Courses

CITY B185 Urban Culture and Society

Fall 2023

Examines techniques and questions of the social sciences as tools for studying historical and contemporary cities. Topics include political-economic organization, conflict and social differentiation (class, ethnicity and gender), and cultural production and representation. Philadelphia features prominently in discussion, reading and exploration as do global metropolitan comparisons through papers involving fieldwork, critical reading and planning/problem solving using qualitative and quantitative methods.

Course does not meet an Approach

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Counts Toward International Studies

Back to top

CITY B190 The Form of the City: Urban Form from Antiquity to the Present

Spring 2024

This course studies the city as a three-dimensional artifact. A variety of factors, geography, economic and population structure, politics, planning, and aesthetics are considered as determinants of urban form.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Back to top

CITY B201 Introduction to GIS for Social and Environmental Analysis

Fall 2023, Spring 2024

This course is designed to introduce the foundations of GIS with emphasis on applications for social and environmental analysis. It deals with basic principles of GIS and its use in spatial analysis and information management. Ultimately, students will design and carry out research projects on topics of their own choosing. Prerequisite: At least sophomore standing and Quantitative Readiness are required (i.e.the quantitative readiness assessment or Quan B001).

Quantitative Readiness Required (QR)

Counts Toward Data Science

Counts Toward Environmental Studies

Back to top

CITY B207 Topics in Urban Studies

Section 001 (Spring 2023): Building Boston
Section 001 (Spring 2024): Philadelphia Architecture & Urbanism

Spring 2024

This is a topics course. Course content varies.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Back to top

CITY B217 Topics in Research Methods

Section 001 (Spring 2023): Planning and Policy Analysis
Section 001 (Fall 2023): Research Mthds/Social Sciences

Fall 2023

This is a topics course. Course content varies.

Current topic description: Research Methods in the Social Sciences: This course is a hands-on introduction to the research process. It will provide students with the practical skills needed to design, conduct, and analyze original research of the complexity of a thesis-length project. Specifically, students will build knowledge and experience in research design (how to craft a good research question and match methods to the question), research methods (quantitative methods involving analysis of pre-existing large-n survey data and the qualitative methods of case study, content analysis, and interviewing), and data analysis (basic descriptive and inferential statistical analysis using Excel and SPSS along with qualitative data analysis using computer-assisted qualitative data analysis). No computer programming is required or taught.

Quantitative Methods (QM)

Counts Toward Data Science

Back to top

CITY B226 Introduction to Architectural Design

Fall 2023

This studio design course introduces the principles of architectural design. Suggested Preparation: drawing, some history of architecture, and permission of instructor.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Back to top

CITY B228 Problems in Architectural Design

Spring 2024

A continuation of CITY 226 at a more advanced level. Prerequisites: CITY B226 or permission of instructor.

Course does not meet an Approach

Back to top

CITY B229 Topics in Comparative Urbanism

Section 001 (Spring 2023): Migration, Race, and Conflict
Section 001 (Spring 2024): Colonial & Post Colonial Reflections

Spring 2024

This is a topics course. Course content varies.

Current topic description: Probing the relations of colonial and post-colonial power that both structure and are structured by cities, this writing-intensive class employs a comparative case study approach to explore social, cultural and spatial realities of everyday life in these deeply divided cities. We will examine and compare history, form and processes of differentiation and reconstruction of urban and national life in Hong Kong, Belfast, the Magreb-Paris axis, and the Mexican-American border.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward International Studies

Counts Toward Latin American,Iberian,Latinx

Back to top

CITY B240 Cities of the Global South

Not offered 2023-24

This course surveys the dynamic social and spatial processes that make (and constantly re-make) cities in the Global South. We examine what it means to be a city in the 'Global South' and study the commonalities that unite these spaces in a post-colonial, post-Bretton Woods world. That said, this is a course that centers diversity among cases in Latin America, the Middle East/North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia: the unique demands and interventions of people and community groups working for a better urban life, the experimental efforts of local political leaders and planners, and the ways in which particular local histories layer upon themselves to produce a world of singular urban experiences. Local film, memoir, activist non-fiction, and interviews with local planners and practitioners will supplement academic readings to provide a 'street-level' view of everyday life in global cities.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Counts Toward International Studies

Back to top

CITY B248 Architectural History Research Workshop

Fall 2023

This course aims to build students' mastery at working with historical documents, both visual and textual, and the rich body of scholarly writings that offer key materials for research in architectural and urban history. The course will operate as a collective workshop that will frame structured adventures in research, starting with a detailed focus on the evolution of places through time. We will work with a wide range of document types, and among our best new friends will be highly detailed old maps and historical views, from watercolors and prints to early photographs. City directories, records of ownership, census information, newspaper notices, and documents related to building construction and form will complement these to fill in key elements in emerging narratives. Such sources will also allow us to explore the agency of individuals in a variety of roles that have shaped places, and the lives framed by those building activities. Beyond focusing on specific sites to construct microhistories, we will also look for larger patterns of built form in which they participate, alongside other contingent narratives from the practices of architects to the activities of developers, well-defined building typologies, and the roots of demographic distributions. In our workshop sessions we will engage different types of evidence and analytical resources through small exercises, imagining the kinds of questions and curiosities such materials might inform, as well as inverting such inquiries, starting with the questions. Our overall model will be to delve in and then report out, in a range of ways.

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Back to top

CITY B250 Topics: Growth & Spatial Org of Cities

Section 001 (Fall 2022): Patterns, change, and agency
Section 001 (Spring 2024): Urban Morphology

Spring 2024

This is a topics course. Course content varies.

Current topic description: Patterns, change, and agency: This course explores morphological patterns and types within the evolving city, focusing upon forms associated with functions and populations, their disposition in urban space, and the forces that shaped them.

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Back to top

CITY B253 Before Modernism: Architecture and Urbanism of the 18th and 19th Centuries

Not offered 2023-24

The course frames the topic of architecture before the impact of 20th century Modernism, with a special focus on the two prior centuries - especially the 19th - in ways that treat them on their own terms rather than as precursors of more modern technologies and forms of expression. The course will integrate urbanistic and vernacular perspectives alongside more familiar landmark exemplars. Key goals and components of the course will include attaining a facility within pertinent bibliographical and digital landscapes, formal analysis and research skills exercised in writing projects, class field-trips, and a nuanced mastery of the narratives embodied in the architecture of these centuries.

Back to top

CITY B254 History of Modern Architecture

Fall 2023

A survey of the development of modern architecture since the 18th century.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Back to top

CITY B306 Advanced Fieldwork Techniques: Places in Time

Not offered 2023-24

A hands-on workshop for research into the histories of places, intended to bring students into contact with some of the raw materials of architectural and urban history. A focus will be placed on historical images and texts, and on creating engaging informational experiences that are transparent to their evidentiary basis.

Back to top

CITY B328 Analysis of Geospatial Data Using GIS

Spring 2024

An advanced course for students with prior GIS experience involving individual projects and collaboration with faculty. Completion of GIS (City 201) or equivalent with 3.7 or above. Instructor permission required after discussion of project.

Quantitative Readiness Required (QR)

Counts Toward Data Science

Back to top

CITY B337 The Chinese City

Not offered 2023-24

This course examines Chinese urbanization as both a physical and social process. Drawing broadly on scholarship in anthropology, political science, geography, and city planning, we will construct a history of the present of Chinese cities. By taking the long view on China's urban development, this course seeks to contextualize and make sense of the sometimes dazzling, sometimes dismal, and often contested landscape of everyday life in contemporary urban China. Prior familiarity with China and the Chinese language is welcomed but not required.

Course does not meet an Approach

Back to top

CITY B340 History and Design Workshop

Spring 2024

This course combines historical and theoretical research with studio and design practice in architecture. It is project based and allows students to work collaboratively on research questions relevant to built environments. This iteration tracks the form and choices shaping three successive built landscapes over five centuries - from the agricultural communities of Quakers in Wales and the Welsh Tract in Lower Merion in the 17th and 18th centuries to the commuter suburb of the 19th and 20th. The course also looks ahead from this history as a studio collectively exploring key elements of a "New Bryn Mawr" as an idealized sustainable community of 1000 residents whose design specifically addresses environmental concerns, inequality, anxiety, joblessness, and spatial fragmentation.

Back to top

CITY B345 Advanced Topics in Environment and Society

Not offered 2023-24

This is a topics course. Topics vary.

Back to top

CITY B350 Urban Projects: Cities Praxis

Fall 2023, Spring 2024

In this course advanced students will work with local groups around concrete projects. Class sessions will convene to discuss background readings as well as evaluation of tools and experiences.

Current topic description: Advanced students will engage with the working world of planning and urban design by conducting oral histories of planners and designers, including leading founders and thinkers of New Urbanism. Students will be matched with interviewees based on the student's topical, professional, and geographic interests. Interview archival materials will be housed at the University of Miami Library for future researchers.

Course does not meet an Approach

Counts Toward Praxis Program

Back to top

CITY B360 Topics: Urban Culture and Society

Section 001 (Fall 2022): The American House
Section 001 (Fall 2023): Urban Theory
Section 001 (Spring 2024): New Urbanism

Fall 2023, Spring 2024

This is a topics course. Course content varies.

Current topic description: Urban theory is a tool with which to critique existing cities, a position from which to imagine cities yet to come, and a structure with which to generate interventions in the space between. This course will trace the intellectual lineages of contemporary critical and postmodern urban theory and put the '-isms' into practice to help make sense of the forces that differentiate and segregate individuals - and those that bring us together as urban citizens. Open to cities majors and non-majors who have taken an introductory course in social theory.

Current topic description:

Current topic description: Explores physical, social, economic, and political aspects of urban change with special emphasis on the design and cultural strategies underpinning the emergence of New Urbanism as a planning ethos, critiques and practice evident in major New Urban developments

Back to top

CITY B365 Topics: Techniques of the City

Section 001 (Spring 2023): Making & Remaking Philadelphia
Section 001 (Spring 2024): Making & Remaking Philadelphia

Spring 2024

This is a topics course. Course content varies.

Current topic description: This course explores how governance, politics, economics, planning, and community and social action have shaped and continue to shape modern American cities, with a special focus on Philadelphia. Course content will include theoretical, historical, academic, and popular texts. Students will have the opportunity to interact with guest speakers active in various aspects of Philadelphia's urban landscape. Students also will conduct independent research on topics of their choosing. For advanced majors but also open to others by permission.

Back to top

CITY B377 Topics in Modern Architecture

Section 001 (Fall 2022): East Asian Architecture
Section 001 (Spring 2023): Reading Architecture

Not offered 2023-24

This is a topics course on modern architecture. Topics vary.

Current topic description: Multiplicity & Singularity in later 19th C. Architecture: An examination of later 19th C. architecture, with particular focus on issues of multiplicity and singularity.

Back to top

CITY B378 Formative Landscapes: The Architecture and Planning of American Collegiate Campuses

Not offered 2023-24

The campus and buildings familiar to us here at the College reflect a long and rich design conversation regarding communicative form, architectural innovation, and orchestrated planning. This course will explore that conversation through varied examples, key models, and shaping conceptions over time.

Back to top

CITY B398 Senior Seminar

An intensive research seminar designed to guide students in writing a senior thesis.

Back to top

CITY B403 Independent Study

Back to top

CITY B415 Teaching Assistant

An exploration of course planning, pedagogy and creative thinking as students work to help others understand pathways they have already explored in introductory and writing classes. This opportunity is available only to advanced students of highest standing by professorial invitation.

Back to top

CITY B425 Praxis III: Independent Study

Praxis III courses are Independent Study courses and are developed by individual students, in collaboration with faculty and field supervisors. A Praxis courses is distinguished by genuine collaboration with fieldsite organizations and by a dynamic process of reflection that incorporates lessons learned in the field into the classroom setting and applies theoretical understanding gained through classroom study to work done in the broader community.

Counts Toward Praxis Program

Back to top

CITY B450 Urban Internships/Praxis

Individual opportunities to engage in praxis in the greater Philadelphia area; internships must be arranged prior to registration for the semester in which the internship is taken. Prerequisite: permission of instructor.

Back to top

ANTH B216 Transnational Movements Across the Americas

Not offered 2023-24

Globalization has enabled the movement of people, the trade of goods, and the exchange of culture and ideas but it has also created unprecedented problems such as inequality, exploitation, and environmental crisis. However, the networks formed by globalization have also created exciting opportunities for activists to organize across borders, tackle issues of global concern, and develop creative solutions. This course will introduce students to the study of transnational social movements with a focus on the Americas. We will make use of ethnographic case studies, documentary film, and an interdisciplinary social science literature to examine transnational movements on a variety of themes such as: human rights, the rights of indigenous peoples, the environment, biodiversity conservation, climate justice, the alter-globalization movement, and the rights of nature. Students will learn about the historical context of transnationalism, theories of social movement and collective action, the study of networks of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and the strategies mobilized by transnational actors to advocate on issues of social and environmental justice. Prerequisite: Sophomore standing and up; or first years who have taken Anth 102

Back to top

ANTH B356 The Politics of Public Art

Spring 2024

In this class we will explore the politics of public art. While we will look at the political messaging of public art, we will also seek to understand how public art, through its integration into a social geography, has a political impact beyond its meaning. We will see how art claims public space and structures social action, how art shapes social groups, and how art channels economic flows or government power. By tracing the ways that art is situated in public space, we will examine how art enters into urban contest and global inequality. Class activity will include exploration of public art and students will be introduced to key concepts of urban spatial analysis to help interrogate this art. One 200-level course in Social Sciences, Humanities, or Arts fields, or permission of the instructor

Course does not meet an Approach

Back to top

ARCH B104 Archaeology of Agricultural and Urban Revolutions

Not offered 2023-24

This course examines the archaeology of the two most fundamental changes that have occurred in human society in the last 12,000 years, agriculture and urbanism, and we explore these in Egypt and the Near East as far as India. We also explore those societies that did not experience these changes.

Back to top

ARCH B110 The World Through Classical Eyes

Not offered 2023-24

A survey of the ways in which the ancient Greeks and Romans perceived and constructed their physical and social world. The evidence of ancient texts and monuments will form the basis for exploring such subjects as cosmology, geography, travel and commerce, ancient ethnography and anthropology, the idea of natural and artificial wonders, and the self-definition of the classical cultures in the context of the oikoumene, the "inhabited world."

Back to top

ARCH B203 Ancient Greek Cities and Sanctuaries

Not offered 2023-24

A study of the development of the Greek city-states and sanctuaries. Archaeological evidence is surveyed in its historic context. The political formation of the city-state and the role of religion is presented, and the political, economic, and religious institutions of the city-states are explored in their urban settings. The city-state is considered as a particular political economy of the Mediterranean and in comparison to the utility of the concept of city-state in other cultures.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward Museum Studies

Back to top

ARCH B212 Visual Culture of the Ancient Mediterranean

Not offered 2023-24

This course explores the visual culture of the ancient Mediterranean world from the second millennium BCE to early Roman times. Drawing from an extensive variety of extant evidence that includes monuments, sculpture, paintings, mosaics, and artifacts deriving from culturally and geographically distinct areas, such as the Minoan world, Egypt, Turkey, Syria, Phoenicia, Cyprus, Greece, Macedonia, Italy, Tunisia, and Spain, the course explores how such evidence may have been viewed and experienced and how it may have, in turn, shaped the visual culture of the well-interconnected ancient Mediterranean world. Focusing on selected examples of evidence, including its materials, style, and methods of production, the course will also consider how past and current scholarly attitudes, approaches, and terminology have affected the understanding and interpretation of this evidence.

Writing Attentive

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward MECANA Studies

Back to top

ARCH B244 Great Empires of the Ancient Near East

Not offered 2023-24

A survey of the history, material culture, political and religious ideologies of, and interactions among, the five great empires of the ancient Near East of the second and first millennia B.C.E.: New Kingdom Egypt, the Hittite Empire in Anatolia, the Assyrian and Babylonian Empires in Mesopotamia, and the Persian Empire in Iran.

Writing Attentive

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward MECANA Studies

Back to top

ARCH B252 Pompeii

Not offered 2023-24

Introduces students to a nearly intact archaeological site whose destruction by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 C.E. was recorded by contemporaries. The discovery of Pompeii in the mid-1700s had an enormous impact on 18th- and 19th-century views of the Roman past as well as styles and preferences of the modern era. Informs students in classical antiquity, urban life, city structure, residential architecture, home decoration and furnishing, wall painting, minor arts and craft and mercantile activities within a Roman city.

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward Museum Studies

Back to top

ARCH B260 Daily Life in Ancient Greece and Rome

Spring 2024

The often-praised achievements of the classical cultures arose from the realities of day-to-day life. This course surveys the rich body of material and textual evidence pertaining to how ancient Greeks and Romans -- famous and obscure alike -- lived and died. Topics include housing, food, clothing, work, leisure, and family and social life.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Back to top

ARCH B305 Topics in Ancient Athens

Not offered 2023-24

This is a topics course. Course content varies.

Back to top

ARCH B316 Trade and Transport in the Ancient World

Not offered 2023-24

Issues of trade, commerce and production of export goods are addressed with regard to the Bronze Age and Iron Age cultures of Mesopotamia, Arabia, Iran and south Asia. Crucial to these systems is the development of means of transport via maritime routes and on land. Archaeological evidence for traded goods and shipwrecks is used to map the emergence of sea-faring across the Indian Ocean and Gulf.

Back to top

ARCH B352 Ancient Egyptian Archaeology

Not offered 2023-24

This course will examine two aspects of ancient Egyptian Archaeology. This first is the history of archaeological work in Egypt: tracing methodological developments, the impact of imperialism, colonialism, and race-based theories of the 19th and early 20th centuries on the development of archaeological thought, and where the field of archaeology in Egypt stands today. The second will examine settlements in ancient Egypt - from workmen's villages to planned "temple towns" to "lost cities" - in order to understand the built environment inhabited by the ancient Egyptians. Although the material that the ancient Egyptians used to build their homes, as well as their location in the flood-plain, often makes finding and studying settlements difficult, there are sources of evidence that can help us to rediscover where and how the ancient Egyptians lived, and allow us to reevaluate older theories about ancient Egyptian culture and society.

Writing Attentive

Back to top

ARCH B505 Topics in Ancient Athens

Not offered 2023-24

This is a topics course. Topics vary.

Back to top

ARCH B516 Trade and Transport in the Ancient World

Not offered 2023-24

Issues of trade, commerce and production of export goods are addressed with regard to the Bronze Age and Iron Age cultures of Mesopotamia, Arabia, Iran and south Asia. Crucial to these systems is the development of means of transport via maritime routes and on land. Archaeological evidence for traded goods and shipwrecks is used to map the emergence of sea-faring across the Indian Ocean and Gulf while bio-archaeological data is employed to examine the transformative role that Bactrian and Dromedary camels played in ancient trade and transport.

Back to top

BIOL B262 Urban Ecosystems

Spring 2024

Cities can be considered ecosystems whose functions are highly influenced by human activity. This course will address many of the living and non-living components of urban ecosystems, as well as their unique processes. Using an approach focused on case studies, the course will explore the ecological and environmental problems that arise from urbanization, and also examine solutions that have been attempted. Prerequisite: BIOL B110 or B111 or ENVS B101.

Course does not meet an Approach

Counts Toward Environmental Studies

Back to top

ECON B208 Labor Economics

Fall 2023

Analysis of labor markets. Focuses on the economic forces and public policies that determine wage rates and unemployment. Specific topics include: human capital, family decision marking, discrimination, immigration, technological change, compensating differentials, and signaling. Prerequisite: ECON B105.

Course does not meet an Approach

Back to top

ECON B214 Public Finance

Fall 2023

Analysis of government's role in resource allocation, emphasizing effects of tax and expenditure programs on income distribution and economic efficiency. Topics include sources of inefficiency in markets and possible government responses; federal budget composition; social insurance and antipoverty programs; U.S. tax structure and incidence. Prerequisites: ECON B105.

Counts Toward Health Studies

Back to top

ECON B215 Urban Economics

Not offered 2023-24

Micro- and macroeconomic theory applied to urban economic behavior. Topics include housing and land use; transportation; urban labor markets; urbanization; and demand for and financing of urban services. Prerequisite: ECON B105.

Back to top

ECON B225 Economic Development

Spring 2024

Examination of the issues related to and the policies designed to promote economic development in the developing economies of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. Focus is on why some developing economies grow faster than others and why some growth paths are more equitable, poverty reducing, and environmentally sustainable than others. Includes consideration of the impact of international trade and investment policy, macroeconomic policies (exchange rate, monetary and fiscal policy) and sector policies (industry, agriculture, education, population, and environment) on development outcomes in a wide range of political and institutional contexts. Prerequisite: ECON B105.

Course does not meet an Approach

Counts Toward Environmental Studies

Counts Toward International Studies

Back to top

ECON B236 Introduction to International Economics

Fall 2023, Spring 2024

An introduction to international economics through theory, policy issues, and problems. The course surveys international trade and finance, as well as topics in international economics. It investigates why and what a nation trades, the consequences of such trade, globalized production, the role of trade policy, the economics of immigration, the behavior and effects of exchange rates, and the macroeconomic implications of trade and capital flows.Prerequisites: ECON B105. The course is not open to students who have taken ECON B316 or B348.

Counts Toward International Studies

Back to top

ECON B253 Introduction to Econometrics

Fall 2023, Spring 2024

An introduction to econometric terminology and reasoning. Topics include descriptive statistics, probability, and statistical inference. Particular emphasis is placed on regression analysis and on the use of data to address economic issues. The required computational techniques are developed as part of the course. Class cannot be taken if you have taken H203 or H204. Prerequisites: ECON B105 and a 200-level elective. ECON H201 does not count as an elective.

Quantitative Methods (QM)

Counts Toward Data Science

Back to top

ECON B314 The Economics of Social Policy

Spring 2024

Introduces students to the economic rationale behind U.S. government programs and the evaluation of U.S. social policies. Topics include minimum wage, unemployment, safety net programs, education, health insurance, and climate change. Additionally, the instructor and students will jointly select topics of special interest to the class. Emphasis will be placed on the use of statistics to evaluate social policy. Writing intensive. Prerequisites: ECON B200 and (ECON B253 or ECON B304)

Writing Intensive

Back to top

ECON B324 The Economics of Discrimination and Inequality

Fall 2023

Explores the causes and consequences of discrimination and inequality in economic markets. Topics include economic theories of discrimination and inequality, evidence of contemporary race- and gender-based inequality, detecting discrimination, identifying sources of racial and gender inequality, and identifying sources of overall economic inequality. Additionally, the instructor and students will jointly select supplementary topics of specific interest to the class. Possible topics include: discrimination in historical markets, disparity in legal treatments, issues of family structure, and education gaps. Writing Intensive. Prerequisites: At least one 200-level applied microeconomics elective; ECON 253 or 304; ECON 200.

Writing Intensive

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Counts Toward Gender/Sex Studies (Min/Conc)

Back to top

ENVS B202 Environment and Society

Spring 2024

An exploration of the ways in which different cultural, economic, and political settings have shaped issue emergence and policy making. We examine the politics of particular environmental issues in selected countries and regions, paying special attention to the impact of environmental movements. We also assess the prospects for international cooperation in addressing global environmental problems such as climate change. Pre-requisite ENVS B101 or ENVS H101 or instructor's permission.

Current topic description: An exploration of the ways in which different cultural, economic, and political settings have shaped issue emergence and policy making. We examine the politics of particular environmental issues in selected countries and regions, paying special attention to the impact of environmental movements. We also assess the prospects for international cooperation in addressing global environmental problems such as climate change.

Writing Attentive

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Counts Toward Environmental Studies

Back to top

GEOL B209 Natural Hazards

Spring 2024

A quantitative approach to understanding the earth processes that impact human societies. We consider the past, current, and future hazards presented by geologic processes, including earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides, floods, and hurricanes. The course includes discussion of the social, economic, and policy contexts within which natural geologic processes become hazards. Case studies are drawn from contemporary and ancient societies. Lecture three hours a week.

Quantitative Methods (QM)

Quantitative Readiness Required (QR)

Scientific Investigation (SI)

Counts Toward Environmental Studies

Back to top

GERM B217 Representing Diversity in German Cinema

Spring 2024

German society has undergone drastic changes as a result of immigration. Traditional notions of Germanness have been and are still being challenged and subverted. This course uses films and visual media to examine the experiences of various minority groups living in Germany. Students will learn about the history of immigration of different ethnic groups, including Turkish Germans, Afro-Germans, Asian Germans, Arab Germans, German Jews, and ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe. We will explore discourses on migration, racism, xenophobia, integration, and citizenship. We will seek to understand not only the historical and contemporary contexts for these films but also their relevance for reshaping German society. Students will be introduced to modern German cinema from the silent era to the present. They will acquire terminology and methods for reading films as fictional and aesthetic representations of history and politics, and analyze identity construction in the worlds of the real and the reel. This course is taught in English

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Counts Toward Gender/Sex Studies (Min/Conc)

Back to top

GERM B245 Interdisciplinary Approaches to German Literature and Culture

Section 001 (Fall 2023): Scenes of Observation:

Fall 2023

This is a topics course. Taught in German. Course content varies. Previous topics include, Women's Narratives on Modern Migrancy, Exile, and Diasporas; Nation and Identity in Post-War Austria.

Current topic description: Scenes of Observation: Physicians, Scientists, and Experiments in German Literature. This course explores scenes of experimentation and medical observation in German literature from the eighteenth century to the early twentieth century, probing the nexus between literature, artistic practices, and the sciences. Figures of the scientist or the physician as observers of human behavior and natural phenomena often find themselves at the very threshold of knowledge, navigating structures of power that operate both socially and biologically. In the wake of the Age of Reason, they are both agents of order and originators of chaos, testing themselves, others, and cultural frameworks that give rise to their position and insights on the human condition. Disease, illness, gender, and disability become loci of investigation that unmoor the stability of scientific and medical observation. In the early twentieth century, scenes inside and outside of the clinic stage different dimensions of human life mediated through interactions with physicians, responding to new technological developments that begin to shift what it means to be human and to study the human. This course will feature works by Thomas Mann, among others, and writers who themselves were trained in the sciences or as physicians, including Gottfried Benn, Georg Büchner.

Writing Attentive

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Counts Toward Gender/Sex Studies (Min/Conc)

Back to top

GERM B321 Advanced Topics in German Cultural Studies

Section 001 (Fall 2023): Asia and Germany through Film
Section 001 (Spring 2024): The Letter, the Spirit, and Beyond

Fall 2023, Spring 2024

This is a topics course. Course content varies. Recent topic titles include: Asia and Germany through Film; The Letter, the Spirit, and Beyond: German-Jewish Writers and Jewish Culture in the 18th and 19th Century.

Current topic description: Asia and Germany through Film. This course is interested in exploring the transnational relationship between Germany and Asian countries through the study of German-language films. It allows students not only to learn the culture, history, and politics of Germany, but also of Asian countries, specifically China, Japan, North and South Korea, Vietnam, and India. Since the 21st century is purported to become the Asian century, gaining cultural competence in Asia is an important part of a liberal arts education. The selected Asian German films cover the silent era to the present and represent a wide array of genres. Students will be acquainted with classical works by famous German directors, including Ernst Lubitsch, Richard Eichberg, Paul Wegener, Arnold Fanck, Hark Bohm, Fatih Akin, as well as by minority filmmakers of Asian origin, such as Byambasuren Davaa and Cho Sung-hyung. Important themes to consider are the colonial history of European powers and imperial Japan in Asia, the (racialized) representation of Asia and Asians in German-language film, Asian diaspora in Germany, and mutual perceptions of Germans and Asians. This course touches on prominent issues such as orientalism, race, gender, class, nation, cosmopolitanism, identity, and belonging. The language of instruction is German.

Current topic description: The Letter, the Spirit, and Beyond: German-Jewish Writers and Jewish Culture in the 18th and 19th Century: While Jewish history extends well over a thousand years in German-speaking lands, the political, cultural, and social changes in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries lay the foundation for German-Jewish relations today, and begin articulating new dimensions of the experiences the "Other," treated metaphorically through the tension between the "Letter" and the "Spirit." Starting in the Age of Reason, this course focuses on depictions of Jewishness in the literary works and intellectual contributions by German and German-Jewish authors, and explores ways in which German-Jewish identity goes beyond "the Letter" and "the Spirit." The fragile utopia of religious tolerance staged in Lessing's Nathan the Wise is followed by grotesque antisemitic tropes in the folk tales and fairy tales in Romanticism, and in other nationalist, artistic endeavors such as those by Richard Wagner. Stories of disguise, concealment, and intrigue double as metaphors of assimilation and conversion of Jewish life, highlighting the complicated and conflicted place of many German-Jewish writers. The salons cultivated and attended by German-Jewish women such as Rahel Varnhagen and Fanny Lewald yield generative, philosophical thought and intellectual contributions. We will conclude by looking at twentieth century German-Jewish writers after the Holocaust, and the status of antisemitism and philosemitism in Germany today.

Course does not meet an Approach

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Counts Toward Gender/Sex Studies (Min/Conc)

Back to top

GNST B245 Introduction to Latin American, Iberian and Latina/o Studies

Spring 2024

A broad, interdisciplinary survey of themes uniting and dividing societies from the Iberian Peninsula to the Americas. The class introduces the methods and interests of all departments in the concentration, posing problems of cultural continuity and change, globalization and struggles within dynamic histories, political economies, and creative expressions. Course is taught in English.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Counts Toward International Studies

Counts Toward Latin American,Iberian,Latinx

Back to top

HART B103 Survey of Western Architecture

Spring 2024

The major traditions in Western architecture are illustrated through detailed analysis of selected examples from classical antiquity to the present. The evolution of architectural design and building technology, and the larger intellectual, aesthetic, and social context in which this evolution occurred, are considered. This course was formerly numbered HART B253; students who previously completed HART B253 may not repeat this course.

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Back to top

HART B110 Introduction to Medieval Art and Architecture

Fall 2023

This course takes a broad geographic and chronological scope, allowing for full exposure to the rich variety of objects and monuments that fall under the rubric of "medieval" art and architecture. We focus on the Latin and Byzantine Christian traditions, but also consider works of art and architecture from the Islamic and Jewish spheres. Topics to be discussed include: the role of religion in artistic development and expression; secular traditions of medieval art and culture; facture and materiality in the art of the middle ages; the use of objects and monuments to convey political power and social prestige; gender dynamics in medieval visual culture; and the contribution of medieval art and architecture to later artistic traditions. This course was formerly numbered HART B212; students who previously completed HART B212 may not repeat this course.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Back to top

HART B268 Telling Bryn Mawr Histories: Topics, Sources, and Methods

Not offered 2023-24

This course introduces students to archival and object-based research methods, using the College's built environment and curatorial and archival collections as our laboratory. Students will explore buildings, documents, objects, and themes in relation to the history of Bryn Mawr College. Students will frame an original group research project to which each student will contribute an individual component. Prerequisite: An interest in exploring and reinterpreting the institutional and architectural history of Bryn Mawr College and a willingness to work collaboratively on a shared project.

Back to top

HART B310 Topics in Medieval Art

Section 001 (Spring 2023): Medieval Manuscripts
Section 001 (Fall 2023): Art and Medieval Jewish Communities
Section 001 (Spring 2024): Africa & Byzantium

Fall 2023, Spring 2024

This is a topics course. Course content varies. Prerequisite: one course in History of Art at the 100- or 200-level or permission of the instructor. Enrollment preference given to majors and minors in History of Art.

Current topic description: Art and Medieval Jewish Communities: What does medieval Jewish art look like? How were Jewish people and Jewish practices represented in the art of other medieval communities? This course explores art and material culture produced between c. 300-1500 CE in contexts as diverse as late antique Rome, Umayyad Spain, and Gothic France. Looking at a wide variety of media, it will trace histories of Jewish devotion and self-representation. It will also study how art reflects the multiple relationships of subversion, appropriation, appreciation, tolerance, and oppression that Jewish communities met in different medieval contexts.

Current topic description: This seminar explores the current exhibition "Africa & Byzantium," mounted by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and on view in 2023-2024 in New York and at the Cleveland Art Museum in 2024. Students will consider the exhibition in the context of several other recent exhibitions on medieval Africa as well as in conjunction with the exhibition "Ethiopia at the Crossroads," on view simultaneously at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore. Larger themes current in medieval studies -- including intercultural mobility, art and trade, "global" dimensions of Byzantine art, and the study of "race before race" in the pre-modern world -- will inform our discussions. Students will travel to New York and Baltimore to view exhibitions in person and will have the opportunity to meet with curators and scholars involved in both shows.

Course does not meet an Approach

Back to top

HART B330 Topics in Renaissance and Baroque Art

Section 001 (Fall 2023): Palladio and neo-Palladianism
Section 001 (Spring 2024): The Fresco

Fall 2023, Spring 2024

This is a topics course. Course content varies. This course was formerly numbered HART B323.

Current topic description: This seminar is concerned with the idea of architecture in the Renaissance and with Palladio in particular. But it is also concerned, at a wider level and at different moments and indeed in culture beyond Italy, with the idea of the villa, the country house and all that is invoked by the idea of living and building, not in a city,, but beyond it in the country.

Current topic description: The Fresco

Course does not meet an Approach

Back to top

HART B346 The History of London Since the Eighteenth Century

Spring 2024

Selected topics of social, literary, and architectural concern in the history of London, emphasizing London since the 18th century. This course was formerly numbered HART B355; students who previously completed HART B355 may not repeat this course. Prerequisite: one course in History of Art at the 100- or 200-level or permission of the instructor. Enrollment preference given to majors and minors in History of Art.

Course does not meet an Approach

Back to top

HART B370 Topics in History & Theory of Photography

Section 001 (Spring 2023): the Afterlife of Photography,

Not offered 2023-24

This is a topics course. Course content varies. Prerequisite: one course in History of Art at the 100- or 200-level or permission of the instructor. Enrollment preference given to majors and minors in History of Art. This course was formerly numbered HART B308.

Course does not meet an Approach

Back to top

HIST B237 Themes in Modern African History

Section 001 (Spring 2023): Public History in Africa
Section 001 (Spring 2024): Public History in Africa

Spring 2024

This is a topics course. Course content varies

Current topic description: This course will explore the colonial and postcolonial practices in public history. It will address the following question: in an age of "fake news" and "history wars", how can we understand the relationship between the public and the place of the past? Topics will include exhibitions; museum practices and colonial outlooks; commemorations and identities; monuments; film, popular history and memory; heritage and regeneration; oral history and public engagement; and public policy. We will also discuss ongoing inter-sectional and interdisciplinary decolonizing approaches to breaking received hierarchies and narratives. The course will also introduce students to the methodological and theoretical issues in the practice of public history.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward Africana Studies

Counts Toward Gender/Sex Studies (Min/Conc)

Counts Toward International Studies

Counts Toward Museum Studies

Back to top

HIST B257 British Empire I: Capitalism and Slavery

Not offered 2023-24

Focusing on the Atlantic slave trade and the slave plantation mode of production, this course explores English colonization, and the emergence and the decline of British Empire in the Americas and Caribbean from the 17th through the late 20th centuries. It tracks some of the intersecting and overlapping routes-and roots-connecting histories and politics within and between these "new" world locations. It also tracks the further and proliferating links between developments in these regions and the histories and politics of regions in the "old" world, from the north Atlantic to the South China sea.

Back to top

HIST B319 Topics in Modern European History

Section 001 (Fall 2022): Growing Up in Communism

Fall 2023

This is a topics course. Course content varies.

Current topic description: From Red Lights to Urban Gardens, History and Culture of Central European Cities. From the quaint bustling cafes of Vienna to the boulevards and bathhouses of Budapest this seminar will explore the social, cultural, and structural history of Central European cities from the late nineteenth century to the present. In cultural capitals like Vienna, Prague, Budapest, and Berlin we will examine how architecture, class formation, popular and high art, leisure, youth culture, (im)migration, gender, and sexuality created and built the urban (and suburban) landscape of Modern Europe.

Counts Toward International Studies

Back to top

HIST B325 Topics in Social History

Section 001 (Fall 2022): Radical Movements
Section 001 (Fall 2023): American Health Politics

Fall 2023

This a topics course that explores various themes in American social history. Course content varies. Course may be repeated. Current topic description Health care in America has always been political. From historical debates to modern controversies, this course explores the social and cultural dimensions of American medicine and public health, with particular attention to their politics. Incorporating analysis of primary historical sources, we will examine issues such as health activism, health insurance reform, medical civil rights battles, reproductive justice, the doctor-patient relationship, and the rise of modern bioethics.

Counts Toward Gender/Sex Studies (Min/Conc)

Back to top

ITAL B308 Rome as Palimpsests: from Ruins to Virtual Reality

Not offered 2023-24

From the urban dream that Raphael confessed to pope Leo X in the middle of the Renaissance to the parkour on the top of the Colosseum in the Assassin's Creed videogames, Rome has always been both a memory and a vision: a place of nostalgia and endless potential. In this course we will investigate some crucial places, moments, and ideas in the modern history of this ancient capital of Western culture: XVI century Mannerist painting and the Pop Art of Piazza del Popolo, the early modern re-uses of the Colosseum and its cubic clone designed under fascism, the narrations of Romantic grand-tours and the ones of contemporary postcolonial authors. We will adopt a trans-historical and inter-disciplinary perspective, focusing on the main attempts to revive the glory of the ancient empire. We will try to understand weather Italy's capital is a museum to be preserved, an old laboratory of urban innovations, a cemetery, a sanctuary, or simply an amalgam of past and future, glory and misery, beauty and horror. For Italian majors you will have an additional hour for credit. Prerequisite: One two-hundred level course for students interested in taking the course towards Italian credits.

Back to top

ITAL B318 Falling Statues: myth-making in literature, politics and art

Not offered 2023-24

We have become accustomed to the rituals of the dismissal of the heroes of the past: we tear down statues, we rename buildings and places. But how did we get there? How, why and by whom are heroes constructed? When old heroes are questioned, what substitutes them? How are the raise and fall of heroes tied to shifting models of masculinity, womanhood, power and the state? In this course, we will explore these questions focusing on Italy and Russia, two countries that in the 19th and 20th century went through several cycles of construction and deconstruction of their political heroes. In the first part of the course, we will investigate the codification of the "type" of the freedom-fighter in the representations of the protagonists of 19th-century European revolutionary movements, focusing on the links between the Italian Risorgimento and the anti-Tsarist movement in Russia, culminating in the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. From the pamphlets that consecrated the Italian Garibaldi as the "hero of the two worlds" to the autobiographies of the Russian terrorists and the transcripts of their trials, we will investigate myth-making as a constitutive part of political movements and reflect on the models of masculinity and womanhood at the foundation of the "typical" revolutionary hero. In the second part of the semester, we will focus on Stalinism and Fascism, systems that exploited their revolutionary roots to mobilize supporters in favor of oppressive institutions. Finally, we will discuss the many ways in which 19th - and 20th-century heroes have been confronted, neutralized, dismantled - and the many ways in which their models still haunt us. We will focus on literary texts and political speeches, but we will also analyze propaganda posters, movies, paintings, photographs, monuments and even street names. For your final project, you will have the option of building on our class discussions to explore myth-making in contemporary movements or forms of deconstruction of existing heroes.

Back to top

MEST B210 The Art and Architecture of Islamic Spirituality

Spring 2024

This course examines how Muslim societies across time and space have used art and architecture in different ways to express and understand inner dimensions of spirituality and mysticism. Topics to be studied include: the calligraphical remnants of the early Islamic period; inscriptions found on buildings and gravestones; the majestic architecture of mosques, shrines, seminaries, and Sufi lodges; the brilliant arts of the book; the commemorative iconography and passion plays of Ashura devotion; the souvenir culture of modern shrine visitation; and the modern art of twenty-first century Sufism. Readings include works from history, religious studies, anthropology, sociology, and the history of art and architecture.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Counts Toward MECANA Studies

Counts Toward Visual Studies

Back to top

POLS B224 Comparative Political Phil: China, Greece, and the "West"

Not offered 2023-24

An introduction to the dialogic construction of comparative political philosophy, using texts from several cultures or worlds of thought: ancient and modern China, ancient Greece, and the modern West. The course will have three parts. First, a consideration of the synchronous emergence of philosophy in ancient (Axial Age) China and Greece; second, the 19th century invention of the modern "West" and Chinese responses to this development; and third, the current discussions and debates about globalization, democracy, and human rights now going on in China and the West. Prerequisite: At least one course in either Philosophy, Political Theory, or East Asian Studies, or consent of the instructor.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Counts Toward International Studies

Back to top

POLS B256 Global Politics of Climate Change

Not offered 2023-24

This course will introduce students to important political issues raised by climate change locally, nationally, and internationally, paying particular attention to the global implications of actions at the national and subnational levels. It will focus not only on specific problems, but also on solutions; students will learn about some of the technological and policy innovations that are being developed worldwide in response to the challenges of climate change. Only open to students in 360 program.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Counts Toward Environmental Studies

Back to top

SOCL B200 Urban Sociology

Spring 2024

How do social forces shape the places we live? What makes a place urban? What is a suburb and why do we have them? What's environmental racism? Why are cities in the US still highly racially segregated? We will take on these questions and more in this introduction to urban sociology. Classic and contemporary urban social theories will inform our investigations of empirical research on pressing urban issues such as housing segregation, the environment, suburbanization, transportation and inequality. The course has a special focus on the social, economic and political forces that shape in urban space in ways that perpetuate inequality for African Americans.

Course does not meet an Approach

Counts Toward Africana Studies

Back to top

SOCL B205 Social Inequality

Not offered 2023-24

In this course, we will explore the extent, causes, and consequences of social and economic inequality in the U.S. We will begin by discussing key theories and the intersecting dimensions of inequality along lines of income and wealth, race and ethnicity, and gender. We will then follow a life-course perspective to trace the institutions through which inequality is structured, experienced, and reproduced through the family, neighborhoods, the educational system, labor markets and workplaces, and the criminal justice system.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Counts Toward Child and Family Studies

Counts Toward Gender/Sex Studies (Min/Conc)

Back to top

SOCL B338 The Black Diaspora in the US: African and Caribbean Communities.

Not offered 2023-24

An examination of the socioeconomic experiences of immigrants who arrived in the United States since the landmark legislation of 1965. After exploring issues of development and globalization at "home" leading to migration, the course proceeds with the study of immigration theories. Major attention is given to the emergence of transnational identities and the transformation of communities, particularly in the northeastern United States.

Back to top