AHD-1040 / AHD-1045 History and Theory of Modern Art I and II
Two semesters: 1.5 art history credits per semester
Intended to link the visual with the theoretical and the historical, this course will survey the relationship of art to its changing composition of ideas in a globalized context. Topics include: the contested concepts of the “modern,” modernism and primitivism; the emergence of abstraction; the invention of photography, collage and the found object. We will trace the development of modern art in the 19th and 20th centuries. As a model for analyzing contemporary practice, the conceptual structure of the avant-garde will be studied historically in this course.
HHD-1040 Political History of the Modern World: 18th and 19th Centuries
One semester: 1.5 humanities and sciences credits
This course will examine three significant themes unique to the modern era: 1) the struggle for individual rights; 2) the expansion of capitalism; 3) the increasing prominence of government as an agent for social change. These themes are traced from the founding of the United States and the dissolution of the European monarchies through the rise of the nation state.
HHD-1045 Political History of the Modern World: 19th and 20th Centuries
One semester: 1.5 humanities and sciences credits
This course is a continuation of the themes and events covered in HHD-1040, Political History of the Modern World: 18th and 19th Centuries, ending with the fall of 20th-century nation states.
HLD-1827 / HLD-1828 Why Modernism? Part I and II
Two semesters: 1.5 humanities and sciences credits per semester
What happened in literature while the visual arts, music and dance made their fundamental break from traditional forms? This course will examine the parallel problems of expression and composition that literature shared with the other arts.
HMD-1050 Modern Philosophy: 18th and 19th Centuries
One semester: 1.5 humanities and sciences credits
This course will introduce some of the key Western philosophical ideas, from the period of the European Enlightenment to the dawn of the 21st century. Through readings by Hume, Kant, Rousseau, Marx and Nietzsche we will examine central terms within the variety of philosophical trends and disputes of each period, including empiricism, political philosophy and aesthetic theory.
HMD-1055 Modern Philosophy: 20th Century
One semester: 1.5 humanities and sciences credits
This course will introduce some of the key Western philosophical ideas from the 20th century and into to the dawn of the 21st century. Through readings by Freud, William James, Camus, Sartre, De Beauvoir, Weber, Fanon, Heidegger we will examine central terms within the variety of philosophical trends and disputes of each period, including empiricism, political philosophy and aesthetic theory.
AHD-3140 Memory and History in Film
One semester: 3 art history credits
A range of issues will be addressed in this course, all intended to explore the relationship between history and memory in the films of Alain Resnais, Chris Marker, Andrei Tarkovsky and Alexander Kluge. How do the modernist and postmodernist discourses of memory and history take shape in these filmmakers’ works? Questions crucial to the understanding of how cinema (re)works the ideas of history and memory through representation will be raised. What is the nature of this relationship? How do individual and social memories intersect? We will attempt to answer these and other questions as we trace the trajectories of two forces—memory and history—always at odds with each other in the films of these directors.
AHD-3145 Issues in Contemporary Art Globalism—New Patterns of Practice, Shifting Grounds of Discourse
One semester: 3 art history credits
We will focus our attention this semester on the impact/influence of globalism on visual culture and contemporary art. On one hand, we will frame the idea of “globalism” by rifling through the bones of history, including post-World War II distribution networks and post-Colonial legacies that begin to manifest in art in the 1960s and ‘70s. On the other hand, we will investigate various exhibition formats, artists, audiences, narratives, circumstances and more (emphasis on the 1980s to the present), all of which contributed to the thrilling complexity of “worldwide visual culture” and the “global communication continuum.” As Guy Davenport stated, “Art is the attention we pay to the wholeness of the world.” This idea will be our starting point.
HLD-2123 Human and Divine
One semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits
What is the relationship between sacred text and cultural practice? This course will examine themes and symbols that recur in pivotal philosophic and devotional texts in order to determine what might be considered essentially human and/or essentially divine. Beginning with ancient Babylonian, Judeo-Christian, Buddhist and Hindu texts and stretching into the modern, the class will study works from diverse origins, both spiritual and secular, to explore how language operates as a medium between physical and metaphysical worlds.
HMD-2010 Self, Culture and Society
One semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits
This course studies problems basic to social, cultural and historical existence, as developed in foundational texts of economics, psychology, sociology and anthropology. In the midst of profound and rapid changes in our relationship to nature, to one another and to ourselves, these fields arose to turn a scientific eye inward. What the social sciences found was alternately sobering, revolutionary and terrifying. A new social and historical approach would be developed to the ancient command to know thyself. The course starts with the conceptual foundations of political economy, as well as theories of capitalism and modern society. Students will then consider the relation of nature, culture, society and lived experience. Finally, we will explore the social and cultural constitution of the person, with examination of class, race, gender and sexuality.
HPD-2060 From Ancient Myth to the Birth of Modern Science
One semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits
In this course we will begin by discussing the earliest forms of human thinking—animism and magic—and see how from these seeds, the human mind has created polytheistic religions, philosophy and ideas of law. We will conclude the semester by examining how philosophical and religious thought, from Aristotle to Galileo, has led to the development of scientific theory.
HPD-2070 The Cultural Crisis of Scientific Knowledge
One semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits
A consensus has existed since the 19th century that scientific knowledge rather than belief both provides the greatest benefit to humankind and is the greater barrier against acts of persecution and prejudice. A consensus around knowledge based on research and critical evaluation has also formed the basis for our legal institutions, economic ideas and technologically innovative society. Why then are we seeing a significant level of distrust and rejection of scientific knowledge whether it concerns climate change, the use of medicine or even the validity of the moon landing? Given the breakneck pace of change, what kind of values can orient a scientific society? Why does science seem equally capable of making our lives infinitely easier and destroying us entirely? We will examine this crisis of knowledge as an aspect of the contradictions within modernity and with an eye toward urgent contemporary political and social crises. Readings will include works by Edmund Husserl, Thomas Kuhn, Erwin Schrödinger, Herbert Marcuse, Stephen Jay Gould, Donna Haraway, Barbara Herrnstein Smith, Bruno Latour, and others.
HSD-2991 Data Literacy and Visualization
One semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits
With the Information Age, society has become increasingly reliant on data visualizations, such as charts, graphs and maps, to convey a vast amount of complex data. Becoming literate in this graphic language is crucial for identifying misleading representations (intentional or unintentional) and for ethically using data to shape our own narratives. This course provides an introduction to understanding and communicating data. We will build a firm foundation of what data is, the ways it is organized, and how to find or create it. Through exploratory analysis, students will learn to find meaning through basic statistical methods in order to communicate meaning through data visualization. Students will build data analysis and visualization skills that they can expand and apply to their own interests in order to become critical thinking, digital citizens.
HSD-3003 Energy and the Modern World
One semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits
This introductory course will examine the basic nature, forms and concepts of energy. We will explore various nonrenewable and renewable energy sources with an emphasis on environmental and social impacts. Lectures will also include discussions about natural resources, pollution, policies and consumerism through an energy lens. This course includes a field trip to the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Facility and a volunteer event with a local environmental organization.
HSD-3114 Modern Art and Astronomy: The Expanding Universe
One semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits
Where do stars come from? How big is the universe? What’s inside an atom? Why is the sky blue? In the last century, scientists have given revolutionary answers to these questions, profoundly altering how modern society perceives reality. This course presents fascinating responses to these questions in plain, easy-to- understand English, along with illustrations of their impact on art and culture. Topics include Einstein’s theory of the relativity of space and time, the discovery that the universe is expanding, space travel, the splitting of the atom, and the dawning of the nuclear age, as well as scientific metaphors in the arts.
HSD-3115 Botany
One semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits
In this course students will explore basic aspects of plant anatomy, physiology, plant types, and the historical and current importance of plants in human life. Students will actively participate in lab work to understand plant reproduction, propagation, cultivation and nutrition. The course will increase student awareness of and knowledge about the uses of plants and critical issues affecting ecology, including the threat and promise of science and agribusiness to modify plants for human and animal consumption. There will be two field trips.
HSD-3344 Ecological Economics
One semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits
Economic progress in the industrialized world has been shaped by a profound and alarming reliance upon the Earth’s ecosystem. This course will examine the logic, justifications and ideologies that have propelled society toward global capitalism, with an emphasis on the environmental conditions related to that growth. Readings from Adam Smith to John Maynard Keynes will reveal the scope of traditional economic thought as it relates to the natural world; while texts from authors such as Aldo Leopold, Herman Daly and Elinor Ostrom will employ the pragmatism of economic philosophy to offer solutions for our most dire ecological predicaments.
HSD-3523 Conservation Biology
One semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits
Conservation biology is the study of the maintenance, loss and restoration of ecosystems of biodiversity. This course covers the basics of paleontology, evolution and ecology, as well as relevant issues in environmental science. The objective of this course is to introduce students to the issues involved in our current extinction crisis and to enable them to make informed decisions on both national and local levels. Special attention will be paid to current debate and controversy in this quickly growing field of study. There will also be a field trip to the American Museum of Natural History, where the students will visit a working conservation genetics laboratory. Readings include: Fundamentals of Conservation Biology by Malcolm L. Hunter and The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert, as well as excerpts from Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food by Paul Greenburg and A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold.
