An investigative look at clothes and style through the lens of costume design, rooted in cultural, socio-economic and political landscapes. In this course, students are introduced to fashion in history and the core principles of costume design for performance.  Assignments consist of reading, research, and small-scale presentations. No previous design experience is required.  Fall semester.  Professor Lee.

Pending Faculty Approval

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An investigation of different performing spaces from the past, present and future. In this course, students are introduced to various space designs for performance, including plays, operas, musical theater, dance, film and television, and concerts. Built on the understanding of performance spaces, students explore the relationship between performers and audience, and audience experience. Students will also learn the creative process of visual response to language and ideas.

Who was Jesus of Nazareth? How was he remembered? What are the social and political implications of telling stories about Jesus’s life and teachings? This course explores the origins of the founder of Christianity, and the evolution of Jesus the Jew from northern Judea to Jesus the divine man, esoteric teacher, and cultural icon. We will read texts from the New Testament, as well as the texts that were excluded, such as the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Judas. Our primary aim is to think through the various ways that Jesus was remembered, both within and outside of Christianity.

Have Western religions estranged us from the natural world? How does the environment shape religious thought and practice? This course explores religion in both the ancient world and in our present time, in order to uncover a history of entanglement, and tension, with the world’s places, plants, and animals. From revelations on top of mountains to animal sacrifice, religious practice cannot be separated from the natural environment.

This course will introduce students to the field of international law via one of its most influential critical traditions: Third World Approaches to International Law, commonly known as TWAIL, which seeks to build solidarity among the countries of the “Third World” by recognizing their shared political reality in the face of European and North American domination. The work of TWAIL scholars has been largely theoretical and historical, arguing that international law has constructed, entrenched, and furthered political and economic subordination around the globe.

(Offered as ENGL 163 and BLST 163) This seminar introduces students to the study of African American arts and expressive culture. Deploying a broad, interdisciplinary approach, we survey influential works of twentieth and twenty-first century African American fiction, music, drama, painting, and photography in order to understand the tendencies and trends associated with what scholars sometimes refer to as “the black aesthetic.” We will pay particular attention to “masterpiece” works—i.e. extraordinary works of art that have been widely acknowledged as watershed, influential, and enduring.

(Offered as BLST 350 [CLA/D], AMST 349 and LLAS 350) “Black Latinas” surveys the history of Black women in Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as Black Latinas in the United States. The course begins with a brief historical survey of Afro-Latin America and then explores the experiences of Black women through different contemporary movements. They include Black Latina feminisms, gender roles, Black Power movements, environmental activism, gentrification, workers’ rights, electoral politics, police brutality, anti-black Latino bias, and media and representation.

(Offered as AMST-386 and ENGL-413)  In this course, we will consider both historical fiction and creative nonfiction as literary forms that enable us to re-imagine American history. We will read closely, deeply and collaboratively. How do different authors approach historical research and storytelling? What is the role of the imagination in historical recovery? How can writing, reading, and translation enable us to engage critically and creatively with difficult, complex histories and legacies of enslavement and colonization?

This course examines the history of BIPOC children, crime, and punishment in the United States. We survey historical and contemporary examples of the criminalization of indigenous, Black, Latinx, South Asian American, and immigrant children since the late-nineteenth century. Students have the opportunity to pursue a research project about BIPOC childhoods and punitive governance.

Limited to 15 students.  Fall semester.  Professor del Moral.

Pending Faculty Approval

Even though Hawai‘i is often referred to as the “Paradise on Earth,” the history of Hawai‘i is rife with the legacies of imperial ambitions of the United States.  This course examines the history of US occupation of Hawai‘i as a case study of US imperialism.  We will examine the history of the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy and the independent Hawaiian Kingdom, the subsequent annexation of Hawai‘i as a US territory, and finally the current status of Hawai‘i as the fiftieth state in the United States.  Topics of discussion include Native Hawaiian resistance to Amer