(file last updated: [7/6/1999 - 13:21:14])
Objectives
Clusters are the heart of the new curriculum. They exemplify the concept of connected learning: that students share an intellectual excitement when courses connect and are related to each other. Each cluster focuses on the multidisciplinary study of a particular topic, theme, problem, region, or period. A cluster is constituted by a convener and affiliated faculty members.
The aim of clusters is to allow students to examine a general problem or issue from a variety of different disciplinary perspectives. In an increasingly complex world, no single discipline is adequate for examining the breadth and depth of most topics. Thus clusters offer students the unique opportunity of guided multidisciplinary inquiry and provide a centerpiece for a liberal arts education.
The clusters draw on the richness and diversity of our nationally acclaimed research faculty. Cluster faculty will meet and exchange syllabi regularly and may offer special multidisciplinary events, including speakers, colloquia, and other group activities to facilitate student-faculty interaction.
Every student entering after the fall of 1994 must complete one cluster prior to graduation. To accomplish this, students need to complete three courses, from at least two schools, from those listed in the cluster. Transfer students who enter Brandeis with 14 or more course credits are exempted from one cluster course--they must complete two courses from at least two schools. Occasionally courses may be added to a cluster or new clusters added to the curriculum after a student has taken such courses. In such cases, students may petition a cluster convener to count courses previously completed toward their cluster requirement. These petitions must be approved by the cluster convener and the chair of the Clusters Program Committee. Under exceptional circumstances, (e.g., studying abroad, change in course offerings) when the cluster requirement cannot otherwise be completed, students may petition to substitute a course in place of one they were planning to take to complete the cluster. The course proposed for substitution must be related to the cluster theme and must be approved by the convener and the cluster committee.
Cluster courses may be taken any time during a student's undergraduate career, but students are advised to begin their cluster course work in their first year. While most courses in a cluster do not require prerequisites, some do. Cluster courses can fulfill other University requirements, as well. Students select courses within a cluster based on their interests and backgrounds.
Courses of Instruction
Cluster 1: The Aging Process
Convener: Margie Lachman
The cluster addresses the biomedical, psychosocial, and ethical issues associated with growing older in our society and in other cultures. The goal is to understand the basic human developmental processes of aging (physical and psychological) and to examine how they play out in the context of society and culture.
Courses of Instruction
Biology of People
Man in Space
Human Memory
Advanced Topics in Episodic Memory
Neuropsychology
Biomedical Ethics
The Psychology of Adult Development and Aging
Life Span Development: Adulthood and Old Age
Seminar in Health Psychology
Aging in a Changing World
Sociology of Birth and Death
Aging in Society
Sociology of Disability
Cluster 2: The Baroque. Discontinued. Students who entered Brandeis before fall term 1999, who wish to complete their cluster requirement via Cluster 2, should consult the Office of the University Studies Program.
Cluster 3: Colonialism and Neo-Colonialism in the Third World
Convener: Silvia Arrom
Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East have experienced centuries of control by imperial powers. This cluster explores the impact of colonialism--and in independent countries, of neo-colonialism--on the politics, society, economics, and cultures of Third World countries, as well as the reactions of the subject peoples. Courses provide perspectives from anthropology, history, literature, politics, and sociology, and contrast the views of both colonized and colonizers.
Courses of Instruction
Africa and the West
Third World Ideologies
Political Economy of the Third World
The Literature of the Caribbean
Theories of Development and Underdevelopment
African and Caribbean Comparative Political Systems
Development and the Third World
Topics in New World Studies: The Empire Writes Back
Migrating Bodies, Migrating Texts
Topics in Francophone Literatures
Latin American History, Pre-Conquest to 1870
Latin American History, 1870 to the Present
The Legacy of 1898: U.S.-Caribbean Relations since the Spanish-American War
East Asia in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
The Rise and Decline of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1800
Latin American Politics I
Revolutions in the Third World
Politics of Southeast Asia
Travel Writing and the Americas: Columbus' Legacy
Global Apartheid and Global Social Movements
U.S.-Caribbean Relations
Cluster 4: Conceptions of Personhood and Self
Convener: Eli Hirsch
Philosophy, anthropology, sociology, and literature have focused on conceptions of the person and of the self. This topic provides a pivot for discussion of the way human beings conceive of themselves in relation to the natural and social world, and the way these conceptions influence human values.
Courses of Instruction
Foundations of American Civilization
Sex and Sensibility in Pre-Revolutionary European Novels
The Body as Text: Castiglione to Locke
Mysticism and the Moral Life: Abraham Heschel, Howard Thurman, Thomas Merton
Immorality: Its Genealogy, Varieties, and Attraction
Greek and Roman Ethics: From Plato to the Stoics
Varieties of Liberty and Freedom
Libel and Defamation, Privacy and Publicity
Personal Identity
Personality
Existential Sociology
Cluster 5: Creativity in Art and Science
Convener: Nancy Scott
This cluster focuses on the creative impulse and process, the workings of the imagination, the makings of a creative environment, and the possibilities for creativity in any field or arena. Opportunities are provided for the exploration of creativity from varied points of view: theoretical, historical, scientific, and "hands on" or experiential.
Courses of Instruction
The Brain: From Molecules to Control of Movement
Chemistry and Art
The Art and Archaeology of Ancient Greece
The Art and Archaeology of Ancient Rome
Lives of the Artists
Topics in French Poetry
Lyric Poetry and Drawing
The Scientific Revolution
Semantics: The Structure of Concepts
Introduction to Electro-Acoustic Music
Twentieth-Century Physics and Its Philosophical Implications
Modern Physics
Social Psychology of Consciousness
Improvisation
Cluster 6: Crime and Punishment
Convener: Jacob Cohen
What human behaviors, in what situations, come to be called "crimes," and what manner of human beings come to be called "criminals"? What are the causes of criminality and how can they be reduced (if they can be)? How are crimes detected and how should adjudged criminals be thought of and treated? Answers require the perspectives of sociology, law, anthropology, history, philosophy, literature, biology, and forensic science.
Courses of Instruction
Violence in American Life
Forensic Science: Col. Mustard, Candlestick, Billiard Room
Dickens and Dostoevsky
Social and Political Philosophy: Democracy and Disobedience
Philosophy of Law
Seminar in Political Philosophy: Justice
The Politics of Urban Criminal Justice
Issues in Law and Society
Cluster 7: Cultural Representations of Gender
Convener: Sylvia Fishman
The relationship between women and men has always been the subject of the media, usually from a male perspective. Painting, sculpture, music, film, literature, popular culture, journalism, and every other form of communication have portrayed, and thus created, gender. This cluster examines how gender is portrayed in cultural objects.
Courses of Instruction
Reporting on Gender, Race, and Culture
Feminist Theory in Literary and Cultural Studies
The Woman of Letters, 1600-1800
Inventing Tradition: Women as Artists, Women as Art
Women in American Jewish Literature
Seminar in American Jewish Fiction: Literary Readings: Roth and Ozick
The Heroine in Nineteenth-Century Russian Literature
Contemporary Hispanic Women's Fiction in Translation
Cluster 8: Discovering Our Origins
Convener: John Wardle
This cluster provides a broad study of the physical and human universe. We explore the origins and workings of the universe, planet earth, humankind, the brain, and human perception. These themes and our perception of them are explored further in the history of cosmological thought, and through classical myth and literature.
Courses of Instruction
Human Origins
The Brain: From Molecules to Control of Movement
Dinosaur Paleobiology
Ecology
The Planet as an Organism: Gaia Theory and the Human Prospect
Classical Mythology
Imagining How We Are: East and West I
Greek and Roman Ethics: From Plato to the Stoics
Introductory Astronomy
Cluster 9: The Enlightenment
Convener: Robert Greenberg
The European era that includes the 18th century, known as the Enlightenment, consists of some of the greatest achievements of Western civilization. From philosophy, literature, and drama to music and art, the mind of Europe was at its full flower. All this occurred during a period of great social upheaval that culminated in the French Revolution. This is a cluster of study to engage the most inquiring minds.
Courses of Instruction
Sex and Sensibility in Pre-Revolutionary European Novels
Rights: Theory and Rhetoric
Reason and Ridicule: The Literature of Britain in the Enlightenment
The French Enlightenment
The French Revolution
European Thought and Culture: Marlowe to Mill
Beethoven
Berkeley
Kant
Politics of the Enlightenment
Cluster 10: Ethnicity, Race, and Culture
Convener: Steven Burg
The contemporary analysis of ethnicity, race, and culture in comparative perspective provides the basis for this cluster.
Courses of Instruction
Comparative Race and Ethnic Relations
Ethnicity and Race in the United States
Language, Ethnicity, and Nationalism
American Jewish Life
The Sociology of the American Jewish Community
American Jewish Culture
History and Culture of the Jews in East-Central Europe to 1914
History and Culture of the Jews in East-Central Europe, 1914 to the Present
Seminar: Managing Ethnic Conflict
Cluster 11: Families, Households, and the Life Cycle
Convener: David Jacobson
This cluster focuses on the structure of and processes in families and households at different times and in different cultures. It provides an understanding of this most basic of social institutions as well as of the similarities and differences among the various disciplines that study it.
Courses of Instruction
American Love and Marriage
The Family in the United States
Families and Households
Human Reproduction, Population Explosion, Global Consequences
Human Reproductive Biology
Love in the Middle Ages
The History of the Family
Americans at Home: Families and Domestic Environment, 1600 to the Present
Jewish Life Cycle
Jewish Family Dynamics
The Sociology of the American Jewish Community
Changing Roles of Women in American Jewish Life
Tolstoy
Families
Cluster 12: Feminist Perspectives on Society
Convener: Karen Hansen
This cluster analyzes cultures around the world and the ways in which they generate and sustain hierarchies based on gender, race, and class. It combines analyses of cultural practices, political systems, economies, and legal structures to understand the maintenance of inequalities. Drawing on a variety of feminist perspectives, the cluster courses also explore avenues for social transformation.
Courses of Instruction
The Anthropology of Gender
Making Sex, Performing Gender
The Political Novel in the Twentieth Century
George O'Keefe and Stieglitz Circle
Race, Class, and Gender
Feminism, Law, and Social Policy
Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Jews and Christians: Sources and Interpretations
History of Jewish and Christian Women in the Roman Empire
Feminist Critiques of American Society
Global Apartheid and Global Social Movements
Women Leaders and Transformation in Developing Countries
Women in Culture and Society: A Multidisciplinary Perspective
Feminism for the Year 2000 and Beyond
Cluster 13: Film and Society
Convener: Thomas Doherty
The motion picture medium is a vivid reflection of and powerful influence on society. The cluster on film and society offers an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural perspective on film as an art to be appreciated and as a cultural force to be reckoned with.
Courses of Instruction
Images of the American West in Film and Culture
American Film and Culture of the 1950s
American Film and Culture of the 1940s
American Film and Culture of the 1930s
American Film and Culture of the 1920s
Feminism and Film
Topics in French Film
Introduction to the Moving Image
German Film in Cultural Context
Dreams and Nightmares: The Third Reich on Film
Images of Jews on Film
Revisioning Jewish Life in Film and Fiction
Aesthetics: Painting, Photography, and Film
Twentieth-Century Russian Literature, Art, Film, and Theater
Cluster 14: Food
Convener: Kenneth Hayes
Food is among the essentials of life. What is food, how do our bodies use it, and what is the impact of diet on the chronic diseases of humans? How has the world's population obtained adequate food in the past? What policies and programs have been developed to help promote adequate production and equitable consumption of food in the world? How can these policies be strengthened to end hunger and provide adequate food for the world's growing population? Students pursuing in this cluster will have the opportunity to explore many of these questions and to learn about food from a variety of perspectives.
Courses of Instruction
Economics of Third World Hunger
Environmental Issues
The Development of Human Food Production
Nutrition: Principles, Issues, and Applications
Human Physiology
Diet and Health
Seminar: Politics and Hunger
Sustaining Development
Environmental Sociology
Cluster 15: Gender and Work
Convener: Joyce Antler
This cluster examines social, psychological, legal, political, and economic factors that shape the work of women and men. Work is understood broadly to include the professions, scholarly work, science, and art as well as industrial and service occupations and housework. The gendered meanings and divisions of work are addressed critically. The primary focus is on contemporary United States, although some analyses of 18th- and 19th-century America as well as Europe will be included.
Courses of Instruction
Gender and the Professions
Gender and Economics
The Woman of Letters, 1600-1800
American Women Poets
Inventing Tradition: Women as Artists, Women as Art
Work, Individual and Social Development, and Social Welfare
Families, Work, and the Changing Economy
Sex Discrimination and the Law
Science and Development
Seminar: The Politics of the Modern Welfare State: Women, Workers, and Social Citizenship
Sociology of Work
Women and Intellectual Work
Cluster 16: The Global Commons: Environmental Issues in International Relations
Convener: Robert Art
Environmental issues have taken a prominent place in international politics ever since the 1972 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. This cluster examines the full dimensions of environmental degradation on a global scale and the efforts to retard and reverse it.
Courses of Instruction
Environmental Issues
The Development of Human Food Production
Human Reproduction, Population Explosion, Global Consequences
Ecology
Topics in Ecology
The Planet as an Organism: Gaia Theory and the Human Prospect
Writing about the Environment
Ecological Imperialism
Environmental Law and Policy
Science and Development
Technology and the Management of Public Risk
Seminar: International Relations and the Global Environment
Environmental Cooperation: the Domestic and International Nexus
Seminar: Politics and Hunger
Cluster 17: Greece and Rome, Seen and Seen Again
Convener: Leonard Muellner
This cluster contains basic courses on aspects of the civilization of Ancient Greece and Rome, specifically, their art, archaeology, history, mythology, and, in the case of Greece, its philosophy. There are also basic courses in comparable fields during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The goal is to provide the student with a broad view of the culture of classical antiquity and the creative and critical reinterpretation of it that took place in Europe before the modern era.
Courses of Instruction
Survey of Greek History: Bronze Age to 323 B.C.E.
The Art and Archaeology of Ancient Greece
The Art and Archaeology of Ancient Rome
Topics in Greek and Roman Art and Archaeology
Survey of Latin Literature in Translation
Classical Mythology
Art and the Origins of Europe
Art of the Early Renaissance in Italy
High and Late Renaissance in Italy
Roman History to 455 C.E.
Science in the Ancient and Medieval World
Greek and Roman Ethics: From Plato to the Stoics
Medieval Philosophy
Plato
Aristotle
Cluster 18: Human Population Dynamics
Convener: Judith Herzfeld
This century has seen unprecedented global changes in human numbers, numbers that will be dwarfed by the changes that will occur in the coming decades. To put these changes into perspective, this cluster explores various aspects of human demographics, including growth, migration, and decline in various times and places. The cluster draws on the vantage points of disciplines in the social sciences, natural sciences, and humanities.
Courses of Instruction
U.S. Immigration History, Policy, and Law
Human Origins
The Development of Human Food Production
The Rise of Mesoamerican Civilization
Human Reproduction, Population Explosion, Global Consequences
Ecology
Human Reproductive Biology
The Planet as an Organism: Gaia Theory and the Human Prospect
Sustaining Development
Cluster 19: Intelligent Behavior: Natural and Artificial
Convener: Richard Alterman
This cluster deals with some immensely complicated cognitive capacities that underlie intelligent behavior--capacities that we acquire naturally and easily and take for granted. Different approaches to this topic are presented. These include psychological experimentation, efforts to program language processing and problem-solving skills into computers, studies of how cognitive capacities are neurologically organized and of how they relate to cultural systems, and a consideration of how theorizing in these various domains of inquiry reflects and is illuminated by philosophical ideas.
Courses of Instruction
Fundamentals of Artificial Intelligence
Topics in Computational Cognitive Science
Human Computer Interaction
Introduction to Cognitive Science
Consciousness
Psycholinguistics
Cognitive Processes
Cognitive Modeling
Introductory Neuroscience
Human Memory
Neuropsychology
Philosophy of Mind
Topics in the Philosophy of Psychology
Cluster 20: Justice
Convener: To be announced
The question of justice has always been central to political theory and moral philosophy. Students in this cluster will confront various perspectives on justice emerging from different traditions of thought in different historical periods; they will also examine conceptions of individual responsibility as well as political ideals and institutions.
Courses of Instruction
Justice Brandeis and Progressive Jurisprudence
Rights: Theory and Rhetoric
The Political Novel in the Twentieth Century
From Liberal Democracy to Social Democracy
Red Flags/Black Flags: Marxism vs. Anarchism, 1845-1968
Romantic and Existentialist Political Thought
Greek and Roman Ethics: From Plato to the Stoics
Varieties of Liberty and Freedom
Social and Political Philosophy: Democracy and Disobedience
Topics in Ethical Theory
Seminar in Political Philosophy: Justice
Seminar: Liberty and Equality in American Politics
Dostoevsky
Political Sociology and Democratic Empowerment
Cluster 21: Knowledge, Subjectivism, and Relativism
Convener: David Wong
Is truth independent of our modes of justification and basic assumptions about the world? Is moral truth independent of culture and convention? Or is truth perspectival and "constructed" by social forms and individual subjectivity? These central questions are approached through a broad range of courses in the humanities and the sciences.
Courses of Instruction
The Idea of Conspiracy in American Culture
Crosscultural Inquiry in Social Science
Feminist Theory in Literary and Cultural Studies
European Cultural Studies: The Proseminar
Contemporary Literary Theory
European Thought and Culture: Marlowe to Mill
European Thought and Culture since Darwin
Greek and Roman Ethics: From Plato to the Stoics
Topics in Ethical Theory
Metaphysics
The Subjective Point of View
Twentieth-Century Physics and Its Philosophical Implications
Politics of the Enlightenment
Existential Sociology
Cluster 22: Medicine, Health, and Social Policy
Convener: Joan Tucker
Health and health care are among the dominant concerns of any society. In modern society, health care has become so technologically sophisticated and organizationally complex that a single discipline is no longer adequate for understanding its dimensions. This cluster examines the scientific basis, social and legal organization, and psychological and ethical issues surrounding health and medical care.
Courses of Instruction
Drug Discovery and Development
Human Reproduction, Population Explosion, Global Consequences
Heredity
Recombinant DNA
Nutrition: Principles, Issues, and Applications
Genetics and Molecular Biology
Human Physiology
Diet and Health
Immunology
American Health Care: A System in Crisis
American Health Care: Law and Policy
Autonomy and Self-Determination in Critical Health Care Decisions
Medical Malpractice on Trial
Biomedical Ethics
Seminar in Health Psychology
Sociology of Body and Health
On the Caring of the Medical Care System
Cluster 23: Modern French Culture
Convener: Stephen Gendzier
This set of courses will introduce students to a variety of cross-disciplinary orientations toward the study of French art, music, history, literature, politics, and social thought.
Courses of Instruction
Nineteenth-Century European Painting and Sculpture
Impressionism: Avant-Garde Rebellion in Context
Duchamp to Deconstruction
Topics in French Film
History of French Culture
Contemporary French Civilization
French Literature and Painting
The Nineteenth Century
The Twentieth Century
Topics in French Fiction
Topics in French Poetry
Topics in Francophone Literature
The French Revolution
European Thought and Culture: Marlowe to Mill
European Thought and Culture since Darwin
Introduction to Modern France
Community and Alienation: Social Theory from Hegel to Freud
Romantic and Existentialist Political Thought
Romanticism and Music
Music and Culture: From Romanticism to the Modern Era
Existential Sociology
Cluster 24: Modern Latin America
Convener: Silvia Arrom
This cluster brings the insights of five disciplines to bear on understanding South America, Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean during the 19th and 20th centuries. It shows how social, economic, political, and intellectual developments are interrelated and encourages students to consider Latin America's strengths and problems from a Latin American perspective.
Courses of Instruction
Latin America's Economy
Twentieth-Century and Contemporary Latin American Art
Latin American History, 1870 to the Present
Latin American Women: Historical Perspectives
The Making and Unmaking of the Mexican Revolution
Latin American Politics I
Latin American Politics II
U.S.-Caribbean Relations
Introduction to Latin American Literature
Modern Latin American Fiction: The "Boom" and Beyond
Studies in Latin American Literature
Writing the Latin American City
Latin American Fiction in Translation
Contemporary Hispanic Women's Fiction in Translation
Cluster 25: Modern Russia
Convener: Gregory Freeze
The extraordinary experience of modern Russia--encompassing czarist autocracy, communist totalitarianism, and the current turmoil of transition to a more liberal social system--is examined from the perspectives of the social sciences and of the literature of the period.
Courses of Instruction
Comparative Economic Systems
Twentieth-Century Russia
Soviet History: Major Issues, New Approaches
East European Politics
Politics in Russia and Ukraine
Nineteenth-Century Russian Literature
The Short Story in Russia
History of Russian and Soviet Film
A Survey of Russian Theater from 1719-1917
A Survey of Twentieth-Century Russian Theater: Chekhov to the Present
Twentieth-Century Russian Literature, Art, Film, and Theater
Nabokov
Cluster 26: Modernism: The Twentieth Century
Convener: To be announced
The culture of modernism sprang from the unsettling but liberating experience of uncertainty in Europe and America during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Artists, writers, and philosophers deliberately discarded tradition and experimented with radically new ideas and forms of expression. Students will examine the sensibility of modernism through courses drawn from a variety of disciplines dealing with European and American culture.
Courses of Instruction
European Cultural Studies: The Proseminar
The Outsider as Artist and Lover
Modern Poetry
Paris/New York: Revolutions of Modernism
Modern Art and Modern Culture
Topics in French Film
French Literature and Painting
Topics in French Fiction
Topics in French Poetry
German Modernism and the Fascist Backlash
European Thought and Culture since Darwin
Thought and Culture in Modern America
Foundations of American Pragmatism
Cluster 27: Nationalism in World Politics
Convener: Robert Art
With the Cold War's end, the destructive forces of nationalism have appeared with full force in central Europe and the former Soviet Union. But nationalism is a force as old as the nation-state and is global in its manifestations. This cluster examines the origins and effects of nationalism in world politics and the international attempts to cope with it.
Courses of Instruction
Comparative Race and Ethnic Relations
Topics in New World Studies: The Empire Writes Back
The Political Novel in the Twentieth Century
Dreams and Nightmares: The Third Reich on Film
East Asia in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
Nineteenth-Century Europe: Nationalism, Imperialism, Socialism (1850-1919)
Nationalism and Islam in the Modern Middle East
The Making of the Modern Middle East
The Rise and Decline of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1800
Politics and the Culture of the Contemporary Middle East
Introduction to International Relations
Seminar: Managing Ethnic Conflict
Politics of Southeast Asia
Seminar: Nationalism and Development
Seminar: International Crisis Management, Intervention, and Peacekeeping
Cluster 28: Nature-Nurture
Convener: Peter Conrad
The question of the contributions of biology and the social environment to human behavior and human nature has been debated for more than two centuries. This debate has increased salience with the emergence of the new genetics and neuroscience. This cluster examines the issues of nature and nurture from a variety of social and biological perspectives.
Courses of Instruction
The Nature of Human Nature
Biology of Neurological and Mental Illness
Heredity
Genetics and Molecular Biology
Human Genetics
Sex and Sensibility in Pre-Revolutionary European Novels
Immorality: Its Genealogy, Varieties, and Attraction
Language and Human Nature
Innate Knowledge
Developmental Psychology
Seminar on Sex Differences
Nature, Nurture, and Public Policy
Cluster 29: Power and Politics: Theory, Literature, and Practice
Convener: Karen Klein
This cluster provides multiple perspectives on the uses and abuses of power by states, political systems, and individuals and an investigation of the relation of class, gender, and race to the structures of power. The perspectives range across political theory and philosophy, studies of political structures from diverse Western and non-Western societies, and examples of political movements and fictional narratives that illuminate and critique political realities.
Courses of Instruction
The Outsider as Artist and Lover
The Political Novel in the Twentieth Century
European Thought and Culture: Marlowe to Mill
European Thought and Culture since Darwin
Varieties of Liberty and Freedom
Human Rights
Social and Political Philosophy: Democracy and Disobedience
The Politics of Revolution: State Violence and Popular Insurgency in the Third World
Utopia and Power in Modern Political Thought
Global Apartheid and Global Social Movements
War and Possibilities of Peace
Society, State, and Power: The Problem of Democracy
Cluster 30: The Renaissance
Convener: Richard Lansing
The courses in this cluster will provide a forum for the study of the art, literature, music, history, and culture of the Renaissance from its inception in Italy in the late 15th century to the closing of the theaters in England in 1642.
Courses of Instruction
Madness and Folly in Renaissance Literature
The Renaissance
Shakespeare
Renaissance Poetry
Spenser and Milton
St. Peter's and the Vatican
Art of the Early Renaissance in Italy
Renaissance Art in Northern Europe
High and Late Renaissance in Italy
The Renaissance
Late-Medieval and Renaissance Florence
Early Music Ensembles
The Authenticity Question: Applying Historical Performance Practices
Golden Age Drama and Society
Don Quijote
Cluster 31: The Scientific Model of the Universe
Convener: Hugh Pendleton
The emergence of scientific determinism during the Enlightenment guided the Western image of the universe for over 200 years, but has recently come under attack on scientific, philosophical, and political grounds. This cluster examines the content and principles of scientific determinism and its impact on philosophy and culture in general, as well as contemporary challenges to this world view.
Courses of Instruction
Chaos
Order and Chaos
Introduction to Probability and Statistics
Probability
Mathematical Statistics
Philosophy of Science
Introductory Astronomy
Twentieth-Century Physics and Its Philosophical Implications
Modern Physics
Astrophysics
Cluster 32: Sustainable Development
Convener: Robert Lange
There are no easy answers to reducing human poverty and to managing, rather than damaging, the environment. Environmental degradation, human poverty, scarcity of resources, and ineffective institutions handicap development efforts. This cluster introduces students to a variety of different approaches to sustainable development. The designated courses in the social sciences and the sciences give particular attention to problems in the lower income countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
Courses of Instruction
Development and the Third World
Ecology
Chemicals and Toxicity
Introduction to the Economics of Development
Environmental Law and Policy
Science and Development
Seminar: Nationalism and Development
Seminar: Politics and Hunger
Sustaining Development
Cluster 33: The City
Convener: Ann Koloski-Ostrow
This cluster explores the city in time and space from several perspectives in order to address a number of questions. What is a city? What functions does it perform? What are its origins and composition in the ancient world (Athens, Rome, Pompeii), and how do these relate to modern cities? Is there a city yet to be built that will enrich and further human development?
Courses of Instruction
Urban Anthropology
The Art and Archaeology of Ancient Greece
The Art and Archaeology of Ancient Rome
Topics in Greek and Roman Art and Archaeology
Dickens and Dostoevsky
Domains of Seventeenth-Century Performance
When Tokyo was called Edo: Japanese Art from Edo to Meiji
History of Boston Architecture
St. Peter's and the Vatican
Vienna at the Turn of the Century
German Modernism and the Fascist Backlash
Thought and Culture in Modern America
Merchants, Moneylenders, and Ghetti of Venice
The Monument and the City
A History of the Jews in Warsaw, Lodz, Vilna, and Odessa
Cluster 34: Values, Technology, and Society
Convener: Stefan Timmernmans
Throughout history, scientific discoveries and their technological applications have changed the contours of our lives. This cluster explores the differential impact of scientific advances and cognition on politics, social values, religious beliefs, and the arts. Courses from biochemistry, computer science, history, politics, sociology, Near Eastern studies, and comparative literature emphasize the interdisciplinary dimensions of science in our world.
Courses of Instruction
Biotechnology: Its Origins, Scientific Basis, and Impact
Introduction to Computers
Technological and Economic Change
Science and Technology in the Twentieth Century
Immorality: Its Genealogy, Varieties, and Attraction
Law, Technology, and Innovation
The Woman's Voice in the Muslim World
Technology and the Management of Public Risk
Community and Alienation: Social Theory from Hegel to Freud
Modern Society in Transition
Technology and Society
Cluster 35: Visual Literacy
Convener: Susan Moeller
Courses in the visual literacy cluster allow students to explore the power of images. In spite of Americans' growing sophistication at the end of the 20th century, we continue to be moved--consciously and unconsciously--by the pictures we see in print, on television, in movies, and even in museums. Visual literacy courses examine the role of images in our society by investigating images much as written texts have always been analyzed. These courses trace an image-conscious sensibility in literature, art, popular culture, politics, and even the sciences.
Courses of Instruction
Film Theory and Criticism
The History and Principles of Photojournalism
Chemistry and Art
The Body as Text: Castiglione to Locke
Inventing Tradition: Woman as Artists, Women as Art
High Art/Low Art: Modern Art and Popular Culture
Duchamp to Deconstruction
Introduction to the Moving Image
Sensory Processes
Aesthetics: Painting, Photography, and Film
Perception
Cluster 36: Women and Society in the United States
Convener: Julie Nelson
This cluster explores the experience of women in the United States from colonial times to the present. Looking at gender roles from a variety of perspectives, and listening to women's voices as represented in sources ranging from social policy to poetry, painting, biography, and history, the cluster will investigate the gendered dimensions of female experience in America as well as the divisions among American women.
Courses of Instruction
The American Jewish Woman: 1890-1990s
Women in American History: 1865 to the Present
Human Reproduction, Population Explosion, Global Consequences
Human Reproductive Biology
Gender and Economics
American Women Poets
Georgia O'Keeffe and Stieglitz Circle
Americans at Home: Families and Domestic Environment, 1600 to the Present
Women in American History: A Survey, 1600-1865
Problems in American Women's History
Family Policy
American Jewish Life
Changing Roles of Women in American Jewish Life
Women's Biography and Society
Cluster 37: Women: Other Times, Other Places
Convener: Marc Brettler
The aim of this cluster is to provide an examination of women in pre-modern and non-Western cultures. Sub-areas considered by courses in the cluster include artistic and literary creation, family life, and religious ideas from historical and comparative perspectives.
Courses of Instruction
The Anthropology of Gender
The History of the Family
Women in American History: A Survey, 1600-1865
Women and the Bible
History of Jewish and Christian Women in the Roman Empire
The Woman's Voice in the Muslim World
Science and Development
The Heroine in Nineteenth-Century Russian Literature
Women Leaders and Transformation in Developing Countries
Studies in Latin American Literature
Contemporary Hispanic Women's Fiction in Translation
Cluster 38: World Cultures
Convener: Avigdor Levy
The purpose of this cluster is to introduce the student to some of the important cultures of the non-Western world. It accomplishes this by offering a choice of introductory courses designed to provide a broad acquaintance with a variety of traditions.
Courses of Instruction
Introduction to African History
South Asia: Tradition and the Contemporary Experience
The Rise of Mesoamerican Civilization
Latin American History, Pre-Conquest to 1870
Introduction to East Asian Civilization
Islam: Civilization and Institutions
Ancient Near Eastern History and Culture I
Explorations in Islamic Literature II: The Persian World
Politics of Southeast Asia
Cluster 39: The Birth of Europe
Convener: Charles McClendon
Western Europe first emerged as a cultural force following the fall of the Roman Empire when a patchwork of barbarian tribes gave rise to a network of kingdoms that foreshadowed today's national states. Basic features of European civilization, from its language to its religious and educational institutions, were formed during this period. Students explore this creative process from an interdisciplinary perspective.
Courses of Instruction
Love in the Middle Ages
The Medieval World
Chaucer I
Arthurian Literature
Art and the Origins of Europe
The Age of Cathedrals
The Art of Medieval England
The French Middle Ages
The Civilization of the Early Middle Ages
The Civilization of the High and Late Middle Ages
English Medieval History
Dante's Divine Comedy
Medieval Philosophy
Cluster 40: Conflict and Cooperation
Conveners: Seyom Brown and Gordon Fellman
A system of interdependent decision-makers has the potential for symbiotic cooperation or mutual detriment: war or peace, ecological balance or catastrophe, strength in numbers or recrimination. What factors shape the outcome? Does cooperation require the suspension of self-interest or its enlightenment? How do self-organizing dynamic systems evolve?
Courses of Instruction
Ecology
Evolution
International Law, Organizations, and Conflict Resolution
Conflict Analysis and Intervention
The Arab-Israeli Conflict
Introduction to Ethics
Topics in Ethical Theory
Introduction to International Relations
Seminar: Managing Ethnic Conflict
Seminar: Human Rights and International Relations
Seminar: International Relations and the Global Environment
War and Possibilities of Peace
Cluster 41: Introduction to East Asia: China and Japan
Convener: John Schrecker
This cluster provides an introduction to East Asian civilization through comprehensive study of China and Japan.
Courses of Instruction
The Economy of Japan
Chinese Landscape Painting
The Art of Japan
The Art of China
The Persistence of Tradition: An Introduction to Japanese Poetry, Drama, Fiction, and Film
Introduction to East Asian Civilization
East Asia in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
The Emergence of Modern Japan
Seminar on Traditional Chinese Thought
Chinese Philosophy
The Government and Politics of China
Seminar: Contemporary Chinese Politics
Cluster 42: Theater and Life: What Shapes Performance?
Convener: John Bush Jones
To quote an old song, "It's not what you do, it's the way you do it." What gives theater its special quality? What makes a reader of a play or a spectator in an audience see, feel, or understand things about life? Some courses in this cluster explore not just what happens in a play but how it happens: in other words, how the playwright, the actors, the director, and the designers structure the contents to make their work say what they want it to say. Other courses examine performance in life--the ways in which we and our relationships to others are perceived, not just by who we are but by how the forms of our behavior reveal ourselves.
Courses of Instruction
History as Theater
Symbol, Myth, and Ritual
Domains of Seventeenth-Century Performance
The Body as Text: Castiglione to Locke
Making Sex, Performing Gender
Center Stage: Women in Contemporary American Art
Playwriting I
The Avant-Gardes
Movement and Dance Theater Composition
Dramatic Structure: Analysis and Application
Cluster 43: Romanticism
Convener: John Burt
Romanticism in European and American literature, philosophy, religion, art, and politics, along with its historical context, its relationship to earlier cultural movement, and its consequences down to modern times.
Courses of Instruction
European Romanticism
Romanticism I: Blake, Wordsworth, and Coleridge
Romanticism II: Byron, Shelley, and Keats
American Romanticism
Romanticism
Whitman, Dickinson, and Melville
Nineteenth-Century European Painting and Sculpture
The Nineteenth Century
The French Revolution
Romantic and Existentialist Political Thought
Romanticism and Music
Kant
Community and Alienation: Social Theory from Hegel to Freud
Cluster 44: Law, Politics, and Public Values
Convener: Richard Gaskins
The rights and responsibilities of modern democratic life are defined through legal and political processes, supported by the framework of social values. These courses explore changing concepts of individual welfare and social citizenship; examine the comparative strengths of courts, legislatures, and bureaucracies in shaping the public interest; and ask how modern welfare states should evolve in the coming decades.
Courses of Instruction
The Legal Boundaries of Public and Private Life
Rights: Theory and Rhetoric
American Realism and Naturalism, 1865-1900
Seminar: Governance
Varieties of Liberty and Freedom
Wealth and Poverty
American Health Care: Law and Policy
Law and Social Welfare: Citizen Rights and Government Responsibilities
Foundations of American Pragmatism
Philosophy and Public Policy
Technology and the Management of Public Risk
National Government of the United States
Seminar: The Politics of the Modern Welfare State: Women, Workers, and Social Citizenship
Cluster 45: Religion: People of the Book
Convener: Bernadette Brooten
Religion shapes the world values to a far greater extent than generally recognized. Within this cluster, students can explore comparatively several world religions and learn theoretical frameworks for understanding them. They can examine foundational texts, such as the Jewish and Christian Bibles; major religious art works, institutions, and practices; as well as religious conflict, such as that between religion and science.
Courses of Instruction
Selected Topics in Comparative Religion: Seminal Works in the Study of Religion
The Age of Cathedrals
St. Peter's and the Vatican
Mysticism and the Moral Life: Abraham Heschel, Howard Thurman, Thomas Merton
The Hebrew Bible
The New Testament: A Historical Introduction
Jesus of Nazareth and the Christian Faith
Paul among Jews and Gentiles
Hasidism as a Religious and Social Movement
American Judaism
The Woman's Voice in the Muslim World
Cluster 46: Sexualities and Society
Convener: Thomas King
Although we tend to believe that our sexualities express universal and unchanging truths about ourselves, various societies and historical periods reveal markedly different organizations of sex. This cluster explores sexuality as the set of beliefs, representations, and ethics surrounding individuals' relations to their bodies. How has the sexed body and its pleasures been made socially meaningful?
Courses of Instruction
The Anthropology of Gender
Human Reproduction, Population Explosion, Global Consequences
Love in the Middle Ages
Sex and Sensibility in Pre-Revolutionary European Novels
Sexualities and Cinema
AIDS, Activism, and Representation
Lesbian and Gay Studies: Desire, Identity, and Representation
Making Sex, Performing Gender
Women, Gender, and Family
Sex Discrimination and the Law
Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Jews and Christians: Sources and Interpretations
Politics, Philosophy, and the Legal Regulation of Sexuality
Feminist Critiques of American Society
Issues in Sexuality
Feminism for the Year 2000 and Beyond
Reading and Writing Autobiography
Cluster 47: Disease and Society
Convener: Joan Press
The presence of disease is a significant and constant element in human history. This cluster analyzes the biological bases of diseases, of infectious and of non-infectious origin, and the new biomedical technologies developed to treat disease. It also examines society's past and present reactions to disease, including medical, philosophical, legal, political, and cultural responses.
Courses of Instruction
Medicine, Body, and Culture
AIDS in the Third World
Biology of Neurological and Mental Illness
Viruses and Human Disease
Immunity and Disease
Immunology
General Microbiology
Cancer
AIDS, Activism, and Representation
Principles of Neuroscience
Seminar in Health Psychology
Health, Community, and Society
Cluster 48: Myth, Ritual, and Religion
Convener: Luis Yglesias
This cluster enables students to understand how different cultures have made sense of human experience in relation to the spiritual: the realm of the divine, the realm of animal spirits, and the supernatural. In other words, "whatever is grave and constant in human experience."
Courses of Instruction
World Religions
Symbol, Myth, and Ritual
Folk Religion and Women's Lives
Night, Death, and the Devil: The Fantastic and the Grotesque
Classical Mythology
Topics in Myth, Literature, and Folklore
Arthurian Literature
Buddhist Art
Mysticism and the Moral Life: Abraham Heschel, Howard Thurman, Thomas Merton
Biblical Ritual and Cult
Introduction to Jewish Mysticism
The Jewish Liturgy
Dealing with Evil in Ancient Babylon and Beyond: Magic and Witchcraft in Antiquity
Ancient Near Eastern Religion and Mythology
Sociology of Birth and Death