Social Science

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Term
Time & Day Offered
Level
Credits
Course Duration

Ethnography and Writing Across Cultures — ANT4213.01

Spring 2014
Instructor: Noah Coburn
Credits: 4
This course is an advanced exploration of theory and the history of anthropology by using the most basic of anthropological texts: the ethnography. By carefully analyzing a series of classic and more current ethnographies, students will look at the relationship between theoretical approaches, how ethnographic data is presented to the reader and how the shape of the text
Social Science

Existentialism and Phenomenology — PHI2128.01

Fall 2014
Instructor: karen gover
Days & Time: TBA
Credits: 4
Phenomenology is the philosophical study of the structures of human experience, whereas existentialism is the study of human existence. These two movements intersect and overlap in the history of philosophy. This course undertakes a survey of these movements and their central concepts as they are found in the writings of such thinkers as Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger,
Social Science

Explorations in Public History — HIS4106.01

Fall 2014
Instructor: eileen scully
Days & Time: TBA
Credits: 4
This class introduces students to the fundamentals of Public History, that is, history that is generated for wide audiences, through collaborations with communities, stakeholders, and professional academics. Working closely with the Park McCullough House Association, Crossett Library, the independent Village School in North Bennington, and various guest specialists, students in
Social Science

From an Indigenous Point of View — ANT4205.01

Fall 2014
Instructor: miroslava prazak
Days & Time: TBA
Credits: 4
Using the novel as ethnography, this course examines world cultures through literary works of authors from various parts of the world. We explore the construction of community in precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial times; independence movements; issues of individual and social identity; and the themes of change, adaptation and conflict. Student work includes an analytical
Social Science

Gender and Development — PEC4218.01

Fall 2014
Instructor: robin kemkes
Days & Time: TBA
Credits: 4
In this course we will apply feminist theory to economics and international development and analyze empirical work that seeks to understand the plight and progress of women in the developing world. We will first explore the link between the social construction of gender and the social construction of the discipline of economics and then reformulate a definition of economics
Social Science

Gender in Early Modern Europe — HIS2102.01

Fall 2014
Instructor: carol pal
Days & Time: TBA
Credits: 4
We interrogate historical perceptions of gender in the early modern era, and develop a critical approach to our sources. In addition to what was said by major writers and thinkers, we want to know - how did women see themselves? Using letters, court records, journals, art, and published treatises, we see women running businesses, negotiating legal systems, engaging in public
Social Science

Genesis — HIS2220.01

Fall 2013
Instructor: Carol Pal
Days & Time: TBA
Credits: 4
Genesis is the first book in a compilation known collectively as the Bible. It is a text of enormous literary value, and one of our earliest historical chronicles, providing foundational material for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Yet how many of us know what it actually says? How did it come together, what is the narrative, and how does it relate to the ideas and events of
Social Science

Genesis — HIS2220.01

Spring 2015
Instructor: Carol Pal
Credits: 4
Genesis is the first book in a compilation known collectively as the Bible. It is a text of enormous literary value, and one of our earliest historical chronicles, providing foundational material for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Yet how many of us know what it actually says? How did it come together, what is the narrative, and how does it relate to the ideas and events of
Social Science Literature

Genocide and Mass Violence — POL4212.01

Spring 2014
Instructor: Amy Grubb
Credits: 4
With the recent debates over how the international community should respond to the use of chemical weapons in Syria, the horrific occurrence of mass murder of civilians in war is again brought to the forefront of public consciousness. The phenomenon of large-scale killings continues its plague on humanity, joining a huge list of tragic events that can be considered genocide.
Social Science

Global Ethics/Global Justice — PHI2110.01

Spring 2014
Instructor: Paul Voice
Credits: 4
What do we owe to distant others? What responsibilities do we have to address the misfortunes of citizens of other countries? What, if anything, do we owe future generations? Does the idea of global justice make sense? These and other questions are addressed through a careful readings and analysis of a variety of philosophical arguments. You will be expected to write two papers
Social Science

Global Politics — POL2206.01

Spring 2014
Instructor: Amy Grubb
Credits: 4
Why do countries decide to go to war? What is the purpose of the United Nations? Does trade reduce poverty? Can international agreements help solve environmental problems? Why does genocide occur? This course introduces you to the major theories, concepts, and issues in international politics in order to understand and begin answering vital questions about our world. The course
Social Science

Governing America — HIS2257.01

Fall 2014
Instructor: eileen scully
Days & Time: TBA
Credits: 4
Who's running America? Is anybody actually in charge? To get at these questions, we will conduct a wide-ranging historical overview of American governance, from the founding generation up through current initiatives to form an even more perfect union. Using case studies--including Tammany Hall, Civil War, Civil Rights, Borders, and Regulation--we will explore the elaborate,
CAPA Social Science

History of Medicine: From Hippocrates to Harvey — HIS2183.01

Spring 2014
Instructor: Carol Pal
Credits: 4
How did pre-modern culture understand the human body? How did it work? Where did it fit in the Great Chain of Being, and what differentiated men from women? Medicine has always been a hybrid of thinking, seeing, knowing, and doing. But what defined medicine in the past? Was it a science, an art, or a random assortment of practices? Between the age of Hippocrates and the age of
Social Science

Home and Other Figments: Immigration, Exile, and Uprootedness — PSY2238.01

Spring 2015
Instructor: Sean Akerman
Credits: 4
The unique experience of uprootedness provides an opportunity to ask questions about home, identity, and the transmission of the past. In this course, we will look closely at the experience of exile as one that we can all relate to, in addition to the many meanings that the word "home" carries. We will also examine several populations around the world that have been displaced
Social Science

How to Study a Disaster — ANT2136.01

Spring 2014
Instructor: David Bond
Credits: 4
Disasters loom large in the contemporary. In films and front-page news, images of societies splintering apart proliferate. Surely one of the most remarkable things about social life in the present is the ease with which we can conjure up its spectacular destruction. The point of this seminar is to take disaster seriously. We will do this both by reviewing historical and
Social Science Environment

Human Nature(s) — PSY4209.01

Spring 2014
Instructor: Ronald Cohen; Elizabeth Sherman
Credits: 4
This course will address recent developments in several fields (evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology among them) which have reinvigorated fundamental questions about humans, their conduct, and the cultures and societies they produce. We will examine several of these questions in detail: what is the nature of altruism? of aggression? of conflict? of reconciliation?
Science Mathematics and Computing Social Science

Journey: 1890s — HIS2126.01

Spring 2014
Instructor: Eileen Scully
Credits: 4
Students sign on to travel the world in the world-changing decade of the 1890s. In early weeks, students each create an historically credible persona, whom they will then lead and follow around the globe, starting out in Chicago at the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893.
Social Science

Keystone XL Pipeline — APA2130.01

Fall 2014
Instructor: david bond
Days & Time: TBA
Credits: 4
Whether ultimately approved or not, the Keystone XL Pipeline offers a telling window into the contemporary politics of hydrocarbons in North America. Although oil pipelines have been around for nearly a century, they have long been neglected in scholarship and public debate. Today, that is beginning to change. Whether as a vehicle of development or as a harbinger of climate
CAPA Social Science Environment

Landscapes of Injustice: Psychology and Social Change — PSY4238.01

Spring 2015
Instructor: Sean Akerman
Credits: 4
What role can psychology play in the aftermath of collective trauma? What are the responsibilities psychologists have to those who have suffered catastrophe? How does psychology engage with the realities of survival? In this course, we will we explore the ways in which psychology participates in social change. In particular, we will look at how psychology engages with the
Social Science

Liberalism: For and Against — PHI4104.01

Spring 2015
Instructor: Paul Voice
Credits: 4
This course invites students to critically engage with liberalism, the dominant political theory in Anglo-American philosophy. Students will read some of the main texts in the various traditions of contemporary liberal thought, including libertarianism, Rawlsian liberalism and utilitarian liberalism, and survey some of the central critical responses to the liberal project. The
Social Science

Local Governance in Comparative Perspective — POL4239.01

Spring 2015
Instructor: Rotimi Suberu
Credits: 4
Around the world, there is renewed interest in empowering institutions of local governance (county, city, town/township, municipal, village, or special-purpose local government, and non-governmental local associations) in order to promote political democracy, enhance socio-economic welfare, and accommodate subnational identities, among other goals. This course will examine the
Social Science

Medieval Britain and Shakespeare's History Plays — LIT2317.01

Spring 2015
Instructor: Annabel Davis-Goff; Carol Pal
Credits: 4
Shakespeare wrote his history plays for an audience living in a newly nationalistic England. It was a realm constructing the idea of Britain as the natural inheritor of Roman glory. But what, precisely, was this new "British" identity? In this course, we will follow the construction of British identity in history and literature. We will study the history of Britain from the
Social Science Literature

Medieval Masculinities — HIS2158.01

Spring 2015
Instructor: Stephen Higa
Credits: 4
In an age of knights in shining armor, celibate monks, and lovesick troubadours, what did it mean to be a man? In this course, we will investigate medieval constructions of gender (the roots of our modern Western gender systems) by exploring male privilege, male virtues, male desires, male relationships, and male bodies—sacred, profane, and queer. Students will be expected to
Social Science

Nature in the Americas — APA4128.01

Fall 2014
Instructor: david bond
Days & Time: TBA
Credits: 4
What is Nature? And what can we do with Nature? Such questions have a lively history in the Americas. Indeed, while Nature has a near mythic form in many public debates, much of its content is culled again and again from salient American examples. This course, then, uses such thorny questions as provocations to reflect more precisely on the historical cases and empirical
CAPA Social Science Environment