The New School
Undergraduate and Graduate – Spring 2024
This course critically explores and examines the psychology of Buddhist religious experiences across a wide range of scientific disciplines. We focus particular attention on the issue of human consciousness and new research in psychology and neuroscience on Buddhist meditation, mystical experience, and psychedelics. Students will also read seminal Buddhist writings from ancient India and Tibet, as well as more contemporary Buddhist voices from both Asian and non-Asian sources. (Recommended for students with at least one LREL or LPSY course.)
Urban design, Chinese fashion, and creative economies are the primary subjects of this course offered in Chinese, which is intended to support the development of advanced speaking, writing, and critical analysis in Mandarin Chinese. This undergraduate course features the study of Chinese fashion cultures that are transnational and global as well as the study of urban centers throughout China, which have grown into design and creative hubs and hosts of cultural economies. The course embarks on analyzing film/media texts and short readings related to the luxury goods market, urban design, cities in China and cultural Mar-kets. In Chinese. Proficiency: intermediate-high or advanced level of proficiency in Mandarin is required.
This seminar introduces students to some of the most influential interpretations of colonialism (broadly understood) that have been advanced by thinkers in different intellectual-political traditions from across the central core and peripheral fringe. Studying the writings of Anglo-European authors (i.e.: uneven and combined development, imperialism, southern question, global color line, boomerang effect) alongside those of their Latin American, Indian and Pan-African counterparts (i.e.: nationalism, dependency, subaltern, post-colonial, de-colonial feminism) provides an opportunity to explore their many shared and divergent concerns as well as some of the subterranean continuities and discontinuities that have defined the boundaries of the age-old dispute on colonialism. In examining their writings, we focus on how each thinker analyzed the material and symbolic links between colonialism and modernity (i.e.: capitalism, liberal democracy, rational and universal principles), and the way their interpretation of them conditioned their depiction of and the differential hierarchies they established among and between countries, peoples, institutions and practices of the Global North and South. The purpose of this exercise, however, is not to ‘provincialize,’ ‘universalize’ or ‘particularize’ any one aspect or either region, as is commonly done by scholars today. Instead, it is to encourage us to reflect critically on the following two questions (and others closely related to them): A) does the anti-colonial perspective provide a convincing counter-narrative of the emergence and development of modernity (capitalism, liberal democracy, rational and universal principles), and is it capable of challenging the image it has of itself? and B) what are the consequences of relying on a ‘concept-interpretation’ that has been developed to analyze a specific issue or problem that surfaced in a given ‘place-time’ to make sense of a similar but somewhat different socio-political-cultural formation?
Documentary has never been more popular or controversial than it is today. The availability of low-cost, accessible digital media technology has helped foster a renaissance in documentary practice. And as new tools like cell phones, go-pro cameras, and high-end HD equipment expand the technical boundaries of an art form, pressing issues and artistic possibilities command the attention of media makers around the globe. Works selected for screening and discussion will address a broad range of topics from political revolution to personal exploration and offer an equally broad array of formal approaches. Screenings and discussions will focus on work made in the last five years. We will explore the documentary in some of its many guises: such as essay, social advocacy, investigative journalism, (auto)biography, propaganda, narrative, and creative experiment. The course examines ongoing debates over documentary ethics and aesthetics, considering such problems as the use of archival footage, fair use standards, staging and reenactments, self-reflexivity, and hybrid forms that blur the boundaries between fact and fiction. Drawing on the legacy of documentary pioneers and the inspiration of today’s innovators and iconoclasts, this course will explore many of the issues and ideas driving the documentary film today. Invited guests may feature filmmakers, programmers and critics. Past guests have included: Wu Wenguang (China), Jill Godmilow (USA), Bill Viola (USA), Yonghi Yang (Japan/Korea), Nathaniel Dorsky (USA), Agnes Varda (France), Janus Metz (Denmark), Ido Haar (Israel), and Akram Zaatari (Lebanon), among others.
As late capitalist ecological, social, and political crises have intensified, eco-fascism has festered across the world, from India to New Zealand to the United States. Fusing the imperative of climate action with racism, xenophobia, anti-communism, and other reactionary ideologies, eco-fascism’s façade of environmental consciousness makes a particularly dangerous conduit for mounting right-wing reaction. New ecologically- oriented socialist movements have arisen to combat eco-fascism and fascism as a whole. Ecosocialism as an overarching paradigm not only builds upon the successes but also addresses the shortcomings of the past five hundred years of resistance, rebellion, and revolution against the colonia, capitalist, and imperialist world-system. This course invites students to explore the constantly evolving dialectic of eco-fascism and eco-socialism through critical political and economic perspectives that tackle the historical causes of today’s existential ecological crises. Braiding together Marxism, world-systems analysis, decoloniality, ecofeminism, and Indigenous socio-ecology, the course’s interdisciplinary texts and multimedia materials will track how capitalism has 1) robbed and degraded land, labor, and life throughout the world since its inception, 2) relied on state power to carry out this expropriation and denigration, 3) consolidated multi-sited and multi-scalar national, racial, gendered, and sexual hierarchies to justify these processes and stifle opposition to them, and 4) fused key elements of all deleterious trends to defend itself through fascism and eco-fascism. Students will concomitantly assess a range of ecosocialist proposals for their capacity to address the root causes of eco-fascism, including but not limited to democratic economic planning, municipalism and communalism, post- growth and degrowth, and Indigenous and peasant food, land, water, and seed sovereignty.
This reading-intensive course examines the history of journalism practices on the lands that make up mod-ern-day India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, and the Maldives. Through a variety of texts, guest Q&As, presentations, screenings, and group discussions, we will consider historical and contemporary topics of concern to press and public in the region, including free speech, censorship, misinformation, internet access, funding models, social media, colonial legacies, and identity-based discrim-ination and violence. We will study Western reporting practices in the region, as well as diasporic South Asian publications and journalists.
With the global ascendancy of neoliberalism, shared (or “equitable”) growth has been in decline, vividly il-lustrated by the post-1980 American case: four decades of wage stagnation and rising wage inequality, high rates of job insecurity, and a growing crisis in the affordability of housing, education and health care for working families. But outcomes such as these have been far from uniform across countries. This course will explore the access of working families in different countries/regions to decent jobs and welfare state bene-fits, framed by some key questions: Can changes in decent-pay jobs, pay inequality, and job security be ex-plained (as in the mainstream economics account) by market forces that raise the demand for cognitive skills, driven by the computerization and globalization of production? If this is the story, why haven’t mar-kets (and public policies) adjusted to eliminate this skill mismatch, and why do national outcomes differ so much? Or is the problem, instead, mainly a reflection of shifts in relative worker bargaining power that differ substantially by nation/region, driven by political choices designed to reduce the size of the welfare state (austerity economics) and promote wage suppression? If this is the story, and the inclusivity, com-plementarity and coherence of institutional regimes are critical to earnings, employment performance and the overall wellbeing of working families (as in the comparative political economy account), which institu-tions matter most, in what combination, and for which workers? And further, if some capitalisms offer more protection (bargaining power) to workers, do we see a tradeoff with employment performance (e.g., the rate of unemployment), or can more egalitarian varieties of capitalism also be complementary with full employment?
“Confucius said: ‘Benevolence is the characteristic element of humanity.’ ‘The benevolent man loves others.’ Who did he love? All men? Nothing of the kind. Did he love the exploiters? It wasn’t exactly that, either. He loved only a part of the exploiters.” (Mao, 1964, Talk on questions of philosophy) “The power of role models is infinite. You should take them as examples in pursuing virtues. Confucius said, ‘When we see men of virtue, we should think of equaling them.’” (Xi, 2014, Foster and practice core socialist values from childhood) Why is the People’s Republic of China ideologically different from the West? To what extent have the recent political developments, including the Hong Kong social unrest, Xi’s third term, and the “Zero Covid Policy” shaped post-pandemic China? Is a democratic future still imaginable? In this course, we aim to answer these questions within broader historical and theoretical contexts, focusing on PRC’s political debates that have profoundly shaped the country’s socio-political transitions from the Maoist era to Xi’s rise to power. We will read the philosophical texts concerning the ideology, legitimacy, and ruling principles of the Communist Party, as well as political-economic analyses of the current system. In particular, we try to understand the regime’s ruptures, contradictions, and unsolved dilemmas. Meanwhile, an investigation of Chinese politics will shed new light on our understanding of questions that equally challenge the West, not least party politics, representativeness, revolutionary movements, etc. In this sense, China is both a subject and a method for the inquiries of this course.
This course will introduce the key and historically important aspects of the film image, its construction, and what makes it unique. We will study different film forms and styles with a particular focus on the mise-en-scène, camera work, editing techniques, and sound. The course emphasizes how each of these are used to create distinctive works of film art. The course will also examine how and where the film image connects to other art forms, such as painting, design, fashion, and architecture. We will consider the guiding principles of films from a range of countries, historical periods, national cinematic traditions, and modes of production. These will include, but are not limited to, films from the Classical Hollywood Studio era, the cinemas of Japan, India, Iran, Africa, post-revolutionary Russia, and avant-garde and experimental modes. The basis of the course will be learning skills for close looking and listening. Following identification of the sensuous aspects of the film image, we will move to analysis and argument, using description to support / corroborate. Thus, the course will give students a language with which to describe and analyze the film image as the first step to constructing a considered argument. These skills will be transferable to the study and discussion of images in general.
This course examines the postwar and contemporary dispute over the liberal, popular, and authoritarian aspects of populism in several countries of the central core (USA, Britain, France, Italy) and the peripheral fringe (Argentina, India), as exemplified in landmark works by several insightful scholars: Seymour M. Lipset, Margaret Canovan, Nadia Urbinati, Pierre Rosanvallon, Gino Germani, Guillermo O’Donnell, Ernesto Laclau, and Partha Chatterjee. Some of them rely on abstract truths and decontextualized concepts to depict populism as a mirror-like reflection of them; others construe it as a practical response to changing historical contingencies; and still others combine key elements from each to make sense of populism. Our course offers an alternative to these ‘theoreticist’ and ‘historicist’ accounts of populism based on the primacy and centrality of the following ethical-political traditions: functionalism, skepticism, anti-totalitarianism, liberal socialism, a-synchronic modernization, delegative democracy, post-marxian hegemony, and biopolitical governmentality. Following the Cold War, scholars identified with one of these traditions sometimes disagreed with like-minded thinkers that differed in their conception of populism due in large part to their divergent way of analyzing political life, with the following two approaches predominating among them: rationalism vs. judgment. Combining these modes of analyzing political life with the tradition-centered perspective on populism provides a more differentiated, nuanced, and convincing framework for making sense of the current debate which has become increasingly predictable, rigid, and stale.
This course examines political and cultural propaganda and its symbolism before, during and after the Cold War. Significant focus will be placed on American ideology, or “Americanism” — which has been represented through various media such as: advertising, press, television, film, and now through the (still) relatively novel forum of social media. Concentrating on Donald Trump’s presidency, his divisive cultural campaign “Make America Great Again,” and his twitter-agenda (governed by @realDonalTrump) we will survey the 2016 U.S. campaign election coverage and ask: is the Trump presidency a media creation? Comparing the U.S. elections with other campaigns from around the world, we will further investigate the role of social media and how it has enhanced political propaganda and public relation strategies. Ultimately, we will determine how new technologies are delivering political and ideological messages without the constraint of borders or time. Finally, we will broaden our scope to focus on the propaganda of the two former and current most prominent global rivals —the United States and the Soviet Union/Russia. We will reflect on how their respective propaganda strategies and tactics have been translated, transformed, and recycled in totalitarian North Korea, communist China, The Middle East and some fundamentalist militant groups.
Recent events in world politics place us in a transformative moment. The war in Ukraine, the return of Taliban in Afghanistan, declining U.S. power, emerging markets in Africa, and the rise of Russia, China and India as global players, have shifted us to a new era of “multi-alignment” – where different countries and cultural communities pursue their own interests in contrast, and often in conflict, with established world orders. What is the role of new media technologies, global media networks and growth of local cultural industries in this time of radical change? How does media and culture impact power relations in international affairs? What are the new contexts and codes of conduct in international communication? This course is an inquiry into the role of media and culture as an instrument of power, and a vital site in the political life of states and societies – both at home and abroad. Major themes of study will include popular culture and political processes; cultural sovereignty; post/modernity; nationalism; and cultural rights. Theory will be connected to professional practice in terms of providing students with a vocabulary and analysis of the role and impact of cultural industries in contemporary international relations – and the possibilities therein. We will discuss and analyze different mediums, including television news, talk shows and entertainment programming, newspaper op-eds and political cartoons, blogs, mobile telephony, etc. The course will use audio-visual and print materials relevant to class discussions and assigned reading topics. Students are free to develop their individual interest in specific mediums within the scope of class readings, discussions and assignments.
Political crises often lead to powerful and provocative images and stories. This course looks at cinema and media from and about some of the world’s most contentious political hotspots, including Southeast Asia, Afghanistan and Iran, Israel and the Arab world, and the U.S.A. Surveying both fiction and documentary works, the course will interrogate concepts of national memory, propaganda, colonialism, and “the war film” along with theories of trauma, ideology, class, race, gender, and “the Other.” The course will also examine whether images and stories can lead to social and political change. Combining historical and aesthetic approaches, the class will survey films concerning WWII (Triumph of the Will), the war in Vietnam (Hearts and Minds), the Israeli/Palestinian conflict (Paradise Now; Waltz with Bashir) and U.S. films and media such as The Parallax View, The Handmaid’s Tale, and Get Out, among others.
Whether it be the war in Ukraine, pandemics, climate change, debt crisis or SDGs, debates in international affairs often focus on interventions and their adequacy. But before reaching the stage of intervention, a range of expert knowledge has already been wielded to characterize problems in selective ways, identify solutions and determine who should take action. This course interrogates expert knowledge and especially the political economy underlying its production. We will examine the intersection of political, economic and epistemic power in global governance to illuminate how entrenched historical – often colonial – legacies and hierarchies shape contemporary policies. We will read case studies on a variety of different topics in international affairs including international economic policy, climate change, disaster management, and global health. In each instance, we will ask how some knowledge becomes authoritative and gets translated into policy, while other knowledge gets sidelined. We will pay particular attention to seemingly objective processes of measurement to reveal how matters of metrics and data reflect power structures and orientations of institutions. In each instance, we will also consider how extant knowledge structures can be challenged, and how alternatives can be introduced.
Global pop cultural conceptions of the topics and tropes of science fiction film have largely been defined by the Hollywood SF blockbusters that have saturated international markets. With some notable exceptions (i.e., anime), Hollywood’s emphasis on big budget special effects has rendered the genre less adaptable to other spaces and modes of production. But fascinating science fiction films have been made across Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. In this course, we will explore the global reach of science fiction, screening films from Russia, Kenya, Argentina, South Africa, France, Mexico, Nigeria, India, Japan, and the Philippines. While a few of the films thematize space travel and planets in a literal sense, the term “planetary” functions primarily as a speculative lens through which to consider how different logics of space and place—from regional, national, trans-national, and global to inner- and outer- space—might enable us to think creatively about today’s ecological crises and colliding worlds. Student work includes weekly screenings, seminars, and Canvas posts, a variety of readings (from short stories to philosophy), and a significant final project. [Tracks C, M, S]
In this course, we will explore the relationship between environment, estrangement, and pathos in philosophical, cultural, and aesthetic terms. Starting with questions of cosmic scale – what Friedrich Nietzsche once termed “humanity’s place in the universe” – we will turn to novels, poems, and films that respond to existential alienation, entropic decline, imminent catastrophe, and the sense of a general melancholia pervading the natural world. We will touch upon a wide range of traditions, from the wilderness poetry of ancient China to contemporary “cli-fi,” from the desert hermits of ancient Egypt to fin-de-siècle decadence, from Romanticism’s poetics of nature to modern “weird fiction.” Along the way we will address topics such as the threat of extinction, “ecological grief,” “collapsology,” and other affects associated with the Anthropocene. Readings will likely include fiction by Kōbō Abe, J.G. Ballard, Aase Berg, Algernon Blackwood, Rachel Carson, Liu Cixin, Camille Flammerion, Anna Kavan, Izumi Kyōka, Stanislaw Lem, Ursula Le Guin, Octavia Butler, Kim Stanley Robinson, Vladimir Sorokin, and others. While this is a graduate class, we have a handful of seats for undergraduates in their final year (i.e., seniors). Permission to register is necessary in this case. For consideration, kindly fill out this form: https://tinyurl.com/mvm2stuu
In this seminar we will explore the lives and histories of secondhand clothing. As our pre-worn and discarded clothes travel through time, and often across various countries around the world, they enter new uses: Being re-worn they take on new value when they become part of a new wearer’s life who invests these ‘old’ clothes with their own meaning. They also turn into new commodities, resold in a range of retail venues that assign them meanings such as ‘rags,’ ‘thrift,’ or ‘vintage.’ Rising to the rank of ‘collector’s item’ their function as a garment may even be put on hold, when old clothes make it into museum spaces. Yet, while historically clothes were of such high value that they served as currency, the overproduction of today’s fashion has an unprecedented environmental impact with so many clothes ending up as landfill. In this seminar we will explore this shifting value of clothing and fashion and ask how discarded clothes get revived, re-styled or re-designed, inhabited and invested with new meanings. Case-studies lead us into various historic and cultural contexts: from the reselling of secondhand clothes in nineteenth century China, connections between clothing waste and ‘charity’, reappropriations of military uniforms including in colonial contexts, secondhand clothes as symbols of resistance or individual style, for example in counter-hegemonic or youth contexts where they get entangled with politics around class, gender, race, place or nationality.
This year’s death seminar will focus on the afterlife. Anthropology along with other social science research conducted from a secular perspective has mainly treated engagements with the afterlife as epistemological oddity, ontological conundrum, or political ruse. Eschewing these positions, this class will once and for all answer all questions regarding the afterlife. Just kidding. But we will pay attention to the new ways in which the afterlife as a political category and an affective as well as sensory orientation is becoming theorized and practiced through post-human, post-secular and decolonial approaches. What is it to inhabit the afterlife today as an appropriate ethical response to this era of upheavals, social and planetary? How can it be thought and how is it being done? Through what senses, practices and politics are afterlives engaged and what are our forms of exchange with the dead? What can this bring to politics in terminal times? Reading ethnography, history and theory, we will consider such themes as: life and ethics in the shadow of extermination and extinction; technoscientific resurrection projects and ecogrief; revenants and ghosts that make their politics known, sometimes in protest, sometimes in court; the rise of mediums in post-Mao China, and spirits and ancestors in afrodiasporic practices of co-presencing; transhumanist immortality projects and digital avatars as responses to the secular question of personhood and consciousness; the hypercommodification of the dead in capitalist supermarkets and the image economy; and other forms of problematic, creative and political exchange with the dead.
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 did not bring forth a world of liberal democracies as many had hoped. On the contrary, the collapse helped facilitate the rise of China and the growth of authoritarian, religious or nationalist populism in India, the Middle East, Turkey, Russia and Eastern Europe. Latin America became in many ways a world center for the Left. The US and Europe lost their role as models, a decline apparent in novels, film and other cultural products. We will explore this history through reading such authors as Fukuyama, Hobsbawms, Caldwell,Wallerstein and WILDERSON
This course will give you practical ways to deepen your sense of pulse and rhythm, as well as methods to become comfortable with any rhythmic challenge. Using rhythm languages from several cultures, we explore how to negotiate odd meters, incorporate deep breathing thru overtone singing and learn rhythm compositions from South India. Students will periodically use their principle instrument or voice to try out the concepts we learn. Each week the class will receive a handout covering new material and the assignment for the next class.
The principal text of this tutorial course is the Daoist classic Zhuangzi. The course will develop a close exegetical reading of the text in its entirety, and situate it within the philosophical context of the Warring States period in ancient China (481-221 BCE).
Undergraduate and Graduate – Fall 2023
In the sixth century BCE (what Karl Jaspers dubbed the “Axial Age”), Gautama Buddha led a countercultural revolution that successfully challenged the dominant religious authority in ancient India and altered the direction of global history. In this course we examine the dangerous ideas and practices that defined Buddha’s revolution and the Indian counterculture—the Śramaṇa, or “Misfit Seeker” spiritual movement. We also consider the impact Buddha’s revolution had on fomenting and facilitating the American counterculture and the rise of American Buddhism amidst what may be a new Axial Age. Our study considers the lives and works of cultural nonconformists such as Henry David Thoreau, John Cage, Timothy Leary and Anne Waldman.
While Buddhism is a religious tradition with the goal of spiritual liberation from suffering, it was also, from its origin in Ancient India 2500 years ago, a philosophical attempt to understand reality, the mind, and the meaning of life. In this course, we will address Buddhism as philosophy, rather than as a religious practice. Thus, we will critically engage Buddhism with attention to its core philosophical concepts and doctrines – e.g., the pervasiveness of suffering (dukkha), no-self, impermanence, emptiness, and enlightenment (nirvāna) – and the arguments for those doctrines. We will reflect both on the historical context of these arguments and their implications for contemporary philosophical work in epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and ethics. We will also examine the Buddhist ethics of loving kindness and compassion and the archetypal ideal of the Bodhisattva. As we do so, it will become clear that there is no one philosophy of Buddhism, since there are a number of forms of Buddhism with different philosophical perspectives as well as a variety of Buddhist thinkers who have philosophical disagreements with each other. We will, therefore, begin by exploring the central philosophical arguments attributed to the historical Buddha and the more systematic metaphysical and epistemological theories of the early schools of Buddhism. We will then proceed to examine the development of Mahāyāna Buddhism; after which we will consider a more unorthodox form of Buddhism that arose as it migrated from South Asia to China (Ch’an) and then to Japan (Zen). We will also consider modern interpretations of Buddhist philosophy, including socially engaged Buddhism. Finally, throughout this course, we will discuss and practice different forms of Buddhist meditation and consider their relevance for philosophical investigation and for the world today.
This ULEC “China Today” is honored and featured as one of the New School Signature Courses. The series of university lectures and discussions open up new critical intellectual spaces for students to contemplate on questions such as the following: Why is it important to learn about China in the age of globalization and de-globalization? How to understand a country and civilization that is oftentimes understudied and misrepresented in the West? How to critically view its rapid development and recurring controversies in the domains of politics, economy, art, and culture? This course examines today’s China through the lens of theory and practice, representation and visuality, critical analysis and debates. It is part of the core curriculum of critical China Studies. Students will be introduced to various heated topics such as uneven development, social inequality, rise of China, US-China relations, AI, media censorship, post-COVID geopolitical order, contemporary Chinese art and political activism. By the end of the semester, students will be expected to develop considerable empirical and critical knowledge about China. Guest speakers will be invited to present their topics and dialogue with students. Note: This is an Asynchronous Online lecture; all discussion sections are held in-person on campus. Students must register for both the lecture and discussion section of this course. [This ULEC is in category 1, Tools for Social Change.]
This undergraduate course is designed for high-intermediate to advanced-level students who are interested in Chinese popular culture and contemporary cultural politics. Students study Mandarin Chinese language and society through the dynamic lens of popular culture, TV drama and cinema, and new media. Additional key topics include contemporary Chinese art, fashion and youth culture. [In Chinese] Proficiency: intermediate-high or advanced level proficiency in Mandarin Chinese.
This course embarks on the study of East Asian identities through the study of pop culture and media. Presented as a journey through modern cultural history by studying iconography associated with East Asian pop culture that relates to space, time, and regional intricacies. The course explores the tension between tradition and modernity from the rise of East Asia to the transformations of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean traditions, cultures and societies. Students will explore a wide-range of cultural texts, including: Chinese soap operas, Japanese anime (manga), and Korean TV dramas, while thinking about how East Asia relates to the West. [In English]
This course embarks on the study of East Asian identities through the study of pop culture and media. Presented as a journey through modern cultural history by studying iconography associated with East Asian pop culture that relates to space, time, and regional intricacies. The course explores the tension between tradition and modernity from the rise of East Asia to the transformations of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean traditions, cultures and societies. Students will explore a wide-range of cultural texts, including: Chinese soap operas, Japanese anime (manga), and Korean TV dramas, while thinking about how East Asia relates to the West. [In English]
We are all products of, and hostage to, the legacy of the splitting of the atom. This class examines the culture and politics of the nuclear era. If the immediacy of nuclear issues seemed to fade with the Cold War, they have now come roaring back: The 2017 Nobel Peace Prize went to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons among growing fears of nuclear war with North Korea and a backdrop of other possible nuclear conflicts, including between India and Pakistan. The 2011 meltdown in Fukushima sent radiation round the world and is an ongoing catastrophe. This course explores the lived spaces between the the “thinkable” world of strategy and policy and the “unthinkable” world of worst case scenarios (e.g. mutually assured destruction, nuclear winter, meltdowns). Sites of war and accidents, of waste storage and weapons testing, are also the sites of new forms of social awareness, popular culture, and protest. We ask how did managing unimaginable risks become part of “normal” life? What is the relation between nuclear weapons and energy? How has society dealt with the tension between knowledge and responsibility—of scientists, politicians, and ordinary people—as they face situations where people struggle most elementally with their relation to nature, humanity, and power? Readings draw on ethnographies, reportage, scholarly writing, film, and popular culture. Students will complete an individual research project. With the hands of the Doomsday Clock set by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists at 2.5 minutes to midnight, this class aims to provide a timely perspective on our parlous contemporary situation.
FIRST YEAR SEMINAR: CHINA THROUGH SATIRE. This course seeks to understand China from the perspective of satire. Students will examine how Chinese artists, activists, humorists, and novelists use different media and messaging to lampoon the wealthy and powerful in China, and to creatively comment on social and global crises. The course also considers trans-border networks of satirical practice.
Covid-19 is not only a pandemic but its spread and consequences on human lives will be uneven, shaped by social, economic and political contexts of 21st century globalization. The variable experience of the pandemic in different countries has thrown a spotlight on implicit and explicit social contracts, uneven geographies of rights and freedoms, gendered burdens of household care work, divergent conceptions of individual and collective welfare, as well as asymmetries of resources and power within and between countries. It also underlines the consequences of 21st century capitalism, even as national contexts vary in their economic policies, health systems, and infrastructures. This course will use COVID 19 as a lens through which to understand underlying structures, norms, and values in societies around the world, and to understand the nature of global capitalism in the 21st century. The course will be organized as a series of lectures by faculty from across the New School, and by guest speakers. Some specific themes that will be covered in the course include politics of data, digital cultures, borders and mobility of microbes and migrants, economic inequalities and access to health care, gendered consequences of economic crises, and global flows of technologies and scientific knowledge. Open to undergraduate Juniors and Seniors only by permission of the instructor.
Students in this ensemble will learn and perform repertoire from a variety of Indian music styles and genres, including popular music and the classical traditions of North India (Hindustani music) and South India (Karnatak music). Special attention is paid to the principles of raga and tala as well as improvisational techniques and approaches that have been of great interest to jazz musicians for decades.
This course explores a range of perspectives on the role of knowledge in the economy, with a focus on introducing students to the political economy and comparative systems frameworks and using those frameworks to analyze the topic in relation to economic planning. The course has three modules: (I) Methodology and Philosophy of the Study of Economics and Knowledge, which provides a survey of the forms of knowledge and information in the economy (innovation, tacit knowledge, etc.) and introduces an array of theoretical bases for understanding knowledge and ideology. The second module, (II) Theory and Empirical Evidence of the Role of Knowledge in Economic Planning, begins with the Socialist Calculation Debates and the theme of centralized and decentralized knowledge. Building on this, we explore historical examples of knowledge in economic planning within the USSR, Yugoslavia, and the People’s Republic of China. Finally, the third module, (III) Contemporary Political Economy of Knowledge, examines knowledge under contemporary capitalism and highlights the relationship of capitalist ideology and the privatization of knowledge. This module introduces students to the so-called “knowledge-economy” and legal institutions that support knowledge-ownership (intellectual property rights). From here, the course concludes with current discussions of the monopolization and commodification of knowledge. The overarching goal of the three modules is to create a strong theoretical basis for discussion, and then explore the topic in the context of non-capitalist systems and, by contrast, under contemporary capitalism.
This course will give you practical ways to deepen your sense of pulse and rhythm, as well as methods to become comfortable with any rhythmic challenge. Using rhythm languages from several cultures, we explore how to negotiate odd meters, incorporate deep breathing thru overtone singing and learn rhythm compositions from South India. Students will periodically use their principle instrument or voice to try out the concepts we learn. Each week the class will receive a handout covering new material and the assignment for the next class.
Through a mix of lectures, films, discussion, and guest speakers, this course will interrogate what we might mean by order, global norms, rights, and cooperation and consider global affairs through the lenses of colonialism, decolonization, race, class, empire, and resistance, among other themes. This core class surveys the field of International Affairs in response to new global realities, from Black Lives Matter and democratic socialism to ascendant right-wing movements and conflicts stemming from the acute ecological and health crises that confront the twenty-first century. As countries, peoples, governments, cultures, and economies are brought closer together by globalization and ecological and public health challenges, many of these same forces work to separate them, supporting nationalisms, identitarian movements, and retreats to the local. IA practitioners must have a keen understanding of the political stakes of these developments as well as of the institutional, social, and ecological realities that shape them. To that end, this course will examine longstanding debates in IA as well as introducing students to various theoretical and political movements that have sought to critique and remake the academic study and practice of international affairs.
The course follows Global Flows (NINT 5001) in a two-course sequence of required courses.
This course introduces the multiple dimensions and theoretical perspectives involved in understanding cities and the process of urbanization. It will demonstrate how the intersection and integration of multiple perspectives is needed to understand how urban processes operate. The course will introduce urban demography, economy and institutions, infrastructure, architecture and visual representation, physical space, social relations, and culture. Students will undertake individual and group assignments in a dynamic seminar format in which these perspectives will be illustrated through a sample of cities from different regions of the world.
This course is part of the Cities & Social Justice concentration in the Julien J. Studley Graduate Programs in International Affairs.
Undergraduate and Graduate – Spring 2023
With an emphasis on matters of artistic exchange, this course delves into premodern processes and patterns of movement which we have now come to know as “globalization”. We will be looking at cultural transmissions through land and maritime trade routes, known collectively as the “Eurasian steppe” and “Silk Routes”, from the early Iron Age to the end of the Mongol Empire’s hegemony in Eurasia. Why do we find Roman glass in ancient Chinese tombs? How did Persian textiles find their way to Nara, Japan? Why did Greek craftsmen settle in the Northern Indian subcontinent? We will explore how trade, war, diplomacy and migration were continuously shaping the artistic, sociopolitical and economic landscapes of Eurasian empires and communities until the end of the 15th century. Students will view mobility through various new lens by exploring the diffusion paths of artworks as well as music, literature, religions, ideologies and political movements from East Asia all the way to Europe.
This course focuses on premodern art in China and its neighbors in Inner Asia, defined here as present-day Mongolia, Siberia and the Russian Far East. We will follow the paths of ancient nomads, monks, merchants, ambassadors, warriors and explore the artistic traditions they helped build and disseminate across cultural spheres. As such, we will not view Chinese art in a vacuum but rather study the biographies and social lives of Chinese artworks in the larger context of premodern Afro-Eurasian trade networks such as the Silk Roads and Eurasian steppe routes. Why do we find Persian textiles and Roman glass in ancient Chinese tombs? How do we account for discoveries of Chinese ceramics as far as Madagascar? How might we under-stand the relationship between imperial China and its nomadic neighbors in light of recent archaeological discoveries? What changes did Chinese painting undergo under Mongol rule? How did Buddhism arrive in indigenous Siberian communities? These are just some of the questions we address in the course, inspired by the premise that concepts, religions, ideologies can travel just as swiftly as people, animals and objects. We will critically assess different types of movements and migratory patterns and the ways in which they shaped art in the region of China and Inner Asia. From bronze casting to manuscript illumination to throat signing, the course traces the historical fates of a wide range of monuments, crafts and performance arts.
Urban design, Chinese fashion, and creative economies are the primary subjects of this course offered in Chinese, which is intended to support the development of advanced speaking, writing, and critical analysis in Mandarin Chinese. This undergraduate course features the study of Chinese fashion cultures that are transnational and global as well as the study of urban centers throughout China, which have grown into design and creative hubs and hosts of cultural economies. The course embarks on analyzing film/media texts and short readings related to the luxury goods market, urban design, cities in China and cultural Mar-kets. In Chinese. Proficiency: intermediate-high or advanced level of proficiency in Mandarin is required.
This seminar introduces students to some of the most influential interpretations of colonialism (broadly understood) that have been advanced by thinkers in different intellectual-political traditions from across the central core and peripheral fringe. Studying the writings of Anglo-European authors (i.e.: uneven and combined development, imperialism, southern question, global color line, boomerang effect) alongside those of their Latin American, Indian and Pan-African counterparts (i.e.: nationalism, dependency, subaltern, post-colonial, de-colonial feminism) provides an opportunity to explore their many shared and diver-gent concerns as well as some of the subterranean continuities and discontinuities that have defined the boundaries of the age-old dispute on colonialism. In examining their writings, we focus on how each thinker analyzed the material and symbolic links between colonialism and modernity (i.e.: capitalism, liber-al democracy, rational and universal principles), and the way their interpretation of them conditioned their depiction of and the differential hierarchies they established among and between countries, peoples, institutions and practices of the Global North and South. The purpose of this exercise, however, is not to ‘pro-vincialize,’ ‘universalize’ or ‘particularize’ any one aspect or either region, as is commonly done by scholars today. Instead, it is to encourage us to reflect critically on the following two questions (and others closely related to them): A) does the anti-colonial perspective provide a convincing counter-narrative of the emergence and development of modernity (capitalism, liberal democracy, rational and universal principles), and is it capable of challenging the image it has of itself? and B) what are the consequences of relying on a ‘con-cept-interpretation’ that has been developed to analyze a specific issue or problem that surfaced in a given ‘place-time’ to make sense of a similar but somewhat different socio-political-cultural formation?
This seminar introduces students to some of the most influential interpretations of colonialism (broadly understood) that have been advanced by thinkers in different intellectual-political traditions from across the central core and peripheral fringe. Studying the writings of Anglo-European authors (i.e.: uneven and combined development, imperialism, southern question, global color line, boomerang effect) alongside those of their Latin American, Indian and Pan-African counterparts (i.e.: nationalism, dependency, subaltern, post-colonial, de-colonial feminism) provides an opportunity to explore their many shared and divergent concerns as well as some of the subterranean continuities and discontinuities that have defined the boundaries of the age-old dispute on colonialism. In examining their writings, we focus on how each thinker analyzed the material and symbolic links between colonialism and modernity (i.e.: capitalism, liberal democracy, rational and universal principles), and the way their interpretation of them conditioned their depiction of and the differential hierarchies they established among and between countries, peoples, institutions and practices of the Global North and South. The purpose of this exercise, however, is not to ‘provincialize,’ ‘universalize’ or ‘particularize’ any one aspect or either region, as is commonly done by scholars today. Instead, it is to encourage us to reflect critically on the following two questions (and others closely related to them): A) does the anti-colonial perspective provide a convincing counter-narrative of the emergence and development of modernity (capitalism, liberal democracy, rational and universal principles), and is it capable of challenging the image it has of itself? and B) what are the consequences of relying on a ‘concept-interpretation’ that has been developed to analyze a specific issue or problem that surfaced in a given ‘place-time’ to make sense of a similar but somewhat different socio-political-cultural formation?
This reading-intensive course examines the history of journalism practices on the lands that make up mod-ern-day India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, and the Maldives. Through a variety of texts, guest Q&As, presentations, screenings, and group discussions, we will consider historical and contemporary topics of concern to press and public in the region, including free speech, censorship, misinformation, internet access, funding models, social media, colonial legacies, and identity-based discrim-ination and violence. We will study Western reporting practices in the region, as well as diasporic South Asian publications and journalists.
With the global ascendancy of neoliberalism, shared (or “equitable”) growth has been in decline, vividly il-lustrated by the post-1980 American case: four decades of wage stagnation and rising wage inequality, high rates of job insecurity, and a growing crisis in the affordability of housing, education and health care for working families. But outcomes such as these have been far from uniform across countries. This course will explore the access of working families in different countries/regions to decent jobs and welfare state bene-fits, framed by some key questions: Can changes in decent-pay jobs, pay inequality, and job security be ex-plained (as in the mainstream economics account) by market forces that raise the demand for cognitive skills, driven by the computerization and globalization of production? If this is the story, why haven’t mar-kets (and public policies) adjusted to eliminate this skill mismatch, and why do national outcomes differ so much? Or is the problem, instead, mainly a reflection of shifts in relative worker bargaining power that differ substantially by nation/region, driven by political choices designed to reduce the size of the welfare state (austerity economics) and promote wage suppression? If this is the story, and the inclusivity, com-plementarity and coherence of institutional regimes are critical to earnings, employment performance and the overall wellbeing of working families (as in the comparative political economy account), which institu-tions matter most, in what combination, and for which workers? And further, if some capitalisms offer more protection (bargaining power) to workers, do we see a tradeoff with employment performance (e.g., the rate of unemployment), or can more egalitarian varieties of capitalism also be complementary with full employment?
Undergraduate and Graduate – Fall 2022
This ULEC “China Today” is honored and featured as one of the New School Online Signature Courses. The series of university lectures and discussions open up new critical intellectual spaces for students to contemplate on questions such as the following: Why is it important to learn about China in the age of globalization and de-globalization? How to understand a country and civilization that is oftentimes understudied and misrepresented in the West? How to critically view its rapid development and recurring controversies in the domains of art, culture, economy, and politics? This course examines today’s China through the lens of theory and practice, representation and visuality, critical analysis and debates. It is part of the core curriculum of critical China Studies. Students will be introduced to various heated topics such as uneven development, social inequality, rise of China, US-China relations, media censorship, post-COVID geopolitical order, contemporary Chinese art and political activism. By the end of the semester, students will be expected to develop considerable empirical and critical knowledge about China. Guest speakers will be invited to present their topics and dialogue with students.
This undergraduate course is designed for high-intermediate to advanced-level students who are interested in Chinese popular culture and contemporary cultural politics. Students study Mandarin Chinese language and society through the dynamic lens of popular culture, TV drama and cinema, and new media. Additional key topics include contemporary Chinese art, fashion and youth culture. [In Chinese] Proficiency: intermediate-high or advanced level proficiency in Mandarin Chinese.
This course offers a comprehensive survey of the visual culture and aesthetics situated at the heart of dis-course in China, Japan and Korea from B.C.E to the present. We examine both traditional and modern art forms and modes of making, from ancient ornament, calligraphy and ink painting to present-day video art and online beauty apps, with particular attention to matters of patronage and political thought. China, Japan and Korea will be studied in the broader context of their mutual exchanges and interactions with the rest of Eurasia through the Silk Road. The course focuses on trade, diplomacy and war as major factors shaping East Asian art from the ancient period to the 21st century. We will often question and revisit conventional narratives by looking away from the major commercial centers of Beijing, Shanghai, Tokyo and Seoul and exploring regional and inter-regional artistic developments as historical antecedents of the emerging global art scene in East Asia.
Students in this ensemble will learn and perform repertoire from a variety of Indian music styles and gen-res, including popular music and the classical traditions of North India (Hindustani music) and South India (Karnatak music). Special attention is paid to the principles of raga and tala as well as improvisational tech-niques and approaches that have been of great interest to jazz musicians for decades.
This course examines global slaveries in their varying forms: debt labor, forced labor, domestic servitude, and sexual slavery. Diverse systems of bondage have existed for thousands of years, appearing in Ancient Greece, colonial America, medieval Russia, and nineteenth-century Brazil. Slavery even persists in present-day nations like the African country of Mauritania, where the institution was outlawed in 1981, and India, where there are an estimated 14.3 million slaves. Even in the United States, human traffickers buy and sell men and women who are forced to perform bonded labor or withstand sexual servitude. This course will compare historic and contemporary forms of slavery to comprehend their origins, structures, and defining characteristics. Students will grapple with important ethical questions to create definitions for fluid terms like slavery, bondage, liberty, and freedom. The class will identify similarities between institutions of slav-ery that differ geographically or temporally and pinpoint their unique features. Finally, students will assess the factors that led to slavery’s demise in different civilizations and find patterns across historical data. Readings include classic works of comparative history, present-day articles written by investigative journal-ists, and oral testimonies of former slaves. The course will also evaluate visual materials including photo-graphs and documentary films. Assignments will include response papers and a final essay that compares global slaveries.
This reading-intensive course examines the history of journalism practices on the lands that make up modern-day India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, and the Maldives. Through a variety of texts, guest Q&As, presentations, screenings, and group discussions, we will consider historical and contemporary topics of concern to press and public in the region, including free speech, censorship, misinformation, internet access, funding models, social media, colonial legacies, and identity-based discrimination and violence. We will study Western reporting practices in the region, as well as diasporic South Asian publications and journalists.
This course begins with an exploration of the ideas, interests, and institutions that are at the root of distinct national (and regional) political economies and then studies the consequences of these Varieties of Capitalism for wage, income, wealth, and health inequalities. Led by the US and UK, mainstream thinking and political discourse in many countries shifted sharply to the political right after the early 1980s, reflecting the growing influence of neoliberalism – the view that economic growth, individual freedom and social wellbeing requires a heavy dose of market incentives in the form of low taxes, minimal regulation, and skimpy safety-net policies designed above all to promote low-wage work. Crucially, neither this turn to neoliberalism nor the related trends in inequality and job quality has been uniform across (or within) nations. For example, there are stark geographic differences in the strength of labor unions, the level of the minimum wage, and the generosity of government benefits across American states and across the rich world. The second part of the course will build on this foundation with an examination of two recent health disasters: the recent American opioid epidemic and the current global Covid-19 pandemic. What explains the yawning gap in opioid mortality rates between West Virginia/Kentucky and New York/New Jersey, and between Covid-19 hospitalization and mortality rates in South Dakota and Iowa, on the one hand, and New York, Kerala (Southern India), and New Zealand on the other? More specifically, how important are ideological preferences for small government, levels of income/wealth inequality, and the power of large corporations (e.g., pharmaceuticals) for explaining policy responses to these health crises and for the pattern of health outcomes for at-risk populations? We will conclude by turning this question around: What effects will these epidemics have on future economic inequality, on ideas about individual freedom and preferences for market vs collective solutions, and ultimately, for differences in national and regional capitalisms? Convergence or divergence?
This course examines global slaveries in their varying forms: debt labor, forced labor, domestic servitude, and sexual slavery. Diverse systems of bondage have existed for thousands of years, appearing in Ancient Greece, colonial America, medieval Russia, and nineteenth-century Brazil. Slavery even persists in present-day nations like the African country of Mauritania, where the institution was outlawed in 1981, and India, where there are an estimated 14.3 million slaves. Even in the United States, human traffickers buy and sell men and women who are forced to perform bonded labor or withstand sexual servitude. This course will compare historic and contemporary forms of slavery to comprehend their origins, structures, and defining characteristics. Students will grapple with important ethical questions to create definitions for fluid terms like slavery, bondage, liberty, and freedom. The class will identify similarities between institutions of slavery that differ geographically or temporally and pinpoint their unique features. Finally, students will assess the factors that led to slavery’s demise in different civilizations and find patterns across historical data. Readings include classic works of comparative history, present-day articles written by investigative journalists, and oral testimonies of former slaves. The course will also evaluate visual materials including photographs and documentary films. Assignments will include response papers and a final essay that compares global slaveries.
Undergraduate and Graduate – Spring 2022
With an emphasis on matters of artistic exchange, this course delves into premodern processes and patterns of movement which we have now come to know as “globalization”. We will be looking at cultural transmissions through land and maritime trade routes, known collectively as the “Eurasian steppe” and “Silk Routes”, from the early Iron Age to the end of the Mongol Empire’s hegemony in Eurasia. Why do we find Roman glass in ancient Chinese tombs? How did Persian textiles find their way to Nara, Japan? Why did Greek craftsmen settle in the Northern Indian subcontinent? We will explore how trade, war, diplomacy and migration were continuously shaping the artistic, sociopolitical and economic landscapes of Eurasian empires and communities until the end of the 15 th century. Students will view mobility through various new lens by exploring the diffusion paths of artworks as well as music, literature, religions, ideologies and political movements from East Asia all the way to Europe.
This class offers an introduction to the evolution and transmission of Buddhist imagery across Asia. Students will undertake a journey into the rich visual cultures and artistic traditions of Buddhist communities in India, China, Japan, Korea, Mongolia, Siberia, and parts of Southeast Asia. The course also examines Buddhist art in the context of other religions and against the backdrop of war, trade and migration. We will learn to read Buddhist images and decipher their meaning and function across various media and settings such as murals, monasteries, dance rituals, gardens, and personal adornment. How did Buddhist patronage take roots in ancient China? How do we understand Zen rock garden displays in the Japanese shogunate? Why do we find Buddhist architecture in imperial Russia? How did governments across Asia use Buddhist illustrated books and grand architectural projects to advance a political agenda? These are some of the inquiries we will pursue in this course.
Urban design, Chinese fashion, and creative economies are the primary subjects of this course offered in Chinese, which is intended to support the development of advanced speaking, writing, and critical analysis in Mandarin Chinese. This graduate course features the study of Chinese fashion cultures that are transnational and global as well as the study of urban centers throughout China, which have grown into design and creative hubs and hosts of cultural economies. The course embarks on analyzing film/media texts and short readings related to the luxury goods market, urban design, cities in China and cultural Markets. In Chinese. Proficiency: intermediate-high or advanced level of proficiency in Mandarin is required.
The fastest growing city in the world today is in Nigeria. The city that added the largest number of people over the last year is in India. Cities in the global south are rising, forming, and reshaping rapidly, but until recently they were the subject of much misunderstanding. The problem is not that powerful Northern actors ignored cities of the global south; rather, it is that the entire framework for their study emerged from models based on European and U.S. cities. Because of this, global north scholars, planners, architects, policy makers, economists, and development experts have systematically “misread” cities around the world. This course explores urbanization and city life in three world regions: Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia. We consider the political and economic contexts of rapid urban growth, the role of infrastructure and transportation, the cultures of rural-to-urban migration, as well as the modes of life that take hold in global south cities.
This seminar introduces students to some of the most influential interpretations of colonialism (broadly understood) that have been advanced by thinkers in different intellectual-political traditions from across the central core and peripheral fringe. Studying the writings of Anglo-European authors (i.e.: uneven and combined development, imperialism, southern question, global color line, boomerang effect) alongside those of their Latin American, Indian and Pan-African counterparts (i.e.: nationalism, dependency, subaltern, post-colonial, de-colonial feminism) provides an opportunity to explore their many shared and divergent concerns as well as some of the subterranean continuities and discontinuities that have defined the boundaries of the age-old dispute on colonialism. In examining their writings, we focus on how each thinker analyzed the material and symbolic links between colonialism and modernity (i.e.: capitalism, liberal democracy, rational and universal principles), and the way their interpretation of them conditioned their depiction of and the differential hierarchies they established among and between countries, peoples, institutions and practices of the Global North and South. The purpose of this exercise, however, is not to ‘provincialize,’ ‘universalize’ or ‘particularize’ any one aspect or either region, as is commonly done by scholars today. Instead, it is to encourage us to reflect critically on the following two questions (and others closely related to them): A) does the anti-colonial perspective provide a convincing counter-narrative of the emergence and development of modernity (capitalism, liberal democracy, rational and universal principles), and is it capable of challenging the image it has of itself? and B) what are the consequences of relying on a ‘concept-interpretation’ that has been developed to analyze a specific issue or problem that surfaced in a given ‘place-time’ to make sense of a similar but somewhat different socio-political-cultural formation?
This reading-intensive course examines the history of journalism practices on the lands that make up modern-day India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, and the Maldives. Through a variety of texts, guest Q&As, presentations, screenings, and group discussions, we will consider historical and contemporary topics of concern to press and public in the region, including free speech, censorship, misinformation, internet access, funding models, social media, colonial legacies, and identity-based discrimination and violence. We will study Western reporting practices in the region, as well as diasporic South Asian publications and journalists.
This course begins with an exploration of the ideas, interests, and institutions that are at the root of distinct national (and regional) political economies and then studies the consequences of these Varieties of Capitalism for wage, income, wealth, and health inequalities. Led by the US and UK, mainstream thinking and political discourse in many countries shifted sharply to the political right after the early 1980s, reflecting the growing influence of neoliberalism – the view that economic growth, individual freedom and social wellbeing requires a heavy dose of market incentives in the form of low taxes, minimal regulation, and skimpy safety-net policies designed above all to promote low-wage work. Crucially, neither this turn to neoliberalism nor the related trends in inequality and job quality has been uniform across (or within) nations. For example, there are stark geographic differences in the strength of labor unions, the level of the minimum wage, and the generosity of government benefits across American states and across the rich world. The second part of the course will build on this foundation with an examination of two recent health disasters: the recent American opioid epidemic and the current global Covid-19 pandemic. What explains the yawning gap in opioid mortality rates between West Virginia/Kentucky and New York/New Jersey, and between Covid-19 hospitalization and mortality rates in South Dakota and Iowa, on the one hand, and New York, Kerala (Southern India), and New Zealand on the other? More specifically, how important are ideological preferences for small government, levels of income/wealth inequality, and the power of large corporations (e.g., pharmaceuticals) for explaining policy responses to these health crises and for the pattern of health outcomes for at-risk populations? We will conclude by turning this question around: What effects will these epidemics have on future economic inequality, on ideas about individual freedom and preferences for market vs collective solutions, and ultimately, for differences in national and regional capitalisms? Convergence or divergence?
This course examines global slaveries in their varying forms: debt labor, forced labor, domestic servitude, and sexual slavery. Diverse systems of bondage have existed for thousands of years, appearing in Ancient Greece, colonial America, medieval Russia, and nineteenth-century Brazil. Slavery even persists in present-day nations like the African country of Mauritania, where the institution was outlawed in 1981, and India, where there are an estimated 14.3 million slaves. Even in the United States, human traffickers buy and sell men and women who are forced to perform bonded labor or withstand sexual servitude. This course will compare historic and contemporary forms of slavery to comprehend their origins, structures, and defining characteristics. Students will grapple with important ethical questions to create definitions for fluid terms like slavery, bondage, liberty, and freedom. The class will identify similarities between institutions of slavery that differ geographically or temporally and pinpoint their unique features. Finally, students will assess the factors that led to slavery’s demise in different civilizations and find patterns across historical data. Readings include classic works of comparative history, present-day articles written by investigative journalists, and oral testimonies of former slaves. The course will also evaluate visual materials including photographs and documentary films. Assignments will include response papers and a final essay that compares global slaveries.
Among the main preoccupations of the age of Enlightenment was the nature of human diversity. In eighteenth-century Europe an eagerness to categorize human beings led to a construction of race in which skin color was the primary racial marker. Scientific theorists associated the color white with light and intelligence. Johann Joachim Winckelmann eloquently fabricated a mythical “white” Greek antiquity, contributing to the birth of Neoclassical aesthetics that linked whiteness with beauty and power. This course seeks to interrogate the relationship between the marginalized body and material culture during this “enlightened” age, particularly the way material things and objects were employed to signify race, gender, and class. Like the marginalized bodies we will address, material objects and goods often deemed marginal – such as fans, cosmetics, or dressing tables – demand re-examination as potent sources of identity construction. As often as material things worked to reinforce social hierarchy, equally often they worked to subvert social norms. Rather than proceeding stylistically, chronologically, or geographically, this class will move thematically, considering such topics as gendered spaces and furnishings; sociability and craft; the intersection of landscape and labor; race at the table; sourcing and the erasure of colonial identity in the Atlantic world. Our aim is not to be historically comprehensive. Discussions will be wide-ranging geographically – including France, England, Italy, and Spain as well as Spanish America and the Caribbean. Students may extend their research projects to Eastern Europe, China, Japan, and the Ottoman Empire.
To engage with complex questions on increasing indignities, injustices, and inequities, we need critical interrogation of the idea and practices of “Caste” in and beyond South Asia. Caste is not only important for understanding the dehumanization of over 240 millions Dalits (also referred to as “untouchables”), it is also crucial for rethinking systemic inequities experienced by millions of African Americans and Adivasi-Janajati (Indian and Nepali indigenous people). For instance, we shall examine Isabel Wilkerson’s argument that Caste is important for understanding racism in America. What does she mean by “Caste is bones, race the skin,” and the ways in which race and caste questions can be better engaged with? The multi-disciplinary seminar course will interrogate epistemology of caste and its invisible and visible structures of systemic iniquities. The course will draw on theoretical debates and select narratives of Dalits, Blacks, and Adivasi-Janajati for understanding the idea and practice of pure (superior) and impure (inferior) people. By examining intersectionality of caste, race, gender, and class, the importance of dignity in sustainable development will be foregrounded. The course will draw on the work of, among others, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, W.E.B. Du Bois, Gunnar Myrdal, Nancy Fraser, Shailaja Paik, Sharmila Rege, Uma Chakravarti, Sukhdeo Thorat, Anupama Rao, Sarita Pariyar, Kalyani K., and Isabel Wilkerson. Select scholars on caste-questions will be joining seminar discussions as resource people. Forthcoming.
Post-Truth and Politics is a course that has grown out of the study of propaganda and public relations as media and political tools. Post-Truth—as a recent explosion of political culture in which debate is framed by appeals to emotion disconnected from the details of policy or impartial information—requires a careful examination. Is it political spin, wishful thinking, mass myth, art of evasion, or simple lying, based on “fake news” and “alternative facts”? There are repeated unverified assertions to which factual rebuttals are ignored, and people are compelled to believe something regardless of evidence. How do these differ from previous examples of political lying? There were of course Plato’s “noble lie,” or Machiavelli’s counsel that a good prince must be “a great pretender and dissembler.” What makes post-truth different from past political manipulations—including that of propaganda—is communicative abundance. This enables messages to be sent and received through multiple user points, in a chosen time, real or delayed, within global networks that are unregulated, affordable and accessible to billions of people. In this new era, Marshall McLuhan’s famous formula—the Medium is the Message distributed in a “global village” without restraint—has reached a new level of boundlessness. The message is based on a deliverer’s whim and itself becomes the medium. We will investigate how post-truth politics is manifested in various political cultures: among them, the USA, the UK, India, Turkey, Austria, Germany, Poland, and Russia.
In 1989, with the end of the Cold War, the United States was clearly the dominant power in international politics. After more than three decades, the United States remains the single most powerful country, but its power has declined. This course aims to explain changes in the extent and forms of American power. What changes have occurred? Why? Declining U.S. power could be due to shifting relations in international politics, to changes in the global political economy, or to political dysfunction within the United States. We focus on crucial episodes in the last three decades – the end of the Cold War, 9-11 and U.S. military actions, the Great Recession, and changing relations with China. We also consider the meanings of power and of ‘state’ within and across countries. We examine relations between American power and international organizations and law.
External Programs
Programs offered by educational institutions in China.
| School | Location | Type |
|---|---|---|
| Peking University | Beijing | Exchange Program offered by Guanghua School of Management |
| Harbin Institute of Technology | Harbin | University Exchange Program |
| Fudan University | Shanghai | University Exchange Program |
| Nanjing University | Nanjing | University Exchange Program |
| Chongqing University | Chongqing | University Exchange Program |
| Nankai University | Tianjin | University Exchange Program |
| Beijing Foreign Studies University | Beijing | Exchange Program offered by School of Chinese Language and Literature |
| Sichuan University | Chengdu | University Exchange Program |
| Tsinghua University | Beijing | University Exchange Program |
| Xiamen University | Xiamen, Fujian | University Exchange Program |
| Central University of Finance and Economics | Beijing | University Exchange Program |
| School | Location | Type |
|---|---|---|
| Peking University | Beijing | Yenching Academy |
| Tsinghua University | Beijing | Schwarzman Scholars |
| Beijing Normal University | Beijing | Master’s program |
| Zhejiang University | Hangzhou | Master’s program in Entrepreneurship and Global Leadership |
| Fudan University | Shanghai | Master’s program |
| National Chengchi University | Taipei, Taiwan | Master’s program |
| Hopkins-Nanjing Center | Nanjing | Master’s program |
| Shanghai Jiaotong University | Shanghai | Master’s program |
| The Communications University of China | Beijing | Cross-cultural Studies |
| University of Science and Technology of China | Hefei, Anhui | USTC Scholarship Program |
| Jinan University | Guangzhou | Master’s program |
| Wuhan University | Wuhan | Master’s program |
| School | Location | Type |
|---|---|---|
| Beijing Normal University | Beijing | PhD program |
| The Communication University of China | Beijing | Cross-cultural Studies |
| Tsinghua University – Yan Mathematical Sciences Center | Beijing | PhD program |
| Tsinghua-UC Berkeley Shenzhen Institute | Shenzhen | PhD program |
| School | Location | Type |
|---|---|---|
| Tsinghua University | Beijing | Shuimu Tsinghua Scholar Program |
| Peking University University – IIASA | Beijing, Laxenburg | IIASA Postdoctoral Program |
| Westlake Institute for Advanced Study | Hangzhou | Applied and Advanced Science |
| Zhejiang University | Hangzhou | Advanced Study in Humanities and Social Sciences |