RESULTS:College of Arts & Sciences, Advent Semester 2026

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History

Hip-hop emerged from the local scenes of New York City to become the most popular and lucrative art form in the world. This course offers a historical analysis of Hip-Hop and an exploration of its regional contributions, social and political implications, musicality, and presence on social media platforms, namely Instagram and Tik-Tok. This course will also examine Hip-Hop themes related to race, gender, and class. Overall, this course will help explain how an obscure art form emerged from urban communities to become the global musical language for the seemingly dispossessed—and now a staple of mainstream pop culture.
This course introduces students to the experience of thinking historically and doing historical work. Students will learn about historiographical debates, lenses or approaches to history, how to locate and to interpret primary sources such as letters, journals, images, and maps. They will also have opportunities to engage with historical sites, monuments, special collections materials and to work with digital tools. Students examine how historians formulate questions or lines of inquiry, how to conduct library and archival research and practice organizing and presenting research in oral and written form. Required of all history majors and minors.
An examination of the events, people, movements, and themes of the region's past, from earliest known human habitation to the present. The course explores contrasting ways of life expressed by native and European peoples; implications of incorporating the area into the United States; the agricultural, industrial, and transportation revolutions of the nineteenth century; popular culture within and about Appalachia; contemporary issues of regional development and preservation; and ways the unique environment of these mountains has shaped and frustrated notions of regional identity.
This first offering in a two-course sequence introduces students to the history of the Middle East. Surveying the region's history prior to the eighteenth century, it considers the emergence of the world's earliest civilizations; the rise of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and the spread of Arab, Turkish, and Persian Empires. Emphasis is placed on the Middles East's place in global trade networks and imperial conflicts.
Selected topics in the history of western Europe during the Middle Ages. Emphasis on reading, papers, discussion.
A seminar dealing with important political, social, and intellectual movements in American history.
This course examines the military, economic, political, and social upheaval of mid-nineteenth century America. We will consider the failure of antebellum political mechanisms, the growth of sectionalism, justifications for and against secession, the methods and implications of war, competing constitutional systems during the conflict, efforts to eradicate Southern separatism, and the lingering cultural implications of the nation's fratricidal dispute. Students will employ the America's Civil War web site, as well as other media, in preparing for discussions, tests, and research papers.
History majors engage in primary and secondary research on a topic of interest, culminating in a significant analytical paper. The semester concludes with an oral presentation of each student's research.
History majors engage in primary and secondary research on a topic of interest, culminating in a significant analytical paper. The semester concludes with an oral presentation of each student's research.
History majors engage in primary and secondary research on a topic of interest, culminating in a significant analytical paper. The semester concludes with an oral presentation of each student's research.

Humanities

This course explores how utopian, dystopian, and post-apocalyptic discourse imaginatively engages--and has engaged--cultural and historical challenges. Using approaches related to history, philosophy, literature, political theory, and the visual arts--especially film--this class seeks to ground utopian and dystopian speculation in the historical and cultural circumstances engendering it. Possible texts include works by Rousseau, More, Plato, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Marx, Leibniz, Voltaire, Huxley, Orwell, Zamyatin, McCarthy, Burgess, Atwood, Ishiguro, Lovecraft, Fritz Lang, and Ridley Scott.

International & Global Studies

Using gender as a lens for examining works of art in the Japanese tradition from the thirteenth through twentieth centuries, this course examines a wide variety of formats and mediums, including corpse paintings, cross-dressing performers, and prints of the modern girl. Participants will identify and analyze varying interpretations of gender through time and across culture and address issues associated with applying contemporary gender theory to pre-modern works. Topics to be covered include: Buddhist ideas of the feminine, voyeurism in early modern woodblock prints, and the role of gender in contemporary art.
This advanced lecture course explores how the visual language known as the “Renaissance” was expressed in art in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas from approximately 1400 to 1600. The course considers how the ideals and values of Renaissance visual culture expanded and transformed as they reached different parts of the world through trade and colonization. How did the meanings and narratives associated with the Renaissance shift when they were imposed outside of Europe and navigated through the hands of both willing and unwilling contributors? While consistently exploring this question, students will also interrogate how art historians define and identify Renaissance art to ensure an inclusive and critical understanding of its visual entanglements.
How do film and literature inform our understanding of the evolving concepts of art, ideology and material conditions in modern China? How have literary and cinematic representations changed over the last century to accommodate and facilitate social transformations? What are the characteristics of the cultural productions from mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan? This course helps students develop a critical sense and appreciation for Chinese cinema and literature. Taught in English.
The course examines the principles and concepts of development and focuses on major development problems and policies, both domestic and international. Topics of analysis include theories of economic growth and development, poverty and income distribution, population, human capital, agricultural and rural development, and international trade.
A study of the causes of and solutions for pollution and environmental degradation weighs the value of ecosystems and their role in sustaining economic activity. Applies cost/benefit analysis to environmental issues and provides an introduction to economics of nonrenewable and renewable resources such as mines, forests, and fish.
This courses studies financial aspects of growth, income and price level determination in open economies. Topics include the balance of payments, exchange rate determination, international payment adjustment mechanisms, capital flows, and international macroeconomic policy.
A study of twentieth-century literature written in English from Africa, South Asia, and the Caribbean, concentrating on colonial and post-colonial themes, as well as issues of gender, politics, and nationalism. Possible authors include Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Nadine Gordimer, J. M. Coetzee, Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, V. S. Naipaul, and Derek Walcott.
This seminar-style course exposes students to literature on a variety of issues related to climate change and other examples of our dynamic global environment including natural resource use and natural hazards.
This course combines the study of public policy with the study of major environmental problems. Students will explore public policy concepts and the instruments used in environmental regulation. Topics will include air and water quality issues hazardous waste and risk management, natural resources and biological diversity. The course will also discuss the impact of environmental groups and citizen activism on this highly complex area of public policy. Not open for credit to students who have completed POLS 208 or POLS 313.
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