Humanities and Sciences

HCD-1020

Writing and Literature I

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits 

This is the first part of a two-semester course that helps students become capable, critical and independent writers. With its focus on developing an argument, the course offers an introduction to some of the skills necessary for critical analysis of written art. It will include a review of writing basics (grammar, coherence, idea development, sentence and essay structure). Since reading widely is a foundation of good writing, course readings are drawn from a selection of premodern Western works, including drama, poetry, the narrative and the critical essay, which will be used as discussion and writing prompts. 

HCD-1025

Writing and Literature II

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits 

This is the second part of a two-semester course that emphasizes essay development, reading and critical thinking. Students will write essays and a research paper, and continue to work on their grammar and essay development. Readings are drawn from a selection of modern works, including drama, poetry, the narrative and the critical essay. 

Writing Program Elective Courses

The following courses are open to all students and can be taken as electives. For students interested in pursuing a concentration in writing, SVA offers a 15-credit Writing Program that culminates in the creation of a writer’s portfolio. For more information visit: sva.edu/undergraduate/humanities-and-sciences/writing-program. 

Critical Writing

Students enrolled in the Writing Program must take at least one critical writing course. Successful completion of a critical writing course (HWD-2000 through HWD-2999) will fulfill the requirement for HCD-1025, Writing and Literature II, provided the student has passed the Proficiency Exam. 

HWD-2000

Writing About Art

Spring semester: 3 humanities and science credits

In this critical writing course, students will be immersed in the world of the arts, which spans multiple genres and styles. We will read and discuss inspiring essays by artists and critics, such as the great film editor Walter Murch, cultural critic Camille Paglia, the novelists James Baldwin and Tom Wolfe, and art grandee Dave Hickey, along with the crackling prose of artist-eccentrics such as William Blake, Vincent van Gogh and Andy Warhol. Students will also be introduced to autobiographical works, including William Eggleston’s film Stranded in Canton, in order to explore how the personal narrative is transformed into a sparkling art. This reading and arts immersion will guide students to write eloquently, confidently, and with an abundance of passion for their own artistic practice, as well as that of others. Students will keep journals detailing their gallery/museum visits and place writing—including their own—under the microscope. 

HWD-2103

Everybody’s a Critic: Writing About Pop Culture

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Whether it’s music, movies, theater or television, all of us react to pop culture through the prism of our individual experience. But how does that process work? How do we decide what songs, shows, actors or directors we like or dislike, and what do those choices say to others about us? In this course, we will explore the individual pop aesthetic, and how to successfully articulate in writing the critical voice that everyone possesses. Through assignments, collective reviews and analysis of works by critics—including Lester Bangs (music), John Leonard (TV), Manny Farber (film) and Frank Rich (theater)—we will examine the unique challenges critics face as both arbiters of taste and as writers seeking to effectively express themselves.

HWD-2256

Words in Action: The Play’s the Thing

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Sharpen your critical writing skills at the theater. See live performances of works from cutting-edge playwrights in theaters Off-Broadway. Read plays by Pulitzer-prize winning authors Suzan-Lori Parks, Ayad Akhtar, August Wilson, Edward Albee, Lynn Nottage, Tony Kushner, and more. Explore how a play makes it from the page to the stage. Learn the techniques of dramatic writing: how to create characters, plot and narrative lines, as well as discovering how the director, designers and actors collaborate in the process. Students will write essays and critical reviews of assigned plays and have the opportunity to put into practice playwriting techniques by writing a 10-minute play. Tune up your ears for wit, banter, rage and chaos, and listen to the voices of contemporary writers—see their words in action.

HWD-2271

Images, Writing and Criticism 

Spring semester: 3 humanities and science credits

It is less useful to consider images produced only under the name of art at a time when we are both a visual and an imagistic culture. This course looks at and analyzes a wide range of images, their power and distribution by using critical ideas about them. Many of the sources are drawn from the specific majors of class members, and will range across science, advertising, mass communication—from books to photojournalism—and from fine art to social and virtual media. The aim is to improve each student’s ability to apply critical ideas through writing for both print and online venues. Students will write a series of short analyses and essays designed to move them closer to a professional level in writing critical reviews, interviews and analyses in terms of the world they inhabit. There will be several field trips to examine and question images placed in a public context with advice from other working professionals.

HWD-2323

How to Think and Write About Comics

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This class is a formal and practical analysis of sequential art and a survey of the history of comics. We will discuss the themes that the works generate, relating them to culture and personal experience. We will read and discuss many canonical texts that have helped to create the landscape of comics, graphic novels and narrative art today. Students will write criticism and analyses on the history, culture, aesthetics and language of graphic novels and comics in response to class readings. We will discuss machinations and genealogies, to be useful for students in their current and future artistic, creative and intellectual endeavors, in addition to creating inspiration by reading some of the masters of the medium, including the work of Herriman, McCay, Hergé, Barks, Crumb, Schulz, Eisner, Tezuka, Spiegelman, Miller, the Hernandez Brothers, Clowes, Ware, Burns, Satrapi, Cruse and Bechdel. Throughout our exploration we will address what it is about comics, graphic novels and narrative art that compels our attention as a dominant cultural form of the 21st century. 

HWD-2353

Writing Visual Culture in New York City

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Utilizing New York City’s rich visual culture, students will learn to better observe and interpret fine arts, photography, design, advertising and architecture through writing. Visual media will be explored from aesthetic, social and political viewpoints so as to understand how we read images. By studying how works of other artists and designers affect us as viewers, we can gain insight into how our own work makes an impact. Writing provides an important means to clarify and present ideas coherently and improve communication skills. The knowledge and experience gained through this course will enrich your own studio practice as well as your creative identity. Readings related to NYC site visits will supplement the writing workshops.

HWD-2364

Becoming a Digital Critic

Fall or spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Have you ever wanted to add your voice to the world of cultural criticism online? This course will teach you how to build an online portfolio of reviews (TV, film, music, book), essays and think pieces, with a focus on developing your voice and brand, as well as navigating the world of freelance pitching. We will tackle digital literacy and digital media theory to explore and discover your own place in the digital landscape. Readings include works of contemporary media theory, such as The Ambivalent Internet: Mischief, Oddity, and Antagonism Online and Going Viral, focusing on what it means to be constantly consuming and synthesizing information. Practical readings will come from a variety of sites that cover cultural criticism, including Buzzfeed, Broadly, Vice, Catapult, The A.V. Club and Vulture. Students will complete this course with at least two pieces of cultural criticism ready for publication, as well as corresponding pitch letters and a list of sites best suited for each piece.

HWD-2376

Leaving/Returning Home: Narratives of Migration

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Migration is one of the major forces shaping today’s world. The reasons for leaving home are multiple: studies, job opportunities, armed conflicts, climate change, or the mere desire to live someplace else. Whether you come from Texas or China, leaving home remains a profound experience that changes who you are. How do immigrants meet the new land and how does it meet them? How are immigration policies in the U.S. or other countries affecting migration? Can the same self ever return home? In this critical writing course, students will read essays, articles and short stories to investigate issues of home and belonging, identity and otherness, assimilation vs. integration, globalism and third culture kids, and the dynamics of race and ethnicity in contemporary migration. Students are encouraged to examine their own narrative of leaving and returning home. Readings will include excerpts from Hannah Arendt, Pico Iyer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Valeria Luiselli, Xiaolu Guo and Viet Thanh Nguyen.

HWD-2379

Writing About Film: Every Movie Has a Slant

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This writing course will explore how film creates political meaning, the sum total of the filmmaker’s attitudes, spiritual beliefs, ideological leanings, social status, cultural position and ideas about power sharing. We will examine and define categories of film ideology through readings relevant to the films we screen and discuss in class. Readings include selections from Looking at Movies by Richard Barsam and Dave Monahan, Harry Belafonte’s speech at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards and Molly Haskell’s critique From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies. 

HWD-2381

Writing the Past

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

We would not exist without those who came before us. In this course, students will examine their own genealogy, explore universal social and cultural histories, and write responsive critical essays relating to these themes. We will take field trips to institutions in the city where students will immerse themselves in genealogy and family research, and study historical newspapers to consider major historical events. These primary materials will be utilized to craft essays that analyze the past. Students will be encouraged to think of history and the archive as a vital source of inspiration for both writing and visual art. Readings will include writers who examine the past, such as Jack Finney, Patrick Modiano, Suzannah Lessard and Daniel Mendelsohn, among others. This course is an introduction into the art of visualizing and writing about the past.

Creative Writing

HWD-3001

Writing Beat

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Inspired by the literary inventiveness of The Beat Generation, this writing course in prose and poetry departs from the standard notions of story, play and poem to focus on experimentation with language. Readings from Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Kathy Acker, Diane di Prima, and others will inform student work. Intended for students from a variety of visual disciplines, this course will include the interrelationship of writing with other art forms, such as film, photography, painting and music. Students will explore such techniques as spontaneous bop prosody, sketching and unrevised prose based on the principle of “first thought, best thought,” to help students find their own voice and forms of expression in writing. 

HWD-3002

Restructuring the Narrative

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Consider this course a language “work-out.” A writing workshop—with a twist, the course will expand the use of language as a creative tool. In the belief that writing is a frontier for artists, open and free methods such as automatic writing, cut-ups and fold-ins will be used to render states of consciousness in written form, and will be extended to innovative forms of storytelling, creating new narrative possibilities. We will read selections from Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein, the modern haiku poets, and humorists Hunter S. Thompson and William S. Burroughs.

HWD-3014

Storytelling and Narrative Art

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

What is story and why do we love it? Why has storytelling been a fundamental feature of all cultures since humanity’s earliest days on earth? This course will explore storytelling, its origins and the diverse forms of creative works and theory. How is narrative composed? What motivates the stories we continue to share? We will survey many different ideas about narrative beginning with neurobiological concepts to the origins of myth and religion to modern-day psychology. We will also look toward advertising, sociopolitical narratives and propaganda. This is a writing course designed to help you build a personal narrative map that can be a creative compass both as a writer and a visual storyteller. This practice will require weekly reading and written assignments with word limits. Students are encouraged to incorporate their own visual artwork. 

HWD-3111

Crafting Nonfiction

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Lies, alternative facts, fake news, truth: these categories often blend in our culture. In writing, whether it is true, half-true, or complete fabrication, what matters is craft. How do you tell a story, particularly the story that you know: your own story based upon your own true experience? This writing course will focus on the language and narrative strategies of nonfiction genres: biography, autobiography, memoir, personal essay, travel essay, graphic history and the New Journalism. We will read selections from Truman Capote, Paul Bowles, Gay Talese, Gabrielle Hamilton, Nora Ephron, André Aciman and Mary Karr.

HWD-3223

Artists Write the Fantastic

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Artists are naturally drawn to the fantastic: stories of the supernatural, sci-fi, dark fantasy, dystopian and magical realism. In this workshop-based class you will have a chance to write in these genres, see which appeal to you and complement your art. We’ll read a selection of stories by celebrated fantasy authors, including Ray Bradbury, Edgar Allan Poe, Paolo Bacigalupi and Susanna Clarke. This course is especially helpful to graphic novelists, screenwriters, cartoonists, filmmakers, and any artist who uses narrative elements. Come find out where your own storytelling will take you. You’ll gain a portfolio of fun, exploratory writing and a better understanding of how narrative and art intersect.

HWD-3244

Journals: Yours and Theirs

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

How many half-filled notebooks do you have lying around? Have you always wanted to fill up a journal but find you can’t keep it up? This course is designed to help you do just that. Everyone will write at home in his or her personal journal at least three times a week. In addition, in class you will write to suggested prompts and topics, and read that writing aloud to give you practice in sharing your thoughts and feelings, which are the stuff of journal writing. Keeping a journal is crucial to an artist because it develops a private space in which to connect your art with that of others. We will also explore journals of great writers such as Virginia Woolf, Albert Camus, Sylvia Plath, Sappho Durrell, Allen Ginsberg, Anton Chekhov, Mike Figgis, Lord Byron, Juanita de la Sorjuana and Walter Benjamin, including the logbooks of women whalers from the 19th century. The journal will be yours to keep except what you choose to share. It will not be graded or handed in. Each student will select a published journal to explore and critique. 

HWD-3261

Visuality in Poetry

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

How are words made into images? What is the science of figurative language? What are opportunities for music, image and language to complement as opposed to contrast with one another? This course, offered through the Visual and Critical Studies Department, will address these fundamental questions by engaging with poetic works drawn from diverse periods. In this effort to understand poetry’s relationship with the visual world, we will read closely and critically. We will study the mechanics of poetry and work on writing, listen to writers and attend readings to arrive at a practical understanding of writing and prepare for tackling the larger questions of ekphrasis in poetry. 

HWD-3354

The Digital Experience 

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will explore writing for digital platforms, from blogs and social media to artists’ websites and online literary magazines. By examining the most beautiful, dangerous and cutting-edge work from all corners of the Internet, we will investigate and respond to the following: How can we take advantage of the fundamental differences between traditional and digital writing? How is the relationship between visual arts and digital media evolving? What is the vast potential and what are grave perils of writing on the Internet? The focus of the course will not be on expressing ourselves, but rather on creating new digital experiences through writing in a variety of genres, including memoir, fiction, poetry, description of art, about me pages, and more. By the end of the course students will have created a personal website and portfolio, mastered the fundamentals of personal branding, improved their writing skills, and developed their understanding of online audiences.

HWD-3552

Writing, Multimedia and Performance

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

The excitement of writing a poem or flash fiction and sharing it with an audience can be taken to another level when visual components and music are added. This course invites you to compose short creative pieces with the intent of combining them with multimedia elements for a portfolio and a live performance. Based on a chosen topic and numerous prompts, you will develop your writing in a workshop setting, add your own visual art aspect (photos, painting, collage, etc.) and practice reading what you write in order to sharpen your ear for language, rhythm and sound. Guest artists will discuss their work and how it connects writing and multimedia. At semester’s end, you will present excerpts from your finished project, joined by musicians to heighten the experience. Readings and exercises will be drawn from works by Langston Hughes, Allen Ginsberg, Margaret Atwood, Etgar Keret, Sandra Cisneros, Sherman Alexie, Claudia Rankine, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Laurie Anderson and Oko Ono, as well as critical essays by Billy Collins, Saul Williams and Gertrude Stein. 

HWD-3567

Writing the Chapbook

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

The excitement and reward of compiling a short collection of creative writing and seeing it published in book form is what this course is about. During the semester students will compose and piece together a group of theme-based work (poetry, flash fiction, or memoir) in order to complete a 12-page chapbook. Students will design their own book cover. Readings will include Jean Valentine’s Lucy; Matt Rasmussen’s Fingergun; Eduardo Corral’s “Border Triptych” and Natalie Eilbert’s “Imprecation.” 

HWD-3990

Writing Portfolio

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

The writing portfolio is the culmination of a student’s work in the Writing Program. With the help of a mentor, each student will create a body of work—critical, creative and, where applicable, interdisciplinary. In the fall, students should discuss their ideas with a Writing Program instructor of their choice and prepare a statement of intent. Chair approval of the project is required before the spring semester. 

Developmental WRITING

HCD-0161 / HCD-0162

Writing Fundamentals I and II

Two semesters: no credit

These courses focus on writing fundamentals (grammar, sentence and paragraph logic, idea development, organization and essay structure). They will will help prepare students for required first-year courses in composition and art history as well as for upper-level humanities and sciences courses. The writing lab will be given in the Computer Assisted Writing Lab (CAWL), where students will learn to revise their work using a computer. 

History

HHD-2001

History and Culture of the Ancient Near East

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

In Egypt and Mesopotamia people built big and thought big. Between 3500 to 500 BCE, they created technology that allowed them to live in cities. They invented writing and began to record their own story. They built the pyramids and charted the motion of the stars. Their “firsts” include the work of the world’s first-known author and the first medical description of cancer. They wrote about gods and heroes that walked among them, powerful queen-mothers and women who were kings; they also wrote the books that are the scriptures of some major world religions. This course will focus on the seminal urban cultures of Mesopotamia and Africa: Sumer, Egypt and Nubia, Akkad, Assyria, Hatti, Israel, Phoenicia, Crete and Mycenae, and Persia. Contacts with other cultures of Afro-Eurasia will be considered. Literary texts include Gilgamesh, Sinuhe and the hymns of Enheduanna. Texts include William H. Stiebing, Jr.’s Ancient Near Eastern History and Culture, 3rd ed. 

HHD-2022

Justice, Crime and Punishment in the West, from the Middle Ages to the Present

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

How a society defines crime and punishes offenders reveals much about its values and power structures. This course will explore the changing landscape of crime and punishment in the West, beginning with the judicial ordeal of the early Middle Ages and concluding with a survey of current trends and controversies. Topics covered will include the medieval Inquisition, the great witch hunts of the 16th and 17th centuries, the symbolic and pragmatic dimensions of public executions, gender-based crimes and punishments, and the prison movement of the late 18th and 19th centuries. In the process we’ll chart the shifting relationships among social ideals and fears, state power and the rights of the individual. 

HHD-2051

The Politics of Now

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will deepen our understanding of current events and recent social movements in the United States, and consider their interconnection to related movements worldwide. Black Lives Matter, prison abolition, transgender liberation, climate justice, and the rights of indigenous people, women, sex workers and undocumented immigrants will all be considered. We will also dive into theories of change, strategies of community organizing, truth and reconciliation, and recent movements that helped lead us to the current moment, including Occupy Wall Street, the WTO protests of 1999, anti-war movements and the American Indian Movement. Documentaries will serve as primary texts, including 13th, Trans in Media and First Daughter and the Black Snake.

HHD-2111

World History: Classical to Renaissance

Fall or spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

A whirlwind tour of the first 5,000 years of human history, this course will begin with the origins of humanity two million years ago, stopping for a closer look at key periods in the cultures of Afro-Eurasia, and continuing on until rejoining with the cultures of the Western Hemisphere at the end of the 15th century CE. We will focus on those events and people that were influential in shaping the identity of their cultures of origin and the global culture of humanity. Texts include Worlds Together, Worlds Apart: A History of the World—Beginnings Through the Fifteenth Century. 

HHD-2112 

World History: Renaissance to the 21st Century

Fall or spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will survey major landmarks in world history from the 15th century to the present. It will focus on significant political, economic, social and cultural developments from a global perspective. Topics will include: the Renaissance and the scientific revolution; the rise of Russia in Eastern Europe and Asia; modern revolutions in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas; global significance of the world wars; legacy of 19th-century thought for the present; unification of Europe and the prospects for peace. 

HHD-2144

Revolutions: From America 1776 to The Arab Spring 2011

Fall or spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

What makes revolutions happen? Why do they fail or succeed? This course will examine the revolutions in modern history, beginning with the American, French and Haitian revolutions of the 18th century. We will then jump ahead to cover the Russian Revolution of 1917, Cuban Revolution of 1956-59 and Iranian Revolution of 1978-79, among others, concluding with recent movements including The Arab Spring. 

HHD-2811

Constitutional Law

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Every person living in the United States is subject to the Constitution. It defines many of our rights and is a roadmap for how the business of government is conducted. And yet, most Americans have very little idea of what is in it. This course will provide students with a basic constitutional literacy. We will examine how the document has shaped and been shaped by history, politics and current events. The course will also introduce students to legal analysis.

HHD-2913

Political Ideologies: From Liberalism and Conservatism to the Alt-Right

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

From the first shots of the French Revolution, political ideologies have been driving modern human history; warring ideas sometimes turning into actual bloody wars. This course will begin with the 18th century liberal revolt (with the American and French revolutions) and continue to the present day, covering all the major political philosophies. Conservatism, from Edmund Burke to Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump; liberalism from John Locke to John Stuart Mill to Barack Obama; Socialism from Karl Marx to Mikhail Bakunin to Bernie Sanders; fascism from Joseph Arthur de Gobineau to Adolf Hitler to Marine Le Pen; radical Islamism from Sayyid Qutb to Osama bin Laden; and modern identity politics, including bell hooks (feminism), John Corvino (LGBTQ rights) and Cornel West (race). The course will also cover today’s movements, including the alt-right and antifa. Students will be assigned close readings of original sources by philosophers, politicians and activists. Lively debate will be encouraged. 

HHD-3011

History of Ideas: The 20th Century I

Fall or spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will focus on the social, political and economic background of the 20th century. We will examine Victorianism, imperialism, World War I, the Russian Revolution and other developments, through the 1920s. The ideas of Marx, Lenin, Freud, Darwin, and others will be covered in historical context. 

HHD-3012

History of Ideas: The 20th Century II

Fall or spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course is a continuation of HHD-3011, History of Ideas: The 20th Century I. Topics include: the Depression, New Deal, World War II, the Cold War, the turbulent 1960s, the civil rights movement, Vietnam, Watergate, Irangate, the third world. The ideas of Hitler; Mao; Martin Luther King, Jr.; and the issues behind McCarthyism, totalitarianism, socialism, capitalism and communism will be discussed. 

HHD-3017

The Enlightenment: Its Impact and Its Fate

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits 

The Enlightenment inspired many ideas, like political equality, anti-authoritarianism, modern science, criticism of religion, and more. Enlightenment thinkers achieved this primarily by emphasizing the power of human reason. So profound was this development that many fundamental ideals and institutions of the modern world still base themselves upon Enlightenment principles. Several strands of modern thought and belief, however, have come to challenge many Enlightenment values, including the worth of reason in human affairs. This course will trace the trajectory of Enlightenment thought, first, by considering its key ideas and achievements, and then by examining the ways in which these contributions have been questioned (and occasionally rejected) in the modern day. Topics covered will be wide-ranging, from religion, to politics, aesthetics, philosophy, and science. Our goal is to understand the continuing role of the Enlightenment achievement in the modern world and the more recent ideas that seek to scale it back. Readings will include key contemporary sources as well as recent historical studies. 

HHD-3022

Turning Points in History: From the French Revolution to the Present

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will focus on some of the pivotal events—from the Enlightenment to the space race and beyond—that have shaped the modern world. The historical contributions of such thinkers as of Locke, Voltaire, Darwin, Nietzsche, Einstein and Ellis will be examined. 

HHD-3186

Global Crisis and Conflict from 1500 to the Present

Fall or spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

In the last 500 years, encounters between different cultures have taken place over the globe through trade, exploration, conquest, forced migrations and movements of people in search of food, water and shelter as well as religious, economic or political freedom. This course explores these encounters and their consequences with a focus on the resultant crisis and conflict that have shaped the changing landscape of geopolitics, social structures and social theories. We will also look at how the various interactions created perspectives about groups of newly encountered individuals, defining them as “the other.” By examining the underlying reasoning and motives, and the ensuing reaction brought about by direct contacts, we may better understand one another in an ever more interconnected world. 

HHD-3226

Science and History: Ideas and Controversies

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Science as we know it today is relatively new to human society. Still, it has brought profound changes that affect our lives, beliefs and identities. This course will survey the main ideas in the emergence of modern science, as well as the cultural contexts and conflicts involved in its development. We will take a broad overview, from the late Middle Ages to the modern day, with a focus on key developments such as the Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment, Industrial Revolution and the remarkable discoveries of the 20th century. We will also cover key controversies to get a fuller knowledge of the cultural context of science in different time periods. These controversies include Galileo’s trial, the challenge of mechanical theories to religious authority, the emergence of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution and its relation to current controversies about science teaching in schools and, lastly, issues related to science in modern concerns such as biomedical and military research. Readings will include key contemporary sources as well as recent historical studies. 

HHD-3328

The World Since 1945

Fall or spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

The conflicts, crises and trends that have built our modern world will be examined in this course. We will cover the Cold War, nuclear proliferation, the Korean and Vietnam wars, decolonization, the European Union, the creation of Israel and the Israeli-Arab wars, the break-up of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, and current conflicts from 9/11 and Afghanistan to North Korea to ISIS and the Syrian Civil War. 

HHD-3331

World War II

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

The social, political and military roots of the Second World War will be addressed in this course. We will then trace their development throughout the war, with a focus on American involvement. Finally, we will look at the aftermath and consequences brought about by the hostilities. Through writings and films, we will read and screen firsthand accounts of those who experienced the war.

HHD-3367

U.S. History of Slavery and Resistance

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course provides a historical overview of major themes from Columbus and the Colonial era to the Civil War. Topics such as slavery, the emergence of a labor movement, women’s role in society, westward expansion vs. indigenous resistance, urbanization vs. utopian reform movements and the development of what it meant to be “American” will be explored. Readings will include such works as “Complaint of an Indentured Servant”; petitions to the Massachusetts legislature; Tecumseh on American Indians and land; Orestes Brownson, “The Laboring Classes”; Judith Sargent Murray, “On the Equality of the Sexes”; Elizabeth Cady Stanton, “Declaration of Sentiments”; Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. While the main focus of this course will be on slavery and resistance of the colonial era and the United States, other experiences will be discussed as well as making links to the present. 

HHD-3368

U.S. History of Civil Rights and Activism

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

American history since 1865 will be examined in this course. Such topics as reconstruction, the rise of labor unions, industrialization, political parties, civil rights, the peace movement and the emergence of identity politics will be discussed. Readings include works by Chief Joseph; Eugene V. Debs; Margaret Sanger; Marcus Garvey; Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; Allen Ginsberg and César Chavez. 

HHD-3371

Global Social Movements

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will provide a global overview of current social movements and the worlds they aim to create, with an emphasis on feminism, decolonization and environmental sustainability. Each week we will consider a different movement, from the Rojava revolution in Syria/Kurdistan to communitarian feminism in Bolivia, from environmental movements in China to the situation in North and South Korea, from the aftermath of the Arab Spring to the developments and widening concerns of the LGBTQ+ and AIDS movements. Our goal will be to deepen our understanding of worldwide struggles for social, political and economic change. The contributions of women, indigenous and queer people will be fully explored, with thought given to how they play out in local contexts. Texts include such works as Communitarian Feminism by Julieta Paredes and A Small Key Can Open a Large Door: The Rojava Revolution. Documentaries to be viewed and discussed include Pray the Devil Back to Hell and Fambul Tok.

HHD-3451

Creative and Destructive Personalities in History

Fall or spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Individuals can make a profound impression on history. Whether they are founding new institutions or destroying civilizations, unique personalities can be seen as a powerful source for changes in society. In this course we will look at a variety of significant people—from Buddha to The Beatles, from Julius Caesar to Genghis Kahn, and others—to see how their actions and their legacies influenced the world. 

HHD-3454

Vikings: Fact, Fiction and Film

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

An overview of the history, culture, art and literature of the peoples of northern Europe from the Iron Age to the waning of the Middle Ages is the focus of this course. Readings will include descriptions of the Vikings as fearsome raiders, the story of the conversion to Christianity, their service as the elite Varangian Guard of the Byzantine emperors and the story of the Vinland (Newfoundland) expedition, as well as selections of Norse literature from the Elder Edda, skaldic poetry and sagas. Important archaeological sites (Birka, Snartemo, L’Anse aux Meadows) will be studied. Students will also read excerpts from works of fiction and view excerpts from films based on Viking history or Norse texts. Readings include Chronicles of the Vikings.

HHD-3643

Fundamentalist Religion: Beliefs and Believers

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Religious fundamentalism is an important political and social force in modern societies. It is a phenomenon that takes many forms. For example, militant fundamentalist groups invoking God in their determined struggles to reshape the world by means of coercion and raw power. However, your quiet and unassuming neighbor may also be a fundamentalist, or your roommate, or your teacher. All of these examples represent but a small sample of the modern varieties of religious fundamentalism. This course will provide an historical and sociological overview of modern fundamentalisms in the present day. We will explore the forces and ideas behind the rise of fundamentalism. We will also consider the ways in which some fundamentalists actually live, how they view the larger world, and their views of the future. The goal of the course is to better understand some of the most volatile and controversial forces now affecting modern societies. The readings for this course will include modern scholarship on contemporary fundamentalist movements as well as selected texts produced by fundamentalists themselves.

HHD-3651

Eco-Politics: Who Rules America?

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

What are the real connections between politics and the economy? We will trace the development of the free enterprise system, with special emphasis on the inherent contradictions between American capitalism and democracy. Discussion will focus on such issues as the rise and fall of traditional economic systems, ranging from feudalism to socialism; the evolution of the United States from a 17th-century agrarian society to a complex 21st-century postindustrial giant; the ideal of social equality as envisioned in the First and 14th Amendments of the American Constitution and the threats to that ideal; the debate over whether poverty can be eliminated in a free enterprise system; industrialism’s legacy of environmental abuse and the survival of the planet.

HHD-3766

Politics and Power in America: From FDR to the Present

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits 

The Cold War, the civil rights movement, the 1960s, Watergate, Reagan’s “revolution” and Iran-Contra: What did each of these reveal about politics and power in American society? We’ll read and screen videos about these topics along with the Great Depression, McCarthyism, Vietnam and the future of American politics. Issues of social justice and democracy will be major themes. The course will be conducted in a lecture-discussion format. 

HHD-3788

China: Past and Present

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits 

After a generation of isolation, the world is now in full communication with the globe’s most populous nation. The course aims to provide a broad background in China’s history and culture. We will examine the impact of Confucianism and Buddhism on China’s political and social development and China’s role in politics, industry and global relations in view of the new, major changes in Chinese communism. The scope ranges from the classic ancient dynasties of Shang, Han, Tang, Sung and Ming to contemporary times. A selection of films will supplement the lectures and study projects. 

HHD-3883

From Books to Blogs: A Cultural History of Communication

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits 

One way to view the history of the world from the Renaissance to the present day is to see it as an ongoing revolution in the production and communication of information. From the invention of movable type in Europe in the 15th century to the still-evolving technology of the Internet, societies around the globe have benefited from the spread of ideas but often at the cost of experiencing the anxiety and pain typically associated with rapid and profound change. This course will explore ways in which communication technologies have shaped and continue to influence global cultures. We will not only examine the ways in which printing and other forms of information exchange changed the preindustrial world, but will also consider the ramifications of more recent communications technologies, such as the burgeoning effects of radio, television, and the internet. Throughout, our concern will be focused on the larger cultural, social, and political consequences of communications technologies from the Renaissance to the present.

HHD-3889

Totalitarianism Past and Present

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

The forms of totalitarianism that have convulsed global history from World War I to the present will be explored in this course. We will study the social, economic and cultural circumstances that led to the creation of totalitarian regimes as well as those forces that continue to sustain them. The origins of the Soviet Union and the fascist regimes of Italy and Germany, and how and to what extent they succeeded, will be examined. We will also consider the responses to totalitarianism that have sought to change such regimes or, at the very least, have allowed individuals to maintain some level of normal material and cultural life within them. Ultimately, we will address totalitarian trends in the modern day, from long-standing regimes like North Korea to the rise of radical right-wing movements elsewhere. Readings will include modern studies on the nature and history of totalitarianism as well as primary sources, such as memoirs.

HHD-3895

Latin American History

Fall or spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will introduce students to the major events, topics and protagonists in the history of Latin America from pre-Columbian times to the present. Writings by Columbus, Hernán Cortés, Sor Juana Inés, Simón Bolívar, José Martí, Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, Gloria Anzaldúa and Rigoberta Menchú will be analyzed and discussed through critical lenses. Connections to art and politics will enrich the narrative of Latin American history through a historical analysis of the political dimensions of culture (visual arts, cinema and literature) and ongoing social debates (human rights, immigration policies, drug wars, environmental crises). Issues of colonization, anti-colonialism and neocolonialism will be addressed and paired with current debates on U.S.-Latin American relations. 

HHD-4011

Eco-History: Oil and Water, the 21st Century in Crisis

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course looks at two interrelated ecology issues that are central to how we will live during the 21st century: the oil-based economy and the world water supply. We will start with an understanding of the impact of oil on climate change, and a grounding in the realities of frontline communities and indigenous perspectives. The fossil fuel industry and its impact on geo-political conflicts in Latin America and the Middle East will be addressed. As we begin to explore alternative energy, we will ground ourselves in past and present resistance efforts and community organizing, applying what we learn in a group project that examines our role in this crisis. Finally, we will consider the politics of water, from the oceans to our aquifers to the complexities of environmental racism in response to water crises.

HHD-4041

American Interventions from Vietnam to Iraq

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

After World War II, the United States began a policy of engagement and intervention that continues to the present day. As a result, American soldiers have fought and died in controversial wars around the globe. We will examine American military interventions in Vietnam, Bosnia, Somalia and Iraq, as well as American involvement in regime changes in Iran and Chile. How did America become involved in each of these conflicts? Were they morally justifiable or in our national interests? What have been the long-term consequences of this tradition of interventionism?

HHD-4118

World Geography 

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Geographers seek answers to four broad questions: Where is it? Why is it there? Why is it important? What global patterns of biology, environment, climate, transportation, affect us? This course will provide basic answers to these questions through an overview of the different features and processes on the Earth. These features and processes are both natural and man-made and both physically and culturally determined. Moreover, the relationship between people and place is central to an understanding of human history, international politics, and economics. It is key to understanding human cultures and land use. This relationship also helps us understand environmental and climatic changes that are global in scale. The goal of this course is to help students develop a critical awareness of the dynamic world in which we live, as well as to understand the spatial relationships between people, places and the environment. 

HHD-4122

History of Classical Greece and Rome

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

The legacy of the Greek and Roman civilizations extends into our modern world. In this survey we will examine the rise of the Greek city-states and their political and artistic development, ending with the growth of Hellenistic culture. We will then turn our attention to the growth of Rome, from its mythic roots through the Republican era, the rise of the Caesars and the political, religious and artistic achievements of the empire. The course will conclude with an investigation of the factors that contributed to the eventual decline and fall of the Roman Empire.

HHD-4288

Nature and Society: A Global Perspective

Fall or spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course traces the history of the diverse and evolving relationships between human societies and the natural environment, from the 1500s to the present day. We will explore the various creation mythologies as well as religious, philosophical and scientific ideas that have shaped and expressed the ways in which different cultures—in the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia—have defined the meaning of “nature” and the place of humans within or separate from it. Topics examined include conceptions of nature in Judeo-Christian, pagan, Taoist, Buddhist, Hindu and secular belief systems; the impact of the scientific and industrial revolutions; theories and practices of conservation and ecology in the 19th and 20th centuries; and the environmental crisis today. 

HHD-4333

African-American History I

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will trace the histories and experiences of African-Americans in the United States from 1619 to 1865, covering the Colonial period, antebellum period and the Civil War. It will focus on the social, historical and political development of the African-American family and community. Texts will include: Jacqueline Jones, Labors of Love, Labors of Sorrow; John Hope Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom; Joanne Grant, Black Protest.

HHD-4334

African-American History II

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will begin with an examination of Reconstruction and the backlash against it. We will then explore the lives, philosophical views and major contributions of Booker T. Washington; W.E.B. DuBois; Marcus Garvey; Martin Luther King, Jr.; Malcolm X; Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.; Paul Robeson and Thurgood Marshall. The social and historical ramifications of World War I, World War II, the Depression, the Harlem Renaissance, the NAACP, CORE, SNCC, SCLS and the Black Panther Party will also be considered. 

HHD-4348

The Wealth and Poverty of Nations

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Although world peace and stability in the 21st century will depend heavily on achieving a more equitable distribution of global wealth, the disparity between the world’s rich and poor nations has never been so great, and, in fact, continues to increase even as the need to resolve this inequality grows ever more pressing. How have we arrived at this dilemma? Have first-world nations created their own wealth, or have they stolen it from others? Have some nations always been poor, or have they been impoverished? Do wealth and poverty result from decisions freely made by each nation’s political and business leaders, or are they the result of larger social, economic and cultural dynamics? Is there a way out of the deepening crisis? This course will address these and related questions in light of the historical processes that have led to the development of a world of rich and poor nations. We shall also attempt to evaluate the relative merits of various solutions that have been proposed to resolve this dilemma. 

HHD-4356

Renaissance and Reformation: Cultural and Religious Change

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Two of the most profound cultural developments in Western history—the Renaissance and the Reformation—will be examined in this course. The Renaissance embodied the rejection of medieval views and beliefs in favor of more individualistic and cosmopolitan ideals. It also saw the development of more modern forms of government and a broader appreciation for the arts and values of antiquity. The Reformation traces the breakup of Christianity into many separate churches and sects, and it helps to explain the great variety of Christianities that exist today. A major theme of this course revolves around the questioning of traditional beliefs and accepted knowledge and the development of both new ideas and values. A major goal of this course will also consider how these historical developments continue to shape modern attitudes. Our focus will be on cultural artifacts such as artistic and literary works and how they conveyed contemporary ideas and issues.

HHD-4397

Genocides

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

From the gas chambers of Auschwitz to the villages of Rwanda, the 20th century has been a century of genocides. This course will try to understand how mass extermination can ever be a goal, and why cries of “never again” have failed to stop it from reoccurring again and again. The course will cover the Nazi destruction of Europe’s Jews in World War II, the Hutu slaughter of the Tutsi in Rwanda, Serbian militias killing Muslims in Bosnia, and other examples of ethnic mass murder. We will use first-person accounts of genocide, such as Primo Levi’s Survival in Auschwitz and Philip Gourevitich’s book on Rwanda, We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families, as well as secondary sources.

Literature

HLD-2042

20th-Century Literature and Culture from Victorianism to Modernity

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

In this course we will examine European and American authors who, influenced by Nietzsche, Marx and Freud, challenged Victorian social taboos of morality and restraint to create new artistic forms—thematically and stylistically. Students will read novels and short works of transgressive sexual desire and hedonism by Andre Gide, Henry Miller and Anaïs Nin, and be introduced to the works of Kafka, Eliot and Angela Carter who departed from structured writing to experiment with fragmented perspective in fantastic, surreal modes. By semester’s end, students should have a firm understanding of the literary, philosophical and intellectual background of the 20th century. Themes and topics presented will focus on Victorian culture, the Freudian tradition, surrealism and gender issues. 

HLD-2043

20th-Century Literature and Culture from the Dystopian Novel to the Feminist Revolt and Beyond 

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

In this course we will read great literary classics by authors from England, France, Russia, Canada and America dealing with a similar theme in different genres and styles—namely, the erosion of individual liberty in cultures of repression, prejudice and taboos. Students will encounter this theme of the individual versus the collective in the dystopian novels of the Russian émigré Ayn Rand, in Huxley and in the feminist Canadian writer, Margaret Atwood; in a play of religious fanaticism in 17th-century witch hunts in Salem, and in a scathing indictment of American racism by the existentialist Sartre and the freedom fighter Malcolm X. Students will be introduced to works of the Beat generation’s rejection of America’s complacency, myopia and bigotry on its journey to Eastern mysticism and drugs to expand consciousness.

HLD-2058

Fantasy

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Shaped by our desires and fears, fantasy literature offers radical departures from consensus reality into worlds of magic, peril and delight. This course will explore the imagery, characters, themes and narrative structures of several types of fantasy fiction. We will begin by briefly examining parent genres before reading examples of modern fantasy types, including heroic, surrealist, magic realism, science fiction and feminist. In addition to the fiction, we will read some critical theory to help define and locate the subgenres of this large category of fiction. 

HLD-2088

American Literature: 19th Century

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course explores the intellectual, cultural and literary roots and directions of American literature, from its Puritan, Gothic and Romantic origins through realist, transcendental and premodern tendencies late in the 19th century. We’ll read selected works by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, Frederick Douglass, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Henry James and the utopian feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman. We’ll investigate questions of style, genre, tradition and critical interpretation in relation to the blooming of American society and culture.

HLD-2089

20th-Century American Literature Now

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will plot the major movements in modernist literature in the U.S., beginning with the Harlem Renaissance, Imagism and the cultural front of the 1930s and ’40s, to postmodernism and postwar counterculture (including the American Indian Movement, the Beats and Nuyorican poets) to third-wave feminism. This course centers the writing of those who, historically, have been read as representing specific sub-groups of American culture—whereas, now, these writers and their works are appreciated as foundational to a broadly American literary tradition. We’ll read authors such as William Carlos Williams, Lorraine Hansberry, Maxine Hong Kingston and Ralph Ellison, carving out a sense of what America has been, is, and may come to be, from the perspective of its great writers.

HLD-2161

The Beat Generation

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will explore the beat counterculture as a post-World War II American phenomenon, a literary correlative to abstract expressionist painting and to bebop music, auguring the “era” of sex, drugs and rock & roll to follow. 

HLD-2211

Introduction to Poetry

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

William Wordsworth famously characterized poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.” With greater simplicity, W.H. Auden summed it up as “memorable speech.” William Carlos Williams once compared poetry to the news, and Simone White observed that “poetry is a kind of gift, there for anyone to take.” What is poetry? Language, speech, song, art, news, expression, image, story—all these things may be part of what makes poetry, and poetry may be too elusive for any single definition. This course will concentrate on the practice of reading (and listening to) a wide variety of poems—ballads, odes, epics, sonnets, the prose poem, concrete poetry, contemporary lyrics—attentively, patiently and creatively. We will read across geographies, cultures and historical periods, focusing on works written in English, including some works in translation. Poets will include: Sappho, Emily Dickinson, Pablo Neruda, Ovid, Bob Dylan, Gwendolyn Brooks, Shakespeare, John Keats, Lorine Niedecker, Pedro Pietri, Basho, Gertrude Stein, and others. Students will be encouraged to attend poetry readings, to write poetry and about poetry, and to make work in response to poetry.

HLD-2223

Short Fiction 

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Through close readings of modern and contemporary short fiction, students will learn how to analyze stories not only for plot and characters, but also for writers’ literary technique, such as narrative style, choice of language, imagery and tone. In considering what the story implies or omits as much as what it includes, students will become active and imaginative readers capable of forming their own interpretations. Short fiction gives us an opportunity to read several works by the same author, and thus gain a deeper understanding of the writer’s craft, perspectives and obsessions. The course begins with late-19th and early 20th-century authors, such as Chekhov, James, Woolf and Kafka, followed by contemporary writers, such as Munro, Lahiri and Adichie.

HLD-2268

The Power and the Pity: Brutal Tales From Latin America

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will examine works by 20th century artists and storytellers through their reaction to the violence and horrors of Latin America’s brutal dictatorships. Students will explore the earth-body surrealism of the Cuban-American Ana Mendieta and the powerful war photography of Susan Meiselas, and respond through critical writing. We will read the poetry of the Chilean Pablo Neruda and the heartbreaking novel One Day of Life by the Salvadoran Manlio Argueta. Students will create their own poems steeped in rebellion, bandido manifestos, mock-ups of news articles and creative dispatches that mix their own art practice with literary forms. Confronted with the stark injustice of colonization, and by immersing themselves in the blood-storm of revolutionary eras, students will emerge from this course armed with wisdom extracted from the clashing of warring bodies—in jungle terrain and smoking wastelands—and, perhaps, with the confidence necessary to face the machinery of government in their own age.

HLD-2313

Erotic Literature

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will focus on selections from the great erotic literature from ancient Greece to modern times in a variety of genres, themes and styles. Topics will include social attitudes (traditional and contemporary) toward sexual dynamics, erotica and censorship, with a consideration of what constitutes erotica and what differentiates it from pornography. Readings will include a licentious Greek comedy presented as anti-war protest; bawdy fabliaux from the Middle Ages and salacious sonnets from the 16th century; an irreverent and sacrilegious 18th century anti-Platonic dialogue; a novella depicting Christ’s resurrection into “blood consciousness”; a sexually explicit celebration of love, art and Bohemian life; a collection of short stories solicited as porn for a dollar a page; a love letter, written in novel form, as a challenge to a paramour who claimed women could not write erotica; a version of a classic, romantic fairy tale transmuted into a B&D fantasy set in the Middle Ages. Students will gain an appreciation of the many protean forms of erotica from comedy to agitprop.

HLD-2565

American Theater

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will introduce students to key playwrights and stage artists of the American theater from the 1930s to the present. Assigned readings will include plays by Eugene O’Neill, Clifford Odets, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Edward Albee, David Mamet, August Wilson, Sam Shepard and Tony Kushner. Video screenings of important productions by these authors will be included. 

HLD-2677

Fiction of the 19th Century: Love of Demophilia to the Psychosexual Anima

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

In this course we will read literary masterpieces by authors from Germany, France, Russia, Ireland and America. Topics will include fairy tale tropes; the femme fatale; the genre of social reform; tales of sin, redemption, madness and death. We will explore how overcrowding and poverty, a result of urban industrialization, and immigration, produced the novel of social consciousness and love of the common man, exemplified in the works of Oscar Wilde, Tolstoy and Harriet Beecher Stowe. Students will be introduced to the literature of fantasy and the surreal, attesting to the 19th century’s vast panoply of stories filled with psychological insight and timely sociopolitical issues. The correlations between literature and the visual and performing arts—film, ballet, opera—will also be addressed.

HLD-2678

Fiction of the 19th Century: From the Reemergence of the Superhero (Heroine) in Myth and Fairy Tale Tropes to the Darwinian Bête Humaine

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Fictional masterpieces by authors from Denmark, England, France and America will be read in this course, highlighting the 19th century’s three great literary movements: Romanticism, realism and naturalism. Students will be introduced to the salient features and motifs of each movement—Romanticism’s love of nature, the supernatural, fantasy, the exotic and heroic (Hans Christian Andersen and Mary Shelley); realism’s minute depiction of contemporary life and examination of sociopolitical issues of gender, race and class prejudice (Flaubert, Melville and H.B. Stowe); naturalism’s focus on sordid passions and moral decay; aspects of contemporary urban industrial life (Zola). We will examine the authors’ lives, and the social and political environment in which the works were written in order to understand and appreciate the beauty and complexity of the writing.

HLD-2922

Medieval Literature

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

The medieval period was a time of extraordinary literary flowering in Europe. Themes like heroism, religion, courtly love and chivalry became popular as the institutions that supported them rose and fell. The result was a literature full of contradictions, at once spiritual and bawdy, romantic and cynical. Readings will be selected from Beowulf and Anglo-Saxon heroic verse, the plays of Hrotsvitha, lyric poems of the troubadours and trobairitz and al-Andalus, the Poetic Edda, the Arthurian cycle, Dante’s Inferno and Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, as well as popular culture such as the fabliaux and “Carmina Burana,” Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, poems of François Villon and Christine de Pizan. Modern medievalist works such as John Gardner’s Grendel, J.R.R. Tolkien’s Hobbit and Hermann Hesse’s Narcissus and Goldmund will be considered.

HLD-2977

Shakespeare: Comedies and Histories

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will provide the student with a selective, chronological overview of Shakespeare, the dramatist. Plays assigned will include a selection of his comedies and histories.

HLD-2978

Shakespeare: Tragedies and Romances

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will provide the student with a selective, chronological overview of Shakespeare, the dramatist. Plays assigned will include the four major tragedies and one of the final romances. 

HLD-3008

Diverse Voices: Race, Class, Gender and Ethnicity in the American One-Act Play

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will explore the politics of race, class, gender and ethnicity as they are represented in the modern American theater. We will be reading cutting-edge plays that portray both the contradictions and the possibilities of our diverse, multi-cultural society. Suzan-Lori Parks’s Topdog/Underdog, Ayad Akhtar’s Disgraced and Maria Irene Fornes’s Mud are among the works that will be considered as we focus on American one-act plays that dramatize the struggle in this country for political, cultural and creative freedoms.

HLD-3033

Art and Revolution I: The Working-Class Hero

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

The multicultural revolution has deepened and broadened our understanding of gender, race, sexual preference and international culture. Unfortunately, we have tended to ignore one crucial factor that cuts across all areas of human experience: socioeconomic class. This course will focus on the art, literature and struggles of working-class people during the past two centuries. Readings will be selected from fictional works such as Zola’s Germinal, Gorky’s My Childhood, Sillitoe’s The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, Wright’s Black Boy, Tillie Olsen’s Tell Me a Riddle. In conjunction with the readings we will view and discuss the paintings of artists such as Courbet, Millet, Daumier, Kollwitz, the Russian social realists and the American Ashcan School. Selected videos will be screened and discussed.

HLD-3034

Art and Revolution II: The Rebel 

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

The landscape of history has periodically been illuminated by apocalyptic struggles to change society, reinvent the world and re-create human nature. In this course, we will explore the literature of social revolt and political revolution. Readings will be selected from authors such as Maxim Gorky, André Malraux, Arthur Rimbaud, Marge Piercy, Bertolt Brecht, Albert Camus, Mariano Azuela and Malcolm X. In conjunction with the readings, we will view and discuss selected works of such artists as Diego Rivera, Siquieros, Eisenstein, Orozco and Frida Kahlo. Selected videos will be screened and discussed. 

HLD-3051

Literature of Self-Knowledge

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

 “Who am I, standing in the midst of this thought-traffic?” wondered the Sufi poet Rumi. Achieving self-knowledge is a challenge not only because our perception of self may not always jibe with the tenuous labels society imposes on us, but also because self-revelation may some-times be terrifying. This course draws upon fiction, film and art to reflect on the daunting task of “knowing oneself” with guidance from thinkers like Socrates and Simone de Beauvoir. We will read works from authors such as James Welsh, Sylvia Plath, Carlos Fuentes, Mahmoud Darwish and Lu Hsun, who will lead us into the unmapped labyrinths of self by discussing racial-ethnic consciousness, sexual identity, transfiguration and self-accountability. We will also view such films as Moonlight and Tony Manero, as well as discuss art, in particular, self-portraits and “selfies.” 

HLD-3224

Literature and Sexual Diversity

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will focus on literature and writing that comes out of diverse approaches to sexual identity, desire and love, from ancient Greece to our contemporary world. How do these texts evidence queer sensibilities and resistance to heteronormative assumptions, stories and feeling? How do we use terms like “gay and lesbian,” “trans,” or “queer” when referring to work written during eras when understandings of sexuality were quite different than they are today? Is there such a thing as a “canon” of queer literature and, if so, what gets included, and why? Tales of same-sex love in ancient Greece, including those in Plato’s Symposium, Sappho’s poetry, and the story of Achilles and Patroclus, will help provide historical context as we move forward in time, and as we look at novels, poetry and plays by authors, including William Shakespeare, Walt Whitman, Oscar Wilde, E.M. Forster, James Baldwin, Allen Ginsberg, Audre Lorde, Tony Kushner, Andrew Holleran and Alison Bechdel.

HLD-3241

Contemporary Afrodiasporic Literature in America

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

A Swahili proverb says, “Tamu ya madafu kunywea dafuni” (“The sweetness of the coconut juice is best when the juice is taken in the nut.”) This course will explore how contemporary African writers in the diaspora have portrayed America in their works and, in the process, created an alternative narrative of Africa for the world. For students, it will be an opportunity to expand their horizon and see America from the perspective of outsiders with different viewpoints. Afro diasporic writers’ distinct reinterpretation of Africa, despite a sense of alienation, provides contexts that make it easy for the uninitiated to absorb their narratives that are neither sanitized nor Westernized. By expanding students’ imaginative space, the course will also draw students into the world of the African writer. In a world that is fast becoming a shifting global village, this course will bring the two worlds closer to what Ben Okri calls “strange corners of what it means to be human.” Topics include discussions on Afropolitans and their contribution to African literature in the diaspora. Readings will include Adichie, Ndibe, Selasi, Wainaina and Okonkwo. We will also view films by Africans in the diaspora to engage in further discussion of the subject.

HLD-3341

20th-Century Italian Literature

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

The Italian literary tradition didn’t end abruptly with the Renaissance. Many of the greatest novels of the last century were written by Italian authors, writers who fought for or against Fascism, participated in the desperate struggles between labor and capital, took their stand on the issues of anti-Semitism, racism and sexism. Their names may sound obscure to readers of modern fiction—Berto, Morante, D’Annunzio, Pirandello, Levi, Silone—yet we neglect them to our own detriment—politically, morally and aesthetically. This course will explore their work, together with major films of the Italian neorealist cinema.

HLD-3367

Modern Japanese Literature in Translation

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

An examination of Japanese literature of the modern period that began with the Meiji Restoration in 1868 is the focus of this course. This dramatic time marked the end of the feudal era and Japan’s subsequent transformation into an industrialized nation that could compete with its Western counterparts. Topics will include the profound influence that this transformation has had on Japanese society and its people, the conflicts between traditional Japanese values and Western values, and the changing conceptions of identity and gender relations. We will read works by Sōseki, Tanizaki, Enchi, Abe and Murakami. 

HLD-3477

Children’s Literature for Illustrators

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Students will gain an appreciation of the author’s and illustrator’s craft by investigating both classic and contemporary novels written for young people. Students will be introduced to picture books, graphic novels, fables and fairy tales as they discover the connections between pictures and words, as well as surveying issues of gender, race, ideology and politics in children’s literature. Some of the authors we will study include Aesop, E.B. White, Roald Dahl, Brian Selznick, Gene Luen Yang, Margaret Wise Brown, Yangsook Choi and Mo Willems.

HLD-3501

Tragedy

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course provides a historical overview of the art form that gives expression to human suffering and despair, beginning with Sophocles, Euripides and Shakespeare, then ending with modern playwrights, such as Ibsen, Chekhov and Beckett. We will consider the enduring power of the tragic form by exploring works that reimagine classical tragedies, such as Caroline Bird’s Trojan Women and Akira Kurosawa’s film adaptation of Macbeth. Students will become familiar with important works of tragedy, why the genre continues to fascinate both writers and audiences alike, and what it teaches us about the human condition.

HLD-3514

Radical and Revolutionary American Literature

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will provide an overview of radical and revolutionary American literature from the American Revolution to the present day. We will read and discuss the works of such authors and artists as Thomas Paine, Allen Ginsberg, Abraham Lincoln, Malcolm X, Walt Whitman, Tillie Olsen, Jack London, Woody Guthrie and Bruce Springsteen. A major focus will be on working-class fiction and reality in light of the economic depression and cultural diversity of the 20th century.

HLD-3521

From Aristophanes to Woody Allen: An Introduction to the Arts and Forms of Comedy

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

It is well known that dying is easy, but comedy is hard. And nothing can be more difficult than trying to explain what makes us laugh. Still we laugh, and our laughter proves us human. This course traces the history of comedy, starting in Greece with the plays of Aristophanes and concluding with a look at the contemporary scene in film, television and print. Along the way, we will read Plautus, Chaucer, Shaw, Shakespeare, Thurber, Ionesco and Beckett. Screenings will include films by Chaplin, Keaton and Woody Allen. We will read such essays as The Mythos of Spring: Comedy, Northrup Frye; The Comic Rhythm, Susanne Lange; and Comedy, Christopher Fry. We will consider comedic forms such as satire, parody, burlesque, theater of the absurd, romantic comedy, sitcoms and tragicomedy. 

HLD-3553

Images of Artists in Literature

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

How are visual artists and their creative processes depicted in literature? Are these literary representations more romanticized, mythologized and mysterious than realistic and accurate? Has society’s understanding of visual artists and the creative process changed since the 19th century? Visual artists are often misunderstood, misrepresented or championed by society. Reading short stories and novels from the 19th century to the present, students will examine the way the creative process is described and how authors use artists as literary characters. The relationships between the artist and the muse, the artist and audience and the artist in society will also be explored. Works from among the following authors will be considered: Honoré de Balzac, Émile Zola, Edgar Allan Poe, Gertrude Stein, Oscar Wilde, Henry James, Nick Hornby, Mary Gordon and Siri Hustvedt. Readings are supplemented with film screenings and visual art. Contemporary art issues will inform class discussions.

HLD-3554

World Poetry: Classic and Contemporary

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will encourage students to return to the beginning of history, across cultures and continents to cultivate a vision of a global community. Through short essays and poetic composition, students will learn a finer, more concise yet unique writing style as well as expand their historical consciousness. Traveling back to Ancient Greece, Rome, Medieval China and Japan to the Middle East, we will then fast forward to modern Europe and Africa, then to the present to find ourselves in it. The last three sessions will be open for students, in consultation, to select poets whose language and culture are not yet represented. Students can elect a poet from, say, India or Peru to explore their own classic or contemporary culture, to evoke their muse or original, creative intent (“daemon” in Ancient Greece, or “genius”): to give it, and all of us, the world, a voice. 

HLD-3566

Civilization and Its Discontents

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course explores the themes of civilization and the discontents of individuals within modern society. It focuses on the particular role that the artist and art plays within this relationship. Theoretical writings, literature, film and art will be examined historically as well as critically and aesthetically. Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents is the primary textbook for this semester. Among additional theoretical sources are essays by Susan Sontag, Sigmund Freud and Donald Kuspit. Among the literary texts and films are: The Remains of the Day, Ishiguro; The Lover, Duras; Swept Away, Wertmuller, and American Beauty, Sam Mendes. 

HLD-3951

Literature and Psychoanalysis I

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will explore how an author’s unconscious memories, wishes, fears and fantasies shape his/her fictional and philosophical world. Various psychoanalytic approaches will be evaluated and applied to an understanding of the writer and his/her characters. Readings will be illustrated by clinical case material. Topics will include: pathological types and defenses, dreams and the unconscious, the history of psychoanalysis, trauma and creativity, and the relationship of the writer/artist to the work. We will read theorists such as Freud, Jung, Alice Miller and Winnicott and writers such as Camus, Dostoevsky, Flaubert, Kafka, Ozick and D.H. Lawrence. 

HLD-3952

Literature and Psychoanalysis II

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will focus on the formation of psychological processes such as separation and individuation, the development of a sense of self and the individual’s relationship to society, as well as deviations from the norm and how they arise. What kind of stresses, both individual and social, can lead to mental problems, and how do these change as society changes? How does a society define normality and abnormality? What goes on in the “theater of the mind,” the many voices we carry around inside our heads, as described in object relations theory? What are the factors involved in breakdown and recovery? We will delve into these and related questions through works of literature, supplemented by clinical cases, articles and films. We will read theorists such as McDougall, Benjamin, Bollas, Laing and Winnicott, and writers such as Tennessee Williams, Woolf, Moravia, Plath, Styron, Camus and Hansberry.

HLD-4022

Poetry and Art

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Since Baudelaire, innovative poets have often exercised important influence on avant-garde visual artists, primarily through radical innovations of form and content in their poetry, but also as friends and, in some cases, major art critics as well. The course concentrates on the work of Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Mallarmé, Apollinaire and William Carlos Williams. Home assignments include readings to locate the poems against their literary and cultural background. There are also selected readings from the poets’ essays and art criticism. Primary emphasis is on the poetry, and the course also attempts to answer the questions: What accounts for the mutual interplay of influence between poetry and visual art? How does it work? 

HLD-4044

Surrealist Literature

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Surrealism, a 20th-century movement begun by poets, attempted to unite the dream and waking worlds through art. The poets were later joined by visual artists whose works they influenced, both as critics and as friends. The course studies the manifestos and poetry of such seminal precursors as F. T. Marinetti, the founder of futurism, and Tristan Tzara, the Dada animateur. André Breton, the “pope” of surrealism, is covered in detail, with close readings of his manifestos, poetry and fiction. We also read such poets as Jean Arp, Paul Eluard, Louis Aragon and Aimé Césaire. Sessions feature surrealist plays and films, and discussions of visual artists associated with the movement. Translations by the instructor are included.

HLD-4113

The Poet as Outsider

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Outsider poets, by choice or history, do not fit easily into mainstream society. Both written and oral poetry reflect human, political, cultural and individual experience of exile and alienation. We will focus on renegades and outsiders who have reached “success” as well as those who have met less fortunate fates, in part due to their unwillingness to conform to societal standards. Students will write several academic papers and a poem of their own. Poets studied will include Plath, Akhmatova, Rimbaud, Ginsberg, Bly, Bukowski, Bei Dao, Knott and Mos Def. Scenes from Barfly and Sylvia will be screened. 

HLD-4122

18th-Century Fiction: The Enlightenment to Romanticism 

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits 

18th-century Europe embodied the philosophical, historical and literary foundations of Enlightenment thought, setting the stage for modernism. Though characterized by repressive and hierarchical social, political and religious institutions, its literature and visual arts are filled with challenges to accepted norms. Students will learn about Voltaire and Diderot, philosophers whose ideas led to the bloody French Revolution; the Marquis de Sade who wrote the definitive manual of sexual depravity and provocatively espoused absolute freedom from autocratic despotism; Jonathan Swift who satirized religious and governmental exploitation and indifference; and Adelaide Labille-Guiard, a painter who shook up the art academy, first by being admitted to it and then by campaigning to admit other women painters. The century also gave birth to Romanticism and to Johann Goethe who looked to nature and feelings (sensibility) rather than social institutions for inspiration to produce a literature of passion and horror. Through these texts, students will gain a deeper understanding of the power of literature and allied arts to present and represent new ideas, putting pressure on society to change.

HLD-4123

18th-Century Fiction: Women and the Supremacy of the Passions

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will examine the transformative nature of two great literary traditions in 18th-Century Europe—the literature of social reform (culminating in the great revolutionary play by Beaumarchais), and the novel of sensibility. Students will be sensitized to how these genres would dissolve and merge. Many “enlightened” thinkers would turn their attention to the oppression of women in their critique of social institutions. Mary Wollstonecraft, one of the first great feminists, would advocate the parity of education for women in their journey to suffrage. Diderot would point to despotic paternalism as the cause of demonic behavior and insanity in young women forced into convents against their will. Cleland and Laclos (in his great erotic novel) would critique gender inequality using the delicate and sensuous genre of sensibility as would Prevost in an early template for the femme fatale. This course, while referencing the literature of fantasy, will focus on the portrayal of women in a male-dominated society ruled by an ideology of suppression and exploitation. Students, through reading and analyzing great literature, will develop a deeper understanding of how the past’s repressive institutions continue in today’s society.

HLD-4152

20th-Century Irish Literature

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will explore how, through literature, 20th-century Ireland has dealt with its losses and forged its identity. The course will cover the Irish Literary Renaissance, the founding of the Abbey Theater, Joyce’s efforts to give Ireland a voice and situate it within the mainstream aesthetic movements of Europe, Yeats’s delving into folklore and spirituality, as well as more recent writers’ explorations into such questions as cultural identity. We will read the work of fiction writers, playwrights, and poets such as: W. B. Yeats, James Joyce, J. M. Synge, Sean O’Casey, Flann O’Brien, Samuel Beckett, Patrick Kavanagh, Seamus Heaney, Eavan Boland, Mary Lavin and Tom Murphy.

HLD-4162

Existential Origins

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will investigate the literature of the artists and thinkers who fundamentally question the meaning of our existence in the absence of an absolute faith, philosophical system or political ideology—artists who believe that we share sole responsibility for our alienation and our freedom. By selecting from Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Kafka, Gide and Malraux, we will examine the origins of what is retrospectively called existentialism wherein the individual acts without an ethical or metaphysical blueprint to define who one is or what one might choose, or why. This impasse, which Camus metaphorically called “the desert” and Nietzsche diagnosed conceptually as nihilism posits the vision of a world in which it is our challenge to create new truths and more life out of nothing. We will begin the course with Beauvoir’s affirmation of the existential freedom of women. 

HLD-4177

French Existentialism

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

The influence of French existentialism is global, but not everyone has read the novels, plays and philosophic essays that challenged the recurring myth (that we are mere victims of fate, environment or history). Existentialists maintain that we make our own lives through fundamental choices, trying to avoid self-deception and living with the anxiety (angst) of having nothing determining what we do. The stark simplicity of this philosophy, when translated into literature by Sartre, Malraux, Camus, de Beauvoir and Beckett, unites original philosophy with artistic freedom. While the Germans Husserl and Heidegger offer the first existentialist philosophic inquiry, the French gave our urban alienation a human face, enticing us back to the barricades, engaged with social justice, leading us to face the uncanniness of our struggle as individuals, despite the absurdity of our existence to create a meaning for our lives on earth. 

HLD-4193

Literature of Love

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

The exploration of love relationships and values of various cultures and times is the focus of this course. Beginning with an examination of ancient attitudes toward love in the works of Sappho, Plato, Aristotle and Ovid, we then consider the influence of courtly love and Christianity on attitudes of love in medieval literature. Lastly, we will address more modern conceptions of love in Chekhov, Proust and Woolf. 

HLD-4199

Antiheroes and Villains in Literature

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

What are villains and why do we love them so much? This course will examine the literary device of “the villain” and the emergence of the antihero in literature. We will read representative texts by such authors as: Sophocles, Shakespeare, Dante, Dostoevsky, Beckett and Hammett.

HLD-4288

Politics and Literature

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will explore how great writers have dramatized and/or promoted various political philosophies in their work. We will examine questions such as: What is the best form of government? What are the appropriate means to achieve political ends? What is the relationship between elites and the masses? Readings in the course will include works by: Plato, Machiavelli, Shaw, Brecht, Orwell, Camus and Malraux.

HLD-4312

Modern Literary Survey: India and Asia

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This world literary survey will focus on the best-known and most influential writers of India and Asia. The enormous changes of the 20th century have produced literatures that uniquely blend traditional cultural forms with new styles and content. Readings will include short stories, novels and essays from such authors as Kobo Abe, Yukio Mishima, Lu Xun, Lao She, Salmon Rushdie, B. Bandopadhyay and V. S. Naipaul. 

HLD-4322

The American Novel Since 1900

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will concentrate on how the novel chronicled the growth of America from a young isolated country at the beginning of the 20th century to a world leader in literature, art, and politics. It will also use the novel to demonstrate how the definition of American literature expanded, from representing a group of relatively homogenous writers to giving voice to diverse groups. The works included will be drawn from the early and mid-century novelists such as Willa Cather, Edith Wharton, William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway. We will then move forward chronologically and look at the works of such novelists as Toni Morrison, Saul Bellow, Cormac McCarthy, James Baldwin, Philip Roth, Ralph Ellison and Jhumpa Lahiri.

HLD-4331

Portraits of the Self in Early Modern Narrative

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

What is the nature of experience? This very basic question is at the heart of how we understand ourselves. Using fiction from the 18th and 19th centuries, this course will explore the history of our concept of experience to think about how we communicate our feelings to others. Close attention will be paid to the ways in which literature imagines the experience of beauty, oppression, commodification and modernization. Authors will include Austen, Defoe, Smollett, Sterne and Cleland. 

HLD-4342

The Myth of Self-Creation in American Literature

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

D.H. Lawrence wrote, “She starts old, old, wrinkled and writhing in an old skin. And there is a gradual sloughing off of the old skin, towards a new youth. It is the myth of America.” The idea that the past could be discarded as an old skin and that we could be better and freer by virtue of being new is a myth that defined America before there was an America. It is an idea that has had tremendous influence on the religious and political history of this country. This myth continues to shape how Americans think about themselves and their relationship to what is still perceived as an older and more corrupt world. In spite of slavery, genocide, global profiteering, two world wars, economic colonialism and other such sins, America still sees itself as a pure and innocent force for good in an evil world. This course will draw on a broad range of authors to show how this myth has adapted itself to different times and social conditions and yet remains recognizable as the same myth. We will focus primarily on short stories and novels, but will also examine some poetry and essays. Readings will include works by such authors as Emerson, Whitman, Twain, Lewis, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Baldwin, Dreiser, Norris and Hurston. We will also discuss some contemporary manifestations of this myth.

HLD-4372

At the Crossroads: Utopia or Dystopia?

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

The term “utopia” is generally associated with Sir Thomas More, whose famous work portrayed an idealized island kingdom representing what a perfect society might look like, although, ironically, utopia stems from the Greek ou topos, which suggests “no place.” The tradition of reaching for exemplary values and the common good continues to be the highest of human aspirations. Unfortunately, the ideal vision of utopia inevitably suggests the harsh contrast of the dystopia, a vision of totalitarian repression and severe limitations on the human spirit. Can there be a society of radical reform and dramatic progress? Or will this society, left unexamined and unchecked, become a dangerous and terrifying nightmare future? In this course we will explore these questions with reference to literature and films, such as The Handmaid’s Tale, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Brave New World and The Lives of Others.

Social Sciences

Philosophy and Cultural Studies

HMD-2023

Masterpieces of Western Music: Medieval to Classical

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Through readings, recordings and films this course will presents a survey of Western music masterpieces from the medieval, Renaissance, baroque and classical periods. We will explore works by Palestrina, Monteverdi, Handel, Bach, Haydn, Mozart, and others, while considering their historical context as well as concurrent developments in fine arts and architecture. Such topics as plainchant, the development of harmony in the Middle Ages and compositional techniques will also be addressed.

HMD-2024

Masterpieces of Western Music: Early Romantic to the 20th Century

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

A survey of masterpieces of Western music from early Romantic to early 20th century will be presented in this course. Through readings, recordings and films we will explore works by Beethoven, Schubert, Berlioz, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Mahler, Debussy, Richard Strauss and Ravel, among others, while considering their historical context as well as concurrent developments in fine arts and architecture. Stylistic and compositional differences between European and American music will also be discussed.

HMD-2031

Classical Music of the Early 20th Century

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course explores the masterpieces of Western music during the first half of the 20th century. Through readings, recordings and films we will examine works by Strauss, Mahler, Ives, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Schoenberg, Berg and Webern, among others, while considering their historical context as well as concurrent developments in fine arts and architecture. We will also discuss the innovations in compositional forms and rhythmic structures such as atonality, twelve-tone technique and serial music.

HMD-2032

Modern and Contemporary Music

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

The masterpieces of Western and world music from the mid-20th century to the present day will be explored in this course. Through readings, recordings and films, we will examine works by Joplin, Gershwin, Copland, Bernstein, Williams, Crumb, Cage, Ellington, Parker, Glass and Adams, among others, while considering their historical context as well concurrent developments in fine arts, photography and architecture. We will discuss the wide variety of music genres that developed during this period, ranging from American popular music to musical theater, rock and film scores as well as the relationship between music and technology.

HMD-2046

Roots and Rhythms: Music in Culture 1920-1964

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will begin the exploration of the cultural history of popular music in 20th-century America (1920-1964), with particular emphasis on the beginnings of recorded blues and hillbilly music in the 1920s and 1930s, the evolution from rural-based genres to more urban forms such as rhythm and blues and country and western during the 1940s, the bridging of various styles into the rock ‘n roll revolution of the 1950s, the emergence of record producers, the origins of surf and soul music, and the folk revival of the 1960s. Along the way, we will closely examine the work of such seminal artists as Robert Johnson, Hank Williams, Muddy Waters, Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Ray Charles, Phil Spector and Brian Wilson. 

HMD-2047

Beatles to Beyoncé: Music in Culture 1964-Present

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will continue the exploration of the cultural history of popular music in the 20th century (1964 to the present), with particular emphasis on the British Invasion and the subsequent rise of folk rock, garage and psychedelia during the mid-to-late 1960s; country rock and disco to heavy metal, punk and new wave in the 1970s; MTV and the first video generation of the 1980s; rap, grunge and other 1990s alternatives, and the return of the teen idol in the new millennium. Along the way, we will closely examine the work of such seminal artists as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, The Ramones, Prince, U2, Madonna, Nirvana, Eminem and Beyoncé.

HMD-2051

Songs of Conscience: Music and Social Change

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Throughout history, music has shown itself to be a powerful force for social and political change. This course will examine the role of music in expressing the hopes, fears, attitudes and dreams of the common man and woman, and of the struggle to help the unempowered and underprivileged of society. We will listen to, read about and discuss the works of socially and politically committed artists from all walks of music, including folk (Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan), rock (John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen), soul (Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye), rap (Public Enemy, Tupac Shakur), reggae (Bob Marley, Peter Tosh) and country (The Carter Family, Willie Nelson).

HMD-2056

Songs, Screens and Scenes: Coming of Age with Music and Movies

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

It’s often said that the music we listen to and the films we watch provide the aural and visual timestamps for our lives. Every generation expresses itself in unique ways, with values and tastes shifting to reflect reactions to, and attitudes toward, the world it joins. In this course we will explore the impact and influence of various genres of music featured in American and international films from the last six decades, with a sharp focus on recurring themes of rebellion and challenge to authority that help shape both the personal and collective identities of young people. We will investigate the role of music in various eras and locales, and students will engage in comparing and contrasting the portrayals of youth from both within and outside their own experiences. Settings and styles will range from South American jazz (Black Orpheus), California acid-rock (Psych-Out) and Jamaican reggae (The Harder They Come) of the 1960s and ‘70s to Seattle grunge (Singles), LA rap (Boyz n the Hood) and Tehran alt-rock (No One Knows About Persian Cats) of the ‘90s and 2000s. 

HMD-2063

History of Jazz

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will begin with an examination of the African roots of jazz and early African-American forms such as spirituals, work songs, and ragtime. We will see the beginnings of jazz as a blending of European and African elements in brass bands at the turn of the 20th century. We will then study each subsequent phase of this music through the works of representative artists such as Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker and Miles Davis, and attempt to place these developments in cultural perspective. Musical examples will be presented in a way that can be readily understood by anyone.

HMD-2069

The Magic of Opera

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Created more than four centuries ago, opera continues to be truly magical, as it encompasses various forms of art—including acting, set design, costumes and instrumental music—all working in harmony with that ultimate vehicle for transmitting human emotions: the beauty of the singing voice. Through readings, recording, and videos, students will explore a series of key operatic masterpieces, spanning from Monteverdi’s Orfeo (1607) to Adams’s Nixon in China (1987), to examine such subjects as: the birth and history of opera; its various forms and structures; the political, socio-economic, and philosophical background that influenced its creators. This course will serve as an introduction to opera for students with no previous operatic listening experience; those already familiar will gain a deeper appreciation of this unique and exciting art form. 

HMD-2244

Art Theory: From Modernism to Postmodernism

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course is an introduction to the philosophical ideas that have shaped the practice of contemporary art and criticism in the West. We begin with an examination of some historical problems that have arisen in thinking about art. Then we survey the various systems that constitute modernist cultural “theory,” including formalism, phenomenology, Marxism, structuralism, semiotics and psychoanalysis. These modernist theories are compared to poststructuralist and feminist views of art production and reception. The overall objective is to provide the necessary background for understanding and evaluating contemporary theories of art and design. Required texts: Stephen David Ross, ed., Art and Its Significance: An Anthology of Aesthetic Theory; Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory; Harrison and Wood, eds., Art in Theory: 1900-1990.

HMD-2247

Magic, Symbolism, Modernism and Art

Fall or spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

What is a mystic, a magician, a seer, a charlatan, a scientist, an artist? When do poetry, art, emotion and science collide? This course explores the themes of magic and science as they relate to the movements of symbolism and modernism in 19th- and 20th-century literature, philosophy, art and art theory. We will examine Edgar Allan Poe’s definition of the infinite universe, Nikola Tesla’s scientific achievements in electrical discoveries, Harry Houdini’s sleight-of-hand tricks, the films of Georges Méliès and Jean Painleve, and the art of Pablo Picasso. Readings from literature, scientific articles, philosophy and art theory will be complemented with films and demonstrations.

HMD-2267

African Art and Civilization

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

The aims of this course are to study the traditional art of specific ethnic groups and to explore artistic variations from Africa, parts of the Americas, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Haiti and the continental United States. We will examine Dogon symbols and Bobo/Bwa, Guro, Senufo, Baule, Kingdoms of life, Fon, Benin, Yoruba, Congo, Bakuba, as well as Gabon, Cameroon, Cross Niger/Igbo Nigeria. South Africa, Zimbabwe. We will also look at African contemporary art, including modern film that contrasts modernity with antiquity. 

HMD-2411

The Female Gaze

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

We will look at artists whose vision has been clearly shaped by an awareness that what we see is conditioned by who we are, and that our sexuality and personal histories play significant roles in the forming of our artistic statements. We will study artists like Sofonisba Anguissola, Hannah Hoch, Louise Bourgeois, Eva Hesse, Mary Kelly, Adrian Piper, Lorna Simpson, Sophie Calle, Shirin Neshat and Louisa Matthíasdóttir in light of such questions as: How does gender relate to art? How is this relationship reflected in history? What is the relationship between the rise of the women’s movement and art? What is feminist art? We will also look at the collaborative group known as the Guerrilla Girls. Language, identity and autobiographical impulses are among the topics to be discussed and integrated through readings in Ways of Seeing, John Berger, and Manifesta, Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards. We will also examine the history of the women’s movement and the feminist art movement through selected essays by John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor Mill, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Linda Nochlin, Lucy Lippard, Betty Friedan and Michelle Wallace.

HMD-2422

Art and Politics

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

How do artists respond to the social upheavals of their times? What is the artist’s responsibility to these concerns and what is the responsibility to one’s craft and to the development of a personal statement? In this course we will examine the inspiration and creation of politically focused art and literature and its role in the development of art history. We will examine a wide variety of topics, artworks, literature and videos that address the current issues of sociopolitical concern, such as Diego Rivera and the Mexican muralists, Guernica by Pablo Picasso, Create Dangerously and Caligula by Albert Camus, as well as view the film Pan’s Labyrinth by Guillermo Del Toro.

HMD-2513

The Artist as Activist: Interpreting and Manipulating Media

Fall or spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Modern life bombards us with information and misinformation. As citizens, artists and activists, we must develop the tools to understand the effects of various media, and to sort truth from lies. We will examine the media landscape and communication strategies through books such as Seeing Power, The Trouble with Reality: A Rumination on Moral Panic in Our Time and Propaganda, as well as art, articles, podcasts, apps and films. Parallel to our media studies, we will embark on group projects in collaboration with an external organization geared toward social justice. Students may also pursue individual studio projects related to class discussion. 

HMD-2639

World Religions

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

The beginnings of the world’s major religions based on the historical and archaeological record will be the focus of this course. These include Judaism, Christianity, Islam in the Western tradition; Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism and Confucianism in the Eastern tradition. Other religious traditions may be referenced. Readings will be selected from the fundamental scriptures of each religion. Special topics drawn from history or current events will be considered during the last weeks of the semester. Texts include The Illustrated World’s Religions: A Guide to Our Wisdom Traditions.

HMD-2931

The Mythology of War

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Perhaps an understanding of institutionalized violence and man’s inhumanity to man has never been more important than in the troubled times in which we live. In this course, we will explore the philosophical and psychological foundations of the allure of war. While many studies of war and its causes look to states and institutions, here we turn our attention to what might be called the “mythology of war.” Simply put, despite its costs—both human and economic—war and battle have an enduring appeal that defies rational understanding. Our task will be to probe the depths of the human experience in war and battle so as to better comprehend this appeal. We will consider the claim that man is by nature a warrior or, as a consequence of an innate lust for destruction, naturally driven to killing and violence. To guide us in this endeavor, we will study the insights offered in such texts as Michael Gelvin’s War and Existence, A Philosophical Inquiry; Stephen Pressfield’s Gates of Fire, An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae; Glenn Gray’s The Warriors: Reflections on Men in Battle; Dave Grossman’s On Killing: The Psychological Cast of Learning to Kill in War and Society and Jonathan Shay’s Achilles in Vietnam.

HMD-2998

The Philosophy of Mind

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

The philosophy of mind concerns itself with the human—and perhaps nonhuman—mental, intellectual and spiritual awareness of the “world,” broadly conceived. This course begins with an attempt to define typical mental states, such as perceiving, knowing and desiring, and then consider such issues as the mind-body problem and our knowledge of other minds. Contemporary questions will explore the relationship of thought and language, the possibility of artificial intelligence, the intelligence of animals, moral action and free will. Students will be encouraged to reflect on their thought processes as a source of phenomena that a coherent theory of mind must account for.

HMD-3013

Madness and Creativity

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

When is madness a cry for independence, a revelation of alienated creativity, or an invitation to the frontiers of human experience, and when is it a retreat into repetition, nihilism and silence? At what point do we confuse the authentic suffering of the mind with genius or originality? Does creativity include the risk madness to become what Rimbaud called a “seer” or visionary, or might this play into a dangerously conventional myth? Our project is to venture into the universe of the imagination to separate the myth of madness from the freedom to create. We will select psychological and philosophic works from Nietzsche, Freud, Foucault and Laing, as well as explore the literature of Rimbaud, Stevenson, Gogol, Gilman, Artaud and Plath. Required texts: The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche; Madness and Civilization, Foucault; A Season in Hell, Rimbaud; The Divided Self, R. D. Laing; Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Stevenson; The Uncanny, Freud; The Yellow Wallpaper, Gilman.

HMD-3021

Technology, Identity and Crisis

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits 

Technological innovation has been a major driver of fundamental cultural and socioeconomic developments in human society. This course will examine technology as a major engine of change. Particular focus will be placed on specific examples of technological innovation and its impacts on modern life. We will devote special attention to the development of crucial technologies affecting modern civilization from the Industrial Revolution to the present. One goal of the course will be to understand the basic material and scientific principles behind technological developments at the foundation of modern society. Major topics covered will include transportation, communications, electrification and materials. These technologies are now so pervasive that they largely define who we are. This all comes at a cost, however, as That-Which-Makes-Us-Who-We-Are has massive consequences, often on a global scale and not all very positive. Our other goal, then, is to consider the consequences of our technological lives for the environment, for social stability, and for long-term economic growth. Readings will include an array of modern studies on various technologies and their impacts. 

HMD-3024

Art, Ethics and Moral Responsibility

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course is an introduction to philosophic reasoning about some basic ethical questions of human life. We will begin by exploring the moral notions of right and wrong, and whether there are rational ways for determining the difference between them. In particular, we will examine the nature and the application of moral standards to our personal behavior and especially to our artistic pursuits. In addition, we will consider whether there is a philosophical basis for moral responsibility, action and commitment, and whether such concepts will impact our freedom of expression. Among the authors and artists to be considered are Immanuel Kant, W.D. Ross, Alasdair MacIntyre, Andre Serrano and Jock Sturges. 

HMD-3123

The Philosophy of Human Nature

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Since Darwin shook the belief in divine provenance, philosophers and scientists have sought a new theory of human nature—or have denied such a thing is possible. This course begins with a study of classic sources of humankind’s picture of itself—in Plato, the Bible, the Upanishads and Confucianism. Modern theories reflect on the human being as a respondent organism, a genetic mechanism, a maker of tools, a seeker of God, a creator of art, the destroyer of its own habitat, and even as the slayer of its own species. Contemporary readings will include reflections by Marx, Skinner, Dawkins, Freud, Lorenz and Sartre.

HMD-3133

Nietzsche: Nihilism and Freedom

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Nietzsche has inspired much of what is essential to 20th-century thought. Existentialists, expressionists, Freudian and Jungian psychotherapists, deconstructionists—even positivists and futurists—have claimed him as their forerunner. Yet, while key to all this ferment, Nietzsche is more than a Rorschach test for novel ideas. The confusion is understandable—Nietzsche is not only an accurate and comprehensive philosopher, but also a poet and visionary. This course will seek to interpret the core of his thought and his contribution to modern aesthetic, ethical and psychological theory, through an exploration of his statements on art, truth and perception, as well as his metaphors, humor and epigrams. We will study such works as The Birth of Tragedy, Beyond Good and Evil, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, The Case Against Wagner and Twilight of the Idols, to examine the interplay between metaphoric and conceptual language, and between poetry and philosophy. Our goal will be to recover Nietzsche’s ideas from his legend, and to understand a thinker who defies categorization, schools and systems, for intellectual integrity and individual freedom.

HMD-3201

Noticing and Awe

Fall or spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Our consciousness is itself a “miracle.” Noticing our existence enables us to make art and be creative, but rarely are we in awe of it. This course will pose the most fundamental of questions (Why are we here?) to investigate this first enigma: How and why do we lose our fundamental gratitude for existence? And how does art reflect back to the origins of our perception to return us to wonder, to inspire to us, to notice with awe? Beginning with Taoism, Buddhism and the philosophy of Heidegger, we will explore Plato’s Phaedrus, Shakespeare’s The Tempest, and the poetry of Rimbaud, Rilke and Dickinson, and discuss revealing extracts on the subject drawn from astronomy, music and the visual arts. Required texts include: Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu; The Way of Zen, Alan Watts; Poetry, Language, Thought, Martin Heidegger; Duino Elegies, Rainer Maria Rilke. 

HMD-3221

Philosophy: Our Pursuit of Wisdom

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Philosophy, the love of wisdom, rose from the waking dreams of myth to challenge us to think clearly and freely as individuals, to examine and question but also to ponder and muse. From its dawn among the ancient Greeks in the West, from India and China in the East, from radically different perspectives and cultures to the present, it offers theoretic inquiry and alternative ways to live. We will choose philosophers and thinkers who seek to understand and aspire to authentic experience as a path to wisdom. From the pre-Socratics and Plato to the Roman Stoics, from the Chinese Taoists to the great essayists, including Montaigne, Emerson and Thoreau, and selections from Nietzsche, Buber, Merton, Arendt and the Dalai Lama. Finally, the course will explore how knowledge and experience suffused by intuition can illumine our contemporary global experience—in pursuit of wisdom. 

HMD-3288

Introduction to Philosophy

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

The great thinkers of the Western world will be examined in their historical context in an attempt to explain how their thought is a reflection and transformation of their culture. Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Descartes, Hume, Kant, Marx, Rousseau, Mill, Nietzsche, Freud, Sartre, among others, will be studied and related to areas as diverse as the scientific revolution, the Industrial Revolution and modernism in art.

HMD-3442

Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Semiotics is the study of signs, both linguistic (speech and writing) and iconic (paintings, photographs, drawings, sculptures, digital images, advertising and fashion). Some texts will provide a background to the theory of semiotics while others will apply the theory and language of semiotics to contemporary aesthetics and current issues. Marshall Blonsky’s On Signs and Umberto Eco’s Theory of Semiotics are two main sources of essays. In addition, we will read authors and look at texts that have had great influence in visual and musical thought, such as: Ludwig Wittgenstein, Roland Barthes, Maureen Dowd, Barack Obama, Julia Kristeva, Sam Amidon, Jasper Johns, Sam Mendes, Carter Ratcliff, Steve Martin, Thomas McEvilley, Susan Sontag, Jon Stewart, Gail Collins, Bruce Nauman, Walter Benjamin, Jean Baudrillard and Dave Hickey.

HMD-3443

Semiotics and Visual Culture 

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Semiotics is the study of signs and the codes that envelope them. In this course, we will examine the difference between linguistic (speech and writing) and iconic (paintings, photographs, drawings, sculptures, digital images, advertising and fashion) signs and focus on their cultural meaning and how they interconnect in aesthetic, political and moral sign systems. Readings will include A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments and Elements of Semiology by Roland Barthes; The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure and Human Evolution by Denis Dutton; The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature by Steven Pinker; and Theory of Semiotics by Umberto Eco, as well as contemporary news articles. 

HMD-3451

Introduction to Asian Thought

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will introduce the diverse doctrines and practices of the Hindu and Buddhist traditions as they developed in ancient India and traveled to Tibet, China and Japan. Through scriptural texts we will explore Hinduism’s three spiritual paths: the Path of Action, the Path of Devotion and the Path of Knowledge. We will then examine how the Buddha’s radical reinterpretation of the meaning of self formed the basis of one of the most powerful spiritual and philosophical movements in history. The course will then focus on Japanese Zen Buddhism through the writings of its founders. We will conclude with a look at the forms that these traditional schools are now taking as they are transplanted into Western cultures. Readings include: Fenton’s Religions of Asia; Koller’s A Sourcebook in Asian Philosophy; Harvey’s An Introduction to Buddhism; Suzuki’s Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. 

HMD-3454

Aesthetics and the Modern Artist

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Why does art exist and what does it mean to human perception and our experience of the world? Why are we fascinated by beauty? What is the source of inspiration? What is the relationship of art to truth? This course is designed to explore the concepts of taste, beauty, expression, artistic judgment, genius and inspiration in the light of classical and contemporary aesthetic theory. Texts will include selections from philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Nietzsche, Heidegger and Sartre. We will also consider the contributions of poets, musicians and visual artists. Finally, this course will probe views of the political and social significance of creativity and assess their value in terms of history and the future.

HMD-3458

Ethics

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Is might right? Should majority rule? Does power corrupt? Does pluralism entail the abdication of values? Ethics is the rational analysis of morals, with no regard for fashion and political correctness, and can therefore both seek and find firm and objective answers to what is right, good, duty, justice and freedom in all corners of personal and social life. This course is not an issues menu or a survey of all possible positions, but a concentrated study of deontological, naturalistic and utilitarian ethics in classical texts and contemporary commentaries. The status of universal human rights will be addressed. 

HMD-3466

Uncontrollable Beauty 

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will focus on the nature of beauty, style and fashion, drawing upon contemporary critics and philosophers, and contrasts our modern notion of beauty with Victorian ideas like those of John Ruskin, Walter Pater and Oscar Wilde. We will discuss new philosophies of beauty from people like Dave Hickey, Versace, Frank Gehry, Jeremy Gilbert Rolfe and Jacqueline Lichtenstein. Uncontrollable Beauty is the primary text for the course. 

HMD-3467

Beauty and the Contemporary Sublime

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

What defines the nature of beauty and contemporary sublime is the focus of this course. We will draw upon the views of contemporary critics, novelists and artists, and discuss the notion of cultural relativity and the modern artist’s affinity for so-called “primitive” art. This course will also examine the practice of beauty, the contemporary sublime and art-making through the essays of artists, designers and writers such as Agnes Martin, Kenneth Koch, Julia Kristeva, Steven Pinker, Stephen Colbert, Alexander McQueen and Louise Bourgeois. Uncontrollable Beauty and Sticky Sublime anthologies are the primary texts for the course. 

HMD-3473

Media Criticism

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

What is the role of the media in our contemporary society? How does it interact with our conception of democracy? What is the difference between information and propaganda? How does thought control work in a democratic society? How can we detect bias, conflicts of interest, inaccuracy, censorship and “dumbing down”? What is the role of visual imagery in shaping our attitudes toward gender, race and class? This course will explore these questions through readings from such analysts as Noam Chomsky, Ben Bagdikian and Norman Solomon. We will also examine some alternative sources of information and visual imagery.

HMD-3474

Understanding Media Culture

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

As a main source of news, information and entertainment, media plays a powerful role in shaping, and at times controlling, how we understand the world and ourselves. Regardless of its form—including the Internet, television, films, magazines and advertising—its content is rarely neutral as it often embodies a story or message that reflects the creators’ beliefs, assumptions, or biases. Compounding this fact is the continual development of new technology, which has made it increasingly easier to manipulate images and, consequently, their viewers as well. It is thus essential to have the ability to differentiate fact from fiction, your own independent thinking from what others want you to believe. This course will provide an introduction to key theories in media and cultural studies to equip students with the tools and knowledge to critically analyze and evaluate the complex media culture as its audience, while also considering the impact their own work can have on society. We will read and examine works by such scholars and thinkers as Walter Benjamin, Marshall McLuhan, Roland Barthes, Laura Mulvey and bell hooks.

HMD-3484

The Future Now

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

What does the future hold? What clues can we extrapolate from literature and film? How could principles of social justice play out in real life? How are people designing and organizing for environmental sustainability now? This course includes readings of works by Octavia Butler, Robin D.G. Kelley, adrienne maree brown, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Grace Lee Boggs, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Naomi Klein, and others. Films include: Wall-E, The Hunger Games and Black Panther. Class discussions will be rooted in frank considerations of race, economics, climate change, transfeminism and the current political climate. 

HMD-3486

Connecting Classroom with Community: Studies in Collective Action

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course is designed for committed students who wish to deepen their political awareness while building community with fellow activists by engaging in practical work at a preselected organization. Students will keep a journal about their experiences with their field work outside the classroom. They will also will examine such concepts as decolonization, capitalism, patriarchy and climate justice through in-class discussions, readings, videos and lectures. Practical training on collective action, including facilitation and organizing art builds, will be shared as the collaborative projects unfold. At the end of the course, students will present their projects to the SVA community in order to further their social engagement. 

HMD-3494

Workers of the World: The Representation of Labor

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Time is money. At least that’s what we’re told. It’s strange to imagine that you could put a price on hours and minutes, but this is precisely what we do at the workplace. This course will explore literary and visual texts that challenge our assumptions about how human time and human lives should be valued. Readings from authors of philosophical and fictional works will include Marx, Orwell, Sartre, Melville and Woolf. We will also view selected films in the science fiction and magic-realist genres that imagine futuristic forms of labor, such as Brazil, Metropolis and Dark City. 

Anthropology, Psychology, Sociology

HPD-3511

Archaeology of New York City

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

The past surrounds us in New York City. It’s under our feet and our basements, and enshrined in our museums. This course is an introduction to archaeology as a social science, as well as an examination of New York’s history using the artifacts found during archaeological excavations in the City. Museum visits and a walking tour of lower Manhattan are included. 

HPD-3518

Storytelling and the Oral Tradition in the 21st Century: From Fairy Tales to Conspiracy Theories 

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credit

Why do people take conspiracy theories such as Pizzagate, QAnon, or the Sandy Hook Hoax seriously? This course examines the evolution of ancient oral traditions, including myths and fairy tales, as they morphed into our contemporary urban legends and conspiracy theories. New technologies have led to the emergence of increasingly dominant oral traditions. Podcasts, online videos, live chats, Twitter feeds and troll bots maintain ancient and fundamental storytelling structures, but their cultural functions have been radically transformed and the art of storytelling has been returned to the people with greater reach, power and apparent veracity. Employing a wide range of materials and media—literature, film, radio and social media—this course will explore the ways in which technology has created, defined, manipulated and transformed oral traditions from the 5th century BCE to the present.

HPD-3520

Men and Women in the Modern Workplace

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

After a historical overview of work in pre-industrial and industrial contexts, this course will focus on the experience of work in postindustrial society. Current issues within the workplace will be addressed, including: gender roles, the impact of the computer, functioning in complex organizations and opportunities for worker satisfaction. Those working in nonbureaucratic, smaller-scale contexts, such as professionals and artists, will also be discussed. A common theme will be the potential for, and limits to, worker autonomy and participation in decision-making. Readings will be supplemented with selected videos and films. 

HPD-3522

Anthropology and the Bible

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will explore the Old and New Testaments through a study of cultural anthropology. Attention will be paid to the historical and cultural framework of Biblical times, with discussions focusing on social customs as well as religious, political and economic institutions. We will also examine our perceptions of contemporary cultural diversity and the factors that shape our culture. 

HPD-3530

Interpersonal Behavior

Fall or spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will analyze the structures and processes involved in face-to-face interpersonal relationships. A variety of social and psychological perspectives will form the basis for an analysis of love relationships, friendships, social and political interactions, workplace dynamics and family ties. Issues such as aggression, alienation, conformity and prejudice will also be addressed. 

HPD-3531

Life Span Development: Child

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

In this course, we will focus on the extraordinary changes undergone by the developing child from conception through adolescence. We will base our study on the body of knowledge generated by theory and research in the field of developmental psychology. Our emphasis will be on patterns of physical maturation; linguistic and cognitive development; personal, social and emotional growth. Current issues in child psychology such as the working mother, popular media, neglect and abuse, drugs, and violence will also be addressed. The primary text will be Of Children: An Introduction to Child Development.

HPD-3532

Life Span Development: Adult

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Do adults develop through predictable stages or do they reach a peak in their twenties or thirties and then decline and die? Within the framework of this organizing question, we will trace predictable changes and challenges experienced by adults from young adulthood through old age and death. Central issues will include: finding a mate, bearing and rearing children, negotiating relationships with family and friends, selecting and developing a career, accommodating to changing physical capacities and health, and coming to terms with death.

HPD-3541

Introduction to Psychology

Fall or spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will systematically examine the content of psychology as a life science. Specifically, it will explore the principles, methodological techniques and theoretical models that shaped the science of psychology and that distinguish it from other approaches to human behavior. The course will provide an overview of basic concepts in diverse areas of psychology, including neuroscience, memory, cognitive learning, developmental personality, abnormal psychology and social psychology. Ultimately, the course will serve as a primer to the more advanced study of psychology. 

HPD-3557

Income Inequality, Human Suffering and the Artist’s Perspective

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Why are the wealthy getting wealthier and the middle class and poor suffering? Does government policy contribute to inequality, and why do so many Americans seem to support policies that undermine the economic mobility, stability and growth of the middle class? What are the implications of the growing gap between the wealthy and the rest of society? This course will address the dangers posed by the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a select few to a nation predicated on life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Racial and gender inequality as well as the attack on basic benefits, such as health insurance, unemployment insurance and public education will be explored in light of both capitalism and income inequality. Occupy Wall Street, Citizens United, the Tea Party, corporate interests, and other social and political movements will be discussed. Students will use their perspectives as artists to explore this threat to American stability and growth. 

HPD-3623

Art and the Psyche

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

What do you reveal to your audience through your work? Is your art a free-flowing stream to your unconscious? Is it a window to your own internal world or a reflection of the external? Do you strive for the content or the form? Freud argued that when making art one engages in complex mental processes. He described art as an effort at mastery as well as a regressive search for pleasure, representing both affective and cognitive expression. This course will examine three distinct theories of psychology as they apply to the relationships between art, artist and audience. The lectures will focus on drive theory, ego psychology and object-relations theory and their corresponding approaches to art analysis. We will explore selected works from Sigmund Freud, Melanie Klein, Ernst Kris, D.W. Winnicott, Margaret Mahler, Anna Freud and Fred Pine, along with the principal authors of some alternative theories of psychology. 

HPD-3627

The Psychology of Women

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Women comprise half of the human population in the world. We all know a female: we have mothers; some of us have sisters, aunts and daughters. We have colleagues and fellow students that are female. Yet, throughout most of history, the study and focus of human psychology and behavior has been largely focused on males. During the past 50 years, the field of psychology has made great strides toward the consideration of women as equal subjects of psychological inquiry. In this course we will study the role that the female gender plays in individual behavior, thoughts and experiences. We will look at the experiences that are unique to women and how these experiences influence women’s development across their lifespan. These include the understanding of psychological development, mental health and mental illness among women. We will also address various topics that include psychological theories related to gender development, cultural identity and diversity, family, work and violence against women.

HPD-3636

Artists’ Rights: Basic Theory and Practice

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course provides a historical and cultural study of artists’ rights and art law, as well as practical knowledge that artists need for their own work and careers. Students will learn about artists’ basic rights in making art, using others’ works, artistic freedom and its limitations, and how to handle contracts and releases. The course also surveys laws that govern the ownership of art, protect creative assets, prevent distortion and mutilation of artwork, and whether there is a need for regulation of the art market. Guest speakers will complement readings and lectures. 

HPD-3641

Abnormal Psychology I: Neurotic and Character Disorders

Fall or spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will introduce students to the psychological and interpersonal conflicts that underlie obsessional, hysterical, depressive and narcissistic disorders. Treatment strategies will also be explored with reference to actual case histories. Readings include selections from such clinical theorists as Sigmund Freud, Anna Freud, David Shapiro, Alice Miller, Charles Brenner, Karen Horney and Heinz Kohut.

HPD-3642

Abnormal Psychology II: Psychotic and Character Disorders

Fall or spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will focus on the psychological and interpersonal conflicts that characterize schizoid and borderline personality disorders as well as psychotic mood disorders and schizophrenia. Treatment strategies will also be explored with reference to actual case studies. Readings include selections from such clinical theorists as Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, Harry Stack Sullivan, Irvin Yalom, W.W. Meissner, R.D. Laing and Peter Breggin. 

HPD-3644

Deviant Behavior and Social Control

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will examine the impact that cultural norms and societal beliefs can have on human experience. In particular, we will seek to understand how people, as an essentially moral creatures, attempt to exist in a broader sociocultural framework that often utilizes fundamentally flawed methods for control and compliance. Social deviance and maladaptive behavior will be examined in a variety of forms, including as attempts to combat essentially unfair or harmful dynamics, blind obedience to cultural myths, and structural mechanisms that strengthen policies, which only serve to undermine the individual’s quality of life. Specific attention will be given to the following topics: racism, sexism, homophobia, demonization of the poor, and denying equal access to education. A critique of modern American culture will examine how strongly held American beliefs contribute to social deviance and cultural decay. 

HPD-3677

Surviving into the 21st Century: A Multicultural Perspective

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

At this moment, there are approximately 40 wars on our small planet. Most are based on racial, religious or ethnic differences. With today’s weapons, it is easy to imagine omnicide, the death of everything. To move with hope in the 21st century, and the new millennium it has begun, we must learn to understand how we create “us” and “them” scenarios. We must learn to recognize ourselves as a single species. We will read some of the great writers and thinkers of many different cultures, religions and eras (Freud, Geronimo, Gandhi, Maya Angelou, Bei Dao, Neruda, Whitman, Marina Tvetayeva, Elie Wiesel, Nelson Mandela, Virginia Woolf, Malcolm X). The process of reading, writing and discussion should enable each student to raise his or her consciousness and to explore ways of eliminating prejudice in daily life, the necessary first step toward world peace.

HPD-3898

Theories of Personality I

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

What is a personality? How can we understand human behavior? What are the criteria according to which people can be characterized? This course will introduce students to a psychological approach to the question of what it means to be a person. It has two aims: First, it will provide an introduction to the classical personality theories of Freud, Jung, Erikson and Winnicott, as well as to current developmental perspectives on personality emerging from the ideas of Bowlby, Stern and Ainsworth; second, it will teach students to use theories of personality to inform their understanding of self and others.

HPD-3899

Theories of Personality II

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Beginning with classical psychoanalytic writers, such as Freud, Klein, Winnicott and Mahler, this course will review different theories of personality development. Contemporary relational theorists will also be studied, with an emphasis on gender development, creativity and the impact of childhood trauma on adult functioning.

HPD-4057

Modern Art and Psychology: The Secrets of the Soul

Fall or spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

What do dreams mean? What causes madness? How should society care for the insane? Is the mind a machine? With the rise of science in modern times, psychologists have become the new doctors of the soul who address these age-old questions. This course presents their fascinating answers, as well as examines the influence of psychology on culture and the visual arts. Topics include: 19th-century asylum medicine, 20th-century psychoanalysis and today’s neuroscience, as well as metaphors for the psyche in the arts. Readings from: Madness in America: Cultural and Medical Perspectives on Mental Illness until 1914 and Dreams 1900-2000: Science, Art and the Unconscious Mind.

HPD-4282

The 21st-Century Family: Alternative Lifestyles, Civil Unions, Gay Marriage

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This behavioral science course will focus on an examination of the basic functions of the family unit as well as its cross-cultural and historical forms. The course will focus on the profound changes occurring within the 21st century family unit and the reasons for these changes. Emphasis will be placed on the new American family: civil unions, gay marriage, domestic partnerships, single parent families, stepfamilies and blended families as well as other familial units. Issues will include a discussion of the political and economic impact of the new family paradigm upon society, alternative lifestyles, family values agenda, the divorce culture and abortion. This course gives students an understanding of the history of the family unit and how these institutions have changed over the past 25 years. Students will also explore how media and cultural institutions shaped the notion of marriage and family during the past half-century and the beginning of the 21st century.

HPD-4298

Introduction to Queer/Gender Studies

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will study the transgressive activists, artists, writers, filmmakers and thinkers who have radically changed our understanding of gender and sexuality. We will first examine the categories of sex and gender and unmoor them from their binary anchors. We will interrogate the works of artists such as Nan Goldin, Juliana Huxtable, Leslie Feinberg and Keith Haring, and events such as the Compton Cafeteria and Stonewall Riots, de-classification of homosexuality as a psychiatric illness, CeCe McDonald’s conviction and the Dog Day Afternoon bank robbery using interdisciplinary theories of sex and gender. From civil rights activism, movements in art and the ability to think differently, students will explore their assumptions about sex and gender, as well as their understanding of themselves and their artwork. 

HPD-4299

Race and Ethnic Relations

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will focus on a variety of theoretical and empirical issues related to race and ethnic relations. Topics will include the concept of “race”; minorities; social stratification and social conflict; the relationship between prejudice and discrimination; assimilation, amalgamation and cultural pluralism; race, ethnicity and ideology; patterns of segregation; and the question of racial oppression or class subordination. 

HPD-4333

Man the Animal

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course in physical anthropology will cover human evolution, physical characteristics of human populations (including growth studies, human variation and forensic anthropology) and the other primates (monkeys and apes). There will be field trips to museums as well as the Bronx Zoo.

HPD-4481

Psychological Aspects of the Creative Process

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will explore creativity using a contemporary psychoanalytic theory that weaves together the psychological, the social and the political. We will address such topics as: how the unconscious shapes the artist’s thinking; Freud’s method of dream interpretation and how it can be used to decode the unconscious; how gender, race and trauma impact the creative process; how contemporary psychoanalysis views the self and its relation to creativity. These topics will be examined through lectures, discussions and readings, including works by Freud, Csikszentmihalyi, Slochower and Kaufman. 

Science and Mathematics

HSD-2114

Evolution

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will explore the origins of life on Earth as well as the evolutionary processes of microbes, plants and animals, especially humans. Focal topics will include Darwin’s theory of natural selection and Gregor Mendel’s contributions to our understanding of the diversity of life forms. Modern tools of artificial selection and the cloning of organisms will also be examined and discussed. Students will further explore these topics with microscopes and other experiments in artificial selection.

HSD-2447

The Physics of Living Organisms, Cells and Molecules

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Living organisms are governed by the laws of physics on all levels. The aim of this course is to relate some of the concepts in physics to living systems; therefore, the course is designed to explain certain concepts in physics using the human body as the model and devoted to the applications of physics to biology and medicine. The theory and descriptions of basic measurement and analysis techniques such as CT scan, endoscopy, MRI and fMRI imaging will be included. 

HSD-2566

Biological Genetics

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Genetics has increasingly found applications in a variety of areas collectively known as biotechnology. This course will focus on providing a basic understanding of genetics and biotechnology as they relate both to biological theories and to practical applications of other sciences. These will include the methods of disease diagnosis, development of new drugs and vaccines, forensic sciences, agricultural sciences and their uses in ecological sciences. Students will conduct further explorations with microscopes and experiments that use classical methods to characterize phenotypes to deduce genotypes and more recent developments that characterize genotypes to deduce phenotypes. 

HSD-2572

Biological Chemistry and Art

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will study biology through hands-on explorations of materials that are vital to life and art. An examination of artistic materials such as pigments, plastics and oils will help to reveal the distinction between mineral and organic carbon-based substances. Our initial explorations of the minerals and the methodology used to analyze them will pave the way to an in-depth exploration of the more complex organic world. Microscopic studies of both cells and chemical reactions of living and dead specimens will be included. The course is supplemented with sessions at the American Museum of Natural History.

HSD-2578

Germs and Gems

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will explore the pigments and minerals that emerge from microbial worlds. The origins of life and production of pigments throughout the history of the Earth will be viewed through the “lens” of microscopic life. Bacteria, protists and exceptional viruses will be among the creatures discussed; they provided the first green revolution. These creatures reside in and on all life as seen by the symbiotic theories. Cell theory, germ theory, the chemistry of metals and pigments, and the laws that explain their colors will be discussed. These topics will be further examined with microscopes and other experiments with minerals and germs. 

HSD-2631

Neuroscience and Culture

Fall or spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will analyze the essential connections between neuroscience and culture in contemporary society and in history. We will explore general concepts about the nervous system from a variety of perspectives—structural, physiological, behavioral—and examine their resonance in today’s world. Attention will be given to cultural products that address these topics, such as literature, music, film and, especially, the visual arts. 

HSD-2642

Designs of Brains and Minds

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Diverse roles of the brain in the biological world and the emergence of artificial intelligence will be explored in this course. Topics will include: evolution and development of the brain, engineering intelligence in animals, artificial organs, robotics and neural networks as the basis of artificial minds. Explorations of these topics will be supplemented with views through microscopes and by conducting other experiments into the theories of the brain.

HSD-2663

Metaphors in Science and Their Relation to Culture

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

The role and significance of metaphor in cognition, particularly with respect to science and art, will be analyzed in this course. As we investigate the nature and ramifications of metaphorical thinking in scientific theory and practice, we will attempt to understand the primary cultural factors that affect this mode of thought. The influence of media on science, culture and especially the visual arts will also be explored.

HSD-2666

Our Living Planet: The Biology of Life on Earth

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will explore the biological nature and environmental habitats of microbial, plant and animal life on earth. The origins, physiology, behavior and reproductive patterns of the planet’s various life forms will be examined in relation to their diverse natural conditions and interactions. The quest for life on other planets will also be discussed. The course will also explore this world with microscopes and cultures of a few of its creatures.

HSD-2773

Urban Ecology: The Natural History of Cities

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits 

The emerging science of urban ecology is broadly defined as the study of relationships between living organisms and their biotic and abiotic (non-living) environment within cities. In this course we will use New York City as a living laboratory to introduce key concepts, including: the geologic and physical setting of NYC; the influence of land use history on local ecosystems; landscape ecology, island biogeography and habitat fragmentation; ecology and management of invasive species; the types and distribution of forest, freshwater and saltwater wetlands, and meadows in NYC; habitat and wildlife management; insect/plant relationships; predator/prey relationships; and ecological restoration. Sessions will include field trips to parks, natural areas, the American Museum of Natural History, lectures and media screenings. Students will be required to do independent field work and keep a natural history journal.

HSD-2774

Urban Zoology: The Natural History of Urban Wildlife

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits 

In this field and classroom course students will be introduced animal life in cities by examining wildlife in an ecological context, considering habitat needs and relationships. We will use New York City as a living laboratory to introduce key concepts, including: the classification and evolutionary relationships of animals; adaptation of urban wildlife to cities; invasive species ecology and management; the relationship of wildlife to habitats including forest, freshwater and saltwater wetlands, and meadows in NYC; animal roles in the distribution of plants; predator/prey relationships; and ecological restoration. Sessions will include field trips to parks, natural areas and the American Museum of Natural History as well as lectures, discussions and media screenings. Students will be required to do independent field work and keep a natural history journal.

HSD-2862

Entomology: The Natural History of Insects and other Arthropods

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Arthropods are invertebrate animals with jointed bodies and exoskeletons, including crustaceans, arachnids and insects. They are the most diverse and abundant of earth’s animals. In this introductory course students will learn about arthropod evolution and classification, life history and ecology. Sessions will be held in the classroom/laboratory and on field trips to museums, parks and natural areas. Emphasis will be on direct observation and experience of arthropods in their natural habitats and recording these observations in a nature journal. In addition, students will collect and preserve specimens for further observation and identification. Experience and observations will be supported by readings, audiovisual media and class discussion. 

HSD-2863

Ornithology: The Natural History of Birds

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

In this introductory ornithology course students will learn principles of avian biology, including bird evolution, taxonomy (classification), life cycles, conservation, behavior and ecology. Emphasis will be on direct observation of birds, with field trips to local urban ecosystems and independent observation by students. Firsthand experience will be supplemented with directed reading, a visit to the American Museum of Natural History, and classroom lectures and media screenings. Students will maintain a weekly journal of bird observations. 

HSD-2898

Warm and Cold Blooded: An Introduction to Vertebrate Species

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

How are all of the species living on Earth related? In this vertebrate evolution course, students will learn general principles about both endothermic (warm-blooded) and ectothermic (cold-blooded) animals, their habitats and origins. We will begin with an introductory overview of paleozoology, focusing on ancient aquatic animals, modern birds and reptiles, including the oldest ectothermic vertebrate classes on the planet. Students will examine the fossil record and how to read a phylogenetic tree. Historical scientists, taxonomy (classification), life cycles, conservation, and other topics will be explored. This will be an integrated lecture course with field trips to the American Museum of Natural History and urban environments. Together, we will examine historical collections, geologic time scales and visual displays. Overall, this course will increase students’ understanding of the scientific study of vertebrate animal species, their evolution and groupings as well as current threats to biodiversity. 

HSD-2921

The History of Nature / The Nature of History

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

What does the phrase Copernican Revolution mean? Why are humans exploring Mars when recent evidence suggests it’s a lifeless planet? Who are the field scientists studying Greenland’s polar ice sheets, and mapping the rainforests for new medicines? In this introductory course students will engage with the history of scientific discovery and construct a critical perspective about our place in the natural world. Topics will range from Aristotle to dinosaur discoveries in China. In addition, a selection of readings such as Brecht’s Life of Galileo, Mary Shelley’s The Modern Prometheus and short stories by JG Ballard will be included in order to bridge the gaps among history, literature, science and art. We will meet in the classroom and in cafes, parks, playgrounds and theaters, turning the city into a thought laboratory. As evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould once wrote, “We are storytelling animals, and cannot bear to acknowledge the ordinariness of our daily lives.”

HSD-2987

Introduction to Mathematics I

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

What are the “atoms” of mathematics? Are they points in a plane, numbers on a line, or something more fundamental? This introductory course begins by addressing these and other foundational questions, such as “what is the precise meaning of infinity?” Major topics covered will include an introduction to set theory, number theory and topology. We will explore the historical evolution of these fields, with an emphasis on recent developments. The applications of math to the physical sciences and cryptography, and on the interaction of math and art will also be considered. Students will engage with math through problem-solving, and through reading essays and blogs, watching films and observing working mathematicians. 

HSD-2988

Introduction to Mathematics II

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

After a review of logic and set theory, students will study discrete probability, Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometries, and abstract algebra, with an emphasis on the applications of probability and the rich interplay between geometry and algebra. We will touch on the applications of the mathematical theory developed in the course to science and art. Students will engage with math through problem-solving, and through reading essays and blogs, watching films, and observing working mathematicians. 

HSD-2991

Data Literacy and Visualization

Fall 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-2992

Programming with Java

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

As technology continues to evolve, it’s important for artists and designers to have the ability to harness computing resources to explore ideas and solve problems. The goals of this course are two-fold. First, students will become comfortable with the notion of thinking like a programmer. Away from the computer, we’ll explore the basic building blocks of a computer program, such as loops, conditional statements and variables, and combine these elements to begin constructing step-by-step solutions to problems. Second, we’ll put these ideas to work in the Java programming environment. Students will develop basic programming skills through a series of small, practical assignments and a final project of their choosing. This course will prepare novice programmers to continue developing their programming fluency in the future, collaborate more effectively with programmers in their professional lives, write scripts and create small programs to perform a variety of useful tasks. 

HSD-3003

Energy and the Modern World

Fall 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-3016

Science in the Modern World

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

The triumphs of modern science have been heralded as an emancipation from the burdens of ignorance, fear, toil and disease. But have the sciences fulfilled their promise to liberate humankind? Have we truly overcome superstition and dogma, or simply replaced them with the uncertainties of a scientific “metaphysics” bristling with mysterious forces, powers, fields, waves, quarks and rays? Have we achieved the goals of knowledge and power, or have we reinvented ignorance and multiplied the dangers that surround us? In an attempt to come to grips with these questions, this course takes stock of recent scientific progress in fields such as anthropology, cosmology, ecology, subatomic physics and genetic engineering, measuring the claims of science and technology against those of the individual. Microscopes and other experiments will be used to provide students with more direct experience with these ideas.

HSD-3044

History of the Human Body: Society, Culture and Medicine

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Humans have always worried about their health, and for good reason since we have always faced illness. We are more fortunate than other species because we have been able to discover the causes of many diseases and to invent treatments and prevention for many of them. This course will focus primarily on the development of medical ideas, medical practice, and treatments for the human body from antiquity to the modern day. We will survey theories of the body, advances in anatomy, the diagnosis and treatment of disease, and pharmacology. We will also consider the social and cultural aspects of medicine, focusing on the lives of people who generated and consumed medical knowledge. Moreover, since medicine does not exist in a vacuum, this course will also explore the influences that medical ideas and practices have had on human culture and society. We will discuss medical practices that are considered traditional from several world cultures. The focus, however, will be on rational attempts to understand the body that have culminated in modern scientific medicine. Readings will primarily include important recent work on the history of medicine and its relation to culture. 

HSD-3111

Astronomy 

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Astronomy has played a role in every known human civilization, past and present. It has had practical roles such as shaping calendars and aiding in navigation. It has also played a large role in human culture, contributing to the existential concerns all peoples have had and often enriching ideas of the divine. With the development of modern science, astronomy has lost some of its cultural importance, but it has developed into a profound tool for the investigation of our physical universe and continues to inspire profound ideas. This course will begin with a study of the basic appearance of the sky as well as the laws of motion and the nature of light. Building on these topics, we will move on to discuss the formation of planets in our own solar system. We will then move beyond our cosmic neighborhood to focus on the nature of stars, how they develop, how they burn, their characteristics and, finally, their deaths. We will eventually look at much larger structures in the universe, including galaxies, dark matter and extremely large-scale cosmic structures. We will also consider cosmological theories about the origin and evolution of the Cosmos. Along the way, we shall study any number of exotic things, including black holes, neutron stars, pulsars, quasars, comets, etc. Lastly, we will seek to understand the methods used in astronomy, as well as the various tools astronomers use from telescopes to satellites and various other gadgets.

HSD-3114

Modern Art and Astronomy: The Expanding Universe

Spring 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

Fall 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-3204

Science, Technology and War: A Historical Overview 

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits 

This course will examine several links between technology, science and war. Our view will be historical, and we will look at the development of weapons from the earliest days of human civilization to the present. Moreover, we will consider the kinds of technology and technological developments that allowed for weapons manufacture and key innovations in weapons themselves. We will also survey the kinds of societal organizations and institutions that have evolved and now sustain weapons manufacturing. Lastly, we will consider the kinds of conflicts that have existed in the past, as well as current modes of warfare as each have been influenced greatly by the types of weapons available. More generally, this course will examine two areas of great importance. The first deals with the historical analysis of the roles that science and technology have played in the development and transformation of war. We will focus on the evolution of weapons and weapons systems and their effect in battle. The second area examines the interaction between weapons, warfare and the rest of society. We will study how changes in weapons technology have and still can alter political relationships. We will also look at the role of modern science in weapons development and the conduct of war. 

HSD-3211

The Material World

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

In this course, we will examine the way scientists and engineers look at the material world around us. At a practical level, we first examine the basic mechanical principles used in the design of cathedrals, ships and living organisms. At a more fundamental level, we ask: What do physicists know about the ultimate nature of matter? What are the ultimate laws governing the physical universe? We examine the answer to this question as it has evolved from the time of Newton to the present. 

HSD-3224

Art Meets Science

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will investigate the relationship between art and science, from the early anatomy books to computer graphics and animation today. We will explore as well many of the organizations and Internet sources that link art and science. The history and significance of scientific illustration will also be examined. How artists use science to create their art, and the benefits of a cross-disciplinary approach to learning science through art are among the topics explored. 

HSD-3253

Modern Art and Biology: The Mystery of Life

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

How did the first life on earth begin? How smart were dinosaurs? Why do children look like their parents? How does the human brain remember things? Scientists gave revolutionary answers to these questions in the 20th century, profoundly altering how modern society perceived reality. This course presents fascinating responses to these questions in plain English, along with illustrations of their impact on art and culture. Topics include the theory of evolution, how cells function, deciphering the DNA molecule, and medical revolutions from antibiotics to organ transplants as well as biological metaphors in the arts. 

HSD-3254

Science and Religion 

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits 

This course will take both a historical and a philosophical approach to the interaction between science and religion. Our focus will be on the Western experience and we will have occasion to explore other cultures. The ways in which science and religion have interacted in the past will be examined, looking at areas of mutual support as well as areas of conflict. A number of issues that we will address include whether religion has actually contributed to scientific progress and whether science, in return, has influenced religion. We will focus on crucial historical periods and movements, including the Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment, 19th-century thought, and the discoveries of modern science and culture. We will also consider the current state of the relationship between science and religion, including attacks on science from some religious believers and more positive attempts to bring modern science and religious beliefs together. In the end, we will consider whether science and religion are fundamentally compatible. 

HSD-3322

Environmental Studies 

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Human beings are inseparable from the natural world. With a population of more than seven billion people on the planet, now more than ever scientists are considering the effects of human activities on Earth. This course stresses the basic principles of the physical sciences, as well as the social and cultural implications of human impacts on the environment. Topics include: physical and chemical parameters of the environment, biodiversity, conservation, pollution, climate change, energy, food and agriculture.

HSD-3344

Ecological Economics

Spring 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

Spring 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. 

HSD-3901

Human Diseases

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will survey the major human diseases, their history, causes, treatments and effects on human history. The legends and myths about diseases will be examined, and the sociological and cultural aspects of human diseases will be explored. We will also study illness related phenomena such as physical pain, psychological suffering, disability and death. Genetic disorders, neurological diseases, mental disorders, concepts of infection, immunology and epidemiology will also be discussed.

HSD-4026

Art, Science and the Spiritual

Fall or spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

What is our place in the universe? How do we perceive the world? Students will learn how modern science has profoundly transformed modern art. The theories of Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein forever changed how artists understand reality. The rise of science also entailed the decline of organized religion, causing traditional spiritual questions to be reformulated in secular terms. At the same time, the theories proposed by psychologists—the new doctors of the soul—revolutionized modern society’s understanding of the human psyche. Artists responded to the challenges posed by science and psychology by creating new metaphors for the human condition during the first secular, scientific age in human history. We will explore the interplay between art, science and the spiritual by evaluating major scientific and religious trends of the 20th century in relation to the representative artistic movements and works of the time. 

HSD-4128

Paradigm Shift: Exploring the Links Between Lab, Studio Art and Existential Experience

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

In this course, we will analyze the concept of paradigm shift. As our class focus and discussions move from lab experimentation, through studio art to life experience, we will explore important science paradigm shifts such as the discovery of neurons and the creation of the first transgenic mammals as well as important paradigmatic shifts in art and society. During the course of our studies, we will examine the connections between experience in the lab, the art studio, our personal lives and the world at large. 

HSD-4129

Science, Art and Visual Culture

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits 

This course will analyze the essential connections between science, art and visual culture. We will review and explore the importance of visual models in science and examine how these visual models are integrated into culture. The class will devote special attention to a variety of cultural products that address these topics such as books, music, film and especially the visual arts. 

HSD-4138

Brave New Worlds: Science and Science Fiction

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will explore the complex relationship between science and science fiction, alternatively focusing on science fiction as a source of inspiration for scientists and, conversely, the role of science as a source of inspiration for science-fiction authors and filmmakers. Students will become familiar with the historical development and far-reaching consequences of scientific discoveries and advances in scientific theory. From neuroscience through genetic engineering and nanotechnology, our work will give us a deeper understanding of how scientific research and science fiction have contributed to the generation of new ideas, social relationships and worldviews. We will read and discuss a wide variety of scientific articles and science-fiction novels such as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Aldus Huxley’s Brave New World and Italo Calvino’s Cosmicomics. Films such as Fantastic Voyage, Blade Runner and The Matrix will be screened. Students will be encouraged to create their own science-based artistic projects. 

HSD-4139

Traveling Inside the Human Body (Fantastic Voyage) 

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Have you ever been on a mission traveling inside the human body? This is the plot of the science-fiction movie Fantastic Voyage. This course is a voyage through the world of scientific illustration, microscopic observation and other techniques to explore the interior of the human body. From the macroscopic anatomists like Vesalius to microscopic anatomists like Cajal, we will review the visual work of different anatomists. Using different ways of visualizing the body’s interior (anatomical bodies, videos, brain scans, dissection, online visual atlas and microscopic observations) we will explore the beauty of the anatomy of different tissues (such as epithelial, connective, osseous, muscular, nervous, endocrine). Through this visual travel we will also review basic concepts of physiology (nervous transmission, muscular contraction, etc.) that will correlate structure and function.

HSD-4204

Human Anatomy and Physiology

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

A comparative study of human anatomy in the context of vertebrate evolution is the focus of this course. Students will view tissues and cells through microscopes and with other physiological experiments. Field trips to the American Museum of Natural History and detailed discussion of the major physiological systems will be included. 

HSD-4232

Light, Color and Vision

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

The basic physics and chemistry of light will be explored in this course by examining the qualitative parameters that distinguish classical, geometrical and physical optics, and the quantitative characteristics that distinguish color. We will discuss refraction and diffraction, structural color, the modern view of the nature of light and its interactions with matter, photochemistry, pigments and dyes, the principles underlying fluorescence and phosphorescence, lasers and holography.

HSD-4233

Vision, Perception and the Mind

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will explore the biology and psychology of vision from the sensory responses to light in microorganisms and plants to the complex interplay of visual perception, thought and creativity in the human brain. Readings and discussions will be supplemented by laboratory experiments and analyses of various theories of vision and the brain. 

HSD-4289

Art, Mathematics and the Mystical

Fall or spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

What is infinity? Do numbers originate in our minds or in the cosmos? How do abstract patterns acquire meaning? These fascinating questions lie at the heart of mathematics, which—because of its abstractness—is the foundation of exact thought and the international language of today’s high-tech culture. But despite its pivotal importance, mathematics is often a disappointment to artists because its secrets are written in a language—mathematical symbols—that they may not understand. The goal of this course is to describe in plain English the ideas that drive mathematics—numbers, infinity, geometry, pattern, and so on—and to demonstrate how these topics have been absorbed, interpreted and expressed by modern artists. The course will also explain how mathematical ideas are conveyed in symbols, formulas, graphs and diagrams. These figures and formulas amount to a pictorial visualization of abstract concepts that have profound implications for artists who create animated patterns, abstract paintings or conceptual art. No background in mathematics is needed; the only prerequisite is a natural curiosity about numbers.

HSD-4321

Sustainable Food Systems

Spring semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Food is both a basic human right and an essential human need. Yet, issues of hunger, malnutrition, and food waste persist around the world. This course will address what is necessary to overcome these issues by examining the current food system—a complex set of practices and policies that govern the production, processing, distribution, marketing and disposal of foods—to explore alternative models for sustainability. Through reading, discussions, and field trips, students will gain an understanding of such topics as the history of agriculture; current methods of farming and their economic and ecological consequences; alternative models, including organic farming and GMO, and their feasibility; food justice and grassroots efforts to redesign food systems.

HSD-4324

Food Explorations

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

Cuisine, nutrition and the problems of our abundant food supply will be examined in this course. Topics will include the selections of crops, meats and beverages by ancient civilizations; industrialization of farming through genetic engineering, and fast-food diets. The impact of our changing taste for nutrition and our health will also be explored. Additional topics suggested by students will be addressed. Field trips to green markets and purveyors of food will provide a chance to explore the culinary arts. 

HSD-4351

Eggs, Seeds and the Origins of Life

Fall semester: 3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will explore the concept of all eggs—from eggs through explorations of seeds, ova and cysts. We will begin with discussions about their origins among the spores of bacteria and the shells of animals, and where these cell types are found among the seeds of plants, ova of helminths, spores of fungi, cysts of protozoa and other eukaryotic organisms. Additional topics to be discussed will include foods based upon the eggs and their gametes. Discussions are supplemented with field trips to explore the habitats of these creatures. Laboratory exercises include using microscopes to see them in samples from their environment.

SPECIAL COURSES

SPD-2717 / SPD-2718

The Philosophy and Practice of Yoga I and II

Two semesters: 3 miscellaneous credits per semester

In these courses students will explore the philosophy and the physical practice of yoga. We will look closely at the relationship between the two, taking time to examine each perspective in depth. The beginning of each session will be lecture and discussion based, and will introduce various topics of yoga philosophy, as well as look at their application in daily life. The latter part of each session will be devoted to asana practice (yoga postures). We will take a detailed look at the body’s alignment, layering and relationship to gravity and breath. As we expand our knowledge of yogic philosophy and increase our body consciousness, we will see that these two aspects of yoga clearly draw upon each other. 

SPD-2721 / SPD-2722

Fitness and Health I and II

Two semesters: 3 miscellaneous credits per semester

Our health involves both body and mind. These courses reinforce the concept that physical health is intricately connected to our emotional health. We will examine attitudes and beliefs about health-related issues, behaviors that promote healthy lifestyles, stress management, and more. Students will participate in prescribed workouts during each session. Exercise will include a warm-up, cardio-vascular endurance training, muscle strength training and stretching. We will focus on the function and proper form of all exercises. Students will build a workout routine for their specific capabilities and goals. 

SPD-2753

French for Artists (and Travelers)

Spring semester: 3 miscellaneous credits

We are constantly surrounded by things French: painting, wine, perfume, cuisine, literature and film. Many of us wish to learn it so that we could speak easily, visit a French-speaking country and, perhaps, even sell our artwork there, but we are daunted by pronunciation. This course is designed to help students speak and read French, with a sense of humor and patience, to get over that “foreign” barrier. Starting from the beginning, we will gradually learn the language, while exploring the inspirational peaks of French culture, literature, art and film.

SPD-2784

Removing Creative Blocks and Creating Flow

Spring semester: 3 miscellaneous credits

What makes some creative processes tortuous, triggering anxiety, self-doubt and shame, and others flowing, joyful and uninhibited? This experiential, hands-on course will help you become familiar with the psychological aspects of the creative process. You will learn to develop strategies for working through negative issues, such as competition and criticism, including self-criticism, clarify your goals, maximizing your sources of support and your potential to become a more successful art student and artist. This course will be particularly useful for third- and fourth-year students who are preparing for their junior projects and senior theses.