Possible Medical Humanities (MLS) Courses Spring 2021
Anthropology GU4052 section 001 Post/Socialist Bodies
Instructor: Svetlana Borodina (sb4468)
This upper-level online seminar examines the cultures and politics of the body in socialist and postsocialist countries. As we will engage with embodied aspects of living under post/socialism, we will treat bodies as sites of political contestation, as well as makers and breakers of cultural worlds. Drawing on anthropological and historical scholarship, we will explore several thematic clusters: corporeal anchors of post/socialist political regimes and ideological formations, variability and commonality of bodily regimes across different post/socialist contexts, and the effects of the creation and dissolution of the Soviet Union on the viability, mortality, and vibrancy of life. We will develop an understanding of post/socialism as a political reality populated by a wide diversity of bodies: laboring and idle, cared and uncared for, gendered and racialized, craving and satiated, disabled and enhanced, among others. This course offers an account on post/socialist idiosyncrasies of the medicalization, politicization, economization, and moralization of the body.
Anthropology GU4116 Sympathy and the Conduct of Care
Instructor: Catherine Fennell
Notes: Priority for grad students w-in Anth. Others need approval
This seminar examines the distribution and obligations of care under late liberalism. We work from classical approaches to human sentiment (e.g. Hume, Adam Smith) to explore the relationship of forms of care {management, empathy) to different modes of statecraft. In particular we examine links between imperial colonialism and liberal democracy in terms of different techniques of administering social difference (e.g. race, multiculturalism, class, population, …). We critically investigate the role of the discipline of anthropology within this rubric and read several ethnographies that dwell on the interrelation of care and vulnerability. Across the course, we scrutinize what types of subjects care, for whom, and to what effect.
Anthropology GU4148 HUMAN SKELETAL BIOLOGY II
Notes: Students must get the instructors permission. Required.
Instructor: Ralph L Holloway
Recommended for archaeology and physical anthropology students, pre-meds, and biology majors interested in the human skeletal system. Intensive study of human skeletal materials using anatomical and anthropological landmarks to assess sex, age, and ethnicity of bones. Other primate skeletal materials and fossil casts used for comparative study.
Anthropology UN3665 section 001 The Politics of Care
Notes: NON-MAJORS Need Permission From Instructor
Instructor: Gina A Jae
What are the consequences of entrenched inequalities in the context of care? How might we (re)imagine associated practices as political projects? Wherein lie the origins of utopic and dystopic visions of daily survival? How might we track associated promises and failures as they travel across social hierarchies, nationalities, and geographies of care? And what do we mean when we speak of “care”? These questions define the scaffolding for this course. Our primary goals throughout this semester are threefold. First, we begin by interrogating the meaning of “care” and its potential relevance as a political project in medical and other domains. Second, we will track care’s associated meanings and consequences across a range of contents, including urban and rural America, an Amazonia borderland, South Africa, France, and Mexico. Third, we will address temporal dimensions of care, as envisioned and experienced in the here-and-now, historically, and in a futuristic world of science fiction. Finally, and most importantly, we will remain alert to the relevance of domains of difference relevant to care, most notably race, gender, class, and species. Upper level seminar; 4 points
Anthropology BC3223 Gender Archaeology
Instructor: Camilla Sturm
Notes: Priority to Anthropology Majors
This seminar critically reexamines the ancient world from the perspective of gender archaeology. Though the seedlings of gender archaeology were first sown by of feminist archaeologists during the 70’s and 80’s, this approach involves far more than simply ‘womanizing’ androcentric narratives of past. Rather, gender archaeology criticizes interpretations of the past that transplant contemporary social roles onto the archaeological past, casting the divisions and inequalities of today as both timeless and natural. This class challenges the idea of a singular past, instead championing a turn towards multiple, rich, messy, intersectional pasts. The ‘x’ in ‘archaeolxgy’ is an explicit signal of our focus on this diversity of pasts and a call for a more inclusive field of practice today.
Middle East UN2000 ETHNICITY, RACE, IDENTITY IN THE PRE-MOD
Instructor: Nathanael P Shelley
This seminar investigates the concepts of ethnicity, race, and identity, in both theory and practice, through a comparative survey of several case studies from the Pre-Modern history of the Middle East. The course focuses on symbols of identity and difference, interpreting them through a variety of analytical tools, and evaluating the utility of each as part of an ongoing exploration of the subject. The survey considers theories of ethnicity and race, as well as their critics, and includes cases from the Ancient World (c. 1000 BCE) through the Old Regime (c. 1800 CE). Students in this course will gain a familiarity with major theories of social difference and alterity, and utilize them to interpret and analyze controversial debates about social politics and identity from the history of the Middle East, including ancient ethnicity, historical racism, Arab identity, pluralism in the Islamic Empire, and slavery, among others. In addition, students will spend much of the semester developing a specialized case study of their own on a historical community of interest. All of the case studies will be presented in a showcase at the end of the semester. All assigned readings for the course will be in English. Primary sources will be provided in translation. The course meets once a week and sessions are two hours long
Biology UN1130 GENES AND DEVELOPMENT
Notes: If waitlisted, email instructor why you wish to take course.
Instructor: Tulle Hazelrigg
Prerequisites: one year of high school or college biology. This course covers selected topics in genetics and developmental biology, with special emphasis on issues that are relevant to contemporary society. Lectures and readings will cover the basic principles of genetics, how genes are expressed and regulated, the role of genes in normal development, and how alterations in genes lead to abnormal development and disease. We will also examine how genes can be manipulated in the laboratory, and look at the contributions of these manipulations to basic science and medicine, as well as some practical applications of these technologies. Interspersed student-run workshops will allow students to research and discuss the ethical and societal impacts of specific topics (e.g. in vitro fertilization, uses and misuses of genetic information, genetically modified organisms, steroid use, and cloning). SCE and TC students may register for this course, but they must first obtain the written permission of the instructor, by filling out a paper Registration Adjustment Form (Add/Drop form). The form can be downloaded at the URL below, but must be signed by the instructor and returned to the office of the registrar. http://registrar.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/content/reg-adjustment.pdf
Biology BC3380 APPLIED ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
Notes: Pre-req: BIOL BC1500, BC1501, BC1502, & BC1503 or equiv.
Instructor: Hilary Callahan
Biology GU4080 THE ANCIENT AND MODERN RNA WORLDS
Instructor: Laura Landweber
Prerequisites: BIOC UN3512 RNA has recently taken center stage with the discovery that RNA molecules sculpt the landscape and information contained within our genomes. Furthermore, some ancient RNA molecules combine the roles of both genotype and phenotype into a single molecule. These multi-tasking RNAs offering a possible solution to the paradox of which came first: DNA or proteins. This seminar explores the link between modern RNA, metabolism, and insights into a prebiotic RNA world that existed some 3.8 billion years ago. Topics include the origin of life, replication, and the origin of the genetic code; conventional, new, and bizarre forms of RNA processing; and structure, function and evolution of key RNA molecules, including the ribosome. The format will be weekly seminar discussions with presentations. Readings will be taken from the primary literature, emphasizing seminal and recent literature. Requirements will be student presentations, class participation, and a final paper.
Comparative Literature & Society GU4323 Utopia and the Pandemic
Instructor: Rishi K Goyal
The idea of utopia, from its earliest pre-modern examples, involves the question of proper governance, the ideal relations between a state and its peoples, and the responsibilities owed between individuals. In all of its forms, Utopias create borders and insist on degrees of isolation. In this class, we explore the pressures that plagues and other catastrophes place on the ideals of utopia, especially in terms of how social relations are imagined. We will study the relationship between utopia and dystopia; how science fiction and reality converge; and how we might harmonize individual and collective interests. The problem of isolation and utopia pierces the very heart of the novel as a genre. Literary pleasure, both within and outside of the text, involving both the work of the reader and writer, is often figured in terms of isolation. The rise of the novel as a genre tracks with the rise of peaceful, solitary time. But against this pleasure in isolation, we can see the frustrations and loneliness highlighted by the contested contemporary public health interventions of social distancing and lockdown. In thinking about utopia, we will examine the role that isolation plays in its production. In a review of a novel by Margaret Atwood, Frederic Jameson suggested that, “the post catastrophe situation in reality constitutes the preparation for the emergence of Utopia itself.” This antagonism will drive our study of isolation, individuation and collective futures. The first half of the class will focus on classical depictions of utopia, dystopia and catastrophe while the second half will look at contemporary imaginings. We will read novels by Daniel Defoe, Mary Shelley, Octavia Butler, and Ling Ma among others, alongside classic social contract theory, political philosophy and public health history to explore the intersections of biopolitics and the imagination. Throughout we will seek to imagine the possibility of emerging more together out of catastrophe.
Comparative Literature & Society GU4325 Abolition Medicine: Medical Racisms and
Instructor: Sayantani T Dasgupta
In 1935, WEB Dubois wrote about abolition democracy: an idea based not only on breaking down unjust systems, but on building up new, antiracist social structures. Scholar activists like Angela Davis, Ruth Gilmore and Mariame Kaba have long contended that the abolition of slavery was but one first step in ongoing abolitionist practices dismantling racialized systems of policing, surveillance and incarceration. The possibilities of prison and police abolition have recently come into the mainstream national consciousness during the 2020 resurgence of nationwide Black Lives Matters (BLM) protests. As we collectively imagine what nonpunitive and supportive community reinvestment in employment, education, childcare, mental health, and housing might look like, medicine must be a part of these conversations. Indeed, if racist violence is a public health emergency, and we are trying to bring forth a “public health approach to public safety” – what are medicine’s responsibilities to these social and institutional reinventions? Medicine has a long and fraught history of racial violence. It was, after all, medicine and pseudoscientific inquiry that helped establish what we know as the racial categorizations of today: ways of separating human beings based on things like skin color and hair texture that were used (and often continue to be used) to justify the enslavement, exclusion, or genocide of one group of people by another. Additionally, the history of the professionalization of U.S. medicine, through the formation of medical schools and professional organizations as well as and the certification of trained physicians, is a history of exclusion, with a solidification of the identity of “physician” around upper middle class white masculinity. Indeed, the 1910 Flexner Report, whose aim was to make consistent training across the country’s medical schools, was explicit in its racism. From practices of eugenic sterilization, to histories of experimentation upon bodies of color, medicine is unfortunately built upon racist, sexist and able-ist practices. This course is built on the premise that a socially just practice of medicine is a bioethical imperative. Such a practice cannot be achieved, however, without examining medicine’s histories of racism, as well as learning from and building upon histories of anti-racist health practice. The first half of the semester will be dedicated to learning about histories of medical racism: from eugenics and racist experimentation to public health
Comparative Literature & Society GU4732 Matters of Life/Death
Instructor: Diane Rubenstein
The imbricated crises of a global pandemic and the legacies of structural anti-Black racism necessitate reflection, at once political and philosophic. One might argue that they reframe twentieth century French traditions of thought as a sustained critical reflection on le vivant (life); the way society classifies and treats its dead, its “living dead” or excluded members; the political economy of death and life management; death sentences (both legal and literary.) In the twenty first century, Black feminist thought addresses the ecological catastrophe of the pandemic and the resultant unequal distribution of life and death, pressuring what is at stake under the philosopheme of the “human.” This seminar is structured as a conversation between representative thinkers from each “tradition.” Yet neither tradition has discrete borders; twenty first century thinkers inherit from their French predecessors even as they contest and bring to light fraught presuppositions. We might also say, with Jacques Derrida, that the twentieth century French thinkers -Bergson, Canguilhem, Deleuze, Foucault- inherit from the future- from Hortense Spillers, Alexander Weheliye, Souleymane Bachir Diagne, Octavia Butler, Fred Moten. How might this urgent reframing and conversation enable a critical resistance?
Comparative Literature & Society GU4800 Advanced Topics in Medical Humanities
Notes: Add to waitlist, apply rea15col… RE:pandemic course
Instructor: Rachel Adams
It is impossible to study Medical/Health Humanities now without emphasizing the COVID-19 pandemic and the social disparities it casts into relief. This class studies how the arts can provide access to voices and perspectives on illness and health disparities that might be overlooked in news coverage, historical and sociological research on the current pandemic. This class begins by introducing the field of Medical/Health Humanities and the critical questions and tools it provides. We will use these perspectives to study narrative and visual representations in different media that address the intersections of social inequity, biomedical pandemic, and aesthetic forms. Our study of representations will be divided into four parts. 1.The last great global pandemic. Representations of AIDS epidemic highlight the impact of social stigma on public health and medical care, as well as the use of art as an agent of activism and change. We will consider such works as Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, Charles Burns’s Black Hole, short stories, and the art produced within and in response to the ACT-UP movement. 2.Race and medical inequity. We study the racialization of genetic science, and its connection new forms of white supremacy and a history of racialized health disparities. Our readings include Rebecca Skloot’s Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the poetry of Maya Angelou and Paul Lawrence Dunbar, and the speculative fiction of N.K. Jemison. 3.Fictional representations of pandemic that illuminate real life disparities in health and access to medical care will set the stage for our study of the current pandemic. We will read Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven and Colson Whitehead’s zombie novel, Zone One. 4.Literary representations of COVID, as represented by the short stories in The Decameron Project, as well as short film and visual arts. Seminar style classes will emphasize student interests and direction. They will be heavily discussion-based with a combination of full class and smaller breakout formats. Assignments include an in-class presentation and short paper on one week’s materials; a comparative narrative analysis, and an imaginative final project with a critical introduction.
Comparative Literature and Society & PSCC GU4201 BASIC CONCEPTS-POST-FREUD THGT
Instructor: Karen Seeley
This course examines psychoanalytic movements that are viewed either as post-Freudian in theory or as emerging after Freuds time. The course begins by considering the ways Freuds cultural and historical surround, as well as the wartime diaspora of the European psychoanalytic community, shaped Freudian and post-Freudian thought. It then focuses on significant schools and theories of psychoanalysis that were developed from the mid 20th century to the present. Through readings of key texts and selected case studies, it explores theorists challenges to classical thought and technique, and their reconfigurations, modernizations, and total rejections of central Freudian ideas. The course concludes by looking at contemporary theorists moves to integrate notions of culture, concepts of trauma, and findings from neuroscience and attachment research into the psychoanalytic frame.
Comparative Literature and Society & PSCC GU4510 Jacques Lacan: An introduction to his two
Instructor: Marcus Coelen
Jacques Lacan (1901 – 1981) was without any doubt the most influential psychoanalyst since Sigmund Freud. A meticulous yet inventive reader of the founder of psychoanalysis, he opened himself up to a panoply of sciences, philosophies, and other discourses as well as to political events and social phenomena in order to attune psychoanalysis not only to its own internal exigencies but also to those that he considered to be the ones of his time. We will read Lacan according to this double exigency: to formalize anew its own logic, methodology, and construction of objects, which proceed “sui generis” as Freud said; and to put them in friction with some of the phenomena and structural determinants of what seems to impose itself on us today: the erosion of discourse as social bond in a time of an ever increasing number of displaced people; a radical change of the status of speech and the “letter”—as well as literature—in the hyper-digitalized world; the renewed enigma of sex and bodily enjoyment in the context of a tele-techno-medical science becoming increasingly autonomous; the status of “nature” as that what might survive only in being destroyed. In short: What concepts are needed to think the “unconscious” today? The course will proposed as an introduction to Lacan for which no previous acquaintance with his work is required. It will cover texts and seminars from all the periods of his work with a focus on the those from the 1970s.
Comparative Literature: English GU4741 section 001 CULTURAL APPROPRIATION AND WORLD LITERATURE
Instructor: Joseph R Slaughter
What does it mean to treat culture, literature, and identity as forms of property? This course will look at the current debates around cultural appropriation in relation to the expanding field of world literature. In many ways, the two discourses seem at odds: the ethno-proprietary claims that underpin most arguments against cultural appropriation seem to conflict with the more cosmopolitan pretenses of world literature. Nonetheless, both discourses rely on some basic premises that treat culture and cultural productions as forms of property and expressions of identity (itself often treated as a form of property). “Appropriation” is a particularly rich lens for looking at processes and conceptions of worlding and globalization, because some version of the idea is central to historical theories of labor, economic production, land claims, colonialism, authorship, literary translation, and language acquisition. This is not a course in “world literature” as such; we will examine a half dozen case studies of literary/cultural texts that have been chosen for the ways in which they open up different aspects of the problematics of reducing culture to an econometric logic of property relations in the world today.
Comparative Literature: French GU4521 The Politics of Memory. Remembrance, Eth
Instructor: Emmanuel Kattan
This seminar will explore the multidimensional interplay between collective memory, politics, and history in France since 1945. We will examine the process of memorializing key historical events and periods – the Vichy regime, the Algerian War, the slave trade – and the critical role they played in shaping and dividing French collective identity. This exploration will focus on multiple forms of narratives – official history, victims’ accounts, literary fiction – and will examine the tensions and contradictions that oppose them. The seminar will discuss the political uses of memory, the influence of commemorations on French collective identity, and the role played by contested monuments, statues and other “lieux de mémoire” (“sites of memory”). We will ask how these claims on historical consciousness play out in the legal space through an exploration of French “memorial laws”, which criminalize genocide denial and recognize slave trade as a crime against humanity. These reflections will pave the way to retracing the genesis of the “devoir de mémoire” (“duty to remember”), a notion that attempts to confer an ethical dimension to collective memory. The seminar will examine the multiple uses of the French injunction to remember – as a response to narratives of denial, as an act of justice towards the victims, and as an antidote to the recurrence of mass crimes and persecutions. We will examine how amnesty is used to reconcile conflicting collective memories and will evaluate the claim that the transmission
Comparative Literature: Russian UN3312 Thinking Bodies: Literature, Film, Performance
Instructor: Milica Ilicic
This course surveys a variety of ways in which embodiment participates in containing, attaining, producing, and transmitting human knowledge. Perspectives on embodiment represented in this course are drawn from feminist scholarship, affect studies, religion, psychoanalysis, and performance studies, and include a selection of texts that address the current conversations around illness, contagion, and race. Theoretical discussions are enriched by insights from a diverse selection of genres and cultural traditions, ranging from the classics of American, German, and Russian literature, to the less well-known cinematic and performative traditions of former Yugoslavia, Poland, and Japan. Through close readings, seminar discussions, collaborative work, written assignments, and individual projects tailored to their academic strengths and interests, students analyze and synthesize different modes of thinking about, portraying, and experiencing their own body and the bodies of others. Ultimately, they are asked to reflect on the role of embodiment in their own personal, intellectual, and political identities.
Comparative Literature: Russian GR6101 section 001 Between History and Story: (Post) Memori
Instructor: Maria Stepanova
One can easily call current times an age of memory and postmemory. The past, its relics and losses, its complicated ways of changing the present are evolving into a new cult – something that strongly defines our perception of reality. The receding border between the fiction and non-fiction writing, between the novel and autofiction, between writing and contemporary art once more turns literature into a realm of ongoing challenge. The documentary history of mankind (and the small-scale, intimate memories of its ordinary representatives) was never so important and influential. Non-fiction writing, from W.G. Sebald to Svetlana Alexievich, is becoming the main influence, echoed in dozens of other books, good and bad, but always facing the past as a main destination – making way into the lost world of previous generations. Could we apply the global trend to the field of contemporary Russian-language literature? How does post-memorial sensibility work in the frame of post-Soviet space with its troubled history and a sequence of traumas, visible and suppressed? The obsession with the past, the growing interest in personal accounts, the multiplicity of voices and stories – how does all that manifest itself in current literary context, from prose to non-fiction and poetry?
Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology UN3010 Molecular Ecology and Evolution
Instructor: Lucas Rocha Moreira
Molecular ecology is an exciting young field that takes advantage of the quick development of molecular techniques (especially nucleic acid sequencing), as well as advances in theoretical and statistical modelling, to address questions in ecology and evolutionary biology. This course will introduce key concepts and theory underlying molecular ecology and provide an overview of how molecular tools can be used to investigate research questions related to population genetics, phylogeography, behavioral ecology, conservation genetics, forensics, resource management, adaptation, and speciation.
Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology UN3220 THE EVOL OF HUM GROWTH & DEVPT
Instructor: Jessica M Manser
Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology GU4321 HUM NATURE:DNA, RACE & IDENTITY
Instructors: Marya Pollack and Robert E Pollack
The course focuses on human identity, beginning with the individual and progressing to communal and global viewpoints using a framework of perspectives from biology, genetics, medicine, psychiatry, religion and the law.
Education BC3042 GENDER, SEXUALITY, AND SCHOOL
Instructor: Rachel Throop
Broadly, this course explores the relationship between gender, sexuality, and schooling across national contexts. We begin by considering theoretical perspectives, exploring the ways in which gender and sexuality have been studied and understood in the interdisciplinary field of education. Next, we consider the ways in which the subjective experience of gender and sexuality in schools is often overlooked or inadequately theorized. Exploring the ways that race, class, citizenship, religion and other categories of identity intersect with gender and sexuality, we give primacy to the contention that subjectivity is historically complex, and does not adhere to the analytically distinct identity categories we might try to impose on it.
English UN3026 RENAISSANCE ENGLAND AND THE POETRY OF EXPERIMENT
Instructor: Kevin J Windhauser
In this seminar, we will study English Renaissance poetry in light of the period’s obsession with the experimental. Prior to the English Renaissance, “experiment” was simply a synonym for “experience.” But in the mid-sixteenth century, the term begins a curious shift, taking on a new, far different meaning: an “experiment” becomes an active process, a way of creating new knowledge not by passively observing the world but by acting on it and studying the results. While best known today for its lasting influence on the study of science, this shift produced a culture of experimentation that pervaded England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, provoking social and cultural experiments that tested and challenged political structures, religious practices and identities, and accepted knowledge about the natural world and humanity’s place in it. At the same time, the culture of experiment extended into literature: Renaissance poets experimented, with dizzying frequency, with new forms, genres, techniques, and subjects to produce novel understandings about what a poem was and what sorts of things it could do; poetic experiments, in other words, became a way of responding to and influencing social and cultural experiments. Poets, like their scientific counterparts, did not limit themselves to observing and describing the world around them––they in turn experimented on it through their written work, testing new forms and new techniques of writing as methods for describing this new culture of experiment.
English BC3170 LITERATURE & SCIENCE 1600-1800
Instructor: Ross T Hamilton
The “Scientific Revolution” began in England in the early seventeenth century, with the experiments of John Dee and the reforming projects of Francis Bacon, to culminate in Isaac Newton’s discovery of the natural laws of motion. This was also a period of great literary innovation, from Shakespeare’s plays and the metaphysical poetry of Marvell and Donne, to the new genre of the novel. This course will explore both the scientific and literary “revolutions” – indeed we will attempt to put them in a kind of conversation with one another, as poets and scientists puzzled over the nature of spirit, body, and the world.
Ethnicity and Race, Center for Study of UN3304 Race and Aesthetics in Cinema
Instructor: Viola Lasmana
This course examines the intersection of race and aesthetics in cinema. Race, here, is used intersectionally to include not only race and ethnicity, but also all of the affiliated lines of contact, including national identity, gender, and sexuality. While the study of race is typically associated with political questions and concerns, and aesthetics are frequently linked with artistic form, this course seeks to locate the intersection of those categories in cinema and to complicate the ways in which the terms operate in relation to one another. Films and readings are drawn from a diverse set of global cultures, artists, and authors, and span a broad historical horizon. Our discussions will include questions including (but not limited to): do certain forms of racial representation generate unique aesthetic form? For instance, can we trace a specific kind of aesthetics in the works produced by the L.A. Rebellion filmmakers? How do certain film movements align with and inspire one another, such as those between Black and Asian/Asian American filmmakers? How does analyzing a film’s formal elements further our understandings of the thematic, political, cultural, and social forces that underpin the film? Together, we will think through these issues, informed by a range of theoretical frameworks including critical race theory, postcolonial theory, feminist theory, and queer theory.
Ethnicity and Race, Center for Study of UN3905 ASIAN AMERICAN & PSYCH OF RACE
Instructor: Shinhee Han
This seminar provides an introduction to mental health issues for Asian Americans. In particular, it focuses on the psychology of Asian Americans as racial/ethnic minorities in the United States by exploring a number of key concepts: immigration, racialization, prejudice, family, identity, pathology, and loss. We will examine the development of identity in relation to self, family, college, and society. Quantitative investigation, qualitative research, psychology theories of multiculturalism, and Asian American literature will also be integrated into the course.
Ethnicity and Race, Center for Study of GU4482 INDIGENOUS PEOPLES:MOVEMNT/RTS
Instructor: Elsa Stamatopoulou
Indigenous Peoples, numbering more that 370 million in some 90 countries and about 5000 groups and representing a great part of the world’s human diversity and cultural heritage, continue to raise major controversies and to face threats to their physical and cultural existence. The main task of this course is to explore the complex historic circumstances and political actions that gave rise to the international Indigenous movement through the human rights agenda and thus also produced a global Indigenous identity on all continents, two intertwined and deeply significant phenomena over the past fifty years. We will analyze the achievements, challenges and potential of the dynamic interface between the Indigenous Peoples’ movement-one of the strongest social movements of our times- and the international community, especially the United Nations system. Centered on the themes laid out in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007), the course will examine how Indigenous Peoples have been contesting and reshaping norms, institutions and global debates in the past 50 years, re-shaping and gradually decolonizing international institutions and how they have contributed to some of the most important contemporary debates, including human rights, development, law, and specifically the concepts of self-determination, governance, group rights, inter-culturality and pluriculturality, gender, land, territories and natural resources, cultural rights, intellectual property, health, education, the environment and climate justice. The syllabus will draw on a variety of academic literature, case studies and documentation of Indigenous organizations, the UN and other intergovernmental organizations as well as States from different parts of the world. Students will also have the opportunity to meet with Indigenous leaders and representatives of international organizations and States and will be encouraged to attend the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. Select short films will be shown and discussed in class.
French BC3103 WOMEN, SEX & POWER IN 17TH-CENTURY FRANC
Instructor: Severine C Martin
When thinking of 17th Century France, we tend to focus on the all-encompassing figure of Louis XIV, Roi Soleil. However, the 17th Century was also the century of women: women writers, women philanthropists, and women intellectuals who led some of the most influential literary salons of their time. The presence and agency of women during that period had a major influence on the representation of women in literature. Between heroic idealizations and caricatural portrayals, this course will attempt to discern between these two extremes to form an image of the real contribution of women to the literature of this period.
General Studies UN0007 NARRATIVE MEDICINE WORKSHOP
History BC2402
Science and Society: From Galileo to Climate Change
Instructor: Mark C Carnes
This course explores the intersection of scientific ideas and society in three historical contexts: the trial of Galileo by the Roman Inquisition in early 17th-century Europe, which examined the validity and implications of Galileo’s ideas on motion physics and astronomy; 2) the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, which sought an international accord to limit carbon emissions; and 3) the problem of obesity, diet, and cholesterol as debated by the CDC, USDA, and the U.S. Congress during the 1990s. Because this course will be offered in an online format, it uses multiple active-learning strategies to promote student interaction and engagement.
History UN3437 CORP BEHAVIOR & PUBLIC HEALTH
Notes: INSTRUCTOR PERMISSION REQUIRED. EMAIL INSTRUCTOR.
Instructor: David Rosner
In the decades since the publication of Silent Spring and the rise of the environmental movement, public awareness of the impact of industrial products on human health has grown enormously. There is growing concern over BPA, lead, PCBs, asbestos, and synthetic materials that make up the world around us. This course will focus on environmental history, industrial and labor history as well as on how twentieth century consumer culture shapes popular and professional understanding of disease. Throughout the term the class will trace the historical transformation of the origins of disease through primary sources such as documents gathered in lawsuits, and medical and public health literature. Students will be asked to evaluate historical debates about the causes of modern epidemics of cancer, heart disease, lead poisoning, asbestos-related illnesses and other chronic conditions. They will also consider where responsibility for these new concerns lies, particularly as they have emerged in law suits. Together, we will explore the rise of modern environmental movement in the last 75 years.
History BC3505 Pandemic Tales: Curated Conversations with Migrant Workers
Notes: APPLICATION REQUIRED bit.ly/Nadasen2021
Instructor: Premilla Nadasen
Pandemic Tales: Curated Conversations with Migrant Workers will work collaboratively with a New York City-based organization, Damayan. The course will chronicle the pandemic’s disproportionate impact on economically vulnerable Black and Brown communities. We will read about the history of Filipino migrant workers and be trained in the interview process. Our intention is to uplift the stories of undocumented migrant workers’ battles around housing and food insecurity and the collective efforts to provide support and care. Students will work with Damayan leaders in preparation for speaking to members who will share their stories of pain, hardship and resilience during the pandemic. From these stories we will work with Damayan to curate conversations about the impact of the pandemic on Filipino migrants and produce a webpage or podcast for Damayan’s use. This is a Barnard Engages course, supported by the Mellon Foundation, with the intention of fostering long-term relationships between Barnard college faculty and students and New York City-based community organizations addressing issues of poverty, immigration or labor rights. We will partner with Damayan Migrant Workers Association, an organization I have worked with for many years. A worker-run and directed organization, Damayan has been at the forefront of the effort to rescue and advocate on behalf of Filipino migrant workers. They were also involved in providing support for needy families when the pandemic hit. Our class project will be designed in collaboration with Damayan to assist them in their work. They have asked us to uplift the voices of the people severely impacted by the pandemic by curating conversations. There will be a joint public launch of our final product, which could be a webpage or a podcast. Because this is a community-directed project, students should be prepared for changes to the syllabus and end product. Much of the work for this course will be collaborative. Students will be working in teams and I will be working alongside students to produce the final product. In addition to the scheduled class times, there will be other scheduled meetings and/or workshops.
History GU4229 POLITICS & SEXUALITY IN THE COLD WAR
The course presents new approaches for revisiting the study of this key period, moving away from more conventional angles to focus on global dynamics by looking at Latin America through the lens of sexuality and family. From this perspective, it will map out different problems and it will prompt a stimulating debate, allowing for discussions on generational as well as gender clashes, everyday life, and affective and emotional bonds, but also on the political strategies of the forces in conflict, public policies and cultural interventions. Discussions will underline interpretative and methodological dilemmas in relation with the historical reconstruction. Particularly, it will consider the relation between political and socio-cultural processes and the connection between the “longue durée” and contingency of the historical events. The course will allow students to explore these problems by themselves and promote their active participation, requesting different type of production from them such as oral intervention, an essay, etc. To sum up, this course offers the opportunity to rethink the Cold War, which still stir sensitivities and which is part of the political agenda even today, in a deeper and more complex way.
History GU4935 Science and Art in Early Modern Europe
Instructor: Ardeta Gjikola
This course will investigate the relations between science and art in early modern Europe, bringing together scholarly works by historians of science and art historians as well as original sources from the period. We tend to think today of science and art as polarized cultural domains, but in the early modern period the very definitions of the terms, as well as a range of other factors, created conditions for a much different configuration between the two. Organized chronologically, this course will focus on a range of representative moments in that developing configuration, from ca. 1500 to 1800. Topics include the nature of the spaces where artworks and natural specimens met, the circulation of tools, materials and techniques between the laboratory and the artist workshop, common norms and practices of representation, and shared aspirations to objective knowledge. The course is designed as a discussion seminar and is open to undergraduate and graduate students. No prior knowledge of the subject is required, but intense engagement with the material is expected.
History: East Asian GU4888 WOMEN & GENDER IN KOREAN HIST
Instructor: Jungwon Kim
While the rise of women’s history and feminist theory in the 1960s and 1970s fostered more general reevaluations of social and cultural history in the West, such progressions have been far more modest in Korean history. To introduce one of the larger challenges in current Korean historiography, this course explores the experiences, consciousness and representations of women Korea at home and abroad from premodern times to the present. Historical studies of women and gender in Korea will be analyzed in conjunction with theories of Western women’s history to encourage new methods of rethinking patriarchy within the Korean context. By tracing the lives of women from various socio-cultural aspects and examining the multiple interactions between the state, local community, family and individual, women’s places in the family and in society, their relationships with one another and men, and the evolution of ideas about gender and sexuality throughout Korea’s complicated past will be reexamined through concrete topics with historical specificity and as many primary sources as possible. With understanding dynamics of women’s lives in Korean society, this class will build an important bridge to understand the construction of New Women in early twentieth-century Korea, when women from all walks of life had to accommodate their old-style predecessors and transform themselves to new women, as well as the lives of contemporary Korean women. This will be very much a reading-and-discussion course. Lectures will review the readings in historical perspective and supplement them. The period to be studied ranges from the pre-modern time up to the turn of twentieth century, with special attention to the early modern period.
History: Public Health UN2950 SOCIAL HIST OF AMER PUB HEALTH
Notes: Discussion HSPB UN2951 required
Instructor: James K Colgrove
The purpose of this course is to provide students with an historical understanding of the role public health has played in American history. The underlying assumptions are that disease, and the ways we define disease, are simultaneously reflections of social and cultural values, as well as important factors in shaping those values. Also, it is maintained that the environments that we build determine the ways we live and die. The dread infectious and acute diseases in the nineteenth century, the chronic, degenerative conditions of the twentieth and the new, vaguely understood conditions rooted in a changing chemical and human-made environment are emblematic of the societies we created. Among the questions that will be addressed are: How does the health status of Americans reflect and shape our history? How do ideas about health reflect broader attitudes and values in American history and culture? How does the American experience with pain, disability, and disease affect our actions and lives? What are the responsibilities of the state and of the individual in preserving health? How have American institutions–from hospitals to unions to insurance companies–been shaped by changing longevity, experience with disability and death?
Human Rights BC3851 Human Rights & Public Health: Advanced S
Instructor: Alice W Brown
As we face the triple threats of inequalities, climate change, and a pandemic, the dignity and well-being of many people are under attack or at imminent risk. Exploring several specific issues through the lens of human rights principles and public health standards will provide students with a strong analytic framework for understanding the challenges of and potential for systemic change to address these threats. Specifically, we will be looking at disparate health impacts and how to understand what drives the disparities; intellectual property laws and how they apply during a global crisis; the double-edged sword of digital technology particularly as it applies to health surveillance; the strengths and weaknesses of a biomedical model dominating the public health discourse; and, the politization of health policy. Specifically, we will explore systems of oppression that drive inequalities and lead to disparate health outcomes; the lack of a transnational accountability framework to address both climate change and the rights of those most impacted by it; and how a corporate-driven intellectual property regime has put access to essential medicines, including vaccines, beyond the reach of people living in poverty. Finally, looking at reports ripped from the headlines, we will look at how the COVID-19 pandemic has thrown open the door to widespread digital surveillance with few safeguards to protect privacy rights or to address the biases in many of the algorithms driving this technology.
Human Rights GU4360 Menstruation, Gender, and Rights: Interd
Notes: JOIN SSOL WAITLIST. PRTY HRSMA, 3&4YR CC/GS HUMR STUDS
Instructor: Inga T Winkler
The course will explore the contemporary discourse around menstruation in global and local contexts. The recent shift in public discourse around menstruation is crucial because efforts to support menstruators across the lifespan not only confer health benefits but are also part of an enduring project of pursuing gender equality and women’s rights. Centering attention on menstrual health resists pernicious social control of women’s bodies and recognizes the body as foundational, urgent and politically relevant. This is why menstruation matters: it unites the personal and the political, the intimate and the public, the physiological and the socio-cultural. The course examines gender justice and women’s rights through the lens of menstruation, discussing questions of gender stereotyping, transnational feminism, and gender identity. Students will gain an understanding of the relevance of menstruation across different spheres of life combining bio-medical and socio-cultural factors. We will ask: What is the relationship between menstruation, human rights and gender equality? What does it mean to approach menstrual health research from an interdisciplinary perspective? — Over the course of the semester, we will examine different spheres of life, including health, education, equality in the work place, freedom of religion, and cultural rights. In doing so, the course will pay particular attention to the intersection of gender and other markers of inequalities, including disability, socio-economic status, age, caste, and gender identity. The course development is supported by the Provost’s Interdisciplinary Teaching Award
Middle East UN3048 Pandemics: A Global History
Instructor: Kavita Sivaramakrishnan
With an interdisciplinary perspective, this course seeks to expand the understanding of past pandemic crises and recent, lived pandemics such as COVID-19. COVID-19 has brought up urgent questions about how we can understand and historicize pandemics and trace the changing relationship between disease and its vectors, humans and their environments. This course seeks to expand the understanding of past and recent pandemics through a historical lens that traces the deep seated racial and class disparities, social and cultural stigma, and political responses and control that they were expressed and deployed during these historical crises. It seeks to understand and analyze pandemics as representing complex, disruptive and devastating crises that effect profound transformations in ideas, social and economic relations and challenge interdependent networks and cultures. Pandemics are balanced in a global-local flux between dramaturgic, proliferating, contagious outbreaks; and endemic, chronic infections that have prolonged periods of latency before again remerging through new transmissions. They also serve as a crucial lens to analyze a range of historical connections, ensions and movements ranging from colonialism and the politics of borders, global capitalism and labor, migration and mobility, decolonization and development, and neoliberalism and global health politics.
Middle East GU4239 Medicine and Disease in the Pre-Modern I
Instructor: Elaine Van Dalen
Throughout the classical and post-classical periods, medical actors from different social and intellectual backgrounds aimed to make sense of the human body and disease, and worked to provide treatments and preserve health. In this class we will consider who these actors were, examining the categories of learned physicians versus practitioners and studying the role women played in health care. We will study practices of medical education and evaluate regulatory systems that determined access to the medical profession. We will also consider how physicians believed they could obtain knowledge about medical phenomena, and how they theorized human pathology, physiology, and epidemics. We will ask to what extent the theoretical, written treatises that survive today are representative of everyday medical practice in pre-modern West Asia. We inspect additional archeological evidence such as talismans and magic bowls in order to study popular and religious medical approaches. We will do this while tracing the development of the Greco-Arabic medical tradition alongside evolving Islamic theological views and Prophetic medicine, covering a period of roughly five centuries from the early ʿAbbasid period to the Black Death in the 14th century.
Political Science BC3512 Pandemics and Politics
Notes: App by 11/2; http://polisci.barnard.edu/colloquia
Instructor: Xiaobo Lu
The COVID-19 crisis offers a rare and unique opportunity to social science students to study how governments respond and how people behave during the pandemic.In this class, we focus on the government responses to the COVID pandemic (along with some other major pandemics in history) and investigate the questions of why governments around the globe did what they did in response to the pandemic, and how some social, political, and economic factors affected the kind of responses and the effectiveness of such responses. In analyzing different factors, we will survey and learn from existing relevant theoretical frameworks in social sciences particularly political science. we will cover a wide range of topics that are also major topics in political science such as federalism, authoritarianism, leadership, and trust in government. By examining this important contemporary global crisis from political science perspectives, students can learn about broader theories in social sciences in general and political science in particular. Another goal of this course is for students to learn how to make social science inquiry and analysis with comparative methods. Through the readings, class discussions, research, and writing of a research paper, students will be exposed to various ways to conduct research and making analysis which will be realized in a research paper.
Political Science BC3816 COVID-19 and International Relations
Notes: App by 11/2; http://polisci.barnard.edu/colloquia
Instructor: Alexander A Cooley
Portuguese UN3601 Race, Medicine and Literature in 19th-Ce
Instructor: Ana P Lee
Welcome to “International Relations of COVID-19.” The onset of the global COVID-19 pandemic has sent political shockwaves around the world, affecting almost every aspect of international political life. From how countries cooperate with one another to redefining what constitutes national security, to recasting pressures for globalization and de-globalization, the world as we knew it prior to February 2020 appears to be dramatically changing. At the same time, scholars and policymakers are increasingly divided about how to understand and respond to many of these challenges. Is the COVID era truly new or will it actually accelerate recent trends in international politics and global governance? What are the similarities between this pandemic and previous global health crises and what lessons should we draw for managing international order? What are the implications for US leadership, and broad perceptions about the erosion of the US-led liberal world order, and how have strategic competitors like China dealt with the crisis globally? Finally, what are the tools, resources and networks available to researchers and policy makers interested in making more evidence-based assessments about international public policy? What are the challenges? The intensive nature of this colloquium is reflected in two ways- preparation and focus. First, the course carries a substantial reading load designed to inform and prepare students for each course session. These assignments will mostly be academic readings, but may also include podcasts, news articles, and digital archival materials. New materials and resources dealing with the course topic are added daily and may be added to the syllabus, so please check the Courseworks syllabus before each meeting for the current assignments. Importantly, our class lectures, group activities and individual assignments will build upon, not review, the assigned materials for the session. Second, the remote nature of the course will require active listening and focus. Each session typically will be split into 2 segments, roughly of 55-60 minutes each. Many of these segments will feature guest lecturers or experts who will give 25-30 mins presentations on their topic and then field questions. During our limited time for Q&A students should ask single, concise questions.
Psychology UN3450 EVOL-INTELLIGENC/CONSCIOUSNESS
Notes: REQUEST INSTRUCTOR PERMISSION AND JOIN WAITLIST
Instructor: Herbert S Terrace
Prerequisites: PSYC UN1001 or PSYC UN1010, and the instructors permission. A systematic review of the implications of Darwins theory of evolution and Freuds theory of the unconscious for contemporary studies of animal and human cognition.
Psychology UN2650 INTRO TO CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY
Instructor: Valerie J Purdie-Greenaway
This course will provide a comprehensive introduction to general theories and methods related to culture and diversity. The class will explore psychological and political underpinnings of culture and diversity, emphasizing social psychological approaches. Principal goals of the course will include developing critical thinking skills related to identity-based research. Students will learn basic knowledge of course topics through the textbook and lectures. This course will begin with an introduction to cultural psychology. During initial weeks, we will emphasize psychological theories that link culture to mental processes (i.e., affect, cognition, attitudes). Next, lectures will focus on specific topics that bridge cultural psychology and basics concepts related to multiculturalism. Topics include: group and identity formation, stereotyping, prejudice, stigma, and intergroup contact. Finally, the course will end with an interrogation of multiculturalism and psychological approaches to the study of diversity. The course will culminate in a group project where students apply their knowledge to critique community programs that are based on topics learned in the course.
Religion GU4517 After the Human
Instructor: Mark C Taylor
The advent of high-speed computing, Big Data, new forms of Artificial Intelligence, and global networking is rapidly transforming all aspects of life. Implants, transplants, genetic engineering, cloning, nanotechnology, cyborgs, hybrids, prostheses, mobile phones, tracking devices and wearable devices. The Internet of Things and the Internet of Bodies are becoming interconnected to transform what once was known as human being. These developments raise fundamental questions about what comes after the human. This course considers the philosophical and theological implications of this question by addressing the following issues: Natural vs. Artificial, Treatment vs. Enhancement, the Artificial Intelligence Revolution, Ubiquitous Computing, the Internet of Things, the Singularity, Extended Mind and Superintelligence, Internet of Bodies and Superorganisms, Death and After Life. Students will have the option of writing a term paper or doing a project related to the course readings.
Religion GU4528 Religion and the Sexed Body
Instructor: Katherine Ewing
This seminar will examine how bodily practices associated with gender and sexualities are cultivated, regulated, and articulated within various religious traditions and how these practices have been influenced by global processes, including colonialism, the accelerating movement of people and technologies, and modern secularism and identity politics. Throughout the course we will tack back and forth between theoretical works and ethnographic/historical writing, in order to articulate what is probably the most difficult aspect of original research: how to bring together “high theory” and primary sources ranging from field research to data drawn from a variety of media.
Religion GU4616 TECHNOLOGY,RELIGION,FUTURE
Instructor: David R Kittay
This seminar will examine the history of the impact of technology and media on religion and vice versa before bringing into focus the main event: religion today and in the future. Well read the classics as well as review current writing, video and other media, bringing thinkers such as Eliade, McLuhan, Mumford and Weber into dialogue with the current writing of Kurzweil, Lanier and Taylor, and look at, among other things: ethics in a Virtual World; the relationship between Burning Man, a potential new religion, and technology; the relevance of God and The Rapture in Kurzweils Singularity; and what will become of karma when carbon-based persons merge with silicon-based entities and other advanced technologies.
Science and Public Policy BC3336 GENETICS AND SOCIETY
Instructor: Brian Morton
An exploration of the growing knowledge and technological advances in genetics, with a focus on human genetics, using scientific, popular and artistic sources. The course will cover areas such as genetic testing, personalized medicine, ancestry analysis, genome editing with CRISPR-Cas9, stem cells and cloning. It will involve an examination of scientific sources, portrayals in popular culture and discussions of some of the ethical implications and social/political impacts.
Slavic Cultures UN3101 The Slavs: Myths, Literacies and Attitud
Instructor: Danko Sipka
This undergraduate course is intended for those interested in broadening their horizons about Slavic languages and cultures, whether they have a previous exposure to some of them or not. The course will explore the processes of establishing Slavic nations and their traditions of literacy focusing on the clashes of various ideological and political programs as well as on the commonly held beliefs and attitudes around them (including common myths). The observed phenomena will be discussed using the concepts and tools of cross-cultural linguistics and psychology, which will make the students familiar with several methodological frameworks in those fields. The intended effect of this entry-level course is to generate interest in the study of Slavic languages, cultures, and societies.
Sociology UN3246 MEDICAL SOCIOLOGY
Instructor: Amy Zhou
Examines the ways sociologists have studied the field of medicine and experiences of health and illness. We cannot understand topics of health and illness by only looking at biological phenomena; we must consider a variety of social, political, economic, and cultural forces. Uses sociological perspectives and methods to understand topics such as: unequal patterns in health and illness; how people make sense of and manage illness; the ways doctors and patients interact with each other; changes in the medical profession, health policies and institutions; social movements around health; and how some behaviors but not others become understood as medical problems. Course is geared towards pre-med students as well as those with general interests in medicine, health and society.
Sociology BC3750 HOW RACE GETS UNDER OUR SKIN: THE SOCIOL
Instructor: Amy Zhou
One of the glaring forms of inequalities that persists today is the race-based gap in access to health care, quality of care, and health outcomes. This course examines how institutionalized racism and the structure of health care contributes to the neglect and sometimes abuse of racial and ethnic minorities. Quite literally, how does race affect one’s life chances? This course covers a wide range of topics related to race and health, including: racial inequalities in health outcomes, biases in medical institutions, immigration status and health, racial profiling in medicine, and race in the genomic era.
Sociology UN3926 Race, Place, and the United States
Instructor: Kristin L Murphy
The course analyzes the relationship between race/ethnicity and spatial inequality, emphasizing the institutions, processes, and mechanisms that shape the lives of urban dwellers. It surveys major theoretical approaches and empirical investigations of racial and ethnic stratification in several urban cities, and their concomitant policy considerations.
Sociology BC3933 SOCIOLOGY OF THE BODY
Instructor: Elizabeth Bernstein
This seminar examines the ways in which the body is discursively constituted, and itself serves as the substratum for social life. Key questions include: How are distinctions made between normal and pathological bodies, and between the psychic and somatic realms? How do historical forces shape bodily experience? How do bodies that are racialized, gendered, and classed offer resistance to social categorization?
Women’s Studies BC2140 Critical Approaches in Social and Cultur
Instructor: Marisa Solomon
This course examines the conceptual foundations that support feminist and queer analyses of racial capitalism, security and incarceration, the politics of life and health, and colonial and postcolonial studies, among others.
Women’s Studies UN3655 Gender and Public Health: Disparities, P
Instructor: Jennifer S Hirsch
Notes: IRWGS/SOC pref. FOR SOC, MUST HAVE TAKEN UN1001 OR BC3125
This seminar provides an intensive introduction to critical thinking about gender in relation to public health. We begin with a rapid immersion in social scientific approaches to thinking about gender in relation to health, and then examine diverse areas in which gendered relations of power – primarily between men and women, but also between cis- and queer individuals – shape health behaviors and health outcomes. We engage with multiple examples of how gendered social processes, in combination with other dimensions of social stratification, shape health at the population level. The overarching goal of this class is to provide a context for reading, discussion, and critical analysis to help students learn to think about gender – and, by extension, about any form of social stratification – as a driver of patterns in population health. We also attend consistently to how public health as a field is itself a domain in which gender is reproduced or contested.
