Catalog
Interdisciplinary Courses
Interdisciplinary courses fully engage more than two distinct intellectual disciplines. They are identified by the subject code INDS. The departments and programs in which INDS courses are cross-listed are listed in each INDS course description. Interdisciplinary courses are integral to the course offerings of the cross-listing departments and programs.
The list below includes INDS-designated courses in the curriculum. The list does not represent a specific course of study.
INDC 100. African Perspectives on Justice, Human Rights, and Renewal.
This team-taught course introduces students to some of the experiences, cultural beliefs, values, and voices shaping contemporary Africa. Students focus on the impact of climatic, cultural, and geopolitical diversity; the politics of ethnicity, religion, age, race, and gender and their influence on daily life; and the forces behind contemporary policy and practice in Africa. The course forges students' critical capacity to resist simplistic popular understandings of what is taking place on the continent and works to refocus their attention on distinctively "African perspectives." Students design a research project to augment their knowledge about a specific issue within a particular region. The course is primarily for first- and second-year students with little critical knowledge of Africa and serves as the introduction to the General Education concentration Considering Africa (C022). Cross-listed in anthropology, French and Francophone studies, and history. Enrollment limited to 39. (History: Africa.) (Politics: Identities and Interests.) (Politics: Security, Conflict, and Cooperation.) Normally offered every year. [AC] [HS] A. Dauge-Roth, P. Otim.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
INDC 200. Women's Movements and Religion across East Asia.
What are the key challenges faced by women’s movements across East Asia? What roles do religious ethics and cultural norms play in creating either obstacles or opportunities for women activists who seek to counter gender disparity in the pursuit of economic development? Do religious traditions offer challenges or resources for socioeconomic reform? From Islam among Malay and Hui Chinese communities to Confucian-influenced Christianity among South Korean communities, this course provides an opportunity to explore how women’s movements in East Asia engage with religious and cultural traditions in their struggles for human rights and civil liberties, as well as equal access to education, labor markets, affordable childcare, and other development opportunities. Recommended background: one course in anthropology, economics, history, sociology, or politics. Cross-listed in Asian studies, gender and sexuality studies, and religious studies. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 39. Normally offered every year. A. Akhtar.Interdisciplinary Programs
This course counts toward the following Interdisciplinary Program(s)
INDC 209. Pixelated Parts: Race, Gender, Video Games.
This course considers the politics of race, gender, and sexuality as they emerge in video games and their surrounding ecosystems: in games and their conditions and processes of production, in the representations and spaces of identification that come with the play of games, in the communities that players generate among themselves, and in the affective and material interactions that result when players look at a screen, hold a controller, type on a keyboard, and move a mouse. Cross-listed in anthropology, digital and computational studies, and gender and sexuality studies. Enrollment limited to 29. One-time offering. J. Rubin.Interdisciplinary Programs
This course counts toward the following Interdisciplinary Program(s)
INDC 210. Technology in U.S. History.
Surveys the development, distribution, and use of technology in the United States drawing on primary and secondary source material. Subjects treated include racialized and gendered divisions of labor, militarism and colonial dispossession, and the ecological consequences of technological change. Cross-listed in American studies, gender and sexuality studies, and history. Enrollment limited to 29. (History: United States.) R. Herzig.ConcentrationsInterdisciplinary Programs
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
This course counts toward the following Interdisciplinary Program(s)
INDC 211. U.S. Environmental History.
This course explores the relationship between the North American environment and the development and expansion of the United States. Because Americans' efforts (both intentional and not) to define and shape the environment were rooted in their own struggles for power, environmental history offers an important perspective on the nation's social history. Specific topics include Europeans', Africans', and Native Americans' competing efforts to shape the colonial environment; the impact and changing understanding of disease; the relationship between industrial environments and political power; and the development of environmental movements. Cross-listed in American studies, environmental studies, and history. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 39. (History: Modern.) (History: United States.) [AC] [HS] J. Hall.ConcentrationsInterdisciplinary Programs
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
This course counts toward the following Interdisciplinary Program(s)
INDC 214. Afro-Latinx Diasporas in the United States.
Over the last two decades, Afro-Latinx culture and history has become a rich area of study. Emphasizing ethnographic approaches, this course examines how racial formations, gender and national belonging have historically and recently intersected in the production and representation of Blackness within Latinx spaces. Students draw from decolonial frameworks and use different media to critically analyze how anti-Blackness rooted in the myth of racial democracy shapes Afro-Latinx cultures in the U.S. Recommended background: coursework in Africana, anthropology, gender and sexuality studies, or Latin American and Latinx studies. Crosslisted in Africana, anthropology, and Latin American and Latinx studies. Enrollment limited to 29. One-time offering. M. Mena.Interdisciplinary Programs
This course counts toward the following Interdisciplinary Program(s)
INDC 221. Venice to Tokyo: Religion and Trade along the Spice and Silk Routes.
This course examines the intersection of religion and trade along the silk and spice routes that linked Venice and Istanbul with Isfahan, Malacca, Nanjing, and Tokyo in the medieval and early modern periods (800-1800 C.E.). Adherents of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism, and other spiritual traditions traversed these trade routes as merchants, diplomats, and pilgrims. As cultural brokers connecting Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia, these merchants transmitted objects as diverse as silk textiles, relics, and texts on philosophy and ethics. This course follows the transfer of culture and commerce along these trade routes, focusing on a key thematic question: How are urban economies impacted by religion and culture? Cross-listed in Asian studies, classical and medieval studies, and religious studies. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 39. (History: Early Modern.) (History: East Asian.) (History: European.) (History: Premodern.) A. Akhtar.ConcentrationsInterdisciplinary Programs
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
This course counts toward the following Interdisciplinary Program(s)
INDC 236. Race Matters: Tobacco in North America.
This course explores race and the history of tobacco in North America. With a primary focus on the intersection of tobacco capitalism and African American history, the course introduces students to the impact of tobacco on the formation of racial ideologies and lived experiences through a consideration of economic, cultural, political, and epidemiological history. Cross-listed in Africana, American studies, and history. Recommended background: at least one course in Africana, African American history, American studies, or gender and sexuality studies. Enrollment limited to 29. (History: United States.) M. Plastas.ConcentrationsInterdisciplinary Programs
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
This course counts toward the following Interdisciplinary Program(s)
INDC 238. Queer Power: Political Sociology of U.S. Sexuality Movements.
This course introduces students to social movement theory and interest group politics in the United States via the case study of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) politics from the immediate post-World War II period to the present, and it examines the relationship of sexuality to the racial and gender dynamics of U.S. identity-based social movements. The course traces the development of research methodologies to study collective action from early rational choice models to resource mobilization theory to new social movement models and political opportunity and process models. How the LGBTQ+ movements drew upon, expanded, and challenged foundations established by both African American civil rights and feminism is also explored. Cross-listed in gender and sexuality studies, politics, and sociology. Prerequisite(s): any 100-level course in gender and sexuality studies, politics, or sociology. Enrollment limited to 29. (Politics: Identities and Interests.) (Politics: Institutional Politics.) [AC] [HS] S. Engel.ConcentrationsInterdisciplinary Programs
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
This course counts toward the following Interdisciplinary Program(s)
INDC 250. Interdisciplinary Studies: Methods and Modes of Inquiry.
Interdisciplinarity involves more than a meeting of disciplines. Practitioners stretch methodological norms and reach across disciplinary boundaries. Through examination of a single topic, this course introduces students to interdisciplinary methods of analysis. Students examine what practitioners actually do and work to become practitioners themselves. Cross-listed in Africana, American studies, and gender and sexuality studies. Prerequisite(s): AFR 100, AMST 200, or GSS 100, and one other course in Africana, American studies, or gender and sexuality studies. Enrollment limited to 39. Staff.Interdisciplinary Programs
This course counts toward the following Interdisciplinary Program(s)
INDC 257. African American Women's History and Social Transformation.
This course examines the political, social, and cultural traditions created by Black women from slavery to the present. Students consider their transformative influence on major questions and social movements. Through novels, plays, autobiography, music, and nonfiction produced by and about Black women, students explore a range of intellectual and cultural traditions. Cross-listed in Africana, gender and sexuality studies, history, and politics. Recommended background: one course in gender and sexuality studies and/or one course in Africana. Enrollment limited to 30. (Africana: Gender.) (Africana: Historical Perspective.) (Politics: Identities and Interests.) (Politics: Institutional Politics.) [HS] M. Plastas.ConcentrationsInterdisciplinary Programs
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
This course counts toward the following Interdisciplinary Program(s)
INDC 267. Blood, Genes, and American Culture.
Places recent popular and scientific discussions of human heredity and genetics in broader social, political, and historical context, focusing on shifting definitions of personhood. Topics include the commodification of human bodies and body parts; racial, colonial, and gendered disparities in science and medicine; and the emergence of new forms of biological citizenship. Cross-listed in Africana, American studies, and gender and sexuality studies. Recommended background: course work in biology and/or gender and sexuality studies. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 29. R. Herzig.ConcentrationsInterdisciplinary Programs
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
This course counts toward the following Interdisciplinary Program(s)
INDC 301A. Sex and the Modern City: European Cultures at the Fin-de-Siècle.
Economic and political change during the 1800s revolutionized the daily lives of Europeans more profoundly than any previous century. By the last third of the century, the modern city became the stage for exploring and enacting new roles, new gender identities in particular. This course examines the cultural reverberations of these cataclysmic changes by focusing on sex, gender, and new urban spaces the decades around the turn of the twentieth century. Students consider the writings of Zola and Freud, investigate middle-class flirtations with the occult, and read about sensational crimes like those of Jack the Ripper. Cross-listed in European studies, gender and sexuality studies, and history. Enrollment limited to 15. (History: European.) (History: Modern.) [W2] [AC] [HS] C. Shaw.ConcentrationsInterdisciplinary Programs
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
This course counts toward the following Interdisciplinary Program(s)
INDC 301G. Black Resistance from the Civil War to Civil Rights.
From antebellum slavery through twentieth-century struggles for civil rights, black Americans have resisted political violence, economic marginalization, and second-class citizenship using strategies ranging from respectability to radicalism. Engaging with both historical and modern scholarship, literary sources, and other primary documents, this course explores the diverse tactics and ideologies of these resistance movements. By considering the complexities and contradictions of black resistance in American history and conducting source-based research, students develop a deep understanding of the black freedom struggle and reflect on the ways that these legacies continue to shape present-day struggles for racial justice. Cross-listed in Africana, American studies, and history. Enrollment limited to 15. (Africana: Historical Perspective.) (History: Early Modern.) (History: United States.) [W2] Normally offered every year. [AC] [HS] A. Baker.ConcentrationsInterdisciplinary Programs
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
This course counts toward the following Interdisciplinary Program(s)
INDC 301S. Environmental History of China.
This course investigates the deep historical roots of China's contemporary environmental dilemmas. From the Three Gorges Dam to persistent smog, a full understanding of the environment in China must reckon with millennia-old relationships between human and natural systems. In this course students explore the advent of grain agriculture, religious understandings of nature, the impact of bureaucratic states, and the environmental dimensions of imperial expansion as well as the nature of kinship and demographic change. The course concludes by turning to the socialist "conquest" of nature in the 1950s and 1960s and China's post-1980s fate. Cross-listed in Asian studies, environmental studies, and history. Not open to students who have received credit for INDS 266. Enrollment limited to 15. (History: Early Modern.) (History: East Asian.) (History: Modern.) (History: Premodern.) [AC] [HS] W. Chaney.ConcentrationsInterdisciplinary Programs
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
This course counts toward the following Interdisciplinary Program(s)
INDC 301Y. The Spanish Inquisition.
Were witches and heretics really tortured in the Spanish Inquisition's infamous jails? This course examines both the institution of the Spanish Inquisition and the lives of those who came before it. The sins that concerned the Inquisition depended on the time and place, and the crimes prosecuted in sixteenth-century Spain or eighteenth-century New Spain reveal a great deal about early modern (ca. 1500–1800) culture and society. Students read and analyze original Inquisition cases from Spain and New Spain as well as consider the ways historians have used cases to investigate topics such as sexuality and marriage, witchcraft, and the persecution of Jews and Muslims. Cross-listed in history, Latin American and Latinx studies, and religious studies. Enrollment limited to 15. (History: Early Modern.) (History: European.) (History: Latin American.) [W2] [AC] [HS] K. Melvin.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
INDC 301Z. Race and U.S. Women's Movements.
This course considers how racial formations have developed in and influenced gendered and feminist movements. Movements examined may include woman's suffrage, anti-lynching, civil rights, Black Power, LGBTQ+, moral reform, welfare rights, women's liberation, and peace. Topics examined include citizenship, colonization, immigration, reproductive justice, and gender-based violence. Cross-listed in gender and sexuality studies, history, and politics. Enrollment limited to 15. (Africana: Gender.) (Africana: Historical Perspective.) (History: Modern.) (History: United States.) (Politics: Identities and Interests.) [W2] [HS] M. Plastas.ConcentrationsInterdisciplinary Programs
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
This course counts toward the following Interdisciplinary Program(s)
INDC 302. Black Feminist Activist and Intellectual Traditions.
This seminar examines the intersections of gender with Black racial and ethnic identities as they have been and are constructed, expressed, and lived throughout the anglophone and francophone African/Black diaspora. The course not only pays special attention to U.S. women and the movements where they lead or participate; but it also devotes substantial consideration to African, Caribbean, Canadian, European, and Australian women of African descent. The course combines approaches and methodologies employed in the humanities, social sciences, and arts to structure interdisciplinary analyses. Using Black feminist (womanist), critical-race, and queer theories, students examine Black women’s histories; activism; resistance; and cultural, intellectual, and theoretical productions, as well as digital literacy. Cross-listed in Africana, American studies, and gender and sexuality studies. Prerequisite(s): one course offered by the Program in Africana, the Program in American Studies, or the Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies. Enrollment limited to 15. (Africana: Diaspora.) (Africana: Gender.) (Africana: Historical Perspective.) [AC] S. Houchins.Interdisciplinary Programs
This course counts toward the following Interdisciplinary Program(s)
INDC 305. Art, Power, and Politics.
An anthropological examination of the relationship among art, power, and politics. What can the artistic works of various societies say about their worlds that other creations cannot? What claims can art make about the workings of power, and what artistic techniques does power itself employ? Students consider these and other questions from a number of different perspectives, including the politics of perception, the place of art in modern life, the artistry of terror, the art of protest and propaganda, and the dream of building a beautiful regime. Recommended background: familiarity with classical social theory, especially Marx, is encouraged but not necessary. Cross-listed in Africana, American studies, and anthropology. Prerequisite(s): one course in Africana, American studies, anthropology, art and visual culture, or gender and sexuality studies. Enrollment limited to 15. J. Rubin.ConcentrationsInterdisciplinary Programs
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
This course counts toward the following Interdisciplinary Program(s)
INDC 306. Queer Africana: History, Theories, and Representations.
This course examines the debates among authors, politicians, religious leaders, social scientists, and artists in Africa, the African Americas, and Afro-Europe about non-normative sexualities, throughout the diaspora. While the course analyzes histories of sexualities, legal documents, manifestos by dissident organizations, and anthropological and sociological treatises, it focuses primarily on textual and cinematic representations, and proposes methods of reading cultural productions at the intersection of sexualities, race, ethnicities, and gender. Cross-listed in Africana, English, and gender and sexuality studies. Recommended background: at least one course offered by the Program in Africana, the Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies, or one course in literary analysis. Enrollment limited to 15. (Africana: Diaspora.) (Africana: Gender.) (Africana: Historical Perspective.) (English: Post-1800.) (English: Race, Ethnicity, or Diasporic Literature.) [AC] S. Houchins.ConcentrationsInterdisciplinary Programs
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
This course counts toward the following Interdisciplinary Program(s)
INDC 321. Afroambiente: Escritura negra y medio ambiente.
This course studies the response of black writers and intellectuals of the Spanish-speaking world to issues related to the natural environment. In several countries, including Colombia, Ecuador, Puerto Rico, and Equatorial Guinea, from colonial times to the present, modernity has brought serious challenges to notions of economic progress, human rights, and national sovereignty as well as individual and communal identity. Course materials include written texts from local newspapers and magazines as well as other sources of information such as websites that present issues related to the environment and the arts. All readings are in English. Taught in Spanish. Cross-listed in Africana, environmental studies, Hispanic studies, and Latin American and Latinx studies. Prerequisite(s): one 200-level Hispanic studies course above 211. Only open to juniors and seniors. Enrollment limited to 15. (Africana: Diaspora.) [AC] [HS] B. Fra-Molinero.ConcentrationsInterdisciplinary Programs
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
This course counts toward the following Interdisciplinary Program(s)
INDC 325. Black Feminist Literary Theory and Practice.
This seminar examines literary theories that address the representation and construction of race, gender, and sexuality, particularly, but not exclusively, theories formulated and articulated by Afra-diasporic women such as Spillers, Ogunyemi, Carby, Christian, Cobham, Valerie Smith, Busia, Lubiano, and Davies. Students not only analyze theoretical essays but also use the theories as lenses through which to explore literary productions of women writers of Africa and the African diaspora in Europe and in the Americas, including Philip, Dangarembga, Morrison, Gayl Jones, Head, Condé, Brodber, Brand, Evariston, Zadie Smith and Harriet Wilson. Cross-listed in Africana, English, and gender and sexuality studies. Strongly recommended: at least one literature course. Enrollment limited to 15. (Africana: Diaspora.) (Africana: Gender.) (English: Race, Ethnicity, or Diasporic Literature.) [AC] S. Houchins.ConcentrationsInterdisciplinary Programs
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
This course counts toward the following Interdisciplinary Program(s)
INDC 352. Preserving the Vibration: Digitizing the Legacy of Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor.
This course introduces public and digital humanities through the life and work of noted journalist, food anthropologist, and public broadcaster Vertamae Grosvenor. Public humanities is concerned with facilitating conversations on topics of humanistic inquiry with the community at large. Digital studies provide unconventional ways to engage communities in public dialogues for the greater good. Drawing from books, operas, NPR audio segments, interviews, cookbooks, and other artifacts of Grosvenor, students create and curate a digital archive. Themes include Gullah culture, African American migration, foodways, memoir, public memory, and monuments. Leading theories and methods of black feminism, material culture, race, food studies, new media and digital humanities are foregrounded. Cross-listed in Africana, American studies, digital and computational studies, and gender and sexuality studies. Enrollment limited to 15. [AC] [CP] M. Beasley.Interdisciplinary Programs
This course counts toward the following Interdisciplinary Program(s)
INDC 382. Latinx Film.
This course introduces students to the field of Latinx studies through the lens of Latinx representations in United States film. By analyzing various films that feature Latinx characters, actors, and stories, students learn about the diversity of the Latinx population in the United States and develop an understanding of the key sociopolitical issues Latinx individuals face. Through the medium of film, themes such as immigration, gender, ethnicity and race, and the policing of Brown bodies gives students a more nuanced understanding of the largest growing minority population in the United States while also providing them the terms and skills necessary for audiovisual analysis. Taught in English. Cross-listed in American studies, Hispanic studies, and Latin American and Latinx studies. Only open to juniors and seniors. Recommended background: AM/AN 207, AMST 200, HISP 228, LL/PT 208, or RFSS 120. Enrollment limited to 15. [AC] L. Fernandez.INDC 390. Afro-Latinoamérica.
The 500-year presence of Africans and their descendants in the Spanish-speaking world has produced a significant body of literature by Blacks and about Blacks. Spanish America was the main destination of the African diaspora. Writers of African descent attest to the struggle for freedom and the abolition of slavery as well as anti-colonialism. Their literature shows how the participation of Blacks in the wars of Latin American independence was a struggle for their emancipation. Afro-Hispanic writers in Spain, the Americas, and Africa use their art and ideas to address the postnational migrations of the twenty-first century, a diaspora that has not ceased. Cross-listed in Africana, Hispanic studies, and Latin American and Latinx studies. Recommended background: AFR 100. Only open to juniors and seniors. Enrollment limited to 15. (Africana: Diaspora.) (Africana: Historical Perspective.) [AC] [HS] B. Fra-Molinero.ConcentrationsInterdisciplinary Programs
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
This course counts toward the following Interdisciplinary Program(s)
INDC s11. Bordering Hispaniola: Blackness, Mixture, and Nation in the Dominican Republic.
This course explores Dominican identity and its relation to ideas of nation vis-à-vis the island’s shared border with Haiti. Before departing for Santo Domingo, students consider the contexts of colonialism, state formation, and labor migration that shape contemporary Dominican identities. In the Dominican Republic, students visit key sites in the African and Haitian diasporas in the country. Further, they examine performance and popular culture as key sites of antiracist engagement. Students employ participatory ethnographic methods and map making to examine key themes of identity, performance, and resistance. Cross-listed in Africana, anthropology, and Latin American and Latinx studies. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 12. Instructor permission is required. (Africana: Diaspora.) [AC] [HS] J. Lyon.Interdisciplinary Programs
This course counts toward the following Interdisciplinary Program(s)
INDC s18. Wilde Times: Scandal, Celebrity, and the Law.
Oscar Wilde, an icon today, was popular in his own time as well. His relationship with Alfred Douglas was an open secret despite the fact that homosexuality was at the time a criminal offense. Indeed, Wilde’s sexuality was tolerated until he sued Douglas' irascible father for libel. This course begins with the 1895 trials, seeking to understand cultures of sexuality in a period notorious for sexual repression, and contextualizing issues they raise of scandal and the law, celebrity, gender, and sexuality. Designed to encourage independent research, the course guides students through the research process, drawing to the fore histories often hidden from view. Cross-listed in European studies, gender and sexuality studies, and history. Not open to students who have received credit for INDS 107. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 30. (History: European.) (History: Modern.) [AC] [HS] C. Shaw.ConcentrationsInterdisciplinary Programs
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
This course counts toward the following Interdisciplinary Program(s)