This course will look at the relationship between Marxism and literature in diverse contexts, and will pose a series of questions about the relationship between the material conditions of production and cultural production more generally. Readings will be historical, exploring the links between Marxism, socialist movements, and literary form that evolve in the 19th century, and contemporary, looking at work by diverse writers and thinkers who have interrogated, in various ways through their work, the cultural logics of late capitalism.

This class explores the emerging interdisciplinary space between the architecture and anthropology fields. We study the ethics, methods, and subject interests of architectural anthropology in both theory (as a research approach to the built environment) and practice (specific proposals of building with and/or for cultural identity). This is a theory seminar with a visual analysis component.

Even in its heyday in the 1830's and 40's, the Transcendentalist movement never included more than a few dozen vocal supporters, but it fostered several significant cultural precedents, including a couple of America's first utopian communities (Brook Farm and Fruitlands), an early women's rights manifesto (Fuller's Woman in the Nineteenth Century), the first enthusiastic appropriation of Asian religious ideas, and, in the travel writings of Thoreau, the nation's earliest influential environmentalism.

This two-semester course, with an integrated Jan-term field component in Thailand, investigates the intersections of design (building and land use), anthropology/social justice, and ecology, with a focus on a case study in Northern Thailand. The fall semester will build background and theoretical knowledge in these areas generally and our case study in Thailand specifically. Students will critically examine ways in which design is influenced by cultural, historical, and ecological factors.

This course is devoted to the writings of the Argentine Jorge Luis Borges, one of the best and most important writers of the last century. Famous for his erudite fictions that speculate on time, history, knowledge, identity, reality, and the imagination, Borges taught us to think literature. He also delighted in spoofing erudition, in the conspiratorial wink against the purveyors of Culture. This playful side has its shadow, for much of his writing revolves around violence-iniquity, to cite one of his early titles.

This interdisciplinary course will combine critical approaches to childhoods with critical studies of literature. We will work on literary texts written for adults that feature children as subjects together with texts written for a young audience and some written by young people. We will explore questions about the representation of children and childhoods; children's agency; memory, loss, displacement, and resilience; and childhoods, imagination, and language.

This Division II production workshop, Media for Democracy : Imag(in)ing Political Struggle, is designed for students who would like to continue to develop their skills in media making, media analysis, and socially engaged art practice. From the Battle of Algiers and Black Panther Mix Tape to citizen journalism and community media, we will look at the role of media, images, and art making within social and political movements and contend with questions of modes of production, access, distribution, and the relationship between form, content and meaning making.

Since its founding, the US has closely regulated the bodies of Others and punished those that rebel against these socially-constructed designations. Utilizing an interdisciplinary amalgam of Critical Race Theory, Sexuality Studies, Queer Theory, Media Studies, Sociology, American Studies, Performance Studies, and Feminist Theory, this course will explore how the state, the media, and civilian institutions police the boundaries of race, gender, and sexuality by pathologizing, criminalizing, and stigmatizing difference.

Introduction to "Asia" through Traditional Music and Performing Arts: "Asia" is a diverse, dynamic, and complex cultural entity that encompasses a vast geographic area and a long complicated history. In this course we will investigate some representative performing arts traditions of South, Southeast, and East Asia, e.g., Indian classical music, Javanese gamelan, Japanese noh theatre, as a way of learning about the regions' unique history, different value systems, aesthetic sensibilities, spiritual beliefs, philosophies, and ways of life.

Dance Pioneer Barbara Mettler said, "To create means to make up something new." In this course students explore the elements of dance through a series of creative problems solved in improvisations by individuals and groups. Directed exercises are used to heighten awareness of the body and its movement potential. Studies using the sounds of voice, hands and feet develop skills in accompaniment. Based on the principle that dance is a human need this work invites people of all ages and abilities to come together in movement and to make dance an element of their lives.