This course will introduce students to key issues and concepts in the study of bilingualism with a focus on communities in which Spanish interacts with other languages in Latin America, Spain, and the United States. One of the main goals of the course is to create awareness about the multidimensional nature of bilingualism as an individual, socio-political, cultural, and a psycholinguistic phenomenon.

While food offers sustenance for the body, it also plays a fundamental role in shaping social life. This course uses food as a lens to understand identity, inequality, globalization, and other issues central to the contemporary social world. We will explore topics such as how food is used to construct identity, how food reproduces inequality, and how food may contribute to or diminish global boundaries.

We will explore the cultural and political impact of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. The media's role in constructing meanings will be a main organizing focus of the course. Using readings, discussions, assignments, and films, the course will allow students to form a picture of how 9/11 changed America and beyond.

What is culture? How has it changed over time? This course examines the definition (including religion, language, food, etc.), the social settings in which culture is produced, and the products of culture we consume (literature, film, music, painting, theatre, fashion, popular magazines, graffiti, and television, etc.). Course topics include: how to analyze culture and who produces it, the forces shaping markets for artistic objects and performances, politics and culture, the effects of censorship, globalization, and class differences.

Werefoxes in Moscow? Growing up Post-Soviet in Queens? Faking a trip to the moon? All this and more in Russia's uninhibited, profane, and sometimes disturbing literature of the twenty-first century. This seminar will sample writing from the vibrant Russian literary scene of the 2000's, including translingual literature and graphic novels. They can still write!

Hundreds of ancient Christian texts did not make it into the New Testament. What Didn't Make It in the New Testament examines some of these excluded writings. We will explore Gnostic gospels, hear of a five-year-old Jesus killing (and later resurrecting) his classmates, peruse ancient Christian romance novels, tour heaven and hell, read the garden of Eden story told from the perspective of the snake, and learn how the world will end.

From the erotic asceticism of the god Siva to the spiritual power of an auspicious married woman, to the spiritual power of an auspicious married woman, the nexus of gender and sexuality has broadly shaped the practices and philosophies of South Asia's many religious traditions. The central questions guiding this course are: How do Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam incorporate sexual practice and/or restraint into a vision of ethical life? When does one's sexuality or gender become dangerous or unethical?

From the erotic asceticism of the god Siva to the spiritual power of an auspicious married woman, to the spiritual power of an auspicious married woman, the nexus of gender and sexuality has broadly shaped the practices and philosophies of South Asia's many religious traditions. The central questions guiding this course are: How do Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam incorporate sexual practice and/or restraint into a vision of ethical life? When does one's sexuality or gender become dangerous or unethical?

A study of Ovid's ambitious epic celebrating change and transformative forces, with attention to the challenges it poses to traditional Roman values and to conventional Roman notions of the work appropriate to a poet. In particular, consideration will be given to the way Ovid's poem subversively responds to Vergil's work.

A study of Ovid's ambitious epic celebrating change and transformative forces, with attention to the challenges it poses to traditional Roman values and to conventional Roman notions of the work appropriate to a poet. In particular, consideration will be given to the way Ovid's poem subversively responds to Vergil's work.