History Certificate Program Overview, Northwestern University School of Continuing Studies - Northwestern School of Professional Studies

The current election cycle seems be bringing into stark relief some fundamental questions surrounding difference in contemporary society. One of the hallmarks of modern society is its attempt to produce a truly diverse populace through the elevation of tolerance—of neighbors who lead culturally different lives—to a primary value. As noble as the idea of tolerance may seem, it has faced and continues to face resistance in our contemporary world for a variety of reasons. This course begins with the premise that tolerance is not a simple concept, that it has a complicated origin story in the Reformation/Counter-Reformation and that, ironically, it was global Christianity in its missionizing that laid the groundwork for the proliferation of ideologies of tolerance and diversity in modernity. The course will begin its focus on missionaries, a group of people rarely identified with tolerance. We will read primary texts associated with the conquest of the New World that attempt to characterize and cultivate native populations, whose own religious patrimonies represented not only a barrier to conversion but a genuine threat to global Christian ways of understanding phenomena in the world. In this context we will examine as case studies the writings of religious scholars who encountered different religious cultures in North America and South Asia. We will see how these missionary scholars employed religious categories like “idolatry” and “superstition” to think about the different societies they encountered and to process elements of these societies that could be tolerated as "cultural" difference. This material will prepare us for a transition to Enlightenment philosophical writings about tolerance. We will closely examine Voltaire's Treatise on Tolerance and John Locke's A Letter Concerning Toleration and consider these in light of the emerging philosophical tradition and in contrast with the missionary texts that, we will see, pave the way for some of the ideas contained within these works. Finally, we will reflect on contemporary society’s tolerance challenges and consider what scholarly works from early modernity and the Enlightenment could teach us today. (This course may count towards the History, Religious and Ethical Studies, or Interdisciplinary Studies specializations in the liberal studies graduate and advanced graduate study certificate programs.)

This course will explore how Lin Manuel Miranda has repurposed early American history to resonate with present-day concerns such as immigration, citizenship, and upward mobility. His musical "Hamilton" has become a national sensation, and its popularity affords us an opportunity to learn not only about our nation's founding, but also about the evolution of hip hop and the meaning of the country's demographic transformation. We will examine primary texts from Alexander Hamilton’s time, in addition to more recent musical recordings, narratives of Latina/o History, and documents related to the career of Miranda himself, including excerpts from his first musical, “In the Heights.” (This course may count towards the History, American Studies, and Interdisciplinary Studies specializations in the liberal studies graduate and advanced graduate study certificate programs.)

This course will explore the historical threads that are coming together to shape the U.S. presidential election. Some of the topics we’ll discuss might include: the history of the right to vote and voter suppression; racial conflict and the policing of non-white communities; immigration and border control; economic inequality; the politics of pandemics; populists and the establishment; climate change and environmental calamity; and the shifting role of the United States in the world. As we know, things change rapidly these days, so the syllabus will have some flexibility and we may not end up where we begin. Because the election will take place towards the end of the quarter, we’ll spend our final month together dissecting and analyzing what happened. One main take away will be that history is a vital discipline that can help us understand where we are today, and students will learn how to apply historical thinking to future political moments. (This course may count towards the American Studies, History, or Interdisciplinary Studies specializations in the liberal studies graduate and advanced graduate study certificate programs.)

This course, required of all MALIT and MALS students (but open to any interested graduate student) offers an introduction to literary and critical theory, as well as key works of literature, poetry, and film. It considers the relation between art, culture, and society as it has been conceived, problematized and reconceived over time. Centering on the nexus of questions and problems that have converged around the concept of truth and its relation to fiction, the course asks: How do works of art and cultural productions form and challenge the foundational truths of the societies in which they emerge and intervene? Students will become familiar with various critical perspectives, considering approaches based on class, race, gender and sexuality. Drawn from philosophy, literature, and cultural studies, the readings will introduce students to key thinkers including Plato, Nietzsche, Freud, Beauvoir, Fanon, Deleuze, and Rancière. The course will also prepare students for graduate work in literary and cultural studies with a focus on academic genres of writing and research methods.

How do we better understand the conjuncture of digital technologies and the humanities? What kinds of thinking, research, teaching, politics, and cultural analysis can the digital enhance? How, in turn, do the fields that constitute the humanities (history, literary and language studies, philosophy, art history, musicology, cultural anthropology, media studies, etc.) offer guidance and grounding in today's wireless world? This course introduces students to the emerging field of critical digital studies, which looks at the intersection of digital technology and the humanities. Through a blending of weekly online engagements and three, Saturday afternoon face-to-face seminars, we address topics such as: what is the history of both the humanities and digital approaches to it as an interdisciplinary project? How can we address humanities questions today through new tactics of computational study found in informatics, statistical analysis, data visualization, and "big data" approaches? What new modes of publishing and scholarly communication do digital technologies make possible (multimedia presentation, podcasts, video, visualization, etc.)? How do we understand the ethics and politics of the digital world (surveillance, open source, net neutrality, sustainability, power)? Each week, students conduct readings and viewings, explore case studies, and complete online experiments. We pursue vigorous online discussion and convene in person for a seminar three times over the course of the quarter. Students pursue a final digital project in consultation with the instructor and in relation to individual interests and pursuits (graduate work, professional interests, digital humanities methodologies). Weekly topics include: digital annotation and database construction for close reading; "distant reading" tactics; digital mapping and timeline building; data and archives; network analysis; glitching and deformance for hermeneutic interpretation; and platforms and social media for humanities inquiry. (This course may count towards the American Studies, Chicago Studies, Digital Studies, History, Religious and Ethical Studies, or Interdisciplinary Studies specializations in the master of arts in liberal studies and advanced graduate study certificate programs. This course may also count towards the American Literature, British Literature, Comparative and World Literature, Film, Literature and Visual Culture, or Interdisciplinary Studies specializations in the master of arts in literature and advanced graduate study certificate programs. This course is required of MALS and COAGS students, specializing in Digital Studies. But any interested graduate student may take the course as an elective. Please note, this course is a hybrid which will meet in person on January 13, February 10, and March 17.)

Since the early years after their introduction in the closing decade of the nineteenth century, motion pictures have constituted the most popular and pervasive form of entertainment for the US general public. Even under the competitive assault of television, movies still hold the preeminent position, inasmuch as a major portion of the content of television programming, whether via the commercial networks or the plethora of cable providers, is comprised of movies - either those produced for the theater venue or specially made-for-TV/cable. From the outset, the claim has been made in various quarters that cinematic productions have significant formative influence - positive or negative - on their audiences. This course is offered on the premise that movies do, in fact, have significant influence on the formation of social and religious values, the formation of the narrative of who we are as a nation, and in informing the mode of our interaction with the public sphere. (This course may count towards the American Studies, Religious and Ethical Studies, History, or Interdisciplinary Studies specializations in the master of arts in liberal studies and advanced graduate study certificate programs. This course may also count towards the Film, Literature, and Visual Culture or Interdisciplinary Studies specializations in the master of arts in literature and advanced graduate study certificate programs.)

In the aftermath of the World War I, many artists and filmmakers asked new questions about the relationship between realism and religion. Could one reconcile concrete reality (or realism) with faith in the other-worldly? Many of the artists under discussion in the course drew upon themes that had already been raised by Kierkegaard in the 19th century. What is the relationship between religion and modernity, faith and ethics, reality and the supernatural, observable phenomena and invisible causes? How does one make sense of death in a meaningless universe? Is the universe meaningless? Can meaning be found in realism itself? This course asks students to grapple simultaneously with philosophy and film. We will dig into the language of existential philosophy and compare it to the language of film. We will read Kierkegaard and Sartre and watch films made by Robert Bresson, Luis Buñuel, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Ingmar Bergman, and Woody Allen. In so doing, we will study how mid-to-late 20th century filmmakers sought to understand and portray life's many meanings, presenting protagonists who actively take up religious life, or who consider themselves inhabiting a godless and meaningless universe. In both genres, we will think about the problem of “experience” and how to narrate it. We will discuss the relationship between realism, atheism, Christianity and modernity, as well as the role of Christian symbolism in existentialist literature and film. (This course may count towards the American Studies, History, Religious and Ethical Studies, or Interdisciplinary Studies specializations in the master of arts in liberal studies and advanced graduate study certificate programs. This course may count towards the Film, Literature and Visual Culture, or Interdisciplinary Studies specializations in the master of arts in literature and advanced graduate study certificate programs.)

Much recent fiction, film, and theory are concerned with representing the internet and online environments. Sometimes cyberspace is depicted as a continuation of previous media such as television, cinema, or telephone, but often it is envisioned as a new frontier. This course will examine the ways in which digital interfaces appear in cultural discourses. We consider how technological objects and tools participate in shaping elements of our culture that may appear natural, logical, or timeless. Our guiding questions will include the following: In what ways are these narratives shaping collective perceptions of the internet? How have virtual technologies challenged experiences of language, gender, sex, race, ethnicity, and location? We will focus on literary and filmic representations of social networking, gaming, news delivery, and artificial intelligence. Following a Cultural Studies model for inquiry, this course will be text-based with require that you develop close reading strategies, as well as revise your work. (This course may count towards the American Studies, Digital Studies, History, Religious and Ethical Studies, or Interdisciplinary Studies specializations in the master of arts in liberal studies and advanced graduate study certificate programs. This course may also count towards the Film, Literature and Visual Culture, or Interdisciplinary Studies specializations in the master of arts in literature and advanced graduate study certificate programs. But any interested graduate student may take the course as an elective. Please note, this course is a hybrid which will meet in person on January 13, February 10, and March 17.)

The course studies the art, architecture and urbanism of “The Age of Revolution” with heavy emphasis upon artistic and political developments in France, but the German states, England and Spain will also be discussed. The key artistic practices studied in the course are those of David, Goya, Ingres, Daumier, Géricault, Delacroix, Blake and Constable. The rise of major metropolises (London and Paris) and their public and private buildings will likewise be important points of focus. Major themes will be the rise of an art for the public, art and revolution, art and empire, the invention of Orientalism and Romanticism, caricature and the press, new image technologies (including lithography and photography), and the rise of landscape painting and portraiture. (This course may count towards the History or Interdisciplinary Studies specializations in the master of arts in liberal studies and advanced graduate study certificate programs. This course may also count towards the Film, Literature, and Visual Culture or Interdisciplinary Studies specializations in the master of arts in literature and advanced graduate study certificate programs. It may also count as a literature course or elective in the creative writing program.)

This course engages with narratives, written over roughly a seven-century time frame, beginning more than two thousand years ago, that focus on strange events, strange creatures, human and otherwise, strange places, and strange things. In order to understand texts about anomalies came to be written, what and how they might mean, and why they are significant in the long history of pre-modern Chinese literature, we will read and discuss tales about animals, monsters, ghosts, and barbarians, especially through the lens of the concept of the “foreign.” We will include selections from other contemporary and related sources, when relevant to the overall understanding of the texts under study. As we explore these fascinating materials together, uncovering their richness and complexity, we will in turn address issues such as the place of the fiction in early Chinese literature, religious and folkloric beliefs in demons and the afterlife, immortality, femininity, masculinity, sexuality and their discontents, among other things. In addition to the primary sources, representative theoretical work in the field of early Chinese literature will be incorporated as much as possible. Previous knowledge of early Chinese literature, though helpful, is not required. (This course may count towards the History or Interdisciplinary Studies specializations in the master of arts in liberal studies program. This course may count towards the Comparative and World Literature, Film, Literature, and Visual Culture, or Interdisciplinary Studies specializations in the master of arts in literature program. It may also count as an elective in the creative writing program. Additionally, this course may count towards certain certificates of graduate studies.)

Chicago is known both as a city of neighborhoods and as a city made up of multiple ethnic groups. This course explores both, and especially their intersection in local ethnic communities. It will look at the historical waves of immigration that built the city and compare that to current ethnic groups and the construction of today's local urban communities. We will explore issues of identity, inequality, and political economy surrounding ethnicity. Finally, we will locate these issues in the context of Chicago as a global city. (This course may count toward the American studies, history, and Chicago studies specializations.)

Since the age when the maritime explorers searched for a passage to India and a shorter route to the East, Asia has held a fascination for the West and the religions and cultures of Asia have influenced Western literature, philosophy and religion. This course explores some of the classic literature of the Asian religions, Hinduism, Buddhism and Daoism, and also considers some of the ways that this literature has been interpreted in the modern period in both Asian and Western film and literature. Among our readings will be two of the great epics of Hinduism, the Bhagavad Gita and the Ramayana, as well as key writings from the Buddhist tradition, and the Chinese Tao Te Ching (Dao De Jing). We shall also view examples of Asian and Western film and read modern works by authors such as Thoreau, Forster and Kerouac in order to inquire how this Asian literature and its religious themes have been interpreted and re-imagined in the modern period. (This course may count toward the American, World and Comparative literature, or Literature, film, and visual culture specializations in MALit. It may count toward the American studies, History, and Religion and ethical studies specializations in MALS. It may also count toward any of these specialization certificate programs. It may also count as a literature course or elective in the creative writing program.)

Can a single book capture the imagination of an entire nation? Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions has come close. Since its publication in 1962, Kuhn’s portrait of scientific revolutions and his theory of “paradigms” have inspired intellectuals, professionals, and would-be revolutionaries in many walks of life. Behind Kuhn’s book, however, lays a story of intellectual ambition and student-teacher rivalry, of the challenges facing Jewish intellectuals in America, and the geopolitical ‘struggle for men’s minds’ that consumed Joseph McCarthy’s America in the 1950s. Through readings and discussions on social history, history of science, and archival documents, this course will examine Kuhn’s book as a mirror of cold-war American history and as a framework for posing broader questions about social pluralism, the nature of scientific truth, and roles of intellectuals in American society. (This course may count toward the American studies and History specializations in MALS. It may also count toward any of these specialization certificate programs.)

This course will introduce you to Queer Theory and theories of sexuality, emphasizing the practice of reading theory from a variety of textual sources as well as conceiving of sexualities within both local and transnatinoal contexts. We will trace the development of both the term queer and the history of queer theory, beginning with foundational texts about sexuality and its regulation by Foucault and seminal essays about queer theory by Eve Sedgwick, Judith Butler, Michael Warner and Lauren Berlant. We will then read canonical essays by a variety of queer theorists which will serve the basis for analyzing several books and films including Lawrence Chua's Gold by the Inch, Jules Rosskam’s Transparent, and the British television series, Metrosexuality. Discussions will query how queer theory formulates racial, class and national identities in relation to sexuality, and how it might offer politics beyond those based on identity. In the duration of the course, we will discuss "gay" versus "queer"; processes for conducting a “queer critique”; the historical emergence of the concept of sexuality; the emergence and trajectory of Queer Theory as a disciplinary category; techniques of normalization; the authority of experience; politics beyond identity politics; the aesthetics of self-formation, self-care, self-replication, and selfdissolution; polymorphous perversity; intersectionality and its relationship to Queer Theory; race and class as key interventions into the Queer Theory canon; trans theory as it intersects with and contributes to with Queer Theory; intergenerational sex; transnational queer theories and concerns; how queer theory formulates racial, class and national identities in relation to sexuality. Reading list to include: Michel Foucault History of Sexuality Vol 1 Laurence Chua Gold by the Inch Ed. Hall and Jagose Routlege Queer Studies Reader (2013). (This course may count towards the History and Interdisciplinary Studies specializations in the liberal studies graduate and advanced graduate study certificate programs. This course may also count towards the Interdisciplinary Studies specializations in the master of arts in literature and advanced graduate study certificate programs. It may also count as a literature course or elective in the creative writing program.)

The period 1930-1950 is considered one of the most unstable, terrifying and debated periods in French cultural history. Over the past 65 years, historians, sociologists and the French Establishment have consciously or unconsciously chosen to emphasize, de-emphasize and neglect certain aspects of this traumatic period. This course, rooted in history and textual analysis, will evaluate how key events of this era such as the Great Depression, the Popular Front, the threat of fascism, World War II, Resistance and Collaboration, and the revival of parliamentary government are “remembered” by the French people. Students will complete an in-depth topical investigation in this course that will contribute to both their knowledge and their research skills. (This course may count towards the History and Interdisciplinary Studies specializations in the liberal studies graduate and advanced graduate study certificate programs.)

In this course, we will examine two parallel, though often intersecting, discourses which attempt to define Chicago: formal urban planning documents and literary representations of the city. From Daniel Burnham and Edward Bennett’s 1909 Plan of Chicago onwards, Chicago powers-that-be have tried to transform the chaotic city into the City Beautiful (and/or the City Profitable) with formal planning documents, some aspects of which (when enacted by law) transform the cityscape itself. These documents demonstrate deep and complicated relationships between economic forces, political power, and human agency and identity. Meanwhile, Chicago’s poets and fiction writers shape our understanding of American identity in that same dynamic cityscape. In this course, we will examine planners as poets, and poets as planners to explore the evolution of Chicago from the early 20th Century to today. (This course may count towards the American Studies, Chicago Studies, History, or Interdisciplinary Studies specializations in the master of arts in liberal studies and advanced graduate study certificate programs. This course may also count towards the American Literature or Interdisciplinary Studies specializations in the master of arts in literature and advanced graduate study certificate programs. It may also count as a literature course or elective in the creative writing program.)

Richard J. Daley shaped the city of Chicago, and its region, more than any person in its history. Monumental public-works projects from the expressway system, high-rise public housing, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and O’Hare Airport all were born or came to fruition during his 21 years in office (1955-1976). The North Side Lakefront and the Loop bloomed with high-rises, while many low-rise neighborhoods—-especially on the South and West Sides--fell into disrepair and despair. This seminar will examine the forces in Chicago culture which most shaped Daley-the-Man (the neighborhood of Bridgeport with its parks, bars, and “social and athletic clubs”; the Roman Catholic Church; the Labor movement; the Democratic Party) in order to better understand how, and why, he in turn shaped the city in ways good and bad, which still structure our experience of this place and which helped create Daley-the-Myth. The course will read two biographies of Daley, along with selections from a wide range of scholarship, journalism, poetry, fiction, and visual art depicting Daley. We will also have at least one, and perhaps as many as three, off-site meetings to directly engage with Daley’s Chicago. (This course may count toward the American Literature, Literature, Film, and Visual Culture, and Interdisciplinary Studies specializations in the Master of Arts in Literature and Advanced Graduate Study Certificate programs. It may count toward the American Studies, Chicago Studies, History, Religious and Ethical Studies, and Interdisciplinary Studies specializations in the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies and Advanced Graduate Study Certificate programs. It may also count as a literature course or elective in the creative writing program.)

How do media impact our sense of such fundamental concepts as personhood, social life, and time and space? How do new technologies transform sensory experience at different moments in history? This course provides an introduction to the field of theoretical writings within the humanities addressing the nature of media and the role of technology in twentieth- and twenty-first century culture. We will pay close attention to the work of key media theorists, including (but not limited to) Walter Benjamin, Marshall McLuhan, and Donna Haraway. We will also analyze works of art, sound, film, and literature in order to catalyze, test, and expand our sense of how media matter. (This course may count towards the History or Interdisciplinary Studies specializations in the master of arts in liberal studies and advanced graduate study certificate programs. This course may also count towards the Film, Literature, and Visual Culture or Interdisciplinary Studies specializations in the master of arts in literature and advanced graduate study certificate programs. It may also count as a literature course or elective in the creative writing program.)

This course should cause us to seek an answer to the question of whether there is a human compulsion to connect with the divine, to suffer for or with the divine, to question whether women are more willing to accept the suffering that is oftentimes dealt them in a Christ-like way, or to accept sacrifice and suffering as part of their human condition. Through a variety of films and some short novels (the films are mostly foreign, most in English), we will have, it is hoped, lively discussion and much food for thought. The list of films include: Kristin Lavransdatter - Norway; Mariette in Ecstasy - American; Breaking the Waves and Dancer in the Dark - Danish; Mustang - Turkish; Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce - Belgian; and others to be added. (This course may count toward the Film, Literature, and Visual Culture and Interdisciplinary Studies specializations in the Master of Arts in Literature and Advanced Graduate Study Certificate programs. It may count toward the History, Religious and Ethical Studies and Interdisciplinary Studies specializations in the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies and Advanced Graduate Study Certificate programs. It may also count as a literature course or elective in the creative writing program.)

Black political activism in the city of Chicago has historically been a multi-varied phenomenon. Prominent and ordinary Black Chicagoans have responded to institutional or structural racism, specific racial incidents or problems impacting the African American community through organizational efforts and the power of the community. This course will explore ten historical incidents in which Black Chicagoans organized to make change. “Political activism” is loosely defined here and does not just mean running for public office. We will specifically look at Ida B. Wells’ fight against the horrors of lynching and her efforts to organize Black Chicago women, Robert Abbott’s creation and management of the Chicago Defender and his founding of Black Chicago legacy events such as the Bud Billiken parade, Carl Augustus Hansberry’s fight against restrictive covenants in the city and the impact that it had on his daughter Lorraine’s artistry, the organizational efforts of CORE (Congress of Racial Equity) and other entities to fight school segregation in the city in the early 1960s, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s work in Chicago in 1966 and the creation of the Chicago Freedom Movement, Fred Hampton and the Black Panthers’ work in Chicago in the late 1960s and the war against them by both the Daley Administration and the FBI, Harold Washington’s political career and his Mayorship in the 1980s, Black Chicago AIDS activism in the 1990s and current efforts to fight the disease, the careers of Toni Preckwinkle and Lori Lightfoot and the role of Black women in Chicago politics, and the formation of the Black Lives Matter movement and its achievements in the city of Chicago. Students will conduct an original research project this semester, using primary resources from the Vivian G. Harsh Collection at the Carter G. Woodson Regional Library, the collections at the main Chicago Public Library, the resources of the Chicago History Museum or the collections of the Gerber-Hart Library. (This course may count towards the American Studies, Chicago Studies, History or Interdisciplinary Studies specializations in the master of arts in liberal studies program. This course may count towards the American Literature, or Interdisciplinary Studies specializations in the master of arts in literature program. It may also count as an elective in the creative writing program. Additionally, this course may count towards certain certificates of graduate studies.)

Retrospectatorship is a way of negotiating the history of Hollywood through contemporary practices of spectatorship and the identities and cultural politics we now bring to our viewing of the past. Through a contemporary lens, we often view screen personalities, performances, dialogue, relationships, music, and even glances as “queer.” This course will negotiate American film and television from 1930-1990 in an attempt to “make sense” of a cultural product. We will theorize on meanings of queerness and how this concept colors our notion of gay and lesbian spectatorship. We will also theorize on whether LGBTQ+ and/or straight audiences of the past “read” queerness into a film/program that contemporary audiences might readily identify as such. We will examine the relationship of political culture to the timeframe in which films/programs were produced and the impact that this culture may have had on what was “allowed” and what was “read” into such forms of media. (This course may count towards the American Studies, History, or Interdisciplinary Studies specializations in the master of arts in liberal studies and advanced graduate study certificate programs. This course may count towards the Film, Literature and Visual Culture, or Interdisciplinary Studies specializations in the master of arts in literature and advanced graduate study certificate programs. It may also count as a literature course or elective in the creative writing program.)

Chicago is still the most segregated big city in America, and it has a long history of writers who represented its racial and ethnic conflicts. In this course, we will read and discuss the canon of Chicago’s African-American literary tradition, along with other writers who represent how American identity is shaped by the Chicago, by issues of access to space, and the freedom (or lack thereof) to move through the urban landscape.

Our texts will include: Gwendolyn Brooks, Selected Poems; Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun; Richard Wright, Native Son; James T. Farrell, Chicago Stories; Bill Granger, Time for Frankie Coolin; and Bruce Norris, Clybourne Park.

(This course may count towards the American Literature and Interdisciplinary Studies specializations in the literature and advanced graduate study certificate programs. This course may also count towards the American Studies, Chicago Studies, History, or Interdisciplinary Studies specializations in the liberal studies graduate and advanced graduate study certificate programs. )

The only constant in Chicago history, and literature, is change. In this course, we will read and discuss more than a century's worth of textual explorations of fundamental shifts in Chicago's built environment, racial and ethnic identities, and literaary expressions. Who lives where? Who has power and who takes it? Who expresses the most important aspects of these transformations, and how do writers across generations agree and disagree? Our readings will include canonical and more obscure writers, from Carl Sandburg, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Nelson Algren to Bill Granger, Stuart Dybek, and Dan Sinker. (This course may count towards the  American Literature, or Interdisciplinary Studies specializations in the master of arts in literature and advanced graduate study certificate programs. This course may also count towards the American Studies, Chicago Studies, History, or Interdisciplinary Studies specializations in the master of arts in liberal studies and advanced graduate study certificate programs. It may also count as a literature course or elective in the creative writing program.)

The US-Mexico border has been the site of intense cultural conflict since the mid-nineteenth century. It marks both the connection and the division between two nations, and many of our most fraught conversations concern whether the border should be a bridge or a wall. As an entry point into these conversations, this course will survey literature and film centering on the US-Mexico border. Students will become familiar with the history of the border, beginning with the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo in 1848 and extending through NAFTA and up to the current political climate. Together we will consider how the border has become such a potent site for contemporary mythmaking, a flashpoint for anxieties about race, labor, gender, and sexuality. Literary texts will include Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands / La Frontera (1987), Sandra Cisneros’s Woman Hollering Creek (1991), Cormac McCarthy’s The Crossing (1994), Carlos Fuentes’s La frontera de cristal (1995), Juan Felipe Herrera’s 187 Reasons Mexicans Can’t Cross the Border: Undocuments (1995), and Carmen Boullosa’s Tejas (2014). (Texts originally written in Spanish will be taught in English translation.) Films will include The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez (1982), Selena (1997), The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005), and Sin Nombre (2009). (This course may count towards the American Literature, Comparative and World Literature, Film, Literature, and Visual Culture, or Interdisciplinary Studies specializations in the master of arts in literature and advanced graduate study certificate programs. It may count towards the American Studies, History or Interdisciplinary Studies specializations in the master of arts in liberal studies and advanced graduate study certificate programs. It may also count as a literature course or an elective in the creative writing program.)

How do we reimagine the world we live in? How can we envision it in radically new ways and not just as a better version of the present one? Since Thomas More’s inaugural text, Utopia (1516), this endeavor of the imagination has developed together with and as a response to the changes that have defined modernity (from colonialism to industrialization) and affirmed the question of the future as one that is indissolubly aesthetic and political. While tapping into this longer tradition, this course will explore the ways in which contemporary writers and filmmakers in the West have employed the science fiction genre to challenge notions of historical progress, individualism, and humanism. In these works, more often than not, utopian and dystopian visions find themselves intertwined, upsetting the boundaries between hope and despair, violence and redemption. Together with key essays by Ernst Bloch, Donna Haraway, and Fredric Jameson, we will read Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents, Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed, and China Miéville’s The City & the City. We will also watch Lizzie Borden’s Born in Flames, Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, and Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049. Throughout the course, we will foreground questions relating to technology and daily life, climate change, and social justice. (This course may count towards the American Studies, History, or Interdisciplinary Studies specializations in the master of arts in liberal studies program. This course may count towards the American Literature, Comparative and World Literature, Film, Literature and Visual Culture, or Interdisciplinary Studies specializations in the master of arts in literature program. It may also count as a literature requirement or elective in the creative writing program. Additionally, this course may count towards certain certificates of graduate studies.)