An introduction to literary and cultural theory with an emphasis on twentieth century and contemporary thought. We will explore crucial questions that have focused, and continue to focus, critical debate. These questions may include representation, subjectivity, ideology, identity, difference, gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, and nation. Throughout we will be particularly interested in the ways in which language and form mediate and construct social experience.

This course introduces students to Asian American literature, considering its historical origins and evolution. Throughout the course we explore questions of identity, immigration and citizenship, generational conflict, war and migration, and mixed and cross-racial politics. Readings of primary texts will be supplemented by historical and critical source materials. Authors may include Nina Revoyr, Ruth Ozeki, Nam Le, Chang-rae Lee, Aimee Phan, Susan Choy, and Jhumpa Lahiri.

An exploration of major movements and personalities in architecture from the late nineteenth century to the present. Emphasizing the United States against the background of European developments, the course considers the search by architects, including Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, and Frank Gehry, for a language of form and space that captures the contemporary spirit as it elevates society to a higher plane of existence. Discussion focuses on issues of technology and utopia, the skyscraper, and the collision of tradition, modernity, and postmodernism in architecture since 1945.

This survey course traces the rise and development of photography in the United States and, to a lesser extent, England, France, Germany, Mexico, and Russia. It charts the wide range of work with the camera, including commercial, vernacular, and fine art projects, and considers pictures from photography's very beginnings in the mid-nineteenth century to today's practices. Among the major figures to be discussed are Arbus, Brady, Cameron, Cartier-Bresson, Day, Evans, Frank, Johnston, Lange, Mapplethorpe, Modotti, Muybridge, Sander, Steichen, Stieglitz, and Weston.

This course surveys art in Europe from roughly the French Revolutionary era to the last quarter of the nineteenth century, that is, from the neo-classical painters (David and his atelier) at one end and the great painters of modern life in Paris (Manet and his followers) at the other.

The traditionalist view of the Renaissance treats Europe as if it were an isolated hotbed of cultural innovation. This course will reconsider the period as one of intensifying cross-pollination, when European artists were deeply affected by contact with the Near and Far East, Africa, and the Americas. Specific topics will include representations of distant lands and peoples; the collecting of exotic materials; cartography and expanding world horizons; Venice and the Ottoman world; and the reception of classical architecture in Latin America.

A historical survey of medieval architecture, monumental sculpture, and painting of France, England, Germany, and Italy. The course concentrates on the great church as a multimedia environment and on the religious, political and social roles of art in society.

This multicultural course introduces students to the visual arts of Asia from the earliest times to the present. In a writing- and speaking-intensive environment, students will develop skills in visual analysis and art historical interpretation. Illustrated class lectures, group discussions, museum visits, and a variety of writing exercises will allow students to explore architecture, sculpture, painting, and other artifacts in relation to the history and culture of such diverse countries as India, China, Cambodia, Korea, and Japan.

An introduction to painting, sculpture, and architecture in Europe and America from the Renaissance to the present. Classes are organized around five focused topics: Renaissance Florence; the artist in the seventeenth century; art and revolution; nineteenth-century abstraction. Lectures will be complimented by class discussion and short films.

Most people are on the world, not in it.' --John Muir. An introduction to reading and writing about nature, this seminar will attempt an exchange across distinct approaches to observing and describing the world around us. Do lenses of culture, discipline, and gender determine how we see and experience nature, environment, and place? Course work will include reading such authors as N.