Global Arc

This seminar will examine xenophobia and xenophilia in Germany. Identification through irrational fear of the foreign is currently on the rise in many parts of the world, manifested in anti-immigrant, religiously motivated national exclusionary movements, discrimination, political party competition, racism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, internal purging, and massacres. This course examines their psychology and social meanings, focusing on both the modification of projections and the changing nature of its objects. It will introduce students to ethnographic methods by participating in cultural encounters and observations outside the classroom.

Many political scientists have described India as an "unlikely democracy". This course, taught at Ashoka University, Haryana, India, will examine the ways in which the workings of Indian democracy have shaped and transformed the meaning of five institutional formations: constitutionalism, religion, the economy, caste, and the city. The aim is not to provide a conventional or comprehensive overview of Indian democracy. It is rather to provide snapshots into the ways in which the Indian democratic experience is unsettling identities, unleashing new forms of mobilization, and transforming the meaning of citizenship as Indians experience it.

Time after time, Brazil has been hailed the "land of the future". Capturing the world's attention for over five centuries of colonialism and modernization, Brazil has offered rich natural resources for extraction and diverse social and political realities for the imagination of travelers and the work of scientists, academics and artists alike. Drawing from history, anthropology, literature and the arts, this Global Seminar explores how Brazil's becomings have been represented nationally and internationally and the ways in which its peoples have evolved within or escaped and recast the frames of this imagined country.

Students will use Giovanni Boccaccio's 14thC. classic, The Decameron as a starting point from which to explore the fundamentals of storytelling and the ways in which storytelling helps us navigate traumatic experiences. Students will study Italian language and culture, collaborate virtually with Italian theater artists to develop language skills, and their own short musical theater stories. The creation of a collection of short musical theater pieces, on a variety of contemporary (or reinvented classic) themes, responding to today's pandemic and exploring the fundamental human need to tell stories will be the centerpiece of the course.

India has been described as an "unlikely democracy." As Tocqueville argued, democracy, in principle transforms all the other social forms it touches, from religion to intermediate associations. This seminar will examine the ways in which the Indian democratic experience is unsettling identities, unleashing new forms of mobilization and in the process transforming the meaning of citizenship as Indians experience it. We will ask: Is Indian Democracy moving in a more illiberal and authoritarian direction? If so, what explains this transformation? How does this transformation look in comparative perspective?

This course explores contemporary Kenya in the context of its historical positioning and modern value to Western econo-political interests, and how this translates in daily livelihoods of Kenyans. Focus is on 4 themes: 1) Kenya as home to the earliest human origins and civilizations; 2) Kenya's evolution as an "anti-socialism" capital of Western capitalism in the region; 3) The country's central position in anti-terrorism war between the West and Middle East; 4) Problematizing Kenya/Africa's image of corruption as an explanation of underdevelopment. Course is experiential. Excursions count towards final grade.

Berlin is famous for its neighborhoods (der Kiez), its history of exclusions, national unity and divisions, as well as for its atmosphere of urban cosmopolitanism. We explore ethnographically the current state of civility, hospitality, and xenophobia in the German capital, and through readings explore its states in the past. We will debate issues of Kultur, multiculturalism, integration, Islam, political party representation, East/West polarization, and immigration. Students are introduced to an ethnographic approach to knowledge production.

This course, taught at Ashoka University (India), is an introduction to Indian politics. The first half is structured as chronological 'political history'. We begin with the colonial period (1757-1947), before studying the eras of Nehru (1947-64), Indira Gandhi (1965-1984) and the contemporary period (1985-2014). The second half looks at 'concepts' in Indian politics such as: the state, democracy, federalism, judiciary, political parties, social movements, identity politics, and welfare schemes. The final weeks will focus on the Narendra Modi years from 2014 to 2022, applying what we have learned in the course to the present day.

What does it mean to be a woman or a man? Or neither? How do gender and sexuality, those seemingly most personal and private of attributes, emerge from networks of power and social relations? This course introduces major concepts in the interdisciplinary field of gender and sexuality studies. We will analyze the ways in which gender, as an object of study and as a lived experience, intersects with class, race, and ability, and will examine the relation between gender, sexuality and power in literary, philosophical, political and medical discourses.

Human reproduction is often taken for granted as a merely biological phenomenon, yet reproduction is laden with cultural meaning and import for individuals and for society as a whole. Despite its significance, reproduction is rarely addressed in the Princeton curriculum. This new lecture course explores human reproduction from a sociological perspective. It also seeks to introduce students to some of the basic modes of thinking in both sociology and gender and sexuality studies.