An interpretive look at the American city in terms of changing attitudes toward urban life. City and suburb are experienced as the product of design and planning decisions informed by cultural and economic forces, and in relationship to utopian and pragmatic efforts to reinterpret urban traditions in search of contemporary alternatives.... Read more about Designing the American City: Civic Aspirations and Urban Form (Gen Ed 1003)
China will become the world’s largest economy by 2030. Chinese firms have transformed business landscapes at home and now seek a global role. What can we learn about China—its people, its government, its culture—from its transformative enterprises?... Read more about The Business of China (Gen Ed 1101)
Feminism shapes the world we live in today. Debates about women's and sexual rights define almost every public debate today -- from sexual harassment, to electoral politics, to development, public health, human rights, and political protest. But when, and where, did ideas of women's equal rights and liberation emerge?... Read more about Global Feminisms (Gen Ed 1036)
What is the role that religion plays in the political life of Middle Eastern Muslim-majority societies today, and how does our understanding of that compare with conventional wisdom, including what we are often exposed to in the news media?
Today’s news headlines consistently point to the role that religion plays in the political life of Middle Eastern societies. But do these headlines tell the whole story? This course will challenge simplistic explanations of the dominant role of Islam in Middle Eastern politics by putting it in historical perspective.... Read more about Islam and Politics in the Modern Middle East (Gen Ed 1123)
The U.S. comprises 5% of the world’s population but holds approximately 40% of the world’s guns. We also experience more gun-related deaths than any economically comparable nation.... Read more about Guns in the U.S.: A Love Story (Gen Ed 1073)
What is the relationship between ecology and equity? How does environmental degradation relate to social inequality? What is environmental justice and what is its challenge to conservationism?... Read more about Ecology and Equity (Gen Ed 1108)
Everyone comes from somewhere. We carry our ancestries in our DNA, genealogy, family stories, and more. What do these forms of evidence tell us about who we are, as a species, as a social group, or as an individual? This course looks at ancestry from a range of perspectives: biology, anthropology, genealogy, history, law, and memory—from the origins of human populations to the origins of you.... Read more about Ancestry: Where do we come from and why do we care? (Gen Ed 1014)
How can the resistance strategies of women from slavery through today help us critically examine oour current moment from identity and power to racism and law?
From spam to smart phones, much of the stuff we consume in our daily lives are factory-made. In the process of producing for our endless needs and wants, the factory has mobilized and motivated some of the latest advances in science and technology, defined and redefined the nature of work, and, through its polluting presence, pushed against the limits of our planetary boundaries.... Read more about Dark Satanic Mills: How the Factory Made Our World (Gen Ed 1143)
At a time when democracies are collapsing all over the world and when American democracy lies in a state of crisis, what, of its future, can be learned from its past?
The history of the United States is the story of a struggle to realize two ideas: that all people are created equal and that people can govern themselves. “Our great experiment,” generations of Americans have called the United States, and with good cause. Democracy has always been, at heart, an inquiry, a question: Can the people rule? In 1787, when Alexander Hamilton asked whether it’s possible to establish a government ruled by reflection and choice rather than by accident and force, that was a hypothetical question.... Read more about The Democracy Project (Gen Ed 1002)
We live in a moment of “crisis” around regimes of preservation and loss. As our communication becomes ever more digital— and, therefore, simultaneously more ephemeral and more durable—the attitudes and tools we have for preserving our culture have come to seem less apt than they may have seemed as recently as a generation ago. This course examines how texts have been transmitted from the past to the present, and how we can plan for their survival into the future.... Read more about Texts in Transition (Gen Ed 1034)
How do patterns of American economic, political and social inequality shape our policy responses to working families, immigration, poverty, COVID 19, and immigration?
How is a civilization built and sustained over millennia? How are political systems supported or undermined by cultural, economic, and ecological challenges? How does the need for shared values in a nation compete with individual interest and creativity?
These concepts are common to humankind, but nowhere on Earth are they more in evidence than in the story of the longest, continuous civilization in human history, China, home to one-fifth of mankind.... Read more about Power and Civilization: China (Gen Ed 1136)
The world’s economic and political order reels under mounting challenges: the global financial crisis, the austerity debacle, a slowdown in economic growth and productivity, the aggravation of inequality and the inadequacy of conventional responses to it, the discrediting of the Washington Consensus, the globalization backlash, the re-emergence of nationalist politics in Europe and the United States, and a contest over the meaning, value, and requirements of democracy. We examine connections among these phenomena and explore alternative ways of thinking about contemporary market economies and their reconstruction.
How did capitalism emerge, expand and transform daily life in North America over the past 500 years? In this course, students will gain an in-depth understanding of how North America turned from a minor outpost of the Atlantic economy into the powerhouse of the world economy, how Americans built a capitalist economy and how that capitalism, in turn, changed every aspect of their lives.... Read more about American Capitalism (Gen Ed 1159)
Race and caste are two of the most enduring forms of social stratification. While their histories date well before the advent of political democracy, they have taken on new forms in the context of democratic social transformation and capitalist development. In this course, we will grapple with the meanings, uses, and politics of race and caste historically and in the contemporary moment.... Read more about Race and Caste (Gen Ed 1126)
How have perceptions of racial difference shaped US military occupations abroad, such as the Philippines, Japan, and most recently Afghanistan and Iraq?
The United States has launched numerous projects of military occupation and nation-building in foreign lands since the late 19th century. These have been contradictory enterprises, carrying ideals of freedom and self-determination "offered" by force or by fiat.... Read more about Americans as Occupiers and Nation Builders (Gen Ed 1017)
Students will encounter the ethical dilemmas of medical practice throughout their lives, whether with their own health, or with the health of their families and friends. This course will equip them with the tools of moral philosophy so that they can recognize, critique, and craft arguments grounded in appeals to utilitarianism, deontology, or rights.... Read more about Medical Ethics and History (Gen Ed 1116)
How does intellectual change happen and how do diverse communities respond to new ideas such as evolution, paying attention to different historical forces in social, religious, scientific, and cultural context?
Survival of the fittest, nature red in tooth and claw, trees of life, the ascent of mankind, the biological origin of humankind…. Western culture is loaded with evolutionary metaphors and images.... Read more about Rethinking the Darwinian Revolution (Gen Ed 1180)
