AFRICAAM 18A:
Jazz History: Ragtime to Bebop, 1900-1940 (MUSIC 18A)
From the beginning of jazz to the war years.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II
AFRICAAM 18B:
Jazz History: Bebop to Present, 1940-Present (MUSIC 18B)
Modern jazz styles from Bebop to the current scene. Emphasis is on the significant artists of each style.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II
AFRICAAM 19:
Studies in Music, Media, and Popular Culture: The Soul Tradition in African American Music (AMSTUD 147J, CSRE 147J, MUSIC 147J, MUSIC 247J)
The African American tradition of soul music from its origins in blues, gospel, and jazz to its influence on today's r&b, hip hop, and dance music. Style such as rhythm and blues, Motown, Southern soul, funk, Philadelphia soul, disco, Chicago house, Detroit techno, trip hop, and neo-soul. Soul's cultural influence and global reach; its interaction with politics, gender, place, technology, and the economy. Pre-/corequisite (for music majors): MUSIC 22. (WIM at 4 units only.)
Last offered: Winter 2015
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
AFRICAAM 20A:
Jazz Theory (MUSIC 20A)
Introduces the language and sounds of jazz through listening, analysis, and compositional exercises. Students apply the fundamentals of music theory to the study of jazz. Prerequisite: 19 or consent of instructor.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
AFRICAAM 30:
The Egyptians (CLASSICS 82, HISTORY 48, HISTORY 148)
Overview of ancient Egyptian pasts, from predynastic times to Greco-Roman rule, roughly 3000 BCE to 30 BCE. Attention to archaeological sites and artifacts; workings of society; and cultural productions, both artistic and literary. Participation in class is required.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
AFRICAAM 43:
Introduction to English III: Introduction to African American Literature (AMSTUD 12A, ENGLISH 12A)
(Formerly English 43/143). In his bold study, What Was African American Literature?, Kenneth Warren defines African American literature as a late nineteenth- to mid-twentieth-century response to the nation's Jim Crow segregated order. But in the aftermath of the Jim Crow era and the Civil Rights movement, can critics still speak, coherently, of "African American literature"? And how does this political conception of African American literary production compare with accounts grounded in black language and culture? Taking up Warren's intervention, this course will explore African American literature from its earliest manifestations in the spirituals and slave narratives to texts composed at the height of desegregation and decolonization struggles at mid-century and beyond.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
AFRICAAM 48Q:
South Africa: Contested Transitions (HISTORY 48Q)
Preference to sophomores. The inauguration of Nelson Mandela as president in May 1994 marked the end of an era and a way of life for South Africa. The changes have been dramatic, yet the legacies of racism and inequality persist. Focus: overlapping and sharply contested transitions. Who advocates and opposes change? Why? What are their historical and social roots and strategies? How do people reconstruct their society? Historical and current sources, including films, novels, and the Internet.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI, Writing 2
AFRICAAM 54N:
African American Women's Lives (AMSTUD 54N, CSRE 54N, FEMGEN 54N, HISTORY 54N)
This course encourages students to think critically about historical sources and to use creative and rigorous historical methods to recover African American women¿s experiences, which often have been placed on the periphery of American history and American life.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
AFRICAAM 101:
Black & White Race Relations in American Fiction & Film (AMSTUD 101, CSRE 41)
Movies and the fiction that inspires them; power dynamics behind production including historical events, artistic vision, politics, and racial stereotypes. What images of black and white does Hollywood produce to forge a national identity? How do films promote equality between the races? What is lost or gained in film adaptations of books? NOTE: Students must attend the first day; admission to the class will be determined based on an in class essay.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
AFRICAAM 105:
Introduction to African and African American Studies
Interdisciplinary. Central themes in African American culture and history related to race as a definitive American phenomenon. African survivals and interpretations of slavery in the New World, contrasting interpretations of the Black family, African American literature, and art. Possible readings: Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. DuBois, Richard Wright, Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, Malcolm X, Alice Walker, and Bell Hooks. Focus may vary each year.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-EDP
AFRICAAM 133:
Literature and Society in Africa and the Caribbean (AFRICAST 132, FRENCH 133, JEWISHST 143)
This course aims to equip students with an understanding of the cultural, political and literary aspects at play in the literatures of Francophone Africa and the Caribbean. Our primary readings will be Francophone novels and poetry, though we will also read some theoretical texts. The assigned readings will expose students to literature from diverse French-speaking regions of the African/Caribbean world. This course will also serve as a "literary toolbox," with the intention of facilitating an understanding of literary forms, terms and practices. Students can expect to work on their production of written and spoken French (in addition to reading comprehension) both in and outside of class. Special guest: LEILA SLIMANI (Goncourt Prize 2016). Required readings include: Leila Slimani, "Sexe et Mensonges au Maroc", Albert Memmi, "La Statue de Sel," Kaouther Adimi, "L'Envers des autres", Maryse Condé, "La Vie sans fards". Movies include "Goodbye Morocco", "Aya de Yopougon", "Les Baies d'Alger". nTaught in French. Prerequisite: FRENLANG 124 or consent of instructor.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
AFRICAAM 148:
The African Atlantic (AFRICAST 145B, COMPLIT 145B, COMPLIT 345B, CSRE 145B, FRENCH 145B, FRENCH 345B)
This course explores the central place Africa holds in prose writing emerging during early and modern periods of globalization across the Atlantic, including the middle passage, exploration and colonialism, black internationalism, decolonization, immigration, and diasporic return. We will begin with Equiano's Interesting Narrative (1789), a touchstone for the Atlantic prose tradition, and study how writers crossing the Atlantic have continued to depict Africa in later centuries: to dramatize scenes of departure and arrival in stories of self-making or new citizenship, to evoke histories of racial unity or examine psychic and social fragmentation, to imagine new national communities or question their norms and borders. Our readings will be selected from English, French, Portuguese and Spanish-language traditions. And we will pay close attention to genres of prose fiction (Conrad, Condé, Olinto), epic and prose poetry (Césaire, Walcott), theoretical reflection (Gilroy, Glissant, Mudimbe, Benitez-Rojo), and literary autobiography (Barack Obama, Saidiya Hartman). Note: To be eligible for WAYS credit, you must take COMPLIT 145B for a minimum of 3 Units and a Letter Grade.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
AFRICAAM 223:
Literature and Human Experimentation (COMPLIT 223, CSRE 123B, HUMBIO 175H, MED 220)
This course introduces students to the ways literature has been used to think through the ethics of human subjects research and experimental medicine. We will focus primarily on readings that imaginatively revisit experiments conducted on vulnerable populations: namely groups placed at risk by their classification according to perceived human and cultural differences. We will begin with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818), and continue our study via later works of fiction, drama and literary journalism, including Toni Morrison's Beloved, David Feldshuh's Miss Evers Boys, Hannah Arendt's Eichmann and Vivien Spitz's Doctors from Hell, Rebecca Skloot's Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, and Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. Each literary reading will be paired with medical, philosophical and policy writings of the period; and our ultimate goal will be to understand modes of ethics deliberation that are possible via creative uses of the imagination, and literature's place in a history of ethical thinking about humane research and care. Note: This course must be taken for a letter grade to be eligible for WAYS credit.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-EthicReas, WAY-A-II, WAY-ER
AFRICAAM 226:
Mixed-Race Politics and Culture (AMSTUD 152K, CSRE 152K, ENGLISH 152K)
Today, almost one-third of Americans identify with a racial/ethnic minority group, and more than 9 million Americans identify with multiple races. What are the implications of such diversity for American politics and culture? This course approaches issues of race from an interdisciplinary perspective, employing research in the social sciences and humanities to assess how race shapes perceptions of identity as well as political behavior in 21st-century U.S. Issues surrounding the role of multiculturalism, immigration, acculturation, racial representation, and racial prejudice in American society. Topics include the political and social formation of race; racial representation in the media, arts, and popular culture; the rise and decline of the "one-drop rule" and its effect on political and cultural attachments; the politicization of census categories and the rise of the multiracial movement.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
AFRICAAM 229:
Literature and Global Health (AFRICAST 229, COMPLIT 229, CSRE 129B, FRENCH 229, HUMBIO 175L, MED 234)
This course examines the ways writers in literature and medicine have used the narrative form to explore the ethics of care in what has been called the developing world. We will begin with a call made by the editor-in-chief of The Lancet for a literature of global health, namely fiction modeled on the social reform novels of the nineteenth century, understood to have helped readers develop a conscience for public health as the field emerged as a modern medical specialty. We will then spend the quarter understanding how colonial, postcolonial, and world literatures have answered and complicated this call. Readings will include prose fiction by Albert Camus, Joseph Conrad, Tsitsi Dangaremgba, Amitav Ghosh, Susan Sontag as well as physician memoirs featuring Frantz Fanon, Albert Schweitzer, Abraham Verghese, Paul Farmer. And each literary reading will be paired with medical, philosophical, and policy writings that deeply inform the field of global health. Note: To be eligible for WAYS credit, you must take the course for a Letter Grade.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II, WAY-ER
AFRICAAM 236:
Constructing Race and Religion in America (AMSTUD 246, CSRE 246, HISTORY 256G, HISTORY 356G, RELIGST 246, RELIGST 346)
This seminar focuses on the interrelationships between social constructions of race, and social interpretations of religion in America. How have assumptions about race shaped religious worldviews? How have religious beliefs shaped racial attitudes? How have ideas about religion and race contributed to notions of what it means to be "American"? We will look at primary and secondary sources, and at the historical development of ideas and practices over time.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
AFRICAST 132:
Literature and Society in Africa and the Caribbean (AFRICAAM 133, FRENCH 133, JEWISHST 143)
This course aims to equip students with an understanding of the cultural, political and literary aspects at play in the literatures of Francophone Africa and the Caribbean. Our primary readings will be Francophone novels and poetry, though we will also read some theoretical texts. The assigned readings will expose students to literature from diverse French-speaking regions of the African/Caribbean world. This course will also serve as a "literary toolbox," with the intention of facilitating an understanding of literary forms, terms and practices. Students can expect to work on their production of written and spoken French (in addition to reading comprehension) both in and outside of class. Special guest: LEILA SLIMANI (Goncourt Prize 2016). Required readings include: Leila Slimani, "Sexe et Mensonges au Maroc", Albert Memmi, "La Statue de Sel," Kaouther Adimi, "L'Envers des autres", Maryse Condé, "La Vie sans fards". Movies include "Goodbye Morocco", "Aya de Yopougon", "Les Baies d'Alger". nTaught in French. Prerequisite: FRENLANG 124 or consent of instructor.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
AFRICAST 145B:
The African Atlantic (AFRICAAM 148, COMPLIT 145B, COMPLIT 345B, CSRE 145B, FRENCH 145B, FRENCH 345B)
This course explores the central place Africa holds in prose writing emerging during early and modern periods of globalization across the Atlantic, including the middle passage, exploration and colonialism, black internationalism, decolonization, immigration, and diasporic return. We will begin with Equiano's Interesting Narrative (1789), a touchstone for the Atlantic prose tradition, and study how writers crossing the Atlantic have continued to depict Africa in later centuries: to dramatize scenes of departure and arrival in stories of self-making or new citizenship, to evoke histories of racial unity or examine psychic and social fragmentation, to imagine new national communities or question their norms and borders. Our readings will be selected from English, French, Portuguese and Spanish-language traditions. And we will pay close attention to genres of prose fiction (Conrad, Condé, Olinto), epic and prose poetry (Césaire, Walcott), theoretical reflection (Gilroy, Glissant, Mudimbe, Benitez-Rojo), and literary autobiography (Barack Obama, Saidiya Hartman). Note: To be eligible for WAYS credit, you must take COMPLIT 145B for a minimum of 3 Units and a Letter Grade.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
AFRICAST 229:
Literature and Global Health (AFRICAAM 229, COMPLIT 229, CSRE 129B, FRENCH 229, HUMBIO 175L, MED 234)
This course examines the ways writers in literature and medicine have used the narrative form to explore the ethics of care in what has been called the developing world. We will begin with a call made by the editor-in-chief of The Lancet for a literature of global health, namely fiction modeled on the social reform novels of the nineteenth century, understood to have helped readers develop a conscience for public health as the field emerged as a modern medical specialty. We will then spend the quarter understanding how colonial, postcolonial, and world literatures have answered and complicated this call. Readings will include prose fiction by Albert Camus, Joseph Conrad, Tsitsi Dangaremgba, Amitav Ghosh, Susan Sontag as well as physician memoirs featuring Frantz Fanon, Albert Schweitzer, Abraham Verghese, Paul Farmer. And each literary reading will be paired with medical, philosophical, and policy writings that deeply inform the field of global health. Note: To be eligible for WAYS credit, you must take the course for a Letter Grade.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II, WAY-ER
AMELANG 126:
Reflection on the Other: The Jew and the Arab in Literature (COMPLIT 145, JEWISHST 106)
How literary works outside the realm of Western culture struggle with questions such as identity, minority, and the issue of the Other. How the Arab is viewed in Hebrew literature, film and music and how the Jew is viewed in Palestinian works in Hebrew or Arabic (in translation to English). Historical, political, and sociological forces that have contributed to the shaping of these writers' views. Guest lectures about the Jew in Palestinian literature and music. Note: To be eligible for WAYS credit, you must take course for a Letter Grade.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
AMSTUD 12A:
Introduction to English III: Introduction to African American Literature (AFRICAAM 43, ENGLISH 12A)
(Formerly English 43/143). In his bold study, What Was African American Literature?, Kenneth Warren defines African American literature as a late nineteenth- to mid-twentieth-century response to the nation's Jim Crow segregated order. But in the aftermath of the Jim Crow era and the Civil Rights movement, can critics still speak, coherently, of "African American literature"? And how does this political conception of African American literary production compare with accounts grounded in black language and culture? Taking up Warren's intervention, this course will explore African American literature from its earliest manifestations in the spirituals and slave narratives to texts composed at the height of desegregation and decolonization struggles at mid-century and beyond.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
AMSTUD 50N:
The Literature of Inequality: Have and Have-Nots from the Gilded Age to the Occupy Era
Not since the turn of the last century have Americans experienced such a profound gap between those who have and those who do not, between wealthy and working poor, between defacto upper and lower classes, between those of the status quo and those who slip to the social periphery. We will be examining literary and artistic explorations of social and economic inequity, fiction and art that looks at reversals of fortune as well as the possibilities for social change. Readings include Jacob Riis¿ How the Other Half Lives, W.E.B. Du Bois¿ The Souls of Black Folk, Edith Wharton¿s House of Mirth , James Agee & Walker Evans¿ Let Us Not Forget Famous Men , T.C. Boyle¿s The Tortilla Curtain, Julie Otsuka¿s When the Emperor Was Divine and Occupy Movement art.
Last offered: Spring 2013
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul
AMSTUD 51Q:
Comparative Fictions of Ethnicity (COMPLIT 51Q, CSRE 51Q)
We may "know" "who" we "are," but we are, after all, social creatures. How does our sense of self interact with those around us? How does literature provide a particular medium for not only self expression, but also for meditations on what goes into the construction of "the Self"? After all, don't we tell stories in response to the question, "who are you"? Besides a list of nouns and names and attributes, we give our lives flesh and blood in telling how we process the world. Our course focuses in particular on this question--Does this universal issue ("who am I") become skewed differently when we add a qualifier before it, like "ethnic"? Note: To be eligible for WAYS credit, you must take course for a Letter Grade.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP, Writing 2
AMSTUD 54N:
African American Women's Lives (AFRICAAM 54N, CSRE 54N, FEMGEN 54N, HISTORY 54N)
This course encourages students to think critically about historical sources and to use creative and rigorous historical methods to recover African American women¿s experiences, which often have been placed on the periphery of American history and American life.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
AMSTUD 68N:
Mark Twain and American Culture (ENGLISH 68N)
Preference to freshmen. Mark Twain defined the rhythms of our prose and the contours of our moral map. He recognized our extravagant promise and stunning failures, our comic foibles and tragic flaws. He is viewed as the most American of American authors--and as one of the most universal. How does his work illuminate his society's (and our society's) responses to such issues as race, gender, technology, heredity vs. environment, religion, education, art, imperialism, animal welfare, and what it means to be "American"?
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
AMSTUD 101:
Black & White Race Relations in American Fiction & Film (AFRICAAM 101, CSRE 41)
Movies and the fiction that inspires them; power dynamics behind production including historical events, artistic vision, politics, and racial stereotypes. What images of black and white does Hollywood produce to forge a national identity? How do films promote equality between the races? What is lost or gained in film adaptations of books? NOTE: Students must attend the first day; admission to the class will be determined based on an in class essay.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
AMSTUD 114X:
Reading Comics (FILMSTUD 114, FILMSTUD 314)
The modern medium of comics, a history that spans 150 years. The flexibility of the medium encountered through the genres of humorous and dramatic comic strips, superheroes, undergrounds, independents, journalism, and autobiography. Innovative creators including McCay, Kirby, Barry, Ware, and critical writings including McCloud, Eisner, Groenstee. Topics include text/image relations, panel-to-panel relations, the page, caricature, sequence, seriality, comics in the context of the fine arts, and relations to other media.
Last offered: Autumn 2016
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
AMSTUD 117R:
Christianity in 21st-century America (RELIGST 117)
As the largest religion practiced in the United States, Christianity not only shapes the lives of a large number of its citizens but also impinges on public discourse, policies, and debates. This course investigates the ways in which Christianity in America is changing and what these changes bode for its role in the public and private spheres. Issues include shifting demographics lead to declining numbers in 'mainline' denominations; the polarization of Christian conservatives and religious 'nones'; interfaith toleration and cooperation alongside interreligious conflict; the rise of 'spiritual, not religious' young adults; the effects of immigration; religion and science.
Last offered: Spring 2017
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
AMSTUD 124A:
The American West (ARTHIST 152, ENGLISH 124, HISTORY 151, POLISCI 124A)
The American West is characterized by frontier mythology, vast distances, marked aridity, and unique political and economic characteristics. This course integrates several disciplinary perspectives into a comprehensive examination of Western North America: its history, physical geography, climate, literature, art, film, institutions, politics, demography, economy, and continuing policy challenges. Students examine themes fundamental to understanding the region: time, space, water, peoples, and boom and bust cycles.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
AMSTUD 132:
American Art and Culture, 1528-1910 (ARTHIST 132, ARTHIST 332)
The visual arts and literature of the U.S. from the beginnings of European exploration to the Civil War. Focus is on questions of power and its relation to culture from early Spanish exploration to the rise of the middle classes. Cabeza de Vaca, Benjamin Franklin, John Singleton Copley, Phillis Wheatley, Charles Willson Peale, Emerson, Hudson River School, American Genre painters, Melville, Hawthorne and others.
Last offered: Autumn 2013
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II
AMSTUD 143A:
American Architecture (ARTHIST 143A, ARTHIST 343A, CEE 32R)
A historically based understanding of what defines American architecture. What makes American architecture American, beginning with indigenous structures of pre-Columbian America. Materials, structure, and form in the changing American context. How these ideas are being transformed in today's globalized world.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
AMSTUD 143M:
American Indian Mythology, Legend, and Lore (ENGLISH 43A, ENGLISH 143A, NATIVEAM 143A)
(English majors and others taking 5 units, register for 143A.) Readings from American Indian literatures, old and new. Stories, songs, and rituals from the 19th century, including the Navajo Night Chant. Tricksters and trickster stories; war, healing, and hunting songs; Aztec songs from the 16th century. Readings from modern poets and novelists including N. Scott Momaday, Louise Erdrich, and Leslie Marmon Silko, and the classic autobiography, "Black Elk Speaks."
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
AMSTUD 145D:
Jewish American Literature (ENGLISH 145D, JEWISHST 155D, REES 145D)
From its inception, Jewish-American literature has taken as its subject as well as its context the idea of Jewishness itself. Jewish culture is a diasporic one, and for this reason the concept of Jewishness differs from country to country and across time. What stays remarkably similar, though, is Jewish self-perception and relatedly Jewish literary style. This is as true for the first-generation immigrant writers like Isaac Bashevis Singer and Anzia Yezierska who came to the United States from abroad as it is for their second-generation children born in the United States, and the children of those children. In this course, we will consider the difficulties of displacement for the emigrant generation and their efforts to sustain their cultural integrity in the multicultural American environment. We'll also examine the often comic revolt of their American-born children and grandchildren against their (grand-)parents nostalgia and failure to assimilate. Only by considering these transnational roots can one understand the particularity of the Jewish-American novel in relation to mainstream and minority American literatures. In investigating the link between American Jewish writers and their literary progenitors, we will draw largely but not exclusively from Russia and the countries of Eastern Europe.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
AMSTUD 145M:
Culture Wars: Art and Social Conflict in the USA, 1890-1950 (ARTHIST 145, ARTHIST 345, FEMGEN 145)
This course examines social conflicts and political controversies in American culture through the lens of visual art and photography. We consider how visual images both reflect and participate in the social and political life of the nation and how the terms of citizenship have been represented¿and, at times, contested¿by artists throughout the first half of the 20th century. The class explores the relation between American art and the body politic by focusing on issues of poverty, war, censorship, consumerism, class identity, and racial division.
Last offered: Spring 2014
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
AMSTUD 147J:
Studies in Music, Media, and Popular Culture: The Soul Tradition in African American Music (AFRICAAM 19, CSRE 147J, MUSIC 147J, MUSIC 247J)
The African American tradition of soul music from its origins in blues, gospel, and jazz to its influence on today's r&b, hip hop, and dance music. Style such as rhythm and blues, Motown, Southern soul, funk, Philadelphia soul, disco, Chicago house, Detroit techno, trip hop, and neo-soul. Soul's cultural influence and global reach; its interaction with politics, gender, place, technology, and the economy. Pre-/corequisite (for music majors): MUSIC 22. (WIM at 4 units only.)
Last offered: Winter 2015
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
AMSTUD 150:
Introduction to English II: American Literature and Culture to 1855 (ENGLISH 11B)
(Formerly English 23/123). A survey of early American writings, including sermons, poetry, captivity and slave narratives, essays, autobiography, and fiction, from the colonial era to the eve of the Civil War.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II
AMSTUD 152K:
Mixed-Race Politics and Culture (AFRICAAM 226, CSRE 152K, ENGLISH 152K)
Today, almost one-third of Americans identify with a racial/ethnic minority group, and more than 9 million Americans identify with multiple races. What are the implications of such diversity for American politics and culture? This course approaches issues of race from an interdisciplinary perspective, employing research in the social sciences and humanities to assess how race shapes perceptions of identity as well as political behavior in 21st-century U.S. Issues surrounding the role of multiculturalism, immigration, acculturation, racial representation, and racial prejudice in American society. Topics include the political and social formation of race; racial representation in the media, arts, and popular culture; the rise and decline of the "one-drop rule" and its effect on political and cultural attachments; the politicization of census categories and the rise of the multiracial movement.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
AMSTUD 160:
Perspectives on American Identity
Required for American Studies majors. In this seminar we trace diverse and changing interpretations of American identity by exploring autobiographical, literary, and/or visual texts from the 18th through the 20th century in conversation with sociological, political, and historical accounts.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
AMSTUD 178:
Ethnicity and Dissent in United States Art and Literature (ARTHIST 178, ARTHIST 378)
The role of the visual arts of the U.S. in the construction and contesting of racial, class, and gender hierarchies. Focus is on artists and writers from the 18th century to 1990s. How power, domination, and resistance work historically. Topics include: minstrelsy and the invention of race; mass culture and postmodernity; hegemony and language; memory and desire; and the borderlands.
Last offered: Spring 2004
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
AMSTUD 183:
Re- Imagining American Borders (CSRE 183, FEMGEN 183)
How novelists, filmmakers, and poets perceive racial, ethnic, gender, sexual orientation, and class borders in the context of a current volatile national discussion about the place of Americans both here and in the world. How Anna Deavere Smith, Sherman Alexie, Shailja Patel or Ta-Nehisi Coates consider redrawing such lines so that center and margin, or self and other, do not remain fixed and divided. How linguistic borderlines within multilingual literature by Caribbean, Arab, and Asian Americans function. Can Anzaldúa's 1986 conception of borderlands be constructed through the matrix of language, dreams, music, and cultural memories in these recent American narratives? Course includes creatively examining one's own identity.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
AMSTUD 244:
The Visual Culture of the American Home Front, 1941-1945 (ARTHIST 244)
How does home front of WWII look now? What sort of meanings appear with the vantage of more than sixty years' distance? Examining Hollywood films from those years -films made during the war but mostly not directly about the war - the seminar focuses on developing students' abilities to write emotion-based criticism and history. Weekly short papers, each one in response to a film screening, are required. Among the films screened: Shadow of a Doubt, Gaslight, I Walked with a Zombie, The Best Years of Our Lives.
Last offered: Winter 2013
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
AMSTUD 246:
Constructing Race and Religion in America (AFRICAAM 236, CSRE 246, HISTORY 256G, HISTORY 356G, RELIGST 246, RELIGST 346)
This seminar focuses on the interrelationships between social constructions of race, and social interpretations of religion in America. How have assumptions about race shaped religious worldviews? How have religious beliefs shaped racial attitudes? How have ideas about religion and race contributed to notions of what it means to be "American"? We will look at primary and secondary sources, and at the historical development of ideas and practices over time.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
ANTHRO 12:
Anthropology and Art
Modernity. How the concept of art appears timeless and commonsensical in the West, and with what social consequences. Historicizing the emergence of art. Modernist uses of primitive, child art, asylum, and outsider art.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
ANTHRO 146J:
Studies in Ethnomusicology: Listening to the Local: Music Ethnography of the Bay Area (CSRE 146J, MUSIC 146J, MUSIC 246J)
An introduction to music ethnography through student research on musical life in the Bay Area. Focus is on the intersections of music, social life, and cultural practice by engaging with people as they perform music and culture in situ. Techniques taught include participant-observation, interviewing and oral history, writing field-notes, recording, transcription, analysis, and ethnographic writing. Pre-/co-requisite (for music majors): MUSIC 22. (WIM at 4 units only.)
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ANTHRO 162:
Indigenous Peoples and Environmental Problems (ANTHRO 262)
The social and cultural consequences of contemporary environmental problems. The impact of market economies, development efforts, and conservation projects on indigenous peoples, emphasizing Latin America. The role of indigenous grass roots organizations in combating environmental destruction and degradation of homeland areas.
Last offered: Spring 2016
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom
ARCHLGY 21Q:
Eight Great Archaeological Sites in Europe (CLASSICS 21Q)
(Formerly CLASSART 21Q.) Preference to sophomores. Focus is on excavation, features and finds, arguments over interpretation, and the place of each site in understanding the archaeological history of Europe. Goal is to introduce the latest archaeological and anthropological thought, and raise key questions about ancient society. The archaeological perspective foregrounds interdisciplinary study: geophysics articulated with art history, source criticism with analytic modeling, statistics interpretation. A web site with resources about each site, including plans, photographs, video, and publications, is the basis for exploring.
Terms: Aut, Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, Writing 2
ARCHLGY 81:
Introduction to Roman Archaeology (CLASSICS 52)
(Formerly CLASSART 81.) This course will introduce you to the material culture of the ancient Roman world, from spectacular imperial monuments in the city of Rome to cities and roads around the Mediterranean, from overarching environmental concerns to individual human burials, from elite houses and army forts to the the lives of slaves, freedmen and gladiators. Key themes will be change and continuity over time; the material, spatial and visual workings of power; how Roman society was materially changed by its conquests and how conquered peoples responded materially to Roman rule.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
ARCHLGY 111:
Emergence of Chinese Civilization from Caves to Palaces (CHINA 176, CHINA 276)
Introduces processes of cultural evolution from the Paleolithic to the Three Dynasties in China. By examining archaeological remains, ancient inscriptions, and traditional texts, four major topics will be discussed: origins of modern humans, beginnings of agriculture, development of social stratification, and emergence of states and urbanism.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-SI
ARCHLGY 118:
Engineering the Roman Empire (CLASSICS 168)
(Formerly CLASSART 117.) Enter the mind, the drafting room, and the building site of the Roman architects and engineers whose monumental projects impressed ancient and modern spectators alike. This class explores the interrelated aesthetics and mechanics of construction that led to one of the most extensive building programs undertaken by a pre-modern state. Through case studies ranging from columns, domes and obelisks to road networks, machines and landscape modification, we investigate the materials, methods, and knowledge behind Roman innovation, and the role of designed space in communicating imperial identity.
Last offered: Spring 2017
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ARCHLGY 142:
Lost and found: Roman Coinage (ARCHLGY 242, CLASSART 232)
New trends in Roman numismatics (from the late Republic to the early Empire, 3rd-c. BCE-1st-c. CE). Archaeology from coins. Barter, money, and coinage. The introduction of coinage in Rome and the provinces. Making money (coin production), using money (monetary, non-monetary and ritual uses), losing money (coin circulation, hoards, single finds): contextual interpretations. Monetary systems: coins from Rome and coins from the provinces. Coinage and identity. False coinage.
Last offered: Spring 2013
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
ARCHLGY 145:
Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Maritime Archaeology of the Ancient Mediterranean (CLASSICS 154)
(Formerly CLASSART 145.) Why do we care about shipwrecks? What can sunken sites and abandoned ports tell us about our past? Focusing primarily on the archaeological record of shipwrecks and harbors, along with literary evidence and contemporary theory, this course examines how and why ancient mariners ventured across the "wine-dark seas" of the Mediterranean for travel, warfare, pilgrimage, and especially commerce. We will explore interdisciplinary approaches to the development of maritime contacts and communication from the Bronze Age through the end of Roman era. At the same time, we will engage with practical techniques of maritime archaeology, which allows us to explore the material record first hand.
Last offered: Winter 2017
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-SI
ARCHLGY 166:
The Body in Roman Art (CLASSICS 166)
(Formerly CLASSART 105.) Ancient and modern ideas about the body as ideal and site of lived experience. Themes include representation, portrayal, power, metamorphosis, and replication. Works that exemplify Roman ideas of heroism and power versus works portraying nude women, erotic youth, preserved corpses, and suffering enemies. Recommended: background in ancient Mediterranean art, archaeology, history, or literature. May be repeated for credit.
Last offered: Spring 2016
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
| Repeatable
for credit
ARTHIST 1A:
Introduction to the Visual Arts: Prehistoric through Medieval (CLASSICS 56)
A survey of the art and architecture from the cave paintings of Lascaux to the Gothic Cathedrals of France; the material is organized both chronologically and thematically and covers a multiplicity of religions: pagan, Christian, and Islamic.
Last offered: Winter 2017
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ARTHIST 1B:
Introduction to the Visual Arts: History of Western Art from the Renaissance to the Present
This course surveys the history of Western painting from the start of the 14th century to the late 20th century and our own moment. Lectures introduce important artists (Giotto, Rembrandt, Velazquez, Goya, Manet, Matisse, Pollock, and others), and major themes associated with the art of particular periods and cultures. The course emphasizes training students to look closely at - and to write about - works of art.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ARTHIST 2:
Asian Arts and Cultures (JAPAN 60)
An introduction to major monuments, themes, styles, and media of East and South Asian visual arts, in their social, literary, religious, and political contexts. Through close study of primary monuments of architectural, pictorial, and sculptural arts and related texts, this course will explore ritual and mortuary arts; Buddhist arts across Asia; narrative and landscape images; and courtly, urban, monastic, and studio environments for art from Bronze Age to modern eras.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II
ARTHIST 3:
Introduction to World Architecture (CLASSICS 54)
This lecture course surveys the history of architecture and urbanism, from the first societies to the present, in Europe, West and East Asia, the Americas, and Africa. The course progresses by case studies of exemplary monuments and cities, and examines the built environment as both cultural artifact and architectural event. It considers the social and political circumstances of architectural invention as well as plumbing the depth of artistic context by which particular formal choices resonate with an established representational culture.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ARTHIST 100N:
The Artist in Ancient Greek Society (CLASSICS 18N)
Given the importance of art to all aspects of their lives, the Greeks had reason to respect their artists. Yet potters, painters and even sculptors possessed little social standing. nn nnWhy did the Greeks value the work of craftsmen but not the men themselves? Why did Herodotus dismiss those who worked with their hands as "mechanics?" What prompted Homer to claim that "there is no greater glory for a man¿ than what he achieves with his own hands," provided that he was throwing a discus and not a vase on a wheel?nn nnPainted pottery was essential to the religious and secular lives of the Greeks. Libations to the gods and to the dead required vases from which to pour them. Economic prosperity depended on the export of wine and oil in durable clay containers. At home, depictions of gods and heroes on vases reinforced Greek values and helped parents to educate their children. Ceramic sets with scenes of Dionysian excess were reserved for elite symposia from which those who potted and painted them were excluded.nn nnSculptors were less lowly but even those who carved the Parthenon were still regarded as "mechanics," with soft bodies and soft minds (Xenophon) "indifferent to higher things" (Plutarch).nn nnThe seminar addresses these issues. Students will read and discuss texts, write response papers and present slide lectures and gallery talks on aspects of the artist's profession.
Last offered: Spring 2017
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ARTHIST 101:
Introduction to Greek Art I: The Archaic Period (CLASSICS 161)
This lecture course explores Greek art and culture from 1000-480. In the beginning archaic art forms are more abstract than life-like, closer to Calder than Michelangelo. While Homer describes the rippling muscles (and egos) of his heroes, vase-painters and sculptors prefer abstraction. This changes in the 7th C. as a result of commerce with the Near East and Egypt. Imported Near Eastern bronzes and ivories awaken the Greeks to a wider range of subjects, techniques and ambitions. Later in the century, Greeks in Egypt learn to carve hard stone from Egyptian masters. Throughout the 6th C. Greek artists assimilate what they had borrowed, compete with one another, defy their teachers, test the tolerance of the gods and eventually produce works of art that speak with a Greek accent. When the Persians invade the Acropolis in 480, they find artifacts with little trace of alien influence or imprint - omens of the defiant Greek military that would prevail at Salamis and Plataea.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ARTHIST 102:
Introduction to Greek Art II: The Classical Period (CLASSICS 162)
The class begins with the art, architecture and political ideals of Periclean Athens, from the emergence of the city as the political and cultural center of Greece in 450 to its defeat in the Peloponnesian War in 404. It then considers how Athens and the rest of Greece proceed in the fourth century to rebuild their lives and the monuments that define them. Earlier artistic traditions endure, with subtle changes, in the work of sculptors such as Kephisodotos. Less subtle are the outlook and output of his son Praxiteles. In collaboration with Phryne, his muse and mistress, Praxiteles challenged the canons and constraints of the past with the first female nude in the history of Greek sculpture. His gender-bending depictions of gods and men were equally audacious, their shiny surfaces reflecting Plato¿s discussion of Eros and androgyny. Scopas was also a man of his time but pursued different interests. Drawn to the inner lives of men and woman, his tormented Trojan War heroes and victims are still scarred by memories of the Peloponnesian War, and a world away from the serene faces of the Parthenon. His famous Maenad, a devotee of Dionysos who has left this world for another, belongs to the same years as Euripides' Bacchae and, at the same time, anticipates the torsion and turbulence of Bernini and the Italian Baroque. In the work of these and other fourth century personalities, the stage is set for Alexander the Great and his conquest of a kingdom extending from Greece to the Indus River. (Formerly CLASSART 102)
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ARTHIST 105:
Art & Architecture in the Medieval Mediterranean (ARTHIST 305, CLASSICS 172)
Chronological survey of Byzantine, Islamic, and Western Medieval art and architecture from the early Christian period to the Gothic age. Broad art-historical developments and more detailed examinations of individual monuments and works of art. Topics include devotional art, court and monastic culture, relics and the cult of saints, pilgrimage and crusades, and the rise of cities and cathedrals.
Last offered: Autumn 2012
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
ARTHIST 105B:
Medieval Journeys: Introduction through the Art and Architecture (ARTHIST 305B, DLCL 123)
The course explores the experience and imagination of medieval journeys through an interdisciplinary, cross-cultural, and skills-based approaches. As a foundations class, this survey of medieval culture engages in particular the art and architecture of the period. The Middle Ages is presented as a network of global economies, fueled by a desire for natural resources, access to luxury goods and holy sites. We will study a large geographical area encompassing the British Isles, Europe, the Mediterranean, Central Asia, India, and East Africa and trace the connectivity of these lands in economic, political, religious, and artistic terms from the fourth to the fourteenth century C.E. The students will have two lectures and one discussion session per week. Depending on the size of the class, it is possible that a graduate student TA will run the discussion session. Our goal is to give a skills-oriented approach to the Middle Ages and to engage students in creative projects that will satisfy 1. Ways-Creative Expression requirement as well as one of the following two: Ways-Analytical Interpretive or Ways-Engaging Difference.
Last offered: Spring 2017
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-CE, WAY-EDP
ARTHIST 106:
Byzantine Art and Architecture, 300-1453 C.E. (ARTHIST 306, CLASSICS 171)
(Formerly CLASSART 106/206.) This course explores the art and architecture of the Eastern Mediterranean: Constantinople, Jerusalem, Alexandria, Antioch, Damascus, Thessaloniki, and Palermo, 4th-15th centuries. Applying an innovative approach, we will probe questions of phenomenology and aesthetics, focusing our discussion on the performance and appearance of spaces and objects in the changing diurnal light, in the glitter of mosaics and in the mirror reflection and translucency of marble.
Last offered: Spring 2016
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ARTHIST 107A:
St. Petersburg, a Cultural Biography: Architecture, Urban Planning, the Arts
The most premeditated city in the whole world, according to Dostoevsky; created in 1703 by Peter the Great as a counterpoise to Moscow and old Russian culture; planned as a rational, west-European-appearing capital city of the Russian Empire. St. Petersburg's history through works of its artists, architects, urban planners, writers, and composers.
Last offered: Spring 2012
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
ARTHIST 108:
Virginity and Power: Mary in the Middle Ages (ARTHIST 308)
The most influential female figure in Christianity whose state cult was connected with the idea of empire. The production and control of images and relics of the Virgin and the development of urban processions and court ceremonies though which political power was legitimized in papal Rome, Byzantium, Carolingian and Ottonian Germany, Tuscany, Gothic France, and Russia.
Last offered: Spring 2006
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
ARTHIST 109:
The Book in the Medieval World (ARTHIST 309)
Studying the design and function of books in medieval society from the 7th to the 15th century, and the ways in which manuscripts are designed to meet (and shape) the cultural and intellectual demands of their readers. Major themes are the relationships between text and image, and between manuscripts and other media; the audience and production context of manuscripts; and changing ideas about pictorial space, figural style, page design, and progression through the book. Final project may be either a research paper or an original artist's book.
Last offered: Winter 2015
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
ARTHIST 111:
Introduction to Italian Renaissance, 1420-1580 (ARTHIST 311)
New techniques of pictorial illusionism and the influence of the humanist revival of antiquity in the reformulation of the pictorial arts in 15th-century Italy. How different Italian regions developed characteristic artistic cultures through mutual interaction and competition.
Last offered: Autumn 2014
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
ARTHIST 114:
Mystical Naturalism: Van Eyck, Dürer, and the Northern Renaissance (ARTHIST 314)
A survey of the major innovations in Northern European painting ca. 1400-1600, in light of the social status of the artist between city and court. In the early fifteenth century painters began to render an idealized world down to its smallest details in ways that engaged new devotional practices. Later Hieronymus Bosch would identify the painter's imagination with the bizarre and grotesque. In response to Renaissance humanism, some painters introduced classical mythology and allegorical subjects in their works, and many traveled south to absorb Italianate pictorial styles. We will be visiting art museums in San Francisco and Stanford. May be repeat for credit.
Last offered: Winter 2014
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 8 units total)
ARTHIST 117:
Picturing the Papacy, 1300-1850 (ARTHIST 317)
Popes deployed art and architecture to glorify their dual spiritual and temporal authority, being both Christ's vicars on earth and rulers of state. After the return of the papacy from Avignon, Rome underwent numerous campaigns of renovation that staged a continuity between the pontiffs and the ancient Roman emperors. Patronage of art and architecture became important tools in the fight against Protestantism. Artists include Botticelli, Michelangelo, Caravaggio, and Bernini.
Last offered: Spring 2014
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 8 units total)
ARTHIST 120:
Living in a Material World: Seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish Painting (ARTHIST 320)
Painting and graphic arts by artists in Flanders and Holland from 1600 to 1680, a period of political and religious strife. Historical context; their relationship to developments in the rest of Europe and contributions to the problem of representation. Preferences for particular genres such as portraits, landscapes, and scenes of everyday life; the general problem of realism as manifested in the works studied.
Last offered: Winter 2015
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ARTHIST 121:
18th-Century Art in Europe, ca 1660-1780 (ARTHIST 321)
Major developments in painting across Europe including the High Baroque illusionism of Bernini, the founding of the French Academy, and the revival of antiquity during the 1760s, with parallel developments in Venice, Naples, Madrid, Bavaria, and London. Shifts in themes and styles amidst the emergence of new viewing publics. Artists: the Tiepolos, Giordano, Batoni, and Mengs; Ricci, Pellegrini, and Thornhill; Watteau and Boucher; Chardin and Longhi; Reynolds and West; Hogarth and Greuze; Vien, Fragonard, and the first works by David. Additional discussion for graduate students.
Last offered: Winter 2017
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
ARTHIST 122:
The Age of Revolution: Painting in Europe 1780-1830 (ARTHIST 322)
Survey of European painting bracketed by the French Revolution and the end of the Napoleonic conquest. Against this background of social upheavel, the visual arts were profoundly affected by shifts in patronage, public, and ideas about the social utility of image making. Lectures and readings align ruptures in the tradition of representation with the unfolding historical situation, and trace the first manifestations of a "romantic" alternative to the classicism that was the cultural legacy of pre-Revolutionary Europe.
Last offered: Spring 2017
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ARTHIST 124:
The Age of Naturalism, Painting in Europe1830-1874 (ARTHIST 324)
Survey of European painting from the heyday of Romanticism to the first Impressionist exhibition. Lectures and readings focus on the tensions between traditional forms and ambitions of history painting and the challenge of "modern" subjects drawn from contemporary life. Attention to the impact of painting in the open-air, and the effect of new imaging technologies- notably lithography and photography - to provide "popular" alternatives to the hand-wrought character and elitist appeal of "high art" cultural forms.
Last offered: Spring 2014
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ARTHIST 126:
Post-Naturalist Painting (ARTHIST 326)
How conceptual models from language, literature, new technologies, and scientific theory affected picture making following the collapse of the radical naturalism of the 1860s and 1870s. Bracketed in France by the first Impressionist exhibition (1874) and the first public acclamation of major canvases by Matisse and Picasso (1905), the related developments in England, Germany, Belgium, and Austria. Additional weekly discussion for graduate students. Recommended: some prior experience with 19th-century art.
Last offered: Spring 2016
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
ARTHIST 132:
American Art and Culture, 1528-1910 (AMSTUD 132, ARTHIST 332)
The visual arts and literature of the U.S. from the beginnings of European exploration to the Civil War. Focus is on questions of power and its relation to culture from early Spanish exploration to the rise of the middle classes. Cabeza de Vaca, Benjamin Franklin, John Singleton Copley, Phillis Wheatley, Charles Willson Peale, Emerson, Hudson River School, American Genre painters, Melville, Hawthorne and others.
Last offered: Autumn 2013
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II
ARTHIST 142:
Architecture Since 1900 (CEE 32G)
Art 142 is an introduction to the history of architecture since 1900 and how it has shaped and been shaped by its cultural contexts. The class also investigates the essential relationship between built form and theory during this period.
Last offered: Winter 2017
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ARTHIST 143A:
American Architecture (AMSTUD 143A, ARTHIST 343A, CEE 32R)
A historically based understanding of what defines American architecture. What makes American architecture American, beginning with indigenous structures of pre-Columbian America. Materials, structure, and form in the changing American context. How these ideas are being transformed in today's globalized world.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ARTHIST 145:
Culture Wars: Art and Social Conflict in the USA, 1890-1950 (AMSTUD 145M, ARTHIST 345, FEMGEN 145)
This course examines social conflicts and political controversies in American culture through the lens of visual art and photography. We consider how visual images both reflect and participate in the social and political life of the nation and how the terms of citizenship have been represented¿and, at times, contested¿by artists throughout the first half of the 20th century. The class explores the relation between American art and the body politic by focusing on issues of poverty, war, censorship, consumerism, class identity, and racial division.
Last offered: Spring 2014
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ARTHIST 147:
Modernism and Modernity (ARTHIST 347)
The development of modern art and visual culture in Europe and the US, beginning with Paris in the 1860s, the period of Haussmann, Baudelaire and Manet, and ending with the Bauhaus and Surrealism in the 1920s and 30s. Modernism in art, architecture and design (e.g., Gauguin, Picasso, Duchamp, Mondrian, Le Corbusier, Breuer, Dali) will be explored as a compelling dream of utopian possibilities involving multifaceted and often ambivalent, even contradictory responses to the changes brought about by industrialization, urbanization, and the rise of mass culture.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ARTHIST 152:
The American West (AMSTUD 124A, ENGLISH 124, HISTORY 151, POLISCI 124A)
The American West is characterized by frontier mythology, vast distances, marked aridity, and unique political and economic characteristics. This course integrates several disciplinary perspectives into a comprehensive examination of Western North America: its history, physical geography, climate, literature, art, film, institutions, politics, demography, economy, and continuing policy challenges. Students examine themes fundamental to understanding the region: time, space, water, peoples, and boom and bust cycles.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
ARTHIST 157A:
Histories of Photography (ARTHIST 357A)
This course investigates multiple histories of photography. It begins in early nineteenth-century Europe with the origins of the medium and ends in the United States on September 11, 2001, a day that demonstrated the limits of photographic seeing. Rather than stabilizing any single trajectory of technological iterations, the course is more interested in considering the ¿work¿ performed by photography. Through historical case studies, it considers how `to photograph¿ is to order and to construct the world; to incite action and to persuade; to describe and to document; to record and to censor; to wound; to heal.
Last offered: Autumn 2013
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
ARTHIST 160N:
The Sisters: Poetry & Painting (ENGLISH 51N)
Poetry and painting have often been called the "sister arts". Why? Sometimes a poem or a painting stands out to us, asking that we stay with it, that we remember it, although we cannot exactly say why. Poems have a way of making pictures in the mind, and paintings turn "rhymes" amid the people, places, and things they portray. Each is a concentrated world, inviting an exhilarating closeness of response: why does this line come first? Why does the artist include that detail? Who knows but that as we write and talk about these poems and pictures we will be doing what John Keats said a painter does: that is, arriving at a "trembling delicate and snail-horn perception of Beauty." Each week explore the kinship between a different pair of painter and poet and also focuses on a particular problem or method of interpretation. Some of the artist/poet combinations we will consider: Shakespeare and Caravaggio; Jorie Graham and (the photographer) Henri Cartier-Bresson; Alexander Pope and Thomas Gainsborough; William Wordsworth and Caspar David Friedrich; Christina Rossetti and Mary Cassatt; Walt Whitman and Thomas Eakins; Thomas Hardy and Edward Hopper.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ARTHIST 164A:
Technology and the Visual Imagination (ARTHIST 364A, FILMSTUD 164A, FILMSTUD 364A)
An exploration of the dynamic relationship between technology and the ways we see and represent the world. The course examines technologies from the Renaissance through the present day, from telescopes and microscopes to digital detectors, that have changed and enhanced our visual capabilities as well as shaped how we imagine the world. We also consider how these technologies influenced and inspired the work of artists. Special attention is paid to how different technologies such as linear perspective, photography, cinema, and computer screens translate the visual experience into a representation; the automation of vision; and the intersection of technology with conceptions of time and space.
Last offered: Winter 2016
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ARTHIST 165A:
Fashion Shows: From Lady Godiva to Lady Gaga (ARTHIST 365A, FILMSTUD 165A, FILMSTUD 365A)
The complex and interdependent relationship between fashion and art. Topics include: the ways in which artists have used fashion in different art forms as a means to convey social status, identity, and other attributes of the wearer; the interplay between fashion designers and various art movements, especially in the 20th century; the place of prints, photography, and the Internet in fashion, in particular how different media shape how clothes are seen and perceived. Texts by Thorstein Veblen, Roland Barthes, Dick Hebdige, and other theorists of fashion.
Last offered: Winter 2014
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ARTHIST 173:
Issues in Contemporary Art (ARTHIST 373)
Major figures, themes, and movements of contemporary art from the 80s to the present. Readings on the neo-avant garde; postmodernism; art and identity politics; new media and technology; globalization and participatory aesthetics. Prerequisite: ARTHIST 155, or equivalent with consent of instructor.
Last offered: Spring 2009
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
ARTHIST 176:
Feminism and Contemporary Art (ARTHIST 376, CSRE 167, FEMGEN 176)
(Same as ARTHIST 176) The impact of second wave feminism on art making and art historical practice in the 70s, and its reiteration and transformation in contemporary feminist work. Topics: sexism and art history, feminist studio programs in the 70s, essentialism and self-representation, themes of domesticity, the body in feminist art making, bad girls, the exclusion of women of color and lesbians from the art historical mainstream, notions of performativity.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ARTHIST 178:
Ethnicity and Dissent in United States Art and Literature (AMSTUD 178, ARTHIST 378)
The role of the visual arts of the U.S. in the construction and contesting of racial, class, and gender hierarchies. Focus is on artists and writers from the 18th century to 1990s. How power, domination, and resistance work historically. Topics include: minstrelsy and the invention of race; mass culture and postmodernity; hegemony and language; memory and desire; and the borderlands.
Last offered: Spring 2004
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ARTHIST 184:
Aristocrats, Warriors, Sex Workers, and Barbarians: Lived Life in Early Modern Japanese Painting (ARTHIST 384, JAPAN 184, JAPAN 284)
Changes marking the transition from medieval to early modern Japanese society that generated a revolution in visual culture, as exemplified in subjects deemed fit for representation; how commoners joined elites in pictorializing their world, catalyzed by interactions with the Dutch.
Last offered: Winter 2015
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
ARTHIST 185:
Arts of China in the Early Modern World, 1550-1800 (ARTHIST 385)
From the late Ming period (ca. 1600) to early 20th century Chinese arts. Topics include: urban arts and print culture; commodification of art; painting theories; self portrayals; art sponsorship, collecting, and ideological programs at the Qing imperial court; media and modernity in Shanghai; art and politics in early 20th century China.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
ARTHIST 186:
Theme and Style in Japanese Art (ARTHIST 386, JAPAN 186, JAPAN 286)
A mixture of lecture and discussion, this course presents a chronological introduction to some of the defining monuments in the history of Japanese visual culture from prehistory to the mid-19th century. This introductory class presumes no prior knowledge of art history or of Japan. We will emphasize certain overarching themes like religious life; notions of decorum appropriate to various classes (court, warrior, and commoner); the relationship between and among the arts, such as the visual and the verbal, or the symphonic assemblage arts as seen in the tea ceremony; pervasive cultural tropes like nostalgia, seasonality, or the sense of place; and broader issues such as censorship, patronage, gender issues, and the encounters between Japanese and foreign cultures.
Last offered: Autumn 2015
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
ARTHIST 187:
Arts of War and Peace: Late Medieval and Early Modern Japan, 1500-1868 (ARTHIST 387, JAPAN 185, JAPAN 285)
Narratives of conflict, pacification, orthodoxy, nostalgia, and novelty through visual culture during the change of episteme from late medieval to early modern, 16th through early 19th centuries. The rhetorical messages of castles, teahouses, gardens, ceramics, paintings, and prints; the influence of Dutch and Chinese visuality; transformation in the roles of art and artist; tensions between the old and the new leading to the modernization of Japan.
Last offered: Winter 2016
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom
ARTHIST 188A:
The History of Modern and Contemporary Japanese and Chinese Architecture and Urbanism (ARTHIST 388A)
The recent rapid urbanization and architectural transformation of Asia; focus is on the architecture of Japan and China since the mid-19th century. History of forms, theories, and styles that serve as the foundation for today's buildings and cityscapes. How Eastern and Western ideas of modernism have merged or diverged and how these forces continue to shape the future of Japanese and Chinese architecture and urban form.
Last offered: Spring 2011
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
ARTHIST 203:
Artists, Athletes, Courtesans and Crooks (CLASSICS 163)
The seminar covers a range of topics devoted to the makers of Greek art and artifacts, the ancient Greeks who used them in life and the afterlife, and the miscreants - from Lord Elgin to contemporary tomb-looters and dealers- whose deeds have damaged, deracinated and desecrated temples, sculptures and grave goods. Readings include ancient texts in translation, books and articles by eloquent experts, legal texts and lively page-turners. Classes meet in the seminar room and the Cantor Center.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ARTHIST 205:
Cairo and Istanbul: Urban Space, Memory, Protest
In the aftermath of the Arab Spring, the city of Cairo has become a theater of social and political upheaval. In Istanbul, the Gezi protests in spring and summer 2013 drew attention to the contested public space. These events are the result of longstanding developments in the urban and social fabric. This seminar introduces students to the architectural and urban history of Istanbul and Cairo, with the current transformations as a central point of reference. Readings will focus on the tension between historical center and recent urban development, the social problems arising from the segregation, and reactions of scholars, architects, and artists to these issues.
Last offered: Autumn 2014
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
ARTHIST 205A:
Islamic Painting: Landscape, Body, Power
This seminar focuses on the production of paintings, mostly but not exclusively miniatures in books, in the Islamic world. A particular focus lies on the Muslim Empires of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, namely the Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal realms, together stretching from the Balkans to India. During this period, illustrated books were popular objects of high-level patronage, and numerous examples have survived that allow a detailed study of the implications of these images. Themes discussed include: figural representation in Islam, patronage and court culture; gender and the body; illustrations of literature and history; images of Sufis ceremonies; portraiture; images of animals and nature; the impact of European prints and paintings; space and landscape. A field-trip to the Museum of Asian Art in San Francisco to view Mughal paintings from India is planned.
Last offered: Spring 2013
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
ARTHIST 208:
Hagia Sophia (ARTHIST 408, CLASSICS 173, CLASSICS 273)
By employing a methodology based in psychoacoustics, semiotics, and phenomenology, this course explores the relationship among sound, water, marble, meaning, and religious experience in the sixth-century church of HagianSophia built by emperor Justinian in Constantinople. We will read medieval sources describing the interior and ritual, make short movies exploring the shimmer of marble in buildings on campus, and study the acoustics of domed buildings through computer auralization done at Stanford's CCRMA (Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics)
Last offered: Winter 2016
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
ARTHIST 212:
Renaissance Florence, 1440-1540
Notions of cultural superiority in light of changes in Florentine society as it went from being a republic to a duchy ruled by the Medici. Artists and architects such as Donatello, Brunelleschi, Botticelli, Michelangelo, and Pontormo praised as having revived the arts and returned them to a level of ancient splendor. The role of the sacred in daily life and uses of the pagan past for poetic and scholarly expressions and as vehicles for contemporary experience.
Last offered: Spring 2015
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
ARTHIST 213:
Renaissance Print Culture: Art in the Cantor Arts Center
The seminar takes place in the Cantor Arts Center and provides a unique opportunity to study original works of art from the museum's storage. Beginning in the fifteenth century new techniques of reproduction changed the pictorial culture of Europe. Some engravings called attention to the engraver's virtuosity, and the private nature of the medium was explored for erotic imagery. By the sixteenth century printed images were used for political and religious propaganda during the societal upheavals.
Last offered: Autumn 2013
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
ARTHIST 244:
The Visual Culture of the American Home Front, 1941-1945 (AMSTUD 244)
How does home front of WWII look now? What sort of meanings appear with the vantage of more than sixty years' distance? Examining Hollywood films from those years -films made during the war but mostly not directly about the war - the seminar focuses on developing students' abilities to write emotion-based criticism and history. Weekly short papers, each one in response to a film screening, are required. Among the films screened: Shadow of a Doubt, Gaslight, I Walked with a Zombie, The Best Years of Our Lives.
Last offered: Winter 2013
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
ARTHIST 246A:
California Dreaming: West Coast Art and Visual Culture, 1848 - present
This seminar examines art, photography, and other forms of cultural production (e.g. film, advertisements, postcards) in and about California from the middle of the 19th century to the present. It approaches California as a contested political, historical and geographical site and as a series of images and alternative "lifestyles." How have artists pictured the state's diverse landscapes, both natural and commercial, as well as its complex history of labor, immigration, ethnicity, tourism, and social division?
Last offered: Winter 2013
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
ARTHIST 262:
Office of Metropolitan Architecture: Workshop of the New (CEE 132Q)
This seminar investigates all aspects of the work of the Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) and its leader Rem Koolhaas. Topics for class research and inquiry include but are not be limited to: Koolhaas's early work at the Architectural Association and the founding of OMA, the publications of OMA and their style of presentation and theoretical foundations, the importance of AMO, and the architects who have left OMA and founded their own practices and how these differ from OMA. Each student completes an in-depth research paper and an in-class presentation.
Last offered: Autumn 2013
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
ARTHIST 264A:
Picturing the Cosmos
This seminar explores the place of images in how we understand and imagine the universe. The course draws on art, science, and popular culture, and pays particular attention to the ways they inform each other. Examples include: star maps, science fiction films, appropriated astronomical images, and telescopic views of stars, planets, and nebulae. Using these representations as well as accompanying readings we will discuss the importance of aesthetics for conceptions of the cosmos; the influence of technology on representations; strategies for representing concepts that exceed the limits of human vision; and the ways that views of the universe reflect and shape their cultural context. Open to undergraduates and graduates.
Last offered: Spring 2013
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ARTHIST 287:
Pictures of the Floating World: Images from Japanese Popular Culture (ARTHIST 487X, JAPAN 287)
Printed objects produced during the Edo period (1600-1868), including the Ukiyo-e (pictures of the floating world) and lesser-studied genres such as printed books (ehon) and popular broadsheets (kawaraban). How a society constructs itself through images. The borders of the acceptable and censorship; theatricality, spectacle, and slippage; the construction of play, set in conflict against the dominant neo-Confucian ideology of fixed social roles.
Last offered: Winter 2016
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
ARTHIST 288B:
The Enduring Passion for Ink: Contemporary Chinese Ink Painting
Contemporary Chinese ink painters are exploring new ground. They push the limits of the medium, creating installations and performances, mixing ink with other media, and advancing age-tested brushstrokes and compositions. The recent flurry of exhibitions attests to contemporary ink painting¿s increasing importance. nnThis seminar introduces major figures (Xu Bing, Liu Dan, Zheng Chongbin, Li Huasheng, etc.) and movements in contemporary Chinese ink art. Emphasis is placed on improving writing abilities and on in-class reports and discussion. Topics for discussion include readings, individual works of art, and broad issues in contemporary art. Prerequisite: courses in Art History and/or Studio Art OR permission of instructor. open to undergraduates and graduates.
Last offered: Autumn 2013
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
ARTHIST 296:
Junior Seminar: Methods & Historiography of Art History
Historiography and methodology. Through a series of case studies, this course introduces a range of influential critical perspectives in art history as a discipline and a practice. The goal is to stimulate thinking about what it means to explore the history of art today, to expose and examine our assumptions, expectations and predilections as we undertake to learn and write about works of art, their meanings and their status in the world.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
ARTSTUDI 131:
Sound Art I (MUSIC 154A)
Acoustic, digital and analog approaches to sound art. Familiarization with techniques of listening, recording, digital processing and production. Required listening and readings in the history and contemporary practice of sound art. (lower level)
Last offered: Autumn 2016
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-CE
CEE 32B:
Design Theory
This seminar focuses on the key themes, histories, and methods of architectural theory -- a form of architectural practice that establishes the aims and philosophies of architecture. Architectural theory is primarily written, but it also incorporates drawing, photography, film, and other media. nnOne of the distinctive features of modern and contemporary architecture is its pronounced use of theory to articulate its aims. One might argue that modern architecture is modern because of its incorporation of theory. This course focuses on those early-modern, modern, and late-modern writings that have been and remain entangled with contemporary architectural thought and design practice. nnRather than examine the development of modern architectural theory chronologically, it is explored architectural through thematic topics. These themes enable the student to understand how certain architectural theoretical concepts endure, are transformed, and can be furthered through his/her own explorations.
Terms: Aut, Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
CEE 32G:
Architecture Since 1900 (ARTHIST 142)
Art 142 is an introduction to the history of architecture since 1900 and how it has shaped and been shaped by its cultural contexts. The class also investigates the essential relationship between built form and theory during this period.
Last offered: Winter 2017
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
CEE 32R:
American Architecture (AMSTUD 143A, ARTHIST 143A, ARTHIST 343A)
A historically based understanding of what defines American architecture. What makes American architecture American, beginning with indigenous structures of pre-Columbian America. Materials, structure, and form in the changing American context. How these ideas are being transformed in today's globalized world.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
CEE 132Q:
Office of Metropolitan Architecture: Workshop of the New (ARTHIST 262)
This seminar investigates all aspects of the work of the Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) and its leader Rem Koolhaas. Topics for class research and inquiry include but are not be limited to: Koolhaas's early work at the Architectural Association and the founding of OMA, the publications of OMA and their style of presentation and theoretical foundations, the importance of AMO, and the architects who have left OMA and founded their own practices and how these differ from OMA. Each student completes an in-depth research paper and an in-class presentation.
Last offered: Autumn 2013
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
CHILATST 140:
Migration in 21st Century Latin American Film (ILAC 140)
Focus on how images and narratives of migration are depicted in recent Latin American film. It compares migration as it takes place within Latin America to migration from Latin America to Europe and to the U.S. We will analyze these films, and their making, in the global context of an evergrowing tension between "inside" and "outside"; we consider how these films represent or explore precariousness and exclusion; visibility and invisibility; racial and gender dynamics; national and social boundaries; new subjectivities and cultural practices. Films include: El niño pez, Bolivia, Ulises, Faustino Mayta visita a su prima, Copacabana, Chico y Rita, Sin nombre, Los que se quedan, Amador, and En la puta calle. Films in Spanish, with English subtitles. Discussions and assignments in Spanish.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
CHILATST 180E:
Introduction to Chicanx/Latinx Studies (CSRE 180E)
This course draws on intersectional and interdisciplinary approaches to introduce students to the range of issues, experiences, and methodologies that form the foundation of Latina/o/x studies. By considering the relationship between the creation of ¿Latinx¿ and ¿American¿ identities, students will critically reconsider the borders that constitute the U.S. as a political and cultural formation. The course balances depth and breadth in its study of the variety of perspectives and experiences that come to be associated with U.S. Latinxs. Thus, we will analyze the histories of predominant U.S. Latinx sub-groups, such as Mexicans/Chicanxs and Puerto Ricans, while also incorporating considerations of the ways in which broader populations with ties to Central America, South America, and the Caribbean play crucial roles in constituting U.S. Latinx identities. Topics include the U.S./Mexico border and the borderlands; (im)migration and diaspora; literary and cultural traditions; music and expressive practices; labor and structural inequality; social movements; Latinx urbanism; gender and sexuality; political and economic shifts; and inter- and intra-group relations. Sources include a range of social science and humanities scholarship.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul
CHINA 70N:
Animal Planet and the Romance of the Species (COMPLIT 70N)
Preference to freshmen.This course considers a variety of animal characters in Chinese and Western literatures as potent symbols of cultural values and dynamic sites of ethical reasoning. What does pervasive animal imagery tell us about how we relate to the world and our neighbors? How do animals define the frontiers of humanity and mediate notions of civilization and culture? How do culture, institutions, and political economy shape concepts of human rights and animal welfare? And, above all, what does it mean to be human in the pluralistic and planetary 21st century? Note: To be eligible for WAYS credit, you must take course for a Letter Grade.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II, WAY-ER
CHINA 93:
The Chinese Empire from the Mongol Invasion to the Boxer Uprising (FEMGEN 93, HISTORY 93)
(Same as HISTORY 193. History majors and others taking 5 units, register for 193.) A survey of Chinese history from the 11th century to the collapse of the imperial state in 1911. Topics include absolutism, gentry society, popular culture, gender and sexuality, steppe nomads, the Jesuits in China, peasant rebellion, ethnic conflict, opium, and the impact of Western imperialism.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-SI
CHINA 111:
Literature in 20th-Century China (CHINA 211)
(Graduate students register for 211.) How modern Chinese culture evolved from tradition to modernity; the century-long drive to build a modern nation state and to carry out social movements and political reforms. How the individual developed modern notions of love, affection, beauty, and moral relations with community and family. Sources include fiction and film clips. WIM course.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II
CHINA 112:
Tiananmen Square: History, Literature, Iconography (CHINA 212)
Multidisciplinary. Literary and artistic representations of this site of political and ideological struggles throughout the 20th century. Tiananmen-themed creative, documentary, and scholarly works that shed light on the dynamics and processes of modern Chinese culture and politics. No knowledge of Chinese required. Held in Knight Bldg. Rm. 18.
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
CHINA 115:
Sex, Gender, and Power in Modern China (CHINA 215, FEMGEN 150, FEMGEN 250)
Investigates how sex, gender, and power are entwined in the Chinese experience of modernity. Topics include anti-footbinding campaigns, free love/free sex, women's mobilization in revolution and war, the new Marriage Law of 1950, Mao's iron girls, postsocialist celebrations of sensuality, and emergent queer politics. Readings range from feminist theory to China-focused historiography, ethnography, memoir, biography, fiction, essay, and film. All course materials are in English.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
CHINA 176:
Emergence of Chinese Civilization from Caves to Palaces (ARCHLGY 111, CHINA 276)
Introduces processes of cultural evolution from the Paleolithic to the Three Dynasties in China. By examining archaeological remains, ancient inscriptions, and traditional texts, four major topics will be discussed: origins of modern humans, beginnings of agriculture, development of social stratification, and emergence of states and urbanism.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-SI
CHINA 183:
The Chinese Empire from the Mongol Invasion to the Boxer Uprising (FEMGEN 193, HISTORY 193)
(Same as HISTORY 93. History majors and others taking 5 units, register for 193.) A survey of Chinese history from the 11th century to the collapse of the imperial state in 1911. Topics include absolutism, gentry society, popular culture, gender and sexuality, steppe nomads, the Jesuits in China, peasant rebellion, ethnic conflict, opium, and the impact of Western imperialism.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-SI
CLASSICS 16N:
Sappho: Erotic Poetess of Lesbos (FEMGEN 24N)
(Formerly CLASSGEN 24N.) Preference to freshmen. Sappho's surviving fragments in English; traditions referring to or fantasizing about her disputed life. How her poetry and legend inspired women authors and male poets such as Swinburne, Baudelaire, and Pound. Paintings inspired by Sappho in ancient and modern times, and composers who put her poetry to music.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-CE, WAY-EDP
CLASSICS 17N:
To Die For: Antigone and Political Dissent (TAPS 12N)
(Formerly CLASSGEN 6N.) Preference to freshmen. Tensions inherent in the democracy of ancient Athens; how the character of Antigone emerges in later drama, film, and political thought as a figure of resistance against illegitimate authority; and her relevance to contemporary struggles for women's and workers' rights and national liberation. Readings and screenings include versions of Antigone by Sophocles, Anouilh, Brecht, Fugard/Kani/Ntshona, Paulin, Glowacki, Gurney, and von Trotta.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-EDP, WAY-ER
CLASSICS 18N:
The Artist in Ancient Greek Society (ARTHIST 100N)
Given the importance of art to all aspects of their lives, the Greeks had reason to respect their artists. Yet potters, painters and even sculptors possessed little social standing. nn nnWhy did the Greeks value the work of craftsmen but not the men themselves? Why did Herodotus dismiss those who worked with their hands as "mechanics?" What prompted Homer to claim that "there is no greater glory for a man¿ than what he achieves with his own hands," provided that he was throwing a discus and not a vase on a wheel?nn nnPainted pottery was essential to the religious and secular lives of the Greeks. Libations to the gods and to the dead required vases from which to pour them. Economic prosperity depended on the export of wine and oil in durable clay containers. At home, depictions of gods and heroes on vases reinforced Greek values and helped parents to educate their children. Ceramic sets with scenes of Dionysian excess were reserved for elite symposia from which those who potted and painted them were excluded.nn nnSculptors were less lowly but even those who carved the Parthenon were still regarded as "mechanics," with soft bodies and soft minds (Xenophon) "indifferent to higher things" (Plutarch).nn nnThe seminar addresses these issues. Students will read and discuss texts, write response papers and present slide lectures and gallery talks on aspects of the artist's profession.
Last offered: Spring 2017
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
CLASSICS 19N:
Eloquence Personified: How To Speak Like Cicero
This course is an introduction to Roman rhetoric, Cicero's Rome, and the active practice of speaking well. Participants read a short rhetorical treatise by Cicero, analyze one of his speeches as well as more recent ones by, e.g., Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and Obama, and watch their oratorical performances. During the remainder of the term they practice rhetoric, prepare and deliver in class two (short) speeches, and write an essay.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
CLASSICS 21Q:
Eight Great Archaeological Sites in Europe (ARCHLGY 21Q)
(Formerly CLASSART 21Q.) Preference to sophomores. Focus is on excavation, features and finds, arguments over interpretation, and the place of each site in understanding the archaeological history of Europe. Goal is to introduce the latest archaeological and anthropological thought, and raise key questions about ancient society. The archaeological perspective foregrounds interdisciplinary study: geophysics articulated with art history, source criticism with analytic modeling, statistics interpretation. A web site with resources about each site, including plans, photographs, video, and publications, is the basis for exploring.
Terms: Aut, Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, Writing 2
CLASSICS 31:
Greek Mythology
(Formerly CLASSGEN 18.) The heroic and divine in the literature, mythology, and culture of archaic Greece. Interdisciplinary approach to the study of individuals and society. Illustrated lectures. Readings in translation of Homer, Hesiod, Herodotus, and the poets of lyric and tragedy. Weekly participation in a discussion section is required during regular academic quarters (Aut, Win, Spr)
Terms: Spr, Sum
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
CLASSICS 34:
Ancient Athletics
(Formerly CLASSGEN 34.) How the Olympic Games developed and how they were organized. Many other Greek festivals featured sport and dance competitions, including some for women, and showcased the citizen athlete as a civic ideal. Roman athletics in contrast saw the growth of large-scale spectator sports and professional athletes. Some toured like media stars; others regularly risked death in gladiatorial contests and chariot-racing. We will also explore how large-scale games were funded and how they fostered the development of sports medicine. Weekly participation in a discussion section is required; enroll in sections on coursework.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
CLASSICS 35:
Becoming Like God: An Introduction to Greek Ethical Philosophy
(Formerly CLASSGEN 35.) This course investigates key ethical philosophies in classical Greece. After reading several Greek tragedies (representing traditional Greek values), we examine the Greek philosophers' rejection of this tradition and their radically new ethical theories. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle offered different ethical theories, but they shared basic conceptions of goodness and happiness. They argues that we could "become like gods" by achieving philosophic wisdom. What kind of wisdom is this? How does it make us ethically good and supremely happy people?
Last offered: Spring 2017
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-EthicReas, WAY-ER
CLASSICS 40:
Greek Philosophy (PHIL 100)
We shall cover the major developments in Greek philosophical thought, focusing on Plato, Aristotle, and the Hellenistic schools (the Epicureans, the Stoics, and the Skeptics). Topics include epistemology, metaphysics, psychology, ethics and political theory. No prereqs, not repeatable.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
CLASSICS 41:
Herodotus
For Ancient History field of study majors; others by consent of instructor. Close reading technique. Historical background to the Greco-Persian Wars; ancient views of empire, culture, and geography; the wars and their aftermath; ancient ethnography and historiography, including the first narrative of ancient Egypt.
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
CLASSICS 42:
Philosophy and Literature (COMPLIT 181, ENGLISH 81, FRENCH 181, GERMAN 181, ITALIAN 181, PHIL 81, SLAVIC 181)
Required gateway course for Philosophical and Literary Thought; crosslisted in departments sponsoring the Philosophy and Literature track. Majors should register in their home department; non-majors may register in any sponsoring department. Introduction to major problems at the intersection of philosophy and literature, with particular focus on the question of value: what, if anything, does engagement with literary works do for our lives? Issues include aesthetic self-fashioning, the paradox of tragedy, the paradox of caring, the truth-value of fiction, metaphor, authorship, irony, make-believe, expression, edification, clarification, and training. Readings are drawn from literature and film, philosophical theories of art, and stylistically interesting works of philosophy. Authors may include Sophocles, Chaucer, Dickinson, Proust, Woolf, Borges, Beckett, Kundera, Charlie Kaufman; Barthes, Foucault, Nussbaum, Walton, Nehamas; Plato, Montaigne, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Sartre. Taught in English.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
CLASSICS 43:
Exploring the New Testament (JEWISHST 86, RELIGST 86)
To explore the historical context of the earliest Christians, students will read most of the New Testament as well as many documents that didn't make the final cut. Non-Christian texts, Roman art, and surviving archeological remains will better situate Christianity within the ancient world. Students will read from the Dead Sea Scrolls, explore Gnostic gospels, hear of a five-year-old Jesus throwing divine temper tantrums while killing (and later resurrecting) his classmates, peruse an ancient marriage guide, and engage with recent scholarship in archeology, literary criticism, and history.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
CLASSICS 52:
Introduction to Roman Archaeology (ARCHLGY 81)
(Formerly CLASSART 81.) This course will introduce you to the material culture of the ancient Roman world, from spectacular imperial monuments in the city of Rome to cities and roads around the Mediterranean, from overarching environmental concerns to individual human burials, from elite houses and army forts to the the lives of slaves, freedmen and gladiators. Key themes will be change and continuity over time; the material, spatial and visual workings of power; how Roman society was materially changed by its conquests and how conquered peoples responded materially to Roman rule.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
CLASSICS 54:
Introduction to World Architecture (ARTHIST 3)
This lecture course surveys the history of architecture and urbanism, from the first societies to the present, in Europe, West and East Asia, the Americas, and Africa. The course progresses by case studies of exemplary monuments and cities, and examines the built environment as both cultural artifact and architectural event. It considers the social and political circumstances of architectural invention as well as plumbing the depth of artistic context by which particular formal choices resonate with an established representational culture.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
CLASSICS 56:
Introduction to the Visual Arts: Prehistoric through Medieval (ARTHIST 1A)
A survey of the art and architecture from the cave paintings of Lascaux to the Gothic Cathedrals of France; the material is organized both chronologically and thematically and covers a multiplicity of religions: pagan, Christian, and Islamic.
Last offered: Winter 2017
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
CLASSICS 82:
The Egyptians (AFRICAAM 30, HISTORY 48, HISTORY 148)
Overview of ancient Egyptian pasts, from predynastic times to Greco-Roman rule, roughly 3000 BCE to 30 BCE. Attention to archaeological sites and artifacts; workings of society; and cultural productions, both artistic and literary. Participation in class is required.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
CLASSICS 83:
The Greeks (HISTORY 101)
(Formerly CLASSHIS 101.) 250 years ago, for almost the first time in history, a few societies rejected kings who claimed to know what the gods wanted and began moving toward democracy. Only once before had this happened--in ancient Greece. This course asks how the Greeks did this, and what they can teach us today. It uses texts and archaeology to trace the material and military sides of the story as well as cultural developments, and looks at Greek slavery and misogyny as well as their achievements. Weekly participation in a discussion section is required.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-SI
CLASSICS 84:
The Romans (HISTORY 102A)
(Formerly CLASSHIS 60.) How did a tiny village create a huge empire and shape the world, and why did it fail? Roman history, imperialism, politics, social life, economic growth, and religious change. Weekly participation in a discussion section is required; enroll in sections on Coursework.
Last offered: Spring 2017
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-SI
CLASSICS 112:
Introduction to Greek Tragedy: Gods, Heroes, Fate, and Justice (TAPS 167)
(Formerly CLASSGEN 110.) Gods and heroes, fate and free choice, gender conflict, the justice or injustice of the universe: these are just some of the fundamental human issues that we will explore in about ten of the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
CLASSICS 121:
Ecology in Philosophy and Literature
(Formerly CLASSGEN 116.) The basic principles of ecological thinking, exploring the ways that different writers represent and relate to the natural world. Some key questions: What is nature, and where do humans fit in the natural world? How exactly do humans differ from other animals? Do these differences make us superior beings? What are our ethical responsibilities towards the earth and its inhabitants? In what ways have the technologies of writing, television, and computers affected humankind's relationship to the natural world?
Last offered: Spring 2017
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-EthicReas, WAY-A-II, WAY-ER
CLASSICS 123:
Ancient Medicine
Contemporary medical practice traces its origins to the creation of scientific medicine by Greek doctors such as Hippocrates and Galen. Is this something of which modern medicine can be proud? The scientific achievements and ethical limitations of ancient medicine when scientific medicine was no more than another form of alternative medicine. Scientific medicine competed in a marketplace of ideas where the boundaries between scientific and social aspects of medicine were difficult to draw.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-SI
CLASSICS 124:
Ancient and Modern Medicine
Imagine a world where the Universe has a built-in purpose and point. How would this belief impact man's place in nature? Imagine a world where natural substances have "powers." How might this impact diet and pharmacology? Magical vs. scientific healing: a clear divide? Disease and dehumanization: epilepsy, rabies. Physical and mental health: black bile and melancholy. The ethical and scientific assumptions hidden in medical language and imagery. How ancient medicine and modern medicine (especially alternative medicine) illuminate each other.
Last offered: Spring 2016
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
CLASSICS 136:
The Greek Invention of Mathematics (MATH 163)
How was mathematics invented? A survey of the main creative ideas of ancient Greek mathematics. Among the issues explored are the axiomatic system of Euclid's Elements, the origins of the calculus in Greek measurements of solids and surfaces, and Archimedes' creation of mathematical physics. We will provide proofs of ancient theorems, and also learn how such theorems are even known today thanks to the recovery of ancient manuscripts.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
CLASSICS 146:
Winged Bulls and Sun Disks: Religion and Politics in the Persian Empire (CLASSICS 246, RELIGST 229, RELIGST 329)
Stretching from India to Ethiopia, the Persian Empire the largest empire before Rome has been represented as the exemplar of oriental despotism and imperial arrogance, a looming presence and worthy foil for the West and Greek democracy. This course will provide a general introduction to the Persian Empire, beginning in the 6th century BCE to the fall of Persia to Alexander the Great in 331 BCE. We shall not only examine the originality of the first world empire of antiquity, but the course will also attempt to present a broad picture of the diverse cultural institutions and religious practices found within the empire. Readings in translation from the royal edicts and the inscriptions of Cyrus, Darius, and Xerxes will allow us to better appreciate the subtle ways in which these Persian kings used religion to justify and propagate the most ambitious imperial agenda the world had ever seen. In concluding the quarter, students will evaluate contemporary representations of Persia and the Persians in politics and popular culture in a wide array of media, such as the recent film 300 and the graphic novel on which it is based, in an attempt to better appreciate the enduring legacy of the Greco-Persian wars.
Last offered: Autumn 2016
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
CLASSICS 147:
Priests, Prophets, and Kings: Religion and Society in Late Antique Iran (CLASSICS 247, RELIGST 209, RELIGST 309)
This course is designed as a broad introduction to the religious and social history of the Sasanian Empire, encompassing the period from 224-651 CE as well as the early years of Islamic rule in Iran. Among the topics we will discuss are: the lives and deeds of the powerful Iranian emperors such as Shapur I and II in relation to the the Roman emperors Diocletian and Constantine; the transformation of Zoroastrianism into a powerful official religion of the state and its subsequent orthodoxy; the emergence of the prophet Mani and the confrontation of Manicheism with the Zoroastrian priesthood; the conversion of Constantine to Christianity and its political and social ramifications in Iran; the establishment of an independent Iranian Christian church; the importance of Armenia in the Sasanian- Roman conflict; and a brief discussion of the history of the Jewish community under the Sasanians. We will end the quarter by examining the Arab¿Islamic¿conquests of Iran and the profound social changes experienced by the Zoroastrian communities in the early centuries of Islam in Iran.
Last offered: Autumn 2015
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-SI
CLASSICS 148:
Imperishable Heroes and Unblemished Goddesses: Myth, Ritual, and Epic in Ancient Iran (CLASSICS 248, RELIGST 209E, RELIGST 309E)
Designed as a broad introduction to the world of ancient Iran, students will be introduced to the Indo-European inheritance in ancient Iranian culture; the shared world of ritual, religion, and mythology between Zoroastrianism in Iran and Vedic Hinduism in India; and to the contours of early Zoroastrian religious thought. We will also survey mythoepic literature in translation from the archaic Avesta through the late antique Zoroastrian Middle Persian corpus to the early medieval national epic of Iran, the Book of Kings of Ferdowsi.
Last offered: Spring 2016
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-SI
CLASSICS 150:
Majors Seminar
(Formerly CLASSGEN 176.) Required of Classics majors and minors in junior or senior year; students contemplating honors should take this course in junior year. Advanced skills course involving close reading, critical thinking, editing, and writing. In-class and take-home writing and revising exercises. Final paper topic may be on any subject related to Classics. Fulfills WIM requirement for Classics.nnWinter Quarter topic: investigating a wide range of ethical dilemmas raised by the ownership of the classical past in the 21st centurynSpring Quarter topic: Why study Classics? The uses and abuses of classical studies.
Terms: Win, Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
CLASSICS 154:
Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Maritime Archaeology of the Ancient Mediterranean (ARCHLGY 145)
(Formerly CLASSART 145.) Why do we care about shipwrecks? What can sunken sites and abandoned ports tell us about our past? Focusing primarily on the archaeological record of shipwrecks and harbors, along with literary evidence and contemporary theory, this course examines how and why ancient mariners ventured across the "wine-dark seas" of the Mediterranean for travel, warfare, pilgrimage, and especially commerce. We will explore interdisciplinary approaches to the development of maritime contacts and communication from the Bronze Age through the end of Roman era. At the same time, we will engage with practical techniques of maritime archaeology, which allows us to explore the material record first hand.
Last offered: Winter 2017
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-SI
CLASSICS 161:
Introduction to Greek Art I: The Archaic Period (ARTHIST 101)
This lecture course explores Greek art and culture from 1000-480. In the beginning archaic art forms are more abstract than life-like, closer to Calder than Michelangelo. While Homer describes the rippling muscles (and egos) of his heroes, vase-painters and sculptors prefer abstraction. This changes in the 7th C. as a result of commerce with the Near East and Egypt. Imported Near Eastern bronzes and ivories awaken the Greeks to a wider range of subjects, techniques and ambitions. Later in the century, Greeks in Egypt learn to carve hard stone from Egyptian masters. Throughout the 6th C. Greek artists assimilate what they had borrowed, compete with one another, defy their teachers, test the tolerance of the gods and eventually produce works of art that speak with a Greek accent. When the Persians invade the Acropolis in 480, they find artifacts with little trace of alien influence or imprint - omens of the defiant Greek military that would prevail at Salamis and Plataea.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
CLASSICS 162:
Introduction to Greek Art II: The Classical Period (ARTHIST 102)
The class begins with the art, architecture and political ideals of Periclean Athens, from the emergence of the city as the political and cultural center of Greece in 450 to its defeat in the Peloponnesian War in 404. It then considers how Athens and the rest of Greece proceed in the fourth century to rebuild their lives and the monuments that define them. Earlier artistic traditions endure, with subtle changes, in the work of sculptors such as Kephisodotos. Less subtle are the outlook and output of his son Praxiteles. In collaboration with Phryne, his muse and mistress, Praxiteles challenged the canons and constraints of the past with the first female nude in the history of Greek sculpture. His gender-bending depictions of gods and men were equally audacious, their shiny surfaces reflecting Plato¿s discussion of Eros and androgyny. Scopas was also a man of his time but pursued different interests. Drawn to the inner lives of men and woman, his tormented Trojan War heroes and victims are still scarred by memories of the Peloponnesian War, and a world away from the serene faces of the Parthenon. His famous Maenad, a devotee of Dionysos who has left this world for another, belongs to the same years as Euripides' Bacchae and, at the same time, anticipates the torsion and turbulence of Bernini and the Italian Baroque. In the work of these and other fourth century personalities, the stage is set for Alexander the Great and his conquest of a kingdom extending from Greece to the Indus River. (Formerly CLASSART 102)
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
CLASSICS 163:
Artists, Athletes, Courtesans and Crooks (ARTHIST 203)
The seminar covers a range of topics devoted to the makers of Greek art and artifacts, the ancient Greeks who used them in life and the afterlife, and the miscreants - from Lord Elgin to contemporary tomb-looters and dealers- whose deeds have damaged, deracinated and desecrated temples, sculptures and grave goods. Readings include ancient texts in translation, books and articles by eloquent experts, legal texts and lively page-turners. Classes meet in the seminar room and the Cantor Center.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
CLASSICS 166:
The Body in Roman Art (ARCHLGY 166)
(Formerly CLASSART 105.) Ancient and modern ideas about the body as ideal and site of lived experience. Themes include representation, portrayal, power, metamorphosis, and replication. Works that exemplify Roman ideas of heroism and power versus works portraying nude women, erotic youth, preserved corpses, and suffering enemies. Recommended: background in ancient Mediterranean art, archaeology, history, or literature. May be repeated for credit.
Last offered: Spring 2016
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
| Repeatable
for credit
CLASSICS 168:
Engineering the Roman Empire (ARCHLGY 118)
(Formerly CLASSART 117.) Enter the mind, the drafting room, and the building site of the Roman architects and engineers whose monumental projects impressed ancient and modern spectators alike. This class explores the interrelated aesthetics and mechanics of construction that led to one of the most extensive building programs undertaken by a pre-modern state. Through case studies ranging from columns, domes and obelisks to road networks, machines and landscape modification, we investigate the materials, methods, and knowledge behind Roman innovation, and the role of designed space in communicating imperial identity.
Last offered: Spring 2017
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
CLASSICS 171:
Byzantine Art and Architecture, 300-1453 C.E. (ARTHIST 106, ARTHIST 306)
(Formerly CLASSART 106/206.) This course explores the art and architecture of the Eastern Mediterranean: Constantinople, Jerusalem, Alexandria, Antioch, Damascus, Thessaloniki, and Palermo, 4th-15th centuries. Applying an innovative approach, we will probe questions of phenomenology and aesthetics, focusing our discussion on the performance and appearance of spaces and objects in the changing diurnal light, in the glitter of mosaics and in the mirror reflection and translucency of marble.
Last offered: Spring 2016
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
CLASSICS 172:
Art & Architecture in the Medieval Mediterranean (ARTHIST 105, ARTHIST 305)
Chronological survey of Byzantine, Islamic, and Western Medieval art and architecture from the early Christian period to the Gothic age. Broad art-historical developments and more detailed examinations of individual monuments and works of art. Topics include devotional art, court and monastic culture, relics and the cult of saints, pilgrimage and crusades, and the rise of cities and cathedrals.
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
CLASSICS 173:
Hagia Sophia (ARTHIST 208, ARTHIST 408, CLASSICS 273)
By employing a methodology based in psychoacoustics, semiotics, and phenomenology, this course explores the relationship among sound, water, marble, meaning, and religious experience in the sixth-century church of HagianSophia built by emperor Justinian in Constantinople. We will read medieval sources describing the interior and ritual, make short movies exploring the shimmer of marble in buildings on campus, and study the acoustics of domed buildings through computer auralization done at Stanford's CCRMA (Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics)
Last offered: Winter 2016
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
CLASSICS 174:
Art and Religious Experience in Byzantium and Islam (ARTHIST 209, ARTHIST 309)
This course presents a comparative study of Christian and Islamic paradigms (sixth to the thirteenth centuries) in the construction of religious experience through the material fabric of the building, the interior decor, objects, and rituals. We will read medieval ekphrastic texts and poetry, which stirred the viewer/participant to experience the building/object as animate. Among the sites we will study are: Hagia Sophia, the Ka'ba, the Dome of teh Rock, the Mosque at Damascus and at Cordoba. We will read Byzantine and Arabic writers such as Paul the Silentiary, Patriarch Germanos, Maximus Confessor, Shahrawardi, and Ibn Arabi.
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
CLASSICS 181:
Classical Seminar: Origins of Political Thought (CLASSICS 381, PHIL 176A, PHIL 276A, POLISCI 230A, POLISCI 330A)
(Formerly CLASSHIS 133/333.) Political philosophy in classical antiquity, focusing on canonical works of Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero. Historical background. Topics include: political obligation, citizenship, and leadership; origins and development of democracy; and law, civic strife, and constitutional change.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-ER
COMPLIT 10N:
Shakespeare and Performance in a Global Context
Preference to freshmen. The problem of performance including the performance of gender through the plays of Shakespeare. In-class performances by students of scenes from plays. The history of theatrical performance. Sources include filmed versions of plays, and readings on the history of gender, gender performance, and transvestite theater. Note: To be eligible for WAYS credit, you must take the course for a Letter Grade.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 11Q:
Shakespeare, Playing, Gender
Preference to sophomores. Focus is on several of the best and lesser known plays of Shakespeare, on theatrical and other kinds of playing, and on ambiguities of both gender and playing gender. Note: This course must be taken for a letter grade to be eligible for WAYS credit.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 51Q:
Comparative Fictions of Ethnicity (AMSTUD 51Q, CSRE 51Q)
We may "know" "who" we "are," but we are, after all, social creatures. How does our sense of self interact with those around us? How does literature provide a particular medium for not only self expression, but also for meditations on what goes into the construction of "the Self"? After all, don't we tell stories in response to the question, "who are you"? Besides a list of nouns and names and attributes, we give our lives flesh and blood in telling how we process the world. Our course focuses in particular on this question--Does this universal issue ("who am I") become skewed differently when we add a qualifier before it, like "ethnic"? Note: To be eligible for WAYS credit, you must take course for a Letter Grade.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP, Writing 2
COMPLIT 70N:
Animal Planet and the Romance of the Species (CHINA 70N)
Preference to freshmen.This course considers a variety of animal characters in Chinese and Western literatures as potent symbols of cultural values and dynamic sites of ethical reasoning. What does pervasive animal imagery tell us about how we relate to the world and our neighbors? How do animals define the frontiers of humanity and mediate notions of civilization and culture? How do culture, institutions, and political economy shape concepts of human rights and animal welfare? And, above all, what does it mean to be human in the pluralistic and planetary 21st century? Note: To be eligible for WAYS credit, you must take course for a Letter Grade.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II, WAY-ER
COMPLIT 101:
What Is Comparative Literature?
The course, open to all undergraduates, is for anyone serious about literature. After first asking what "literature" is and what cultural roles it may fulfil, the course continues by exploring what, then, may be the cultural, political, historical and institutional needs to which "comparative literature" responds. A short story by Jorge Luis Borges and an accompanying essay serve as an introduction to both sets of questions. We will then look at a few texts of the western tradition from Aristotle through the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, taken as standard for later ideas and practices of literature, eventually, too, at one or two that clearly acknowledge possibilities of quite different traditions for the role played by what may be called the "fictive imagination." A series of texts, two plays, two (possibly three) novels, some poems, some critical writings, will then show other traditions interacting transculturally with and/or against western ones. Students will be able to choose their readings among several.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 110:
Introduction to Comparative Queer Literary Studies (COMPLIT 310, FEMGEN 110X, FEMGEN 310X)
Introduction to the comparative literary study of important gay, lesbian, queer, bisexual, and transgender writers and their changing social, political, and cultural contexts from the 1880s to today: Oscar Wilde, Rachilde, Radclyffe Hall, Djuna Barnes, James Baldwin, Jean Genet, Audre Lorde, Cherrie Moraga, Jeanette Winterson, Alison Bechdel and others, discussed in the context of 20th-century feminist and queer literary and social theories of gender and sexuality. Note: To be eligible for WAYS credit, you must take the course 110 or 110X for a Letter Grade.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
COMPLIT 115:
Vladimir Nabokov: Displacement and the Liberated Eye (COMPLIT 315, SLAVIC 156, SLAVIC 356)
How did the triumphant author of "the great American novel" <em>Lolita</em> evolve from the young author writing at white heat for the tiny sad Russian emigration in Berlin? We will read his short stories and the novels <em>The Luzhin Defense, Invitation to a Beheading, Lolita, Lolita</em> the film, and <em>Pale Fire</em>, to see how Nabokov generated his sinister-playful forms as a buoyant answer to the "hypermodern" visual and film culture of pre-WWII Berlin, and then to America's all-pervading postwar "normalcy" in his pathological comic masterpieces <em>Lolita</em> and <em>Pale Fire</em>. Buy texts in translation at the Bookstore; Slavic grad students will supplement with reading and extra sessions in original Russian.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 1-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
COMPLIT 121:
Poems, Poetry, Worlds (DLCL 141)
What is poetry? How does it speak in many voices to questions of history, society, and personal experience? Why does it matter? The reading and interpretation of poetry in crosscultural comparison as experience, invention, form, sound, knowledge, and part of the world. The readings address poetry of several cultures (Brazil, Chile, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Occitania, Peru) in comparative relation to that of the English-speaking world, and in light of classic and recent theories of poetry.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
COMPLIT 122:
Literature as Performance (DLCL 142)
Theater as performance and as literature. Historical tension between text and spectacle, thought and embodiment in western and other traditions since Greek antiquity. Dramas read in tandem with theory, live performances, and audiovisuals.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
COMPLIT 123:
The Novel and the World (DLCL 143)
<b>Before the Digital Era: the European Design of the Novel</b> The course will trace the development of the modern literary genre par excellence through some of its great milestones from the 17th century to the present. Works by Austen, Flaubert, Dostoevsky, Queiròs, Mann, Roth, Woolf, Lampedusa and Rodoreda.<em>Lazarillo de Tormes</em>, Jane Austen: <em>Pride and Prejudice</em>, Flaubert: <em>Madame Bovary</em>, Dostoevsky: <em>Crime and Punishment</em>, Eça de Queirós: <em>The City and the Mountains</em>, Thomas Mann: <em>Death in Venice</em>, Joseph Roth: <em>Radietskymarsh</em>, Virginia Woolf: <em>Mrs. Dalloway</em>, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, <em>The Leopard</em>, Mercé Rodoreda: <em>The Time of the Doves</em>
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
COMPLIT 145:
Reflection on the Other: The Jew and the Arab in Literature (AMELANG 126, JEWISHST 106)
How literary works outside the realm of Western culture struggle with questions such as identity, minority, and the issue of the Other. How the Arab is viewed in Hebrew literature, film and music and how the Jew is viewed in Palestinian works in Hebrew or Arabic (in translation to English). Historical, political, and sociological forces that have contributed to the shaping of these writers' views. Guest lectures about the Jew in Palestinian literature and music. Note: To be eligible for WAYS credit, you must take course for a Letter Grade.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
COMPLIT 145B:
The African Atlantic (AFRICAAM 148, AFRICAST 145B, COMPLIT 345B, CSRE 145B, FRENCH 145B, FRENCH 345B)
This course explores the central place Africa holds in prose writing emerging during early and modern periods of globalization across the Atlantic, including the middle passage, exploration and colonialism, black internationalism, decolonization, immigration, and diasporic return. We will begin with Equiano's Interesting Narrative (1789), a touchstone for the Atlantic prose tradition, and study how writers crossing the Atlantic have continued to depict Africa in later centuries: to dramatize scenes of departure and arrival in stories of self-making or new citizenship, to evoke histories of racial unity or examine psychic and social fragmentation, to imagine new national communities or question their norms and borders. Our readings will be selected from English, French, Portuguese and Spanish-language traditions. And we will pay close attention to genres of prose fiction (Conrad, Condé, Olinto), epic and prose poetry (Césaire, Walcott), theoretical reflection (Gilroy, Glissant, Mudimbe, Benitez-Rojo), and literary autobiography (Barack Obama, Saidiya Hartman). Note: To be eligible for WAYS credit, you must take COMPLIT 145B for a minimum of 3 Units and a Letter Grade.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
COMPLIT 149:
The Laboring of Diaspora & Border Literary Cultures (CSRE 149, ILAC 149)
Focus is given to emergent theories of culture and on comparative literary and cultural studies. How do we treat culture as a social force? How do we go about reading the presence of social contexts within cultural texts? How do ethno-racial writers re-imagine the nation as a site with many "cognitive maps" in which the nation-state is not congruent with cultural identity? How do diaspora and border narratives/texts strive for comparative theoretical scope while remaining rooted in specific local histories. Note: This course must be taken for a minimum of 3 units and a letter grade to be eligible for Ways credit
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
COMPLIT 181:
Philosophy and Literature (CLASSICS 42, ENGLISH 81, FRENCH 181, GERMAN 181, ITALIAN 181, PHIL 81, SLAVIC 181)
Required gateway course for Philosophical and Literary Thought; crosslisted in departments sponsoring the Philosophy and Literature track. Majors should register in their home department; non-majors may register in any sponsoring department. Introduction to major problems at the intersection of philosophy and literature, with particular focus on the question of value: what, if anything, does engagement with literary works do for our lives? Issues include aesthetic self-fashioning, the paradox of tragedy, the paradox of caring, the truth-value of fiction, metaphor, authorship, irony, make-believe, expression, edification, clarification, and training. Readings are drawn from literature and film, philosophical theories of art, and stylistically interesting works of philosophy. Authors may include Sophocles, Chaucer, Dickinson, Proust, Woolf, Borges, Beckett, Kundera, Charlie Kaufman; Barthes, Foucault, Nussbaum, Walton, Nehamas; Plato, Montaigne, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Sartre. Taught in English.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 183:
Self-Impersonation: Fiction, Autobiography, Memoir (ENGLISH 183E)
Course will examine the intersecting genres of fiction, autobiography, and memoir. Topics will include the literary construction of selfhood and its constituent categories (gender, race, ethnicity, religion, etc.); the role of language in the development of the self; the relational nature of the self (vis-à-vis the family, "society," God); the cultural status of "individuality"; the concept of childhood; and the role of individual testimony in our understanding of family, religious and national history. In addition to short theoretical works, authors will include Knausgaard, Nabokov, Hoffman, Winterson, Said, Levi, Barthes, and Duras.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
COMPLIT 199:
Senior Seminar
What is criticism? When we interpret literature today, are we fulfilling the critical vocation? What are the alternatives? We consider the origins of the idea of the critic in nineteenth-century culture, its development in the twentieth century, and its current exponents, revisionists, and dissenters. Senior seminar for Comparative Literature Senior majors only.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-ER
COMPLIT 223:
Literature and Human Experimentation (AFRICAAM 223, CSRE 123B, HUMBIO 175H, MED 220)
This course introduces students to the ways literature has been used to think through the ethics of human subjects research and experimental medicine. We will focus primarily on readings that imaginatively revisit experiments conducted on vulnerable populations: namely groups placed at risk by their classification according to perceived human and cultural differences. We will begin with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818), and continue our study via later works of fiction, drama and literary journalism, including Toni Morrison's Beloved, David Feldshuh's Miss Evers Boys, Hannah Arendt's Eichmann and Vivien Spitz's Doctors from Hell, Rebecca Skloot's Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, and Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. Each literary reading will be paired with medical, philosophical and policy writings of the period; and our ultimate goal will be to understand modes of ethics deliberation that are possible via creative uses of the imagination, and literature's place in a history of ethical thinking about humane research and care. Note: This course must be taken for a letter grade to be eligible for WAYS credit.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-EthicReas, WAY-A-II, WAY-ER
COMPLIT 229:
Literature and Global Health (AFRICAAM 229, AFRICAST 229, CSRE 129B, FRENCH 229, HUMBIO 175L, MED 234)
This course examines the ways writers in literature and medicine have used the narrative form to explore the ethics of care in what has been called the developing world. We will begin with a call made by the editor-in-chief of The Lancet for a literature of global health, namely fiction modeled on the social reform novels of the nineteenth century, understood to have helped readers develop a conscience for public health as the field emerged as a modern medical specialty. We will then spend the quarter understanding how colonial, postcolonial, and world literatures have answered and complicated this call. Readings will include prose fiction by Albert Camus, Joseph Conrad, Tsitsi Dangaremgba, Amitav Ghosh, Susan Sontag as well as physician memoirs featuring Frantz Fanon, Albert Schweitzer, Abraham Verghese, Paul Farmer. And each literary reading will be paired with medical, philosophical, and policy writings that deeply inform the field of global health. Note: To be eligible for WAYS credit, you must take the course for a Letter Grade.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II, WAY-ER
CSRE 41:
Black & White Race Relations in American Fiction & Film (AFRICAAM 101, AMSTUD 101)
Movies and the fiction that inspires them; power dynamics behind production including historical events, artistic vision, politics, and racial stereotypes. What images of black and white does Hollywood produce to forge a national identity? How do films promote equality between the races? What is lost or gained in film adaptations of books? NOTE: Students must attend the first day; admission to the class will be determined based on an in class essay.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
CSRE 51Q:
Comparative Fictions of Ethnicity (AMSTUD 51Q, COMPLIT 51Q)
We may "know" "who" we "are," but we are, after all, social creatures. How does our sense of self interact with those around us? How does literature provide a particular medium for not only self expression, but also for meditations on what goes into the construction of "the Self"? After all, don't we tell stories in response to the question, "who are you"? Besides a list of nouns and names and attributes, we give our lives flesh and blood in telling how we process the world. Our course focuses in particular on this question--Does this universal issue ("who am I") become skewed differently when we add a qualifier before it, like "ethnic"? Note: To be eligible for WAYS credit, you must take course for a Letter Grade.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP, Writing 2
CSRE 54N:
African American Women's Lives (AFRICAAM 54N, AMSTUD 54N, FEMGEN 54N, HISTORY 54N)
This course encourages students to think critically about historical sources and to use creative and rigorous historical methods to recover African American women¿s experiences, which often have been placed on the periphery of American history and American life.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
CSRE 123B:
Literature and Human Experimentation (AFRICAAM 223, COMPLIT 223, HUMBIO 175H, MED 220)
This course introduces students to the ways literature has been used to think through the ethics of human subjects research and experimental medicine. We will focus primarily on readings that imaginatively revisit experiments conducted on vulnerable populations: namely groups placed at risk by their classification according to perceived human and cultural differences. We will begin with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818), and continue our study via later works of fiction, drama and literary journalism, including Toni Morrison's Beloved, David Feldshuh's Miss Evers Boys, Hannah Arendt's Eichmann and Vivien Spitz's Doctors from Hell, Rebecca Skloot's Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, and Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. Each literary reading will be paired with medical, philosophical and policy writings of the period; and our ultimate goal will be to understand modes of ethics deliberation that are possible via creative uses of the imagination, and literature's place in a history of ethical thinking about humane research and care. Note: This course must be taken for a letter grade to be eligible for WAYS credit.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-EthicReas, WAY-A-II, WAY-ER
CSRE 129B:
Literature and Global Health (AFRICAAM 229, AFRICAST 229, COMPLIT 229, FRENCH 229, HUMBIO 175L, MED 234)
This course examines the ways writers in literature and medicine have used the narrative form to explore the ethics of care in what has been called the developing world. We will begin with a call made by the editor-in-chief of The Lancet for a literature of global health, namely fiction modeled on the social reform novels of the nineteenth century, understood to have helped readers develop a conscience for public health as the field emerged as a modern medical specialty. We will then spend the quarter understanding how colonial, postcolonial, and world literatures have answered and complicated this call. Readings will include prose fiction by Albert Camus, Joseph Conrad, Tsitsi Dangaremgba, Amitav Ghosh, Susan Sontag as well as physician memoirs featuring Frantz Fanon, Albert Schweitzer, Abraham Verghese, Paul Farmer. And each literary reading will be paired with medical, philosophical, and policy writings that deeply inform the field of global health. Note: To be eligible for WAYS credit, you must take the course for a Letter Grade.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II, WAY-ER
CSRE 142A:
What is Hemispheric Studies?
Will attempt to open up "America," beyond the United States. Have we reached the end of an era in our national literary imaginations? What is the utility and durability of the idea of the nation in a global era? New developments in hemispheric, Black Atlantic, and trans-american studies have raised questions about the very viability of US literary studies. Should we, as Franco Moretti suggests, map, count, and graph the relationships in our close (rhetorical) and "distant" readings of texts in the Americas? Topics include the definitions of concepts such as coloniality, modernity, time and the colonial difference, the encounters between world views of Europeans and indigenous Native American peoples, and the inventions of America, Latinamericanism, and Americanity.
Last offered: Spring 2012
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
CSRE 145B:
The African Atlantic (AFRICAAM 148, AFRICAST 145B, COMPLIT 145B, COMPLIT 345B, FRENCH 145B, FRENCH 345B)
This course explores the central place Africa holds in prose writing emerging during early and modern periods of globalization across the Atlantic, including the middle passage, exploration and colonialism, black internationalism, decolonization, immigration, and diasporic return. We will begin with Equiano's Interesting Narrative (1789), a touchstone for the Atlantic prose tradition, and study how writers crossing the Atlantic have continued to depict Africa in later centuries: to dramatize scenes of departure and arrival in stories of self-making or new citizenship, to evoke histories of racial unity or examine psychic and social fragmentation, to imagine new national communities or question their norms and borders. Our readings will be selected from English, French, Portuguese and Spanish-language traditions. And we will pay close attention to genres of prose fiction (Conrad, Condé, Olinto), epic and prose poetry (Césaire, Walcott), theoretical reflection (Gilroy, Glissant, Mudimbe, Benitez-Rojo), and literary autobiography (Barack Obama, Saidiya Hartman). Note: To be eligible for WAYS credit, you must take COMPLIT 145B for a minimum of 3 Units and a Letter Grade.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
CSRE 146J:
Studies in Ethnomusicology: Listening to the Local: Music Ethnography of the Bay Area (ANTHRO 146J, MUSIC 146J, MUSIC 246J)
An introduction to music ethnography through student research on musical life in the Bay Area. Focus is on the intersections of music, social life, and cultural practice by engaging with people as they perform music and culture in situ. Techniques taught include participant-observation, interviewing and oral history, writing field-notes, recording, transcription, analysis, and ethnographic writing. Pre-/co-requisite (for music majors): MUSIC 22. (WIM at 4 units only.)
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
CSRE 147J:
Studies in Music, Media, and Popular Culture: The Soul Tradition in African American Music (AFRICAAM 19, AMSTUD 147J, MUSIC 147J, MUSIC 247J)
The African American tradition of soul music from its origins in blues, gospel, and jazz to its influence on today's r&b, hip hop, and dance music. Style such as rhythm and blues, Motown, Southern soul, funk, Philadelphia soul, disco, Chicago house, Detroit techno, trip hop, and neo-soul. Soul's cultural influence and global reach; its interaction with politics, gender, place, technology, and the economy. Pre-/corequisite (for music majors): MUSIC 22. (WIM at 4 units only.)
Last offered: Winter 2015
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
CSRE 149:
The Laboring of Diaspora & Border Literary Cultures (COMPLIT 149, ILAC 149)
Focus is given to emergent theories of culture and on comparative literary and cultural studies. How do we treat culture as a social force? How do we go about reading the presence of social contexts within cultural texts? How do ethno-racial writers re-imagine the nation as a site with many "cognitive maps" in which the nation-state is not congruent with cultural identity? How do diaspora and border narratives/texts strive for comparative theoretical scope while remaining rooted in specific local histories. Note: This course must be taken for a minimum of 3 units and a letter grade to be eligible for Ways credit
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
CSRE 152K:
Mixed-Race Politics and Culture (AFRICAAM 226, AMSTUD 152K, ENGLISH 152K)
Today, almost one-third of Americans identify with a racial/ethnic minority group, and more than 9 million Americans identify with multiple races. What are the implications of such diversity for American politics and culture? This course approaches issues of race from an interdisciplinary perspective, employing research in the social sciences and humanities to assess how race shapes perceptions of identity as well as political behavior in 21st-century U.S. Issues surrounding the role of multiculturalism, immigration, acculturation, racial representation, and racial prejudice in American society. Topics include the political and social formation of race; racial representation in the media, arts, and popular culture; the rise and decline of the "one-drop rule" and its effect on political and cultural attachments; the politicization of census categories and the rise of the multiracial movement.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
CSRE 162A:
Spirituality and Nonviolent Urban and Social Transformation (RELIGST 162X, URBANST 126)
A life of engagement in social transformation is often built on a foundation of spiritual and religious commitments. Case studies of nonviolent social change agents including Rosa Parks in the civil rights movement, César Chávez in the labor movement, and WIlliam Sloane Coffin in the peace movement; the religious and spiritual underpinnings of their commitments. Theory and principles of nonviolence. Films and readings. Service learning component includes placements in organizations engaged in social transformation. Service Learning Course (certified by Haas Center).
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
CSRE 167:
Feminism and Contemporary Art (ARTHIST 176, ARTHIST 376, FEMGEN 176)
(Same as ARTHIST 176) The impact of second wave feminism on art making and art historical practice in the 70s, and its reiteration and transformation in contemporary feminist work. Topics: sexism and art history, feminist studio programs in the 70s, essentialism and self-representation, themes of domesticity, the body in feminist art making, bad girls, the exclusion of women of color and lesbians from the art historical mainstream, notions of performativity.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
CSRE 177:
Dramatic Writing: The Fundamentals (FEMGEN 177, TAPS 177, TAPS 277)
Course introduces students to the basic elements of playwriting and creative experimentation for the stage. Topics include: character development, conflict and plot construction, staging and setting, and play structure. Script analysis of works by contemporary playwrights may include: Marsha Norman, Patrick Shanley, August Wilson, Suzan-Lori Parks, Paula Vogel, Octavio Solis and others. Table readings of one-act length work required by quarter's end.
Last offered: Autumn 2016
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-CE
CSRE 180E:
Introduction to Chicanx/Latinx Studies (CHILATST 180E)
This course draws on intersectional and interdisciplinary approaches to introduce students to the range of issues, experiences, and methodologies that form the foundation of Latina/o/x studies. By considering the relationship between the creation of ¿Latinx¿ and ¿American¿ identities, students will critically reconsider the borders that constitute the U.S. as a political and cultural formation. The course balances depth and breadth in its study of the variety of perspectives and experiences that come to be associated with U.S. Latinxs. Thus, we will analyze the histories of predominant U.S. Latinx sub-groups, such as Mexicans/Chicanxs and Puerto Ricans, while also incorporating considerations of the ways in which broader populations with ties to Central America, South America, and the Caribbean play crucial roles in constituting U.S. Latinx identities. Topics include the U.S./Mexico border and the borderlands; (im)migration and diaspora; literary and cultural traditions; music and expressive practices; labor and structural inequality; social movements; Latinx urbanism; gender and sexuality; political and economic shifts; and inter- and intra-group relations. Sources include a range of social science and humanities scholarship.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul
CSRE 183:
Re- Imagining American Borders (AMSTUD 183, FEMGEN 183)
How novelists, filmmakers, and poets perceive racial, ethnic, gender, sexual orientation, and class borders in the context of a current volatile national discussion about the place of Americans both here and in the world. How Anna Deavere Smith, Sherman Alexie, Shailja Patel or Ta-Nehisi Coates consider redrawing such lines so that center and margin, or self and other, do not remain fixed and divided. How linguistic borderlines within multilingual literature by Caribbean, Arab, and Asian Americans function. Can Anzaldúa's 1986 conception of borderlands be constructed through the matrix of language, dreams, music, and cultural memories in these recent American narratives? Course includes creatively examining one's own identity.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
CSRE 185B:
Jews in the Contemporary World: Faith and Ethnicity, Vulnerability and Visibility (HISTORY 185B, HISTORY 385C, JEWISHST 185B, REES 185B)
(Same as HISTORY 85B.) This course explores the full expanse of Jewish life today and in the recent past. The inner workings of religious faith, the content of Jewish identify shorn of belief, the interplay between Jewish powerlessness and influence, the myth and reality of Jewish genius, the continued pertinence of antisemitism, the rhythms of Jewish economic life ¿ all these will be examined in weekly lectures, classroom discussion, and with the use of a widely diverse range of readings, films, and other material. Explored in depth will the ideas and practices of Zionism, the content of contemporary secularism and religious Orthodoxy, the impact Holocaust, the continued crisis facing Israel and the Palestinians. Who is to be considered Jewish, in any event, especially since so many of the best known (Spinoza, Freud, Marx) have had little if anything to do with Jewish life with their relationships to it indifferent, even hostile?
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
CSRE 188Q:
Imagining Women: Writers in Print and in Person (FEMGEN 188Q)
Gender roles, gender relations and sexual identity explored in contemporary literature and conversation with guest authors. Weekly meetings designated for book discussion and meeting with authors. Interest in writing and a curiosity about diverse women's lives would be helpful to students. Students will use such tools as close reading, research, analysis and imagination. Seminar requires strong voice of all participants. Oral presentations, discussion papers, final projects.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP, Writing 2
CSRE 246:
Constructing Race and Religion in America (AFRICAAM 236, AMSTUD 246, HISTORY 256G, HISTORY 356G, RELIGST 246, RELIGST 346)
This seminar focuses on the interrelationships between social constructions of race, and social interpretations of religion in America. How have assumptions about race shaped religious worldviews? How have religious beliefs shaped racial attitudes? How have ideas about religion and race contributed to notions of what it means to be "American"? We will look at primary and secondary sources, and at the historical development of ideas and practices over time.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
DANCE 160:
Performance and History: Rethinking the Ballerina (FEMGEN 160, TAPS 160, TAPS 260)
The ballerina occupies a unique place in popular imagination as an object of over-determined femininity as well as an emblem of extreme physical accomplishment for the female dancer. This seminar is designed as an investigation into histories of the ballerina as an iconographic symbol and cultural reference point for challenges to political and gender ideals. Through readings, videos, discussions and viewings of live performances this class investigates pivotal works, artists and eras in the global histories of ballet from its origins as a symbol of patronage and power in the 15th century through to its radical experiments as a site of cultural obedience and disobedience in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Last offered: Winter 2017
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
DLCL 121:
Performing the Middle Ages
Through an analysis of medieval courtly love, religious, satirical, and Crusade lyrics, we will study the rise of a new subjectivity; the female voice; the roles of poet, audience, and patron; oral and manuscript transmission; and political propaganda. Special attention will be given to performance as a reimagining of self and social identity. Authors include Bertran de Born, Marie de France, Hildegard von Bingen, Walther von der Vogelweide, Dante, and Chaucer. Students will have the opportunity to produce a creative project that brings medieval ideas about performance into dialogue with modern conceptions. Taught in English, all texts in translation. NOTE: for AY 2017-18 FRENCH 205 Songs of Love and War: Gender, Crusade, Politics counts for DLCL 121.
Last offered: Autumn 2016
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
DLCL 123:
Medieval Journeys: Introduction through the Art and Architecture (ARTHIST 105B, ARTHIST 305B)
The course explores the experience and imagination of medieval journeys through an interdisciplinary, cross-cultural, and skills-based approaches. As a foundations class, this survey of medieval culture engages in particular the art and architecture of the period. The Middle Ages is presented as a network of global economies, fueled by a desire for natural resources, access to luxury goods and holy sites. We will study a large geographical area encompassing the British Isles, Europe, the Mediterranean, Central Asia, India, and East Africa and trace the connectivity of these lands in economic, political, religious, and artistic terms from the fourth to the fourteenth century C.E. The students will have two lectures and one discussion session per week. Depending on the size of the class, it is possible that a graduate student TA will run the discussion session. Our goal is to give a skills-oriented approach to the Middle Ages and to engage students in creative projects that will satisfy 1. Ways-Creative Expression requirement as well as one of the following two: Ways-Analytical Interpretive or Ways-Engaging Difference.
Last offered: Spring 2017
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-CE, WAY-EDP
DLCL 141:
Poems, Poetry, Worlds (COMPLIT 121)
What is poetry? How does it speak in many voices to questions of history, society, and personal experience? Why does it matter? The reading and interpretation of poetry in crosscultural comparison as experience, invention, form, sound, knowledge, and part of the world. The readings address poetry of several cultures (Brazil, Chile, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Occitania, Peru) in comparative relation to that of the English-speaking world, and in light of classic and recent theories of poetry.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
DLCL 142:
Literature as Performance (COMPLIT 122)
Theater as performance and as literature. Historical tension between text and spectacle, thought and embodiment in western and other traditions since Greek antiquity. Dramas read in tandem with theory, live performances, and audiovisuals.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
DLCL 143:
The Novel and the World (COMPLIT 123)
<b>Before the Digital Era: the European Design of the Novel</b> The course will trace the development of the modern literary genre par excellence through some of its great milestones from the 17th century to the present. Works by Austen, Flaubert, Dostoevsky, Queiròs, Mann, Roth, Woolf, Lampedusa and Rodoreda.<em>Lazarillo de Tormes</em>, Jane Austen: <em>Pride and Prejudice</em>, Flaubert: <em>Madame Bovary</em>, Dostoevsky: <em>Crime and Punishment</em>, Eça de Queirós: <em>The City and the Mountains</em>, Thomas Mann: <em>Death in Venice</em>, Joseph Roth: <em>Radietskymarsh</em>, Virginia Woolf: <em>Mrs. Dalloway</em>, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, <em>The Leopard</em>, Mercé Rodoreda: <em>The Time of the Doves</em>
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ENGLISH 11B:
Introduction to English II: American Literature and Culture to 1855 (AMSTUD 150)
(Formerly English 23/123). A survey of early American writings, including sermons, poetry, captivity and slave narratives, essays, autobiography, and fiction, from the colonial era to the eve of the Civil War.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 12A:
Introduction to English III: Introduction to African American Literature (AFRICAAM 43, AMSTUD 12A)
(Formerly English 43/143). In his bold study, What Was African American Literature?, Kenneth Warren defines African American literature as a late nineteenth- to mid-twentieth-century response to the nation's Jim Crow segregated order. But in the aftermath of the Jim Crow era and the Civil Rights movement, can critics still speak, coherently, of "African American literature"? And how does this political conception of African American literary production compare with accounts grounded in black language and culture? Taking up Warren's intervention, this course will explore African American literature from its earliest manifestations in the spirituals and slave narratives to texts composed at the height of desegregation and decolonization struggles at mid-century and beyond.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ENGLISH 43A:
American Indian Mythology, Legend, and Lore (AMSTUD 143M, ENGLISH 143A, NATIVEAM 143A)
(English majors and others taking 5 units, register for 143A.) Readings from American Indian literatures, old and new. Stories, songs, and rituals from the 19th century, including the Navajo Night Chant. Tricksters and trickster stories; war, healing, and hunting songs; Aztec songs from the 16th century. Readings from modern poets and novelists including N. Scott Momaday, Louise Erdrich, and Leslie Marmon Silko, and the classic autobiography, "Black Elk Speaks."
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ENGLISH 51N:
The Sisters: Poetry & Painting (ARTHIST 160N)
Poetry and painting have often been called the "sister arts". Why? Sometimes a poem or a painting stands out to us, asking that we stay with it, that we remember it, although we cannot exactly say why. Poems have a way of making pictures in the mind, and paintings turn "rhymes" amid the people, places, and things they portray. Each is a concentrated world, inviting an exhilarating closeness of response: why does this line come first? Why does the artist include that detail? Who knows but that as we write and talk about these poems and pictures we will be doing what John Keats said a painter does: that is, arriving at a "trembling delicate and snail-horn perception of Beauty." Each week explore the kinship between a different pair of painter and poet and also focuses on a particular problem or method of interpretation. Some of the artist/poet combinations we will consider: Shakespeare and Caravaggio; Jorie Graham and (the photographer) Henri Cartier-Bresson; Alexander Pope and Thomas Gainsborough; William Wordsworth and Caspar David Friedrich; Christina Rossetti and Mary Cassatt; Walt Whitman and Thomas Eakins; Thomas Hardy and Edward Hopper.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 68N:
Mark Twain and American Culture (AMSTUD 68N)
Preference to freshmen. Mark Twain defined the rhythms of our prose and the contours of our moral map. He recognized our extravagant promise and stunning failures, our comic foibles and tragic flaws. He is viewed as the most American of American authors--and as one of the most universal. How does his work illuminate his society's (and our society's) responses to such issues as race, gender, technology, heredity vs. environment, religion, education, art, imperialism, animal welfare, and what it means to be "American"?
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ENGLISH 81:
Philosophy and Literature (CLASSICS 42, COMPLIT 181, FRENCH 181, GERMAN 181, ITALIAN 181, PHIL 81, SLAVIC 181)
Required gateway course for Philosophical and Literary Thought; crosslisted in departments sponsoring the Philosophy and Literature track. Majors should register in their home department; non-majors may register in any sponsoring department. Introduction to major problems at the intersection of philosophy and literature, with particular focus on the question of value: what, if anything, does engagement with literary works do for our lives? Issues include aesthetic self-fashioning, the paradox of tragedy, the paradox of caring, the truth-value of fiction, metaphor, authorship, irony, make-believe, expression, edification, clarification, and training. Readings are drawn from literature and film, philosophical theories of art, and stylistically interesting works of philosophy. Authors may include Sophocles, Chaucer, Dickinson, Proust, Woolf, Borges, Beckett, Kundera, Charlie Kaufman; Barthes, Foucault, Nussbaum, Walton, Nehamas; Plato, Montaigne, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Sartre. Taught in English.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 124:
The American West (AMSTUD 124A, ARTHIST 152, HISTORY 151, POLISCI 124A)
The American West is characterized by frontier mythology, vast distances, marked aridity, and unique political and economic characteristics. This course integrates several disciplinary perspectives into a comprehensive examination of Western North America: its history, physical geography, climate, literature, art, film, institutions, politics, demography, economy, and continuing policy challenges. Students examine themes fundamental to understanding the region: time, space, water, peoples, and boom and bust cycles.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
ENGLISH 126B:
The Nineteenth Century Novel
A set of major works of art produced at the peak of the novel's centrality as a cultural form: Austen's Emma, Bronte's Wuthering Heights, Eliot's Middlemarch, Dickens's Great Expectations, Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles. The paradoxes of work, consciousness and the organization of narrative experience, habit and attention. Urban experience, shifting forms of individualism, ways of knowing other persons. Binary and concentric structures, happiness and moral action, arrays of characters.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 134:
The Marriage Plot (FEMGEN 134)
The centrality of the marriage plot in the development of the British novel beginning in the 18th century with Samuel Richardson's Pamela and ending with Woolf's modernist novel Mrs. Dalloway. The relationship between novelistic plotting and the development of female characters into marriageable women. What is the relationship between the novel and feminine subjectivity? What aspects of marriage make it work as a plotting device? What kinds of marriages do marriage plots allow? Is the development of women's political agency related to their prominence in the novel form?
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-SI
ENGLISH 143A:
American Indian Mythology, Legend, and Lore (AMSTUD 143M, ENGLISH 43A, NATIVEAM 143A)
(English majors and others taking 5 units, register for 143A.) Readings from American Indian literatures, old and new. Stories, songs, and rituals from the 19th century, including the Navajo Night Chant. Tricksters and trickster stories; war, healing, and hunting songs; Aztec songs from the 16th century. Readings from modern poets and novelists including N. Scott Momaday, Louise Erdrich, and Leslie Marmon Silko, and the classic autobiography, "Black Elk Speaks."
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ENGLISH 144:
Major Modernists: Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Katherine Mansfield, T. S. Eliot
What made modernism `new? Is the movement `evergreen? We examine representational change, narrative innovation, and political aesthetics in the poetry, short fiction, and novels of four iconic pioneers: Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Katherine Mansfield, and T.S. Eliot.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 145D:
Jewish American Literature (AMSTUD 145D, JEWISHST 155D, REES 145D)
From its inception, Jewish-American literature has taken as its subject as well as its context the idea of Jewishness itself. Jewish culture is a diasporic one, and for this reason the concept of Jewishness differs from country to country and across time. What stays remarkably similar, though, is Jewish self-perception and relatedly Jewish literary style. This is as true for the first-generation immigrant writers like Isaac Bashevis Singer and Anzia Yezierska who came to the United States from abroad as it is for their second-generation children born in the United States, and the children of those children. In this course, we will consider the difficulties of displacement for the emigrant generation and their efforts to sustain their cultural integrity in the multicultural American environment. We'll also examine the often comic revolt of their American-born children and grandchildren against their (grand-)parents nostalgia and failure to assimilate. Only by considering these transnational roots can one understand the particularity of the Jewish-American novel in relation to mainstream and minority American literatures. In investigating the link between American Jewish writers and their literary progenitors, we will draw largely but not exclusively from Russia and the countries of Eastern Europe.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ENGLISH 148:
Family Drama: American Plays about Families (TAPS 248)
Focus on great dramas about family life (Albee, Kushner, Shephard, Vogel, Kron, Nottage, Parks). Communication in writing and speaking about conflict central to learning in this class.
Last offered: Autumn 2013
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 151F:
Angelheaded Hipsters: Beat Writers of San Francisco and New York
Reading of central writers of the Beat movement (Ginsberg, Kerouac, di Prima, Snyder, Whalen) as well as some related writers (Creeley, Gunn, Levertov). Issues explored include NY and SF, Buddhism and leftist politics, poetry and jazz. Some exposure to reading poems to jazz accompaniment. Examination of some of the writers and performers growing out of the Beats: Bob Dylan, rock music, especially from San Francisco, and jazz.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
ENGLISH 152G:
Harlem Renaissance and Modernism
Examination of the explosion of African American artistic expression during 1920s and 30s New York known as the Harlem Renaissance. Amiri Baraka once referred to the Renaissance as a kind of "vicious Modernism", as a "BangClash", that impacted and was impacted by political, cultural and aesthetic changes not only in the U.S. but Europe, the Caribbean and Latin America. Focus on the literature, graphic arts, and the music of the era in this global context.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ENGLISH 152K:
Mixed-Race Politics and Culture (AFRICAAM 226, AMSTUD 152K, CSRE 152K)
Today, almost one-third of Americans identify with a racial/ethnic minority group, and more than 9 million Americans identify with multiple races. What are the implications of such diversity for American politics and culture? This course approaches issues of race from an interdisciplinary perspective, employing research in the social sciences and humanities to assess how race shapes perceptions of identity as well as political behavior in 21st-century U.S. Issues surrounding the role of multiculturalism, immigration, acculturation, racial representation, and racial prejudice in American society. Topics include the political and social formation of race; racial representation in the media, arts, and popular culture; the rise and decline of the "one-drop rule" and its effect on political and cultural attachments; the politicization of census categories and the rise of the multiracial movement.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ENGLISH 154E:
Twentieth-Century Irish Literature
Plays, poems, short stories, and novels. Writers include James Joyce, William Yeats, Mary Lavin, Kate O'Brien,William Trevor, Seamus Heaney, and Samuel Beckett. How the writer can sustain imaginative freedom and literary experiment in the face of a turbulent history.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
ENGLISH 154F:
Film & Philosophy
Issues of authenticity, morality, personal identity, and the value of truth explored through film; philosophical investigation of the filmic medium itself. Screenings to include Blade Runner (Scott), Do The Right Thing (Lee), The Seventh Seal (Bergman), Fight Club (Fincher), La Jetée (Marker), Memento (Nolan), and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Kaufman). Taught in English.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 160:
Poetry and Poetics
Introduction to the reading of poetry, with emphasis on how the sense of poems is shaped through diction, imagery, and technical elements of verse.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 161:
Narrative and Narrative Theory
An introduction to stories and storytelling--that is, to narrative. What is narrative? When is narrative fictional and when non-fictional? How is it done, word by word, sentence by sentence? Must it be in prose? Can it be in pictures? How has storytelling changed over time? Focus on various forms, genres, structures, and characteristics of narrative.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 167H:
The Ethical Gangster
(English majors must register for 5 units) A study of recent developments in understanding human moral psychology using mafia movies to explore the differences between Kantian and Utilitarian moral theory. We will study the greatest hits of gangster fiction and film, from Fielding's Jonathan Wild to The Sopranos.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-EthicReas, WAY-A-II, WAY-ER
ENGLISH 180B:
Reading Politics: The History and Future of Literacy
Reading is a political act. Through our major texts of Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist, Zora Neale Hurston¿s The Eatonville Anthology, and Azar Nafisi¿s Reading Lolita in Tehran, we will explore the classed, racialized, and gendered power dynamics of literacy and literature. How can books incite social revolutions? How can they maintain harmful inequalities? When is reading a tool of empowerment and when is it a tool of social control? We will examine these questions in a number of contexts, ranging from Victorian London, to the Jim Crow American South, from the Islamic revolution in Iran to a Silicon Valley proliferating with new forms of scientific, technological, and financial literacy. The course includes a significant service learning component, in which students will volunteer to tutor underprivileged readers through Bay Area literacy programs. Final projects will ask students to reflect on these tutoring experiences and consider the complex politics at work in the act of teaching someone to read.
Last offered: Summer 2017
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-SI
ENGLISH 183E:
Self-Impersonation: Fiction, Autobiography, Memoir (COMPLIT 183)
Course will examine the intersecting genres of fiction, autobiography, and memoir. Topics will include the literary construction of selfhood and its constituent categories (gender, race, ethnicity, religion, etc.); the role of language in the development of the self; the relational nature of the self (vis-à-vis the family, "society," God); the cultural status of "individuality"; the concept of childhood; and the role of individual testimony in our understanding of family, religious and national history. In addition to short theoretical works, authors will include Knausgaard, Nabokov, Hoffman, Winterson, Said, Levi, Barthes, and Duras.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
ENGLISH 184B:
Text and Context in Humanities: Oedipus and His Vicissitudes
Tales of Modernity from Sophocles, Freud, Chekhov, Babel, and Woolf. Introduction to cross-disciplinary approach in humanities through foundational texts in the modern tradition. The main focus is on Sigmund Freud's Totem and Taboo (1913), alongside his ancillary writings. Contemporary social thought and historical scholarship provide the context (Georg Simmel, Norbert Elias, Karl Schorske, John Murray Cuddihy) while works of imaginative literature (Sophocles, Anton Chekhov, Isaac Babel, and Virginia Woolf) illuminate the significance of the Oedipus myth for understanding the inter-generational conflict in antiquity and modernity.
Last offered: Winter 2010
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
ENGLISH 184E:
Literary Text Mining
This course will train students in applied methods for computationally analyzing texts for humanities research. The skills students will gain will include basic programming for textual analysis, applied statistical evaluation of results and the ability to present these results within a formal research paper or presentation. Students in the course will also learn the prerequisite steps of such an analysis including corpus selection and cleaning, metadata collection, and selecting and creating an appropriate visualization for the results.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-AQR
ENGLISH 195B:
How to Write a Great Essay: A Writing Bootcamp for Undergraduates
The course will be a practical workshop for undergraduates on how to improve essay-writing skills. we will focus on the finer points of vocabulary, grammar, mechanics, logic, timing, intellectual precision; how to connect with (and delight) an audience; how to magnify a theme; how to deflect counter-arguments; how to develop your own sophisticated authorial 'style'; how to write sentences (and papers!) your reader will care about and admire and maybe even remember.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
ENGLISH 201:
The Bible and Literature
Differences in translations of the Bible into English. Recognizing and interpreting biblical allusion in texts from the medieval to modern periods. Readings from the Bible and from British, Canadian, American, and African American, and African literature in English.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
ENGR 131:
Ethical Issues in Engineering
Fundamental ethical responsibilities of engineers. Ethical responsibilities to society, employers, colleagues, and clients; ethics, cost-benefit-risk analysis, and safety; informed consent; ethical responsibilities of radical engineering design; the ethics of whistleblowing; ethical issues engineers face as expert witnesses, consultants, and managers; ethical issues in engineering research, design, testing, and manufacturing; ethical issues arising from engineering work in foreign countries; and ethical issues arising from the social, cultural, and environmental contexts of contemporary engineering work. Contemporary case studies. Enrollment strictly limited to 60. Students seeking a slot must attend and complete an application at the first class session.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-ER
ETHICSOC 20:
Introduction to Moral Philosophy (PHIL 2)
What should I do with my life? What kind of person should I be? How should we treat others? What makes actions right or wrong? What is good and what is bad? What should we value? How should we organize society? Is there any reason to be moral? Is morality relative or subjective? How, if at all, can such questions be answered? Intensive introduction to theories and techniques in contemporary moral philosophy.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-EthicReas, WAY-A-II, WAY-ER
ETHICSOC 136R:
Introduction to Global Justice (INTNLREL 136R, PHIL 76, POLISCI 136R, POLISCI 336)
This course provides an overview of core ethical problems in international politics, with special emphasis on the question of what demands justice imposes on institutions and agents acting in a global context. The course is divided into three sections. The first investigates the content of global justice, and comprises of readings from contemporary political theorists and philosophers who write within the liberal contractualist, utilitarian, cosmopolitan, and nationalist traditions. The second part of the course looks at the obligations which global justice generates in relation to a series of real-world issues of international concern: global poverty, human rights, natural resources, climate change, migration, and the well-being of women.. The final section of the course asks whether a democratic international order is necessary for global justice to be realized.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-EthicReas, WAY-ER
ETHICSOC 170:
Ethical Theory (PHIL 170, PHIL 270)
How should we live our lives? Should you love your neighbour as yourself? Should you be digging wells rather than taking philosophy classes? Is taxation just? What obligations do we have to the not-yet-born, and to the dead? And says who? Are there really any answers to these questions? If so, what explains why they are one way rather than another? The will of God? Perhaps we need rules to ensure mutual benefits. But then, can I break them if no-one will find out? Can it be appropriate to blame you for doing something that you thought was the right thing to do (perhaps rejecting a blood transfusion)? Or to praise you for doing something you thought was the wrong thing to do (like Huck Finn)? By the end of this semester, you will be developing answers to these questions and many more.nnA more challenging version of Phil 2 designed primarily for juniors and seniors (may also be appropriate for some freshmen and sophomores - contact professor). Fulfills the Ethical Reasoning requirement. Graduate section (270) will include supplemental readings and discussion, geared for graduate students new to moral philosophy, as well as those with some background who would like more.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-EthicReas, WAY-A-II, WAY-ER
ETHICSOC 171:
Justice (PHIL 171, POLISCI 103, POLISCI 336S, PUBLPOL 103C, PUBLPOL 307)
Focus is on the ideal of a just society, and the place of liberty and equality in it, in light of contemporary theories of justice and political controversies. Topics include financing schools and elections, regulating markets, discriminating against people with disabilities, and enforcing sexual morality. Counts as Writing in the Major for PoliSci majors.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-EthicReas, WAY-ER
ETHICSOC 174A:
Moral Limits of the Market (PHIL 174A, PHIL 274A, POLISCI 135P)
Morally controversial uses of markets and market reasoning in areas such as organ sales, procreation, education, and child labor. Would a market for organ donation make saving lives more efficient; if it did, would it thereby be justified? Should a nation be permitted to buy the right to pollute? Readings include Walzer, Arrow, Rawls, Sen, Frey, Titmuss, and empirical cases.
Last offered: Winter 2013
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-EthicReas, WAY-A-II, WAY-ER
FEMGEN 13N:
Women Making Music (MUSIC 14N)
Preference to freshmen. Women's musical activities across times and cultures; how ideas about gender influence the creation, performance, and perception of music.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
FEMGEN 17:
Gender and Power in Ancient Greece
(Formerly CLASSGEN 17.) Introduction to the sex-gender system of ancient Greece, with comparative material from modern America. How myths, religious rituals, athletics, politics and theater reinforced gender stereotypes and sometimes undermined them. Skills: finding clues, identifying patterns and making connections amongst the components of a strange and beautiful culture very different from our own. Weekly participation in a discussion section is required.
Last offered: Autumn 2014
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
FEMGEN 24N:
Sappho: Erotic Poetess of Lesbos (CLASSICS 16N)
(Formerly CLASSGEN 24N.) Preference to freshmen. Sappho's surviving fragments in English; traditions referring to or fantasizing about her disputed life. How her poetry and legend inspired women authors and male poets such as Swinburne, Baudelaire, and Pound. Paintings inspired by Sappho in ancient and modern times, and composers who put her poetry to music.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-CE, WAY-EDP
FEMGEN 36N:
Gay Autobiography (HISTORY 36N)
Preference to freshmen. Gender, identity, and solidarity as represented in nine autobiographies: Isherwood, Ackerley, Duberman, Monette, Louganis, Barbin, Cammermeyer, Gingrich, and Lorde. To what degree do these writers view sexual orientation as a defining feature of their selves? Is there a difference between the way men and women view identity? What politics follow from these writers' experiences?
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-EDP
FEMGEN 54N:
African American Women's Lives (AFRICAAM 54N, AMSTUD 54N, CSRE 54N, HISTORY 54N)
This course encourages students to think critically about historical sources and to use creative and rigorous historical methods to recover African American women¿s experiences, which often have been placed on the periphery of American history and American life.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
FEMGEN 93:
The Chinese Empire from the Mongol Invasion to the Boxer Uprising (CHINA 93, HISTORY 93)
(Same as HISTORY 193. History majors and others taking 5 units, register for 193.) A survey of Chinese history from the 11th century to the collapse of the imperial state in 1911. Topics include absolutism, gentry society, popular culture, gender and sexuality, steppe nomads, the Jesuits in China, peasant rebellion, ethnic conflict, opium, and the impact of Western imperialism.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-SI
FEMGEN 110X:
Introduction to Comparative Queer Literary Studies (COMPLIT 110, COMPLIT 310, FEMGEN 310X)
Introduction to the comparative literary study of important gay, lesbian, queer, bisexual, and transgender writers and their changing social, political, and cultural contexts from the 1880s to today: Oscar Wilde, Rachilde, Radclyffe Hall, Djuna Barnes, James Baldwin, Jean Genet, Audre Lorde, Cherrie Moraga, Jeanette Winterson, Alison Bechdel and others, discussed in the context of 20th-century feminist and queer literary and social theories of gender and sexuality. Note: To be eligible for WAYS credit, you must take the course 110 or 110X for a Letter Grade.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
FEMGEN 113:
Transgender Studies (FEMGEN 213)
Transgender and gender-expansive identities are the subject of growing attention and (often sensationalist) interest in the media as well as in the healthcare field, yet there exists a dearth of legitimate academic courses, research and writing that reflect and explore gender identity and expression as a fluid spectrum rather than a fixed binary. This course will address transgender and gender expansive identities from historical, medical, literary, developmental and sociopolitical perspectives.
Last offered: Winter 2016
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
FEMGEN 115:
Queer Reading and Queer Writing in Early Modern England
Considers the possibility of identifying queer reading and writing practices in early modern England as well the theoretical and historical obstacles such a project necessarily encounters. Focus on the role which Renaissance discourses of desire continue to play in our negotiations of homo/erotic subjectivity, identity politics, and sexual and gender difference. Study of Renaissance queerness in relation to the classical tradition on the one hand and the contemporary discourses of religion, law, and politics on the other. Readings include plays, poems, and prose narratives as well as letters, pamphlets, and ephemeral literature. Both major and minor authors will be represented.
Last offered: Autumn 2013
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
FEMGEN 134:
The Marriage Plot (ENGLISH 134)
The centrality of the marriage plot in the development of the British novel beginning in the 18th century with Samuel Richardson's Pamela and ending with Woolf's modernist novel Mrs. Dalloway. The relationship between novelistic plotting and the development of female characters into marriageable women. What is the relationship between the novel and feminine subjectivity? What aspects of marriage make it work as a plotting device? What kinds of marriages do marriage plots allow? Is the development of women's political agency related to their prominence in the novel form?
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-SI
FEMGEN 144F:
Female Modernists: Women Writers in Paris Between the Wars
The course will focus on expatriate women writers - American and British - who lived and wrote in Paris between the wars. Among them: Edith Wharton, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, H.D., Djuna Barnes, Margaret Anderson, Janet Flanner, Natalie Barney, Kay Boyle, Mina Loy, Romaine Brooks, Mary Butts, Radclyffe Hall, Colette, and Jean Rhys. A central theme will be Paris as a lure and inspiration for bohemian female modernists, and the various alternative and emancipatory literary communities they created.
Last offered: Winter 2016
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
FEMGEN 145:
Culture Wars: Art and Social Conflict in the USA, 1890-1950 (AMSTUD 145M, ARTHIST 145, ARTHIST 345)
This course examines social conflicts and political controversies in American culture through the lens of visual art and photography. We consider how visual images both reflect and participate in the social and political life of the nation and how the terms of citizenship have been represented¿and, at times, contested¿by artists throughout the first half of the 20th century. The class explores the relation between American art and the body politic by focusing on issues of poverty, war, censorship, consumerism, class identity, and racial division.
Last offered: Spring 2014
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
FEMGEN 150:
Sex, Gender, and Power in Modern China (CHINA 115, CHINA 215, FEMGEN 250)
Investigates how sex, gender, and power are entwined in the Chinese experience of modernity. Topics include anti-footbinding campaigns, free love/free sex, women's mobilization in revolution and war, the new Marriage Law of 1950, Mao's iron girls, postsocialist celebrations of sensuality, and emergent queer politics. Readings range from feminist theory to China-focused historiography, ethnography, memoir, biography, fiction, essay, and film. All course materials are in English.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
FEMGEN 160:
Performance and History: Rethinking the Ballerina (DANCE 160, TAPS 160, TAPS 260)
The ballerina occupies a unique place in popular imagination as an object of over-determined femininity as well as an emblem of extreme physical accomplishment for the female dancer. This seminar is designed as an investigation into histories of the ballerina as an iconographic symbol and cultural reference point for challenges to political and gender ideals. Through readings, videos, discussions and viewings of live performances this class investigates pivotal works, artists and eras in the global histories of ballet from its origins as a symbol of patronage and power in the 15th century through to its radical experiments as a site of cultural obedience and disobedience in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Last offered: Winter 2017
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
FEMGEN 176:
Feminism and Contemporary Art (ARTHIST 176, ARTHIST 376, CSRE 167)
(Same as ARTHIST 176) The impact of second wave feminism on art making and art historical practice in the 70s, and its reiteration and transformation in contemporary feminist work. Topics: sexism and art history, feminist studio programs in the 70s, essentialism and self-representation, themes of domesticity, the body in feminist art making, bad girls, the exclusion of women of color and lesbians from the art historical mainstream, notions of performativity.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
FEMGEN 177:
Dramatic Writing: The Fundamentals (CSRE 177, TAPS 177, TAPS 277)
Course introduces students to the basic elements of playwriting and creative experimentation for the stage. Topics include: character development, conflict and plot construction, staging and setting, and play structure. Script analysis of works by contemporary playwrights may include: Marsha Norman, Patrick Shanley, August Wilson, Suzan-Lori Parks, Paula Vogel, Octavio Solis and others. Table readings of one-act length work required by quarter's end.
Last offered: Autumn 2016
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-CE
FEMGEN 183:
Re- Imagining American Borders (AMSTUD 183, CSRE 183)
How novelists, filmmakers, and poets perceive racial, ethnic, gender, sexual orientation, and class borders in the context of a current volatile national discussion about the place of Americans both here and in the world. How Anna Deavere Smith, Sherman Alexie, Shailja Patel or Ta-Nehisi Coates consider redrawing such lines so that center and margin, or self and other, do not remain fixed and divided. How linguistic borderlines within multilingual literature by Caribbean, Arab, and Asian Americans function. Can Anzaldúa's 1986 conception of borderlands be constructed through the matrix of language, dreams, music, and cultural memories in these recent American narratives? Course includes creatively examining one's own identity.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
FEMGEN 188Q:
Imagining Women: Writers in Print and in Person (CSRE 188Q)
Gender roles, gender relations and sexual identity explored in contemporary literature and conversation with guest authors. Weekly meetings designated for book discussion and meeting with authors. Interest in writing and a curiosity about diverse women's lives would be helpful to students. Students will use such tools as close reading, research, analysis and imagination. Seminar requires strong voice of all participants. Oral presentations, discussion papers, final projects.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP, Writing 2
FEMGEN 193:
The Chinese Empire from the Mongol Invasion to the Boxer Uprising (CHINA 183, HISTORY 193)
(Same as HISTORY 93. History majors and others taking 5 units, register for 193.) A survey of Chinese history from the 11th century to the collapse of the imperial state in 1911. Topics include absolutism, gentry society, popular culture, gender and sexuality, steppe nomads, the Jesuits in China, peasant rebellion, ethnic conflict, opium, and the impact of Western imperialism.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-SI
FEMGEN 208B:
Women Activists' Response to War (HISTORY 208B, HISTORY 308B)
Theoretical issues, historical origins, changing forms of women's activism in response to war throughout the 20th century, and contemporary cases, such as the Russian Committee of Soldiers Mothers, Bosnian Mothers of Srebrenica, Serbian Women in Black, and the American Cindy Sheehan. Focus is on the U.S. and Eastern Europe, with attention to Israel, England, and Argentina.
Last offered: Winter 2016
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender
FEMGEN 266:
Women's Voices in Contemporary Italian Literature (ITALIAN 266)
The traditional canon of Italian literature consists almost exclusively of male authors. Yet Italian women writers have been active since the time of Dante. This course presents an overview of women's prose fiction of the last 100 years, from Sibilla Aleramo's groundbreaking feminist novel Una donna (1906) to Elena Ferrante's La figlia oscura (2015). We will examine such concerns as the central issue of sexual violence in many female autobiographies; the experience of motherhood; the conflict between maternal love and the desire for self-determination and autonomy; paths to political awareness; reinventing the historical novel. Taught in English.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
FEMST 153:
Women and the Creative Imagination (FEMST 253)
Examines the nature of artistic imagination, considering the relationship among muses, mentors and models for women engaged painting, music, theatre, film, creative writing, dance, etc We will study how gender relations and sexual identity have affected women¿s art across various cultures, lands and times. We will critically examine gender roles in music, visual art and literature. Active student participation (in writing, discussion as well as in attendance at performances, exhibits and readings) is the heart of the class.
Last offered: Autumn 2012
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender
FEMST 164:
Performance and Gender (FEMST 364, TAPS 164H, TAPS 364H)
The intersectionality of race, sex, gender, and class in the formation of gendered performance. Readings from the work of Judith Butler, Eve Sedgwick, David Savran, Judith Halberstam, and David Eng. Case studies include: M. Butterfly, The Crying Game, Paris is Burning, Angels in America, and American Idol..
Last offered: Spring 2012
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender
FEMST 166:
Feminist Theories of Knowledge (PHIL 184F, PHIL 284F)
Feminist critique of traditional approaches in epistemology and alternative feminist approaches to such topics as reason and rationality, objectivity, experience, truth, the knowing subject, knowledge and values, knowledge and power.
Last offered: Spring 2007
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender
FILMSTUD 4:
Introduction to Film Study
Formal, historical, and cultural issues in the study of film. Classical narrative cinema compared with alternative narrative structures, documentary films, and experimental cinematic forms. Issues of cinematic language and visual perception, and representations of gender, ethnicity, and sexuality. Aesthetic and conceptual analytic skills with relevance to cinema.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
FILMSTUD 100A:
History of World Cinema I, 1895-1929 (FILMSTUD 300A)
From cinema's precursors to the advent of synchronized sound.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
FILMSTUD 100B:
History of World Cinema II, 1930-1959 (FILMSTUD 300B)
The impact of sound to the dissolution of Hollywood's studio system.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
FILMSTUD 100C:
History of World Cinema III, 1960-Present (FILMSTUD 300C)
This course will provide an overview of cinema from around the world since 1960, highlighting the cultural, political, and economic forces that have shaped various film movements over the last six decades. We will study some key film movements and national cinemas towards developing a historical appreciation of a variety of commercial and art film traditions. Through an exploration of films from Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America, we shall examine the industrial histories of non-Hollywood film production and exhibition practices that produce the particular cinematic cultures of each region.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
FILMSTUD 101:
Fundamentals of Cinematic Analysis (FILMSTUD 301)
The close analysis of film. Emphasis is on formal and narrative techniques in structure and style, and detailed readings of brief sequences. Elements such as cinematography, mise-en-scène, composition, sound, and performance. Films from various historical periods, national cinemas, directors, and genres. Prerequisite: FILMSTUD 4 or equivalent. Recommended: ARTHIST 1 or FILMSTUD 102. Course can be repeated twice for a max of 8 units.
Last offered: Autumn 2016
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
| Repeatable
3 times
(up to 12 units total)
FILMSTUD 102:
Theories of the Moving Image (FILMSTUD 302)
Major theoretical arguments and debates about cinema: realism,formalism, poststructuralism, feminism, postmodernism, and phenomenology. Prerequisites: FILMSTUD 4. WIM at 4 units only.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
FILMSTUD 110:
Science Fiction Cinema (FILMSTUD 310)
Science fiction film's sense of wonder depends upon the development and revelation of new ways of seeing. The American science fiction film emphasizes the fundamental activity of human perception, its relation to bodily experience and the exploration of other worlds, new cities, and other modes of being, in such new technological spaces as the cyberspaces of the information age. It is perhaps the Hollywood genre most directly concerned with the essence of cinema itself.
Last offered: Autumn 2013
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
FILMSTUD 114:
Reading Comics (AMSTUD 114X, FILMSTUD 314)
The modern medium of comics, a history that spans 150 years. The flexibility of the medium encountered through the genres of humorous and dramatic comic strips, superheroes, undergrounds, independents, journalism, and autobiography. Innovative creators including McCay, Kirby, Barry, Ware, and critical writings including McCloud, Eisner, Groenstee. Topics include text/image relations, panel-to-panel relations, the page, caricature, sequence, seriality, comics in the context of the fine arts, and relations to other media.
Last offered: Autumn 2016
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
FILMSTUD 116:
International Documentary (FILMSTUD 316)
Historical, aesthetic, and formal developments of documentary through nonfiction films in Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Africa.
Last offered: Autumn 2016
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
FILMSTUD 133:
Contemporary Chinese Auteurs (FILMSTUD 333)
New film cultures and movements in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and mainland China in the 80s. Key directors including Jia Zhangke, Wu Wenguang, Tsai Ming-liang, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Wong Kar-wai, Ann Hui. Topics include national cinema in the age of globalization, the evolving parameters of art cinema, and authorship.
Last offered: Spring 2013
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
FILMSTUD 140:
Film Aesthetics: Editing (FILMSTUD 340)
Practical and theoretical approaches to editing and montage. The role of editing in film meaning, and cognitive and emotional impact on the viewer. Developments in the history and theory of cinema including continuity system, Soviet montage, French new wave, postwar and American avant garde. Aesthetic functions, spectatorial effects, and ideological implications of montage. Film makers include Eisenstein, Godard, and Conner.
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
FILMSTUD 145:
Politics and Aesthetics in East European Cinema (FILMSTUD 345)
From 1945 to the mid-80s, emphasizing Polish, Hungarian, Czech, Slovak, and Yugoslav contexts. The relationship between art and politics; postwar establishment of film industries; and emergence of national film movements such as the Polish school, Czech new wave, and new Yugoslav film. Thematic and aesthetic preoccupations of filmmakers such as Wajda, Jancso, Forman, and Kusturica.
Last offered: Autumn 2013
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
FILMSTUD 150:
Cinema and the City (FILMSTUD 350)
Utopian built environments of vast perceptual and experiential richness in the cinema and city. Changing understandings of urban space in film. The cinematic city as an arena of social control, social liberation, collective memory, and complex experience. Films from international narrative traditions, industrial films, experimental cinema, documentaries, and musical sequences. Recommended: 4 or equivalent.
Last offered: Winter 2009
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom
FILMSTUD 164A:
Technology and the Visual Imagination (ARTHIST 164A, ARTHIST 364A, FILMSTUD 364A)
An exploration of the dynamic relationship between technology and the ways we see and represent the world. The course examines technologies from the Renaissance through the present day, from telescopes and microscopes to digital detectors, that have changed and enhanced our visual capabilities as well as shaped how we imagine the world. We also consider how these technologies influenced and inspired the work of artists. Special attention is paid to how different technologies such as linear perspective, photography, cinema, and computer screens translate the visual experience into a representation; the automation of vision; and the intersection of technology with conceptions of time and space.
Last offered: Winter 2016
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
FILMSTUD 165A:
Fashion Shows: From Lady Godiva to Lady Gaga (ARTHIST 165A, ARTHIST 365A, FILMSTUD 365A)
The complex and interdependent relationship between fashion and art. Topics include: the ways in which artists have used fashion in different art forms as a means to convey social status, identity, and other attributes of the wearer; the interplay between fashion designers and various art movements, especially in the 20th century; the place of prints, photography, and the Internet in fashion, in particular how different media shape how clothes are seen and perceived. Texts by Thorstein Veblen, Roland Barthes, Dick Hebdige, and other theorists of fashion.
Last offered: Winter 2014
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
FRENCH 112:
Oscar Wilde and the French Decadents (FRENCH 312)
Close reading of Oscar Wilde's work together with major texts and authors of 19th-century French Decadence, including Symbolism, l'art pour l'art, and early Modernism. Points of contact between Wilde and avant-garde Paris salons; provocative, creative intersections between (homo)erotic and aesthetic styles, transgression; literary and cultural developments from Baudelaire to Mallarmé, Huysmans, Flaubert, Rachilde, Lorrain, and Proust compared with Wilde's Salomé, Picture of Dorian Gray, and critical writings; relevant historical and philosophical contexts. All readings in English; all student levels welcome.
Last offered: Winter 2014
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
FRENCH 130:
Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance French Literature
Introduction to the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The birth of a national literature and its evolution. Literature as addressing cultural, philosophical, and artistic issues which question assumptions on love, ethics, art, and the nature of the self. Readings: epics (La Chanson de Roland), medieval romances (Tristan, Chrétien de Troyes' Yvain), post-Petrarchan poetics (Du Bellay, Ronsard, Labé), and prose humanists (Rabelais, Montaigne). Taught in French. Prerequisite: FRENLANG 124 or consent of instructor.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
FRENCH 131:
Absolutism, Enlightenment, and Revolution in 17th- and 18th-Century France
The literature, culture, and politics of France from Louis XIV to Olympe de Gouges. How this period produced the political and philosophical foundations of modernity. Readings may include Corneille, Molière, Racine, Lafayette, Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau, Beaumarchais, and Gouges. Taught in French. Prerequisite: FRENLANG 124 or consent of instructor.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
FRENCH 132:
Literature, Revolutions, and Changes in 19th- and 20th-Century France
This course will explore several important texts of 19th- and 20th-Century French literature, with the aim of following the evolution of the main literary movements during those centuries of important cultural and social changes. We will study texts related to movements such as Romanticism, Realism, Naturalism, Surrealism, the Absurd, the Nouveau Roman in all major genres (prose, poetry, theater, film) and will regularly refer to other arts, such as painting and music. Authors include Chateaubriand, Musset, Balzac, Flaubert, Maupassant, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Apollinaire, Proust, Céline, Radiguet, Ionesco, Robbe-Grillet, Duras, Gary. All readings, discussion, and assignments are in French.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
FRENCH 133:
Literature and Society in Africa and the Caribbean (AFRICAAM 133, AFRICAST 132, JEWISHST 143)
This course aims to equip students with an understanding of the cultural, political and literary aspects at play in the literatures of Francophone Africa and the Caribbean. Our primary readings will be Francophone novels and poetry, though we will also read some theoretical texts. The assigned readings will expose students to literature from diverse French-speaking regions of the African/Caribbean world. This course will also serve as a "literary toolbox," with the intention of facilitating an understanding of literary forms, terms and practices. Students can expect to work on their production of written and spoken French (in addition to reading comprehension) both in and outside of class. Special guest: LEILA SLIMANI (Goncourt Prize 2016). Required readings include: Leila Slimani, "Sexe et Mensonges au Maroc", Albert Memmi, "La Statue de Sel," Kaouther Adimi, "L'Envers des autres", Maryse Condé, "La Vie sans fards". Movies include "Goodbye Morocco", "Aya de Yopougon", "Les Baies d'Alger". nTaught in French. Prerequisite: FRENLANG 124 or consent of instructor.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
FRENCH 145B:
The African Atlantic (AFRICAAM 148, AFRICAST 145B, COMPLIT 145B, COMPLIT 345B, CSRE 145B, FRENCH 345B)
This course explores the central place Africa holds in prose writing emerging during early and modern periods of globalization across the Atlantic, including the middle passage, exploration and colonialism, black internationalism, decolonization, immigration, and diasporic return. We will begin with Equiano's Interesting Narrative (1789), a touchstone for the Atlantic prose tradition, and study how writers crossing the Atlantic have continued to depict Africa in later centuries: to dramatize scenes of departure and arrival in stories of self-making or new citizenship, to evoke histories of racial unity or examine psychic and social fragmentation, to imagine new national communities or question their norms and borders. Our readings will be selected from English, French, Portuguese and Spanish-language traditions. And we will pay close attention to genres of prose fiction (Conrad, Condé, Olinto), epic and prose poetry (Césaire, Walcott), theoretical reflection (Gilroy, Glissant, Mudimbe, Benitez-Rojo), and literary autobiography (Barack Obama, Saidiya Hartman). Note: To be eligible for WAYS credit, you must take COMPLIT 145B for a minimum of 3 Units and a Letter Grade.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
FRENCH 181:
Philosophy and Literature (CLASSICS 42, COMPLIT 181, ENGLISH 81, GERMAN 181, ITALIAN 181, PHIL 81, SLAVIC 181)
Required gateway course for Philosophical and Literary Thought; crosslisted in departments sponsoring the Philosophy and Literature track. Majors should register in their home department; non-majors may register in any sponsoring department. Introduction to major problems at the intersection of philosophy and literature, with particular focus on the question of value: what, if anything, does engagement with literary works do for our lives? Issues include aesthetic self-fashioning, the paradox of tragedy, the paradox of caring, the truth-value of fiction, metaphor, authorship, irony, make-believe, expression, edification, clarification, and training. Readings are drawn from literature and film, philosophical theories of art, and stylistically interesting works of philosophy. Authors may include Sophocles, Chaucer, Dickinson, Proust, Woolf, Borges, Beckett, Kundera, Charlie Kaufman; Barthes, Foucault, Nussbaum, Walton, Nehamas; Plato, Montaigne, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Sartre. Taught in English.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
FRENCH 229:
Literature and Global Health (AFRICAAM 229, AFRICAST 229, COMPLIT 229, CSRE 129B, HUMBIO 175L, MED 234)
This course examines the ways writers in literature and medicine have used the narrative form to explore the ethics of care in what has been called the developing world. We will begin with a call made by the editor-in-chief of The Lancet for a literature of global health, namely fiction modeled on the social reform novels of the nineteenth century, understood to have helped readers develop a conscience for public health as the field emerged as a modern medical specialty. We will then spend the quarter understanding how colonial, postcolonial, and world literatures have answered and complicated this call. Readings will include prose fiction by Albert Camus, Joseph Conrad, Tsitsi Dangaremgba, Amitav Ghosh, Susan Sontag as well as physician memoirs featuring Frantz Fanon, Albert Schweitzer, Abraham Verghese, Paul Farmer. And each literary reading will be paired with medical, philosophical, and policy writings that deeply inform the field of global health. Note: To be eligible for WAYS credit, you must take the course for a Letter Grade.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II, WAY-ER
FRENCH 254:
Was Deconstruction an Illusion?
A both systematic and historical presentation of "Deconstruction" as a philosophical and intellectual movement that dominated academic and general culture in many western societies during the final decades of the twentieth century, with special focus on the writings of Jacques Derrida and Paul de Man. Deconstruction's specific reception history obliges us to ask the question of whether the extremely high esteem that it enjoyed over two decades was intellectually justified – or the result of a misunderstanding. Participation through English translations is possible.
Last offered: Autumn 2014
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
GERMAN 131:
What is German Literature?
What has it meant to be a German writer in the Middle Ages, the Holy Roman Empire, the Habsburg Monarchy, Nazi Germany, or the European Union? How might we think the relation between the unity of a language (the collection of dialects variously called German) and the forms of geographic, social, and political differentiation that give rise to what we today call German literature? This course will include political satires, cosmopolitan utopias, historical dramas, and propaganda poems, among literature from a number of different genres (novels, short stories, plays, poetry), political places (Austria, Prussia, Germany, Switzerland), and historical periods from the medieval to the present. Taught in German. Prerequisite: One year of German language at Stanford or equivalent.nAssistant Professor Lea Pao will teach this course.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
GERMAN 181:
Philosophy and Literature (CLASSICS 42, COMPLIT 181, ENGLISH 81, FRENCH 181, ITALIAN 181, PHIL 81, SLAVIC 181)
Required gateway course for Philosophical and Literary Thought; crosslisted in departments sponsoring the Philosophy and Literature track. Majors should register in their home department; non-majors may register in any sponsoring department. Introduction to major problems at the intersection of philosophy and literature, with particular focus on the question of value: what, if anything, does engagement with literary works do for our lives? Issues include aesthetic self-fashioning, the paradox of tragedy, the paradox of caring, the truth-value of fiction, metaphor, authorship, irony, make-believe, expression, edification, clarification, and training. Readings are drawn from literature and film, philosophical theories of art, and stylistically interesting works of philosophy. Authors may include Sophocles, Chaucer, Dickinson, Proust, Woolf, Borges, Beckett, Kundera, Charlie Kaufman; Barthes, Foucault, Nussbaum, Walton, Nehamas; Plato, Montaigne, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Sartre. Taught in English.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
HISTORY 1B:
Global History: The Early Modern World, 1300 to 1800
Topics include early globalization and cross-cultural exchanges; varying and diverse cultural formations in different parts of the world; the growth and interaction of empires and states; the rise of capitalism and the economic divergence of "the west"; changes in the nature of technology, including military and information technologies; migration of ideas and people (including the slave-trade); disease, climate, and environmental change over time. Designed to accommodate beginning students, non-majors, and more advanced history students
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 1C:
Global History: Empires, Technology, and Modernity
How did the power of states evolve around the globe during the modern period? And how did it shape global experiences of modernity? In this course we will examine the development of technologies of rule from the eighteenth to the twenty-first century, from the age of empires and revolutions, through the world wars, the Cold War, and the war on terror. We will look at the political, social, cultural, and intellectual roots behind their invention and their results on the ground. In doing so, we will attempt to grasp the way they have shaped the history and experience of modernity. The course offers a broad overview not of a particular region but of the wider set of processes and technologies that connected the historical experiences of far-flung human communities. Topics include the evolution of government bureaucracies and classificatory schemes; the industrial revolution; technologies of rebellion and revolution; technologies of trade, including maps, ships, guns, and railroads; liberalism's urban technologies; airpower; the history and practice of development; camps and borders; and anti-colonial critiques of these various tools of empire. Through these, we will attempt to make sense of how the technologies of imperial power have shaped the bonds and inequalities of global capitalism and the world of nation-states. We will focus on different case studies each week to trace the unfolding of large-scale processes. Students will read primary sources (produced in the period) and historians¿ analyses of the events from a distance. The class is appropriate for beginning students, non-majors, and more advanced history students, and may be taken for different levels of credit.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 12N:
The Early Roman Emperors: HIstory, Biography, and Fiction
Preference to freshmen. The politics, drama, and characters of the period after the fall of the Roman Republic in 49 B.C.E. Issues of liberty and autocracy explored by Roman writers through history and biography. The nature of history writing, how expectations about literary genres shape the materials, the line between biography and fiction,and senatorial ideology of liberty. Readings include: Tacitus' Annals, Suetonius' Lives of the Caesers, and Robert Graves' I Claudius and episodes from the BBC series of the same title.
Last offered: Autumn 2008
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
HISTORY 20A:
The Russian Empire, 1450-1800
(Same as HISTORY 120A. History majors and others taking 5 units, register for 120A.) Explores rise of Russian state and expanse of empire; patterns of governance of a Eurasian empire; strategies and institutions of governance; survey of various ethnic and religious groups in empire and their varied cultures and political economies; gender and family; serfdom; Russian Orthodox religion and culture; reforms and Europeanization of 18th century.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-SI
HISTORY 20N:
Russia in the Early Modern European Imagination
Preference to freshmen. The contrast between the early modern image of Europe as free, civilized, democratic, rational, and clean against the notion of New World Indians, Turks, and Chinese as savage. The more difficult, contemporary problem regarding E. Europe and Russia which seemed both European and exotic. Readings concerning E. Europe and Russia from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment; how they construct a positive image of Europe and conversely a negative stereotype of E. Europe. Prerequisite: PWR 1.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-SI, Writing 2
HISTORY 36N:
Gay Autobiography (FEMGEN 36N)
Preference to freshmen. Gender, identity, and solidarity as represented in nine autobiographies: Isherwood, Ackerley, Duberman, Monette, Louganis, Barbin, Cammermeyer, Gingrich, and Lorde. To what degree do these writers view sexual orientation as a defining feature of their selves? Is there a difference between the way men and women view identity? What politics follow from these writers' experiences?
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-EDP
HISTORY 39:
Modern Britain and the British Empire
(Same as HISTORY 139. History majors and others taking 5 units, register in 139.) From American Independence to the latest war in Iraq. Topics include: the rise of the modern British state and economy; imperial expansion and contraction; the formation of class, gender, and national identities; mass culture and politics; the world wars; and contemporary racial politics. Focus is on questions of decline, the fortunes and contradictions of British liberalism in an era of imperialism, and the weight of the past in contemporary Britain.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 48:
The Egyptians (AFRICAAM 30, CLASSICS 82, HISTORY 148)
Overview of ancient Egyptian pasts, from predynastic times to Greco-Roman rule, roughly 3000 BCE to 30 BCE. Attention to archaeological sites and artifacts; workings of society; and cultural productions, both artistic and literary. Participation in class is required.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 48Q:
South Africa: Contested Transitions (AFRICAAM 48Q)
Preference to sophomores. The inauguration of Nelson Mandela as president in May 1994 marked the end of an era and a way of life for South Africa. The changes have been dramatic, yet the legacies of racism and inequality persist. Focus: overlapping and sharply contested transitions. Who advocates and opposes change? Why? What are their historical and social roots and strategies? How do people reconstruct their society? Historical and current sources, including films, novels, and the Internet.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI, Writing 2
HISTORY 54N:
African American Women's Lives (AFRICAAM 54N, AMSTUD 54N, CSRE 54N, FEMGEN 54N)
This course encourages students to think critically about historical sources and to use creative and rigorous historical methods to recover African American women¿s experiences, which often have been placed on the periphery of American history and American life.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
HISTORY 93:
The Chinese Empire from the Mongol Invasion to the Boxer Uprising (CHINA 93, FEMGEN 93)
(Same as HISTORY 193. History majors and others taking 5 units, register for 193.) A survey of Chinese history from the 11th century to the collapse of the imperial state in 1911. Topics include absolutism, gentry society, popular culture, gender and sexuality, steppe nomads, the Jesuits in China, peasant rebellion, ethnic conflict, opium, and the impact of Western imperialism.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-SI
HISTORY 94B:
Japan in the Age of the Samurai
(Same as HISTORY 194B. History majors and others taking 5 units, register for 194B.) From the Warring States Period to the Meiji Restoration. Topics include the three great unifiers, Tokugawa hegemony, the samurai class, Neoconfucian ideologies, suppression of Christianity, structures of social and economic control, frontiers, the other and otherness, castle-town culture, peasant rebellion, black marketing, print culture, the floating world, National Studies, food culture, samurai activism, black ships, unequal treaties, anti-foreign terrorism, restorationism, millenarianism, modernization as westernization, Japan as imagined community.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-SI
HISTORY 95:
Modern Korean History
(Same as HISTORY 195. History majors and others taking 5 units, register for 195.) This lecture course provides a general introduction to the history of modern Korea. Themes include the characteristics of the Chosôn dynasty, reforms and rebellions in the nineteenth century, Korean nationalism; Japan's colonial rule and Korean identities; decolonization and the Korean War; and the different state-building processes in North and South, South Korea's democratization in 1980s, and the current North Korean crisis.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 101:
The Greeks (CLASSICS 83)
(Formerly CLASSHIS 101.) 250 years ago, for almost the first time in history, a few societies rejected kings who claimed to know what the gods wanted and began moving toward democracy. Only once before had this happened--in ancient Greece. This course asks how the Greeks did this, and what they can teach us today. It uses texts and archaeology to trace the material and military sides of the story as well as cultural developments, and looks at Greek slavery and misogyny as well as their achievements. Weekly participation in a discussion section is required.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-SI
HISTORY 102A:
The Romans (CLASSICS 84)
(Formerly CLASSHIS 60.) How did a tiny village create a huge empire and shape the world, and why did it fail? Roman history, imperialism, politics, social life, economic growth, and religious change. Weekly participation in a discussion section is required; enroll in sections on Coursework.
Last offered: Spring 2017
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-SI
HISTORY 120A:
The Russian Empire, 1450-1800
(Same as HISTORY 20A. History majors and others taking 5 units, register for 120A.) Explores rise of Russian state and expanse of empire; patterns of governance of a Eurasian empire; strategies and institutions of governance; survey of various ethnic and religious groups in empire and their varied cultures and political economies; gender and family; serfdom; Russian Orthodox religion and culture; reforms and Europeanization of 18th century.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-SI
HISTORY 126B:
Protestant Reformation (RELIGST 126)
The emergence of Protestant Christianity in 16th-century Europe. Analysis of writings by evangelical reformers (Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Sattler, Hubmeier, Müntzer) and study of reform movements (Lutheran, Reformed, Anabaptist, Spiritualist) in their medieval context and as expressions of new and influential visions of Christian belief, life, social order.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
HISTORY 137:
The Holocaust (HISTORY 337, JEWISHST 183, JEWISHST 383)
The emergence of modern racism and radical anti-Semitism. The Nazi rise to power and the Jews. Anti-Semitic legislation in the 30s. WW II and the beginning of mass killings in the East. Deportations and ghettos. The mass extermination of European Jewry.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 139:
Modern Britain and the British Empire
(Same as HISTORY 39. History majors and others taking 5 units, register in 139.) From American Independence to the latest war in Iraq. Topics include: the rise of the modern British state and economy; imperial expansion and contraction; the formation of class, gender, and national identities; mass culture and politics; the world wars; and contemporary racial politics. Focus is on questions of decline, the fortunes and contradictions of British liberalism in an era of imperialism, and the weight of the past in contemporary Britain.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 140A:
The Scientific Revolution
What do people know and how do they know it? What counts as scientific knowledge? In the 16th and 17th centuries, understanding the nature of knowledge engaged the attention of individuals and institutions including Copernicus, Galileo, Descartes, Newton, the early Royal Society, and less well-known contemporaries. New meanings of observing, collecting, experimenting, and philosophizing, and political, religious, and cultural ramifications in early modern Europe.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 148:
The Egyptians (AFRICAAM 30, CLASSICS 82, HISTORY 48)
Overview of ancient Egyptian pasts, from predynastic times to Greco-Roman rule, roughly 3000 BCE to 30 BCE. Attention to archaeological sites and artifacts; workings of society; and cultural productions, both artistic and literary. Participation in class is required.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 151:
The American West (AMSTUD 124A, ARTHIST 152, ENGLISH 124, POLISCI 124A)
The American West is characterized by frontier mythology, vast distances, marked aridity, and unique political and economic characteristics. This course integrates several disciplinary perspectives into a comprehensive examination of Western North America: its history, physical geography, climate, literature, art, film, institutions, politics, demography, economy, and continuing policy challenges. Students examine themes fundamental to understanding the region: time, space, water, peoples, and boom and bust cycles.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 168:
American History in Film Since World War ll
U.S. society, culture, and politics since WW II through feature films. Topics include: McCarthyism and the Cold War; ethnicity and racial identify; changing sex and gender relationships; the civil rights and anti-war movements; and mass media. Films include: The Best Years of Our Lives, Salt of the Earth, On the Waterfront, Raisin in the Sun, Kramer v Kramer, and Falling Down.
Terms: Sum
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 185B:
Jews in the Contemporary World: Faith and Ethnicity, Vulnerability and Visibility (CSRE 185B, HISTORY 385C, JEWISHST 185B, REES 185B)
(Same as HISTORY 85B.) This course explores the full expanse of Jewish life today and in the recent past. The inner workings of religious faith, the content of Jewish identify shorn of belief, the interplay between Jewish powerlessness and influence, the myth and reality of Jewish genius, the continued pertinence of antisemitism, the rhythms of Jewish economic life ¿ all these will be examined in weekly lectures, classroom discussion, and with the use of a widely diverse range of readings, films, and other material. Explored in depth will the ideas and practices of Zionism, the content of contemporary secularism and religious Orthodoxy, the impact Holocaust, the continued crisis facing Israel and the Palestinians. Who is to be considered Jewish, in any event, especially since so many of the best known (Spinoza, Freud, Marx) have had little if anything to do with Jewish life with their relationships to it indifferent, even hostile?
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 193:
The Chinese Empire from the Mongol Invasion to the Boxer Uprising (CHINA 183, FEMGEN 193)
(Same as HISTORY 93. History majors and others taking 5 units, register for 193.) A survey of Chinese history from the 11th century to the collapse of the imperial state in 1911. Topics include absolutism, gentry society, popular culture, gender and sexuality, steppe nomads, the Jesuits in China, peasant rebellion, ethnic conflict, opium, and the impact of Western imperialism.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-SI
HISTORY 194B:
Japan in the Age of the Samurai
(Same as HISTORY 94B. History majors and others taking 5 units, register for 194B.) From the Warring States Period to the Meiji Restoration. Topics include the three great unifiers, Tokugawa hegemony, the samurai class, Neoconfucian ideologies, suppression of Christianity, structures of social and economic control, frontiers, the other and otherness, castle-town culture, peasant rebellion, black marketing, print culture, the floating world, National Studies, food culture, samurai activism, black ships, unequal treaties, anti-foreign terrorism, restorationism, millenarianism, modernization as westernization, Japan as imagined community.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-SI
HISTORY 195:
Modern Korean History (HISTORY 395)
(Same as HISTORY 95. History majors and others taking 5 units, register for 195.) This lecture course provides a general introduction to the history of modern Korea. Themes include the characteristics of the Chosôn dynasty, reforms and rebellions in the nineteenth century, Korean nationalism; Japan's colonial rule and Korean identities; decolonization and the Korean War; and the different state-building processes in North and South, South Korea's democratization in 1980s, and the current North Korean crisis.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 208B:
Women Activists' Response to War (FEMGEN 208B, HISTORY 308B)
Theoretical issues, historical origins, changing forms of women's activism in response to war throughout the 20th century, and contemporary cases, such as the Russian Committee of Soldiers Mothers, Bosnian Mothers of Srebrenica, Serbian Women in Black, and the American Cindy Sheehan. Focus is on the U.S. and Eastern Europe, with attention to Israel, England, and Argentina.
Last offered: Winter 2016
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender
HISTORY 233C:
Two British Revolutions (HISTORY 333C)
Current scholarship on Britain,1640-1700, focusing on political and religious history. Topics include: causes and consequences of the English civil war and revolution; rise and fall of revolutionary Puritanism; the Restoration; popular politics in the late 17th century; changing contours of religious life; the crisis leading to the Glorious Revolution; and the new order that emerged after the deposing of James II.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-SI
HISTORY 254:
Popular Culture and American Nature
Despite John Muir, Aldo Leopold, and Rachel Carson, it is arguable that the Disney studios have more to do with molding popular attitudes toward the natural world than politicians, ecologists, and activists. Disney as the central figure in the 20th-century American creation of nature. How Disney, the products of his studio, and other primary and secondary texts see environmentalism, science, popular culture, and their interrelationships.
Last offered: Spring 2015
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 256G:
Constructing Race and Religion in America (AFRICAAM 236, AMSTUD 246, CSRE 246, HISTORY 356G, RELIGST 246, RELIGST 346)
This seminar focuses on the interrelationships between social constructions of race, and social interpretations of religion in America. How have assumptions about race shaped religious worldviews? How have religious beliefs shaped racial attitudes? How have ideas about religion and race contributed to notions of what it means to be "American"? We will look at primary and secondary sources, and at the historical development of ideas and practices over time.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 286:
Jews Among Muslims in Modern Times (HISTORY 386, JEWISHST 286, JEWISHST 386)
The history of Jewish communities in the lands of Islam and their relations with the surrounding Muslim populations from the time of Muhammad to the 20th century. Topics: the place of Jews in Muslim societies, Jewish communal life, variation in the experience of communities in different Muslim lands, the impact of the West in the Modern period, the rise of nationalisms, and the end of Jewish life in Muslim countries.
Last offered: Spring 2016
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HPS 60:
Introduction to Philosophy of Science (PHIL 60)
This course introduces students to tools for the philosophical analysis of science. We will cover issues in observation, experiment, and reasoning, questions about the aims of science, scientific change, and the relations between science and values.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
HPS 61:
Philosophy and the Scientific Revolution (PHIL 61)
Galileo's defense of the Copernican world-system that initiated the scientific revolution of the 17th century, led to conflict between science and religion, and influenced the development of modern philosophy. Readings focus on Galileo and Descartes.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
HUMBIO 74:
Ethics in a Human Life (PHIL 74A)
Ethical questions pervade a human life from before a person is conceived until after she dies, and at every point in between. This course raises a series of ethical questions, following along the path of a person's life - questions that arise before, during, and after she lives it. We will explore distinctive questions that a life presents at each of several familiar stages: prior to birth, childhood, adulthood, death, and even beyond. We will consider how some philosophers have tried to answer these questions, and we will think about how answering them might help us form a better understanding of the ethical shape of a human life as a whole.
Last offered: Autumn 2016
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-ER
HUMBIO 175H:
Literature and Human Experimentation (AFRICAAM 223, COMPLIT 223, CSRE 123B, MED 220)
This course introduces students to the ways literature has been used to think through the ethics of human subjects research and experimental medicine. We will focus primarily on readings that imaginatively revisit experiments conducted on vulnerable populations: namely groups placed at risk by their classification according to perceived human and cultural differences. We will begin with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818), and continue our study via later works of fiction, drama and literary journalism, including Toni Morrison's Beloved, David Feldshuh's Miss Evers Boys, Hannah Arendt's Eichmann and Vivien Spitz's Doctors from Hell, Rebecca Skloot's Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, and Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. Each literary reading will be paired with medical, philosophical and policy writings of the period; and our ultimate goal will be to understand modes of ethics deliberation that are possible via creative uses of the imagination, and literature's place in a history of ethical thinking about humane research and care. Note: This course must be taken for a letter grade to be eligible for WAYS credit.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-EthicReas, WAY-A-II, WAY-ER
HUMBIO 175L:
Literature and Global Health (AFRICAAM 229, AFRICAST 229, COMPLIT 229, CSRE 129B, FRENCH 229, MED 234)
This course examines the ways writers in literature and medicine have used the narrative form to explore the ethics of care in what has been called the developing world. We will begin with a call made by the editor-in-chief of The Lancet for a literature of global health, namely fiction modeled on the social reform novels of the nineteenth century, understood to have helped readers develop a conscience for public health as the field emerged as a modern medical specialty. We will then spend the quarter understanding how colonial, postcolonial, and world literatures have answered and complicated this call. Readings will include prose fiction by Albert Camus, Joseph Conrad, Tsitsi Dangaremgba, Amitav Ghosh, Susan Sontag as well as physician memoirs featuring Frantz Fanon, Albert Schweitzer, Abraham Verghese, Paul Farmer. And each literary reading will be paired with medical, philosophical, and policy writings that deeply inform the field of global health. Note: To be eligible for WAYS credit, you must take the course for a Letter Grade.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II, WAY-ER
ILAC 130:
Introduction to Iberia: Cultural Perspectives
The purpose of this course is to study major figures and historical trends in modern Iberia against the background of the linguistic plurality and social and cultural complexity of the Iberian world. We will study the fundamental issues of empire, the Napoleonic occupation of Spain, Latin American independence, recurring civil wars, federal republicanism, and the historic nationalisms (Galician, Basque, and Catalan), all leading up to the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), which is a defining moment in modern Spanish and European history, with ongoing consequences still felt and debated painfully today in contemporary Spain. This course is designed to help prepare students for their participation in the Stanford overseas study programs in Barcelona and Madrid. Taught in Spanish.nNOTE: This course must be taken for a minimum of 3 units and a letter grade to be eligible for WAYS credit.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ILAC 131:
Introduction to Latin America: Cultural Perspectives
Part of the Gateways to the World program, this is an introductory course for all things Latin American: culture, history, literature, and current events. By combining lecture and seminar formats, the class prepares you for all subsequent research on, and learning about, the region. Comparative discussion of independence movements in Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, the Andean Region, Brazil, and the Southern Cone. Other topics vary yearly, including: representations of ethnicity and class, the Cold War, popular culture, as well as major thinkers and writers. Open to all. Recommended for students who want to study abroad in Santiago, Chile. Required for majors in Spanish or Iberian and Latin American Cultures (ILAC). In Spanish.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ILAC 136:
Modern Iberian Literatures
1800 to the mid 20th century. Topics include: romanticism; realism and its variants; the turn of the century; modernism and the avant garde; the Civil War; and the first half of the 20th century. Authors may include Mariano Jose de Larra, Gustavo Adolfo Becquer, Rosalia de Castro, Benito Perez Galdos, Jacint Verdaguer, Eca de Queiros, Miguel de Unamuno, Ramon de Valle-Inclan, Antonio Machado, and Federico García Lorca. Taught in Spanish. Prerequisites: SPANLANG 13 or equivalent.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ILAC 140:
Migration in 21st Century Latin American Film (CHILATST 140)
Focus on how images and narratives of migration are depicted in recent Latin American film. It compares migration as it takes place within Latin America to migration from Latin America to Europe and to the U.S. We will analyze these films, and their making, in the global context of an evergrowing tension between "inside" and "outside"; we consider how these films represent or explore precariousness and exclusion; visibility and invisibility; racial and gender dynamics; national and social boundaries; new subjectivities and cultural practices. Films include: El niño pez, Bolivia, Ulises, Faustino Mayta visita a su prima, Copacabana, Chico y Rita, Sin nombre, Los que se quedan, Amador, and En la puta calle. Films in Spanish, with English subtitles. Discussions and assignments in Spanish.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ILAC 149:
The Laboring of Diaspora & Border Literary Cultures (COMPLIT 149, CSRE 149)
Focus is given to emergent theories of culture and on comparative literary and cultural studies. How do we treat culture as a social force? How do we go about reading the presence of social contexts within cultural texts? How do ethno-racial writers re-imagine the nation as a site with many "cognitive maps" in which the nation-state is not congruent with cultural identity? How do diaspora and border narratives/texts strive for comparative theoretical scope while remaining rooted in specific local histories. Note: This course must be taken for a minimum of 3 units and a letter grade to be eligible for Ways credit
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ILAC 157:
Medieval and Early Modern Iberian Literatures
Survey of Iberian literature from the medieval and early modern periods. When covering texts in languages other than Spanish, translations into English or Spanish will be made available. Taught in Spanish; prerequisite: SPANLANG 13 or equivalent.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ILAC 161:
Modern Latin American Literature
From independence to the present. A survey of significant authors and works of Hispanic and Brazilian Portuguese literatures, focusing on fictional prose and poetry. Topics include romantic allegories of the nation; modernism and postmodernism; avant-garde poetry; regionalism versus cosmopolitanism; indigenous and indigenist literature; magical realism and the literature of the boom; Afro-Hispanic literature; and testimonial narrative. Authors may include: Bolívar, Bello, Gómez de Avellaneda, Isaacs, Sarmiento, Machado de Assis, Darío, Martí, Agustini, Vallejo, Huidobro, Borges, Cortázar, Neruda, Guillon, Rulfo, Ramos, García Marquez, Lispector, and Bolaño. Taught in Spanish.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ILAC 193:
The Cinema of Pedro Almodovar
Pedro Almodóvar is one of the most recognizable auteur directors in the world today. His films express a hybrid and eclectic visual style and the blurring of frontiers between mass and high culture. Special attention is paid to questions of sexuality and the centering of usually marginalized characters. This course studies Pedro Almodóvar's development from his directorial debut to the present, from the "shocking" value of the early films to the award-winning mastery of the later ones. Prerequisite: ability to understand spoken Spanish. Readings in English. Midterm and final paper can be in English. Majors should write in Spanish.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ILAC 277:
Senior Seminar: Spanish and Society - Cultures of Salsa
Open to seniors in ILAC and Spanish; juniors by permission of instructor. Salsa is the soundscape of 20th century Latin America. How is it possible that salsa stands for Latin American music? How can we understand its origin and its musical expansion? We learn how salsa voices transformation and self-exploration of different places and moments in all of Latin America and the US and we analyze how it travels across the world. We discuss musical examples in relation to colonialism, globalization, migration, nationalism, gender and ethnicity. As a core course of the Spanish major, Cultures of Salsa emphasizes the analysis of Spanish in real-world contexts. NOTE: This course must be taken for a minimum of 5 units and a letter grade to be eligible for WIM credit.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
INTNLREL 136R:
Introduction to Global Justice (ETHICSOC 136R, PHIL 76, POLISCI 136R, POLISCI 336)
This course provides an overview of core ethical problems in international politics, with special emphasis on the question of what demands justice imposes on institutions and agents acting in a global context. The course is divided into three sections. The first investigates the content of global justice, and comprises of readings from contemporary political theorists and philosophers who write within the liberal contractualist, utilitarian, cosmopolitan, and nationalist traditions. The second part of the course looks at the obligations which global justice generates in relation to a series of real-world issues of international concern: global poverty, human rights, natural resources, climate change, migration, and the well-being of women.. The final section of the course asks whether a democratic international order is necessary for global justice to be realized.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-EthicReas, WAY-ER
INTNLREL 141A:
Camera as Witness: International Human Rights Documentaries
Rarely screened documentary films, focusing on global problems, human rights issues, and aesthetic challenges in making documentaries on international topics. Meetings with filmmakers.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-EDP
ITALIAN 101:
Italy: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Renowned for its rich cultural tradition, Italy is also one of the most problematic nations in Europe. This course explores the contradictions at the heart of Italy by examining how art and literature provide a unique perspective onto modern Italian history. We will focus on key phenomena that contribute both positively and negatively to the complex "spirit" of Italy, such as the presence of the past, political realism and idealism, revolution, corruption, decadence, war, immigration, and crises of all kinds. Through the study of historical and literary texts, films, and news media, the course seeks to understand Italy's current place in Europe and its future trajectory by looking to its past as a point of comparison. Taught in English.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ITALIAN 127:
Inventing Italian Literature: Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarca
This course examines the origins of Italian literature in the late Middle Ages. We will read selections from Dante's Vita Nuova and Inferno; Petrarca's Canzoniere; and Boccaccio's Decameron. Taught in Italian. Prerequisites: ITALLANG 22A or equivalent.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ITALIAN 128:
The Italian Renaissance and the Path to Modernity
The literature, art, and history of the Renaissance and beyond. Readings from the 15th through 18th centuries include Moderata Fonte, Machiavelli, Ariosto, Tasso, Galileo, and Goldoni. Taught in Italian. Prerequisites: ITALLANG 22A or equivalent (2 years of Italian)
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ITALIAN 129:
Modern Italian Culture
This course examines the fate of Italian culture since 1800. We will study major examples of Italian literature, art, and cinema from the modern period in relation to their historical context. Taught in Italian. Prerequisites: ITALLANG 22A or equivalent.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ITALIAN 155:
The Mafia in Society, Film, and Fiction
The mafia has become a global problem through its infiltration of international business, and its model of organized crime has spread all over the world from its origins in Sicily. At the same time, film and fiction remain fascinated by a romantic, heroic vision of the mafia. Compares both Italian and American fantasies of the Mafia to its history and impact on Italian and global culture. Taught in English.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
ITALIAN 181:
Philosophy and Literature (CLASSICS 42, COMPLIT 181, ENGLISH 81, FRENCH 181, GERMAN 181, PHIL 81, SLAVIC 181)
Required gateway course for Philosophical and Literary Thought; crosslisted in departments sponsoring the Philosophy and Literature track. Majors should register in their home department; non-majors may register in any sponsoring department. Introduction to major problems at the intersection of philosophy and literature, with particular focus on the question of value: what, if anything, does engagement with literary works do for our lives? Issues include aesthetic self-fashioning, the paradox of tragedy, the paradox of caring, the truth-value of fiction, metaphor, authorship, irony, make-believe, expression, edification, clarification, and training. Readings are drawn from literature and film, philosophical theories of art, and stylistically interesting works of philosophy. Authors may include Sophocles, Chaucer, Dickinson, Proust, Woolf, Borges, Beckett, Kundera, Charlie Kaufman; Barthes, Foucault, Nussbaum, Walton, Nehamas; Plato, Montaigne, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Sartre. Taught in English.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ITALIAN 266:
Women's Voices in Contemporary Italian Literature (FEMGEN 266)
The traditional canon of Italian literature consists almost exclusively of male authors. Yet Italian women writers have been active since the time of Dante. This course presents an overview of women's prose fiction of the last 100 years, from Sibilla Aleramo's groundbreaking feminist novel Una donna (1906) to Elena Ferrante's La figlia oscura (2015). We will examine such concerns as the central issue of sexual violence in many female autobiographies; the experience of motherhood; the conflict between maternal love and the desire for self-determination and autonomy; paths to political awareness; reinventing the historical novel. Taught in English.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
JAPAN 60:
Asian Arts and Cultures (ARTHIST 2)
An introduction to major monuments, themes, styles, and media of East and South Asian visual arts, in their social, literary, religious, and political contexts. Through close study of primary monuments of architectural, pictorial, and sculptural arts and related texts, this course will explore ritual and mortuary arts; Buddhist arts across Asia; narrative and landscape images; and courtly, urban, monastic, and studio environments for art from Bronze Age to modern eras.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II
JAPAN 82N:
Joys and Pains of Growing Up and Older in Japan
What do old and young people share in common? With a focus on Japan, a country with a large long-living population, this seminar spotlights older people's lives as a reflectiion of culture and society, history, and current social and personal changes. Through discussion of multidisciplinary studies on age, analysis of narratives, and films, we will gain a closer understanding of Japanese society and the multiple meanings of growing up and older. Students will also create a short video/audio profile of an older individual, and we will explore cross-cultural comparisons. Held in Knight Bldg. Rm. 201.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
JAPAN 121:
Translating Japan, Translating the West (JAPAN 221)
Translation lies at the heart of all intercultural exchange. This course introduces students to the specific ways in which translation has shaped the image of Japan in the West, the image of the West in Japan, and Japan's self-image in the modern period. What texts and concepts were translated by each side, how, and to what effect? No prior knowledge of Japanese language necessary.
Last offered: Winter 2017
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
JAPAN 138:
Introduction to Modern Japanese Literature and Culture (JAPAN 238)
This class introduces key literary texts from Japan's modern era (1868-present), locating these works in the larger political, social, and cultural trends of the period. Primary texts include: Futabatei Shimei's Floating Clouds, Higuchi Ichiyô's Child's Play, Natsume Sôseki's Kokoro, Kobayashi Takiji's Cannery Boat, Ôe Kenzaburô's The Catch, and Yoshimoto Banana's Kitchen. Examination of these literary works will be contextualized within larger political trends (e.g., the modernization program of the Meiji regime, the policies of Japan's wartime government, and postwar Japanese responses to the cold war), social developments (e.g., changing notions of social class, the women's rights movement, and the social effects of the postwar economic expansion), and cultural movements (e.g., literary reform movement of the 1890s, modernism of the 1920s and 30s, and postmodernism of the 1980s). The goal of the class is to use literary texts as a point of entry to understand the grand narrative of Japan's journey from its tentative re-entry into the international community in the 1850s, through the cataclysm of the Pacific War, to the remarkable prosperity of the bubble years in the 1980s.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II
JAPAN 163:
Japanese Performance Traditions (JAPAN 263)
Major paradigms of gender in Japanese performance traditions from ancient to modern times, covering Noh, Kabuki, Bunraku, and Takarazuka.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
JAPAN 170:
The Tale of Genji and Its Historical Reception (JAPAN 270)
Approaches to the tale including 12th-century allegorical and modern feminist readings. Influence upon other works including poetry, Noh plays, short stories, modern novels, and comic book ( manga) retellings. Prerequisite for graduate students: JAPANLNG 129B or 103, or equivalent.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 2-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
JAPAN 184:
Aristocrats, Warriors, Sex Workers, and Barbarians: Lived Life in Early Modern Japanese Painting (ARTHIST 184, ARTHIST 384, JAPAN 284)
Changes marking the transition from medieval to early modern Japanese society that generated a revolution in visual culture, as exemplified in subjects deemed fit for representation; how commoners joined elites in pictorializing their world, catalyzed by interactions with the Dutch.
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
JAPAN 185:
Arts of War and Peace: Late Medieval and Early Modern Japan, 1500-1868 (ARTHIST 187, ARTHIST 387, JAPAN 285)
Narratives of conflict, pacification, orthodoxy, nostalgia, and novelty through visual culture during the change of episteme from late medieval to early modern, 16th through early 19th centuries. The rhetorical messages of castles, teahouses, gardens, ceramics, paintings, and prints; the influence of Dutch and Chinese visuality; transformation in the roles of art and artist; tensions between the old and the new leading to the modernization of Japan.
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom
JAPAN 186:
Theme and Style in Japanese Art (ARTHIST 186, ARTHIST 386, JAPAN 286)
A mixture of lecture and discussion, this course presents a chronological introduction to some of the defining monuments in the history of Japanese visual culture from prehistory to the mid-19th century. This introductory class presumes no prior knowledge of art history or of Japan. We will emphasize certain overarching themes like religious life; notions of decorum appropriate to various classes (court, warrior, and commoner); the relationship between and among the arts, such as the visual and the verbal, or the symphonic assemblage arts as seen in the tea ceremony; pervasive cultural tropes like nostalgia, seasonality, or the sense of place; and broader issues such as censorship, patronage, gender issues, and the encounters between Japanese and foreign cultures.
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
JEWISHST 71:
Jews and Christians: Conflict and Coexistence (RELIGST 71)
The relationship between Judaism and Christianity has had a long a controversial history. Christianity originated as a dissident Jewish sect but eventually evolved into an independent religion, with only tenuous ties to its Jewish past and present. Since the Holocaust, Jews and Christians have begun the serious work of forging more meaningful relationships with each other. This course explores the most significant moments that have shaped the relationship between Judaism and Christianity and examines some of the theological complexities imbedded in these traditions, while searching constructive ways of situating oneself amidst such complexities.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
JEWISHST 80T:
Jewish Music in the Lands of Islam (MUSIC 80T)
An Interdisciplinary study of Music, Society, and Culture in communities of the Jewish Diaspora in Islamic countries. The course examines the diverse and rich musical traditions of the Jews in North Africa and the Middle East. Based on the "Maqamat" system, the Arabic musical modes, Jewish music flourished under Islamic rule, encompassing the fields of sacred music, popular songs, and art music. Using musicological, historical, and anthropological tools, the course compares and contrasts these traditions from their original roots through their adaptation, appropriation, and re-synthesis in contemporary art music and popular songs.
Last offered: Autumn 2014
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
JEWISHST 86:
Exploring the New Testament (CLASSICS 43, RELIGST 86)
To explore the historical context of the earliest Christians, students will read most of the New Testament as well as many documents that didn't make the final cut. Non-Christian texts, Roman art, and surviving archeological remains will better situate Christianity within the ancient world. Students will read from the Dead Sea Scrolls, explore Gnostic gospels, hear of a five-year-old Jesus throwing divine temper tantrums while killing (and later resurrecting) his classmates, peruse an ancient marriage guide, and engage with recent scholarship in archeology, literary criticism, and history.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
JEWISHST 106:
Reflection on the Other: The Jew and the Arab in Literature (AMELANG 126, COMPLIT 145)
How literary works outside the realm of Western culture struggle with questions such as identity, minority, and the issue of the Other. How the Arab is viewed in Hebrew literature, film and music and how the Jew is viewed in Palestinian works in Hebrew or Arabic (in translation to English). Historical, political, and sociological forces that have contributed to the shaping of these writers' views. Guest lectures about the Jew in Palestinian literature and music. Note: To be eligible for WAYS credit, you must take course for a Letter Grade.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
JEWISHST 143:
Literature and Society in Africa and the Caribbean (AFRICAAM 133, AFRICAST 132, FRENCH 133)
This course aims to equip students with an understanding of the cultural, political and literary aspects at play in the literatures of Francophone Africa and the Caribbean. Our primary readings will be Francophone novels and poetry, though we will also read some theoretical texts. The assigned readings will expose students to literature from diverse French-speaking regions of the African/Caribbean world. This course will also serve as a "literary toolbox," with the intention of facilitating an understanding of literary forms, terms and practices. Students can expect to work on their production of written and spoken French (in addition to reading comprehension) both in and outside of class. Special guest: LEILA SLIMANI (Goncourt Prize 2016). Required readings include: Leila Slimani, "Sexe et Mensonges au Maroc", Albert Memmi, "La Statue de Sel," Kaouther Adimi, "L'Envers des autres", Maryse Condé, "La Vie sans fards". Movies include "Goodbye Morocco", "Aya de Yopougon", "Les Baies d'Alger". nTaught in French. Prerequisite: FRENLANG 124 or consent of instructor.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
JEWISHST 148:
Writing Between Languages: The Case of Eastern European Jewish Literature (JEWISHST 348, SLAVIC 198, SLAVIC 398)
Eastern European Jews spoke and read Hebrew, Yiddish, and their co-territorial languages (Russian, Polish, etc.). In the modern period they developed secular literatures in all of them, and their writing reflected their own multilinguality and evolving language ideologies. We focus on major literary and sociolinguistic texts. Reading and discussion in English; students should have some reading knowledge of at least one relevant language as well. ***This course must be taken for a minimum of 3 units and a letter grade to be eligible for Ways credit***
Terms: Spr
| Units: 1-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
JEWISHST 155D:
Jewish American Literature (AMSTUD 145D, ENGLISH 145D, REES 145D)
From its inception, Jewish-American literature has taken as its subject as well as its context the idea of Jewishness itself. Jewish culture is a diasporic one, and for this reason the concept of Jewishness differs from country to country and across time. What stays remarkably similar, though, is Jewish self-perception and relatedly Jewish literary style. This is as true for the first-generation immigrant writers like Isaac Bashevis Singer and Anzia Yezierska who came to the United States from abroad as it is for their second-generation children born in the United States, and the children of those children. In this course, we will consider the difficulties of displacement for the emigrant generation and their efforts to sustain their cultural integrity in the multicultural American environment. We'll also examine the often comic revolt of their American-born children and grandchildren against their (grand-)parents nostalgia and failure to assimilate. Only by considering these transnational roots can one understand the particularity of the Jewish-American novel in relation to mainstream and minority American literatures. In investigating the link between American Jewish writers and their literary progenitors, we will draw largely but not exclusively from Russia and the countries of Eastern Europe.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
JEWISHST 183:
The Holocaust (HISTORY 137, HISTORY 337, JEWISHST 383)
The emergence of modern racism and radical anti-Semitism. The Nazi rise to power and the Jews. Anti-Semitic legislation in the 30s. WW II and the beginning of mass killings in the East. Deportations and ghettos. The mass extermination of European Jewry.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
JEWISHST 185B:
Jews in the Contemporary World: Faith and Ethnicity, Vulnerability and Visibility (CSRE 185B, HISTORY 185B, HISTORY 385C, REES 185B)
(Same as HISTORY 85B.) This course explores the full expanse of Jewish life today and in the recent past. The inner workings of religious faith, the content of Jewish identify shorn of belief, the interplay between Jewish powerlessness and influence, the myth and reality of Jewish genius, the continued pertinence of antisemitism, the rhythms of Jewish economic life ¿ all these will be examined in weekly lectures, classroom discussion, and with the use of a widely diverse range of readings, films, and other material. Explored in depth will the ideas and practices of Zionism, the content of contemporary secularism and religious Orthodoxy, the impact Holocaust, the continued crisis facing Israel and the Palestinians. Who is to be considered Jewish, in any event, especially since so many of the best known (Spinoza, Freud, Marx) have had little if anything to do with Jewish life with their relationships to it indifferent, even hostile?
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
JEWISHST 286:
Jews Among Muslims in Modern Times (HISTORY 286, HISTORY 386, JEWISHST 386)
The history of Jewish communities in the lands of Islam and their relations with the surrounding Muslim populations from the time of Muhammad to the 20th century. Topics: the place of Jews in Muslim societies, Jewish communal life, variation in the experience of communities in different Muslim lands, the impact of the West in the Modern period, the rise of nationalisms, and the end of Jewish life in Muslim countries.
Last offered: Spring 2016
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
MATH 163:
The Greek Invention of Mathematics (CLASSICS 136)
How was mathematics invented? A survey of the main creative ideas of ancient Greek mathematics. Among the issues explored are the axiomatic system of Euclid's Elements, the origins of the calculus in Greek measurements of solids and surfaces, and Archimedes' creation of mathematical physics. We will provide proofs of ancient theorems, and also learn how such theorems are even known today thanks to the recovery of ancient manuscripts.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
MUSIC 1A:
Music, Mind, and Human Behavior
An introductory exploration of the question of why music is a pervasive and fundamental aspect of human existence. The class will introduce aspects of music perception and cognition as well as anthropological and cultural considerations.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
MUSIC 2A:
The Symphony
Symphonic literature 1750 to the present, with emphasis on developing listening skills and preparation for attending a live performance. Ability to read music not required.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
MUSIC 2C:
An Introduction to Opera
The lasting appeal of opera as a lavishly hybrid genre from the 1600s to the present. How and why does opera set its stories to music? What is operatic singing? Who is the audience? How do words, music, voices, movement, and staging collaborate in different operatic eras and cultures? Principal works by Monteverdi, Handel, Mozart, Verdi, Wagner, Strauss, Britten, and Adams. Class studies and attends two works performed by the San Francisco Opera.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
MUSIC 7B:
Musical Cultures of the World
An overview of selected musical cultures from Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Course objectives: cultivate an appreciation for the diversity of human musical expression; discover how music is used to shape social interactions and systems of meaning; develop active listening skills that can be used when encountering any music; gain a preliminary understanding of ethnomusicological concepts and vocabulary. No musical experience is necessary. Class format: Lecture, discussion, listening, guest performances, musical participation, and a concert analysis.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
MUSIC 8A:
Rock, Sex, and Rebellion
Development of critical listening skills and musical parameters through genres in the history of rock music. Focus is on competing aesthetic tendencies and subcultural forces that shaped the music. Rock's significance in American culture, and the minority communities that have enriched rock's legacy as an expressively diverse form. Lectures, readings, listening, and video screenings. Attendance at all lectures is required.
Last offered: Spring 2017
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
MUSIC 11N:
A View from the Podium: The Art of Conducting
How a conductor interprets music, realizes a personal vision through the rehearsal process, and communicates with orchestra and audience. Conducting as based on human communication skills. How to apply these lessons to other fields of endeavor.
Last offered: Autumn 2013
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
MUSIC 13N:
Bollywood and Beyond: South Asian Popular and Folk Music
This seminar is an introduction to regional and popular music of South Asia¿India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Nepal. An immense variety of South Asian music¿everything from drumming to wedding songs to movie scores¿is woven into the social lives of both audiences and performers. Through their music, people across South Asia express social criticism, bring about political change, engage in worship, mark rites of passage, and cope with rapid and unsettling socio-economic changes. For example, Marathi kirtan, a form of devotional song/storytelling from Western India, has been used to teach spiritual lessons and oppose colonial occupation; musicians from South Indian oppressed castes enlist drums to protest their low social status; and the ever-popular Bollywood dance music creates a sense of home for Indians living abroad. In this seminar you will have the opportunity to acquire listening skills that will enhance your appreciation of the variety and depth of South Asian folk and popular music. We will draw on areas such as folklore and ethnomusicology to gain an understanding about what makes these musical practices thrive. And we will go on three field trips, which will give you an opportunity to engage first-hand with South Asian music and musicians in our local community. No musical experience is required.
Last offered: Winter 2016
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
MUSIC 13Q:
Classical Music and Politics: Western Music in Modern China
Preference to sophomores. Social history, cultural studies, China studies, international relations, and music. From the Italian Jesuit, Matteo Ricci who presented a clavichord to the Chinese emperor to the emergence of a modern generation of Chinese musicians.
Last offered: Autumn 2014
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom
MUSIC 14N:
Women Making Music (FEMGEN 13N)
Preference to freshmen. Women's musical activities across times and cultures; how ideas about gender influence the creation, performance, and perception of music.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
MUSIC 15N:
The Aesthetics of Data
Focus on visual and auditory display of data, specifically, the importance of aesthetic principles in effective data display, and the creative potential of scientific, biological, environmental and other data as inspiration for artistic expression.
Last offered: Autumn 2014
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-CE
MUSIC 17N:
The Operas of Mozart
Preference to freshmen. Four of Mozart's mature operas, the earliest works in the operatic repertoire never to go out of fashion. What accounts for this extraordinary staying power? Focus on the history of their composition, performance, and reception, and their changing significance from Mozart's time to the present.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
MUSIC 18A:
Jazz History: Ragtime to Bebop, 1900-1940 (AFRICAAM 18A)
From the beginning of jazz to the war years.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II
MUSIC 18B:
Jazz History: Bebop to Present, 1940-Present (AFRICAAM 18B)
Modern jazz styles from Bebop to the current scene. Emphasis is on the significant artists of each style.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II
MUSIC 19A:
Introduction to Music Theory
For non-music majors and Music majors or minors unable to pass the proficiency test for entry to MUSIC 21. The fundamentals of music theory and notation, basic sight reading, sight singing, ear training, keyboard harmony; melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic dictation. Skill oriented, using piano and voice as basic tools to develop listening and reading skills.
Terms: Aut, Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
MUSIC 19B:
Intermediate Music Theory
This course is an introduction to music theory geared toward students who have basic literacy skills (i.e. fundamental notation, identifying major and minor scales, keys, etc). Using musical materials from repertoire selected from campus and area concerts, and incorporating the opportunity to attend these concerts, the course will introduce elements of harmony, melody, form, orchestration and arrangement. The course is an appropriate successor to Music 19A. Students who successfully complete Music 19B can go on directly to Music 21.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
MUSIC 20A:
Jazz Theory (AFRICAAM 20A)
Introduces the language and sounds of jazz through listening, analysis, and compositional exercises. Students apply the fundamentals of music theory to the study of jazz. Prerequisite: 19 or consent of instructor.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
MUSIC 20B:
Advanced Jazz Theory
Approaches to improvisation through listening and transcribing, and developing familiarity with important contributors to this music. Topics: scale theory, altered dominants, and substitute harmony. Prerequisite: 20A or consent of instructor.
Last offered: Winter 2017
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
MUSIC 21:
Elements of Music I
Preference to majors. Introduction to tonal theory. Practice and analysis. Diatonic harmony focusing on melodic and harmonic organization, functional relationships, voice-leading, and tonal structures. Students must concurrently enroll in an Ear-training and musicianship lab (MUSIC 24a, 24b, or 24c as appropriate). Music majors must take 4 courses in ear training, and pass an ear training exit exam in their Junior year. Enrollment limited to 40. Prerequisites: (1) Piano Proficiency Exam (must be passed within the first two weeks of the term) or MUSIC 12A (may be taken concurrently); (2) Passing grade on a basic musical skills proficiency examination on the first day of class or MUSIC 19.
Terms: Aut, Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
MUSIC 22:
Elements of Music II
Preference to majors. Introduction to chromatic harmony focusing on secondary functions, modulations, harmonic sequences, mode mixture, and the Neapolitan, and augmented sixth chords. Analysis of musical forms and harmonizations complemented by harmonic and melodic dictation, sight singing, and other practical skills. Students must concurrently enroll in an Ear-training and musicianship lab (MUSIC 24a, 24b, or 24c as appropriate). Music majors must take 4 courses in ear training, and pass an ear training exit exam in their Junior year. Prerequisites: (1) MUSIC 21; (2) Piano Proficiency Exam or MUSIC 12B (may be taken concurrently).
Terms: Win, Spr
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
MUSIC 23:
Elements of Music III
Preference to majors. Continuation of chromatic harmony and complex forms of late Romantic period. Students must concurrently enroll in an Ear-training and musicianship lab (MUSIC 24a, 24b, or 24c as appropriate). Music majors must take 4 courses in ear training, and pass an ear training exit exam in their Junior year. Prerequisites: (1) MUSIC 22; (2) Piano Proficiency Exam or MUSIC 12C (may be taken concurrently).
Terms: Aut, Spr
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
MUSIC 27N:
The British Invasion
Examination of three generations of British popular music in the `60s and `70s: the Beatles (and the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, the Who); progressive rock (art rock) as embodied in Pink Floyd, Yes, King Crimson, Genesis, and Emerson, Lake, and Palmer; the emergence of punk in its revolutionary (the Clash) and nihilistic (the Sex Pistols) forms. Among other issues, the manner in which marginal American culture (particularly African-American blues) is neglected by Americans and venerated by foreigners and the subsequent mainstream consumption of a transformed and repackaged American minority culture is discussed.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
MUSIC 30N:
A Stranger in a Strange Land: Jewish Musics in Translation
What does it mean to be a stranger in a strange land? For centuries Jewish people have struggled to shape their identities in unfamiliar surroundings, using music to remember the past and generate new, hybrid identities. In this class we adopt the metaphor of translation to think about how minority Jewish communities bridge distinct languages, musical idioms, and cultural practices. Our theme will take us on a journey across time and space¿from Italy to India, New York, Syria, Russia, and Israel. We consider the case of Salamone Rossi, a 17th-century Italian Jewish composer who moved uneasily between dual careers in the synagogue and a secular/Christian court. We also explore a group of Indian Jews (Bene Israel) who combine idioms learned from Jewish and Christian missionaries with local Hindu musical traditions. In all our examples musicians translate languages, musical styles, and cultures to unite memories of a Jewish past with the realities of minority status in the present. The class format includes listening, discussion, some singing, student presentations, and guest lectures.
Last offered: Winter 2013
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
MUSIC 32N:
Sculpting with Sounds, Images, and Words
Throughout history and from East to West, cultures abound in multimedia forms. Whether in Coldplay's Music Video or Fantasia, Pepsi TV adds or Wagner's opera, Miyazaki anime or traditional Noh Theater of Japan, the three modes of expression (sounds, images, and word) are interwoven in distinctive ways. What are their individual and combined powers? How can one harness them in an online context? Can Web be a stage for multimedia theater? What is unique about the poetry of intermodal metaphor? The course will be an opportunity to face these questions in creative web-based projects as well as through in-class viewing of multimedia works, analysis and debates, readings, and student presentations. The seminar will be taught at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics where students will have access to new media technologies. Prior experience in music, literature, art practice or computer programming is welcome but not required.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-CE
MUSIC 34N:
Performing America: The Broadway Musical
Musical theater as a site for the construction of American identity in the twentieth century to the present. Issues of class, race, gender, and sexuality; intersections with jazz, rock, and pop; roles of lyricist, composer, director, choreographer, producer, performers. Individual shows (Showboat, Oklahoma, West Side Story, Funny Girl, Company, Les Misérables, Wicked, Hamilton, Dear Evan Hansen, A Strange Loop); musical theater "song types" across eras; show tunes in jazz, cabaret, and recital contexts; musicals on film, television, and social media. Opportunities for performance and attending local productions.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
MUSIC 36N:
Humor in Music
Through theoretical readings the course will touch on psychological and neurological bases of humor, explore contingent, tactical, modal, and ontological difficulties in the apprehension of humor, and address ethical issues surrounding humor in music. In addition to in-class listening and screening sessions, analytic discussions will be led by students who will find and present examples of humor in music. Students will also be invited to compose original humorous song lyrics and to create collaborative works of musical humor.
Last offered: Autumn 2012
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
MUSIC 37N:
Ki ho'alu: The New Renaissance of a Hawaiian Musical Tradition
Preference to freshman. Developed in the Hawaiian Islands during the 1830s, ki ho'alu, or Hawaiian slack key guitar, is an art form experiencing newfound popularity coinciding with the growth of political activism in Hawaiian culture. The musical, cultural, historical, and political perspectives of Hawaiian music and ki ho'alu, through hands-on experience, readings, discussion, and workshops. Hawaiian music and history and relationships among performance, cultural expression, community, and identity.
Last offered: Autumn 2016
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
MUSIC 38N:
Singing Early Music
Preference to freshmen. 15th- and 16th-century musical repertories and their contexts; performance practice.
Last offered: Autumn 2014
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-CE
MUSIC 40:
Music History to 1600
Pre- or corequisite: 21.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
MUSIC 41:
Music History 1600-1830
Pre- or corequisite: 22.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
MUSIC 42:
Music History Since 1830
Pre- or corequisite: 23.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
MUSIC 80T:
Jewish Music in the Lands of Islam (JEWISHST 80T)
An Interdisciplinary study of Music, Society, and Culture in communities of the Jewish Diaspora in Islamic countries. The course examines the diverse and rich musical traditions of the Jews in North Africa and the Middle East. Based on the "Maqamat" system, the Arabic musical modes, Jewish music flourished under Islamic rule, encompassing the fields of sacred music, popular songs, and art music. Using musicological, historical, and anthropological tools, the course compares and contrasts these traditions from their original roots through their adaptation, appropriation, and re-synthesis in contemporary art music and popular songs.
Last offered: Autumn 2014
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
MUSIC 122A:
Counterpoint
Analysis and composition of contrapuntal styles from the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Use of keyboard, ear training, and sight singing underlies all written work. Prerequisites: MUSIC 23 and MUSIC 24C; passing piano-proficiency examination; or, consent of instructor.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
MUSIC 122B:
Analysis of Tonal Music
Complete movements, or entire shorter works of the 18th and 19th centuries, are analyzed in a variety of theoretical approaches. Prerequisites: MUSIC 23 and MUSIC 24C; passing piano-proficiency examination; or, consent of instructor.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
MUSIC 122C:
Introduction to 20th-Century Composition
Contemporary works, with emphasis on music since 1945. Projects in free composition based on 20th-century models. Prerequisites: MUSIC 23 and MUSIC 24C; passing piano-proficiency examination; or, consent of instructor.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
MUSIC 123:
Undergraduate Seminar in Composition
Current trends in composition. May be repeated for credit a total of 7 times. Prerequisites: Music major; 23 or consent of instructor.
Last offered: Spring 2017
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
| Repeatable
8 times
(up to 24 units total)
MUSIC 127:
Instrumentation and Orchestration
Individual instruments, instrumental groups within the orchestra, and combinations of groups. Arrangements from piano to orchestral music. Score analysis with respect to orchestration. Practical exercises using chamber ensembles and school orchestra. Prerequisite: 23.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-CE
MUSIC 141J:
Studies in Music of the Renaissance (MUSIC 241J)
Prerequisites: MUSIC 21, MUSIC 40. (WIM at 4-unit level only.)
| Units: 2-4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
| Repeatable
for credit
MUSIC 142J:
Studies in Music of the Baroque: Monteverdi's Theater Music (MUSIC 242J)
Prerequisites: MUSIC 22, MUSIC 41. (WIM at 4-unit level only.)
Last offered: Winter 2016
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
| Repeatable
for credit
MUSIC 145J:
Studies in Western Art Music Since 1900: The Music & Ideas of Charles Ives (MUSIC 245J)
Prerequisites: MUSIC 23, MUSIC 42. (WIM at 4-unit level only.)
Last offered: Spring 2015
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
| Repeatable
for credit
MUSIC 146J:
Studies in Ethnomusicology: Listening to the Local: Music Ethnography of the Bay Area (ANTHRO 146J, CSRE 146J, MUSIC 246J)
An introduction to music ethnography through student research on musical life in the Bay Area. Focus is on the intersections of music, social life, and cultural practice by engaging with people as they perform music and culture in situ. Techniques taught include participant-observation, interviewing and oral history, writing field-notes, recording, transcription, analysis, and ethnographic writing. Pre-/co-requisite (for music majors): MUSIC 22. (WIM at 4 units only.)
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
MUSIC 147J:
Studies in Music, Media, and Popular Culture: The Soul Tradition in African American Music (AFRICAAM 19, AMSTUD 147J, CSRE 147J, MUSIC 247J)
The African American tradition of soul music from its origins in blues, gospel, and jazz to its influence on today's r&b, hip hop, and dance music. Style such as rhythm and blues, Motown, Southern soul, funk, Philadelphia soul, disco, Chicago house, Detroit techno, trip hop, and neo-soul. Soul's cultural influence and global reach; its interaction with politics, gender, place, technology, and the economy. Pre-/corequisite (for music majors): MUSIC 22. (WIM at 4 units only.)
Last offered: Winter 2015
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
MUSIC 147K:
Studies in Music, Media, and Popular Culture: Music and Urban Film (MUSIC 247K)
How music and sound work in urban cinema. What happens when music's capacity to transform everyday reality combines with the realism of urban films? Provides an introduction to traditional theories of film music and film sound; considers how new technologies and practices have changed the roles of music in film. Readings discuss film music, realistic cinema, urban musical practices and urban culture. Viewing includes action/adventure, Hindi film, documentary, film noir, hip hop film, the musical, and borderline cases by Jean-Luc Godard, Spike Lee, Wong Kar-Wai and Tsai Ming-Liang. Pre- or corequisite (for music majors): MUSIC 22. (WIM at 4 unit level only.)
Last offered: Winter 2016
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
MUSIC 148J:
Studies in Perf Practice: Reactions to the Record: Early Recordings, Lost Styles, and Music's Future (MUSIC 248J)
This is a seminar on the transformation of musical style in the era of recordings in light of their roots in cultural trends, including shifting hierarchies between composer and performer, work and notation, text and act. Early recordings will be studied as documents of musical values and conceptions different from those around us today. Methodologies of performance analysis will be explored and used to contextualize sources, which include historic recordings from Stanford's Archive of Recorded Sound, performance documents, and field research with performers, composers, critics, and listeners. Repertoire includes works for orchestra, piano, strings, chamber ensemble and voice. Outstanding contributions from seminar members may be featured in the Music Department¿s May 2014 Reactions to the Record symposium. May be repeated for credit. Pre- or corequisite (for music majors): MUSIC 22. (WIM at 4-unit level only.)
Last offered: Spring 2016
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
| Repeatable
for credit
MUSIC 154A:
Sound Art I (ARTSTUDI 131)
Acoustic, digital and analog approaches to sound art. Familiarization with techniques of listening, recording, digital processing and production. Required listening and readings in the history and contemporary practice of sound art. (lower level)
Last offered: Autumn 2016
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-CE
MUSIC 186:
Religion and Music in South Asia (MUSIC 286, RELIGST 259)
How music and other arts in South Asia are intertwined with religion. Classical, devotional, folk, and popular examples introduce Gods as musicians, sound as God, music as yoga, singing as devotion, music as ¿ecstasy¿-inducing, music as site for doctrinal argument, music and religion as vehicles for nationalism. Co-taught by professors of Music and Religious Studies, focusing Hinduism and Islam in India, Pakistan, and the diaspora. Music practice along with academic study; guest artists and films; no background required.
Last offered: Spring 2013
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom
NATIVEAM 143A:
American Indian Mythology, Legend, and Lore (AMSTUD 143M, ENGLISH 43A, ENGLISH 143A)
(English majors and others taking 5 units, register for 143A.) Readings from American Indian literatures, old and new. Stories, songs, and rituals from the 19th century, including the Navajo Night Chant. Tricksters and trickster stories; war, healing, and hunting songs; Aztec songs from the 16th century. Readings from modern poets and novelists including N. Scott Momaday, Louise Erdrich, and Leslie Marmon Silko, and the classic autobiography, "Black Elk Speaks."
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
OSPBER 17:
Split Images: A Century of Cinema
20th-century German culture through film. The silent era, Weimar, and the instrumentalization of film in the Third Reich. The postwar era: ideological and aesthetic codes of DEFA, new German cinema, and post-Wende filmmaking including Run Lola Run and Goodbye Lenin. Aesthetic aspects of the films including image composition, camera and editing techniques, and relation between sound and image.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II
OSPBER 60:
Cityscape as History: Architecture and Urban Design in Berlin
Diversity of Berlin's architecture and urban design resulting from its historical background. Architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and his artistic ancestors. Role of the cultural exchange between Germany and the U.S. Changing nature of the city from the 19th century to the present.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
OSPBER 70:
The Long Way to the West: German History from the 18th Century to the Present
Battles still current within Germany¿s collective memory. Sources include the narrative resources of museums, and experts on the German history in Berlin and Potsdam. Field trips.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-SI
OSPBER 101A:
Contemporary Theater
Texts of plays supplemented by theoretical texts or reviews. Weekly theater visits and discussions with actors, directors, or other theater professionals. For AUTUMN: In English; German assignments for students with advanced German skills. For SPRING: 5 units only. In German. Prerequisite: completion of GERLANG 3 or equivalent.
Terms: Aut, Spr
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
OSPCPTWN 55:
Arts of Change
How might we understand the creative arts in South Africa in terms of their variety and impact? What social issues do they reflect? What impact might they yet have? Students will have the opportunity for a related practicum. Course must be taken for a minimum of 3 units to satisfy a Ways requirement.
Terms: Sum
| Units: 2-4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
OSPFLOR 11:
Film, Food and the Italian Identity
Food in Italian cinema staged as an allegory of Italy's social, political and cultural milieu. Intersections between food, history and culture as they are reflected in and shaped by Italian cinema from the early 1900s until today. Topics include: farmer's tradition during Fascism; lack of food during WWII and its aftermath; the Economic Miracle; food and the Americanization of Italy; La Dolce Vita; the Italian family; ethnicity, globalization and the re-discovery of regional culinary identity in contemporary Italy. Impact of cinema in both reflecting and defining the relationship between food and culture.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
OSPFLOR 34:
The Virgin Mother, Goddess of Beauty, Grand Duchess, and the Lady: Women in Florentine Art
Influence and position of women in the history of Florence as revealed in its art. Sculptural, pictorial, and architectural sources from a social, historical, and art historical point of view. Themes: the virgin mother (middle ages); the goddess of beauty (Botticelli to mannerism); the grand duchess (late Renaissance, Baroque); the lady, the woman (19th-20th centuries).
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
OSPFLOR 48:
Sharing Beauty in Florence: Collectors, Collections and the Shaping of the Western Museum Tradition
The city's art and theories of how art should be presented. The history and typology of world-class collections. Social, economic, political, and aesthetic issues in museum planning and management. Collections include the Medici, English and American collectors of the Victorian era, and modern corporate and public patrons.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
OSPFLOR 49:
On-Screen Battles: Filmic Portrayals of Fascism and World War II
Structural and ideological attributes of narrative cinema, and theories of visual and cinematic representation. How film directors have translated history into stories, and war journals into visual images. Topics: the role of fascism in the development of Italian cinema and its phenomenology in film texts; cinema as a way of producing and reproducing constructions of history; film narratives as fictive metaphors of Italian cultural identity; film image, ideology, and politics of style.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
OSPFLOR 54:
High Renaissance and Mannerism: the Great Italian Masters of the 15th and 16th Centuries
The development of 15th- and early 16th-century art in Florence and Rome. Epochal changes in the art of Michelangelo and Raphael in the service of Pope Julius II. The impact of Roman High Renaissance art on masters such as Fra' Bartolomeo and Andrea del Sarto. The tragic circumstances surrounding the early maniera: Pontormo and Rosso Fiorentino and the transformation of early Mannerism into the elegant style of the Medicean court. Contemporary developments in Venice.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
OSPFLOR 58:
Space as History: Social Vision and Urban Change
A thousand years of intentional change in Florence. Phases include programmatic enlargement of ecclesiastical structures begun in the 11th century; aggressive expansion of religious and civic space in the 13th and 14th centuries; aggrandizement of private and public buildings in the 15th century; transformation of Florence into a princely capital from the 16th through the 18th centuries; traumatic remaking of the city's historic core in the 19th century; and development of new residential areas on the outskirts and in neighboring towns in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
OSPFLOR 67:
The Celluloid Gaze: Gender, Identity and Sexuality in Cinema
Film in the social construction of gender through the representation of the feminine, the female, and women. Female subjects, gaze, and identity through a historical, technical, and narrative frame. Emphasis is on gender, identity, and sexuality with references to feminist film theory from the early 70s to current methodologies based on semiotics, psychoanalysis, and cultural studies. Advantages and limitations of methods for textual analysis and the theories which inform them.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
OSPFLOR 111Y:
From Giotto to Michelangelo: The Birth and Flowering of Renaissance Art in Florence
Lectures, site visits, and readings reconstruct the circumstances that favored the flowering of architecture, sculpture, and painting in Florence and Italy, late 13th to early 16th century. Emphasis is on the classical roots; the particular relationship with nature; the commitment to human expressiveness; and rootedness in the real-world experience, translated in sculpture and painting as powerful plasticity, perspective space, and interest in movement and emotion.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
OSPFLOR 115Y:
Building the Cathedral and the Town Hall: Constructing and Deconstructing Symbols of a Civilization
The history, history of art, and symbolism of the two principal monuments of Florence: the cathedral and the town hall. Common meaning and ideological differences between the religious and civic symbols of Florence's history from the time of Giotto and the first Guelf republic to Bronzino and Giovanni da Bologna and the Grand Duchy.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
OSPKYOTO 13:
Contemporary Religion in Japan's Ancient Capital: Sustaining and Recasting Tradition
Japanese attitudes to religion and popular forms of religiosity. Syncretic nature of beliefs and practices drawn on a variety of interwoven concepts, beliefs, customs and religious activities of native Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and Indian origins as background. Topics include: pursuit of worldly benefits, religion and healing, fortune-telling, ascetic practices, pilgrimage, festivals (matsuri), new religions and their image, impact of the internet, response of religion in times of crisis.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
OSPMADRD 22:
Spain on Stage: Theater and Performance in 2018
Spanish theater and society through its contemporary repertoire. Focus on developing a critical voice for appreciating theater as an art form while assessing the relationship between the present theater season and current events on a local, regional and global scale. Attend theater and analyze works currently in performance in a wide variety of venues in Madrid. Works include canonical plays as well as those at smaller historical and alternative theaters. Skills and strategies for reading dramatic works as literature and analyzing all scenic languages of performance
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
OSPMADRD 43:
The Jacobean Star Way and Europe: Society, Politics and Culture
The Saint James' Way as a tool to understand historic dynamics from a global perspective. Its effect on the structures that form a political and institutional system, and its society, economy, and ideology. Enrollment limited; instructor approval required.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
OSPMADRD 45:
Women in Art: Case Study in the Madrid Museums
Viewing the collections at the Prado Museum through study and analysis of the representations of women. Contemporary literary texts and images that situate paintings in the historical, social, and political conditions that produced the works.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
OSPMADRD 74:
Islam in Spain and Europe: 1300 Years of Contact
Primary problems and conflicts in the contemporary Islamic world and its relations with the West, as well as the relationship between Spain and Islam throughout history. Special attention to the history of al-Andalus, an Islamic state in the Iberian Peninsula during the Middle Ages, evaluating the importance of its legacy in Europe and in contemporary Spain. Spain's leading role in relations between Europe and the Mediterranean Islamic states from the Modern Era to the present day.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-SI
OSPOXFRD 57:
The Rise of the Woman Writer 1660-1860
Emergence and rise of the professional woman writer from playwright and Royalist spy Aphra Behn (1640-89) to novelist and proto-feminist Charlotte Bronte (1816-55). How women writers dealt with criticism for writing publicly, placing each author and text in its historical and literary context. Range of poets, playwrights, and novelists including Eliza Haywood, Frances Burney, and Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Topics: gender roles and proto-feminism, the public versus the private sphere, sexuality, courtship and marriage.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II
OSPOXFRD 93:
Collecting the World
The art, science, and culture of the creation, transmission and collection of valuable, useful and informative objects and texts before the twentieth century, and the associated theories, purposes, and methods for collecting `worldly' goods and other valuables. Means by which local academic practices engaged with global developments in the arts and sciences through examination of primarily early modern material and intellectual culture in and around Oxfordshire. Assessments of quality, meaning, usage, cultural significance and the reception of material ¿treasures¿ in the storage rooms, vaults, and on display in museums, galleries, and libraries.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
OSPPARIS 30:
The Avant Garde in France through Literature, Art, and Theater
Multiple artistic trends and esthetic theories from Baudelaire to the Nouveau Roman, from the Surrealists to Oulipo, from the theater of cruelty to the theater of the absurd, from the Impressionists to Yves Klein. Interdisciplinary approach to reflect on the meaning of avant garde and modernity in general, and on the question of why revolutionary artists in France remained in search of institutional recognition, nonetheless.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
OSPPARIS 34:
Franco-American Encounters: Paris-New York in the 20th Century
Double vision of American artists and intellectuals of Paris, as well as their French counterparts of New York, throughout the 20th century. Exploration of Franco-American relations through two very problematic itineraries. Superposing the two will create a rich and complex image of the interaction between the two cultures. Migration of American artists and intellectuals to Paris in the 1920¿s and of French artists and intellectuals to New York during the Second World War. Through study of films, texts and images, view the two cities through eyes of immigrants, both temporary and permanent. Major figures such as Hemingway, Josephine Baker, and Louis-Ferdinand Céline.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
OSPPARIS 54:
The Artist's World: The Workshop, Patronage and Public in 19th and 20th Century France
Synergy between artists, their workshops, patrons, models and the public in 19th and 20th century France. Weekly sessions in museums, artists' studios, and special venues within and around Paris, attempting to understand the world of the artist, and how, in many cases, this world became not only a place of refuge, but a metaphor of the artistic creation itself.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
OSPPARIS 72:
The Ceilings of Paris
Seventeenth century transformation of the ceilings of Paris, private and public. Itinerary of this transformation from artists' initial drawings to their finished work. Under the guidance of the curator of 17th century French Drawings in the Louvre Museum, study the original drawings as well as the venues in and around Paris. Sites vary from the most illustrious (Versailles) to the lesser known (Hotel Lauzun). Reflection on the changing social and political aspirations as represented in these new artistic forms. Language of instruction: French.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
OSPPARIS 92:
Building Paris: Its History, Architecture, and Urban Design
The development of Parisian building and architecture from the 17th century to the present. Interaction of tradition and innovation in its transformation and its historical, political, and cultural underpinnings. Visits and case studies throughout Paris illustrate the formation of the city landscape and its culture.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II
OSPPARIS 186F:
Contemporary African Literature in French
Focus is on African writers and those of the diaspora, bound together by a common history of slave trade, bondage, colonization, and racism. Their works belong to the past, seeking to save an oral heritage of proverbs, story tales, and epics, but they are also contemporary.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
OSPSANTG 14:
Women Writers of Latin America in the 20th Century
Key figures in poetry, narrative fiction, theater, and testimonio, such as Mistral, Garro, Lispector, Poniatowska, Valenzuela, Eltit and Menchú. Close reading technique. Issues raised in literary texts that reflect the evolution of the condition of women in Latin America during the period. Topics include gender differences and relationships, tradition versus transgression, relationship between changes in the status of women and other egalitarian transformations, and women writers and the configuration of literary canons.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
OSPSANTG 30:
Short Latin American Fiction of the 20th Century
Introduction to short narrative fiction produced in Latin America during the 20th Century. Key features of the short story genre, as defined by Chekhov in the 19th Century and redefined by Kafka and Borges in the 20th Century. Main literary movements of the period in Latin America, including Regionalism, Social Realism, the Avant-Garde, the Boom of the 1960s and Magical Realism, the Post-Boom, etc. Close reading course with strong emphasis on analysis and discussion of the required texts. Readings placed in the context of the main developments in Latin American history and culture in the period.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
PHIL 1:
Introduction to Philosophy
Is there one truth or many? Does science tell us everything there is to know? Can our minds be purely physical? Do we have free will? Is faith rational? Should we always be rational? What is the meaning of life? Are there moral truths? What are truth, reality, rationality, and knowledge? How can such questions be answered? Intensive introduction to theories and techniques in philosophy from various contemporary traditions. Students must enroll in lecture AND and one of the discussion sections listed.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
PHIL 2:
Introduction to Moral Philosophy (ETHICSOC 20)
What should I do with my life? What kind of person should I be? How should we treat others? What makes actions right or wrong? What is good and what is bad? What should we value? How should we organize society? Is there any reason to be moral? Is morality relative or subjective? How, if at all, can such questions be answered? Intensive introduction to theories and techniques in contemporary moral philosophy.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-EthicReas, WAY-A-II, WAY-ER
PHIL 6N:
Pictures and the Imagination
Paintings, drawings, and photographs often function as pictures or images of the preexisting things they take as subjects. They represent these subjects from specific spatial vantage points in ways that may be more or less definite, more or less detailed, and more or less faithful to what the subjects are actually like. One longs to know how this works: how vision, imagination, and background knowledge come together when we experience a picture as a picture. Certain forms of imagining and remembering involve mental picturing, mental imagery. Sometimes we imagine or remember things in visual terms from a specific spatial vantage point, with the result that we feel brought face to face with the things imagined or remembered, however far away they may actually be. How is the physical picturing that goes on in paintings, drawings, and photographs both like and unlike the mental picturing that goes on when things swim before the mind's eye? What role does mental picturing play in physical picturing? What kinds of artistic value and interest attach to paintings, drawings, and photographs in virtue of what they picture and how they picture it?
Last offered: Spring 2013
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
PHIL 7Q:
What is Truth
This question can be answered precisely in some important cases. We begin with the language of propositional logic where truth is defined by simple tables. This is already sufficient for description of many important problems and leads to a famous ($1 000 000) problem P=NP. We use Sudoku puzzles for illustration. Close connection between propositional truth and proof is established by the resolution method forming a basis of most automated theorem provers. The language of predicate logic covers much more and illustrates the notion of completeness. Register machines provide connection with computations and lead to a fundamental classification of problems of truth with respect to decidability. The language of arithmetic exhibits a new phenomenon of incompleteness that changed significant part of philosophy in 20-th century.
Last offered: Autumn 2013
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
PHIL 9N:
Philosophical Classics of the 20th Century
Last century's best and most influential philosophical writings. Topics include ethics (what is the nature of right and wrong?), language (how do meaning, reference, and truth arise in the natural world?), science (can science claim objectively accurate descriptions of reality?), existence (are there things that don't exist?), and the mind (could robots ever be conscious?). Authors include Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Rudolf Carnap, Willard Quine, Thomas Kuhn, John Rawls, and Saul Kripke. The lay of the land in contemporary philosophy.
Last offered: Spring 2010
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
PHIL 11N:
Skepticism
Preference to freshmen. Historical and contemporary philosophical perspectives on the limits of human knowledge of a mind-independent world and causal laws of nature. The nature and possibility of a priori knowledge. Skepticism regarding religious beliefs..
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
PHIL 28:
The Literature and Philosophy of Place
Literature and philosophy, primarily, but not exclusively from Latin America, that raises questions about place and displacement through migration and exile, about how location shapes our understanding of ourselves and of our responsibilities to society and environment, about the multiple meanings of home. Among the questions we will consider are the difference between the experiences of people who are at "home" and those who are "away," how one person's claim on home can be another's experience of being invaded, the interdependence of self and place, the multiple meanings of "environment." Readings by Gabriela Mistral, Pablo Neruda, Carmen Lyra, Jorge Gracia, Otavio Paz, Maria Lugones, among others.
Last offered: Autumn 2015
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
PHIL 41Q:
Truth
Preference to sophomores. Central issues animating current work in the philosophy of truth. What is truth? What is it about a statement or judgment that makes it true rather than false? Are there any propositions that are neither true nor false? Could truth be relative to individuals or communities? Do people have different notions of truth for different enterprises such as mathematics and ethics? Might truth be a matter of degree? Sources include the instructor's book manuscript and other contemporary writers.
Last offered: Autumn 2008
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
PHIL 42:
Philosophy through Theater: Choice and Chance
Dramatic literature as a window into philosophical work on freedom of the will and indeterminism. Students participate in the production of original one-act plays.
Last offered: Winter 2009
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
PHIL 60:
Introduction to Philosophy of Science (HPS 60)
This course introduces students to tools for the philosophical analysis of science. We will cover issues in observation, experiment, and reasoning, questions about the aims of science, scientific change, and the relations between science and values.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
PHIL 61:
Philosophy and the Scientific Revolution (HPS 61)
Galileo's defense of the Copernican world-system that initiated the scientific revolution of the 17th century, led to conflict between science and religion, and influenced the development of modern philosophy. Readings focus on Galileo and Descartes.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
PHIL 74A:
Ethics in a Human Life (HUMBIO 74)
Ethical questions pervade a human life from before a person is conceived until after she dies, and at every point in between. This course raises a series of ethical questions, following along the path of a person's life - questions that arise before, during, and after she lives it. We will explore distinctive questions that a life presents at each of several familiar stages: prior to birth, childhood, adulthood, death, and even beyond. We will consider how some philosophers have tried to answer these questions, and we will think about how answering them might help us form a better understanding of the ethical shape of a human life as a whole.
Last offered: Autumn 2016
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-ER
PHIL 76:
Introduction to Global Justice (ETHICSOC 136R, INTNLREL 136R, POLISCI 136R, POLISCI 336)
This course provides an overview of core ethical problems in international politics, with special emphasis on the question of what demands justice imposes on institutions and agents acting in a global context. The course is divided into three sections. The first investigates the content of global justice, and comprises of readings from contemporary political theorists and philosophers who write within the liberal contractualist, utilitarian, cosmopolitan, and nationalist traditions. The second part of the course looks at the obligations which global justice generates in relation to a series of real-world issues of international concern: global poverty, human rights, natural resources, climate change, migration, and the well-being of women.. The final section of the course asks whether a democratic international order is necessary for global justice to be realized.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-EthicReas, WAY-ER
PHIL 77S:
Philosophy of Religion (RELIGST 36)
(Formerly RELIGST 62S) Explores fundamental questions about the existence of God, free will and determinism, faith and reason, through traditional philosophical texts. Course is divided into four sections: first asks what is religion; second surveys the western philosophical tradition from Boethius through Descartes, Hume, Kant, and Kierkegaard regarding the foundation for theist beliefs; third investigates questions mystical experience raises through both western and Buddhist materials; and fourth takes up the ethics of belief, what we have a right to believe, through the Clifford and James debate and the opposing stances of Camus and Pascal.
Last offered: Autumn 2014
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
PHIL 80:
Mind, Matter, and Meaning
Intensive study of central topics in metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language and mind in preparation for advanced courses in philosophy. Emphasis on development of analytical writing skills. Prerequisite: one prior course in Philosophy or permission of instructor.
Terms: Aut, Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
Instructors: ;
Crimmins, M. (PI);
Taylor, K. (PI);
Dowling, G. (TA);
Hobbs, L. (TA);
Kim, H. (TA);
Kim, R. (TA);
Madigan, T. (TA);
Simon, A. (TA);
Slabon, T. (TA);
Thompson, D. (TA);
Wong-Taylor, G. (TA);
Zweber, A. (TA)
PHIL 81:
Philosophy and Literature (CLASSICS 42, COMPLIT 181, ENGLISH 81, FRENCH 181, GERMAN 181, ITALIAN 181, SLAVIC 181)
Required gateway course for Philosophical and Literary Thought; crosslisted in departments sponsoring the Philosophy and Literature track. Majors should register in their home department; non-majors may register in any sponsoring department. Introduction to major problems at the intersection of philosophy and literature, with particular focus on the question of value: what, if anything, does engagement with literary works do for our lives? Issues include aesthetic self-fashioning, the paradox of tragedy, the paradox of caring, the truth-value of fiction, metaphor, authorship, irony, make-believe, expression, edification, clarification, and training. Readings are drawn from literature and film, philosophical theories of art, and stylistically interesting works of philosophy. Authors may include Sophocles, Chaucer, Dickinson, Proust, Woolf, Borges, Beckett, Kundera, Charlie Kaufman; Barthes, Foucault, Nussbaum, Walton, Nehamas; Plato, Montaigne, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Sartre. Taught in English.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
PHIL 100:
Greek Philosophy (CLASSICS 40)
We shall cover the major developments in Greek philosophical thought, focusing on Plato, Aristotle, and the Hellenistic schools (the Epicureans, the Stoics, and the Skeptics). Topics include epistemology, metaphysics, psychology, ethics and political theory. No prereqs, not repeatable.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
PHIL 102:
Modern Philosophy, Descartes to Kant
Major figures in early modern philosophy in epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophy of mind. Writings by Descartes, Leibniz, Hume, and Kant.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
PHIL 108:
Aristotle's Metaphysics Book Alpha (PHIL 208)
An introduction both to Aristotle's own metaphysics and to his treatment of his predecessors on causality, included the early Ionian cosmologists, atomism, Pythagoreans, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Empedocles, Anaxagoras and Plato. Prerequisite: one course in ancient Greek philosophy.
Last offered: Autumn 2013
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
| Repeatable
for credit
PHIL 110:
Plato's Republic (PHIL 210)
The Republic is one most famous and influential texts in the history of Western philosophy. We shall read in its entirety closely (along with some other related Platonic texts) focusing on its epistemology, ethics, metaphysics, philosophy of art, and political philosophy.
Last offered: Winter 2016
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
PHIL 111:
Aristotle's Logic (PHIL 211)
Last offered: Winter 2016
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
PHIL 113:
Hellenistic Philosophy (PHIL 213)
Epicureans, skeptics, and stoics on epistemology, ethics, metaphysics, and psychology.
Last offered: Winter 2008
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
PHIL 115:
Problems in Medieval Philosophy: Islamic Aristotelianism and Western Scholasticism (PHIL 215)
The western world adopted Aristotle's metaphysics and natural philosophy as the foundation of its educational system and scholarly life between 1210 and 1255. Christian Europe was thereby following the example set by Islam in Spain and the Near East. Today some people believe that this development was independent, and others think that the scholastics copied even their methods from Arabic philosophers. Historical evaluation of those claims.
Last offered: Spring 2010
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
| Repeatable
for credit
PHIL 117:
Descartes (PHIL 217)
(Formerly 121/221.) Descartes's philosophical writings on rules for the direction of the mind, method, innate ideas and ideas of the senses, mind, God, eternal truths, and the material world.
Last offered: Spring 2017
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
PHIL 120:
Leibniz (PHIL 220)
A polymath, Leibniz invented the calculus independently of Newton and made major contributions to virtually every science, including logic and computer science. In this course, we investigate Leibniz's philosophical system and its metaphysics: that God created the best of all possible worlds; that humans freely choose actions that are nevertheless pre-established; that space and time are idealizations and `imaginary'; and that true, fundamental reality consists of minds.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
PHIL 120A:
The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence (PHIL 220A)
Correspondence on metaphysics, theology, and science.
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
PHIL 125:
Kant's First Critique (PHIL 225)
(Graduate students register for 225.) The founding work of Kant's critical philosophy emphasizing his contributions to metaphysics and epistemology. His attempts to limit metaphysics to the objects of experience. Prerequisite: course dealing with systematic issues in metaphysics or epistemology, or with the history of modern philosophy.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
PHIL 134:
Phenomenology and Intersubjectivity (PHIL 234)
(Graduate students register for 234.) Readings from Husserl, Stein, Heidegger, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty on subjects related to awareness of others. Topics include solipsism, collective experience, empathy, and objectification of the other.
Last offered: Autumn 2016
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
PHIL 135:
Existentialism (PHIL 235)
Focus is on the existentialist preoccupation with human freedom. What constitutes authentic individuality? What is one's relation to the divine? How can one live a meaningful life? What is the significance of death? A rethinking of the traditional problem of freedom and determinism in readings from Rousseau, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche, and the extension of these ideas by Sartre, Beauvoir, and Camus, including their social and political consequences in light of 20th-century fascism and feminism.
Last offered: Spring 2014
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-ER
PHIL 137:
Wittgenstein (PHIL 237)
(Graduate students register for 237.) An exploration of Wittgenstein's changing views about meaning, mind, knowledge, and the nature of philosophical perplexity and philosophical insight, focusing on the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and Philosophical Investigations.
Last offered: Autumn 2015
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
PHIL 163:
Significant Figures in Philosophy of Science: Einstein (PHIL 263)
(Graduate students register for 263.)nThe influences of Hertz, Boltzmann, Mach and Planck on the development of Einstein's philosophical views regarding the scope and limits of physical theory. The distinction between ¿principle theories¿ and ¿constructive theories¿ from Poincaré and Lorentz, to Einstein. The impact of special and general relativity on logical empiricism. How Einstein¿s views changed in response to two core challenges, the advent of quantum mechanics and his three-decades long failure to extend general relativity to a "theory of the total field". We conclude by considering the lasting impact of Einstein's philosophical views, and whether they can be assimilated to contemporary currents in philosophy of science.nnPREREQUISITES: No detailed knowledge of physics or mathematics is presumed. Some background in philosophy, natural science or mathematics will be helpful. Students will benefit from possession of a modicum of ¿mathematical maturity¿ (roughly equivalent to a familiarity with elementary single-variable calculus or the metatheory of first-order logic).
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
PHIL 165:
Philosophy of Physics: Philosophical Issues in Quantum Mechanics (PHIL 265)
Graduate students register for 265. NOTE: Phil 165/265 alternates topics yearly between "Philosophical Issues in Quantum Mechanics" and "Philosophical Problems of Space, Time and Motion". The course may be repeated with a different subject matter. nnIn Winter 2017-18, the subject is ""Philosophical Issues in QM"nnI. TOPICS: After introducing a simplified version of Dirac's 'bra-ket' vector space formalism for the quantum state (a.k.a. function), the first third of the term is a historical overview of Heisenberg's uncertainty relations, wave-particle duality, the problem of quantum measurement, and the non-classical nature of spin. We survey the treatment of these issues within Bohr's doctrine of complementarity and the so-called Copenhagen interpretation of QM. We review Einstein's several arguments for the incompleteness of QM, leading up to the famous EPR (Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen) paper of 1935, the resulting issue of quantum entanglement as discussed by Einstein and Schrödinger, and the complexities of Bohr's response to EPR. In the second third of the term, we examine a well-known 'no go' theorem on EPR-type experimental set-ups stemming from Bell in the 1960s, according to which no hidden variables theory satisfying a certain locality condition (apparently assumed by EPR) can reproduce all the predictions of QM. In the last third, we survey current variations of, or interpretive options for, standard QM: Bohmian mechanics (a.k.a. pilot wave theory), spontaneous collapse theories, and Everett's relative-state interpretation with its many worlds/ many minds variants. We end by scrutinizing the recent decoherence program (a.k.a.localization induced by the scattering of environmental particles) that purports to explain the quantum-to-classical transition, i.e., the emergence of the world of classical physics and macroscopic objects and properties from quantum physics. We consider whether decoherence is justifiably viewed as solving the quantum measurement problem. nnII. PREREQUISITES: No detailed knowledge of quantum physics or advanced mathematics is presumed. Some background in philosophy, natural science or mathematics will be helpful. Students will benefit from possession of a modicum of mathematical maturity (roughly equivalent to a familiarity with elementary single-variable calculus or the metatheory of first-order logic).
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-SMA
| Repeatable
for credit
PHIL 167A:
Philosophy of Biology (PHIL 267A)
(Graduate students register for 267A.) Evolutionary theory and in particular, on characterizing natural selection and how it operates. We examine debates about fitness, whether selection is a cause or force, the levels at which selection operates, and whether cultural evolution is a Darwinian process. Prerequisites: one PHIL course and either one BIO course or Human Biology core; or equivalent with consent of instructor.
Last offered: Winter 2017
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
PHIL 167D:
Philosophy of Neuroscience (PHIL 267D, SYMSYS 206A)
How can we explain the mind? With approaches ranging from computational models to cellular-level characterizations of neural responses to the characterization of behavior, neuroscience aims to explain how we see, think, decide, and even feel. While these approaches have been highly successful in answering some kinds of questions, they have resulted in surprisingly little progress in others. We'll look at the relationships between the neuroscientific enterprise, philosophical investigations of the nature of the mind, and our everyday experiences as creatures with minds. Prerequisite: PHIL 80.n(Not open to freshmen.)
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
PHIL 169:
Evolution of the Social Contract (PHIL 269)
Explore naturalizing the social contract. Classroom presentations and term papers.nTexts: Binmore - Natural Justicen Skyrms - Evolution of the Social Contract.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
PHIL 170:
Ethical Theory (ETHICSOC 170, PHIL 270)
How should we live our lives? Should you love your neighbour as yourself? Should you be digging wells rather than taking philosophy classes? Is taxation just? What obligations do we have to the not-yet-born, and to the dead? And says who? Are there really any answers to these questions? If so, what explains why they are one way rather than another? The will of God? Perhaps we need rules to ensure mutual benefits. But then, can I break them if no-one will find out? Can it be appropriate to blame you for doing something that you thought was the right thing to do (perhaps rejecting a blood transfusion)? Or to praise you for doing something you thought was the wrong thing to do (like Huck Finn)? By the end of this semester, you will be developing answers to these questions and many more.nnA more challenging version of Phil 2 designed primarily for juniors and seniors (may also be appropriate for some freshmen and sophomores - contact professor). Fulfills the Ethical Reasoning requirement. Graduate section (270) will include supplemental readings and discussion, geared for graduate students new to moral philosophy, as well as those with some background who would like more.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-EthicReas, WAY-A-II, WAY-ER
PHIL 170B:
Metaphor (PHIL 270B)
In metaphor we think and talk about two things at once: two different subject matters are mingled to rich and unpredictable effect. A close critical study of the main modern accounts of metaphor's nature and interest, drawing on the work of writers, linguists, philosophers, and literary critics. Attention to how understanding, appreciation, and pleasure connect with one another in the experience of metaphor. Consideration of the possibility that metaphor or something very like it occurs in nonverbal medial: gesture, dance, painting, music.
Last offered: Autumn 2016
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
PHIL 171:
Justice (ETHICSOC 171, POLISCI 103, POLISCI 336S, PUBLPOL 103C, PUBLPOL 307)
Focus is on the ideal of a just society, and the place of liberty and equality in it, in light of contemporary theories of justice and political controversies. Topics include financing schools and elections, regulating markets, discriminating against people with disabilities, and enforcing sexual morality. Counts as Writing in the Major for PoliSci majors.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-EthicReas, WAY-ER
PHIL 172:
History of Modern Moral Philosophy (PHIL 272)
A critical exploration of some of the main forms of systematic moral theorizing in Western philosophy from Hobbes onward and their roots in ancient ethical thought. Prerequistes are some prior familiarity with utilitarianism and Kantian ethics and a demonstrated interest in philosophy.
Last offered: Winter 2017
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-ER
PHIL 173B:
Metaethics
This is an undergraduate only class. Can moral and ethical values be justified or is it just a matter of opinion? Is there a difference between facts and values? Are there any moral truths? Does it matter if there are not? Is anything in life really valuable or meaningful? Focus is not on which things or actions are valuable or morally right, but what is value or rightness itself. Contemporary metaethics. Prerequisites: 1 and 80.
Last offered: Autumn 2016
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
PHIL 174A:
Moral Limits of the Market (ETHICSOC 174A, PHIL 274A, POLISCI 135P)
Morally controversial uses of markets and market reasoning in areas such as organ sales, procreation, education, and child labor. Would a market for organ donation make saving lives more efficient; if it did, would it thereby be justified? Should a nation be permitted to buy the right to pollute? Readings include Walzer, Arrow, Rawls, Sen, Frey, Titmuss, and empirical cases.
Last offered: Winter 2013
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-EthicReas, WAY-A-II, WAY-ER
PHIL 175:
Philosophy of Law
This course will explore foundational questions about the nature of law, including questions about the relationship between law and morality. Topics to be discussed include the following: a) the foundations of legal authority, b) legal reasoning and argument, and c) the nature of persistent legal disputes (e.g., disputes about how to best interpret the US constitution). We will focus on contemporary work on these topics, including work by Scott Shapiro, Joseph Raz, Ronald Dworkin, David Enoch, Connie Rosati, and Mark Greenberg. Prerequisite: PHIL 80.
Last offered: Autumn 2016
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-ER
PHIL 176:
Political Philosophy: The Social Contract Tradition (PHIL 276, POLISCI 137A, POLISCI 337A)
(Graduate students register for 276.) Why and under what conditions do human beings need political institutions? What makes them legitimate or illegitimate? What is the nature, source, and extent of the obligation to obey the legitimate ones, and how should people alter or overthrow the others? Study of the answers given to such questions by major political theorists of the early modern period: Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Kant.
Last offered: Spring 2017
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-ER
PHIL 176A:
Classical Seminar: Origins of Political Thought (CLASSICS 181, CLASSICS 381, PHIL 276A, POLISCI 230A, POLISCI 330A)
(Formerly CLASSHIS 133/333.) Political philosophy in classical antiquity, focusing on canonical works of Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero. Historical background. Topics include: political obligation, citizenship, and leadership; origins and development of democracy; and law, civic strife, and constitutional change.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-ER
PHIL 180:
Metaphysics
This is an undergraduate only class. Intensive introduction to core topics in contemporary metaphysics. What is the fundamental structure of reality? Is it objective? How can there be truths about what is possible or necessary, if only the actual exists? Do we have free will? What is it for an event to be determined by its causes? Is the only thing that exists the current instance of time? Is the world purely physical? Does science answer all of these questions? Prerequisites: 1, 80 and background in logic.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
PHIL 181:
Philosophy of Language (PHIL 281)
The study of conceptual questions about language as a focus of contemporary philosophy for its inherent interest and because philosophers see questions about language as behind perennial questions in other areas of philosophy including epistemology, philosophy of science, metaphysics, and ethics. Key concepts and debates about the notions of meaning, truth, reference, and language use, with relations to psycholinguistics and formal semantics. Readings from philosophers such as Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, Grice, and Kripke. Prerequisites: 80 and background in logic.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
PHIL 184:
Epistemology (PHIL 284)
This is an advanced introduction to core topics in epistemology -- the philosophical study of human knowledge. Questions covered will include: What is knowledge? Can we know anything outside our own minds? Must all knowledge rest on secure foundations? Does knowing something require knowing that you know it? What are the connections between knowledge and rationality? Does 'knowledge' mean the same in the philosophy classroom as it does in everyday life? Prerequisite Phil 80 or consent of the instructor.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
PHIL 184C:
Epistemology of Testimony (PHIL 284C)
Many of our beliefs come from others, and not from direct experience. Is testimony a source of fundamental reasons¿reasons that do not have to be supported or validated by other sources like perception or inference? What sort of responsibility does one have to one¿s hearers, when one gives testimony?
Last offered: Winter 2012
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
PHIL 184F:
Feminist Theories of Knowledge (FEMST 166, PHIL 284F)
Feminist critique of traditional approaches in epistemology and alternative feminist approaches to such topics as reason and rationality, objectivity, experience, truth, the knowing subject, knowledge and values, knowledge and power.
Last offered: Spring 2007
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender
PHIL 184P:
Probability and Epistemology
Confirmation theory and various ways of trying to understand the concept of evidence. Discuss a series of issues in epistemology including probabilism (the view that you should assign degrees of belief to various propositions), conditionalization, confirmational holism, reliabilism and justification, and disagreement.
Last offered: Spring 2010
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
PHIL 185:
Theory of Understanding (PHIL 285)
This course will survey some of the ongoing work on understanding in philosophy and psychology. The questions considered will include: What exactly is understanding? How does understanding differ from knowledge of commonplace facts? What are the different forms understanding takes (e.g. scientific, social, historical, aesthetic, etc), and how are the different forms of understanding related? Is there such a thing as implicit understanding?
Last offered: Autumn 2016
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
PHIL 186:
Philosophy of Mind (PHIL 286)
(Graduate students register for 286.) This is an advanced introduction to core topics in the philosophy of mind. Prerequisite: PHIL 80
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
PHIL 187:
Philosophy of Action (PHIL 287)
(Graduate students register for 287.) Contemporary research in the philosophy of action. Topics include: What is it to be an agent? Is there a philosophically defensible contrast between being an agent and being a locus of causal forces to which one is subject? What is it to act purposively? What is intention? What is the relation between intention and belief? What is it to act intentionally? What is it to act for a reason? What is the relation between explaining why someone acted by citing the reasons for which she acted and causal explanation of her action? What is the relation between theoretical and practical rationality? What is the nature of our knowledge of our own intentional activity? What is it to act autonomously? What is shared cooperative activity? Prerequisite: 80.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
PHIL 194P:
Naming and Necessity
Saul Kripke's lectures on reference, modal metaphysics, and the mind/body problem.
Last offered: Spring 2010
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
POLISCI 103:
Justice (ETHICSOC 171, PHIL 171, POLISCI 336S, PUBLPOL 103C, PUBLPOL 307)
Focus is on the ideal of a just society, and the place of liberty and equality in it, in light of contemporary theories of justice and political controversies. Topics include financing schools and elections, regulating markets, discriminating against people with disabilities, and enforcing sexual morality. Counts as Writing in the Major for PoliSci majors.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-EthicReas, WAY-ER
POLISCI 124A:
The American West (AMSTUD 124A, ARTHIST 152, ENGLISH 124, HISTORY 151)
The American West is characterized by frontier mythology, vast distances, marked aridity, and unique political and economic characteristics. This course integrates several disciplinary perspectives into a comprehensive examination of Western North America: its history, physical geography, climate, literature, art, film, institutions, politics, demography, economy, and continuing policy challenges. Students examine themes fundamental to understanding the region: time, space, water, peoples, and boom and bust cycles.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
POLISCI 135P:
Moral Limits of the Market (ETHICSOC 174A, PHIL 174A, PHIL 274A)
Morally controversial uses of markets and market reasoning in areas such as organ sales, procreation, education, and child labor. Would a market for organ donation make saving lives more efficient; if it did, would it thereby be justified? Should a nation be permitted to buy the right to pollute? Readings include Walzer, Arrow, Rawls, Sen, Frey, Titmuss, and empirical cases.
Last offered: Winter 2013
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-EthicReas, WAY-A-II, WAY-ER
POLISCI 136R:
Introduction to Global Justice (ETHICSOC 136R, INTNLREL 136R, PHIL 76, POLISCI 336)
This course provides an overview of core ethical problems in international politics, with special emphasis on the question of what demands justice imposes on institutions and agents acting in a global context. The course is divided into three sections. The first investigates the content of global justice, and comprises of readings from contemporary political theorists and philosophers who write within the liberal contractualist, utilitarian, cosmopolitan, and nationalist traditions. The second part of the course looks at the obligations which global justice generates in relation to a series of real-world issues of international concern: global poverty, human rights, natural resources, climate change, migration, and the well-being of women.. The final section of the course asks whether a democratic international order is necessary for global justice to be realized.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-EthicReas, WAY-ER
POLISCI 137A:
Political Philosophy: The Social Contract Tradition (PHIL 176, PHIL 276, POLISCI 337A)
(Graduate students register for 276.) Why and under what conditions do human beings need political institutions? What makes them legitimate or illegitimate? What is the nature, source, and extent of the obligation to obey the legitimate ones, and how should people alter or overthrow the others? Study of the answers given to such questions by major political theorists of the early modern period: Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Kant.
Last offered: Spring 2017
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-ER
POLISCI 230A:
Classical Seminar: Origins of Political Thought (CLASSICS 181, CLASSICS 381, PHIL 176A, PHIL 276A, POLISCI 330A)
(Formerly CLASSHIS 133/333.) Political philosophy in classical antiquity, focusing on canonical works of Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero. Historical background. Topics include: political obligation, citizenship, and leadership; origins and development of democracy; and law, civic strife, and constitutional change.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-ER
PSYCH 29N:
Growing Up in America
Preference to freshmen. To what extent is it possible to describe an "American" experience? How are different people included in or excluded from the imagined community that is America? How do a person's race, class, gender and sexuality affect his or her experience of belonging to this country? These are just some of the questions we will consider as we familiarize ourselves with the great diversity of childhood and young adult experiences of people who have grown up in America. We will read and discuss narratives written by men and women, by urban, suburban, and rural Americans, and by Asian Americans, African Americans, Native Americans, Latina/os, and European Americans.
Last offered: Winter 2014
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
PUBLPOL 103C:
Justice (ETHICSOC 171, PHIL 171, POLISCI 103, POLISCI 336S, PUBLPOL 307)
Focus is on the ideal of a just society, and the place of liberty and equality in it, in light of contemporary theories of justice and political controversies. Topics include financing schools and elections, regulating markets, discriminating against people with disabilities, and enforcing sexual morality. Counts as Writing in the Major for PoliSci majors.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-EthicReas, WAY-ER
REES 145D:
Jewish American Literature (AMSTUD 145D, ENGLISH 145D, JEWISHST 155D)
From its inception, Jewish-American literature has taken as its subject as well as its context the idea of Jewishness itself. Jewish culture is a diasporic one, and for this reason the concept of Jewishness differs from country to country and across time. What stays remarkably similar, though, is Jewish self-perception and relatedly Jewish literary style. This is as true for the first-generation immigrant writers like Isaac Bashevis Singer and Anzia Yezierska who came to the United States from abroad as it is for their second-generation children born in the United States, and the children of those children. In this course, we will consider the difficulties of displacement for the emigrant generation and their efforts to sustain their cultural integrity in the multicultural American environment. We'll also examine the often comic revolt of their American-born children and grandchildren against their (grand-)parents nostalgia and failure to assimilate. Only by considering these transnational roots can one understand the particularity of the Jewish-American novel in relation to mainstream and minority American literatures. In investigating the link between American Jewish writers and their literary progenitors, we will draw largely but not exclusively from Russia and the countries of Eastern Europe.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
REES 185B:
Jews in the Contemporary World: Faith and Ethnicity, Vulnerability and Visibility (CSRE 185B, HISTORY 185B, HISTORY 385C, JEWISHST 185B)
(Same as HISTORY 85B.) This course explores the full expanse of Jewish life today and in the recent past. The inner workings of religious faith, the content of Jewish identify shorn of belief, the interplay between Jewish powerlessness and influence, the myth and reality of Jewish genius, the continued pertinence of antisemitism, the rhythms of Jewish economic life ¿ all these will be examined in weekly lectures, classroom discussion, and with the use of a widely diverse range of readings, films, and other material. Explored in depth will the ideas and practices of Zionism, the content of contemporary secularism and religious Orthodoxy, the impact Holocaust, the continued crisis facing Israel and the Palestinians. Who is to be considered Jewish, in any event, especially since so many of the best known (Spinoza, Freud, Marx) have had little if anything to do with Jewish life with their relationships to it indifferent, even hostile?
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
RELIGST 1:
Religion Around the Globe
This course surveys major religious traditions of the world. Through examination of a variety of materials, including scriptures and other spiritual writings, religious objects and artifacts, and modern documentary and film, we explore Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Daoism as rich historical and living traditions.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
RELIGST 2:
Is Stanford a Religion?
This course seeks to introduce students to the study of religion by posing a two-part question: What is a religion, and does Stanford qualify as one? Scientific, pragmatic, seemingly secular, Stanford may not seem at all similar to religions like Christianity, Judaism or Buddhism, but a deeper look reveals that it has many of the qualities of religion--origin stories, rituals and ceremonies, sacred spaces and times, visions of the future, even some spirits. By learning some of the theories and methods of the field of religious studies, students will gain a better understanding not just of Stanford culture but of what motivates people to be religious, the roles religion plays in people's lives, and the similarities and differences between religious and secular culture.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
RELIGST 11N:
The Meaning of Life: Philosophical, Aesthetic, and Religious Perspectives
Raise ultimate questions about life. Yes, the unexamined life is not worth living, but also the unlived life is not worth examining. Students and professor examine their own lives in the light of questions that the readings and lectures bring up: 1. The big picture: Is there such a thing as "the" meaning of life? 2. What is entailed in making personal-existential sense of one's own life? 3. What constitutes the good life, lived in society? 4. How can a university education bear upon the search for a meaningful life? 5. What "methods" for or approches to life can one learn from studies in the humanities? After introductory lectures, the seminar studies a series of artworks, poems, diverse texts, and a film, all of which bear on the questions mentioned above -- works such: 1. Plato's Allegory of the Cave, from "The Republic" 2. Manet's "A bar at the Folies Bergere" 3. A comparison/contrast of Monet's early (1862) "Still Life" and van Gogh's late (1889) "Irises" 4. Lyric poetry T.S. Eliot: "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," "The Waste Land," and "East Coker"; Edwin Muir: "The Heart Could Never Speak"; Philip Larkin: "Days" 5. Martin Heidegger's "What Is Metaphysics?" 6. Jean-Paul Sartre's novel "Nausea" 7. Marx's Paris Manuscripts of 1844 8. Bergman's "The Seventh Seal"
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
RELIGST 12N:
Perspectives on the Good Life
The question is how to approach and evaluate different perspectives on the good life, especially when those perspectives are beautifully, and elusively, presented to us as texts. We will consider both classic and modern writers, from the West and from China; some are explicitly religious, some explicitly secular; some literary, some philosophical. Most of the class will revolve around our talk with each other, interpreting and questioning relatively short texts. The works we will read - by Dante, Dickenson, Zhuangzi, Shklar, and others - are not intended to be representative of traditions, of eras, or of disciplines. They do, however, present a range of viewpoint and of style that will help frame and re-frame our views on the good life. They will illustrate and question the role that great texts can play in a modern 'art of living.' Perhaps most important, they will develop and reward the skills of careful reading, attentive listening, and thoughtful discussion. (Note: preparation and participation in discussion are the primary course requirement. Enrollment at 3 units requires a short final paper; a more substantial paper is required for the 4-unit option.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
RELIGST 13Q:
Mystical Journeys: Beyond Knowing and Reason
What makes a mystic a mystic? This question has many sides. Why do we call someone a mystic? Is there such a thing as mystical experience? Do experiences make a mystic? Do beliefs? Practices? Many religious traditions have records of visionaries whose lives and writings open windows on the more hidden and aspirational aspects of belief and practice. These writings also take many forms: poems, letters, teachings, and accounts of visions, which we will encounter in the course of the quarter. Readings for the course will cover a cross-section of texts taken from Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, and Native American sources.
Last offered: Winter 2015
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP, Writing 2
RELIGST 26:
The Bible and its Interpreters
Introduction to major stories, figures, and themes of the Christian Bible and their retellings in theological writing, art, literature, film, and music throughout the ages.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
RELIGST 31:
The Religious Life of Things
Temples, prayer beads, icons, robes, books, relics, candles and incense, scarves and hats, sacred food and holy water; objects of all sorts play a prominent role in all religions, evoking a wide range of emotional responses, from reverence, solace and even ecstasy, to fear, hostility and violence. What is it about these things that makes them so powerful? Is it beliefs and doctrines that inspire particular attitudes towards certain objects, or is it the other way around? Many see a tension or even contradiction between religion and material pursuits and argue that the true religious life is a life without things. But is such a life even possible? This course adopts a comparative approach, drawing on a variety of traditions to examine the place of images, food, clothing, ritual objects, architecture and relics in religious thought and practice. Materials for the course include scholarship, scripture, images and at least one museum visit.
Last offered: Winter 2017
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
RELIGST 36:
Philosophy of Religion (PHIL 77S)
(Formerly RELIGST 62S) Explores fundamental questions about the existence of God, free will and determinism, faith and reason, through traditional philosophical texts. Course is divided into four sections: first asks what is religion; second surveys the western philosophical tradition from Boethius through Descartes, Hume, Kant, and Kierkegaard regarding the foundation for theist beliefs; third investigates questions mystical experience raises through both western and Buddhist materials; and fourth takes up the ethics of belief, what we have a right to believe, through the Clifford and James debate and the opposing stances of Camus and Pascal.
Last offered: Autumn 2014
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
RELIGST 50:
Exploring Buddhism
From its beginnings to the 21st century. Principal teachings and practices, institutional and social forms, and artistic and iconographical expressions. (Formerly RELIGST 14.)
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-EDP
RELIGST 61:
Exploring Islam
This course introduces some of the most important features of the Islamic religious tradition. It explores the different ways in which Muslims have interpreted and practiced their religion. The main subjects of discussion --- including the life of the Prophet Muhammad, the Qur¿an, law, ritual, mysticism, theology, politics, and art --- will be considered with reference to their proper historical contexts. Some of the topics covered include abortion, gender, rebellion and violence, and the visual vocabulary of paintings. Students will be exposed to important theories and methods in the academic study of religion. No prior knowledge is required.
Last offered: Autumn 2015
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
RELIGST 71:
Jews and Christians: Conflict and Coexistence (JEWISHST 71)
The relationship between Judaism and Christianity has had a long a controversial history. Christianity originated as a dissident Jewish sect but eventually evolved into an independent religion, with only tenuous ties to its Jewish past and present. Since the Holocaust, Jews and Christians have begun the serious work of forging more meaningful relationships with each other. This course explores the most significant moments that have shaped the relationship between Judaism and Christianity and examines some of the theological complexities imbedded in these traditions, while searching constructive ways of situating oneself amidst such complexities.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
RELIGST 86:
Exploring the New Testament (CLASSICS 43, JEWISHST 86)
To explore the historical context of the earliest Christians, students will read most of the New Testament as well as many documents that didn't make the final cut. Non-Christian texts, Roman art, and surviving archeological remains will better situate Christianity within the ancient world. Students will read from the Dead Sea Scrolls, explore Gnostic gospels, hear of a five-year-old Jesus throwing divine temper tantrums while killing (and later resurrecting) his classmates, peruse an ancient marriage guide, and engage with recent scholarship in archeology, literary criticism, and history.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
RELIGST 114:
Yoga Ancient and Modern
Originating in ancient India, yoga went through many developments over more than 4000 years in India and other parts of Asia. Having migrated to Euro-America in the late nineteenth century, today yoga is everywhere--studios, schools, gyms, malls, resorts, ashrams, retreat centers. It comes in many flavors¿austere, with meditative instructors and Sanskrit chants; stylish, in 105-degree heat, with portable-miked instructors loudly motivating students to go through poses with speed and intensity; niche-crafted to meet the needs of busy professionals, pregnant women, senior citizens, or people with back problems. It may appear as a spiritual path or as a heavily marketed commodity. It generates lawsuits as teachers dispute ownership of certain styles, or as some Americans oppose its teaching yoga in public schools. In the first half of the course we will study the history of yoga in India, reading primary texts composed between about 500 BCE and 1600 CE. In the second half we will learn about yoga's globalization in the last century. Participating in a yoga class is recommended. 2 units of independent study (S-NC) are offered for those who participate in a weekly yoga class and write short reflections on the experience.
Last offered: Winter 2017
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
RELIGST 117:
Christianity in 21st-century America (AMSTUD 117R)
As the largest religion practiced in the United States, Christianity not only shapes the lives of a large number of its citizens but also impinges on public discourse, policies, and debates. This course investigates the ways in which Christianity in America is changing and what these changes bode for its role in the public and private spheres. Issues include shifting demographics lead to declining numbers in 'mainline' denominations; the polarization of Christian conservatives and religious 'nones'; interfaith toleration and cooperation alongside interreligious conflict; the rise of 'spiritual, not religious' young adults; the effects of immigration; religion and science.
Last offered: Spring 2017
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
RELIGST 119:
Religion, Violence, and Nonviolence
College courses and public events often address "religion and violence"--an important topic, but one-sided. We will study ways in which religious leaders, movements, and discourses have (1) promoted violent conflict, aggression, and oppression; and (2) contributed to nonviolence, peacebuilding, and liberation of the oppressed. An overarching theme will be a view of religions as fields of interpretation. No religion is essentially violent or peaceful; intricately connected to the world around them, religions become what they become through interpretation and action. Each week will have two meetings: one featuring an outstanding guest lecturer and one to discuss the lecture topic, with assigned readings and films. Topics under consideration include: Buddhism and Violence; Dorothy Day and Catholic Nonviolent Resistance to Nuclear Weapons; Just War and Jihad; The Contribution of Negro Spirituals to Liberation; The Quakers: Pacifist Convictions and Activism; Violence/Nonviolence in Jainism; The Role of Christian Faith in M.L. King's Political Work; Spirituality and Religious Peacebuilding. For lecture series with required attendance and written reflections for 2 units, take RELIGST 29.
Last offered: Winter 2016
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II, WAY-ER
RELIGST 126:
Protestant Reformation (HISTORY 126B)
The emergence of Protestant Christianity in 16th-century Europe. Analysis of writings by evangelical reformers (Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Sattler, Hubmeier, Müntzer) and study of reform movements (Lutheran, Reformed, Anabaptist, Spiritualist) in their medieval context and as expressions of new and influential visions of Christian belief, life, social order.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
RELIGST 132C:
How Jesus the Jew became God
Contemporary historical-critical methods in investigating how one might study Jewish and Christian texts of the 1st century CE. Social contexts including economic realities and elite ideological views. What can be known historically about 1st-century Judaism and Jesus' part it in it. How Jewish apocalyptic messianism shaped the birth of Christianity and its trajectory through the 1st century.
Last offered: Winter 2013
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
RELIGST 144:
John Calvin and Christian Faith
Close reading and analysis of Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion as a classic expression of Christian belief.
Last offered: Spring 2016
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
RELIGST 148:
From Jesus to Paul
Jesus considered himself God's definitive prophet, but he did not think he was God, and had no intention of founding a new religion. How did this Jewish prophet become the gentile God and the founder of Christianity? The role of Paul.
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
RELIGST 150:
The Lotus Sutra: Story of a Buddhist Book
The Lotus school of Mahayana, and its Indian sources, Chinese formulation, and Japanese developments.
Last offered: Spring 2013
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom
RELIGST 161:
Modern Religious Thought: From Galileo to Freud
The three centuries following the Protestant Reformation led to a gradual clarification of the notions of the religious and secular and gave rise to a new genre of religious thought, ideally freed from theology, church or synagogue-a secular philosophy of religion, or in some cases a religiously-imbued philosophy. We will examine some of the foundations of religious thought in modernity, including Galileo, Spinoza, Diderot, Kant, Hegel, Schleiermacher, Kierkegaard, Feuerbach, Marx, Nietzsche and Freud.
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
RELIGST 162X:
Spirituality and Nonviolent Urban and Social Transformation (CSRE 162A, URBANST 126)
A life of engagement in social transformation is often built on a foundation of spiritual and religious commitments. Case studies of nonviolent social change agents including Rosa Parks in the civil rights movement, César Chávez in the labor movement, and WIlliam Sloane Coffin in the peace movement; the religious and spiritual underpinnings of their commitments. Theory and principles of nonviolence. Films and readings. Service learning component includes placements in organizations engaged in social transformation. Service Learning Course (certified by Haas Center).
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
RELIGST 168:
Philosophy of Religion
Course traces efforts within the Western tradition from Boethius through Anselm, Aquinas, Descartes, Hume, Kant, and Kierkegaard to Camus to establish a rational foundation for theist belief and its consistency or coherence with everyday experience. We will deal extensively with the criticisms that that effort has cast up and then turn to investigate issues that extraordinary or mystical experience raises. We will incorporate a look at Buddhist traditions as well as those in the west to gain insight into these questions. And finally, we will look at the ethics of belief, at our responsibility toward our commitments, and some of the varying positions available to us.
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
RELIGST 176:
Religious Diversity: Theoretical and Practical Issues
What does it mean for a religion to be true? If one religion is true, what about the truth of other religious possibilities? How, and why, should religious traditions be compared? Readings address tolerance and pluralism, relativism, comparative theory, and new religious virtues.
Last offered: Winter 2009
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
RELIGST 179:
Doing the Sacred: Religion and Performance
This course investigates religion as practice and performance, rather than as belief and doctrine. A performance-centered emphasis helps us understand how domination and authority, as well as creativity and individual resistance, underlie culture. From initiatory rites to cyber sermons, human action offers raw, physical data that unveils the mechanisms of social control, ideology, and individual resistance. Reorienting religion from the perspective of religious acts / actors -- those who are doing something they consider sacred -- evokes many interpretive possibilities: How do these performances create and maintain communities? How do they resolve conflicts that arise within everyday affairs? In what ways do they generate meaning and shape identity? What can these enactments reveal about the constructions of power, gender, and race? This course explores such issues, probing the complicated relationship between human intention and social reality. Ultimately, a study of religion and performance seeks to understand how performance and transcendence interact to make participants into who they are.nnThe readings cover an array of religious traditions -- medieval and evangelical Christian, Hindu, Native American, Jewish, Buddhist, African and Haitian Vodou -- all of which present a rich repertoire of sacred drama, dance, and music. We will discuss performances that make modern readers uncomfortable, such as sacrifice and flagellation, and examine why they are meaningful within their specific cultural context. Finally, we will consider how secular practices and the internet mimic religious behavior. However divergent, all of these examples demonstrate how religious performance is no mere artifice, but a vehicle for the practitioner's own pious posturing -- one that is spiritually innovative and self-affirming -- yet shaped by hierarchical regimes.
Last offered: Spring 2015
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
RELIGST 185:
Prophetic Voices of Social Critique
Judges, Samuel, Amos, and Isaiah depict and question power, strong leaders who inevitably fail, the societal inequities and corruption inevitable in prosperity, and the interplay between prophet as representative of God and the human king. How these texts succeed in their scrutiny of human power and societal arrangements through attention to narrative artistry and poetic force, and condemnation of injustice. Includes service-learning component in conjunction with the Haas Center.
Last offered: Spring 2007
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
RELIGST 201A:
Gender in Classical Islamic Law (RELIGST 301A)
The course examines classical Islamic society and law. It covers historical development, the unity and diversity of Muslim legal traditions, and the relationship between laws and values. Constructions of gender in law are examined through rituals, marriage, divorce, birth control, child custody, and sexuality.
Last offered: Spring 2013
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
RELIGST 202A:
Monsters, Ghosts and Other Fantastic Beings: The Supernatural and the Mysterious in Japanese Culture
Examine the development of strange and fantastic creatures in Japan. Mysterious creatures in folklore, literature, art, manga and movies. Through them see how the concept of the strange or mysterious have evolved and how they inform Japanese modernity.
Last offered: Autumn 2011
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
RELIGST 208A:
Ex Oriente Lux: Orientalism and the Study of Religion (RELIGST 308A)
This seminar is designed to expose students to issues relating to discourse and subjectivity within the textual constructions of Oriental religions in the colonial era. We will begin with Edward W. Said¿s provocative work on notions of representation and power embedded in the discourse on the Orient that established, produced, and, ultimately, perpetuated western knowledge about the Other. We will then discuss the impact of the Oriental Renaissance and the vital role that Eastern wisdom played in constructing the field of Comparative Religious Studies. In addition, students will also read ethnographies, fables, and travelogues that both support and undermine Said¿s thesis of an active West constructing a largely passive East.
Last offered: Autumn 2015
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
RELIGST 209:
Priests, Prophets, and Kings: Religion and Society in Late Antique Iran (CLASSICS 147, CLASSICS 247, RELIGST 309)
This course is designed as a broad introduction to the religious and social history of the Sasanian Empire, encompassing the period from 224-651 CE as well as the early years of Islamic rule in Iran. Among the topics we will discuss are: the lives and deeds of the powerful Iranian emperors such as Shapur I and II in relation to the the Roman emperors Diocletian and Constantine; the transformation of Zoroastrianism into a powerful official religion of the state and its subsequent orthodoxy; the emergence of the prophet Mani and the confrontation of Manicheism with the Zoroastrian priesthood; the conversion of Constantine to Christianity and its political and social ramifications in Iran; the establishment of an independent Iranian Christian church; the importance of Armenia in the Sasanian- Roman conflict; and a brief discussion of the history of the Jewish community under the Sasanians. We will end the quarter by examining the Arab¿Islamic¿conquests of Iran and the profound social changes experienced by the Zoroastrian communities in the early centuries of Islam in Iran.
Last offered: Autumn 2015
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-SI
RELIGST 209A:
Sugar in the Milk: Modern Zoroastrianism as Race, Religion, and Ethnicity (RELIGST 309A)
Modern Zoroastrian experience¿as race, religion, and ethnic identity. Some 60,000 Zoroastrians now live in India and have resided there for a millennium. In the 19th century, these peoples from Persia¿Parsis¿became colonial elites yet were acutely aware that they were not quite Indian, British, or Persian. Diverse ways this experience of dislocation has served as a defining characteristic in Parsi communal identity and contrast these South Asian experiences with the minority socio-politics of those who remained in Iran. Survey the colonial and post-colonial communities in England, East Africa, Hong Kong, Australia, and North America and examine the expression of these global diasporic experiences in literature and the arts.
Last offered: Winter 2012
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
RELIGST 209D:
`Crow Eaters' & `Fire Worshippers': Exploring Contemporary Zoroastrianism Thru Reading Parsi Lit (RELIGST 309D)
In the past three decades Parsi fiction has rapidly emerged as a unique and creative voice in modern Anglophone literature from South Asia. From Bapsi Sidhwa to Thrity Umrigar to Rohinton Mistry, Parsi novelists address the most poignant concerns of Zoroastrians living in an era of rapid social, political, and religious transformation. The erosion of tradition; the breakdown of the Parsi family; the demise of religion among the young; and the cultural losses and gains of living in diaspora are common themes in their works. The unique vantage point of the Parsis; neither Hindu nor Muslim, neither quite Indian nor quite British; will serve as a lens for examining the inherent tensions in multicultural societies both East and West.
Last offered: Winter 2013
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
RELIGST 209E:
Imperishable Heroes and Unblemished Goddesses: Myth, Ritual, and Epic in Ancient Iran (CLASSICS 148, CLASSICS 248, RELIGST 309E)
Designed as a broad introduction to the world of ancient Iran, students will be introduced to the Indo-European inheritance in ancient Iranian culture; the shared world of ritual, religion, and mythology between Zoroastrianism in Iran and Vedic Hinduism in India; and to the contours of early Zoroastrian religious thought. We will also survey mythoepic literature in translation from the archaic Avesta through the late antique Zoroastrian Middle Persian corpus to the early medieval national epic of Iran, the Book of Kings of Ferdowsi.
Last offered: Spring 2016
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-SI
RELIGST 212:
Chuang Tzu
The Chuang Tzu (Zhuangzi) in its original setting and as understood by its spiritual progeny. Limited enrollment.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
RELIGST 221:
The Talmud (RELIGST 321)
Strategies of interpretation, debate, and law making. Historical contexts. Prerequisite: Hebrew.
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
RELIGST 224B:
Unveiling the Sacred: Explorations in Islamic Religious Imagination (RELIGST 324B)
Poetry and prose in translation as well as historical studies. Islamic movements invested in the idea that the sensory world has a hidden or esoteric counterpart that can be understood or experienced through following particular religious programs. Various forms of Shi'ism and Sufism, millenarian and apocalyptic movements, the Nation of Islam and its offshoots. Philosophical propositions, historical contexts, and the role of ritual in the construction of religious systems.
Last offered: Spring 2010
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
RELIGST 226A:
Judaism and Hellenism (RELIGST 326A)
interactions and conflicts between Jews and Greeks in the centuries following the conquests of Alexander the Great and the cultural/religious repercussions of their encounter. In what ways were Jews influenced by Greek culture? In what ways, and for what reasons, did they resist it? And how the interaction of these cultures shape the subsequent development of Judaism and Christianity? Jewish texts in the Greco-Roman period, including Jewish-Greek writers like Philo of Alexandria, the Apocrypha, the Dead Sea Scrolls, selected writings from the New Testament, and the Passover Haggadah.
Last offered: Winter 2010
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
RELIGST 229:
Winged Bulls and Sun Disks: Religion and Politics in the Persian Empire (CLASSICS 146, CLASSICS 246, RELIGST 329)
Stretching from India to Ethiopia, the Persian Empire the largest empire before Rome has been represented as the exemplar of oriental despotism and imperial arrogance, a looming presence and worthy foil for the West and Greek democracy. This course will provide a general introduction to the Persian Empire, beginning in the 6th century BCE to the fall of Persia to Alexander the Great in 331 BCE. We shall not only examine the originality of the first world empire of antiquity, but the course will also attempt to present a broad picture of the diverse cultural institutions and religious practices found within the empire. Readings in translation from the royal edicts and the inscriptions of Cyrus, Darius, and Xerxes will allow us to better appreciate the subtle ways in which these Persian kings used religion to justify and propagate the most ambitious imperial agenda the world had ever seen. In concluding the quarter, students will evaluate contemporary representations of Persia and the Persians in politics and popular culture in a wide array of media, such as the recent film 300 and the graphic novel on which it is based, in an attempt to better appreciate the enduring legacy of the Greco-Persian wars.
Last offered: Autumn 2016
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
RELIGST 230B:
Zen Studies (RELIGST 330B)
Readings in recent English-language scholarship on Chan and Zen Buddhism
Last offered: Spring 2011
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
RELIGST 235:
Religion in Modern Society: Secularization and the Sacred (RELIGST 335)
What is the status of religion in modern life? Is the modern world "secular" in some fundamental, irreversible way and what does this mean? This course will explore these questions through variety of readings from leading sociologists, philosophers, and anthropologists. Our goal will be to understand in what ways industrialization, political liberalization, the rise of technology, and the success of modern science have been used to support the "secularization" thesis that the modern West rendered religion a thing of the past. A central question to be asked will be: do assessments of the place of religion in modernity necessitate a philosophy of history i.e., a theory not only of historical change, but of the meaning of this change as well?n The course will begin by looking at the origins of the theory of secularization from its beginnings in Enlightenment attempts to understand the meaning of history. We will then turn to contemporary debates over the term "secular" against its counterpart, "religious", and the problems with their application to non-Western societies. We will read works by Talal Asad, Saba Mahmood, Max Weber, Charles Taylor, Jürgen Habermas, and Pope Benedict XVI.
Last offered: Spring 2014
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
RELIGST 238:
Christian Neo-Platonism, East and West (RELIGST 338)
Christianity's shift to neo-Platonic Greek philosophical categories and its significance for contemporary spirituality. Readings from Plotinus, Proclus, Greek fathers such as Pseudo-Dionysus, and from Ambrose and Augustine.
Last offered: Winter 2009
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
RELIGST 246:
Constructing Race and Religion in America (AFRICAAM 236, AMSTUD 246, CSRE 246, HISTORY 256G, HISTORY 356G, RELIGST 346)
This seminar focuses on the interrelationships between social constructions of race, and social interpretations of religion in America. How have assumptions about race shaped religious worldviews? How have religious beliefs shaped racial attitudes? How have ideas about religion and race contributed to notions of what it means to be "American"? We will look at primary and secondary sources, and at the historical development of ideas and practices over time.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
RELIGST 247B:
Readings in Chinese Religious Texts: The Lingbao Scriptures (RELIGST 347B)
A survey of the original Lingbao scriptures. Composed in the late-4th / early 5th century, these texts radically revised Daoist practice, incorporated elements of Buddhist thought and practice, and created liturgies that are still used in Daoist communities today. (Reading knowledge of Literary Chinese ¿¿ required).
Last offered: Autumn 2010
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
RELIGST 248A:
Chinese Buddhism Beyond the Great Wall (RELIGST 348A)
The thought, practice, and cultural resonance of the sorts of originally Chinese Buddhism that flourished to the north and northwest of China proper during the two to three centuries following the fall of the Tang - i.e., under the Khitan Liao (907-1125) and the Tangut Xixia (1032-1227) dynasties - with special emphasis on the later fortunes of the Huayan, Chan, and Mijiao (Esoteric) traditions. Prerequisite: reading knowledge of Chinese.
Last offered: Spring 2010
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
RELIGST 251:
Readings in Indian Buddhist Texts (RELIGST 351)
(Graduate students register for 351.) Introduction to Buddhist literature through reading original texts in Sanskrit. Prerequisite: Sanskrit. Undergraduates register for 200-level for 5 units. Graduate students register for 300-level for 3-5 units.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
| Repeatable
5 times
(up to 25 units total)
RELIGST 252:
Hearts and Diamonds: The Lives of Buddhist Sacred Texts
An exploration of two key Mahayana Buddhist scriptures (the Heart & Diamond Sutras) and their histories, looking at what they say and how they have been used, from the first millennium to the present day.
Last offered: Autumn 2012
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
RELIGST 258:
Japanese Buddhist Texts (RELIGST 358)
Readings in medieval Japanese Buddhist materials. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: background in Japanese or Chinese.
Last offered: Winter 2013
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
| Repeatable
for credit
RELIGST 263:
Judaism and the Body
Representations and discourses of the body in Jewish culture; theories of body and ritual. Case studies of circumcision, menstrual impurity, and intersexuality. Readings include classical texts in Jewish tradition and current discussions of these textual traditions.
Last offered: Autumn 2006
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender
RELIGST 278:
Heidegger: Confronting the Ultimate (RELIGST 378)
Heidegger's work on meaning, the self, and the sacred. Texts include Being and Time, courses and opuscula up to 1933, the Letter on Humanism, and Contributions of Philosophy.
Last offered: Winter 2010
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
RELIGST 279A:
Heidegger on human being and God (RELIGST 379A)
This lecture-seminar first raises the question of essential characteristics of human being, such as temporality, mortality, hermeneutics and the relation to meaning, and then, via readings from Karl Rahner, asks whether human being is open to a possible relation to a supernatural divinity.
Last offered: Spring 2012
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
RELIGST 283A:
Heidegger, Hölderlin, and the Gods (RELIGST 383A)
The radical transformations in Western notions of God between the death of Hegel and the birth of historical materialism, arguing that questions about theism and atheism, humanism, and history formulated in the period 1831-50 are still pertinent. Texts from Hegel, the young Hegelians, Feuerbach, and Marx on issues of God, history, and the social dimensions of human nature.
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
RELIGST 290:
Majors Seminar
Required of all majors and combined majors. The study of religion reflects upon itself. Representative modern and contemporary attempts to "theorize," and thereby understand, the phenomena of religion in anthropology, psychology, sociology, cultural studies, and philosophy. WIM.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
SLAVIC 77Q:
Russia's Weird Classic: Nikolai Gogol
Preference to sophomores. An investigation of the works and life of Nikolai Gogol, the most eccentric of Russian authors and the founder of what is dubbed Fantastic Realism. Our investigation will be based on close reading of works written in various genres and created in various stages of Gogol's literary career. Taught in English.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
SLAVIC 146:
The Great Russian Novel: Tolstoy and Dostoevsky (SLAVIC 346)
Connections of philosophy and science to literary form in War and Peace, Brothers Karamazov, Chekhov stories: alternative shapes of time, perception, significant action. Taught in English. Note: To be eligible for WAYS/WIM credit, you must take SLAVIC 146 for a minimum of 3 Units and a Letter Grade.
Terms: Win
| Units: 1-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II
SLAVIC 156:
Vladimir Nabokov: Displacement and the Liberated Eye (COMPLIT 115, COMPLIT 315, SLAVIC 356)
How did the triumphant author of "the great American novel" <em>Lolita</em> evolve from the young author writing at white heat for the tiny sad Russian emigration in Berlin? We will read his short stories and the novels <em>The Luzhin Defense, Invitation to a Beheading, Lolita, Lolita</em> the film, and <em>Pale Fire</em>, to see how Nabokov generated his sinister-playful forms as a buoyant answer to the "hypermodern" visual and film culture of pre-WWII Berlin, and then to America's all-pervading postwar "normalcy" in his pathological comic masterpieces <em>Lolita</em> and <em>Pale Fire</em>. Buy texts in translation at the Bookstore; Slavic grad students will supplement with reading and extra sessions in original Russian.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 1-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
SLAVIC 181:
Philosophy and Literature (CLASSICS 42, COMPLIT 181, ENGLISH 81, FRENCH 181, GERMAN 181, ITALIAN 181, PHIL 81)
Required gateway course for Philosophical and Literary Thought; crosslisted in departments sponsoring the Philosophy and Literature track. Majors should register in their home department; non-majors may register in any sponsoring department. Introduction to major problems at the intersection of philosophy and literature, with particular focus on the question of value: what, if anything, does engagement with literary works do for our lives? Issues include aesthetic self-fashioning, the paradox of tragedy, the paradox of caring, the truth-value of fiction, metaphor, authorship, irony, make-believe, expression, edification, clarification, and training. Readings are drawn from literature and film, philosophical theories of art, and stylistically interesting works of philosophy. Authors may include Sophocles, Chaucer, Dickinson, Proust, Woolf, Borges, Beckett, Kundera, Charlie Kaufman; Barthes, Foucault, Nussbaum, Walton, Nehamas; Plato, Montaigne, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Sartre. Taught in English.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
SLAVIC 195:
Russian and East European Theater (SLAVIC 395)
Evolution of modernist Russian/Eur. dramaturgy, theatrical practices, landmark productions from Chekhov-Meyerhold-Grotowski to present; re-performance of classics; techniques of embodiment. Taught in English.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 1-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
SLAVIC 198:
Writing Between Languages: The Case of Eastern European Jewish Literature (JEWISHST 148, JEWISHST 348, SLAVIC 398)
Eastern European Jews spoke and read Hebrew, Yiddish, and their co-territorial languages (Russian, Polish, etc.). In the modern period they developed secular literatures in all of them, and their writing reflected their own multilinguality and evolving language ideologies. We focus on major literary and sociolinguistic texts. Reading and discussion in English; students should have some reading knowledge of at least one relevant language as well. ***This course must be taken for a minimum of 3 units and a letter grade to be eligible for Ways credit***
Terms: Spr
| Units: 1-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
SLE 91:
Structured Liberal Education
Focusing on great works of philosophy, religion, literature, painting, and film drawn largely from the Western tradition, the SLE curriculum places particular emphasis on artists and intellectuals who brought new ways of thinking and new ways of creating into the world, often overthrowing prior traditions in the process. These are the works that redefined beauty, challenged the authority of conventional wisdom, raised questions of continuing importance to us today, and - for good or ill - created the world we still live in. Texts may include: Homer, Sappho, Greek tragedy, Plato, Aristotle, Zhuangzi, Confucius, the Heart Sutra, Hebrew Bible, New Testament, and the Aeneid.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 8
| UG Reqs: College, GER:DB-Hum, GER:IHUM-1, THINK, WAY-A-II, Writing SLE
SLE 92:
Structured Liberal Education
Focusing on great works of philosophy, religion, literature, painting, and film drawn largely from the Western tradition, the SLE curriculum places particular emphasis on artists and intellectuals who brought new ways of thinking and new ways of creating into the world, often overthrowing prior traditions in the process. These are the works that redefined beauty, challenged the authority of conventional wisdom, raised questions of continuing importance to us today, and - for good or ill - created the world we still live in. Texts may include: Augustine, the Qur'an, Dante, Rumi, Machiavelli, Montaigne, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Las Casas, Descartes, Locke, Mill, Schleiermacher, and Flaubert.
Terms: Win
| Units: 8
| UG Reqs: College, GER:DB-Hum, GER:IHUM-2, THINK, WAY-A-II, WAY-ER, Writing SLE
SLE 93:
Structured Liberal Education
Focusing on great works of philosophy, religion, literature, painting, and film drawn largely from the Western tradition, the SLE curriculum places particular emphasis on artists and intellectuals who brought new ways of thinking and new ways of creating into the world, often overthrowing prior traditions in the process. These are the works that redefined beauty, challenged the authority of conventional wisdom, raised questions of continuing importance to us today, and - for good or ill - created the world we still live in. Texts may include: Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Du Bois, Eliot, Woolf, Kafka, Brecht, Vertov, Beauvoir, Sartre, Fanon, Gandhi, and Morrison.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 8
| UG Reqs: College, GER:DB-Hum, GER:IHUM-3, THINK, WAY-EDP, Writing 2, Writing SLE
SPANLIT 102N:
Contemporary Latin American Theater
Representative playwrights and theater troupes of Spanish speaking Latin America and the Caribbean, emphasizing the 60s and 70s. Topics: representation and politics; theatrical language and poetics; avant gardes and performance; teatro comprometido; psychodrama; influence of Brecht, Artaud, and the Theater of the Absurd. Plays by Emilio Carballido, Sabina Berman, Virgilio Piñera, Jose Triana, René Marqués, Luis Rafael Sánchez, La Candelaria, Yuyachkani, Osvaldo Dragún, Griselda Gambaro, Eduardo Pavlovsky, Egon Wolff.
Last offered: Autumn 2008
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
SPANLIT 105N:
Don Quixote
Preference to freshmen. Topics include: theories of language and the novel; history of early modern Iberia; Muslims in Europe. Close reading technique. Sources include filmed version.
Last offered: Autumn 2008
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
SPANLIT 106N:
Contemporary Latin American Novel in Translation
Preference to freshmen. Representative Latin American novelists who attained international readership after the literary boom. Critical readings and theoretical debates. Topics include: latinoamericanidad, reactions to magical realism, crime and the city, politics of translation, economies of prestige, revisions of dictatorship, relations with contemporary art, representations of class and gender, globalization. Works by Piglia, Vallejo, Aira, Bellatin, Melo, and Bolaño. Film adaptations by Piñeyro and Schroeder.
Last offered: Spring 2009
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
TAPS 1:
Introduction to Theater and Performance Studies
TAPS 1 provides you with a solid foundation in Theater Studies and traces the development of the burgeoning field of Performance Studies. We will consider a range of canonical plays and emerging performance forms, and explore how performance can also function as an interpretive framework for analyzing a broad range of social behaviors, sites, and institutions. Through a series of close readings, discussions, written and practical exercises, and viewings of live performance, this course will help you achieve a richer understanding of the performances you see and the performances you may wish to make. This quarter, TAPS 1 will serve as the platform for the Theater & Performance Studies professionalization series. We will host several guest speakers (directors, actors, playwrights, and dance practitioners), who will give you some real connections in the theater world and will provide you with information and skills to help you build a career in the arts.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
TAPS 11N:
Dramatic Tensions: Theater and the Marketplace
Preference to freshmen. The current state of the American theater and its artists. Conventional wisdom says that theater is a dying art, and a lost cause, especially in an age of multi-media entertainment. But there are more young playwrights, actors, and directors entering the field today than at any other time in American history. Focus is on the work of today's theater artists, with an emphasis on an emerging generation of playwrights. Students read a cross-section of plays from writers currently working in the US and UK, covering a spectrum of subjects and styles from serious to comic, from the musical to the straight play. Hits and misses from recent seasons of the New York and London stages and some of the differences of artistic taste across the Atlantic. Hands-on exploration of the arts and skills necessary to make a play succeed. Students develop their own areas of interest, in guided projects in design, direction or performance. Conversations with playwrights, designers ,and directors. Labs and master classes to solve problems posed in areas of creative production. Class meets literary managers and producers who are on the frontlines of underwriting new talent. Class trips include two plays at major Bay Area Stages.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
TAPS 12N:
To Die For: Antigone and Political Dissent (CLASSICS 17N)
(Formerly CLASSGEN 6N.) Preference to freshmen. Tensions inherent in the democracy of ancient Athens; how the character of Antigone emerges in later drama, film, and political thought as a figure of resistance against illegitimate authority; and her relevance to contemporary struggles for women's and workers' rights and national liberation. Readings and screenings include versions of Antigone by Sophocles, Anouilh, Brecht, Fugard/Kani/Ntshona, Paulin, Glowacki, Gurney, and von Trotta.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-EDP, WAY-ER
TAPS 160:
Performance and History: Rethinking the Ballerina (DANCE 160, FEMGEN 160, TAPS 260)
The ballerina occupies a unique place in popular imagination as an object of over-determined femininity as well as an emblem of extreme physical accomplishment for the female dancer. This seminar is designed as an investigation into histories of the ballerina as an iconographic symbol and cultural reference point for challenges to political and gender ideals. Through readings, videos, discussions and viewings of live performances this class investigates pivotal works, artists and eras in the global histories of ballet from its origins as a symbol of patronage and power in the 15th century through to its radical experiments as a site of cultural obedience and disobedience in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Last offered: Winter 2017
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
TAPS 164H:
Performance and Gender (FEMST 164, FEMST 364, TAPS 364H)
The intersectionality of race, sex, gender, and class in the formation of gendered performance. Readings from the work of Judith Butler, Eve Sedgwick, David Savran, Judith Halberstam, and David Eng. Case studies include: M. Butterfly, The Crying Game, Paris is Burning, Angels in America, and American Idol..
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender
TAPS 167:
Introduction to Greek Tragedy: Gods, Heroes, Fate, and Justice (CLASSICS 112)
(Formerly CLASSGEN 110.) Gods and heroes, fate and free choice, gender conflict, the justice or injustice of the universe: these are just some of the fundamental human issues that we will explore in about ten of the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
TAPS 177:
Dramatic Writing: The Fundamentals (CSRE 177, FEMGEN 177, TAPS 277)
Course introduces students to the basic elements of playwriting and creative experimentation for the stage. Topics include: character development, conflict and plot construction, staging and setting, and play structure. Script analysis of works by contemporary playwrights may include: Marsha Norman, Patrick Shanley, August Wilson, Suzan-Lori Parks, Paula Vogel, Octavio Solis and others. Table readings of one-act length work required by quarter's end.
Last offered: Autumn 2016
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-CE
TAPS 180Q:
Noam Chomsky: The Drama of Resistance
Preference to sophomores. Chomsky's ideas and work which challenge the political and economic paradigms governing the U.S. Topics include his model for linguistics; cold war U.S. involvements in S.E. Asia, the Middle East, Central and S. America, the Caribbean, and Indonesia and E. Timor; the media, terrorism, ideology, and culture; student and popular movements; and the role of resistance.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-ER, WAY-SI
TAPS 248:
Family Drama: American Plays about Families (ENGLISH 148)
Focus on great dramas about family life (Albee, Kushner, Shephard, Vogel, Kron, Nottage, Parks). Communication in writing and speaking about conflict central to learning in this class.
Last offered: Autumn 2013
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
UGXFER GER3A1:
GER 3A SUBSTITUTION (1ST)
| Units: 0-99
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
| Repeatable
for credit
UGXFER GER3A2:
GER 3A SUBSTITUTION (2ND)
| Units: 0
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
| Repeatable
for credit
URBANST 126:
Spirituality and Nonviolent Urban and Social Transformation (CSRE 162A, RELIGST 162X)
A life of engagement in social transformation is often built on a foundation of spiritual and religious commitments. Case studies of nonviolent social change agents including Rosa Parks in the civil rights movement, César Chávez in the labor movement, and WIlliam Sloane Coffin in the peace movement; the religious and spiritual underpinnings of their commitments. Theory and principles of nonviolence. Films and readings. Service learning component includes placements in organizations engaged in social transformation. Service Learning Course (certified by Haas Center).
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
