ENROLL

Jessica Keating

"If man devotes himself to art, much evil is avoided..." This statement, on the divine nature of art, was penned by the German artist Albrecht Dürer. Dürer's artworks--his paintings, his drawings, his woodblock prints, and his engravings--have been construed to be some of the most theologically sophisticated, naturalistically rendered, theoretically informed, classically inflected, and socially engaged of the period we now refer to as the "Renaissance." This thematically organized course will engage the work of Albrecht Dürer, around these issues. Discussions will be integrated with student presentations, analyses of primary and scholarly texts, and writing assignments.

Held for new first year students

Baird Jarman

Baird Jarman

Ken Abrams

This course will examine key developments in Czech visual art and architecture from the early medieval to the contemporary periods. Slide-based lectures will be supplemented by visits to representative monuments, art collections, and museums in Prague.

OCS Cross Cultural Psychology in Prague

Humberto Huergo

This course offers an introduction to Spanish art from el Greco to the present. Classes are taught in some of the finest museums and churches of Spain, including the Prado Museum, the Museo Nacional de Arte Reina Sofía, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Toledo Cathedral in Toledo, and the Church of Santo Tomé.

Prerequisite: Spanish 205

Requires participation in OCS Program: Spanish Studies in Madrid

Kathleen Ryor

This course will examine the history and aesthetics of the tea ceremony in Japan (chanoyu).  It will focus on the types of objects produced for use in the Japanese tea ceremony from the fifteenth century through the present. Themes to be explored include: the relationship of social status and politics to the development of chanoyu; the religious dimensions of the tea ceremony; gender roles of tea practitioners; nationalist appropriation of the tea ceremony and its relationship to the mingei movement in the twentieth century; and the international promotion of the Japanese tea ceremony post-WWII.

Prerequisite: Requires concurrent registration in Studio Arts 236

Extra Time Required, requires concurrent registration in ARTS 236

Meera Sehgal

Images of India are ever-present in American media and pop culture. The land of Gandhi, call-centers, a multitude of religious faiths, the Taj Mahal, oppressed women, vast poverty and wealth. Come and learn about India, a region of immense contrasts and diversities, home to more than one billion people. We will explore Indian history and geography, cuisine and traditions, people and their languages, art, architecture and music, while being introduced to the Hindi and Urdu languages. Our class materials will include scholarly writings, guest speakers, popular cinema, documentary films, poetry, music, and food.

Arthur McKeown

This course provides students with an introduction to the history of South Asian Buddhism. Using primary and secondary sources and resources available to us in Bodh Gaya, we evaluate competing perspectives on the history of Buddhism and debate significant historical and ethical questions. How did Buddhism relate to other ancient Indian religions? What was the relationship between Buddhism and ancient Indian political, social, and economic structures? How did Buddhism change during its 2000 years in India? What impact did South Asian Buddhism have on the ancient and medieval world? What is the relationship between modern Buddhism and ancient Buddhism?

Prerequisite: Acceptance into the Global Engagement Program required

Participation in GEP India Program

Carol Donelan

In this discussion-based course, the goal is to crack the code of popular global film culture by examining epic films from a range of different eras and industrial contexts. We will consider the structure, style, and themes of these long-form heroic action films as well as the cultural function of storytelling modes, genres, and cycles. If the cultural function of the epic film is to negotiate national identity through heroic action, to birth a new nation with a new set of values, what kinds of nations are birthed in each era and context? Assignments aim to develop critical thinking and writing skills. Requirements include two evenings screenings per week.

Held for new first year student, Extra Time Required

Sarah Ruth Lorenz

This course examines major achievements of the Russian and Soviet cinematic tradition, highlighting how the outstanding formal and thematic features of the films emerge from the cultural battles and social transformations of their particular time and place. Emphasis is on the late imperial, early Soviet, Stalinist and Thaw periods; topics include pre-revolutionary melodrama, “montage” cinema, socialist realism and musical comedy for the “masses.” Supplemental readings include contemporaneous theory as well as secondary scholarship focusing on contextualization and interpretation. Course goals include the acquisition of cultural knowledge, enhanced awareness of film form, and the development of independent analytic and interpretive skills.

Extra Time Required

Stephanie Cox

First-year students interested in this program should enroll in this seminar. The course is recommended but not required for the minor and it will count as one of the electives. From cradle to grave, cultural assumptions shape our own sense of who we are. This course is designed to enable American and international students to compare how their own and other societies view birth, infancy, adolescence, marriage, adulthood, and old age. Using children's books, child-rearing manuals, movies, and ethnographies, we will explore some of the assumptions in different parts of the globe about what it means to "grow up."

Held for new first year students

Luciano Battaglini

Have you just returned from Asia, Africa, Europe, or South America? This course is an excellent way to keep in touch with the culture (and, when appropriate, the language) you left behind. Relying on magazines and newspapers around the world, students will discuss common topics and themes representing a wide array of regions. You may choose to read the press in the local language, or read English-language media about your region, meeting once each week for conversational exchange. (Language of conversation is English.) S/Cr/NC

Prerequisite: Students must have participated in an off-campus study program (Carleton or non-Carleton) or instructor permission

Johannes M. Wietzke

From the beginnings of their civilization, the Greeks were aware that they inhabited just a small corner of a much larger world. How did they imagine faraway places and peoples? What did ancient maps look like? How much have Greek literature and science shaped later geographical thought and practice, from the Roman Empire to the European “Age of Exploration” to our own “Age of Google”? Drawing on various sources in translation, we will explore the literary and scientific frontiers of ancient geography and trace its legacy into the modern world.

Held for new first year students

Jake Morton

This class will investigate how Rome rose from a humble village of outcasts and refugees to become the preeminent power in the entire Mediterranean. We will trace Rome's political evolution from kings to the Republic, alongside their gradual takeover of the Italian peninsula. We will study how Rome then swiftly overpowered what had been the most powerful kingdoms in the Mediterranean and established themselves as dominant. Who were these Romans and what were their political, military, religious, and social systems that enabled them to accomplish so much? What critical events shaped their development and ultimately led to total political control of the Mediterranean world? Students who previously took Classics 228 cannot take Classics 240.

Arnab Chakladar

Margaret Atwood is among the most influential and important writers of our time. In this class we will study a wide range of her major work from the beginning of her career to the present, asking questions about genre, feminism, form, etc. While her novels will be our focus, we will also read some of her poetry, short stories, and essays. There will be occasional out-of-class screenings of television and film adaptations of Atwood's work.

Prerequisite: One Foundations course in ENGL and one additional 6 credit course in English courses

Extra Time required.

Paul Petzschmann

During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, America often served as a canvass for projecting European anxieties about economic, social and political modernization. Admiration of technological progress and political stability was combined with a pervasive anti-Americanism, which was, according to political scientist Andrei Markovits, the "lingua franca" of modern Europe. These often contradictory perceptions of the United States were crucial in the process of forming national histories and mythologies as well as a common European identity. Accordingly, this course will explore the many and often contradictory views expressed by Europe's emerging mass publics and intellectual and political elites about the United States during this period.

Held for new first year students

Ken Abrams

This course covers important political, social, and cultural developments in Central Europe during the twentieth century. Studies will explore the establishment of independent nations during the interwar period, Nazi occupation, resistance and collaboration, the Holocaust and the expulsion of the Germans, the nature of the communist system, its final collapse, and the post-communist transformation.

Cherif Keita

Keep up your French while learning about current issues in France, as well as world issues from a French perspective. Class meets once a week for an hour. Requirements include reading specific sections of leading French newspapers, (Le Monde, Libération, etc.) on the internet, and then meeting once a week to exchange ideas over coffee with a small group of students.

Prerequisite: French 204 or equivalent

Sophomore Priority

Waitlist for Juniors and Seniors: FREN 210.WL0 (Synonym 52335)

Cathy Yandell

Incorporating the tools of film analysis, this course focuses on such questions as controversial historical moments, postcolonial culture, immigration, gender/ genre, and contemporary French society. It also attempts to answer the following questions: how does French cinema reflect, contradict, or create cultural norms? What in a particular historical moment incites the production of a particular film and catapults it to fame? In what ways does film provide another medium through which to “read” French culture?

Prerequisite: French 204 or equivalent

Extra Time required

Cherif Keita

This course will look at the presence of France and its capital Paris in the imaginary landscape of a number of prominent African writers, filmmakers and musicians such as Bernard Dadié (Côte d' Ivoire), Ousmane Sembène (Senegal), Calixthe Beyala (Cameroun), Alain Mabanckou (Congo-Brazzaville), Salif Keïta (Mali) and others. The history of Franco-African relations will be used as a background for our analysis of these works. Conducted in French. This course is part of the OCS winter break French Program in Senegal, involving two linked courses in fall and winter terms. This courses is the first in the sequence, students must register for French 246 winter term.

Prerequisite: One French course beyond French 204 and acceptance in OCS Winter Break French Program in Senegal

Mary Savina, Nancy Braker

Reading and discussion of sources about Tasmanian natural history, human history and geology, including the geologic and biologic inheritance from Gondwana, the influence of aboriginal culture on the landscape, and current conservation issues. Students will plan field research and excursions for winter break and develop formal proposals for projects. This course is part of the OCS winter break program, involving two linked courses in fall and winter terms. This course is the first in the sequence.

Winter Break OCS in Tasmania

Juliane Schicker

An excellent opportunity to brush up your German while learning about current issues in German-speaking countries. Relying on magazines, newspapers, podcasts, and streamings, students will discuss common topics and themes once a week to exchange their ideas over snacks with a small group of students. 

Prerequisite: German 204 or equivalent

Victoria Morse

In the 1340s, the Black Death swept through the Middle East and Europe, killing up to a third of the population in some areas. How can we understand what this catastrophe meant for the people who lived and died at the time? In this seminar, we will examine the Black Death (primarily in Europe) from a range of perspectives and disciplines and through a range of sources. We will seek to understand the biological and environmental causes of the disease, therapies, and the experience of illness, but also the effects of the mortality on economic, social, religious, and cultural life.

Held for new first year students

David Tompkins

This course examines the often fraught, complicated relationship between music and politics from the mid-nineteenth century through the mid-twentieth. Our field of inquiry will include all of Europe, but will particularly focus on Germany, Poland, and the Soviet Union. We will look at several composers and their legacies in considerable detail, including Beethoven, Wagner, and Shostakovich. While much of our attention will be devoted to "high" or "serious" music, we will explore developments in popular music as well.

Held for new first year students

Seungjoo Yoon

An introduction to the study of historical biography. Instead of what we heard or think about Confucius, we will examine what his contemporaries, both his supporters and critics, thought he was. Students will scrutinize various sources gleaned from archaeology, heroic narratives, and court debates, as well as the Analects to write their own biography of Confucius based on a particular historical context that created a persistent constitutional agenda in early China. Students will justify why they would call such a finding, in hindsight, "Confucian" in its formative days. Themes can be drawn from aspects of ritual, bureaucracy, speech and writing

Held for new first year students

Austin Mason

Why did barbarians invade? Traders trade? Pilgrims travel? Vikings raid? Medieval Europe is sometimes caricatured as a world of small villages and strong traditions that saw little change between the cultural high-water marks of Rome and the Renaissance. In fact, this was a period of dynamic innovation, during which Europeans met many familiar challenges—environmental change, religious and cultural conflict, social and political competition—by traveling or migrating to seek new opportunities. This course will examine mobility and migration in northern Europe, and students will be introduced to diverse methodological approaches to their study by exploring historical and literary sources, archaeological evidence and scientific techniques involving DNA and isotopic analyses.

Held for new first year students

Susannah Ottaway

Soot, smog, water pollution, cholera, asthma... all of these and many more are environmental and health problems that we associate with industrialization. In this course, we trace the history of industrialization through the the lens of the impact of this major social and economic change on the built and natural environment and on public health. The course will focus on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century England, with significant comparative work on France, and a broader chronological and regional view where appropriate.

Held for new first year students

Susannah Ottaway

Elena C McGrath

Did an earthquake in the 1740s cause an anti-colonial uprising in Peru? Did a hurricane in Puerto Rico help justify U.S. colonization in 1899? Did the Sandinistas provide better disaster relief than the Nicaraguan state in 1976? In this class we will explore the relationship between natural disasters and social change in Latin America, paying attention to how environmental historians and social historians answer these questions differently. Along the way we will ask, what is a “natural” disaster? How does a society account for drastic change that is beyond human control?

David Tompkins

Amna Khalid

The objective of this course is to analyze the historical institutions, practices and traditions that define the position of women in India. We consider the various ways in which the trope of the Goddess has been used for and by Indian women in colonial and post-colonial India; the colonial state's supposed rescue of Indian women; the position and role of European women in colonial India; how women's bodies come to embody and signify community honor and become sites of communal contest. We explore the making of Mother India; the connection between nation, territory and the female form; and the ways in which women have been represented in history as well as Indian cinema. 

Adeeb Khalid

Amna Khalid

At the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947 India and Pakistan, two new nation states emerged from the shadow of British colonialism. This course focuses on the political trajectories of these two rival siblings and looks at the ways in which both states use the other to forge antagonistic and belligerent nations. While this is a survey course it is not a comprehensive overview of the history of the two countries. Instead it covers some of the more significant moments of rupture and violence in the political history of the two states. The first two-thirds of the course offers a top-down, macro overview of these events and processes whereas the last third examines the ways in which people experienced these developments. We use the lens of gender to see how the physical body, especially the body of the woman, is central to the process of nation building. We will consider how women’s bodies become sites of contestation and how they are disciplined and policed by the postcolonial state(s).

Elena C McGrath

Wasn’t the Cold War something the U.S. and the USSR fought over? What does it have to do with Latin America, race, and sex? This global conflict was in fact not “cold” at all, as Latin American social movements, revolutionaries, and states fought over how to create a better society. Topics will include the Cuban Revolution, the global youth rebellions, dirty wars, drug wars, and the emergence of feminist, indigenous rights, LGBT rights, and anti-racist movements. The course will end by exploring how the violence of the Cold War helped create drug violence and gang warfare in the present day.

William North

Institutions emerge from the translation of ideas, ideals, needs, and values into human communities living in particular conditions, equipped with certain resources, guided and controlled by certain norms, and protected and challenged by particular ideas and actions. Once formed, institutions encounter further issues of governance and change as they evolve and encounter new realities, success, and failure. This seminar examines the complex histories and cultures of medieval institutions—churches, monasteries, secular and religious courts, households, and the universities. Through theoretical readings and case studies we will examine how, over time, questions of purpose, leadership, the distribution of power and authority, the acquisition and disposition of material and human resources, record keeping, and legitimacy are encountered and resolved. This course will be of interest to anyone interested in the dynamics of institutions and the dialogue between concepts and material conditions as they play out in time.

Seungjoo Yoon

This course explores the phenomenon of settler colonialism in East Asia. We will focus on the dynamics of emigration in the age of mass migration since the early nineteenth century onwards. We will begin by examining colonial encounters in which Chinese and Japanese middlemen either competed against or collaborated with the Europeans as they covered a range of areas of the globe. In the second half of the course, students will undertake projects focusing on a specific region and period of settler colonialism, identify and present source materials, develop a substantial (20-page) research paper, and engage in peer review.

Prerequisite: One prior six credit History course

Yansi Perez

Held for new first year students

Megan E Sarno

Humble in means but mighty in meaning, the song has given voice to every human emotion. Devout believers use song for worship, prima donnas sing for love or tragedy, and popular songsters tell stories through song. Anthems convey national identity while show-tunes offer an escape from reality. In this course students will encounter many types of song and learn how they are composed, where they are sung, and what power they have over us. Class activities include discussion and singing, and assignments include song identification and analysis.

Melinda Russell

This course introduces both the world's musical diversity and the discipline of ethnomusicology. Drawing on musics of Native America, Indonesia, India, and the Caribbean, among others, we will study the written and recorded/filmed work of ethnomusicologists from roughly 1950-present, focusing on theories and methods. Though geographically wide-ranging, these efforts are connected by themes of tradition, globalization, religion, politics, gender, youth, and decolonization. Students will engage multiple forms of ethnomusicological scholarship, develop critical listening skills, and learn to convey their growing understanding of musical elements in writing and oral presentation. No musical experience necessary. 

Sophomore Priority

Gao Hong

The ensemble will use indigenous instruments and a Chinese approach to musical training in order to learn and perform music from China. In addition to the Wednesday meeting time, there will be one sectional rehearsal each week.

Prerequisite: Previous experience in a music ensemble, Chinese Musical instruments or instructor permission

Jay Johnson

Prerequisite: Music 199 and/or instructor permission

Allison Murphy

Are human beings radically individual and atomic by nature, political animals, or something else? However we answer that question, what difference does it make for our understanding of the ways in which larger political communities come into existence and are maintained? In this course we will explore these and related questions while reading two of the most foundational works in political theory, Plato’s Republic and Hobbes’s Leviathan, as well as several contemporary pieces influenced by these thinkers.

Allison Murphy

This course will center on a close reading of two texts, Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, both of which address what is arguably the core concern in the ancient ethical tradition: the relationship between the morally good life and the happy life. In keeping with the ancient tendency to resist a sharp divide between the private and political spheres, we will examine the significance of Plato and Aristotle’s reflections on the good human life both for the individual and for the broader community.

Anna Moltchanova

Arthur McKeown

This course introduces students to major trends in Buddhist philosophy as it developed in India from the time of the Buddha until the eleventh century CE. The course emphasizes the relationships between philosophical reasoning and the meditation practices encountered in the Buddhist Meditation Traditions course. With this in mind, the course is organized into three units covering the Indian philosophical foundations for the Theravāda, Zen, and Tibetan Vajrayāna traditions. While paying attention first and foremost to philosophical arguments and their evolution, we also examine the ways in which metaphysics, epistemology and ethics inform one another in each tradition.

Prerequisite: Acceptance into the Buddhist Studies program

OCP GEP Buddhist Studies India

Greg Marfleet

Can models help us understand the social world? Vexing issues like segregation, economic inequality, corruption, market failure, resource over-exploitation, genocide, insurgency and terrorism have inspired scholars to ask if computational models of social systems can shed light on the hard-to-observe micro processes underlying macro problems. In this course we will explore the conceptual and empirical foundations of modeling especially in complex systems. We will read about, then experiment with, existing models while students learn to program their own using open-source software. 

Held for new first year students

Dev Gupta

Sophomore Priority

Waitlist for Juniors and Seniors: POSC 120.WL0 (Synonym 51872)

Alexander S. Von Hagen-Jamar

Charisse Burden-Stelly

This course examines the foundations of development and globalization, their representations as historical processes, their manifestations over time, and their advocates and detractors. This will be done against the backdrop of empirical and substantive representations of actually-existing development outcomes and globalization processes, their organization, and their practices. This course employs a critical approach to development and is taught from a political economy perspective. In particular, it deals with the relationship between theory, ideology and practice by contrasting classical approaches with critical, Marxist, and radical approaches. It examines outcomes of development practice, both positive and negative, through a focus on globalization.

Kent Freeze

Mihaela Czobor-Lupp

Dev Gupta

Extra Time Required

Ken Abrams

Prerequisite: Acceptance in Cross-Cultural Studies in Praque program

OCS Cross Cultural Psychology in Prague

Sonja Anderson

What is a perfect body, and how do you get one? What makes a body, or a mind, imperfect, and what can be done about it? How are human bodies different from animal, angelic, demonic, and divine bodies, and what happens when these bodies come into contact with each other? This course considers the breakdown (illness) and manipulation (magic and medicine) of the mind and body, particularly within premodern Christianity, Judaism, and Greco-Roman traditions. Through a series of close readings and discussions, this course interrogates the categories of illness, magic, and medicine in antiquity and in select instances today. Topics include demons, gender, relics, ancient magical techniques, eating, bodily resurrection, medicine and modernity, mental illness, and the certification of miracles.

Held for new first year students

Matt I Robertson

Matt I Robertson

As the inevitable conclusion of every human existence, our lives are profoundly shaped by death. Consequently, we are all in the process of approaching death—both our own and that of others. This course examines the stunning variety of ways in which humans have approached death and mortality throughout history and across the globe. We will (1) develop a vocabulary of human mortality and death that will allow us to (2) illuminate the structural and functional continuities/discontinuities present across human approaches to death and (3) think critically about mortality and death as we approach them in our own lives.

Arthur McKeown

Students will complement their understanding of Buddhist thought and culture through the study and practice of traditional meditation disciplines. This course emphasizes the history, characteristics, and approach of three distinct meditation traditions within Buddhism: Vipassana, Zazen, and Dzogchen. Meditation practice and instruction is led in the morning and evening six days a week by representatives of these traditions who possess a theoretical as well as practical understanding of their discipline. Lectures and discussions led by the program director complement and contextualize the three meditation traditions being studied.

Prerequisite: Acceptance into the Carleton-Antioch Program required

OCP GEP Buddhist Studies India

Anna Dotlibova

Prerequisite: Russian 205 or permission of the instructor

Jerome Levi

Creation myths are the most profound and significant of all myths because they concern both the underlying patterns of existence and the ultimate meaning of life. How did the universe begin? Who are we? Why are we here? How should we behave and not behave and why? Do cosmogonies reflect the structure of our psyches? Drawing on approaches from anthropology, psychology, religion, and literary studies, this course will examine how different cultures and theoreticians have sought answers to these questions. Developing a comparative perspective, we will examine Biblical, Native American, Middle Eastern, European, Asian, African, and Oceanic origin myths, among others.

Held for new first year students

Meryl Puetz-Lauer

Sophomore Priority

Waitlist for Juniors and Seniors: SOAN 110.WL0 (Synonym 52204)

Ahmed S Ibrahim

How has Africa been shaped by colonialism and what has been the relationship of anthropology to colonialism? Between 1884 and 1960, Africa was restructured by colonial rule. This course will examine how colonialism transformed the laws, political structures, political economy, and religion of different colonial states. It will also examine the complicated relationship between the discipline of anthropology and colonialism. In doing so, we will draw from ethnographies and historical studies and analyze the role of anthropologists in Africa during the colonial era and its aftermath.

Constanza Ocampo-Raeder

Is the environmental movement making progress? Do responsible products actually help local populations? Is international AID alleviating poverty and fostering development? Today there are thousands of programs with sustainable development goals yet their effectiveness is often contested at the local level. This course explores the impacts of sustainable development, conservation, and AID programs to look beyond the good intentions of those that implement them. In doing so we hope to uncover common pitfalls behind good intentions and the need for sound social analysis that recognizes, examines, and evaluates the role of cultural complexity found in populations targeted by these programs.

Prerequisite: The department strongly recommends that Sociology/Anthropology 110 or 111 be taken prior to enrolling in courses numbered 200 or above

Arthur McKeown

This course introduces students to the complexity and plurality of Buddhist traditions that have flourished in diverse societies and cultures in the modern era. This course enables students to sympathetically understand and critically investigate various Buddhist traditions and their historically and culturally specific configurations of philosophical beliefs, cultural values, everyday practices, social institutions, and personal experiences. Focusing on Buddhist traditions of South and Southeast Asia, Japan, and Tibet, we explore topics including syncretism and popular religion, monasticism, gender, economic development, social movements, political violence, and religious revival. Students expand their research skills in anthropology through field assignments in Bodh Gaya.

Prerequisite: Acceptance into the Buddhist Studies Program required

OCP GEP Buddhist Studies India

Jose Cerna-Bazan, Jorge Brioso

Prerequisite: Spanish 204 or equivalent

Silvia Lopez

Prerequisite: Spanish 204 or equivalent

Humberto Huergo

This course offers a fresh look of Spain's current political and economic life. Discussion topics include the rise of Podemos and the new Spanish political scene, the Catalan separatist movement, political corruption, illegal immigration, and the role of the European Union.

Prerequisite: Spanish 205 or higher and acceptance in Madrid OCS Program

Participation in Carleton OCS Madrid Program

Jose Cerna-Bazan

After an overview of the history of the Spanish language, we examine its sound system, and then concentrate on the morphology and syntax of modern Spanish. The final portion of the course is devoted to an introduction to the linguistic variation of the Hispanic world areas. A main course objective is to improve the students' ability to analyze and thus increase their knowledge of the language. The course consists of lectures, group activities, problem solving assignments, and discussion.

Prerequisite: Spanish 205 or equivalent

Humberto Huergo

More than a study of the image of Madrid in Spanish literature, this course examines the actual experience of living in a cosmopolitan city through a variety of disciplines, including Urban Studies, Geography, Architecture, Sociology, and Spanish poetry and fiction. Special attention will be given to imaginative walking and counter-tourist tactics as theorized by Phil Smith and the British psychogeographic movement.

Prerequisite: Spanish 205 or above

Participation in Carleton OCS Madrid Program

Jorge Brioso

Prerequisite: Spanish 205 or above

Ahoo Najafian

This course investigates how gender identities and relationships between “men” and “women” have been articulated, constructed, and refashioned throughout the Middle East. Starting with problematizing fixed notions of gender and sexuality, we map prominent attitudes through visiting a diverse array of sources from the Qur’an, Sunna, and legal documents to historical and anthropological case studies, literature, and film from across the region. Exploring notions of femininity and masculinity, as well as attitudes towards homosexuality and transgendered populations, we witness their implications in case studies and stories, from a divorce court in Iran to a vampiric dystopia.

Meera Sehgal

Iveta Jusova

While women’s and LGBTQ movements have flourished all over the world, they have evolved through the particular contexts in which various groups of women and sexual minorities find themselves. This course examines the impact of European colonial heritages on the lives of women in various communities, as well as the continuing legacies of WWII and the gendered dimensions of recent transformations in both Western and East Central Europe. We examine topics including reproductive rights, sex work, immigrant/refugee issues, LGBTQ politics, trafficking, and legacy of socialism across Europe. Topics are addressed both comparatively and historically, stressing the ‘situated’ nature of feminist issues and responses.

Prerequisite: Acceptance into the WGST Europe Program required

OCS GEP Women's & Gender Studies in Europe

Iveta Jusova

This course is devoted to the questions of (1) theory: what are the contours of feminist and queer research in the social sciences and humanities? and (2) practice: how does one actually conduct feminist research? Issues arising from these two main questions include the relationship between methodology and knowledge claims in feminist research, how language and narrative shape experience, how the traditional relationship between the researcher and the examined subjects is redefined within frameworks of feminist research, and the relationship between research and activism.

Prerequisite: Acceptance into the WGST Europe OCS Program required

OCS GEP Women's & Gender Studies in Europe

Iveta Jusova

This course frames several of the central debates in European feminist, queer and transgender theory in the context of local and global pressures on European women’s and LGBTQ movements. Exploring subjectivity, interpersonal relations and community as mobile sites of knowledge and power formations, students will become conversant with contemporary feminist and queer theory, particularly Continental theory, as we consider affinities and divergences among different theory models that address our changing understanding of knowledge construction in multiple contexts. Theoretical models are evaluated for their potential as frameworks for political interventions in Western and East Central European socio-cultural contexts.

Prerequisite: Acceptance into the WGST Europe OCS program required

OCS GEP Women's & Gender Studies in Europe