Cogut Institute for the Humanities

Undergraduate Collaborative Humanities

Fall 2019 | HMAN 0701A / POBS 0711 | Brazilian Democracy in Literature and History
Leila Lehnen (Portuguese and Brazilian Studies) and James Green (Modern Latin American History and Portuguese and Brazilian Studies)
This course examines the concepts and practices of democracy through the history of its origins and transformations in Brazil from the twilight of slavery in the 1870s to the recent election of Jair Bolsonaro. The seminar, taking a cross-disciplinary approach to historical documents, historians’ narratives, literary texts, and cultural productions, explores how different intellectuals and political actors have understood the notions of democracy, both in theory and in practice. Students will engage with a variety of genres including film and collaborate on the production of short podcasts. Conducted in English.

Spring 2020 | HMAN 0700A / CLPS 0540 / ITAL 0701 | Simulating Reality: The (Curious) History and Science of Immersive Experiences
Fulvio Domini (Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences) and Massimo Riva (Italian Studies)
Can an experimental approach enhance our critical-historical understanding of immersive experiences? We will look at the history of 3D vision from an interdisciplinary perspective combining the science of perception and the cultural history of technology. Through a series of collaborative activities and team experiments, we will learn how popular, pre-digital optical devices (such as camerae obscurae, magic lanterns, panoramas or stereoscopes) foreshadow contemporary VR, AR, or XR experiences designed for education and entertainment. Among the themes explored: virtual travel, social voyeurism and surveillance, utopian, and dystopian imagination.

Graduate Collaborative Humanities

Fall 2019 | HMAN 2400P | The Idea of the University
Gerhard Richter (German Studies and Comparative Literature) and Peter Szendy (Humanities Scholar: Cogut Institute and Comparative Literature)
What is the future of the university? Its very idea has undergone drastic changes, from the formulation of “academic freedom” in 1155 to what, under neoliberal capitalism, has been called the “uberfication of the university.” Our seminar is dedicated to key texts — from Kant to Derrida and Butler — in this history, focusing on topics such as the corporatization of universities, political protest, and the unconditional. Students will pursue collaborative inquiries into the idea of a university or jointly translate significant historical and theoretical documents; their research will be the foundation of a critical lexicon hosted on a dedicated webpage.

Fall 2019 | HMAN 2400R | Tracing Translations: Artistic Migrations and Reinventions in the Early Modern World
Shahzad Bashir (Islamic Humanities) and Holly Shaffer (History of Art and Architecture)
This is a seminar about what happens when arts and ideas move. It defines processes of artistic and literary translation, from the repetition and reuse of narratives to the uncanny meeting of pictorial conventions to the tweaks, adjustments, and inventions that propelled arts across the early modern world. We will address theories of translation and imitation, and focus on problems of style, language, impostors, dictionaries, media, and ethnography, especially in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. Class will include training in artistic practices of replication and a collaborative project with special collections.

Fall 2019 | HMAN 2400S | Race, Nation, Immigration
Prerna Singh (Political Science and International and Public Affairs) and Michael Steinberg (History and Music)
This collaborative seminar investigates the imbrications of race, nation, and immigration from the comparative perspectives of the social sciences and the humanities. Taught by a political scientist with an emphasis on state/society relations in Asia and a historian with a focus on modern European intellectual history, politics, and arts, the course examines questions of belonging, inclusion, and exclusion in areas of the world that provide fruitful sites of analysis, such as the United States, Europe, South Asia (India), Latin America (Brazil), and Africa (South Africa). Materials will include films, fiction, theoretical writings, and data sets.

Spring 2020 | HMAN 2400T | Imagining Cities: Early Modern Urban Perspectives
Laura Bass (Hispanic Studies) and Evelyn Lincoln (History of Art and Architecture and Italian Studies
Every city is a palimpsest in space and time. Calvino’s “Invisible Cities” of reputation and imagination and Miéville’s double-awareness in “The City and the City” provide points of entry to visualizations and narrations of real and imagined urban centers. This course considers cities as varied as Rome, Seville, Mexico City, and the City of God in literature, political and architectural treatises, maps, images, and archaeological and historical records. This multidisciplinary archive forms a basis for collaborations in recovering and reconstructing built environments from different perspectives in text, image, and digital media, working with original materials in special collections.

Spring 2020 | HMAN 2400U | Italian Thought: Inside and Out
Laura Odello (French and Francophone Studies) and Suzanne Stewart-Steinberg (Comparative Literature and Italian Studies)
This collaborative seminar provides an introduction into what is called “Italian Thought” (Agamben, Cacciari, Cavarero, Esposito, Federici, Fortunati, Gramsci, Muraro, Negri, Rovatti, Tronti, Vattimo). It offers close readings of texts considered as classics of “Italian Thought” (the “Inside” of our title) and also seeks to include and make functional other languages excluded from this discourse (the “Out” of our title: feminism, queer theory, psychoanalysis). Students will engage with the Pembroke Center Archive and collaborate on translation and glossary projects.

Spring 2020 | HMAN 2400W / MCM 2310O | The Visual Frequency of Black Life
Tina Campt (Humanities Scholar: Cogut Institute and Modern Culture and Media) and Saidiya Hartman (Columbia University)
How does one represent black life? Historical and contemporary black photo books offer densely layered accounts of blackness and black sociality that, far from restricted to the visual, are haptic and sonic engagements and improvisations. Placing these works in conversation with sonic scripts, embodied performances, and moving images inspired by and in dialogue with them, we will unpack multiple visual frequencies of black life with an eye toward understanding practices of black refusal and futurity that structure their varied creative practices. This collaborative seminar is taught in parallel by Tina Campt at Brown University and Saidiya Hartman at Columbia University.

Spring 2020 | HMAN 2400X / HIST 2996 / EMOW 2400X | Premodern Art-Science, or the Work of Knowing in Europe before 1800
Harold Cook (History)and Tara Nummedal (History and Italian Studies)
This collaborative seminar examines premodern ways of knowing through entangled histories of art, craft, science, and medicine in Europe before 1800. Whether through the visual representations of naturalists or the manipulation of matter by artists/artisans to render nature meaningful, useful, or both, premoderns made knowledge in ways that defy modern disciplinary divisions. In studying premodern knowledge work through its own disciplinary understandings, we explore the research methodology of reconstruction, i.e., the argument that we must reconnect material objects with texts, and both with laboratory research practices, to fully understand premodern knowledge work. Taught in parallel at the University of Minnesota.

Spring 2020 | HMAN 2500 | Project Development Workshop
Timothy Bewes (English) and Brian Meeks (Africana Studies)
In this capstone course, students completing the Graduate Certificate in Collaborative Humanities pursue individual or collaborative projects, such as a dissertation prospectus, a dissertation chapter, or a methodological/theoretical exercise relating to their field of interest. Weekly sessions are devoted to work-in-progress and discussion of key texts addressing method and theory in and beyond the humanities. At the end of the semester, participants present in a Collaborative Public Workshop. Admission to the seminar requires a formal application process and the completion of two HMAN 2400 seminars. This seminar is the capstone course for the Graduate Certificate in Collaborative Humanities.

Affiliated and Visiting Faculty

Fall 2019 | HMAN 1971S | Introduction to iPhone/iPad Moviemaking Using 3-D and 360 VR Comparisons
Theodore Bogosian (Cogut Institute)
Mobile Devices are democratizing movie-making by lowering barriers to entry, enabling students to become full-fledged members of the film industry virtually overnight. This pioneering course provides the basic tools for students to create and distribute no- and low-budget live-action motion pictures with professional production values utilizing only their personal smartphones. Students will acquire the skills to plan, capture and edit short motion pictures through hands-on instruction and experimentation with low-cost accessories, including selfie-sticks, lens adapters, directional microphones, and iPhone apps like Filmic Pro, Vizzywig and iMovie.

Fall 2019 | HMAN 1974E | Political Theology for the Anthropocene
Adi Ophir (Cogut Institute and Middle East Studies)
The Seminar develops a discourse in political theology for gaining insight into the catastrophes of the modern world and those associated with the Anthropocene. The political imagination embedded in a cluster of texts from the Hebrew Bible and the political theology they imply will enrich discussions in political theory about sovereignty, government, law, and violence. The seminar gives special attention to the way the modern state and other modern and contemporary institutions have come to substitute for God as authors of large scale, globalized, and planetary catastrophes. Our theoretical companions include Buber, Assman, Agamben, Arendt, Foucault, Boltanski, and Žižek.

Fall 2019 | COLT 1210 | Introduction to the Theory of Literature
Marc Redfield (Comparative Literature, English, and German Studies) and Peter Szendy (Humanities Scholar: Cogut Institute and Comparative Literature)
An historical introduction to problems of literary theory from the classical to the postmodern. Issues to be examined include mimesis, rhetoric, hermeneutics, history, psychoanalysis, formalisms and ideological criticism (questions of race, gender, sexuality, postcolonialism). Primarily for advanced undergraduates. Lectures, discussions; several short papers.

Fall 2019 | HISP 2160N | Antiquity and Innovation in the Hispanic Renaissance
Andrew Laird (Humanities Scholar: Cogut Institute, Classics, and Hispanic Studies)
The artistic and literary florescence of the Siglo de Oro paralleled a broader current of cultural innovation, which extended beyond peninsular Spain to other parts of Europe and the Americas – a movement which can be conceived as a Hispanic Renaissance. After an introductory overview, the seminar will highlight four major tendencies, through close examination of some foundational authors and texts. The course will be organized thematically, but texts will generally be approached in chronological sequence, beginning with Antonio de Nebrija’s investigations in the 1490s and ending with Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora’s showcasing of New Spain’s complex legacies.

Fall 2019 | MCM 1204 | A New Black Gaze
Tina Campt (Humanities Scholar: Cogut Institute and Modern Culture and Media)
What is a ‘black gaze’? The title of this course is a provocation that poses the question of whether we can identify the existence of a black gaze, while asserting the transformative potential such a gaze both promises and portends. Starting from a close examination of theories of the gaze, we will engage the relationship between contemporary black visuality and what constitutes a black gaze in the twenty-first century. Focusing on a select group of black contemporary artists, we will explore how their work challenges traditional notions of what constitutes the power/politics of the gaze. (DIAP, WRIT)

Spring 2020 | HMAN 1000B | The Cogut Institute for the Humanities Research Seminar
Timothy Bewes (English)
This seminar involves reading and discussing in-progress research by the annual fellows of the Cogut Institute for the Humanities, an interdisciplinary group of faculty, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, and undergraduates engaged in extended research on a major project or honors thesis. Students read a wide range of works-in-progress, prepare questions and participate in seminar discussions, intervene as first questioners for specific sessions assigned to them in advance, and present their own work twice during the year. Admission to the course requires that students have received the Cogut Institute Undergraduate Fellowship for the year in which they enroll.

Spring 2020 | HMAN 1971S | Introduction to iPhone/iPad Moviemaking Using 3-D and 360 VR Comparisons
Theodore Bogosian (Cogut Institute)
Mobile Devices are democratizing moviemaking by lowering barriers to entry, enabling students to become full-fledged members of the film industry virtually overnight. This pioneering course provides the basic tools for students to create and distribute no- and low-budget live-action motion pictures with professional production values utilizing only their personal smartphones. Students will acquire the skills to plan, capture and edit short motion pictures through hands-on instruction and experimentation with low-cost accessories, including selfie-sticks, lens adapters, directional microphones, and iPhone apps like Filmic Pro, Vizzywig and iMovie.

Spring 2020 | HMAN 1974K / MUSC 1905K | Governing Culture: Music and the Arts in Political Life
Damien Mahiet (Cogut Institute)
The social function and governmental regulation of aesthetic life play a key role in the constitution of political regimes. This course examines debates on the arts as instruments of power, distinction, resistance, contestation, and revolution, from the early modern period to the present. The government of music, sound, noise, and silence will offer a point of comparison among absolutist monarchies, modern republics, totalitarian regimes, liberal democracies, and colonial empires. In addition to music, the course draws from political sources, theoretical works, literature, and the visual arts.

Spring 2020 | HMAN 1974L / HMAN2971G | The Coming Apocalypse: Between the Earth and the World
Adi Ophir (Cogut Institute and Middle East Studies)
A cascading catastrophe threatens to turn the earth uninhabitable and bring our world to its end. How to think, in this context, the relation between our world, the world, and the earth? Are they known, experienced, shared with others, or being destroyed in the same way? How have their difference and convergence been affected by globalization, and affect our understanding of “the Anthropocene”? Following environmental news, the seminar addresses these and related questions through literary, theoretical, and philosophical texts, including works by Nietzsche, Heidegger, Arendt, Derrida, Nancy, Latour, Haraway, Povinelli, Coates, and Mbembe.

Spring 2020 | HMAN 1974M / HMAN 2971H / MCM 2100Y | Solidarities: Sharing Freedom, Inventing Futures
Jeremy Gilbert (Cogut Institute)
Solidarity between people — even between species — has never been more needed. But our culture is saturated by personality politics and ubiquitous narcissism. How can we think and organize ourselves out of this impasse? Is it shared interests or shared identities that unite us? What does freedom mean in an interconnected age? These are some of the questions that any attempt to think through the question of solidarity in the twenty-first century must encounter. Writers to consider include Marx, Arendt, Foucault, Simondon, Negri, Stuart Hall, Maurizio Lazzarato, Donna Haraway, Couze Venn, and Ruth Ozeki, among others.

Spring 2020 | COLT 1814 | Politics and Reading
Peter Szendy (Humanities Scholar: Cogut Institute and Comparative Literature)
What do we do when we read? And do we even do something, or, as Blanchot suggests, do we rather let be? While being true to Michel de Certeau’s plea for a “politics of reading” and an “autonomy of the reader”, we will question its binary logic (active vs. passive): 1. by looking closely at the (de)construction of a “sovereign reader” in Hobbes’ Leviathan; 2. by analyzing the reading imperative — “Read!” — as it is staged in Plato’s and, above all, in Sade’s erotics; 3. by taking seriously Walter Benjamin’s paradoxical intuition that one should “read what was never written”. (WRIT)

Spring 2020 | LATN 1040B / EMOW 1040 | Virgil: Aeneid
Andrew Laird (Humanities Scholar: Cogut Institute, Classics, and Hispanic Studies)
Close reading of selections from all twelve books of Virgil’s epic.

Spring 2020 | MCM 1506E | Rethinking Black Visuality
Tina Campt (Humanities Scholar: Cogut Institute and Modern Culture and Media)
As part of the Cogut Institute for the Humanities’ Black Visualities Initiative, this course will engage practices and theories of black visuality that refuse traditional definitions of visuality that function to refuse blackness itself. Each year, the seminar will focus on a selected genre of visual texts, artistic works, and/or embodied performances and use them to develop an keen understanding of how black artists/thinkers/writers/practitioners articulate the multi-sensory frequencies of black life. Key to our discussions is a rigorous theorization of the complex practices of black refusal and futurity that structure these works. (DIAP, WRIT)

Spring 2020 | PHIL 1720 | Kant: The Critique of Pure Reason
Paul Guyer (Humanities Scholar: Cogut Institute and Philosophy)
We will cover the main topics of Kant’s masterpiece, including his third way between rationalism and empiricism, his approach to skepticism and idealism, his foundational approach to science and everyday experience, and his limitation of knowledge to leave room for practical faith. Prerequisites: PHIL 0360, 1700, 1710 or instructor permission.

Spring 2020 | PHIL 2080L | Idealism in the Twentieth Century
Paul Guyer (Humanities Scholar: Cogut Institute and Philosophy)
After attacks on Bradley and Royce at the beginning of the twentieth century, “idealism” largely became a dirty word. But while both Berkeleian and Hegelian versions of metaphysical idealism indeed passed out of fashion, versions of Kantian epistemological idealism, the view that what we know of reality is inescapably formed by our own perceptual and conceptual frameworks, continued to underlie both analytic and continental philosophy. This course will pursue this thesis through works by Carnap, Cassirer, Collingwood, Blanshard, Sellars, Davidson, McDowell, and Brandom.

Postdoctoral Fellows

Fall 2019 | HMAN 1973W / POLS 1820I | Indigenous Politics in Hawai’i: Resurgence and Decolonization
Mary Tuti Baker, Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow (Political Science)
Because kinship relationships to land and all existents of that land are fundamental to Indigenous Peoples, resurgence and decolonization must be studied in the context of specific Indigenous Peoples and the ways they resist colonial violence and build resurgent practices. This course then focuses on these issues with respect to Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians). We will read works from Kanaka Maoli scholar/activists in order to understand the genealogy of Kanaka Maoli resistance and resurgent practices. We also engage with critical Indigenous thinkers in order to understand Indigenous political praxis that is shared across difference and those that are not. (CBLR, DIAP, WRIT)

Fall 2019 | HMAN 1974F /ANTH 1901 / ARCH 1162 | Anthropology in/of the Museum
Lauren Yapp, Postdoctoral Fellow in International Humanities (Archaeology and the Ancient World)
This course provides an introduction to museums from an anthropological perspective. Topics include politics of representation and the construction of the “Other”; objects, identity, and meaning; collecting and cultural property; and collaboration, community engagement, and indigenous self-representation. Assignments involve work with the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology’s exhibitions and collections. The course focuses on museums dedicated to natural and cultural history but establishes theoretical and practical grounding for thinking about and working in other disciplines and other kinds of display institutions. It is suitable for both undergraduate and graduate students. There are no prerequisites; but familiarity with anthropology is presumed.

Fall 2019 | HMAN 1974G / HIAA 1631 | Authority, Identity, and Visual Culture in Colonial Latin America
Jessica Stair, Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow (History of Art and Architecture)
This course will consider the ways in which visual culture in colonial Latin America functioned as leveraging tools, means to assert authority and/or identity, ways to maintain the status quo, and forms of resistance. We will examine objects from Mexico and Peru related to religious practice, domestic life and the political realm with emphasis on understanding the roles various participants played in their production and reception.

Fall 2019 | HMAN 1974H / ARCH 1772 / ANTH 1720 | The Human Skeleton
Aviva Cormier, Postdoctoral Fellow in International Humanities (Anthropology)
More than simply a tissue within our bodies, the human skeleton is a gateway into narratives of the past--from the evolution of our species to the biography of individual past lives. Through lecture and hands-on laboratory, students will learn the complete anatomy of the human skeleton, with an emphasis on the human skeleton in functional and evolutionary perspective. We’ll also explore forensic and bioarchaeological approaches to the skeleton. By the course conclusion, students will be able to conduct basic skeletal analysis and will be prepared for more advanced studies of the skeleton from medical, forensic, archaeological, and evolutionary perspectives.

Fall 2019 | HMAN 1974I / HIST 1978D | Contested Histories of Colonial Indochina: Encounters, Social Transformations, Legacies of Empire
Cindy Nguyen, Postdoctoral Fellow in International Humanities (History)
This seminar explores the history of French colonial Indochina (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos) from 1858 to 1945. Challenging Euro-centric narratives of colonialism, we will critically analyze the colonial encounter as complex exchanges, geographically diverse, and socially uneven. We will examine the mechanisms and limitations of the colonial state, capitalism, cultural institutions, and science and technology. Rather than position colonialism as an external agent of change, this seminar dedicates attention to local agency, social and cultural transformations, and the creative production of ideas, print media, and urban and religious communities especially in 1920’s to 1940’s Hanoi, Saigon, and Phnom Penh.

Fall 2019 | HMAN 1974J / MUSC 1240R | Rap as Storytelling
Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo, Postdoctoral Fellow in International Humanities (Music)
This is a weekly production seminar in which students will explore various aspects of hip hop songwriting from the perspective that rap verses can constitute compelling stories. Over the course of the semester, we will examine several different storytelling approaches, song structures, and techniques through deep listening sessions, class discussions, and lectures from a range of invited guests. Students will be expected to record verses or parts of verses as part of their weekly writing assignments as well as perform prepared material for their classmates at three points during the semester.

Fall 2019 | HMAN 2971F / HISP 2520R | Radical Borders
Gustavo Quintero Lozano, Postdoctoral Fellow in International Humanities (Hispanic Studies)
This course considers Mexico from a transnational perspective in order to explore the aesthetic and political dimensions of its northern and southern borders. We will examine the question of migration from and to Mexico in novels, poems, and theoretical materials from countries such as El Salvador, Honduras, and the United States. The objective is to conceptualize the notion of border not only as a space of surveillance and law enforcement but also as an arena for radical politics and revolutionary ideals. We will read texts by Horacio Castellanos Moya, Alaíde Foppa, Yuri Herrera, Subcomandante Marcos, and Sayak Valencia among others.

Spring 2020 | HMAN 0900C / ARCH 0317 | Heritage in the Metropolis: Remembering and Preserving the Urban Past
Lauren Yapp, Postdoctoral Fellow in International Humanities (Archaeology and the Ancient World)
Urban heritage – from archaeological sites and historic architecture to longstanding cultural practices – is increasingly threatened by the exponential growth of cities around the globe. Most critically, the complex histories and lived experiences of the diverse communities who have inhabited and shaped cities are often in danger of being erased and forgotten today. This course examines how we might remember and preserve this urban past – and the tangible sites and artifacts that attest to it – in light of the social and political dynamics of cities in the present. (CBLR, DIAP)

Spring 2020 | HMAN 0900D / POLS 0920B | Introduction to Indigenous Politics with Pacific Islander Focus
Mary Tuti Baker, Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow (Political Science)
This introductory course in Indigenous political thought engages with critical Indigenous thinkers in order to understand Indigenous political praxis, resurgence and decolonization. Because Indigenous study is place-based and kinship relationships to land and all existents of that land are fundamental to understanding Indigenous political thought, Indigenous politics must be studied in the context of particular indigenous peoples. To that end this course focuses on political movements of contemporary Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian). In addition to developing a fuller understanding of Indigenous political thought, this class also explores what it means to move beyond colonial relationships with the State. (DIAP, SOPH, WRIT)

Spring 2020 | HMAN 1974N / HISP 1371F / LACA 1371F | Narrating the Borderland: Literature, Legality, and Solidarity
Gustavo Quintero Lozano, Postdoctoral Fellow in International Humanities (Hispanic Studies)
This course explores multiple issues concerning crossing, living, and narrating the United States-Mexico border. We will focus on the border as a legal space bound to interpretations about what it means to migrate legally or illegally across that territory. We will explore the border as a vast and uneven expanse that entails diverse and often contradictory narrations and imaginaries that range from idealized landscapes to apocalyptic wastelands. Finally, we will discuss how border-crossing is a theme for artists and writers working on the solidarity networks from those who have dealt with the journey and its perils. (DIAP)

Spring 2020 | HMAN 1974O / HIST 1962E | Print and Power in Modern Southeast Asia
Cindy Nguyen, Postdoctoral Fellow in International Humanities (History)
This seminar explores the relationship between print and power in the comparative histories of 20th century colonial era Southeast Asia (focus: Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Burma). What are the mechanics and manifestations of ‘print?’ How does print communicate and symbolize ‘power’? From governmental paperwork to scriptural authority, mass printed newspapers to writers and publishers, print embodies many forms and functions. We will cover the following topics: print culture and print capitalism, circulations and the publishing economy, colonial archives and mapping, the formation of ‘imagined communities’ and national consciousness, and debates on gender, class, and modernity expressed through popular press and novels. (DIAP)

Spring 2020 | ANTH 1750 / ARCH 1773 | Bioarchaeology and Forensic Anthropology
Aviva Cormier, Postdoctoral Fellow in International Humanities (Anthropology)
Bioarchaeology and forensic anthropology have common methodological roots (human osteology) but are oriented to answer very different questions. Both are grounded in the anthropological sub-disciplines of biological anthropology and archaeology. The focus in bioarchaeology is advancing our understanding of the human experience in the past. Bioarchaeologists study a range of topics including health, violence, migration, and embodiment. Forensic anthropology is a form of applied anthropology that is employed to document and interpret human remains in medico-legal contexts. The course will survey both fields while instructing in the methodologies and approaches of each. The course complements HMAN 1720: The Human Skeleton.

Spring 2020 | HIAA 1151 | Painting Indigenous History in Colonial Mexico
Jessica Stair, Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow (History of Art and Architecture)
This seminar considers the ways in which indigenous histories and cultures were represented in manuscripts made by indigenous and missionary artists/authors of colonial Mexico. Part of our corpus will include manuscripts held in the John Carter Brown Library. Of particular importance to our inquiry will be definitions of writing and literacy; configurations of space and time; modes of recounting the past; representations of indigenous identities, the evolution and invention of pictorial forms; and the role of pictures in juridical contexts. The course will culminate with the creation of an online exhibition featuring books and manuscripts from the JCB’s collection. (DIAP)

Spring 2020 | MUSC 1240S | Feminist Sonic Futures
Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo, Postdoctoral Fellow in International Humanities (Music)
This course is a weekly discussion seminar that examines the intersections of feminist praxis and sound studies. Students will survey a range of feminist discourses that inform and are informed by various sonic practices — from the production of pop songs to the documentation of disappearing soundscapes. Over the course of the semester students will critically engage with the work of feminist and womanist scholars, activists, sound engineers, performers, and composers who are largely concerned with the ways in which the sonic is deeply implicated in the coproduction and resistance of categories of difference like gender, race, class, sexuality, and ability.