Archaeology and nationalism have been closely intertwined at least since the idea of the nation-state emerged in Europe following the French Revolution. Archaeology offers nationalist agendas the possibility of filling in national historical records and extending the past far into prehistory. Its results can be displayed in museums, occupy entire sites, and be readily accessible online—thus potentially reaching many new audiences beyond traditional print media. In turn, nationalism has contributed significantly to the development of archaeology as a modern discipline that emerged largely within colonial contexts deeply embedded in imperial motivations and problematic theories around race. More recently, the growth and influence of global heritage and institutions such as UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre have reshaped the political and cultural landscape of archaeological sites conceptualized as loci of national identity and pride, while introducing new tensions around equitable access to its resources and the often contradictory political and economic benefits of increased tourism.
Drawing on new critical approaches and case studies selected from a wide geographical range, this course explores the role of archaeology in the creation and elaboration of national identities from the late eighteenth century to the present day. It emphasizes the identification of historical and archaeological sources and their critical evaluation. Issues include the professionalization of archaeology and its institutionalization in universities and antiquities services; the development of national museums and associated practices of display and interpretation; the creation and maintenance of archaeological sites as national monuments and tourist destinations; cultural property legislation and controversies over the repatriation of artifacts, often those removed during the era of colonial rule; and the special role of archaeology and monuments in cultural politics under totalitarian regimes.
In modern political discourse, “anti-Semitism” is frequently invoked and infrequently defined. The imprecision with which the term is deployed leads to broad disagreements about the nature and scope of the phenomenon: Is it anti-Semitic to call a Jewish person a pig? To advocate for boycotts against the State of Israel? To work to criminalize infant circumcision, or kosher slaughter? To accuse George Soros of bankrolling BLM protests, or of conspiring to “steal” the presidential election? What kinds of critiques of Jews or of Judaism are fair game, and which cross the line into hate speech, or foment violence? More broadly, is anti-Semitism a form of racism? Of xenophobia? Of anti-religious animus, akin to Islamophobia? Is it a conspiracy theory? Does anti-Semitism assume that Jews constitute a religion? A nationality? An ethnicity? A “race”?
One reason these questions are so hotly contested is because they are usually discussed ahistorically, in isolation from the extensive academic scholarship on the origins and development of anti-Semitism—both the actual phenomenon and the descriptive term itself. This course traces the historical trajectory of anti-Jewish rhetoric, violence, and discrimination from antiquity through the present. We will pay particular attention to the analytical concepts that historians have developed and deployed—including, but not limited to anti-Semitism, antisemitism, anti-Judaism, and Judeophobia. Rather than seeking to isolate an overarching definition of what is and is not anti-Semitic, we will explore the specific contexts in which anti-Jewish animus and violence developed, and the constantly evolving role “Jews” (as individuals and as a category) have played at key historical junctures.
HUM 370-6-20 Sinophobia, Yellow Peril, and Other Fantasies of China as Threat
China has long been an object of fascination and anxiety in the Euro-American imagination. In recent decades, a politicized and racialized discourse of a “rising” China has constructed that nation as an existential threat to America’s global hegemony. As a figure of possibility rather than probability, threat refers not to what is likely to happen but to what could conceivably happen. Threat, like risk, requires acts of the imagination, speculative fictions designed not simply to create fear but to inspire action. This course offers both a critical history of those speculative and often sensational visions of a threatening China (in literature, film, visual culture, and other media) as well as an introduction to key theoretical texts that allow us to better understand how China has been constructed as an object of imagination from the19th century to the present day. Rather than simply centering on “Western” imaginaries, however, this course stages a broad dialogue between global visions of China and expressions of cultural, environmental, and political threat from within the Sinophone world. It asks how shared anxieties manifest in competing discourses of threat within and outside of China. The seminar will likely be organized around four units: “Orientations and Keywords,” which provides our theoretical grounding; “Labor, Body, Race,” which traces how laboring Chinese bodies have been mobilized in expressions of racial anxiety; “Border Problems,” which looks at the geopolitics of threat within the greater Pacific region; and “Viral Imaginaries and Animal Entanglements,” which examines the long history and painful present of China’s association with zoonotic diseases, from the Bubonic Plague to SARS- CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
This course is designed around creative responses to climate change and other environmental crises in recent literary, cinematic, and artistic works from different sites around the world. We will pay close attention to how familiar aesthetic forms and the critical methods used to understand them are (or are not) changing in the face of overlapping existential environmental crises. Are there specific genres or media best suited to addressing climate change and helping to inspire political action? What are the effects of identifying or writing within a “new” literary genre such as “climate fiction”? Can we speak of similar modes in other media—is there such a thing as “climate cinema” or “climate art”? And if there is, how do these categories shape both the art that gets made and how we understand it?
