Graduate Courses

Winter 2026

AN N EA M208 – Topics in Ancient Iranian History: The Black Sea in the Iron Age and beyond
Seminar: Sem 1
Instructor: Fabian, L.
Units: 4
Description: (Same as History M210 and Iranian M210.) Seminar, three hours. Varying topics on Elamite, Achaemenid, Arsacid, and Sasanian history. May be repeated for credit. S/U or letter grading.

ANTHRO 219 – Selected Topics in Anthropological/Archaeological Theory: Black and Indigenous Research Methods
Seminar: Sem 1
Instructor: Dunnavant, J.P.
Units: 4
Description: Exploration of various Black and indigenous epistemological and methodological approaches to archaeology and sociocultural anthropology. Examination of questions of ethics, accountability, and relationality between research, community, and environment. Investigation of case studies from Africa, Caribbean, North America, and Pacific islands. Central to study is understanding that working in collaboration with communities often requires one to engage in practices beyond traditional bounds of anthropology discipline. Survey of how various anthropological researchers have implemented ethic of respect, reciprocity, and responsibility in their work. Students gain applied understanding of multiple perspectives, tools, and methodologies to aid in their research for and with communities.

ART HIS 200 – Art Historical Theories and Methodologies
Seminar: Sem 1
Instructor: Wilson, B.
Units: 4
Description: Seminar, three hours. Critical examination of history of discipline of art history, with studies of various theoretical, critical, and methodological approaches to visual arts from antiquity to present. May be repeated for credit with consent of adviser. S/U or letter grading.

Art His 217C – Spolia: Recontextualizing the Past
Seminar: Sem 1
Instructor: Gerstel, S.E.
Units: 4
Description: This course examines how spolia—ancient, early Christian, and early medieval—function in the art and architecture of the medieval/Byzantine Mediterranean. Memory, continuity/discontinuity, and the assertion of power are a few of the issues we will consider when examining the selection of stones and other materials for deliberate re-use.

ART HIS C240A – Selected Topics in Arts of Indigenous Americas
Lecture: Lec 1
Instructor: Naire, S.E.
Units: 4
Description: Lecture, three hours. Variable topics in artistic production of Native people across Americas that reflect interests of individual regular and/or visiting faculty members. May be repeated twice for credit. Concurrently scheduled with course C140. P/NP or letter grading.

CHIN 211A – Seminar: Classical Chinese Poetry
Seminar: Sem 1
Instructor: Mai, H.
Units: 4
Description: Seminar, three hours. Preparation: reading knowledge of literary Chinese. Topics rotate among major textual traditions and chronological periods. Emphasis on philological, critical, and historical approaches. May be repeated for credit with consent of instructor. In Progress grading (credit to be given only on completion of course 211B).

CMRS-CEGS Graduate Research Seminar

COM LIT 290 – Contemporary Theories of Criticism: Psychoanalysis and Erotics: Rethinking Desire
Seminar: Sem 1
Instructor: Kanner-Botan, A.
Units: 4
Description: This course provides students with a foundation in psychoanalysis alongside examples that unravel psychoanalysis’ universalizing tendencies. Alongside Freud, Lacan, Fanon, Deleuze, and Guattari, we will look to spaces before and after psychoanalysis’ founding to consider alternative ways of theorizing desire that historicize Freud’s particular vision of formative moments in the development of subjectivity. We will begin with juxtaposing Foucault and Freud to consider the tension between historicizing and universalizing modes of analyzing desire. We will then turn to diverse topics such as the role of jouissance in Christian and Islamic mystical poetics, decolonial and feminist approaches to Chaucer and Nezami’s romances, and anti-colonial attempts at thinking with myths that imagine the formation of subjectivity beyond the 19th-century bourgeois family structure. These premodern and postcolonial examples locate objects of desire within local narratives of subject formation, allowing us to consider alternative ways of theorizing desire.

GREEK 200C – History of Greek Literature
Lecture: Lec 1
Instructor: Blank, D.L.
Units: 4
Description: Lecture, three hours. Lectures on history of Greek literature, supplemented by reading of Greek texts in original language. May be taken independently for credit. S/U or letter grading.

HIST 200H – Advanced Historiography: U.S.: Race and Ethnicity in the Americas
Seminar: Sem 1
Instructor Tejada, V.
Units: 4
Description: Introduction to history and historiography of race in the Americas, including Canada and Latin America. How did development of racial thinking depend on place and societal context? Consideration of both theory and method. Discussion of various approaches to history of race, including readings in history and ethnic studies. Weekly themes include indigeneity, whiteness, science, racial capitalism, slavery, ethnogenesis, and law.

HIST C201Q – Topics in History: Theory of History: Racism, Capitalism, and Settler-Colonialism in Making of Modern World
Seminar: Sem 1
Instructor: Hirano, K.
Units: 4
Description: Forum for exploration of intersection of settler colonialism, capitalism, racism, and sovereignty in formation of modern world. Goal is to conceive of new kind of global history that overcomes liberal-Hegelian paradigm of articulating the past. Study also aims to suggest way of reconsidering politics of emancipation and reconciliation.

HIST 282A – Seminar: Chinese History
Seminar: Sem 1
Instructor: Goldman, A.S.
Units: 5
Description: Seminar, three hours. Course 282A is requisite to 282B. In Progress grading (credit to be given only on completion of course 282B).

I E STD 200 – Proseminar: Indo-European Studies
Seminar: Sem 1
Instructors: Jamison, S., Gunkel, D., Yates, A.D.
Units: 2
Description: Seminar, two hours every other week. Required of graduate Indo-European studies students during first year. Introduction to graduate-level research in Indo-European studies. S/U grading.

I E STD M222B – Vedic
Lecture: Lec 1
Instructor: Jamison, S.
Units: 4
Description: (Same as Iranian M222B and South Asian M222B.) Lecture, three hours. Preparation: knowledge of Sanskrit equivalent to South Asian 110C. Characteristics of Vedic dialect and readings in Rig-Vedic hymns. May be repeated for credit. S/U or letter grading.

I E STD 281A – Seminar: Indo-European Linguistics
Seminar: Sem 1
Instructors: Jamison, S., Gunkel, D., Yates, A.D.
Units: 2
Description: Seminar, three hours. Requisite: course 210. Selected topics in Indo-European comparative grammar for advanced graduate students. May be repeated for credit. S/U or letter grading.

ISLM ST 201 – Arabo-Islamic Sciences
Seminar: Sem 1
Instructor: Yarbrough, L.B.
Units: 4
Description: Seminar, three hours. Preparation: good reading knowledge of Arabic, English, and one other Western language. Comprehensive coverage of Arabo-Islamic sciences that formed matrix of Islamic education. Survey of most recent developments in following disciplines: Arabic language and literature, Qur’anic sciences, traditions, jurisprudence, theology, and Sufism. Letter grading.

JAPAN 240B – Seminar: Selected Topics in Japanese Literature
Seminar: Sem 1
Instructor: Shimazaki, S.
Units: 4
Description: Seminar, three hours. May be repeated for credit. Letter grading.

LATIN 240 – History of Latin Language
Lecture: Lec 1
Instructor: Gunkel, D.
Units: 2/4
Description: Lecture, three hours. Development of Latin from earliest monuments until its emergence in Romance languages. S/U or letter grading.

PHILOS 100B – Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy
Lecture: Lec 1
Instructor: Normore, C.G.
Units: 4
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Preparation: one philosophy course. Strongly recommended requisite: course 100A. Survey of development and transformation of Greek metaphysics and epistemology within context of philosophical theology, and transition from medieval to early modern period. Special emphasis on Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, and Descartes. P/NP or letter grading.

PHILOS 206 – Topics in Medieval Philosophy
Lecture: Lec 1
Instructor: Normore, C.G., Copenhaver, B.P.
Units: 4
Description: Lecture, four hours. Study of philosophy and theology of one or several medieval philosophers such as Augustine, Anselm, Abelard, Aquinas, Scotus, or Ockham or study of single area such as logic or theory of knowledge in several medieval philosophers. Topics announced each term. May be repeated for credit with consent of instructor. S/U or letter grading.

SOCIOL 211A – Comparative and Historical Methods: Strategies of Research and Conceptualization
Lecture: Lec 1
Instructor: Emigh, R.J.
Units: 4
Description: Lecture, three hours. Topics include relationship of theory and fact to social sciences, logic of comparative and historical analysis, and substantive paradigms of comparative and historical analysis. Reading involves methodological examination of basic works in representative problem areas. In Progress grading (credit to be given only on completion of course 211B).

SPAN 237 – Literature of the Spanish Conquest
Lecture: Lec 1
Instructor: Fuchs, B.
Units: 4
Description: Lecture, three hours. Readings of and lectures on chronicles, poems, and indigenous accounts of the Spanish Conquest.

WL ARTS 201 – Theories of Performance
Seminar: Sem 1
Instructor: Banerji, A.
Units: 4
Description: Seminar, three hours; outside study, nine hours. Close reading and analysis of classic and contemporary studies of performance and related aesthetic practices. Familiarization with ways in which performance is defined and deployed by scholars working in disciplines of anthropology, dance, folklore, linguistics, literature, musicology, performance studies, philosophy, sociology, and theater. S/U or letter grading.