Humanities (HUMN-SHU)

This course is an introduction to Science and Technology Studies (STS), an interdisciplinary field treating science and technology as socially embedded enterprises. We will examine how social, political, cultural, and material conditions shape scientific and technological activity and how science and technology, in turn, shape society. You will become familiar with the basic concepts and methods developed by STS scholars in history, sociology, and anthropology and explore how the scope of the field has expanded to include a variety of empirical case studies, theoretical arguments, and scholarly debates. The kinds of questions we will explore include: What counts as scientific knowledge? How is it produced? How do scientists establish credibility? Can there be a scientific study of scientific inquiry? To what extent are science and technology shaped by historical context? Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: CORE STS; Humanities Foundations/Introductory course.

Human Geography is a field of study that takes into account the ways that social, cultural, economic, political and environmental dynamics shape our understandings of space, place, territory, borders and landscapes, as well as how geography influences social, cultural, economic, political and environmental dynamics in human societies. It conceives of geography not merely in geomorphic terms, but analyzes instead how geographies are always embedded within lived human experience and how humans engage, interact, and transform their geographies. This course will offer an introduction to the methods and theories that have shaped the field of Human Geography, both classics and cutting-edge scholarship. It will also provide students with background in basic research tools and techniques used by geographers. Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: Humanities Foundational course, Social Sciences Core

In this course we explore some of the major religious traditions in Asia. The course comprises three parts. In Week 1, we introduce the course and take a hard look at the contested category of religion(s). During the core twelve weeks we explore major religious traditions in South Asia (4 weeks), China (6 weeks), and Japan (2 weeks). For each of the major religious traditions, we pursue a threefold approach: (a) documents, (b) lived religion, and (c) theories and methods. (a) Documents includes a wide range of historical and current religious voices (classical foundational texts, ritual prayers, interviews, hagiography, pamphlets for children, doctrinal tracts…). In class the instructor will situate the readings in their historical and cultural context and provide an in-depth analysis of their ideas as well as break down the hard bits. Participation and in-class discussion of our readings, films, interaction with our guest-speakers, and visit to religious sites will be essential components of the course. Prerequisite: GPS Fulfillment: Humanities Advanced course (18-19: Topics).

Phone in hand, questions loom in our head: is digital technology destroying memory, communication, and interpersonal relationships? Will our kids read and write cursive? Is print media disappearing? The notion of writing as a technology seems far removed from our fast-paced, digital world; but it was not so long ago that writing constituted a technological advance that permeated Western societies. This course examines key moments in writing’s history in order to understand its role in shaping the literary subject. We trace the shift from oral to written traditions in romance and courtly literature, then turn to the printing press, copyright and intellectual property, and conclude by examining how our relationship to writing in the past can inform our relationship to digital media in the present. Throughout the semester, students engage in an experiential learning project where they create a hero/ine whose story evolves from oral tradition, to written romance, to social media subject. Pre-requisite: None Fulfillment: Humanities Introductory/Advanced course (18-19: Digital Approaches).

Algorithms determine much of everyday life. But what do these algorithmic transformations mean for our society, and how do these transformations play out in different societies, each with their unique technological constellations? This class satisfies the Algorithmic Thinking requirement by examining how algorithmic logics impact daily life and social institutions in a variety of cultural contexts. We begin with a basic introduction into the fundamental underlying logics and structures of algorithms and code before examining, using cultural theories about discrimination, fairness, embodiment, etc., to explore the social implications of algorithms. No prior programming knowledge required. Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: Core AT; Humanities new major Introductory course/old major: Digital Approaches or Topic course.

Considers the trajectory of changes in the production, circulation, and reception of Korean popular music from the turn of the twentieth century to the latest K-pop hits across successive political, social, and economic junctures, with regard for major themes such as nationalism, race, gender, technology, and globalization; and investigates music culture in relation to hybridity, authenticity, transculturation, cyber-culture, and fandom, among other subjects Prereq: None Fulfillment: Humanities Introductory Course (18-19 Topic Courses).

This course examines how ideas of gender and sexuality have shaped the production and consumption of visual culture from the late nineteenth century. We will examine a variety of visual and material texts that shape, criticize, and/or negotiate with contemporaneous gender and sexual norms. Focusing on these expressions’ cultural and historical specificities, the students will assess gender and sexuality—and as an extension, the notions of normality, healthfulness, and self—as ideas that continuously evolve in response to social discourses. The course proceeds roughly chronologically. It starts with the nineteenth-century Euro-American context, in which modern ideas of gender and sexuality began to circulate authoritatively in medical and legal terms. It then moves onto more globalized contemporary perspectives that critique and/or expand the pronouncedly “Western” conceptions of identity and identity categories. Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: Humanities Introductory course.

The last decades of the 20th century witnessed great changes in East Asian media culture. To understand these changes and the impact that they have made on global media culture, this course introduces students to cross-border popular media currents and exchanges that have occurred throughout East Asia as well as the technological transitions that have facilitated them. This course will examine key regional trends and trans-Asian engagements in media production and distribution systems with a particular focus on the analysis of film, TV dramas, amine, webtoons, digital games, advertisements, and popular music. Prerequisite: Writing as Inquiry

Climate change is a global environmental challenge, but what does “global environment” mean and how has history shaped our understanding of this term? This introduction to global environmental history explores how the material environment shapes and has been shaped by human actions. It investigates the circulation of people, commodities, and ideas through (neo)imperial networks and considers the political, economic, and social forces that have shaped our contemporary shared understanding of the non-human world. This course also challenges students to recognize who is excluded from this process of making a global environment and what is lost from such exclusions. Throughout the course, students will read and analyze primary and secondary sources and present a group project that explores connections between humans and the environment at a global scale. Prerequisite: None.

This course provides an introduction to the development of gender in Islam as it relates to women’s migration and movement across regions. We will analyze fiction narratives, poetry and plays that thematize the experiences of Muslim women as migrants. The migrant condition of women lends deeper insights into historical conditions such as imperialism, globalization, connected with themes like religion and religious beliefs. Pre-requisite: GPS or lower-level Humanities Course Fulfillment: Humanities Introductory Course (18-19 Topic Courses).

[Topics in Humanities: French Cinema: The Birth of the Seventh Art] In 1895, when Auguste and Louis Lumière held their first private film screening in Paris, they could not have foreseen the pervasive role that cinema would one day play in our homes and our hearts. This introduction to French cinema traces the seventh art from its inception to the present day, focusing on pioneers of French cinema, surrealist film, the influential New Wave movement, and contemporary filmmakers. In addition to the films that you will watch in and out of class, you will explore a variety of theoretical approaches to cinema and develop skills in film analysis through readings and class discussions. Films will be screened in French with English subtitles. Coursework will include several short writing assignments and film analysis projects. [Topics in Humanities: American History Makers You Probably Never Heard of] In this course we will explore the significance of ordinary and underappreciated individuals in major movements, developments, and events in United States and Chinese history. The assigned readings focus upon American, Chinese, and Chinese American individuals, moving back and forth across the Pacific and beyond. At the end of the course you will have completed a 1300-word (minimum) research essay, or an essay that synthesizes and reflects upon several of the assigned readings and explains the strengths and weaknesses of the texts and identifies opportunities for new scholarship. Along the way you will also present an analysis to your classmates of two primary sources that you will use in your essay, and provide constructive criticism on your fellow students’ Draft essays. When we think of people who “make” history, we usually think about the high and the mighty, important political officials or intellectuals, prominent military or diplomatic leaders. But when we look at the past, the great changes that take place are often made possible by men and women who are not rich and famous, who don’t occupy places of power – who in fact come from humble roots, from minority populations, who struggle for influence, and who were vital to helping create the world that elites envisioned, or fought for another vision entirely, or helped reshape the globe by merely pursuing their own self-interest. This course will explore some of these history makers, few of whom you’ve probably ever heard of, from the eighteenth century to the twentieth century. Each day we will focus on one or more history makers. We will read about them, read their texts, and learn about the role they played in history as well as the legacies they may leave for us. The history of the individual in the US, and of Americans in China, and of Chinese in America, will hopefully look different by the end of the semester. In this course you will critically analyze both primary and secondary sources of biographical writing and social history. You will study the genres, purposes of biographies, and how we should understand them. We will explore themes of national identity, race, diplomacy, gender, slavery, and sexuality, and you will explore how these concepts and approaches have been articulated differently by historical actors and historians writing for different purposes and audiences. Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: French Cinema: Humanities Introductory course. History Makers: Humanities Introductory course.

This course will serve as an introduction to literary approaches to the Bible. Using religious and critical approaches to the Bible as a backdrop, this course will explore what can be gained from focusing instead on what makes the Bible a great work of literature. Through close reading of biblical texts such as Genesis, Leviticus, Samuel, Esther, the Gospels, and poetic texts we will examine how a variety of modern literary theories can be used to explain the richness of the biblical text as a work of literature rather than a historical, religious, or sacred text. Some of the methodologies and topics that will be explored are Mythology, Formalism/Structuralism, Gender and Sexuality, Translation, and Law as Literature. Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: Humanities Introductory course (18-19: topic).

Study of major themes in European intellectual history from the end of the Enlightenment to the last decades of the 19th century, considered in the light of the social and political contexts in which they arose and the cultural backgrounds that helped shape them. Topics include romanticism, liberal and radical social theory, aestheticism, the late 19th-century crisis of values, and the rise of modern social science. Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: Humanities Advanced course (18-19: topic).

This course uses the geographic framework of the “Pacific Rim” to understand the historic connections between Asia and North America during the long 20th century. Traditionally, Asian history and U.S./ North American history have been treated as distinct areas of studies. While there is good reason for distinguishing these fields from one another, there are equally good reasons for looking at the intersection of them. Most importantly, history does not unfold within neat geographic boundaries. People, commerce, ideas, culture have all crisscrossed these geographic borders. To fully understand transnational history, then, we historians must also be willing to abandon tradition. This course examines the emerging historiography on the linkages between Asia and North America. We will pay particular attention to the movement of labor and capital, and to a lesser extent the exchange of ideas and culture. This emphasis on labor and capital reflects my own bias as a historian, and I welcome debate on how we think about the historical forces creating transpacific connections. The secondary themes are changes in identity and citizenship, reconfiguration of family, and the rise of transnational social networks, which are the result of labor and capital circulations. Prerequisites: None Fulfillment: Humanities 18-19 topic.

This course explores global economic history from the second industrial revolution and colonial economies of the late nineteenth century to the multipolar globalization of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. It will trace the rise and relative decline of different national economies, especially the United States, and chart how technology, trade, investment, and politics created different economic connections. Topics will include different forms of production, changing cultures of consumption, shifting labor forces, economic crises, and the economic theories such as Keynesianism, neoliberalism, communism, and modernization, which have shaped economies across the long twentieth century. Jeffrey Frieden’s Global Capitalism: Its Fall and Rise in the Twentieth Century will be the basic text for the course. Additional articles and book chapters will supplement this book. Excepts from documentaries and feature films on such themes as microcredit, mass consumption and deindustrialization/reindustrialization will be shown. Students will write two six page papers and have a final exam. In addition, they will be asked to track one country and its changing place and fortunes/misfortunes in the global economy and submit brief reports on that throughout the term. Students will choose a smaller country rather than one of the major global players about whom we will read more extensively. Those reports will be 1-2 pages each and will be submitted every third week of the semester, for a total of 4 reports and a total of 6-8 pages of writing. The final exam will be a mixture of short identifications and two essay questions. A list of 5 essay questions will be given out in advance and on the day of the exam, Professor Nolan will choose the questions on which students will write. Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: Humanities 18-19 topic.

This course introduces students to the basic concepts and methods in film studies by focusing on a select number of eminent auteurs in Asian cinemas. Our objectives are many: first, we situate within their particular socio-historical contexts the masterworks by master-directors like Akira Kurosawa, Yasujiro Ozu, Zhang Yimou, John Woo, Wong Kar-wai, Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Mani Ratnam, and Deepa Mehta. In doing so, we learn the divergent developments between and within Japanese, Chinese, and South Asian film industries. We then analyze how these directors make various stylistic choices to address issues of kinship, nation, gender, historical memory, modernity, and globalization. Against the background of 20th century cross-cultural encounters, we also study the contributions of these auteurs to world cinemas and the cross-fertilization in style between these film masters. Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: CORE HPC; GCS Chinese Media, Arts, and Literature; Humanities Introductory course.

Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: Humanities 18-19 topic.

Contemporary art can seem perplexing, yet when viewed as a progression of ideas and aesthetic strategies that respond to societal shifts, a certain logic emerges. This course traces movements in North American and European art from 1945 to the present through a study of primary and secondary texts, artwork examples, and socio-historic context. In lectures, discussions, and activities, we will investigate how artists went beyond primarily object-based works to explore expanded notions of what art can be and the interaction between the artwork and the viewer. At the end of this course, students should be able to identify contemporary art movements, key artists, and relevant artworks and create compelling arguments around these works. Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: Humanities Introductory course (18-19: survey); IMA/IMB elective.

This course is a comparative study of the way a group of Black and Asian artists engaged with white western racism. As an advanced interdisciplinary seminar, this course is on the one hand intellectual, examining the historical subjugation of Black and Asian peoples to white peoples, and on the other hand practical, offering examples and exercises for artistic negotiation, resistance, and rebellion against racial hierarchies. Prereq: None. Fulfillment: Humanities Interdisciplinary/Advanced Courses (18-19 Topic Courses).

This course invites students to think about some of the most carefully controlled but also fervently sought-after questions since the time of Plato: what is the difference between gender and sex? What is the relationship between our gendered bodies, behaviors, and identities? How does sex, something we do, translate to the discourse of sexuality, something we talk about? What is the measurement of normality? If art indeed imitates and even changes life, in what ways do images of gender performance in literary and visual culture also reproduce and perhaps reshape our own experiences as gendered and sexed beings in a society? What can gender and sexuality tell us about the construction of culture, its boundaries, and its “outlaws”? Through the reading of philosophical, literary, historical, medical, and visual texts, and through discussions of case studies in mass media, we learn to see gender and sexuality as an evolving historical phenomenon rather than essentialist notions. We ask how the development of human interest in sexuality coincides with the burgeoning of governing techniques in modern times to police and promote sex simultaneously—as desirable and useful on the one hand, but also forbidden and harmful on the other. Lastly, as humanists, we ask how the boundary of our body (that is, our inside and outside in the most literal sense) is marked less by our blood cells, skin pores, or molecules than by our use of lan­­guage. Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: Humanities Interdisciplinary/Advanced Courses (18-19 Critical Concepts/Topic Courses).

Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: Humanities 18-19 survey.

· This course may fulfill the “Chinese Arts” requirement under the rubric of Cultural Foundations. · This course may also be taken as a version of the course “Ethnic Diversity in China,” which is a Global China Studies elective. This course introduces students to the various theories, practices, and representations of multiculturalism in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore from the 20th century onwards. Setting focus on how ethnicity (minzu) and race (zhongzu) emerge as a historically grounded and changing public discourse, we engage in a comparative examination of multiculturalism as an incomplete ideal. Within and across each of these multiethnic, or multiracial, societies where Han Chinese constitute the majority, we ask how nation-building processes bear on the transformation of minority culture, and vice versa. Toward the end of the course, we also probe the growing impact of domestic and transnational labor migration on the so-called ethnic mosaic. Our goal is not only to understand diversity as a social reality; in asking how such a reality finds voice in various artistic forms including short story, novel, documentary and fiction film, we also train students to do the rigorous work of literary and cultural criticism. Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: Humanities 18-19 topic.

Throughout history, few people lived for very long in a polity that consisted entirely or even mainly of people with whom they shared a language and culture. Any examination of the variety of human cultures must take account of the political structures within which people tried to make their way, sometimes seeking higher degrees of autonomy, sometimes accommodating to rulers' authority, sometimes trying to extend their own power over others. Empires–polities which maintained and enhanced social and cultural distinction even as they incorporated different people–have been one of the most common and durable forms of political association. This course will focus on the comparative study of empires from ancient Rome and China to the present, and upon the variety of ways in which empires have inspired and constrained their subjects' ideas of rights, belonging, and power. The study of empire expands our ideas of citizenship and challenges the notion that the nation-state is natural and necessary. Students in this course will explore historians' approaches to studying empires. We will investigate how empires were held together–and where they were weak– from perspectives that focus on political, cultural, and economic connections over long distances and long time periods. Readings will include historical scholarship on the Roman,Chinese, Mongol, Ottoman, Habsburg, Russian, French, British, German, and American empires, as well as primary sources produced by people living in these and other imperial polities. Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: Humanities 18-19 topic.

Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: Japan's Empire in Asia: Humanities Advanced course, 18-19: Topic. China and Global Feminism: Humanities 18-19 Critical Concepts.

Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: Humanities Introductory Courses (18-19 Digital Approaches Core Course/ Topic Courses).

This course explores political, economic, and cultural transformations on the Korean peninsula from late colonial times to the contemporary situation of two Korean nation-states. We will study Korea’s colonization, national division, the Korean War, competition between North and South during the Cold War and beyond in transnational historical contexts. We will pay close attention to ideological, socioeconomic, and cultural differences as well as similarities between both Koreas. We will further consider the ways in which these historical changes have affected the lived experiences of their peoples. For this, we will utilize various sources including short stories, documentaries, films, pamphlets, posters, and YouTube clips, in addition to readings. Most audiovisual sources and literary texts are in English, and no previous knowledge of Korean is required. Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: Humanities 18-19 topic.

An examination of major philosophical ideas and texts in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, from the scientific revolution to the beginning of German Idealism, including works by Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant. Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: Humanities Introductory course(18-19: topic).

This course explores the relationship between performance in media, film, theater, and art with modes of action in everyday life. How are genres of media distinguished from and modeled on everyday expressive practice? For instance, how do performance genres make use of voice, register, staging, imagery, and props that draw on or replicate social worlds outside the performance context? How are participation roles defined, distinguishing audiences from performers? How do performances come to be regarded as texts, and how do texts organize performances? Readings will draw on classic and contemporary work in semiotics, performance theory, and linguistic anthropology, analyzing media and art forms from around the world. Students will engage with the theoretical concepts and analytical models encountered in class by applying them to media forms, performances, or artworks of their own choosing. Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: Humanities 18-19 topic.

This course provides an introduction to the history and culture of Shanghai through the eyes of fiction writers. We will read short stories (in English translation) by Chinese, British, American, Japanese, French, Polish, and South African writers who lived in the city between 1910 and 2010. Their stories will take us on an imaginary city tour through time and space: from businessmen, politicians, and prostitutes gathering in the nightclubs of the old Bund, to Jewish refugees struggling to find a home in the poor shikumen neighborhoods of Hongkou, to teachers and students fighting political battles at the university campuses during the Cultural Revolution, and young urban youth pursuing cosmopolitan lifestyles in the global city of today. The course also includes trips to various places featured in the stories and guest lectures by some of Shanghai’s most famous writers today. Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: CORE HPC or IPC; GCS Chinese Media, Arts, and Literature; Humanities Major Interdisciplinary Course/Other Introductory Courses/ Other Advanced Courses.

Fall Semester - Part I: Students design and conduct an independent research project in their area of focus using the theories and methods with which they have become familiar over the course of completing the major. Prerequisite: Open only to Humanities majors in the senior year. Fulfillment: Humanities Major Capstone.

Students design and conduct an independent research project in their area of focus using the theories and methods with which they have become familiar over the course of completing the major. Prerequisite: Open only to Humanities majors in the senior year. Fulfillment: Humanities Major Capstone.

Students complete an independent research project in their area of focus using the theories and methods with which they have become familiar over the course of completing the major. Prerequisite: Humanities majors in the senior year. Fulfillment: Humanities Major Capstone.

This seminar introduces major honors candidates to research methods in the Humanities as preparation for the Honors Independent Study in the spring semester of the senior year. By the end of the course, students will have produced a well-formulated research question, methodological design, and bibliography, and will have identified a faculty supervisor for the spring semester independent study. Prerequisite: Open only to seniors who have been admitted to honors candidacy in the Humanities(department consent). Fulfillment: Humanities Major Capstone.

Candidates for major honors conduct independent research under the supervision of a faculty member in the Humanities. Open only to seniors who have been admitted to honors candidacy in Humanities. Prerequisite: HUMN-SHU 410, Humanities Capstone Honors Seminar.

Students are permitted to work on an individual basis under the supervision of a full-time faculty member in the Humanities discipline if they have maintained an overall GPA of 3.0 and have a study proposal that is approved by a Humanities professor. Students are expected to spend about ten to twelve hours a week on their project for 4 credits. Fulfillment: Humanities Major Topic Course (18-19).

Students are permitted to work on an individual basis under the supervision of a full-time faculty member in the Humanities discipline if they have maintained an overall GPA of 3.0 and have a study proposal that is approved by a Humanities professor. Students are expected to spend about ten to twelve hours a week on their project for 4 credits. Fulfillment: general elective.