Archives

Fall 2024

Asian American Literature (SCA-UA 306)

This overview begins with the recovery of early writings during the 1960s-1970s and proceeds to the subsequent production of Asian American writing and literary/cultural criticism up to the present. The course focuses on significant factors affecting the formation of Asian American literature and criticism, such as changing demographics of Asian American communities and the influence of ethnic, women?s, and gay/lesbian/bisexual studies. Included in the course is a variety of genres (poetry, plays, fiction and nonfiction, literary/cultural criticism) by writers from diverse ethnic backgrounds. The course explores the ways in which the writers treat issues such as racial/ethnic identity; immigration and assimilation; gender; class; sexuality; nationalism; culture and community; history and memory; and art and political engagement.

Social and Cultural Analysis (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

Sections (Fall 2024)

SCA-UA 306-000 (22140)09/03/2024 – 12/12/2024 Mon,Wed12:00 AM – 1:00 PM (Early afternoon)at Washington SquareInstructed by Parikh, Crystal

Texts and Ideas Undergraduate
Fall 2021

Climate Change and Environmental Justice (SCA-UA 632)

Readings from climatologists, economists, anthropologists, geographers, cultural analysts, and activists. Examines the natural and social impact of global warming in the context of the climate justice movement, which is modeled on American-derived principles of environmental justice in the 1990s and poses a legal and humanitarian challenge to those who place their faith in market-driven solutions. Examines how populations are unevenly affected by climate change, and how this imbalance is being addressed by advocates of decarbonization.

Social and Cultural Analysis (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Sections (Fall 2021)

SCA-UA 632-000 (10318)09/02/2021 – 12/14/2021 Tue,Thu2:00 PM – 3:00 PM (Early afternoon)at Washington SquareInstructed by Ross, Andrew

Physical Science OR Life Science Societies & the Social Sciences Undergraduate

Writing London (SCA-UA 9886)

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

This course will study a variety of texts written at particular times in the history of London. The aims of the course are to encourage the student to think historically, in terms of the way London and representations of the city have changed and developed over time; and theoretically, in terms of the way the city is mediated through different forms and genres (e.g. poetry, novels, essays, film; satire, detective and crime fiction), and the interrelationship of literary and material spaces. We will also examine the significance of gender, the definition of the modern metropolis as a labyrinthine city of Babylon, the influence of metropolitan culture on Modernism and Modernity, assimilation versus multiculturalism, immigration, and the effects of new modern spaces on individuals.

Social and Cultural Analysis (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

Expressive Culture Fall 2025 Liberal Arts & Sciences - Electives Spring 2026 Texts and Ideas Undergraduate
Spring 2022

Topics in Africana Studies (SCA-UA 180)

Explores specific issues dealing with the black urban experience, focusing on social and cultural institutions. Possible themes, which vary from semester to semester, include class and poverty, the police, urban development, education, sports, music, and art.

Social and Cultural Analysis (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

IMA Electives (Legacy Structure - Seminar/Studies) Liberal Arts & Sciences - Electives Societies & the Social Sciences Undergraduate

Documenting The African City (SCA-UA 9124)

Credits: 4
Duration: 14 Weeks
Dates: Tue

This interdisciplinary course combines ethnographic readings, representations, and interpretations of city and urban cultures with a video production component in which students create short documentaries on the city of Accra. The interpretative classes will run concurrently with production management, sights and sound, and post-production workshops. The course will have three objectives: (1) teach students the documentary tradition from Flaherty to Rouch; (2) use critical Cinema theory to define a document with a camera; and (3) create a short documentary film.

Social and Cultural Analysis (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

Fall 2025 IMA Electives IMA Electives (Legacy Structure - Media & Entertainment) Spring 2026 Undergraduate
Fall 2023

Ethnicity & The Media (SCA-UA 232)

Examines media images in relation to the making of ethnic and racial identities in the United States. Surveys some of the theoretical approaches to the study of images, paying particular attention to the intersection of history and ideologies or representation. Looks into the nature and politics of stereotypes; inquires into their reproduction through discourses, representations, and practices; and then moves to a comparative examination of media images in relation to the making of African American, Latino, Asian, and Native American images in the media, looking specifically at changes and continuities in the representation of these four minority groups in the media.

Social and Cultural Analysis (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

Sections (Fall 2023)

SCA-UA 232-000 (20866)09/05/2023 – 12/15/2023 Tue,Thu3:00 PM – 4:00 PM (Late afternoon)at Washington SquareInstructed by Davila, Arlene

Societies & the Social Sciences Undergraduate

Urban Ethnography (SCA-UA 9868)

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

Through a focus on contemporary Paris, this course aims to explore the insights offered by anthropological approaches to cities and urban life. We will consider the relationships between urban spatial organization and an array of social, economic and political phenomena; the relevance of consumption and display to the shaping of urban identities; and the shifting dynamics of social groups and boundaries within the urban context. This will be accomplished through course readings and also through training in urban ethnographic research methods, supporting each student’s own systematic observation over the semester of one locus of everyday Parisian life. The final project for the course will be a piece of ethnographic analysis based on this field research.

Social and Cultural Analysis (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

Fall 2025 Societies & the Social Sciences Spring 2026 Undergraduate
Fall 2021

Queer NYC (SCA-UA 421)

How queer is New York City? How do queerness and the city shape each other? This course crosses time and space, examining the history, politics and culture of the Big Apple. Ranging from Harlem to Times Square to Greenwich Village to Park Avenue, and beyond Manhattan to Queens, Brooklyn and Fire Island outposts, we follow people and money, high and underground culture, protests and politics. Materials include fiction and poetry, music, theater and performance, photography and film, and works of urban studies, history and ethnography. Assignments may include archival research and digital cartographic work.

Social and Cultural Analysis (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Liberal Arts & Sciences - Electives Societies & the Social Sciences Undergraduate
Fall 2021

Race, Football and American Culture (SCA-UA 153)

This interdisciplinary course explores the evolution of American football into a mirror of black life and politics and a reflection of race relations in American culture. Students will examine the growth of black players since the NFL was integrated in the late Sixties. Student writing and research will explore the growth of football as a vehicle and model for black protest and support for movements such as Black Lives Matter. Students will go to two football games this semester. The focus will also include a study of the segregated American Football League and its integration of the NFL.

Social and Cultural Analysis (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Liberal Arts & Sciences - Electives Societies & the Social Sciences Undergraduate
Fall 2021

Approaches to Metropolitan Studies (SCA-UA 601)

A broad and interdisciplinary introduction to the field of urban studies, surveying the major approaches deployed to investigate the urban experience in the social space of the modern city. Explores the historical geography of capitalist urbanization with attention to North American and European cities, to colonial and postcolonial cities, and to the global contexts of urban development. Major topics include urban politics and governance; suburban and regional development; urban social movements; urban planning; the gendering of urban space and racial segregation in urban space.

Social and Cultural Analysis (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Liberal Arts & Sciences - Electives Societies & the Social Sciences Undergraduate
Fall 2021

Approaches to Latinx Studies (SCA-UA 501)

Explores a set of principles that have guided Latino/a presence in the United States. These principles can be found in many but not necessarily all of the readings. They include urban/rural life, freedom/ confinement, memoir as source of voice/other sources of voice, generational separation and identity, and loss and healing. The course traces a movement through time from masculinist nationalism to the recognition of variations in gender, sexuality, race, class, region, and national origin. Other principles may be added to this list as the course proceeds.

Social and Cultural Analysis (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Liberal Arts & Sciences - Electives Undergraduate
Fall 2021

Filming Asian America: Documenting Community (SCA-UA 361)

Focuses specifically on the Asian American communities of New York and their histories. Presents filmmaking as a mode of community documentation and filmmakers as historians. Students meet as theorists and field researchers. The first phase is largely historical and theoretical, while the latter mainly deals with hands-on filmmaking. Students document various aspects of Asian/Pacific American communities in New York?sociocultural and political issues surrounding them, histories, personal stories, geodynamics of ethnic localities, domestic lives, professions, ethnic festivals and performances, etc. At the end of the course, students have made at least two collective documentaries (10 to 12 minutes each), which may be interrelated or on entirely different subjects.

Social and Cultural Analysis (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Liberal Arts & Sciences - Electives Undergraduate
Spring 2021

Race & Reproduction (SCA-UA 158)

Examines the connections between gender, racial ideology and history of medicine to consider the range of ways that reproduction—medically, culturally, and experientially—produces and troubles racial ideology. In this course we will explore issues in the history of race and reproduction, focusing primarily (though not exclusively) on North American contexts. Cross-cultural breadth will help us to consider the relationship between biological experiences (which are often portrayed as universal) and socio-cultural context. While questions about biology will be central to this history, we will also locate biology within a wider set of issues around social reproduction and the practices of motherhood. Through our readings we will consider how different disciplinary orientations (social history, medical anthropology, feminist theory, art history, etc.) help us to illuminate and problematize the connections between technologies and politics of biology and difference.

Social and Cultural Analysis (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Liberal Arts & Sciences - Electives Societies & the Social Sciences Undergraduate
Fall 2021 Fall 2022

Elementary Yoruba I (SCA-UA 182)

Yoruba is a language spoken in West Africa by approximately 20 million people. This course is an introduction to Yoruba language, people and culture and is designed for students without prior knowledge. The main goal is to develop elementary communicative competence in the language. It is designed to enable students read, write, listen to and talk about simple concepts, ensuring that they can minimally understand and be understood in the language, while developing a fundamental knowledge of the Yoruba culture. Emphases are on Yoruba as used by contemporary native speakers in the present day West Africa. Skills are developed through intensive interactive conversations, grammar exercises, and classroom activities designed for a learner to use the language in various daily activities.

Social and Cultural Analysis (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Sections (Fall 2021)

SCA-UA 182-000 (9690)09/02/2021 – 12/14/2021 Mon,Wed,Fri9:00 AM – 10:00 AM (Morning)at Washington SquareInstructed by Mabayoje, Moses

General Elective IMA Electives (Legacy Structure - Seminar/Studies) Liberal Arts & Sciences - Electives Undergraduate
Fall 2022

Landcapes of Consumption (SCA-UA 625)

Consumption of objects, images, and places is central to the culture and economy of metropolitan life. The class will explore how the relationship between consumption and cities has developed by examining three key moments—the late nineteenth century and the invention of urban commodity spectacles, post-war America and the rise of suburban consumer spaces, and contemporary America and the selling of the commodity city. The class addresses three questions: Why do we want things? How does landscape organize our consumer desires? How does place become an object of consumption? We will begin with an examination of classic theoretical works that probe the relationships between people, things, and cities. We will then embed these in discussions of changing forms and practices of consumption and urbanism. The empirical cases we will examine range from the development of the department store, to the fashioning of commodity home, to the work of shopping, and to the emergence of a thriving urban debt industry.

Social and Cultural Analysis (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

IMA Electives (Legacy Structure - Seminar/Studies) Liberal Arts & Sciences - Electives Societies & the Social Sciences Undergraduate
Fall 2021 Fall 2022

Introduction to Native American and Indigenous Studies: The Politics of Indigeneity (SCA-UA 747)

This course is a general introduction to the field of Native American and Indigenous Studies (NAIS). The course will introduce students to the central questions and debates of NAIS, including but not limited to: Native American hidden histories and oral histories; comparative indigeneities; questions of “discovery” and colonialism; the politics and representations of lands, massacres, and museums; and questions of law, gender and sexuality. It begins by asking students to consider the history of the field and weaves throughout questions about the complicated and contested terrain of the term Indigeneity. It ends with discussions about decolonizing research and indigenous futures, thus preparing students to consider theories and methodologies they will encounter in more advanced courses for the NAIS minor. By the end of the semester, students will have gained both historical and ethnographic perspectives on how museums and other forms of representation help us to know and reproduce ourselves and “others,” and how institutions craft, control, and circulate cultural heritage in various social lives.

Social and Cultural Analysis (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

IMA Electives (Legacy Structure - Seminar/Studies) Liberal Arts & Sciences - Electives Societies & the Social Sciences Undergraduate

French/African Relations (SCA-UA 9914)

A historical and political inquiry into the French system of relations with Francophone Africa from the ‘race to Empire’ in the 19th century to the current day. The main goals of the course are: to describe the historical development of French-African relations from the colonial to the post-independence era; to investigate the political, economic and cultural mechanisms of French influence in contemporary Francophone Africa; to understand the consequences for France of complex developments subsequent to colonialism, such as African immigration in France. Conducted in French.

Social and Cultural Analysis (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

Sections (Fall 2025)

SCA-UA 9914-000 (11448)09/01/2025 – 12/09/2025 Mon3:00 PM – 6:00 PM (Late afternoon)at NYU Paris (Global)Instructed by Taraud, Christelle

Fall 2025 Liberal Arts & Sciences - Electives Undergraduate