Fall 2023 Class Schedule
Course | Title | Instructor | Lecture | Discussion |
---|---|---|---|---|
HUM 325-4-20 | Refugees/Migration/Exile: A Workshop in Digital Storytelling | J. Michelle Molina | W 2:00 - 4:30 pm | |
HUM 325-4-20 Refugees/Migration/Exile: A Workshop in Digital StorytellingIn this course, students will research a case study from among the many refugee and migration crises that have dominated the news cycle in recent years. The final project is a short video about your case study. To develop your research projects, the class foregrounds different methodological approaches: 1) To move beyond journalism, we will conduct primary and secondary historical research to understand the complex historical roots of each case study. 2) We will analyze and practice forms of ethnographic writing to better situate and describe the lived experiences of migration and exile, both past and present. 3) We will pay attention to various forms of media, whether print culture, sound, or visual media, to interrogate but also experiment with contemporary modes of narrating and conveying human experience in the digital age. Our work in class will be collaborative, thus a key prerequisite is that you are mature and self-motivated. You do not need to have prior research experience, but you need to demonstrate a desire to dig into your topic and hone your ability to write deeply informed, rigorous, and nuanced arguments and to think about creative ways to bring rigorous historical and ethnographic detail to visual storytelling. | ||||
Bio coming soon | ||||
HUM 370-3-20 | Race/Gender/Sex and Science | Steven Epstein | TTh 9:30 - 10:50 am | |
HUM 370-3-20 Race/Gender/Sex and Science | ||||
Bio coming soon | ||||
HUM 395-0-22 | Constructing Identity in the Ancient Mediterranean World | Ann Gunter | TTh 9:30 - 10:50 am | |
HUM 395-0-22 Constructing Identity in the Ancient Mediterranean WorldHow did individuals define themselves in the ancient Mediterranean world, and how did they express their affiliation with multiple and diverse ethnic, religious, linguistic, and other collective social identities? How did groups portray perceived differences between themselves and others? What do we know of the construction of gender identities, race, age, and class distinctions? What dynamic roles did dress, hairstyle, body decoration or ornament, and personal possessions play in establishing and expressing individual and collective identities? This course explores evidence for self- and group-fashioning in Greece, Rome, and their neighbors in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Persia. We examine a wide range of textual and material sources, including works of art, archaeological contexts such as burials and religious institutions, biographies, autobiographies, and legal documents, including dowries. We also consider culturally significant modes of self-representation and commemoration, such as portraits and funerary monuments, along with the collecting and transfer of objects that represented accumulated social entanglements, such as heirlooms. | ||||
Bio coming soon | ||||
HUM 395-0-24 | Beauty, Imitation, and Sympathy: The Moral Significance of Art in 18th Century British Thought | Rachel Zuckert | TTh 12:30 - 1:50 pm | |
HUM 395-0-24 Beauty, Imitation, and Sympathy: The Moral Significance of Art in 18th Century British ThoughtEighteenth-century Britain saw an explosion of interest in aesthetics: many thinkers leapt to investigate beauty and sublimity, imitation and emotion in art, artistic creativity, and so forth. A major reason for this interest was the cynical account of human nature, morals and politics promoted by Thomas Hobbes and Bernard de Mandeville: that human beings are solely motivated by self-interest, and that morals and politics are merely tools of social control, aimed to limit and redirect self-promoting human impulses. Many thinkers argued in response that human attractions to beauty and art were powerful counterexamples to that portrayal of human nature, showing that human beings can love objects and others for their own sakes, and in a way that calls them to social harmony, perhaps through eliciting sympathetic responsiveness. In this course, we will read and talk about central texts and issues in this discussion, moving from Mandeville’s Fable of the Bees to several major responses to his cynical challenge in the British aesthetics tradition: Shaftesbury’s high-minded view of beauty as rational order eliciting disinterested pleasure; Hutcheson’s theory of humor as cognitive and morally corrective (not mockery or ridicule); Kames’ view of art, including tragedy, as arousing sympathetic emotional responses; and Adam Smith’s and Sophie de Grouchy’s views of art, morality, and politics as grounded in sympathetic imagination. In addition to discussing their claims concerning the importance of art for understanding human nature and morality, we will discuss questions such as: does appreciation of art and beauty require education, or contribute to moral and political education, or both? How does representational art (“imitation”) arouse sympathetic emotion or understanding of diverse others? How is taste (for beauty or art) influenced by wealth, social class, or national identity? | ||||
Bio coming soon |