Fall 2024 Core Program Course Descriptions

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Fall 2024 Liberal Studies Core Program Course

Descriptions
Please note that course descriptions are for reference only and are subject to change

Advanced Writing Studio and Creative Writing


Approaches to Global Studies
Arts and Cultures Across Antiquity
Arts and Cultures of Modernity
Dean’s Circle Research Seminar
Economics
Electives
Environmental Studies
Global Cultures
Global Works and Society: Antiquity
Global Works and Society: Modernity
History of the Universe
Life Science
Writing as Exploration
Writing as Critical Inquiry

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Advanced Writing Studio and Creative Writing
AWS-UF 201-001 | TR 2-3:15pm | Kaia Shivers
Reporting Issues of Race, Gender, and Sexuality
This course starts with a simple question: How do we craft fair reporting on identities from the margins? A
workshop-driven, writing intensive course, the question will be answered through dialogue, reading,
listening to podcasts, multimedia making, journalism practices, and a final project that prepares those
interested in working in the media or possess a curiosity of understanding the processes in creating a
story that is both robust and equitable. This course also brings in guest speakers to discuss reporting on
race, gender and sexuality. Throughout this class, students will assess and respond to years of
mainstream press covering maligned communities in problematic tropes and framing, while at the same
time, constructing their own coverage.
Subsequently, this course examines how race, gender and sexuality are framed in current events and
news reporting; and the issues of diversity in the newsrooms in the United States and the international
press. On one hand, students will examine a variety of news reporting pieces and podcasts in order to
develop multiple original reporting pieces involving issues of race, race relations, gender inequities and
issues around sexuality. Next, students look at the problems of diverse newsrooms through studying
reports on inclusivity in the media to think through better models of newsrooms. Finally, they will
implement what they see as best practices in their own long form journalism story which will be presented
in a final presentation that speaks to their project and their understanding of the media following a
semester-long inquiry.
Writing the story will be a multi-week journey that begins with pitching the story, to research and
interviewing sources, all the way to laying out the piece. Within these processes, we will hold regular
in-class writing exercises paired with discussions around power, the press and representation in the
newsroom.

AWS-UF 201-002 | MW 12:30pm-1:45pm | Elayne Tobin


Other Voices, Other Rooms: Autobiography, Memoir, and the Global Self
In this course, we will be examining how writers write, how we read, and how observing and transforming
our own reading skills and attitudes about language can help us improve our own prose. We will be
focusing specifically on autobiography and memoir, and how differing notions of “selfhood” help construct
our stories, as well as help us read and interpret the stories of others. While autobiography is generally
understood to refer to the narrative of a whole life, memoir tends to take on a specific theme or time
period in one’s life. Nevertheless, we will explore and compare the genres themselves.

We will explore memoirs/autobiographies in traditional forms, through poetry, film, fiction, and nonfiction to
explore how people have written about themselves and why. We will also compare how cultural,
socio-economic, and geographic differences may influence and inflect both the process of memoir writing
and the way that writing gets interpreted and used across varies histories and cultures. We will focus our
own writing toward the autobiographical and will work with experimental forms in an intense workshop
environment. The goal of the course is to become better critical readers of the genre, while at the same
time working rigorously and critically on our own written production.

Why focus on writing the “self”? Because writing and creating languages of artistic remembrance and
history-making are the tools we use to make our way in the world; we write to explore, explain, complain,
cry out, critique, commiserate, declare, decry, denounce, demystify…you get the idea. Writing is a way
not only of recording thoughts and emotions, facts and fictions, but it is the process of using language that

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brings those elements of our lives into being in the first place. And if you are going to make your way
through this messed-up, alienating, strange, and glorious place called existence, you better hope you can
talk and that people will listen. In turn, you need to understand how other people use memory, so you can
craft your own. Otherwise, what’s the whole point?

Kaia Shivers
Creative Writing Experiments
Course Description TBA

Carley Moore
Creative Writing Studio
Course Description TBA

Approaches to Global Studies


Afrodesia McCannon
“Global Studies” names the multi-disciplinary academic study of globalization. In its least contentious
sense, “globalization” refers to the rapidly developing and ever-deepening network of interconnections
and interdependencies that characterize contemporary life. What is hotly debated in Global Studies is
less the reality of globalization than its drivers, outcomes, and historical origins. Is globalization
essentially an economic process or set of processes that has political and cultural implications, or a
multi-dimensional set of processes for which no single social domain holds causal priority? Is
“globalization” simply another word for “Westernization,” “Americanization,” or capitalism and its attendant
ideologies? Did globalization begin in the last quarter century or several centuries ago or even several
millennia? And, closer to home, what is Global Liberal Studies?
This course will examine answers made to these questions by such thinkers as Immanuel Wallerstein,
Anthony Giddens, Arjun Appaduria, Roland Roberston, Joseph Stiglitz, John Tomlinson, and Jan
Nederveen Pieterse, and introduce such key-concepts as World-Systems Analysis, Neoliberalism,
Cosmopolitanism, Postnationalism, Deterritorialization, Glocalization, and Hybridity.
Since we all live in New York City, a major hub of global networks and connections of, we will use the city
and students' own experiences extensively to illuminate and consider the many facets of the ‘global’ and
our present and future place in the network of relations we call globalization.

Arts and Cultures Across Antiquity


Brian Culver
What are the most significant and striking artistic works that humans produced in the ancient world, and
why should you and your peers study them today? Let’s keep this question in focus while reading
literature, looking at art, and studying musicality within five regions and the ancient cultures that flourished
in them: The Mediterranean (Greece, Rome, Egypt), the Middle East (Mesopotamia), the Indus River
Valley (India), and East Asia (China), and Central and South America (Mesoamerica).

The texts we’ll investigate were produced between 2400 B.C.E. and 500 C.E. The oldest surviving
objects made by human hands are durable in a material sense, but more importantly they endure
because their messages are relevant today. How do these long-lasting artistic works distinguish their
cultures of origin from others? What similarities/differences in theme and genre can we recognize from
our vantage point today? Why have certain cultural legacies been reinterpreted by artists and audiences
centuries after they were first produced?

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The objects we study have forms: literature (epic, drama, lyric, romance); art (sculpture, painting, icons);
artifact (tools, pottery, jewelry); architecture (temples, houses, public plazas); and music (chants, musical
instruments). You’ll be expected to develop a specialized vocabulary in talking about forms of
art/literature/music that expands this semester, and that you’ll continue that development in future A&C
classes.

Ian Jones
In her book Civilizing Climate, environmental archaeologist Arlene Miller Rosen points out,
“Archaeologists now understand that human perceptions of nature, environment, and climate change are
very much a key to how societies adjust to the impact of environmental change … This message has a
resonance with our own current struggles to come to grips with the concept of global warming.” Studying
the cultural products of past peoples can, therefore, provide us with insight into how they lived in and
managed relationships with their environments, and in turn can help us consider how we currently
understand ourselves and our place in the natural world. This course introduces the arts, broadly
conceived, from their origins in the Paleolithic period to the end of antiquity, defined here by the roughly
coincident dissolutions of the Gupta, Han, and Western Roman empires, focusing on how individuals,
social relations, and human environment relations are shaped in literature and the visual, plastic, and
performing arts, as well as through music. This course will focus on conceptions of environment and how
these coincide with conceptions of the divine, the heroic, power and disenfranchisement, beauty, love,
and humor within the context of the art and literature of East and South Asia, West Asia and the
Mediterranean world, and contiguous regions (such as Germania, Nubia, and Mesopotamia). Concepts
of Arts and Cultures towards the Crossroads are introduced through the discussion of models by which
cultural transmission occurred across these regions prior to the rise of Islam.

David Larsen
Animals whose behavior is incompletely ruled by "species memory" must create models for themselves
using external media, such as sculpture, painting, and above all language. In this class we explore the
media and models of ancient societies whose artists struggled to articulate human beings' place in the
world, their vulnerability to oppression, and their duties toward the divine and to each other. Although our
texts come mainly from West Asia, our geographic focus has no center, and our concern is with
relationships between ancient cultures as much as with "culture" itself.

Elizabeth Lee
Do you believe in divine omens? Is individual choice compatible with notions of destiny? This course will
look at questions of freedom, fate, and their alternatives as described and depicted in various cultures of
antiquity. Drawing upon textual sources like the Epic of Gilgamesh, The Odyssey, and the Buddhacarita,
alongside sculpture, architecture, and material culture excavated from tombs and temples from
Mesopotamia, Greece, Central and East Asia, and India this course will question what it meant to be
human and to have free will in ancient times, when the world was created by gods and life was
circumscribed by the numinous.

By examining a variety of sources (literary, material, visual, and where possible, musical), we will examine
how and under what circumstances these works of art functioned. We will learn that things like poetry,
plays, ornament, and architecture, served multiple purposes which were highly dependent on the social
and spiritual traditions within which they were made. We will also investigate the audiences they were
made for to understand why certain visual and literary motifs, patterns of language and form, and human
and divine tropes were employed in the creation of art in the past. Moving across both time and space,
we will dive deeply into the cultural contexts of widely different groups of people to gain not only a better
understanding of their beliefs and practices, but also our own. By learning about how ancient civilizations
grappled with what they believed to be the limits (or the limitlessness) of their own agency, this course
will illuminate some of the very same conflicts and ideas as they present themselves in the contemporary
world.

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Afrodesia McCannon
Arts and Cultures concerns becoming conversant with some of the most significant and striking artistic
works humanity has produced. In this first part of the three-course series, we will cover the modern
geographic areas of Africa (Egypt), Europe (Greece and Rome), the Middle East (Mesopotamia), Asia
(China), and Southeast Asia (India) as they existed from 2400 BCE to 400 CE. In order to understand and
appreciate the literature, art, and music of the distant past, we will study the cultural history that forms the
underpinning of the works. While covering a broad time span and diverse cultures, students will be
encouraged to draw lines of connection between the cultures and their arts while considering the unique
qualities of each. We will be tourists on an ancient world cruise, but I hope that we will be able to connect
with the humanity of the artists we encounter as they try express and sculpt into art what concerned them
most: love and hate and death, the divine, dilemma, the best ways to get through life, and pondering just
what life is. What it means to be educated changes over time; a central objective of the course is helping
develop students into contemporary educated people, that is, those who have a knowledge, sensitivity,
and understanding of cultures across the globe and how they are connected. An essential part of the
course is looking at how the ancient cultures we study are still part of the contemporary world through
using students’ own investigations of New York City.

Chris Packard
What are the most significant and striking artistic works that humans produced in the ancient world, and
why should people (you and your peers) consult them today? Let’s keep this question in focus while
reading literature, looking at art, and studying musicality within five regions and the ancient cultures that
flourished in them: The Mediterranean (Greece, Rome, Egypt), the Middle East (Mesopotamia), Asia
(China, India), and Central America (Mesoamerica). The texts we’ll investigate were produced between
2400 B.C.E. and 500 C.E.
We study some of the oldest surviving cultural artifacts of humanity because they are
durable in both a material sense and because messages endure today. How do these longlasting artistic
works distinguish their cultures of origin from others? What similarities/differences in theme and genre
can we recognize from our vantage point today? Why have certain cultural legacies been reinterpreted by
artists and audiences centuries after they were first produced?
The objects we study have forms: literature (epic, drama, lyric, romance); art (sculpture, painting, icons);
artifact (tools, pottery, jewelry); architecture (temples, houses, public plazas); and music (chants, musical
instruments). You’ll be expected to develop a specialized vocabulary in talking about forms of
art/literature/music this semester, and continue that development in future A&C classes.

Martin Reichert
Violence in Ancient Narrative, Art and Architecture
The course has a thematic slant: we will look at ancient representations of violence. From the slaying of
Humbaba by Gilgamesh to the murder of Abel by Cain, from the collapse of the tower of Babel to the
dynastic succession struggle between two groups of cousins in the Mahabharata, acts of violence
permeate ancient literature and art. Readings will be supplemented by a discussion of important
theoretical concepts (e.g., Durkheim's effervescence, Freud's Oedipal complex, Girard’s sacred violence
and scapegoating mechanism). How is violence depicted in antiquity? What is considered violent? What
are the cultural and historic conditions of such representations?
The content and discussion in this course will necessarily engage with many forms of violence: military,
subjective, sacrificial, sexual, psychological, structural, etc. Be warned that some of it may be emotionally
challenging and triggering. Also, be warned that the reading load is heavy and that I tend to call on
taciturn students in class. If you have an aversion to reading (there’s a reading assignment due on the
first day of classes), public speaking, and presentations, not to mention writing and research, this course
is probably not for you.

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Anthony Reynolds
We associate globalization with the recent global integration of our capital markets and the resulting
environmental crises of the Anthropocene that are in fact world destroying. However, the verb “to
globalize” suggests a process of “world making,” as Jean-Luc Nancy reminds us, that is as old as human
culture itself. In this course we consider the role of the arts in the construction and development of early
cultures around the world. We consider the ways in which early cultures developed and practiced the arts
as primitive intellectual tools – as a means by which to project form and meaning onto the world. We
consider the ways in which our earliest images, stories and poems are gradually formalized and
consolidated over countless generations until “the story becomes a social heritage and possession” (John
Dewey). We consider the arts as the source of our early structures of belief (myth and religion) and of our
later institutions of knowledge and inquiry (philosophy and science). In short, we consider the various
ways the arts have contributed to the early processes of world making that have shaped our cultures, our
institutions and our consciousness from prehistory through antiquity.

Jared Simard
This course seeks to understand the meaning of the Gods in Antiquity. How did ancient cultures write
about their gods? How did they interact with their gods? How did they depict their gods in artistic media?
Through close examination of primary sources in translation and analysis of visual artifacts, students will
investigate the role that myth played in the everyday lives of ancient peoples and the ways ancient writers
and artists used myth as a vehicle to convey a complex metaphor for life. Utilizing a comparative
approach, we will connect the myths of the Greeks and Romans with the earlier traditions of the
civilizations in Mesopotamia, Judea, and Egypt. In addition, connections are made to parallel myths and
archetypes found in early Indian, Chinese, and Japanese mythology. Through weekly journal entries and
reflective essays, students will interpret the symbolism and meaning associated with myths, their impact
and meaning in antiquity, and their lasting influence in the Twenty-First Century.

Arts and Cultures of Modernity

Jessamyn Hatcher
“Enlightenment thinkers... had the extravagant expectation that the arts and sciences would promote not
only the control of natural forces but also understanding of the world and of the self, moral progress, the
justice of institutions, and even the happiness of human beings,” writes the philosopletmeinher Jurgen
Habermas. “The 20th century shattered this optimism,” he continues. “But the problem won’t go away.”
In this course, we will study novels, films, theory, poems, art, fashion, and popular culture drawn from the
early 19th century to the present. In the process we will examine the “extravagant expectations”
Habermas speaks of and how--and who--they came shatter, or depended on shattering in the first place.
We will also explore the “problem that won’t go away”--that is the undiminished need to increase and
equalize human beings’ life chances, make institutions more just, and understand the world and
ourselves. We will pursue the possibility that art can offer a non-trivial tool for this work, and can function
as “equipment for living.”

Linnea Hussein
History, Criticism, and Resistance
Designed as a journey through a historical period that set the foundation for today’s perspectives on
globalization and its discontents, this course uses modernity’s developments in arts and culture as a lens
to study the different ways history is written, critiqued, and resisted. Situating ourselves as modern
subjects, we start with the question, what does it mean to be modern? What influences, inventions and
innovations in arts and culture form our understanding of modernity that distinguishes it from Antiquity and
the Middle Ages? What stylistic shifts can we notice in older art forms such as painting or the novel that

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shaped and were shaped by modernity? How can we study art practices new to this age such as
photography, film, and online media both as inventions coming out of modern thinking and as tools for
shaping the way we think about the modern world?
The course is structured in five parts. In Part I, “Critical History,” students learn about different approaches
to studying history via arts and culture and vice versa. Part II, “Dominant Histories,” uses examples from
travel literature, opera and poetry to introduce fundamental historiographic questions regarding power,
access, and authorship within the Americas and Europe at the beginning of modernity. Part III, “Histories
of the Everyday,” invites students to take three different local perspectives towards the turn from the 19th
to the 20th century. From the provincial boredom of a professor in the Russian country side, to the smirky
commentary of a cat living in Meiji Japan to a feminist sci-fi dream set in Bengal, how do similarities and
differences in sentiment towards transnational movements in imperialism and industrialization manifest
themselves through different local art practices? Part IV takes a critical lens towards the use of art as a
means to document history. By studying the photographers of Roosevelt’s Farm Security Administration,
writing and painting during the Harlem Renaissance, and Leni Riefenstahl’s NAZI films, we will discuss
larger questions about socialism, racial (in)equality and antisemitism, to study how modern art can be
employed to explore, generate, and propagate ideological convictions. The final part of this course,
“Histories of Resistance,” takes a look at post-colonial literature from the Antilles, Third Cinema from Latin
America, and online media activism coming out of the Middle East to inspect rebellious currents that
challenge monolithic foundations of history and inspire us to look at art’s potential for rewriting the past.

Heather Masri
Course Description TBA

Eduardo Matos-Martin
Modernity and its Outcasts
What is the dark side of modernity? How do literary and artistic expressions of modernity engage with the
outcasts, such as the condition of the colonized? How can we rethink the implications of modernity for the
contemporary world context through literature and the arts? This course examines cultural
representations of political and economic violence over the last three hundred years. We will begin our
exploration with the historical processes of colonization and slavery in the 18th and the 19th centuries,
and then focus on the 20th century experiences of fascism, dictatorship, oppression, war, colonialism and
decolonization. Within this framework, we will attend to the cultural representations of the Armenian
Genocide, the Spanish Civil War, fascism in Germany and Italy, the Apartheid in South Africa, the Dirty
Wars in Latin America, the Central American Civil Wars, the Algerian decolonization, as well as the
Lebanese Civil War. We will use the course materials to raise questions about violence in the
contemporary world associated with globalization, and address experiences of exclusion and
marginalization due to race, gender, class and ideological oppression. In that light, we will study a
selection of literary and artistic genres, including novels, graphic novellas, short stories, film, drama,
poetry, painting, photography, and propaganda murals.

Roberta Newman
Adaptations and Appropriations
This course will explore the literature, visual, and performing arts of from the late 18th century through the
early 21st by means of examining the arts and practices of adaptation and appropriation. Specifically, it
will focus on the different ways in which themes, concepts, and specific imagery in a series of given texts
have been translated, interpreted, and transformed across a variety of genres and media, both temporally
and culturally. To do so, it will pay particular attention to the development of new technologies, such as
inexpensive mass printing, photography, audio recording, film, radio, and video, and the ways in which
these “new media” influenced the creation of new works from old, both directly and indirectly. The course
will also consider some of the ways in which theory is translated into practice in the visual arts.

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Robert (Bob) Squillace
Modernity and Mass Culture
This course will examine the transformations in the global arts wrought by the development of
technologies and industries that allowed cultural production to reach mass audiences for the first time in
history. The advent of steam-driven printing, synthetic pigments, photography, film, radio, television, the
internet, and other technologies gave rise to new media and genres, while the traditions of the past
remain vital and contested elements in the present.
The course is divided into four segments that reflect the major changes in the way culture is distributed to
mass audiences; note that these means of distribution succeed but do not replace each other, so that, for
instance, live performance continues even in an age of streaming media. While our major emphasis is on
works of mass culture themselves, we will preface each course segment with a critical essay on the
nature of a particular kind of mass cultural production. The course divisions are:
1) Performance - the distribution of culture by means of live, in-person transmission; e.g., through theater,
story-telling, opera, and museum exhibits.
2) Print - the distribution of culture by means of the printed word; while printing goes back many centuries,
the development of new methods for printing and the global spread of compulsory public education in the
19th century created new audiences for printed works - novels, graphic novels, and art-prints.
3) Mechanical Reproduction - the distribution of large numbers of exact copies of performances that could
previously only be experienced in person, notably recorded music and film.
4) Broadcast/Streaming - the direct distribution of cultural artifacts to people's homes or devices over
cable or through the airwaves; in recent years, online platforms have allowed user-produced content to
reach mass audiences.
In addition to exploring the mystery of what makes a work popular for a mass audience and how they
receive and interpret it, we will pay special attention to the ways colonialism disseminated cultural mass
production and how, both during colonialism and in the post-colonial era, artists around the world have
challenged or repurposed the genres and media that colonialism spread.
Students will participate actively in framing our discussions through critical reading and writing
assignments and collaborative learning exercises. As we undertake these assignments, we will
particularly explore the relation between the development of mass culture in the past three hundred years
and its character in the present.

Tilottama (Minu) Tharoor


Cultural Forms from/in Political Struggles
Cultural Foundations III introduces us to major developments in literature and the arts (including cinema)
produced between 1700 and the present. We will study the impact of important movements both cultural
and political, such as the European Enlightenment, Realism, Modernism, Colonialism, Postcolonialism
and Globalisation. The works of literature, art, cinema and music are related to major events of the past
200 years in different parts of the world. We will discuss how the events are represented and how they
shape and are rendered through different cultural forms.

Dean’s Circle Research Seminar


Julie Mostov
Borders
Violence at borders across the globe signals the resurgence of nationalisms, authoritarian closure, and
hard border politics filled with bleak predictions of on-going refugee crises, media messages encouraging
fear and suspicion, gendered rhetoric of infiltration and contamination, and criminalization of migrants.
These narratives and threats of closure are accompanied by expulsions of people from their homes,
increasing numbers seeking asylum, climate disasters, and ongoing wars – tragedies of immobility and
contradictory messages about border crossing.

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The practices of blaming economic and political hard times on others and, consequently developing
elaborate narratives of otherness and necessary exclusion are not new. Periods of deep crisis emerge as
moments of closure. These are times in which to (re)ignite symbolic and physical border conflicts,
reiterate who we are, name those “others'' responsible, and focus on reclaiming “our” space.
At the same time, we are more aware than ever of the global interconnectedness of our histories of
entanglement: from broad cultural legacies of centuries of border crossings and expansive trade to
colonialisms, enslavement, genocide, and displacements of people; from supply chains and exploitation
of land and labor to climate change. With persistent and new flows of ideas, information, cultural
production, and people across borders, we are also poised to reconsider new notions of engagement,
cooperation, and mobility; ways to increasingly soften and contest borders in our lives and institutional
frameworks.
In this Dean’s Circle, we will focus attention on issues of borders – hardening and softening - globally and
locally. We will look at historical legacies, theoretical underpinnings, symbolic imaginaries of movement
and closure, geopolitical and cultural expressions of crises, and the violence of forced mobility/immobility.
We will also explore the legacies and on-going structures of colonialism and racism as well as resistance
to frameworks of political and economic domination and the embrace of cross/soft border alternatives to
political association.
This is a year-long honors seminar (2 credits each semester, for 4 credits total). In the first semester, we
do extensive reading for background and discussion; and in the second semester, we focus on students
guided research projects. We will travel as a group to NYU Abu Dhabi during J-Term.

Economics
B. Güney Işıkara
Principles of Microeconomics
This is an introductory course to microeconomic theory, covering its core concepts and tools such as
supply and demand, elasticity, consumer and producer surplus, and so on. We will also discuss the
application of these concepts to consumer and firm behaviour, and explore problems like monopoly,
monopolistic competition, and oligopoly from a microeconomic perspective. We will first take a brief look
at the emergence of the current socio-economic system and understand its distinctive properties such as
the guiding role of profits, division of labor and specialization, productivity increase and accumulation.
Then, the method and vocabulary of microeconomic analysis will be gradually introduced from a pluralistic
perspective, demonstrating to the students the fact that there are substantially different ways
of approaching the same question. On every possible occasion, we will apply the emerging conceptual
knowledge to real world examples in a critical manner so that students develop the skill of interpreting the
world around them. By the end of the semester, students will not only be familiarized with core
microeconomic concepts, but at the same time relate these analytical tools to the complex of social
relations and systemic tendencies, upon which everyday economic interactions and problems arise.

Johann Jaeckel
Principles of Microeconomics
The course aims to provide students with a basic degree of economic literacy to better understand our
current social system. The focus of this introduction lies with the analysis of supply and demand as a
basis for microeconomic reasoning about production, consumption, the case for and against government
intervention, and the relation between different factors of production and income distribution. Economics
is a technical discipline with its own specialized vocabulary and methodology; it is also a discourse where
informed positions widely diverge. A major theme of the course is thus that economics is not simply a
compendium of dry facts or bits of knowledge about the economy, but a set of tools and different
perspectives that enable us to comprehend, interpret, and debate a range of social and historical
questions. By the end of the semester, students will be able to better grasp as well as to analyze complex
social problems from different perspectives. The first part of the course familiarizes students with the
scope and methods of economic reasoning, the role of the division of labor in productivity growth, and the

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interplay of supply and demand in markets. The second part focuses on the formulation and application of
microeconomic tools of analysis, i.e., market equilibrium, externalities, and production costs. The third
part of the course investigates different market structures in terms of the level of competition, and the role
of factor markets (labor, land, capital) with particular regard to their implications for the distribution of
income (wages, rents, profits).

Roxana Julia
Principles of Macroeconomics
This course will introduce the field of macroeconomic theory and analysis. It will cover the behavior of
aggregate economies – national economies for the most part – and the core, mainstream topics of
macroeconomic theory such as national income, inflation, unemployment, economic growth and
economic fluctuations. It will also analyze related macroeconomic policies (such as fiscal and monetary
policies) and examine how they might contribute to, or detract from, human well-being. Critical concerns
of the 21 st century – such as distributional equity, sustainability, and the quality of employment – will be
discussed within their political, social and environmental context. The concepts will relate to current
events to encourage students’ engagement in the subject matter

Ascension Mejorado
Principles of Macroeconomics
This course offers an analytical foundation to the most relevant principles of macroeconomics and their
application to contemporary issues in the global economy. After a brief introduction to the production
possibilities frontier and supply and demand analysis, major topics in macroeconomics will be examined
including the difference between the Classical and the Keynesian schools regarding the causes of
economic fluctuations and the role of the government in the economy. Economic growth, as well as the
basic debates around inflation and unemployment will be extensively analyzed. The course will also
explore the role of monetary and fiscal policies in preventing recessions and their effects on the macro
economy.

Electives
Cammie Kim Lin
Service Learning Seminar I
Service Learning Seminar I is the first course in a two-semester sequence for students selected to
participate in the year-long Liberal Studies Service Ambassadors program. The seminar integrates
intensive weekly service practice with academic coursework and critical reflection. Students who have
applied and been selected to serve as a Liberal Studies Service Ambassador partner with organizations
across New York City to address social issues in the areas of education, health, and the environment. In
this mandatory seminar, Service Ambassadors engage in rigorous coursework meant to ensure that the
service learning experience fosters transformative growth for the student—academic, intellectual,
experiential, and personal—and meaningful outcomes for the partnering organization.This course is open
only to LS Core and GLS students accepted into the Service Ambassadors program. Departmental
approval is required in order to register. Please Contact [email protected] for details.

Ida Chavosan
The Fantasy and Reality of Bridgerton
Dearest gentle reader, this course provides a space for a critical exploration into the world of Regency
England portrayed in the current hit Netflix TV show Bridgerton. Stories like Bridgerton have romanticized
a period of time defined by global colonization, cultural and environmental exploitation, and significant
economic disparity by creating worlds for their protagonists steeped in extravagance and chivalry. Using
Bridgerton as a case study, each week is split into two parts. On the first day, students examine how

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choices made for Bridgerton (about characters, story structure, etc.) contribute to a common theme of
escapist romanticism. On the second day of the week, students dissect the reality of the same theme
based on historically accurate accounts, guest lectures from experts, and field trips. Through this shift
from fantasy to reality, we seek to answer questions like: What was the reality and global impact of
Regency England? Does it matter that this reality existed? Why is this era romanticized and reimagined in
books, TV shows, and films? Do we keep coming back to works like Bridgerton to lose ourselves in the
fantasy? Is an alternate universe problematic?

The course is based around active participation in discussions on assigned readings, videos, lectures,
and field trips. Students write weekly discussion posts and lead the discussion on course material once
during the semester. During the course of the semester, students are guided through the steps of a
research project in which they compare the fantasy vs reality aspects of a theme of their choice in
Bridgerton. The goal of the course is to challenge students to consider the impact of erasing critical
historical context in escapist romantic narratives and propose solutions to make these stories more
inclusive while also retaining the escapist elements that viewers love.

Disclaimer: The content and discussion in this course may be emotionally and intellectually challenging
and includes–but by no means exhaustively-classism, death, nudity, racism, self-harm, sex, sexism, and
sexual violence. We will do our best to make the classroom a space where we can engage empathetically
and thoughtfully with difficult content.

Environmental Studies
Ian Jones
Course Description TBA

Robin Nagle
This course uses an interdisciplinary framework to explore environmentalism as a worldview, a
movement, and as a way to connect academic endeavors with real-world problems. We consider a broad
range of themes, including the overlapping influences of politics, economics, cultural assumptions, and
history in determining the shape of contemporary environmental debates. How and why have
environmental issues become global concerns? What is the place of environmentalism in daily life? What
might be your role in shaping the planet's immediate and long-term ecological health?
We will study the beginnings of modern environmentalism (some sources claim it started with hunters;
others say with philosophers), investigate the consequences of conflicting definitions (what is nature?),
and examine several contemporary controversies (can curbside recycling really make a difference?). We’ll
look at a trend called greenwashing, consider structural sources of environmental injustice, learn why the
most vexing environmental issues are called wicked problems, and delve into debates about the
Anthropocene.

Jerome Whitington
Through the application of fundamental physical and chemical processes, humans attempt to harness the
environment for their particular needs. In examining this most significant dimension of modern life, this
course emphasizes both its harmful and beneficial aspects and deals with such topics as air and water
pollution, transportation, energy resources, and waste control. The political context in which these
problems occur is also examined. This course satisfies the requirement in Life Science. This semester we
examine major ecological dimensions of settler colonialism, tropical deforestation and biodiversity loss,
toxicity and climate change. Topical environmental issues are framed against scientific literature and a
discussion of major ecological concepts such as hydrogeological and nutrient cycles, competition and
symbiosis, and trophic levels. We read classic texts including Silent Spring (Rachel Carson, 1962) as well
as contemporary works such as The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History (Elizabeth Kolbert, 2015).

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Global Cultures
AFRICAN CULTURES

AFGC-UF 101-001 | TR 11am-12:15pm |


Course Description TBD

AFGC-UF 101-002 | MW 9:30am-10:45am |


Course Description TBD

AFGC-UF 101-003 | MW 12:30pm-1:45pm |


Course Description TBD

EAST ASIAN CULTURES

EAGC-UF 101-001 | TR 12:30pm-1:45pm | Jeannine Chandler


EAGC-UF 101-001 | TR 2pm-3:15pm | Jeannine Chandler
Change and Continuity in Chinese History
This course introduces East Asian cultures, focusing to a greater or lesser extent on China, Japan, and/or
Korea. Aspects of East Asia’s traditional and modern culture are presented by study of some of the area’s
Great Books, as well as other literary, political, philosophical, religious and/or artistic works from the
traditional, modern, or contemporary periods. Issues raised may include national or cultural identity in
relation to colonialism/ imperialism, East-West tensions, modernism’s clash with tradition, the persistence
of tradition with the modern, the East Asian Diaspora, and the question of East Asian modernities.

INDIGENOUS CULTURES
rights
INGC-UF 101-001 | TR 9:30am-10:45am | Marian Thorpe
INGC-UF 101-002 | TR 11am-12:15pm | Marian Thorpe
Since the 1950s, the world has witnessed the emergence of a global movement around the rights of
Indigenous peoples. But how is it that groups of people from every populated continent have come to
claim the same identity category? What exactly is Indigeneity, and what histories and experiences do
these diverse populations share? Using examples from around the world and from our own
neighborhoods, we will learn about the cultures, histories, and political dynamics of a range of Indigenous
societies around the globe. We will also explore some of the human rights issues Indigenous movements
seek to address, and the mobilization strategies these movements use. In addition, we will take a hard
look at the role of non-Indigenous scholars and scientists in defining Indigenous peoples as an object of
study, and explore how Indigenous peoples are bringing their own forms of knowledge and ways of
knowing to bear on science and economic development. Finally, the course concludes with an
examination of the concept of decolonization, asking how non-Indigenous settler colonists can listen to,
learn from, and act in solidarity with Indigenous peoples.

LATIN AMERICAN CULTURES

LAGC-UF 101-001 | TR 4:55pm-6:10pm | Luis Ramos


LAGC-UF 101-002 | TR 3:30pm-4:45pm | Luis Ramos
Literature and the Political Imagination in Latin America
It is often said that literature and politics are inextricably linked in Latin America. But how has literature
helped shape political discourse in the region and how has politics, in turn, informed its literature and art?
Drawing from a wide range of disciplines (literary criticism, history and political theory) and genres (poetry,
fiction and the visual arts), in this course we will closely examine works that probe the boundary between
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politics and art under shifting historical conditions. We will begin by considering the origins of Latin
American literature’s intimate relation to politics through works that recall the pre-colonial past or record
indigenous rebellions against Spanish authorities. We will then turn to artists and writers who were
instrumental in redefining the role of literature and art as revolutionary weapons or as instruments of
nationbuilding in the independence era. Finally, we will examine works that probe the boundaries of the
national body by casting a critical light on state violence in the twentieth-century. Among the leading
questions that will inform class discussion: How has the political and aesthetic function of literature in
Latin America changed over time? How has the intellectual historically assumed the role of agent or critic
of the state? What do literature and art suggest about the relation between the state and its margins,
between history and memory, and between elite and subaltern subjects?

LAGC-UF 101-003 | MW 9:30am-10:45am | Patricio Navia


LAGC-UF 101-004 | MW 11am-12:15pm | Patricio Navia
This course provides students with a general view of Latin American and the Caribbean. We study the
region’s history, culture, arts, society, economy and recent political developments. Prior knowledge of
Latin America is not required. In fact, because of the diversity within the region, some students familiar
with one country will learn plenty about other countries. Latin America and the Caribbean is a diverse
region with a wealth of different cultures, societies, economies and political systems. By providing a
historical overview of the region during the first weeks, the class will build on that foundation to quickly
reach 20 th -century and 21 st -century Latin America. We will also discuss Latinos in the U.S. The focus
is generally historical, sociological, political and economic, but culture and the arts are also widely
discussed.

LAGC-UF 101-005 | MW 12:30pm-1:45pm | Mario Cancel-Bigay


LAGC-UF 101-006 | MW 2pm-3:15pm | Mario Cancel-Bigay
In this course we revisit some of the key moments in Latin American history from the period of
colonization to the present. Making use of primary and secondary sources, students are exposed to the
works of critical thinkers of the region, important cultural manifestations (songs, poetry, novels, plays) and
turning points, such as the rebellions and revolutions that have impacted Latin America and the
Caribbean. The course highlights as well the contributions of women, Indigenous and Afro-descendant
communities and actors, and the diaspora. Without neglecting to address the cultural and historical
specificities that make up the selected Latin American nations, and the particularities that lie within, the
course emphasizes how global dynamics (such as imperialism, internationalism, colonialism, cultural
exchanges, transnational and inter-ethnic acts of solidarity) have shaped the region and how the region,
in turn, has shaped the world.

MIDDLE EASTERN CULTURES

MEGC-UF 101-003 | MW 2pm-3:15pm | Mona El-Ghobashy


MEGC-UF 101-004 | MW 11am-12:15pm | Mona El-Ghobashy
Dynamics of Transformation
The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is a region of 583 million people living in 22 countries
straddling two continents, with diverse political systems, economies, and ethnic, racial, religious,
linguistic, and class groups. Our course will focus on this diversity through time, examining how the term
“Middle East” came about, the kinds of political structures that emerged from the nineteenth century to the
present, and the changing cultures of societies as they interacted with one another and with broader
global trends. It is impossible to comprehensively cover every aspect of such a sprawling geography, so
will focus on the crucial themes that everyone needs to know to be able to make sense of contemporary
developments. These include the nature of the Ottoman Empire that governed much of the Middle East
for 500 years; European colonial incursions into the region in the 19th and 20th centuries; the anticolonial
freedom movements that created independent states in the 1950s and 1960s; and the series of uprisings
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that began in 2010 and have come to be known as the “Arab Spring.” The course begins and ends with
these pro-democracy rebellions, explaining how they began in a small town in Tunisia and turned into a
region-wide upheaval that continues to transform the Middle East, North Africa, and the wider world.

History of the Universe


Statia Cook
Welcome to History of the Universe! This semester, we will explore the astonishing Universe we call
home. Using observations, experiments, and quantitative reasoning, we will investigate how our species
has progressed towards its current understanding of how our Universe came to be, and our own place
within it. We will consider some of the biggest questions in the field, including Are we alone? and What is
the fate of the Universe? and discuss key challenges and promising directions for addressing these big
questions.

Here are some things you should know about my classroom and teaching philosophy.

● We all enter this room with different prior experiences and backgrounds. This diversity enriches
our classroom community. Your voice is welcome.
● Learning is an active process. We will focus on evidence-based learning strategies, including
active, collaborative learning to facilitate individual understanding. Assignments will promote deep
learning through frequent practice and reflection.
● Humans learn by making mistakes; all individuals should work to promote an environment in
which trying and failing is encouraged.

Gerceida Jones
The New Universe
Students in History of the Universe examine science as a way of looking at the world. They learn about
the nature of the universe and about changes in the universe over time, including the origin and
development of stars, galaxies, planetary systems, and the universe itself, as well as study of the earth
and the development of life on earth and in the universe. The course traces the development of western
scientific thought from the work of Aristotle, Ptolemy, Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo to the discoveries of
Newton, Einstein and Hubble, among others. The course seeks to give students an understanding not
only of modern science, but also of its development and of the methods, strengths and limitations of
science.
"The history of our universe may be the key to our future." (Abrams & Primack)

Life Science
Nikolay Kukushkin
What makes our species, Homo sapiens, special among others that inhabit planet Earth? To put this
question into perspective, we will go as far back in time as biology can take us. The first half of this class
will begin at life’s origins 4 billion years ago. We will trace the evolutionary path from simple molecules to
replicating cells, from microorganisms to plants and animals, and finally from the earliest animals to
human ancestors, always asking the same question: how does our own lineage stand out among the
infinite ways to be alive? By understanding other species, past and present, we will learn more about our
own. In the second half of the course, we will examine the origins of human mental function. Beginning
with the basic organisation of a nervous system, in this part of the class will aim to unify the biological
understanding of the brain with theories of language, consciousness and cultural evolution. In addition to
the lecture series, the class features activities and group projects designed to accompany the ongoing

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topics. These projects will require a combination of analytical thinking and creativity, and will help us learn
more about the natural world and the modern scientific process.

Erin Morrison
Unraveling the past, present and future of biology
In this course, we will evaluate the impact of scientific inquiry on culture, politics, the economy, medicine
and technology through the lens of fundamental principles of biology. We will learn how to apply the
scientific method and distinguish between evidence-based research and pseudo-science. The course will
cover topics on molecular and cellular biology, genetics, evolution and diversification, bioethics, and
bioengineering. Focus will be placed on how major scientific discoveries in biology have shaped our
understanding of the origins of life and also provided us with the tools to manipulate elements of life
history ranging in scale from a single gene to an entire ecosystem. The course will incorporate in-class
lectures, interactive labs, group discussions, primary and popular science literature, and a research
project on science literacy and communication. Excursions to local parks and museums will also provide
opportunities to discover the diversity of life that exists within New York City.

Global Works and Society: Antiquity


Erik Bormanis
This course covers a range of time from Ancient Mesopotamia to the early Roman Empire. During this
historical period, many communities and political systems arose for the first time. Correspondingly, it
marks the beginning of our thinking about such systems, whether to reinforce their authority or to
challenge them and present alternatives.

Thinking about social life, particularly in a critical way, often puts the philosopher in the position of an
outsider, a figure on the margins who is not fully accepted by their community. However, throughout
history communities have constantly been in motion, whether through migration or reconceptualizing who
they are. Indeed, many of the established communities of today arose only on the margins of larger, more
established communities.

In this course, we will reckon with the importance of community in human life, while also challenging
ourselves to think through the relationship of political thought to political power. We will ask questions
about the definition of justice, the best way to organize human social life, and the ways communities both
include and exclude outsider perspectives. We will also pose questions about time, memory, and place,
all of which are essential to our self-understanding as members of particular communities.

Nalei Chen
This course offers an introduction to the moral, political, and religious thought of the ancient world. We will
examine foundational texts from China, India, Greece, and the Middle East. We will consider the kinds of
questions that these texts were interested in and how they gave rise to important similarities and
differences early on in their respective cultures. By adopting global and cross-cultural approaches, you
will develop cross-cultural competency in relation to the foundations of the political, ethical, and cultural
traditions of these civilizations.
Moreover, you are expected to take an active role in your learning. Through careful reading and critical
discussion, you will develop the capacity to think critically about a number of enduring questions that are
still very relevant to our contemporary world. Here are some of the most important ones:
What is the relation between individuals and society? Must individuals always obey the laws that
the state enacts?

15
What is human nature? Is it good, evil, or morally neutral? How does our conception of it impact
our moral, political, or religious thought?
What are virtues? Can we become virtuous? If we can, how? And what is the relationship
between virtues and our social and political life?
What is the relation between justice and power? Does power need to be justified? And why can’t
we do whatever we want if we are powerful?
What is the relation between humanity and the divine? How do we know that God exists? If God
exists and is good, then why is the world so bad?

Peter Diamond
This course examines and compares the ways in which several ancient societies imagined and
maintained their ways of life. We will explore and analyze texts taken from the Hebrew, Chinese, Indian,
Greco-Roman and early Christian traditions, focusing in particular on their attempts to answer such
questions as: What is the right way to live? What role, if any, does the divine play in our lives? Are
humans naturally selfish, or benevolent? What is justice? Is war ever justified? We will also examine
what roles these societies’ political, economic, social, and religious institutions played in shaping these
ideas, or how these institutions may have been shaped by those ideas.
Our approach will be both global and interdisciplinary. That is, we will concentrate on the attempts by
ancient thinkers to bring order to the worlds they imagined. From this standpoint, “global” is not so much
a geographical designation or a synonym for “non-Western” but instead refers to the perceptual scope of
the arguments or other act of imagination we will examine. We will also study ancient worlds (1) on their
own terms, by situating them within their historical and cultural contexts (2) by juxtaposing them with one
another on an equal footing, and (3) from our own perspective, in light of contemporary beliefs and
events. Throughout the course, we will explore the connection between text and society. We will ask
what implications arise out of understanding a text from a “historical” as opposed to a “religious,” or
“mythological,” or “philosophical” standpoint. We will ask what is at stake in these questions, and reflect
upon the importance, and the fluidity, of such categorization.

Farzad Mahootian
Global Works and Society: Antiquity spans the period from pre-history to around 700 CE and examines
relationships between patterns of action, belief and thought in ancient societies as compared with those of
current cultures. Our section of GWA emphasizes philosophy, religion and science as key formative
socio-cultural factors. We study the historical development of religion, science and philosophy in Greece,
India and China, as well as reflecting philosophically on the basis and rationale of their concepts and
cosmologies. Key texts include Apology, Meno, Phaedrus and Timaeus (Plato), On Christian Doctrine
(Augustine), Dao de Jing (Lao Tzu), the Upanishads, the Bible, and The Man in the High Castle (P.K.
Dick). The latter is a work of speculative history that casts an interesting light on intersections of “western”
and “eastern” ways in the semi-fictional world of 1960s San Francisco.

Jim McBride
This course provides students with an introduction to the philosophies, religions, polities, and economies
of the ancient world. Students will read foundational texts in the Greek, Hebrew, Roman, Chinese and
Hindu cultures with particular attention to Athens, Rome, Jerusalem, and Qin. The course will introduce
students to the rise of Western consciousness and the split between East and West that has become so
important in the development of the modern world. Among the many topics to be explored are social
hierarchies, political models, imperial ideologies, slavery, gender roles, moral virtue, the sacred and the
profane, and human liberation or salvation. Among the historical characters to be encountered are Cyrus
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the Great, Xerxes, Darius, Socrates, Plato, Xenophon, Alexander the Great, Augustus Caesar, Tiberius,
Qin Shi Huangdi, Moses, Paul and Jesus. This course will emphasize placing ancient texts into their
historical and geographical contexts. Students are expected to read the texts carefully and analyze
historical worldviews as a looking glass into the lived experience of human beings who were both very
different and yet very similar to ourselves. The course will be a success for any student who uses these
texts to gain insight into the presuppositions, prejudices, hopes and dreams of our own contemporary
cultures.

Albert Piacente
The Logical Structure of Desire
This course has as its focus what has come to be known as the “Axial Age,” a period from roughly the 7th
to the 3rd centuries B.C.E. where many of the seminal texts, at the foundations of a number of
philosophical and religious belief systems still with us today, were compiled and/or written. Recognizing
many of these texts for their unique voice and diversity of viewpoint, we will nonetheless see that they,
and the Axial Age, share a singular, common theme: structuring desire. From what to want and not want,
from what should be pursued to make a life good to what when pursued makes a life bad, it is this that
nearly every text we will encounter in this course takes as its central subject. But, and here is the
question that will hang in the background throughout the entire course, to what end? Is it possible or
even desirable (pun intended) to break desires into categories with some lauded and others sanctioned?
We will proceed via the close reading of texts prior to class (see course schedule) which is then brought
to bear in lecture, question and answer and open-format discussion. You are expected to do all
assignments as well as both to attend classes and participate. At times participation will be voluntary, but
at other times not (you may get called on), depending upon the level of engagement of individuals and the
class as a whole. The point of participation is to bring multiple perspectives to bear in order to achieve a
more full experience of the material but also to allow students to appreciate more fully the views of others
when focusing on their own, individual, written work.

Laura Samponaro
“Equality is most unequal,” Cicero asserted in the first century B.C.E. What do concepts like equality,
freedom, and justice mean to the ancients and to us today? How do the socio political views of the
ancient Greeks and Romans continue to influence us? In this course, we shall examine how the political,
social, and ethical ideas of the ancients have impacted our own respective, current points of view. The
goal of this course is not only to introduce you to texts that have shaped the way we think but also for you
to study them as a means for constructing your own arguments, both in speech and in writing. While
adopting an attitude of critical engagement towards texts and ideas, you will examine not only what a
particular argument is but also how that argument is presented. In turn you will learn how to develop your
own arguments and present them in a clear and persuasive fashion.

Michael Shenefelt
The Ancient World
This course uses classic texts to survey the moral and political thought of ancient times. We seek to
discover a common humanity as expressed through four different literary traditions—those of ancient
Greece, the Bible, classical China, and ancient Rome. Historical topics include the rise and fall of the
Greek city-states, the development of classical Greek philosophy, the intellectual ferment of China before
its unification, the imperial expansion of Rome, the rise of Christianity, and the dissolution of Roman
authority during the early Middle Ages.We also consider philosophical issues that arise during the period,
17
such as the proper exercise of political power, the authority of the state over the individual, the relation of
religion to morality, the good life, rationality and knowledge, free will, the relation of mind and body,
fundamental ethical principles, and the effects of political freedom. The course asks students to examine
these issues critically. Class discussion will be crucial.

Rohan Sikri
Course Description TBD

Heidi White
Justice, Happiness, and the Good Life
This course concentrates on some of the classic texts of the ancient world and of the early Middle
Ages--such as those of ancient India, classical China, the Judaic tradition, ancient Greece, and ancient
Rome. We will explore the ways that philosophers and theologians have envisioned the self in relation to
questions of metaphysics, ethics, and political theory. Historical topics include the metaphysical
reflections of China before its unification, the spiritual thought of India, the rise and fall of the Greek
city-states, the collapse of the Roman Republic, and the rise of Christianity. We will focus upon
philosophical issues that arise during the period, such as the proper exercise of political power, the
authority of the state over the individual, and the relation of religion to morality and the good life.

Global Works and Society: Modernity


Joyce Apsel
Course Description TBA

Regina Gramer
Empire, Violence, Protest
This course provides a historical approach to some of the most fundamental and innovative ideas that
emerged from the Enlightenment to the present. We will study classic texts written by Jean-Jacques
Rousseau, Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Erich Fromm, Frantz Fanon, and Simone de Beauvoir within the
context of their own time and test their ideas from a variety of different perspectives, such as
cross-cultural and interdisciplinary ones. What stakes, for instance, did slaves in Saint Domingue have in
the French Revolution, or moral philosophers in global markets, Marxist revolutionaries in British
colonialism, psychologists in capitalism, psychiatrists in decolonization, or European women in the
emancipation of African-Americans? We will discuss the ways in which empire, capitalism, war, and
globalization have shaped discourses on race, class, gender, violence, and human rights since the
French Revolution and explore their contemporary relevance. Students will learn to engage in
multi-disciplinary research and debate.

Garnet Kindervater
Modernity, Liberalism, and Liberation
This course traces late-modern thought from roughly the 18th century to the present. Sometimes referred
to as the Age of Enlightenment, and sometimes referred to as the Secular Age, modernity represents
most broadly the age in which human beings became detached from longstanding and entrenched forms
of belief, economy, political order, and community. Modernity redoubled the philosophical emphasis on
human reason, arguing that the self-determination of the species was not only possible, but already
available. Achieving liberation from former modes of life meant great revolutions in thought, in belief
systems, in economy, in science, and in politics.
Efforts to codify scientific method, the emergence of capitalist political economy, the advent of democratic
politics were all pursued as a means by which human beings strove for freedom, emerging from forms of
life they viewed as archaic, antiquated, or uncivil. And from these massive collective projects of

18
becoming modern, the same social, political, economic, and philosophical pursuits came to organize and
reinforce conceptions of human difference on the global stage.
In other words, while some civilizations announced universal freedoms for human beings wherever they
are found, those same civilizations often engaged in massive global projects of colonialism, enslavement,
and coercive servitude. This course explores the modern project as outlined by some of its greatest
theorists. But we also consider some of its most strident critics, found both within the Global North, as
well as in its colonies, and its various other vectors of marginality.
In so doing, we will ask the question of how human beings came to celebrate freedom above all else,
while clearly not for all, not equally, and certainly not everywhere or all at once.

Mitra Rastegar
Revolutionary Times
A defining feature of our time is that we expect our world and way of life to change dramatically from
generation to generation and even year to year, hopefully as progress, but also often causing greater
insecurity. This course explores revolutions in thought and in the structures of life that shape our current
condition beginning with two great revolutions: the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution. We
engage the works of thinkers grappling with the rise of modern industrial capitalism and the
transformation of class structures (Marx and Smith), the emergence of new concepts of political and
individual freedom (Rousseau, Mill and Freud), and struggles within global colonial empires (Gandhi and
Fanon). These works emerge from or inspire various liberation movements, such as the Indian and
Algerian Independence movements, and the US Women’s Liberation and Civil Rights movements (de
Beauvoir and bell hooks). While these works emerge from specific historical contexts, their insights about
the central problematic of human freedom--including the nature of humanity, the sources of inequalities,
and the means by which a just society can be achieved--continue to resonate.
Through our analysis we will trace the connections and divergences between European thinkers and
thinkers engaging other geopolitical, cultural and socioeconomic context. We will also analyze the broad
influence of these texts and relate the debates between them to our social and political context today. Our
approach will include close reading, comparative analysis and extrapolation to other contexts and cases,
including through an independent research project each student will develop over the course of the
semester.

Michael Shenefelt
Revolutions and Counter-Revolutions
This course examines major intellectual and political movements of the modern world—from the opening
of the 18th century down to the present. Vast new international markets emerge during this period, and so
do new political systems. Overall, the period is one of accelerating change. Topics include the
Enlightenment, the expansion and disintegration of global colonial empires, the rise of representative
democracy, the nature of American slavery, the dangers to personal privacy and individual freedom
represented by mass opinion, the new, 19th-century idea of the unconscious mind, and new forms of
social strife generated by industrialization. Class discussions are crucial.

Setareh Shohadaei
Course Description TBA

Dina Siddiqi
Foundations of Modernity: Imperialism, Colonialism, and Knowledge Production
This is the third and final in a sequence of courses that examines texts -- philosophical, political, social,
and economic -- that laid the foundations of and shaped the way we understand our contemporary world.
The time period under consideration – from the late 1700’s to the middle of the 20th century – is
significant for ushering in what we know as modernity. Secularism, liberal democracy and values of
equality, human rights and individual freedom are hallmarks of this modernity. Conventional narratives
cast such ‘universal’ values as being birthed in Europe during the Enlightenment, subsequently traveling
to the rest of the world. Among other things, this course will trouble and complicate this storyline.
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We will do close readings of selected “classics” of the European Enlightenment, those considered
foundational to contemporary liberal theory. These canonical texts are forward looking; they sometimes
privilege radical rupture. They envision political and social arrangements that would transcend and
transform unjust and unequal hierarchies of the past, and produce conditions for individual freedom and
prosperity. They also write out empire, race, and capitalism. European Enlightenment thought flourished
alongside and through imperial expansion and the rise of new capitalist forms of extraction. Asia, Africa,
Europe, and the Americas were deeply, if asymmetrically, interconnected worlds. We will read into classic
texts the global relations of power within which they were nested and produced. Through close readings
against the grain, we will trace the silences, fractures, and contradictions that are constitutive of modernity
in our time.

How was the construction of knowledge, especially of the “canon,” implicated in the imperatives of
empire? What kind of Others did Enlightenment and colonial categories produce? What work did the
civilizational framework of colonial discourse perform? How did discursive binaries such as savage:
civilized, irrational: rational, backward: future-oriented – shape ideas of who could be properly human?
What were the occlusions of power involved? These are some of the questions the course seeks to
answer.

In the second half of the semester, we will turn to conversations within “empire,” to the debates and
concerns that animated the lives of men and women living in British India and the colonial Middle East,
who not only spoke back to the Empire but also had distinct views on modernity, equality, freedom and
democracy. We will trace connections among texts across time and space. The course concludes with
reflections on what makes a text “classic,” and/or global, and how to decolonize theory through reading
texts globally.

Marian Thorpe
Equality and Liberation
The concept of “equality” is both ever-current and ever-changing. From early democratic philosophers to
third wave feminists, from economists to Indigenous activists, many thinkers across the world have
grappled with the meaning of equality, and what steps oppressed peoples should take to gain and protect
their freedom. In this course, we will explore how writers from the last three hundred years have defined
equality, the historical and intellectual contexts that have shaped their understandings of the term, and
how their insights shape emerging global concepts of equality and liberation today.
The first unit of the course explores freedom, equality, and government, examining how philosophers like
Rousseau and Mill, and communities like the Haudenosaunee envisioned what governments could be
like. In the second unit, we discuss the rise of global capitalism, and how thinkers like Adam Smith, Marx,
and Engels have analyzed social and economic inequality under capitalist systems. In the third unit, with
the writings of Gandhi, Fanon, Freire, and Martin Luther King, Jr., we will explore how colonized peoples
from India, Africa, and North and South America have struggled for equality through anti-colonial,
nationalist, and human rights movements. Finally, in the fourth unit, drawing on works by authors such as
Beauvoir, Lorde, and Crenshaw, we will examine how the notion of equality has shaped divergent
approaches to women’s liberation and movements for intersectional racial and gender justice.
By thinking locally and globally, historically and through their own individual experiences, students will
leave the course with an understanding of how concepts of equality, liberation, and political autonomy
emerged, and how they continue to shape today’s world

Mahnaz Yousefzadeh
Course Description TBA

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Writing As Exploration

Sara Cordon Hornillos


In the 1990s, JT LeRoy released three works of autobiographical fiction in which he spoke of experiences
of poverty, drug use, and emotional and sexual abuse. Years later, it was discovered that his books were
written by Laura Albert, and the person who appeared publicly as JT LeRoy was Laura Albert´s
sister-in-law, Savannah Knoop. What is the importance of an author’s public persona? What happens
when an autobiographical pact is established between author and reader? In the year 2018, the
Equatoguinean poet César Brandon won Spain’s Got Talent competition moving the audience with his
personal story of struggle. In the same year, the Peruvian writer Gabriela Wiener started performing the
story of her polyamorous family in theaters. Seeing writers on-stage presenting their intimate experiences
has provoked controversy among literary critics: Should writers engage in this spectacularization of their
private lives? Is it a marketing strategy?

In late capitalism, dynamics of consumption and publicity have bolstered the public exhibition and
spectacularization of the authorial persona as a way to promote authors’ work. Thus, some authors feel
they have been commodified and manipulated, while others have leveraged the situation to manage their
own public image, tying their work to their biographies, bodies, experiences, and identities. In this context,
“narratives of the self”, and the genre of autofiction in particular, have become ever more widespread.
Autofiction allows us to question the boundaries of reality and fiction, generating interest in authors’
private lives.
On the other hand, self-narratives allow many writers to document realities that have traditionally been
invisible, rendering the personal political.

This theoretical and practical writing course considers narratives of the self as a way to help document
reality —sometimes through facts, or sometimes through fictional stories— and a private form of
expression, but also as a public intervention. Through critical reading and by observing different literary
techniques, this class will help you discover that writing can be a powerful way to understand other
people's struggles and an aid to self-awareness.

The aim of this course is for students to work collaboratively, valuing and engaging with their own works,
as well as those of their peers such that the end result of each assignment is the product of joint
reflection. We will develop critical reading and oral argumentation skills throughout the semester and in
doing so, promote self-reflection on various aspects entwined with literature: aesthetics, ideology, forms of
expression, socio political issues, activism, etc.

We will question the role of the author and the current possibilities presented in literature, by revisiting
classic debates regarding the concept of authorship, by critically reading various theoretical texts related
to late capitalism, and by exploring different modes of literary representation through media and social
media and literary forms that go beyond written text.

Michael Datcher
Writing as Exploration has two main objectives. The first is to develop self-confidence and fluency through
the use of writing to express, explore, and develop ideas. The second objective is to practice critical and
analytical skills. This class will interrogate the intersection of knowledge, power and the body.
Specifically, we will collectively explore the notion that, as Erica Edwards argues, writing is a repository for
imagining new possibilities: writing is a storehouse for new epistemologies. Throughout the course, we
will place narrative texts in conversation with Michel Foucault’s power/knowledge construct to make
analyses, to create new epistemologies, about how people come to know what they know. For example,
how do people come to “know” that certain human subjects are more or less “valuable” than other human
subjects? What is the process by which those in power make less powerful people “The Other.” In our

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writing, we will also explore how our individual bodies, our specific phenotypes, influence how we accrue
knowledge about ourselves and the world around us.

Robert Fitterman
The World of Film Noir
What is Film Noir and why are we studying it in a writing class? Both of those questions are a fair place to
begin. Film Noir, a term coined by the French for American films, is not easily defined. Shortly after WWII,
Hollywood started to produce a lot of hard-boiled detective and crime movies that were saturated with a
darkness and cynicism that had not been seen before. Film Noir, it is often argued, is not a genre of film
per se but more like a mood of several films that share a set of common characteristics. They are usually
shot in black and white with excessive use of shadows; the protagonist—or anti-hero in this case—is
often a single man adrift in life and/or a tough guy detective; the female lead is often a femme fatale who
dupes the protagonist down the morally corrupt road of crime or murder or both. The films are dark both
visually and morally to echo the societal, postwar atmosphere—a position that might have been more
shocking in the 1940s than today.

And why is it the theme of this course? In recent years, Film Noir has re-emerged as an important field of
study, in part, because of its relevance to today's pessimistic condition, but also because the films offer a
lot to think about and write about. It's important to note that this is not a film class and I'm not a film
scholar, but studying the elements of Film Noir and considering them analytically will uncover ideas about
the American psyche and how it has been transported to other cultures around the world. We will watch,
study, discuss, and write about Film Noir from perspectives of home and abroad: from the classic period
to the international versions, to influences in contemporary films today.

Don't worry! Our class emphasis will be on writing. You will be required to write 3 essays (approx. 3-4
pages) plus several shorter writing pieces, usually in response to our readings and discussions. All final
draft essays will be completed in several steps: writing through responses, to rough drafts, to revisions, to
completion. In the classroom, we will look closely at film clips and supporting material for the purpose of
analysis that can generate ideas that are relevant to us today: gender roles, feminism, post-war
psychology, violence, cultural appropriation, etc. Additionally, we will work on writing strategies, academic
essay constructs, and revising techniques in a workshop format.

Ethan Fortuna
Creative Engagements with Art
Greetings! This course is designed to help you identify and use a variety of tools and creative strategies
as you explore writing in your academic and daily life. Each week, we will consider a form (such as the
personal narrative or art review) that models how to craft an argument and/or structure thinking, and we
will analyze different craft elements and persuasive techniques used in the assigned readings. You will
have the chance, throughout the semester, to share writing-in-progress with your peers and
collaboratively discuss the themes and readings of our class. Through experimentation, collaboration, and
guided drafting and redrafting, the aim of this course is to help you find a sustainable and inspiring writing
practice to carry forward into your academic pursuits.

Janet Hendrickson
True Stories
What kinds of truth can writing tell—or make? In this class, we examine these questions through
narrative and documentary writing from and about the Americas, and particularly Latin America, a point
of entry into inquiries with global consequence. We will ask, how does local—even personal—
perspective matter beyond the place from which it is written? What happens when writing crosses
borders? Can art be factual? Does writing change the world?
A series of exemplary readings leads to the heart of our work in this class: frequent and varied writing
across the essay genre. Our production in this class ranges from critical analysis to creative imitation and
invention with regard to things that matter to us. This course will help us transform experience into
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evidence and draw connections between culturally distinct subjects as we discover how writing can
shape our world in meaningful ways.
One distinctive feature of this course is its emphasis on the writing process. Assessment will take place
through a labor-based grading contract, meaning that you will be graded on the basis of the work you do,
rather than any judgment of its perceived quality. You will still receive detailed feedback on your work,
and you’ll engage in the drafting and revision that empower you to make meaningful choices about
language and grow in the challenging, rewarding work of thought. The contract grading system aims to
recognize that each student comes into our writing class with different experiences, and it encourages
you to take risks to meet your writing goals.

Susanna Horng
This semester I invite you to experience writing as a process, an exploration, a discovery in a brave and
inclusive space. We will approach writing as a method of developing inquiry and critical thinking. A way of
connecting with readers and with texts--written, visual, aural, experiential--and with communities--local
and global. I invite you to be courageous, to follow your curiosity, to get lost and find your way, to develop
persistence and grit--or “endurance” as America writer James Baldwin said in the quote above. For this
seminar, you will write essays using experiential learning visits to Seneca Village in Central Park and An
Afrofuturist Room at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, a sequence of readings, informal writing, drafts,
peer feedback, and workshop. The site visits, reading and writing assignments leading up to the final
essays should not be seen as distinct assignments in and of themselves, but as connected to motivating
and stimulating conversation with your readers. If you take these seriously and expend the effort, you will
transform your thinking and writing.

Cammie Lin
Ways of Seeing, Ways of Being
To borrow from essayist Phillip Lopate, this course is intended to engage and develop your “really
interesting, unpredictable mind” as you use writing to explore topics you—and, written well, your
readers—find compelling. Central to this endeavor is the idea that writing is not merely a tool for argument
or the representation of ideas, but rather, a means for the exploration of ideas. We will work against
writing that merely illustrates a point and toward writing that explores ideas, struggling to entangle and
disentangle ourselves from thorny and interesting problems.
Through critical reading, writing, and conversation, we will consider the thorny and interesting idea that
experience shapes the lenses through which we see ourselves and the world. The exploration of this idea
will be entwined with the development of English writing skills that demonstrate not only proficiency, but
elegance and verve.

Carol Lo
Ways of Reading
“Writing as Exploration: Ways of Reading” facilitates your entry into the intellectual and academic life at
Liberal Studies and NYU by supporting your development of reading and writing skills–skills that lay the
foundation for your college career. We will explore and interpret different kinds of texts (fiction, memoir,
essays, etc.), engage with complex materials and difficult concepts, and, in turn, analyze and write about
them. Through a combination of close, distant, and critical reading, and through you will develop as a
thinker and a writer.

This course is divided into three main parts, culminating in three major assignments on three different
rhetorical modes: (1) summary critique, (2) literary analysis, and (3) Op-Ed. Through these three
rhetorical modes, you will practice strategies of summarizing, analyzing, critiquing, arguing, and
synthesizing sources, all of which form the basis for most American college writing. There is great
emphasis on feedback, revision, and reflection, which means that both the process and the product are
equally important.

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Matt Longabucco
Welcome to Writing I: Writing as Exploration, the first semester of a year-long writing class. In this course,
we will engage in college-level writing by reading and writing essays that exhibit intellectual rigor as well
as compelling creativity. Our work will take a global focus in its attention, not just to place and narrative,
but also to questions of how we can approach stories we gather and sites we visit with mindfulness and a
broad sense of context and perspective. Through a process of observation, research, composition, and
revision, students will arrive at complex ideas and consider their own agency as alert and artful writers in
the world.

Suzanne Menghraj
The Object, the Self, and the World
Writing and other work for this course will grapple with subject matter that challenges your thinking:
complicated sights, sounds, people, places, experiences, and cultural practices. We’ll begin with
contemporary art and move on to subject matter largely chosen by you. In the process, you will not only
become more comfortable managing uncertainty in your writing but will also come to see writing as an
essential component rather than mere product of thinking. The incorporation of feedback from peers, the
thoughtful consideration of others’ ideas in your work, and the effort to draw connections between
seemingly disparate subjects will all serve to strengthen your approaches to thinking, reading, and writing
for global audiences. By the end of the semester, I hope that you will see all kinds of subject
matter—whether personal or distant, familiar or foreign—as worthy of your curiosity and deliberate
consideration in prose and that you will come to enjoy finding the most authentic and compelling styles for
your exploration of our tremendously mystifying, ever complicated world.

Carley Moore
In this course, we will explore the contemporary literary and academic essay and its relationship to
smaller forms like images, sentences, and scenes. Many cultural critics, writers, teachers, and artists
believe that the essay—with its focus on connecting the personal to the political, its use of texts and
ideas, its ability to attract readers globally with just a click or two, and its space for diverse voices—is
experiencing a renaissance. I agree! In this course, we will explore the essay in all of its power and reach,
both as writers and readers working in the genre.

Remember, just because the essay genre is new to you or unrecognizable from what you learned in high
school, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist and hasn’t been around for hundreds of years.

It’s my job to challenge you and to push you far beyond what you learned to do as a writer in high school.
I also value that past work and, as often as I can, I will try to make explicit bridges between what you
learned in high school and the work I’m asking you to do now. We will read and write a lot, and I
guarantee that sometimes it will feel like too much.

It’s your job to come to class prepared and ready to talk, write, and think as an individual and a generous
member of the community. Most importantly, it’s your taxing, vexing, enlightening, and joyous job to be a
writer.

Stephen Policoff
The Surface (and Below It)
This course is intended to improve your writing. How? By increasing confidence in your ability to shape
thoughts into prose and enhancing your skills as an observer, narrator, and analyst of the world around
you. We will consider and discuss various aspects of the process of writing; we will read many examples
among the abundant forms and styles of writing. But the principal work of the class will center on your
own written response to a variety of assignments, some brief, some not so brief.

For the most part, we will be considering what we might call the text—the surface of a thing, an event, an
experience—and the subtext of that thing/event/experience. We will look at some essays, two short
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books, and a handful of weird stories. We will hope to consider not only what our first impression is but
what elements go into making that impression.

There will be weekly reading and writing assignments, in a wide range of lengths, styles, and intentions.
We will do some writing in class; we will also work in pairs and in groups at times, reading and analyzing
one another’s work, focusing on both the strengths and the flaws we find there.

Montana Ray
A Century of Travel Writing
The first in a two-semester writing course, Writing as Exploration expands and complicates students’
understanding of the essay in its varied forms and functions. Rather than approaching writing as an innate
talent, this course teaches writing as a learned skill that can be practiced and developed. This semester,
students will use writing as a way of thinking: our objective is the continual refinement of ideas and their
expression. Reading, too, is a way of thinking; and this course embraces feminist, Black, Indigenous, fat,
queer, Southern, and disabled texts as necessary perspectives for our collective development. Our theme
this semester is travel writing, an essay genre which is having a moment. Inspired by contemporary
essayists like Clint Smith, Jordan Kisner, and Imani Perry who use travel to analyze cultural phenomena
and narrate personal and collective history, we’ll consider the literary lineages of the genre. Perry’s South
to America, for example, follows Albert Murray’s classic, South to a Very Old Place; and Murray himself
followed white journalist Jonathan Daniels’ A Southern Discovers the South, written “as if with the
typewriter against the dashboard.” Over the course of the semester, students will close read and discuss
travel-related texts from the 1920s to today, written in various modes (diaristic, ethnographic, critical, and
journalistic). Students will also practice their own travel writing: a travel essay on food and a destination
essay which guides the reader to a famous or surprising institution. Finally, students will also use writing
as an intellectual refuge as not all stages of the essay writing process are for the public: we will keep
writing journals and prioritize daily in-class creative prompts and metacognitive reflections which need not
always be shared.

Tamuira Reid
“We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.” – Kurt Vonnegut
This course is designed to make you a “better” writer. By better I mean riskier, smarter, clearer and more
persuasive. The aim of good writing is to seduce your audience, regardless of genre. Seduction:
something that attracts or charms. What elements of writing do we find attractive? What moves us to be
moved? What inspires? What motivates? What solicits a particular response? We will be aiming to
answer some of these questions (and more) through the careful study of our own writing and that of
others, both inside and outside of the classroom.
You will read a lot. More than ever. More than seems possible. This is good. To truly become an
accomplished writer you must read, read, and read some more. The best writers are the best readers.
Learning to read like a writer -- distinguishing between different types of tone and style and voice, of
“character” nuance, of sequence – separates the ‘smart’ writers from the everyday writers. Being
informed, being well-rounded and astute, building your own literary aesthetic comes from studying and
deciphering the works of the “masters” and of your peers.
Learning the fundamentals of the craft, like structure for instance (we will define this word in both the
academic and creative sense) is the basis of any writing course. However, it’s what happens after the
structure is in place that determines how powerful and persuasive your work will be. Learning to use
words that count, picking and choosing words instead of settling – making a conscious decision to use the
words we do – this is the key to good writing. Pretty prose is just pretty prose. Responsibly building
sentences versus going for “fluff” breeds authenticity. Writing is a process and Writing as Exploration is an
opportunity for you to investigate your ideas on a deeper, more thorough level.
The readings and subsequent assignments will attempt to use literature as a means of bridging the
cultural and political gaps between our global communities. A particular emphasis will be placed on
examining the immigrant experience as a way of looking at our old homes and new homes, from the

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Outside-In//Inside-Out. What is it like to move here from somewhere else? What can we learn from the
duality of the immigrant experience in relation to the shaping of a collective identity? Is there such a
thing?
We will discuss the works of several contemporary authors -- from North America, India, Latin America,
South-East Asia, and Europe -- and will aim to move toward an understanding that writing itself is
inherently global, as is the art (and luxury) of reading. How is it that literature has the implicit power to act
as a mediator between groups of individuals on a universal level? What is the value in reading and writing
the human experience?
In addition to several forms of non-fiction writing (personal essay/literary journalism/travel
writing/analysis), we will view several films. Please have access to some sort of online streaming site
(Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, etc.).

Kaia Shivers
Social Justice
The 2020 global shutdown and subsequent series of racial unrest, and now the rolling labor movements
around the world shows there is a significant political, social and cultural shift. However, in the digital age,
younger generations are grasping ways on how to make sense of what is occurring, and their voices
within it; especially as they negotiate power and understanding power.

This course engages you, the writer, in exploring writing techniques and methods via the theme social
justice, and its connecting or intertwining concepts and subject matters. Most importantly, this course
engages your critical and creative voice from different lenses.

Be prepared to employ different writing modalities and techniques as you explore hands-on, the various
aspects of daily life in the city such as transportation, aesthetics, gathering spaces and recreational sites.

This course has two main objectives. The first is to develop self-confidence and fluency using writing to
express, explore, and develop ideas through a variety of modes. The second objective is to practice the
critical and analytical skills that you will use throughout your undergraduate career.

There are four parts in this course: (1) identifying your voice; (2) defining your voice; (3) cultivating your
voice; and (4) reflecting on how your voice evolved throughout the semester. Each part requires one or
two written works that will go through two drafts. All are graded based on the notes given in class. In
whole, this course challenges you to learn, articulate and strengthen your perspective.

Elayne Tobin
Course Description TBA

Timothy Tomlinson
In her personal journals, the American writer Susan Sontag says that a writer must be four people: the
obsessive, the fool, the stylist, the critic. In Writing as Exploration, you will write about your own
multi-faceted (obsessive, foolish, stylish, critical) selves in a semester-long journal. The course is
concerned more with the process of writing than its product. Perfect papers, as per Beckett above, don’t
exist, but habits and tendencies do. It’s important for university writers, and writers in general, to become
conscious of the habits they bring to the page. Much of our time will be devoted to becoming more
conscious writers. From a variety of perspectives, we will explore our individual experiences of New York
City life. Reading for the course includes the Susan Sontag journals, essays by and/or about artists, and
handouts of essays by a wide range of writers, including (but not limited to) Jennifer Soong, Jia Tolentino,
Rebecca Solnit, Zadie Smith, James Baldwin, and others. Throughout the semester, we’ll be considering
songs, poems, stories, and films that animate our concerns. Writing: two essays, plus the journal. The
writing will be reflexive, analytical, narrative, descriptive, and ethnographic (and playful, and imaginative).
Details for course units will post to our Brightspace site. Overall, the course trains students to write

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persuasively, with passion, precision, and eloquence; to think critically; and to read deeply, always with a
healthy skepticism. The journals will provide a place to practice, experiment, grow, and, as per Beckett
above, fail and, hopefully, fail better.
We begin with the journals, and exercises in exploration of the self. Then we explore visual arts, taking in
several museum exhibitions, with an eye on the work/s on the walls as well as our responses to that work.
In short, we begin with the self (journal/personal dictionary), move into the image (visits to museums,
readings about art/ists), and wind up in something broader, more contextual. Along the way, we’ll be
seeking discomfort in approach while cultivating stillness. Along the way, we’ll keep an eye on the four
Susan Sontag categories and how each applies to, appears in, and informs our work.

Deborah WIlliams
This “Writing as Exploration” course will consider how—in the increasingly cluttered sphere of public
discourse and with increasingly niche audiences—we can make our voices heard. Is “having an opinion”
all that’s needed to build an argument or create a conversation? We will read essays by writers like
Amitav Ghosh, Cathy Park Hong, Alexander Chee, Ross Gay, Virginia Woolf, and others, which draw on
personal experiences and observations as a way of contributing to public conversations about such key
issues as identity, climate crisis, gender, and power. Through an ongoing process of writing and revision,
we will also engage with questions of craft, particularly in terms of what it means to write an “academic
essay.”

Jason Williamson
Writing What We Watch
In this Writing as Exploration section, we’ll “write what we watch” by examining and/or practicing a variety
of genres and modes, including personal narrative, critical reviews, podcasts, text messages, social
media posts, streaming platforms, publicity materials, web series writing, and the serialized filmic
narrative form commonly known as the TV show.
Through rhetorical analyses and cross-genre writing practice, students will gain the tools necessary for
success in a wide array of future writing situations. Along the way, we’ll explore some interesting
questions about our media viewing: Who writes what we watch and how? Who writes about what we
watch and how? How do issues of representation and misrepresentation affect what we view and how we
view ourselves? What and how are reviewers writing about our viewing? What about publicists? Media
scholars? How do varied disciplines employ careful rhetorical strategies about the media and why?
Our course is rooted in the pedagogical approach known as Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC).
Essentially, this means we’ll strive to identify and practice the moves writers make in a variety of fields.
This work will help us learn to apply several processes of rhetorical analysis to whatever writing
situations we may encounter—now and in the future.
We will also make use of WAC best practices including self-reflective writing, writing-to-learn
assignments, peer review, and portfolio-based composition/curation. The digital portfolio students will
build over the course of the semester will present both low stakes writing as well as multiple drafts of
major assignments, thus allowing for a final assessment of the individual writer that is both
process-centered and holistic.

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