Love is a deeply personal experience. Yet, powerful social, political, and economic forces determine who we love, when we love, and how we love. Looking at practices of romantic love, dating, sex, marriage, queer love, friendship, and familial love across different social and global contexts, this course explores how social and cultural factors shape our most intimate relationships. Drawing on ethnography, history, and journalism, we examine the intersections between love and technology, gender, race, the law, capitalism, colonialism, and religion. For the final project, students will use creative writing or multi-media to tell a love story.

Disabled people are the largest minority in the world. Attention to the lived experiences and discourses of disability is crucial to our understanding of what it means to be human in an ever-changing world. This course moves beyond a medicalized view of disability and develops an historical and ethnographic critique of ableism with a focus upon the diverse forms of impairment and their social, economic, and technological contexts. What are the moral and political stakes of an anthropology of disability today?

Violence is simultaneously destructive and generative of social relations, individual and collective subjects, states, law and ethics, formal and informal authorities, multiple and layered sovereignties. It is inscribed into the fabric of everyday life not only through repressive means but also through the epistemic and violent production of the other enemies, criminals, terrorists. This course draws on anthropology, history, critical theory, films and documentaries, fictive and journalistic writing to explore violence, its power and meaning in its multifaceted physical, symbolic, political, moral, and cultural manifestations.

How is memory shaped through museums and archives? What can anthropology teach us about the centrality of art, artifacts, museums, and knowledge-making in the violence of colonialism? In this course, we will read about the making of Palestine as an object of knowledge, a source of cultural production, and a field of contested memory practices. We will see what is specific about the relation of knowledge and culture to power, and what this teaches us about the workings of colonialism and resistance to it. We will also look at the various ways, means and methods that Palestine confronts colonial violence, domination, and other forms of power.

This course explores the technology and function of books in historical perspective, asking how illuminated manuscripts were designed to meet (and shape) cultural and intellectual demands in the medieval period. Surveying the major genres of European book arts between the 7th-15th centuries, we study varying approaches to pictorial space, page design, and information organization; relationships between text and image; and technical aspects of book production. We work primarily from Princeton's collection of original manuscripts and manuscript facsimiles. Assignments include the option to create an original artist's book for the final project.

An introduction to ancient Greco-Roman mythology in its cultural context and in relationship to broader human concerns (e.g., creation, mortality and immortality, sex and gender, time, change, love, and death). The course offers a who's who of the ancient Greco-Roman imaginative world; considers its relations with other ancient Mediterranean cultures and its transformations over time; and delves into the main ancient sources for well-known myths. We will also consider modern adaptations of ancient myths.

This course will examine the origins, evolution and organization of the democratic system in Athens, and address some of the most controversial questions about the topic: To what extent was Athens democratic? What were the links between Athenian democracy and its aggressive imperialism? What are the similarities and differences between ancient and modern ideas of democracy?

The Bible is more than one book. "Bible" comes from a Greek word that literally means "books." Some are hauntingly beautiful, others profoundly philosophical. Some are simultaneously boring and terrifying; some are riveting and funny. We'll think about how these different kinds of literature belong in the same overarching book: how are the ways in which they are written a part of the overall meaning or meanings of the Bible? We'll survey the literary devices that Biblical texts use and the beauty of its language. This way of reading isn't intended to challenge any faith tradition, nor does it assume that you've ever looked at the Bible before

This course focuses on the role of narrative discourse in the articulation of cultural, historical, and literary developments from the late 20th to the early 21st century. An emphasis on narratological considerations will be combined with reflection on issues of race, gender, class, history, and memory.

Each new technology generates its own set of apprehensions, expressed through opinion pieces, literature, film, art, and public debates. This course surveys fearful responses to technologies such as print, electricity, radio, telegraph, telephone, photography, robots and automatons, the automobile, chemical warfare, the atom bomb, cloning, drones, IVF and technologies of reproduction, GMOs, mechanization, surveillance technologies, cell phones, the Minitel and Internet, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, etc. What patterns can be found in these fears? How have writers and artists channeled these in their work?

Ruled from Constantinople (ancient Byzantium and present-day Istanbul), the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire survived the collapse of the Western Roman Empire by over a millennium. This state on the crossroads of Europe and Asia was Roman in law, civil administration, and military tradition, but predominantly Greek in language, and Eastern Christian in religion. The course explores one of the greatest civilisations the world has known, tracing the experiences of its majority and minority groups through the dramatic centuries of the Islamic conquests, Iconoclasm, and the Crusades, until its final fall to the Ottoman Turks.

Humanistic Studies 216-219 is an intensive yearlong exploration of landmark works in the Western intellectual tradition. With a team of faculty drawn from across the humanities and social sciences, students examine pivotal texts, events, and artifacts of European civilization from antiquity forward. The course is enhanced by guest lectures and museum excursions. This double-credit course meets for six hours a week and fulfills distribution requirements in both LA and HA. Students must enroll in both 216 and 217.

In combination with HUM 216, this course explores the landmark achievements of European civilization from antiquity to the middle ages. Students must enroll in both 216 and 217, which constitute a double-credit course. The lecture component for HUM 217 is listed as TBA because all meetings are listed under HUM 216. There are no separate meeting times for HUM 217.

An introduction to the literature, art, religion and philosophy of China, Japan and Korea from antiquity to ca. 1600. Readings focus on primary texts in translation and are complemented by museum visits and supplementary materials on the course website; we emphasize close reading and discussion, encouraging students to engage with both the past and present meanings of these texts. The course explores the unique aspects of East Asian civilizations and the connections between them through assignments integrating text with visual and material sources. No prior knowledge of East Asia is required.

This course focuses on the Near East from antiquity to the early centuries of Islam, introducing the most important works of literature, politics, ethics, aesthetics, religion, and science from the region. We ask how, why, and to what ends the Near East sustained such a long period of high humanistic achievement, from Pharaonic Egypt to Islamic Iran, which in turn formed the basis of the high culture of the following millennium.

Current debates over whether a given political leader or regime deserves to be described as "fascist" often pivot around the question: How much does this person or government closely mimic the genocidal far-right movements that took power in Europe in the 1920 - 30s? Such discussions assume mid-20th Century fascism to be a rupture or aberration in a fundamentally sound Western civilization built around the institutions of liberal democracy and capitalism. This seminar will disrupt these assumptions, exploring ways that political authoritarianism and genocidal practices have been intrinsic to, and inseparable from, capitalist modernity.

This course will provide the historical and theoretical background essential for understanding the evolution of women's film in European cinema. Particular attention will be paid to questions of sexual difference and to the challenges feminist and queer theory pose to a politics of identity in film. Students will explore and assess the ways cultural identity determines the cinematic representation of women, while receiving a solid grounding in the poetics of cinema as it developed across time, genres, and cultures.

This course brings together scholarship from musicologists, cognitive scientists, and biologists to explore the concept of "animal music" from a cross-disciplinary perspective. Animal music is an important topic because it harbors profound information about the history of life--by examining it in relation to human music making, we stand to gain a better understanding of everything from social synchronization and linguistic turn-taking to (bio)semiotics and cultural evolution. Using a combination of short lectures, student presentations, and creative projects, this course provides students with a comprehensive understanding of the field.

This class analyzes how different cultures imagine monsters and how these representations changed over time to perform different social functions. As negative objectifications of fundamental social structures and conceptions, monsters help us understand the culture that engendered them and the ways in which a society constructs the Other, the deviant, the enemy, the minorities, and the repressed. This course has three goals: it familiarizes students with the semiotics of monsters worldwide; it teaches analytical techniques exportable to other topics and fields; it proposes interpretive strategies of reading culture comparatively.

Freud is approached as a systematic thinker dedicated to discovering the basic principles of human mental life. For Freud those basic principles concern what impels human thought and behavior. What moves us to think and act? What is it to think and act? Emphasis is placed on the close study and critical analysis of texts, with particular attention to the underlying structure of the arguments.

Academic life is largely configured along disciplinary lines. What are "disciplines," and what does it mean to think, write, teach, and work within these socio-cognitive structures? Are there alternatives? This course, drawing on faculty associated with the Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program in the Humanities (IHUM), takes up these questions, in an effort to clarify the historical evolution and current configuration of intellectual activity within universities. Normative questions detain us. The future is a persistent preoccupation. Collaborative work and generic experiment are encouraged.

The Arabian Nights (The 1001 Nights) is a masterpiece of world literature. However, its reception and popularity are fraught with challenges and problems. By tracing its journey from its Persian origins, through its Arabic adaptations, and finally its entry into Europe, this class will consider how the Nights were used to construct imaginings about the Self and the Other in these different contexts. We will cover topics such as orientalism, gender and sexuality, and narrative theory as they relate to the Nights' most famous story cycles and look at the influence of the Nights on modern authors and filmmakers. All readings will be in English.

What are Digital Humanities? What does the library of the future look like? Will the single-author peer-reviewed article survive the DH storm that is coming? How will the DH impact the ways we do historical research? And what ethical and legal problems arise from the use of DH methods? In this course, we will familiarize ourselves and experiment with a variety of Digital Humanities tools, such as network analysis, geospatial mapping, text mining, and crowdsourcing, interrogating how the DH reshape the ways we approach textual and material culture, ask research questions, process data, publish, and store academic scholarship.

This course will examine the history, contemporary reality, and likely future of higher education, especially in the United States but also abroad. We will consider the changing and often conflicting ideals and aspirations of parents, students, instructors, and administrators from classical Rome to Christian institutions in the European Middle Ages to American athletic powerhouses today, seeking answers to fundamental practical, economic, and political questions that provoke vigorous contemporary debate.

How are ideas of belonging to the body politic defined in Latin America, the Caribbean, and within Spanish-speaking communities in the US? What are créole identities? Who is "Latin American," "(Afro-)Latinx," "Boricua," "Chino," "Indian," etc.? Who constructs these terms and why? Who do they include/exclude? Why do we need these identity markers in the first place? Our course will engage these questions by analyzing literary, historical, visual and sound productions across centuries to present time.

This course will explore the crucial connections between migration, language, and translation. Drawing on texts from a range of genres and disciplines - from memoir and fiction to scholarly work in translation studies, migration studies, political science, anthropology, and sociology - we will focus on how language and translation affect the lives of those who move through and settle in other cultures, and how, in turn, human mobility affects language and modes of belonging.

This seminar introduces urban studies research methods through a study of New York in conversation with other cities. Focused on communities and landmarks represented in historical accounts, literary works, art and film, we will travel through cityscapes as cultural and mythological spaces - from the past to the present day. We will examine how standards of evidence shape what is knowable about cities and urban life, what "counts" as knowledge in urban studies, and how these different disciplinary perspectives construct and limit knowledge about cities as a result.

This seminar introduces the study of gentrification, with a focus on mapping projects using GIS (Geographic Information Systems) software. Readings, films, and site visits will situate the topic, as the course examines how racial landscapes of gentrification, culture and politics have been influenced by and helped drive urban change. Tutorials in ArcGIS will allow students to convert observations of urban life into fresh data and work with existing datasets. Learn to read maps critically, undertake multifaceted spatial analysis, and master new cartographic practices associated with emerging scholarship in the Digital and Urban Humanities.