Who should care for the old, the sick, the unemployed, the poor? Is this a collective responsibility, to be fulfilled by government as it promotes the general welfare of the nation? Or is this an individual, personal responsibility: each adult responsible for his or her own welfare, with private charity picking up those who fall through the holes of a tattered safety net? This is the axis around which U.S. social welfare policy has turned since the early 20th century. For the last 30 years we have seen government policy move inexorably to the individual responsibility side of the debate.

Ever since Leonardo da Vinci produced his anatomical drawings and German artists studied corpses of executed prisoners, the visual arts and the medical sciences converged. While artists strove for the anatomically "correct" representation of eroticized male and female nudes, scientists enhanced the truth-value of their anatomical drawings by employing the new classicizing style. Also in religious art, spiritual truths were conveyed in a sensuous, erotic manner, as the many depictions of semi-nude saints, Christ, and the Virgin Mary demonstrate.

Feminist Economics critically analyzes both economic theory and economic life through the lens of gender and advocates various forms of feminist economic transformation. But is there a need for a feminist economics, and if so, why? How is it different from mainstream economic analyses of gender inequality? What does a feminist vision of an alternative economic system look like? This course explores these questions in depth. The class will begin with a theoretical and empirical introduction to the goals and concerns of feminist economics.

Rivers have become sites of contention surrounding how they can best serve the people living along them and the nations through which they flow. For some, they provide cultural meanings and livelihoods; for others, they represent progress in the ways they can be developed and used. We will critically examine several case studies of rivers to unpack the cultural, environmental, economic, and identity conflicts that arise worldwide as people's concepts of rivers collide.

This course will explore the organizing efforts of African-Americans during the twentieth century. We will examine activism in both rural and urban sites and in cross-class, middle-class and working-class organizations. The readings will provide critical perspectives on how class, educational status, and gender shape the formation, goals, leadership styles and strategies of various movements. Some of the movements include the lobbying and writing of Ida B.

This course explores the history and politics of gender and sexuality in relation to the racial politics of prisons and the police. By engaging recent work in queer studies, feminist studies, transgender studies, and critical prison studies, we will consider how prisons and police have shaped the making and remaking of race, gender, and sexuality from slavery and conquest to the contemporary period. We will examine how police and prisons have regulated the body, identity, and populations, and how larger social, political, and cultural changes connect to these processes.

In this class we will study the history and relationship of Zionism and Palestinian nationalism. We will examine the origins of both movements and the history of their conflict. Significant attention will be given to the conflict over Palestine which culminated in the establishment of Israel in 1948 as well as the half-century of war, protest and occupation which followed. We will read primary and secondary sources from many perspectives, and will view films and other materials. This course is suitable for first year distribution requirements.

Abortion rights continue to be contested in the U.S. and throughout the world. Since the legalization of abortion in the U.S. in 1973, there have been significant erosions in abortion rights and access to abortion. Harassment of abortion clinics, providers, and clinic personnel by opponents of abortion is routine, and there have been several instances of deadly violence. This course examines the abortion debate in the U.S., looking historically at the period before legalization up to the present.

Typically, the Middle East is viewed as a source of migration flows - a place people flee, seeking work and/or refuge in Europe and the West. But migrations to the Middle East and mobility within it increasingly characterizes this dynamic region. In this course, we will look at documented and undocumented, forced and voluntary migrations (labor migration, refugees, trafficking) in a number of contexts (Syrian, Turkish, Iraqi, United Arab Emirates, Palestinian).

This course will provide an introduction to economics from a political economy perspective. We will examine the historical evolution and structure of the capitalist system, distinguishing it from other economic systems that have preceded it, such as feudalism, and existed alongside it, such as state socialism. Most of the class will be devoted to examining economic theories that have been developed to explain and support the operation of this system.