophie Barthes' Cold Souls and concluding with Danny Boyle's Yesterday.

German 244-0-1 – Analyzing Freud

This class will take a look at the life and work of the groundbreaking Viennese psychologist Sigmund Freud from a comparative and interdisciplinary angle. Almost 80 years after his death, Freud's legacy continues to be controversial: some claim that his theories are no longer relevant in the light of new research, whereas others defend his theories and/or expand upon the implications and influence of his ideas, in the realm not only of psychology, medicine, and neuroscience, but also in the fields of sociology, cultural studies, philosophy, literary studies, criminal justice, queer and gender studies, communications, and many more. What is certain, however, is that, one way or another, Freud's theories and ideas have marked the world for all time. This class will read fundamental texts from Freud's body of work in dialogue with texts by Freud's near and distant predecessors and followers, both to situate Freud in his historical and cultural context, and to think through the many different kinds of questions that Freud's work addresses.

German 337-0-1 – German Environmentalism

Germany is often regarded as being at the forefront of European developments concerning issues such as climate change and recycling, transport and renewable energy sources. This class will trace the scientific, political, philosophical, and aesthetic history of Germany as a green nation from the 18th century until today. What are the roots of the ideology of environmentalism as it is represented in concepts like environment, ecology, or sustainability, which were all invented or popularized by German scientists (von Uexküll, Haeckel, von Carlowitz)?

German 337-0-1 – Science and Culture in Germany

Germany is often regarded as being at the forefront of European developments concerning issues such as climate change and recycling, transport and renewable energy sources. This class will trace the scientific, political, philosophical, and aesthetic history of Germany as a ‘green nation` from the 18th century until today. What are the roots of the ideology of environmentalism as it is represented in concepts like environment, ecology, or sustainability, which were all invented or popularized by German scientists (von Uexküll, Haeckel, von Carlowitz)?

German 337-0-1 – Science and Culture in Germany

Germany is often regarded as being at the forefront of European developments concerning issues such as climate change and recycling, transport and renewable energy sources. This class will trace the scientific, political, philosophical, and aesthetic history of Germany as a ‘green nation’ from the 18th century until today. What are the roots of the ideology of environmentalism as it is represented in concepts like environment, ecology, or sustainability, which were all invented or popularized by German scientists (von Uexküll, Haeckel, von Carlowitz)? The course will also examine recent developments in German environmental policies like the so-called “Energiewende” and the “Diesel-Skandal”.

German 346-0-1 – Talking Trash: Managing Waste in Culture

Contemporary climate activism and movements for degrowth and sustainable development have made us pay greater attention to our ecological footprint and the impact that our production of waste has on each other and the Earth’s ecosystems. Alongside this growing public concern for political ecology and environmental justice, artists, writers, filmmakers, and theorists have drawn on various kinds of ‘trash’ (e.g., debris, dirt, sewage, litter, spam, as well as ‘trashy’ individuals or places) in their metaphoricity and often threatening materiality, as tools for critiquing ossified aesthetic standards, anthropocentrism, globalization, and ecological damage. This course will provide insight into the environmental humanities through the lens of trash, tracing its varying manifestations from the nineteenth-century figure of the ragpicker to today's spam-generating botnets. Writers and artists discussed will include Walter Benjamin, Amitav Ghosh, Donna Haraway, Wolfgang Hilbig, Hito Steyerl, and Christa Wolf.

Global Health 201-0-20 – Intro to Global Health

This course introduces students to pressing disease and health care problems worldwide and examines efforts currently underway to address them. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the course identifies the main actors, institutions, practices and forms of knowledge production characteristic of what we call "global health" today, and explores the environmental, social, political and economic factors that shape patterns and experiences of illness and healthcare across societies. We will scrutinize the value systems underpinning specific paradigms in the policy and science of global health practice, and place present-day developments in historical perspective. As an introductory course on global health, the class delves into comparative health systems, including comparative health systems in high- and low-income countries. Key topics will include: policies and approaches to global health, key actors in global health, comparative health systems, structural violence, gender and reproductive health, chronic and communicable diseases, politics of global health research and evidence, and the ethics of global health equity.

Global Health 201-0-20 – Introduction to Global Health

This course introduces students to pressing disease and health care problems worldwide and examines efforts currently underway to address them. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the course identifies the main actors, institutions, practices and forms of knowledge production characteristic of what we call "global health" today, and explores the environmental, social, political and economic factors that shape patterns and experiences of illness and healthcare across societies. We will scrutinize the value systems underpinning specific paradigms in the policy and science of global health practice, and place present-day developments in historical perspective. As an introductory course on global health, the class delves into comparative health systems, including comparative health systems in high- and low-income countries. Key topics will include: policies and approaches to global health, key actors in global health, comparative health systems, structural violence, gender and reproductive health, chronic and communicable diseases, politics of global health research and evidence, and the ethics of global health equity.

Global Health 201-0-20 – Intro to Global Health

This course introduces students to pressing disease and health care problems worldwide and examines efforts currently underway to address them. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the course identifies the main actors, institutions, practices and forms of knowledge production characteristic of what we call "global health" today, and explores the environmental, social, political and economic factors that shape patterns and experiences of illness and healthcare across societies. We will scrutinize the value systems that underpin specific paradigms in the policy and science of global health and place present-day developments in historical perspective. Key topics will include: policies and approaches to global health governance and interventions, global economies and their impacts on public health, medical humanitarianism, global mental health, maternal and child health, pandemics (HIV/AIDS, Ebola, H1N1, Swine Flu), malaria, food insecurity, health and human rights, and global health ethics.

Global Health 222-0-2 – The Social Determinants of Health

This seminar in medical anthropology examines the role of social markers of difference including race, class, nationality, gender, sexuality, age and religion in current debates and challenges in the theory and practice of global health. We will explore contemporary illness experiences and therapeutic interventions in sociocultural and historical context through case studies from the US, Brazil, and South Africa. Students will be introduced to key concepts such as embodiment, medicalization, structural violence, the social determinants of health, and biopolitics. Central questions of the seminar include: How do social categories of difference determine disease and health in individuals and collectivities? How is medical science influenced by economic and political institutions and by patient mobilization? How does social and economic inclusion/exclusion govern access to treatment as well as care of the self and others? The course will provide advanced instruction in anthropological and related social scientific research methods as they apply to questions of social inequality and public health policy in both the United States and in emerging economic powers. The course draws from historical accounts, contemporary ethnographies, public health literature, media reports, and films.

Global Health 222-0-20 – The Social Determinants of Health

The human body is embedded into a health framework that can produce hypervisibility, invisibility, or both. This course in social science and medical anthropology examines the role of social markers of difference, including race, class, gender, sexuality, age, and religion, in current debates and challenges in the theory and practice of global health. We will explore recent illness experiences, therapeutic and self-care interventions, and health practices and behaviors in socio-cultural and historical context through case studies in the U.S., Brazil, and South Africa. The purpose of this course is to introduce students to key concepts such as embodiment, medicalization, structural violence, social determinants of health, biopolitics, health equity, and an ethic of care. Central questions of the course include: How do categories of "Othering" determine disease and health in individuals and collectives? How is medical science and care influenced by economic and political institutions and by patient trust? How do social and economic inclusion/exclusion control access to health treatment and self-care and care of others? This course focuses on the linkages between society and health inequalities in the U.S. and economic powers. It offers a forum to explore policy application with a particular emphasis on definitions that form social factors. This course utilizes historical accounts, contemporary ethnographies, Twitter threads of health experiences, public health literature, media reports, TedTalks, and films to bring to life the "why's" of health differences.

Global Health 220-0-20 – The Social Determinants of Health

This lecture-based survey in public health and medical anthropology explores how political, economic, historical, and sociocultural forces impact health inequalities at home and around the world. We will explore contemporary illness experiences and therapeutic interventions in context through case studies from the US, Brazil, and South Africa. Students will be introduced to key concepts such as embodiment, medicalization, structural violence, the social determinants of health, and biopolitics. Central questions of the seminar include: How do social categories of difference determine disease and health in individuals and collectivities? How is medical science influenced by economic and political institutions and by patient mobilization? How does social and economic inclusion/exclusion govern access to treatment as well as care of the self and others? The course will provide advanced instruction in anthropological and related social scientific research methods as they apply to questions of social inequality and public health policy. he course draws from historical accounts, contemporary ethnographies, public health literature, media reports, and films.

Global Health 302-0-20 – Global Bioethics

Global health is a popular field of work and study for Americans, with an increasing number of medical trainees and practitioners, as well as people without medical training, going abroad to volunteer in areas where there are few health care practitioners or resources. In addition, college undergraduates, as well as medical trainees and practitioners, are going abroad in increasing numbers to conduct research in areas with few healthcare resources. But all of these endeavors, though often entered into with the best of intentions, are beset with ethical questions, concerns, and dilemmas, and can have unintended consequences. In this course, students will explore and consider these ethical challenges. In so doing, students will examine core global bioethical concerns - such as structural violence - and core global bioethical codes, guidelines, and principals - such as beneficence and solidarity - so they will be able to ethically assess global health practices in a way that places an emphasis on the central goal of global health: reducing health inequities. With an emphasis on the ethical responsibility to reduce inequities, we consider some of the most pressing global bioethical issues of our time: equity, fairness, and planetary health. Particular attention is given to the ethics of research during a pandemic and equitable access to vaccines and therapies for Covid-19. Beatriz will not be use ungrading for this course but each student will create an assignment bundle.

Global Health 302-0-20 – Global Bioethics

Global health is a popular field of work and study for Americans, with an increasing number of medical trainees and practitioners, as well as people without medical training, going abroad to volunteer in areas where there are few health care practitioners or resources. In addition, college undergraduates, as well as medical trainees and practitioners, are going abroad in increasing numbers to conduct research in areas with few healthcare resources. But all of these endeavors, though often entered into with the best of intentions, are beset with ethical questions, concerns, and dilemmas, and can have unintended consequences. In this course, students will explore and consider these ethical challenges. In so doing, students will examine core global bioethical concerns - such as structural violence - and core global bioethical codes, guidelines, and principals - such as beneficence and solidarity - so they will be able to ethically assess global health practices in a way that places an emphasis on the central goal of global health: reducing health inequities and disparities. With an emphasis on the ethical responsibility to reduce disparities, we consider some of the most pressing global bioethical issues of our time: equity, fairness, and climate change. Particular attention is given to the ethics of research during a pandemic and access to vaccines and therapies for Covid-19.

Global Health 302-0-20 – Global Bioethics

Global health is a popular field of work and study for Americans, with an increasing number of medical trainees and practitioners, as well as people without medical training, going abroad to volunteer in areas where there are few health care practitioners or resources. In addition, college undergraduates, as well as medical trainees and practitioners, are going abroad in increasing numbers to conduct research in areas with few healthcare resources. But all of these endeavors, though often entered into with the best of intentions, are beset with ethical questions, concerns, and dilemmas, and can have unintended, and negative, consequences. In this course, students will explore and consider these ethical challenges. In so doing, students will examine core global bioethical concerns - such as structural violence - and core global bioethical codes, values, and principals - such as beneficence and solidarity - so they will be able to ethically assess global health practices in a way that places an emphasis on the central goal of global health: reducing health inequities and inequalities.

Global Health 307-0-1 – International Perspectives on Mental Health

This course will explore issues of mental health in cross-cultural, perspective and examine the impact of psychological illness on the global burden of disease. Students explore the following questions: how do cultural systems of meaning and behavior affect the vulnerability of individuals within the population to mental illness and the mental illnesses to which they are vulnerable? How does culture influence the way that mental illness is expressed and experienced and how does this affect our ability to measure psychological illness cross-culturally? How do cultural factors affect the way that mental illnesses are diagnosed and labeled, and the degree to which they are stigmatized? And how do such factors affect our ability to create effective global health interventions? Finally, how do healing practices and the efficacy of particular treatments vary across cultures? We will examine these and related questions in the context of specific forms of psychological distress, including depression, trauma, dissociation and psychosis, using case studies from a range of cultural contexts including Brazil, Japan, India, China and the U.S.

Global Health 309-0-1 – Biomedicine and World History

This lecture course uses the Covid-19 pandemic as a point of departure to study the history of global health and biomedicine in comparative terms. We will break up the quarter into four segments during which we will consider: 1) how and why infectious diseases "unified" the globe and with what effects; 2) the role of empires, industries, war, and revolutions in spreading biomedical ideas, experts, and tools around the world; 3) the functions played by transnational and global health institutions in setting medical priorities and sustaining health norms across continents; and 4) the growth of clinical trials, the pharmaceutical industry, and narcotics trade. Because the world around us has been radically altered by SARS-coV-2, you will have an opportunity to place in historical context this pandemic's roots and its ongoing cycles. You will also be given a chance to apply insights from the readings - about histories of racial segregation, reproductive politics, militarization, and police powers - to this pandemic. Lectures and readings cover all world regions: Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, North America, Asia, Europe, and the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

Global Health 320-0-1 – Qualitative Reserach Methods

This course is designed to provide global health students with the tools they will need in order to design, revise, conduct, and write up current and future qualitative research projects relating to global health topics. This course is experientially driven, allowing students opportunities to actually "do" research, while providing careful mentoring and engaging in in-depth discussions about ethical and methodological issues associated with qualitative approaches and with working with living humans. Students will learn methods such as: writing research proposals, research ethics, writing ethnographic field notes, doing qualitative interviews and focus groups, analyzing and writing up data.

Global Health 321-0-1 – War and Public Health

This course draws on perspectives from anthropology and related social scientific fields to provide a comparative overview of the impact of armed conflict on public health and health care systems worldwide. Drawing primarily on examples from recent history, including conflicts in the Balkans, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East, we will explore warfare as a crucial sociopolitical determinant of global health disparities and consider organized efforts to respond to the health impacts of mass violence. Key topics that we will consider include variations in the relationship between warfare and public health across eras and cultures; the health and mental health impacts of forced displacement, military violence, and gender-based violence; and the roles of medical humanitarianism and humanitarian psychiatry in postwar recovery processes. Through close readings of classic and contemporary social theory, ethnographic accounts, and diverse research on war, health, and postwar humanitarian interventions, this course will encourage you to build your own critical perspective on war and public health anchored in history and the complexities of real-world situations.

Global Health 325-0-1 – History of Reproductive Health

The history of reproduction is a large subject, and during this course we will touch on many, but by no means all, of what can be considered as part of this history. Our focus will be on human reproduction, considering the vantage points of both healthcare practitioners and lay women and men. We will look at ideas concerning fertility, conception, pregnancy, miscarriage, childbirth, birth control, abortion, and assisted reproduction. Because, at a fundamental level, reproduction is about power - as historian Amy Kaler (but by no means only Kaler), pointed out, "[c]ontrol over human reproduction is eternally contested, in zones ranging from the comparative privacy of the conjugal bedroom to the political platform and programs of national polities" - we will pay attention to power in reproductive health. And, since the distribution of power in matters of reproduction has often been uneven and unequal - between men and women, between colonizing and Indigenous populations, between clinicians and lay people, between those in upper socioeconomic classes and those in lower socioeconomic classes - we will pay particular attention during this class to struggles over matters of reproduction as we explore historical changes and continuities in reproduction globally since 1900.

Global Health 325-0-1 – History of Reproductive Health

The history of reproduction is a large subject, and during this course we will touch on many, but by no means all, of what can be considered as part of this history. Our focus will be on human reproduction, considering the vantage points of both healthcare practitioners and lay women and men. We will look at ideas concerning fertility, conception, pregnancy, miscarriage, childbirth, birth control, abortion, and assisted reproduction. Because, at a fundamental level, reproduction is about power - as historian Amy Kaler (but by no means only Kaler), pointed out, "[c]ontrol over human reproduction is eternally contested, in zones ranging from the comparative privacy of the conjugal bedroom to the political platform and programs of national polities" - we will pay attention to power in reproductive health. And, since the distribution of power in matters of reproduction has often been uneven and unequal - between men and women, between colonizing and Indigenous populations, between clinicians and lay people, between those in upper socioeconomic classes and those in lower socioeconomic classes - we will pay particular attention during this class to struggles over matters of reproduction as we explore historical changes and continuities in reproduction globally since 1900.

Global Health 325-0-1 – History of Reproductive Health

The history of reproduction is a large subject, and during this course we will touch on many, but by no means all, of what can be considered as part of this history. Our focus will be on human reproduction, considering the vantage points of both healthcare practitioners and lay women and men. We will look at ideas concerning fertility, conception, pregnancy, miscarriage, childbirth, birth control, abortion, and assisted reproduction. Because, at a fundamental level, reproduction is about power - as historian Amy Kaler (but by no means only Kaler), pointed out, "[c]control over human reproduction is eternally contested, in zones ranging from the comparative privacy of the conjugal bedroom to the political platform and programs of national polities" - we will pay attention to power in reproductive health. And, since the distribution of power in matters of reproduction has often been uneven and unequal - between men and women, between colonizing and Indigenous populations, between clinicians and lay people, between those in upper socioeconomic classes and those in lower socioeconomic classes - we will pay particular attention during this class to struggles over matters of reproduction as we explore historical changes and continuities in reproduction globally since 1900.

Global Health 390-0-21 – Literary Genres and Health

When I was an undergraduate student my "To Be Read" list was always really long and often forgotten. As I have re-established my love of reading for fun I see how literary genres influence and challenge our understanding of well-being/health. Fiction, non-fiction, poems, memoirs, novels, young adult fiction, science fiction, mysteries, fantasy, fairy tales, horror, magical realism, and so many other genres influence our definitions of health or wellbeing. They give us insight into how other folks imagine and understanding situations we may or may not find ourselves in. The best text allow us to empathize with the characters or authors or challenge what we thought we knew. When thinking up this course, books that came to mind included "The Cancer Journals," "The Marrow Thieves," "Crying in H Mart," "Convenience Store Woman," "Medical Apartheid," "What the Eyes Don't See," "All About Love: New Visions," and "We Are Never Meeting in Real Life." Our course will consider some of these and other genres noted above. You'll be asked to propose a book to read/listen to and a list of various text will also be provided if you need guidance in choosing a text. You will learn how these text influence or challenge norms about health and well-being. Professor Reyes will help you access books that aren't easily available or affordable.

Global Health 390-0-22 – Beyond Porn: Sexuality, Health and Pleasure

Threesomes. Squirting. Vibrators. Butt plugs. Multiple orgasms. You may have seen them in pornography, but have you ever wanted to study and talk about sex, and specifically, how to have a satisfying sex life? Many people look to pornography not just for entertainment, but also for education about what satisfying sexual encounters look like. Unfortunately, much of what people learn from pornography doesn't lead them to healthy and satisfying sexual encounters and relationships. This lecture class isn't actually about pornography. It goes beyond many presumptions about sex and pleasure depicted in pornography and popular culture, in order to equip students with information that can lead to more satisfying and healthy sexual experiences across their lifespan, regardless of how they identify, or who or what they like. The course also familiarizes students with a wide spectrum of human identities, practices, and attitudes towards sex and sexuality. Topics covered include: physiological and biological sex; gender; sexual orientation; homophobia and heterosexism; navigating sexual risks in a sex-positive way; sexual health disparities; sexual desire, arousal, and response; solitary sex & sex with others; sex toys; unconventional sexual practices; intimacy and effective communication; sexuality & aging; sexuality, disability & intimacy; sexual problems and solutions; sexual pleasure as part of sexual health; sexual harassment and violence; selling sex; and yes, a brief unit on problematics and possibilities in pornography.

Global Health 390-0-23 – Silent but Loud: Negotiating Health in Culture

To be "healthy" is a complex obstacle course that many individuals living in certain bodies have to navigate. Black bodies, for example, are often the tied to (un)health because they are stereotyped as in need to be controlled, managed, and "guided" into healthfulness. In the U.S., these narrow stereotypes are just a few of the ways Black bodies get defined. In this course, we will move beyond those restrictive stereotypes, guided by questions such as, "How does culture define health?", "How does the food pipeline affect the health of certain bodies?" and "What does it mean to live in an obesogenic environment?" In this course, we examine the connection between health, culture, food, and environment with a focus on what is silenced and what is loud when generating "fixes" for "diseased" bodies. Silence refers to the disregard and dismissiveness of the narratives and experiences around the oppressions attached to the health of certain bodies. Yet, this silence echoes as Loud when connected to their culture, food, and environment when discussing diseases highlighted in Black bodies such as obesity, hypertension, and diabetes.

Global Health 390-0-24 – Native American Health Research and Prevention

Native nations in what is currently the United States are continuously seeking to understanding and undertake the best approaches to research and prevention with their communities. This course introduces students to the benefits and barriers to various approaches to addressing negative health outcomes and harnessing positive social determinants of health influencing broader health status. Important concepts to guide our understanding of these issues will include settler colonialism, colonialism, sovereignty, social determinants of health, asset-based perspectives, and decolonizing research. Students will engage in a reading-intensive, discussion-based seminar, drawing upon research and scholarship from a variety of disciplines including public health, Native American and Indigenous Studies, sociology, history, and medicine. This course does not focus on nor teach traditional Native medicine or philosophies as those are not appropriate in this predominately non-Native environment.

Global Health 390-0-24 – Hazards, Disasters and Society

This course examines how socioeconomic and environmental factors work together to cause hazards and disasters in human society. In this course we learn the main concepts about disaster such as preparedness, vulnerability, resilience, response, mitigation, etc. We learn that a disaster does not have the same effect on everyone (all groups of people), and factors of social inequality such as race, ethnicity, class, and gender, make people more vulnerable to impacts of disasters. Also, this course, with an interdisciplinary perspective, analyzes disasters in the global North and South. This is a discussion-intensive course for advanced undergrad students. The classes are the student-centered with an emphasis on collaborative learning. The class meetings will consist of lecture, discussion, presentations, teamwork, activities, video/audio materials and projects.

Global Health 390-0-24 – Native Nations, Healthcare Systems and U.S. Policy

In the territory currently called the United States of America, healthcare for Native populations is often experienced as a tension between settler colonial domination and activism among Native nations to uphold Indigenous sovereignty. This reading-intensive, discussion-based seminar will provide students with a complex and in-depth understanding of the historical and contemporary policies and systems created for, by, and in collaboration with Native nations. In order to understand the U.S. government's role and responsibility towards Native nations, we will delve into legal foundations of the trust responsibility and fiduciary obligation of the federal government as outlined in the U.S. Constitution and Supreme Court decisions. To understand how Native nations have worked within colonial settler systems to maintain or expand their sovereignty, students will examine notable federal and state policies that affect Native health, wellbeing, and (lack of) access to meaningful care.

Global Health 390-0-25 – Hazards, Disasters and Society

This course examines how socioeconomic and environmental factors work together to cause hazards and disasters in human society. In this course we learn the main concepts about disaster such as preparedness, vulnerability, resilience, response, mitigation, etc. We learn that a disaster does not have the same effect on everyone (all groups of people), and factors of social inequality such as race, ethnicity, class, and gender, make people more vulnerable to impacts of disasters. Also, this course, with an interdisciplinary perspective, analyzes disasters in the global North and South. This is a discussion-intensive course for advanced undergrad students. The classes are the student-centered with an emphasis on collaborative learning. The class meetings will consist of lecture, discussion, presentations, teamwork, activities, video/audio materials and projects.

Global Health 390-0-25 – Re-mixing Qualitative Methods

This course explores traditional and alternative data collection methods in public health research. The course focuses on decolonizing ways that Black/African American individuals have used to reveal their truths and construct and reconstruct images of themselves. Students will explore how these decolonizing processes can be applied in public health data collection to make research inclusive and to validate methods and ways of knowing that have assisted underserved, underheard, and underrepresented communities in advocating for justice to survive. Course readings and videos will provide a critical lens on qualitative data collection methods, including studies on historical and traumatic violence underscoring how people living in Black bodies work to survive, and negotiating processes that Black individuals use to exercise agency and evaluate systemic oppressions that impede how they navigate life as articulated by authors such as Joy DeGruy, Patricia Hill Collins, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Richard Delgado, and Jean Stefanci.

Global Health 390-0-25 – (Re)mixing Qualitative Methods

In this upper-level course exploring approaches to meld traditional data collection methods with alternative techniques, students will review decolonizing ways that Black/African American individuals have used to reveal their truths and construct and reconstruct images of themselves. Students will explore how these same processes can be applied in public health data collection to be inclusive and validate the methods and ways of knowing that have assisted underserved, underheard, and underrepresented communities in advocating for justice to survive. Course readings will consist of text that provides a critical lens to view qualitative data collection methods through and will include studies in historical and traumatic violence that underscore how people living in Black bodies work to survive by Joy DeGruy and the negotiating processes that Black individuals use to exercise agency and evaluate systemic oppressions that impede how they navigate life as articulated by authors such as Patricia Hill Collins, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Richard Delgado, and Jean Stefancic.

Global Health 390-0-26 – Environmental Justice

This course examines how environmental problems reflect and exacerbate social inequality. In this course, we learn the definition of environmental (in)justice; the history of environmental justice; and also examples of environmental justice will be discussed. We will learn about environmental movements. This course has a critical perspective on health disparities in national and international levels. How environmental injustice impacts certain groups more than others and the social and political economic reasons for these injustices will be discussed in this course. This is a discussion-intensive course for advanced undergrad students. The classes are student-centered with an emphasis on collaborative learning. The class meetings will consist of lectures, discussions, presentations, teamwork, activities, video/audio materials and projects.

Global Health 390-0-26 – Global Epidemics

From modern pandemics such as Ebola and COVID-19, to ancient scourges such as leprosy and the plague, epidemics have shaped human history. In turn, the response of human societies to infectious disease threats have varied wildly in time and across cultures. We are currently living such an event, and experiencing in dramatic fashion how disease reshapes society. This course will cover several prominent global epidemic episodes, examining the biology of the disease, epidemic pathways, sociopolitical responses and public health measures, and the relationship between the scientific and the cultural consequences of these outbreaks.

Global Health 390-0-26 – Hazards, Disasters and Society

This course examines how socioeconomic and environmental factors work together to cause hazards and disasters in human society. In this course we learn the main concepts about disaster such as preparedness, vulnerability, resilience, response, mitigation, etc. We learn that a disaster does not have the same effect on everyone (all groups of people), and factors of social inequality such as race, ethnicity, class, and gender, make people more vulnerable to impacts of disasters. Also, this course, with an interdisciplinary perspective, analyzes disasters in the global North and South. This is a discussion-intensive course for advanced undergrad students. The classes are the student-centered with an emphasis on collaborative learning. The class meetings will consist of lecture, discussion, presentations, teamwork, activities, video/audio materials and projects.

Global Health 390-0-27 – Global Circulations and Human Health

Human beings and human parts/products are on the move across the globe, shaped by inequities that drive poor health outcomes for many involved in these circulations. More human beings are being forced from their homes than ever before in history; more and more are being turned away as they seek resettlement. Global economic migration is poorly regulated and rife with exploitation. The flow of human organs for transplantation increasingly moves from the poor in the Global South to the rich in the Global North. Even the production of human babies through international surrogacy is driven by economic inequities. This course examines the role of advocacy, law, politics and ethics to preserve dignity and health as human beings and human parts increasingly circulate across global boundaries.

Global Health 390-0-28 – Infectious Disease Eradications & Outbreak Control

Despite many efforts across several diseases spanning decades and billions of dollars, global health actors have only been able to eradicate one infectious human disease: smallpox. Why? This course will attempt to answer this question by examining several failed and continuing disease eradication efforts through a multidisciplinary lens. Case studies will include smallpox, malaria, polio, measles, and hypothetical emerging infectious diseases. We will examine the grandiose global health goal of total disease eradication in relation to sociopolitical realities that limit the applications of idealized technological interventions.

Global Health 390-0-31 – International Public Health

This course introduces students to pressing disease and health care problems worldwide and examines efforts currently underway to address them. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the course identifies the main actors, institutions, practices and forms of knowledge production characteristic of what we call "global health" today, and explores the environmental, social, political and economic factors that shape patterns and experiences of illness and healthcare across societies. We will scrutinize the value systems that underpin specific paradigms in the policy and science of global health and place present-day developments in historical perspective. Key topics will include: policies and approaches to global health governance and interventions, global economies and their impacts on public health, medical humanitarianism, global mental health, maternal and child health, pandemics (HIV/AIDS, Ebola, H1N1, Swine Flu), malaria, food insecurity, health and human rights, and global health ethics.

Global Health 390-032 – Global Epidemics

From modern pandemics such as Ebola and COVID-19, to ancient scourges such as leprosy and the plague, epidemics have shaped human history. In turn, the response of human societies to infectious disease threats have varied wildly in time and across cultures. We are currently living such an event, and experiencing in dramatic fashion how disease reshapes society. This course will cover several prominent global epidemic episodes, examining the biology of the disease, epidemic pathways, sociopolitical responses and public health measures, and the relationship between the scientific and the cultural consequences of these outbreaks.

Global Health 390-0-33 – Inequities in Humanitarian Intervention

This course analyzes humanitarian responses to complex international humanitarian crises which have impacted both domestic and international communities. Case studies will address a wide range of issues including: natural disasters, refugee and migrant health, gendered violence, war and healthcare, and reproductive health. We focus on the relationship between global health actors and persistent inequities in aid and social protections. We will confront "real-life questions" related to proposed solutions for global health challenges, including: What frameworks do we use to advocate for and implement equitable global health programs in crisis situations? What are the ethical challenges involved in interventions designed to improve health equity across cultural and geographical boundaries, especially those serving vulnerable populations? How do we negotiate the historical, political, and cultural structures that reinforce inequity around the globe?

Global Hlth 201-0-20 – Intro to Global Health

This course introduces students to pressing disease and health care problems worldwide and examines efforts currently underway to address them. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the course identifies the main actors, institutions, practices and forms of knowledge production characteristic of what we call "global health" today, and explores the environmental, social, political and economic factors that shape patterns and experiences of illness and healthcare across societies. We will scrutinize the value systems that underpin specific paradigms in the policy and science of global health and place present-day developments in historical perspective. Key topics will include: policies and approaches to global health governance and interventions, global economies and their impacts on public health, medical humanitarianism, global mental health, maternal and child health, pandemics (HIV/AIDS, Ebola, H1N1, Swine Flu), malaria, food insecurity, health and human rights, and global health ethics.

Global Hlth 222-0-20 – The Social Determinants of Health

This seminar in medical anthropology examines the role of social markers of difference including race, class, nationality, gender, sexuality, age and religion in current debates and challenges in the theory and practice of global health. We will explore contemporary illness experiences and therapeutic interventions in sociocultural and historical context through case studies from the US, Brazil, and South Africa. Students will be introduced to key concepts such as embodiment, medicalization, structural violence, the social determinants of health, and biopolitics. Central questions of the seminar include: How do social categories of difference determine disease and health in individuals and collectivities? How is medical science influenced by economic and political institutions and by patient mobilization? How does social and economic inclusion/exclusion govern access to treatment as well as care of the self and others? The course will provide advanced instruction in anthropological and related social scientific research methods as they apply to questions of social inequality and public health policy in both the United States and in emerging economic powers. The course draws from historical accounts, contemporary ethnographies, public health literature, media reports, and films. Fulfills Area III (Social and Behavioral Sciences) distribution requirement.

Global Hlth 302-0-20 – Global Bioethics

Global health is a popular field of work and study for Americans, with an increasing number of medical trainees and practitioners, as well as people without medical training, going abroad to volunteer in areas where there are few health care practitioners or resources. In addition, college undergraduates, as well as medical trainees and practitioners, are going abroad in increasing numbers to conduct research in areas with few healthcare resources. But all of these endeavors, though often entered with the best of intentions, are beset with ethical questions, concerns, and dilemmas, and can have unintended consequences. In this course, students will explore and consider these ethical challenges. In so doing, students will examine core global bioethical concerns - such as structural violence - and core global bioethical codes, guidelines, and principals - such as beneficence and solidarity - so they will be able to ethically assess global health practices in a way that places an emphasis on the central goal of global health: reducing health inequities and inequalities.

Global Hlth 302-0-21 – Global Bioethics

Global health is a popular field of work and study for Americans, with an increasing number of medical trainees and practitioners, as well as people without medical training, going abroad to volunteer in areas where there are few health care practitioners or resources. In addition, college undergraduates, as well as medical trainees and practitioners, are going abroad in increasing numbers to conduct research in areas with few healthcare resources. But all of these endeavors, though often entered with the best of intentions, are beset with ethical questions, concerns, and dilemmas, and can have unintended consequences. In this course, students will explore and consider these ethical challenges. In so doing, students will examine core global bioethical concerns - such as structural violence - and core global bioethical codes, guidelines, and principals - such as beneficence and solidarity - so they will be able to ethically assess global health practices in a way that places an emphasis on the central goal of global health: reducing health inequities and inequalities.

Global Hlth 306-0-1 – Biomedicine and Culture

Biomedicine (aka "Western" or allopathic medicine) is often represented as neutral and ‘scientific'— the opposite of culture. Yet experiences and practices surrounding biomedicine are influenced by culture, history, (infra)structures, and flows of ideas, people and resources. Thus, this course begins with the premise that biomedicine is produced through social processes, and therefore has its own inherent culture(s). The aim of this seminar course is to expose students to the social and cultural aspects of biomedicine through a geographic comparison between select world regions. Focusing on the interrelations between technology, medicine, science, politics, society, religion, power and place, topics covered will include: medical history, learning medicine, rethinking "care", and unexpected aspects of biomedical cultures and practice. Through a focus on the logics by which biomedicine is practiced, we will be able to get into additional depth regarding how race, class, gender, history, and politics shape what medicine gets to be in different contexts, while also understanding how biomedicine converges with political economy, business, bureaucracy, profit, global health, and humanitarianism.

Global Hlth 309-0-1 – Biomedicine and World History

This lecture course uses the Covid-19 pandemic as a point of departure to study the history of global health and biomedicine. We will break the quarter into four segments during which we will consider: 1) the "unification of the globe" by infectious diseases; 2) the role of empires, industries, war, and revolutions in spreading biomedical cultures around the world; 3) the functions played by transnational and global health institutions in different continents; and 4) the growth of the pharmaceutical industry and the narcotics trade. Students will have a chance to apply insights from the readings - about histories of racial segregation, reproductive politics, militarization, and police powers - to the more recent past. Lectures and readings cover all world regions: Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, North America, Asia, Europe, and the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Cross-Listed as History 379-0-20.

Global Hlth 310-1-1 – Maternal Health in the 20th Century

Maternal health, in particular, maternal mortality, is a significant concern in global health, and in this class we will consider the historical roots of two areas of focus on improving maternal health and reducing maternal mortality: women having access to skilled birth attendants and birth control options. We will look at this broad international concern by focusing on the work of one organization in the 1960s-1970s, the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM), by examining their papers, held at the Wellcome Library and Archives in London. We will visit the library the week before classes start and this research will form the basis of the seminar course during the quarter. This class will culminate in a major paper using the primary sources from the ICM research done in London.

Global Hlth 319-0-1 – Trauma and its Afterlives

This course draws on perspectives from anthropology, related social scientific fields, and the humanities to provide a critical introduction to psychological trauma and its increasingly significant place in contemporary global health discourses and agendas. We will explore the history of the concept and its applications in Western literature, science, and medicine; consider the relatively recent construction of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as a diagnostic category and the clinical approaches developed to treat it; and examine the politics and effects of applying the concept abroad through humanitarian psychiatry and/or global mental health projects. Key questions of the course will include: how and why has trauma become one of the most important signifiers of our era—and a key criterion of "victimhood?" What politics and debates have shaped the development and application of the PTSD diagnosis in recent decades? And how have notions of trauma and their varied applications transformed politics, suffering, and care in diverse communities around the world?

Global Hlth 323-0-1 – Global Health from Policy to Practice

This seminar explores global health and development policy ethnographically, from the politics of policy-making to the impacts of policy on global health practice, and on local realities. Going beyond the intentions underlying policy, this course highlights the histories and material, political, economic, and social realities of policy and its application. Drawing on case studies of policy makers, government officials, insurance agents, health care workers, and aid recipients, the course asks: what politics inform which issues become prioritized or codified in global health and development policy, and which do not? How do philosophies and values about "good governance," "best practices," "preparedness," or "economic progress" influence the kinds of policies that are envisioned and/or implemented? How do politics affect global health or medical system governance, and to what effect on the ground? In what ways are policies adapted, adopted, innovatively engaged, or outright rejected by various global health actors, and what does this mean for the challenges that such policies aim to address? Ultimately, what is the relationship between global health politics and global health disparities?

Global Hlth 325-0-1 – History of Reproductive Health

TBD

Global Hlth 337-0-1 – Hazard, Disaster and Society

This course examines how socioeconomic and environmental factors work together to cause hazards and disasters in human society. In this course we learn the main concepts about disaster such as preparedness, vulnerability, resilience, response, mitigation, etc. We learn that a disaster does not have the same effect on everyone (all groups of people), and factors of social inequality such as race, ethnicity, class, and gender, make people more vulnerable to impacts of disasters. Also, this course, with an interdisciplinary perspective, analyzes disasters in the global North and South. This is a discussion-intensive course for advanced undergrad students. The classes are the student-centered with an emphasis on collaborative learning. The class meetings will consist of lecture, discussion, presentations, teamwork, activities, video/audio materials and projects.

Global Hlth 337-0-1 – Hazard, Disaster and Society

This course examines how socioeconomic and environmental factors work together to cause hazards and disasters in human society. In this course we learn the main concepts about disaster such as preparedness, vulnerability, resilience, response, mitigation, etc. We learn that a disaster does not have the same effect on everyone (all groups of people), and factors of social inequality such as race, ethnicity, class, and gender, make people more vulnerable to impacts of disasters. Also, this course, with an interdisciplinary perspective, analyzes disasters in the global North and South. This is a discussion-intensive course for advanced undergrad students. The classes are the student-centered with an emphasis on collaborative learning. The class meetings will consist of lecture, discussion, presentations, teamwork, activities, video/audio materials and projects.

Global Hlth 338-0-1 – Environmental Justice

This course examines how environmental problems reflect and exacerbate social inequality. In this course, we learn the definition of environmental (in)justice; the history of environmental justice; and also examples of environmental justice will be discussed. We will learn about environmental movements. This course has a critical perspective on health disparities in national and international levels. How environmental injustice impacts certain groups more than others and the social and political economic reasons for these injustices will be discussed in this course. This is a discussion-intensive course for advanced undergrad students. The classes are student-centered with an emphasis on collaborative learning. The class meetings will consist of lectures, discussions, presentations, teamwork, activities, video/audio materials and projects.

Global Hlth 340-0-20 – Mental Health and the Arts

This course draws on perspectives from anthropology, related social scientific fields, and the humanities to explore the role of the arts and media narratives in shaping politics and experiences of mental health and illness around the world. We will consider forms of storytelling—including literature, film, and theater—across eras and cultures, tracking shifts in perspectives on normality and pathology and their consequences for the most vulnerable. How does the power of Western psychiatry intersect with that of global media to reinforce reigning paradigms and imperatives for how suffering is to be understood, classified, and experienced? Conversely, what counter-narratives are being produced by artists and their communities? What role can the arts play in individual and collective forms of healing—or in exacerbating pain and grievance? What kinds of voices seem to have power, and which are neglected? Where is the line between cathartic and exploitative representation of trauma and mental illness? How, in short, do the stories we tell about mental illness "get under the skin" and shape forms of suffering and care?

Global Hlth 390-0-19 – Silent but Loud: Negotiating Health

To be "healthy" is a complex obstacle course that many individuals living in certain bodies have to navigate. Black bodies, for example, are often the tied to (un)health because they are stereotyped as in need to be controlled, managed, and "guided" into healthfulness. In the U.S., these narrow stereotypes are just a few of the ways Black bodies get defined. In this course, we will move beyond those restrictive stereotypes, guided by questions such as, "How does culture define health?", "How does the food pipeline affect the health of certain bodies?" and "What does it mean to live in an obesogenic environment?" In this course, we examine the connection between health, culture, food, and environment with a focus on what is silenced and what is loud when generating "fixes" for "diseased" bodies. Silence refers to the disregard and dismissiveness of the narratives and experiences around the oppressions attached to the health of certain bodies. Yet, this silence echoes as Loud when connected to their culture, food, and environment when discussing diseases highlighted in Black bodies such as obesity, hypertension, and diabetes.

Global Hlth 390-0-20 – Remixing Qualitative Methods

In this upper-level course exploring approaches to meld traditional data collection methods with alternative techniques, students will review decolonizing ways that Black/African American individuals have used to reveal their truths and construct and reconstruct images of themselves. Students will explore how these same processes can be applied in public health data collection to be inclusive and validate the methods and ways of knowing that have assisted underserved, underheard, and underrepresented communities in advocating for justice to survive. Course readings will consist of text that provides a critical lens to view qualitative data collection methods through and will include studies in historical and traumatic violence that underscore how people living in Black bodies work to survive by Joy DeGruy and the negotiating processes that Black individuals use to exercise agency and evaluate systemic oppressions that impede how they navigate life as articulated by authors such as Patricia Hill Collins, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Richard Delgado, and Jean Stefancic.

Global Hlth 390-0-21 – International Public Health

This course introduces students to pressing disease and health care problems worldwide and examines efforts currently underway to address them. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the course identifies the main actors, institutions, practices and forms of knowledge production characteristic of what we call "global health" today, and explores the environmental, social, political and economic factors that shape patterns and experiences of illness and healthcare across societies. We will scrutinize the value systems that underpin specific paradigms in the policy and science of global health and place present-day developments in historical perspective. Key topics will include: policies and approaches to global health governance and interventions, global economies and their impacts on public health, medical humanitarianism, global mental health, maternal and child health, pandemics (HIV/AIDS, Ebola, H1N1, Swine Flu), malaria, food insecurity, health and human rights, and global health ethics.

Global Hlth 390-0-23 – Native Nations, Healthcare Systems and U.S. Policy

In the territory currently called the United States of America, healthcare for Native populations is often experienced as a tension between settler colonial domination and activism among Native nations to uphold their Indigenous sovereignty. This reading-intensive, discussion-based seminar will provide students with a complex and in-depth understanding of the historical and contemporary policies and systems created for, by, and in collaboration with Native nations. In order to understand the U.S. government's role and responsibility towards Native nations, we will delve into legal foundations of the trust responsibility and fiduciary obligation of the federal government as outlined in the U.S. Constitution and Supreme Court decisions. To understand how Native nations continuously work within and resist colonial settler systems to exercise their sovereignty, students will examine notable federal and state policies that affect Native health, wellbeing, and (lack of) access to meaningful care.

Global Hlth 390-0-25 – Re-mixing Qualitative Methods

In this upper-level course exploring approaches to meld traditional data collection methods with alternative techniques, students will review decolonizing ways that Black/African American individuals have used to reveal their truths and construct and reconstruct images of themselves. Students will explore how these same processes can be applied in public health data collection to be inclusive and validate the methods and ways of knowing that have assisted underserved, underheard, and underrepresented communities in advocating for justice to survive. Course readings will consist of text that provides a critical lens to view qualitative data collection methods through and will include studies in historical and traumatic violence that underscore how people living in Black bodies work to survive by Joy DeGruy and the negotiating processes that Black individuals use to exercise agency and evaluate systemic oppressions that impede how they navigate life as articulated by authors such as Patricia Hill Collins, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Richard Delgado, and Jean Stefancic.

Global Hlth 390-0-26 – Global Circulations and Human Health

Human beings and human parts/products are on the move across the globe, shaped by inequities that drive poor health outcomes for many involved in these circulations. More human beings are being forced from their homes than ever before in history; more and more are being turned away as they seek resettlement. Global economic migration is poorly regulated and rife with exploitation. The flow of human organs for transplantation increasingly moves from the poor in the Global South to the rich in the Global North. Even the production of human babies through international surrogacy is driven by economic inequities. This course examines the role of advocacy, law, politics and ethics to preserve dignity and health as human beings and human parts increasingly circulate across global boundaries.

Global Hlth 390-0-27 – Native American Health Research and Prevention

Native nations in what is currently the United States are continuously seeking to understand and undertake the best approaches to research and prevention within their communities. This course introduces students to the benefits and barriers to various approaches meant to address negative health outcomes among Native American individuals, groups and communities. This course also demonstrates how harnessing positive social determinants of health can affect broader health status among Native Americans. Important concepts to guide our understanding of these issues will include (settler) colonialism, sovereignty, social determinants of health, asset-based perspectives, and decolonizing research. Students will engage in a reading-intensive, discussion-based seminar, drawing upon research and scholarship from a variety of disciplines including public health, Native American and Indigenous Studies, sociology, history, and medicine.

Global Hlth 390-0-27 – Infectious Disease Eradication and Outbreak Control

Despite many efforts across several diseases spanning decades and billions of dollars, global health actors have only been able to eradicate one infectious human disease: smallpox. Why? This course will attempt to answer this question by examining several failed and continuing disease eradication efforts through a multidisciplinary lens. Case studies will include smallpox, malaria, polio, measles, and hypothetical emerging infectious diseases. We will examine the grandiose global health goal of total disease eradication in relation to sociopolitical realities that limit the applications of idealized technological interventions.

Global Health 390-0-28 – Global Epidemics

From modern pandemics such as Ebola and COVID-19, to ancient scourges such as leprosy and the plague, epidemics have shaped human history. In turn, the response of human societies to infectious disease threats have varied wildly in time and across cultures. We are currently living such an event, and experiencing in dramatic fashion how disease reshapes society. This course will cover several prominent global epidemic episodes, examining the biology of the disease, epidemic pathways, sociopolitical responses and public health measures, and the relationship between the scientific and the cultural consequences of these outbreaks.

Global Hlth 390-0-29 – Global Circulations and Human Health

Human beings and human parts/products are on the move across the globe, shaped by inequities that drive poor health outcomes for many involved in these circulations. More human beings are being forced from their homes than ever before in history; more and more are being turned away as they seek resettlement. Global economic migration is poorly regulated and rife with exploitation. The flow of human organs for transplantation increasingly moves from the poor in the Global South to the rich in the Global North. Even the production of human babies through international surrogacy is driven by economic inequities. This course examines the role of advocacy, law, politics and ethics to preserve dignity and health as human beings and human parts increasingly circulate across global boundaries.

Gnder St 232-0-20 – Sexuality and Society

Co-listed with Soc 232

Gndr St 101-6-20 – Intersectionality: Key Terms in Gender & Sexuality Studies

What does it mean to describe race, gender, sexuality and class as "intersecting" identities or categories? What new forms of knowledge and ways of knowing, political tools and ways of doing politics does this insight make possible? And how can we use these to make sense of and respond to the urgencies of the present moment? In this seminar we will focus on "intersectionality" as a mode of feminist critical inquiry and activist practice (or "critical praxis") forged by Black feminists. As Patricia Hill Collins explains, "The term intersectionality references the critical insight that race, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, nation, ability, and age operate not as unitary, mutually exclusive entities, but as reciprocally constructing phenomena that in turn shape complex social inequalities." Together we will read foundational texts by Collins and other Black feminist scholars and activists to understand and explore this critical insight and the coalitional politics that an intersectional analysis both demands and makes possible. We will pair this work with collective research into ongoing projects that engage this form of Black feminist "critical praxis" to respond to the complex social inequalities exposed and exacerbated in and by this political moment, including Black Lives Matter, the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, and the Poor People's Campaign.

Gndr St 101-6 – Our Bodies Ourselves: The Women's Movement

The U.S. 1970s Women's Health Movement demanded everything from safe birth control on demand to an end to for-profit healthcare. Some participants formed research collectives and published D-I-Y guides to medical knowledge such as the Boston Women's Health Collective's Women and Their Bodies or Carol Downer's A New View of a Woman's Body. Some movement members established battered women's shelters, underground abortion referral services, and feminist health clinics. Others formed local committees and national networks, such as the Committee for Abortion Rights and Against Sterilization Abuse (CARASA) and the National Women's Health Network (NWHN), with the goal of transforming contemporary medical protocols and scientific research agendas. Because many of these local and national groups are still in existence, original movement goals continue to define the parameters of a "women's health" agenda in the present moment. On the other hand, the Women's Health Movement was (and is) a heterogeneous movement. Then, as now, groups with competing ideas about the healthcare needs of women as a group identified as part of same movement. Thus, an examination of historical and current debates over "women's health" is also a means of assessing several distinct, often competing, paradigms of health and disease. Moreover, how we articulate a "women's health agenda" depends on our (often taken-for-granted) ideas about gender, sexuality, and embodiment itself.

GNDR ST 101-6-20 – Coalitional Politics and the Second Wave

As we grapple with the urgencies of the present, what are the politics (and promise) of telling more complex and nuanced stories of the history feminist activism and social change? In this course, we will begin by examining how the "second wave" of feminism, late 1960s-1970s, is being framed in 2021 and explore which projects, groups, and concerns have come to define the "second wave" of feminism in the United States in our collective memory. We then turn to recent histories of the "second wave" that challenge us to reconsider what counts as "feminist politics" during this period. For example, histories that focus on the formation of broad-based coalitions across and between liberation movements around issues of economic justice, reproductive rights, and the right to "self-defense" against both state and interpersonal violence during this period challenge us to expand our conception of feminist activism. As historian Finn Enke argues, recuperating "feminism's deeply questioning, queer, coalitional and anti-imperialist past," demands that we incorporate the "critical insights and knowledges" of labor and welfare rights activists, sex workers and gay liberationists, and Black, Chicana, Puerto Rican and Indigenous liberation movement members as central to the feminist politics of the period.

Gndr St 220-0-20 – Sexual Subjects: Intro to Sexuality Studies

This course is an introduction to the ways humanist scholars over the past thirty or so years have revolutionized our understanding of sexuality not as something we do but rather as an extraordinarily dense, historically contingent way of understanding and controlling human subjectivity. Not sure what that means? Take this class! TRIGGER WARNING: Our conversation will likely venture into areas you have not previously associated with the word "sexuality." Some of it, such as primary sources in which people use vernacular, racist, or sexist terms to describe their own or other people's practices and identities, may be upsetting.

GNDR ST 233-0-20 – Gender, Politics and Philosophy

This class introduces students to a variety of philosophical problems concerning gender and politics. Together, we'll read classic and contemporary texts that examine questions such as: what is gender and how, if it all, does it relate to or differ from sex? What does it really mean to be a woman or a man and are these categories we are born into or categories that we become or inhabit through living in a particular way under specific conditions? Human history all the way up to the present seems to be rife with asymmetrical relations of power that relegate those marked out as women to a subordinate position, what explains this? What would it mean to over turn this state of affairs, and which strategies are most likely to accomplish this task? And to what extent is it possible to grapple with all of the above questions, questions of gender, sex and sexuality, without also, at the very same time, thinking about how they relate to questions of class and race? Readings will include selections from Simone de Beauvoir, Iris Marion Young, Sandra Bartky, bell hooks, Patricia Hill Collins, Judith Butler, Talia Bettcher, and others.

GNDR ST 235-0-20 – Beyond the Binary: Transgender and Race

This course is a 200-level, introductory course that explores racial formation and the boundaries and binaries of gender. This course will overview approaches to understanding gender norms and categories, as well as consider experiences, living, and contestations beyond these binaries. Particularly through reading trans*, genderqueer, and gender nonconforming histories, identities, experiences, and politics, this class will consider the possibilities and problems of categorizing "the beyond." We will discuss shifting conceptualizations of "normal" gender, and what is assumed to defy this "normal" as embedded in the intersecting histories and legacies of race, class, sexuality, nationality, and ability. For instance, what is the relationship between race and gender that specifically shapes and forms the boundaries of gender in the US - both historically and in the contemporary moment? What is the enduring role and stakes of scholarship and discourses in the social sciences, such as anthropology, that seeks to frame the boundaries of gender? How does power in social, cultural, and political arenas impact these discourses? This course aims to recognize and understand these contested histories of gender through the lens of our current moment, and we will consider the potential and limits of visibility, representation, and inclusion that trans activism and liberation, particularly from the legacies of trans of color communities, has continued to challenge within coercive gender systems.

Gnder St 321-0-21 – Medieval Sexuality

Christian theorists were convinced that human sexuality underwent an irreversible debasement as a result of the sin of Adam and Eve. Their negative assessment has remained with us until the present day. This course will grapple with the both the origins of this negative bequest as well as some of the anomalies of the medieval tradition. For example, despite the insistence that heterosexuality was ordained by God, the disparagement of physicality and women led to the institutionalization of clerical celibacy in the West. This, in turn, fostered a gay subculture. Likewise, despite the theoretical insistence on a separation between the sexes that was even present in the afterlife, these same theorists not only praised "virile women," but occasionally celebrated cross-dressing in female saints! This course will examine the institutions and ideas that dominated the construction of gender in the Middle Ages. It will also lend insight into not one, but many "sexualities."

GNDR 321-0-22 – Gender, War and Revolution in the 20th Century

"War is men's business, not ladies'," so we are told in "Gone with the Wind." Catastrophic events in the twentieth century, two world wars, the Russian Revolution, world economic depression, the Nazi counter-revolution and Holocaust, and threat of nuclear war, demolished long standing myths that men go forth and fight in order to protect their women and children, who remain passive and secure at home. In the twentieth century, military strategy and technology blurred the boundaries between war zones and home fronts. Not only did civilian populations become military targets, but the strains of war also exposed them to food shortages, fuel rationing, forced evacuations, and violent death. At the same time, disillusioned soldiers and veterans saw their war experiences through the threat of gender inversions. During the war, women had been mobilized to do men's work. In the 1920s and 1930s, the "new woman" of the century, building on the beginnings of legal equality and the vote, enjoyed greater economic, political, intellectual, and sexual freedoms than their nineteenth century grandmothers and great-grandmothers. If conventional warfare was defined by, and reinforced, traditional notions of masculinity and femininity, did the disruption of those norms mean emancipation for women? Did the war open up utopian hopes for all forms of alternate gender and sexual alignments? Ultimately, was a traditional gendered social order restored after the half century of total war and revolutions? Despite the much touted return to happy domesticity, could the genie of sexual malcontent be ever fully re-contained?

GNDR ST 324-0-21 – U.S. Gay and Lesbian History

This course explores the history of homosexuality as a legible social and cultural category; of lgbt individuals and communities as self-aware social and political actors; and of lgbt and anti-lgbt politics as arenas in which modern Americans have debated fundamental questions about human rights, personal autonomy, and citizenship. We will map the frameworks within which individuals have sought out, enjoyed, and understood sexual activity with others of the same sex; trace the growth of gay and lesbian communities over the course of the twentieth century; and survey the dramatic shifts and turns from the emergence of an organized gay and lesbian political movement to the traumas of the AIDS epidemic and the increasingly bitter fights over lgbtq citizenship and personhood of the last few decades.

Gndr St 331-0-20 – Sociology of Gender and Sexuality

This class will investigate how gender shapes politics and policy, and how these in turn shape gender, with a focus on the United States, placed in comparative and global contexts. Gender is conceptualized as a set of relations, identities and cultural schema, always constituted with other dimensions of power, difference and inequality (e.g., race, class, sexuality, religion, citizenship status). We will analyze the gendered character of citizenship, political participation and representation, social rights and economic rights. We aim to understand gendered politics and policy from both "top down" and "bottom up" perspectives. What do states do, via institutions of political participation and representation, citizenship rights and policies, to shape gender relations? How do gender relations influence the nature of policy and citizenship? How has feminism emerged as a radical challenge to the androcentrism and restricted character of the democratic public sphere? And how has anti-feminism come to be a significant dimension of politics? We expand on conventional conceptions of political participation and citizenship rights to include the grassroots democratic activism that gave birth to modern women's movements. We explore how women's political efforts have given rise to the creation of alternative visions of democracy, social provision and economic participation, as well as reshaping formal politics and policies. And, finally, we will take advantage of the fact that we are in the middle of a Presidential election to examine the gendered aspects of the political landscape in the contemporary United States.
The course readings feature different types of materials - original documents, scholarly books and articles, a textbook, policy reports, popular non-fiction work on aspects of gender, policy, politics and society. These are supplemented by films and online resources.

Gndr St 332-0-20 – Reproductive Health/Politics/Justice

As feminist scholar Michelle Murphy points out, "reproduction is not self-evidently a capacity located in sexed bodies"; it is instead a site (or formation) that joins, "cells, protocols, bodies, nations, capital, economics, freedom, and affect as much as sex and women into its sprawl." Thus, she reminds us, "how we constitute reproduction shapes how it can be imagined, altered and politicized." In this research seminar we will explore the changing contours of "reproductive politics" from the 1960s to the present through an in-depth investigation of a range of projects and organizations that conceptually reimagine what we mean by "reproduction," the scope and content of "reproductive politics," and the kinds of demands that can be made in the name of reproductive health, rights, freedom and justice. In addition to course materials, our collective research into this topic will be informed by (guided) archival research in Special Collections, on-campus lecture by Prof. Premilla Nadasen (1/30), and class visitors working on related projects in the Chicago area.

Gndr St 332-0-20 – Black Feminist Health Science Studies

Black feminist health science studies is a critical intervention into a number of intersecting arenas of scholarship and activism, including feminist health studies, contemporary medical curriculum reform conversations and feminist technoscience studies. We argue towards a theory of Black feminist health science studies that builds on social justice science, which has as its focus the health and well-being of marginalized groups. Students will engage feminist science theories that range from explorations of the linguistic metaphors of the immune system, the medicalization of race, to critiques of the sexual binary. We will use contemporary as well as historical moments to investigate the evolution of "scientific truth" and its impact on the U.S. cultural landscape.

Gndr St 332-0-21 – Health, Activism, Gender, Sexuality and Health

How do conceptions of "health" relate to ideological assumptions about gender, sexuality, and race? In this course we will explore these questions through a close examination of historic and current activist movements that have attempted to challenge contemporaneous conceptions of health and models of disease. Case studies will include the 1970s-era Women's Health Movement(s), including an examination of its relationship to the 19th century Birth Control Movement and its transformation with the emergence of a Reproductive Justice Movement in the 1990s; AIDS activismfrom beginning of the AIDS crisis and the formation of ACT UP to present activist campaigns that contest both the inequitable distribution of medical knowledge and resources and the (bio)medicalization of "sexual health"; the several strands of breast cancer activism that emerged in the 1990s and the increasing overlap between breast cancer activismand current environmental activism; mental health activism and its evolution in response to the rise of psychopharmacology; and current trans activism which critiques both the diagnostic categories and medical protocols that institutionalize the gender binary and the production of what Dean Spade refers to as "an inequitable distribution of life chances." In each case, we will consider how activists frame the problem, the tactics they use to mobilize a diverse group of social actors around the problem, and their success in creating a social movement that challenges contemporary medical models and the ideological assumptions that inform them. The course also introduces students to recent interdisciplinary scholarship on social movements.

GNDR ST 332-0-22 – Reproductive Justice Activism in Chicago

TBD

Gndr St 340-0-20 – Gender, Sexuality and the Law

This class offers an introduction to the relationship between gender, sexuality, and law in the United States, both historically and currently. We will examine how the law has reflected and created distinctions on the basis of gender and sexuality and how such distinctions contribute to social inequalities. We will also explore how feminist and queer activists have resisted legally produced inequalities and whether (or how) their efforts have created enduring social change. Some of the topics we will consider include marriage, sex work, reproduction, employment and the workplace, anti-violence movements, consent, and everyday forms of discrimination.

Gndr St 341-0-21 – Trans Surgeries in Transnational Contexts

This course is situated at the intersection of theoretical, cultural, medical, and commercial online discourses concerning the burgeoning Gender Affirmation-related surgeries presented online and conducted in Thailand. Using Gender, Queer, Trans, Asian American, and Digital Humanities Theories, we will discuss the cross-cultural intersections, dialogues, refusals, and adaptions when thinking about medical travel to Thailand for gender/sex related surgeries. We will examine Thai cultural/historical conceptions of sex and gender, debates concerning bodies and diagnoses, and changes in presentations of sex/gender related surgeries offered online. We will also explore how digital archives are created and managed. Investigating transcripts of live interviews, medical discourses, and an archive of web images offering GAS surgeries produced by Thais for non-Thais will serve as axes for investigating this topic. Co-listed at Asian Am St 360-0-21

GNDR ST 341-0-23 – Transnational Feminist Performance

This course considers transnational feminist debates through the lens of global performance art practices. It traces feminist discourse amongst self-articulated global, "third world," and women of color feminists and considers how these discussions are mobilized, illustrated, and complicated by performance practices. Course meetings will include reading theoretical texts, watching performance documentation, and doing body-based performance exercises. Each week, we will discuss nuanced thematic tensions within transnational feminisms, including erasure within feminist lineages, binaried gender construction and essentializing feminisms, the relationship between gender and coloniality, the figuring of sexuality into feminist discourse, and the role of visuality and representation within transnational feminist aesthetics. Readings will be illuminated and made further complex by performances addressing political issues across Morocco, Puerto Rico, Guatemala, Nigeria, South Africa, Japan, and Cuba. This course engages the politics of embodiment as a method for critical inquiry. Thus, we will utilize performance exercises as a form of research. This course will provide students with an introduction to transnational femininist lineages, practice in performance analysis, and an entrance into embodied/performance practices.

GNDR ST 350-4-20 – Coalitional Politics in the Second Wave

In recent years, the "second wave" of feminism has increasingly been conflated with "white, middle-class feminism" and critiqued as an exclusionary form of feminist politics in contrast to the more intersectional feminist politics of the "third" and "fourth" waves of feminism. Numerous historians of the period have challenged us to reconsider this claim, which elides "feminism's deeply questioning, queer, coalitional and anti-imperialist past" and risks missing "some ways that feminist, lesbian, and queer of color and trans activists grappled hard to develop critical insights and knowledges that move us today" , Enke 2018. In this course, we will begin by examining how the "second wave" of feminism is being framed in 2021 and explore which projects, groups, and concerns have come to define the "second wave" of feminism in the United States in our collective memory. We then turn to recent histories of the "second wave" that challenge us to reconsider what counts as "feminist politics" during this period. For example, histories that focus on the formation of broad-based coalitions across and between liberation movements around issues of economic justice, reproductive rights, and the right to "self-defense" against both state and interpersonal violence during this period, challenge us to expand our conception of feminist activism. In the process, they require us to incorporate the "critical insights and knowledges" of labor and welfare rights activists, sex workers and gay liberationists, Black, Chicana, Puerto Rican and Indigenous liberation movement members as central to the feminist politics of the period. As we grapple with the urgencies of the present, what are the politics (and promise) of telling more complex and nuanced stories of activism and social change?

Gndr St 361-0-21 – Illness and Feminity: Fictions and Facts

Ill women are scattered across the pages of literature, from swooning ladies in sentimental novels to cancer patients in popular fiction. Illness acts as narrative momentum, as a metaphor for social "ills," and as a signifier of tragic virtue in an individual character. From the 19th century to the present, this class will examine how the tropes of illness in popular literature pertains to our broader cultural assumptions about illness and gender. How do traits associated with femininity resemble literary representations of illness, and vice-versa? How have these associations changed over time? How has the construction of ill femininity been bound up in whiteness, and how has this contributed to systemic and medical racism? What is the relationship between the representation of ill femininity and contemporary "wellness culture"? How might we locate or analyze femininity in representations of ill men? What about mental illness? Our readings will be split between popular representations of illness in novels and writings by ill authors, and we will consider how literary tropes are or are not reappropriated by the latter. -- Readings Include: Anonymous, The Woman of Colour (1808); Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813); Katherine Anne Porter, Pale Horse, Pale Rider (1939); Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower (1993); David Chariandy, Soucouyant (2007). We will also read personal essays, poetry, portions of memoirs, or short stories by authors including Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Eula Biss, Anne Anlin Cheng, Suleika Jaouad, Audre Lorde, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, and Michelle Zauner.

GNDR ST 363-0-20 – Postcolonial Studies and Gender and Sexuality

What is indigeneity and how can it help us rethink gender and sexual non/normativity? In what ways current notions and identities such as queer and trans* are expansive yet reductive to approach the experiences of Indigenous and Native people? This course critically explores Indigenous ways of knowing in the Americas in contrast to traditional views of gender and sexuality. By introducing and relying on decoloniality as a practice and form of analysis, the focus of this course will be two-fold: 1. We will analyze how contemporary understandings of gender and sexuality are contested by indigeneity across time, and how they operate within colonial processes and legacies; 2. We will focus on the ways scholars from Indigenous and Native Studies have theorized gender and sexual non-normativity in relation and in response to scholars in Queer and Trans Studies. As we move across several communities and geographical spaces, students will engage in tandem with primary and secondary sources including first person accounts, films, short literary texts, performance pieces, and historical, ethnographic, and theoretical works. Overall, students will develop skills in written, performance, and theoretical analysis while expanding their knowledge on gender and sexual minorities beyond western epistemologies. Students will complete written assignments, a short presentation, and a final project.

Gndr St 371-0-20 – Mixed Race Genders and Sexualities in Popular Culture

Gnder St 374-0-0 – Imagining the Internet: Fiction, Film, Theory

Much recent fiction, film and theory are concerned with representing the internet and the World Wide Web. Sometimes cyberspace is depicted as a continuation of previous media such as television, cinema or telephone, but often it is envisioned as a new frontier. This course will examine the ways in which virtual media appears in cultural discourses. We consider how technological objects and tools participate in shaping elements of our culture that may appear natural, logical, or timeless. Our guiding questions will include the following: In what ways are these narratives shaping collective perceptions of the internet? How have virtual technologies challenged experiences of language, gender, community and identity? We will focus on social networking, gaming, artificial intelligence, and literary and filmic representations of these. Following a Cultural Studies model for inquiry, this course will be project-based and experiential. Your attendance and participation are mandatory. No experience needed, only a willingness to take risks and share work.

Gndr St 374-0-20 – Imaging the Internet, Gender, Sexuality and Digital Technologies

Much recent fiction, film and theory are concerned with representing the internet and the World Wide Web. Sometimes cyberspace is depicted as a continuation of previous media such as television, cinema or telephone, but often it is envisioned as a new frontier. This course will examine the ways in which virtual media appears in cultural discourses. We consider how technological objects and tools participate in shaping elements of our culture that may appear natural, logical, or timeless. Our guiding questions will include the following: In what ways are these narratives shaping collective perceptions of the internet? How have virtual technologies challenged experiences of language, gender, community and identity? We will focus on social networking, gaming, artificial intelligence, and literary and filmic representations of these. Following a Cultural Studies model for inquiry, this course will be project-based and experiential. Your attendance and participation are mandatory. No experience needed, only a willingness to take risks and share work.

Gndr St 374-0-20 – Imagining the Internet

Much recent fiction, film and theory are concerned with representing the internet and the World Wide Web. Sometimes cyberspace is depicted as a continuation of previous media such as television, cinema or telephone, but often it is envisioned as a new frontier. This course will examine the ways in which virtual media appears in cultural discourses. We consider how technological objects and tools participate in shaping elements of our culture that may appear natural, logical, or timeless. Our guiding questions will include the following: In what ways are these narratives shaping collective perceptions of the internet? How have virtual technologies challenged experiences of language, gender, community and identity? We will focus on social networking, gaming, artificial intelligence, and literary and filmic representations of these. Following a Cultural Studies model for inquiry, this course will be project-based and experiential. Your attendance and participation are mandatory. No experience needed, only a willingness to take risks and share work.

Gndr St. 220-0-20 – Sexual Subjects: Into to Sexuality Studies

This course is an introduction to the kinds of questions and hypotheses around which the interdisciplinary field of sexuality studies has coalesced over the past thirty or so. Topics include the history of sexuality as a social category, the ways sexuality intersects with other important social categories such as race and class, the ways individuals from different social groups understand and experience their sexuality, and the ways different social movements have organized around or in response to demands for sexual liberation or exploration.

Gndr St. 332-0-20 – Health Activism, Gender, Sexuality and Health

Issues of health and disease have been inextricably entangled with politics this last year. Scientific recommendations, public health mandates, and the role of institutions from the CDC and the FDA to the WHO have been subject to heated debate and partisan politics. Meanwhile, the pandemic has made newly visible and further exacerbated ongoing health disparities within the U.S. and globally. Simultaneously, demands for "healing justice" (Black Lives Matter), the "freedom to thrive" (BYP 100) and the "right to live" (Poor People's Campaign) articulate a politics that reconceptualize "health" and "healing" as urgent liberation projects, building on a tradition of radical health activism in the U.S. since the 1960s. To make sense of this moment, we examine this tradition of radical health activism, which often targeted these same institutions in their efforts to transform healthcare in the U.S., to eliminate ongoing health disparities, and to challenge the contemporaneous ideological assumptions about gender, sexuality, race, and class that inform (and are often used to justify) these disparities. We begin with AIDS activist Sarah Shulman's recent political history of ACT UP, Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP New York, 1987-1993 (2021), which also functions as a primer for how to build a health activist social movement able to respond to pandemic conditions, and pair this with Shulman's ACT UP Oral History Project and online collections of archival materials from ACT UP actions. Importantly, both Shulman and the AIDS activists she interviews attribute the success of ACT UP to members' use of tactics and strategies they learned as participants in earlier forms of health activism--in establishing community health centers and free clinics during the Civil Rights Movement, in Black Panther Party "survival programs," in setting up underground abortion services pre-Roe v Wade and in the broader feminist health and reproductive rights movements, and in defense campaigns to secure the rights of those incarcerated in prisons and mental health institutions. In our second unit, we explore each of these earlier movements, beginning with participants' accounts collected in the ACT UP Oral History Project, and then through recent histories of each movement and related online archival collections and collections of activist ephemera from each housed in Northwestern's Special Collections. In our third unit, we make use of this history of radical health activism to explore the politics of the present and to examine current movements that build on and carry forward these legacies.

Gndr St. 332-0-20 – Disability Justice: Feminism and Social Change

Why should we consider disability justice as a central principle of contemporary feminist thought? As disability studies increasingly ground feminist work, new depths of understanding around embodiment, freedom, and human dignity develop from and return to social justice action globally, nationally, and here in the Chicago region. Students in this course will study disability justice as feminist practice in conversation with Chicago-based thinkers and organizers.

Gndr St. 332-0-24 – Race, Gender, Sex and Science

What is the scientific status of our ideas about race? How are medical and legal ideas invoked in determinations about people's gender identities? Overall, how do developments in the life sciences affect our understandings of who we are, how we differ, and how social inequalities are created, perpetuated, and challenged? This seminar explores how scientific claims and technological developments help transform cultural understandings of race, gender, and sexuality. Conversely, we will consider how cultural beliefs about race, gender, and sexuality influence scientific knowledge and medical practice. We will take up a series of controversies from the recent past and present to explore the dynamic interplay between expert findings, social identities, and political arguments.

Gndr St. 341-0-20 – Trans-Related Medical Surgeries in Thailand

This course is situated at the intersection of theoretical, cultural, medical, and commercial online discourses concerning the burgeoning Gender Affirmation-related surgeries presented online and conducted in Thailand. Using Gender, Queer, Trans, Asian American, and Digital Humanities Theories, we will discuss the cross-cultural intersections, dialogues, refusals, and adaptions when thinking about medical travel to Thailand for gender/sex related surgeries. We will examine Thai cultural/historical conceptions of sex and gender, debates concerning bodies and diagnoses, and changes in presentations of sex/gender related surgeries offered online. We will also explore how digital archives are created and managed. Investigating transcripts of live interviews, medical discourses, and an archive of web images offering GAS surgeries produced by Thais for non-Thais will serve as axes for investigating this topic.

Gndr St. 350-3-1 – Reproductive Health, Politics and Justice

How do conceptions of "health" relate to ideological assumptions about gender, sexuality, and race? In this course we will explore these questions through a close examination of historic and current activist movements that have attempted to challenge contemporaneous conceptions of health and models of disease. Case studies will include the 1970s-era Women's Health Movement(s), including an examination of its relationship to the 19th century Birth Control Movement and its transformation with the emergence of a Reproductive Justice Movement in the 1990s; AIDS activism from beginning of the AIDS crisis and the formation of ACT UP to present activist campaigns that contest both the inequitable distribution of medical knowledge and resources and the (bio)medicalization of "sexual health"; the several strands of breast cancer activism that emerged in the 1990s and the increasing overlap between breast cancer activism and current environmental activism; mental health activism and its evolution in response to the rise of psychopharmacology; and current trans activism which critiques both the diagnostic categories and medical protocols that institutionalize the gender binary and the production of what Dean Spade refers to as "an inequitable distribution of life chances." In each case, we will consider how activists frame the problem, the tactics they use to mobilize a diverse group of social actors around the problem, and their success in creating a social movement that challenges contemporary medical models and the ideological assumptions that inform them. The course also introduces students to recent interdisciplinary scholarship on social movements.

Gndr St. 352-0-20 – Intro to Foucalt, Gender, Sexuality and Political Theory

This course offers an overview of the work of one of the most influential late-twentieth-century French philosophers, Michel Foucault. Focusing on his studies of madness, sex, the medical gaze, prisons and other disciplinary institutions, the search for truth, knowledge, and liberation, students will gain an understanding of Foucault's most important concepts - concepts that over the last four decades have become central categories of inquiry and critique in the arts, humanities, and social sciences. These include archaeology, discipline, biopolitics, power-knowledge, resistance, governmentality, and genealogy. The course is reading intensive. In addition to weekly excerpts, you should plan to read two of Foucault's major texts throughout the quarter.

Gndr St. 371-0-21 – New Media, Gender and Race

This seminar course examines the ways that gender and race repeatedly inform the design, marketing, and use of new media and technology in an Anglo American (US and Canada) context. Although we often think of new media as synonymous with the internet and digital technology, this course will navigate the emergence of various new media from the late 19th century through our current era with an emphasis on gender and race. Working chronologically, this course will highlight key technological innovations including the rise of early cinema, television, and computers. From Black owned ‘picture palaces' in the 1910s to Indigenous women creating VR in the 2010s, this course centers an understanding of women, LGBTQ+, and BIPOC as consistent designers and users of emerging technology.

Each week will center around scholarly and primary source materials that illuminate perspectives on how gender and race informed the dynamic relationship between users and technology. This approach will attune students to the lengthy history of new media and technology and the unique and recurrent debates that emerge. It will also offer students the opportunity to study and apply critical gender and racial theory approaches in a media studies context. Class assessment will draw from current approaches in digital humanities. Students will gain practice navigating web based archives for their research and using web based platforms including Slack, Medium, Canva, Soundcloud, and video sharing platforms to present their ideas and research.

Hist 102-6-20 – Parks and Pipelines: An Indigenous Environmental History

From the building of dams and pipelines to the creation of National Parks and wilderness areas, the environmental history of the United States is deeply tied to its history of colonialism. This seminar explores how the relationship between the United States and Indigenous people has shaped the environments, ecosystems, and physical landscapes we live in today. We will learn how the environment of what is now the United States was managed by Indigenous people before and throughout colonization, how Indigenous people have been impacted by the environmental policies of the United States, and how Indigenous resistance and activism have shaped both the environmental movement in the U.S. as well as contemporary Indigenous political thought. In discussion, we will break down the politics, economics, and ethics of this history, challenging ourselves to think critically about the land we live on and its future.

Hist 103-6-20 – Climate and Weather in History

From the changing seasons, to frigid ice ages, to violent cyclones, to global warming, the phenomena of weather and climate have been crucial sites of interaction between humans and our environments. In this first-year seminar, we will ask: how have climatic changes across space and time shaped human societies, politics, and histories? And how have our ways of explaining and predicting the weather reflected changing approaches to nature's uncertainties? Moving from antiquity to the present, we will study the evolution of meteorological science from the study of meteors' to variable weather,' alongside the conceptual shift from a globe of many 'climates' to a singular, 'global climate.' Using a range of case studies from the Caribbean, Europe, and Asia, and sources including almanacs and weather proverbs, we will explore how in different ways across geographies and cultures, climate functioned both as a force of history and as an object of scientific fascination. By the end of the course, students will be able to situate the current climate crisis in an age many scholars call the Anthropocene, within a centuries-long history of adaptations and negotiations with our planet's atmosphere, and with one another.

Hist 200-0-20 – Black Death

The Black Death refers to the first visitation of the bubonic plague in the fourteenth century. It was the greatest single demographic calamity in recorded history: between 1346 and 1353, the population in affected areas was depleted by as much as 60%. The plague was a true pandemic which reverberated throughout the world. This course will use the bubonic plague as a jumping off point for the study of other pandemics, analyzing the social and environmental factors that account for the spread of a given disease; efforts to understand and vanquish it; and the ultimate impact on society. The manner in which different diseases spread reflect important aspects of world history. For instance, the spread of the Black Death was dependent on the revival of long-distance trade; smallpox was spread throughout the "new world" by both territorial conquest and the human trafficking in slaves; cholera, which was transmitted infected water, was (and is) representative of poor hygiene and abject poverty - factors that were often class related. Other diseases, like tuberculosis, were (and are) often indicative of poor working conditions. As the recent outbreak of cholera in Haiti attests, many of these diseases have never been eradicated, even as new ones continue to wreak havoc. The course will conclude with an examination of the AIDS virus and ongoing outbreaks of Ebola.

Hist 200-0-22 – History of Theory and Information

We live in an information age, with computers of unprecedented power in our pockets. This course seeks to understand how information shapes our lives today, and how it has in the past. It does so via an interdisciplinary inquiry into four key information and communication technologies, print, telegraphy, broadcast radio/TV, and the internet, to understand the origins, development, and impacts of information in society. It will be jointly taught by faculty in Communication Studies and History.

HIST 250-1-20 – Global History: Early Modern to Modern Transition

TBD

Hist 275-1 – History of Western Science and Medicine: Origins in Early Modern Europe

Origins of science and medicine in early modern Europe; science, religion, and cosmology; anatomy and sexual difference; the Enlightenment and social science.

History 275.2 – History of Western Science and Medicine: In Modern Europe and America

Science has profoundly shaped the world we live in: it impacts the food we eat, our interactions with one another, the ways in which we relate to our bodies, the manner of our travel and communication, and our personal views of humanity's place in the universe. Over the course of the modern period, science has earned widespread authority as objective knowledge about the natural world. Yet as most scientists today will freely admit, decisions about which research questions earn attention (and funding) and how research is carried out are influenced by powerful institutions, political considerations, business interests, technological changes, imperialism, and societal expectations. Science is, after all, a human activity. With this lesson in mind, our course surveys the history of science from the Enlightenment until the Cold War, in a series of overlapping units examining medicine, physics, biology, and earth sciences. We will be guided by questions including: What counted as science in different times and places? How did scientific researchers earn a living, and which institutions supported them, or didn't? Above all, what changing values has science reflected over the course of the modern period?

Hist 292-0-20 – Witches, Heretics and Demons: The Inquistion in the New World

TBD

Hist 292-0-20 – Witches, Heretics and Demons

The Inquisition is one of the most infamous and misunderstood institutions in the early modern world. This seminar examines some of the myths and debates surrounding the working of its tribunals and their impact on society, with special emphasis on the practices, experiences, and worldviews of ordinary subjects. How have the records of the Inquisition been used to reconstruct the histories of Jews, African healers, bigamists, homosexuals, and "witches," among others? Participants will pursue their own answers and even construct an alternate archive by which to tell the stories of persecuted figures. Topics include religious tolerance and intolerance; healing and love magic in the Americas; the policing and politics of gender and sexuality; and the lives of Jewish conversos.

HIST 300-0-20 – History of Capitalism

TBD

Hist 300-0-22 – Food in United States History

HIST 300-0-22 – Making of Drugs in the Americas

TBD

HIST 300-0-28 – Second World War in Europe

The Second World War ended centuries of European global preeminence and ushered in a new age dominated by two superpowers, the United States and Soviet Union. The conflict wrought unprecedented destruction on the continent: entire cities were leveled and whole populations decimated. Tens of millions of Europeans perished, the majority of them civilians, but civilians were not only victims, they were also participants in a "total war" for which governments mobilized societies and organized economies to a degree never before seen. This course will examine the Second World War in Europe from its origins in Germany's expansionist aims, through the invasions of Western Europe and the Soviet Union, and on to the conflict's final crescendo in the defeat of Nazism and its denouement in postwar retribution and decolonization. For decades scholars and the general public approached the overall military conflict, individual national wartime histories, and the genocide of Jews and other minority groups as distinct stories that could be told separately. One of the goals of this course is to understand how those developments and the people they touched, and destroyed, were integral and interrelated parts of a single narrative of the Second World War in Europe.

Hist 300-0-30 – Red Power: Indigenous Resistance in the US & Canada

In 2016, thousands of Indigenous water protectors and their non-Native allies camped at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in an effort to block the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. That movement is part of a long history of Native activism. In this course, we will examine the individual and collective ways in which Indigenous people have resisted colonial domination in the U.S. and Canada since 1887. In addition to focusing on North America, we will also turn our attention to Hawai?i and the U.S. territories. This course will highlight religious movements, inter-tribal organizations, key intellectual figures, student movements, armed standoffs, non-violent protest, and a variety of visions for Indigenous community self-determination.

HIST 300-0-30 – Religion and Race in Latin America

TBD

HIST 300-0-32 – Modern Science in the Global South

Science has drawn special authority in modern times from the claim that it represents universal knowledge of nature. But as historians of science over several decades have shown, the theories, methods, and subjects that fit under the umbrella of science have not been always and everywhere the same, not even in Europe and the United States. People have framed questions about nature very differently in different contexts. Moreover, our dominant stories about the development of modern science do not adequately recognize contributions and perspectives from Asia, Africa, and the Americas. What does the history of modern science look like from the Global South? With these challenges in mind, we will tackle a wide range of subjects, including: prediction, ecology, medicine and pharmacy, the scientific revolution, indigeneity, translation, elite and popular science, science fictional imaginaries, and Cold War development. Together, we will generate tools and problems that will broaden the narrative of modern science.

HIST 300-0-34 – Development of American Indian Law and Policy

TBD

HIST 300-0-38 – Arabian Peninsula

TBD

Hist 309-0-20 – American Environmental History

This course will survey American history from the Colonial Era to the present with two premises in mind: that the natural world is not simply a passive background to human history but rather an active participant in historical change, and that human attitudes toward nature are both shaped by and in turn shape social, political, and economic behavior. The course will cover formal schools of thought about the natural world, from Transcendentalism to the conservation and environmental movements, but also discuss the many informal intersections of human activity and natural systems, from European colonialism to property regimes, migration and transportation, industry, consumer practices, war, technological innovation, political ideology, and food production.

Hist 322-2-20 – Development of the Modern American City: 1880-Present

This is the second half of a two-quarter course dealing with urbanization and urban communities in America. The second quarter deals with the period from 1870 onward. Topics include the role of cities in the formation of an industrial society, the influence of immigration and rural-urban migration, racial discrimination, political machines, professional planning, the automobile, electronic media, and the expansion of the federal role in city government. History 322-1 is NOT a prerequisite for 322-2.

Hist 325-0-20 – History of American Technology

We are currently living through a technological revolution that is radically reshaping every aspect of our social world. Yet Americans have long defined themselves and their nation through the material things they own, make, design, and use. This class examines the two-century debate over what America is and should be by studying its technology. Each lecture is organized around the history of a single "representative" technology. The core assignment of the course, guided by a series of workshop sections, is for students to write an original research paper on the social history of an artifact of their choice.... From the telegraph to social media, from the bicycle to the Apollo mission, from the teapot to the Internet of Things, Americans have identified technology as central to their personal and national destiny. We will consider the perspectives of engineers, consumers, managers, factory workers, enslaved people, housewives, and hackers, among others. We will consider the way technology has been shaped by the rise of managerial capitalism, global trade, and intellectual property law. And we will develop a set of tools for analyzing technological change: systems theory, network analysis, evolutionary theory, social construction, and technological determinism. This class treats technology as an expression of social values, and it guides students as they undertake a research project of their own design.

HIST 352-0-20 – Global History of Death and Dying

TBD

Hist 376-0-20 – Global Environments and World History

Environmental problems have become part and parcel of popular consciousness: resources are being depleted at a record pace, human population levels just crossed the seven billion threshold, extreme poverty defines the majority of people's daily lives, toxic contaminants affect all ecosystems, increasing numbers of species face extinction, consumerism and the commodification of nature show no signs of abating, climate changes are wreaking havoc in different places every year, and weapons and energy systems continue to proliferate that risk the planet's viability. This introductory lecture course is designed to help students understand the relatively recent origins of many of these problems, focusing especially on the last one hundred and fifty years. Students will have an opportunity to learn about the environmental effects of urbanization, industrialization, population growth, market economies, empire-building, intercontinental warfare, energy extraction, and new technologies. They will also explore different environmental philosophies and analytic frameworks that help us make sense of historical change, including political ecology, environmental history, science studies, and world history. Finally, the course will examine a range of transnational organizations, social movements, and state policies that have attempted to address and resolve environmental problems. This year, we will also explore questions of environmental health, disease ecologies, spillover events, and Covid-19.

Hist 376-0-20 – Global Enviroments and World History

Environmental problems have become part and parcel of popular consciousness: resources are being depleted at a record pace, human population levels may soon cross the eight billion threshold, extreme poverty defines the majority of people's daily lives, toxic contaminants affect all ecosystems, increasing numbers of species face extinction, consumerism and the commodification of nature show no signs of abating, climate changes are wreaking havoc in different places every year, and weapons and energy systems continue to proliferate that risk the planet's viability. This introductory lecture course is designed to help students understand the relatively recent origins of many of these problems, focusing especially on the last one hundred and fifty years. Students will have an opportunity to learn about the environmental effects of urbanization, industrialization, population growth, market economies, empire-building, intercontinental warfare, energy extraction, and new technologies. They will also explore different environmental philosophies and analytic frameworks that help us make sense of historical change, including political ecology, environmental history, science studies, and world history. Finally, the course will examine a range of transnational organizations, social movements, and state policies that have attempted to address and resolve environmental problems. Co-List with Env Pol 340-0-1

Hist 378 – Law and Science: A History

The changing relations between justice and science-including the forensic sciences of identification and intellectual property in the United Steates and Europe over the past 300 years

Hist 392-0-26 – The History of Predicting the Future

The past and present are shaped in large part by our beliefs about what the future holds. In this seminar, we will investigate human attempts to anticipate events yet to come, from antiquity until the present (but with an emphasis on the period since 1800). How have people in different times and places gone about anticipating the future? What phenomena have gripped their attention: weather, economy, human society, or individual fate? Have their imaginations been utopian, dystopian, or even apocalyptic, and what does that tell us about the historical moment in which they lived? And crucially, what happened when predictions failed?as so often happened? Using a global range of primary and secondary sources, from revealed prophecies and science fiction to genetic codes and financial speculations, we will examine why and how our historical subjects believed the future might be foreseeable. This course fits today's concerns about the future of the environment (notably climate change) and humanity into a long history of decision-making in the face of uncertainty.

Hist 392-0-26 – The Black Death and Historical Plagues

From the Plague of Athens to the final major outbreak of bubonic plague in Marseille in 1720, infectious disease had a profound impact on preindustrial Europe. This course offers an introduction to the study of disease in human history. While it focuses primarily on the cultural, economic, and religious effects of the Black Death and subsequent outbreaks of plague, this course will also cover the plagues of classical antiquity. Specific topics include the biological and environmental conditions which facilitated the spread of plague, the impact of plague on medicine and public health, and the development of new rituals and practices designed to promote community resilience. Throughout this course, there will be a strong emphasis on primary sources and the various ways in which historians have used these to shed light on the impact of disease. We will also discuss how contemporary observers have used these historical events to discuss the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

HIST 393-0-22 – The Natural and Supernatural in Southeast Asia

TBD

Hist 393-0-24 – History of Predicting the Future

The past and present are shaped in large part by our beliefs about what the future holds. In this seminar, we will investigate human attempts to anticipate events yet to come, from antiquity until the present (but with an emphasis on the period since 1800). How have people in different times and places gone about anticipating the future? What phenomena have gripped their attention: weather, economy, human society, or individual fates? Have their imaginations been utopian, dystopian, or even apocalyptic, and what does that tell us about the historical moment in which they lived? And crucially, what happened when predictions failed?as so often happened? Using a global range of primary and secondary sources, from revealed prophecies and science fiction to genetic codes and financial speculations, we will examine why and how our historical subjects believed the future might be foreseeable. This course fits today's concerns about the future of the environment (notably climate change) and humanity into a long history of decision-making in the face of uncertainty.

HIST 395-0-20 – History of Things

This seminar guides students as they research and write the social history of an artifact of their choice. Students will learn multiple approaches to the study of material culture; the diverse ways that people imbue objects with meaning, and how these objects mediate such differences among people as class, race, gender, age, and national culture?as well as the roles of capitalism, state-power, science, and environmental regulation in shaping the kinds of artifacts we design, sell, buy, and use. The student's chosen artifact may hail from any time or place, and exist at almost any scale of "materialization" so long as it can be framed as a research question: from the Atlas V rocket to Raggedy Ann dolls, and from police body cams to computer algorithms.

History 101-7-24 – Scientific Lives - European History

What role has a humanist education played in the lives of scientists and physicians, and how has training in science and medicine fit into a liberal arts curriculum? The chemist/novelist C. P. Snow once claimed that science and literature formed two antagonistic cultures. On one side were scientists who dismissed literature as so much fluff, irrelevant for our technological age. On the other were literary figures like Tolstoy, who condemned science for not answering the all-important question of moral values: "What shall we do and how shall we live?" This course, by contrast, examines at the dialogue between science and literature since World War II. We will read memoirs by scientists, like Primo Levi's "The Periodic Table" and Hope Jahren's "Lab Girl." We will also read fictional portrayals of scientists and physicians, like Bertolt Brecht's "Life of Galileo" and Allegra Goodman's "Intuition." Along the way we will consider how science and the humanities have approached the question of a good education, and how their answers can align—and differ.

History 102-6-20 – Social History of the Internet

This first-year seminar will consider the history of the internet from the mid-twentieth century to the present. This will not be a technical history of the computer science or actual infrastructure that constitute the internet, but rather a history of the social and political ideas contributing to a worldwide system of networked computers and protocols. In particular, the course will discuss the culture surrounding the internet - the ways that the Cold War, the counterculture, libertarianism, and environmentalism all fostered a set of beliefs that helped define Silicon Valley and continue to shape companies that call for revolution one day and place their trust in the market the next.

History 102-8-22 – The Romantic Computer

Modern computers' capacity to converse and create seems far removed from Charles Babbage's calculating machines. Instead, generative AI and popular notions like "the singularity" recall the romantic tradition of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. As this spirit of romanticism increasingly colors our view of technology, we need to revise our understanding of computing's past. Using methodological approaches drawn from across the humanities, this interdisciplinary seminar will investigate aspects of digital history that do not fit neatly into a genealogy of logical machines. By discussing topics—such as internet cults, chatbot sentience, and the AI apocalypse—we will ask how computers came to inhabit their current cultural position. Instead of viewing computing as logic materialized, we will ask how the body, religion, and art became agents of technological change.

History 103-6-22 – Climate and Weather in History

From the changing seasons, to frigid ice ages, to violent cyclones, to global warming, the phenomena of weather and climate have been crucial sites of interaction between humans and our environments. In this first-year seminar, we will ask: how have climatic changes across space and time shaped human societies, politics, and histories? And how have our ways of explaining and predicting the weather reflected changing approaches to nature's uncertainties? Moving from antiquity to the present, we will study the evolution of meteorological science from the study of ‘meteors' to variable ‘weather,' alongside the conceptual shift from a globe of many ‘climates' to a singular, global ‘climate.' Using a range of case studies from the Caribbean, Europe, and Asia, and sources including almanacs and weather proverbs, we will explore how in different ways across geographies and cultures, climate functioned both as a force of history and as an object of scientific fascination. By the end of the course, students will be able to situate the current climate crisis—in an age many scholars call the Anthropocene—within a centuries-long history of adaptations and negotiations with our planet's atmosphere, and with one another.

History 103-7-26 – Food, Pets, Kin and Threats: Animals in History

This course takes a global and historical approach to the human-animal relationship. How has this relationship changed over time and how has it varied across different world cultures? How do people's attitudes towards animals change when they are classified (or re-classified) as pets, pests, predators, invaders, commodities, entertainment, a source of food, a member of the family? The very same animal - a rat, say - can be viewed as vermin, pets, or experimental test subjects depending on the individual, the culture, the time period, and the place. We will explore a range of topics together such as animal rights, animal breeding, hunting and fishing, vegetarianism, zoos, vivisection, "invasive" species, animals on trial, animals and capitalism, animals and colonialism. Ultimately, the ways that humans relate to (non-human) animals reveals just as much about ourselves as it does about them.

History 200-0-20 – Sickness and Health in Latin Am. and the Carib

In 1492 the New World became a crucible for the exchange of diseases, drugs, and therapies between people of American, European, and African origin. The region has been central in the circulation of medical knowledge and materials ever since. This course traces upheavals in the history of medicine, from contact to the present. A key angle of inquiry will be to consider how global frameworks help make sense of local practice, and how local knowledge informed transnational, hemispheric, and Atlantic developments in public health and medicine. We will also ask what medical practitioners today stand to learn from a chronologically deep, culturally informed understanding of healing and illness. Topics include pre-Columbian medicine and conceptions of the human body; the "Columbian Exchange" of pathogens, animals, and people; the global commodification of American plants and botanical knowledge; Catholic, shamanic, and lay healing frameworks; disease eradication campaigns, including the discovery of the yellow fever vector; and experiments with socialized medicine.

History 200-0-22 – History of the Future

Our world is awash in predictions: climate models and pandemic models, political polls and betting pools, economic forecasts and scenarios for war, plus the ever-approaching AI utopia and/or hellscape. This is hardly new. For millennia, people have been debating what the future holds. They haven't always been right, of course, but even their mistakes tell us a great deal about the times when they were made. Ironically, studying the future is an excellent way to study the past (and reconsider the present). In this course we will learn about 5,000 years of prognosticators, from Mesopotamian astrologers to today's climate scientists. Along the way we will read sci-fi authors and religious millenarians, socialists and Afro-futurists, eugenicists and risk managers. This course will teach you to better assess predictions of things to come. Come explore the alternative worlds of futures past.

History 251-0-20 – The Politics of Disaster: A Global Environmental History

The term "natural disaster" conjures images of tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanoes, and other powerful forces of nature that strike without warning, inflicting massive suffering on a powerless and unsuspecting populace. We now have several decades' worth of research from the social sciences and humanities showing that so-called "natural" disasters are not very natural at all. Instead, they are deeply political and profoundly man-made. This course adopts a historical and global approach in order to denaturalize disaster. From famines in British India to earthquakes in post-colonial Peru, from floods in New Orleans to nuclear disaster in Japan, we will see how disasters expose and exacerbate pre-existing inequalities, inflicting suffering disproportionately among those groups already marginalized by race, class, gender, geography, and age. These inequalities shape not only the impact of the disaster but the range of responses to it, including political critique and retrenchment, relief and rebuilding efforts, memorialization, and planning - or failing to plan - for future disasters of a similar kind. The course culminates in a unit on the contemporary challenge of anthropogenic global climate change, the ultimate man-made disaster. We will consider how memories, fears, and fantasies of past disasters are being repurposed to create new visions of what climate change will look like. Co-listed as Envr Pol 390-0-25

History 251-0-20 – The Politics of Disaster: A Global Environmental History

The term ‘natural disaster' conjures images of tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanoes, and other powerful forces of nature that strike without warning, inflicting massive suffering on a powerless and unsuspecting populace. We now have several decades' worth of research from the social sciences and humanities showing that so-called "natural" disasters are not very natural at all. Instead, they are deeply political and profoundly man-made. This course adopts a historical and global approach in order to denaturalize disaster. From famines in British India to earthquakes in post-colonial Peru, from floods in New Orleans to nuclear disaster in Japan, we will see how disasters expose and exacerbate pre-existing inequalities, inflicting suffering disproportionately among those groups already marginalized by race, class, gender, geography, and age. These inequalities shape not only the impact of the disaster but the range of responses to it, including political critique and retrenchment, relief and rebuilding efforts, memorialization, and planning - or failing to plan - for future disasters of a similar kind. The course culminates in a unit on the contemporary challenge of anthropogenic global climate change, the ultimate man-made disaster. We will consider how memories, fears, and fantasies of past disasters are being repurposed to create new visions of what climate change will look like.

History 275-1 – History of Early Modern Science and Medicine

This course explores the social spaces of science and medicine in early modern Europe during the so-called 'Scientific Revolution.' We will survey the varied and surprising spaces in which scientific and medical knowledge was produced, from princely courts and grand cathedrals to humble artisanal workshops and Europe's overseas colonies. In so doing, we will see how science and medicine intersected with religion, politics, race, gender, and emerging market economies during the first age of European imperialism and globalization.

Hist 275-2 – History of Western Science and Medicine: In Modern Europe and America

Science has profoundly shaped the world we live in: it impacts the food we eat, our interactions with one another, the ways in which we relate to our bodies, the manner of our travel and communication, and our personal views of humanity's place in the universe. Over the course of the modern period, science has earned widespread authority as ?objective' knowledge about the natural world. Yet as most scientists today will freely admit, decisions about which research questions earn attention (and funding) and how research is carried out are influenced by powerful institutions, political considerations, business interests, technological changes, imperialism, and societal expectations. Science is, after all, a human activity. With this lesson in mind, our course surveys the history of science from the Enlightenment until the Cold War, in a series of overlapping units examining medicine, physics, biology, and earth sciences. We will be guided by questions including: What counted as ?science' in different times and places? How did scientific researchers earn a living, and which institutions supported them, or didn't? Above all, what changing values has science reflected over the course of the modern period?

History 275-2-20 – History of Modern Science and Medicine

Science has profoundly shaped the world we live in: it impacts the food we eat, our interactions with one another, the ways in which we relate to our bodies, the manner of our travel and communication, and our personal views of humanity's place in the universe. Over the course of the modern period, science has earned widespread authority as 'objective' knowledge about the natural world. Yet as most scientists today will freely admit, decisions about which research questions earn attention (and funding) and how research is carried out are influenced by powerful institutions, political considerations, business interests, technological changes, imperialism, and societal expectations. Science is, after all, a human activity. With this lesson in mind, our course surveys the history of science from the Enlightenment until the Cold War, in a series of units examining medicine, physics, biology, and earth sciences. We will be guided by questions including: What counted as science in different times and places? How did scientific researchers earn a living, and which institutions supported them, or didn't? Above all, what changing values has science reflected over the course of the modern period?

History 292-0-20 – Energy in American History

TBD

History 292-0-20 – Watching Narcos

Crimes, deeds, and spoils of drug traffickers have saturated pop culture for the last decades becoming valuable raw materials for the entertainment industry. This course is designed for students to identify, trace, and analyze audiovisual productions on the so-called narcos in the Americas in order to understand: (a) the plot devices and aesthetic mechanisms with which cultural producers have commodified history as entertainment; and (b) the effects of these types of narratives and imageries in the creation of historical understandings regarding one of the most challenging problems of our times. We accomplish these objectives by watching films, telenovelas and TV shows; reading selected works of history, sociology, anthropology, and journalism (film criticism in particular); and using the tools and technologies of digital humanities in a series of individual and collaborative projects. The ultimate goal is to produce together an open-access digital repository on drug history as entertainment in the Americas.

History 300-0-20 – History of American Medicine

Why does American medicine look the way it does? The United States spends more on health care than any other country in the world, but is almost singular in its lack of universal health care. American medicine is at once distinguished by its capacity for research and innovation and by its inability to resolve the profound health inequalities that shape this country. Which historical processes produced this unique set of circumstances? When and how have activists, patients, and politicians agitated for change? What alternate futures might we imagine? This course traces the history of American medicine from the nation's founding to the present day. We will learn about the formation of the medical profession, track changing understandings of health and disease, discuss the development of drugs and medical technologies, and investigate the role of professional organizations in combatting efforts to nationalize healthcare. At the same time, we will hear about efforts to reform American medicine in the name of anti-racism, gender equality, decolonization, disability rights, and social justice. By studying these complex histories, we will ask questions about the relationship between health, power, bodies, and knowledge and consider what it has meant to provide care and pursue health throughout American history.

History 300-0-32 – History and Theory of Information

We live in an information age, with computers of unprecedented power in our pockets. This course seeks to understand how information shapes our lives today, and how it has in the past. It does so via an interdisciplinary inquiry into four technological infrastructures of information and communication—print, wires, airwaves, and bits.

History 303-2-20 – American Women's History, Since 1965

This course explores the history of women in the United States from 1865 to the present. Adopting an intersectional approach, we will examine women's changing roles as wage earners, mothers, and activists. We will also investigate how prevailing ideas about race, gender, work, and the family have shaped women's lives.

History 309-0-20 – American Environmental History

This course will survey American history from the Colonial Era to the present with two premises in mind: that the natural world is not simply a passive background to human history but rather an active participant in historical change, and that human attitudes toward nature are both shaped by and in turn shape social, political, and economic behavior. The course will cover formal schools of thought about the natural world—from Transcendentalism to the conservation and environmental movements—but also discuss the many informal intersections of human activity and natural systems, from European colonialism to property regimes, migration and transportation, industry, consumer practices, war, technological innovation, political ideology, and food production.

History 309-0-20 – American Environmental History

This course will survey American history from the Colonial Era to the present with two premises in mind: that the natural world is not simply a passive background to human history but rather an active participant in historical change, and that human attitudes toward nature are both shaped by and in turn shape social, political, and economic behavior. The course will cover formal schools of thought about the natural world—from Transcendentalism to the conservation and environmental movements—but also discuss the many informal intersections of human activity and natural systems, from European colonialism to property regimes, migration and transportation, industry, consumer practices, war, technological innovation, political ideology, and food production.

History 309-0-20 – American Environmental History

This course will survey American history from the Colonial Era to the present with two premises in mind: that the natural world is not simply a passive background to human history but rather an active participant in historical change, and that human attitudes toward nature are both shaped by and in turn shape social, political, and economic behavior. The course will cover formal schools of thought about the natural world—from Transcendentalism to the conservation and environmental movements—but also discuss the many informal intersections of human activity and natural systems, from European colonialism to property regimes, migration and transportation, industry, consumer practices, war, technological innovation, political ideology, and food production.

History 322-2-20 – Development of the Modern Amercian City

This is the second half of a two-quarter course dealing with urbanization and urban communities in America. The second quarter deals with the period from 1870 onward. Topics include the role of cities in the formation of an industrial society, the influence of immigration and rural-urban migration, racial discrimination, political machines, professional planning, the automobile, electronic media, and the expansion of the federal role in city government. History 322-1 is NOT a prerequisite for 322-2.

History 325-0-20 – History of American Technology

We are currently living through a technological revolution that is radically reshaping every aspect of our personal and collective lives. In a sense, however, this is nothing new: Americans have long defined themselves and their nation through changes in the material things they own, make, design, use, and trash. This class examines the debate over what America is and should be by studying its technology. Each lecture is organized around the history of a representative artifact, offering a new perspective on canonical episodes and themes in American history—and theories of technological change—right up to the present day. From the telegraph to social media, from the bicycle to SpaceX, from typing pools to algorithmic AI, Americans have identified technology as central to their personal and national destiny. The course's "flipped classroom" approach is echoed by its core assignment, in which students write an original research paper on the social history of an artifact of their choice. They will do so guided by weekly workshop-sections which walk them through the research and writing process. The course poses the question "Do artifacts have politics?" and if so, of what sort?

History 376-0-20 – Global Environments and World History

Environmental problems are today part and parcel of popular consciousness: resources are being depleted at a record pace, human population levels have crossed the seven billion threshold, extreme poverty defines the majority of people's daily lives, toxic contaminants affect all ecosystems, increasing numbers of species face extinction, consumerism and the commodification of nature show no signs of abating, and weapons and energy systems continue to proliferate that risk the planet's viability. This introductory lecture course is designed to help students understand the relatively recent origins of many of these problems, focusing especially on the last one hundred and fifty years. Students will have an opportunity to learn about the environmental effects of urbanization, industrialization, population growth, market economies, empire-building, intercontinental warfare, energy extraction, and new technologies. They will also explore different environmental philosophies and analytic frameworks that help us make sense of historical change, including political ecology, environmental history, science studies, and global history. Finally, the course will examine a range of transnational organizations, social movements, and state policies that have attempted to address and resolve environmental problems.

History 376-0-20 – Global Environments and World History

Environmental problems have become part and parcel of popular consciousness: resources are being depleted at a record pace, human population levels have crossed the eight billion threshold, extreme poverty defines the majority of people's daily lives, toxic contaminants affect all ecosystems, increasing numbers of species face extinction, consumerism and the commodification of nature show no signs of abating, climate change wreaks havoc in different places every year, and weapons and energy systems continue to proliferate that risk the planet's viability. This introductory lecture course is designed to help you understand the relatively recent origins of many of these problems, focusing especially on the last one hundred and fifty years. You will have an opportunity to learn about the environmental effects of urbanization, industrialization, population growth, market economies, empire-building, intercontinental warfare, energy extraction, and new technologies. You will also explore different environmental philosophies and analytic frameworks that help us make sense of historical change, including political ecology, environmental history, science studies, and global history. The course will examine a range of transnational organizations, social movements, and state policies that have attempted to address and resolve environmental problems.

History 379-0-20 – Biomedicine and World History

This lecture course uses the Covid-19 pandemic - including its socio-economic and racial dimensions - as a point of departure to study the history of global health and biomedicine in comparative terms. We will break up the quarter into four segments during which we will consider: 1) when and why infectious diseases "unified" the globe and with what consequences; 2) how empires, industries, war, and revolutions helped spread biomedical ideas, experts, and tools around the world; 3) what function institutions of transnational and global health governance have played in setting medical priorities and sustaining health norms across continents; and 4) why and how clinical trials, the pharmaceutical industry, and narcotics have become so intimately intertwined. Because the world around us has already been radically altered by SARS-coV-2, you will have an opportunity to place in historical context this pandemic's roots and its ongoing cycles. You will also be given a chance to apply insights from the readings - about histories of racial segregation, reproductive politics, militarization, and police powers - to this pandemic. Lectures and readings cover all world regions: Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, North America, Asia, Europe, and the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Co-listed as Gbl Health 309-0-1.

History 379-0-20 – Biomedicine and World History

This lecture course uses the Covid-19 pandemic as a point of departure to study the history of global health and biomedicine in comparative terms. We will break up the quarter into four segments during which we will consider: 1) how and why infectious diseases "unified" the globe and with what effects; 2) the role of empires, industries, war, and revolutions in spreading biomedical ideas, experts, and tools around the world; 3) the functions played by transnational and global health institutions in setting medical priorities and sustaining health norms across continents; and 4) the growth of clinical trials, the pharmaceutical industry, and narcotics trade. Because the world around us has been radically altered by SARS-coV-2, you will have an opportunity to place in historical context this pandemic's roots and its ongoing cycles. You will also be given a chance to apply insights from the readings - about histories of racial segregation, reproductive politics, militarization, and police powers - to this pandemic. Lectures and readings cover all world regions: Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, North America, Asia, Europe, and the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

History 379-0-20 – Biomedicine and World History

This lecture course uses the Covid-19 pandemic as a point of departure to study the history of global health and biomedicine. We will break the quarter into four segments during which we will consider: 1) the "unification of the globe" by infectious diseases; 2) the role of empires, industries, war, and revolutions in spreading biomedical cultures around the world; 3) the functions played by transnational and global health institutions in different continents; and 4) the growth of the pharmaceutical industry and the narcotics trade. Students will have a chance to apply insights from the readings - about histories of racial segregation, reproductive politics, militarization, and police powers - to the more recent past. Lectures and readings cover all world regions: Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, North America, Asia, Europe, and the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

History 393-0-20 – Indigenious Health and Healing

Introductory seminar for history majors and others interested in understanding how history is thought about and written. Intensive exploration of a significant historical event, period, or topic.

History 393-0-26 – The Natural and Supernatural in Southeast Asia

This course examines the ways in which different Southeast Asian peoples have conceived of what we might think of as the natural world - the environment; and the supernatural world - various religious traditions and cosmologies; and the continuous interplay between the two. Together we will explore the Kahiringan tradition of the Ngaju Dayak people from Central Kalimantan in Indonesia; representations of nature in the textual traditions and temple paintings of the Vessantera jataka in Myanmar and Thailand; Ilongot headhunting and historical reckoning; and the hydraulic landscape of Bali's water temples. Our goal will be to understand the kinds of conceptual and practical resources Southeast Asians have brought to understanding and controlling the world in which they have lived.

History 395-0-20 – The Black Death

The fourteenth-century Black Death (or bubonic plague) has long been the benchmark against which all other disasters have been measured. Although there were devastating instances of plague in Roman times, and even isolated outbreaks in our own time, the medieval plague was a true pandemic that raged throughout the world. This courses focuses on the bubonic plague in Western Europe. After examining the first visitation of the plague in the Byzantine era (6c), we will then focus on the period between 1346 and 1348, when the Black Death wiped out somewhere between 40 and 60 percent of the population, and the aftermath. At a time when principles of contagion were hazy and medical treatment primitive, the panic-stricken society alternated between regarding the plague as evidence of God's wrath for humanity's sins and desperately seeking scapegoats to blame. This course will approach the plague from multiple perspectives through the lens of primary and secondary sources. Among the topics addressed will be: the immediate causes of the plague; medieval and modern theories of the disease; the plague's impact on both religious personnel and the secular work force; its impact on culture; the relation between plague and persecution, and violence; and the impact of the plague outside of Europe and beyond the Middle Ages.

HIstory 395-0-20 – The World That Fossil Fuels Made

This course will examine energy use in American history, ranging from the use of wood and water in colonial times, to animal-derived oils and fossil fuels in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, to nuclear in the late-twentieth century, and finally to the search for alternative sources in recent decades. We will consider not only how human use of various forms of energy has affected the non-human environment but also what particular energy regimes have meant for the social, political, and material lives of Americans at different points in history.

History 395-0-22 – Nature and Empire

The arrival of European colonizing powers in the Americas in the wake of Columbus's voyages marked a new and often disastrous chapter in global environmental history. American nations and environments shaped the course of European colonial settlement at the same time as colonial expansion profoundly changed the flora, fauna, disease ecology, and patterns of labor and land use prevailing across the Americas. This seminar explores the entangled histories of imperial and environmental history in the colonial Atlantic world. Topics will include the so-called Columbian Exchange and the dispossession of indigenous lands; the transatlantic slave trade and the rise of the plantation system; the intersections of African, European, and Indigenous American agricultural practices; European theories of race and climate; colonial bioprospecting; and the role of disease in the Age of Atlantic Revolutions. We will also consider the imperial origins of modern conservationism and of key environmental concepts such as ‘wilderness' and 'native' and 'invasive' species.

History 395-0-22 – Podcasting the History of Science

This course will provide students with the opportunity to create a podcast on the history of science together. Taking a global approach to the history of science, each student will conduct original research on an object, text, or other source relevant to the theme of the podcast. Students will learn how to record, edit, and produce sound, while we ask: What counts as signal, and what counts as noise? We will take that question to the archive and the editing studio. This course will be highly collaborative at every stage. While students will contribute independent research, writing, and production, we will collectively workshop everything.

History 395-0-28 – History with Things

This seminar guides students as they research and write the social history of an artifact of their choice. How do our histories read if we organize them around changes in the material world? Do artifacts have politics, and if so, of what sort? In this course, students learn multiple approaches to the study of material culture. We will read exemplary accounts of objects which people have designed, made, sold, bought, gifted, and/or trashed. We will study how these objects came to mediate differences among people, like gender, race, age, nation, and of course, rich and poor. The course offers a well-tested template for conducting, organizing, and writing up your own research on a topic that interests you. Try out an idea for a senior thesis. Research an artifact you love or hate, or feel ambivalent about. Develop a case history of innovation (or obsolescence). The last time the course was offered, students wrote papers on such topics as: the wiretapping of ‘70s radicals, the late nineteenth-century obsession with photographing the dead, how knitting patterns went online, the rise of the labradoodle, the gender dynamics of ‘20s fashion, how changes in intellectual property transformed ‘90s biotech, and why Admiral Grace Hopper programmed COBOL the way she did…. The goal is to illuminate our changing world by telling the history of a material being.

Hum 211-0-30 – Oil and Water in the Gulf of Mexico

This course is co-taught by a professor of history, and a professor of literature, both fascinated by the shared ground between human histories and environmental change. Focused on a single region in the United States, Lower Louisiana, East Texas, and the giant body of water that connects them, our course asks what this distinctive landscape of land and water can tell us about our place on this planet, at this moment in history. The Gulf of Mexico is emblematic of stories we tell ourselves about racial and cultural difference, climate crisis and climate vulnerability, survival and the end of the world. Through the cause of climate justice, students in the course will examine how today's political thinking pits economic and ecological priorities against each other, and against human survival.

Hum 260-0-20 – Economics and the Humanites: Understanding Choice in the Past, Present and Future

This course offers a cross-disciplinary approach to the concept of alternatives and choices. At any given moment, how many alternatives are possible? Is there really such a thing as chance or choice? On what basis do we choose? How does our understanding of the past affect the future? Can we predict the future? With Professor Schapiro, President of Northwestern and a labor economist, and Professor Morson, a specialist in literature, you will examine approaches to these questions and learn how to evaluate assumptions, evidence, moral questions, and possibilities across disciplines.

Hum 370-3-20 – Medical Heros and Villians

House. Grey's Anatomy. The Constant Gardener. Frankenstein's Monster. Paul Farmer. Josef Mengele. The Tuskeegee Trials. Healthcare workers, and physicians and nurses in particular, have long held sway in the popular imagination as both hero and villain. From biographies of real-life medical heroes and villains to fictional accounts in movies, novels, TV series, podcasts, and other media, medicine has long held sway in our popular imagination. What can we learn about the societal values we place on medicine, and medical personnel, by exploring the ways that medical heroes and villains are depicted to wide public audiences? What do these fictional and non-fictional accounts have to tell us about societal anxieties and ambiguities relating to medicine? How might we contemplate the ways societal norms relating to race, gender, place of origin, ability, and other identifiers become mapped onto the stories the public consumes relating to medicine? What can these stories tell us about anxieties regarding life and death, technology, science, and culture? Who is portrayed as hero, who as villain, who as victim and who as backdrop to the narrative? In this course, we will consume a wide array of popular media about medical heroes and villans, both fictional and non-fictional, in order to interrogate how medicine as a lens tells us about a wide array of societal ambiguities, potentialities, inequalities and silences.

Humanities 370-3-20 – Race, Gender, Sex and Science

What is the scientific status of our ideas about race? How are medical and legal ideas invoked in determinations about people's gender identities? Overall, how do developments in the life sciences affect our understandings of who we are, how we differ, and how social inequalities are created, perpetuated, and challenged? This seminar explores how scientific claims and technological developments help transform cultural understandings of race, gender, and sexuality. Conversely, we will consider how cultural beliefs about race, gender, and sexuality influence scientific knowledge and medical practice. We will take up a series of controversies from the recent past and present to explore the dynamic interplay between expert findings, social identities, and political arguments.

Humanities 370-3-20 – Environmental Justice in Modern South Asia

Environmental Justice in Modern South Asia is an undergraduate class on the unequal experiences and effects of environmental change in South Asia, drawing primarily on case studies from India. Since at least the early 1990s, rapid economic growth, massive infrastructural projects, democratic transformations and global threats of climate change, have characterized the South Asian region. Such political, economic, and ecological processes come together to worsen the lives and livelihoods of marginalized people typically. They tend to intensify their vulnerability to environmental degradation, with historical structures of inclusion and exclusion profoundly shaping how natural resources are accessed and distributed. While the regional focus is on South Asia, at the heart of this course is a broader concern that environmental questions are always questions of equality and social justice.

Humanities 101-6-20 – What Science Can't Teach Us: A Humanities Approach

NOTE: This class is open only to first-year undergraduates selected to be Kaplan Humanities Scholars.

The great political theorist Isaiah Berlin once said that there is an old quarrel between two rival ways of knowing the world: a paradigmatically scientific form of knowledge that is produced by methodical, systematic inquiry, and a more impalpable alternative that has been variously characterized as good judgment, wisdom, or art. In this course we will be examining various oppositions related to this rivalry, like the distinction between theoretical and practical knowledge, between empiricism and aesthetics, between reason and emotion, and between fact and value. One major aim of this course is to use these oppositions to help explore some differences between the sciences and the humanities. It is often taken for granted that the natural sciences aim at knowledge that is theoretical, empirical, rational, and fact-based; but there is much less certainty about whether the humanities should be guided by the same paradigm of knowledge, or whether it would be better served by adopting a fundamentally different conception of its aims and methods. Are there distinctively literary or aesthetic ways of knowing, different from the sciences? What do arts, practices, feelings and values teach us that knowledge cannot? We will pursue these questions by engaging both literary and philosophical texts.

Humanities 210-0-40 – Science Fiction and Detective Literature in the Global South

NOTE: This class is open only to first-year undergraduates selected to be Kaplan Humanities Scholars.

Science fiction and detective literature are genres whose formulaic nature has often been derided or ignored by literary critics. Yet the very formal structures of these genres may be part of the key to their popularity and increasing ubiquitousness. Emerging in England in the nineteenth century from, in part, an urban unease brought on by the colonial encounter, the detective novel form was quickly "translated" back into colonized territories, soon becoming one of the most truly transnational literary genres in the world. Similarly, while science fiction's early narratives drew from the scenarios and power dynamics of the colonial encounter, it has more recently become a space from which to contest official histories as well as posit decolonial futures. Focusing on the spaces of the Global South, late colonial and postcolonial South Asia and (post)colonial Latin America in particular, this course will trace how and why these popular genres have emerged as a mode of narration with which to confront political and social transformations and contemporary crises.

Humanities 220-0-20 – Health, Biomedicine, Culture and Society

Present-day medicine and health care are flashpoints for a wide array of controversies (many of them exacerbated by the global Covid-19 pandemic). Whose interests should the health care system serve and how should it be organized? How trustworthy is the medical knowledge we rely on when confronted with the threat of illness? How can the ethical character of biomedical research best be ensured? How do we manage health risks in an uncertain world? How can health care be made affordable? Is it possible for the benefits of good health to be shared equitably across lines of social class, race, gender, and nation? What are the proper roles of health professionals, scientists, patients, activists, corporations, and the state in establishing medical, political, economic, and ethical priorities? This course will provide a broad introduction to the domain of health and medicine to take up such controversies as a matter of concern to all.

Humanities 260-0-20 – Economics and the Humanities

This course offers a cross-disciplinary approach to our understanding of alternatives, choice and dialogue. Is there really such a thing as chance or choice? On what basis do we choose? How well can we predict the future? And how might we foster meaningful dialogue across the disciplines and among individuals? Professor Gary Saul Morson, a specialist in literature, and Professor Morton Schapiro, President of Northwestern and a labor economist specializing in the economics of higher education, will offer alternative approaches to these questions based on the presuppositions of their respective disciplines. If you want to dig into topics and questions like uncertainty, prediction, modelling, and judgment, this class is the perfect complement.

Humanities 325-4-20 – Parks and Pipelines: Indigenous Environmental Justice

This seminar explores how the relationship between the United States and Indigenous people has shaped the environments, ecosystems, and physical landscapes we live in today. Through engagement with a variety of digital resources including maps and digital media, we will learn how the environment of what is now the United States was managed by Indigenous people before and throughout colonization, how Indigenous people have been impacted by the environmental policies of the United States, and how Indigenous resistance and activism have shaped both the environmental movement in the U.S. as well as contemporary Indigenous political thought. In discussion, we will break down the politics, economics, and ethics of this history, challenging ourselves to think critically about the land we live on and its future. In lieu of a final paper, this course will include a digital, public-facing final assignment.

Humanities 325-4-20 – Watching Narcos: History as Entertainment

Crimes, deeds, and spoils of drug traffickers have saturated pop culture for the last decades becoming valuable raw materials for the entertainment industry. This course is designed for students to identify, trace, and analyze audiovisual productions on the so-called narcos in order to understand: (a) the plot devices and aesthetic mechanisms with which cultural producers have commodified history as entertainment; and (b) the effects of these types of narratives and imageries in the creation of historical understandings regarding one of the most challenging problems of our times. We accomplish these objectives by watching films, telenovelas and TV shows; reading selected works of history, sociology, anthropology, and journalism (film criticism in particular); and using the tools and technologies of digital humanities in a series of individual and collaborative projects. The ultimate goal is to produce together an open-access digital repository on drug history as entertainment in the Americas.

Humanities 325-4-20 – Refugees, Migration, Exile: Digital Storytelling Workshop


In this course, students will research a case study from among the many refugee and migration crises that have dominated the news cycle in recent years. The final project is a short video about your case study. To develop your research projects, the class foregrounds different methodological approaches: 1) To move beyond journalism, we will conduct primary and secondary historical research to understand the complex historical roots of each case study. 2) We will analyze and practice forms of ethnographic writing to better situate and describe the lived experiences of migration and exile, both past and present. 3) We will pay attention to various forms of media, whether print culture, sound, or visual media, to interrogate but also experiment with contemporary modes of narrating and conveying human experience in the digital age. Our work in class will be collaborative, thus a key prerequisite is that you are mature and self-motivated. You do not need to have prior research experience, but you need to demonstrate a desire to dig into your topic and hone your ability to write deeply informed, rigorous, and nuanced arguments and to think about creative ways to bring rigorous historical and ethnographic detail to visual storytelling.

Students are required to petition for permission to enroll in the class by writing a brief statement, which should be sent to Professor Molina at molina@northwestern.edu. Your brief statement should include: Your name, your major(s), one short paragraph stating the reason why you have an interest in honing your research skills in the direction of the digital humanities, and a second short paragraph on a topic about migration and exile that motivates your desire to do further research on the topic. Attach a recent news item (article or video) about the topic that drives your interests. This will help me organize our first sessions in fall quarter.

 

Humanities 329-0-20 – Archaeology and Nationalism

Archaeology and nationalism have been closely intertwined at least since the idea of the nation-state emerged in Europe following the French Revolution. Archaeology offers nationalist agendas the possibility of filling in national historical records and extending the past far into prehistory. Its results can be displayed in museums, occupy entire sites, and be readily accessible online—thus potentially reaching many new audiences beyond traditional print media. In turn, nationalism has contributed significantly to the development of archaeology as a modern discipline that emerged largely within colonial contexts deeply embedded in imperial motivations and problematic theories around race. More recently, the growth and influence of global heritage and institutions such as UNESCO's World Heritage Centre have reshaped the political and cultural landscape of archaeological sites conceptualized as loci of national identity and pride, while introducing new tensions around equitable access to its resources and the often contradictory political and economic benefits of increased tourism. Drawing on new critical approaches and case studies selected from a wide geographical range, this course explores the role of archaeology in the creation and elaboration of national identities from the late eighteenth century to the present day. It emphasizes the identification of historical and archaeological sources and their critical evaluation. Issues include the professionalization of archaeology and its institutionalization in universities and antiquities services; the development of national museums and associated practices of display and interpretation; the creation and maintenance of archaeological sites as national monuments and tourist destinations; cultural property legislation and controversies over the repatriation of artifacts, often those removed during the era of colonial rule; and the special role of archaeology and monuments in cultural politics under totalitarian regimes.

Humanities 370-3-20 – Race,Gender, Sex and Science: Identities and Difference

How do developments in the life sciences affect our understandings of who we are, how we differ, and how social inequalities are created, perpetuated, and challenged? This seminar explores how scientific claims and technological developments help transform cultural meanings of race, gender, and sexuality. Conversely, we will consider how cultural beliefs about race, gender, and sexuality influence scientific knowledge and medical practice. By studying controversies, we will explore the dynamic interplay among expert findings, social identities, and political arguments.

Humanities 370-5-20 – Race, Gender, Sex and Science

What is the scientific status of our ideas about race? How are medical and legal ideas invoked in determinations about people's gender identities? Overall, how do developments in the life sciences affect our understandings of who we are, how we differ, and how social inequalities are created, perpetuated, and challenged? This seminar explores how scientific claims and technological developments help transform cultural understandings of race, gender, and sexuality. Conversely, we will consider how cultural beliefs about race, gender, and sexuality influence scientific knowledge and medical practice. We will take up a series of controversies from the recent past and present to explore the dynamic interplay between expert findings, social identities, and political arguments.

Humanities 370-5-21 – Workshop in the Health Humanities

In this advanced undergraduate seminar and workshop, we will explore a range of creative works across media types and genre— audio/visual material (documentary and feature film, visual art, radio stories), memoir and fiction— to examine the political, ethical and social stakes of representing health, illness and disability. In particular, we will focus on the craft and composition of these works: what specific practices and techniques do these artists deploy, and to what end? What are the ethics and aesthetics of their representational practices? The course will also offer students the opportunity to focus on, develop, workshop and showcase their own creative health humanities projects, with ample space and time for critical reflection and feedback.

Humanities 370-6-20 – Art and the Place of Nature in Modernity

How did we get into this mess? The idea that human beings are separate from something called "nature" which they can and should dominate and control is one of the most pervasive ideas in modern Western culture—meaning European and North American culture since the end of the Middle Ages. Over hundreds of years, alongside and intertwining with the development of capitalism and colonialism (for the "indigenous" was often placed on the side of nature), Western culture produced artificial divisions between human and nonhuman nature. Artists and scientists alike aspired to equal nature's powers and eventually exploit and "conquer" it—or "her," since "Nature" has often been gendered female—with the tools of technology. How did this come about? How did nature push back? This course attempts an alternative, ecological history of Western art from the perspective of how art has depicted, defined, constructed, and reckoned with nature. What is nature and the natural? How do nature and art mutually define one another? What does it mean when art rejects nature? Without attempting to be comprehensive, the course will work through carefully selected case studies—some of them student-generated—in landscape, still life, and figure painting; scientific illustration; garden and landscape design; and photography. We will read accessible scholarship and primary texts in art theory and natural science. We will try (and undoubtedly not fully succeed) to come to terms with how this history is reflected in contemporary ecological and epidemiological crises. The course will be taught as a combination of lecture, discussion, and student presentations. It does not require prior knowledge but does hope for your attentive engagement and intellectual curiosity. Written work includes short papers, take-home midterm, and a an 8-10pp final paper.

Humanities 370-6-23 – Science and Representation

When you write up a lab report, you probably don't approach it as a literary exercise. Today we take science writing as an objective, transparent transcription of experimental data. However, during the Scientific Revolution in Europe and Britain, literary form was vital to the transmission and popularization of new experimental methods. Indeed, literary representation was necessary to help people conceive new sensory worlds at microscopic, sub-microscopic, or planetary scale. We will explore the centrality of literary representation to pivotal new technologies in the early modern emergence of experimental science: the microscope, the air-pump, the telescope, and the distillation apparatus. We will explore how literary technology was as integral to the New Science as experimental technology. Throughout, we will approach western science not as universal knowledge but as highly situated practice, whose multifarious economic, extractive, and imperial investments are woven into the fabric of its literary representation. We will dedicate significant time to satires of the new science, whose critical counter-representations of the frivolity, futility, or cruelty of experimental method illuminate the deep and ongoing stakes of science's relation to literature. 

Humanities 370-6-24 – Art, Ecology and Politics

TBD

Humanities 370-6-30 – Culture in a Changing Climate

This course is designed around creative responses to climate change and other environmental crises in recent literary, cinematic, and artistic works from different sites around the world. We will pay close attention to how familiar aesthetic forms and the critical methods used to understand them are (or are not) changing in the face of overlapping existential environmental crises. Are there specific genres or media best suited to addressing climate change and helping to inspire political action? What are the effects of identifying or writing within a "new" literary genre such as "climate fiction"? Can we speak of similar modes in other media: is there such a thing as "climate cinema" or "climate art"? And if there is, how do these categories shape both the art that gets made and how we understand it?

Humanities 397-0-20 – Exhibiting Antiquity

How do institutions such as museums, along with other created contexts such as websites and archaeological sites developed as tourist destinations, shape and construct our notions of the past? How are these institutions enmeshed with broader cultural and political agendas regarding cultural identity and otherness, the formation of artistic canons, and even the concept of ancient art? This course explores modern strategies of collecting, classification, and display of material culture from ancient Egypt, the Middle East, Greece, and Rome, both in Europe and the United States and in their present-day homelands.

By analyzing programs of collecting and display, it seeks to understand both the development of modern scholarship in ancient art and the intersection of institutional and scholarly programs. Topics examined include the historical development of modern displays devoted to ancient civilizations in public and private museums, notions of authenticity and identity, issues of cultural heritage and patrimony, temporary and "blockbuster" shows, virtual exhibitions and museums, and the archaeological site as a locus of display.

Institute for Sustainability 230-0-20 – Climate Change and Sustainability: Ethical Dimensions

What are our ethical responsibilities in the face of anthropogenic climate change? The course begins with an exploration of how far reaching our ethical responsibilities are. After some introduction to philosophical ethics and the science of climate change, we will question which things matter morally: are future-human beings, non-human animals, and ecosystems morally important? How do they compare morally to humans alive today? In the second half of the course we will focus on how individually specific our ethical responsibilities are. We will focus on a range of common behaviors relevant to climate change and ask whether we can ethically justify our individual participation in these behaviors. We will conclude the course by asking whether there are any behaviors that we might have a moral responsibility to personally adopt in response to climate change

International St. 395-0-21 – International Climate Change Politics & Policy

International climate change impacts all of us and in many spaces doom and gloom is the dominant narrative. What are the successes on an international level? How are victories won within the halls of the United Nations' treaty negotiations? What role do non-state actors, like civil society organizations play? This course will focus on climate change challenges and international solutions, the politics of negotiating international treaties, and how intergovernmental organizations operate. The course will specifically focus on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate change (UNFCCC). In addition, students will design and complete a research project related to a topic, country, or organization of their choice with reference to international climate change politics and policy. To encourage success, the course will focus on building skills in research and writing. Previous knowledge or interest in climate change and additional environmental problems is welcomed, but not required!

ISEN 230-0-20 – Climate Change and Sustainability: Ethnical Dimensions

This course is about our ethical responsibilities in the face of anthropogenic climate change. The course begins with an introduction to philosophical ethics, the scientific evidence in support of an anthropogenic role in climate change, and some advanced technological approaches to mitigating the effects of climate change. After these introductory sessions the class is split into two parts. We will begin with an exploration of how far reaching our ethical responsibilities are by questioning which things matter morally: are future-human beings, non-human animals, and ecosystems morally important? How do they compare morally to humans alive today? In the second part of the course we will focus on how individually specific our ethical responsibilities are. We will focus on a range of common behaviors relevant to climate change and ask whether and how we can ethically justify our individual participation or lack of participation in these behaviors. We will conclude the course by asking how our moral responsibilities with respect to climate change fit with our other moral responsibilities.

ISEN 230-0-20 – Climate Change and Sustainability - Ethical Dimensions

What are our ethical responsibilities in the face of anthropogenic climate change? The course begins with an exploration of how far reaching our ethical responsibilities are. After some introduction to philosophical ethics and the science of climate change, we will question which things matter morally, are future-human beings, non-human animals, and ecosystems morally important? How do they compare morally to humans alive today? In the second half of the course we will focus on how individually specific our ethical responsibilities are. We will focus on a range of common behaviors relevant to climate change and ask whether we can ethically justify our individual participation in these behaviors. We will conclude the course by asking whether there are any behaviors that we might have a moral responsibility to personally adopt in response to climate change.

ISEN 230-0-20 – Climate Change and Sustainability

TBD

ISEN 350-SA-X20 – Energy Techonology & Policy in China

TBD

Jewish Studies 390-0-1 – Water in Arid Lands: Israel and the Middle East

This seminar will explore how the availability of water has shaped the development of civilizations and driven innovation in water technologies. The course will investigate historical dimensions of water in Israel and the Middle East, focusing on ancient civilizations and the water infrastructures that are essential tools in aiding the development of water-poor societies. We will use this historical context as a stepping-stone to transition into a more recent history of the Middle East, focusing on the challenges that the nascent state of Israel faced following the influx of millions of immigrants. We will then examine efforts to develop the necessary water resources needed to support the burgeoning population as well as the irrigation projects designed to convert barren desert land into cultivated agriculture. This more recent history will help to set the stage for discussions regarding geopolitical conflicts over land and water that continue to this day. We will evaluate regional climate and water in the context of current and future geopolitical conflicts, reviewing recent advances in water technologies spurred by these limitations as well as the potential development of combined social and technological solutions for long-term water sustainability in Israel and the Middle East. We will end the course with discussions regarding opportunities for global translation of innovative water technologies and water-management solutions developed in Israel to other water-poor regions. In addition, the course will host a symposium featuring international experts. It will explore how water access and control contributes to trans-boundary politics and how recent advances in Israeli water technologies may serve as a model for sustainable water development in other water-poor regions of the world.

Jewish Studies 390-0-1 – Water in Arid Lands: Isreal and the Middle East

This seminar will explore how the availability of water has shaped the development of civilizations and driven innovation in water technologies. The course will investigate historical dimensions of water in Israel and the Middle East, focusing on ancient civilizations and the water infrastructures that are essential tools in aiding the development of water-poor societies. We will use this historical context as a stepping-stone to transition into a more recent history of the Middle East, focusing on the challenges that the nascent state of Israel faced following the influx of millions of immigrants. We will then examine efforts to develop the necessary water resources needed to support the burgeoning population as well as the irrigation projects designed to convert barren desert land into cultivated agriculture. This more recent history will help to set the stage for discussions regarding geopolitical conflicts over land and water that continue to this day. We will evaluate regional climate and water in the context of current and future geopolitical conflicts, reviewing recent advances in water technologies spurred by these limitations as well as the potential development of combined social and technological solutions for long-term water sustainability in Israel and the Middle East. We will end the course with discussions regarding opportunities for global translation of innovative water technologies and water-management solutions developed in Israel to other water-poor regions. In addition, the course will host a symposium featuring international experts. It will explore how water access and control contributes to trans-boundary politics and how recent advances in Israeli water technologies may serve as a model for sustainable water development in other water-poor regions of the world.

Jour 367-0-20 – Native American Env. Issues and the Media

Native American Environmental Issues and the Media introduces students to indigenous issues, such as treaty-based hunting, fishing, and gathering rights; air and water quality issues; mining; land-to-trust issues; and sacred sites. These issues have contributed to tension between Native and non-Native communities and have become the subject of news reports, in both mainstream and tribal media. We will focus on how the media cover these issues and how that coverage contributes to the formation of public opinion and public policy. Students will read and analyze newspaper and on-line news reports and view and critique broadcast news stories and documentaries about Native environmental topics.

Jour 383-0-20 – Health and Science Reporting

Health and Science Reporting teaches students both how to think about science writing and how to write about science and medicine. In this combination writing workshop and seminar we will read some of the best of the best science and health journalism; meet with expert scientists on campus; and meet the editors and writers from leading scientific journals and publications. Students will learn what makes good science writing, how to find sources, how to evaluate information and how to sort out science from pseudo-science. Assignments will include critiques of science coverage in newspapers, magazines, television, radio and the Web, science/health/medicine journal rewrites, news briefs, an in-depth narrative story on a science topic of students' own choosing, and an opportunity to write live copy for a science magazine or website.

Journalism 301-0-21 – Environmental Reporting

What's at stake as our communities confront climate change, diminishing water supplies, outdated oil pipelines, drought, flooding, health risks from contaminants, and added COVID-19 contagion resulting from environmental injustice. The accelerating environmental news stories are expanding the need for reporters trained to cover them and tackle environmental threats, sustainability, new technologies and climate change. This class will teach you how to report on such issues and uncover environmental injustices with investigative strategies, on-site reporting, discussions with experts, diverse interviews and a deep dive into research. A focus on multimedia reporting techniques will enable you to report on stories with a choice of text, video, audio, photo-essays and infographics. You will produce compelling stories for general audiences that provide clear access to the science, politics, economic impacts and community concerns. You will participate in developing the learning experiences for this class through press conference-style discussions, role playing and peer sharing. You will participate om field research trips in the Chicago area as part of this class.

Journalism 367-0-20 – Native American Environmental Issues and the Media

This course introduces you to Native American environmental issues, such as treaty-based hunting, fishing, and gathering rights; air and water quality issues; mining; land-to-trust issues; and sacred sites with a particular emphasis on the First Nations in the Great Lakes region. In addition, it will also provide connections to corresponding international Indigenous environmental issues, and the responses and debates across science research, news and international policy contexts.

The seminar focuses on how the media cover Native American environmental issues and how that coverage contributes to the formation of public opinion and public policy. The seminar provides the critical tools to analyze current environmental struggles; to understand the controversies within a cultural context; and to make informed decisions about issues that affect us all. The central case study of the seminar will be water and fishing rights for Indigenous Peoples, and how they are part of larger land rights issues.

Over the past two decades the issue of tribal sovereignty has become front-page news. From major confrontations over pipelines affecting Tribal Reservations mobilizing Indigenous people and their allies around the world, to battles over whaling rights and mining of tar sands, to sulfide mining adjacent to Tribal Reservations, to disputed land claims in the Northeast and battles in the West over water, fracking, and grazing, the rights of Native governments to exercise their sovereignty remains in the new century at the cultural, political, and legal core of American contemporary history.

These and many more issues—air and water quality standards, treaty rights, and land-into-trust—have contributed to tension between Native and non-Native communities, and have become the subject of news reports, in both mainstream and tribal media. The goals of this seminar are to understand how tribal sovereignty and treaty rights inform contemporary environmental issues; to identify source selection, bias, and framing in mainstream and tribal media accounts; to analyze and critique mainstream and tribal media accounts for accuracy and bias; and finally gain intercultural knowledge and competence through a final project that explores the intersection of Native environmental issues and the media.

Journalism 390-0-23 – Viruses and Viral Media

What are viruses? Are they living or dead? How does news media affect their influence on the world? And why do we say news "goes viral?" Designed for Medill and non-Medill students alike, Viruses and Viral Media will study how viruses intersect with race, sexuality, disability, economics and the news media. Historically and contemporarily, the course will look at how actual viruses and infectious diseases (such as tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, Ebola, Hepatitis C, influenza and SARS-CoV-2) have been covered in the global press. We will consider how certain groups of humans have been depicted as viruses themselves, such as how Jewish/disabled/queer/Roma people were described by the German and US press circa WW II; how African Americans were described in the US press circa Jim Crow; and how Muslim, Mexican and migrant people are described in press and social media now. We will also consider how and why popular news "goes viral." Students will work in research groups to study viruses and virality in the news throughout the term.

Latin Amer. Carrib. St. 391-0-21 – Nationalism and Archaeology in the Americas

What role has archaeology played in the emergence and consolidation of modern nation-states in the Americas? Across the world, states use monuments and archaeological artifacts to present national narratives in museums, ancient sites, and online platforms. In the Americas, nation-states have controlled who has access to the material remains from the past while transforming buildings, historic places, monuments, and artifacts into national patrimony. In the process of creating national patrimony, nation-states often estrange Indigenous communities from their landscapes and their cultural heritage. In this course, we will examine the role of archaeology in the creation and preservation of national identities in the Americas from the 18th century to the present. In weekly readings and discussions, we will learn about the institutionalization of archaeology as a state-sponsored discipline, the development of archaeological sites as national monuments and tourist destinations, the display and interpretation of artifacts in museums and heritage sites, and the monopolization of tangible cultural heritage by the state. Ultimately, we will evaluate the intersections of identity and politics throughout the history of the Americas.

Latino 392-0 – Latinx Resistance to Environmental Racism

Latinx communities are often recognized as major contributors to social movements aimed at reforming or transforming labor, immigration, housing, education, and mass incarceration systems. Often overlooked is the leadership of Latin/x grassroots organizations and leaders in environmental justice and climate justice movements. Encouraged to think beyond the logics of mainstream environmentalism and sustainability frameworks, students in this course will engage with grassroots concepts and become familiar with local and transnational histories of environmental racism in order to deepen their knowledge of Latinx resistance to racial expendability, gender violence, labor exploitation, hyper-consumerism, and displacement. Through selected course readings, films, guest speakers, lectures and class discussions, students will work collaboratively on projects that reveal the unique contributions of Latinx communities to longstanding efforts to protect oppressed communities and the planet from environmental hazards, extractive industries, and the climate crisis.

Legal St 350-0-20 – Psychology and the Law

This course will examine the complex issues involved in applying the science of psychology to the field of law. Among the topics we will cover are how psychological research can apply to policies and practices in the legal system, expert testimony, methods, uses, and limitations of forensic assessment, determination of legal competence, the insanity defense, battered women's syndrome and rape trauma syndrome in the legal arena, criminal profiling types, methods, and limitations, eyewitness testimony and other memory issues, interrogation and confessions, jury selection and decision making, prisons and death penalty.

Legal Studies 340-0-1 – Gender, Sexuality and the Law

This course offers an introduction to the relationship between gender, sexuality, and law in the United States, both historically and currently. We'll look at legal categories of gender and sexuality that have governed (and, often, continue to govern) the household (including sex, marriage, divorce, reproductive rights, and custody), the economy (including employment, property, and credit), and the political sphere (including voting, jury service, and citizenship). We will also explore how feminist and queer activists have resisted legally produced inequalities and whether (or how) their efforts have created enduring social change.

Legal Studies 350-0-20 – Psychology and the Law

This course will examine the complex issues involved in applying the science of psychology to the field of law. Among the topics we will cover:
• How psychological research can apply to policies and practices in the legal system
• Expert testimony
• Methods, uses, and limitations of forensic assessment
• Determination of legal competence
• The insanity defense
• Syndromes (Battered Women's Syndrome/Rape Trauma Syndrome) in the legal arena
• Criminal profiling types, methods, and limitations
• Eyewitness testimony and other memory issues
• Interrogation and confessions
• Jury selection and decision making
• Prisons and death penalty

Legal Studies 376-0-21 – Gender, Sexuality & the Carceral State

This course explores the rise of the carceral state in the United with particular attention to ethnographic, sociolegal, feminist, queer, and transgender theoretical approaches to the study of prisons. The course centers on girls, women, and LGBT people's experiences with systems of punishment, surveillance, and control. In addition, students will learn how feminist and queer activists have responded to institutions of policing and mass incarceration; investigate how they have understood prison reform, prison abolition, and transformative justice; and consider the political, ethical, and methodological concerns that policing, and mass incarceration raise.

Math 105-6-91 – Balancing the Equation

Who is a mathematician? Who teaches mathematics? Who learns mathematics? Why are U.S. mathematicians disproportionately male and white? How is math education affected by identities such as race, gender, country of origin, and socioeconomic background? Students in this class will explore these topics through essays, academic writings, plays, and movies. We will collaboratively create an anti-racist framework and use this framework to understand how privilege has shaped society, academia, and mathematics. Can mathematics become a field which is equally open to anyone? If so, how?

McCormick - Computer Sci 396-0-11 – Computing, Ethics and Society

TBD

McCormick - Computer Sci 396-0-8 – Computing, Ethics and Society

TBD

McCormick - Segal 395-0-64 – Leonardo, Geometry and the Art of Manufacturing

In Walter Isaacson's recent biography of Leonardo da Vinci, the topic of geometry is referenced over 80 times. The only drawings by Leonardo that were published during his lifetime were illustrations for a textbook on geometry. The artist's final journal entry, written only days before his death, included attempts at a geometric proof. A friend of the artist once lamented in a letter, "He devotes much of his time to geometry, and has no fondness at all for the paintbrush." What compelled Leonardo's fascination with this subject? In this interdisciplinary class, we will explore Leonardo's geometric studies, using them as a vehicle for our own studies of artistic and industrial processes. Students will collaborate with artists, manufacturers, and technologists to produce sculptural objects in a range of materials. The course will culminate in a public iron pour in which we will attempt to translate several of Leonardo's sketches into cast-iron 3D pieces using a historical furnace in honor of the artist's work.

McCormick - Segal 395-0-68 – Performance and Technology

TBD

Medill - Journalism 367-0-20 – Native American Environmental Issues and the Media

This course introduces you to Native American environmental issues, such as treaty-based hunting, fishing, and gathering rights; air and water quality issues; mining; land-to-trust issues; and sacred sites with a particular emphasis on the First Nations in the Great Lakes region. In addition, it will also provide connections to corresponding international Indigenous environmental issues, and the responses and debates across science research, news and international policy contexts.

The seminar focuses on how the media cover Native American environmental issues and how that coverage contributes to the formation of public opinion and public policy. The seminar provides the critical tools to analyze current environmental struggles; to understand the controversies within a cultural context; and to make informed decisions about issues that affect us all. The central case study of the seminar will be water and fishing rights for Indigenous Peoples, and how they are part of larger land rights issues.

Over the past two decades the issue of tribal sovereignty has become front-page news. From major confrontations over pipelines affecting Tribal Reservations mobilizing Indigenous people and their allies around the world, to battles over whaling rights and mining of tar sands, to sulfide mining adjacent to Tribal Reservations, to disputed land claims in the Northeast and battles in the West over water, fracking, and grazing, the rights of Native governments to exercise their sovereignty remains in the new century at the cultural, political, and legal core of American contemporary history.

These and many more issues—air and water quality standards, treaty rights, and land-into-trust—have contributed to tension between Native and non-Native communities, and have become the subject of news reports, in both mainstream and tribal media. The goals of this seminar are to understand how tribal sovereignty and treaty rights inform contemporary environmental issues; to identify source selection, bias, and framing in mainstream and tribal media accounts; to analyze and critique mainstream and tribal media accounts for accuracy and bias; and finally gain intercultural knowledge and competence through a final project that explores the intersection of Native environmental issues and the media.

Medill - Journalism 490-0-27 – Energy, Climate Change and Global Security

This seminar will introduce students to the interconnected beats of energy, climate change and global security. Russia's war in Ukraine (or the aftermath of it) will provide the framework for the class. However, students also will learn about energy and climate change in current and past bilateral and multilateral relations between the United States and its allies and foes, including China, the Middle East, Canada and Latin American. Student will also have guest lectures, including from experts in international climate change negotiations, particularly the United Nations climate change meetings, known as the Conferences of the Parties (COP).

The centerpiece of the course will be a week-long trip to Germany as part of the Medill Explores program. Students will report on the energy and refugee crises in Europe caused by the war in Ukraine. Students will visit a fossil fuel project, an LNG terminal under construction to receive natural gas imports and help Europe wean off Russian fuel, and a renewable energy project, probably a wind farm. They'll investigate how Europe's plans to wean off fossil fuels and fight climate change have been altered by the Kremlin's military aggression. In Germany, students will interview average people about how their lives are harmed by these crises

Performance St. 330-0-26 – Performance and Technology

In this course, taught by Thomas DeFrantz, Segal Fellow and faculty member in the School of Communication, students will use basic mechatronics to create compelling movement-based performances. The course will involve workshop exploration of technologies embedded in performance: robots, media, computer interface. Students will create performance projects and discuss theoretical and historical implications of technologies in performance. Hands-on making and engineering workshops will be incorporated to develop basic skills in technological crafts such as circuit design and fabrication, toward technologically enhanced performance. No previous experience or programming skills required.

Phil 109-6-20 – Philosophy, Technology and Social Media

Social media has increasingly become the medium through which people engage in political activism, read the news, express themselves, and communicate. Our aim in this course will be to reflect critically on how social media and digital technology shape personal identity, political discourse, privacy, rationality, and democracy. Questions we will explore include: can technology ever be neutral? Does social media facilitate or hinder authenticity? How does social media structure personal identity? What value does privacy have, and how do surveillance and big data change our experience of privacy? Does social media make political discourse irrational? What impact does it have on social movements? What ethical questions do technologies like algorithms and virtual reality raise? Readings may include Heidegger, Arendt, Baudrillard, Zuboff, Turkle, and Carr.

Phil 210-3-20 – History of Philosophy - Early Modern

The transition from the Medieval to the Modern era in philosophy began, roughly, in the late 16th and early 17th centuries and ended, again roughly, in the late 18th century. New methods of acquiring knowledge, along with a radically different conception of the world, permanently transformed the philosophical enterprise and the broader culture. In this course we will examine the views of some of the most important modern philosophers—especially Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Bayle, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume—on the nature of God, causation, substance, mind, knowledge, and the material world. Additional readings will be drawn from Elizabeth, Galileo, Sor Juana, Masham, Boyle, Shepherd, Du Châtelet, and Cordova.

Phil 216-0-20 – Intro to Pragmatism

Pragmatism is probably the first, but certainly the most important genuinely North American philosophical tradition. The classical writings of Peirce, James, Dewey set the stage for a completely new orientation in epistemology, moral and political theory, psychology and many other fields. Basic to all Pragmatist writers is the belief that the active and interactive human being in its natural and social environment has to stand at the center of reflection. They thus emphasize volitional, procedural, social, and evolutionary aspects of knowledge of any kind. Given this focus on practically involved intelligent agents, political pragmatists like Dewey, Addams, Locke explore the natural origins, revisability and legitimacy of moral and political norms. They develop the idea of a critical use of knowledge and its connection to non-violent democratic conduct. Neopragmatists (Rorty and Putnam) explore the philosophical and political implications of critical thinking.

Phil 216-0-20 – Introduction to Pragmatism

Classics of Pragmatist Thought Pragmatism is probably the first, but certainly the most important genuinely North American philosophical tradition. The classical writings of Peirce, James, Dewey set the stage for a completely new orientation in epistemology, moral and political theory, psychology and many other fields. Basic to all Pragmatist writers is the belief that the active and interactive human being in its natural and social environment has to stand at the center of reflection. They thus emphasize volitional, procedural, social, and evolutionary aspects of knowledge of any kind. Given this focus on practically involved intelligent agents, political pragmatists like Dewey, Addams, Locke explore the natural origins, revisability and legitimacy of moral and political norms. They develop the idea of a critical use of knowledge and its connection to non-violent democratic conduct. Neopragmatists (Rorty and Putnam) explore the philosophical and political implications of critical thinking.

Phil 221-0-20 – Gender and Politics

This class introduces students to a variety of philosophical problems concerning gender and politics. Together, we'll read classic and contemporary texts that examine questions such as: what is gender - and how, if it all, does it relate to or differ from sex? What does it really mean to be a woman or a man - and are these categories we're born into or categories that we become or inhabit through living in a particular way under specific conditions? Human history all the way up to the present seems to be rife with asymmetrical relations of power that relegate those marked out as women to a subordinate position - what explains this? What would it mean to over turn this state of affairs - and which strategies are most likely to accomplish this task? And to what extent is it possible to grapple with all of the above questions - questions of gender, sex and sexuality - without also, at the very same time, thinking about how they relate to questions of class and race? Readings will include selections from Simone de Beauvoir, Iris Marion Young, Sandra Bartky, bell hooks, Patricia Hill Collins, Judith Butler, Talia Bettcher, and others.

PHIL 221-0-20 – Gender, Politics and Philosophy

This class introduces students to a variety of philosophical problems concerning gender and politics. Together, we'll read classic and contemporary texts that examine questions such as: what is gender and how, if it all, does it relate to or differ from sex? What does it really mean to be a woman or a man and are these categories we are born into or categories that we become or inhabit through living in a particular way under specific conditions? Human history all the way up to the present seems to be rife with asymmetrical relations of power that relegate those marked out as women to a subordinate position, what explains this? What would it mean to over turn this state of affair, and which strategies are most likely to accomplish this task? And to what extent is it possible to grapple with all of the above questions, questions of gender, sex and sexuality, without also, at the very same time, thinking about how they relate to questions of class and race? Readings will include selections from Simone de Beauvoir, Iris Marion Young, Sandra Bartky, bell hooks, Patricia Hill Collins, Judith Butler, Talia Bettcher, and others.

Phil 224-0-20 – Philosophy, Race and Racism

This course provides a broad overview of philosophical discussions of race and racism in American culture. In this overview, we will focus on phenomenological issues concerning the experience of race (especially in the US), epistemological issues concerning racial distortions and racial ignorance, and ethical and political issues concerning racial oppression. Some of the central questions that we will address are: How should we understand the concept of race and the processes of racialization through which people come to see themselves as having a racial identity? What are the different kinds of racial injustice that we can identify, and the different kinds of exclusion, subordination, marginalization and stigmatization that can be part of racial oppression? How should racial oppression be resisted? How should racial violence be stopped? How should we build racial solidarity and fight for racial justice? We will also explore the connections between race and other identity categories such as gender, sexuality, class, ethnicity, religion, and nationality.

Phil 254 – Introduction to the Philosophy of Natural Science

The course will introduce students to deep philosophical issues raised by modern natural science of metaphysical and epistemological nature. From a reflection on methodological questions, it will approach the question of realism. We will be guided by nested "what does it take"-questions. For example: What does it take for a system of sentences to count as a good scientific theory? What does it take for a scientific theory to be testable by observational and experimental data (and, by the way: what does it take for certain series of experiences to count as data or observations?)? What does it take for a given theory to be better supported by the available evidence than its competitors? What does it take for a given theory to explain the known phenomena in an area of knowledge? What does it take for an explanatory scientific theory to be credited with reference to underlying structures of reality? We will begin with a brief overview of the scientific revolution of the 16th and 17 th century, and then turn to the treatment of certain problems in the contemporary literature, like the problem of induction, the problem of the underdetermination of theory choice by the available data, the problem of rationality and conceptual change, the problem of realism.

Phil 254-0-20 – Intro to Philosophy of the Natural Sciences

The course will introduce students to deep philosophical issues raised by modern natural science of metaphysical and epistemological nature. From a reflection on methodological questions, it will approach the question of realism. We will be guided by nested "what does it take"-questions. For example: What does it take for a system of sentences to count as a good scientific theory? What does it take for a scientific theory to be testable by observational and experimental data (and, by the way: what does it take for certain series of experiences to count as data or observations?)? What does it take for a given theory to be better supported by the available evidence than its competitors? What does it take for a given theory to explain the known phenomena in an area of knowledge? What does it take for an explanatory scientific theory to be credited with reference to underlying structures of reality? We will begin with a brief overview of the scientific revolution of the 16th and 17 th century, and then turn to the treatment of certain problems in the contemporary literature, like the problem of induction, the problem of the underdetermination of theory choice by the available data, the problem of rationality and conceptual change, the problem of realism.

Phil 255-0-20 – Theory of Knowledge

In this class we will investigate several philosophical questions that arise as we think about knowledge. To what extent should we think for ourselves, and when if at all should we rely on experts? What (if anything) is wrong with information bubbles? What is the responsible way to consume news? How do we determine when we ourselves or others are rational, and what can be done when we detect irrationality (in ourselves or others)? What should we do when we disagree? What is the nature of trust (and when should we trust)? Does morality or justice make any demands on what we believe?

Phil 268 – Ethics and the Environment

This course is an introduction to central concepts and problems in environmental ethics. We will devote particular attention to the question of moral standing, or in other words, the question of who or what is deserving of ultimate moral consideration. Topics to be discussed include the ethical treatment of animals, the value of non-sentient life, individualism versus holism in ethics, climate change and the ethics of geoengineering, and whether and why anthropocentrism might be a problem in environmental ethics.

Phil 269-0 – Bioethics

This course is an analysis of ethical and political issues that arise in medicine, with particular attention to questions posed by developments in biotechnology. Topics to be considered include human research, abortion, euthanasia, genetic engineering, and the allocation of medical resources.

Phil 269-0-20 – Bioethics

This course is an analysis of ethical and political issues related to health and health care. Topics to be considered include human research, abortion, euthanasia, genetic engineering, and public health ethics. We will devote special attention to ethical issues arising due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Phil 270-0-20 – Climate Change and Sustainability

This course is about our ethical responsibilities in the face of anthropogenic climate change. The course begins with an introduction to philosophical ethics, the scientific evidence in support of an anthropogenic role in climate change, and some advanced technological approaches to mitigating the effects of climate change. After these introductory sessions the class is split into two parts. We will begin with an exploration of how far reaching our ethical responsibilities are by questioning which things matter morally: are future-human beings, non-human animals, and ecosystems morally important? How do they compare morally to humans alive today? In the second part of the course we will focus on how individually specific our ethical responsibilities are. We will focus on a range of common behaviors relevant to climate change and ask whether and how we can ethically justify our individual participation or lack of participation in these behaviors. We will conclude the course by asking how our moral responsibilities with respect to climate change fit with our other moral responsibilities.

Phil 315-0-20 – Studies in French Philosophy

This course offers an overview of the work of one of the most influential late-twentieth-century French philosophers, Michel Foucault. Focusing on his studies of madness, sex, the medical gaze, prisons and other disciplinary institutions, the search for truth, knowledge, and liberation, students will gain an understanding of Foucault's most important concepts - concepts that over the last four decades have become central categories of inquiry and critique in the arts, humanities, and social sciences. These include archaeology, discipline, biopolitics, power-knowledge, resistance, governmentality, and genealogy. The course is reading intensive. In addition to weekly excerpts, you should plan to read two of Foucault's major texts throughout the quarter.

Phil 318-0-20 – The Authority of Science

In this course we will explore the authority of science: what, if anything, makes science authoritative, and what role, if any, it ought to play in our public lives and in our politics. Special focus will be given to the epistemological basis for the credibility of scientific results, and the need for political legitimacy of any claim that is to have authority in the public domain. How do these things relate to one another? Should scientific results be given credibility in the public domain, and if so, on what basis?

Phil 326 – Philosophy of Medicine

An exploration of philosophical problems related to health and health care. Topics to be considered include the definition and moral significance of medical concepts like health, disease, and death. We will also consider how such concepts relate to moral and political debates around access to health care and the provision of public health measures.

Phil 422-0-20 – Studies in Modern Philosophy

In this seminar, we will read some of Kant's works concerning human history and human nature. We will be concerned to understand and investigate Kant's defense of teleological explanation in biology - organic nature should be understood as organized purposively, parts or aspects of beings as directed towards ends - as well as his various claims concerning the nature of human history. For example: does history have a purpose, and if so, which, and how could we know of it? What kind of description, knowledge, understanding is appropriate to history as an object (are there laws of history, for example)? We will also investigate the relationship among these doctrines: given Kant's use of biological terminology in his history writings, on his view is historical investigation strongly akin to biological explanation, or based upon biological premises? Or does human freedom or rationality disrupt biology, rendering history distinct from nature? All of these doctrines intersect with Kant's well-known racism: he develops his biological theory of race while working on his philosophy of biology, and his racist claims in that context are connected to historical views concerning human cultural and moral development. Thus, we will also investigate whether or Kant's concept of race is a teleological-biological or historical concept (or both), and to what degree or how this concept, and Kant's racist commitments, are integral to his thinking concerning biology and history.

Philosophy 101-7-20 – Philosophy of Sex, Gender and Sexuality

TBD

Philosophy 101-7-22 – The Digital Self: Freedom, Truth and Wellbeing

TBD

Philosophy 110-0-20 – Intro to Philosophy

In this course we will be exploring several traditional topics within philosophy. These include the problem of free will, ethics and social issues (including issues of race and gender), and existential issues (death and the meaning of life). Students will be expected (i) to comprehend the various philosophers' arguments on these topics, (ii) to develop their own views on the topics, and (iii) to present their own views, as well as the views of the philosophers we read, in clear, succinct, and forcefully argued thesis papers.

Philosophy 210-3-20 – History of Philosophy - Early Modern

The transition from the Medieval to the Modern era in philosophy began, roughly, in the late 16th and early 17th centuries and ended, again roughly, in the late 18th century. New methods of acquiring knowledge, along with a radically different conception of the world, permanently transformed the philosophical enterprise and the broader culture. In this course we will examine the views of some of the most important modern philosophers—especially Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Bayle, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume—on the nature of God, causation, substance, mind, knowledge, and the material world. Additional readings will be drawn from Elizabeth, Galileo, Sor Juana, Masham, Boyle, Shepherd, Du Châtelet, and Cordova.

Philosophy 216-0-20 – Introduction to Pragmatism

Classics of Pragmatist Thought Pragmatism is probably the first, but certainly the most important genuinely North American philosophical tradition. The classical writings of Peirce, James, Dewey set the stage for a completely new orientation in epistemology, moral and political theory, psychology and many other fields. Basic to all Pragmatist writers is the belief that the active and interactive human being in its natural and social environment has to stand at the center of reflection. They thus emphasize volitional, procedural, social, and evolutionary aspects of knowledge of any kind. Given this focus on practically involved intelligent agents, political pragmatists like Dewey, Addams, Locke explore the natural origins, revisability and legitimacy of moral and political norms. They develop the idea of a critical use of knowledge and its connection to non-violent democratic conduct. Neopragmatists (Rorty and Putnam) explore the philosophical and political implications of critical thinking.

Philosophy 221-0-20 – Gender, Politics and Philosophy

This class introduces students to a variety of philosophical problems concerning gender and politics. Together, we'll read classic and contemporary texts that examine questions such as: what is gender -- and how, if it all, does it relate to or differ from sex? What does it really mean to be a woman or a man -- and are these categories we'r e born into or categories that we become or inhabit through living in a particular way under specific conditions? Human history all the way up to the present seems to be rife with asymmetrical relations of power that relegate those marked out as women to a subordinate position -- what explains this? What would it mean to over turn this state of affairs -- and which strategies are most likely to accomplish this task? And to what extent is it possible to grapple with all of the above questions -- questions of gender, sex and sexuality -- without also, at the very same time, thinking about how they relate to questions of class and race? Readings will include selections from Simone de Beauvoir, Iris Marion Young, Sandra Bartky, bell hooks, Patricia Hill Collins, Judith Butler, Talia Bettcher, and others.

Philosophy 224-0-20 – Philosophy, Race and Racism

This course provides a broad overview of philosophical discussions of race and racism in American culture. In this overview, we will focus on phenomenological issues concerning the experience of race (especially in the US), epistemological issues concerning racial distortions and racial ignorance, and ethical and political issues concerning racial oppression. Some of the central questions that we will address are: How should we understand the concept of race and the processes of racialization through which people come to see themselves as having a racial identity? What are the different kinds of racial injustice that we can identify, and the different kinds of exclusion, subordination, marginalization and stigmatization that can be part of racial oppression? How should racial oppression be resisted? How should racial violence be stopped? How should we build racial solidarity and fight for racial justice? We will also explore the connections between race and other identity categories such as gender, sexuality, class, ethnicity, religion, and nationality.

Philosophy 254-0-20 – Intro to Philosophy of the Natural Sciences

The course will introduce students to deep philosophical issues raised by modern natural science of metaphysical and epistemological nature. From a reflection on methodological questions, it will approach the question of realism. We will be guided by nested "what does it take"-questions. For example: What does it take for a system of sentences to count as a good scientific theory? What does it take for a scientific theory to be testable by observational and experimental data (and, by the way: what does it take for certain series of experiences to count as data or observations?)? What does it take for a given theory to be better supported by the available evidence than its competitors? What does it take for a given theory to explain the known phenomena in an area of knowledge? What does it take for an explanatory scientific theory to be credited with reference to underlying structures of reality? We will begin with a brief overview of the scientific revolution of the 16th and 17 th century, and then turn to the treatment of certain problems in the contemporary literature, like the problem of induction, the problem of the underdetermination of theory choice by the available data, the problem of rationality and conceptual change, the problem of realism.

Philosophy 254-0-20 – Intro to Philosophy of the Natural World

TBD

Philosophy 255-0-20 – Theory of Knowledge

In this class we will investigate several philosophical questions that arise as we think about knowledge. We will consider questions concerning the values that arise in connection with knowledge and other products of inquiry, we will help students recognize and reflect on evaluative questions that arise when we assess claims to knowledge, we will become aware of the standards we bring to bear in such assessments, and we will appreciate how these standards may be misused, abused, or exploited under certain social conditions.

Philosophy 262-0-20 – Ethical Problems and Public Issues

This course is a study of ethical problems arising in public policy, as well as philosophical approaches to addressing these problems. In this course we will think within, and critically examine, contemporary philosophical theories of morality such as utilitarianism, contractualism, virtue ethics, and care ethics. We will examine these moral theories through the lens of disputed moral issues such as punishment, immigration, racial integration, climate change, and freedom of speech, paying special attention to these issues as they figure in the contemporary social and political landscape of the United States. We will explore historical and contemporary structures of inequality in the US, particularly related to race, gender, and class, and we will critically reflect on our own positions within these structures.

Philosophy 269-0-20 – Bioethics

This course is a study of moral and political problems related to biomedicine and biotechnology. In the first part of the course, we will study the physician-patient relationship. We will consider what values ought to govern that relationship, how those values may conflict, and how such conflicts are best resolved. In the second part of the course, we will turn to some specific ethical challenges related to biotechnology, including abortion, genetic manipulation, and physician-assisted suicide. We will close the course by surveying the field of public health ethics, with particular attention to ethical issues related to global pandemic preparedness and response.

Philosophy 270-0-20 – Climate Change and Sustainability: Ethical Dimensions

This course is an introduction to some central concepts and problems in philosophical environmental ethics, with an emphasis on issues related to anthropogenic climate change. In the first part of the course, we will explore the problem of "moral standing:" the problem of who or what is deserving of ultimate moral consideration. For example, do sentient non-human animals like pigs or polar bears have moral standing? What about non-sentient life, such as plants or fungus? Might whole ecosystems or even nature as such have moral standards? We will examine recent arguments on these questions and their implications for moral theory. In the second part of the course, we will turn directly to the issue of global climate change. We will explore the standard economic analysis of climate change as a collective action problem and the philosophical presuppositions of that analysis. We will consider the question of the fair distribution of the benefits and burdens of climate mitigation globally, and we will discuss the ethics of geoengineering. We will close by considering the issue of "anthropocentrism" in ethics, asking whether and why anthropocentrism might be a problem for moral theory.

Philosophy 310-0-20 – Plato's Metaphysics and Epistemology Studies in Ancient Philosophy

In this course we will study Plato's metaphysics and epistemology. Likely topics include Plato's theory of Forms, collection and division, being and not being, space and time, teleology, causation, Plato's accounts of knowledge (esp. in the Theaetetus), the proper object(s) of knowledge, whether Platonic epistēmē is knowledge, the value of knowledge, and the Socratic elenchus. Texts to be studied include (parts of) the Euthyphro, Meno, Republic, Theaetetus, Sophist, Timaeus, Phaedo, Parmenides, and Philebus.

Philosophy 326-0-20 – Political Philosophy of Health and Health Care

This course will be a study of philosophical issues related to health inequalities. Many theorists hold that inequalities in health (or in access to health care) are more troubling than other inequalities, such as inequalities in wealth. Is that so? What makes inequality bad in the first place? What (if anything) is special about health inequalities? Should we be concerned with inequalities between individuals or inequalities between groups? Are health inequalities less troubling when they result from individuals' health behaviors?

Philosophy 390-0-20 – Philosophy of Disability

Disability is a protected class alongside race and gender. But what characterizes disability? Is disability grounded in people and their limitations, in how social institutions make it easier for some but not others to exercise their abilities, both, or something else entirely? Institutions like schools or businesses are regulated to support the lives of disabled persons. For example, the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits associated discrimination. But, at present, is social life arranged such that persons with disabilities are treated justly? What does justice require for disabled persons? This class will explore these and related questions to better understand what disability is, and what justice requires in connection to disability. In addition to written assignments, students can expect practical assignments to help them explore topics like accessibility at Northwestern.

Physics 101-8-1 – Science and Spirituality

The scientific enterprise, over the centuries, has often interacted with human spirituality and religion. This interaction has at times been synergistic and at times antagonistic. This course will focus on recent developments. We will look at relevant writings of influential scientists, including mystics, believers, agnostics, and atheists. At students' discretion, we might also touch at times on science related to spirituality and spiritual experience. In-class discussion will at all times be respectful, to allow productive dialogue on these deeply personal topics.

Physics 110-6-1 – Perspectives on Global Warming

Global Warming is one of the most difficult challenges facing humanity. This course examines global warming from a variety of perspectives, including many of the following: science, policy, economics, ethics,
politics, journalism, engineering, history, astronomy.

Physics 110-6-1 – Science and Spirituality

The scientific enterprise, over the centuries, has often interacted with human spirituality and religion. This interaction has at times been synergistic and at times antagonistic. This course will focus on recent developments. We will look at relevant writings of influential scientists, including mystics, believers, agnostics, and atheists. We will also look at research probing the physiology of spiritual experience. In-class discussion will at all times be respectful, to allow productive dialogue on these deeply personal topics.

Physics 110-6-2 – Breaking the Laws of Nature: Physics in Speculation

November 2015 marks the exact 100th anniversary of Einstein's theory of General Relativity. This seminar will explore the history of the birth and development of Einstein's theory, as well as some of its most intriguing implications. We will read and talk about warped spacetime, big bang cosmology, black holes, wormholes, and time machines, all at a nontechnical level requiring only basic high-school-level notions of physics and geometry.

POL SCI 349-0-20 – International Environmental Politics

TBD

Pol Sci 352-0-20 – Global Development

This course explores the economic and social changes that have constituted "development," and that have radically transformed human society. The course focuses on both the historical experience of Europe and the contemporary experience of countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. In the historical discussion, we explore the birth of the "nation state" as the basic organizing unit of the international system; the transition from agrarian to industrial economic systems; and the expansion of European colonialism across the globe. In our discussion of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, we consider the legacies of colonialism for development; the ways in which countries have attempted to promote economic development and industrialization; and issues of inequality and human welfare in an increasingly globally connected world.

Pol Sci 377-0-20 – Drugs and Politics

TBD

Pol Sci 390-0-20 – International Environmental Law

TBD

Pol Sci 390-0-26 – Bad News

That is what Americans are experiencing as a result of the corporate media mergers that took place in the closing years of the last century. Today there are six major companies that control much of what people read, hear and see. Those firms are AOL-Time Warner, General Electric, Walt Disney, News Corporation, Viacom/CBS, and Bertelsman. This course will examine the monetary forces that are driving the industry away from its primary mission of information. Critics contend that the drive for higher ratings, circulation and web page clicks is coming at the expense of the quality of news on television, radio, newspapers, magazines, and the Internet. Charges of Fake News combined with the ever-diminishing number of news providers is threatening democracy by limiting the number of voices that can be heard in our society.

Pol Sci 395-0-24 – Science and Knowledge in Global Climate Governance

Despite decades of climate science research, current climate action remains limited in its ability to effectively mitigate the impacts of climate change. Efforts to reduce emissions are well-intentioned attempts to avoid the most severe effects of climate change, but have yet to spur the magnitude of action required. In this course we will explore the intersections of climate science, traditional ecological knowledge, and climate justice to unpack how different knowledge systems inform and impact effective climate governance and policy. Often unrecognized in science and policy arenas, traditional ecological knowledge generates insights for strengthening efforts to effectively address climate change. In this course, we ask: to what extent and how do different knowledge systems gain and lose traction in different climate policy arenas? How, why, and with what effects are the science and policy of climate change far removed from the people most vulnerable to its impacts? Is the exclusivity of science—marginalization of knowledge systems and extricating climate science from climate change experiences—the greatest threat to effective climate action? And, how might policy arenas facilitate the introduction, deliberation, and circulation of plural worldviews and knowledge systems?

Pol Sci 395-0-27 – Politics in the Digital Age

Technologies that rely on data science and the internet are rapidly re-shaping our world. In this seminar, students will investigate the range of normative political issues raised by this complex, fast-changing situation characterized by social media, e-commerce, big data, artificial intelligence and the internet of things. Topics may include how we think about and experience personhood, citizenship, free speech, participation, inclusion, bias and inequality as well as the rise of issues such as data rights and disinformation. Synchronous class meetings will include discussion of common materials (readings and viewing) and student progress reports on their projects. Final projects can be submitted in the form of 2500-word research report, expository writing enhanced with links and illustrations, or a video or audio essay.

Pol Sce 395-0-28 – The Coronavirus Pandemic & the Question of Sovereignty

The Coronavirus knows no political boundaries. Humanity's efforts to defend itself against the virus, by contrast, are contained and constrained by the boundaries that humanity has inflicted upon itself in order to assure the political autonomy of its various national communities. These communities are, by law and by normative understanding, "sovereign." "Sovereignty" is a good thing, and is portrayed as a good thing, to the extent that it provides each community with the autonomy and freedom to forge its own destiny. But it is, arguably, a bad thing when it causes humanity to trip over itself while trying to address urgent global threats. The current pandemic is one of these, but only the first of many - the "first act" in the drama that has already begun to unfold of humanity's disorder and disarray as it confronts global perils that are placing its very survival in question. In this seminar we do three things. First, we read several theoretical works on the concept of sovereignty: what is it, why do we have it, and can we imagine a world without it? Second, we read narratives about pandemics in other places and times. Comparisons are always informative. Third, students do individual research on our current Covid-19 pandemic and how sovereignty has affected its development. Students report back to the class weekly on their findings. Students draw on all three elements - conceptual definition, comparison, and research - to write a 5000-word research paper related to the pandemic and the question of sovereignty.

Political Science 101-7-23 – Are You a Gadget?

This seminar introduces students to recent research on the cultural problems that have wittingly and unwittingly arisen from the prevalence of digital technologies in multiple spheres of life today (e.g., internet, AI, generative AI, social media, cloud computing, internet of things, big data). We will focus on their political implications. Some researchers are deeply worried while others are optimistic. Some researchers call for the development of ethical standards for data scientists. Some call for policies and regulations of the relevant industries to protect "users." Some call for rethinking the demands of freedom, equality, autonomy and democracy in light of these new technologies. Overall, our learning objective is for students to gain a facility with some conceptual material of value for thinking critically about the political dimension of this moment in the history of technology. No tech background will be assumed or needed. The title of the seminar is a nod to a book we read to start our critical inquiry, You Are Not a Gadget, by visionary computer scientist Jaron Lanier. Other researchers whose work we will consult include technology ethicist Tristan Harris (Center for Humane Technology), economist Shoshanah Zuboff (The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the Frontier of Power), mathematician Cathy O'Neil (Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy), tech writer Nicholas Carr (The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains), journalist Max Fisher (The Outrage Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired our Minds and Our Worlds), "poet of code" and AI researcher Joy Buolamwini (The Algorithmic Justice League). Documentary films also feature in our sampling of recent research. Frequent short student oral presentations.

Political Science 329-0-20 – U.S. Environmental Politics

This course explores the ongoing socio-political challenges of addressing environmental problems. Drawing primarily on research in political science and political ecology, we will analyze the diverse types of social dilemmas that produce environmental problems and the social effects of environmental politics. We focus on contemporary environmental politics to consider emerging frontiers in US environmental politics. We will examine the nature of environmental problems through different theoretical frameworks, including collective action, distributive, and ideational explanations of environmental problems. We will explore core debates in environmental politics that interrogate the role of science, ethics, and economics in shaping environmental policy. We will also consider different approaches and institutions for addressing environmental problems. Throughout the course, we will pay particular attention to the values conflicts that constitute environmental politics, with a particular emphasis on Indigenous and underrepresented communities. The course is designed to give students an understanding of important conceptual issues in environmental politics.

Political Science 348-0-20 – Globalization

TBD

Political Science 349-0-20 – International Environmental Politics

Environmental problems that transcend national borders are amongst the most intractable challenges facing our global community. Collective action problems are pervasive in negotiations and attempts to address, monitor, and enforce international environmental agreements are often weak. Yet, despite these constraints, international actors have designed and secured agreement in a variety of policy arenas, aiming to improve global environmental governance. Through a team-based approach to learning, we will explore how, why, and when the international community is able to overcome collective action problems and effectively address global environmental challenges.

The course is divided into three parts. In the first part of the course, we will focus on the problems, institutions, and politics in global environmental governance. The second part of the course focuses on key concepts or themes in global environmental politics that shape our understanding of international cooperation in solving environmental problems, such as science, justice, markets, and security. In the third part of the course, students will participate in an extended negotiation simulation to examine the diverse actors and modes of engagement that define the politics around a particular issue.

Political Science 390-0-20 – Ethical AI and the Politics of Tech

This course address the political context, characteristics, and consequences of artificial intelligence and technological innovation. AI's growth and rapid evolution both reflects social and political norms and cleavages, and also stands to directly influence and shape them. The course will highlight several domains of significant AI development, including computer vision and natural language processing, to assess their political foundations and implications. We will explore the promise of algorithmic interventions as well as their dangers. We will also discuss the political and legal landscape for AI and technological innovation, as well as the regulatory challenges and opportunities facing the tech sector. This course does not require any technical knowledge or expertise surrounding machine learning or AI systems (although engineering backgrounds are welcome).

Political Science 390-0-22 – Political Sociology: Focus on Gender

This class will investigate how gender shapes politics and policy, and how these in turn shape gender, in the United States and other countries, situated in global context. Gender is conceptualized as a set of relations, identities and cultural schema, always constituted with other dimensions of power, difference and inequality (e.g., race, class, sexuality, religion, citizenship status). We will analyze the gendered character of citizenship, political participation and representation, social rights and economic rights. We aim to understand gendered politics and policy from both "top down" and "bottom up" perspectives. What do states do, via institutions of political participation and representation, citizenship rights and policies, to shape gender relations? How do gender relations influence the nature of policy and citizenship? How has feminism emerged as a radical challenge to the androcentrism and restricted character of the democratic public sphere? And how has anti-feminism come to be a significant dimension of politics? We expand on conventional conceptions of political participation and citizenship rights to include the grassroots democratic activism that gave birth to modern women's movements. We explore how women's political efforts have given rise to the creation of alternative visions of democracy, social provision and economic participation, as well as reshaping formal politics and policies. And, finally, we will take advantage of the fact that we are in the middle of an election to examine some of the gendered aspects of the political landscape in the contemporary United States.

The course readings feature different types of materials - original documents, scholarly books and articles, a textbook, policy reports, popular non-fiction work on aspects of gender, policy, politics and society. These are supplemented by films and online resources.

Political Science 390-0-26 – Climate Change Law and Policy

This course examines the potential role of the law in confronting climate change from an institutional and policy perspective, examining the role of treaties, national legislation (in the United States), sub-national responses and judicial and quasi-judicial fora. Among the topics that will be addressed include the science associated with climate change, the role of key international climate treaty regimes, including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement, national and state and local responses to climate change in the United States, the role of litigation in confronting major emitters, and the potential role of climate geoengineering approaches. It will also seek to help students develop critical skills of analysis of treaty provisions, legislative language, and court decisions, public speaking and cogent writing.

Psych 101-6-20 – Mental Health Diagnosis & Treatment

While those going into the field of mental health typically think about it as a "helping profession", there is much more than meets the eye when it comes to the psychological, economic, and political forces that have defined the development of the field. The course will focus on the contemporary framework for defining mental illness - the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (now in its 5th edition) - with a particular focus on some of the problems that have emerged from the disease-based framework utilized in the manual, and the assumptions that it makes about disorders and typical development. As part of this discussion, there will be particular focus on the controversial application of the diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Then we will shift to an exploration of the role of state mental hospitals in the U.S. in the early to mid-20th century, and we will examine the political forces that drove the de-institutionalization movement of the 1970s and 1980s, with additional consideration of the contemporary implications of the closing of state hospitals. Finally, the course will focus on the evolution of psychotherapy in the modern marketplace, and some of the challenges posed by the demands of the health insurance industry and academic research. The aggressive way in which the DSM has been marketed internationally and the implications of culture for diagnosis will also be discussed. Along the way, we will explore critiques of the pharmaceutical industry, the health insurance industry, and modern psychiatry. Some of these themes will also be explored through analysis of popular films and other media. This class will be conducted remotely with synchronous class meetings. Students will be evaluated on the basis of class attendance and participation, co-leading a class discussion with peers, and writing assignments including short reaction papers and a longer research paper.

Psych 101-620 – Psychology and Weird Beliefs

Lots of people have beliefs that other people think are just plain weird. Why do people have these beliefs? We will look at "weird" beliefs within our culture and maybe some cross-cultural examples to understand what leads to development and maintenance of beliefs. We'll also consider how to evaluate rationality of beliefs. Among the specific topics we may cover are: science denial, superstition, parapsychology, conspiracy theories, ghosts, near-death and out-of-body experiences, witchcraft, alien abduction, repressed memories of abuse, and creationism/intelligent design. Students will use a wide variety of academic and popular media resources (including empirical research articles, ethnographic descriptions, philosophical arguments, popular press books, and documentary films) to explore the bases for these beliefs and practices.

Psych 249-0-1 – Buddhist Psychology

Buddhism is most often considered a religion, but it is also very much a psychological system. The course also provides a concise introduction to key concepts in Buddhism (with minimal discussion of the evolution of different Buddhist schools and sects) and how these ideas relate to topics from main-stream Psychology. As students work through the material, we will examine how the critical Buddhist observation of interdependence, especially of all living beings and their environment, leads to an ethical system based on the view that harming others is also harming oneself. Implications of these foundational concepts will be investigated in relation to class materials.

Psychology 101-7-1 – Mental Health Diagnosis and Treatment

While those going into the field of mental health typically think about it as a "helping profession", there is much more than meets the eye when it comes to the psychological, economic, and political forces that have defined the development of the field. The course will focus on the contemporary framework for defining mental illness - the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (now in its 5th edition) - with a particular focus on some of the problems that have emerged from the disease-based framework utilized in the manual, and the assumptions that it makes about disorders and typical development. We will explore the role of state mental hospitals in the U.S. in the early to mid-20th century, and we will examine the political forces that drove the de-institutionalization movement of the 1970s and 1980s, with additional consideration of the contemporary implications of the closing of state hospitals. Finally, the course will focus on the evolution of psychotherapy in the modern marketplace, and some of the challenges posed by the demands of the health insurance industry and academic research. The aggressive way in which the DSM has been marketed internationally and the implications of culture for diagnosis will also be discussed. Along the way, we will explore critiques of the pharmaceutical industry, the health insurance industry, and modern psychiatry. Some of these themes will also be explored through analysis of popular films and other media. Students will be evaluated on the basis of class attendance and participation, co-leading a class discussion with peers, and writing assignments including short reaction papers and a longer research paper.

Psychology 340-0-1 – Psychology and the Law

This course will examine the complex issues involved in applying the science of psychology to the field of law. Among the topics we will cover:

-How psychological research can apply to policies and practices in the legal system

-Expert testimony

-Methods, uses, and limitations of forensic assessment

-Determination of legal competence

-The insanity defense

-Syndromes (Battered Women's Syndrome/Rape Trauma Syndrome) in the legal arena

-Criminal profiling types, methods, and limitations

-Eyewitness testimony and other memory issues

-Interrogation and confessions

-Jury selection and decision making

-Prisons and death penalty

Psychology 340-0-1 – Psychology and Law

This course will examine the complex issues involved in applying the science of psychology to the field of law. Among the topics we will cover:

How psychological research can apply to policies and practices in the legal system
Expert testimony
Methods, uses, and limitations of forensic assessment
Determination of legal competence
The insanity defense
Syndromes (Battered Women's Syndrome/Rape Trauma Syndrome) in the legal arena
Criminal profiling types, methods, and limitations
Eyewitness testimony and other memory issues
Interrogation and confessions
Jury selection and decision making
Prisons and death penalty

Psychology 392-0-1 – Psychology and "Weird" Beliefs

Lots of people have beliefs that other people think are just plain weird. Why do people have these beliefs? We'll look at "weird" beliefs within our culture and maybe some cross-cultural examples to understand the social and cognitive processes that lead to development and maintenance of beliefs. Among the specific topics we may cover are: distinction between science and pseudoscience, science denial, superstition, parapsychology, conspiracy theories, ghosts, near-death and out-of-body experiences, witchcraft, alien abduction, and repressed memories of abuse.

Since this is an upper-level research course, we will focus on psychological theories, methodological issues, and empirical research in this area. We'll do some hands-on research and data interpretation activities during class meetings. Students will work in groups to design, conduct, analyze, and write up an empirical research project during the quarter.

Psychology 420-0-1 – History, Ethics, Diversity and Consultation in Clinical Psychology

This course has multiple goals that will be covered in separate modules that we will also weave together to look for bigger themes and connections. We will begin with a focus on ethics in psychology. This is a critical piece of what clinical psychologists do, whether in practice, in research, or in consultation. We will review the code of ethics and will have conversations about the many gray areas and the sometimes complex interplay between our ethical and our legal obligations. Will then move into consultation, covering the various roles one can take on as a clinical psychologist and the factors to consider. Our third topic will be the history of psychology, where our goal will be to understand and contextualize the history of our field. That means taking a full look at historical figures for their accomplishments and their shortcomings and the context in which their work took place that may have shaped their thinking. It also means delving further into some of the "hidden figures" in the field whose accomplishments may not be as well known because of the way that some voices have been amplified over others. Finally, we will discuss issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion both as it relates to ourselves and the people we work with (clients, colleagues, mentors, students).

Rel 316-0-20 – Religion and the Body in China

This seminar explores the place of the body in Chinese religion, from the ancient period to the present day. In the course of this exploration, we seek to challenge our presuppositions about a seemingly simple question: what is "the body," and how do we know? We open by considering themes of dying and the afterlife, food and drink, health and medicine, gender and family. We then turn to Daoist traditions of visual culture that envision the human body as intimately connected with the cosmos and picture the body's interior as a miniature landscape populated by a pantheon of gods. We read ghost stories and analyze the complex history of footbinding. Finally, we conclude with two case studies of religion and the body in contemporary China, one situated on the southwestern periphery, the other in the capital city of Beijing. Throughout the quarter, we investigate how the body has mediated relationships between Buddhist, Daoist, and popular religious traditions. By the course's end, students will gain key resources for understanding historical and contemporary Chinese culture, and new perspectives on what it means to be religious and embodied.

Rel 318-0-26 – The Natural and Supernatural in Southeast Asia

This course examines the ways in which different Southeast Asian peoples have conceived of what we might think of as the natural world - the environment; and the supernatural world - various religious traditions and cosmologies; and the continuous interplay between the two. Together we will explore the Kahiringan tradition of the Ngaju Dayak people from Central Kalimantan in Indonesia; representations of nature in the textual traditions and temple paintings of the Vessantera jataka in Myanmar and Thailand; Ilongot headhunting and historical reckoning; and the hydraulic landscape of Bali's water temples. Our goal will be to understand the kinds of conceptual and practical resources Southeast Asians have brought to understanding and controlling the world in which they have lived.

Rel 369-0-24 – Media, Earth and Making a Difference

The central question of this course is: What Makes a Difference? Analyzing a variety of works of media addressing environmental themes, including works drawn from advertising and marketing, we will consider different types of environmental messaging and attempts to mobilize public moral engagement. Specifically, we will be looking at strategies for implementing media interventions as moral interventions. Discussion taken up in this class will include evaluating the comparative value of media messaging that emphasizes individual action and personal responsibility, versus messaging that promotes collective action, policy, and structural changes. Students will consider and debate what constitutes authentic "green" messaging versus mere corporate "greenwashing." Throughout, we will ask what kind of media we need in what has been called the "Anthropocene" (a time when humans are now a major geologic force affecting the future of the planet). When motivating public moral engagement in climate crisis, are the solutions being offered those that the planet will actually "register" or "notice" on a global scale? If not, what kinds of "media interventions" do we need to be making and how? Course content will include discussion of media interventions as moral interventions, media activism for social change, eco-media responses by religious communities and organizations, participatory digital culture, and the challenges of addressing environmental crisis in the distraction economy and what has been called the "post-truth era." Students will have the opportunity to learn by doing, proposing and crafting their own environmental media interventions as the course's final project. This course is about taking action and making a true difference. Format: lecture/seminar/discussion hybrid combination.

Rel St. 369-20 – Religion in the Digital Age

What happens when religion goes digital? In this course we examine how religions are adapting to an increasingly digital world and how digital environments are shaping old and new religious practices. Through a series of case studies, we will consider how religious practitioners and the “spiritual but not religious” are using digital media to challenge established religious authority, create community, innovate devotional practices, and theorize their experiences. We will examine, for example, collage and hip hop, virtual pujas, mindfulness apps, user-generated gods, emoji spells, tulpamancy, transhumanism, and Slender Man. Through these case studies we will explore how digital natives and adopters are reimagining religious presence, mediation, community, ethics, and ontology. This class centers BIPOC, queer, and feminist voices, digital arts, memetics, lived religion, and social justice. Students will practice skills for digital humanities research, engage in ethical reflection, and apply course learning to creating their own digital artifacts.

Rel 379-0-23 – Science Fiction & Social Justice

This course will examine major utopian and dystopian texts in relation to social justice issues in the twentieth and twenty-first century, while following the stories of artists, organizers, and communities that have used speculative world-building to imagine livable, sustainable futures. We will focus on how feminist, anarchist, LGBTQ, and Afrofuturist art and activism have contributed to a substantial critical discourse on the intersections of science, technology, ecology, war, race, gender, sexuality, health, and ability. We will further examine how artists and activists have understood religion as both impediment and partner to social justice work, while alternatively embracing, subverting, and defying religious authority. We will attend to how religious myths and imagery are sampled and remixed by science fiction authors to plot an alternative course for world history.

Rel St. 379-0-20 – Science Fiction and Social Justice

This course will examine major utopian and dystopian texts in relation to social justice issues in the twentieth and twenty-first century, while following the stories of artists, organizers, and communities that have used speculative world-building to imagine livable, sustainable futures. We will focus on how feminist, anarchist, LGBTQ, and Afrofuturist art and activism have contributed to a substantial critical discourse on the intersections of science, technology, ecology, war, race, gender, sexuality, health, and ability. We will further examine how artists and activists have understood religion as both impediment and partner to social justice work, while alternatively embracing, subverting, and defying religious authority. We will attend to how religious myths and imagery are sampled and remixed by science fiction authors to plot an alternative course for world history.

Religion 379-0-23 – Science Fiction and Social Justice

This course will examine major utopian and dystopian texts in relation to social justice issues in the twentieth and twenty-first century, while following the stories of artists, organizers, and communities that have used speculative world-building to imagine livable, sustainable futures. We will focus on how feminist, anarchist, LGBTQ, and Afrofuturist art and activism have contributed to a substantial critical discourse on the intersections of science, technology, ecology, war, race, gender, sexuality, health, and ability. We will further examine how artists and activists have understood religion as both impediment and partner to social justice work, while alternatively embracing, subverting, and defying religious authority. We will attend to how religious myths and imagery are sampled and remixed by science fiction authors to plot an alternative course for world history.

Religious St 349-0-22 – Medicine, Miracles and Magic: Healthcare

Today, religion and science are often regarded as separate spheres of knowledge and practice, but was this always the case? In this class, we will explore the overlapping uses of medicine, miracles, and magic in premodern healthcare. We will ask what kinds of people were able to practice medicine (priests? physicians? nuns? magicians?), why a person's barber was also their surgeon, how the dead supported the health of the living, and why rituals like confession could treat stomach aches and other ailments. We will learn what a vial of urine could tell a medieval physician about a patient's habits, consider how an individual's astrological sign influenced their treatment plan, and discuss what an excess of garlic in a person's diet might tell us about the moral state of their spirit. By the end of this course, students will be able to identify and analyze the complex, nuanced systems that medieval people used to theorize the body and its relationship to the soul, and will be able to articulate how physical, spiritual, and even supernatural medicines were often combined to treat both.
As we study the nuances of premodern medicine, we will also work to rethink the relationship between religion and science in our own world, and consider whether and where our modern healthcare practices align with the past as much as they depart from it.

Religious St 369-0-20 – Religion in the Digital Age

TBD

Religious Studies 101-6-23 – Afterlives and Living After: Envisioning Other Worlds

Humans for thousands of years have documented their visions of other worlds and afterlives. Whether informed by religious revelation, collective trauma, or individual creativity, these visions provide important vantage points for assessing cultural values and experiences. In this class we will explore religious models of "The Afterlife" while also analyzing afterlives constructed in fiction, film, art, and other forms of popular media. We will ask how envisioning other worlds can help us to alternately articulate and blur the boundaries between life and death, trauma and healing, past and present, and reality and fiction. We will also explore what it means to "live after" major ruptures in individual and collective experience. For instance, how do we envision life after pandemic? After climate change? Revolution? Immigration? Utopia? Through speculative fiction, how to we envision the afterlives of humanity as we assess the potential for a post-human world?

Sources will include ghost stories from around the world, medieval visions of hell, purgatory, and heaven, videos of dead celebrities resurrected as holograms, episodes of Upload, The Good Place, and Star Trek, contemporary news releases, and short speculative fiction. Students will develop skills in analytical writing, creative thinking, and classroom collaboration.

RTVF 398-0-21 – Media and the Environment

This course will explore intersections of media and environment, considering media about the environment, media in the environment, and media as environment. It will cover a variety of media forms and examine how they shape our perception of the environment and foster environmental action. We will consider topics such as theories of media ecology; definitions of the "Anthropocene" epoch; the materiality of media infrastructure; media's role in raising environmental consciousness and promoting environmental justice; advertising and consumer culture; wildlife documentary; ecocritical aesthetics; environmental history; indigenous media; representations of landscape and soundscape; and animals as media performers. We will assess multiple forms of media, film, television, videogames, podcasting, sound art, infographics, and more, from a range of critical frameworks. We will consider numerous genres of environmental media as well, including apocalyptic and eco-disaster narratives, eco-comedies, "toxic" dramas, environmental melodrama, conspiracy thrillers, documentary, and animation.

School of Comm St - Comm St 101-1-1 – Communication in Context

Introduction to Communication Studies as a broad and interdisciplinary field, looking at important domains, processes and perspectives for understanding communication phenomena.

School of Comm St - Comm St 395-0-21 – History of Theory and Information

We live in an information age, with computers of unprecedented power in our pockets. This course seeks to understand how information shapes our lives today, and how it has in the past. It does so via an interdisciplinary inquiry into four technological infrastructures of information and communication—print, wires, airwaves, and bits.

SESP - Learning Sciences 214-0-20 – Culture and Cognition

TBD

SESP-Learning Sciences 301-0-20 – Design of Learning Environments

Issues in designing and studying innovative learning environments. New models of classroom interaction, particularly using technology to enable new cognitive and social roles for students. Topics include simulations, tutors, computer-mediated communication, project-based learning. Theoretical motivations in cognitive and social-interaction learning theories, empirical studies evaluating their effectiveness, and prospects for propagation of such innovations.

Soc 208-0-20 – Race and Society

This class will explore the nature of race in an effort to understand exactly what race is. It seeks to understand why race is such a potent force in American society. Close attention will be paid to the relationship between race, power, and social stratification. The course will examine the nature of racial conflict and major efforts to combat racial inequality.

Soc 212-0-20 – Environment and Society

Overview of the interactions between societies and the natural environment. Examines both key environmental problems, like climate change and oil spills, and possible solutions, and the roles played by different social structures and groups in shaping both issues. Co-listed as Envr Pol 212-0-1

Soc 216-0-20 – Gender and Society

Gender structures our daily lives in fundamental ways, yet we are often unaware of its effects. For example, why do we associate blue with boys and pink with girls? Why do most administrative forms only have two categories (i.e. Male and Female)? Why do male doctors, on average, have higher incomes than female doctors? The course introduces students to the sociological analysis of gender as a central component of social organization and social inequality in the US context. We start by reviewing key sociological concepts that are important to the study of gender. Next, we explore the causes and consequences of gender inequalities in important social institutions such as the family, the education system, and the labor market. We conclude by considering gender inequality in an international comparative context to understand crosscutting similarities and differences between the US and both high- and low-income contexts. This allows us to explore the role social norms and policies play in perpetuating and/or mitigating gender inequalities.

Soc 220-0 – Health, Biomedicine, Culture and Society

Present-day medicine and health care are flashpoints for a bewildering array of controversies--about whose interests the health care system should serve and how it should be organized; about the trustworthiness of the medical knowledge we rely on when we are confronted with the threat of illness; about the politics and ethics of biomedical research; about whether health care can be made affordable; about how the benefits of good health can be shared equitably across lines of social class, race, and gender; and about the proper roles of health professionals, scientists, patients, activists, and the state in establishing medical, political, and ethical priorities. By providing a broad introduction to the domain of health and biomedicine, this course will take up such controversies as matters of concern to all. We will analyze the cultural meanings associated with health and illness; the political controversies surrounding health care, medical knowledge production, and medical decision-making; and the structure of the social institutions that comprise the health care industry. We will examine many problems with the current state of health and health care in the United States, and we will also consider potential solutions.

Soc 232-0-20 – Sexuality and Society

Co-listed with Gender St. 232

Soc 232-0-26 – Sexuality and Society

This course will examine how society shapes sexuality, as well as how sexuality shapes society. Although many consider sexuality to be deeply personal, in fact, social context greatly affects how individuals understand and experience sexuality. Questions this course will consider include: What is the relationship between individual identities and practices and broader social, cultural, and structural contexts? How does sexuality intersect with gender, class, race/ethnicity, geographic location, age, and nationality? What are sexual subcultures? The course will also consider how sexuality is related to different types of social inequalities. At the end of the course, students will be able to discuss how studying sexuality helps us better understand complex social processes.

Soc 288-0-1 – Institutions and Society

This course approaches the study of sociological institutions--often referred to as "the rules of the game"--from a design perspective using in-class exercises and applications. We'll work to understand how these institutions emerge and address existing societal problems, ultimately analyzing the potential of different institutional configurations to encourage or discourage desired outcomes. We focus on both coordination-type dilemmas (e.g. how to parent, which side of the street to drive on, who provides health care) and collective-action dilemmas (e.g. how to police fishermen going over quota, funding of public radio). We end with a study of how institutions persist--possibly beyond their useful lifespan--such as the persistence of the intentionally inefficient 'QWERTY' keyboard, and a conversation about why it's difficult to enact policy change. The course has two overarching goals. This first is to develop a new way of approaching and analyzing social institutions. The second is to build skills in critical analysis though case studies and applications with a local Evanston institution.

SOC 306-0-1 – Sociological Theory

This course examines some of the guiding themes of sociological analysis as they were originally formulated by four influential "classical" social thinkers: Emile Durkheim, Karl Marx, Max Weber, and W.E.B. Du Bois. Drawing on some of these theorists' major writings, the purpose of the course is to unpack each thinker's major concepts and consider how he fused them in order to craft a distinctive lens through which to view the social world at his own time and today.

Soc 306-0-1 – Sociological Theory

This course examines some of the guiding themes of sociological analysis as they were originally formulated by four influential “classical” social thinkers: Emile Durkheim (1858-1917), Karl Marx (1818-1883), Max Weber (1864-1920), and W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963). Drawing on some of these theorists’ major writings, the purpose of the course is to unpack each thinker’s major concepts and consider how he fused them in order to craft a distinctive lens through which to view the social world at his own time and today. onfigure power relations to create more ethical social structures.

Soc 306-0-20 – Sociological Theory

Social theory provides a lens to understand how power operates in modern societies. It helps us examine not only the production of socio-economic and political inequalities but also the reproduction of social order, namely, how society holds together despite all the antagonisms such disparities create. In this course, we will study three strands of social theory, emancipatory, positivist, and critical. Emancipatory theorists, most notably Marx, "speak truth to power" to emancipate oppressed groups. They hope their theories will arm the oppressed against their oppressors in their struggles for freedom. Mainstream, positivist theorists, in contrast, take the point-of-view of the social planner and seek to use science to reform society. Finally, critical theorists, such as Frederic Nietzsche, Max Weber, and Michel Foucault, share positivists' skepticism toward emancipatory theorists. Yet, they do not try to base their authority on science, as they see science as just another way power operates. Moreover, they believe power to be intrinsic to social relations and think emancipation is simply not possible. Instead, they seek to reconfigure power relations to create more ethical social structures.

Soc 306-0-20 – Sociology Theory

The main emphasis in this course is on how sociological theory informs social research. We will read selections of classical social theory and then look at how various scholars have used that theory to help them analyze some aspect of society. We will keep moving between theoretical statements and applications or refinements of that theory. The course will be a mix of lectures and discussion.

Soc 307-0-1 – School and Society

This course is a critical sociological look at education in the United States with a focus on contemporary debates and issues. The course will cover how sociologists have both theoretically and empirically looked at schooling practices, what students learn, and how schools fit into the larger society including how the educational system in the U.S. interacts with political, economic, familial, and cultural institutions. We will also spend much time examining how educational experiences and opportunities are shaped by multiple social statuses including gender, socioeconomic status, race and ethnicity. We will focus on K-12 and higher education including the transition to higher education. Throughout all of these issues and topics, we will consider how schools both challenge and support existing systems of inequality.

Soc 317-0-20 – Global Development

This course explores the economic and social changes that have constituted "development," and that have radically transformed human society. The course focuses on both the historical experience of Europe and the contemporary experience of countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. In the historical discussion, we explore the birth of the "nation state" as the basic organizing unit of the international system; the transition from agrarian to industrial economic systems; and the expansion of European colonialism across the globe. In our discussion of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, we consider the legacies of colonialism for development; the ways in which countries have attempted to promote economic development and industrialization; and issues of inequality and human welfare in an increasingly globally connected world.

Soc 319-0 – Sociology of Science

The idea that science has a history and exists in a social context may seem curious to some: we are taught, and the scientific method is thought to ensure, that scientific knowledge is objective and universal. But like other social institutions, science has rules and norms that dictate training and professionalization, the representation of findings and ideas, and minute practices in that can shape the big picture of what we know about the world. This course introduces students to the sociology of science, a field based on understanding how the natural and laboratory sciences are influenced by political and historical epochs, social identities, and cultural norms. The course has three broad aims: to introduce students to core literature in the history and sociology of science; to use case studies to better understand the social life of various scientific fields and innovations; and to apply our sociological imaginations to conceive possibilities at the limits of humanistic and social aspirations.

Soc 324-0-1 – Global Capitalism

This course examines the recent history of capitalism around the world, and is meant to whet your appetite rather than to provide comprehensive coverage. We examine four historical topics: what communism was, and why people fear it; why there is more poverty and inequality in the U.S. than other developed countries, and whether this is a problem; how some developing countries have managed to become rich; and the rise of the financial sector in the American economy, at the expense of manufacturing and services. We then close with an examination of the racialized history of capitalism, and students are asked to use everything they have learned in the course to think through solutions for questions of the current moment.

Soc 330-0-20 – Law, Markets and Globalization

This course examines law in the context of recent trends which have increasingly integrated the world's social and economic systems. Globalization means greater interdependence and less national autonomy. It occurs as international flows of capital, goods, services, and people increase. Transactions, interactions and relationships that formerly occurred within national boundaries now occur across them. But transactions and relationships involving capital, goods, services and people are not self-sustaining. Rather, they are supported and regulated by an institutional foundation that typically centers on the legal system. As part of globalization, particular legal and institutional forms are also spreading throughout the world. Because the legal and institutional frameworks that support these transactions exist primarily at the level of the nation-state, a governance mismatch has emerged. Globalization means that more is going on between national jurisdictions than within them, and tensions arise between competing institutional models. Thus, globalization motivates both an extension of legal systems, and a confrontation between different legal systems that can be resolved conflictually or concordantly. Either outcome leads to institutional convergence. We consider a number of different kinds of law but focus especially on commercial law, quasi-legal trade agreements (e.g., WTO), and commercially-relevant quasi-legal institutions. We pay attention to legal developments in developing and transitional economies, and also consider how the international community deals with significant common problems like economic inequality and global climate change.

Soc 336-0-20 – The Climate in Crisis, Policies and Society

Climate change is the worst environmental problem facing the earth. Sea levels will rise, glaciers are vanishing, horrific storms will hit everywhere. After looking briefly at the impacts of climate change on natural and social environments both in the present and near future, we then consider how to best reduce climate change and how to adapt to its impacts. Issues of climate justice, divides between the global North and South, social movements, steps taken in different countries and internationally, and the role of market and regulations are addressed. Co-listed as Envr Pol 336-0-01.

Soc 355-0 – Medical Sociology

How are experiences of health and illness influenced by the gendered social and political context in which our bodies are located? This course will introduce you to the major theoretical and substantive topics that comprise the social study of gender, its relationship to health and illness, and the influence of social movements, politics, and policymakers. We will explore a wide range of historical and theoretical understandings of gendered bodies, identities, processes, and institutional structures, with a focus on how they contribute to gendered patterns and inequalities in experiences of health and illness across the lifespan. The course will consider the origins and impacts of the women's health movement in the United States (US) and globally; investigate the social basis of health outcomes, engage critically with how other socially meaningful forms of difference, such as race and class interact with gender to shape experiences of health and illness; explore differences in how the reproductive health of men and women is constructed and controlled; consider questions of social justice in relation to the health experiences of queer, intersex, and transgender individuals; and, engage with recent policy debates related to biomedical and health research.

SOC 355-0-1 – Medical Sociology

This course introduces some of the main topics of medical sociology: the social construction of health and illness; inequalities in the distribution of illness and health care; the globalization of health care; and the organization of health care work, the medical professions, and the health care system. Students will learn about variations in who gets sick and why, how the health professions evolved in the United States and how the health care "turf" has been divided among professions, whether and when patients and their families participate in medical decision making, why physicians have more authority and receive higher incomes in the U.S. than elsewhere, what doctors do when interns and residents make mistakes, what the relationship is between hospitals and other health care organizations and how that relationship has changed over time, how the American healthcare system compares to other healthcare systems, how expenditures on preventive medicine compare with expenditures on high-tech cutting- edge medicine, and why the U.S. invests so much in high-tech medicine.

SOC 356-0-20 – Sociology of Gender

In this course, we investigate gender relations, in the context of complex and intersecting inequalities, across states, markets and families, with a focus on the United States, historically and in the contemporary era, placed in comparative and global contexts. After a theoretical and historical overview, we explore the gendered division of labor in employment and in families, and evaluate how this has been shaped by state and corporate policies, ordinary peoples' practices and shifting cultural ideals and gendered belief systems. Finally, we examine the gendered character of citizenship, political participation, social and economic rights, and try to understand gendered politics and policy from both "top down" and "bottom up" perspectives.

Soc 376-0-1 – Sexuality, Technoscience and Law

Sexuality shapes the cultural, economic, political, and social organization of the U.S. The ways we define and think about sexuality are deeply entangled in science and technology, regulation and governance, and social practices of exclusion and inclusion. This course examines the complex relationships between sexuality, technoscience, and the law?including those that guide sexuality-related identities, meanings, and interactions; sexual citizenship, feminist and queer health movements; investigating and controlling sexual crimes; digital expressions of sexuality, privacy, and algorithmic justice.

Soc 376-0-1 – Technology, Work, Love and Life

Technology is an integral part of society: from the wheel, to the cotton gin, to the modern computer. Technology is everywhere and humans have always used technology to shape society and vice versa. How do people relate to technology? How has our culture been affected by technology? How has technology itself been shaped by societal norms, and values? This course gives an overview of the growing and important field of the Sociology of Technology. In this course we will explore the different ways that technology has affected our society through a sociological lens. We will examine how physical material combines with culture to create the distinct aspects of our society. Students may not receive credit for this course and for Sociology 392 'Technology, Work, Love, and Life in 2020.

Soc 376-0-20 – Race, Gender, Sex and Science

What is the scientific status of our ideas about race? How are medical and legal ideas invoked in determinations about people's gender identities? Overall, how do developments in the life sciences affect our understandings of who we are, how we differ, and how social inequalities are created, perpetuated, and challenged? This seminar explores how scientific claims and technological developments help transform cultural understandings of race, gender, and sexuality. Conversely, we will consider how cultural beliefs about race, gender, and sexuality influence scientific knowledge and medical practice. We will take up a series of controversies from the recent past and present to explore the dynamic interplay between expert findings, social identities, and political arguments.

Soc 376-0-21 – Topics in Sociological Analysis

This discussion-based seminar is an introduction to the social scientific study of empire. We will pay special attention to formal settler colonialism, formal overseas colonies, and informal empire. We will discuss how politicians and elites conquer territory, draw boundaries, exercise political and economic control, and define the people of conquered places. We will explore the material consequences that result from such processes, especially as they relate to race, citizenship, and rights. While the primary focus of this course is on forms of U.S. empire, we will place the U.S. empire in a global and transnational context. There will be comparative readings to other empires and colonies. Finally, each student will conduct an individual research project that brings the concepts they learned in class to bear on another case of imperial rule.

Soc 376-0-21 – The Politics of Scarcity

TBD

Soc 376-0-22 – Sociology of Technology

Technology is ubiquitous. This course covers central tenets in the sociology of technology by pairing an empirical focus on a different technology each week with a theoretical paradigm. A total of eight technologies will serve as the exemplars through which the question(s) concerning technology will be explored: bicycles, cars, computers, facial recognition, genetic sequencing, soap, shipping containers and virtual reality. Each of these technologies is approached as a window into the social, political, racial, and economic determinants of technological innovation. The central goal of the course is to equip students with the tools for unpacking the technologies societies take for granted and critically engaging with new technologies that may reproduce social inequities. While much of the scholarship we will consider is broadly sociological, some of it is drawn from other fields, and part of the goal of the course is to show what is gained when we think about technology from an interdisciplinary perspective. Students from other disciplines are welcome.

Soc 376-0-3 – Sociology of Illness: The Normal and Pathological

This course surveys a variety of topics in the sociology of illness and social studies of science and threads them together with a common goal: to unpack the entanglements of society with the science of human genetics and biomedical research. Through the readings, students will engage with themes that are central to sociological thought: identity, knowledge, power, categorization, race, politics, etc. albeit in the context of science and illness. By the end of the course students will be able to sharply interrogate how social and political conditions shape the production of claims about the genetic basis of illness and difference. While much of the scholarship we will consider is broadly sociological, some of it is drawn from other fields, and part of the goal of the course is to show what is gained when we think about health, disability, and illness from an interdisciplinary perspective. Students from other disciplines are welcome.

Soc 376-0-4 – Media, Movements and Social Change

Many of the most significant social and cultural changes in modern history have been achieved through sustained collective action—through groups of people coming together around a common set of problems and fighting to change the status quo in ways that alleviate or at least mitigate those problems. These collectives—which we refer to as social movements—are fundamentally communicative in nature. Movements are formed through communication and it is through communication that they achieve much of their strategic objectives. Moreover, movements are inextricably linked to communications channels. As media and communication technologies have transformed, so too have the structures and the practices of social movements. This course explores the complex relationships between communication and social movements, bringing together theories from communication studies, sociology, and political science, as well as tracing historically how social movements have developed new practices of achieving social change.

Soc 392-0-20 – Food and Immigration

You have probably heard the saying, "you are what you eat." This class argues that you are also "where" you eat. Immigration profoundly shapes culinary practices and global food systems are often dependent upon migrant labor. This course explores what cuisine and movement can teach us about belonging within local and global communities by addressing questions such as: How do foodways and migratory trajectories influence individual and collective identities? What political, social, and economic activities shape food distribution and day-to-day eating customs? We will cover food-related topics such as labor, transnationalism, the environment, memory, authenticity, gender and much more. Class discussions will span historical and contemporary developments that gave rise to our modern industrial food system while focusing in particular on food culture and migration narratives.

Soc 392-0-20 – Technology, Work, Love and Life

Can technology end poverty? Is the internet racist? Technology is everywhere and humans have always used technology to shape society and vice versa. How do people relate to technology? How has our culture been affected by technology? In this course we will examine how technology itself been shaped by societal norms, and values. We begin with an examination of what technology is, and is not and continue by examining the role technology plays in shaping different aspects of society - from race, to gender, and surveillance.

Soc 392-0-20 – Science and the Public

This course will survey social movements including "citizen scientists," HIV/AIDS activists, "biohackers," and others that contest, mediate, or mistrust expert authority. These cases disrupt the notion that society and science are separate. Instead, students will engage with science as a social and historical process. As part of this process, various publics participate in the processes of knowledge and technology production alongside experts. Students will gain intellectual tools from the field of science and technology studies (STS) to make sense of issues of truth, expertise, and trust that play out in current events like the covid-19 pandemic.

SOC 398-3-1 – Sociology of Gender: Families, Communities, Market

In this course, we investigate gender relations, in the context of complex and intersecting inequalities, across states, markets and families, with a focus on the United States, historically and in the contemporary era, placed in comparative and global contexts. After a theoretical and historical overview, we explore the gendered division of labor in employment and in families, and evaluate how this has been shaped by state and corporate policies, ordinary peoples' practices and shifting cultural ideals and gendered belief systems. Finally, we examine the gendered character of citizenship, political participation, social and economic rights, and try to understand gendered politics and policy from both "top down" and "bottom up" perspectives.

Sociology 101-6-20 – Identity and Identification

Who are we and who gets to say? This seminar explores the tension between the social emphasis on identity (naming who we are and claiming where we belong) and the technological processes of identification (distinguishing people for administrative purposes). Using texts primarily from the social and historical sciences, we will pivot back and forth between considering the many kinds of identity currently in circulation (racial, ethnic, gender, and sexual identities; illnesses identities; political identities; etc.) and the rise of techniques and technologies that seek to identify people and fix them in place (from the invention of surnames, to the rise of forensic techniques such as fingerprinting, to the creation of the "average" person in opinion research, to the role of DNA testing in telling us who we are). The object of the course is to better understand the historical and social circumstances that determine where people fit—how they know themselves and are known—and to trace the diverse cultural and political implications of identity and identification.

Sociology 101-7-22 – Gender and Globalization

In this course, we will explore the relationship between gender and globalization. We will study how gender and sexuality are produced as global social categories. The course will survey liberal approaches to gender and sexuality categories as sites for transnational claims-making. It will then turn to postcolonial and transnational feminist critiques of taken-for-granted social groupings, such as "woman" and, more recently, "gay" and "transgender," that are assumed to be globally relevant. Critical approaches to gender and sexuality challenge conventional "born this way" narratives about gender and sexual identities as innate and therefore universal. This course will raise questions that will make us uncomfortable and, hopefully, give us tools to critically reflect on our own gender and sexuality identities and practices.

Sociology 101-8-20 – Latinx Futurism

What is Latinx futurism? Most of the imagined futures we are exposed to in the United States have been crafted by white authors. From Isaac Asimov's science fiction novels about robots to high-production value blockbusters. An alternative cannon, Afrofuturism, has begun to blaze a path for understanding why the political, racial, and cultural position of those doing the imagining matters. In do so, Afrofuturism aims to inspire us to think carefully about how we deal with the pressing social issues of our time and have offered a new lens for thinking about the future. This discussion-based seminar takes this as a departure point and works towards including Latinx futurism in this frame. This seminar is an introduction to a way of thinking sociologically about technology, science, and society from the perspective of Latinx and Latin American communities. In their reading and writing assignments students will explore a broad array of topics, from the origins of postcolonial states, Zapotec science, and borderlands epistemology.

Sociology 206-0-20 – Law and Society

Law is everywhere. Law permits, prohibits, enables, legitimates, protects, and prosecutes. Law shapes our day-to-day lives in countless ways. This course examines the connections and relationships of law and society using an interdisciplinary social science approach. As one of the founders of the Law and Society movement observed, "law is too important to leave to lawyers." Accordingly, this course will borrow from several theoretical, disciplinary, and interdisciplinary perspectives (such as sociology, history, anthropology, political science, critical studies, and psychology) in order to explore the sociology of law and law\'s role primarily in the American context (but with some attention to international law and global human rights efforts). The thematic topics to be discussed include law and social control; law\'s role in social change; and law\'s capacity to reach into complex social relations and intervene in existing normative institutions and organizational structures.

Sociology 208-0-20 – Race and Society

This class will explore the nature of race in an effort to understand exactly what race is. It seeks to understand why race is such a potent force in American society. Close attention will be paid to the relationship between race, power, and social stratification. The course will examine the nature of racial conflict and major efforts to combat racial inequality.

Sociology 208-0-20 – Race and Society

This class will explore the nature of race in an effort to understand exactly what race is. It seeks to understand why race is such a potent force in American society. Close attention will be paid to the relationship between race, power, and social stratification. The course will examine the nature of racial conflict and major efforts to combat racial inequality. At the end of the course, students will have an in-depth understanding of the origins of race, the structure of racial hierarchy in the United States, and a fundamental understanding of many sociological theories of race and racial stratification in America.

Sociology 211-0-20 – Food and Society

What makes food social? What is sociological about eating? How does society shape our relationship with food? These are questions at the center of this course. During the span of this quarter, we will learn about the role of food in society, how social norms as well as culture impact our view of food and review the following topic within food and society: Food inequality, food and sustainability, food and gender and lastly, food culture in the US. We will do so by employing a sociological perspective to food that will help is critically engage with something we do every day - preparing and eating food. This is an introductory level class and does not require prior knowledge in sociology or in knowledge production. By the end of the quarter students will view food as a social and community construct that impacts our lives, well-being, and society.

Sociology 212-0-20 – Environment and Society

Our climate is rapidly changing. Rising sea levels and increasing ocean acidity, higher temperatures, more droughts, melting glaciers, wilder weather patterns, and mounting environmental disasters mean that climate change is increasingly visible in our daily lives. What role does human society play in these changes, and what consequences does society suffer as these changes occur? This course is an introduction to environmental sociology during which we will employ an intersectional, sociological perspective to look beyond the scientific basis for environmental problems to understand the social roots of environmental issues. We will cover a variety of topics in environmental sociology, including new directions in sustainable development and how actors such as corporations, the media, and social movements impact public opinion and environmental issues. Further, we will critically examine the gendered, racial, and socioeconomic production of disparate environmental risks.

Sociology 212-0-20 – Environment and Society

Our climate is rapidly changing. Rising sea levels and increasing ocean acidity, higher temperatures, more droughts, melting glaciers, wilder weather patterns, and mounting environmental disasters mean that climate change is increasingly visible in our daily lives. What role does human society play in these changes, and what consequences does society suffer as these changes occur? This course is an introduction to environmental sociology during which we will employ an intersectional, sociological perspective to look beyond the scientific basis for environmental problems to understand the social roots of environmental issues. We will cover a variety of topics in environmental sociology, including new directions in sustainable development and how actors such as corporations, the media, and social movements impact public opinion and environmental issues. Further, we will critically examine the gendered, racial, and socioeconomic production of disparate environmental risks.

Sociology 212-0-20 – Environment and Society

Our climate is rapidly changing. Rising sea levels and increasing ocean acidity, higher temperatures, more droughts, melting glaciers, wilder weather patterns, and mounting environmental disasters mean that climate change is increasingly visible in our daily lives. What role does human society play in these changes, and what consequences does society suffer as these changes occur? This course is an introduction to environmental sociology during which we will employ an intersectional, sociological perspective to look beyond the scientific basis for environmental problems to understand the social roots of environmental issues. We will cover a variety of topics in environmental sociology, including new directions in sustainable development and how actors such as corporations, the media, and social movements impact public opinion and environmental issues. Further, we will critically examine the gendered, racial, and socioeconomic production of disparate environmental risks.

Sociology 216-0-20 – Gender and Society

Gender structures our daily lives in fundamental ways, yet we are often unaware of its effects. For example, why do we associate blue with boys and pink with girls? Why do most administrative forms only have two categories (i.e. Male and Female)? Why do male doctors, on average, have higher incomes than female doctors? The course introduces students to the sociological analysis of gender as a central component of social organization and social inequality in the US context. We start by reviewing key sociological concepts that are important to the study of gender. Next, we explore the causes and consequences of gender inequalities in important social institutions such as the family, the education system, and the labor market. We conclude by considering gender inequality in an international comparative context to understand crosscutting similarities and differences between the US and both high- and low-income contexts. This allows us to explore the role social norms and policies play in perpetuating and/or mitigating gender inequalities.

Sociology 216-0-20 – Gender and Society

Gender structures our daily lives in fundamental ways, yet we are often unaware of its effects. For example, why do we associate blue with boys and pink with girls? Why do most administrative forms only have two categories (i.e. Male and Female)? Why do male doctors, on average, have higher incomes than female doctors? The course introduces students to the sociological analysis of gender as a central component of social organization and social inequality in the US context. We start by reviewing key sociological concepts that are important to the study of gender. Next, we explore the causes and consequences of gender inequalities in important social institutions such as the family, the education system, and the labor market. We conclude by considering gender inequality in an international comparative context to understand crosscutting similarities and differences between the US and both high- and low-income contexts. This allows us to explore the role social norms and policies play in perpetuating and/or mitigating gender inequalities.

Sociology 220-0-20 – Health, Biomedicine, Culture and Society

We are told constantly, "take care of yourself!" and we do our best to eat well, sleep well, and stay healthy. Our bodies are important to us. They are also important to the institutions we are a part of, including our families, our schools, our jobs, and our country. They are all invested in keeping our bodies healthy and productive. However, the array of institutions interested in the value of our bodies often have additional incentives- our health is surrounded by a hoard of controversies:

- Why do some people get better medical care than others?
- How should the healthcare system be organized?
- How do we balance the risks of new medical treatments with the benefits?
- What makes the stigma associated with disease and disability so enduring?
- What happens when no diagnosis can be made?

This course offers conceptual tools and perspectives for answering these controversies. To do so it surveys a variety of topics related to the intersections of health, biomedicine, culture, and society. We will analyze the cultural meanings associated with health and illness; the political debates surrounding health care, medical knowledge production, and medical decision-making; and the structure of the social institutions that comprise the health care industry. We will examine many problems with the current state of health and health care in the United States and also consider potential solutions.

Sociology 276-0-21 – Sociology of Disaster

Disasters are catastrophic events with human and natural causes and may be gradual or sudden and unexpected. What these events share is their potential to disrupt communities, displace residents, and cause economic, emotional, and social suffering. We know that disasters are on the rise globally and in the US, incurring significant economic and social consequences. The aim of this course is to understand how disasters like pandemics, hurricanes, floods, wildfires, plane crashes, oil spills, and terrorism provide a "strategic research site" where we can examine social life and inequality. In this course, students will be introduced to the idea that disasters are fundamentally social events. We will focus on the social, political, and economic conditions that influence disaster experience and recovery, paying special attention to the ways that social characteristics like race, class, gender, and age structure social vulnerability to risk before, during, and after disasters. In learning to think critically about prevailing media representations of disasters, students will master content analysis methodology by engaging in a term-long research project in which they study one recent disaster event and the associated media coverage. This is an introductory level course without any prerequisites.

Sociology 302-0-20 – Sociology of Organizations

We all interact with organizations. You are interacting with an organization right now. Much of everyday life, whether it is school, work, shopping, or eating occurs within the context of organizations. The goal of this course is to teach you to think analytically about the organizations you interact with. We will examine why organizations are the way they are, how scholar's understandings of organizations have changed over time, and how scholars today think about organizations.

Sociology 306-0-20 – Sociological Theory

The main emphasis in this course is on how sociological theory informs social research. We will read selections of classical social theory and then look at how various scholars have used that theory to help them analyze some aspect of society. We will keep moving between theoretical statements and applications or refinements of that theory. The course will be a mix of lectures and discussion.

Sociology 306-0-20 – Sociological Theory

TBD

Sociology 321-0-20 – Numbers, Identity and Modernity

Our world is awash in numbers. In this class we will consider how we make and use numbers, how we know ourselves through numbers, and the particular kinds of authority we grant to numbers. Using a range of examples including the SAT, college rankings, and statistics about race and sexuality, this class will examine what prompts people to produce numbers, what causes them to spread, how they intervene in the worlds they measure, how they inform our ethics, and how we think about ourselves and others differently as a result.

Sociology 327-0-20 – Youth and Society

The course will be a critical examination of how "childhood" and "adolescence" have been defined in the U.S. We will consider how modern and historical conceptions of childhood and adolescence have evolved and how these definitions have been shaped by societal forces and institutions such as the economy, religion, culture, media/entertainment, and politics. We will also look at the lives of children themselves and how individuals experience being children, kids, teens, and so forth in a particular time and place. In particular, we will examine how the experience of being a young person has varied by historical period, but also by social status, including race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status and generation. As a class, we will also be very critical of cultural and media portrayals of children and teenagers and ask how these representations have reflected and shaped how society views youth. We will also look at how childhood itself has been connected to various social problems and social concerns both historically and today. The final topic for the course will be how adolescents make the transition to adulthood socially, emotionally, and economically, and how this transition has changed over time - particularly over the last several decades.

Sociology 376-0-20 – Gender, Health & Medicine

In this course, we will examine the way gender organizes health and medicine, as well as how
the medical system and health practices create and organize gender. Using interdisciplinary
research with a focus on sociological studies, we will interrogate the social, institutional, and
biological links between gender and health. We will discuss health inequalities between women,
men, and trans* individuals from different race, ethnic, and class backgrounds, using
sociological research to understand why these inequalities and forms of difference emerge and
are sustained. We will explore how modern Western medicine views male and female bodies and defines their health and illnesses accordingly. Students will complete two short research projects
over the term in which they use different data sources (interviews and media content) to examine
gendered perceptions of health, health behaviors, help-seeking behaviors, and experiences with
medical institutions.

Sociology 376-0-20 – Race, Gender, Sex and Science: Identities and Difference

How do developments in the life sciences affect our understandings of who we are, how we differ, and how social inequalities are created, perpetuated, and challenged? This seminar explores how scientific claims and technological developments help transform cultural meanings of race, gender, and sexuality. Conversely, we will consider how cultural beliefs about race, gender, and sexuality influence scientific knowledge and medical practice. By studying controversies, we will explore the dynamic interplay among expert findings, social identities, and political arguments. This course is cross-listed with GNDR_ST 332-0-21 and HUM 370-3-20.

Sociology 376-0-20 – Transnational Gender and Sexuality

Since the 1980s, third wave feminists have critiqued fundamental assumptions of second-wave feminism and worked to incorporate perspectives and voices outside the "West." In more recent decades, a similar movement has happened among queer and trans theorists. In this course, we will engage this work, much of which has been published in the past decade and a half. Course readings, which will survey scholarship on gender/sexuality in many regions of the world, will draw our attention to the ways in which gender/sexuality are implicated in capitalist, imperial and post-colonial projects as well as how gender and sexuality operate outside the "West," both in practice and identity. Finally, we will consider the possibilities and limitations for studying gender/sexuality beyond our own societies. Critical approaches to gender and sexuality challenge conventional "born this way" narratives about gender and sexual identities as innate. This course will raise questions that will make us uncomfortable and, hopefully, transform our understandings of our own gendered and sexual identities and practices.

Sociology 376-0-21 – Sociology of Technology

Technology is ubiquitous. This course covers central tenets in the sociology of technology by pairing an empirical focus on a different technology each week with a theoretical paradigm. A total of eight technologies will serve as the exemplars through which the question(s) concerning technology will be explored: bicycles, cars, computers, facial recognition, genetic sequencing, soap, shipping containers and virtual reality. Each of these technologies is approached as a window into the social, political, racial, and economic determinants of technological innovation. The central goal of the course is to equip students with the tools for unpacking the technologies societies take for granted and critically engaging with new technologies that may reproduce social inequities. While much of the scholarship we will consider is broadly sociological, some of it is drawn from other fields, and part of the goal of the course is to show what is gained when we think about technology from an interdisciplinary perspective. Students from other disciplines are welcome.

Sociology 376-0-21 – Neoliberalism, Postcolonial Theory and Human Rights

International human rights frameworks have been promoted as a central mechanisms through which transnational activists and international organizations pursue justice globally. In this course, we will examine whether human rights paradigms live up to this promise. Readings will consider the geopolitical and economic context in which human rights frameworks are forged, both in terms of neoliberal economic relations and postcolonialism. We will examine the history of human rights documents and how discussions of human rights frameworks have changed over the last century. We will also examine contemporary efforts to expand human rights frameworks to "new" rights, including those based on gender and sexuality rights.

Sociology 376-0-21 – Sociology of Technology

Technology is ubiquitous. This course covers central tenets in the sociology of technology by pairing an empirical focus on a different technology each week with a theoretical paradigm. A total of eight technologies will serve as the exemplars through which the question(s) concerning technology will be explored: bicycles, cars, computers, facial recognition, genetic sequencing, soap, shipping containers and virtual reality. Each of these technologies is approached as a window into the social, political, racial, and economic determinants of technological innovation. The central goal of the course is to equip students with the tools for unpacking the technologies societies take for granted and critically engaging with new technologies that may reproduce social inequities. While much of the scholarship we will consider is broadly sociological, some of it is drawn from other fields, and part of the goal of the course is to show what is gained when we think about technology from an interdisciplinary perspective. Students from other disciplines are welcome.

Sociology 376-0-22 – Media, Movements and Social Change

Social movements are formed through communication and it is through communication that they achieve much of their strategic objectives. This course explores the complex relationships between communication and social movements, bringing together theories from communication studies, sociology, and political science, as well as tracing historically how social movements have developed new practices of achieving social change.

Sociology 376-0-23 – Transnational Gender and Sexuality

Since the 1980s, third wave feminists have critiqued fundamental assumptions of second-wave feminism and worked to incorporate perspectives and voices outside the "West." In more recent decades, a similar movement has happened among queer and trans theorists. In this course, we will engage this work, much of which has been published in the past decade and a half. Course readings, which will survey scholarship on gender/sexuality in many regions of the world, will draw our attention to the ways in which gender/sexuality are implicated in capitalist, imperial and post-colonial projects as well as how gender and sexuality operate outside the "West," both in practice and identity. Finally, we will consider the possibilities and limitations for studying gender/sexuality beyond our own societies. Critical approaches to gender and sexuality challenge conventional "born this way" narratives about gender and sexual identities as innate. This course will raise questions that will make us uncomfortable and, hopefully, transform our understandings of our own gendered and sexual identities and practices.

Sociology 392-0-21 – Science in Crisis

Why do some people distrust covid-19 vaccines? How did HIV/AIDS activists transform FDA rules that continue to impact patients and research subjects? This course will begin by unpacking the tools that experts use to assert their authority and produce a binding perception of reality. Then, we will consider the way that social movements—including "citizen scientists," HIV/AIDS activists, and "biohackers"—contest, mistrust, or reaffirm experts' authority. Finally, we will study how these disputes are shaped by regulatory bureaucracies and the legal system. Throughout the course, students will apply concepts from the interdisciplinary field of science and technology studies (STS) to current events like the covid-19 pandemic.

Spanish and Portuguese 455-0-1 – The Right to Look: Photography, Racial and Gender

This seminar engages as a point of departure with Derrida's reflections on photography in Droit de regards 1985 (Right of Inspection) and his engagement with Walter Benjamin and Roland Barthes — two key philosophers of the image in the 20th century— to interrogate photography, photographic practices and photographic archives in their role as constitutive forms of contemporary regimes of visibility. We will explore photography and representation — its singular capacity to relate to the real and instituting truth claims—; photography and memory, material trace and the politics of archives; photography and inscription, death and practices of mourning; photography and techné, repetition and dissemination, and the ways in which photography works to open itself to alterity and non-self-identity. Working through conceptual account as well as closely reading photographic images, we reflect on this medium as conditioning our access to contemporary aesthetic experience and its ethicopolitical futurity. A fundamental question we explore throughout: If Aesthetics has historically been the realm of thought where universalizing claims of political and self-determined subjecthood posed the threshold of the human subject in and of their representation, how have unfreedom, subjection, and social injustice have administered visibility and recognition? What conceptual instrument contemporary thinking of photography and photographic practices provide us to de-naturalized the way these regimes have taught us to see.
Readings will include, with those mentioned above: Allan Sekula, Harun Farochi, Vilem Flusser, Deborah Willis, Kaja Silverman, Eduardo Cadava, Shawn Michelle Smith and the photographic corpus will encompass historical and contemporary, Latin America and American photography with special focus on Latinx photographers.

SPCH-Comm St 395-0-21 – The Experience of Illness: Body, Self and Story

This course examines the experience of chronic illness from the perspective of the ill person. It introduces the trajectory model of chronic illness, a model that sees health as the result of a stable alignment of body, self, and life story. It uses this model to understand adherence to medical regimens and to describe how it is possible to heal from chronic illness without being biomedically cured of the underlying disease.

SPCH-Comm St 295-0-20 – AfroFeminist Futures

This course invites students to explore feminist speculative fiction as a site for social justice
advocacy. Students will read classic feminist and afrofuturist science fiction as they prepare
their own original short stories for publication. Drawing heavily on the work of feminist
afrofuturist Octavia Butler, students will engage imaginative narratives that allow them to
think through solutions to the problems of our time. Students will explore the genre
elements of short stories and speculative fiction, ultimately integrating these lessons into
their own short stories. This is a writing and reading intensive class.

SPCH-Comm St 394-0-1 – Technology, Power and Resistance

Digital technology can be used to reinforce existing power structures, but also challenge and resist them. This course will examine the ways technology is used to disempower people with a focus on digital inequalities, the politics of algorithms, surveillance and big data, and the hidden labor and environmental costs of the technology we use. Yet we will also explore the ways digital technology can empower people and advance social justice, with a particular focus on historically marginalized communities.

SPCH-Comm St 395-0-24 – Critical Internet Studies

This course focuses on current issues in the field of Critical Internet Studies, with special attention directed to power dynamics related to the use and of internet-related technologies. We will touch on the economic, political, social, and cultural significance of the internet, and work to identify, understand, and analyze, the relations between existing oppressive power dynamics relating to racism, gender-based violence, and other forms of discrimination are entwined in various media issues. Readings focus on the cultural, social, economic, and political aspects of internet use, including creative uses. This class offers an opportunity to discuss the internet in a fundamental way, to engage with complex ideas, and to develop and refine critical thinking, verbal, and writing skills. We will explore timely topics (e.g., memes, misinformation, surveillance, algorithmic bias, tech and social justice, and more) across media and from historical, transnational, and multiple methodological perspectives.

SPCH-Comm St 395-0-22 – Interactive Museum Exhibit Design

This course is for undergraduate students interested in the design of interactive museum exhibits. Students will engage with readings about the role museums play in public education/communication, how to design museum exhibits, the role technology can play in making museums interactive, and methods for evaluating learning and engagement at museum exhibits. Readings will primarily focus on interactive exhibits for science communication, with secondary opportunities to explore other types of museum exhibits. Individual assignments will include analyzing and presenting on an existing museum exhibit and creating a design concept/plan for a novel museum exhibit. Students will work in groups towards the end of the quarter to develop an in-depth design and evaluation plan for a novel museum exhibit and, as the final project, create a paper prototype of the exhibit. No previous design or technology experience is needed for students to enroll in this course.

TBD 103 – TBD 103

Stat 101-6 – Cryptology

Cryptology is the study of secret writing, or more generally secure communication. We will discuss classical methods of cryptography, followed by the use of the German Enigma machine during World War II, and end by discussing modern cryptosystems such as RSA and PGP, digital signatures, and their use in internet security.

Statistics 101-6-1 – Cryptology

Cryptology is the study of secret writing, or more generally secure communication. We will discuss classical methods of cryptography, followed by the use of the German Enigma machine during World War II, and end by discussing modern cryptosystems such as RSA and PGP, digital signatures, and their use in internet security.

Stats 101-6 – Cryptology

Cryptology is the study of secret writing, or more generally secure communication. We will discuss classical methods of cryptography, followed by the use of the German Enigma machine during World War II, and end by discussing modern cryptosystems such as RSA and PGP, digital signatures, and their use in internet security.

Stats 101-6-1 – Cryptology

TBD

TBD 104 – TBD 104

TBD 101 – TBD 101

TBD

TBD 102 – TBD 102

TBD 103 – TBD 103

TBD 104 – TBD 104

TBD 104

TBD 102 – TBD 102

Courses Primarily for First-Year and Sophomore Students

ANTHRO 101-6-22 – Mobile Papers: Passports, Visas, Cash in the Globa

This course title refers to the papers upon which the global order of mobility rests in our contemporary era. It approaches these papers as good tools to think with in order to study the disturbing intensification of global inequality in diverse populations' access to transnational mobility over the past few decades. In this seminar, students will read about, discuss, write about, and thus gain the intellectual tools to begin to evaluate, these past and present inequalities that make up our global order of mobility. These inequalities, materialized in paper form, allow people to move across multiple borders, and so doing, underpin our current global order of differential mobility: a mobility that is distributed unevenly, taken for granted for the select few, while being denied to the vast majority of others around the world. We will read across several different academic disciplines and investigative journalism to become familiar with key analytic concepts, methods, and historical phenomena, such as citizenship-for-investment schemes, the US Green Card lottery, US-Mexico borderlands, nationalism, migration, ethnography, and political economy. Our goal in the seminar is to critically assess how seemingly mundane papers make or break the possibilities of movement across modern state borders, differentiated at the intersection of nationality, race, class, gender, and/or geography.

Anthro 101-6-22 – Biological Thought and Action

Science is a process by which people make sense of the world. Scientists examine evidence from the past, work to understand the present, and make predictions about the future. Integral to this process are the methods they use to collect and analyze data, as well as the ways in which scientists work together as a community to interpret evidence and draw conclusions. In this class, we will take a multidisciplinary approach to examining biological thought and action and their social ramifications. We will seek to understand science as a social pursuit: the work of human beings with individual, disciplinary, and cultural differences, and requiring tremendous investments in training and equipment. Does it matter that participation in science is more accessible to some than to others? How do biases, assumptions, uncertainty, and error manifest in scientific work? What is the history of scientific values such as objectivity and reproducibility? The course will conclude by investigating current topics of public debate.

Bio Sci 101-6 – Biology and Society

The word biology describes both the characteristics and processes of life and living organisms, as well as the discipline that studies these. Like all the natural sciences, the study of biology is a data-driven endeavor, concerned with describing, predicting and understanding natural phenomena based on evidence from observation and experimentation. But like all human activities, it does not exist in objective isolation, but rather within a societal context. And biological phenomena, such as infection and disease, interact with non-biological elements of human society. This course aims to contextualize the study of biology towards a better understanding of how social and cultural histories and dynamics have had a profound effect on both biological research as well as biological phenomena, and how social, political and economic parameters influence the impact of scientific breakthroughs and the outcomes of biological events such as epidemics. The topics we will cover, among others: the cultural, political and societal barriers to reaping the benefits of biological research; the damaging legacies of racism, sexism and colonialism on the biological research enterprise; the role of communications in the field of biology; and select biological topics in evolution, genetics and disease. Students will learn from press articles, academic literature and non-fiction books (The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot; Pandemic, by Sonia Shah).

Chem 105-6 – Science and the Scientist

Science and the Scientist: How we communicate complex ideas, from comic books to journal articles: Clear and concise communication is highly valued in many STEM fields. Whether conveying the technical details of an experiment for a colleague or translating the impact of a study for the public, scientists need to discuss complex ideas with different audiences. This course analyzes the goals of scientific writing by examining texts that represent different levels of communication, including how to use auditory podcasts and the visual language of comic books for conveying complex scientific ideas.

Econ 101-6-20 – Why Gender Matters in Economics

In this seminar, we will look into the many different facets of the economics of gender. We will learn about economic decisions that individuals and households face from a unique gender perspective and ask ourselves: do women and men behave differently in economic circumstances? The topics we will cover include, among others: the status of women around the world, education, marriage, fertility, labor supply, bargaining power, and discrimination. For each topic, we will study concrete examples emanating from all over the world. Students will learn to use a wide variety of academic resources (including empirical research articles, ethnographic descriptions, and popular press books) and write different papers, including policy recommendations, multimodal essays, argument essays, and research papers.

Econ 101-6-30 – Enlightenment

We will read Steven Pinker's Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress. We will discuss reason, science, humanism, and progress

ENVR POL 101-6-1 – Chicago Environmental Justice

The concept of environmental justice in the United States emerged in the early 1980s as African-American residents fought hazardous waste sites planned in and around their communities. Since then, the environmental justice perspective has been expanded to include the struggles of other minority groups disenfranchised on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender or class. In the first part of the course, students will learn about the history of the environmental justice movement in the US and its development. Next, the course will take a closer look at environmental justice in Chicago, both past and present. A mandatory field trip to a local environmental justice organization is part of the course.

Philosophy 109-6-20 – Philosophy of Sex, Gender and Sexuality

To borrow a phrase from Aristotle, sex is said in many ways. The word "sex" can refer to the domain of the erotic, that is, to sexual desire and sexual activity. It can also refer to certain biological categories related to an animal's reproductive role, such as female, male, or intersex. Among humans, "sex," along with the nearby term "gender," can also refer to cultural or social categories like woman, man, or nonbinary. And we can also talk about "sex" in the sense of sexual orientation, a set of categories relating an individual's own sex or gender with the sex(es) or gender(s) that the individual is typically attracted to, such as gay, lesbian, straight, or bisexual. Needless to say, things gets complicated pretty quickly.

In this seminar, we will read and discuss recent philosophical attempts to make sense of all this. The course will cover a wide range of topics, including: What is sexual desire? What (if anything) is sexual perversion? What is the best account of concepts like gender identity or sexual orientation? How (if at all) do those concepts relate to biological sex? What about the ethics and politics of sex? Is there anything wrong, morally speaking, with casual sex, or with the buying and selling of sex? What should we think about the ways that gender roles and expectations affect people's economic and social prospects? Readings for this course will be drawn mostly from contemporary philosophical sources.

Psychology 101-6-20 – Mental Health Diagnosis and Treatment

While those going into the field of mental health typically think about it as a "helping profession", there is much more than meets the eye when it comes to the psychological, economic, and political forces that have defined the development of the field. The course will focus on the contemporary framework for defining mental illness - the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (now in its 5th edition) - with a particular focus on some of the problems that have emerged from the disease-based framework utilized in the manual, and the assumptions that it makes about disorders and typical development. We will explore the role of state mental hospitals in the U.S. in the early to mid-20th century, and we will examine the political forces that drove the de-institutionalization movement of the 1970s and 1980s, with additional consideration of the contemporary implications of the closing of state hospitals. Finally, the course will focus on the evolution of psychotherapy in the modern marketplace, and some of the challenges posed by the demands of the health insurance industry and academic research. The aggressive way in which the DSM has been marketed internationally and the implications of culture for diagnosis will also be discussed. Along the way, we will explore critiques of the pharmaceutical industry, the health insurance industry, and modern psychiatry. Some of these themes will also be explored through analysis of popular films and other media. Students will be evaluated on the basis of class attendance and participation, co-leading a class discussion with peers, and writing assignments including short reaction papers and a longer research paper.

Sociology 101-6-22 – Gender, Classification and Globalization

In this course, we will explore the relationship between gender and globalization. We will study how gender and sexuality are produced as global social categories. The course will survey liberal approaches to gender and sexuality categories as sites for international human rights claims-making. It will then turn to postcolonial and transnational feminist critiques of taken-for-granted social groupings, such as "woman" and, more recently, "gay" and "transgender," that are assumed to be globally relevant. Critical approaches to gender and sexuality challenge conventional "born this way" narratives about gender and sexual identities as innate and therefore universal. This course will raise questions that will make us uncomfortable and, hopefully, give us tools to critically reflect on our own gender and sexuality identities and practices.

Graduate-level Courses Available to Undergraduates

Art History 369-0-1 – Media Archeologies of Art and Science

At key moments throughout the intertwined histories of art and science, the emergence of new technologies transformed the possibilities of perception, representation, and knowledge alike. The field of media archaeology seeks to reconstruct the social contexts, cultural impacts, and imaginary horizons of these moments by investigating obsolete media technologies like the X-ray or the hologram.

Grounded in the Block Museum's exhibition, The Heart's Knowledge: Science and Empathy in the Art of Dario Robleto, the course positions Robleto's creative practice as an entry point into the field of media archaeology. Robleto's inquiries into the histories of medical visualization, sound recording, and 19th-century visual culture will dovetail with readings and course materials that showcase various critical and artistic approaches to scientific media. Combining lectures, discussions, and student presentations, each week will examine a different set of objects and topics, such as maps, magic lantern projectors, silent films, early computer animation, planetariums, and virtual reality. Through film viewings, archival/study room visits, and guest lectures, students will enjoy the opportunity to materially engage with analog media technologies, and to interface with artists and scholars practicing diverse forms of media archaeology.

Course requirements include short written assignments, an in-class presentation, and a final paper (with option for creative component). Students will be asked to individually attend at least one exhibit, archive, or screening outside of class.

Courses Primarily for Graduate Students

Sociology 408-0-20 – Sociology and the Law

This course is a general introduction to the sociology of law intended for graduate students in all disciplines. The sociology of law treats law as a social institution that is highly intertwined with other aspects of society, including social structure, social behavior, ideology, politics, culture, and the economy. This seminar will cover classic and contemporary works on central topics in the sociology of law, including: the interplay between law and social inequalities; the relation of law, rights, and social movements; the negotiated nature of regulation and enforcement; the relation of law and organizations; the role of litigants, lawyers, and judges as social actors; and legal culture and legal consciousness. The course takes a critical empirical approach to the relationship between law and society.

Sociology 476-0-20 – Global Capitalism and Law

Globalization entails greater interdependence and less national autonomy. It occurs as international flows of capital, goods, services, and people increase. Transactions, interactions and relationships that formerly occurred within national boundaries now occur across them. As part of globalization, legal forms and institutions are also spreading throughout the world. Transactions involving capital, goods, services and people are not self-sustaining; rather, they are supported and regulated by an institutional foundation that typically centers on the legal system. Because the frameworks that support these transactions exist primarily at the level of the nation-state, a governance mismatch has emerged. Globalization means that more is going on between national jurisdictions than within them, and tensions arise between competing institutional models. The substantive focus of this seminar is this intersection between globalizing markets and (predominately, but not exclusively) national legal forms and institutions. We will read work by sociologists, political scientists, economists, and lawyers addressing a range of issues related to the interaction between markets and legal systems, and with a particular focus on financial markets.