Emphasizing the textual and visual histories of the city, this interdisciplinary course explores the effects of transition and upheaval on Berlin, highlighting the interconnectivity of history and memory discourses, topography, popular culture, the arts, politics, urban renewal, and multiculturalism. Discussions focus on Berlin's ever-changing façade and constant self-reinvention and re-evaluation. Definitions of "metropolis" and close readings of the city as "textual space" will be covered within the framework of questions of modernity and post-modernity.

What has been the role of religion in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBQTQ) lives and communities? This course begins by considering the dominant picture of religious versus queer opposition, and it investigates the sources and normative perspectives that contribute to this picture. The course proceeds to focus on what this dominant story obscures: the complexity and variety of LGBTQ+ religious and spiritual engagement during the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries.

Ways of identifying vary and are informed by both lived experience and aspects of biology. Our language around identity, gender identity in particular, has grown and evolved over time. Yet there remains a critical gap in understanding the contribution of biology and the biological sexes to this deeply personal psychosocial construct. There is, however, a growing body of literature that demonstrates that the sex of the brain itself (i.e. sex-typical patterns of neural organization), genetic sex (i.e. chromosomal sex), and phenotypic sex (i.e.

This course is an introduction to the "book" as a material object. We will learn to look at the physical object closely and with new eyes, examining its paper, binding, printing, typography, images, format, and much more. Our purpose is to use the material artifact to learn about the labor of the many people who created books, whether with quill-parchment-and-ink or a wooden press and types.

This course examines the literature produced by and about Britain's colonial spaces during the process of decolonization, from the late nineteenth-century to the present. It explores texts from Ireland, India, the Sudan, and Trinidad, as well as other former colonies and territories. Authors studied include Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, Tayeb Salih, Sam Selvon, Buchi Emecheta, Salman Rushdie, and Zadie Smith; theorists considered include Gayatri Spivak, Aijiz Ahmad, Homi Bhabha, John Boli, Benjamin Barber, and Lourdes Beneria.

This course considers the connections between literature and history in (and beyond) the American era known as the Gilded Age, 1873-1889. Reading three popular novels of the time, William Dean Howell's The Rise of Silas Lapham, Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, students gain an understanding of the American Realist tradition and will discuss how these literary texts both represent and reinvent what was 'real' about the Gilded Age.

This course addresses the question what it means to be British through historical and literary texts. Beginning with the premise that Britishness is not innate, static or in any way permanent, but 'invented' and constantly constructed and deconstructed, this course traces the development of British national identity from its origins in the eighteenth century to the present.

This course challenges students to recognize the ubiquity of probability and risk in their daily lives. The theme of stochasicity is explored through the perspectives of economists, psychologists, investors, entrepreneurs, political scientists, biologists, and of course mathematicians. Students are asked to explore critically the institutions, both formal and informal, which have developed to deal with risk and uncertainty in society. The concept of evidence in law and science is examined.

This course explores the intersection of economics and happiness. It critiques several of the key assumptions in mainstream economic theory, in particular those involving how the production and acquisition of greater material goods affect well-being. The course taps the research in the burgeoning field of the economics of happiness, much of which counters traditional economic ideas. The course also draws on recent related findings in positive psychology and to a lesser degree in neuroscience, specifically the findings in neuroscience that relate to mindfulness and meditation.

What is international Law? Who determines its content? Why do sovereign states willingly bind themselves under its rules? Is it a tool of the powerful, or a safeguard against exploitation? In short, does international law matter? This course draws on primary source materials (cases and treaties) and scholarly articles to examine the processes of international law as seen from the perspective of politically motivated actors.