Undergraduate Courses

Spring 2026

AN N EA 19: Hashtag Archaeology, or Ancient Near East Goes Viral
Lecture: Sem 1
Units: 1
Instructor: Fabian, L.
Course description: Archaeology has always captured public imagination. Today, ideas about ancient past circulate widely online, where pseudoarchaeological theories can reach ever-larger audiences. TikTok and YouTube have become major platforms for shaping how ancient history is represented, distorted, and re-invented. Study looks at how ancient Near East, from Egypt to Iran, appears in this information landscape. Examination of popular online narratives about ancient civilizations, lost knowledge, and nature of archaeological truth claims. Using examples drawn from online content creators and podcasters alongside scholarly readings, exploration of how pseudoarchaeology works and why certain stories about past spread so easily. Students reflect on how to engage with online sphere as viewers, sharers, and creators. Students consider their collective role in shaping how ancient past circulates today.

ANTHRO 2: Archaeology: Introduction
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Dunnavant, J.P.
Course description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour; one field trip. Required as preparation for both bachelor’s degrees. General survey of field and laboratory methods, theory, and major findings of anthropological archaeology, including case-study guest lectures presented by several campus archaeologists. P/NP or 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 results of research empower descendant communities. Anthropology is in great position to work with communities to empower them in strengthening their identity. There is increasing number of anthropologists and allied social sciences who have intensified their cross-disciplinary work and engagement with communities that they work with. Students interact with Philippine collaborators through online conference to discuss how community participation enhances research. Students work with community stakeholders in developing heritage education materials. P/NP or letter grading.

ART HIS 185: Undergraduate Seminar
Lecture: Sem 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Cohen, M.M.
Course description: Seminar, three hours. Designed for juniors/seniors. Exploration of selected aspects of art history through readings, discussion, research papers, and oral presentations. May be repeated for credit with topic change. P/NP or letter grading.

ASIAN 40: Foundations of East Asia: Philosophical and Literary Traditions
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Duthie, N.N.
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.

CHIN 50: Chinese Civilization
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Wu, Y.
Course description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Not open for credit to students with credit for course 50W. Knowledge of Chinese not required. Introduction to most important aspects of Chinese culture. Topics include early Chinese civilization, historical development of Chinese society, issues of ethnicity, Chinese language and philosophy, and early scientific and technological innovation. P/NP or letter grading.

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

CHIN 139: Gardens in China
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Mai, H.
Course description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Recommended preparation: course 50. Interdisciplinary survey of historic and literary gardens in China, with focus on English translations of texts by native writers and recent Western scholarship. Letter grading.

CHIN 191A: Variable Topics Research Seminars: Classical China
Lecture: Sem 1
Units: 4
Instructor: 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 20: Discovering Romans
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Martelli, F.K.
Course description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Knowledge of Latin not required. Study of Roman life and culture from time of city’s legendary foundations to end of classical antiquity. Readings focus on selections from works of ancient authors in translation. Lectures illustrated with images of art, architecture, and material culture. P/NP or letter grading.

CLUSTER M27CW: Global Islam: Special Topics: Introduction to Christian-Muslim Relations
Lecture: Sem 4
Units: 6
Instructor: Baker, B.E.; Yarbrough, L.B.
Course description: (Formerly numbered 27CW.) (Same as Islamic Studies M27CW.) Exploration of complex history of Christian-Muslim relations. Study compares teachings of Bible and Qur’an; and investigates key historical interactions, major theological and philosophical debates, and shared intellectual movements. Consideration of contemporary implications of Orientalist and Islamophobic rhetoric on public policy, and impact of political and social phenomena on Christian-Muslim relations today.

ELTS 103: Topics in Medical Humanities
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Burns, R.J.
Course description: Lecture, three hours. Exploration of selected topics in interdisciplinary field of medical humanities, which seeks to examine how arts, humanities, and social sciences can be brought into productive dialog with medical discourse, education, and praxis. Taught in English. May be repeated for credit. P/NP or letter grading.

ENGL 10A: Literatures in English to 1700
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: 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 11: Introduction to American Cultures
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Mazzaferro, A.M.
Course description: Lecture, four hours; discussion, one hour (when scheduled). Requisites: English Composition 3, English 4W or 4HW or 4WS. Exploration of question of what is meant by America, and hence what is meant by American culture and American studies. Addresses concepts of origins (real or imagined beginnings of cultural formations), identities (narratives of people and places), and media (creative process as manifest in aesthetic forms, artistic movements, and information systems). P/NP or letter grading.

ENGL 141A: Early Medieval Literature
Lecture: Lec 2
Units: 5
Instructor: Weaver, E.
Course description: Lecture, four hours; discussion, one hour (when scheduled). Requisites: courses 10A, 10B. Major poetry and prose of early medieval Britain, including epic, romance, history, saints’ lives, and travel literature. Texts and topics include Beowulf, Vikings, poems on women, Bede, and King Alfred. P/NP or letter grading.

ENGL 141C: Topics in Old English: Beowulf
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Weaver, E.
Course description: Although it only survives in one half-burned copy, Beowulf is today both early medieval poem that begins countless British literature surveys, and subject of blockbuster movie and novel adaptations. Yet even as poem invites reader into its mead halls and dragon hoards relatively easily, it remains impossible to say exactly when or by whom it was written, or what its earliest audiences may have thought of it. Study translates key scenes from original Old English, while reading through range of translations and critical lenses. One guiding theme is intimacy: How close one can get to poem (and language) from 1000 years ago; and what ways of reading can help to illuminate it.

ENGL 150B: Shakespeare: Later Plays
Lecture: Lec 2
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: McEachern, C.
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 166A: Colonial Beginnings of American Literature
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Mazzaferro, A.M.
Course description: Lecture, four hours; discussion, one hour (when scheduled). Requisites: courses 10A and 10B, or 11 and 87. Historical survey of American literatures of discovery and exploration, contact, and settlement, with emphasis on genres that express distinctive colonial identities, myths, and religious visions. P/NP or letter grading.

ENGL 184: Capstone Seminar: English: From Ancient Epic to Medieval Romance
Lecture: Sem 4
Units: 5
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 Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, Virgil’s Aeneid, Augustine’s Confessions, Beowulf, The Song of Roland, Chrétien de Troyes’ Lancelot, The Romance of the Rose, The Lais of Marie de France, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and Sir Thomas Malory’s Morte Darthur. Assignments include weekly reports on assigned topics, reading quizzes or exercises, and final research paper presented at miniconference. Enrollment by instructor consent.

ENGL 184: Capstone Seminar: English: Race, Gender, and Transgender in Premodern Popular Romance
Lecture: Sem 2
Units: 5
Instructor: Chism, C.N.
Course description: Exploration of race and gender coding and silence in European and Mediterranean premodern popular romances. Study asks how chivalric knights and ladies negotiated compromises and double-binds of pursuing their own desires, and amassing status and memorial reputations within their communities. Other questions include how romances manage characters that arrest attention of other characters and readers alike by using cultural ideals to challenge norms; how characters pass invisibly under social radars; and what tactics leverage social orders into new shapes. Texts may include Dhat al-Himma, the Lais of Marie de France, Roman de Silence, Romance of Moraien, Chaucer’s Wife of Bath and her successors, and Yde and Olive; and contemporary theories of race, gender, and sexuality. Includes in-class response papers; term project comprised of prospectus, bibliography, drafts, and final version; and class presentation of that project.

GREEK 3: Elementary Greek
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Gunkel, D.
Course description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, two hours. Enforced requisite: course 2. P/NP or letter grading.

GREEK 110: Study of Greek Prose
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Blank, D.L.
Course description: Lecture, three to four hours. Requisite: course 100. Work in sight reading and grammatical analysis of Attic prose texts; writing Attic prose. P/NP or letter grading.

GREEK 112: Thucydides
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Morgan, K.A.
Course description: Lecture, three hours. Requisite: course 100. P/NP or letter grading.

HIST 9C: Introduction to Asian Civilizations: History of Japan
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Hirano, K.
Course description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, two hours. Survey of Japanese history from earliest recorded time to the present, with emphasis on development of Japan as a cultural daughter of China. Attention to manner in which Chinese culture was Japanized and aspects of Japanese civilization which became unique. Creation of the modern state in the last century and impact of Western civilization on Japanese culture. P/NP or letter grading.

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 282B: Seminar: Chinese History
Lecture: Sem 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Goldman, A.S.
Course description: Seminar, three hours. Requisite: course 282A. Letter grading.

HIST C191R: Topics in History: Japan
Lecture: Sem 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Hirano, K.
Course description: (Formerly numbered 191R.) Seminar, three hours. Designed for seniors. Limited to 15 students meeting with faculty member. Reading and discussion of selected topics, and development of culminating project. May be repeated once for credit. May be concurrently scheduled with course C201M. P/NP or letter grading.

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 19: Justice in Muslim Perspectives
Lecture: Sem 1
Units: 1
Instructor: Yarbrough, L.B.
Course description: Do different cultures conceive of justice differently? What strategies do people use to bring about their visions of a just society? Study tackles these questions through lens of Islamic societies. Islam has one of world’s great legal and ethical traditions. With its roots in Qur’an and ancient Middle Eastern societies, Islamic law developed vast textual tradition; and influenced legal orders that have governed billions of people, non-Muslims as well as Muslims. Students learn how people in Islamic societies have articulated their visions of justice. Study looks at abstract theoretical debates and concrete cases; state law and personal ethics; historical societies and contemporary world; texts and embodied practices. Study tests proposition that notions of justice vary among Muslims as much as they do between Muslims and non-Muslims.

LATIN 105A: Beginning Vergil: Selections from Aeneid I-VI
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Vazquez, A.M.
Course description: Lecture, three hours. Requisite: course 100. Reading of one or more books from first half of Aeneid, designed especially for students with only limited experience in reading Latin poetry. May be repeated for credit with change in readings and consent of instructor. P/NP or letter grading.

LATIN 117: Sallust
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Spielberg, L.M.
Course description: Lecture, three hours. Requisite: course 100. P/NP or letter grading.

NR EAST 65: Global Time Travel
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Cooperson, M.D.
Course description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Time travel is our most effective fictional device for asking what past was like, what future will bring, and how our present might look when viewed from other times. Though often associated with Euro-American genre of hard science fiction, time travel is global genre. Study of time travel stories, novels, television productions, and films from variety of periods, regions, and languages in order to explore anxieties genre responds to and other worlds it helps us imagine. Examination of theorists and critics whose work helps explain how time travel interacts with history, narrative, and visuality. P/NP or letter grading.

RELIGN 177: Variable Topics in Religion: Oneness: Poetry of Mystical Experience
Lecture: Sem 4
Units: 4
Instructor: Dagenais, J.C.
Course description: Study of efforts by poets from variety of times, places, cultures, and beliefs to describe transcendental experiences. Study includes Upanishads, medieval Christian mystics, Kabbalah, Sufi mystics, Rumi, and Zen poetry, among others. Focus on how poetic language is used to seek to talk about spiritual experiences beyond language, and how it may be shaped by particular religious and cultural contexts.

RELIGN 177: Variable Topics in Religion: Sacred Places, Sacred Journeys: Pilgrimage around the Globe
Lecture: Sem 3
Units: 4
Instructor: Dagenais, J.C.
Course description: Study asks how particular place comes to take on spiritual meaning. Study looks at what factors of belief, history, politics, and topography combine to motivate individuals to undertake long journeys to visit such places. Examination of multiple case studies from around the globe.

SEASIAN C150: Indigenous Peoples of Southeast Asia
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Paredes, O.
Course description: Lecture, two hours; discussion, one hour. In Southeast Asia, indigeneity is multi-layered concept. Most of population is native, yet there are specific ethnic groups that are legally designated or otherwise recognized as indigenous peoples. Ideas about indigeneity also vary across time and space, among indigenous peoples themselves, in ways that do not always align with elements valorized in anthropological, political, or global advocacy contexts. Offers local/national and regional orientation to modern plight of indigenous peoples in Southeast Asia, but situation politically within wider, global discussions and debates about indigenous activism and advocacy, as well as global academic scholarship pertaining to indigenous peoples. Study of most pertinent issues relating to modern indigenous realities in Southeast Asia. Students gain foundation to engage in comparative discussion with regard to indigenous peoples in Americas and elsewhere. Concurrently scheduled with course C250. P/NP or letter grading.

SEASIAN 160: Majorities and Minorities in Southeast Asia
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Paredes, O.
Course description: Lecture, two hours; discussion, one hour. Focus on political, cultural, and historical relationships between majority ethnic groups and minorities in possibly most culturally, religiously, and ethnically diverse regions of world, Southeast Asia. Provides productive framework to discuss nature of Southeast Asia’s extreme diversity, and resulting multicultural relationships, in comparative and historical context, both regionally and, to some extent, globally. Discussions and assignments around gaining appreciation of experiences and perspectives of region’s many different types of minority peoples. Critical examination of majorityhood as lived experience and as factor that informs minority rights issues. Includes discussion of significant current events related to minority-majority relationships in Southeast Asia. P/NP or letter grading.