(Offered as SWAG 329 and BLST 377 [US].) History has long valorized passive, obedient, and long-suffering black women alongside aggressive and outspoken black male leaders and activists.  This course provides an alternative narrative to this misrepresentation, as we will explore how “bad” is defined by one’s race, gender, class, and sexuality as well as how black women have transgressed the boundaries of what it means to be “good” in U.S. society.

In this course, we will explore the relationship of Spain, as a newly created nation, to the world of the “other,” in this case Islam, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Inside the Peninsula, the Muslim community is perceived as dangerously linked to the Mediterranean world, which both fascinates Spain and threatens it at the same time because of the growing power of the Ottoman Empire.

[ PT ] Over the past decade there has been a noticeable and often remarked upon “moral turn” in political theory as writers have sought to ground political action in conceptualizations of the self, of the relationship between self and Other, of obligation, or more generally of the central moral question, "What ought I to do?"  In truth, there has long been a tendency toward the conflation of moral and political theory, and this seminar will be devoted to coming to terms with that conflation.  The texts will be drawn from Kant, Max Weber, T. W.

[G] Nuclear activity is ridden with contradictions: nuclear power is one of the most environmental-friendly sources of energy, yet nuclear waste presents considerable health dangers. Moreover, while nuclear energy is badly needed by many states for economic development, it can lay the foundations for the acquisition of the most powerful weapons in the world. Few countries embody the contradictions of nuclear power to the degree to which the United States does. The first country to detonate a nuclear device (and the only one to have used it in conflict), the U.S.

Earth's climate has varied greatly over geological time but always remained within boundaries that allowed life to exist.  Past climate can be reconstructed from physical and chemical proxies preserved in geological materials: sediment, rocks and fossils.  We will examine common climate proxies and the paleoclimate records that can be derived from them.

(Offered as HIST 227 [EU^p] and EUST 227.) This course offers a thematic and methodological survey of English history from the beginning of Elizabeth I’s reign in 1558 to the death of William III in 1702, with particular attention to the wider British, European, and Atlantic contexts. What drove England’s transformation from a European backwater to an emerging global and imperial power?

(Offered as SWAG 329 and BLST 377 [US].) History has long valorized passive, obedient, and long-suffering black women alongside aggressive and outspoken black male leaders and activists.  This course provides an alternative narrative to this misrepresentation, as we will explore how “bad” is defined by one’s race, gender, class, and sexuality as well as how black women have transgressed the boundaries of what it means to be “good” in U.S. society.

(Offered as SWAG 208, BLST 345 [US], and ENGL 276.)  Reading the work of black feminist literary theorists and black women writers, we will examine the construction of black female identity in American literature, with a specific focus on how black women writers negotiate race, gender, sexuality, and class in their work. In addition to reading novels, literary criticism, book reviews, and watching documentaries, we will examine the stakes of adaptation and mediation for black female-authored texts.