Undergraduate Courses
Winter 2025
AN N EA 14W – Medicine, Magic, and Science in Ancient Times
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Bonesho, C.E.
Course Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Requisite: English Composition 3. Not open for credit to students with credit for course 14. Overview of history of medicine and sciences, focusing especially on Ancient Near East, China, and Meso-America. Satisfies Writing II requirement. Letter grading.
AN N EA M166 – Art and Death in Ancient Egypt
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Ashby, S.
Course Description: (Formerly numbered 166.) (Same as Art History M110D.) Lecture, four hours. Ways of death, burial, funerary ritual, and afterlife beliefs in ancient Egypt, as well as in ancient Near East and Nubia, with focus on ancient visual materials–both objects and architecture–from Predynastic to Roman periods. P/NP or letter grading.
ANTHRO 118Q – Conquest and Colonialism
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Acabado, S.B.
Course Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour (when scheduled). Designed to expose students to anthropological issues on European conquest and colonialism. Comparative view of colonialism through examination of case studies of encounters and entanglements between peoples of different cultural traditions during past 500 years. Particular interest is placed in rapid environmental and social transformations that ensued soon after contacts between indigenous groups and European explorers, emphasizing responses of indigenous peoples to such contacts. Focus on archaeological perspectives, particularly long-term dynamics of cross-cultural entanglements, and effects of such interactions in landscape, material culture, and past ways of life. Highlights significant contributions of archaeology to understanding often rapid and dramatic cultural changes experienced by peoples involved in colonial encounters. P/NP or letter grading.
ARABIC 181 – Translating Arabic
Seminar: Sem 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Cooperson, M.D.
Course Description: Seminar, three hours. Preparation: advanced proficiency in English and Arabic (at least three years of Arabic instruction or equivalent). Open to both native and nonnative speakers of English and Arabic. Training of students in methodology of translation from Arabic into English, with focus on producing accurate and readable English versions of Arabic texts from variety of fields. Close reading and written translation of Arabic texts, with review of linguistic and cultural difficulties that arise in course of translation. Texts may include classical Arabic literature (religion, historiography), modern writing (literature, media), and spoken Arabic (television, radio), based on student interest. Letter grading.
ART HIS 185 – Undergraduate Seminar: Seminar 5
Seminar: Sem 5
Units: 4
Instructor: Cohen, M.M.
Course Description; Seminar, three hours. Designed for juniors/seniors. Selected aspects of art history explored through readings, discussion, research papers, and oral presentations. May be repeated twice for credit. P/NP or letter grading.
ART HIS 185 – Undergraduate Seminar: Soundscapes of Early Modern World
Seminar: Sem 4
Units: 4
Instructor: Nair, S.E.
Course Description; Seminar, three hours. Designed for juniors/seniors. Selected aspects of art history explored through readings, discussion, research papers, and oral presentations. May be repeated twice for credit. P/NP or letter grading.
ASIAN 40 – Foundations of East Asia: Philosophical and Literary Traditions
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Wang, S.
Course Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Orientation of foundational philosophical and literary texts in the classical Chinese or Sinitic/East Asian tradition. Shared by modern China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, these texts provide the rhetorical, intellectual, and ethical framework for premodern cultural tradition; and also serve as political, aesthetic, and moral anchors for contemporary media, art, and social discourse. Reading of classical texts from the pre-Qin Chinese received tradition (Confucianism, Daoism, Legalism). Exploration of the religious canon of Mahayana Buddhism. Engagement with classical literary works representing Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese traditions. Students relate the philosophical and literary works to their own lived experiences. P/NP or letter grading.
ASIAN 151 – Buddhist Literature in Translation
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Balkwill, S.
Course Description: Lecture, three hours. Recommended preparation: prior course on Buddhism or traditional Asian religions. Knowledge of Asian languages not required. Readings from variety of Buddhist literature of Indic and non-Indic origin, with emphasis on key Buddhist themes and critical issues in cross-cultural interpretations of Asian religious texts. Letter grading.
CCAS 188 – Special Courses in Chicana/o and Central American Studies: Aesthetics of Undocumentedness: Art, Migration, Policy, and Politics
Seminar: Sem 4
Units: 4
Instructors: Hirugami, E., Black, C.V.
Class Description: General overview of Latine migration art, policy, and politics. Study questions Latinidad while diving into history of U.S. migration. Study challenges construct of citizenship in juxtaposition to undocumentedness, as it concerns naturalization and bureaucracy. Study questions how capitalism serves as driver for immigration by weaponizing health and problematizing deportation. Study also delves into demands of host society upon incoming immigrant population by contrasting assimilation to acculturation and migration versus immigration. Discussion of immigration of queer, female, and underage migrants. Study concludes with understanding of immigration aesthetics and their creative migrations. Students gain basic understanding of contemporary migration politics and policies in U.S. and Latine art, and become fluent in undocumented spectrum.
CHIN C150B – Chinese Literature in Translation: Traditional Narrative and Fiction
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructors: Wu, Y.
Course Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Knowledge of Chinese not required. Examination of formation and development of Chinese narrative traditions from Tang to mid-Qing periods (7th-18th centuries). Readings from biographical writings, fiction, drama, legal cases, etc., with emphasis on different narrative conventions and their cultural assumptions and intersections. Exploration of important issues in context of imperial China, including order and chaos, self and other, desire and transcendence, gender norms and transgression, violence and justice. May be taken independently for credit. Concurrently scheduled with course C250B. Letter grading.
CHIN 191A – Variable Topics Research Seminars: Classical China
Seminar: Sem 1
Units: 4
Instructors: Wu, Y.
Course Description: Seminar, three hours. Designed for juniors/seniors. Research seminar on selected topics in premodern Chinese literature, thought, and culture. Reading, discussion, and development of culminating project. May be repeated for credit. Letter grading.
CLASSIC 47 – Medical Terminology: Origins, Nature, and Practice
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Blank, D.L.
Course Description: Lecture, three hours. Introduction to specialized vocabulary of health sciences, which is rooted in Greek and Roman languages and in those two cultures from which much of history of modern medicine is derived. Students gain working knowledge of fundamental terminology used in medicine and health sciences as well as how this terminology has been composed. Development of ability to interpret and pronounce words. Students apply linguistic rules and how they operate in English and field-specific vocabulary to understand new terminology in various health science fields. Study of etymological origins of fundamental terminology as mnemonic aid for learning and recalling this terminology, and also to serve as mechanism for connecting health/medical professions to humanistic origins. P/NP or letter grading.
CLASSIC 51B – Art and Archaeology of Ancient Rome
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Beckmann, S.E.
Course Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Survey of major period, theme, or medium of Roman art and archaeology at discretion of instructor. P/NP or letter grading.
CLASSIC 88GE – General Education Seminar Sequences: Introduction to Greco-Roman Astrology
Seminar: Sem 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Spielberg, L.M.
Course Description: Seminar, three hours. Focused study of one aspect of ancient Greek or Roman culture or reception of classical tradition. Topics are interdisciplinary in nature (literature, arts, religion, politics, culture) and make connections between ancient and postclassical eras. Topics include rediscovery of Pompeii and Herculaneum; Roman religion and literature; pleasures of Greek or Roman body; and 18th-century British literature and reception of classics. P/NP or letter grading.
CLASSIC M121 – Ancient and Medieval Political Theory
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Sissa, G.
Course Description: (Same as Political Science M111A.) Lecture, three or four hours; discussion, one hour (when scheduled). Designed for juniors/seniors. Exposition and critical analysis of major thinkers such as Plato, Aristotle, Thucydides, St. Augustine, Aquinas, Machiavelli, and More and questions such as forms of government, citizenship, justice, happiness, rhetoric, religion, emotion. P/NP or letter grading.
COM LIT 2BW – Survey of Literature: Middle Ages to 17th Century
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Stahuljak, Z.
Course Description: Lecture, two hours; discussion, two hours. Enforced requisite: English Composition 3 or 3H or English as a Second Language 36. Not open for credit to students with credit for course 1B or 4BW. Study of selected texts from Middle Ages to 17th century, with emphasis on literary analysis and expository writing. Texts may include works by authors such as Chaucer, Dante, Cervantes, Marguerite de Navarre, Shakespeare, Calderón, Molière, and Racine. Satisfies Writing II requirement. Letter grading.
COM LIT 4DW – Literature and Writing: Great Books from World at Large
Discussion: Dis 3
Units: 5
Instructor: Martinez, N.
Course Description: Seminar, four hours. Enforced requisite: English Composition 3. Not open for credit to students with credit for course 1D or 2DW. Study and discussion of major literary texts usually overlooked in courses that focus only on canon of Western literature, with emphasis on literary analysis and expository writing. Texts from at least three of following areas read in any given term: African, Caribbean, East Asian, Latin American, and Middle Eastern literature. Texts may include works by authors such as Achebe, Can Xue, Desai, Emecheta, Kincaid, Neruda, Ngugi, Pak, Rushdie, and El Saadawi. Analysis of texts includes focus on structures, processes, and practices that generate inter-group inequities or conflicts as well as those that support fairness and inclusiveness. Satisfies Writing II requirement. Letter grading.
COM LIT 100 – Introduction to Literary and Critical Theory
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Kanner-Botan, A.
Course Description: Lecture, four hours. Preparation: satisfaction of Entry-Level Writing and College Writing requirements. Requisites: two courses from Comparative Literature 1 or 2 series or English 10 series or Spanish 60 series, etc. Seminar-style introduction to discipline of comparative literature presented through series of texts illustrative of its formation and practice. Letter grading.
COM LIT 191 – Variable Topics in Comparative Literature: Love, Desire, and Sexuality in Middle Eastern Literature
Seminar: Sem 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Kanner-Botan, A.
Course Description: What separates love from lust? How are erotic desires and sexual practices informed by language and culture? Interdisciplinary exploration of these questions in conversation with foundational authors from Middle Eastern literature, alongside insights from feminist and queer theory. Study delves into questions on relationship between romantic, familial, and divine love; gender, sexuality, and body; and Orientalism and politics of reading desire cross-culturally. Students encounter various ways of understanding love in primary sources that range from Qur’an and pre-Islamic poetry to mystics and philosophers such as Ibn ‘Arabi and Ibn Sina (Avicenna), to Rumi’s Masnavi and Nezami’s Layli and Majnun, to tales of A Thousand and One Nights and framing of Islamic narratives in Bollywood cinema and American pop culture. Examination of not only how literary representations reflect different historical norms, but also how and to what extent texts and images can impact norms of their contexts.
COM LIT 191 – Variable Topics in Comparative Literature: Decolonizing Time in Abiayala
Units: 4
Instructor: Martinez, N.
Course Description: What if time were seen as malleable? Examination of how different ethnic and racial groups across the Americas manipulate experiences of time through music, visual art, and storytelling to reclaim their worlds. Understandings of time have been used to control populations of Abiayala (the Americas) since beginning of colonial period. But through different cultural understandings of time, experimental bookmaking, and other modes of creative expression, time can be experienced anew. Attention paid to how different formats for storytelling and art alter one’s experience of present. Study also identifies how different ways of arranging events, visuals, and words reconfigure relationships between past, present, and future. Includes fictional and theoretical works by Kency Cornejo (Salvadoran American), Dylan W. Robinson (Xwélmexw First Nation), and Manuel Gabriel Tzoc Bucup (Guatemalan K’iche’), among others.
ENGL 90 – Shakespeare
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Little, A.L.
Course Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Enforced requisite: satisfaction of Entry-Level Writing requirement. Not open for credit to English majors or students with credit for course 150A or 150B. Survey of Shakespeare’s plays, including comedies, tragedies, and histories, selected to represent Shakespeare’s breadth, artistic progress, and total dramatic achievement. P/NP or letter grading.
ENGL 140A – Chaucer: “Canterbury Tales”
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Fisher, M.N.
Course Description: Lecture, four hours; discussion, one hour (when scheduled). Enforced requisites: courses 10A, 10B. Introductory study of Chaucer’s language, versification, and historical and literary background, including analysis and discussion of his long major poem, “Canterbury Tales.” P/NP or letter grading.
ENGL 142R – Later Medieval Literature: Research Component: Medieval Book in Medieval World
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Fisher, M.N.
Course Description: Students read Auchinleck manuscript, medieval book written in 1330s London. Manuscript contains fascinating and bizarre array of texts–including saints’ lives, romances, and history writing–which are set amidst shorter pieces of satire, social and political complaint, and religious instruction. Students challenged to use fundamental skill–research, which can be transferred across periods and disciplines–to develop meaningful research question. Students learn how to conduct literary and historical research, and how to assemble it into grounds of substantial literary critical argument. All readings in original Middle English. Includes weekly reading responses, Middle English quiz, short close-reading paper, five-page research paper and 12- to 15-page final paper. Each student makes formal 10-minute presentation.
ENGL 149 – Medievalisms: Filthy Lucre: Fraudster, Trader, and Usurer in Medieval and Post-Medieval Ages
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Thomas, A.
Course Description: Fraudsters, traders, and usurers have been around ever since humans were infected by love of vile profit, or what in Middle Ages was called filthy lucre. Students learn not just about tricks of their trades but also about intersection of commerce and literature in texts from medieval to early modern. Medieval readings include some of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales such as The General Prologue and Shipman’s, Merchant’s, Pardoner’s, and Summoner’s Tales; excerpts from Piers Plowman; and Robin Hood narratives, such as A Gest of Robyn Hode, Robin Hood and the Potter, and Robin Hood and the Monk. Early modern texts include Gerard Malynes’s Saint George for England, Christopher Marlowe’s Jew of Malta, Thomas Wilson’s Discourse on Usury, and Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice. Texts read in light of premodern thinking about filthy lucre (turpe lucrum) found in treatises on usury, equitable exchange, and simony; and on exchange-rate, just price, and proportion.
ENGL 150B – Shakespeare: Later Plays
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Watson, R.N.
Course Description: Lecture, four hours; discussion, one hour (when scheduled). Enforced requisites: courses 10A, 10B. Intensive study of representative problem plays, major tragedies, Roman plays, and romances. P/NP or letter grading.
ENGL 151 – Milton
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Shuger, D.K.
Course Description: Lecture, four hours; discussion, one hour (when scheduled). Enforced requisites: courses 10A, 10B. Study of major works of Milton, with emphasis on “Paradise Lost.” P/NP or letter grading.
ENGL 184 – Capstone Seminar: English: From Ancient Epic to Medieval Romance
Seminar: Sem 2
Units: 4
Instructor: Jager, E.
Course Description: Exploration of how ancient Mediterranean epic provided medieval European romance with various character types, narrative patterns, themes and imagery relating to war, eros, justice, spirituality, community, and journey or quest. Texts include Augustine’s Confessions, Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, Morte Darthur, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Lais of Marie de France, The Song of Roland, and Vergil’s Aeneid. Assignments includes weekly reports and one 10- to 12-page research essay to be adapted for presentation at mini-conference. Enrollment by instructor consent.
GERMAN 140 – Language and Linguistics
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Stevens, C.M.
Course Description: Lecture, three hours. Enforced requisite or corequisite: course 6. Taught in English with German proficiency required. Theories and methods of linguistics, with emphasis on structure of modern standard German, its phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. Other topics include diachronic, spatial, and social variation of German (i.e., its historical development, dialectology, and sociolinguistic dimensions). Letter grading.
GREEK 100 – Intermediate Greek II: Readings in Greek
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Morgan, K.A.
Course Description: Lecture, three hours. Requisite: course 20. Introduction to developing skills of reading longer, continuous passages of original Greek prose and/or poetry texts, with attention to literary and cultural background. Course is normally requisite to other courses in Greek 100 series. May be repeated for credit with change of assigned readings and with consent of instructor. P/NP or letter grading.
HIST 11B – History of China, circa 1000 to 2000
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Goldman, A.S.
Course Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Survey of later history of China–evolution of characteristic Chinese institutions and modes of thought from circa 1000 to 2000. Focus on social, political, intellectual, cultural, and economic aspects of early modern regimes and empires and rise of modern China into contemporary era. P/NP or letter grading.
HIST 97C – Introduction to Historical Practice: Variable Topics in European History: Philosophy and Utopia in Early Modern Europe
Seminar: Sem 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Stacey, P.J.
Course Description: Introduction to discipline of intellectual history. Detailed introduction on how to practice it, in order to make sense of key text in early modern political philosophy: Thomas More’s Utopia (1516). Includes readings about intellectual history in general; and early modern political, moral, and social theory in particular. Main focus on exploration of imaginative and intellectual world of Thomas More’s famous text, title of which pioneered new genre of European political writing. Endlessly enigmatic, profoundly imaginative, and often very funny indeed; More’s text also remains intensely controversial. Study tries to explain why.
HIST 119A – Medieval Europe, 400 to 1000
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Kreiner, J.
Course Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour (when scheduled). Designed for juniors/seniors. Basic introduction to Western Europe from Latin antiquity to age of discovery, with emphasis on medieval use of Greco-Roman antiquity, history of manuscript book, and growth of literacy. P/NP or letter grading.
HIST 122A – Cultural and Intellectual History of Modern Europe, 15th Century
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Stacey, P.J.
Course Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour (when scheduled). Designed for juniors/seniors. Climates of taste and climates of opinion. Educational, moral, and religious attitudes; art, thought, and manners of time in historical context. Renaissance cultural and intellectual history of Europe. Central themes include comparative history of ideas, theory and practice of art and architecture, civic and religious humanism, religious experience, and new cultural genres of history and philological scholarship. P/NP or letter grading.
HIST 170E – Economic History of China
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Von Glahn, R.
Course Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour (when scheduled). Designed for juniors/seniors. Survey of development of Chinese economy and social, technological, intellectual, and political dynamics that produced distinctive patterns in evolution of China’s economy from antiquity to present day. P/NP or letter grading.
HIST 172B – Japanese History: Early Modern, 1600 to 1868
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Hirano, K.
Course Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour (when scheduled). Designed for juniors/seniors. Political, economic, and cultural development of Japan from 1600 to 1868. P/NP or letter grading.
HIST C191K – Topics in History: History of Religions: Sanctity in Early Modern Catholicism
Seminar: Sem 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Tutino, S.
Course Description: Saints were central to devotional, liturgical, theological, and cultural life of premodern Catholicism; and stories of saints are still immensely fascinating. Historically speaking, studying saints and sanctity offers wonderful window into cultural, intellectual, and political history of early modern Europe and beyond. Focus on saints and saint-making in Catholic tradition during period following Reformation. Examination of crucial institutional changes that reorganized process of canonization. Study analyzes implications of–and conflicts around–sanctity in several contexts, both within and outside Europe.
ISLM ST M27B – Global Islam
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 6
Instructors: Yarbrough, L.B., Slyomovics, S.
Course Description: (Same as Clusters M27B.) Lecture, three hours; discussion, two hours. Enforced requisite: course M27A. Introduction to Islam, immensely diverse global tradition which is second largest religion. Study of Islam and Muslims within framework of study of global religious traditions and emphasis on profound diversity of localized belief and practice found across world. Examination of Islam’s evolution across 15 centuries, from late antiquity–when it emerged as localized religion in Central Arabia–to modern era where it is practice from U.S. to Indonesia. Concentration on broad analytical categories in study of religion such as text, culture, history, and prophecy. Students transition to more complex analyses through chronological overview of Islamic history. Study also of case studies of Muslim global networks in arenas such as art, music, literature, and political thought. P/NP or letter grading.
ITALIAN 102A – Italian Cultural Experience in English
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Morosini, R.
Course Description: Lecture, three hours. Study of cultural development of Italy. Roots of Western civilization; social and artistic achievements of communal society; Marco Polo, Dante, Boccaccio, Giotto, rise of Italian merchant class. P/NP or letter grading.
ITALIAN 114B – Middle Ages: Medieval Humor, Moralism, and Society
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Ciavolella, M.
Course Description: Lecture, three hours. Novelty of Boccaccio’s witty and comic masterpiece, Decameron, analyzed within context of moral and social codes of culture of time. P/NP or letter grading.
LATIN 104 – Ovid
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Sissa, G.
Course Description: Lecture, three hours. Requisite: course 100. P/NP or letter grading.
MUSCLG 125B – History of Western Music: Era of Empires and Marketplaces
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Favila, C.D.
Course Description: Lecture, four hours; discussion, one hour. Requisite: course M6B (may be taken concurrently), 125A. Course 125A is requisite to 125B, which is requisite to 125C. Students must receive grade of C or better to proceed to next course in sequence. Introduction to history, culture, and structure of Western music, in era of empires and marketplaces, through selected topics, repertoires, and analytical techniques. Letter grading.
PHILOS 100B – Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy
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 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.
POL SCI M111A – Ancient and Medieval Political Theory
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Sissa, G.
Course Description: (Same as Political Science M111A.) Lecture, three or four hours; discussion, one hour (when scheduled). Designed for juniors/seniors. Exposition and critical analysis of major thinkers such as Plato, Aristotle, Thucydides, St. Augustine, Aquinas, Machiavelli, and More and questions such as forms of government, citizenship, justice, happiness, rhetoric, religion, emotion. P/NP or letter grading.
POL SCI 111B – Early Modern Political Theory
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Pagden, A.R.
Course Description: Lecture, three or four hours; discussion, one hour (when scheduled). Designed for juniors/seniors. Exposition and critical analysis of major thinkers such as Machiavelli, More, Montaigne, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Smith, Condorcet, and Kant and questions such as representation, property, autonomy, and political economy. P/NP or letter grading.
RELIGN 113 – In Search of Meaning: From Holy Texts to Hollywood
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Bakhos, C.A.
Course Description: Lecture, two and one half hours. Exploration of topics such as existence of a higher being, meaning of life, one’s role in world, one’s obligations to others, human nature, and existence of evil. Examination of texts ranging from scriptures to film that reflect religious, philosophical, and secular ways people–over centuries and throughout world–have sought answers to basic questions of human existence. Today, in time of global disruption, people still search for meaning and purpose on path is rarely straight forward or upward, and often requires movement backward or downward. Introduction to how various thinkers and cultures have approached life’s big questions, including religious and philosophical responses to them. Students are encouraged to think critically about them and formulate their own responses. P/NP or letter grading.
RELIGN M50 – Origins of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Bakhos, C.A.
Course Description: (Same as Ancient Near East M50B and Middle Eastern Studies M50B.) Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Examination of three major monotheisms of Western cultures–Judaism, Christianity, and Islam–historically and comparatively. Development, teachings, and ritual practices of each tradition up to and including medieval period. Composition and development of various sacred texts, highlighting key themes and ideas within different historical and literary strata of traditions, such as mechanisms of revelation, struggle for religious authority, and common theological issues such as origin of evil and status of nonbelievers. Letter grading.
RUSSN 25 – Great Russian Novel
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Lenhoff, G.D.
Course Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Not open for credit to students with credit for course 25W. Designed for nonmajors. Knowledge of Russian not required. Study of major works by great 19th-century Russian novelists. P/NP or letter grading.
S ASIAN 110B – Intermediate Sanskrit
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructors: Jamison, S.
Course Description: Lecture, three hours. Requisite: course 110A. Advanced aspects of grammar and reading of literary texts. P/NP or letter grading.
SCAND C137 – Old Norse Literature and Society
Seminar: Sem 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Price, B.
Course Description: In this seminar, students will examine the myriad ways in which gender and sexuality were conceived of in medieval Scandinavia, by examining their representations in Old Norse literature. To interrogate how gendered and sexual identities were constructed and contested in this place and period, students will read a variety of sources in translation, including myths, poetry, laws, and sagas. Their understanding will be furthered by situating these texts in their sociohistorical context, interrogating the complex and sometimes contradictory relationship between literary portrayals of gender and sexuality and lived reality in the Middle Ages. As they read, think, talk, and write together, students will reflect upon what gender, sexuality, and queerness mean in a distant past. No knowledge of Old Norse or the Middle Ages is required or expected.
SEASIAN C120 – Ghosts, Spirits, and Witches: Supernatural in Southeast Asia
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructors: Paredes, O.
Course Description: Lecture, two hours; discussion, one hour. From magical tattoos, tree spirits, and faith healing to angry ghosts and disemboweled flying vampires, exploration of fantastic supernatural world of Southeast Asia through folk tales, urban myths, published accounts, popular films, and other media. Study of wide variety of supernatural creatures and local specialists that populate imagination of this diverse region. Exploration also of unique regional concepts of power, morality, and justice that animate and frame Southeast Asian attitudes towards supernatural phenomena in modern world. Concurrently scheduled with course C220. P/NP or letter grading.
SOCIOL 19 – Critical and Racial Approaches to Capitalism: Origins, Development, and Prospects
Seminar: Sem 2
Units: 1
Instructors: Emigh, R.J.
Course Description: Review of critical and racial approaches to capitalism. Exploration of current capitalist economic system origins, and what its future and alternatives may be. Recent vision of capitalism has changed: in 1990s, with market transition in Eastern Europe, it was hailed as way to correct failures of socialism. With 2008 Great Recession, however, this view changed. Now capitalism is widely seen again as oppressive system, harmful to wide swaths of society and inherently creating climate disaster. Theoretical approaches have also changed: in past 20 years, ideas of racial capitalism and critical approaches to capitalism have spread. These perspectives suggest that capitalism developed only because it derived labor power from enslaved persons, mostly of African and indigenous descent. Further thought links development of capitalism to inherent overuse of resources, and thus climate change and all its detrimental effects. Students give in-class presentation and work on small social change project.
SPAN 11A – Catalan Language and Culture I
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructors: Reda Coll, F., Dagenais, J.C.
Course Description: Lecture, six hours. Part one of two-term accelerated language sequence equivalent to three terms of traditional instruction. Introduction to 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 120 – Literature in Historical Context
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Fuchs, B.
Course Description: Lecture, four hours; discussion, one hour. Requisite: course 25 or 27. Introduction to different ways of looking at literary works as historical phenomena. Presentation of major models for writing history–great narratives, cyclic, teleological, sacred, and profane conceptions. Traditional concepts of literary history and problems of mixed categories (historical epochs versus epochs of style, national history, and world literature). P/NP or letter grading.
SPAN 191B – Variable Topics in Spanish: Studies in Hispanic Culture and Civilization: Pilgrim Journeys
Seminar: Sem 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Dagenais, J.C.
Course Description: This course studies the 1000-year-old pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela as a starting place for examining a variety of specific cases of the human phenomenon of pilgrimage across global cultures and religions. What are the motivations and rewards of pilgrimage? How does pilgrimage affect the individual mentally, spiritually and physically? Conversely, what is the impact of pilgrims on the environment and on architecture and urban development? Course will be taught in English. Also note this course will be available to students in Study of Religion.
JAPAN 70 – Images of Japan: Literature and Film
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructors: Shimazaki, S.
Course Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Knowledge of Japanese culture, literature, or language not required. Introduction to visual and textual images of Japan’s literary heritage, including documentary and feature films based on Japan’s literary classics. Letter grading.