Tutorials in Folklore & Mythology (primarily for Undergraduates)

Folklore & Mythology Courses (for Undergraduates and Graduates)

Cross-listed Courses

These courses can be counted for concentration credit.

Courses of Interest to Folklore & Mythology students

These courses are likely to be of interest to students engaged in the study of Folklore and Mythology; please consult the Head Tutor about credit for concentration. (This list is not necessarily complete; please feel free to inquire about courses that you do not see listed here, as well.)

Catalog Number: 2425
Deborah D. Foster and members of the Committee
Half course (fall term; repeated spring term). Hours to be arranged.

Instruction and direction of reading on material not treated in regular courses of instruction; special work on topics in folklore, mythology, and oral literature. (Normally, this course is available only to concentrators in Folklore and Mythology.)

Note: To enroll, applicants must consult the Chairman of the Committee or the Head Tutor. The signature of the Chairman or the Head Tutor is required.

*Folklore and Mythology 97a. Fieldwork and Ethnography in Folklore

(formerly *Folklore and Mythology 105)

Catalog Number: 3789
Deborah D. Foster
Half course (fall term). Th., 2–4. EXAM GROUP: 16, 17
(Enrollment: Limited to 12.)

Introduces concentrators to the study of traditions--their performance, collection, representation and interpretation. Both ethnographic and theoretical readings serve as the material for class discussion and the foundation for experimental fieldwork projects.

Note: Required of all, and limited to, concentrators.

*Folklore and Mythology 97b. Oral Literature and the History of Folkloristics

(formerly *Folklore and Mythology 103)

Catalog Number: 5039
Joseph C. Harris

Half course (spring term). Tu., 2–4. EXAM GROUP: 16, 17
(Enrollment: Limited to 12.)

Considers the implications of orality, literacy, performance, and transmission from ethnographic, literary and historical points of view. Examples and case-studies typically drawn from the Balkans, the American Southwest, Africa, and medieval Europe. Tutorial readings include works by Parry, Lord, Nagy, Ong, Foley, Zumthor and Bauman.

Note: Required of all, and limited to, concentrators.

Catalog Number: 3685
Deborah D. Foster and members of the Committee

Half course (fall term; repeated spring term). Hours to be arranged.

Normally, this course is taken in the second semester of the junior year.

Note: Required of all concentrators. The signature of the Head Tutor or of the Chairman of the Committee on Degrees in Folklore and Mythology must be obtained.

(About the Junior Tutorial)

Catalog Number: 3886
Deborah D. Foster and members of the Committee

Full course. Hours to be arranged.

Note: Required of all concentrators. The signature of the Head Tutor or of the Chairman of the Committee on Degrees in Folklore and Mythology must be obtained. Graded SAT/UNSAT.

(About the Senior Tutorial)

Catalog Number: 3843
Joseph C. Harris

Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.

A variety of approaches to “myth” as related to religion, literature, and nation. Readings in comparative and anthropological mythology, including Dumézil, Eliade, Lévi-Strauss, Lincoln, and Puhvel; in primary mythological complexes drawn from the ancient Near East, Scandinavia, Ireland and the Baltic; and in literary, oral-literary, and sociohistorical applications.

Note: Limited to Folklore and Mythology concentrators. Others admitted with permission of the instructor.

Expected to be given in 2005-06.

[Folklore and Mythology 90b. The African Oral Narrative Tradition: Seminar]

(formerly Folklore and Mythology 115)

Catalog Number: 5663
Deborah D. Foster

Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.

Examines African oral narrative, focusing on composition and performance techniques of oral performers. Considers the way in which symbol and metaphor work in oral art forms; compares methods of oral narrative analysis, including structuralism, semiotics, and performance theory; investigates the function of the trickster figure, and studies the role of the hero in epic narrative.

Note: All readings in English.

Expected to be given in 2005-06.

Folklore and Mythology 90c. Tolkien’s Sources in Folkloristic Perspective

Catalog Number: 4545
Joseph C. Harris

Half course (fall term). W., 2–4. EXAM GROUP: 7, 8

A seminar on the texts and traditions, chiefly myths and heroic tales, that most influenced J.R.R. Tolkien in the creation of his fiction. The seminar will not be a course on Tolkien’s fiction itself though a few less well-known stories will be assigned. Instead, we will operate under the assumption that you are what you read and, in the case of the philologist-medievalist Tolkien, what you study, teach, and analyze.

Note: For Folklore and Mythology concentrators, or with permission of the instructor.

Prerequisite: a reading of The Lord of the Rings.

Catalog Number: 3579
Stephen A. Mitchell

Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.

Surveys the major forms of folklore (e.g., myths, legends, epics, beliefs, rituals, festivals) and the theoretical approaches used in their study. Analyzes how folklore shapes national, regional, and ethnic identities, as well as daily life, and considers the function of folklore within the groups that perform and use it, employing materials drawn from a wide range of tradition areas (e.g., South Slavic oral epics, American occupational lore, Northern European ballads, witchcraft in Africa and America, Cajun Mardi Gras).

Expected to be given in 2005-06.

Catalog Number: 7982
Deborah D. Foster

Half course (spring term). Th., 1–4. EXAM GROUP: 15, 16, 17
(Enrollment: Limited to 24.)

An examination of the ways in which the dancing body is both a site of personal experience and a sign of cultural meaning. By observing dance performances (live and on film), participating in dance workshops, and reading ethnographic and theoretical texts, we attempt to understand the emergent meaning of dance performances from the perspective of both dancer and observer.

Catalog Number: 4093
Maureen N. McLane

Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.

An intriguingly elastic category, “poetry” encompasses everything from oral tradition (e.g., the ballad) to literary forms (e.g., sonnet, villanelle, ode) to experimental media (e.g., e-poetry). What is the interface between oral tradition and literary production? between ideas of “the folk,” “the primitive,” and emergent poetries? What is the impact of new media on poetic practice and theory? Among our test cases: Anglo-Scottish balladry, British romantic poetry, contemporary poetries (including “slam,” neo-Dada, neo-formal, and experimental modes).

Catalog Number: 3255
Deborah Foster and members of the Committee

Half course (fall term; repeated spring term). Hours to be arranged.

Advanced reading in topics not covered in regular courses.

*Freshman Seminar 32w. African Musical Traditions
Catalog Number: 2465 Enrollment: Limited to 12.
Kay Kaufman Shelemay
Half course (fall term). Tu., 1–3.
Note: Open to Freshmen only.

This seminar will explore selected African musical traditions in their indigenous settings. Through a critical, comparative reading of recent musical ethnographies (with accompanying audio and visual materials), the seminar will investigate African music histories, performance styles, and systems of meaning. Subjects to be investigated will include the prominence and heterogeneity of musical materials across the African continent, the manner in which musical expression is linked to other aspects of African life, and insights that the transmission and performance of music can offer into a wide range of social issues. The seminar is designed for students interested in the expressive culture of African societies as well as the manner in which these traditions have been studied. The African continent has provided rich materials and challenging venues for musical research; correspondingly, ethnographies of African music open windows on different scholarly perspectives, competing theories, and rapidly changing modes of representation. The literature for the course will span a wide variety of subjects and methods, and students from a broad range of disciplinary backgrounds are welcome. Participants in the seminar should be interested in music and conversant with at least one musical tradition as a listener and/or performer. Seminar activities will include group attendance at an African music concert and at least one “hands on” session exploring African musical instruments.

*Freshman Seminar 36g. The Grail and the Rise of Fiction
Catalog Number: 5130 Enrollment: Limited to 12.
Virginie Greene
Half course (spring term). Th., 1–3.
Note: Open to Freshmen only.

The grail made its first known appearance in Chrétien de Troyes’s unfinished romance Perceval or the Story of the Grail (c. 1180). Through a careful reading of this blend of chivalric adventures and mystical visions, the seminar will examine how Chrétien creates a new literary space, blurring the boundaries between history, myth, religion, and fiction. Members of the seminar will then move on to the posterity of Chrétien and read three later medieval grail romances. This survey of grail literature will conclude with two modern works: a selection from Tennyson’s Idylls of the King and E. B. White’s The Once and Future King. This seminar will introduce students to medieval literature and lead them to discuss questions relative to the nature of fiction writing. Specifically, the seminar will test the hypothesis that the grail is a literary object created on the model of religious objects. The seminar will also explore visual materials: medieval miniatures, nineteenth-century pre-Raphaelite illustrations of grail stories, and the Boston Public Library’s late nineteenth-century fresco representing the grail quest.

*Freshman Seminar 36s. Provocative Truths: The Role of the Fool in European Drama
Catalog Number: 2562 Enrollment: Limited to 12.
Gloria Pastorino
Half course (fall term). Tu., 2–5.
Note: Open to Freshmen only.

This seminar will analyze how comedic roles, traditionally the servants in comedies and farces of Plautine tradition, often bear the responsibility for revealing uncomfortable truths about the society in which they live. Whether confirming the status quo or becoming veritable subversive elements in the play, these characters are always instrumental in advancing the more serious part of the plot and may, at times, reveal how the themes of some comedies verge on tragedy. As a comparison to this usage, the seminar will examine briefly some tragedies where the role of the fool provides the so-called comic relief which highlights the tragic themes of the play while giving the audience some respite from them. Chronologically this study will span the thirteenth through the twentieth century, drawing from a tradition perfected in Ancient Rome. Participants will consider the following questions: Why should lowly characters be entrusted with some of the most controversial themes? How do changed historical conditions affect the politics of the plays? Is laughter always just cathartic, or can it also be an instrument of social critique? Readings will include plays by Plautus, Ruzante, Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Shakespeare, Commedia dell’Arte, Molière, Goldoni, Strindberg, Pirandello, and Fo.

*Freshman Seminar36w. Tribal Memories: Myth, Epic, and History
Catalog Number: 7842 Enrollment: Limited to 12.
P. Oktor Skjaervo
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Note: Open to Freshmen only.

The members of this seminar will investigate the oral traditions of the ancient Iranians in the perspective of those of the Indians, Greeks, and Norsemen. The seminar will undertake this comparison through the study of each culture’s beliefs concerning the history of the world from its creation. Participants will discover how history in ancient oral traditions is inseparable from myth and epic tradition. They will explore how these traditions were transmuted into history with the aid of writing. They will develop critical tools from the study of comparative literature and comparative religion to explore these traditions. And they will ask how these myths and traditions can provide historical information. Central to the seminar’s quest will be the close study of Zarathustra. How did the myth of Zarathustra become history? The seminar will compare and contrast the historical figure of Zarathustra in the “historical” traditions of the Middle East with Zarathustra as a Western scholarly myth. All reading will be in English.

*Freshman Seminar 37u. Bob Dylan
Catalog Number: 7520 Enrollment: Limited to 12.
Richard F. Thomas
Half course (fall term). Th., 2–5.
Note: Open to Freshmen only.

By June 1998, even Time magazine would come to acknowledge Bob Dylan as “master poet, caustic social critic, and intrepid, guiding spirit of the counterculture generation.” This seminar will examine Dylan as a musical, literary, and general cultural phenomenon, in the context of popular culture of the last forty years, but also in the context of the much more long-lived literary and musical cultures of which he is demonstrably a part. Dylan has been at the center of popular culture ever since he arrived in New York City on 24 January 1961 from Hibbing, Minnesota, by way of Minneapolis, Madison, and Chicago. The seminar will trace the evolution of his songs and lyrics from its early folk, rock, gospel, and protest roots, through the transition from acoustic to electric, and through the many evolutions, reinventions, and innovations that followed—and that continue to emerge. Participants will also focus on Dylan’s frustrations of audience expectation, from the anger evoked by his apparent abandonment of the (legitimately) serious protest and (in hindsight quaintly) static urban folk traditions, to his apparent embracing of Christianity, to more recent charges of surrender to commercialism. Recent attacks stressing Dylan’s “plagiarism” reveal that he composes his poetry and lyrics in ways similar to those found in much poetry which establishes its meanings and builds its art forms based on the texts available from the poet’s own repertoire. These attacks thus show a lack of understanding of the vital and original literary process that intends that the reader recognize traces of other works and incorporate these other works into a reading of the new one. Even the Roman poet Virgil, whom Dylan has demonstrably been reading, was accused of “plagiarism” (of Homer) by ancient critics, whose inability to see what was happening resembled that of critics of Dylan. (It was Dylan who called the offending CD Love and Theft, after all.) The seminar will also explore the multiple versions of many of Dylan’s songs that show him to be not unlike an oral poet in his ability to re-perform and recreate through performance, in the process often transforming utterly the original lyrics and meanings of his own songs. Attention will be given to the ways in which Dylan’s career builds up through periods of evolution and experimentation to productions that can only be called “classics” from a diachronic perspective, among others Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde on Blonde, Blood on the Tracks, Love and Theft. Why are these classics—are they classics—and what is a classic in the context of popular culture? A focus on works such as Nashville Skyline and Basement Tapes will help to reflect on Dylan’s involvement with myths and creations of American pastoral and anti-pastoral. Dylan’s large-scale narratives (“Desolation Row,” “Tangled Up in Blue,” “Jokerman,” “Highlands,” “Floater,” etc.) can be heard/read as different chapters in a story that is (perhaps) as much Dylan’s as that of his characters. The seminar will also consider Dylan’s role in film, particularly the brilliant commercial failure, Masked and Anonymous, a work of high allegorical import.

*Freshman Seminar 37w. Becoming J.R.R. Tolkien: Life and Medieval Sources
Catalog Number: 1688 Enrollment: Limited to 12.
Joseph C. Harris
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Note: Open to Freshmen only.

The seminar will explore the medieval texts, myths, and heroic tales that most influenced J. R. R. Tolkien in the creation of his fiction. The seminar will operate under the assumption that you are (at least in part) what you read and, in the case of the philologist–medievalist Tolkien, what you study, teach, and analyze. The seminar will not be a course on Tolkien’s fiction itself although some familiarity with his more famous writings will be assumed and a few less well-known stories will be assigned. Members of the seminar will devote the most attention, however, to Norse and Old English myth and literature, including The Poetic Edda, The Prose Edda, Völsunga Saga, other mythic-heroic sagas, Beowulf, and other Old English heroic and elegiac poetry. The seminar will study this material for its own sake, though sporadically also with an eye to how Tolkien understood it (for example, it will study Tolkien’s great interpretive essay on Beowulf). The seminar will reconstruct selected aspects of Tolkien’s world, with glimpses into his correspondence and into the lives and works of his friends, C. S. Lewis and Charles Williams. Although Tolkien’s fiction will not be the focus of discussion in the seminar itself, students will be encouraged to introduce it as the product of sources and influences in their final papers.

*Freshman Seminar 38w. Balladeering, 1750-2004: Poetry, Culture, Ethnography, History
Catalog Number: 1633 Enrollment: Limited to 12.
Maureen N. McLane
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Note: Open to Freshmen only.

Ballads are both the oldest popular songs and—as recorded by Johnny Cash, June Tabor, and Peggy Seeger on CD—the newest media phenomenon; ballads can be family lore, national or regional inheritance, anonymous songs, literary poems, or object of scholarly analysis. Balladeering encompasses everything from singing, collecting, inventing, and transcribing to editing, printing, and digitally recording ballads; in Anglo-Scottish and American balladeering, we witness the persistence and transmutation of a poetic and musical phenomenon as it encounters new media and new historical situations. In this seminar, we will begin with some twentieth-century recordings of ballads; we will also discuss ways of classifying ballads (e.g., by region, or by musical mode, or by thematic—“murder ballad,” “incest ballad”). The seminar will then proceed to the “first ballad revival” in eighteenth-century Britain. We will explore the complex, subtle, proto-ethnographic relation between ballad informants and ballad collectors; we will also explore the hostility to oral tradition evinced by literary collectors, and the impact of ballad-collecting on signal romantic poets: Scott, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron. The seminar will pursue ballad mediation through the nineteenth century and into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries via printed ballad collections (including Francis James Child’s) and recordings (including the Lomaxes’). Throughout the seminar we will be alert to the following issues: the tension between emerging notions of “oral tradition” and “literature,” the question of “an ideal performance” versus a “collated edition,” the privileging of texts over tunes, historical variation in technologies of recording texts and tunes, the place of the singer, the place of the editor, and the mobility and re-creation of the ballad in time and in space.

*Freshman Seminar 38z. Vampires and the Cultural Construction of Undeath
Catalog Number: 6139 Enrollment: Limited to 12.
Jane Edwards
Half course (spring term). W., 3–5.
Note: Open to Freshmen only.

The fictional construct of a human being returning from death in an immortal form sustained by the blood of other humans is ancient, flexible, and astonishingly durable. What can have led people to imagine and then to believe that there might be such a condition of “undeath”? And what is it about the vampire that has allowed pre-modern societies, folk communities, and twenty-first century American film makers alike to embrace with creative enthusiasm such an apparently marginal construct? A lot can be learned from the examination of the multi-valent vampire: death, sexual desire, and fear of the marginal or the unknown come together in many of the expressive materials inspired by the idea of vampirism. Through exploration of the way in which the undead are constructed and portrayed in different cultural environments and through critical examination of literature, movies, folk traditions, and popular cultural lore, the seminar will develop an understanding of some fundamental fears and desires. Students also will work collaboratively to develop a broad picture of the surprising range of contemporary vampire fictions, from the television series Angel to the critique of commerce and art in the film industry implied by Shadow of the Vampire. Readings will be drawn from literary, anthropological, folkloristic, and historical analyses, popular as well as scholarly. Seminar participants will design and conduct a small-scale ethnographic study of beliefs surrounding vampires, and they will discuss throughout the semester productive ways of analyzing folk and popular materials as keys to understanding local and broad cultural realities. Students will help to choose the vampire movies and novels or short stories on which they wish to focus.

*Freshman Seminar 44j. The Aztecs and Maya
Catalog Number: 7826 Enrollment: Limited to 12.
Davíd L. Carrasco and William L. Fash
Half course (spring term). W., 1:30–4:30.
Note: Open to Freshmen only.

The seminar will explore the religion, social relations, settlements, and history of the Aztecs of the Valley of Mexico and the Maya of southern Mexico and Central America. These two best-known and most widely influential civilizations of ancient Mesoamerica serve as the point of departure for examining the ways in which modern scholars and students can explore the world-view, social relations, and history of other cultures. Through critical examinations of historical texts dating to the time of the Great Encounter between the peoples of the Americas and those of Western Europe, the seminar will explore how the biases of the observer play a role in describing and explaining “the other.” The participants will analyze the ways in which religion fueled the genesis and expansion of the Aztec empire as well as the Conquistadors’ obsession with what they called New Spain. The focus then shifts to the Maya and the reasons why the Spanish never fully “conquered” them. The seminar will use the historical accounts of the sixteenth-century Maya, and their own extensive hieroglyphic texts from the Classic and Postclassic periods of their civilization, to work back through time to the genesis of Maya civilization. The historical materials serve as one basis for the critical examination of the approaches used to piece back together the puzzle of how this magnificent cultural tradition took root and thrived in a tropical forest setting. Members of the seminar lastly will explore the ways in which the living Maya are reviving their traditional culture and are aspiring to political autonomy and how the Aztecs are integral to the national identity of Mexico.

*Freshman Seminar 49p. Childhood and Its Literary Culture
Catalog Number: 4622 Enrollment: Limited to 12.
Maria Tatar
Half course (fall term). Tu., 2–4.
Note: Open to Freshmen only.

Graham Greene once observed that nothing we read as adults equals “the excitement and revelation of those first fourteen years.” This seminar will explore the pleasures of childhood reading and investigate how wonder and curiosity figure in the reading experience. It will take as its point of departure the origins of bedtime reading in a culture of oral storytelling and end with books for children by contemporary authors. The seminar will consider questions such as the shifting divide between children and adults, the representation of children in literary and visual culture, the voice of the child and how it is ventriloquized by adult authors, the utopian impulse in writing for children, and techniques for drawing the child into the world of books. The seminar will begin with Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan and will continue with authors ranging from Charles Dickens to Roald Dahl.

Literature and Arts A-11. Arthurian Literature: Epic versus Romance
Catalog Number: 0995
James Simpson
Half course (spring term). Tu., Th., at 10, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 12
A permanent fault-line runs throughout Western literature, between epic and romance. Epic contests territory, while romance discovers the self. Epic focuses on charismatic leaders, represents the rise and fall of societies, and depicts war across a realistic geography. Romance focuses on the energetic young, represents trials of sexual desire ending either in marriage or adultery, and has a symbolic geography. Epic and romance critique each other, without resolving this inevitable conflict. This course focuses on brilliant examples of literature about King Arthur’s court, written between the 12th and the 15th centuries, with some reference to 19th-century English and American texts.
Note: Expected to be omitted in 2005–06.

Literature and Arts A-82. Orpheus: Literary, Artistic, and Cultural Figurations
Catalog Number: 1445
John T. Hamilton
Half course (spring term). Tu., Th., at 12, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 14
The course spans over two thousand years of varying interpretations, settings, and appropriations of the Orpheus myth. The power of music and the fatality of passion, the expropriating effects of language and the regeneration of poetry, are but a few of the themes addressed and elaborated within the myth’s threefold configuration of harmony, descent, and dismemberment. In addition to investigating the rich literary tradition, the course also turns to significant versions in opera, ballet, film, and the visual arts.
Note: Expected to be omitted in 2005–06.

Literature and Arts C-14. Concepts of the Hero in Greek Civilization
Catalog Number: 3915
Gregory Nagy
Half course (fall term). M., W., at 12, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 5
The true “hero” of this course is the logos or “word” of logical reasoning, as activated by Socratic dialogue. The logos of dialogue requires careful thinking, realized in close reading and reflective writing. The last “word” in the course will come from Plato’s memories of Socrates’ last days. These memories depend on a thorough understanding of heroic concepts in all their historical varieties throughout Greek civilization. This course leads to such an understanding through dialogues, guiding the attentive reader through many ancient Greek Classics, including works by Homer, Hesiod, Sappho, Alcman, Pindar, Theognis, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Herodotus, and Plato.
Note: Expected to be omitted in 2005–06.

Literature and Arts C-18. Hindu Myth, Image, and Pilgrimage
Catalog Number: 7384
Diana L. Eck
Half course (spring term). Tu., Th., at 11, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 13
An exploration of Hindu myths, images, and pilgrimages in the context of classical and modern Hindu culture. Studies the stories of the gods of India: Vishnu, Krishna, Shiva, and Devi; the heroes and heroines of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata; the temples and visual images of the gods and heroes in the classical and folk traditions; and the pilgrimages that link this mythological and artistic complex to the mountains, rivers, and cities of India.
Note: Expected to be omitted in 2005–06. For students under the Core requirement, counts as either Literature and Arts C or Foreign Cultures, but not both.

Social Analysis 70. Food and Culture
Catalog Number: 3940
James L. Watson
Half course (spring term). M., W., at 10, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 3
Food is examined for its social and cultural implications; nutritional or dietetic concerns are of secondary interest. Topics include food taboos and restrictions, gift giving and reciprocity, food symbolism and social boundaries, food panics, globalization of food industries, and the world standardization of food preferences. Examples are drawn from China, Japan, Korea, India, Latin America, Africa, Europe, the Pacific, and the US.

African and African American Studies 141. Afro-Atlantic Religions
Catalog Number: 3336
J. Lorand Matory
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Investigates the spiritual, political, and economic lives of millions around the Atlantic perimeter who worship African gods: West and Central Africans, Cubans, Brazilians, Haitians, and North Americans. For them, the gods are sources of power, organization, and healing amid the local political dominance of Muslims and Christians and the seismic expansion of international. capitalism—conditions which themselves require significant attention. Lectures focus on such themes as women’s empowerment and the construction of gender in these religions, while a series of in-class discussions with priests will propose its own themes.
Note: Offered jointly with the Divinity School as 3692.

Celtic 106. Folklore of Ireland
Catalog Number: 3966
Timothy Correll
Half course (spring term). M., W., (F.), at 1. EXAM GROUP: 6
Introduction to traditional, rural life in 19th-20th century Ireland. Explores historical, anthropological, and folkloristic approaches to the study of popular culture, including vernacular architecture, foodways, storytelling, supernatural beliefs, folk healing, rites-of-passage, and seasonal festivals.
Note: Expected to be omitted in 2005–06. All texts are read in English translation.

Comparative Literature 166. The Comic Tradition in Jewish Culture
Catalog Number: 3418
Ruth R. Wisse
Half course (spring term). Tu., Th., at 11. EXAM GROUP: 13
Jews are probably best known in America today for their roles in the Holocaust and in Humor. What, if anything, is the relation between these spheres? Does Jewish humor make fun of the Jews, or does it make fun of those who make fun of the Jews? Studies some of the theories and uses of Jewish humor, some of its leading practitioners and outstanding works. Invites comparison with other comic traditions and investigation of "national" humor.
Note: Readers of Yiddish may take this course as Yiddish 200.

Japanese History 125. Japanese Religious Traditions
Catalog Number: 0725
Ryuichi Abe
Half course (fall term). Tu., Th., 11:30–1. EXAM GROUP: 13, 14
An introductory course designed for students outside Asian studies to understand some central values in Japanese religious culture. It first observes popular religious ceremonies, festivals, and rituals and studies their historical transformation; then investigates the interaction between Buddhism and native Japanese religion; and finally studies the permeating influence of religion on traditional Japanese art and literature. The concluding section considers wide-ranging contemporary and traditional religious issues in Japanese popular culture.

*English 90ln. The Landscape of Contemporary Native American Literature
Catalog Number: 3005
Lisa T. Brooks
Half course (spring term). Th., 1–3. EXAM GROUP: 15, 16
Combining poetry and fiction with recent literary criticism, this course will offer an immersion in the landscape of contemporary Native American literature. Topics will include the intertwined and sometimes contested interplay between native oral traditions, the representation of Indian images, and the role of writer as witness to colonization.

*English 90sl. The Romance of Scotland
Catalog Number: 8963
Ann Wierda Rowland
Half course (fall term). Tu., 2–4. EXAM GROUP: 16, 17
Scottish literature and the place of Scotland in the British literary imagination of the 18th and 19th centuries. Attention to the myth of the Highlands, the romance of the Jacobite rebellion, the Ossian controversy, and the figure of the bard as well as to the larger question of what role literature has in the production of national identity. Readings in poetry, travel writing, national tales, historical novels, and philosophical prose by writers such as Smith, Hume, Smollett, Johnson, Burns, Scott, and Hogg.

*English 199t. Animals That Talk
Catalog Number: 7511 Enrollment: Limited to 18.
Marc Shell
Half course (spring term). Th., 2–4. EXAM GROUP: 16, 17
Who speaks for those who do not speak? This seminar on animal ventriloquism focuses on literary works where animals talk like human beings (Brer Rabbit, Porky Pig) or speak with humans (Poe’s raven, Balaam’s ass). We consider works where human beings talk like animals or speak with animals (Dr. Doolittle, King Solomon) or think that’s what they do. Texts include cartoons (Bugs Bunny), plays with animal disguises (Midsummer Night’s Dream), folktales with animal metamorphoses, and Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.

Scandinavian 60. Viking Age and Medieval Scandinavian Literature and Culture
Catalog Number: 6320
Judith Ryan and members of the Department
Half course (fall term). Tu., Th., at 11; and an additional hour to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 13
An exploration of the dramatic transformations in Scandinavian society and culture from the era of the Vikings to the Middle Ages. The course examines the heroic ideal and the status of women as well as reflecting on modern approaches to the medieval period. Readings include the Saga of the Volsungs, Laxdaela saga, Njal’s saga, and Kristin Lavrandsdatter. Films by Hrafn Gunnaugsson and Liv Ullman.
Note: Expected to be omitted in 2005–06. All readings and discussions in English.

Religion 1011. The Tree at the Center of the World: Seminar
Catalog Number: 9064 Enrollment: Limited to 15.
Kimberley C. Patton (Divinity School)
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
This comparative seminar will examine historical and contemporary traditions of primordial, cosmic, and sacred trees in religion, folklore, mythology, and ritual, including the ways in which the special natural characteristics of trees have been interpreted metaphorically and metaphysically. We will consider primary iconographic and textual evidence as well as secondary sources. Individual research projects in particular traditions will be featured.
Note: Offered jointly with the Divinity School as 3823.

Foreign Cultures 34. Mesoamerican Civilizations
Catalog Number: 3196
William L. Fash
Half course (fall term). Tu., Th., at 1, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 15
This course highlights the distinctive features of the evolving cultural traditions of Mesoamerica, one of the oldest living civilizations in the world. Pre-Columbian religion, arts, cultural ecology, and construction of power and social identity through myth, ritual, and official history are explored first. Continuities and changes in those traditions resulting from the Spanish conquest, colonial rule, and subsequent global change in the 20th century are then analyzed. In Mexico and Central America, the past continues to shape the present, and living cultures help illuminate processes, events, and worldview in the archaeological past.

Foreign Cultures 46. Caribbean Societies: Socioeconomic Change and Cultural Adaptations
Catalog Number: 6357
Orlando Patterson
Half course (fall term). Tu., Th., at 11, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 13
Caribbean societies are largely the economic and political creations of Western imperial powers. Though in the West, they are only partly of it, and their popular cultures are highly original blends of African and European forms. The course examines the area as a system emerging from a situation of great social and cultural diversity to the present tendency toward social and cultural convergence. Patterns of underdevelopment are explored through case studies of Latin and Afro-Caribbean states, as are cultural adaptations through studies of Afro-Caribbean religions, fiction, and music.

Foreign Cultures 80. Korean Cultural Identities
Catalog Number: 8798
David McCann
Half course (spring term). M., W., at 10, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 3
Examines Korea’s often challenged but persistent cultural identity expressed in literature, art, and history. Begins with the Korean War, turns to the Japanese annexation of Korea, then the late 19th-century Enlightenment Period when Korea and Koreans struggled to respond to a series of internal and external threats. Next, Korean history, from the Unified Silla Kingdom in the 7th century, through the succeeding Koryô and Chosôn dynasties, examining similar moments of cultural challenge and response. Closes with a brief consideration of the re-production of identity issues in the context of recent celebrations of the first century of Korean-American history, 1903–2003.
Note: Expected to be omitted in 2005–06.

Foreign Cultures 82. Modern Arabic Narratives: Self, Society, and Culture
Catalog Number: 2619
William E. Granara
Half course (fall term). M., W., at 12, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 5
A historical overview of cultural and social issues in contemporary Arab society as reflected in modern fiction. Attention will be given to the development of the novel and short story as literary media that treat themes such as the conflict between tradition and modernity, anti-colonialism, nationalism, civil war, poverty, alienation, religion and politics, and changing gender roles. Readings will include works of Tayeb Salih, Naguib Mahfouz, Muhammad Choukri, as well as prominent women authors, such as Hanan Shaykh and Sahar Khalifeh.
Note: Expected to be omitted in 2005–06. No knowledge of Arabic required.

Foreign Cultures 86. West African Cultures
Catalog Number: 1648
J. Lorand Matory
Half course (fall term). M., W., at 1, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 6
We will explore the history and cultures of West and West-Central Africa, taking seriously the ancient involvement of this region in international politics and commerce. Equally important is the cosmopolitan dialogue that has transformed African ethnic identities, gender relations, and religious devotion in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Note: Expected to be omitted in 2005–06.

Foreign Cultures 88. The African Experience: Tradition and Modernity
Catalog Number: 5925
Francis Abiola Irele (Ohio State University)
Half course (spring term). Tu., Th., at 11, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 13
This course seeks to introduce students to aspects of cultural change in Africa as reflected in the dominant currents of contemporary African thought and literature, centered on a theme from which they derive coherence and significance: that of the tension between tradition and modernity. While concepts from sociology and anthropology will be employed to elucidate the theme, the emphasis of the course will be placed on the literary and intellectual texts that have shaped reflection on modern African experience. The lectures and discussions of the texts will be supplemented by documentary films and feature films by African directors.

Historical Study A-13. China: Traditions and Transformations
Catalog Number: 5243
Peter K. Bol and Mark C. Elliott
Half course (fall term). M., W., F., at 11, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 4
Modern China presents a dual image: a society transforming itself through economic development and social revolution; and the world’s largest and oldest bureaucratic state, coping with longstanding problems of economic and political management. Whatever form of modern society and state emerges in China will bear the indelible imprint of China’s historical experience, of its patterns of philosophy and religion, and of its social and political thought. These themes are discussed in order to understand China in the modern world, and as a great world civilization that developed along lines different from those of the Mediterranean.
Note: For students under the Core requirement, counts as either Historical Study A or Foreign Cultures, but not both.

Historical Study A-14. Japan: Tradition and Transformation
Catalog Number: 5373
Andrew Gordon
Half course (spring term). M., W., (F.), at 10, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 3
From the emergence of a court-centered state 1500 years ago to a warrior-dominated society centuries later, Japan’s premodern past fascinates people across the world. The people, institutions, and ideas behind these traditions will be the focus of the first half of the course. We then turn to Japan’s modern era, which presents one of the more striking transformations in world history. We examine the invention of new traditions as one crucial aspect of the tumultuous changes from the mid-1880s through the present and explore how people in Japan have dealt with the dilemmas of modernity that challenge us all.
Note: For students under the Core requirement, counts as either Historical Study A or Foreign Cultures, but not both.

Literature and Arts B-21. The Images of Alexander the Great
Catalog Number: 2267
David G. Mitten
Half course (fall term). Tu., Th., at 12, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 14
The images of Alexander the Great are examined within various cultural contexts ranging from 4th-century BCE Greece to 20th-century America. Various art forms (including sculpture, coins, and paintings) illuminate Alexander’s personality and career and the development of his legend. Course explores how images reveal the complex relationship between a strong individual personality and artistic conventions. Special attention is paid to the importance of political imagery and how the images of Alexander reflect changing ideas of rulership. Where, if anywhere, is the “truth” in these images? Original objects in the Sackler collection and Boston Museum of Fine Arts are emphasized.

Literature and Arts C-42. Constructing the Samurai
Catalog Number: 3743
Harold Bolitho
Half course (fall term). M., W., at 11, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 4
Examines the rise and fall of Japan’s warrior class and of the bushido ethos. Concentrates on two interrelated themes: the historical reality and the construction of a mythology—both positive and negative—in Japanese popular culture and the Western imagination. Themes will include warfare, training, religion, values, art, literature, and family life. Visual materials will be used extensively.
Note: For students under the Core requirement, counts as either Literature and Arts C or Historical Study B, but not both.

African and African American Studies 152. Language Use in African American Culture: Seminar
Catalog Number: 3137
Marcyliena Morgan
Half course (spring term). M., 2–4. EXAM GROUP: 7, 8
This course answers the question of what is African American English (AAE) and why it is important. It focuses on its role in literature, education, film and public and popular culture. The issues explored include the linguistic, social, educational, historical and political arguments concerning AAE, including the Ebonics debate. The course is divided into six sections: The African American Speech Community, Verbal Styles, Discourse and Interaction, Language Norms and Practices, Women’s Voices, Urban Youth Language, Educational Policy and Politics, Popular Culture.

African and African American Studies 153. Hip Hop America: Power, Politics and the Word
Catalog Number: 3152
Marcyliena Morgan
Half course (spring term). W., 2–4. EXAM GROUP: 7, 8
An examination of the development of hip hop in the US as a cultural, political, and artistic resource. In particular, we examine hip hop literacy, language and learning, art, performance, and dress. Topics include: culture, community, crime and injustice, economics, education, family, history, identity, language, politics, sports, race and racism, sex and sexism. Emphasis is placed on hip hop in a variety of contexts including schools, religious organizations, and political movements.

African and African American Studies 155. After Africa: Languages and Other Englishes: Seminar
Catalog Number: 2388
Marcyliena Morgan
Half course (fall term). W., 1–3. EXAM GROUP: 6, 7
This course explores the history and social consequences of contact languages in the African Diaspora from a linguistic, artistic, political, social and cultural perspective. Focus will be on language contact resulting from plantation slavery in the Atlantic. In particular, we will explore their function in national movements and identity, art and education. We will also examine the spread of pidgin and creole languages in urban areas of the US, England and Canada, especially the use of Caribbean creoles in literature and poetry and educational debates in the US.

African and African American Studies 184. Women and Religious Expression in 20th-Century African-American History
Catalog Number: 1857
Marla F. Frederick
Half course (spring term). Tu., 1–3. EXAM GROUP: 15, 16
From Jonestown to the Nation of Islam to Buddhism and the Baptist Church, this course explores the various ways in which African American women have used religion as a means of interpreting their American experience. By a close examination of ethnographies of religious performance, spiritual autobiographies, historical texts and documentary film, this course gives special attention to the different methodologies employed in the study of religious experience.

Anthropology 2060. Holy War, the Aztec Empire, and the Spanish Conquest
Catalog Number: 4170
Davíd L. Carrasco
Half course (fall term). W., 1–3. EXAM GROUP: 6, 7
This course focuses on the cultural constructions of “holy war” in the Aztec Empire and the Spanish conquest of Mexico. We utilize religious studies and archaeology to compare the religious dimensions of Aztec and Spanish holy warfare.
Note: Offered jointly with the Divinity School as 3839.

Anthropology 1670 (formerly Anthropology 157). Muslims in Multicultural America
Catalog Number: 9822
Jocelyne Cesari (Sorbonne, France)
Half course (fall term). Tu., Th., 10–11:30. EXAM GROUP: 12, 13
Describes the ethnic and religious variety of Islamic communities in America, immigrant and indigenous. Provides analyses of the ways in which both migrants and African American Muslims are maintaining or reactivating their cultural, ethnic and religious identity in post-9/11 America.
Note: Offered jointly with the Divinity School as 3637.

Anthropology 1685 (formerly Anthropology 121). Humans, Aliens, and Future Home Worlds: An Anthropologist Looks at Science Fiction
Catalog Number: 2300
Paulette G. Curtis
Half course (spring term). M., W., (F.), at 11. EXAM GROUP: 4
Science fiction is an entertaining, but also thought provoking, medium that examines attitudes, mores, ideals, and desires concerning culture and society. Through our analysis of largely American sci-fi novels, movies, and television series, we explore these major themes: exploration and contact with ‘the alien’; earth invasions, interstellar battles, and other galactic military adventures; the culture and community of space travelers; robots, androids, and other near-humans; and the sci-fi fandom phenomenon.

Anthropology 1880. Chinese Culture and Society
Catalog Number: 5917
James L. Watson
Half course (fall term). Tu., Th., at 10. EXAM GROUP: 12
A detailed examination of Chinese social institutions, with emphasis on life in the countryside. Topics include: family and kinship organization, marriage and inheritance patterns, ritual and local religion, pre- and post-socialist cultural systems, and the effects of economic reforms on local life.

Anthropology 1980 (formerly Anthropology 168). Anthropology at Home: Doing Fieldwork Among the Familiar
Catalog Number: 2145
Paulette G. Curtis
Half course (fall term). Th., 2–3:30. EXAM GROUP: 16, 17
Through close readings of ethnographies and other culturally informed texts, this seminar will examine the knowledge generated by anthropologists working in their ‘own’ communities (whether geographically, racially, economically, or ritually defined), the lenses through which they generate that knowledge, and the issues they face in doing so. The contemporary US is the home to which the title refers, though some attention will be paid to other times and places.

Anthropology 2680 (formerly Anthropology 263). Globalization and Culture
Catalog Number: 5127
James L. Watson
Half course (spring term). Tu., 1–3. EXAM GROUP: 15, 16
Examines recent theories of transnationalism and globalism, with emphasis on popular culture (music, TV, entertainment, food systems, etc.). Focus on debates regarding cultural imperialism and the effects of transnational corporations on “local” cultures.

Celtic 184. The Táin
Catalog Number: 2150
Tomás Ó Cathasaigh
Half course (fall term). M., W., (F.), at 12. EXAM GROUP: 5
A study of the exuberant Irish prose epic Táin Bó Cuailnge (‘Cattle-Raid of Cooley’).
Note: Expected to be omitted in 2005–06. Text read in English translation.

East Asian Studies 140. Major Religious Texts of East Asia
Catalog Number: 0856
Ryuichi Abe
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
This course aims at enabling students to read and analyze in depth major religious texts of East Asia, representing diverse traditions and genres. The course encourages students to take up their reading of texts not only as ways to acquire knowledge on Asian religious traditions, but as practice, labor, and play in which their ordinary way of understanding/experiencing the world and themselves will be challenged, reaffirmed, and renewed.

*English 90ei. Images, Idolatry, and Iconoclasm
Catalog Number: 8948
James Simpson
Half course (spring term). W., 3–5. EXAM GROUP: 8, 9
Images are often regarded as threatening, even pathological. They sometimes threaten to displace words, to mesmerise the psyche, or to displace a sacred referent and thus become themselves the adored object. When they are imagined to do any of these things, they provoke powerfully violent, iconoclastic reactions. We examine the profile of the image in late medieval and some early modern literature, in both erotic and religious traditions.

English 102a. Anglo-Saxon Language and Culture: Historicizing the Past
Catalog Number: 0151
Daniel G. Donoghue
Half course (fall term). Tu., Th., 10–11:30. EXAM GROUP: 12, 13
How did the Anglo-Saxons interpret their past? How do we in turn interpret their culture? An introduction to the basic grammar of Old English will move hand in hand with translations, at first simple but progressively more challenging, which come from various historical texts. Secondary reading provide an opportunity to consider how we today appropriate the medieval past.
Note: The sequence of English 102 and 103 can fulfill either the college’s foreign language requirement or the English Department’s Honors foreign literature requirement.

English 103f. Anglo-Saxon Language and Culture: Before Love
Catalog Number: 8069
Daniel G. Donoghue
Half course (spring term). Tu., Th., 10–11:30. EXAM GROUP: 12, 13
Some time aroung the twelfth century, Europeans began to fall in love—or so literary and cultural histories tell us. But what was love like before love? How were passionate attachments represented in literature? Building on the grammatical knowledge acquired in English 102, we translate various Old English texts concerning erotic relations. Secondary reading is supplemented by other medieval texts in translation.
Note: The sequence of Eng 102 and 103 can fulfill either the college’s foreign language requirement or the English Department’s Honors foreign literature requirement.
Prerequisite: Honors grade in English 102 or the equivalent.

Scandinavian 61. Introduction to Literature and Culture in Modern Scandinavia
Catalog Number: 7379
Judith Ryan and members of the Department
Half course (spring term). Tu., Th., at 11; and an additional hour to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 13
Studies the literature and art of the “new” Scandinavia at the turn-of-the-century and scrutinizes the three “s” stereotypes: sex, socialism, and suicide. The course also considers questions of national identity, the construction of a culture, and the place of ethnic minorities. Novels by Strindberg, Ibsen, Moberg, Martinsson, and others. Films by Ingmar and Daniel Bergman, Colin Nutley, and Lukas Moodysson.
Note: Expected to be omitted in 2005–06. All readings and discussions in English.

Religion 16 (formerly Religion 1004). Religious Dimensions in Human Experience
Catalog Number: 9089
Davíd L. Carrasco
Half course (fall term). Tu., Th., at 10. EXAM GROUP: 12
A critical introduction to major themes in the history of religions including religious experience, cosmic cities, ritual violence, charisma, ancestors and ghosts, the death of God(s), search for the soul, identity and ethnicity. A robust study of religious claims in Judeo-Christian, Islamic, Hindu traditions and Latin American and African American Religions by reading Toni Morrison, Tomas Eloy Martinez, Diana Eck, Mircea Eliade, Leila Ahmed, and others.
Note: Offered jointly with the Divinity School as 3160.

Religion 1015. Angels: Messengers of God: Seminar
Catalog Number: 8351 Enrollment: Limited to 15.
Kimberley C. Patton (Divinity School)
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
The concept of divine intermediaries is widespread. The “messenger” often refracts crucial doctrinal tenets or executes divine will, as well as providing a spectacular focus for the religious imagination. Angels have a crucial theological and anthropological role in a range of religious genres. Using textual and iconographic evidence, this course explores the history, symbolism, and theological importance of angels and the development of angelology in three related monotheistic religious traditions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Note: Offered by the Divinity School as 3824.

Religion 1032a. Sacrifice: Ritual, Reflexivity, and Paradox
Catalog Number: 6352
Kimberley C. Patton (Divinity School)
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
Using primary sources and contemporary theory, we examine typologies of sacrifice, blood- and bloodless offerings. Special topics include the theological and sociological implications of human sacrifice, sacrifice by divinities, and the relationship of sacrifice to religious authority, gender distinctions, and class or caste hierarchies. Sacrifice is studied in depth in the following three historical complexes: Indo-European, Abrahamic monotheistic, and Meso-American.
Note: Offered by the Divinity School as 3254a.

Religion 1032b. Sacrifice: Ritual, Reflexivity, and Paradox
Catalog Number: 5386
Kimberley C. Patton (Divinity School)
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
A continuation of FAS Religion 1032a.
Note: Offered by the Divinity School as 3254a. It is not necessary to have taken Religion 1032a/3254a to take Religion 1032b/3254b.

Religion 1580. Introduction to African American Religious History
Catalog Number: 7140
Wallace D. Best (Divinity School)
Half course (fall term). M., W., at 10 and an hour to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 3
This course will trace the origins and development of African American religion(s) in the US. We will explore the critical relationship between African American religion(s) and African American cultural forms (music, literature, and the visual arts), paying particular attention to the importance of socio-economic class and region. The connection between black churches and black political thought, black women and religion, and "Afro-centric Christianity" are but a few of the themes we will address.
Note: Offered jointly with the Divinity School as 2334.

Religion 1583. Black Gospel Music: A History
Catalog Number: 9242
Wallace D. Best (Divinity School)
Half course (spring term). M., W., at 10 and an hour to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 3
Black Gospel has been called the "sacred sister to the blues." Like the blues, it is a musical genre deeply rooted in the African American experience. This course will trace the history of Black Gospel from its "modern" origins in 1930s Chicago, popularized by Thomas Dorsey and Mahalia Jackson, into the 1990s mainstream. Analyzing songs from each period of Black Gospel, we will explore the ways the music has tended to reflect and critique the current cultural climate.
Note: Offered jointly with the Divinity School as 2336.

Religion 1600. Introduction to the Hindu Traditions of India
Catalog Number: 9700
Anne Elizabeth Monius (Divinity School)
Half course (fall term). M., W., at 11, and one hour to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 4
An introduction to the many distinct yet interrelated religious tradtions of South Asia that are often labeled “Hinduism”. Students consider the ways in which Hindus from a variety of historical time periods, local traditions, and social backgrounds have attempted to make sense of their world and their lives within it.
Note: Offered jointly with the Divinity School as 3404.

Religion 1730. Buddhist Women and Representations of the Female: Conference Course
Catalog Number: 4463
Janet Gyatso (Divinity School)
Half course (fall term). W., 2–5. EXAM GROUP: 7, 8, 9
We explore three interrelated subjects: 1) Buddhist conceptions concerning the female gender; 2) the lifestyles and self-conceptions of historical Buddhist women, focusing upon autobiographical writings by Buddhist women, and accounts of modern nuns involved in reform movements and political struggles in Asia; 3) Buddhist philosophy of language and its relation to Buddhist representations of the female. The latter is studied in conjunction with the writings of Western feminist thinkers on language and semiotics.
Note: Offered jointly with the Divinity School as 3559.

*Social Studies 98eo. Culture and Society
Catalog Number: 2114
Kiku Adatto
Half course (spring term). M., 2–4. EXAM GROUP: 7, 8
In what sense is art a mirror of society? How do literature, advertisements, and film document cultural change? How is culture tied to power, domination, and resistance? Using a wide range of sources and case studies, this seminar examines the interplay of culture and society (drawing on anthropology, history, sociology, literature, and philosophy). Among the topics explored are memory making and memorials, culture domination and resistance, media and popular culture, and the culture of everyday life.

*Social Studies 98fj. Asians in the United States
Catalog Number: 7947
Ajantha Subramanian
Half course (spring term). Th., 2–4. EXAM GROUP: 16, 17
Examines the dynamics of Asian migration to the US against the backdrop of the social and political transformations in American society from the mid-19th century to the present. Considers how Asian-Americans have been constituted by world-historical processes and have constituted themselves as social and political actors. Attends to how race, class, gender, ethnicity, and generational difference mediate relationships among Asian-Americans, and with Anglo-Americans and other US minorities.

*Sociology 150. The Social Underpinnings of Taste
Catalog Number: 4638
Stanley Lieberson
Half course (spring term). M., W., (F.), at 11. EXAM GROUP: 4
Examines current empirical and theoretical information about the social factors influencing our tastes. This includes work on naming practices, fashion, art, and pop culture. Considers how tastes are molded and changed by social class, political and social events, age cohorts, and education, as well as internal processes.

Sociology 151. Globalization, Sex, and Gender
Catalog Number: 6102
Dennis Altman (La Trobe University)
Half course (spring term). Tu., Th., at 10. EXAM GROUP: 12
Globalization occurs simultaneously at economic, political and cultural levels, and impacts on virtually all levels of social life. This course looks at how globalization affects the ways in which sexuality and gender are imagined, regulated and experienced, and major political debates around issues such as HIV/AIDS and sexual rights in both the poor and rich worlds. Australian experiences will be used to explore the assertion that globalization is equivalent to ’americanization’.

Sociology 154. Culture, Power, and Inequality
Catalog Number: 5713
Michèle Lamont
Half course (fall term). M., W., (F.), at 11. EXAM GROUP: 4
What is the role played by culture in shaping the distribution of power and resources in contemporary societies? This course provides tools and frameworks of understanding to analyze topics such as identity, symbolic boundaries, race, class, and gender cultures, culture and urban poverty, consumption and popular culture, resistant subcultures, media, politics, and the making of public opinion, and American cultural hegemony. values? This course provides simpler and more complex tools and frameworks of understanding to answer these questions.
Note: Open to graduate and undergraduate students

Sociology 188. The Lines That Divide: Ethnographies of Race, Class, and Gender
Catalog Number: 8063
Gesemia Nelson
Half course (fall term). Tu., Th., 11:30–1. EXAM GROUP: 13, 14
Introduces students to classic and contemporary ethnographies that are influential in current sociological debates. The unique advantages (and disadvantages) of ethnographic work in understanding social phenomena will be discussed. Explores the challenges social scientists face when conducting research of this kind. We will read works that cover a diverse range of topics such as sex roles in the household, social custom among young Black males, and low-wage work in the inner city.

Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality 1154 (formerly Women’s Studies 154). I Like Ike, But I Love Lucy: Women, Popular Culture, and the 1950s: Conference Course
Catalog Number: 6855 Enrollment: Limited to 35.
Alice Jardine
Half course (spring term). Tu., 2–4, and an hour section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 16, 17
A diagnosis and analysis of this formative decade for the US babyboomer. Taught from a cultural studies perspective, the course focuses on gender politics in print media, film, television, and rock of the early cold war era. Topics include: the bomb and TV, the Rosenberg trial, early civil rights movement, beat generation, Hollywood dreams of true love, Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, Lucille Ball, Jack Kerouac, Joe McCarthy, Rosa Parks, and others.