Category Archives: Cultures and Contexts

Elective Courses in Tisch’s Liberal Arts & Sciences Core

Introduction to Food History (FOOD-UE 1210)

Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Tue,Thu

Examination of food from historical and transnational perspectives. Topics considered are: the origins of agriculture, the phenomenon of famine, the co-evolution of world cuisines and civilizations, the international exchange and spread of foods and food technologies following 1492, issues of hunger and thirst, and the effects of the emergent global economy on food production, diets, and health. Liberal Arts Core/MAP Equivalent – satisfies the requirement for Cultures and Contexts for Steinhardt students.

Food Studies (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Cultures and Contexts Spring 2026 Undergraduate
Spring 2021

Art and Architecture of the Islamic World (ARTH-UH 1810X)

A broad survey, we will consider works of architecture, ceramics, metalwork, textiles and the arts of the book. Given the span of centuries embraced by the term ’Islamic art’ – from the 7th century up to the present day – and the expanse of geography – from Spain to China and beyond – this course cannot be a complete survey within the constraints of a single semester. Instead, this course will present a select group of materials within a chronological and dynastic framework, with an emphasis on specific case studies. These selections will highlight important internal developments as well as ’points of contact’ between cultural entities. This approach – at once global and local – speaks to the dynamic and fluid qualities of many of the arts produced in the regions under scrutiny.

Art History (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Sections (Spring 2021)

ARTH-UH 1810X-000 (18559)01/17/2021 – 05/03/2021 Tue,Thu9:00 AM – 10:00 AM (Morning)at Abu DhabiInstructed by Teece, Denise

Cultures and Contexts Undergraduate

France and Islam (FREN-UA 9806)

Credits: 4
Duration: 14 Weeks
Dates: Wed

Islam is the second most important religion in France (after Roman Catholicism) and France has the highest Muslim population in Europe. Complex events from the mid-20th century forward have led to continuous heated debate and controversy about the place of Muslim citizens within the secular Republic. France’s interwoven history with Islam dates back, however, to the first Umayyad conquests of the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century and then to the period of the Crusades. Through the use of primary sources, literary and filmic texts, and critical readings (notably in history, sociology and cultural studies), this course traces the complexity and heterogeneity of French perceptions of Islam within a broad historical perspective beginning with these early encounters and continuing up to the present day.

French (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

Cultures and Contexts Fall 2025 Spring 2026 Undergraduate
Spring 2022

Youth and Consumer Culture in China (GCHN-SHU 246)

How can a hamburger symbolize progress, an animated character provide comfort, and rock music define one’s identity? In this course we will study the role of consumer culture in the lives of Chinese youth, both today and in the past. By examining popular commodities including sneakers, coffee, backpacking, and celebrity idols, we will think about how young people use these things to find friendship and love, to seek success and happiness, and to define who they are. As we consider why people like particular commodities, we will learn about class, gender, ethnicity, and modernity in China. Reading about the history of commodities in China, we will consider what is new about consumer culture, and why people’s tastes change over time. Alongside studies of specific commodities, we will read key theoretical texts about shopping, advertising, media, identity, and fantasy: these texts will help us understand how commodities can be imbued with tremendous power to shape our desires and create our identities. During the semester, each student will conduct qualitative research about a commodity, including online research and offline interviews with people who buy and sell this commodity. At the end of the semester, we will gather your research together to produce a handbook of Chinese youth and consumer culture. Prerequisite: Sophomore standing. Fulfillment: CORE SSPC/IPC; GCS Elective: The Politics, Economy, and Environment of China; Social Science focus Anthropology 200 level.

Global China Studies (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

Cultures and Contexts Societies & the Social Sciences Undergraduate

Hist of Nationalism in Cent & Eastern Europe (HIST-UA 9176)

Credits: 4
Duration: 14 Weeks
Dates: Mon,Wed

The goal of this course is to introduce the students into nationalism studies and into a plethora of historical and present roots of national identities and manifestations of nationalism in Central and Eastern Europe. The course will examine how selected aspects of national histories have been used (and misused) in 19., 20. and 21. century to support/justify national political programs and leaders; specifically, how a romantic picture of national history influenced the development of national identity and what role its interpretation has had in political struggles and programs of Central and East European nations. The course focuses on forces that triggered many eruptions of ethnic hatred and atrocities in Central and Eastern Europe including Holocaust, post World War II expulsion of Germans, civil war in former Yugoslavia, and most recently the nationalist aspects of conflict between Ukraine and Russia. The course will focus on Ukraine and Russia, Poland, Hungary, former Czechoslovakia, present-day Czech Republic and Slovakia, on former Yugoslavia and on independent states on its territory, and it will motivate the students to formulate a positive and cooperative prospect for the region’s future.

History (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

Cultures and Contexts Societies & the Social Sciences Spring 2026 Undergraduate

Germany and East Central Europe (HIST-UA 9514)

Credits: 4
Duration: 14 Weeks
Dates: Wed

This course will focus on the history of the culturally rich region of “Mitteleuropa” through analysis of the parallel evolution of Germany and the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary. Mitteleuropa as a region produced such important figures as Franz Kafka, Gustav Mahler, Sigmund Freud, Theodor Herzl and Milan Kundera; historical personalities whose influence internationally is indisputable. We’ll delve into the history of the region and on the central role played by German politics and culture from the end of the 19th century, through the turbulent 20th century to the present day. Emphasis will be on the evolution of the concept of nationalism as well as on Germany’s foreign policy in the “concert of nations”, especially towards its Eastern neighbors. The aim is to achieve an understanding of the complex evolution of national entities and their interaction between the birth of the modern German state and the integration of the Visegrád countries in NATO and the European Union.

History (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

Cultures and Contexts Fall 2025 Spring 2026 Undergraduate

Comp Modern Societies: Pol & Soc in 20C Germany (HIST-UA 9133)

Credits: 4
Duration: 14 Weeks
Dates: Wed

The history of Germany in the twentieth century offers rich material to explore various approaches to organizing modern society. Beginning with Imperial Germany in 1900 and moving forward to today’s reunited Germany, we will look at different ways in which the relationship between the state and the individual, and relationship between politics, economy, and society developed over five different political systems. We will interrogate how these institutional arrangements were envisioned and structured and how they were experienced in everyday negotiations. In this course, principle narratives and events will be situated in a European and global context, allowing us to place the concept of German modernity in a comparative framework. Lectures will provide an overview of Germany in the twentieth century; readings and in-class discussions will explore different approaches to analyzing German history and society. During museum visits and walking tours, we will analyze contestations over the various attempts to integrate – both in concerted efforts to memorialize as well as to forget and erase – Germany’s oft-problematic pasts within the narrative of Germany’s present.

History (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

Cultures and Contexts Fall 2025 Societies & the Social Sciences Spring 2026 Undergraduate
Fall 2022

Virgins Martyrs Monks & Saints: Early Christianity (RELST-UA 846)

What was it about Christianity that it made it so popular in the ancient world? Was it the martyrs volunteering for public execution? Monks’ sexual renunciation? The isolation of hermits living on the tops of columns in the wilderness? Or perhaps orthodoxy and its politically divisive anxieties about heretics and Jews? In fact, all these things (and more) explain how a small Jewish messianic sect from Palestine became the dominant religion of the Roman Empire. This course will provide an introduction to the big questions in the history of early Christianity. The focus will be on early Christian literature, such as martyr texts, saints’ lives, and works of monastic spirituality and mysticism. Issues addressed will include the Christian reception of Greco-Roman antiquity, the origins of anti-Semitism, gender and sexuality in the early Church, and the emergence of Christian theology.

Religious Studies (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Cultures and Contexts Liberal Arts & Sciences - Electives Undergraduate
Fall 2022

Introduction to The New Testament (RELST-UA 302)

Introduces students to issues and themes in the history of the Jesus movement and early Christianity through a survey of the main texts of the canonical New Testament as well as other important early Christian documents. Students are given the opportunity to read most of the New Testament text in a lecture hall setting where the professor provides historical context and focus on significant issues, describes modern scholarly methodologies, and places the empirical material within the larger framework of ancient history and the theoretical study of religion.

Religious Studies (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Sections (Fall 2022)

RELST-UA 302-000 (26095)09/01/2022 – 12/14/2022 Tue,Thu2:00 PM – 3:00 PM (Early afternoon)at Washington SquareInstructed by Cady, Alyssa

Cultures and Contexts Liberal Arts & Sciences - Electives Undergraduate

Europe Since 1945 (HIST-UA 9156)

Credits: 4
Duration: 14 Weeks
Dates: Wed

The course will begin with an examination of the background to and condition of Europe in 1945. The outbreak of the Cold War and the division of Europe will be discussed as will the promotion of European unity, the establishment of NATO and the emergence of COMECON and the Warsaw Pact. The pressures leading to the creation of the European Economic Community (EEC) will be considered together with the firm establishment of the democratic principle in Western Europe. The Suez Crisis and Decolonisation in Britain and France will be explored together with the corollary, the first application by Britain for membership of the EEC. The effect of President de Gaulle’s presidency on France, NATO and the EEC will be considered. The end of Stalinism in the USSR will be examined as will the first cracks in the Soviet Empire in Eastern Europe in Hungary and Poland. This will be followed by a discussion of the merits and demerits of Khrushchev’s period in power, the U2 crisis and the construction of the Berlin Wall. The Prague Spring off 1968 will be discussed. The continued integration of Europe will be analyzed together with the impact of Ostpolitik in Germany. Brezhnev’s domination of the USSR and Détente in the 1970s will be examined. Following this, the forces that led to the triumph of Neo-Liberalism in Britain will be considered, as will the return of conservatism in Germany and the cohabitation of Mitterrand’s France. The re-launch of the European Community in the 1980s will be analysed. In Eastern Europe the Gorbachev era and the rise of Solidarność will be explored and the course will conclude with an examination of the disintegration of the Soviet Empire in Eastern Europe, the reunification of Germany, the collapse of the Soviet state and the conclusion of the Maastricht Treaty.

History (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

Cultures and Contexts Fall 2025 Spring 2026 Undergraduate
Fall 2023 Spring 2023 Spring 2024

The Performing Arts in Global Cultures (MPATC-UE 1505)

The study of the intersection of key philosophical and ethical systems with the analysis of performing art works and the music industry. Students learn an “Eclectic Method” of analysis to holistically explore and study works of art from cultures from around the world while studying ethical complexities and analytical systems in relation to the performing arts industries.

Music Theory and Composition (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Sections (Spring 2024)

MPATC-UE 1505-000 (16548)01/22/2024 – 05/06/2024 Tue,Thu4:00 PM – 6:00 PM (Late afternoon)at OnlineInstructed by White, Leonard · Bush, Christopher

Cultures and Contexts Expressive Culture Liberal Arts & Sciences - Electives Undergraduate

Modern Italy (ITAL-UA 9868)

Credits: 4
Duration: 14 Weeks
Dates: Thu

This course introduces contemporary Italy in all its complexity and fascination. Reviewing politics, economics, society, and culture over the past two centuries, the course has a primary goal — to consider how developments since the 1800s have influenced the lives and formed the outlook of today’s Italians. In other words, we are engaged in the historical search for something quite elusive: Italian “identity”. Topics will include the unification of the country, national identity in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the First World War, and Italian fascism, World War Two and the resistance, the post-war Italian Republic, the economic “miracle”, the South, the Mafia, terrorism, popular culture, and the most recent political and social developments, including Italy and the European Union. Lectures combine with readings and films (taking advantage of Italy’s magnificent post-war cinema).

Italian (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

Cultures and Contexts Fall 2025 Liberal Arts & Sciences - Electives Spring 2026 Undergraduate

A History of London (HIST-UA 9127)

Credits: 4
Duration: 14 Weeks
Dates: Mon
Credits: 4
Duration: 14 Weeks
Dates: Mon,Mon,Wed

This course examines the growth and importance of London from the Roman invasion of 43 AD to the present day. Students will learn about London’s changing economic and political role, and will understand how London grew to dominate the commerce, industry and culture of England. They will find out how London became the biggest city the world had ever known, and how it coped (or failed to cope) with the social and environmental problems created by its enormous size. The classroom sessions will be divided between a lecture and a class discussion. From week two onwards the class will begin with a discussion of the topic or period covered in the previous week‚s lecture, in which students will be expected to use knowledge and ideas gathered from lectures and from their weekly reading. There will also be four walking tours of parts of London which relate to the period we are studying at a particular time.

History (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

Cultures and Contexts Fall 2025 Spring 2026 Undergraduate

Intro to Buddhism (EAST-UA 832)

An introduction to this complex religion, emphasizing its history, teachings, and practices. Discusses its doctrinal development in India, then emphasizes certain local practices: Buddhism and the family in China; Buddhism, language, and hierarchy in Japan; the politics of Buddhist Tibet; and Buddhist art. Finally the course touches on Buddhism in the United States.

East Asian Studies (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Cultures and Contexts Liberal Arts & Sciences - Electives Spring 2025 Undergraduate
Fall 2022

Cultures & Contexts: Russia Since 1917 (CORE-UA 528)

Major periods, developments, and interpretative issues in Russian politics, history, and society, from the 1917 revolution to the present. The emphasis is on the Soviet experience, though the Tsarist past and post-Soviet developments are also considered. Special attention is given to the role of historical traditions, leadership, ideology, ramifying events, and socioeconomic factors.

College Core Curriculum (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Sections (Fall 2022)

CORE-UA 528-000 (19720)09/01/2022 – 12/14/2022 Tue,Thu9:00 AM – 10:00 AM (Morning)at Washington SquareInstructed by O’Donnell, Anne

CORE-UA 528-000 (19721)09/01/2022 – 12/14/2022 Wed8:00 AM – 9:00 AM (Morning)at Washington SquareInstructed by

CORE-UA 528-000 (19722)09/01/2022 – 12/14/2022 Wed9:00 AM – 10:00 AM (Morning)at Washington SquareInstructed by

CORE-UA 528-000 (19723)09/01/2022 – 12/14/2022 Wed8:00 AM – 9:00 AM (Morning)at Washington SquareInstructed by

CORE-UA 528-000 (19724)09/01/2022 – 12/14/2022 Wed9:00 AM – 10:00 AM (Morning)at Washington SquareInstructed by

CORE-UA 528-000 (19725)09/01/2022 – 12/14/2022 Wed3:00 PM – 4:00 PM (Late afternoon)at Washington SquareInstructed by

CORE-UA 528-000 (19726)09/01/2022 – 12/14/2022 Wed4:00 PM – 6:00 PM (Late afternoon)at Washington SquareInstructed by

Cultures and Contexts Undergraduate
Fall 2022

Cities on the Move: Migration and Urban Landscapes (SASEM-UG 9104)

The rapid expansion of urban areas is the major driving force of global environmental change. As most urban landscapes expand in number and size, their inhabitants place increasing demands on resources and energy. These demands pose great challenges for ensuring human welfare and protecting biodiversity. Urban land use change has always been a question for urban planners and researchers, but understanding contemporary competition for urban land and associated resources is perhaps more urgent than ever. The inflow of large numbers of migrants, not only from the rural counterparts of larger cities but also from all over the world, poses new challenges to environmental processes and the functioning of urban systems. A critical question emerges: how can we sustainably integrate new migrants into large urban areas without compromising the environmental wellbeing and livelihood of existing local populations? Urban development concepts like smart growth, eco-cities and sponge cities have previously grappled with this question; through them, researchers, urban planners, architects, and other professionals have imagined new forms and functions for buildings, material infrastructure, and open or vegetated spaces. The central challenge is to improve the resilience capacity of urban landscapes. Here, the notion that cities themselves may be reinvented in more ecologically vital ways portends to offer solutions to the dire environmental stresses that climate change, natural resource scarcity, and geopolitical instability promise. There is an important interdisciplinary dimension to this challenge: different stakeholders speak different scientific and functional languages. This course emphasizes inter- and trans-disciplinary approaches in an effort to highlight the multiple and distinct knowledge forms and data types relevant to understanding linkages between landscape structure, landscape function, and urban socio-natural transformation.

Study Away Seminar (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Sections (Fall 2022)

SASEM-UG 9104-000 (18839)at NYU Berlin (Global)Instructed by

Cultures and Contexts Undergraduate

Place-Building-Time:The Architecture of Berlin (ARTH-UA 9651)

Credits: 4
Duration: 14 Weeks
Dates: Mon

Berlin is a unique modern Metropolis. Its alternating history with often drastic changes offers a comprehensive background to explore and investigate the nature of architecture in correlation to the various developmental processes of urban life and culture. Architecture is embedded in the urban fabric in which place and time serve as the main threads, constantly changing their multifaceted and layered relationships. This urban fabric provides the fertile soil for urban life and culture, which literally takes place in various scales between the public and the private realm, two further threads intertwined in the urban fabric. Experiencing the city through walking is essential for learning how to observe, see and read “Place, Building and Time” in Berlin. Tours will alternate with classroom discussions and workshops.

Art History (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

Cultures and Contexts Fall 2025 Spring 2026 Undergraduate