Global Arc

The last two decades have ushered in an unprecedented era of change and reflection. From the shifting of political and cultural orders at the turn of the millennium to the global circulation of the internet, human modes of expression have developed in dramatically different ways. We will explore novels written in English from 2000 to the present that reflect on change -- cultural, political, technological, environmental -- and in so doing, consider our position as twenty-first century readers in relation to both the past and the future.

Inter-disciplinary class on early modern Amsterdam (1550-1720) when the city was at the center of the global economy and leading cultural center; home of Rembrandt and Spinoza (Descartes was nearby) and original figures like playwrights Bredero and Vondel, the ethicist engraver Coornhert, the political economist de la Court brothers and English traveling theater. We go from art to poetry, drama, philosophy and medicine. Spring Break is in Amsterdam with museum visits, guest talks and participation in recreation of traveling theater from the period.

The critical developments of 20th-century Europe and the consolidation of democracy in European countries, including the legacy of the two world wars, Nazism, Stalinism, the Cold War, colonialism and decolonization, the birth and development of the European Community, the development of the welfare state, the problems confronting the European Union (immigration, enlargement, political institutions, military role), and the varieties of democratic institutions in Europe. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

This course gives a broad and interdisciplinary perspective on some of the very diverse cultural and historical roots of European identity. It examines contemporary debates over contested identity in the light of long historical trajectories in which identities were continually defined and reshaped. It is conceived as an introduction to many of the courses in Princeton dealing with European issues. The landmarks include, but are not restricted to, written texts. They include Machiavelli, Montesquieu, Marx, and J.S. Mill, but also Fra Angelico, Beethoven and Thomas Mann. One three-hour seminar.

What kind of polity is the European Union? Is it a form of economic and political integration, an actor at the global scene, an interlocutor of the United States? What is its relationship to its Member States? How is it organized? What do democracy, citizenship, and fundamental rights mean for the EU? The seminar is designed to help better understand this organization--its political roots and objectives, its legal foundations and development, and its existence as a new kind of a federal system "beyond statehood". We will study the case law of the European Court of Justice and other writings about the constitutional process of the EU.

This course explores how gender is integral to constructions of health and illness. How do techniques of knowledge production in law, biomedicine, and public health rely on and invent ideas about gender difference? How is gender embodied in individual and collective experiences of suffering and affliction? How are such bodily experiences cross-cut by other conditions of social life, such as; culture, race, class, ethnicity, nationality and migration? The course combines readings in anthropology, literature, women¿s and gender studies, and critical theory to explore these questions in the contemporary context of the United States.

Why are people committed to the "Paleo" diet in the 21st Century? Why do we apply the title "comfort" to certain foods? This class will use anthropology as a platform to explore how diverse health outcomes are connected to the foods we do (and do not) eat. While we will consider how food is implicated in individual health outcomes (such as malnutrition and chronic disease), we will also explore food and diet at an evolutionary scale. Shaping these explorations will be a sharp critical lens that considers how culture shapes our perceptions of food and health and how power intersects in our ability to so access those needs and preferences.

This seminar provides a practical and theoretical toolkit for students interested in health disparities and social change. We will consider how critical perspectives on health, violence and the environment can create the grounds for broader social change. Through a multidisciplinary focus, we will look at how social change is conceptualized and assessed by experts, beneficiaries, and critics. Drawing lessons from the ACT UP, Black Lives Matter, reproductive rights and #MeToo, for example, we will examine how individuals and groups use technology and organize to change the status quo, reimagining ideas of justice and equity from the ground up.

This seminar explores how reproductive technologies are involved in the government of biological and social life. Through readings in medical anthropology, critical social theory, and science and technology studies we will consider how reproductive technologies (both contraceptive and procreative) shape understandings of the body, personhood, modernity and nature, and how practices of biological reproduction are entangled with the social reproduction of race, class, gender, and ethnicity. Ethnographic studies include hormonal contraception, assisted conception, abortion, sterilization, stem cell science, adoption, and prenatal screening.

Introduces disease and healthcare problems worldwide and examines efforts to address them. Via an interdisciplinary approach, identifies the main actors, institutions, knowledge, and values at play in the "global health system", and explores the environmental, social, political, and economic factors that shape patterns and variations in disease and health across societies. Topics include: development and governance of disease; technological change and public health; human rights and social justice; measuring health outcomes; and the shifting role of states, civil society, and public-private partnerships in healthcare delivery. Two lectures.