This course will examine American public education as an institution in the context of a multicultural society. Students in the class will analyze the complex and conflicting social, political and economic conditions from which educational policies and practices emerge. The organization of the readings, discussions and class projects will explore how discourses of race, ethnicity, class, gender and sexuality enliven contradictory framings of public education as both a site hope as well as a site of conflict, tension and oppression.

This is the second half of the two-semester course, Introduction to History, in which you will be undertaking substantial history research paper. We will be visiting different archives in the Five Colleges to learn about the local archival collections and learn the art of researching and writing history. We will also explore the latest technologies to assist us in our endeavor, such as various search engines and footnote software programs. There will be several short assignments, focusing on primary and secondary sources, and students will also present their work throughout the semester.

On January 1, 1994 the Zapatistas captured the attention of the world with an uprising against the unchecked advances of globalization and its specific effects in Mexican society. This uprising, like other Latin American social movements of the late 20th century, has drawn on the organizational and symbolic power of indigenous identities. In the past, museum displays and ethnographic texts on Latin America have contributed to the idea of frozen indigenous cultures, comprised of primordial essences-cultures already lost or facing the threat of imminent disappearance in the modern world.

In this interdisciplinary course, we explore how artists have historically responded to the call for social change.

The eroticization and medicalization of the female body were invented during the Italian Renaissance. A point of convergence between the two developments was Renaissance art with its focus on sensualized beauty and the anatomically correct representation of female nudes.

What is Buddhist economics? How does it compare to modern, mainstream economic and capitalist thought? Existing economic systems do not seem to be sustainable, for the planet or for the majority of people in the world. Based on the philosophy of utilitarianism, mainstream economics claims to seek the greatest good for the greatest number. In theory, this approach sounds appealing, but in practice it translates to producing and consuming as much stuff as possible, without regard to who does and does not get to participate.

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.

This course will examine the relationship between resource competition, climate change, and conflict in the modern world. The course will look at a variety of conflicts from around the world and attempt to determine the degree to which they are fueled by environmental and resource considerations. This will involve study of illustrative historic and existing conflicts and will also consider potential conflicts, such as that between the United States and China over access to energy and mineral supplies.

This seminar will explore approaches to writing about people in the outdoors -- working, playing, transforming nature, or simply contemplating the world. We will read and critique a number of genres including traditional nature writing, historical accounts, creative nonfiction, fiction, and academic analyses. We will pay particular attention to narrative choices and the role of the narrator as well as to the use of landscape description, scientific language, and other vehicles for constructing ideas of nature.

Professor and activist Angela Davis recently asked "Are prisons obsolete?" And Grier and Cobb once noted "No imagination is required to see this scene as a direct remnant of slavery." Since the 1980s state and federal authorities have increasingly relied on the costly and unsuccessful use of jails and prisons as deterrents of crime. This upper division course will grapple with ideas of incarceration and policing methods that contribute to the consolidation of state power and how it functions as a form of domestic warfare.