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Catalogue 2017-2018 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]
Course Descriptions
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Science, Technology and Society: II. Intermediate |
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STS 234 - Disability and Society
1 unit(s)
(Same as SOCI 234 ) The vision of disability has changed radically over the past twenty years. Public policies have been legislated, language has been altered, opportunities have been rethought, a social movement has emerged, problems of discrimination, oppression, and prejudice have been highlighted, and social thinkers have addressed a wide range of issues relating to the representation and portrayal of people with disabilities. This course examines these issues, focusing on the emergence of the disability rights movement, the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the various debates over American Sign Language, “deaf culture,” and the student uprising at Gallaudet University and how writers and artists have portrayed people with disabilities. Marque Miringoff.
Not offered in 2017/18.
Two 2-hour periods each week; one 2-hour period is devoted to lecture and discussion of reading materials, the second 2-hour period serves as a laboratory for films, speakers, and trips.
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STS 235 - Introduction to German Cultural Studies Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as GERM 235 ) Topic for 2017/18: Literary Science: Exploring the Fusion of Literature and the Natural Sciences. Departing from C.P. Snow’s famous thesis that the sciences and the arts comprise two distinct cultures, this course investigates the border crossings between these domains, with an emphasis on literature and the natural sciences practiced in German-speaking Europe from the Enlightenment to the present. We consider how and why scientists such as Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Alexander von Humboldt, and Sigmund Freud cultivate a literary style in their evocations of nature or human psychology. We also study how and why authors such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe appropriate in their literary work principles derived from the natural sciences, and how and why authors such as Bertolt Brecht, Janna Levin, or Daniel Kehlmann (author of the best-selling novel Measuring the World) depict the lives of scientists and mathematicians such as Galileo, Humboldt, or Kurt Gödel. In addition, we discuss the extent to which scientific methodology can be applied to literature. Our overarching questions are: What have the modern arts and sciences learned from one another, and what can we in turn learn by studying literature and science in relation to one another? Other authors, scientists, artists, and mathematicians we may consider include Carl Friedrich Gauss, Georg Büchner, Frederic Edwin Church, Kurd Lasswitz, Werner Heisenberg, Robert Musil, Michael Frayn, and Rebecca Goldstein. Elliott Schreiber.
Two 75-minute periods.
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STS 245 - Medicine, Health and Diseases in East Asia
1 unit(s)
(Same as ASIA 245 and HIST 245 ) From the globalization of acupuncture to the proliferation of biobanks to the fight against the deadly SARS virus, the history of East Asian medicine and society has been marked by promises and perils. Through examining the ways in which East Asians conceptualized medicine and the body in their fight against diseases from a myriad of sources, this course critically examines the persistence, transformation, and globalization of both “traditional medicine” and biomedicine in East Asia. Topics covered include the knowledge of nature as embedded in the changing categorization of pharmaceuticals, the contestation over vaccination and the definition of diseases, the construction of gender and sexuality in medicine, the importance of religion in healing, the legacies of colonialism in biopolitics and biotechnology, the development of healthcare systems, and the imaginations of Asian medicine in the West. Wayne Soon.
Not offered in 2017/18.
Two 75-minute periods.
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STS 247 - Albert Einstein Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as HIST 247 ) This course explores the complex life and work of the iconic scientist of the 20th century. Using recent biographical studies and a wide range of original sources (in translation), Einstein’s revolutionary contributions to relativity and quantum mechanics, his role in Germany in the opposition to the rise of Nazi ideology and anti-Semitism, and his work as a political and social activist in the United States are examined. Students are encouraged to make use of Vassar’s Bergreen Collection of original Einstein manuscripts. José Perillán.
Two 75-minute periods.
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STS 254 - Bio-Politics of Breast Cancer
1 unit(s)
(Same as WMST 254 ) We examine the basic scientific, clinical and epidemiological data relevant to our current understanding of the risks (including environmental, genetic, hormonal and lifestyle factors), detection, treatment (including both traditional and alternative approaches), and prevention of breast cancer. In trying to understand these data in the context of the culture of the disease, we explore the roles of the pharmaceutical companies, federal and private foundations, survivor and other activist groups, and the media in shaping research, treatment and policy strategies related to breast cancer.
Not offered in 2017/18.
Two 75-minute periods.
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STS 255 - Introduction to Forensic Chemistry Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as CHEM 255 ) Forensic chemistry is the application of chemistry in the study of evidence in criminal or civil cases. This course covers underlying chemistry concepts and scientific methods in the analysis and evaluation of several types of forensic evidence. Topics include crime scene investigation and case studies, overview of rules of evidence, finger-printing analysis, GCMS and FTIR characterization of organic compounds and fibers, hair and glass analysis, and DNA profiling. Sarjit Kaur.
Prerequisite: CHEM 244 .
Three 50-minute periods; one 4-hour laboratory.
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STS 258 - Black Holes, Human Clones and Nanobots: The Edge of Science
1 unit(s)
Will the newest version of the CERN accelerator in Europe create a mini black hole on earth? What are the implications of our advances in genetic engineering and nanotechnology? Twentieth-century science gave us revolutions in many diverse fields, but three of the most important and pervasive innovations were relativity, quantum theory, and the mapping of the human genome. The effects of these advances on human knowledge have begun to ripple through our society but they are far from having realized their full potential. Where do we stand now and where are we headed? These are the fundamental questions we will grapple with in this course. The implications of understanding nature, and by extension learning to manipulate nature, straddle multiple disciplines. We explore topics in the conceptual understanding of modern science and its relationship to religion, politics, economics, and philosophy. No mathematical background is necessary; a sincere interest in the subject matter is the only pre-requisite for this course. Readings may include works by authors such as Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, James Watson, Justine Burley, Thomas Kuhn, Hilary Putnam, Arthur C. Clarke, Richard Dawkins, and Brian Greene among others. José Perrillán.
Not offered in 2017/18.
Two 75-minute periods.
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STS 260 - Health, Medicine, and Public Policy Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as SOCI 260 ) The Zika Virus, Flint Michigan’s lead crisis, the Heroin-Opioid epidemic, the “health care as a right” debate, the changing role of physicians, are all issues of contemporary concern in the fields of medicine and public health. In this course, we address the analytical context for these problems and debates. We begin by looking at a long-standing problem, the HIV/AIDS epidemic, nationally and globally, its fraught history, current status, social construction, and impact on the fields of medicine and public health. We consider too the history and current status of infectious diseases as a public health crisis. Finally, we look at public health and health care policy, their history, Obamacare, and what may come next. Marque Miringoff.
Two 75-minute periods.
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STS 267 - Environmental and Natural Resource Economics Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as ECON 267 ) This course examines environmental and natural resource issues from an economic perspective. Environmental problems and controversies are introduced and detailed, and then various possible policies and solutions to the problems are analyzed. Economic analyses will determine the effectiveness of potential policies and also determine the people and entities which benefit from (and are hurt by) these policies. The goal is for students to develop a framework for understanding environmental problems and then to learn how to analyze policy actions within that framework. Topics include water pollution, air pollution, species protection, externalities, the energy situation, and natural resource extraction. Paul Ruud.
Prerequisite(s): ECON 102 and permission of the instructor.
Recommended: ECON 209 .
Two 75-minute periods.
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STS 268 - Current and Emerging Issues in Public Health Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
This course examines public health topics of current and emerging interest in both developed and developing nations. Selected topics include theories of justice and public health ethics, social determinants of health, health promotion and disease prevention, health care delivery, environmental problems, and the issues that are influencing and that may influence the health status of populations now and in the future. Contemporary case studies are used to examine and demonstrate the inter-relatedness of social justice, culture, politics, technology, and public health. Leroy Cooper.
Two 75-minute periods.
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STS 270 - Drugs, Culture, and Society
1 unit(s)
(Same as SOCI 270 ) This course draws on a variety of Science Studies and Sociological frameworks to consider the implications of various substances that we conventionally refer to as “drugs.” Topics include medical, psychiatric, instrumental, or recreational use of licit and illicit substances. Relevant conceptional frameworks are used to explore and analyze the impact of new chemical technology, debates regarding the safety and efficacy of pharmaceuticals, the consequences of globalization on patterns of use, policy and enforcement, as well as the social construction of drugs as a social problem. Heroin, Cocaine, Marijuana, Methamphetamine, MDMA, Ayahuasca, ADHD drugs, SSRIs and hormonal Steroids are all of special interest in so far as they constitute strategic sites for the study of social or technological controversy.
Not offered in 2017/18.
Two 75-minute periods.
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STS 273 - The New Economy
1 unit(s)
(Same as SOCI 273 ) The new economy is, in one sense, a very old concern of sociology. Since the discipline’s 19th-c. origins, sociologists have asked how changes in material production and economic relations alter the ways that people live, work, understand their lives, and relate to one another. However, current interests in the new economy center upon something new: a flexible, “just in time” mode of industry and consumerism made possible by information technologies and related organizational innovations. The logic of this new economy, as well as its consequences for society, are the subject of this course. Topics include the evolving role of technology in economic globalization; the precarity of today’s workplaces and labor markets; the question of the “creative class”; digital divides in technology access, education, and lifestyles; and the cutting edges of consumerism. Leonard Nevarez.
Not offered in 2017/18.
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STS 277 - Feminist Approaches to Science and Technology
1 unit(s)
(Same as WMST 277 ) In this course students examine the intersections of science and technology with the categories of gender, race, class, and sexuality. We explore the ways that science and technology help to construct these socio-cultural categories and how the constructions play out in society. Examples come from the history of science and technology, concerns about gender identity, health care, environmentalism, and equal opportunity in education and careers. Throughout the course, we ask how the social institution and power of science itself is affected by social categories. We also investigate alternative approaches to the construction of knowledge. Jill Schneiderman.
Not offered in 2017/18.
Two 75-minute periods.
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STS 282 - The History of Mediascapes: Critical Maker Culture Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as ENGL 282 ) This class takes as its jumping off point the point made in Colonial Mediascapes and the work of Arjun Appadurai’s “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy” and his definition of “mediascape,”: “the second of the five “scapes”… an elementary framework for understanding the new phenomenon of information distribution in “a world in which both points of departure and points of arrival are in cultural flux…” (Germaine Warkentin, “Dead Metaphor or Working Model?, Colonial Mediascapes, 49). This class decolonizes book history and “maker culture.” In particular, we consider issue of race, gender, disability, neurodiversity, sexuality in working and making an alternative history of the book that includes the khipu, the girdle book, the wampum, pamphlets, zines, and wearable media technology. This is also a media maker class in which you are asked to scrape vellum, try your hand at papermaking, sew, knot, and sodder circuits, and tackle an Arduino kit. Dorothy Kim.
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STS 284 - The Transplanted Body Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
Organ transplantation has had a profound influence not only on medicine and medical ethics, but also on definitions of the self, configurations of the body, the boundaries of life and death, and the nature of gifts and commodities. This course focuses on the meanings and realities of the transplanted body. We explore the ethics of donation and organ markets, property rights and the body, xenotransplantation, and regenerative medicine. We also discover the rich vein of fictive, folkloric, anthropological, and historical texts, films, and paintings that represent the surgical act of tissue transfer and explore the metaphorical and aesthetic possibilities it contains. We see how these representations resonate with the legal, philosophical, and bioethical essays we read. Throughout the semester, we map out the transplanted body as something both real and symbolic, based in medical history, but also mythology. Eric Trump.
Two 75-minute periods.
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STS 290 - Field Work Semester Offered: Fall or Spring
0.5 to 1 unit(s)
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STS 298 - Independent Work Semester Offered: Fall or Spring
0.5 to 1 unit(s)
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Science, Technology and Society: III. Advanced |
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STS 300 - Senior Thesis Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
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STS 301 - Senior Seminar Semester Offered: Spring
0.5 unit(s)
The seminar meets during the first six weeks of the second semester. Senior majors present and defend their senior theses before the student and faculty members of the program.
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STS 302 - History of Science and Technology Since World War II
1 unit(s)
An examination of major developments in science and technology since 1945, with particular emphasis on the social contexts and implications. The topics to receive special attention are: the origins and growth of systems theories (systems analysis, operations research, game theory, cybernetics), the development of molecular genetics from the double helix to sociobiology; and the evolution of telecommunications technologies.
Prerequisite(s): one unit of natural science and one unit of modern history, or permission of the instructor.
Not offered in 2017/18.
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STS 310 - Seminar in Analytic Philosophy Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as PHIL 310 ) Topic for 2017/18b: Philosophy of Mental Illness. This senior seminar focuses on two main issues: (1) What is the best way to define psychopathology, and what can we do about controversial cases? Should all mental illnesses be grouped into classes based on their biological characteristics or their physical causes, or is there a better model? How do we differentiate illness from socially realized disability? What are recent controversies in psychiatric research of pathology? (2) What are ethical implications of current or possible taxonomies of psychopathologies: in particular, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), and the International Classification of Diseases (ICD)? What can we learn about mental disability from the disability rights movement? Are current treatment options, particularly pharmacological approaches, ethically sound? And finally, how do all of these issues impact child patients? Readings include Foucault, Szasz, Wakefield, Hacking, the DSM-V, and recent empirical work. Students are encouraged to pursue independent research on the topics of most interest to them. Sofia Ortiz-Hinojosa.
Priority will be given to Philosophy majors.
One 3-hour period.
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STS 323 - History of Geological Thought: 1690-1980
1 unit(s)
(Same as ESCI 323 ) In this course we examine the historical context and scientific ideas put forth by natural philosophers and scientists including Thomas Burnet, Nicolas Steno, James Hutton, Charles Lyell, Charles Darwin, Alfred Wegener, Marie Tharp, Bruce Heezen, Stephen Jay Gould, Niles Eldredge, James Lovelock and Walter Alvarez. Topics of study include geologic time, continental drift and plate tectonics, evolution and punctuated equilibrium, Gaia, and bolide impacts. Jill Schneiderman.
Prerequisite(s): Must be a science or Science, Technology, and Society major at the junior or senior level, or by permission of the instructor.
Not offered in 2017/18.
Two 75-minute periods.
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STS 331 - Topics in Archaeological Theory and Method
1 unit(s)
The theoretical underpinnings of anthropological archaeology and the use of theory in studying particular bodies of data. The focus ranges from examination of published data covering topics such as architecture and society, the origin of complex society, the relationship between technology and ecology to more laboratory-oriented examination of such topics as archaeometry, archaeozoology, or lithic technology.
May be repeated for credit if the topic has changed.
Topic for 2016/17b: Technology and Ecology. (Same as ANTH 331 and ENST 331 ) Examines the interactions between human beings and their environment as mediated by technology, focusing on the period from the earliest evidence of toolmaking approximately up to the Industrial Revolution. Student research projects often bring the course up to the present. Includes experimentation with ancient technologies and field trips to local markets and craft workshops. Lucy Johnson.
Prerequisite(s): previous coursework in Anthropology, Environmental Studies, or Science, Technology, and Society, or permission of the instructor.
May be repeated for credit if the topic has changed.
Not offered in 2017/18.
One 2-hour period plus one 4-hour lab.
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STS 340 - Controversies in Context: Technoscientific Futures Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
Will the CERN particle accelerator in Europe create a mini black hole on earth? What are the intended and unintended consequences of genetic and technological enhancements on humanity? Are we headed towards a technological singularity? Will we colonize other planets? These seem like plot lines ripped from science fiction stories, yet recent advances in scientific knowledge and technological innovation have begun to ripple through societies leaving a trail of confusion, excitement, terror, and controversy. In this seminar, we grapple with the controversies surrounding humanity’s technoscientific future. Einstein observed that “[s]cience as something existing and complete is the most objective thing known to man. But science in the making, science as an end to be pursued, is as subjective and psychologically conditioned as any other branch of human endeavor.” Our work in this seminar is based on the assumption that science is a human practice and a social phenomenon, and as a result, humanity’s technoscientific future is fundamentally contingent and not predetermined. We engage with scientists, STS scholars and science fiction writers as we reflexively explore our tethered extrapolations of the frontiers of technoscience. José Perillán.
Prerequisite(s): STS 200 .
One 2-hour period.
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STS 350 - Comparative Studies in Religion Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as RELI 350 ) In this course we examine closely religious rituals and how they are used to understand or approach the divine. We focus in particular on ritual prayer, meditation, spirit possession and other practices of listening or speaking to God(s). The course examines these practices across a number of cultures and religious traditions.
Topic for 2017/18b: Science, Religion and Technology: Controversies and Problems: In this seminar we survey recent arguments and controversies between scientists and religious believers in the modern West. We investigate sources of conflict, issues that have caused tension, and different possibilities for reconciliation between the two groups. We also examine ways of talking about science, religion and technology that go beyond the “conflict” model (science versus religion) and look instead at how these different parts of culture shape and influence one another. How have new sciences and technologies challenged and altered religious beliefs and practices? How have religious people in turn shaped new scientific ideas? We examine these questions by looking at specific controversial cases such as evolution/creationism, the mind/body problem, medical ethics, human cloning, artificial intelligence and emerging technologies. Christopher White.
One 2-hour period.
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STS 352 - Medicine and (Dis)order: A Social Geography of Healthcare
1 unit(s)
(Same as GEOG 352 ) The healthcare industry is a central component of the modern world. In the case of the United States, it has co-evolved with capitalism, inequality, mass incarceration, and urbanization-among other phenomena. Using a social and historical geographic lens, this course examines the development of medicine as it relates to these phenomena as well as matters of social difference (e.g., gender, sexuality, class, and race) and associated social struggles. Topics include the development of healthcare institutions and related labor regimes, race and medical experimentation, and transgender identity and the healthcare system. In exploring these topics, the course also engages alternative understandings of health and wellness, and organized efforts “from below” to realize alternative, more democratic forms of healthcare.
Not offered in 2017/18.
One 3-hour period.
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STS 353 - Bio-Social Controversy
1 unit(s)
(Same as SOCI 353 ) Scientific controversies take place not only within scientific communities but may be joined and waged in public arenas as well. This course is centered around the intense reaction triggered by extension of biological explanations and evolutionary logic to all aspects of contemporary life including race, sex/gender, violence and social behavior in general. Scientific Controversy is a strategic site for analyzing the social dynamics of various disputes including those among biological and cultural anthropologists, academic scientists and transgender activists, and between advocates of divergent views of race and sexual difference. Alternative perspectives – Darwinian feminism and efforts by transgender biologists to challenge the gender binary – are also relevant to our conversation. The range of conceptual frames deployed to interpret these controversies includes Popperian philosophy of science, the sociology of Relativism and Rhetoric, and a Foucauldian power/knowledge perspective.
Not offered in 2017/18.
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STS 360 - Issues in Bioethics Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
Topic for 2017/18b: Bodies into Other Bodies. This course studies the medical, social, and cultural dimensions surrounding the ways in which our bodies, their meanings and realities, have been transformed through medical intervention. Advances in reproductive medicine and physician-assisted suicide, for example, have radically transformed how we view life and death and self and other. Preimplantation diagnosis has altered our definitions of what a human can be. Topics may include: blood, egg, and sperm donation, the definition of death, disability rights, regenerative medicine, and the body as property. Through a close reading of a variety of texts, including policy and theory, we will light on how bodies are transformed, dissected, and redefined. In the process, we understand the ethical frameworks surrounding the transformation of our bodies. Class discussion is built around texts from multiple genres, including bioethics, literature, and philosophy. Eric Trump.
One 2-hour period.
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STS 367 - Mind, Culture, and Biology
1 unit(s)
(Same as SOCI 367 ) What can memes, genes or Darwinian social science tell us about religion, literature, or consumer culture? To what extent can Biology explain culture or at least inspire substantive debate about the role of ideas? This course addresses the “Darwinization of culture” and explores various competing perspectives ranging from Evolutionary Psychology and Bio-Sociology to Memetics and Social Construction. Seminar discussions include controversial attempts to interpret Homeric epics (Gottschall’s The Rape of Troy), to claim universal standards of beauty (Etcoff’s Survival of the Prettiest), and to account for the existence of a personal god (Boyer’s Religion Explained). Consider that Science – arguably our most reliable source of valid knowledge – can also serve as a source of contentious ideas that are simultaneously engaging, provoking and perhaps (for some) even dangerous.
Not offered in 2017/18.
One 2-hour period.
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STS 370 - Feminism and Environmentalism
1 unit(s)
(Same as ENST 370 and WMST 370 ) In this seminar we explore some basic concepts and approaches within feminist environmental analysis paying particular attention to feminist theory and its relevance to environmental issues. We examine a range of feminist research and analysis in ‘environmental studies’ that is connected by the recognition that gender subordination and environmental destruction are related phenomena. That is, they are the linked outcomes of forms of interactions with nature that are shaped by hierarchy and dominance, and they have global relevance. The course helps students discover the expansive contributions of feminist analysis and action to environmental research and advocacy; it provides the chance for students to apply the contributions of a feminist perspective to their own specific environmental interests. Jill Schneiderman.
Prerequisite(s): permission of the instructor; WMST 130 recommended.
Not offered in 2017/18.
One 2-hour period.
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STS 375 - Gender, Race, and Science
1 unit(s)
Not offered in 2017/18.
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STS 380 - Techno-Orientalism: The Asian Connection to Science and Technology Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
This class analyzes the ways Asians have been tied to science and technology, an association that may seem obvious but poorly understood. Throughout the course, the overarching theme of techno-Orientalism helps frame discussions of manufacturing industry, globalization, STEM, and the information digital economy. Students understand how and why Orientalism–or the Western sense of people from the East as dangerous enemies/exotic foreigners–gets transformed and warped in the high-tech age. Our seminar explores how U.S.-Asian relations shaped the rise of superpowers like Japan, South Korea, India, Singapore, and China, as well as emergent powerhouses like Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. The class focuses on the contemporary period, centering on the 20th century to early 21st century.
One 3-hour period.
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STS 382 - Renewable Energy
1 unit(s)
This seminar is a careful examination of the renewable energy technologies currently available to replace fossil fuels. Primary attention goes to wind, solar power, hydroelectric power and biomass (including ethanol and biodiesel), with briefer consideration of other renewables such as geothermal and tidal energy. The seminar draws upon such methodologies as the social construction of technology and actor-network theory to understand the interaction of technological, economic, environmental and political factors currently shaping the field of renewable energy.
Prerequisite(s): STS 200 , and two units of natural science; or permission of the instructor.
Not offered in 2017/18.
One 2-hour period.
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STS 385 - Technology, Ecology, and Society
1 unit(s)
(Same as ENST 385 ) Examines the interactions between human beings and their environment as mediated by technology, focusing on the period from the earliest evidence of toolmaking approximately up to the Industrial Revolution. Student research projects often bring the course up to the present. Includes experimentation with ancient technologies and field trips to local markets and craft workshops.
Prerequisite(s): previous coursework in Anthropology, Environmental Studies, or Science, Technology, and Society, or permission of the instructor.
Not offered in 2017/18.
One 2-hour period; plus 4 hour lab.
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STS 399 - Senior Independent Work Semester Offered: Fall or Spring
0.5 to 1 unit(s)
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Swahili: I. Introductory |
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SWAH 105 - Beginning Swahili I Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
Special Permission.
Yearlong course SWAH 105-106 .
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SWAH 106 - Beginning Swahili II Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
Special Permission.
Yearlong course SWAH 105 -106.
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Swahili: II. Intermediate |
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SWAH 210 - Intermediate Swahili I Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
Special Permission.
Year long course 210-SWAH 211 .
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SWAH 211 - Intermediate Swahili II Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
Special Permission.
Year long course SWAH 210 -211.
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Swahili: III. Advanced |
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SWAH 310 - Advanced Swahili I Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
Special Permission.
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SWAH 311 - Advanced Swahili II Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
Special Permission.
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Swedish: I. Introductory |
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SWED 105 - Introduction to Swedish I Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
Special Permission.
Yearlong course SWED 105-106 .
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SWED 106 - Introduction to Swedish II Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
Special Permission.
Yearlong course SWED 105 -106.
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Swedish: II. Intermediate |
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SWED 210 - Intermed Swedish I Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
Special Permission.
Year long course 210-SWED 211 .
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SWED 211 - Intermed Swedish II Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
Special Permission.
Year long course SWED 210 -211.
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Swedish: III. Advanced |
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SWED 310 - Advanced Swedish I Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
Special Permission.
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SWED 311 - Advanced Swedish II Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
Special Permission.
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Turkish: I. Introductory |
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TURK 105 - Introduction to Turkish I Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
Special Permission.
Year long course TURK 105-106 .
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TURK 106 - Introduction to Turkish II Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
Special Permission.
Yearlong course TURK 105 -106.
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Turkish: II. Intermediate |
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TURK 210 - Intermediate Turkish I Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
Special Permission.
Year long course 210-TURK 211 .
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TURK 211 - Intermediate Turkish II Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
Special Permission.
Year long course TURK 210 -211.
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Turkish: III. Advanced |
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TURK 310 - Advanced Turkish
1 unit(s)
Special Permission
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TURK 311 - Advanced Turkish
1 unit(s)
Special Permission
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Urban Studies: I. Introductory |
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URBS 100 - Introduction to Urban Studies Semester Offered: Fall and Spring
1 unit(s)
As an introduction to urban inquiry, this course focuses on the historical evolution of cities, socio-spatial conflicts, and changing cultural meanings of urbanism. We examine the formation of urban hierarchies of power and privilege, along with their attendant contradictions and social movements of contestation, in terms of the rights to the city and the prospects for inclusive, participatory governance. Instructors coordinate the course with the assistance of guest presentations by other Urban Studies faculty, thereby providing insight into the architecture, cultures, economics, geography, history, planning, and politics of the city. The course involves study of specific urban issues, their theory and methodology, in anticipation of subsequent work at more advanced levels. Lisa Brawley.
Two 75-minute periods.
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URBS 170 - Introduction to Architectural History
1 unit(s)
(Same as ART 170 ) An overview of the history of western architecture from the pyramids to the present. The course is organized in modules to highlight the methods by which architects have articulated the basic problem of covering space and adapting it to human needs. Nicholas Adams.
Not offered in 2017/18.
Two 75-minute periods.
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URBS 177 - Special Topics Semester Offered: Fall
0.5 unit(s)
(Same as AMST 177 and ENGL 177 ) Topic for 2017/18 a & b: Imagining the City. This six-week course surveys various approaches to thinking and writing about the city. How do our surroundings change us? What power does an individual have to reshape or reimagine the vast urban landscape? We consider a diverse array of depictions: the ethnic underground of Chang-rae Lee’s Queens; the forlorn Baltimore depicted in the television show The Wire; the midnight wanderings of Teju Cole and Junot Diaz; the global bustle of Jessica Hagedorn’s Manila; present-day graffiti artists and urban farmers reclaiming their “right to the city.” Hua Hsu.
First six-week course.
Two 75-minute periods.
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URBS 185 - Incarcerating Philosophies Semester Offered: Fall
0.5 unit(s)
(Same as AFRS 185 and PHIL 185 ) This course is at the intersection of ethics, social philosophy, and political philosophy. It examines: (1) how certain individuals, groups, and philosophies are marginalized and incarcerated, and (2) the response and responsibilities towards such forms of incarceration. The first topic deals with philosophies of incarceration, that is, the philosophical approaches used in order to incarcerate. Quite simply: what are reasons for incarceration? The second topic addresses how various philosophies can be used to oppose and interrogate such methods. Questions addressed will be: how does the physical and psychical act of incarceration operate? What modes of life and thoughts are rendered as ‘criminal’, and how? Finally: what are the means by which individuals, groups, and philosophies can respond to such methods of incarceration.
Readings include: Plato, Jeremy Bentham, Antonio Gramsci, Michel Foucault, Angela Davis, Frank Wilderson III, Michelle Alexander. Required work includes reading, short weekly writing assignments, class participation, and attendance. Osman Nemli.
Second six-week course.
Two 75-minute periods.
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Urban Studies: II. Intermediate |
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URBS 200 - Urban Theory Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
This course reviews the development of theories regarding human behavior in cities and the production of space. The course spans the twentieth century, from the industrial city to the themed spaces of contemporary cities. Literature and topics examined to include the German school, urban ecology, debates in planning and architecture, political economy, and the cultural turns in urban studies. Leonard Nevarez.
Prerequisite(s): URBS 100 or permission of the instructor.
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URBS 219 - The First Cities: The Art and Archaeology of the Ancient Near East Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as ART 219 and GRST 219 ) The art, architecture, and artifacts of the region comprising ancient Iraq, Iran, Syria, Palestine, and Turkey from 3200 BCE to the conquest of Alexander the Great in the fourth century BCE. Beginning with the rise of cities and cuneiform writing in Mesopotamia, course topics include the role of the arts in the formation of states and complex societies, cult practices, trade and military action, as well as in everyday life. How do we make sense of the past through its ruins and artifacts, especially when they are under attack (the destruction wrought by ISIS)? Eve D’Ambra.
Prerequisite(s): ART 105 or 106 or one unit in Greek and Roman Studies, or permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods.
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URBS 222 - Urban Political Economy
1 unit(s)
(Same as INTL 222 ) This course employs the multidisciplinary lens of political economy to analyze economic development, social inequality, and political conflict in contemporary cities. Why do people and resources tend to concentrate in cities? How does the urban landscape promote and constrain political conflict and distribute economic and social rewards? How are local outcomes influenced by global political-economic forces? The course develops an analytical framework to make sense of a variety of urban complexities, including poverty, segregation, suburban sprawl, the provision of affordable housing, global migration, and the effects of neoliberalism on rich and poor cities throughout the world. Timothy Koechlin.
Not offered in 2017/18.
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URBS 225 - Renaissance Italy
1 unit(s)
(Same as HIST 225 ) This course examines the history of Italy between 1300 and 1565. Italian intellectual, political, and religious history is emphasized, but some attention is also given to cross-cultural, gender, and social history. Looking beyond Italy, we also consider developments in Byzantium and the Ottoman Empire and their impact on Italy and Europe. Topics to be covered include the Black Death, the rise of humanism, the Renaissance papacy, and the Catholic Reformation. Finally, throughout the course, we question the meaning of the term “Renaissance”: is it a distinct period, a cultural movement, or an insufficient label altogether? Nancy Bisaha.
Not offered in 2017/18.
Two 75-minute periods.
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URBS 230 - Making Cities Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
This course surveys the production of urban space, from the mid 19th century industrial city to today’s post-bubble metropolis. Theories of urban planning and design, landscape architecture, infrastructure and real estate development are discussed in the context of a broad range of social, cultural, political and economic forces that have shaped urban space. Looking at American and European case studies, we ask: Who made decisions on the production of urban space? How were urban interventions actually brought about? Who were the winners and losers? Tobias Armborst.
Two 75-minute periods.
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URBS 232 - Design and the City: Contemporary Urbanisms
1 unit(s)
This course looks at the evolving theories and practices of urban design since 1960, with a focus on current projects and debates. Initially conceived as the design discipline of the public realm, urban design has been transformed and redefined in relation to the changing modes of production of urban space. Today, in an urban environment that is largely shaped by forces and processes beyond the control of architects, planners and designers, the role of urban design is highly contingent on specific actors and projects. In addition to discussing readings from the past 50 years, we study a number of practices and projects from around the world. Tobias Armborst.
Not offered in 2017/18.
Two 75-minute periods.
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URBS 235 - Quality of Life
1 unit(s)
(Same as SOCI 235 ) In a world of cultural diversity, uneven development, and political conflict, enhancing quality of life is arguably the unifying principle in our ambitions for social planning and personal life. But just what does “quality of life” mean? How did it become a preeminent concern for policy-makers and the public at large? And what is at stake if we subordinate other conceptions of the common good to this most subjective and individualistic of ideas? This course takes up these questions through an examination of quality of life’s conceptual dimensions and social contexts. Topics include global development policy, patient-doctor conflicts over the right to die, the pressures of work-life balance, the influence of consumer marketing, the voluntary simplicity movement, the “quality of life city,” and the cultural divides between conservative “Red States” and liberal “Blue States.” Leonard Nevarez.
Not offered in 2017/18.
Two 75-minute periods.
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URBS 237 - Community Development
1 unit(s)
(Same as SOCI 237 ) This course provides hands-on lessons in nonprofit organizations, urban inequality, and economic development that are intended to supplement theoretical perspectives offered in other classes. Students examine local efforts to revitalize neighborhoods, provide social services, leverage social capital, and promote homeowner and business investment in the contemporary city. A community development initiative in the City of Poughkeepsie (to be determined) provides the case study around which lectures, readings, and guest speakers are selected. The course includes a special weekly lab section during which students volunteer at local organizations, conduct fieldwork, or otherwise independently gather and analyze data in support of the case study. Students are graded for both their comprehension of course materials (in essays and exams) and their participation in the community-development initiative (through fieldwork and the final report written collectively by the instructor and students). Leonard Nevarez.
Not offered in 2017/18.
Two 2-hour periods.
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URBS 245 - The Ethnographer’s Craft Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as ANTH 245 ) This course introduces students to the methods employed in constructing and analyzing ethnographic materials through readings, classroom lectures, and discussions with regular field exercises. Students gain experience in participant-observation, fieldnote-taking, interviewing, survey sampling, symbolic analysis, the use of archival documents, and the use of contemporary media. Attention is also given to current concerns with interpretation and modes of representation. Throughout the semester, students practice skills they learn in the course as they design, carry out, and write up original ethnographic projects. Candice Lowe Swift.
Two 75-minute periods plus two 75-minute workshops outside of regular class hours.
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URBS 249 - The Politics of City, Suburb, Neighborhood
1 unit(s)
(Same as POLI 249 ) An examination of the development, organization, and practice of the varied forms of politics in metropolitan areas. Main themes include struggles between machine and reform politicians in cities; fiscal politics and urban pre-occupations with economic growth, racial and class politics; changes in federal urban policies; neighborhood politics and alternative forms of community organization; suburban politics and race/class. Sidney Plotkin.
Not offered in 2017/18.
Two 75-minute periods.
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URBS 250 - Urban Geography: Space, Place, Environment Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as GEOG 250 ) Now that most of the world’s population lives in urban areas, expanding city-regions pose a series of social, spatial and environmental problems. This course focuses on the making of urban spaces, places, and environments at a variety of geographical scales. We examine entrepreneurial urban branding, sense of place and place making, geographies of race and class, urbanization of nature, environmental and spatial justice, and urban risk and resilience in facing climate change. Concentrating on American urbanism, case studies include New York City, Poughkeepsie, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Students also research specific issues in cities of their own choice, such as land-use planning and public space, historic preservation, transit-oriented development, urban ecology and restoration, urban sustainability programs, and citizen movements for livable cities. Brian Godfrey.
Two 75-minute periods.
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URBS 252 - Cities of the Global South: Urbanization and Social Change in the Developing World Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as GEOG 252 and INTL 252 ) The largest and fastest wave of urbanization in human history is now underway in the Global South—the developing countries of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. Most of the world’s urban population already resides here, where mega-cities now reach massive proportions. Despite widespread economic dynamism, high rates of urbanization and deprivation often coincide, so many of the 21st century’s greatest challenges will arise in the Global South. This course examines postcolonial urbanism, global-city and ordinary-city theories, informal settlements and slums, social and environmental justice, and urban design, planning, and governance. We study scholarly, journalistic, and film depictions of Mexico City and Rio de Janeiro in Latin America; Algiers and Lagos in Africa; Cairo and Istanbul in the Middle East; and Beijing and Mumbai in Asia. Brian Godfrey.
Prerequisite(s): a previous Geography or Urban Studies course.
Two 75-minute periods.
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URBS 254 - Victorian Britain Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as HIST 254 ) This course examines some of the key transformations that Victorians experienced, including industrialization, the rise of a class-based society, political reform, and the women’s movement. We explore why people then, and historians since, have characterized the Victorian age as a time of progress and optimism as well as an era of anxiety and doubt. Lydia Murdoch.
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URBS 257 - Genre and the Postcolonial City
1 unit(s)
(Same as AFRS 257 and POLI 257 ) This course explores the physical and imaginative dimensions of selected postcolonial cities. The theoretical texts, genres of expression and cultural contexts that the course engages address the dynamics of urban governance as well as aesthetic strategies and everyday practices that continue to reframe existing senses of reality in the postcolonial city. Through an engagement with literary, cinematic, architectural among other forms of urban mediation and production, the course examines the politics of migrancy, colonialism, gender, class and race as they come to bear on political identities, urban rhythms and the built environment. Case studies include: Johannesburg , Nairobi, Algiers and migrant enclaves in London and Paris. Samson Opondo.
Not offered in 2017/18.
Two 75-minute periods.
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URBS 258 - Sustainable Landscapes: Bridging Place and Environment in Poughkeepsie
1 unit(s)
(Same as GEOG 258 ) Geographers have long understood the relationship of aesthetic landscapes and place to include concepts of identity, control, and territory. Increasingly we consider landscape aesthetics in the context of sustainability and environmental quality. How do these contrasting sets of priorities meet in the process of landscape design and land use analysis? In this course we begin by examining regional and local histories of landscape design and land use planning and their relationship to concepts of place, territory, and identity. We consider landscape ecological approaches to marrying aesthetic, land use planning, and environmental priorities in landscapes. We investigate local issues such as watershed quality, native plantings, and storm water management in the context of local land use planning in order to consider creative ways to bridge these once-contrary approaches to understanding the landscapes we occupy and construct. We focus on projects and topics related to the greater Poughkeepsie area. Susan Blickstein.
Prerequisite(s): one 100-level course in Geography.
Not offered in 2017/18.
One 3-hour period.
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URBS 264 - The Metropolitan Avant-Gardes Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as ART 264 and MEDS 264 ) Radical prototypes of creativity and self-organization were forged by the new groups of artists, writers, filmmakers and architects that emerged in the first decades of the twentieth century. They based themselves in the new metropolitan centers. The course studies the avant-gardes’ different and often competing efforts to meet the economic transformation that industrialization was bringing to city and country alike. Afterward, the role of art itself would be seen completely differently. Molly Nesbit.
Prerequisite(s): ART 105 or ART 106 , or permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods and one weekly film screening.
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URBS 265 - Modern Art and the Mass Media: the New Public Sphere
1 unit(s)
(Same as ART 265 and MEDS 265 ) When the public sphere was reset during the twentieth century by a new order of mass media, the place of art and artists in the new order needed to be claimed. The course studies the negotiations between modern art and the mass media (advertising, cinema, TV), in theory and in practice, during the years between the Great Depression and the liberation movements of the late 1960s-the foundation stones of our own contemporary culture. Neither the theory nor the practice has become obsolete. Molly Nesbit.
Prerequisite(s): ART 105 or ART 106 .
Two 75-minute periods and one film screening.
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URBS 268 - After 1968: the Activation of Art Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as ART 268 and MEDS 268 ) This course studies the emancipation of the visual arts after 1968, here and abroad, together with the political and philosophical discussions that guided them. Theory and practice would form new combinations. The traditional fine arts as well as the new media, performance, film, architecture and installation art are treated as part of the wider global evolution creating new theaters of action, critique, community and hope. Molly Nesbit.
Prerequisite(s): ART 105 or ART 106 .
Two 75-minute periods and one film screening.
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URBS 270 - Gender and Social Space
1 unit(s)
(Same as GEOG 270 and WMST 270 ) This course explores the ways in which gender informs the spatial organization of daily life; the interrelation of gender and key spatial forms and practices such as the home, the city, the hotel, migration, shopping, community activism, and walking at night. It draws on feminist theoretical work from diverse fields such as geography, architecture, anthropology and urban studies not only to begin to map the gendered divisions of the social world but also to understand gender itself as a spatial practice. Lisa Brawley.
Prerequisite(s): one of the following: URBS 100 , GEOG 102 , or WMST 130 , or permission of the instructor.
Not offered in 2017/18.
Two 75-minute periods.
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URBS 271 - Visual Urbanism Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as MEDS 271 ) This course examines correspondences between the emergent metrop-olis and practices of urban spectatorship. We approach the moderniza- tion of vision as an aspect of capitalist urbanization, as we engage the shifting media forms that have refracted and regulated modernity’s urban conditions from the mid-19th century to the present: camera obscura, magic lantern, window display, crime photography, film noir, snapshot, broadcast television, billboard, hand-held video, SimCity, Google earth, CCTV, immersive VR. Issues we investigate include: the increasing predominance of visual culture in urban everyday life; the distracted attention of the urban spectator as a mode of modern subjectivity; the role of the visual in shaping both official and vernac- ular understandings of the city; the use of city image and urban brand in urban development; the merging of physical and information space as urban landscapes become media-saturated environments; urban surveillance and the use of the visual as a vector of modern political power. Throughout, we approach urban visibility as a fiercely ambiva- lent force: both a source of spectacle and a tool to render legible the hidden powers that structure urban everyday life. Readings include works by Roland Barthes, Jonathan Beller, Walter Benjamin, Guliano Bruno, Susan Buck-Morss, Christine Boyer, Rey Chow, Elizabeth Currid, Jonathan Crary, Guy Debord, Anne Friedberg, Eric Gordon, Tom Gunning, Miriam Greenberg, Frederic Jameson, Rem Koolhaas, Kevin Lynch, W.T.J. Mitchell, Venessa Schwartz, William White, and Raymond Williams. Lisa Brawley.
Two 75-minute periods.
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URBS 272 - Buildings and Cities after the Industrial Revolution
1 unit(s)
(Same as ART 272 ) Architecture and urbanism were utterly changed by the forces of the industrial revolution. New materials (iron and steel), building type (train stations, skyscrapers), building practice (the rise of professional societies and large corporate firms), and newly remade cities (London, Paris, Vienna) provided a setting for modern life. The course begins with the liberation of the architectural imagination around 1750 and terminates with the rise of modernism at the beginning of the twentieth century (Gropius, Le Corbusier).
Prerequisite(s): ART 105 or ART 106 or permission of the instructor.
Not offered in 2017/18.
Two 75-minute periods.
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URBS 273 - Modern Architecture and Beyond
1 unit(s)
(Same as ART 273 ) European and American architecture and city building (1920 to the present); examination of the diffusion of modernism and its reinterpretation by corporate America and Soviet Russia. Discussion of subsequent critiques of modernism (postmodernism, deconstruction, new urbanism) and their limitations. Issues in contemporary architecture.
Prerequisite(s): ART 105 or ART 106 , or ART 170 , or permission of the instructor.
Not offered in 2017/18.
Two 75-minute periods.
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URBS 275 - Rome: Architecture and Urbanism
1 unit(s)
(Same as ART 275 ) The Eternal City has been transformed many times since its legendary founding by Romulus and Remus. This course presents an overview of the history of the city of Rome in antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Baroque period, and modern times. The course examines the ways that site, architecture, urbanism, and politics have interacted to produce one of the world’s densest urban fabrics. The course focuses on Rome’s major architectural and urban monuments over time (e.g., Pantheon, St. Peters, the Capitoline hill) as well as discussions of the dynamic forms of Roman power and religion. Literature, music and film also will be included as appropriate. Nicholas Adams.
Prerequisite(s): ART 105 or ART 106 , or ART 170 or permission of the instructor.
Not offered in 2017/18.
Two 75-minute periods.
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URBS 277 - America 1890-1990 “The Rise and Fall of “The American Century” Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as HIST 277 ) In 1941, Henry Luce, publisher of Time and Life magazines, proclaimed the twentieth as “America’s century.” At mid-century, many Americans agreed with Luce’s view of the US as the preeminent global power By the 1980s, however, believing their country was in decline, more and more Americans began losing confidence in America’s greatness. Using primary sources that range from political pamphlets to Hollywood film, presidential speeches to oral interviews, this course looks at America’s rise to prominence after 1890 and the nation’s so-called decline nearly a century later. We pay particular attention to the social and political changes marking the growth of progressive reform from the 1890s to the 1970s, then trace the rise of conservatism during the final decades of “the American century.” Miriam Cohen.
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URBS 290 - Field Work Semester Offered: Fall or Spring
0.5 to 1 unit(s)
Individual projects through field work office, under supervision of one of the participating instructors. May be elected during the college year or during the summer.
Special permission.
Unscheduled.
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URBS 298 - Independent Work Semester Offered: Fall or Spring
0.5 to 1 unit(s)
Individual project of reading or research, uder supervision of one of the participating instructors.
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Urban Studies: III. Advanced |
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URBS 300 - Senior Thesis Semester Offered: Fall
0.5 unit(s)
A thesis written in two semesters for one unit. The Program.
Yearlong course 300-URBS 301 .
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URBS 301 - Senior Thesis Semester Offered: Spring
0.5 unit(s)
A thesis written in two semesters for one unit. The Program.
Yearlong course URBS 300 -301.
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URBS 303 - Advanced Debates in Urban Studies Semester Offered: Fall and Spring
1 unit(s)
This seminar focuses on selected issues of importance in Urban Studies. Topics vary according to the instructor. The course is required of all majors and may be taken during the junior or senior years; it can be repeated for credit if the topic has changed.
Topic for 2017/18a: Critical and Social Design.This course takes up the theory and practice of Design Thinking to explore the messy, emerging terrain of “social innovation,” especially with regard to urban policies, practices, and institutions. We locate the emergence of Design Thinking in relation to the perceived failures of modernist urban planning, and track its exponential growth in an era of neoliberal governance and “creative cities.” We investigate “human centered design” as a new form of urban expertise, as a broadening range of institutions—hospitals, universities, non-profits, state and federal agencies—scramble to establish divisions of design strategy and innovation.
We ask: How did the world become a design problem? What does it mean to approach urban inequality, social injustice, public health failures, and political disenfranchisement in terms of design? How do DIY urban movements such as Tactical and Everyday Urbanism track within the broader trajectory of design-driven social intervention? How might we intervene in the emerging doxa of Design Thinking itself? How might we critically disrupt the expanding field of design strategy toward deepening democracy and fostering the just city?
The course is structured as a hybrid of studio and advanced seminar. Informed by recent scholarship in design and in critical urban theory, students learn, practice, and critically reflect on the techniques of design strategy in a series of individual and collaborative projects.
Readings include critical essays and chapters by Wendy Brown, Sara Hendren, Bruno Latour, Eric Olin Wright, J.K. Gibson-Graham, Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby, Chris Le Dantec, Lucy Suchman, Jamie Peck and Neil Brenner, along with a selection of methods manuals such as: the d.school Bootcamp Bootleg; Bill Burnett and Dave Evans, Designing Your Life; IDEO.org’s Field Guide to Human-Centered Design, Joan Minieri and Paul Gestors, Tools for Radical Democracy: How to Organize for Power in Your Community; Zaid Hassan, The Social Labs Revolution: A New Approach to Solving our Most Complex Challenges. Lisa Brawley.
Topic 2017/18b: Memory, Planning, and Placemaking. (Same as GEOG 303 ) Urban memory and heritage are increasingly important sources of cultural identity, tourism, community development, and political symbolism in our globalized world. Cities recognize heritage sites, historic districts, monuments and landmarks, memorials, nature preserves and other special areas as strategies of placemaking – the social, spatial, and symbolic processes by which distinctive places are planned and authorized by governmental authority. This seminar focuses on the role of place memory in the planning and governance of global cities. We consider both official historic designations and grassroots efforts of “counter-memory” to recognize underappreciated and marginalized groups. By examining the continuities and ruptures of collective memory in cities, this seminar explores how processes of remembrance (and forgetting) affect society, space, politics, community, and identity. Field trips examine the making of historic places in the Hudson Valley and New York City. After examining the theory and practice of historic placemaking, students carry out research on sites of their own choosing. Brian Godfrey.
One 3-hour period.
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URBS 310 - Urban Inequality
1 unit(s)
This course looks at urban inequality - its meaning, its complexity, its causes, and its implications. As centers of political power and capital accumulation, cities have long been sites of socio-economic, spatial, racial and other forms of inequality. The reproduction of inequality - in the US and elsewhere - happens, to a considerable extent, in cities and by urban processes. This course is designed to allow (and force) students to explore the complicated, layered inequality that characterizes cities. How is economic inequality linked - as cause and effect - to political, racial, educational and spatial inequality? How are these inequalities reflected in and reinforced by the built environment? How is inequality within cities linked to globalization, and to neo-liberal policies in the US? How can we intervene, to make our cities more equal and more “just”? How can urban residents articulate and assert their “right to the city”? And how do the answers to these questions vary from city to city? Timothy Koechlin.
Not offered in 2017/18.
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URBS 314 - Seminar in Ancient Art Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as ART 314 and GRST 314 ) Topic for 2017/18b: Pompeii: Public and Private Life. The volcanic eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79 blotted out life in Pompeii, but the Roman town lives on as a study site and tourist attraction. Its urban development with grand theaters and amphitheaters alongside of taverns and brothels exemplifies high and low Roman culture. The homes of private citizens demonstrate intense social competition in their scale, grounds, and the Greek myths painted on walls. Pompeii gave shape to the world of Roman citizens and others through its raucous street life and gleaming monumental centers. Eve D’Ambra.
Prerequisite(s): permission of the instructor.
One 2-hour period.
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URBS 316 - Constantinople/Istanbul: 1453
1 unit(s)
(Same as HIST 316 ) This seminar examines a turning point in history-the end of the Byzantine Empire and the rise of the Ottoman Empire. The focus is the siege of Constantinople as seen in primary accounts and modem studies. The course also looks closely at culture and society in late Byzantium and the early Ottoman Empire. Specific topics include the post-1453 Greek refugee community, the transformation of Constantinople into Istanbul, and the role of Western European powers and the papacy as allies and antagonists of both empires. Nancy Bisaha.
Not offered in 2017/18.
One 2-hour period.
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URBS 318 - Urban and Regional Economics
1 unit(s)
(Same as ECON 318 ) An exploration of the nature and development of urban areas that begins with an examination of the theory of why cities grow and how individuals and firms choose their locations before covering patterns of land use, suburbanization, transportation, education, crime, and housing and their influence the growth of cities. Dustin Frye.
Prerequisite(s): ECON 201 and ECON 209 .
Not offered in 2017/18.
Two 75-minute periods.
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URBS 320 - Mapping the Middle Landscape Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
A majority of Americans today live, work and shop in an environment that Leo Marx has termed “the middle landscape”: the suburban and exurban area between city and countryside. This reading and research seminar investigates some of the middle landscape’s peculiar spatial products, such as master planned communities, mega-malls and ethnoburbs. The investigation focuses on the physical environment as well as the general attitudes, fears and economic forces that shaped this environment. After a series of introductory lectures and discussions, students produce detailed case studies, using a variety of mapping techniques. Tobias Armborst.
One 3-hour period.
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URBS 326 - Machiavelli: Power and Politics
1 unit(s)
(Same as HIST 326 ) This course examines the life and writings of one of the most fascinating and misunderstood thinkers of the early modern era. By situating Machiavelli (1469-1527) against the backdrop of his times, we gain insight into the Florentine Republic, Medici rule, the papacy, and devastating invasions of Italy by French, Spanish, and German armies. We also explore cultural movements like the study of antiquity by humanists and the rise of vernacular writing and bold new forms of popular expression and political discourse. Several of Machiavelli’s works are read, including his letters and plays, The Prince, The Discourses, The Art of War, and The Florentine Histories, as well as some of the major modern interpretations of Machiavelli in historiography and political thought. Nancy Bisaha.
Not offered in 2017/18.
One 2-hour period.
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URBS 340 - Advanced Urban and Regional Studies
1 unit(s)
(Same as GEOG 340 ) Topic for 2017/18a: Restless Cities: Innovation and social conflicts. In recent years, cities in the United States have become renewed centers of experimentation and transformation, of marked innovation and socio-political conflict. How and why do these urban innovations emerge, and how do they manifest the changing role of the state, capital, and the dynamic relationships between the local, national, and global? This course explores these questions through a variety of case studies ranging from social movements to social enterprises and the gig economy of AirBnB and Uber. In doing so, we explore a theoretical literature on cities and networks, socio-ecological justice, and especially the geographical concept of scale, which illuminates many of these processes. We evaluate the morality of scale itself: in an era defined by multiple intersecting crises of ecology, democracy, and economy, are local and neighborhood-scale political projects inherently more just and democratic than national ones? Can neighborhood efforts like community gardening and organizing have national and global impacts? Is “small” really beautiful and “big” really evil? We survey the geographic literatures on scale, as well as economic sociology and actor network theory, drawing on advanced theoretical debates on scale. Evan Casper-Futterman.
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URBS 352 - The City in Fragments
1 unit(s)
(Same as MEDS 352 ) In this seminar, we use the concept of the fragment to explore the contemporary city, and vice versa. We draw on the work of Walter Benjamin, for whom the fragment was both a central symptom of urban modernity and a potentially radical mode of inquiry. We also use the figure of the fragment to explore and to experiment with the situationist urbanism of Guy Debord, to address the failure of modernist dreams for the city, and to reframe the question of the “global” in contemporary discussions of global urbanization. Finally, we use the fragment to destabilize notions of experience and evidence—so central to positivist understandings of the city—as we make regular visits to discover, as it were, non-monumental New York. Readings include works by Walter Benjamin, Stefano Boeri, Christine Boyer, Guy Debord, Rosalyb Deytsche, Paul Gilroy, Rem Koolhaas, Henri Lefebvre, Thomas Lacquer, Saskia Sassen, Mark Wigley, and others. Lisa Brawley, Heesok Chang.
Prerequisite(s): permission of the instructor.
Not offered in 2017/18.
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URBS 356 - Environment and Land Use Planning
1 unit(s)
(Same as ENST 356 and GEOG 356 ) This seminar focuses on land-use issues such as open-space planning, urban design, transportation planning, and the social and environmental effects of planning and land use policies. The focus of the course this year is impacts of planning policies (such as transportation, zoning, or growth boundaries) on environmental quality, including open space preservation, farmland conservation, and environmental services. We begin with global and regional examples and then apply ideas in the context of Dutchess County’s trajectory of land use change and planning policies. Susan Blickstein.
Prerequisite(s): one 200-level course in Geography, Urban Studies or Environmental Studies.
Not offered in 2017/18.
One 3-hour period.
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URBS 367 - Urban Education Reform
1 unit(s)
(Same as EDUC 367 ) This seminar examines American urban education reform from historical and contemporary perspectives. Particular attention is given to the political and economic aspects of educational change. Specific issues addressed in the course include school governance, standards and accountability, incentive-based reform strategies, and investments in teacher quality. Maria Hantzopoulos.
Prerequisite(s): EDUC 235 or permission of the instructor.
Not offered in 2017/18.
One 2-hour period.
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URBS 369 - Social Citizenship in an Urban Age Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as EDUC 369 and HIST 369 ) During a 1936 campaign speech President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared that in “1776 we sought freedom from the tyranny of a political autocracy.” Since then “the age of machinery, of railroads; of steam and electricity; the telegraph and the radio; mass production and mass distribution—all of these combined to bring forward a new civilization and with it a new problem … . For too many of us the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality.” Therefore, the President concluded, government must do something to “protect the citizen’s right to work and right to live.” This course looks at how Americans during the twentieth century fought to expand the meaning of citizenship to include social rights. We study efforts on behalf of labor laws, unemployment and old age insurance, and aid to poor mothers and their children. How did these programs affect Americans of different social, racial, and ethnic backgrounds? How did gender shape the ways that people experienced these programs? Because many Americans believed that widening educational opportunities was essential for addressing the problems associated with the “new civilization” that Roosevelt described, we ask to what extent Americans came to believe that access to a good education is a right of citizenship. These issues and the struggles surrounding them are not only, as they say, “history.” To help us understand our times, we look at the backlash, in the closing decades of the twentieth century, against campaigns to enlarge the definition of citizenship. Miriam Cohen.
One 2-hour period.
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URBS 370 - Seminar in Architectural History Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as ART 370 ) Topic for 2017/18a: Post-War American Architecture. The course focuses on the career of the architect Gordon Bunshaft (1909–1990) and the architectural firm of Skidmore Owings & Merrill. We examine Bunshaft’s career in light of the development of the glass skyscraper (Lever House), the invention of the glass bank (Manufacturers Trust), and the creation of the corporate campus (Connecticut General) in post-World War II America. Nicholas Adams.
Prerequisite(s): 200-level course in architectural history.
One 3-hour period.
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