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A “rigorous study of art” became the goal of Philosopher and Cultural Critic Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) when his growing distaste for the outlook and methods of his art history professor—the famous and foundational Heinrich Wölfflin—caused him to consider publishing an account of “the most disastrous activity I have ever encountered at a German university.”

Westworld (Season 2) HBO’s “science fiction western thriller” television series, drives a broadly-conceived visual culture/cultural studies course in which we identify and analyze various aesthetics and genres, histories and visions, typologies, theologies, and allegories on screen and off—both inside and outside the show’s narrative.

I would (and will) argue that Newton's Principia is the most important book yet written. It is certainly the most important book that a vanishingly small number of people have actually read.

In this wide-ranging introduction to the study of international politics, we will be exploring how states and non-state actors negotiate their interactions in an increasingly interconnected, interdependent and globalized world.

Against a background of what is often described as a worldwide democratic recession or regression, this advanced seminar surveys current theoretical debates, empirical analyses, and policy conversations on the emergence, survival, challenges, breakdowns, and prospects of global democratization.

In terms of public action, Ganas remains a community-driven, cross-cultural association that offers students volunteer opportunities to engage with the predominantly undocumented Latine migrant worker population. We maintain relationships with local organizations and members while developing new ones, along with more conventional classes and readings. Over the past couple of years, it has ballooned into a range of simultaneous activities that are seemingly happening all of the time, with students very much at the center of said impetus.

Climate change, poverty, and food access are all compelling and urgent issues confronting our society. Growing local food is one significant way we can respond. Having received the Bennington Fair Food Initiative Grant with the mission to develop educational training programs in agriculture/food system workforce development and to create small business, this class will be practice based learning in regenerative agricultural practices and the creation of sustainable food systems.

This class will examine contemporary challenges through the lens of complex systems. The class will include a training in Mediation and Negotiation skills. Through readings, discussion, exercises and role-plays, the class will examine and deconstruct the complexities of current democratic and environmental issues related to local, national and global governance, We will begin with personal training and extend it to group multi-party collaborative problem-solving. 

Mystics––historically portrayed as passionate, dangerous, romantic, heretical, satanic––are a thorn in the side of organized religion. From the very beginnings of recorded human time, the presence and practice of mystics has been controversial. Sufi mystic al-Hallaj’s pronouncement that he was “the Truth” was received as blasphemy by the orthodoxy. His execution followed shortly after. Christian mystics of the 4th and 5th centuries were relegated to practicing outside the peripheries of the Roman Empire, in relative secrecy.

In this course, we will be uncovering, re-positioning, and affirming historical legacies and traditions that stand the risk of being lost forever, and explore how to use them to fight discrimination, racism and hate today.

Today it is clear that the environment matters. In activism and scholarship and public policy, the environment has become a potent (if sometimes obligatory) point of reference. Less attention, however, has focused on the emergence of the environment itself as a converging field of action for advocacy, science, and statecraft. In this seminar, we will reflect not only on what we know of the environment but also on how we came to know the environment.

“I, at least, am not a Marxist”&�Բ�����;Karl Marx

In 2006, the long-running reality television show Survivor decided to do something novel for its thirteenth season: they split contestants into tribes based on race. Controversy immediately followed. Advertisers pulled out and elected officials lobbied CBS not to air the season. But CBS stuck to their guns and released Survivor: Cook Islands.

This course examines the entangled histories of race, gender, and sexuality within the expansion and maintenance of U.S. Empire. We will explore histories ranging from the selective exclusion of nineteenth century migrants, America’s global war on sex work in the early twentieth century, to the gendered dimensions of twentieth century warmaking.