WORLD LITERATURE / ENG 405 / STEVEN SHANKMAN
In this course, we will read foundational works from three different ancient cultures: China, Greece, and Israel. We will pay particular attention to the question of the kinds of values that these foundational works were meant to instill in their ancient audiences. What does each culture have to say about extending or rejecting hospitality toward the stranger, on the one hand, and the very nature of what it means to be human, on the other? Emphasis will be on close and attentive reading of texts. In this class, you will develop the ability to appreciate and analyze literary texts from a variety of cultural and linguistic traditions in the ancient world. In our increasingly multicultural world, both in the classroom and in the workplace, you will be increasingly expected to develop what is called “intercultural competence.” This class, by exposing you to foundational texts from three ancient and very different cultures, will boost your “intercultural competence.”
PRISONER NARRATIVES AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS / CAS 407/507 / KATIE DWYER
This course explores social change and conflict resolution through the lens of autobiography by incarcerated individuals whose stories and leadership influenced social movements and conflict situations. We will focus on four case studies: the struggle against Apartheid in South Africa, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the US Civil Rights Movement, and issues of criminal justice reform today. Please note that this is a readings/correspondence course and therefore students will be expected to go above and beyond in completing the readings and considering them critically, and in completing excellent written work.
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND POLITICAL CHANGE / PS 386 / GERRY BERK
Periodically American politics breaks from its routine of interest group lobbying and elections; previously silent groups find a public voice; the disempowered find the courage and imagination to experiment with new forms of participation; and fundamental questions about power and democracy are posed. Still, as routinely as they arise, social movements often evaporate and politics returns to business-as-usual. What is the source of these periodic upheavals in American politics? What do the aspirations, successes and failures of social movements tell us more generally about the possibilities and limits for democratic and social reform in the United States? This course will look at 4 episodes in social movement history: the rise and fall of the labor movement in the twentieth century; the relationship between the integrationist civil rights movement and the black power movement; the “new social movements” of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, which shaped the “culture wars” that are still with us; and the movements for equality and identity that have emerged since the financial crisis of 2008.