Global Arc

We begin with a body and spend our lives representing, indexing, performing, expressing, camouflaging, revealing, adorning, contextualizing, and recontextualizing that body. This course will look at how artists have made work to intervene in this process. Alongside other aspects of visual culture, we will take protest as a key site of the political body that we will break down into voice, movement, text, and mass media. Studio work will explore strategies of representation through mixed media, drawing, painting, photography and performance. The course will include visiting artists and a museum or gallery visit.

The Haptic Lab is hands-on studio course in which haptic learning - both physical and virtual - will occur simultaneously. Four fast-paced, materially intensive assignments will be paired with equally intensive digital production. Students not only will engage in making artworks in both realms, but also engage in critical analysis of the dynamic relationship between the two. Materials may include ash wood, silicon rubber, soil, polystyrene, or a recipe for 2,000-year-old cement. Course work will be supported by visiting artists and scholars and accompanied by cognitive self-analysis in the form of weekly photo and journal documentation.

Poverty and inequality are increasing. In this class, a comparative approach will be applied that highlights country differences with a special emphasis on the US Israel comparison. In the first few weeks of this class, basic theories of poverty and inequality will be reviewed, and how theories regarding poverty have changed over the years will be discussed. In the remaining weeks, discussion will turn to substantive topics such as gender, immigration, ethnicity/nationality, age, and health.

This course will offer an in-depth exploration of multilateralism and its role in our world at a time of global change and transition. It will provide students with an understanding of how the shifting world order, the rise of new actors and power centers, and new forms of fragmentation in politics and geoeconomics are testing international relations in an unprecedented manner. Technologies such as artificial intelligence are set to profoundly shape diplomacy, politics, and culture. We will analyze these forces of change, studying how they are affecting each other and impacting global governance.

How have racial and ethnic inequalities in housing and neighborhood development become hallmarks of many U.S. cities? This course focuses on the complex topics of race and racism from a spatial perspective, paying particular attention to the effects of interlocking systems of oppression on primarily urban African-American communities. However, we will not just examine the built environment of such communities. People shape and are shaped by the places they physically occupy. We, therefore, also delve into the narratives and everyday experiences of racialized city dwellers through the social sciences, the humanities, and media.

This course explores transnational and diasporic formations of race in the Americas. Drawing on Ethnic Studies, Latin American Studies, and anthropological and historical approaches, we explore racial formations in Latin America and its transnational communities. A central goal for this course is to understand race and racial formations as culturally contextualized and situated within the politics of difference. How are U.S. racial-ethnic categories embraced, contested, or reconfigured across the Americas, and vice versa? Topics include multiculturalism, mestizaje, border thinking, transnationalism, and racial democracy among others.

Modern agriculture is the most environmentally consequential activity that humans engage in. It has a profound impact on climate change, soil quality, water availability and risk of pandemics. However, agriculture itself is highly sensitive to climate change. This course covers the challenges of climate change, food availability and health in India. Traditional and novel solutions to carbon sequestration, and livestock practices that offer alternatives to the use of antibiotics will be discussed. Students will meet scientific and policy experts who will describe how India will have to adapt to tackle its 21st century challenges.

This seminar, taught at University of Tokyo, with students from Princeton University and the University of Tokyo, focuses on developing an understanding of contemporary Japanese and Chinese societies - their histories, cultures, politics, and economies - through lectures, readings, discussions, and tours in Japan and Hong Kong. Excursions include an overnight trip to rural Japan to examine the role of population aging and rural depopulation on peripheral regions and a three-day trip to Hong Kong to experience a rapidly changing Chinese cultural setting.

A four-week intensive language course in Seoul, South Korea, equivalent to KOR 105. Intermediate Korean is designed for students who have learned the basics of the Korean language and want to improve their language skills. Complex sentences and grammar are covered while the basics are reviewed. Balancing four language skills -- listening, speaking, reading, and writing -- is emphasized. Journals are kept to practice better self-expression in Korean. Cultural aspects of language learning are reinforced through readings, media, and virtual reality content.

A continuation of KOR 105K, this is a four-week intensive language course in Seoul, South Korea, equivalent to KOR 107. Continued development of four skills (speaking, listening, reading, and writing) in Korean. Complex grammatical structures are taught while the basics are reviewed. Idiomatic expressions are introduced. Journals are kept for writing practice.