Global Arc

The aim of this course is to track and understand the structural and architectural engineering leadership of Italy in the context of social-political-economic circumstances. The course studies various structure of Italy in three distinct time frames: creativity in structural and architectural engineering during the classical and medieval period, vaulted reinforced concrete structures of the 1900s, and modern times of lightweight structures and advanced technologies. In all parts of the course, calculations are made to examine the structural integrity. The course is open to all majors, no prerequisites.

This course traces the birth and spread of the ghetto as a social form and as an idea throughout world history. We begin with the first Jewish residential zone in a European city, the Jewish quarter of pre-Christian Rome, and end with what some prominent observers are calling a paradigmatic ghetto of the 21st century: Gaza. As we trace the spread and evolution of the ghetto concept, we explore how the social form emerged in different historical moments and what people inside and outside have made of the experience.

This course will study language and history through the lens of a regional collection of fairy tales, and will allow students to develop a working knowledge of the richly collaborative process through which musical theater is created. We'll learn how artists interpret, adapt, and create work, as well as give feedback to the creative development process. By working closely with professionals, students will also gain valuable experience in the craft of musical theater writing - learning some of the basic principles of form we well as how to shape songs and musicalized scenes for maximum storytelling clarity and effectiveness.

This course explores the drama of ancient Athens through reading, performance, and observation. Students will confront the interpretative and performative challenges the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes offer, culminating in a performance of student-generated scenes. Students will attend performances as well as participate in workshops and conversations with actors, directors, and designers. The seminar investigates the connection between the ancient world and Greece's complex multicultural present though trips to ancient sites and the modern city. The seminar features community service and classes in Modern Greek.

Focusing on three Ghanaian cities--Accra, Cape Coast, and Kumasi--the seminar traces the development of these urban centers from the earliest times to the present and explores the cultural encounters that have given them distinct identities. Using theories from history and anthropology, literature and cultural studies, political economy and urban studies, the seminar explores central questions in the study of the urban experience. Based in Accra, students will immerse themselves in the life of the city, mapping its social and cultural geography, trying to understand the structures that define it.

This seminar will address two essential questions: How can the art of film advance the causes of science? How do communities use media to support their environmental activism? Based in Kenya, students will be trained in digital video production, screenwriting, and editing, and will produce a series of short and long documentaries. Filming will entail numerous trips into the field, interviewing, and recording. The seminar will help students begin to understand crucial international development issues, e.g., water, wildlife, and land use, and how to communicate memorably about them through video.

Nestled in the Caucasus, Azerbaijan offers an unparalleled perspective on the processes that birthed and continue to shape the modern world. Azerbaijan at the beginning of the twentieth century was a global pacesetter, the center of world oil production and then the first secular democratic republic in the Muslim world. After seven decades of Soviet Communism, Azerbaijan is again an independent state and global energy hub. We will study timeless debates on Islam and identity, empire and independence, autocracy and democracy, and energy and development.

Before 1918, Austria-Hungary was a world power that spread from the Mediterranean to Ukraine, and Vienna was one of the world capitals of art, culture, and intellectual life. This seminar will explore the cultural history of psychoanalysis and its relation to Austrian history. It will feature weekly guest speakers who will lecture on topics as diverse as the history of communism in Vienna, the place of psychoanalysis in today's world, and the transformation of Austria from a world power into a small landlocked nation that often has thought of itself as a new Switzerland - a neutral country and a buffer between East and West.

This seminar explores Chilean visual culture since the coup, focusing on the responses to censorship and repression by visual artists, filmmakers, performers, and collectives as they developed new ideas around liberty, human rights, and political minorities, as well as free expression, memory, and peripheral cultures. These artists placed their bodies and works into the public sphere, reclaiming new spaces and radically transforming Chilean life. Our analysis will also consider the complex negotiations of the transition, the composition of the contemporary Chilean art scene, and the implementation of neoliberalism.

This seminar will offer an introduction to some of the most prominent features of Chinese society -- work organizations, the education system, the urban/rural divide, migration, social inequality, marriage and family, ethnicity and religion, with an emphasis on understanding social phenomena in China within its historical, cultural, political and economic context. It will also allow students to begin to study other social changes in China and their long-term impact on the people living there, as well as people living in other developed and developing countries.