Graduate Program
Course Offerings
Courses currently being offered:
Check the course schedules/descriptions available via the Registrar's Office for the official schedules for the widest range of terms for which such information is available.
Course Descriptions
Below you will find a descriptions for the courses being offered for the fall 2018 semester.
NOTE: Not listed are the VCS electives MHS 590: Recording in 20th Century Music and MUY 591: Music and Cultural Hybridity.
Core Theory Courses
- AH 529 INUNDATION AND CATASTROPHE
No description
Last Offered: Fall 2018
- AH 583 VISUAL & CULTURAL STUDIES
The Colloquium introduces students in the Visual and Cultural Studies Program to aspects of the histories, theories, and methodologies of our field of study. We proceed in three ways: First, we read and discuss together a series of texts on and in visual and cultural studies. Second, various faculty members in the program conduct sessions in their areas of expertise based on readings that they select for us. And third, each student presents his or her own work to the colloquium. For this final part, it is important that students engage with visual and cultural studies models and provide relevant readings to other members of the colloquium.
Last Offered: Fall 2019
- CLT 430A FRENCH SOCIAL THOUGHT
This course examines the singular contribution of French thinkers to the development of the social sciences (or the “sciences of man,” as they are known in France) in the twentieth century. We will examine the theory of gift exchange in Marcel Mauss, the rise of structural anthropology in Claude Lévi-Strauss, the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu, and the theories of religion and culture of René Girard and Marcel Gauchet. We will also study post-structuralist thinkers such as Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Nancy when their work touches on issues of society and religion. Taught in English.
Last Offered: Fall 2018
- ENG 516 UTOPIAN ENGLISH RENAISSANCE
No description
Last Offered: Fall 2018
Core Visual Studies Courses
- AH 442 HIST OF PHOTO: 1839-1915
No description
Last Offered: Fall 2019
- AH 453 FILM HISTORY: 1929-1959
No description
Last Offered: Fall 2018
- AH 524 ARCHITECTURE & ENVIRONMENT
No description
Last Offered: Fall 2018
- AH 598 SENIOR SEMINAR:CONTEMPORARY ART
The Seminar in Contemporary Art is a course designed to bring together studio art and art history majors and minors in an extended discussion of contemporary artistic practices. We often look backwards to the 1960s or earlier but usually focus on a method, issue, or aspect to contemporary art (e.g. participation; photography; authorship). This course prepares students for critical engagement with contemporary art practices and can serve as an excellent preparation for Art New York or for a career in the arts.
Prerequisites: Introduction to VCS or Introduction to Art History
Last Offered: Fall 2019
Electives
- AH 413 RACE & GENDER IN POP FILM
This course explores Hollywood's fascination with race and gender as social issues and as spectacles. In particular, we will focus on the ways that social difference have become the sites of conflicted narrative and visual interactions in our films. To examine competing representations of racial difference and sexual difference in US culture, we analyze popular films from the 1950’s to the present.
Last Offered: Fall 2018
- AH 462 IMPRESSIONISM & POST-IMPRESS
Spring 2010. Please see AH 262 for description.
Last Offered: Fall 2018
- ANT 233 Cultural Politics of Prison Towns
This co-taught course is a collaborative ethnographic research project. Its goal is to examine how the presence of prisons in towns surrounding Rochester reflects and shapes the political, economic, and cultural lives of those who live in the region. Recommended prior courses include Introduction to Anthropology and/or Incarceration Nation.
Last Offered: Fall 2019
- ANT 457 CHINESE SOCIETY AFTER MAO
No description
Last Offered: Fall 2019
- ANT 470 RADICAL SOCIAL THEORY
No description
Last Offered: Fall 2018
- CLT 416A MEXICAN FILM
No description
Last Offered: Fall 2019
- CLT 439 REPRESENTING AFRICAN-AMER
No description
Last Offered: Fall 2018
- CLT 448 ON THE MOVE
This course covers a wide variety of texts in which mobility plays a central role, including films, cultural theory and fiction. The time period we cover will be from the nineteenth century to the present day. Some of the questions we will explore are: What are the reasons people move from one place to another? Who controls the movement and how? How do texts allow us as viewers and readers travel? Texts and discussions are in English.
Last Offered: Fall 2019
- CLT 464B MODERN JPN LIT
No description
Last Offered: Fall 2018
- ENG 423 STUDIES IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE
Varying topics relating to the literature and culture of England in the nineteenth century.
Last Offered: Fall 2018
- ENG 442 TOPICS IN LITERATURE
Readings vary according to subject.
Last Offered: Spring 2019
- ENG 445 STUDIES IN LITERARY MODE
Readings vary according to subject.
Last Offered: Fall 2018
- ENG 505 MEDIEVAL RACE, NOW AND THEN
No description
Last Offered: Fall 2018
- ENG 543 AFRICANIST PRESENCE AM. LIT
No description
Last Offered: Fall 2018
- FR 444 CRIMES OF PASSION
No description
Last Offered: Fall 2019
- FR 445 REVOLUTION & ROMANTICISM
No description
Last Offered: Fall 2018
- HIS 437 George Orwell and the Twentieth Century
This course will approach the tortured history of the 20th century by way of the life and writings of George Orwell. Best known for his late dystopian novels 1984 and Animal Farm, Orwell wrote many other memorable books and essays commenting on the signal events of his time. He experienced first hand (among other things): India, the British Empire, the Depression, the Spanish Civil War, the Second World War, post-war austerity and affluence, and the Cold War. And he wrote about them all with unrivaled clarity and force. Students will immerse themselves in Orwell’s life, work, and times and write a substantial research paper on a relevant topic of their own choice and design
Last Offered: Fall 2018
- HIS 452 Racial Democracies: Mexico vs. Brazil
Mexico and Brazil are countries with complex cultural, racial and ethnic histories. This seminar will explore the process by which these two countries grappled with their diverse populations during the modern era and how policies and attitudes impacted citizens, residents and perceptions. The course will investigate the limitations that arose from Mexico’s pursuit of a “cosmic race” and how the myth of Brazil’s “racial democracy” was created and debunked. We will debate the durability of these constructions and the limitations that arise from cross-country comparisons.
Last Offered: Fall 2018
- HIS 482 Apocalypse Now...and Then: A History of Apocalyptic Thought
This seminar examines the history of beliefs about the end of the world in the western Judeo-Christian tradition. We will examine such topics as the birth of apocalyptic thought, the medieval development of various aspects of traditions about the End (such as the figure of Antichrist and millenarian traditions), millennial influences on the discovery and colonization of the New World, millennial movements of the last two centuries (such as the Millerites and the Mormons), and contemporary apocalyptic scenarios. A major theme of the course will be the flexibility of apocalyptic language, its ability to interpret various historical situations, and its power to move people to acceptance or action.
Last Offered: Fall 2018