Spring 2021 Courses

Richard Merkel    We 6:30pm - 9:00pm    TBA

This course will examine mental health issues from the perspectives of biomedicine and anthropology, emphasizing local traditions of illness and healing as well as evidence from epidemiology and neurobiology. Included topics will be psychosis, depression, PTSD, Culture Bound Syndromes, and suicide. We will also examine the role of pharmaceutical companies in the spread of western based mental health care and culturally sensitive treatment.

Ira Bashkow    TuTh 12:30pm - 1:45pm    Rouss Hall 403

This course examines theories and practices of race and otherness, in order to analyze and interpret constructions, deconstructions and reconstructions of race from the late 18th to the 21st centuries. The focus varies from year to year, and may include 'race, 'progress and the West,' 'gender, race and power,' and 'white supremacy.' The consistent theme is that race is neither a biological nor a cultural category, but a method and theory of social organization, an alibi for inequality, and a strategy for resistance. Cross listed as AAS 5528. Prerequisite: ANTH 1010, 3010, or other introductory or middle-level social science or humanities course

Adria LaViolette    We 2:00pm - 4:30pm    Web-Based Course

Exploration of the archaeology of frontiers, expansions and colonization, focusing on European expansion into Africa and the Americas while using other archaeologically-known examples (e.g., Roman, Bantu) as comparative studies. Prerequisite: For undergraduates, ANTH 4591 senior seminar or instructor permission.

Jarrett Zigon    Th 3:30pm - 6:00pm    TBA

Biopolitical analysis has become one of the prominent critical approaches across the social sciences and humanities. This course will consider various biopolitical theories and the ways in which they help us understand diverse phenomena of our contemporary condition, which will be examined through various case studies.

Ana Fostel    TuTh 9:30am - 10:45am    Web-Based Course

Ana Fostel    TuTh 11:00am - 12:15pm    Web-Based Course

Study the role and the importance of the financial system in the global economy. Construct general equilibrium models that encompass the financial markets as well as the rest of the economy. These models will be used to understand the recent subprime crisis, the European sovereign debt crisis, and many market phenomena such as extreme volatility and contagion. Prerequisites: ECON 3010 or 3110 (ECON 3020 is recommended).

Marlon Ross    Th 5:00pm - 7:30pm    Web-Based Course

Jennifer Tsien    Th 3:30pm - 6:00pm    Web-Based Course

This course will provide an overview of eighteenth-century novels, with particular focus on the roman à tiroir (1001 Nuits), the epistolary novel (Lettres persanes), the conte philosophique (Candide), and the deconstructed plot of Jacques le Fataliste. The course will examine the experimental narrative techniques employed by 18th-century authors. We will see how this genre developed from Antiquity to the Spanish Golden Age, with a detour into the world of Middle-Eastern oral storytelling. Secondary readings will include theoretical approaches such as structuralism, reader reception, new developments in Orientalism, and the history of the book. We will also venture outside the literary field to consider some cognitive theories about why the mind feels the need to connect disparate events into a single thread.

Kandioura Drame    We 3:30pm - 6:00pm    TBA

This course is a survey of 20th century Francophone literature of Africa. Colonial literature and Assimilation; Negritude, Nationalism and Identity; Postcolonial literature; Feminism; Literature and Censorship; Language and Literature; Theatre and ritual performance; and Oral literature as a major inter-text will all be examined through novels, poems, and plays by contemporary African writers in French. 

Oral presentations, response papers, and a final research paper are required.

Ari Blatt    Tu 3:30pm - 6:00pm    TBA

This seminar aims to introduce students to the rich history of French cinema, from its origins in the birth of photography and other proto-cinematic technologies in the nineteenth century, to the advent of digital cinema at the dawn of the twenty-first. Provides a broad overview of key movements and genres, as well as concurrent trends in film theory and criticism. Students will be invited to reflect closely on film form, and to consider each film in light of the socio-historical context within which it was produced. We will also spend time thinking about best practices to adopt when designing undergraduate (and even graduate) cinema seminars. May include, but is not limited to, works by Lumière, Méliès, Feuillade, Gance, Buñuel/Dalì, Vigo, Carné, Renoir, Godard, Marker, Truffaut, Varda, Resnais, Chabrol, Tavernier, Besson, Pialat, Ozon, Kechiche, Cantet, Audiard, Asseyas, Desplechin, Sciamma, and Jeunet. Course conducted mostly in French. Will work well as a synchronous zoom seminar, if necessary.

Jeffrey Grossman    TuTh 12:30pm - 1:45pm    Web-Based Course

The period known as the Jahrhundertwende (or turn-of-the-[twentieth]-century) in the German and Austrian contexts is one of profound contradiction: Imperial rule and nationalist challenges to empire, vast accumulation of wealth and a growing proletariat, strict bourgeois morality and unleashed sexual energies, liberal sentiments and the rise of seething, pent up forces, both liberatory and reactionary. It was a period of confidence in the future and cultural despair.

In this seminar, we will ask how writers and artists around 1900 responded to this world of contradiction, giving rise to bold artistic and literary forms and movements (Naturalism, Impressionism, Jugendstil, Expressionism, Dada) and giving expression to varied sensibilities—social, aesthetic, and otherwise (fin de siècle, Dekadenz, Menschheitsdämmerung, etc.). Together we will explore the way these writers brought art into conversation with new thinkers and styles of thought—from positivist philosophy to Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Bergson, and others. They often questioned the nature of “reality” and the “self,”  going so far as to ask whether “reality” and the “self” exist at all, even as they probed the unconscious, its forms and desires, or engaged in social or political criticism. In this class we will ask: What is the role of art? What is the nature of the self? Of reality? What is at stake in plumbing the unconscious? In what ways were fundamental assumptions about life called into question? And what assumptions were left unexamined?

 The seminar will be taught in German. The first two-thirds of the semester will be devoted to assigned readings, in response to some of which students will write short papers (1-2 pp.). The remainder of the semester will be devoted to research projects of students’ own devising, which will lead to a 10-page paper, to be developed in stages and with feedback on work in progress. We will conclude with short presentations of students’ projects (whether in progress or in finished form).

Readings may be drawn from: Freud, Nietzsche, G. Hauptmann, F. Wedekind, Arthur Schnitzler, Thomas Mann, Franz Kafka, Rilke, Lou Andreas-Salomé, Stefan George, Gottfried Benn, Ricarda Huch Else Lasker-Schüler, and others?

Paul Dobryden    MoWe 3:30pm - 4:45pm    Web-Based Course

This course will familiarize students with the formally adventurous and globally influential cinema of the Weimar Republic. We will examine key films from a range of genres (including horror, comedy, science fiction, crime, and melodrama) by directors such as Fritz Lang, F. W. Murnau, Ernst Lubitsch, and G. W. Pabst. Situating the films within the cultural upheavals of the period from 1918 to 1933, we will discuss the aftereffects of WWI; the politics of class and gender; discourses on nature and technology; relationships between aesthetics, spectatorship, and politics; and processes of industrialization, urbanization, and globalization. Students without experience in film studies are welcome—the course will also double as an introduction to discussing and analyzing film.

Gabriel Finder    Tu 4:00pm - 6:30pm    Chemistry Bldg 206

This course, which meets once a week for 2 ½ hours, explores what it means not only to read or listen to but also to see testimony by survivors of the Holocaust, the Nazi genocide of Europe’s Jews. Videotaped Holocaust testimony has been crucial to our ever-evolving understanding of the Holocaust since it became popular in the 1980s. It is becoming ever more important as the number of aging Holocaust survivors dwindles year by year. In our course, we will make extensive use of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimony, developed and housed at Yale University’s Sterling Library. We will watch Holocaust testimony collected by the Fortunoff Archive. The Fortunoff Archive has its own history, which we will examine.  We will not limit ourselves to Holocaust testimony, however. We will also view and analyze testimony by survivors of other genocides and atrocities. The purpose of this course is to enable students to develop the theoretical background and skills of close reading and close viewing necessary to analyze a wide range of Holocaust testimonies on many different subjects and to compare Holocaust testimony with testimonies of survivors of other genocides and atrocities.

Gabriel Finder    TuTh 11:00am - 12:15pm    TBA
Gabriel Finder    TuTh 12:30pm - 1:45pm      TBA

This course explores the pursuit of justice after the Holocaust. We will study legal responses to the Nazi genocide of Europe’s Jews through the lens of pivotal post-Holocaust trials, including the 1945-1946 Nuremberg Trial, the 1961 Eichmann Trial in Jerusalem, and the 1963-1965 Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial. We will watch films to examine the cinematic representation of Holocaust-related trials. Mindful of the postwar historical context, we will pose the question whether these trials and others serves justice on the perpetrators and delivered justice not only to the victims but also to history and memory. In this vein, we will ask how the pursuit of legal justice after the Holocaust affects our understanding of the legal process.

Jon Lendon    Tu 3:30pm - 6:00pm    Gibson Hall 241

Examines the history of Greece in the late archaic age down to the end of the Persian wars. Prerequisite: HIEU 2031 or equivalent.

Laurent Dubois    Th 6:00pm - 6:50pm    TBA

Kyrill Kunakhovich    TBA    TBA

Kyrill Kunakhovich, Manuela Achilles    MoWe 10:00am - 10:50am    TBA

William Hitchcock    MoWe 1:00pm - 1:50pm    TBA

This course examines the range of human experience in Europe during the Second World War. Why did Nazi Germany invade and attempt to colonize large parts of Europe? What were the methods of Nazi rule? How did European peoples respond to the Nazi project, whether through forms of resistance or collaboration? Who were the principal victims of the war--and why is this question so difficult to address even today?

Mark Thomas    TuTh 2:00pm - 3:15pm    TBA

English Laws, Global Empire, 1600-1860
Paul Halliday    Tu 2:00pm - 4:30pm     Nau Hall 241

The Cold War 1945-1990
William Hitchcock    Tu 2:00pm - 4:30pm     Nau Hall 141

Antisemitism in Historical Perspective
James Loeffler    Tu 2:00pm - 4:30pm     TBA
 Paul Kershaw    Mo 2:00pm - 4:30pm     TBA

Zvi Gilboa    MoWe 5:00pm - 6:15pm    Web-Based Course

In this course, we will examine how the current refugee crisis may be seen as a radical event of a scope that reaches beyond Europe and the Middle East. We will be looking at previously-shaped images of nation, religion, migration, and integration, as well as asylum, refuge, and citizenship. Ultimately, we will be using our newly gained knowledge as a tool to understand cultural inclusion and societal exclusion both "far away" and "at home."

David Smith, Robert Bruner, Sonal Pandya    We 2:00pm - 4:30pm    Web-Based Course

ANNE MENG    We 2:00pm - 4:30pm    TBA

Game theory is the analytic study of strategic interactions among individuals, firms, governments, or other groups of people. This course demonstrates the usefulness of this powerful analytic approach, through numerous real-world and scholarly applications and through an examination of lab experiments built upon game theoretic modeling techniques. Cross-listed with PPOL 7045.

David Waldner    We 7:00pm - 9:30pm    TBA

Analyzes the major theories explaining transitions to democratic regimes and their consolidation or reversion to authoritarian regimes. Case material is drawn from the 19th and 20th centuries from all regions of the world.

Carol Mershon    Mo 2:00pm - 4:30pm    TBA

Examines political institutions in democratic and authoritarian regimes. Topics include approaches to studying institutions, the state, federalism, electoral systems, executives, legislative decision-making, delegation to bureaucracies, and judicial institutions. The course also assesses efforts to integrate formal and statistical analysis. Prequisite: a graduate course in PLCP, research methods or permission of instructor.

Brantly Womack    MoWe 5:00pm - 6:15pm    Web-Based Course

A seminar exploring a new approach to international relations focused on relationships between countries with disparate capacities. Students will participate actively in developing and applying the new approach and contrasting it with other theories of international relations.

Sonal Pandya    Mo 4:30pm - 7:00pm    TBA

Examines political economy foundations of international trade and foreign direct investment. Analyzes political patterns in economic flows; sources of national policies; and international cooperation.

Philip Potter    Mo 3:40pm - 6:40pm    TBA

George Klosko    Tu 6:30pm - 9:00pm    TBA

Detailed study of one or more problems in political philosophy.

Herman Schwartz    MoWe 2:00pm - 3:15pm    TBA

How does state intervention differ in the three largest advanced industrial economies? Do these differences matter? Does one country have a decisive 'competitive edge'? This course tries to answer these questions by looking at how variations in the institutions and processes the state uses to regulate the economy affect labor productivity, technological innovation, and thus ultimately international competitiveness.

Democratic Erosion
ANNE MENG    Mo 3:00pm - 5:30pm     TBA

Democracy and Inequality
Len Schoppa    We 3:30pm - 6:00pm     TBA

Civil Society and the State
Gabrielle Kruks-Wisner    Tu 2:00pm - 4:30pm     TBA

Environmental Politics in China
S. Victoria Shen    Mo 5:00pm - 7:30pm     TBA

Environmental Politics
S. Victoria Shen    Tu 2:00pm - 4:30pm     TBA

Environmental Politics
S. Victoria Shen    Tu 5:30pm - 8:00pm     TBA

Pol Econ of Modern State and Interstate System
Jan Vogler    Th 2:30pm - 5:00pm     TBA

Political Economy of Pandemic

David Leblang    Tu 5:00pm - 7:30pm    TBA

Jennifer Rubenstein   Tu 2:00pm - 4:30pm   TBA

Veronica Zebadua-Yanez    Tu 2:00pm - 4:30pm    TBA

Vanessa Ochs    TBA    Web-Based Course

This tutorial puts Jewish feminism in conversation with Muslim and Christian feminisms, in the particular contexts of sacred texts, prayer, ritual practice, law, sexuality, leadership, and community.

Naveed Mansoori    Th 3:30pm - 6:00pm    TBA

This course examines the role of religion in contemporary Christian and Islamic freedom struggles against racial domination. It is centered on four examples from within the aftermath of the Second World War: Algeria, Egypt, Iran, and the United States. As we will see, during times of social and political crisis in these four contexts, political actors drew upon their faith to articulate critiques of racial states. 

Luke Kreider    MoWe 3:30pm - 4:45pm    TBA

This seminar takes up questions of responsibility and fairness posed by climate change as ways into a search for shared ground across moral traditions. It investigates the ethical dimensions of climate change as a way to consider broad frameworks for developing responsibilities across national, cultural, and religious borders.

Edith Clowes    MoWe 2:00pm - 3:15pm    New Cabell Hall 132

Literature in the Soviet era has been compared to a "second government." This course explores Russian literature under Soviet totalitarianism and examines the concept of Socialist Realism and the process of harnessing literary art to serve the state's interests of creating the "new Soviet person." We also treat the all-important development of unofficial "underground" art and writers' strategies for bypassing the strictures of state control.

Dariusz Tolczyk    TuTh 11:00am - 12:15pm    Nau Hall 101

The 20th century will most likely remain one of the most puzzling periods in human history, in which amazing progress was coupled with unprecedented barbarity of modern totalitarian regimes. The course helps students untangle this paradox by exploring a series of memoirs by survivors and perpetrators, as well as scholarly essays, films, and other cultural statements.

Isaac Reed    We 2:00pm - 4:30pm    TBA

Prerequisites: Graduate status; six credits in Sociology or instructor permission.  

This course is designed as a graduate level introduction to and overview of the field of cultural sociology.  The seminar format makes class preparation and attendance crucial.  Students are expected to have done the reading and be prepared for discussion every week.  Students will be graded on three short papers, preparing and leading class discussion one week, and a final research design or annotated bibliography, and class presentation.

Simone Polillo    Th 9:30am - 12:00pm    Web-Based Course

Prerequisites: SOC 5030, six credits of sociology, or permission of instructor; open to advanced undergraduates

A consideration of the nature and purpose of sociological theory as well as a survey of the most important contemporary theories and theorists.

Jennifer Bair    Mo 3:00pm - 5:30pm    Cocke Hall 115

Prerequisites: Graduate status; six credits in Sociology or instructor permission.  

This Graduate level course provides a survey to the subfield of the sociology of development.  We will focus on how sociologists seek to explain broad patterns of sociocultural change and economic growth, with particular attention to how the key explanator factors privileged in sociological explanations of development and underdevelopment have changed over time.  We will review a range of contending theoretical perspectives and approaches.

E. Gerli    Tu 3:30pm - 6:00pm    TBA

Fernando Opere    TuTh 2:00pm - 3:15pm    New Cabell Hall 383

In this course we will study the American frontiers since the discovery of the continent. By reading theory, chronicles and diaries from different periods, we will be able to establish how the frontier, and the idea of frontier, changed over time and along with it the concept of "self identity" as wll as the concept of "the Other" beyond the frontier line. Obviously, travelers were the protagonists of the crossing of new frontiers.

E. Gerli    TuTh 12:30pm - 1:45pm    TBA

An introduction to Islam and the cultural history of al- Andalus (Islamic Iberia) from 711 until the expulsion of the Morsicos from early modern Spain in 1609. Prerequisite: SPAN 3010, 3300, and 3 credits of 3400-3430, or departmental placemen

Enrico Cesaretti    MoWeFr 11:00pm - 11:50pm    TBA

Francesca Calamita    TuTh 3:30pm - 4:45pm    TBA

Lilian Feitosa    MoWe 2:00pm - 3:15pm    Wilson Hall 402

Brittany Leach    TuTh 5:00pm - 6:15pm    Web-Based Course

This course places women, feminism, and activism in a transnational perspective, and offers students the opportunity to examine how issues considered critical to the field of gender studies are impacting women's lives globally in contemporary national contexts. We will look closely at how violence, economic marginality, intersections of race and gender, and varied strategies for development are affecting women in specific geographical locations.

Doug Meyer    TuTh 3:30pm - 4:45pm    TBA

Introduces students to some key & controversial theoretical texts that make up the emerging field of queer theory. The approach will be interdisciplinary, w/ an emphasis on literary, social, & aesthetic criticisms that may shift according the instructor's areas of expertise. Active reading & informed discussion will be emphasized for the often unseen, or submerged, aspects of sexuality embedded in cultural texts, contexts, & litterateurs.

Brittany Leach    TuTh 3:00pm - 4:15pm    TBA

This course provides an overview of the historical bases and contemporary developments in feminist theorizing and analyzes a range of theories on gender, including liberal, Marxist, radical, difference, and postmodernist ideas. We explore how feminist theories apply to contemporary debates on the body, sexuality, colonialism, globalization, transnationalism incorporating analyses of race, class, national difference and cross-cultural perspectives.

Ashley Deeks    TuFr 12:30pm - 1:40pm     Withers-Brown Hall 028
Ashley Deeks    TuFr 12:30pm - 1:40pm     Web-Based Course

This is the introductory course in public (government-to-government) international law.  Topics include the International Court of Justice, the United Nations, recognition and statehood, diplomatic immunity, sovereign immunity, the law of the sea, torture, the Geneva and Hague Conventions, treaties, the European Union, and the World Trade Organization. 

David Luban    MoWe 11:00am - 12:10pm    Web-Based Course

International criminal law studies a grim but important subject: the prosecution of war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and aggression. In addition, we will study the extraterritorial application of US criminal law to address crimes of transnational character.

Neil Duxbury    MoTuWeTh 8:00am - 9:25am    Web-Based Course

Twentieth-century European legal theory was dominated by the question of what gives law its validity, whereas American legal theorists have been preoccupied with rather different questions. Yet in Europe and the United States, legal theorists have ultimately found themselves worrying about much the same set of problems.