|
|
Catalogue 2021-2022 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]
Course Descriptions
|
|
|
|
| |
American Studies: Core Courses |
| |
-
AMST 352 - Indigenous Literatures of the Americas Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as ANTH 352 and LALS 352 ) This course addresses a selection of creation narratives, historical accounts, poems, and other genres produced by indigenous authors from Pre-Columbian times to the present, using historical, linguistic and ethnographic approaches. We examine the use of non-alphabetic and alphabetic writing systems, study poetic and rhetorical devices, and examine indigenous historical consciousness and sociopolitical and gender dynamics through the vantage point of these works. Other topics include language revitalization, translation issues, and the rapport between linguistic structure and literary form. The languages and specific works to be examined are selected in consultation with course participants. They may include English or Spanish translations of works in Nahuatl, Zapotec, Yucatec and K’iche’ Maya, Quechua, Tupi, Aymara, and other indigenous languages of Latin America. David Tavárez.
One 2-hour period.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
AMST 365 - Racial Borderlands
1 unit(s)
Borders have been made to demarcate geographic and social spaces. As such, they often divide and separate national states, populations, and their political and cultural practices. However, borders also serve as spaces of convergence and transgression. Employing a comparative and relational approach to the study of American cultures, this seminar examines concepts, theories and methodologies about race and ethnicity that emerged along the U.S. racial borderlands between the 18th and 20th centuries. We also consider the historical and contemporary ways in which discourses about race have been used to define, organize, and separate different social groups within the U.S. racial empire state. Throughout the semester we ask the following questions: How does race emerge as an idea in the U.S. political and social landscape? What is the relationship between race, gender and empire? What are the relational and historical ways in which ideas about race have been used to arrange and rank distinct social groups in the U.S. imperial body? How have these hierarchies shifted across space and time and how have different groups responded to these racial formations? Lastly, this seminar considers the future potential and limits of solidarity as a practice organized around ideas about race and exclusion for different marginalized populations within the U.S. empire state.
Not offered in 2021/22.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
AMST 366 - Art and Activism in the United States
1 unit(s)
(Same as AFRS 366 , ART 366 , and WMST)366 Exquisite Intimacy. An interdisciplinary exploration of the work and role of quilts within the US. Closely considering quilts–as well as their creators, users, keepers, and interpreters–we study these integral coverings and the practices of their making and use with keen attention to their recurrence as core symbols in American history, literature, and life.
Prerequisite(s): Permission of the instructor.
One 2-hour period.
Not offered in 2021/22.
|
| |
-
AMST 385 - Seminar in American Art
1 unit(s)
(Same as ART 385 )
Prerequisite(s): Permission of the instructor.
One 2-hour period.
Not offered in 2021/22.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
AMST 399 - Senior Independent Work Semester Offered: Fall or Spring
0.5 to 1 unit(s)
Permission of the director required.
Course Format: OTH
|
American Studies: Electives |
| |
-
AMST 101 - The Art of Reading and Writing
1 unit(s)
Development of critical reading in various forms of literary expression, and regular practice in different kinds of writing.
Open only to first-year students; satisfies the college requirement for a First-Year Writing Seminar.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2021/22.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
AMST 110 - Gender, Social Problems and Social Change
1 unit(s)
(Same as SOCI 110 and WMST 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.
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.
Not offered in 2021/22.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
AMST 177 - Special Topics Semester Offered: Fall and Spring
0.5 unit(s)
(Same as ENGL 177 and URBS 177 ) Topic for 2021/22ab: 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 texts (journalism, philosophy, literature, photography and video) and a range of case studies: the “city of the future” circa 1910, 1950 and 2000; underground networks of utilities and subways; the rise of car culture and the case of Los Angeles; debates around gentrification and art; globalization, style, and AirBNB; present-day graffiti artists and urban farmers reclaiming their “right to the city.” Hua Hsu.
Second six-week course.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
AMST 180 - Landscape of U.S. Housing Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
This intensive is an introduction to the historical development of housing in the United States in relation to notions of settlement, property rights, home ownership and housing insecurities. In particular, the intensive will allow students to consider fields and approaches such as Rural Studies, urban and tribal development, and Native American Studies. Considerable attention will be paid to issues such as the U.S. poverty/wealth gap, asset building, and BIPOC displacement. Molly McGlennen.
One 2-hour period.
Course Format: INT
|
| |
-
AMST 214 - History of American Jazz
1 unit(s)
(Same as MUSI 214 ) An investigation of the whole range of jazz history, from its beginning around the turn of the century to the present day. Among the figures to be examined are: Scott Joplin, “Jelly Roll” Morton, Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith, Duke Ellington, Fletcher Henderson, Count Basie, Thomas “Fats” Waller, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, and Miles Davis.
Prerequisite(s): One unit in one of the following: music, studies in American history, art, or literature; or permission of the instructor.
Not offered in 2021/22.
|
| |
-
AMST 218 - Spiritual Seekers in American History & Culture 1880-2008
1 unit(s)
(Same as RELI 218 ) This course examines the last 120 years of spiritual seeking in America. It looks in particular at the rise of unchurched believers, how these believers have relocated “the religious” in different parts of culture, what it means to be “spiritual but not religious” today, and the different ways that Americans borrow from or embrace religions such as Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism. We focus in particular on unexpected places of religious enchantment or “wonder” in our culture, including how science and technology are providing new metaphors for God and spirit.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2021/22.
|
| |
-
AMST 219 - Queer of Color Critique
1 unit(s)
(Same as AFRS 219 and ENGL 219 ) “Queer of Color Critique” is a form of cultural criticism modeled on lessons learned from woman of color feminism, poststructuralism, and materialist and other forms of analysis. As Roderick Ferguson defines it, “Queer of color analysis…interrogates social formations as the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and class with particular interest in how those formations correspond with and diverge from nationalist ideals and practices.” This course considers what interventions the construction “queer of color” makes possible for queertheory, LGBT scholarship and activism, and different models of ethnic studies.We assess the value and limitations of queer theory’s “subjectless critique” (in other words, its rejection of identity as a “fixed referent”) in doing cultural and political work. What kind of complications (or contradictions) does the notion “queer of color” present for subjectless critique? How might queer of color critique inform political organizing? Particular attention will be devoted to how “queer” travels. Toward this end, students determine what conflicts are presently shaping debates around sexuality in their own communities and consider how these debates may be linked to different regional, national or transnational politics. Throughout the semester, we evaluate what “queer” means and what kind of work it enables. Is it an identity or an anti-identity? A verb, a noun, or an adjective? A heuristic device, a counterpublic, a form of political mobilization or perhaps even a kind of literacy?
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2021/22.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
|
| |
-
AMST 233 - Museums, Collections, Ethics Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as ANTH 233 ) Collecting Native American objects and human remains was once justified as a way to preserve vanishing cultures. Instead of vanishing, Native Americans organized and asked that their ancestors be returned, along with their sacred objects. Initially, museums fought against the loss of collections and scientists fought against the loss of data. Governments stepped in and wrote regulations to manage claims, dictating the rights of all parties. Thirty years after the passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) repatriation remains a controversial issue and few are satisfied with the process. This course examines the development of American museums and the ethics of collecting cultures to anchor our study of repatriation. Perspectives of anthropology, art, history, law, museum studies, Native American studies, philosophy, and religion are considered. Recent U.S. cases are contrasted with repatriation cases in other parts of the world, for repatriation is not just a Native American issue. April Beisaw.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
AMST 240 - Italy and its Migrations: Stories of Italian Emigration and Immigration
1 unit(s)
(Same as ITAL 240 ) This course follows the waves that shape and change Italian culture from the time of Unification, in 1861, up through today. We learn about the experiences, dreams, memories and politics of Italian emigration and immigration through a careful study of novels, poetry, cinema, and theater, as well as letters and media coverage. We consider the ways different narrative styles reflect the historical realities of the times, and take a critical analysis approach to the question of how public attitudes towards immigrants have shaped Italian national and diasporic sentiment. Beginning with the first major waves of emigration to the United States in the 1880s, this course provides a unique look at a moment of significant transition in Italian history and the makings of Italian-American Culture; we read literary texts, personal letters detailing the immigrant experience of cross the Atlantic at the turn of the century and of crossing the Mediterranean today, news coverage of significant events like the trial and execution of Sacco and Vanzetti, and cinematic renditions of past and current migrant experiences. We look at this cultural material in relation to the specific historical context in which it was produced, reflecting on the impact and legacy of things like the U.S. Emergency Quota Act of 1921, and the Italian Race Laws of 1938. As we read and discuss narratives of migration, we also examine the ways gender, sexuality and social roles determine and are determined by movement through space and time, reflecting critically on the exclusion of women’s voices from early accounts of migration.
This course is offered in English; Italian majors please see ITAL 340 .
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2021/22.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
AMST 248 - The Book in America Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as MEDS 248 ) This course examines the history and influence of books and printing in American society from earliest times to the present. We touch on a range of topics, including the place of books in the colonial era and the new republic, the spread of printing technologies in the 19th century, the emergence of large publishing houses and rising rates of literacy, the role of libraries, bookstores, and book clubs, modernist publishing, the rise of the paperback, the work of private presses, artist’s books, and the effect of recent technologies on reading. Along the way we consider questions relating to the production, dissemination, and reception of texts. The Archives & Special Collections Library serves as a laboratory for the course. Guest speakers and one or more field trips enhance our study of key topics. The Department.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
AMST 251 - American Art from Colonial Encounters to the Harlem Renaissance Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as ART 251 ) How can we encounter the histories of America in works of art? Why should we care about encountering them? This course explores such questions by surveying some of the most compelling paintings, sculptures, photographs, prints, and decorative arts produced in the United States—from the first encounters between indigenous peoples of this land to New York City’s Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s. Whenever possible, course meetings are held at the Loeb Art Center, and an optional class trip to New York City art museums is organized. In these class lectures and discussions, our goal is to articulate together how works of art from the past shape and construct our sense of American history, and how art continues to matter today. Artists covered include John Singleton Copley, Thomas Cole, William Sydney Mount, Mato-tope (and other Mandan artists), David Drake, Winslow Homer, Mary Cassatt, and Jacob Lawrence, among many others. Caroline Culp.
Prerequisite(s): ART 105 or ART 106 or a 100-level American Studies course, or permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
AMST 264 - Apocalypse Now: Finding Agency and Hope in a Deteriorating World Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as ENST 264 ) The course is an exploration of how humans must confront the challenges of global climate change and the collateral hazards associated with it, e.g., the climate refugee crisis, the spread of new diseases that may be worsened by climate change, the disruption of governmental and other institutions, etc., not with dread or denial, but with a sense of hope and the realization that these are challenges that may be ameliorated if we move swiftly to confront them. The course does not shy away from taking a hard look at both the enormity of the problem of climate change and the little time left we have to do something about it. But its focus is on climate resilience and how humans have always been able to adapt to such problems and what we must do today to both adapt to them and to mitigate their effects. Randolph Cornelius.
Prerequisite(s): Any First-Year Writing Seminar.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
AMST 274 - Reading and Writing American Memoir Semester Offered: Fall
0.5 unit(s)
(Same as ENGL 274 ) On the first page of Heavy: An American Memoir, Kiese Laymon writes, “I did not want to write about us. I wanted to write an American memoir. I wanted to write a lie.” This course asks students to consider what it means to write an American memoir, particularly from perspectives historically excluded from mainstream publishing and prestigious literary journals. Keeping Laymon’s words in mind, we might ask how marginalized voices engage the presumed transparency of the memoir form to render lies (or mythologies) that arguably consolidate the US as a nation. How does the American memoir write from and to the nation?
This course centers students’ voices. We learn about memoir (and memory) from reading selected memoirs and criticism, but also from our own life writing, which we share in a workshop setting. Our reading selections provide us with a variety of models for transforming memory into story, including the braided essay, lyric forms, flash, the hermit crab essay, and epistolary, among others. Authors may include Kiese Laymon, Deborah Miranda, Melissa Febos, Doris Cheng, Bich Minh Nguyen, and Hilton Als, among others. Hiram Perez.
Two hours every other week.
Course Format: INT
|
| |
-
AMST 275 - Race and Ethnicity in America
1 unit(s)
This course examines “white” American identity as a cultural location and a discourse with a history—in Mark Twain’s terms, “a fiction of law and custom.” What are the origins of “Anglo-Saxon” American identity? What are the borders, visible and invisible, against which this identity has leveraged position and power? How have these borders shifted over time, and in social and cultural space? How has whiteness located itself at the center of political, historical, social, and literary discourse, and how has it been displaced? How does whiteness mark itself, or mask itself? What does whiteness look like, sound like, and feel like from the perspective of the racial “other”? What happens when we consider whiteness as a racial or ethnic category? And in what ways do considerations of gender and class complicate these other questions? We read works by artists, journalists, and critics, among them Bill Finnegan, Benjamin DeMott, Lisa Lowe, David Roediger, George Lipsitz, Roland Barthes, Chela Sandoval, Eric Lott, bell hooks, Cherríe Moraga, Ruth Frankenberg, James Baldwin, Homi Bhabha, Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, James Weldon Johnson, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, William Faulkner, Nathanael West, Alice Walker, and Don DeLillo. We also explore the way whiteness is deployed, consolidated and critiqued in popular media like film (Birth of a Nation, Pulp Fiction, Pleasantville) television (“reality” shows, The West Wing) and the American popular press.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2021/22.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
AMST 276 - How to Write a Black Memoir Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as AFRS 276 and ENGL 276 ) This intensive is an exercise in critical reading and creative writing. I would like students to read the work of a particular memoirist and develop their own sense of what the writer has accomplished and achieved. I would then invite the writer for a zoom presentation wherein the writer teaches a “skill” or technique that begets good life writing. Students perform that technique in class and revise/refine what they have written and submit the piece in the class to follow. The goal is for the student to write an autobiographical narrative of at least 20 pages in length. Tyrone Simpson.
Prerequisite(s): Permission of the instructor and 200-level classes in English/Africana Studies/American Studies.
One 3-hour period.
Course Format: INT
|
| |
-
AMST 282 - Feminist Security Studies: Reimagining Safety and Demilitarization Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
Who gets to feel safe? Which bodies are deemed worthy of protecting and which bodies are marked as the enemy? What costs does security come at and to whom? Transnational feminists have long made the connection between US apparatuses of state violence to systems of patriarchy, capitalism, ethno-nationalism, heteronormativity, xenophobia, and ableism among others. In this course, we explore how the US state secures safety through the global domination of the “Other” and reimagines what safety could look like without the use of state violence. Through the lens of US empire building, we examine how the ideology of militarism operates through the military industrial complex–a global system that produces and maintains security through state violence under capitalism. Drawing on material from Critical Military Studies, labor history, Transnational Feminism, Critical Refugee Studies, and Queer Theory, we explore the concept and practice of security through engagement with academic texts, news and policy briefings, film, photography, podcasts, and plays as a way to reimagine safety without state violence. Amy Chin.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
AMST 317 - Museums in a Time of Change Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as ART 317 ) The current environment creates challenges to ways museums carry out their missions, sometimes forcing institutions to affirm or reimagine how to build better versions of themselves. Through a critical historical survey of the evolution of art museums, we examine their purpose in times of crises. How can we better connect audiences and objects? How do we describe the impact we want to make? If we can’t be all things to all people, how do we determine which of our museum’s “products” to retain, embellish, or drop? From difficult times come opportunities and new habits and ways of thinking. T. Barton Thurber.
Prerequisite(s): Permission of the instructor.
One 2-hour period.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
|
| |
-
AMST 355 - Twenty- and Twenty-First Century Poetry Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
In-depth study of selected Anglophone poets. The course may focus on particular eras, schools, topics, and theories of prosody, with consideration of identity groups or locations.
Topic for 2021/22a: Contemporary Native American Poets. (Same as ENGL 355 ) In our course, we learn to read and understand contemporary North American Indigenous poets through Decolonial, American Indian Literary Nationalist, Indigenous Transnationalist, and tribally-specific frameworks. We examine a broad range of poets within Native American Studies approaches in order to detect how poetry can act as a vehicle of social, political, and cultural transformation. We also study the way sovereignty, Indigenous feminisms, and decolonizing possibilities score the activism of our present era. Spanning generations, poets in the course include Layli Longsoldier, Natalie Diaz, Orlando White, Joy Harjo, Wendy Rose, Kimberly Blaeser, Luci Tapahonso, Allison Hedge Coke, Gordon Henry, Simon Ortiz, Adrian Louis, Chrystos, Deborah Miranda, dg okpik and others. Molly McGlennen.
One 2-hour period.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
AMST 360 - Memory Work Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
Toni Morrison describes, what we would call memory work, as “a kind of literary archeology: on the basis of some information and a little bit of guesswork you journey to a site to see what remains were left behind and to reconstruct the world that these remains imply.” This undergraduate seminar focuses on the process of this reconstruction through major works in memory studies concerning the politics of remembering and forgetting, narrative and form, and philosophical and cognitive aspects of memory as well as recent interventions in the phenomenology of memory, the industry of memorialization, hauntology, indigenous protocol, and ruin as methodology from a global perspective. Students engage these topics through texts, visual culture, digital archives, and sound to gain a deeper understanding of the functions and purposes of memory. Finally, students are asked to grapple with and put into practice course material through a personal memory work project. Amy Chin.
One 2-hour period.
Course Format: OTH
|
| |
-
AMST 374 - Ideas, Sound, and Story: Podcast Production Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as MEDS 374 and PHIL 374 ) This is a course on narrative audio production that focuses on the study and production of various nonfictional genres in the American podcasting landscape, including audio documentaries, investigative reporting, confessionals, art pieces, storytelling for academic purposes, and others. Students learn the craft of audio production from getting tape, tape-logging, writing for audio, story and tape-editing, and sound-tracking. Students complete various technical assignments, and submit a final 10-minute piece, with regular progress graded throughout. In order to model the highly competitive nature of the podcasting production space today, students must be highly-motivated, highly-organized, and grading is very rigorous, with the highest of standards and strict deadlines. Barry Lam.
Prerequisite(s): Permission of the instructor.
One 1-hour period.
Course Format: INT
|
| |
-
AMST 377 - True Crime and the American Novel
0.5 unit(s)
(Same as ENGL 377 ) “True Crime” (.5) explores the relationship between journalism, literature, film, and other media. In the 19th century, Literary naturalism, a sub-genre of realism, eschewed literary devices and stylistic preciosity, instead describing characters and events in the direct, unembellished prose of the newspaper account. From Charles Chesnutt’s The Marrow of Tradition (inspired by the Wilmington NC race riot of 1898) to Frank Norris’s McTeague (inspired by the murder of a charwoman) to Theodore Dreiser’s The Financier (inspired by Charles Yerkes financial chicanery) to Richard Wright’s Native Son (inspired by newspaper accounts of a murder) the American novel has relied on ‘real events’ to generate ideas for character and plots. Students may conduct research into the events inspiring these and other novels for the course and present their findings to the group. Alternately, students may choose a crime from any period (be it Lizzy Borden’s alleged murder of her parents, Jack the Ripper’s murders, serial killers, political assassinations, the murder of Emmett Till) and locate and compare multiple representations of the event (whether in novels, plays, movies, comics, newspapers, trials, forensic science). In most instances, representations highlight historical, class, and racial tensions (or obliviousness) over the subject and even who has a right to speak for the victim. (The recent controversy over the Whitney museum’s exhibition of Dana Schutz’s depiction of the open casket funeral of Emmett Till is a good example. Schutz is a white artist and her detractors objected to her appropriation of an iconic black figure and potentially profiting from her work.) Students are not limited to 19th-century crimes or media for their final projects. Film noir offers a rich cache of images and tropes for understanding the allure of the femme fatale and the lethality of the male gaze in contemporary film and even music videos. Students may undertake original research or complete a creative project for this intensive. Collaborations among students are encouraged.
Prerequisite(s): For juniors and seniors and with permission of the instructor.
Second six-week course.
Not offered in 2021/22.
Course Format: INT
|
Anthropology: I. Introductory |
| |
-
ANTH 120 - The Human Animal: Intro to Biological Anthropology Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
Humans occupy a small branch in the evolutionary tree of animal diversity, and biological anthropologists study the history and variation of life on this branch. This course introduces students to the wide world of biological (formerly “physical”) anthropology. We examine the biology and behavior of humans and our closest living (and extinct) relatives, in the context of evolutionary theory. Living primates and a vast fossil record provide important clues for understanding how and why humans vary today. Through lectures, discussions, and lab assignments, students learn the variety of questions asked and data examined by biological anthropologists. Zachary Cofran.
Satisfies the college requirement for quantitative reasoning.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
ANTH 130 - Archaeology: Lessons From the Past Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
Archaeologists study the material remains of humans across time and space. From the stone tools of the earliest humans to the landfills we are contributing to today, the study of things allows us to write histories of peoples and places that are often left out of official records. This course begins with a review of archaeological methods then uses them to investigate contemporary issues. Topics covered may include climate change, health and disease, urban infrastructure, poverty and homelessness, and conflict and war. Other topics may be substituted in order to respond to shifting social and campus issues. Aviva Cormier.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
ANTH 140 - Cultural Anthropology Semester Offered: Fall and Spring
1 unit(s)
An introduction to central concepts, methods, and findings in cultural anthropology, including culture, cultural difference, the interpretation of culture, and participant-observation. The course uses cross-cultural comparison to question scholarly and commonsense understandings of human nature. Topics may include sexuality, kinship, political and economic systems, myth, ritual and cosmology, and culturally varied ways of constructing race, gender, and ethnicity. Students undertake small research projects and explore different styles of ethnographic writing. Kaushik Ghosh.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
ANTH 150 - Linguistics and Anthropology Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
This class introduces students to the multiple senses in which languages constitute “formal systems.” There is a focus on both theoretical discussions about, and practical exercises in, the phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics of human languages. We also consider the origins of natural languages in various ways: their ontogenesis, their relationship to non-human primate signaling systems, and their relationship to other, non-linguistic, human semiotic systems. Moreover, we examine the broader social and cultural contexts of natural languages, such as their consequences for socially patterned forms of thinking, and their relationship to ethnic, racial and regional variation. The course is intended both as the College’s general introduction to formal linguistics and as a foundation for advanced courses in related areas. David Tavárez.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
|
Anthropology: II. Intermediate |
| |
-
ANTH 201 - Anthropological Theory Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
In this course we explore the history of intellectual innovations that make anthropology distinctive among the social sciences. We seek to achieve an analytic perspective on the history of the discipline and also to consider the social and political contexts, and consequences, of anthropology’s theory. While the course is historical and chronological in organization, we read major theoretical and ethnographic works that form the background to debates and issues in contemporary anthropology. Louis Römer.
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 140 .
Corequisite(s): ANTH 140 .
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
ANTH 202 - Anthropological Approaches Semester Offered: Spring
0.5 unit(s)
This six-week intensive supplements ANTH 201, History of Anthropological Theory, with an overview of the methods of cultural anthropology, linguistic anthropology, biological anthropology, and archaeology. Through readings, discussion, and weekly projects, students become familiar with major approaches and analytical tools used in each of the subfields of anthropology, as well as with some of the principal methodologies that connect the subfields today. Thomas Porcello.
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 201 .
Corequisite(s): ANTH 201 .
First six-week course.
One 1.5 hour period.
Course Format: INT
|
| |
-
ANTH 210 - The Dead Semester Offered: Spring
0.5 unit(s)
Directed studies of dead populations and the anthropological information contained within their passing and/or memorialization. The Dead may be those who died from natural or unnatural causes, including genocide, homicide, infanticide, suicide, disease, or accident. Exploration of local cemetery populations are encouraged, as those buried nearby include individuals who died from a variety of causes but whose deaths were memorialized in relatively similar ways. Alternatively, patterns of those who are most susceptible to a specific cause of death can be explored. Weekly meetings bring together students who are pursuing independent research projects. Course readings provide some commonality to the group’s analyses and ground this intensive in anthropological questions and approaches. April Beisaw.
Prerequisite(s): Previous coursework in Anthropology or permission of the instructor.
Course Format: INT
|
| |
-
ANTH 211 - Virtual Anthropology Semester Offered: Spring
0.5 unit(s)
The Digital Age opened exciting new possibilities for the study of human evolutionary anatomy. Imaging technologies such as laser scanning and computed tomography (CT) put high resolution physical data in a computer-based environment, allowing powerful visualizations and unprecedented analyses. This Intensive gives students experience with the types of questions, data and methods used in Virtual Anthropology. Students conduct hands-on research using virtual methods, learning the pros and cons of computer-based analysis of recent and fossil human anatomy. Intensive may be taken for up to two semesters. Zachary Cofran.
Prerequisite(s): Permission of the instructor.
Course Format: INT
|
| |
-
ANTH 212 - Ethnographic Understanding
0.5 unit(s)
In this intensive, students recently returned from study abroad engage in closely mentored, collaborative work, reviewing and framing their experiences abroad through related ethnographic studies. The ethnographic studies may be regionally or topically focused, and students may use the intensive to develop thinking for a thesis and to gain increased familiarity with the area in which they studied, for example. Engaging with each other, students in this intensive also consider what their cross-cultural experiences suggest regarding policy, global citizenship, ethical and epistemological issues surrounding how we know what we know. This intensive is open to all majors. Students intending to use their study abroad experience as the basis for a senior thesis or for senior independent work are especially encouraged to participate. Anthropology majors must take this intensive in order to count their study abroad experience as one of the two required regional familiarity courses. Candice Lowe Swift.
Prerequisite(s): Students have to have studied abroad, or done some other form of study abroad, e.g., a summer study abroad program.
Not offered in 2021/22.
Course Format: INT
|
| |
-
ANTH 213 - Indigenous Environmental Activism
0.5 unit(s)
(Same as ENST 213 ) This intensive experience challenges us to consider who generates knowledge about the environment and how cultural perspectives define what “climate change” and “sustainability” look like. Students research and interact with indigenous environmental activists, review tribal climate action plans, and follow ongoing efforts to change policies and educate publics. Grand Challenges grant funding facilitates one or more field trips and guest lectures that students arrange. Therefore, enrollment is by special permission with preference going to those who are already involved in the Grand Challenges program. Insights gained are shared with the greater Vassar community through a weekly blog and podcast. April Beisaw.
Prerequisite(s): Permission of the instructor – open to students who are enrolled in or have taken other courses in the Grand Challenges learning community on climate change.
Not offered in 2021/22.
Course Format: INT
|
| |
-
ANTH 214 - Scholarly Development Semester Offered: Fall
0.5 unit(s)
For students considering a scholarly or research future, this Intensive opens a window onto activities of scholarship including proposal writing, workshopping , scholarly communication and sharing research findings, peer review, and critique. This is a supportive group for sophomores, juniors and seniors in Anthropology and related departments and programs to write grant, fellowship applications (for example, Cornelison, Fulbright, Luce, Marshall, Watson) and graduate school applications (for MA and PhD programs) and/or to submit proposals and craft posters and papers for participation in scholarly conferences (for example, American Anthropological Association or New York Conference on Asian Studies). Classes alternate between “Works and Lives” discussions of the nature and goals of scholarship and the potential for Academia to contribute to social change, and “Practical Sessions” providing supported time for each student to work on the applications of their choice. Participants become familiar with a range of summer and post-graduate fellowships, conference opportunities and graduate programs and read examples of successful proposals. Panels of Vassar alums share insights about their fellowship and graduate applications. Faculty and administrators with experience as grant and fellowship reviewers provide group and individualized consultation. Martha Kaplan.
Prerequisite(s): Recommended for Sophomores, Juniors and Seniors.
One 2-hour period and individual conferences with the instructor.
Course Format: INT
|
| |
-
ANTH 220 - Topics in Biological Anthropology Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
This course covers topics within the broad field of biological (or physical) anthropology ranging from evolutionary theory to the human fossil record to the identification of human skeletal remains from crime scenes and accidents. Bioanthropology conceptualizes cultural behavior as an integral part of our behavior as a species. Topics covered in this course may include human evolution, primate behavior, population genetics, human demography and variation, or forensic anthropology.
Topic for 2021/22a: Diet and Disease in the Human Past. Diet and disease are key forces that have shaped what it means to be human. This course uses anthropological research to examine human subsistence and illness from a biocultural perspective, drawing upon case studies that highlight how scientific methods can answer anthropological questions about life in the past. We investigate how multiple lines of evidence—including plant and animal remains, chemical analyses, and studies of teeth—illuminate past human diets, incorporating case studies that range from the Paleolithic diets of prehistory circa 300,000 years ago to the “Paleo Diet” of the 21st century. We also explore how skeletal, pathological, and genetic evidence are being used in concert to understand how humans confront challenges posed by diseases such as leprosy and tuberculosis. Overall, this course introduces students to anthropological approaches to biocultural adaptation at both evolutionary and historical time scales. Aviva Cormier.
May be repeated for credit if the topic has changed.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
ANTH 223 - Primate Behavior and Ecology
1 unit(s)
This class examines biology, social systems, and behavior of our closest living relatives, the primates. This diverse group provides evolutionary background for understanding human society and behaviors. The first part of the course focuses on the evolution, anatomy, and diversity of modern primates, including an examination of how different primates have served as models for human evolution. In the second part of the course, we examine reasons for variation in primate social behavior including spacing, mating and grouping patterns. The course concludes by reviewing selected topics of primate behavior, such as vocal communication, cognition and conservation. Students gain first-hand experience by conducting an original behavioral study on primates at the Bronx Zoo. Zachary Cofran.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2021/22.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
ANTH 224 - Race and Human Variation
1 unit(s)
This course examines the nature of human variation, in the contexts of genetics, anatomy, history, and society. The course begins with an historical overview of the study of human biological variation, and what Dorothy Roberts has called the “fatal invention” of the concept of race. We then move on to survey biological variation, both adaptive and selectively neutral, in humans. Moving from biology and genetics, we examine psychological and historical origins of racial thinking in the United States. This history provides a context for critique of how racial categories are used in modern arenas such as biomedicine and ancestry testing. Through the framework of the developmental origins of health and disease, we review the biological mechanisms whereby social inequality results in health disparity. Over the course of the semester, students learn about why humans vary, what this variation does and does not tell us about people, and the ways in which the social reality of race becomes manifest in biology. Zachary Cofran.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2021/22.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
ANTH 229 - Skeletal Anatomy: Humans and Animals Semester Offered: Spring
0.5 unit(s)
This six-week lecture course develops knowledge of human skeletal anatomy for both anthropologists and biologists. The skeletal anatomy of select non-human mammals provides context for demonstrating the functional morphology of each bone. At the end of this course, students are able to identify individual bones (complete and fragmentary), identify bone landmarks, describe normal and abnormal bone growth processes (including common mutations), and assess bones for signs of pathology at the macroscopic level. Aviva Cormier.
First six-week course.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
ANTH 230 - Topics in Archaeology Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
An examination of topics of interest in current archaeological analysis. We examine the anthropological reasons for such analyses, how analysis proceeds, what has been discovered to date through such analyses, and what the future of the topic seems to be. Possible topics include tools and human behavior, lithic technology, the archaeology of death, prehistoric settlement systems, origins of material culture.
Topic for 2021/22a: Archaeological Lab Methods. Archaeological practice is about documenting material remains across space and time. Much of this work takes places in the laboratory, not in the field. Objects need to be counted, weighed, and described, then researched to understand when, where, and how they were manufactured, where else they have been used or found, and what they mean given the context of this site in particular and the other artifacts, ecofacts, and features they were found among. This project-based course provides students with hands-on experience analyzing artifacts, creating site distribution maps, and reaching data-driven conclusions. We analyze the data contained in other site reports and write our own site reports. April Beisaw.
May be repeated for credit if the topic has changed.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
ANTH 233 - Museums, Collections, Ethics Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as AMST 233 ) Collecting Native American objects and human remains was once justified as a way to preserve vanishing cultures. Instead of vanishing, Native Americans organized and asked that their ancestors be returned, along with their sacred objects. Initially, museums fought against the loss of collections and scientists fought against the loss of data. Governments stepped in and wrote regulations to manage claims, dictating the rights of all parties. Thirty years after the passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) repatriation remains a controversial issue and few are satisfied with the process. This course examines the development of American museums and the ethics of collecting cultures to anchor our study of repatriation. Perspectives of anthropology, art, history, law, museum studies, Native American studies, philosophy, and religion are considered. Recent U.S. cases are contrasted with repatriation cases in other parts of the world, for repatriation is not just a Native American issue. April Beisaw.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
ANTH 235 - Region Studies in Archaeology
1 unit(s)
This course is a detailed, intensive investigation of archaeological remains from a particular geographic region of the world. The area investigated varies from year to year and includes such areas as Eurasia, North America, and the native civilizations of Central and South America. April Beisaw.
May be repeated for credit if the topic has changed.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2021/22.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
ANTH 236 - Native North America Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as AMST 236 ) Native Americans have been in North America for at least the last 10,000 years. From the earliest archaeological record we can see how they farmed in the scorching desert, hunted in the frozen tundra, and traded resources over thousands of miles. From the more recent record, we can see how homelands relate to reservation lands and how lifeways changed but culture persists. Now, indigenous archaeologists and community archaeology programs are changing how archaeology is done, who it is done by and for, and what questions are asked of the past. This course surveys the archaeology of two distinct geographical culture areas, the Southwest and the Northeast. This contrast allows us to examine how knowledge of the past is constructed by archaeologists, museum professionals, descendant communities, and public interest. April Beisaw.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
ANTH 239 - Forensic Anthropology & Bioarchaeology Semester Offered: Spring
0.5 unit(s)
Forensic anthropology is the application of physical anthropology to medical or legal issues, such as crimes. This course introduces students to the basic methods of forensic anthropology, including how age, sex, race, and height of an individual can be determined from their bones. Recognition of skeletal anomalies can also reveal past health conditions and the cause and manner of death. Students gain experience in applying these methods by working with real and synthetic human bones. Readings also cover bioarchaeology, the analysis of human remains that are older than or outside of the medico-legal context. Aviva Cormier.
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 229 .
Corequisite(s): ANTH 229 .
Second six-week course.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
ANTH 240 - Cultural Localities Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
Detailed study of the cultures of people living in a particular area of the world, including their politics, economy, worldview, religion, expressive practices, and historical transformations. Included is a critical assessment of different approaches to the study of culture. Areas covered vary from year to year and may include Europe, Africa, North America, India and the Pacific.
May be repeated for credit if the topic has changed.
Topic for 2021/22b: The Making of Postcolonial India. (Same as ASIA 240 ) The processes which went into the formation of distinct modernities in the Indian subcontinent continue to inform and instigate present societies in that region. The first half of this course is a historical and anthropological introduction to some of the events and imaginations which were crucial to the formation of modern India (approximately the period of 1818-1947). Central to these were debates about religious reform, nationalism, caste hierarchies and the question of women in modernity. This part of the course uses primary texts (autobiographies, speeches, dialogues) as well as use literary, ethnographic and historical writings and films. The second half of the course brings the understanding of this earlier crucial period to bear on some of the key processes of contemporary India, including the rise of Hindu nationalism, caste and indigenous social movements, environmental challenges and the question of the Indian diaspora. Kaushik Ghosh.
One 2-hour period plus one 50-minute period.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
ANTH 243 - Mesoamerican Worlds
1 unit(s)
(Same as LALS 243 ) A survey of the ethnography, history, and politics of indigenous societies with deep historical roots in regions now located in Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras. This course explores the emergence of Mesoamerican states with a vivid cosmology tied to warfare and human sacrifice, the reconfiguration of these societies under the twin burdens of Christianity and colonial rule, and the strategies that some of these communities adopted in order to preserve local notions of identity and to cope with (or resist) incorporation into nation-states. After a consideration of urbanization, socio-religious hierarchies, and writing and calendrical systems in pre-contact Mesoamerica, we will focus on the adaptations within Mesoamerican communities resulting from their interaction with an evolving colonial order. The course also investigates the relations between native communities and the Mexican and Guatemalan nation-states, and examines current issues—such as indigenous identities in the national and global spheres, the rapport among environmental policies, globalization, and local agricultural practices, and indigenous autonomy in the wake of the EZLN rebellion. Work on Vassar’s Mesoamerican collection, and a final research paper and presentation is required; the use of primary sources (in Spanish or in translation) is encouraged. David Tavárez.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2021/22.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
ANTH 244 - Indian Ocean Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as AFRS 244 ) This course re/introduces alternative modalities of belonging through a focus on multiple cultures and peoples interacting across the Indian Ocean. Using historical works, ethnographies, travel accounts, manuscript fragments, and film, we explore the complex networks and historical processes that have shaped the contemporary economies, cultures, and social problems of the region. We also critically examine how knowledge about the peoples and pasts of this region has been produced. Although the course concentrates on northern Africa, eastern Africa, southwest India, the Arabian Peninsula, and islands are included in our consideration of the region as a cultural, economic, and political sphere whose coastal societies were especially interconnected. Topics include: imperialism, globalization, temporality, cosmopolitanism, labor and trade migrations, religious identification, and gender. Candice Lowe Swift.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
ANTH 245 - The Ethnographer’s Craft Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as URBS 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. Daniel Schniedewind.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
ANTH 247 - Modern Social Theory: Classical Traditions
1 unit(s)
(Same as SOCI 247 ) This course examines underlying assumptions and central concepts and arguments of European and American thinkers who contributed to the making of distinctly sociological perspectives. Readings include selections from Karl Marx, Emile Durheim, Max Weber, Georg Simmel, W.E.B. Du Bois and Erving Goffman. Thematic topics vary from year to year. Diane Harriford.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2021/22.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
ANTH 250 - Language, Culture, and Society Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
This course draws on a wide range of theoretical perspectives in exploring a particular problem, emphasizing the contribution of linguistics and linguistic anthropology to issues that bear on research in a number of disciplines. At issue in each selected course topic are the complex ways in which cultures, societies, and individuals are interrelated in the act of using language within and across particular speech communities.
May be repeated for credit if the topic has changed. Louis Romer.
Topic for 2021/22b: Language and Power. How can the study of language and its use advance our understanding of power and political action? This course analyzes how language and rhetorical prowess are essential for the distribution and exercise of power through the discussion of readings on political oratory, rumor and scandal, and satire. Readings on mass media and the public sphere illustrate the role of language in political mobilization, the formation of collective identities, and the enforcement of social inequalities and exclusion. Readings on campaigns and electoral politics explore the use of language for the performance of civility and moral virtue, as well as the covert mobilization of class, racial, gender, and ethnic stereotypes. Finally, readings on democracy promotion campaigns in post-colonial settings explore the use of language in the affirmation and contestation of ideals of secularism, liberal democracy, and modernity. Students apply methodological and theoretical tools of linguistic anthropology to analyze the structural features and the political effects of real world examples of political satire, scandal, and oratory. Louis Römer.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
ANTH 255 - Language, Gender, and Media
1 unit(s)
This course offers a systematic survey of anthropological and linguistic approaches to the ways in which gender identities are implicated in language use, ideas about language, and the dynamic relationship between language and various forms of power and dominance. It is organized as a cross-cultural and cross-ethnic exploration of approaches that range from ground-breaking feminist linguistic anthropology and the study of gender, hegemony, and class, to contemporary debates on gender as performance and on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual/transgender identities. An important topic is the representation of gender identities in various forms of media. However, we also investigate the multiple rapports among gender identities, socialization, language use in private and public spheres, forms of authority, and class and ethnic identities. Students learn about transcription and analysis methods used in linguistic anthropology, and complete two conversation analysis projects. Thomas Porcello.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2021/22.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
ANTH 259 - Soundscapes: Anthropology of Music
1 unit(s)
(Same as MUSI 259 ) This course investigates a series of questions about the relationship between music and the individuals and societies that perform and listen to it. In other words, music is examined and appreciated as a form of human expression existing within and across specific cultural contexts. The course takes an interdisciplinary approach to the social life of music, addressing historical themes and debates within multiple academic fields via readings, recordings, and films. Justin Patch.
Recommended: but not required that students have one unit of the following: Music, Anthropology, Sociology, or Media Studies.
Not offered in 2021/22.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
|
| |
-
ANTH 262 - Anthropological Approaches to Myth, Ritual and Symbol Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
What is the place of myth, ritual and symbol in human social life? Do symbols reflect reality, or create it? This course considers answers to these questions in social theory (Marx, Freud and Durkheim) and in major anthropological approaches (functionalism, structuralism, and symbolic anthropology). It then reviews current debates in interpretive anthropology about order and change, power and resistance, the enchantments of capitalism, and the role of ritual in the making of history. Ethnographic and historical studies may include Fiji, Italy, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, the Seneca, and the U.S. Martha Kaplan. Martha Kaplan.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
ANTH 268 - Religion, Repression, and Resistance in Latin America
1 unit(s)
(Same as LALS 268 and HIST 268 ) What was it like to live in a society where crimes of thought and religious transgressions were prosecuted and punished? How did various populations confront and resist inquisitorial activities? What is the legacy of the Inquisition in the Americas? This course addresses these and other questions through a focus on the Latin American Inquisition and Extirpation (ecclesiastic attempts to reform or destroy Precolumbian indigenous religions). The course tracks the emergence of Inquisition tribunals in Mexico City, Lima, and Cartagena after 1571, and the Catholic Church’s prosecution of indigenous idolatry and sorcery. It focuses both on trends in prosecution, torture, and punishment, and on the dynamic responses of those who were either targets or collaborators: indigenous peoples, Jews, Africans, female healers, people of mixed descent, and Protestants. Towards the end of the course, based on students’ interests, we also review other select case studies of religious control and resistance in Latin America. Students proficient in Spanish or Portuguese are encouraged to work with primary sources. David Tavárez.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2021/22.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
ANTH 285 - Anthropology and The Environment Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as ENST 285 ) The question of climate change forces a revisiting of the traditions of anthropology’s engagements with the environment. This course introduces students to historical patterns and recent developments in approaches to the study of the environment across anthropology and other disciplines. Attention is paid to both empirical studies and to theoretical frameworks environmental anthropologists have brought to their research. Students will also learn about environmental anthropology’s relationships to race, power, colonialism and questions of justice. Kaushik Ghosh.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
ANTH 286 - Intensive on Global Indigenous Film Semester Offered: Fall
0.5 unit(s)
(Same as AMST 286 ) This intensive acquaints students with some of the documentary, experimental, and narrative films/videos of indigenous filmmakers from North America, Australia, and New Zealand. Screenings include films by Rachel Perkins, Tracey Moffatt, Sherman Alexie, Victor Masayesva, Alanis Obamsawin, and Zacharias Kunuk. Discussions of films engage the notion of visual sovereignty, and the use of film/video to document indigenous lives and concerns, and to reframe stories told about them and to tell new stories. Colleen Cohen.
Prerequisite(s): Permission of the instructor.
First six-week course.
One 2-hour period plus outside screenings.
Course Format: INT
|
| |
-
ANTH 290 - Community-Engaged Learning Semester Offered: Fall or Spring
0.5 to 1.0 unit(s)
Individual or group field projects or internships. May be elected during the college year or during the summer. Open to all students. The department.
Course Format: INT
|
| |
-
ANTH 298 - Independent Work Semester Offered: Fall or Spring
0.5 to 1 unit(s)
Individual or group project of reading or research. May be elected during the college year or during the summer. The department.
Course Format: INT
|
Anthropology: III. Advanced |
| |
-
ANTH 300 - Senior Thesis Semester Offered: Fall or Spring
1 unit(s)
The department.
Course Format: INT
|
| |
-
ANTH 301 - Senior Seminar Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
A close examination of current theory in anthropology, oriented around a topic of general interest, such as history and anthropology, the writing of ethnography, or the theory of practice. Students write a substantial paper applying one or more of the theories discussed in class. Readings change from year to year. Martha Kaplan.
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 201 .
One 3-hour period.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
ANTH 320 - Seminar in Biological Anthropology Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
An examination of such topics as primate structure and behavior, the Plio-Pleistocene hominins, the final evolution of Homo sapiens, and human biological diversity. May be repeated for credit if the topic has changed.
Topic for 2021/22b: Disability, the Body, and Culture. Like gender and race, disability is a cultural and social formation that identifies particular bodies and minds as different, regularly as undesirable, and rarely as extraordinary. This seminar uses a biocultural lens to explore the lived experiences of persons with disabilities across time and within different social contexts. Through a discussion of scholarly readings, literature, film, photography, art, and archaeology, this seminar considers disability in relation to: identity; impairment; stigma; monstrosity; marginalization; discrimination; beauty; power; media representations; activism; intersectionality; and gender and sexuality. Aviva Cormier.
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 120 or ANTH 223 or ANTH 224 or ANTH 229 , or permission of the instructor.
One 3-hour period.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
ANTH 322 - Human Evolutionary Developmental Biology
1 unit(s)
What literally makes us human? This seminar examines how growth and development were modified over the course of human evolution, to create the animals that we are today. Human anatomy is placed in an evolutionary context by comparison with living primates and the human fossil record. Advanced readings and classical papers provide the bases for in-class discussion and activities. Through lab activities and a term project, students may draw on different types of data to test hypotheses about evolution and development. Zachary Cofran.
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 120 or ANTH 223 or 224 .
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2021/22.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
ANTH 330 - Seminar in Archaeology
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 archaeological perspectives on topics such as historical ecology, conservation biology, institutionalization of certain peoples, and feminist perspectives on past cultures. April Beisaw.
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 130 or 233 or 236 .
May be repeated for credit if the topic has changed.
One 3-hour period.
Not offered in 2021/22.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
ANTH 332 - Ruins and Haunting Heritage
1 unit(s)
Landscapes hold the tangible remains of cultural heritage in preserved buildings, erected monuments, and documented archaeological sites. But the ignored places are often those with the most interesting stories to tell. To an archaeologists, ruins are places where the past permeates into the present and asks to be remembered. Every town has its own ruins, whether it be the abandoned buildings of a once-bustling downtown or industrial district, an overgrown cemetery, or a road that simply ends. Such places may hold the more subversive histories of a place, This course considers the sanctioned and unsanctioned histories of places through intentionally preserved sites, persistent ruins, local lore, and ghost tourism. We use the National Register of Historic Places criteria of significance to evaluate such heritage sites within the Hudson Valley. April Beisaw.
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 130 or 233 or 236 .
One 3-hour period.
Not offered in 2021/22.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
|
| |
-
ANTH 352 - Indigenous Literatures of the Americas Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as AMST 352 and LALS 352 ) This course addresses a selection of creation narratives, historical accounts, poems, and other genres produced by indigenous authors from Pre-Columbian times to the present, using historical, linguistic and ethnographic approaches. We examine the use of non-alphabetic and alphabetic writing systems, study poetic and rhetorical devices, and examine indigenous historical consciousness and sociopolitical and gender dynamics through the vantage point of these works. Other topics include language revitalization, translation issues, and the rapport between linguistic structure and literary form. The languages and specific works to be examined are selected in consultation with course participants. They may include English or Spanish translations of works in Nahuatl, Zapotec, Yucatec and K’iche’ Maya, Quechua, Tupi, Aymara, and other indigenous languages of Latin America. David Tavárez.
One 2-hour period.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
ANTH 360 - Problems in Cultural Analysis Semester Offered: Fall and Spring
1 unit(s)
Covers a variety of current issues in modern anthropology in terms of ongoing discussion among scholars of diverse opinions rather than a rigid body of fact and theory.
May be repeated for credit if topic has changed.
Topic for 2021/22a: The Postcolonial and the Indigenous. (Same as INTL 360 ) This course compares two overlapping but different critiques of colonialism and modernity: the postcolonial and the indigenous. In the past two decades we have seen the resurgence of indigeneity, the political and cultural claims of sovereignty by the First Nations. In this resurgence, an entire set of cherished categories of modern life have been out under renewed scrutiny. Ideas of progress, development, nation, land, territory, belonging, human, nature and even those of rights, democracy and citizenship, have been questioned by this expanding wave of indigenous intellectuals and activists. Many of these same categories were also under siege from within an older postcolonial body of critical thinking. Born out of an experience of and (im)possible life-making after the event of colonialism, Caribbean, African and Asian scholars developed a trenchant critique of some the same categories as above. Just like indigenous critique, postcolonialism also forced a rethink of the certitudes of the pos-Enlightenment world. Alternate theories of consciousness, freedom, temporality and race emerged with a great fierceness. In what ways are these two bodies of critical thought similar to each other? What is the nature of their differences? Why are those differences crucial? Finally, we ask whether we can imagine new cosmologies of freedom or sovereignty that take into account these entangled histories. Kaushik Ghosh.
Topic for 2021/22b: Political Anthropology. Taking an anthropological position on emotions as culturally and linguistically elaborated in ways that are historically specific, this seminar interrogates the emotional attachments between people, places, and things that make various political, economic, and social formations possible. Readings explore capitalist consumer cultures where advertising and marketing generate emotional attachments between people, commodities, and brands, examine the role of emotion in state-formation and nation-building, as well as focus on state officials, politicians, and social movements that harness emotional attachments to construct coalitions, loyalties, hierarchies, and enmities. Through a succession of case studies on nostalgia, place-attachment, happiness, resentment, hate, hope, contempt, suffering, pain, compassion, grief, disgust, and disregard in locations such as 19th century Southeast Asia, Russia during Perestroika, and indigenous communities in the late 20th century American Southwest, students gain an understanding of the role of emotions in the configuring of relationships between people, things, and places at interpersonal as well as broader national and transnational scales. Louis Römer.
One 3-hour period.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
ANTH 364 - Travelers and Tourists Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
The seminar explores tourism in the context of a Western tradition of travel and as a complex cultural, economic and political phenomenon with profound impacts locally and globally. Using contemporary tourism theory, ethnographic studies of tourist locales, contemporary and historical travel narratives, travelogues, works of fiction, post cards and travel brochures, we consider tourism as a historically specific cultural practice whose meaning and relation to structures of power varies over time and context; as a performance; as one of many global mobilities; as embodied activity; as it is informed by mythic and iconic representations and embedded in Western notions of self and other. We also address issues pertaining to the culture of contemporary tourism, the commoditization of culture, the relation between tourism development and national identity and the prospects for an environmentally and culturally sustainable tourism. Colleen Cohen.
Prerequisite(s): Previous coursework in Anthropology or permission of the instructor.
One 3-hour period.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
ANTH 367 - Indigenous Cultures and Languages of Latin America
1 unit(s)
(Same as LALS 367 ) This intensive offering focuses on closely mentored, collaborative work on Mesoamerican, Andean, or Amazonian languages and cultures. Students develop and execute a concise research project based on their own interests, qualifications, and previous coursework. Possibilities include intensive study, work with material culture in Vassar’s museum and rare book collections or elsewhere, and digital humanities projects, including those under development by the instructor. One previous course in Latin American and Latino/a Studies, Anthropology, History or the social sciences is recommended, but not required. David Tavárez.
NRO allowed for Juniors and Seniors only.
One 2-hour period.
Not offered in 2021/22.
Course Format: INT
|
| |
-
ANTH 376 - Asian Diasporas: from empires to pluralism
1 unit(s)
(Same as ASIA 376 and GEOG 376 ) Focusing on Asian Diasporas, this course engages discourses in diaspora studies and pluralism from the Vassar campus to the wider world. Our goal is both to introduce theories of migration, diaspora, cultural transformation, world system, transnationalism, and globalization, and examine some of the complex history of movements of people from Asia to other parts of the world and their integration in diverse communities. Organized chronologically, the course begins by considering the deep history of movement and interconnection in Asia and beyond with particular focus on the Asia-centered world system of the 13th and 14th centuries. We then study the movements and experiences of indentured laborers and of merchants during the era of European colonial domination. Here we engage a range of topics including the role of religion in plantation life, the role of diasporic communities and racial politics in creating post-colonial nations, the emergence, conflicts and coalitions of ethnic identities in the United States and elsewhere, and key political and cultural moments in the history of Asian-America. We then examine recent forms of nationalism and transnationalism of Asian diasporas in the context of post WWII decolonization, late capitalism, disjunctive modernity, and identity politics in the contemporary era. The principal cases are drawn from East Asian and South Asian communities in Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands and the United States.
As a seminar, the course material is multi-disciplinary, ranging from political-economic to cultural studies and engages material at a high level of sophistication. We have also tried to include diverse geographical regions. Asia and Diaspora are vast topics and not every topic can be covered in the course. You have further opportunity in your research paper to discuss topics and areas of your interest. Martha Kaplan and Yu Zhou.
Prerequisite(s): 200-level work in Asian Studies, Anthropology or Geography, or permission of the instructor.
One 3-hour period.
Not offered in 2021/22.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
ANTH 399 - Senior Independent Work Semester Offered: Fall or Spring
0.5 to 1 unit(s)
Individual or group project of reading or research. May be elected during the college year or during the summer. The department
Course Format: INT
|
Art: I. Introductory |
| |
|
| |
|
| |
-
ART 120 - The Vassar Campus Semester Offered: Fall
0.5 unit(s)
(Same as CLCS 120 ) A multidisciplinary exploration of the Vassar College campus. This intensive course is conducted as a succession of local field trips to sites across the college, and walks around campus. With this direct experience of landscape, buildings, and collections, from works of art to natural history specimens, we consider the history of Vassar’s campus, as well as our lived experience of campus spaces. We also approach our own campus in broader contexts, exploring the notion of campus in American culture, the campus as physical space and as idea, and the role of place in higher education. Individual projects allow participants to explore a campus space of their choice in various modes. Students from all majors are encouraged to apply. Yvonne Elet.
Prerequisite(s): Permission of the instructor.
First six-week course.
Course Format: INT
|
| |
-
ART 125 - Vassar Collects, 1864-Present
0.5 unit(s)
Since the founding of the College, artifacts, specimens, and works of art have been collected and used regularly for teaching, display, and research. In conjunction with an artist commission for the new Institute of Liberal Arts, students seek, examine, and document original objects across the campus and in diverse holdings for inclusion in the project. Readings draw from the fields of geology, anthropology, archaeology, music, art history, and other disciplines. T. Barton Thurber.
Prerequisite(s): Permission of the instructor.
Second six-week course.
One 2-hour period.
Not offered in 2021/22.
Course Format: INT
|
| |
-
ART 144 - Living in the Ancient City Semester Offered: Fall
0.5 unit(s)
(Same as GRST 144 and URBS 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.
Course Format: CLS
|
Art: II. Intermediate |
| |
-
ART 211 - Rome: The Art of Empire Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as GRST 211 and URBS 211 ) From humble beginnings to its conquest of most of the known world, Rome dominated the Mediterranean with the power of its empire. Art and architecture gave monumental expression to its political ideology, especially in the building of cities that spread Roman civilization across most of Europe and parts of the Middle East and Africa. Roman art also featured adornment, luxury, and collecting in both public and private spheres. Given the diversity of the people included in the Roman empire and its artistic forms, what is particularly Roman about Roman art? Eve D’Ambra.
Prerequisite(s): ART 105 -ART 106 or GRST 216 or GRST 217 , or permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
ART 215 - The Art and Archaeology of Ancient Egypt
1 unit(s)
(Same as GRST 215 ) Ancient Egypt has long fascinated the public with its pyramids, mummies, and golden divine rulers. This course provides a survey of the archaeology, art, and architecture of ancient Egypt from the prehistoric cultures of the Nile Valley through the period of Cleopatra’s rule and Roman domination. Topics to be studied include the art of the funerary cult and the afterlife, technology and social organization, and court rituals of the pharaohs, along with aspects of everyday life. Eve D’Ambra.
Prerequisite(s): ART 105 or ART 106 or one unit of Greek and Roman Studies, or permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2021/22.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
ART 219 - The First Cities: The Art and Archaeology of the Ancient Near East
1 unit(s)
(Same as GRST 219 and URBS 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.
Not offered in 2021/22.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
ART 220 - Medieval Art and Architecture Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
This course surveys the art and architecture of Europe and Byzantium during the Middle Ages, a thousand-year period from ca. 400 to 1400. Exploring medieval art and visual culture chronologically, we consider a number of topics central to medieval society including monasticism, icons and iconoclasm, saints and their relics, pilgrimage, and court culture. The course covers the wide range of medieval artistic production, from various forms of painting and sculpture to wood and ivory carving, mosaic, metalwork, textiles, and architecture. Elizabeth Lastra.
Prerequisite(s): ART 105 or ART 106 , coursework in Medieval Studies, or permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods.
|
| |
-
ART 221 - Islamic Art and Architecture Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
This course surveys Islamic art and architecture from the beginnings of Islam in the 7th century through the early modern period. We cover Umayyad Jerusalem and Damascus, Abbasid Baghdad, Fatimid Cairo, the period of the Crusades, the impact of the Mongols, and the Gunpowder Empires, as well as a range of media from architecture and monumental decoration to textiles and calligraphy. Throughout the course, we explore the interactions between Islamic art and neighboring peoples and cultures. Elizabeth Lastra.
Prerequisite(s): ART 105 or ART 106 , coursework in Medieval Studies, or permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
ART 230 - Art in the Age of Van Eyck, Durer and Bruegel Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
The Northern Renaissance. Early Netherlandish and German art from Campin, van Eyck and van der Weyden to Bosch, Bruegel, Dürer and Holbein. This transformative period, which saw the invention of the printing press in the fifteenth century and the explosive turmoil of the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century, generated a profound reassessment of the role of images in the form of new responses toward human representation in devotional and narrative painting and printmaking as well as developments in secular subjects such as portraiture and landscape. Haohao Lu.
Prerequisite(s): ART 105 or ART 106 or permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
ART 231 - The Golden Age of Rubens, Rembrandt and Vermeer
1 unit(s)
An exploration of painting and printmaking during the Golden Age of the Netherlands. Lectures focus on Rubens, Rembrandt, Vermeer and their contemporary colleagues who specialized in landscape, still life, architectural and marine painting. While examining the effect of differing religions systems in Flanders and the Dutch Republic, we consider how economic triumph, scientific research and global trade stimulated the formation and flowering of Netherlandish art in the Age of Observation.
Prerequisite(s): ART 105 or ART 106 or permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2021/22.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
ART 235 - The Rise of the Artist, from Giotto to Leonardo da Vinci
1 unit(s)
A survey of Italian art c. 1300 - c.1500, when major cultural shifts led to a redefinition of art, and the artist emerged as a new creative and intellectual power. The course considers painting, sculpture and decorative arts by artists including Giotto, Donatello, Botticelli, and Leonardo. Our study of artworks and primary texts reveals how a predominantly Christian society embraced the revival of ancient pagan culture, elements of atheist philosophy, and Islamic science. We also discuss art in the context of nascent multiculturalism and consumerism in the new city-states; the importance of new communications systems, such as print; and artistic exchange with northern Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean centers of Baghdad and Constantinople. Other topics include art theory and criticism; techniques and materials of painting and sculpture; experiments with multimedia and mass production; developments in perspective and illusionism; ritual and ceremonial; and art that called into question notions of sexuality and gender roles. Yvonne Elet.
Prerequisite(s): ART 105 or ART 106 , or permission of the instructor; open to students without prerequisites who have taken any courses in Italian.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2021/22.
|
| |
-
ART 236 - Art in the Age of Leonardo, Raphael, and Michelangelo Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as ITAL 236 ) An exploration of the works of these three masters and their contemporaries in Renaissance Italy, c. 1485 - c. 1565. The primary focus is on painting and sculpture, but the course also considers drawings, prints, landscape, gardens, and decorative arts, emphasizing artists’ increasing tendency to work in multiple media. We trace changing ideas about the role of the artist and the nature of artistic creativity; and consider how these Renaissance masters laid foundations for art, and its history, theory and criticism for centuries to come. Other topics include artists’ workshops; interactions between artists and patrons; the role of the spectator; ritual and ceremonial; and Renaissance ideas about beauty, sexuality and gender. Yvonne Elet.
Prerequisite(s): ART 105 or ART 106 , or permission of the instructor; open to students without prerequisites who have taken any courses in Italian.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
ART 240 - Activating the Architectural Uncanny in the City
1 unit(s)
(Same as URBS 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.
Not offered in 2021/22.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
ART 251 - American Art from Colonial Encounters to the Harlem Renaissance Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as AMST 251 ) How can we encounter the histories of America in works of art? Why should we care about encountering them? This course explores such questions by surveying some of the most compelling paintings, sculptures, photographs, prints, and decorative arts produced in the United States—from the first encounters between indigenous peoples of this land to New York City’s Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s. Whenever possible, course meetings are held at the Loeb Art Center, and an optional class trip to New York City art museums is organized. In these class lectures and discussions, our goal is to articulate together how works of art from the past shape and construct our sense of American history, and how art continues to matter today. Artists covered include John Singleton Copley, Thomas Cole, William Sydney Mount, Mato-tope (and other Mandan artists), David Drake, Winslow Homer, Mary Cassatt, and Jacob Lawrence, among many others. Caroline Culp.
Prerequisite(s): ART 105 or ART 106 or a 100-level American Studies course, or permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
ART 256 - The Arts of China
1 unit(s)
(Same as ASIA 256 ) This course offers a survey of art in China from prehistory to the present. The remarkable range of works to be studied includes archeological discoveries, imperial tombs, palace and temple architecture, Buddhist and Taoist sculpture, ceramics, calligraphy, painting, and experimental art in recent decades. We examine the visual and material features of objects for insight into how these works were crafted, and ask what made these works meaningful to artists and audiences. Readings in primary sources and secondary scholarship allow for deeper investigation of the diverse contexts in which the arts of China have evolved. Among the issues we confront are art’s relationship to politics, ethics, gender, religion, cultural interaction, and to social, technological, and environmental change. Jin Xu.
Prerequisite(s): ART 105 or ART 106 , one Asian Studies course, or permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2021/22.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
ART 260 - The Silk Roads: Visual and Material Culture Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as ASIA 260 ) Stretching some 8,000 kilometers from east to west, the Silk Road is a network of trade routes that provided a bridge between the east and the west. Although the eastern part of the routes had been in use for millennia, the opening of the Silk Road occurred during the first century BCE, when China secured control over the eastern section and began trading with the Roman Empire through intermediary states in Central Asia. From this time until the end of the Mongol Yuan period in the fourteenth century, with periods of disruptions, the Silk Road flourished as a commercial and at times military highway. But more than that, the Silk Road was a channel for the transmission of ideas, technologies, and artistic forms and styles, with far-reaching impact beyond China and the Mediterranean world, extending to Southwest Asia, Africa, the Atlantic shores of Europe, and Japan to the east. This course examines the art forms that flourished along the Silk Road between the first and fourteenth centuries CE, ranging from ceramics, glass, gold and silverware, textiles, to religious art. Special attention is paid to important sites such as Dunhuang (a Buddhist cave-temple site), Chang’an (capital of Han and Tang China), and Shosoin (the imperial art treasure house of Nara Japan). Jin Xu.
Two 75-minute periods.
|
| |
-
ART 262 - Art and Revolution in Europe, 1789-1848 Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
A survey of major movements and figures in European art, 1789-1848, focusing on such issues as the contemporaneity of antiquity in revolutionary history painting, the eclipse of mythological and religious art by an art of social observation and political commentary, the romantic cult of genius, imagination, and creative self-definition, and the emergence of landscape painting in an industrializing culture. Brian Lukacher.
Prerequisite(s): ART 105 or ART 106 , or permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
ART 263 - Painters of Modern Life: Realism, Impressionism, Symbolism Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
A survey of major movements and figures in European art, 1848-1900, examining the realist, impressionist, and symbolist challenges to the dominant art institutions, aesthetic assumptions, and social values of the period; also addressing how a critique of modernity and a sociology of aesthetics can be seen developing through these phases of artistic experimentation. Brian Lukacher.
Prerequisite(s): ART 105 or ART 106 , or permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
ART 264 - The Metropolitan Avant-Gardes
1 unit(s)
(Same as MEDS 264 and URBS 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 2021/22.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
ART 265 - Modern Art and the Mass Media: the New Public Sphere Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as MEDS 265 and URBS 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. As a consequence, the physical spaces of culture would be reimagined and designed. Molly Nesbit.
Prerequisite(s): ART 105 or ART 106 .
Two 75-minute periods and one film screening.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
-
ART 266 - Art, Urgency, and Everyday Life in the United States
1 unit(s)
(Same as AFRS 266 and AMST 266 ) An interdisciplinary exploration of how a range of U.S. based creators–through their artistic practices, aesthetic choices, and expressive interventions–are grappling with urgent issues of our time. Lisa Collins.
Prerequisite(s): ART 105 or ART 106 or coursework in Africana Studies, American Studies, Women’s Studies, or permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2021/22.
Course Format: CLS
|
| |
Page: 1
| 2
| 3
| 4
| 5
| 6
| 7
| 8
| 9
| 10
| 11
… Forward 10 -> 22 |
|
|
Print this Page