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Catalogue 2019-2020 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]
Course Descriptions
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Swedish: III. Advanced |
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SWED 310 - Advanced Swedish I Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
Special Permission.
Course Format: OTH
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SWED 311 - Advanced Swedish II Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
Special Permission.
Course Format: OTH
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SWED 380 - Advanced Swedish Special Topics Semester Offered: Fall
0.5 to 1 unit(s)
One 1-hour period.
Course Format: OTH
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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 .
Course Format: OTH
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TURK 106 - Introduction to Turkish II Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
Special Permission.
Yearlong course TURK 105 -106.
Course Format: OTH
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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 .
Course Format: OTH
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TURK 211 - Intermediate Turkish II Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
Special Permission.
Year long course TURK 210 -211.
Course Format: OTH
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Turkish: III. Advanced |
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TURK 310 - Advanced Turkish
1 unit(s)
Special Permission
Course Format: OTH
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TURK 311 - Advanced Turkish
1 unit(s)
Special Permission
Course Format: OTH
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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. Timothy Koechlin, Leonard Nevarez.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
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URBS 106 - Philosophical & Contemporary Issues Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
Topic for 2019/20a: Critique on the Border. (Same as PHIL 106 ) Critique is a fundamental philosophical activity. This course focuses on critique as a practice related to the border via specific readings. Thus, the course simultaneously focuses on various instances of critique, or critical readings, as well as how the border plays a factor in such readings. Critique, defined by Kant, as the determination of limits and boundaries, requires a certain freedom of movement (even if just a freedom of thought to enjoy speculative flights of fancy). The person engaging in critique, then, is able to move and maneuver within and between various areas, disciplines, and regimes. At the same time, however, this person is able to determine who or what belongs in certain areas or disciplines. Here, the person engaged in critique becomes a border agent. The course thus assesses how one simultaneously evaluates certain philosophical, ethical, and political circumstances, while also situating individuals and groups within their areas. Borders examined include: the (in)violability of the body, the sanctity of the holy, the familiarity of home, and national boundaries, more generally. Osman Nemli.
Open only to first-year students; satisfies the college requirement for a First-Year Writing Seminar.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
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URBS 144 - Living in the Ancient City
0.5 unit(s)
(Same as ART 144 and GRST 144 ) The great Mediterranean cities of Classical Antiquity, Athens in the 5th c. BC and Rome in the 1st-2nd c. CE (along with some of their satellite cities), are synonymous with the rise of western civilization. The city plans and monumental architecture dominate our view, but this course also focuses on the civic institutions housed in the spectacular buildings and the social worlds shaped by the grand public spaces, as well as the cramped working quarters. Neighborhoods of the rich and the poor, their leisure haunts, and places of congregation and entertainment are explored to reveal the rituals of everyday life and their political consequences. Eve D’Ambra.
Second six-week course.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2019/20.
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URBS 177 - Special Topics
0.5 unit(s)
(Same as AMST 177 and ENGL 177 )
First six-week course.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2019/20.
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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. Lisa Brawley.
Prerequisite(s): URBS 100 or permission of the instructor.
Course Format: CLS
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URBS 202 - Public Policy and Human Environments Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as ENST 202 , ESCI 202 , ESSC 202 and GEOG 202 ) This course combines the insights of the natural and social sciences to address a selected topic of global concern. Geographers bring spatial analysis of societal and political-ecological changes, while Earth Scientists contribute their knowledge of the diverse natural processes shaping the earth’s surface. Together, these distinctive but complementary fields contribute to comprehensive understandings of the physical limitations and potential, uses and misuses of the Earth’s natural resources.
Topic for 2019/20a: Water and Cities. The explosive urbanization of the modern world places new and unprecedented demands on the earth’s hydrological systems. A variety of environmental issues—such as water provision and drought, depletion of aquifers, pollution of watersheds, flooding, regional climate change, socioeconomic disparities in water infrastructures (environmental injustice), privatization of supply and other policy questions—arise out of the insatiable demands for water of contemporary metropolitan regions. This course combines geographical and geological perspectives on the increasingly urgent problems of urban water. Case studies focus on of water problems in the New York metropolitan region, cities and suburbs of the arid U.S. Southwest, Beijing, Mexico City, São Paulo, Capetown, and other rapidly growing mega-cities of the developing world. Brian Godfrey and Kirsten Menking.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
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URBS 219 - The First Cities: The Art and Archaeology of the Ancient Near East Semester Offered: Fall
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 2019/20.
Course Format: CLS
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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.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2019/20.
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URBS 229 - Paris and London: Society and Culture in the Early Modern City, 1500-1800 Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as HIST 229 ) Between 1500-1800 European society experienced upheavals caused by cataclysmic events such as the Reformation and major shifts in economic and political organization. And it was Europeans living in urban areas – Europeans of different social status, faith, and ethnicities – who experienced these changes most intensely. This course investigates how two of the most dynamic cities in early modern Europe, London and Paris, changed from essentially medieval cities to urban metropolises. We look at the changing material, religious, and political conditions of London and Paris over two centuries and explore how the peoples of these two cities articulated and made sense of such changes. The central focus of the class will be examining how the identities of Parisians and Londoners as urban dwellers underwent transformations during this period. Sumita Choudhury.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
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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.
Course Format: CLS
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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.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2019/20.
Course Format: CLS
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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.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2019/20.
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URBS 237 - Urban Sociology Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as SOCI 237 ) Since the late 19th century, sociology has contributed to the historic formation and evolving agenda of urban studies. This course introduces classical sociological studies of the urban, from German sociologists like Georg Simmel to the so-called Chicago school of sociology, and their elaboration and challenge by later generations of sociologists. In many ways, traditional sociological concepts of neighborhood, stratification, deviance, and urbanism inform contemporary research on unanticipated urban phenomena, like gentrification and megacities. Elsewhere, sociologists have shaped multidisciplinary inquiries into public space, political economy, and place. We survey these disciplinary developments with added focus on the global forces and urban change visible in Poughkeepsie and the larger New York metropolitan area. Leonard Nevarez.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
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URBS 240 - Activating the Architectural Uncanny in the City Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as ART 240 ) Cities all over the world and in different eras have become participants and arenas in creating urban spectacles. Often such activities consist of processions involving masquerades, mobile floats, musicians decked in elaborate attire and playing instruments – commemorating the dead, the living, royalties and politicians; to name a few examples. This course will study how certain case-studies - ranging from Mexico City to Notting Hill in London – demonstrate how architectural facades, urban spaces as well as certain ceremonies activate an uncanny experience, which may even echo Trahndorff’s theory of the Gesamtkuntswerk. Adedoyin Teriba.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
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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. Louis Römer.
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.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2019/20.
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URBS 250 - Urban Geography: Space, Place, Environment Semester Offered: Fall
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.
Course Format: CLS
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URBS 252 - Cities of the Global South: Urbanization and Social Change in the Developing World Semester Offered: Spring
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 and VICT 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.
Two 75-minute periods.
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URBS 255 - Race, Representation, and Resistance in U.S. Schools
1 unit(s)
(Same as AFRS 255 and EDUC 255 This course interrogates the intersections of race, racism and schooling in the US context. In this course, we examine this intersection at the site of educational policy, media and public attitudes towards schools and schooling- critically examining how representations in each shape the experiences of youth in school. Expectations, beliefs, attitudes and opportunities reflect societal investments in these representations, thus becoming both reflections and driving forces of these identities. Central to these representations is how theorists, educators and youth take them on, own them and resist them in ways that constrain possibility or create spaces for hope. Kimberly Williams Brown.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2019/20.
Course Format: CLS
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URBS 256 - Bilingualism and/in K-12 Public Education Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as EDUC 256 and LALS 256 ) Learning in schools where the language of instruction is new presents a challenge familiar to young immigrants and refugees across the globe. This affects their educational achievement, as well as their sense of inclusion and belonging in their new communities. This course examines the issue of education for English Language Learners through a field based experience in Poughkeepsie Schools. The hands-on component of the course is paired with readings that draw from bilingual education, critical theories of pedagogy, education policy, migration,, and education for social change. A group research and writing project is intended to highlight the academic needs of local ELLs, to examine the current instructional models for bilingual students, especially for newcomers, and to assess the possibilities for the adoption of ELL newcomer programming in the city of Poughkeepsie. The course is open to all Vassar students interested in (a) community-based learning as a tool for social change; (b) learning about the experiences of bilingual students in Poughkeepsie schools; and (c) gaining practical experience researching bilingual education policy. Tracey Holland.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
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URBS 257 - Genre and the Postcolonial City Semester Offered: Spring
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.
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.
One 3-hour period.
Not offered in 2019/20.
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URBS 264 - The Metropolitan Avant-Gardes
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.
Not offered in 2019/20.
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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.
Not offered in 2019/20.
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URBS 268 - After 1968: the Activation of Art
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.
Not offered in 2019/20.
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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.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2019/20.
Course Format: CLS
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URBS 271 - Visual Urbanism
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.
Not offered in 2019/20.
Course Format: CLS
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URBS 272 - “All That Is Solid Melts Into Air”: Modernity’s Global Story Through Architecture (1800s-1930s)
1 unit(s)
(Same as ART 272 ) While the ideas that gave rise to an era that today is spoken of as the age of Modernity originated in the Enlightenment or even the Renaissance; architecture’s account of Modernity took an acute and unprecedented turn at the end of the nineteenth century, which coincided with the rise of the Industrial Revolution. Adolf Loos and F.T Marinetti rejected past architectural forms and championed minimalist structures that spoke to the new technological age. Antonio Gaudi and others created an ornate architecture known as Modernistá. In other parts of the world, Modernity’s tale involved movement of former slaves recasting Classical, Renaissance and Baroque architecture as their own, modern architecture. This class explores how the advent of Modernity into the world assumes many guises if narrated through the architecture people created. Adedoyin Teriba.
Prerequisite(s): ART 105 or ART 106 or permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2019/20.
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URBS 273 - A Mirror Image: The Search for Self, Place & Home in Contemporary Architecture in the World, 1980s+ Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as ART 273 ) One could imagine that in the 1970s, the architectural movement known as the International Style looked back at the twentieth century with glee, surveying its spoils. It was after all, a style of architecture that held the century in thrall for almost 50 years; determining the built forms for much of the world in steel, glass and concrete. Le Corbusier for instance, likened architecture to a machine with parts that could be erected and function anywhere. Yet voices arose to articulate local architectural responses to such a paradigm, where the interrelationship between self, place, identity and home needed to be articulated in built form. The phrase that became the rallying cry for such a movement was “Critical Regionalism” and this course analyzes how many architectural projects in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas embodied an approach to a more humane architecture. Adedoyin Teriba.
Prerequisite(s): ART 105 or ART 106 or permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
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URBS 274 - Buildings and Cities in Early Modern Italy
1 unit(s)
(Same as ART 274 ) A history of architecture and urban design on the Italian peninsula, c. 1300-1700. We focus on the influential centers of Florence, Rome, and Venice, with reference to parallel developments elsewhere in Europe and the Mediterranean. Buildings and urban spaces are considered in social and political contexts, looking at the social structures as well as the patrons for which they were designed: governments, trade guilds, popes, nobles, and merchants. We study architectural and urban forms in relation to their functions, considering quotidian and ceremonial uses, the public and private spheres, and gendered spaces. Visual and textual evidence of performance, navigation, ritual, and sound reveal the varied ways that interior and exterior spaces could be experienced. Other topics include the changing role of the architect; individual versus collaborative design methods; the relation between theory and practice; new media; the transmission of memory; patterns of urban information exchange; manifestations of the ideal city; and the relation of urban, suburban, and rural topography. We investigate the designs and built work of such figures as Brunelleschi, Leon Battista Alberti, Leonardo da Vinci, Bramante, Raphael, Michelangelo, Palladio, Bernini, and Borromini. We also consider multimedia ensembles that blur traditional boundaries among art, architecture, urbanism, and landscape. Yvonne Elet.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2019/20.
Course Format: CLS
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URBS 275 - Architectural Design I Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as ART 275 ) A studio-based class introduction to architectural design through a series of short projects. Employing a combination of drawing, modeling and collage techniques (both by hand and using digital technology) students begin to record, analyze and create architectural space and form. Tobias Armborst.
Prerequisite(s): Permission of the instructor.
Two 2-hour periods.
Course Format: CLS
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URBS 276 - Architectural Design II Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as ART 276 ) A studio-based course aimed at further developing architectural drawing and design skills. Employing a variety of digital and non-digital techniques students record, analyze and create architectural space and form in a series of design exercises. Tobias Armborst.
Prerequisite(s): Permission of the instructor.
Two 2-hour periods.
Course Format: CLS
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URBS 277 - America 1890-1990 “The Rise and Fall of “The American Century”
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.
Not offered in 2019/20.
Course Format: CLS
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URBS 290 - Community-Engaged Learning Semester Offered: Fall or Spring
0.5 to 1 unit(s)
Individual projects through the Office of Community-Engaged Learning, under supervision of one of the participating instructors. May be elected during the college year or during the summer.
Special permission.
Unscheduled.
Course Format: INT
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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.
Course Format: OTH
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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. The Department.
Yearlong course 300-URBS 301 .
Course Format: INT
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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. The Department.
Yearlong course URBS 300 -301.
Course Format: INT
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URBS 303 - Advanced Debates in Urban Studies Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as (Same as GEOG 303 ) Topic for 2019/20b: Gentrification and its Discontents. When Ruth Glass, a British planner, coined the term “gentrification” in 1964, the upgrading of working-class neighborhoods by affluent households was a novelty. From its beginnings in the transformation of working-class housing in South London, gentrification has now become commonplace, fueled by government policy, economic restructuring, real-estate dynamics, and cultural shifts in residential preferences for city living. While not universal, the phenomenon is increasingly widespread internationally. This seminar examines the growing literature on gentrification in terms of underlying theoretical perspectives, diversity of local experiences, and policy approaches to remedy resulting problems of social displacement. We examine cases in which whole cities seem engulfed in gentrification (London, New York City, San Francisco, Boston, and Seattle) and those in which the phenomenon is evident but more selective (Detroit, New Orleans, Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City, and Beijing). Taking the perspective of comparative urbanism, we also consider the degree to which concepts of gentrification may displace other more complicated and diverse explanations of urban change. 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 2019/20.
Course Format: CLS
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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 2019/20b: 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.
One 2-hour period.
Not offered in 2019/20.
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URBS 318 - Urban and Regional Economics Semester Offered: Spring
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 210 or permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods.
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URBS 320 - Mapping the Middle Landscape
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.
Not offered in 2019/20.
Course Format: CLS
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URBS 326 - Machiavelli: Power and Politics Semester Offered: Spring
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.
One 2-hour period.
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URBS 340 - Advanced Urban and Regional Studies
1 unit(s)
(Same as GEOG 340 )
Not offered in 2019/20.
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URBS 352 - The City in Fragments Semester Offered: Spring
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.
Course Format: CLS
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URBS 356 - Environment and Land-Use Planning Semester Offered: Fall
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.
Topic 2019/20a: Re-Envisioning The North Side: From Automobility to Place. This seminar focuses on planning issues such as sustainable land use planning, urban design, transportation planning, and social/economic effects of urban planning policies. Using the City of Poughkeepsie as a laboratory, this seminar will focus on how transportation and land use planning decisions affect the social, economic, cultural, and environmental resources of neighborhoods and communities through an in-depth look at the north side parking lots in downtown Poughkeepsie and the “East-West Arterial”. We specifically examine the socio-economic, demographic, mobility and access issues, as well as environmental, and planning concerns surrounding the history of the downtown and the City’s transportation decision making, (including the provision of large parking lots and construction of the “Arterial” in the early 1970s in tandem with creation of a pedestrian mall on Main Street). Though fieldwork, readings and exercises, we will explore potential opportunities for re-envisioning the north side parking lots and the roadways that serve the study area (especially the “Arterial”). Susan Blickstein.
Prerequisite(s): One 200-level course in Geography, Urban Studies or Environmental Studies.
One 3-hour period.
Course Format: CLS
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URBS 367 - Urban Education Reform Semester Offered: Fall
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.
One 2-hour period.
Course Format: CLS
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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: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as ART 370 ) Topic for 2019/20b: Frozen Music, Fluid Architecture: Art, Music, Architecture and Masquerades. Goethe once said that architecture was “frozen music,” in other words capturing in stasis forms that were fluid, lyrical and mobile. Many arts do the opposite; creating art and architecture in motion. Nigerian masquerades such as the Egúngún, Ijele and Igunnuko for instance, transform cityscapes into theaters of performance. Patterns of onlookers watching the spectacle on the streets; the colorful fabrics of the costumes on display and the music that the masquerades dance to, comingle to form a “total work of art.” This course explores how the spectrum of “frozen music” and fluid architectural forms embedded in examples such as Louis Kahn’s architecture, Arvo Part’s seemingly architectonic music among other examples; bridge the chasm between stasis and motion. Adedoyin Teriba.
One 2-hour period.
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URBS 375 - Architectural Design III
1 unit(s)
(Same as ART 375 ) Visual Constructs. An examination of a number of visual constructs, analyzing the ways architects and urbanists have employed maps, models and projections to construct particular, partial views of the physical world. Using a series of mapping, drawing and diagramming exercises, students analyze these constructs and then appropriate, expand upon, or hybridize established visualization techniques. Tobias Armborst.
Two 2-hour periods.
Not offered in 2019/20.
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URBS 380 - Design Workshop Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
In this intensive, a small group of students work with the faculty mentor to select and address a specific architectural or urban design challenge on campus, in the city of Poughkeepsie or in the wider region. The workshop works with partner groups on or off campus that are looking for support in tackling specific, more or less defined spatial planning and design questions. Partners can be existing constituencies such as student organizations, advocacy groups and non-profits, but also less organized groups that are brought together by particular spatial issues. In either case, the students help their partners articulate the scope of a feasible planning or design study, and they then develop a report over the course of the semester. Depending on the needs of the partner, the deliverables can range from immediately implementable design (for example new signage for a local non-profit) to drawings that render spatial issues visible and thereby negotiable, and that help partners advocate for or against spatial change. Tobias Armborst.
One 3-hour period.
Course Format: INT
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URBS 381 - Toolkit for Critical Spatial Practice Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
This intensive is structured as a series of design experiments that probe, analyze, adapt, modify, repair, occupy, or intervene in the social spaces and practices that comprise urban everyday life. We’ll aim to walk that line between playful experimentation and keen attention to the political urgencies of these dark times.
Our core format: weekly design workshops that students participate in as well as design and facilitate, and individual and collaborative projects that emerge from these. We will collect selected workshops into a toolkit of collaborative design methods, which we’ll publish as a zine. Additionally, work from this intensive will both draw on and potentially contribute to an ongoing collective initiative called “new schools for space” organized by Dubravka Sekulić, Jonathan Solomon, and Elise Hunchunk.
Lisa Brawley
One 3-hour period
Course Format: INT
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URBS 383 - Indigenous New York
1 unit(s)
(Same as AMST 383 ) Over half of all Native American people living in the United States now live in an urban area. The United States federal policies of the 1950’s brought thousands of Indigenous peoples to cities with the promise of jobs and a better life. Like so many compacts made between the United States and Native tribes, these agreements were rarely realized. Despite the cultural, political, and spiritual losses due to Termination and Relocation policies, Native American people have continued to survive and thrive in complex ways. This seminar examines the experiences of Indigenous peoples living in urban areas since the 1950’s, but also takes into consideration the elaborate urban centers that existed in the Americas before European contact. Using the New York region as our geographical center, we examine the pan-tribal movement, AIM, Red Power, education, powwowing, social and cultural centers, two-spiritedness, religious movements, and the arts. We study the manner in which different Native urban communities have both adopted western ways and recuperated specific cultural and spiritual traditions in order to build and nurture Indigenous continuance. Finally, in this course, we understand and define “urban” in very broad contexts, using the term to examine social, spiritual, geographical, material, and imagined spaces in which Indigenous people of North America locate themselves and their communities at different times and in different ways. Molly McGlennen.
One 2-hour period.
Not offered in 2019/20.
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URBS 385 - Seminar in American Art Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as ART 385 ) Topic for 2019/20a: American Visual/Material Culture in World’s Fairs & International Expositions. From the mid-nineteenth through the mid-twentieth centuries, world’s fairs and international expositions played a central role in facilitating the emergence of mass visual culture and shaping developments in the fine arts, architecture, and urban design. Millions of visitors attended these vast global spectacles, wandering through the elaborate but temporary geographies erected on fair grounds to view public works of art and architecture, anthropological
displays, popular entertainments, and juried shows of the latest cultural, scientific, and technological advancements. In Europe and the United States, the heyday of these fairs coincided with—and materialized—a new phase of national consolidation and colonial expansion. This interdisciplinary seminar focuses on the art, architecture, and display cultures of world’s fairs in Europe and the U.S. between 1850 and 1940, specifically examining American presentations, encounters, and experiences. The course critically analyzes the exhibition itself as a medium, focusing on themes such as constructions of nation, race, and difference; technology and modernization; consumption and consumerism. Emily Voelker.
Prerequisite(s): Permission of the instructor.
One 2-hour period.
Course Format: CLS
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URBS 399 - Senior Independent Work Semester Offered: Fall or Spring
0.5 to 1 unit(s)
Individual project of reading or research, under supervision of one of the participating instructors.
Course Format: OTH
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Victorian Studies |
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VICT 150 - Revolution, Evolution, and the Global Nineteenth Century Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as CLCS 150 and HIST 150 ) The world as we know it largely came into being during the nineteenth century. Marked by social, political, cultural, and technological transformations, the nineteenth century witnessed the emergence of modernity out of the instabilities of change. Railways crisscrossed continents; European empires expanded; agricultural laborers flocked into mushrooming urban centers; and the enslaved, the colonized, and the disenfranchised around the world fought for liberty and citizenship. In this course, we consider these and other nineteenth-century transformations in a global context by focusing on the interconnections between North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia. Our investigations are organized around five core areas: revolutions, emancipations, evolution and progress, popular culture, and the domestic sphere. Students analyze a variety of sources, including novels, plays, short stories, photographs, early films, paintings, periodicals and pamphlets, government documents, letters, music, and scientific works. The course is team taught with occasional guest lectures. Lydia Murdoch and Susan Zlotnick.
Three 50-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
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VICT 254 - Victorian Britain Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as HIST 254 and URBS 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.
Two 75-minute periods.
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VICT 255 - Nineteenth -Century British Novels Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as ENGL 255 ) The nineteenth century was a preeminent age for novel writing in Great Britain, and in one semester we cannot acquaint ourselves with all the great books, or all the major novelists, of the period. Instead, the aim of this course is to learn how to read a nineteenth-century British novel by familiarizing ourselves with the conventional plots of the period (i.e., the marriage plot, the inheritance plot), its common literary idioms (such as realism, melodrama, and the Gothic) as well as some characteristic forms (the bildungsroman, the fictional autobiography) and central preoccupations (domesticity, industrialism, urbanization, imperialism, social mobility, and class relations). We also focus on careful reading and writing through short close reading assignments as well as through a few longer critical essays. Finally, this course introduces students to secondary literature, in anticipation of the work carried out in 300-level English courses. Readings vary but includes novels by Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot, and Thomas Hardy. Susan Zlotnick.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
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VICT 290 - Community-Engaged Learning
0.5 to 1 unit(s)
Course Format: INT
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VICT 298 - Independent Work
0.5 to 1 unit(s)
Course Format: OTH
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VICT 300 - Thesis Semester Offered: Fall and Spring
1, 2 to unit(s)
The senior thesis is required for the major. The Department.
Course Format: INT
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VICT 355 - Childhood and Children in Nineteenth-Century Britain Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as HIST 355 and WMST 355 ) This course examines both the social constructions of childhood and the experiences of children in Britain during the nineteenth century, a period of immense industrial and social change. We analyze the various understandings of childhood at the beginning of the century (including utilitarian, Romantic, and evangelical approaches to childhood) and explore how, by the end of the century, all social classes shared similar expectations of what it meant to be a child. Main topics include the relationships between children and parents, child labor, sexuality, education, health and welfare, abuse, delinquency, and children as imperial subjects. Lydia Murdoch.
One 2-hour period.
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VICT 399 - Senior Independent Work
0.5 to 1 unit(s)
Course Format: OTH
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Women’s Studies: I. Introductory |
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WMST 110 - Gender, Social Problems and Social Change Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as AMST 110 and SOCI 110 ) This course introduces students to a variety of social problems using insights from political science, sociology, and gender studies. We begin with an exploration of the sociological perspective, and how social problems are defined as such. We then examine the general issues of inequalities based on economic and employment status, racial and ethnic identity, and gender and sexual orientation. We apply these categories of analysis to problems facing the educational system and the criminal justice system. As we examine specific issues, we discuss political processes, social movements, and individual actions that people have used to address these problems. Eve Dunbar and Eileen Leonard.
Prerequisite(s): Permission of the instructor.
This class is taught at the Taconic Correctional Facility for Women to a combined class of Vassar and Taconic students.
One 3-hour period.
Course Format: CLS
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WMST 130 - Introduction to Women’s Studies Semester Offered: Fall and Spring
1 unit(s)
Multidisciplinary study of the scholarship on women, with an introduction to feminist theory and methodology. Includes contemporary and historical experiences of women in private and public spaces. Examination of how the concept of women has been constructed in literature, science, the media, and other institutions, with attention to the way the construction intersects with nationality, race, class, and sexuality.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
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WMST 154 - Victorian Women
1 unit(s)
(Same as HIST 154 ) This course introduces students to college writing and historical methodologies through the study of women in Victorian Britain. We explore how women from various class and social backgrounds responded to debates about “woman’s nature” and the female body in their writings and reform campaigns. Topics include slavery and abolition, industrial labor, women’s suffrage, higher education, domestic violence, sexual assault, and medical treatment for such conditions as hysteria. Students practice writing skills through the close analysis of select texts on the craft of writing along with primary source materials, including memoirs, essays, government documents, and medical records, as well as material culture artifacts: photographs and paintings, crinolines and corsets. We also examine the politics of the historical archive, exploring possible methods for researching Victorian women—especially working-class women, women of color, young women, and “lesbian like” or queer women—who were less likely to record their experiences and have them preserved, or who self-identified in terms that no longer fit our own. In addition to short assignments, students complete an independent research paper on a topic of choice. Lydia Murdoch.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2019/20.
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WMST 170 - Meeting Places
1 unit(s)
(Same as FFS 170 ) Beginning with the nineteenth century, this first-year writing seminar examines the role of gender in stories about people who meet in public urban places, such as bars, streets or cafés. Public urban places are associated with a specifically modern consciousness, characterized by the embracing of more fluid identities, fewer constraints, and a greater sense of the ephemeral. We use each text to practice writing about literature while exploring the critical concepts of gender, place and modernity in a French studies context. The course is taught in English: all works are read in translation. Kathleen Hart.
Open only to first-year students; satisfies the college requirement for a First-Year Writing Seminar.
Not offered in 2019/20.
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WMST 183 - Building a Queer Oral History Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as ENGL 183 ) This intensive provides students with practical training and experience in conducting oral history interviews. The goal is for each student, by the end of the semester, to contribute an oral history (including transcription) to the Vassar College LGBTQ Oral History Archive. In addition to practical training, students read about oral history methodology and theory; this includes engaging various ethical questions relevant to our work. Students also familiarize themselves with the LGBTQ Oral History Archive collection. Additionally, students collaborate in expanding the LGBTQ Oral History Archive to include a queer mapping component that geo-locates queer spaces and memories at Vassar and within Poughkeepsie. Our goal is to complement the oral histories in the collection with a map that documents the spaces that hold queer memories for our narrators. This course entails conducting, transcribing, and archiving oral histories. Students will apply for IRB approval. Hiram Perez.
Course Format: INT
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Women’s Studies: II. Intermediate |
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WMST 201 - Introduction to Queer Studies Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
This course offers an introduction to queer theories and methodologies as a form of inquiry that emerged out of and alongside feminism, LGBT liberation movements and AIDS activism. In addition to exploring the experiences of LBGTQ individuals and communities in a global context, the course focuses on the historical emergence of a variety of sexual and gender identities as well as the political strategies they pursued. Special attention is paid to the way sexuality intersects with gender, nationality, race, class, and dis/ability. Elias Krell.
Prerequisite(s): WMST 130 or permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
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WMST 203 - Women in Greek and Roman History and Myth Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as GRST 203 ) Greek and Roman literary and historical accounts abound with vividly drawn women such as Helen, Antigone, Medea, Livia, and Agrippina, the mother of Nero. But how representative were such figures of the daily lives of women throughout Greek and Roman antiquity? This course investigates the images and realities of women in the ancient Greek and Roman world, from the Greek Late Bronze Age (c. 1200 BCE) to the Roman Empire (up to the III c. CE) by juxtaposing evidence from literature, historical sources, and archaeological material. Throughout, the course examines the complex ways in which ancient women interacted with the institutions of the state, the family, religion, and the arts.
Two 75-minute periods.
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WMST 204 - Gender and Sexuality in Roman Culture Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as GRST 204 ) This course examines in detail the sexual attitudes and behaviors of the ancient Romans and the gender roles that both shaped and were shaped by those attitudes. We study selections from ancient Greek and Roman literature, examine artistic remains, and read articles written by prominent scholars of ancient Rome. While the readings are in roughly chronological order, the course is principally organized by topic (e.g., a day for “Roman pederasty” or “Vestal virgins”). All readings are in English translation.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2019/20.
Course Format: CLS
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WMST 205 - Arab Women Writers Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as AFRS 205 ) This course examines a selection of literary works by modern and contemporary Arab women writers in English translation. We will read fiction, poetry, autobiographies, short stories, and critical scholarship by and about Arab women, from North Africa and the Middle East, in order to develop a critical understanding of the social, political, and cultural context(s) of these writings, and to form an enlightened opinion about the issues and concerns raised by Arab women writers throughout the Twentieth Century, at different historical junctures, and in different locations. Our class discussions will focus-among other themes-on: (1) Arab women writers and feminism. (2) Arab Women and Islamism. (3) Arab women and the West. (4) Arab Nationalism(s), Arab Modernity(s), and Arab women. (5) Arab Women writing in the Diaspora: hyphenated identities and different routes of homecoming. The authors to be read include Assia Djebar (Algeria); Fatima Mernissi (Morocco); Nawal Sadaawi (Egypt); Hanan Al-Shaykh (Lebanon); and Sahar Khalifeh (Palestine); and many others. Mootacem Mhiri.
Two 75-minute periods.
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WMST 206 - Gender Issues in Economics Semester Offered: Spring
unit(s)
(Same as ECON 206 ) An analysis of gender in education, earnings, employment and the division of labor within the household. Topics include a study occupational segregation, discrimination, the role of “protective legislation” in the history of labor law, and effects of changes in the labor market of the U.S. We also study the economics of marriage, divorce, and fertility. A comparative study of gender roles in other parts of the world is the final topic in the course. Sarah Pearlman.
Prerequisite(s): ECON 102 .
Two 75-minute periods.
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WMST 210 - Domestic Violence Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as SOCI 210 ) This course provides a general overview of the prevalence and dynamics of domestic violence in the United States and its effects on battered women. We examine the role of the Battered Women’s Movement in both the development of societal awareness about domestic violence and in the initiation of legal sanctions against it. We also explore and discuss, both from a historical and present day perspective, ways in which our culture covertly and overtly condones the abuse of women by their intimate partners. Darlene DePorto.
Course Format: CLS
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WMST 214 - Transnational Perspectives on Women and Work Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as LALS 214 and SOCI 214 ) This class is a theoretical and empirical exploration of women’s paid and unpaid labor. We examine how women’s experiences as workers — across space, place, and time — interact with larger economic structures, historical moments, and narratives about womanhood. We pay particular attention to the ways in which race, class, gender, sexuality and citizenship intersect and shape not only women’s relationships to work and family, but to other women workers (at times very differently geopolitically situated). We are attentive to the construction of women workers, the work itself, and the meanings women give to production, reproduction, and the global economy. Light Carruyo.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
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WMST 219 - Queering the Archive
1 unit(s)
This course provides a review of the methodologies and theories for collecting oral histories and other forms of archiving, with attention specifically to the difficulties attending histories of queer sexualities and gender non-conformity. As a class, we learn about the practice and politics of archiving, speaking with archivists from Vassar Library’s Special Collections, the Black Gay and Lesbian Archive at the Schomburg Center, and the Lesbian Herstory Archive, as well as practitioners and scholars of public and/or oral histories, both in and outside the academy and across disciplinary boundaries. We strive in this course to think expansively and creatively about what exactly constitutes archives and artifacts. As we learn and practice methodologies for oral history, we inquire also into what it might mean to queer those practices, especially if we think of “queerness” as anti-disciplinary. Hiram Perez.
Prerequisite(s): WMST 130 or permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2019/20.
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WMST 221 - Captive Genders and Methods of Survival Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as AFRS 221 ) From Celia the Slave (1855) to CeCe McDonald (2011) cis, queer, and trans women (particularly of color) have been deemed unruly, deviant, and criminalized for defending themselves against gendered violence. With no selves to defend in the face of the law, how do these subjects seek justice when their survival is routinely “rewarded” with both legal and extralegal forms of punishment? While critiques of the criminal justice system often center the mechanisms of the system itself, this course is concerned with the testaments of survivors, their protocols of survival, namely the feminist, trans, and queer-of-color ethics, activisms, and intellectual histories that resist gender violence, criminalization, and punishment. This course centers histories, testimony, poetry, art, music, and social theory including activists accounts from Harriet Jacobs, Ida B. Wells, Angela Davis, Sylvia Rivera, Dean Spade, Miss Major, Patrisse Khan-Cullors, and others. Jasmine Syedullah.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
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WMST 228 - Modern Spain Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
Studies in Spanish literary and cultural production from the beginning of the Bourbon monarchy to the present.
2019/20a: Fighting Fascism: Gender, Race, Media. (Same as HISP 228 ) Spain, Argentina and Chile continue to struggle with fascism, both in terms of the politics of memory and the enduring consequences of its violence. What did fascism mean for women, either on the frontlines, as victims or as allies, such as Vassar graduate Nancy Macdonald (‘32), founder of a relief organization for Spanish Civil War refugees? What did it mean for LGBTQ+ or historically racialized groups? Through analysis and close reading of a range of media content—novel, essay, poetry, songs, posters, magazines, photography, films, art and digital archives—this course explores fascism in three trans-Atlantic case studies and their intersection with gender and race. The course ends with attention to more recent debates on historical memory and the current emboldening of fascism throughout the Americas and Spain. Coursework emphasizes writing, speaking, reading and listening in Spanish. Digital projects welcome. Eva Woods.
Prerequisite(s): HISP 216 .
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
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WMST 231 - Women Making Music Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as MUSI 231 ) A study of women’s involvement in Western and non-Western musical cultures. Drawing on recent work in feminist musicology and ethnomusicology, the course studies a wide range of music created by women, both past and present. It explores such topics as musical instruments and gender, voice and embodiment, access to training and performance opportunities, and representations of women musicians in art and literature. Elias Krell.
Prerequisite(s): One unit in Music, or Women’s Studies, or permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods.
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WMST 234 - Women in American Musical Theater
1 unit(s)
(Same as DRAM 234 ) This course focuses on the role of female characters in the American Musical Theater. The musical is both a populist and nonconventional form of drama, as such it both reflects contemporary assumptions of gendered behavior and has the potential to challenge conventional notions of normative behavior. Through an examination of librettos, music, and secondary sources covering shows from Show Boat to Spring Awakening the class will examine the way American Musicals have constructed and represented gendered identities. The class is organized thematically and will also consider issues of race, class, and sexuality as they intersect with issues of gender. Denise Walen.
Prerequisite(s): DRAM 221 /DRAM 222 or WMST 130 .
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2019/20.
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WMST 240 - Gender in Popular Media Semester Offered: Fall
1 1 unit(s)
Topic for 2019/20a: Gender and the Digital. In this course we explore how the gendered body is represented, consumed and (dis)embodied through digital media. Beginning with an interrogation of our own colonized modes of media consumption, we proceed to acknowledge the first coders and digital laborers, specifically the work of women of color, cisgender women and queer pioneers. Turning to media processes and interfaces, we examine how gender, race and class are transversally present in issues such as the digital divide/generation/revolution, media-making, algorithms, surveillance, revenge porn, social media, cyberbullying and gaming. Interrogating our assumptions about the analog, the digital and cyberspace, we study constructions of avatars, hackers, cyborgs and androids in texts such as Ex Machina, Westworld, Isa, Alita and others. We end by analyzing the future of gender in a post-media, post-human era, on the cusp of the singularity. Assignments offer students opportunities to theorize gender and the digital through both writing and multi-media projects. Eva Woods.
Prerequisite(s): WMST 130 .
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
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WMST 245 - Making Waves: Topics in Feminist Activism Semester Offered: Spring
1 1 unit(s)
Topic for 2019/20b: Black Women in Feminism. (Same as AFRS 245 and SOCI 245 ) This course explores the role Black women played in the development and growth of feminism in the U.S. from the 19th Century to the present. We pay particular attention to the work of Anna Julia Cooper, Audre Lorde and bell hooks. Film, poetry, music, novels as well as articles and books are among the texts for the course. Diane Harriford.
Prerequisite(s): WMST 130 or permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
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