Approved Courses
Winter Quarter (W18)
Dept/Description | Course No., Title | Instructor |
---|---|---|
REL STD (W18) | 115 RELIGION & POLITICS | LYNCH, C. |
Secularism very generally involves a rejection of theocracy and the creation of some distance between church and state. It is a defining feature of liberal democracy. But what secularism specifically demands of the liberal state and the liberal citizen is a contentious and contested question. Indeed secularism has undergone a vigorous re-examination over the last 15 years as the result of multiple challenges. In this course we will survey some of these challenges and investigate the contemporary debates that seek to rethink secularism for the 21st century. | ||
PHILOS (W18) | 102W INTRO TO KNOWLEDGE | COLIVA, A. |
The course will introduce students to two forms of skepticism, the Cartesian and the Humean, and will present some of the main contemporary anti-skeptical strategies. In particular, we will study the writings of Putnam, Nozick, DeRose, G. E. Moore, Pryor, McDowell, Strawson and Wright. The course will also teach students how to write a philosophy paper, through a series of intermediate assignments, such as summaries, argument reconstructions and argument evaluations. Prerequisite: Satisfactory completion of the Lower-Division Writing Requirement. Overlaps with PHILOS 102, LPS 102. Days: WE FR 09:30-10:50 AM | ||
PHILOS (W18) | 103 INTR TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY | HELMREICH, J. |
Truth and Truthfulness. Why be truthful? Is it always wrong to lie, deceive, break promises or speak hypocritically? What about well-meaning falsehoods and innocent mistakes? We will face these sorts of questions, with the help of philosophers from Aristotle and Augustine to Hume, Kant and contemporary theorists, along with everyday examples. Days: TU TH 05:00-06:20 PM | ||
PHILOS (W18) | 110 PHILOSOPHY &TRAGEDY | PERIN, C. |
Plato thought that tragedy was bad for soul, and for this reason he banished it from his ideal city. In this course we'll examine Plato's objections to tragedy and Aristotle's response to those objections. Readings include Euripides' Medea, Plato's Republic, Sophocles' Oedipus the King, and Aristotle's Poetics. Repeatability: May be taken for credit 2 times as topics vary. Days: TU TH 12:30-01:50 PM | ||
PHILOS (W18) | 144 TOPICS PHIL SOC SCI | GILBERT, M. |
Selected topics in the philosophy of the social sciences, e.g., is their goal to understand behavior or to predict and control it?; are they normative and the natural sciences not?; do they incorporate philosophical doctrines about language and mind?. Repeatability: Unlimited as topics vary. Same as LPS 144. Days: MO WE 03:00-04:20 PM | ||
LIT JRN (W18) | 101BW NARRATIVES OF SCIENCE AND THE MIND | HAYASAKI, E. |
In narrative journalism, we often emphasize getting to the emotional core of the people we write about. But what about writing narratives that try to unravel the mysteries of emotions themselves? In this class, we will read about the science of behavior and the mind. We will consider stories about neurological disorders like schizophrenia, autism, Alzheimer’s, and perhaps some that you have never heard of like mass psychogenic illness (which led to a ticking outbreak among cheerleaders), or Morgellons Disease (which can be blamed for extreme itching), or body integrity disorder (in which a person might become obsessed with cutting off his arm). We will explore questions like what drives human behavior? Can emotions like shame or empathy be pinpointed to a particular part of the brain? What if memories can be planted? Or what if a sociopath is just born like that? How do these questions complicate the law? Such scientific discoveries could change the way journalists write crime narratives like In Cold Blood, particularly when we get into questions like: Does the brain dictate behavior? Is it our genes? Or can morality still be boiled down to the choices we make? Although we will be asking big universal questions that will help drive our narratives, we will still seek stories that address these topics through literary journalism, with characters, scenes and tension. Who are the people behind these disorders and discoveries—the scientists, patients, families, or defendants? Each student will be responsible for writing and reporting a science-inspired narrative as a final paper. | ||
LIT JRN (W18) | 103 LITERATURE OF LAW | WEINSTEIN, H. |
THE LITERATURE OF LAW: A Study of Dramatic Civil Cases | ||
HISTORY (W18) | 144G CAPITALISM | MCCLURE, D. |
This course will outline the history and development of capitalism and its role in creating the modern world. The first part of the course will examine how capitalism evolved from Mercantile capitalism to industrial capitalism to postindustrial globalization. The course | ||
HISTORY (W18) | 150 EARLY AFAM LIT | CHANDLER, N. |
This course will introduce students to the history of the African American intellectual and literary construction of the American experience, focusing on the 18th and 19th centuries – highlighting its early emergence, intensity and breadth – the colonial period through the advent of the Twentieth century. The will focus will be on Phillis Wheatley, Oluadah Equiano, Ottobah Cugoano, David Walker, Maria Stewart, and Frederick Douglass. W. E. B. Du Bois’s reflections on African American intellectual traditions will be of basic reference. In addition to established and recognized literary and intellectual texts, the readings and lectures also include, or consider, inscribed oral texts such as orations and public addresses, sermons, testimonials, songs, especially spirituals, and folklore. Other readings referenced or discussed in the class include published poetry, essays, petitions, legal appeals and declarations, editorials, slave narratives and other autobiographical narratives, fiction, and histories. The student who completes this course will have an understanding of the African American intellectual and literary construction of the American experience and thus the emergence of a modern literature and intellectual tradition, noting its early announcement within the history of the United States and a profound sense of its intensity and breadth. | ||
HISTORY (W18) | 166B REV&REACT IN LAT AM | TINSMAN, H. |
This class explores how revolution, and reaction to revolution, shaped Latin America during the late 20th century cold war. While the term “cold war” connotes the absence of direct military confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union, in Latin America, the years 1945 to 1990 were times of extraordinary violence, including military coups, civil wars, and prolonged dictatorships. They were also times of utopian imagination, democratic reform, and socialist revolutionary experiments to end profound inequality. Events within Latin America always responded to the global stand-off between superpowers, but they were never solely determined by foreign intervention. This course examines Latin American experiences with capitalist development, socialist revolution, military rule, and struggles for democracy. What did these concepts mean to different Latin Americans? How and why did people become so bitterly divided over competing visions? The class pays particular attention to the political transformations of women, indigenous and peasant communities, factory workers, and students. While the course addresses Latin America as a whole, required readings and films focus on Guatemala, Cuba, Chile, Argentina, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. Assignments include two in-class exams and one paper. | ||
HISTORY (W18) | 169 MEXICO:PAST&PRESENT | DUNCAN, R. |
Mexico is an enigma—from tropical rainforests to searing deserts, pinnacles of wealth to depths of despair, it is a land of extremes. On the verge of collapse more than once, Mexico now boasts one of the world’s largest economies. This course introduces students to the story of Mexico’s formation and evolution from colonial times to the present. This will be a broad analysis of the place that history has played in national political structures, economic formations, and social movements. We will examine the indigenous roots of pre-Columbian Mexico, the impact of conquest and colonization, the struggle of nation-building, revolution, reconstruction, and development. Particular attention will focus on the forces—both internal and external—that have contributed to shaping a Mexican identity. These issues will be covered through lectures, videos, and primary/secondary readings. | ||
GERMAN (W18) | 102 GERMAN CONTROVERSIES 1945 – 2018 | EVERS, K. |
This course looks at German culture and politics from the end of the Second World War to today by retracing major debates, scandals, and controversies that shaped the two Germanys and that continue to reverberate in today’s Germany. How did the two new German states deal differently after 1945 the loss and the destructions of the Second World War II? How did they reckon with a past of war crimes and genocide? What was the impact of the 1960s student movement on German culture and society? How were the protection of civil liberties debated during the times of terrorism in the 1970s and 1980s? What debates and controversies surrounded the German unification 1989/90? What has been Germany’s changing role in the EU under Chancellor Merkel? How are the German-American relations changing with President Trump? These are just some of the questions we will address in analyzing non-fictional and fictional texts, films, German TV broadcasts. The course will pay particular attention to contemporary debates on the environment, social justice, and the current political crises by reading current newspaper articles and watching German news programs. | ||
GEN&SEX (W18) | 100A KNOWLDG & SOCL CHNG | MAHMUD, L. |
"This course explores feminist modes of knowledge production in relation to the histories and activist practices of various social movements. What constitutes “change”? What is the relationship between critical social theories and political struggles, or between “engaged intellectuals” and social activists? How do revolutionary engagements play out both within and against the status quo? Through a wide range of case studies, we will interrogate notions like resistance, revolution, and social activism in relation to an interdisciplinary intellectual history of change. Specific topics will be contextualized in terms of political economy, transnational studies, institutional structures, and identity politics particularly around race, gender, sexuality, and class." | ||
GEN&SEX (W18) | 139 SEX POLITICS MEDIA | HILDERBRAND, L. |
This course will examine recent political and media debates, scandals, and activism related to gender and/or sexuality. Although such cultural/media events are often reduced to binary logics, this course will strive to interrogate the range of investments for stakeholders in such representations and critiques, as well as strategize how to recognize false equivalencies. In addition, we will seek to recognize how generational divides operate, even within supposedly unified identity or political groups. The topical case studies will include trigger warnings, RuPaul’s Drag Race, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Bros, “fragile” and “toxic” masculinities, questions of who gets to represent trans-of-color lives, the Harvey Weinstein sexual harassment and rape charges, industry practices of diversity and inclusion (or lack thereof), and the work of memes, among others. This course is cross-listed with Gender& Sexuality Studies 139. | ||
GEN&SEX (W18) | 157B QUEER LIVES KNOWLED | TERRY, J. |
FLM&MDA (W18) | 130 SEX POLITICS MEDIA | HILDERBRAND, L. |
This course will examine recent political and media debates, scandals, and activism related to gender and/or sexuality. Although such cultural/media events are often reduced to binary logics, this course will strive to interrogate the range of investments for stakeholders in such representations and critiques, as well as strategize how to recognize false equivalencies. In addition, we will seek to recognize how generational divides operate, even within supposedly unified identity or political groups. The topical case studies will include trigger warnings, RuPaul’s Drag Race, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Bros, “fragile” and “toxic” masculinities, questions of who gets to represent trans-of-color lives, the Harvey Weinstein sexual harassment and rape charges, industry practices of diversity and inclusion (or lack thereof), and the work of memes, among others. This course is cross-listed with Gender& Sexuality Studies 139. | ||
ENGLISH (W18) | 105 EARLY AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE | CHANDLER, N. |
This course will introduce students to the history of the African American intellectual and literary construction of the American experience, focusing on the 18th and 19th centuries – highlighting its early emergence, intensity and breadth – the colonial period through the advent of the Twentieth century. The will focus will be on Phillis Wheatley, Oluadah Equiano, Ottobah Cugoano, David Walker, Maria Stewart, and Frederick Douglass. W. E. B. Du Bois’s reflections on African American intellectual traditions will be of basic reference. In addition to established and recognized literary and intellectual texts, the readings and lectures also include, or consider, inscribed oral texts such as orations and public addresses, sermons, testimonials, songs, especially spirituals, and folklore. Other readings referenced or discussed in the class include published poetry, essays, petitions, legal appeals and declarations, editorials, slave narratives and other autobiographical narratives, fiction, and histories. The student who completes this course will have an understanding of the African American intellectual and literary construction of the American experience and thus the emergence of a modern literature and intellectual tradition, noting its early announcement within the history of the United States and a profound sense of its intensity and breadth. | ||
ENGLISH (W18) | 106 HUMANISM-NATIONALSM | RADHAKRISHNAN, R. |
This course will focus rigorously on the hyphenated category of the "onto-political" by way of nationalism and humanism. What is the relationship between ontology (theory of general Being) and politics (theory of specifically situated, socio-historical beings)? Are the two symbiotic, mutually constitutive? Is the relationship hierarchic? Is ontology the deep structure and politics the symptom? Is ontology temporal and politics historical: and if so, what is the relationship between temporality and historicity? Is ontology sublimated politics, and is politics ontology handed down? Crucial to all these questions is the constitution of the human as simultaneously being and citizen, non-sovereign and sovereign. Is humanism complicit with nationalism; or, can nationalism be "post-ed," i.e., transcended critically in the name of humanism? Is the post in the post-national the same as the post- on the post-human? How is the imprimatur of the human different from or ideologically identical with the imprimatur of the national? Are refugee non-citizens human, sub-human, human manqué? Is nationalism racist? Is humanism racist? Is the human animal, hum-animal? Is sovereignty anchored in the human, the national, or both differentially? In the move towards a new and transformative, deep ecological post-colonial humanism, should nationalism be discredited, deconstructed, transcended transgressively? Are there good and bad nationalisms, just as there are useable and culpable humanisms? Or, should the nationalism-humanism paradigm be abandoned tout court? What about the possibilities of a politically grounded exilic humanism? These are the questions that I hope to explore symptomatically in this seminar, in conjunction with other isms such as colonialism, transnationalism, feminism, anthropocentrism as well as the politics of race, the body, gender, and sexuality. | ||
COM LIT (W18) | 102W ECOPOLITICS | SCHWAB, G. |
In this course we will study the entanglement of two of the gravest dangers humanity faces today, namely nuclear politics and environmental violence. The course will be divided into two sections: 1. Nuclear Politics; 2. Ecological Violence, Resource Depletion and Climate Change. Drawing on Gregory Bateson’s “ecology of mind,” we will open with questions regarding the production of ecological knowledge and consciousness. We then move to the legacy of Hiroshima and nuclear politics. In this section, we will discuss nuclear colonialism, critical nuclear race theory and the gendering of nuclear politics, nuclear war and transgenerational nuclear trauma, nuclear energy, nuclear accidents and nuclear waste. In the second section, we will discuss the anthropocene, slow ecological violence, climate change and the extinction of species and planetary life as well as a possible politics of resistance and ethics of trans-species care. | ||
ASIANAM (W18) | 138 RACE & URBAN SPACE | LEE, J. |
This course examines the impact of urban space on experiences of race and racial difference. We tend to think of space as simply setting – a blank canvas upon which we live our lives. This class hopes to make clear that urban and other kinds of environments play a crucial role in the formation of both individuals, communities, and the interactions between these groups. The first part of the quarter will be devoted to considering how the space of the city produces, naturalizes, and/or replicates various social and political hierarchies. The second and third units of this class are case-studies and will focus on two kinds of urban spaces associated with Asian Americans: the ethnic ghetto (Chinatowns, K-towns, Little Tokyos, Little Saigons, and the like) and the ethnoburb (ethnic suburbs attached to large cities). Drawing upon the fields of anthropology, geography, cultural studies, queer studies, ethnic studies, literary criticism, and urban history, we will explore how Asian Americans negotiate their racial identities within these specific kinds of spaces. | ||
ASIANAM (W18) | 144 POLITICS OF PROTEST | KIM, C. |
AFAM (W18) | 112A EARLY AFAM LIT | CHANDLER, N. |
African American Literature I | ||
AFAM (W18) | 157 CRITICAL RACE THRY | HAN, S. |