This course explores life stories and what have been called "testimonials" that have emerged from Latin American contexts. The testimonial often surfaces through a politically urgent partnership of the person who tells her story and another person who records and edits the story. In relation to specific Latin American contexts, this course examines the social implications of these textual productions, draws parallels with the production of ethnographic and anthropological texts, and examines issues of power within these endeavors.

This course involves "rethinking childhood" by exploring ideas about young people through interweaving social and literary analysis, with a focus on poetry for young audiences. What kind of poetry do adults think children want to read or are capable of understanding and what does that reveal about adults' ideas about childhood? Course readings encompass mid- to late-20th century American poetry written for young audiences, psychology, sociology, and childhood studies.

One of the most enigmatic political leaders of the modern period, M.K. Gandhi remains a controversial figure. On one hand, he is celebrated as the father of the Indian nation and an apostle of non-violence, and on the other hand viewed as a wily politician and a patriarch with problematic views of gender and sexuality. In his lifetime, thousands saw him as a saint, while others (mainly Hindu nationalists) reviled him as a traitor to Indian nationalism and blamed him for the partition of India.

This course will provide a context for analyzing "The War on Terror." It will focus upon post-World War II US foreign policy and the cultural context in which it has been conceptualized and formulated. We will begin with a brief examination of the roots of this conceptualization, using as our text William Appleman Williams' classic study, Empire as a Way of Life. Here, we will explore the idea that has always been categorically rejected by mainstream US historiography: that empire lies at the very foundation of the U.S. and remains at the core of how it acts in the world.

The debates surrounding the Occupy movement of 2011 have highlighted both a crisis in the US and global economy as well as a crisis of economic thought. Many of the policies which have led to increased inequality, environmental destruction, and financial crisis have their roots in a free-market fundamentalism that pervades the teaching of undergraduate and postgraduate economics. In this course we ask the following questions: How does mainstream economic theory conceptualize key aspects of social reality, including human behavior, markets, and government?

This course is an introductory history course based entirely on primary literature, art, and music written and produced by women.

African American dance and music traditions have played critical roles in African American struggles to sustain their humanity-- to express joy and pain through their bodies and through a particular relationship to rhythm. This class will explore the forms, contents and contexts of black traditions, which played a crucial role in shaping American dance in the twentieth century.

How can culture resist in the political realm? How do you make your screams and sardonic laughter heard? The overarching framework of our course will be the dynamic of authority and resistance in the modern and contemporary era. In the course of the twentieth century, the countries of east-central and eastern Europe experienced monarchical rule, democracy, Nazism, and communism. How and why do given groups attempt to assert their authority? Why, when, and by what means do others resist?

After a brief overview of the Maoist era, this course will examine the rapid economic, political, and social changes that have swept China in the last three decades. We will examine major issues in China's astonishingly rapid transformation from an agrarian to an industrial society (e.g.

This course is an introductory exploration of the ways law shapes our lives and how society and culture affect how we interpret and experience law. Using case studies and a range of theoretical and methodological tools, we will examine key cultural and technological challenges to contemporary political and legal structures, asking how law functions in a broader social context. In other words, this is not a traditional class in law, but rather an introduction to critical ideas and concepts in anthropology and other forms of social scientific investigation.