* HUMS 0125a / ENGL 0831a / FILM 0100a, Love and Death in American Film  Moeko Fujii

How do we detect when love begins—or when it ends? This course explores film noir—perhaps the most “American” of film genres—where love is rarely safe and often fatal. Rather than celebrating the formation of the American couple, noir constructs triangles that unsettle the couple form. These complications challenge the ideal of romantic love and open the door to difference and uncertainty—an ambiguity that carries its own kind of erotic charge. Like the detectives who move through these dark worlds, we follow shifting figures such as the stranger, the femme fatale, the double, and the alien. We look at how race, gender, class, and sexuality intersect with drive and desire—who or what draws us toward finding love—and how these forces help shape ideas of both “the American” and American film itself. We study key works from classic Hollywood film alongside neo-noirs from New Hollywood and contemporary cinema that inherit and transform noir’s obsessions. Students develop skills in close film analysis and acquire a theoretical toolkit for thinking critically about cinema and desire. Enrollment limited to first-year students.  HU
T 1:30pm-3:25pm, M 7pm-10pm

* HUMS 0204a / ITAL 0030a, Six Global Perspectives on Knights  Alessandro Giammei

What do Batman (the Dark Knight) and Orlando (Charlemagne’s wise paladin) have in common? What is the thread that connects the Jedi knights of Star Wars and those that sat around king Arthur’s round table? How did medieval history and Renaissance poetry inform the expanded universes of superhero movies and fantasy literature, along with the inexhaustible fan-fiction that further extends and queers them? Chivalry, as a code of conduct and a network of symbols, inspired some of the most entertaining stories of the so-called Western canon, blurring the divide between high and popular culture. It offered storytellers (and nerds) of all ages a set of norms to question, bend, and break—especially in terms of gender. It challenged the very format of books, re-defining for good concepts like literary irony, seriality, and inter-mediality. This seminar proposes six pretty good trans-historical archetipes of fictional knights, combining iconic figures such as Marvel’s Iron Man and Italo Calvino’s Agilulfo, Ludovico Ariosto’s Bradamante and Game of Thrones’ Brienne of Tarth, Don Quixote and the Mandalorian. By analyzing together their oaths, weapons, armors, and destinies we aim to develop reading and writing skills to tackle any text, from epic and scholarship to TV-shows and comic-books. Enrollment limited to first-year students. Students enroll concurrently with HUMS 0299, Six Global Perspectives Lab.  WR, HU  0 Course cr
TTh 4pm-5:15pm

* HUMS 0245a / NELC 0090a, Six Global Perspectives on Evil: Murder, Law, and True Crime in History  Victoria Almansa-Villatoro

Harem conspiracies, kings’ assassinations, self-defense killings, witch hunts, and serial murderers. The history of murder, violence, and criminal investigation is as old as humankind. Yet, crime is not always considered evil, nor is evil always associated with crime. In this course, we discuss how the way evil was perceived and crime was punished has changed throughout history. From mythical accounts of murders, to real records of trials of humans, animals, and even objects accused of homicide or witchcraft, we analyze how aspects of social status or gender played a role in shaping punishment across Eastern and Western civilizations. We compare codified-law civilizations to those in which custom, social pressure, and community ethics determined correct behavior. Four historical cold cases with accompanying evidence are presented for in-class debate, and… perhaps students may be able to help solve an old mystery! At the end of the semester, we recreate historical trials using the same crime, evidence, and participants, but following the law and procedures of each one of the historical settings covered in this course. Will the verdict and sentence be any different? Friday sessions alternate between writing workshops and field trips to Yale collections.  Enrollment limited to first-year students. Students enroll concurrently with HUMS 0299, Six Global Perspectives Lab.  WR, HU  RP
TTh 11:35am-12:50pm

HUMS 0299a, Six Global Perspectives Lab  Alessandro Giammei

This is the Friday lab section for all courses in the "Six Global Perspectives" program. All students enrolling in a "Six Global Perspectives" seminar must concurrently enroll in this lab course. To provide students with a solid baseline for writing in humanities courses at Yale and to introduce Yale's extensive resources, lab sessions are divided between writing workshops and visits to Yale's museum and library collections. The course reserves three hours to facilitate collections visits, but students only attend lab for 1.5 hours per week. Enrollment limited to first-year students. Students enroll concurrently with the relevant Six Global Perspectives seminar.  ½ Course cr
F 1pm-4pm

* HUMS 0360a / HIST 0623a / JDST 0035a / RLST 0035a, Jerusalem: Judaism, Christianity, Islam  Sarit Kattan Gribetz

The Old City of Jerusalem is just 0.35 square miles large, about half the size of Yale’s campus. Have you ever wondered what makes this tiny city so beloved to—and the object of continual strife for—Jews, Christians, and Muslims? Through engagement with a wide range of sources—including biblical lamentations, archeological excavations, qur’anic passages, exegetical materials, medieval pilgrim itineraries, legal documents, maps, poetry, art, architecture, and international political resolutions—students develop the historiographical tools and theoretical frameworks to study the history of one of the world’s most enduringly important and bitterly contested cities.  Students encounter persistent themes central to the identity of Jerusalem: geography and topography; exile, diaspora, and return; destruction and trauma; religious violence and war; practices of pilgrimage; social diversity; missionizing; the rise of nationalism; peace efforts; the ethics of storytelling; and the stakes of studying the past. Enrollment limited to first-year students.   HU  RP
MW 2:35pm-3:50pm

* HUMS 0650a / EDST 0165a / EDST 065, Education and the Life Worth Living  Matthew Croasmun

Consideration of education and what it has to do with real life—not just any life, but a life worth living. Engagement with three visions of different traditions of imagining the good life and of imagining education: Confucianism, Christianity, and Modernism. Students will be asked to challenge the fundamental question of the good life and to put that question at the heart of their college education. Enrollment limited to first-year students.   HU
MW 9am-10:15am

HUMS 1150a / CPLT 1001a / DEVN 1150a / EDST 1116a / ENGL 2100a, Purposes of College Education  Staff

College is a crucial institution in which our society works through its expectations for young people. The first half of this course explores some of the purposes that have been ascribed to college, including development of personal character, participation in a community, preparation for citizenship, and conversation with others on intellectual matters. The second half touches on the social and economic contexts of college education, including the history of the curriculum, the role of social class, the cost of higher education, and career preparation. We read Plato's Republic, a key text for the philosophy of education, in its entirety. Other readings from Aristotle, Confucius, Bhagavad-Gita, Virginia Woolf, Martin Luther King, Max Weber. Lectures are designed for interactive conversation.  Preference for first-year and sophomore students, but all students are welcome.  HU  0 Course cr
HTBA

HUMS 1210b / ANTH 1200b / NELC 1200b, Unequal: Dynamics of Power and Social Hierarchy in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia  Gojko Barjamovic

The course "Unequal" examines the historical roots of intolerance, slavery, and imperialism, emphasizing how our perceptions of history shape contemporary beliefs and policies. It challenges the notion that inequality is an inevitable outcome of societal complexity, positing that historical narratives often frame progress and freedom while obscuring themes of inequality. By investigating early human history, the course aims to unpack the concepts of identity, possession, value, freedom, and power, exploring their impact on modern society. Rather than focusing on specific literature or chronological period, "Unequal" centers around critical questions about human culture. The course employs innovative experimental lab assignments, allowing students to engage with the past creatively, such as cooking ancient recipes, brewing beer, and creating virtual museum exhibits. This interdisciplinary approach encourages a deeper understanding of the historical context that informs present-day issues, inviting students to rethink common narratives and assumptions about equality and progress. Ultimately, the course aims to foster critical thinking about the interplay between history and contemporary society.  HU, SO  0 Course cr
TTh 11:35am-12:50pm

* HUMS 1270a / CPLT 1680a / ENGL 1029a / TDPS 1005a, Tragedy in the European Literary Tradition  Ruth Yeazell

The genre of tragedy from its origins in ancient Greece and Rome through the European Renaissance to the present day. Themes of justice, religion, free will, family, gender, race, and dramaturgy. Works might include Aristotle's Poetics or Homer's Iliad and plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Seneca, Hrotsvitha, Shakespeare, Lope de Vega, Calderon, Racine, Büchner, Ibsen, Strindberg, Chekhov, Wedekind, Synge, Lorca, Brecht, Beckett, Soyinka, Tarell Alvin McCraney, and Lynn Nottage. Focus on textual analysis and on developing the craft of persuasive argument through writing. Formerly ENGL 129.  WR, HU
MW 1:05pm-2:20pm

* HUMS 1280a / CPLT 2000a / NELC 1280a, From Gilgamesh to Persepolis: Introduction to Near Eastern Literatures  Kathryn Slanski

This course is an introduction to Near Eastern civilization through its rich and diverse literary cultures. We read and discuss ancient works, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh, Genesis, and “The Song of Songs,” medieval works, such as A Thousand and One Nights, selections from the Qur’an, and Shah-nama: The Book of Kings, and modern works of Israeli, Turkish, and Iranian novelists and Palestianian poets. Students complement classroom studies with visits to the Yale Babylonian Collection and the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, as well as with film screenings and guest speakers. Students also learn fundamentals of Near Eastern writing systems, and consider questions of tradition, transmission, and translation. All readings are in translation. Permission from the instructor required.  WR, HU
TTh 1:05pm-2:20pm

* HUMS 1300a / CPLT 1300a, Fundamentals of Comparison  Samuel Hodgkin and Jing Tsu

An introduction to the conceptual modes and frameworks for comparative study in the humanities as well as the interdisciplinary and cross-cultural traditions of comparative literature. We investigate how and why cultures come into contact and why we might want to engage in acts of comparison. Topics covered are historical and theoretical in scope involving questions about: historical connections; influence and reception; morphology (similarities, resemblances); circulation and networks; colonialism and its consequences; identity and diaspora; aesthetics; humanisms. Anchored in case studies that help to understand the core challenges of our discipline, we explore the relation of literary study to anthropology, linguistics, religious studies, history, and cognitive science. Texts include: Leo Africanus’s Description of Africa with Natalie Zemon Davis’s Trickster Travels; Goethe's West-östlicher Divan, its source texts and imitations; Shakespeare’s Hamlet alongside Bharadwaj’s Haider and Bohannan's “Shakespeare in the Bush"; Fenollosa, Pound and modernism’s fascination with Chinese poetry; Lu Xun’s engagement with Gogol; Césaire, Glissant and the struggle over créolité; early modern and postcolonial visions of humanism.  HU
MW 11:35am-12:50pm

* HUMS 1390a / MUSI 1137a, Western Philosophy in Four Operas 1600-1900  Gary Tomlinson

This course intensively study\ies four operas central to the western repertory, spanning the years from the early 17th to the late 19th century: Monteverdi's Orfeo, Mozart's Don Giovanni, Wagner's Die Walküre (from The Ring of the Nibelungs), and Verdi's Simon Boccanegra. The course explores the expression in these works of philosophical stances of their times on the human subject and human society, bringing to bear writings contemporary to them as well as from more recent times. Readings include works of Ficino, Descartes, Rousseau, Wollstonecraft, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Douglass, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, and Adorno. We discover that the expression of changing philosophical stances can be found not only in dramatic themes and the words sung, but in the changing natures of the musical styles deployed.  HU
MW 2:35pm-3:50pm

HUMS 1400b / NELC 1210b, The Hero in the Ancient Near East  Kathryn Slanski

This course is an introduction to of ancient Near Eastern civilization through the prism of its heroes, figures at the intersection of literature, religion, history, and art. While our principle focus is on heroes from ancient Mesopotamia and the Hebrew Bible, students will also have opportunities to compare contemporary heroes to the ANE hero, and to consider if the ANE hero has a modern legacy.  WR, HU  0 Course cr
MW 11:35am-12:50pm

* HUMS 1480a / CPLT 4150a / NELC 3260a, The Quran and its Interpreters  Shawkat Toorawa

We spend the first third of the course reading the Quran, studying its written compilation and redaction; its narrative structure; its rhetorical strategies; its major themes; its connections to and departures from other Scripture; translation and the problems associated with it. In the next two thirds we engage with the rich tradition of commentary, exegesis, and interpretation it has occasioned—legal, literary, theological, and visual, from classical readings and materials all the way up to the modern period and present day. We also look at the ways the Quran has been interpreted in different media, notably the visual arts. We pay special attention to certain surahs (chapters), including The Heifer (2, Baqarah), Joseph (12, Yusuf), The Cave (18, Kahf), Ya Sin (36), and several prominent short surahs. Topics include the Devil; Jesus and Mary; Moses and the Children of Israel; the nature of the Divine; the status of women and men; the impact of the Qur’an on political and religious thought; and its influence of the Qur’an on literature.   HU
TTh 11:35am-12:50pm

HUMS 1501a / CPLT 1501a / FILM 1501a, Introduction to Film Studies  Staff

A survey of film studies concentrating on theory, analysis, and criticism. Students learn the critical and technical vocabulary of the subject and study important films in weekly screenings. Prerequisite for the major.  WR, HU  0 Course cr
HTBA

HUMS 1650b / AMST 2200b / SOCY 2300b / WGSS 2200b, Topics in Human Sexuality  Joseph Fischel

In 1970, Yale professors and sexuality scholars Lorna and Philip Sarrel introduced what came to be their wildly popular lecture, “Topics in Human Sexuality.” The course, offered at the height of the sexual revolution and shortly after Yale University admitted women undergraduates, was multipurpose: to teach students about pressing, contemporary social problems around sex, gender, and sexuality; to help students learn about their bodies, sexualities, and relationships; to direct students to resources and information about their sexual and reproductive health; and to advance the mission of a liberal arts education, namely, the cultivation of well-rounded, critically engaged, curious, participatory young citizens. This iteration of the course is inspired by the Sarrels’ ambitions, even if we are unlikely to realize them in full. The course is offered in the spirit of a critical sexuality education, critical as in 1) theory- rather than practicum-driven, but nonetheless 2) urgent. As political movements that endanger transgender children, suppress sexual expression, and rescind reproductive rights gain traction, the course offers candid, careful focus on: abortion, sexual education, queer and trans kids, pornography, university sexual politics, hooking up, and breaking up.  Along the way, we watch a season of Netlfix’s “Sex Education” together. The class (nonexclusively) focuses on social and political problems in the contemporary United States, and examines those problems by drawing upon scholarship in Gender & Sexuality Studies, American Studies, Sociology, Psychology, and Public Law.  HU, SO  0 Course cr
TTh 10:30am-11:20am

* HUMS 1750a / RUSS 1750a, Reading the Russian Revolution  Constantine Muravnik

The course explores the complex political and social landscape of the Russian Revolution of 1917 through the multiple and shifting perspectives of its main participants from Nicholas II to Lenin. All of the participants of the Revolution understood the immense significance of the changes taking place in front of them in 1917; many took detailed notes of conversations, actions, and events in which they participated or which they witnessed. Later, many reworked these notes into meticulous memoirs and histories. The expected subjectivity of these documents, as well as the contradictory nature of the opinions expressed in them—but generally, not the facts—highlight the complexity of the situation they describe. The readings chosen for the course represent the entire political spectrum of the Russian Revolution from the extreme right to extreme left. They chronologically document the precipitous progression of the events starting with the murder of Rasputin, carried out by the Monarchists and one member of the royal family on the eve of 1917, and ending with the Bolshevik coup d’état in October 1917. They trace the gradual shift of the epicenter of the Revolution from right to left until the Revolution ends or succeeds (it depends on the point of view) in Lenin’s gaining full control over the country on the brink of the Civil War. Prerequisites: Six semesters of Russian or permission of the instructor.  L5, HU  RP
MW 4pm-5:15pm

HUMS 1800a / CPLT 1830a / ITAL 1310a, Dante in Translation  Heather Webb

This course offers an intensive dive into Dante’s Inferno in its English translation over the course of one semester. We will examine the poetry, the history, the philosophy, and the theology of this epic that has had such a profound influence on global literary and critical thought. In addition to our work with the text and its medieval contexts, we will emphasize how the poem is intertwined with visual imagery, both in its conception and its reception. Through close attention to Dante’s poetics and ethics, we will examine his conception of human personhood and the constitutive political structures of human society. This is a lecture course with discussion sections in English and (optionally) in Italian. No knowledge of Italian is required for this course.  HU  0 Course cr
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* HUMS 1810b / EALL 2050b / EAST 3204b / EVST 2205 / HSAR 4477b, The Culture of Landscape in China  Pauline Lin

An introduction to Chinese philosophical, poetic, and visual explorations of landscape and the changing relationship between human beings and nature. Through texts, archaeological materials, visual and material culture, and garden designs from the 2nd c. BCE to modern times, we learn about the Chinese conception of the world, relationship to and experiences in nature, and shaping of the land through agriculture, imperial parks, and garden designs. We conclude with contemporary environmental issues confronting China, and how contemporary parks can help regenerate our ecosystem.  HU
F 1:30pm-3:25pm

HUMS 1900b / CPLT 1430b / FILM 2407b, Cinema in the World  Moira Fradinger

Development of ways to engage films from around the globe productively. Close analysis of a dozen complex films, with historical contextualization of their production and cultural functions. Attention to the development of critical skills. Includes weekly screenings, each followed immediately by discussion.  HU  0 Course cr
HTBA

* HUMS 2035a / HIST 2635a / JDST 2512a / NELC 1170a, Antisemitism and its opponents in the Muslim world  Staff

Antisemitism, as well as opposition to it, has long been a part of social, political, and intellectual life in Muslim-majority societies. These societies have also long included significant Jewish minorities, especially before the foundation of the State of Israel in 1948. This course takes a historical approach, carefully examining antisemitisms of various types in various periods as well as opposition to them by Jews, Muslims, and others in the Islamicate world.  HU
W 1:30pm-3:25pm

HUMS 2140b / EALL 2190b / EAST 2201b / PHIL 1119b / RLST 1710b, Introduction to Chinese Philosophy  Lucas Bender

This course represents an introduction to the most important philosophical thinkers and texts in Chinese history, ranging from roughly 500 BC–1500 AD. Topics include ethics, political philosophy, epistemology, and ontology. We discuss the basic works of Confucian and Daoist philosophers during the Warring States and early imperial eras, the continuation of these traditions in early medieval “dark learning,” Buddhist philosophy (in its original Indian context, the early period of its spread to China, and in mature Chinese Buddhist schools such as Chan/Zen), and Neo-Confucian philosophy. The course emphasizes readings in the original texts of the thinkers and traditions in question (all in English translation). No knowledge of Chinese or previous contact with Chinese philosophy required.  HU  0 Course cr
MW 10:30am-11:20am

* HUMS 2151a / CPLT 2151a / GMAN 2151a, Rilke and Woolf, Prose or Poetry  Rudiger Campe

Prose or poetry? The course discusses the literary and political question by juxtaposing two transformative writers of modernism: the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke – who authored one significant novel – and the British novelist Virginia Woolf – who wrote a few idiosyncratic poems and whose novels are often marked by lyrical composition. Both writers’ works are closely read and discussed against the backdrop of debates about prose-versus- poetry in literature, and about the "prose" of modern times versus the "poetic" old world, respectively. Readings include: Rilke, ‘object poems’ (Ding-Gedichte), prose poems, Duino Elegies, and the novel Malte Laurids Brigge; Woolf, the novels Mrs. Dalloway and The Waves, and occasional poems; debates on prose and poetry in Hegel, Heine, Baudelaire, Merleau-Ponty, Agamben and others. The Course offers an optional German section, 1 hr a week, time to be determined, which counts toward the certificate of advanced language proficiency in German.  WR, HU
M 1:30pm-3:25pm

* HUMS 2210a / CLCV 3910a / EP&E 3341a / PHIL 3380a / PLSC 3341a, Plato  Daniel Schillinger

In this Interpretations seminar on Plato, we read the Alcibiades I, Laches, Protagoras, Symposium, Phaedrus, and Statesman–rich and complex dialogues that are rarely taught at the undergraduate level. These texts display Plato's philosophical and literary range, from his so-called early or Socratic period to his late, almost univocal style. At the same time, the dialogues address a family of questions about virtue, eros, and political rule. Reading Plato across the dialogues, we also raise methodological questions and engage with relevant secondary literature. Previous coursework on Plato in Directed Studies, Political Science, or Philosophy is expected.   WR, HU
MW 2:35pm-3:50pm

HUMS 2260a / HIST 1236a / HIST 236 / HSHM 2260a, The Global Scientific Revolution  Ivano Dal Prete

The material, political, cultural, and social transformations that underpinned the rise of modern science between the 14th and 18th century, considered in global context. Topics include artisanal practices and the empirical exploration of nature; global networks of knowledge and trade, and colonial science; figurative arts and the emersion of a visual language of anatomy, astronomy, and natural history.   HU  0 Course cr
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* HUMS 2330b / CPLT 1780b / MMES 2201b / NELC 2560 / NELC 256b, Classics of the Islamic World  Shawkat Toorawa

Islamic civilization has produced numerous works that would make it onto almost anyone’s list of wondrous books. In this course, we read a selection of (or from) those books and study the literary and intellectual cultures that produced them in an attempt to deepen and nuance our understanding of Islamic civilization. Readings include the Qur’an, classical Arabic poetry, the Shahnameh,  Leyli ve Mejnun, the Conference of the Birds, the Hang Tuah Epic, and much else besides. All readings in translation. Previously offered as Classics: The Arabic-Islamic World.  HU
Th 1:30pm-3:25pm

* HUMS 2410a / AFAM 3820a / AMST 2286a / ENGL 3820a, James Baldwin's American Scene  Staff

In-depth examination of James Baldwin's canon, tracking his work as an American artist, citizen, and witness to United States society, politics, and culture during the Cold War, the Civil Rights era, and the Black Arts Movement.  HU  0 Course cr
HTBA

HUMS 2550a / CPLT 2530a / HIST 1260a / RSEE 2312a / RUSS 2312a, Tolstoy's War and Peace TR  Staff

This course is a semester-long study of the quintessential big Russian novel, Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace (1869).  Set against the backdrop of Napoleon’s failed 1812 Russian campaign, the novel is a sweeping panorama of nineteenth-century Russian society and an unforgettable gallery of artfully drawn characters.  It also poses profound philosophical and moral questions.  What are the limits of individual agency, both in private life and in grand political arenas?  Do historical events have identifying causes?  What is a meaningful, well-lived life?  We also explore Tolstoy’s strategies for fictionalizing history.  What myths does he destroy and construct?  And how is this patriotic war epic also an imperial novel?  Reading the novel closely, we situate it both in its historical context and in our contemporary world.  Secondary materials include readings in history, political theory, philosophy, international relations, and literary criticism. All readings and class discussions in English.  No prerequisites required.   HU  0 Course cr
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* HUMS 2620a / CPLT 2004a / ENGL 2802a, Modernism and Domesticity  Katie Trumpener

This course explores turn-of-the-century European attempts to craft modernist lives: how new ideas of women’s roles, childhood, the family, the domestic shaped modernist literature and art—even as modernist designers tried to change people’s experience of daily surroundings. Reform drama (Ibsen, Strindberg, Chekhov), experimental novels and memoirs (Joyce, Woolf, Andrei Bely, Proust, Walter Benjamin) stage the house as bourgeois comfort zone and psychic trap, while modernist architects and designers envisioned aestheticized or communal housing, experimental furniture design, reform fashion changing the parameters of daily experience. Children too were to be raised as modernists, sleeping in constructivist cradles, imbibing avant-garde picture books. The course examines modernist literature, New Woman novels and children’s books (Robert Louis Stevenson, A.A. Milne, Mary Poppins) in relationship to modernist design, fashion, stage sets, paintings, film, exemplary artists’ houses as designs for living---and their present-day posterity (Karl Ove Knausgård; “shelter magazines”, IKEA).   WR, HU
M 1:30pm-3:25pm

HUMS 2765a / HIST 1735a, Historiography (The Ends of History)  Staff

This is a lecture course about how to think about history as a form of intellectual life, especially for those entering or exploring it as a major. Is it natural to think historically, or does history itself have a history? Is history a science, dedicated to the discovery of the real truth about the past, or is it an unending contest of different interpretations? Is the best history “objective”? What does that mean? Today in the United States, the uses of history are impossible to escape in our public, political life. Invocations of the legacies of slavery and colonization; warnings about the threat of fascism; appeals to tradition or a return to ‘better’ times: history is everywhere, and it is being put to various, and often conflicting, ends. This discussion-heavy lecture class invites students to think about the ways we can and should use the practice of history in society. Why does history matter? What can it do for us? What do we use it for, and are we using it for the right goals?  HU  0 Course cr
HTBA

HUMS 2800a, What Matters Most  Matthew Croasmun

"What is a good life?" is a daunting question. While each of us needs to answer it, it is almost impossible to do so all at once. This course divides the question of the good life into smaller, but still very significant questions, like: Who do we answer to for the shape of our lives? What should we hope for? What is the role of suffering in a good life? Readings and discussion-heavy lectures engage a number of ancient and contemporary voices from a variety of religious, philosophical, ideological, and cultural perspectives. Through a series of small writing assignments, students respond to each of life's big questions for themselves and synthesize these responses into their own account of what matters and why.  HU  0 Course cr
MW 2:35pm-3:50pm

HUMS 3050b / ARCH 2003b / HSAR 3312b, Modern Architecture in a Global Context, 1750-present  Craig Buckley

Architects, movements, and buildings central to the development of modern architecture from the mid eighteenth century through to the present. Common threads and differing conceptions of modern architecture around the globe. The relationship of architecture to urban transformation; the formulation of new typologies; architects' responses to new technologies and materials; changes in regimes of representation and media. Architects include Claude Nicolas Ledoux, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, John Soane, Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Lina Bo Bardi, Louis Kahn, and Kenzo Tange.   HU  0 Course cr
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* HUMS 3230a / HIST 3236, Truth and Sedition  William Klein

The truth can set you free, but of course it can also get you into trouble. How do the constraints on the pursuit and expression of “truth” change with the nature of the censoring regime, from the family to the church to the modern nation-state? What causes regimes to protect perceived vulnerabilities in the systems of knowledge they privilege? What happens when conflict between regimes implicates modes of knowing? Are there types of truth that any regime would—or should—find dangerous? What are the possible motives and pathways for self-censorship?  We begin with the revolt of the Hebrews against polytheistic Egypt and the Socratic questioning of democracy, and end with various contemporary cases of censorship within and between regimes. We consider these events and texts, and their reverberations and reversals in history, in relation to select analyses of the relations between truth and power, including Hobbes, Locke, Kant, Brecht, Leo Strauss, Foucault, Chomsky, Waldron, Zizek, and Xu Zhongrun.  WR, HU
W 4pm-5:55pm

* HUMS 3304a or b / AMST 3304a or b / ANTH 3304a or b / ER&M 3304a or b / SOCY 3104a or b, Ethnography & Journalism  Madiha Tahir

While each is loathed to admit it, journalism and ethnography are cousins in some respects interested in (albeit distinct) modes of storytelling, translation, and interpretation. This methods course considers these shared grounds to launch a cross-comparative examination. What can the practies of each field and method—journalism and ethnography—tell us about the other? How do journalists and ethnographers engage ideas about the truth? What can they learn from each other? Students spend the first four weeks studying journalistic methods and debates before shifting to ethnographic discussions, and finally, comparative approaches to writing; data and evidence; experience and positionality.   HU, SO
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* HUMS 3386a / HSAR 4405a / ITAL 3386a, The Dark Side of The Italian Renaissance: Sex, Scandals, and Secrets  Simona Lorenzini

The course explores the more controversial, hidden, and overlooked aspects of the Italian Renaissance. While this period is celebrated for its artistic, cultural, and intellectual achievements, it also had its fair share of intrigue, corruption, and moral complexities. Through love poems, secret letters, intricate networks, and political conspiracies, the course paints a vivid picture of the social and cultural landscape of Renaissance and early modern Italy. We look at the complex figure of Michelangelo, both as an artist and poet, focusing on his queer relationship with Tommaso de’ Cavalieri and his friendship with Vittoria Colonna. We then discuss how Renaissance art, often commissioned by powerful individuals–such as Isabella D’Este’s patronage of Leonardo da Vinci–was used to promote political or social agendas. We examine the alliances, betrayals, and murders that took place in Renaissance courts and how they shaped the political arena. Topics include the assassination of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s brother, Caterina de’ Medici’s agency, and Borgia’s rise to power as well as the use of poison as a political instrument in power struggles and schemes to eliminate rivals. The course highlights radical and sharp-witted women writers, such as Moderata Fonte and Arcangela Tarabotti, who protested against a patriarchal society, and gave voice to those who challenged gender norms. By uncovering these compelling narratives through the intersection of literature, religion, history, art, and sexuality, the course offers a more nuanced and critical view on this acclaimed era. This course counts as language across the curriculum (LxC).  HU
MW 1:05pm-2:20pm

* HUMS 3400a / CPLT 3440a / ENGL 2144a, The Detective Story: Solving Mysteries from Oedipus to Sherlock  Paul Grimstad

The course looks closely at detective stories, novels and films, with attention to the narrative structure of criminal enigma, logical investigation and denouement (whodunit, howdunit), and considers “genre” more broadly. Starting with the proto-detective story Oedipus Rex—in which tragic drama takes the form of a murder mystery—we move on to Edgar Allan Poe’s invention of the genre proper in “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” and “The Purloined Letter.” From there we go to Poe’s “golden age” inheritors Arthur Conan Doyle, G.K. Chesterton, Agatha Christie, and Dorothy Sayers, as well as the adaptation of Doyle’s tales for the BBC series Sherlock. We also spend time on American “hard boiled” writers (Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon and John Huston’s 1941 film adaptation of the novel; Chester Himes' The Real Cool Killers); fiction which draws upon the conventions of detective stories without being genre fiction (Nabokov, Borges), non-fiction works which have the structure of a detective story (Freud’s “Wolf Man” case study); neo-noir film (Chinatown); works that fuse detective fiction and science-fiction (Minority Report) and recent film homage to “golden age” whodunnits (Knives Out). Students write essays making interpretive claims and using evidence from works on the syllabus, with emphasis on writing clear prose in support of an original argument.  HU
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* HUMS 3429a / CPLT 2320a / FREN 3400a / GMAN 3400a / JDST 2586a, Paul Celan  Thomas Connolly

An undergraduate seminar in English exploring the life and work of Paul Celan (1920-1970), survivor of the Shoah, and one of the foremost European poets of the second half of the twentieth century. We will read from his early poems in both Romanian and German, and his published collections including Der Sand aus den Urnen, Mohn und Gedächtnis, Von Schelle zu Schelle, Sprachgitter, Die Niemandsrose, Atemwende, Fadensonnen, Lichtzwang, and Schneepart. We will also read from his rare pieces in prose and his correspondence with family, friends, and other intellectuals and poets including Bachmann, Sachs, Heidegger, Char, du Bouchet, Michaux, Ungaretti. A special focus on his poetic translations from French, but also Russian, English, American, Italian, Romanian, Portuguese, and Hebrew. Critical readings draw from Szondi, Adorno, Derrida, Agamben, and others. Readings in English translation or in the original languages, as the student desires. Discussions in English. None.  WR, HU
M 1:30pm-3:25pm

* HUMS 3446a / EVST 4490a / HIST 3749a / HSHM 4490a / URBN 3312a, Critical Data Visualization: History, Theory, and Practice  Bill Rankin

Critical analysis of the creation, use, and cultural meanings of data visualization, with emphasis on both the theory and the politics of visual communication. Seminar discussions include close readings of historical data graphics since the late eighteenth century and conceptual engagement with graphic semiology, ideals of objectivity and honesty, and recent approaches of feminist and participatory data design. Course assignments focus on the research, production, and workshopping of students’ own data graphics; topics include both historical and contemporary material. No prior software experience is required; tutorials are integrated into weekly meetings. Basic proficiency in standard graphics software is expected by the end of the term, with optional support for more advanced programming and mapping software.  HU
T 1:30pm-3:25pm

* HUMS 3463a / HIST 3728a / HSHM 4770a / RLST 4370a, Critical Theories of Science and Religion  Noreen Khawaja and Joanna Radin

This course is an introduction to new thinking about the relationship of science and religion in global modernities. This semester, we study how frameworks of secularization and enchantment affect our theoretical and lived approaches to matter, media, and meaning. In particular, we explore the Catholicism of key thinkers shaping the field of contemporary science and technology studies, including Donna Haraway, Bruno Latour, Marshall MacLuhan, and their many critics. Social science since Weber has abounded in models to think about the interplay of secular culture and Protestant spirituality. What tools might we need to think about the kind of world Catholic science has made? What is a world, and who gets to define it?   HU
M 9:25am-11:20am

* HUMS 3730a / PLSC 3338a, Order and Disorder  Mordechai Levy-Eichel

Visions of order and fears of disorder underlie most political visions. But what is order, and what is disorder? Where do our ideas and visions of order (or the lack thereof) come from? Is order necessary to politics, to art, to science? What actually generates political orders? Is it top down? Is it bottom up? Can we even know, and if so, how do we know? Where does disorder come from? Is it inevitable? Is it dangerous? Is it fruitful? (All of the above?) What kinds of order are there? What is the relationship between order and disorder, politically and otherwise? This course exams the various conceptions that underlie much of our thinking and habits about politics and other spheres. Readings include both primary and secondary literature, ranging from political theory and history to poetry and anthropology.  SO
T 7pm-8:55pm

* HUMS 3891a / AMST 3391a / CPLT 3891a, Introduction to Critical Sleep Studies: The Politics of Sleep and Sleeplessness  Moira Fradinger

Although we spend approximately one third of our lives asleep, since the industrial revolution and the emergence of uninterrupted city lighting, industrialized societies seem to have developed an ambivalent relation to sleep: both protected and devalued for the sake of higher standards of productive work. The devaluation of sleep, in particular, has produced, during the twentieth and the first two decades of the twenty-first centuries, an array of social, political, and medical discourses to study the impact of changing patterns of sleep and sleeplessness at the global level. This seminar studies topics in the politics and cultures of sleep and sleeplessness, which posit sleep as a human practice. As any human practice, it is framed by cultural and political settings, so that how, when, why, where, and who sleeps vary across sectors of society, across past and present and across world cultures. We study historical, literary, philosophical, sociological, political, and filmic texts. A cultural, social, and political understanding of sleep and sleeplessness can reveal how sleep has been transformed into a bodily site upon which social values are imposed, social surveillance is enacted, ideas about “normality” are instrumentalized, resulting in a demand that humans adapt to human-made changing conditions of production, rather than universally unchanging health needs.  HU
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* HUMS 3937b / HIST 2248b / HSAR 4358b / JDST 3237b, Antisemitic Visual Culture since the Middle Ages  Staff

This course examines the stereotyped, mythologized, and much-maligned figure of the Jew in visual culture throughout history, from the medieval period to the present day. How has this antisemitic archetype shaped the world we see around us, and how has it in turn been shaped by that same world? During the course, we will explore the shifting contributions of visual culture to the creation and dissemination of antisemitic tropes, including forms like cartography, architecture, political cartoons, theater, and film. The course will be primarily discussion-based and include significant in-class use of primary source material, as well as opportunities for students to critically investigate areas of personal interest.
TTh 4pm-5:15pm

* HUMS 4124b / HIST 3210b, Hobbes and Galileo: Materialism and the Emergence of Modernity  William Klein

Hobbes considered himself a disciple of Galileo, but as a systematic philosopher and ideologue during a period of civil unrest in England, he no doubt produced something that Galileo, a Tuscan astrophysicist and impassioned literary critic, was not entirely responsible for: an absolutist theory of the modern state situated within an eschatological time frame. In this course we will reflect on the relation between Galileo’s anti-Aristotelian physics and Hobbes’ system by reading key texts by Galileo and Hobbes along with an array of interpretations and criticisms of Hobbes that will serve to situate Hobbes in early modern currents of thought in science, religion and politics, while at the same time situating us in contemporary ideological debates about the origins of modernity.    HU
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* HUMS 4167a / HSAR 355 / HSAR 4355a / ITAL 1321a / TDPS 3021a, Futurism: Reconstructing the Universe  Pierpaolo Antonello

This course explores Italian Futurism, one of the most dynamic and controversial avant-garde movements of the early 20th century. Launched in 1909 by the poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Futurism was not only an artistic and literary movement but also a radical cultural and political project. Futurists celebrated modernity, technology, speed, and violence, often rejecting traditional art and values in favor of innovation and disruption. Futurism called for a radical revitalization of aesthetic expression through “movement and aggression.”  Futurist painters, poets, writers, and musicians rejected Italy’s cultural heritage in favor of new technologies, media, and metaphors, celebrating the speed and exhilarating risks of the machine age. While Futurism borrowed stylistically from Cubism—using collage, painting, and sculpture to match its revolutionary fervor—it went beyond mere formal experimentation. Unlike other avant-garde movements, which focused on transforming artistic form, Futurism aimed to break down the boundaries between art and everyday life.  HU
TTh 11:35am-12:50pm

HUMS 4325a / ANTH 237 / ANTH 2837a / CPLT 2420a / GMAN 2330a / PHIL 2219a, Karl Marx's Capital  Paul North

A careful reading of Karl Marx's classic critique of capitalism, Capital volume 1, a work of philosophy, political economy, and critical social theory that has had a significant global readership for over 150 years. Selected readings also from Capital volumes 2 and 3.  HU  0 Course cr
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* HUMS 4364a / FREN 3300a, The World of Victor Hugo's "Les Misérables"  Maurice Samuels

Considered one of the greatest novels of all time, Victor Hugo's Les Misérables (1862) offers more than a thrilling story, unforgettable characters, and powerful writing. It offers a window into history. Working from a new translation, this seminar studies Hugo's epic masterpiece in all its unabridged glory, but also uses it as a lens to explore the world of nineteenth-century France—including issues such as the criminal justice system, religion, poverty, social welfare, war, prostitution, industrialization, and revolution. Students gain the tools to work both as close readers and as cultural historians in order to illuminate the ways in which Hugo's text intersects with its context. Attention is also paid to famous stage and screen adaptations of the novel: what do they get right and what do they get wrong? Taught in English, no knowledge of French is required.   HU  0 Course cr
T 1:30pm-3:25pm

* HUMS 4372a / ENGL 2772a, George Eliot's Middlemarch  Ruth Yeazell

An intensive study of George Eliot’s  Middlemarch (1871-72)—a work she called a “home epic” and Virginia Woolf  declared “one of the few English novels for grown-up people.”   Our close reading of Middlemarch itself is framed by a brief selection from George Eliot’s essays and short fiction, as well as by a more extended study of some critical responses, both Victorian and modern.  HU
T 1:30pm-3:25pm

* HUMS 4430a / HIST 3232a / JDST 3270a / MMES 3342a / RLST 2010a, Medieval Jews, Christians, and Muslims In Conversation  Ivan Marcus

How members of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim communities thought of and interacted with members of the other two cultures during the Middle Ages. Cultural grids and expectations each imposed on the other; the rhetoric of otherness—humans or devils, purity or impurity, and animal imagery; and models of religious community and power in dealing with the other when confronted with cultural differences. Counts toward either European or Middle Eastern distributional credit within the History major, upon application to the director of undergraduate studies.  WR, HU  RP
T 1:30pm-3:25pm

HUMS 4527a / CHNS 2000a / EALL 2000a / EAST 2202a, The Chinese Tradition  Staff

An introduction to the literature, culture, and thought of premodern China, from the beginnings of the written record to the turn of the twentieth century. Close study of textual and visual primary sources, with attention to their historical and cultural backdrops. Students enrolled in CHNS 200 join a weekly Mandarin-language discussion section. No knowledge of Chinese required for students enrolled in EALL 200. Students enrolled in CHNS 200 must have L5 proficiency in Mandarin or permission of the course instructor.  HU  0 Course cr
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