Winter Quarter 2026
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Catalog Descriptions
HUM 002B-001 American Humanities: A Cultural History of the Blues
Julia Simon
The blues is a uniquely American musical genre. The history of the blues echoes the African American experience, from the Delta to the industrialized north, from Mississippi to Chicago, Memphis, and beyond. This course will combine cultural history with music appreciation to explore the history of the blues, looking at such figures as Son House, Robert Johnson, Bessie Smith, Muddy Waters, and B.B. King. We will learn about the historical context that gave birth to the blues as well as learn about the musical structure of the blues, touching on chord progressions, bass lines and rhythms. General Education: AH, ACGH, WE
HUM 013-Witches: Myth & Reality
Elisabeth Krimmer
This course focuses on four aspects of witches/witchcraft in order to examine the historical construction of the witch in the context of the social realities of the women and men labeled as witches. The five areas covered are: European pagan religions and the spread of Christianity; the “Burning Times” in early modern Europe, with an emphasis on the German situation; 17th-century New England and the Salem witch trials; fairy tales; Wicca. The goal of the course is to sensitize students to the ways in which our perception of reality is a product of social construction and to highlight mechanisms of scapegoating during times of crisis, including climate disasters, epidemics, and social, economic, and political change.
Readings are drawn from documentary records of the witch persecutions and witch trials, literary representation, scholarly analyses of witch-related phenomena, and essays examining witches, witchcraft, and the witch persecutions from a contemporary feminist perspective. The lectures will be supplemented by visual material (movie clips, images) drawn from art history, early modern witch literature, popular culture, and documentary sources General Education: AH, WC, WE
