Advising Appointment Update

In alignment with the campus directives regarding the precautions surrounding COVID-19, the Languages and Literatures academic advising offices are now physically closed.  Our Advisors remain available and will be offering academic advising appointments to students through zoom, phone call, or email.  Once you have scheduled your appointment in the online appointment system, your advisor will reach out to you via email with instructions on how to connect with them using zoom, phone call, or email. Resource FAQ for Students

HUM 001. How to be a Critic: "Fashion" (2 units)
CRN 63814 | Claire Goldstein | W 4:10-6:00P | 2 Wellman

Note: HUM 1 can be repeated one time for credit if topic differs.

Course Description: When Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden in the book of Genesis, the first thing they did was clothe themselves. The biblical text marks the transformation from the state of nature to the dawn of civilized society with the act of putting on clothing.

When people in 18th-century France demanded a new form of government, men showed their revolt against aristocratic privilege by rejecting the knee-breeches (culottes) worn by noblemen and instead wearing long pants. The revolutionaries were known thereafter as the sans-culottes.

When Clark Kent and Peter Parker become superheroes, we can tell because they have changed their outfits.

In this two-unit Humanities course, we will delve into the cultural significance of fashion in Europe and America, from the high heels Louis XIV donned as part of his campaign to dominate his unruly court to Dante de Blasio’s afro that helped catapult his father, Bill de Blasio, into the New York City mayor’s office. We will study fashion icons (Marie Antoinette, Jackie O, Madonna, Lady Gaga) as well as the role fashion plays in social movements and identity formation. In short readings and slide lectures we will explore a wide range of approaches to better understand the role fashion plays in our world and our everyday lives.  Approaches will include anthropology; sociology; literary reading; semiotics; psychoanalysis; and economic, historical and art historical analysis. 

Prerequisite: None.

GE credit (Old): Arts & Humanities.
GE credit (New): Arts & Humanities.

Format: Lecture - 2 hours

Textbook:

  • Fashion Theory: A Reader, edited by Malcolm Barnard (Routledge, 2007)

About the Instructor: Claire Goldstein is an Associate Professor of French.

HUM 002A. "Adam and Eve" (4 units)
CRN 47600 | Noah Guynn | TR 1:40-3:00P | 100 Hunt

Note: HUM 2A can be repeated one time for credit if topic differs.

Course Description: How does Scripture shape identities and beliefs? Are identities and beliefs stable, or do they change over time? Does the meaning of Scripture change along with identities and beliefs? Does Scripture have a single, truthful meaning? Or is it open to interpretation? In what ways have interpretations of Scripture been used to dictate moral conduct, social relationships, and political behaviors? How do the ways in which people have interpreted Scripture define their relationships with God and other people? In particular, how have their interpretations of Scripture determined their understandings of gender and sexuality? This course will seek answers to these questions by examining the story of God’s creation of the world and of Adam and Eve in Jewish and Christian sacred texts and commentaries from the tenth century BC through the present day. Specifically, we will investigate the basic accounts of Creation in the Old Testament (Genesis 1–3); (2) the ways in which different authors from different historical periods have interpreted (or improvised on) those accounts; and (3) the ways in which spiritual insights derived from the interpretation of sacred texts have given shape to moral, social, and political issues.

Prerequisite: None.

GE credit (Old): Arts & Humanities.
GE credit (New): Arts & Humanities, World Cultures, and Writing Experience.

Format: Lecture - 3 hours; Extensive Writing.

Textbook:

  • Kristen E. Kvam, et al., Eve and Adam: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Readings on Genesis and Gender (Indiana University Press, 2009)

About the Instructor: Noah Guynn is an Associate Professor of French.