“Fascism” has returned to the political vocabulary of the times suddenly and without much intellectual preparation. This graduate seminar proposes to put on a firmer conceptual footing the possibility of understanding the present political and social crisis as the “return” of fascism as a political culture across the Euro-American world and beyond. We shall examine historical and contemporary developments in (and encounter texts from) a range of regions across the world: Western Europe, the United States, Russia, and India. We shall read works of literature, theory and philosophy, literary and linguistic analysis, and sociology by such figures as Sinclair Lewis, Bertolt Brecht, Filippo Marinetti, Julius Evola, Ezra Pound, Martin Heidegger, Emmanuel Levinas, Georges Bataille, Theodor Adorno, Hannah Arendt, Margaret Atwood, and Alexander Dugin, among others.

• Days/Times: W 1:00PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Mufti, Aamir
• Room: Gilman 130D
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 7/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

In this seminar we will explore psychoanalytic theory as a method for interpreting art, literature, media, and political discourse. Our approach will be structured around an interlinking set of elements: historical stages in the development of Lacan’s theory; dimensions of experience as defined by the theory, specifically the symbolic, the imaginary, and the real; and moments of analytic interpretation, namely, the identification of the symptom, the staging of a fundamental fantasy in transference, and traversing the fantasy through subjective destitution. Readings will include texts from Lacan's seminars and writings as well as commentaries by the Slovenian philosophers Slavoj Žižek and Alenka Zupančič, the Haitian analyst Willy Apollon, the Argentine analyst Juan-David Nasio, and others. The seminar is being offered across several programs and will be taught in English, although students who can are encouraged to do readings in the original language. Attendance and participation are mandatory, but a term paper is not required.

• Days/Times: Th 3:30PM - 5:30PM
• Instructor: Egginton, William
• Room: Gilman 479
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 2/15
• PosTag(s): MLL-SPAN

Humanists possess a reservoir of scholarly abilities that prime them for contributing to debates well beyond the academy. This semester-long workshop will introduce graduate students to the basics of writing for such broad audience. Each session will be organized around particular topics in public humanities writing, including the pitching, writing, editing, and publishing processes of newspapers, magazines, and online outlets. We will also consider the forms of writing that most allow scholars to draw from their academic training and research: reviews, personal essays, op-eds, interviews, and profiles. Throughout the course we will see how the interdisciplinarity, comparativism, and multilingualism of fields from across the humanities can be helpful for reaching wide audiences. Beyond the nuts and bolts of getting started in so-called “public” writing, this course aspires to teach graduate students how to combine quality writing with academic knowledge, scholarly analysis with a general intellectual readership—and, ultimately, make academic knowledge a public good. Taught in English.

• Days/Times: M 1:30PM - 3:30PM
• Instructor: Seguin, Becquer D
• Room: Gilman 490
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 10/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

At a time when racial, economic, social, cultural, religious, and political divides seem more irreconcilable then ever, the very fabric of democracy shows its vulnerability in the United States as well as at the global scale. This seminar aims to study how different thinkers, in different historical periods, addressed the challenges, betrayals, and fragile hope of the American Dream and how their voices resonate with contemporary authors and problems inside and outside the United States.

• Days/Times: F 10:00AM - 12:30PM
• Instructor: Marrati, Paola
• Room: Gilman 208
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 14/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

A comparative study of the philosophy, rhetoric, and naturalism of Marcus Tullius Cicero (Rome, 106–43 BCE) and Gilles Deleuze ( 1925–1995). Texts include Cicero’s On Fate and On Divination and Deleuze and Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus. The seminar will explore themes pertaining to the environmental humanities and eco-criticism, semiotics, materialisms, stoicism, and the practice of cross- and trans-historical comparison and invention.

• Days/Times: W 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Bennett, Jane; Butler, Shane
• Room: Gilman 208
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 1/22
• PosTag(s): n/a

This course will consist of a close reading of the eleven texts collected in Heidegger’s 1954 volume “Vorträge und Aufsätze,” including such seminal pieces as “The Question Concerning Technology,” “What is Called Thinking?,” “Building, Dwelling, Thinking,” “… poetically man dwells…,” and “Aletheia.” Discussions in English; reading knowledge of German required.

• Days/Times: F 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Lisi, Leonardo
• Room: Gilman 208
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 12/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

Dissertation research and discussion of progress. Limited to students writing dissertations.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Marrati, Paola
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 10/10
• PosTag(s): n/a

Dissertation research and discussion of progress. Limited to students writing dissertations.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Bennett, Jane
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 9/10
• PosTag(s): n/a

Dissertation research and discussion of progress. Limited to students writing dissertations.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Lisi, Leonardo
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 10/10
• PosTag(s): n/a

Dissertation research and discussion of progress. Limited to students writing dissertations.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Ong, Yi-Ping
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 10/10
• PosTag(s): n/a

Dissertation research and discussion of progress. Limited to students writing dissertations.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Siraganian, Lisa
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 8/10
• PosTag(s): n/a

Dissertation research and discussion of progress. Limited to students writing dissertations.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Hashimoto, Satoru
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 8/10
• PosTag(s): n/a

Graduate Research

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Bennett, Jane
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 12/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

Graduate Research

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Giardini, Jo Aurelio
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 14/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

This course introduces basic computational techniques in the context of empirical humanistic scholarship. Topics covered include the command-line, basic Python programming, and experimental design. While illustrative examples are drawn from humanistic domains, the primary focus is on methods: those with specific domains in mind should be aware that such applied research is welcome and exciting, but will largely be their responsibility beyond the confines of the course. Students will come away with tangible understanding of how to cast simple humanistic questions as empirical hypotheses, ground and test these hypotheses computationally, and justify the choices made while doing so. No previous programming experience is required.

• Days/Times: TTh 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Lippincott, Tom; Sirin Ryan, Hale
• Room: Gilman 55
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 19/20
• PosTag(s): n/a

This course introduces substantial machine learning methods of particular relevance to humanistic scholarship. Areas covered include standard models for classification, regression, and topic modeling, before turning to the array of open-source pretrained deep neural models, and the common mechanisms for employing them. Students are expected to have a level of programming experience equivalent to that gained from AS.360.304, Gateway Computing, AS.250.205, or Harvard’s CS50 for Python. Students will come away with an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of different machine learning models, the ability to discuss them in relation to human intelligence and to make informed decisions of when and how to employ them, and an array of related technical knowledge.

• Days/Times: TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Backer, Samuel Ehrlich; Messner, Craig A
• Room: Gilman 195
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 9/10
• PosTag(s): n/a

Summer Research

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Marrati, Paola
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 20/20
• PosTag(s): n/a

Summer Research

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Siraganian, Lisa
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 18/20
• PosTag(s): n/a

Summer Research

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Lisi, Leonardo
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 19/20
• PosTag(s): n/a

Summer Research

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Hashimoto, Satoru
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 19/20
• PosTag(s): n/a

Summer Research

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Ong, Yi-Ping
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 18/20
• PosTag(s): n/a

Summer Research

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Bennett, Jane
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 17/20
• PosTag(s): n/a

This seminar combines practice and theory-oriented approaches to film studies. In addition to exposing and immersing students into the film practice of various filmmakers and their approaches, including professor Wegenstein’s, this seminar pays close attention to feminist film theory, queer film theory, indigenous ethnographic film methods, and decolonial film strategies, analyzing their practical implementations in documentary, fiction films, and animation films. The seminar will also offer students the opportunity to sit in and learn the editing process, as Fall 2024 coincides with Bernadette Wegenstein’s latest documentary film post-production phase, The Archives. No prior practical experience in filmmaking needed to attend this class.

• Days/Times: F 2:00PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Wegenstein, Bernadette
• Room: Gilman 479
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 10/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

Presentations by faculty, students, and invited speakers.

• Days/Times: W 10:30AM - 12:00PM
• Instructor: Bennett, Jane; Taylor, Chris Ross
• Room: Gilman 208
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 7/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

What do films and philosophy have in common? Do films express, with their own means, philosophical problems that are relevant to our experience of ourselves and the world we live in? This term we will study such issues with a particular focus on questions of justice, truth, revenge, forgiveness, hope, hate, and fear.

• Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Marrati, Paola
• Room: Gilman 208
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 2/3
• PosTag(s): n/a

Dissertation research and discussion of progress. Limited to students writing dissertations.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Marrati, Paola
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 10/10
• PosTag(s): n/a

Dissertation research and discussion of progress. Limited to students writing dissertations.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Bennett, Jane
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 10/10
• PosTag(s): n/a

Dissertation research and discussion of progress. Limited to students writing dissertations.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Lisi, Leonardo
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 9/10
• PosTag(s): n/a

Dissertation research and discussion of progress. Limited to students writing dissertations.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Ong, Yi-Ping
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 8/10
• PosTag(s): n/a

Dissertation research and discussion of progress. Limited to students writing dissertations.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Siraganian, Lisa
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 10/10
• PosTag(s): n/a

Dissertation research and discussion of progress. Limited to students writing dissertations.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Hashimoto, Satoru
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 9/10
• PosTag(s): n/a

Dissertation research and discussion of progress. Limited to students writing dissertations.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Egginton, William
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 10/10
• PosTag(s): n/a

Teaching Assistant graduate student

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Marrati, Paola
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 5/5
• PosTag(s): n/a

Graduate Research

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Bennett, Jane
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 13/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

Teaching assistants are required to register for this course. See handbook for details.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Bennett, Jane
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 2/6
• PosTag(s): n/a

An interdisciplinary seminar on Latin America’s role in wider cultural, economic, and political processes, from both historical and contemporary perspectives. In Fall 2024 we will take up the themes of aesthetics, epistemic pluralism, and the question of reality.

• Days/Times: W 2:00PM - 4:30PM
• Instructor: Angelini, Alessandro; Nogueira, Marcelo
• Room: Mergenthaler 439
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 9/15
• PosTag(s): n/a