Cultures & Contexts | 2022-2023

FALL 2022 CORE-UA 500, Cultures & Contexts: Greco-Roman Egypt
Prof. Ratzan (Institute for the Study of the Ancient World)
For more than a millennium after the reign of the last pharaohs, Egypt was controlled by a series of foreign powers: first the Persians, then the Greeks, and finally the Romans for nearly seven centuries until the arrival of the Arabs. But how did these empires communicate with and control their Egyptian subjects? For their part, how did the Egyptians experience imperial rule and react to their overlords? What stayed the same and what changed with these regimes and why? Indeed, after so many centuries, what did it really mean to be "Egyptian"? Such questions presume we know how to understand this history, but what model should we use--colonialism, multiculturalism, assimilation, Hellenization, Romanization--and what’s at stake for us in the way we write it? Focusing on Egypt between the pharaohs and the caliphs, we study key figures, places, and events in the history of Greco-Roman Egypt, as well as the important social, political, and economic conditions and processes that helped to shape that history, and explore the dynamic relationship between individuals, society, and empire in the ancient world.

FALL 2022 CORE-UA 502, Cultures & Contexts: Islamic Societies
Prof. Alatas (Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies) [Syllabus]
Islam and Politics—from the Prophet to the Present: An introduction to Islamic politics, that is, Islamic political thought and practice from the birth of Islam (c. 622) to the present. To give a comparative understanding of different configurations of Islamic politics that have taken shape in various parts of the Muslim world, students are introduced to the historical milieu, meaning, and significance of Islamic political cultures and practice as well as the various internal and external contestations that have continued to shape Islamic politics. Through exposure to the thoughts and activism of different Muslim leaders, thinkers, and ideologues, as well as various configurations of Islamic political formations, students gain a historical and comparative understanding of Islamic politics that will allow them to make sense of the latest trends in Islamic political thinking and practice, whether of reformist, modernist, liberal, or Islamist bent. At the same time, they develop a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between Islamic and Western political thinking, which has become a matter of urgency in the current global sociopolitical climate.

FALL 2022 CORE-UA 507, Cultures & Contexts: Japan
Prof. Shimabuku (East Asian Studies) [Syllabus]
Since its inception in 1868, Japan has been regarded as exceptional: its unification into a nation state was relatively bloodless and its ensuing speed of modernization shocked the world, some have praised it as the first “non-white” nation to defeat a “white” nation in the Russo-Japanese War while others criticized it for becoming a major imperial power that colonized vast regions of the Asian Pacific, its economy rose from ground zero after World War II to the second largest in the world by the late 1970s. Today, it offers the largest financial contribution to U.S. military base operations globally—the very U.S. military that dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Is Japan really exceptional? Does it possess a secret essence that enables it to do what others cannot? Or is the secret in its techniques of modernization and globalization that can, and in fact, have been used elsewhere? We study literary texts and films with theoretical and historical readings to rebuild the architecture of Japan’s “exceptional” modernization and uncover its hidden costs, paying particular attention to its innovative approaches toward multiethnicity as integral to its ability to not only manage, but thrive from economic crisis.

FALL 2022 CORE-UA 514, Cultures and Contexts: Ancient Israel
Prof. Fleming (Hebrew & Judaic Studies) [Syllabus]
Ancient Israel names the land and people of the Hebrew Bible, and it occupies a place in antiquity that is the “classical” background for Jewish, Christian, and Muslim religious heritage, much as Greece and Rome stand behind much of modern philosophy and science. Yet Israel in history remains difficult to approach, between a biblical text received only through centuries of later sifting, and archaeological data lacking names, voices, and stories. We piece together glimpses of ancient Israel through varieties of evidence, acknowledging degrees of uncertainty, with the ultimate goal of probing what life was like for everyday people.

FALL 2022 CORE-UA 528, Cultures & Contexts: Russia and Revolution
Prof. O'Donnell (History) [Syllabus]
By its own definition, the Soviet Union was neither nation-state nor empire, neither capitalist nor communist, neither east nor west. What was the Soviet Union? What is a personal dictatorship, and how did the Soviet Union become one? What was the role of the Communist Party in creating and maintaining Soviet rule? What was the role of violence or coercion? Did people “believe” in the Soviet Union, and if so, in what exactly? In the wake of recent challenges to liberal institutions across the Western world, the history of the Soviet Union offers its students critical insight into the characteristics of illiberal politics and unfree society. We examine the project of building socialism in the Soviet Union and its satellites, from the collapse of the Russian Empire to 1917 during the First World War, to the establishment of the Russian Federation in 1991. Though focused on Soviet institutions, practices, and ideologies, our aim is to situate the Soviet project in a global frame, and to assess the claim that Soviet socialism (though not necessarily the Soviet Union) was a project with a “shelf life,” conditioned by global politics and its own capacities for self-reproduction. Through extensive use of memoir, we consider individual processes of “illusionment” and disillusionment with the Soviet project, and analyze the life cycles of peasants, workers, bureaucrats, artists, writers, reformers, and other members of the Soviet establishment over time. Our analysis reaches from the First World War, through the creation of a socialist society, the geographical expansion of the socialist project and its subsequent implosion, into the new programs for liberalism, markets, and modernity of the 1990s and 2000s, and traces Soviet dominion, real and attempted, from Berlin to Baku, Vladimir to Vladivostok.

FALL 2022 CORE-UA 532, Cultures and Contexts: African Diaspora
Prof. Gomez (History)
The dispersal of Africans to various parts of the world and over time, examining their experiences and those of their descendants. Regions of special interest include the Americas and the Islamic world, centering on questions of slavery and freedom while emphasizing the emergence of cultural forms and their relationship to both African and to non-African influences.

FALL 2022 CORE-UA 536, Cultures and Contexts: Indigenous Australia
Prof. Myers (Anthropology) [Syllabus]
The indigenous people of Australia have long been the subject of interest and imagination by outsiders for their cultural formulations of kinship, ritual, art, gender, and politics, and they have entered into representations as distinctively "Other"—whether in negative or positive formulations of the "Primitive." These representations—in feature films about them such as Walkabout and Rabbit Proof Fence, in New Age Literature, or museum exhibitions—are now also in dialogue with their own forms of cultural production. At the same time, Aboriginal people have struggled to reproduce themselves and their traditions in their own terms, asserting their right to forms of cultural autonomy and self-determination. We explore the historical and geographical range of Aboriginal Australian forms of social being through ethnographic texts, art, novels, autobiographies, film and other media, and consider the ways in which identity is being challenged and constructed.

FALL 2022 CORE-UA 539, Cultures and Contexts: Asian/Pacific/American Cultures
Prof. Saranillio (Social and Cultural Analysis) [Syllabus]
Examines significant historical and contemporary moments through an analysis of culture and power and how cultural productions--film, television dramas, novels, visual art, national monuments and memorials, among others--produce ideas, stories and silences in different historical moments about different Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders that have contemporary resonance today. For instance, how is it that the bikini, which most people associate with suggestive beach wear, has its origins in the U.S. nuclear testing of the first hydrogen bomb on the Bikini Atoll that irradiated much of the Pacific? How do historical representations of Asian American men make the meteoric rise of basketball star Jeremy Lin so unexpected and anomalous? How do histories of U.S. wars in Asia coupled with anti-Asian immigrant legislation shape ideas about Asian Americans as “perpetual foreigners” even centuries after Asian migration to the United States? Using different methods of cultural inquiry such as visual and popular culture, sports and media studies, literary critique, political economy and legal studies, we examine the complex ways that ideas about race, gender, sexuality, and indigeneity produce unequal power relations in U.S. society.

FALL 2021 CORE-UA 544, Cultures & Contexts: Spain
Prof. Mendelson (Spanish & Portuguese) [Syllabus]
What does Spanish culture look like? How do Spanish artists and writers articulate the often complex understandings they have of themselves, their nation(s), their relation to modernity, and the broader international community? How has Spain been viewed by others, and how have these views informed individual and collective responses to Spain's place in the world. We critically approach Spanish culture by learning about specific works, their close analysis, and the contexts in which they exist (when they were made, how they were perceived, and how we come to study them today), from the 19th to the 21st century, a period of time that covers Spain's transition from its imperial pasts to its democratic present, with important historical moments throughout, including the Spanish-American War, the Spanish Civil War, and the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco. We study fiction, poetry, film, television, painting, poster art, photography, performance, and architecture; and whenever possible we connect with programs at New York’s museums, theaters, and parks.

FALL 2022 CORE-UA 545, Cultures and Contexts: Egypt of the Pharaohs
Prof. Roth (Art History/Hebrew & Judaic Studies)
The culture of ancient Egypt in the New Kingdom period, 1550-1069 B.C.E. During this period of imperial conquest, the ancient Egyptian civilization, already more than sixteen centuries old, increasingly interacted with peoples and civilizations beyond its borders. We examine the remains of this newly cosmopolitan pharaonic culture, including a variety of primary sources—texts (literature, popular stories, religious writings, letters, and administrative documents), as well as material culture (works of art, architecture, archaeological remains). Students learn how scholars analyze this material to reconstruct New Kingdom cultural life and use these methods themselves to gain insight into the Egyptians' religious beliefs, social forms and organizations, and conventions and achievements of their literature, art, and architecture, as well as to critically evaluate the interpretations and reconstructions in the secondary scholarship. Finally, we try to see how cultural assumptions interact and reinforce each other, playing out in a wide range of Egyptian cultural products.

FALL 2022 CORE-UA 556, Cultures & Contexts: Germany
Prof. Wood (German) [Syllabus]
An introduction to the achievements and paradoxes of modern German history and culture. Crucial historical background is the invention of the printing press by Johann Gutenberg in the 1450s, the Protestant Reformation catalyzed by Martin Luther in 1517, and the Thirty Years’ War of the seventeenth century, but the emphasis is on the shaping role that German art and thought have played within European modernity from the late eighteenth century to the present, culminating in the regeneration of German literature and art since the 1960s, involving such figures as Heinrich Böll, Christa Wolf, Alexander Kluge, Ingeborg Bachmann, W.G. Sebald, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Werner Herzog, Josef Beuys, Anselm Kiefer, Gerhard Richter, and Martin Kippenberger. Sources include literary, philosophical, and other texts, and works of art, architecture, music, and film.

Spring 2023

SPRING 2023 CORE-UA 500, Cultures and Contexts: Topics—Wine and Feasting in the Ancient Mediterranean
Prof. Kotsonas (Institute for the Study of the Ancient World) [Syllabus]
We explore the social significance of the production and consumption of wine, which is characteristic of the early civilizations of the Mediterranean, including western Asia, discussing a range of practices of communal wine consumption (especially feasting), and the role of this consumption in the construction of cultural identities and the manipulation of social relations in select cultures of the mid 2nd to the late 1st millennium BCE. We also explore the ways in which these phenomena contributed to the development of shared cultural practices across the Mediterranean, but also generated varied social and cultural meanings over wine consumption in different contexts and parts of the region. The emphasis on communal wine consumption relates to the value of wine in antiquity. This value derives from the uncommon conditions required for the cultivation of the grapevine, as well as the intoxicating and healing properties of wine. It is because of these properties that wine was associated with cult practices (especially libations), manifestations of power and patronage, and the definitions of aristocratic identity (e.g., through the symposium) in palaces and cities, and sanctuaries and cemeteries of the ancient Mediterranean. Pursuing a diachronic and cross-cultural perspective, we reflect on textual accounts and archaeological correlates of ancient Mediterranean cultural practices centered on wine, as well as on social and anthropological theory on feasting. We read ancient texts in translation, and engage with archaeological evidence, including materials in the collections of the Metropolitan and Brooklyn Museums.

SPRING 2023 CORE-UA 500, Cultures and Contexts: Topics—Middle Eastern Cities
Prof. Tawil-Souri (Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies) [Syllabus]
How has urban life been constructed, governed, experienced, contested, and transformed in the Middle East? We explore concepts such as colonialism, modernization, globalization, marginality, space, im/mobility, and greening as they inform the complexities of city life, and consider how these reshape social, cultural, political, and economic urban landscapes. Empirical cases primarily (but not exclusively) focus on modern and contemporary examples from the region, including Aleppo, Baghdad, Beirut, Cairo, Dubai, Gaza, Istanbul, Jerusalem, Mecca, Sana’a, Tehran, Tripoli, and others. We consider types of cities such as holy cities, divided cities, walled cities, refugee cities, informal cities, forgotten cities, and megalopolises; forms of cities such as downtown, suburbs, edge cities, and refugee camps; and conceptions of cities such as Oriental city, global city, and media capital. While situating a city within broader historical and geographical dynamics, we focus on what happens within a city, examining who and what shapes it; what kinds of systems and networks make city life possible; how different spaces, physical forms, infrastructures, institutions, and cultural practices change the dynamics and significance of city life; and how people experience, negotiate and define everyday city life. Sources include literary/creative texts, films, art, maps, websites, and sound recordings to consider the city itself as cultural text.

SPRING 2023 CORE-UA 500, Cultures and Contexts: Topics—Urban Life in the European City
Prof. Jütte (History) [Syllabus]
Throughout history, cities have been among the most complex forms of social and cultural organization. In the premodern period, many cities were also important political players with a high degree of autonomy; some even pursued imperial ambitions. Almost all functioned as centers of religious, economic, and cultural activity. Many cities were separated from their environs by massive walls of stone, underscoring the distinct character of the urban community. In reality, however, the fortunes of a city were often crucially tied to immigration and the diversity it engendered. And although every city aspired to construct its own unique identity, as reflected in founding myths or specific artistic agendas, many premodern cities had commonalities. They also faced the same problems, such as social inequality, overcrowding, and environmental crises. We explore the history of the Western city from a multidimensional and comparative perspective encompassing ancient Athens, imperial Rome, medieval Paris, Renaissance Venice, and eighteenth-century London, paying special attention to everyday life, and adopting a bottom-up approach to see how people of different backgrounds (e.g., gender, religion, and class) have experienced, imagined, and struggled with urban life. Can this rich archive of urban experiences from the past teach us lessons for the metropolises of our time?

SPRING 2023 CORE-UA 500, Cultures and Contexts: Topics—East Asia
Prof. Linkhoeva (History) [Syllabus]
This course is an introduction to the history of modern East Asia since the mid-nineteenth century to the present day. East Asia here is treated as one, deeply interconnected region, not just as a collection of disparate nation-states. We will cover many topics, but we will follow three main storylines: first, the political, social, and economic trends that have shaped the region since the mid-nineteenth century; second, the intellectual and social histories of imperialism, capitalism, and warfare in East Asia; and third, the region’s relationship to the rest of the world. The course emphasizes the use of original texts – political and philosophical treatises from Korea, Japan, and China, newspaper articles, political cartoons, photography, manga, and film. Thus, in addition to learning about the history and culture of East Asia, students will also be required to engage in close readings of textual and visual materials, to develop their practices of scholarly interpretation, and to hone their abilities to develop arguments on the basis of original sources.

SPRING 2023 CORE-UA 502, Cultures and Contexts: Islamic Societies
Prof. Baltacioğlu-Brammer (Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies) [Syllabus]
A survey of the politics, social life, culture, and economy of the Islamic world from the life of Prophet Muhammad (570-632) to the rise of the early modern Islamic empires in the sixteenth century. Islamic civilization rose from its humble origins in the seventh century Arabian Peninsula to become a world civilization and global culture, but how was this astonishing transformation accomplished? We examine the advent of Islam, as well as the development of the civilization that bears its name over a thousand-year period and analyze what Islam meant to different societies at different points in space and time. We consider both the shared features that have distinguished Muslim societies under the aegis of Islamic civilization and also the varieties of experience that endowed the region with vast cultural, ethnic, linguistic, and regional diversity. Topics include identity, Islamic law, mysticism, gender and sexualities, minorities, science, and art and architecture

SPRING 2023 CORE-UA 509, Cultures and Contexts: Caribbean
Prof. Khan (Anthropology) [Syllabus]
Examines the impact of the Caribbean's long colonial history from the perspective of its diverse populations, through race, class, culture, gender, and sexuality. Known for its beauty, cultural vitality, and mix of peoples, cultures, and languages, the Caribbean is where today's global economy began, some 500 years ago. Its sugar economy and history of slave labor and colonialism made it the site of massive transplantations of peoples and cultures from Africa for more than four centuries and from Asia since the mid-19th century, and of a sizable influx of peoples from Europe all along. Readings examine the history of the region's differing forms of colonialism; the present postcolonial economic and political structures; anthropological material on family and community life, religious beliefs and practices, gender roles and ideologies; and ways in which national, community, and group identities are expressed today.

SPRING 2023 CORE-UA 515, Cultures and Contexts: Latin America
Prof. Lane (Spanish & Portuguese) [Syllabus]
Over the last 50 years, millions of Latin Americans have experienced extraordinary shifts in their social, political, and cultural landscape, a result of the transformative effects of revolution or insurgency, state repression, popular resistance and social movements. We focus on events that had continental, hemispheric, and even global impact, including the Cuban Revolution of 1959, the military coups of the 1970s, and the Zapatista uprising in 1994. Drawing on a range of primary sources and cultural forms, we listen carefully to the voices of the major social actors of the time. Our sources are drawn from a wide range of media: newsprint, television broadcasts, transcripts, testimony, essay, documentary and feature film, art, and music. We deliberately mix artistic representations with documentary evidence to understand how the arts—music, visual art, literature, film—do not just reflect the reality around them, but are themselves vital sites for shaping and changing that reality and our imagination of it, both then and now.

SPRING 2023 CORE-UA 537, Cultures and Contexts: Modern Israel
Prof. Rosenberg-Friedman (Hebres & Judaic Studies) [Syllabus]
Modern Israel—Society and Culture: Despite its small size and population, Israel is a diverse, dynamic, and complex society. To understand its ethnic, religious, and political divisions, the different ethnic origins of the Jewish population over the last 150 years will be examined, and the growing role of the Arab population (approaching 20%) in Israeli society will be discussed. The special role of religion in the secular state, the development of Hebrew speaking culture, the political system, the settlement movement and the peace movement, gender issues, and the role of the army in everyday life are all addressed, concluding with a survey of the debate on whether Israel is a Jewish state or a state of all its citizens. Although the controversial issues that keep Israel in the headlines are touched on, the focus is the character of Israeli society and the impact on everyday life of living in the international limelight.

SPRING 2023 CORE-UA 543 Cultures and Contexts: Korea
Prof. Jeon (East Asian Studies) [Syllabus]
The history and culture of Korea from premodern times to the contemporary era, examining key moments, figures, and themes that speak to the varied experiences of the Korean people. Topics include state making, Korea’s relations to other states in East Asia, the modern transition, capitalist development, democratization, and ongoing social transformation. Sources include historical documents, literature, and film.

SPRING 2023 CORE-UA 554, Cultures and Contexts: Italy in Global Context
Prof. Forgacs (Italian Studies) [Syllabus]
Almost anything one might think of as typically Italian, from pasta to pizza, neorealism to Sophia Loren, Armani to the mafia, has been made or remodeled by contact and exchange with the world beyond Italy. This does not mean that they are “not really” Italian. They are, but what has made them really Italian have been circuits of international travel and trade and the accompanying processes of naming and comparison by which non-Italians have defined certain things as essentially Italian and Italians have seen themselves mirrored in those definitions, modified them, or branded and marketed themselves through them. To look at how all this works, we start with an overview of ideas of Italy from classical antiquity to the eighteenth century, moving to an analysis of travel to and within Italy, the internationalization of Italian food, drink, music, and fashion, the Futurist assault on Italy’s cultural heritage, and the Italian film and television industries in a global system. We examine how movements of people, both out of and into Italy, have involved a remaking of collective identities. Finally, we turn to international relations and changing perceptions of Italy on the world stage as a result of foreign policies, wars, and entry into the European Union. Throughout, students are invited to reflect critically on how Italy’s culture, political identity, and icons have been produced over time, and to consider how far similar process are at work in other nations, including their own.

SPRING 2023 CORE-UA 555, Cultures and Contexts: Brazil
Prof. Weinstein (History) [Syllabus]
Brazil's transformation from a colonial, agrarian, slave society to a predominantly urban, industrialized nation, and an aspiring world power. Considers how Brazil became both a major industrial power and a society with all the classic social ills of a “Global South” nation. We also explore the relationship between mainstream notions of modernity and development, and the many different social and cultural initiatives that have produced Brazil’s hybrid popular culture and multiple national identities. Topics include slavery, racism, and emancipation, urban life, immigration and industrialization, changing gender roles, carnaval and popular culture, and democratization.