* Important *

This page will be updated each quarter around the time that the Schedule of Classes comes out.  Please check back regularly for updates/ corrections.  Please NOTE that a course which has been accepted in the past may not be in the future. For any questions relating to this minor, please either contact us or visit the Humanities Undergraduate Counseling Office in HIB 143.

Courses Prior to Fall 07 (and Summer courses prior to Summer 08) are shown in a different format and can be accessed by clicking HERE.

Approved Courses

Course Term (Y=Summer Session 1, Z=Session 2):  

Fall Quarter (F20)

Dept/Description Course No., Title  Instructor
ASIANAM (F20)151F  SOUTH ASAM STUDIESSHROFF, B.

The class brings together diverse perspectives on the experiences of South Asians in America. South Asian countries include India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh among others. From the historical presence of South Asians in America in the 1920s, to the experience of pop culture like garba with attitude, and the lives of working class taxi drivers in New York City, after 9/11 we examine the experience of South Asians in America as one of multiple belongings, and hybrid identities that are complicated connections between the culture of the U.S. and the homeland.

Selected materials include stories by Pulitzer Prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri, sociological readings on domestic violence, citizenship dilemmas after 9/11 and selected films like Turbans, and Knowing Her Place.
Days: MO WE  12:00-01:20 PM

ASIANAM (F20)162  ASIAN AMER WOMENQUINTANA, I.

This course examines a variety of works by and about Asian American women in order to understand how diverse, complicated, and conflicted that subject position can be. Although it appears to be a self-evident term describing a definable group of authors, “Asian American women” actually operates as a highly contested category, in which different discourses surrounding race, gender, nationality, and sexuality collide. The material we will discuss in class ranges widely, from literary texts, to documentaries, to stand-up comedy, to articles from the disciplines of English, sociology, gender studies, legal studies and history. You should feel free to draw connections and distinctions between the texts as we read them. Some of the questions we might consider in our discussions: How is the identity marker “Asian American woman” understood? What purpose does the constructed term “Asian American women” serve? What expectations about race, gender, sexuality, and citizenship do these works shatter and which do they reinforce?
Days: TU TH  11:00-12:20 PM

ENGLISH (F20)100  INTRODUCTION TO LITERARY THEORYBARTLETT, J.

English 100 has been designed to provide you with a survey of literary theory and criticism from the fifth century B.C.E. to the present day, an ambition that would read like an incredible prank if it were it not so sincerely earned. The University of California, Irvine has a reputation for bleeding-edge approaches to literature and culture that is, frankly, unmatched: ours was the first university in the country to offer a doctoral program in Critical Theory, now an essential component of literary study, and our library houses the most comprehensive Critical Theory Archive in the world, as well as the manuscripts and papers of many of the field’s most significant thinkers. Irvine’s influence on humanistic inquiry is both historic and ongoing, and this course—English 100—represents everything that we are about. Behind every survey lies a logic of selection, and my choices have been guided by a belief in the prominence and centrality of Worry in the history of literary criticism and theory. Rather than offer a strictly chronological review, I have organized works by their motivating concerns. Each week will feature a mixture of old and new texts that address a common issue, so that you can receive a more discrete and compelling genealogy of critical discourse.

You will be expected to attend and participate in all class meetings, to take one midterm and one final, and to complete two reading quizzes.
Days: TU TH  12:30-01:50 PM

ENGLISH (F20)102B  18TH C. LITERATURE AND ECONOMYMCCLANAHAN, A

The first concern of this class will be to explore the invention, over the course of the 18th century, of the genre we now call the novel. How, we will ask, did readers come to expect that the stories be “realistic”? How did they come to be willing to imagine themselves in the minds (and in the houses, workplaces, streets, and even beds) of fictional characters? Our second concern will be with the economic transformations those novels represented, from new understandings of property and the rise of the middle class, to revolutionary changes in relationships between the classes and the abolition of the slave trade. We’ll ask: do literary works like novels simply reflect the economic circumstances in which they were written or might they offer some new ways of thinking, seeing, and describing the economic and social world around them? Along the way to answering these questions, we’ll read short excerpts from political, economic, and legal texts written during this period—John Locke, Adam Smith, Mary Wollestonecraft and others—and, of course, we’ll read a lot of marvelous novels! We’ll explore treatments of land and settlement in Robinson Crusoe; servants, poverty, and sexuality in Pamela; commerce, mercantilism, and the slave trade in The Interesting Narrative; and domestic property and land enclosure in Northanger Abbey.
Days: MO WE  02:00-02:50 PM

ENGLISH (F20)102B  VIRTUES AND VICESLEWIS, J.

“Thus ev’ry Part was full of Vice,/Yet the whole Mass a Paradise.” So wrote the English satirist Bernard Mandeville in a 1705 fable whose subtitle, Private Vices, Public Benefits, captured the moral contradictions that ruled his 18th-century English society. And it’s true: in no other culture do we find more of an obsession with gambling, drinking, debauchery, and crime . . . or more of a fascination with honor, integrity, and, simply, ‘being good.’ The literature we will read in this course (all of it written between 1660 and 1745) explores these moral extremes; it was written at a time when human virtue and human vices were no longer understood in terms of sin and piety but rather looked like aspects of personal character interacting with social habits and conventions. We’ll meet whores and determined virgins, liars and truthtellers, thieves and preachers, rakes and chaste wives. The big picture? A rambunctious human scene full of idealism, hedonism, and hypocrisy where literature’s ambivalent power both to correct and to seduce, to moralize and to make mischief, gives it an important role to play. The reading list mixes Rochester’s naughty libertine lyrics with the austerities of Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress; Wycherley’s raunchy comedy The Country Wife with Behn’s heroic Oroonoko; and Gay’s ironic exposé of the London underworld, The Beggar’s Opera, with Pamela, Richardson’s controversial novel of “virtue rewarded.” We’ll end with Hogarth’s satiric images of “A Harlot’s Progress.” Midterm, final, 7-page paper plus quizzes and participation.
Days: TU TH  03:30-04:50 PM

ENGLISH (F20)105  SI SE PUEDE: LATINX FEMINISM IN LITERATURE AND MEDIAMONTERO, V

In this course we will trace the development of a United States Latinx feminist tradition in literature, film, and television from the early twentieth century to today. Our course, for example, might analyze the performance of early Hollywood starlet Lupe Vélez in Mexican Spitfire alongside the 2017 documentary about activist Dolores Huerta or episodes from shows like One Day at a Time or Pose. We will read early twentieth century authors like María Cristina Mena, seminal Chicana theorists like Gloria Anzaldúa, and contemporary writers like Jeanine Capó Crucet and Gabby Rivera.

Some of the guiding questions for this course will be:

• What are the stakes of representation? How does equitable representation make us feel and does it actually create or reflect sociopolitical change? What does Latinx feminist history teach us about Afro-Latinidad, LGBTQIA Latinx communities, and economic justice for Latinx people?
• What are some of the central debates that have shaped current understandings of the Latinx community? Why Latinx and not Chicana/o, Hispanic, or Latina/o?
• What kinds of histories do stories provide? What do we learn by retracing the stories and (her)stories of the Latinx feministas who have come before us and who write for us now?
Days: TH  09:00-11:50 AM

FLM&MDA (F20)110  FILM & MEDIA THEORYSODERMAN, A.

Video games are the quintessential media form of our times and our “ludic,” or playful, century. This course will examine old and new directions in video game theory and in the history of game studies. For example, we will examine the relationship of video games to the environment, to digital forms of labor, to emotions and feelings, and to contemporary politics. While a key component of this course concerns learning how to analyze and interpret games (like we would a film or television program), we will also broaden our cultural frameworks of analysis, examining how games and play are shaped by (and are shaping) larger political, social, and aesthetic contexts.
Days: MO WE  02:30-03:50 PM

FLM&MDA (F20)110  FILM & MEDIA THEORYLIU, C.

FMS 110 will be taught with a focus on the Crime Genre: we will be looking at the emergency of the genre from A Great Train Robbery, to gangster films, to Film Noir, to streaming content, we will explore the onscreen representation of guilt and innocence across narrative forms.
Days: TU TH  11:00-12:20 PM

GEN&SEX (F20)100A  FEMINSM & SOCL CHNGSCHEPER, J.

2020 has brought an increase in global visibility to movements organized around raced and gendered violence and social inequalities. Even as I prepare to teach this course, people are taking to the streets against police violence and showing support for the Movement for Black Lives, “an ideological and political intervention in a world where Black lives are systematically and intentionally targeted for demise.” Students in this course will have an opportunity to place and understand these recent events within a longer historical context by reading from the memoir of South African anti-apartheid activist Winnie Madikizela-Mandela (1936-2018), 491 DAYS: Prisoner Number 1323/69, Emily Thuma’s work on late twentieth-century radical feminist antiviolence organizing, All Our Trials: Prisons, Policing, and the Feminist Fight to End Violence, Sarah Ahmed’s blueprint for Living a Feminist Life, and the collection, How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective edited by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor on one of the most important organizations to develop out of the antiracist and women’s liberation movements of the 1960s and 70s. From 19th century anti-lynching campaigns and 20th century anti-apartheid campaigns, to antiracist feminist politics in prison abolitionism and #Black Lives Matter, to the movements to end gender and sexual violence such as #totalshutdown (South Africa), and #MeToo, this course gives students an opportunity to ask: When feminists take on social, political, and cultural critique, how is knowledge produced, disseminated, and directed towards social change? What are the expert knowledges and everyday ways of knowing that shape feminist engagements? Over the course of the quarter, students will produce their own “toolkits” and “blueprints” for transmitting feminist knowledges, taking up the challenge of these authors to think critically and intersectionally about race, gender, sexuality, nation, class, and disability in social, economic, and legal justice issues, and finally consider, what it means in Ahmed’s words “to live a feminist life.”
Days: TU TH  09:30-10:50 AM

HISTORY (F20)100W  HISTORY & PUBLICPHILIP, K.

HISTORY 100W is an upper-division writing course. History & Public Health is offered in the wake of the Covid-19 global pandemic. Students will learn how to write as historians of health, and to consider the challenges and learn the skills of writing for audiences at the intersection of history, health, and global publics. No background is required, but some interest in medicine, science, and public health, as well as curiosity about global politics, are welcome. Writers we will study include both historical and health experts. You will learn writing skills specific to the history of medicine and public history.
Days: MO  04:00-06:50 PM

HISTORY (F20)100W  BLCK WOMN&ARCHIVESMILLWARD, J.

This course focuses on the major themes and frameworks employed by historians who write on African American Women's History. Topics we will explore include: African American women in Slavery; Black Feminist Theory; African American women and Black Power; violence against African American women; and African American women in the Era of Black Lives Matter. Prior enrollment in History, African American Studies and/or Women and Gender Studies courses are encouraged. History 100W fulfills the upper-division writing requirement for UCI and the historical writing requirement for the History Major. The requirements, set by the school and the department, are absolute.  Our goal in this class is to analyze how historians approach a topic, examine evidence, and create arguments. This means that we will be doing several short assignments, each of which will employ a different form of historical writing.
Days: TU  01:00-03:50 PM

HISTORY (F20)144G  MEDIA & US ELECTIONPERLMAN, A.

This course will trace the evolving relationships between media history, political communication, and election campaigning in the US across the 20th century. We will pay particular attention to changes in political journalism, political advertising, and campaign finance reform regulations. We also will examine the impact of new communication technologies (radio, broadcast TV, cable TV, websites, and social media platforms) on the act and practice of running for public office. As this course will take place during the 2020 election, we will be attentive to how the history of US media and US elections can help contextualize our contemporary political moment.
Days: TU TH  11:00-12:20 PM

HISTORY (F20)147  EDUC & AMERCN DREAMMALCZEWSKI, J.

The “American Dream” was first conceptualized by James Truslow Adams in 1931, who said that life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, regardless of social class or circumstances of birth. Many Americans have accepted this ethos as central to our democracy and believe that education is the basis for achieving it. This class will examine the relationship between public schooling and the promotion of democratic ideals in American society over the past two centuries. Students will explore the historiographical debates about the central goals and purposes of American public education and will consider whether those goals promote or contradict those of particular groups who seek to benefit from it.
Days:   12:00-12:00 AM

HISTORY (F20)150  BLK WOMXN VIOLENCEMILLWARD, J.
HISTORY (F20)171E  CHINESE 1800-1949WASSERSTROM, J.

How was the Qing Empire (1644-1912) similar to and different from other major political units of its time? Why did the Opium War (1839-1842) break out? Why is the crisis that affected China and the world in 1900 called the "Boxer Rebellion"--when the participants in it did not exactly "box" and were not exactly "rebels"--and why was it an event that gripped the attention of newspaper readers across the planet? Which revolution changed China most dramatically, that which transformed an empire into a nation in 1911 or that which brought the country under Communist Party rule in 1949? These are some of the questions this class will explore. In the process, students will learn about a range of interesting specific individuals, from emperors and empresses to the cross-dressing female revolutionary Qiu Jin to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. One theme throughout the class will be the importance of keeping in mind the varied ways that the stories of major events in China's past have changed over time and been put to varied political uses in different places, in different periods, and by people with different political agendas. It is, in other words, both a class about events that took place and the varied ways that stories about those events have been told.
Days: TU TH  11:00-12:20 PM

HISTORY (F20)185  SOCIETY & TECHPHILIP, K.

Modern history, science fiction, and film illustrate ways in which technological change has provoked expressions of utopia and dystopia; instilled euphoria and panic; inspired business and art. Was the telegraph too fast for truth? Could electricity animate the dead?
Will robots will take our jobs? These concerns seemed ludicrous to some, and plausible to many. How can we understand these beliefs in their historical and social context? How might the histories of gender, political economy, and colonialism impact our understanding of such technological anxieties? Surveying the effects of technology on social practice from the eighteenth century to the present, our particular focus will be on social theories of difference (addressing gender, race, class, and nation), and their embedding in histories of science and technology.
Days: TU TH  05:00-06:20 PM

LIT JRN (F20)103  LIT OF TRUE CRIMECORWIN, M.

True crime, at its best, it not just about cops and killers, but can tell us much about the world in which we live. While the crimes may animate the narratives – which make for gripping reading – the best books transcend the genre by giving readers a strong sense of place,an insight into the criminal mind, a window into the cops’ world, a feel for the agony of the victims, and the impact on the community. Every crime contains three major players that provide the cornerstone for compelling character studies: a perpetrator, a victim, and an investigator. In this class we will discuss the ethnical challenges true crime writers encounter, the difficulties they face during the reporting, and the decisions they make during the writing. We will explore the psychology of criminals; the effect their behavior has on society, the legal world and the criminal justice system; and the social implications of their crimes. Homicide detectives, former prison inmates, and true crime writers will visit the class, give presentations and answer questions. Some writers whose works we will read include David Grann, Norman Mailer, and John Berendt.
Days: Tu Th  03:30-04:50 PM

PHILOS (F20)104  INTRO TO LOGICSTAFF

Visit the Logic and Philosophy of Science website for more information.
Days: TU TH  02:00-03:20 PM

PHILOS (F20)121A  MED EPISTEMOLOGYSTAFF

Analysis of epistemological issues concerning medical research and health care. Topics may include medical evidence, transmission of medical knowledge, medical expertise, the epistemology of medical disagreement, classification of illnesses, well-being, philosophy of pain, and medical decision making.

Days: TU TH  11:00-12:20 PM

PHILOS (F20)130  TPC IN MORAL PHILOSGILBERT, M.

Rights and obligations in a social world

In everyday life many of our encounters and relationships result in rights and obligations. For instance, if I promise to phone you tomorrow, you now have a right to my calling you then, and I have an obligation to do so. But what are rights and obligations, and how exactly do we come by them? Do we have some rights irrespective of our specific encounters and relationships with others? This course will focus on such questions, drawing on the work of moral, legal, and social theorists.

Days: MO  03:00-05:50 PM

PHILOS (F20)131C  MEDICAL ETHICSDONALDSON, B.

The last fifty years of scientific knowledge and technological developments have led to numerous ethical dilemmas that neither medicine nor law can adequately address. The emergence of biomedical ethics strains to fill this gap, confronting crucial new questions such as how to define life and death, how to allocate limited resources, how to justify research harms, and how to respect personal freedom amidst the needs of the wider community. This course will provide students the philosophical foundations of western normative ethics, with some reference to non-western views. During the term, we will practice utilizing these ethical tools to examine cases related to:
*autonomy and confidentiality
*the limits of rights
*pharmaceutical clinical trials
*research on animals
*reproductive technologies
*end-of-life decisions

Days: TU TH  05:00-06:20 PM