Undergraduate Courses

Spring 2025

AF AMER M18 – Leadership and Student-Initiated Retention
Seminar: Sem 1
Units: 2
Instructor: Black, C.V.
Course Description:
(Same as American Indian Studies M18, Asian American Studies M18, and Chicana/o and Central American Studies M18.) Seminar, two hours. Limited to freshmen, sophomores, and first-year transfer students. Not open for credit to students with credit for course M118. Exploration of retention issues at UCLA through the lens of student-initiated and student-run programs, efforts, activities, and services. Focus on populations with historically low graduation rates targeted by the Campus Retention Committee. May not be applied toward departmental major or minor elective requirements. May be repeated once for credit. Letter grading.

ANTHRO 116XP – Collaborative and Community-Engaged Archaeology
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Acabado, S.B.
Course Description:
Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour (when scheduled); fieldwork, 10 hours. Community and stakeholder engagement make anthropological practice more meaningful, especially when research results empower descendant communities. Anthropology is well positioned to work with communities to strengthen their identity. An increasing number of anthropologists and allied social scientists have intensified cross-disciplinary work and engagement with the communities they study. Students interact with Philippine collaborators through online conferences to discuss how community participation enhances research. Students work with community stakeholders to develop heritage education materials. P/NP or letter grading.

ARMENIA C153 – Art, Politics, and Nationalism in Modern Armenian Literature
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Cowe, P.S.
Course Description
Lecture, four hours. Examination of role of literature in modern Armenian society in service to cause or causes, as propaganda for various ideologies, as art for art’s sake, etc. Exploration of contrasting aesthetics implicit in these differing interpretations. Concurrently scheduled with course C253. P/NP or letter grading.

ART HIS 32 – Arts of the Mediterranean
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Balafrej, L.
Course Description:
Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Introduction to past and present cultural diversity of the Mediterranean world. Examination of the Mediterranean region as a connective space rather than a boundary between Europe and Africa. P/NP or letter grading.

ART HIS 27 – Art and Architecture of Ancient Americas
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Nair, S.E.
Course Description:
Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour; museum field trips. Introduction to the art, architecture, and urbanism of the Americas (North to South) from the earliest settlement until AD 1450. Analysis of a variety of media within their historical and cultural context. P/NP or letter grading.

ART HIS 100 – Art Historical Theories and Methodologies
Units: 4
Instructor: Nair, S.E.
Course Description:
Seminar, three hours. Requisites: three courses from 20 through 31. Critical examination of the history of the discipline of art history, with studies of various theoretical, critical, and methodological approaches to visual arts. Letter grading.

ART HIS M113A – Etruscan Art and Archaeology
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Beckmann, S.E.
Course Description:
(Same as Classics M153F.) Lecture, three hours. Requisite: course 20 or Classics 20 or 51B. Study of the arts of the Italic peninsula from circa 1000 BC to the end of the Roman Republic. P/NP or letter grading.

CHIN 110C – Introduction to Classical Chinese
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Wu, Y.
Course Description:
Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Enforced requisite: course 110B. Grammar and readings in selected premodern texts. P/NP or letter grading.

CLASSIC M153F – Etruscan Art and Archaeology
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Beckmann, S.E.
Course Description:
(Same as Art History M113A.) Lecture, three hours. Requisite: course 20 or Classics 20 or 51B. Study of the arts of the Italic peninsula from circa 1000 BC to the end of the Roman Republic. P/NP or letter grading.

CLASSIC 48 – Ancient Greek and Roman Medicine
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Blank, D.L.
Course Description:
Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Introduction to Greek and Roman medicine in its intellectual and cultural context. Examination of construction of concepts such as health, disease, physician, man, woman, cause, and difference. Readings from Greek literature and healing in cult of Asclepius. Readings of texts from Hippocratic collection, thought to be close to practice and theory of 5th-century BCE Greek physician, relating them to medical practice, competition for students and patients, intellectual display, developing scientific methods, ethnography, and Greek philosophy. Discussion of plagues as attempts to view such outbreaks as social phenomena. Examination of how Hippocratic understanding of how–or whether–we can know about what happens inside body was developed and challenged in 3rd-century BCE Alexandria. Study of Prince of Physicians, Galen, champion of Hippocratic medicine, influential into 18th century. P/NP or letter grading.

CLASSIC 88GE – General Education Seminar Sequences: Ancient Women Philosophers
Seminar: Sem 1
Units: 4
Instructors: Gram, Z.D., Blank, D.L.
Class Description:
Focus on women philosophers in ancient Greece and Rome from circa 550 BCE to 415 CE, such as Hypatia, Macrina, Perictione, Sosipatra, and Theano. Students become familiar with all major Greco-Roman women philosophers, their writings, and their intellectual contributions to field of philosophy. All texts in English translation; optional readings in ancient Greek available for Classics majors.

CLASSIC M125 – Invention of Democracy
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Sissa, G.
Course Description
(Same as Political Science M112B.) Lecture, three or four hours; discussion, one hour (when scheduled). Designed for juniors/seniors. Democracy was invented in ancient Greece as political form grounded on equality before law, citizenship, and freedom. It came into existence as struggle by “demos,” people, aware of its excellence and proud of its power, “kratos.” It became only regime capable of including all members of community while disregarding wealth, status, and diverging interests. Examination of history and theory of ancient democracy. P/NP or letter grading.

COM LIT 191 – Variable Topics in Comparative Literature: History and Future of Canons in the Americas
Seminar: Sem 2
Units: 4
Instructor: Martinez, N.
Course Description
What is difference between América Latina and Abiayala? These are both names for overlapping geographic spaces in North and South America, labeled and identified through differing criteria of shared histories, peoples, cultures, and governments. Study looks at how literary culture and creative media have impacted and continue to shape conceptions of North and South America. Consideration of how Latin American and indigenous conceptions of these cultural legacies–especially their literary and creative canons–suggest different histories, cultures, communities, and futures for that those that call these continents home. Primary sources include poetry, novels, textiles, and visual art that highlight various ways of knowing and their forms.

DANCE 45 – Introduction to Dance Studies
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructors: Banerji, A., Mudgerikar, A.
Course Description
Lecture, three hours. Enforced requisite: course 44. Introduction to discipline of dance studies, with focus on study of corporeality as key contemporary perspective on body. Multidisciplinary approach to dancing bodies conceptualized as social constructs, including attention to gender, race, class, and national identity. P/NP or letter grading.

ENGL 10A – Literatures in English to 1700
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructors: McEachern, C.
Course Description
Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Enforced requisites: English Composition 3 or 3H, English 4W or 4HW. Survey of major writers and genres, with emphasis on tools for literary analysis such as close reading, argumentation, historical and social context, and critical writing. Minimum of three papers (three to five pages each) or equivalent required. P/NP or letter grading.

ENGL 148 – Cultures of Middle Ages: Thinking through Premodern Cities
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Chism, C.N.
Class Description
Examination of premodern cities as physical and figurative nodes for crystallizing cultural difference and intelligibility. Study looks at how cities are perceived and inhabited through China Miéville’s speculative The City and the City. Exploration of two medieval texts that inhabit imagined cities of past (Troy) and future (City of Women) in works by Chaucer (The Legend of Good Women) and Christine de Pizan (The Book of the City of Ladies). Study also looks at Asian travel narratives in which African and Asian cities operate as open cosmopolitan flows, defensible fortresses, or palimpsests of history in works by Ibn Battuta, Rabbi Petachiah of Regensburg, and Marco Polo. Students write short weekly response papers; and either write two major papers or do a project with prospectus, analytical debrief, and presentation. Students may make optional additional presentation in lieu of one major paper or as part of their project.

ENGL M138 – Topics in Creative Writing: Narrative Nonfiction
Seminar: Sem 2
Units: 5
Instructor: Jager, E.
Class Description
Workshop-style study devoted to narrative nonfiction. Students read short samples of this genre and write their own pieces to be shared and discussed in class. Assignments include first-person pieces (i.e., memoir), profiles based on interviews, and fact pieces or features incorporating library and Internet research. Open to non-English majors. Enrollment by instructor consent.

ENGL 181B – Topics in Interdisciplinary Studies: Rural Novel
Seminar: Sem 1
Units: 5
Instructor: McEachern, C.
Course Description
Division and contention between country and city is source of greatest political chasms of today. What might history of fiction with countryside setting tell about this conflict, and way in which rural life is portrayed and understood in increasingly urbanized world? Agriculture is where nature meets culture: what is result for fiction? Study asks what makes novel (or life) rural as opposed to urban or suburban; and whether it has to be about farming. Study also looks at why rural fiction is so often penned by city dwellers, and how that may matter; why is contemporary rural novel is so frequently study of poverty rather than idyllic pastoral life; and why so many universities have departments of urban studies, and so few of rural studies. These questions motivate reading, which is primarily concerned with American fiction of 20th and 21st centuries. Authors to be studied may include Cather, Kingsolver, Steinbeck, Ward, Wilson, and others.

FILIPNO 124 – Translating Filipino Language and Culture
Seminar: Sem 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Paredes, O.
Course Description:
Seminar, three hours. Requisite: course 4. Enrollment by instructor consent. Draws on a wide variety of Filipino language sources to develop and refine language skills while exploring effective communication and cultural expression in the Filipino language. P/NP or letter grading.

FILIPNO 170 – People, Society, and Culture of the Philippines
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Paredes, O.
Course Description:
Lecture, two hours; discussion, one hour. In-depth examination of the Philippines, from early history and colonial formation under both Spain and the U.S. to the struggle for independence, the Martial Law period, and socio-economic issues in the post-Marcos republic, including extreme poverty and the global economic phenomenon of overseas Filipino workers in the 21st century. Readings and selected films/videos contextualize specific topics. Provides a general orientation to political history and social conditions in the Philippines. Studies various social categories of Filipinos in the present day as a means of engaging with essential societal issues. P/NP or letter grading.

FOOD ST M167 – Historical Sociology of Urban/Rural Relations and Food Production
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Emigh, R.J.
Course Description
(Same as Sociology M137.) Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Historical examination of food supply and food production in relation to urban and rural regions. Topics include food logistics such as storage, transportation, and distribution, as well as human population growth and migration, famine and hunger, and agricultural advances and environmental impacts. P/NP or letter grading.

HIST 1A – Introduction to Western Civilization: Ancient Civilizations, Prehistory to circa AD 843
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Goldberg, J.L.
Course Description
Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Survey of diverse cultures that shaped foundation of Western civilization to onset of 9th century AD. Investigation of first civilizations in Near East and Egypt. Analysis of worlds of Greeks and Romans. Examination of ways in which western European societies created new syntheses through selective appropriation of Greek and Roman cultures and introduction of new cultural forms. P/NP or letter grading.

HIST 12D – Inequality: Global History of Capitalism
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Zhang, M.
Course Description
Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Study of past 500 years of global economic history. Consideration of myth of economic growth, justice of distribution, and experiments with alternatives to capitalism. Introduction to foundational theoretical works that span ideological spectrums, contextualized in specific historical situations of both Western and non-Western regions. Attention to non-Western regions challenges conventional ideas of capitalism and prominence of West in capitalism scholarship. P/NP or letter grading.

HIST 96W – Introduction to Historical Practice: Chinese Book Culture from Ming to Mao
Seminar: Sem 6
Units: 5
Instructors: Zhang, M., McClendon, M.C.
Course Description
How did expansion in woodblock printing industry reshape life and career of educated class in late imperial China? Study looks at financial and social mechanisms behind perpetuation of Neo-Confucian ideology in popular text form; and why newspapers became primary medium for promoting modernization, reform, and revolution at end of imperial era. Through these and other questions, exploration of production, circulation, and consumption of printed and written media in China from circa 1550s to 1970s. Examination of technologies, institutions, people, and texts central to understanding transformation of Chinese book culture. Such transformation, in turn, furnishes lens into broader social, political, and cultural changes and continuities in China from late Ming dynasty to socialist period. Students read mixture of primary sources in translation and historical and theoretical scholarship by modern-day scholars.

HIST 130 – History of European Political Thought
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Stacey, P.J.
Course Description
Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour (when scheduled). Designed for juniors/seniors. Introduction to principal themes in history of European political thought from classical antiquity to close of early modern period. Study of outstanding contributions to history of social, political, and moral philosophy in texts of major thinkers such as Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, More, Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau. Reconstruction of broad intellectual and ideological contexts from which their work emerged to help students make sense of works of political philosophy in their relevant historical setting and to know something about Athenian democracy and its critics, Roman republic and its empire, Renaissance, early modern European civil wars, American and French Revolutions, and Enlightenment. Focus on emergence of some crucial concepts during this period–ideas about state, self, rights, sovereignty, liberty, private property, and more–that define way we think about politics and society in modern world. P/NP or letter grading.

HIST 191B – Capstone Seminar: History–Medieval: Law, Sin, and Crime in Medieval Europe
Seminar: Sem 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Goldberg, J.L.
Course Description
Medieval world is often seen as place of disorder and violence, where rules and laws scarcely existed. But medieval Europeans were instead obsessed with law, nature of sin and crime (and changing boundaries between them), and problem of proof. Exploration of medieval society through study of various ways law defined, proved, and punished different kinds of misbehavior. Examination of ordeals and torture, sex and marriage, crime, sin, and social control. Study culminates in research paper based on primary sources.

HIST C187O – Topics in Historiography: World History: Business and Commerce in Islamicate World after 1000 CE
Seminar: Sem 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Koh, C.
Course Description
Examination of major topics in history of business and commerce in Islamicate world after 1000 CE. Introduction to mechanics of long-distance trade such as strategies of risk management through legal contracts, partnerships, and corporations. Students also learn about major institutions that had, for centuries, governed economic life such as endowment (waqf), Islamic law (on taxation, rents), and role of the state. No previous knowledge of topic required.

IRANIAN 35 – Archaeology of Ancient Iranian Empires
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Fabian, L.
Course Description
Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. For around 1,200 years, three massive empires centered in Iran ruled over vast territories: Achaemenid Empire (550 to 330 BCE), Parthian Empire (247 BCE to 224 CE), and Sasanian Empire (224 to 651 CE). Often overlooked in studies of the ancient world, these empires were a critical force that shaped political and social life across Eurasia. Consideration of the figure of Cyrus the Great and the policies of his empire. Examination of how local communities in lands stretching from modern Turkey in the west to Afghanistan in the east lived under and alongside the sequence of empires. Consideration of how trade in precious metals and silks shaped Eurasian economies stretching from Rome to China under the Parthians. Examination of how the technologically complex cities of Sasanians grew into massive, multicultural, cosmopolitan hubs. Students learn how to examine and combine archaeological and textual evidence to develop a multi-dimensional picture of past societies. P/NP or letter grading.

ISLM ST C151 – Islamic Thought
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Yarbrough, L.B.
Course Description
(Formerly numbered 151.) Lecture, three hours. Recommended requisite: introductory course on Islam or instructor consent. Introduction to major fields of inquiry and debate in Islamic studies (e.g., exegesis, Hadith, law, theology, Sufism). Focus on selected topics of debate such as nature of God, jihad, hijab, or pilgrimage. Concurrently scheduled with course C251. Letter grading.

JAPAN 50 – Japanese Civilization
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Duthie, T.
Course Description:
Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Knowledge of Japanese not required. Survey of the development of Japanese culture and its relationship to the Asiatic mainland. P/NP or letter grading.

LATIN 110 – Study of Latin Prose
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Spielberg, L.M.
Course Description
Lecture, three hours. Requisite: course 100. Work in sight reading and grammatical analysis of classical prose texts; writing of classical prose. P/NP or letter grading.

LATIN 118 – Seneca
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Martelli, F.K.
Course Description
Lecture, three hours. Requisite: course 100. Selection of Seneca’s works read in Latin. P/NP or letter grading.

MUSCLG 187C – Capstone Seminar III: Presenting the Project
Seminar: Sem 1
Units: 2
Instructor: Favila, C.D.
Course Description
Seminar, three hours; discussion, one hour. Limited to Musicology majors in their final year of academic studies. Requisite: course 187B. Preparation, creation, and presentation of senior capstone project. Taken in Spring Quarter of senior year. Letter grading.

PHILOS 100C – History of Modern Philosophy, 1650 to 1800
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Normore, C.G.
Course Description
Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Preparation: one philosophy course. Strongly recommended requisite: course 100B. Courses 100A, 100B, and 100C should be taken in immediately successive terms if possible. Survey of development of metaphysics and theory of knowledge from 1650 to 1800, including Locke and/or Berkeley, Malebranche and/or Leibniz, and culminating in Hume and Kant. Topics may include views of these (and perhaps other) philosophers of the period on mind and body, causality, existence of God, skepticism, empiricism, limits of human knowledge, and philosophical foundations of modern science. P/NP or letter grading.

PHILOS 189 – Advanced Honors Seminars
Seminar: Sem 1
Units: 1
Instructor: Normore, C.G.
Course Description
Seminar, one hour. Limited to 20 students. Designed as adjunct to upper-division lecture course. Exploration of topics in greater depth through supplemental readings, papers, or other activities and led by lecture course instructor. May be applied toward College Honors for eligible students. May not be applied toward departmental honors. May be repeated for credit. Honors content noted on transcript. P/NP or letter grading.

POL SCI 118 – Laws of War and Peace from Conquest of America to Declaration of Human Rights (1948)
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Pagden, A.R.
Course Description
Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour (when scheduled). Enforced requisite: course 10. Designed for juniors/seniors. Examination of theories of international relations and international law, with special emphasis on warfare, from conquest of America to end of World War II. P/NP or letter grading.

RELIGN 19 – Intersections between Science and Religion
Seminar: Sem 1
Units: 1
Instructor: Bakhos, C.A., Diamond, J.M.
Course Description
Study probes questions such as what relationship between religion and science is; to what extent modern scientific advances impact religious beliefs and practices; and how hyperconnectivity and AI impact religion. These complexly interrelated queries create opportunity to explore more fundamentally what it means to be religious in 21st century, while also considering animal life and vastness of universe. Class meets April 1, 15, 29, May 13, 27.

S ASIAN 110C – Advanced Sanskrit
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Jamison, S.
Course Description:
Lecture, three hours. Requisite: course 110B. Reading of the entire “Bhagavadgita” or a comparable amount of other Sanskrit literature. P/NP or letter grading.

SPAN 11B – Catalan Language and Culture II
Lecture: Lec 2
Units: 4
Instructors: Reda Coll, F., Dagenais, J.C.
Course Description
Lecture, six hours. Requisite: course 11A or equivalent. Part two of two-term accelerated language sequence equivalent to three terms of traditional instruction. Study offers more advanced knowledge of Catalan language and culture from wide range of activities focused on task-based and communicative approaches. Study involves variety of activities, which are designed to develop learners’ listening, reading, speaking, and writing skills. P/NP or letter grading.

SPAN 170 – Topics in Interdisciplinary and Transhistorical Studies: Protest Song of 1960s: U.S., Cuba, and Chile
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Cortinez, V.
Course Description
Lecture, four hours; discussion, one hour (when scheduled). Requisite: course 25 or 27, 119. Comparative study of cultural production in Latin American, Afro-Luso-Brazilian, and Iberian contexts across diverse historical periods, regional, and ethnic traditions, and aesthetic modes. Possible topics include Afrolatinidad; diaspora; feminism; folklore; gender; globalization; indigeneity and indigenous studies (Andean, Mesoamerican, Amazonian, Tupi, and Tapuia); migration and immigration; music (1960s Latin American protest songs, nueva canción, música regional, punk, rap, folk); popular culture; regionalisms. May be repeated for credit with topic change. P/NP or letter grading.