Most human beings want and seek romantic love, but is it worth the risks of heartache if love is uncertain, stigma if society disapproves, and heartbreak when love is lost? For answers to this question, we will turn to selections from classical epics, whose myths about Greek and Roman love goddesses and the mortals whom […]
history
When Trumpets Fade
This course will introduce you to the men and women who have fought our nation’s wars since 9/11, and critically examine a few of the social, political, and moral implications associated with their service. Who (and what) are they? What do we owe them? We will examine these and other important questions together, taking an […]
The Problem of Freedom
This course considers why freedom is an enduring human desire and why that desire is complicated and problematic. Over the course of the semester, students examine why freedom is a problem, at once eliciting strong attachments and deep controversies. Students consider what it means to be free in a variety of perspectives and contexts, from […]
The Era of Bad Feelings
America is more divided than ever today. Or is that true? How far back does this phenomenon go? The course examines the politics, culture, and history behind the current Era of Bad Feelings from the Civil Rights and Vietnam era to the present. The class will explore these issues through critical readings, lectures, guest speakers, […]
Rhetoric in History of U.S. Women’s Rights Advocacy
This inquiry-based seminar examines enduring questions of argumentation and rhetoric in the history of U.S. women’s rights advocacy, with particular attention to questions of race and class. Topics include separate spheres ideology, the early suffrage and abolitionist movements, women’s initial entry into higher education, protective labor legislation, abortion access, and regulation of sexual violence. The […]
Displaced Lives in the DMV
This course approaches cities and transnational migration in the context of the history and culture of the Washington DC region and its immigrant communities. The first weeks introduce DC; questions about race, gentrification, and displacement in the DMV; key issues in migration studies and in the study of cities; and basic field and library research […]
Antisemitism: Enduring Hatred
Hatred of the Jewish people and Judaism appeared in antiquity and continues to this very day. The phenomenon puzzles scholars, pundits, politicians, Jews, and people around the world. We will study this complex problem, focusing on specific episodes of this hatred in the past and present, emphasizing its long history in the U.S. We will read different genres of literature—history (secondary and primary sources), fiction, and nonfiction—as we grapple with the multifarious […]
Fight Club: US War & Peace
This course provides an overview of the history and modern issues of peace and war with an emphasis on the institutions in Washington, D.C. (ie. Pentagon, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Amnesty International, State Department, CIA). Through reading ethnographic and historical case studies, as well as theoretical, journalistic, and polemical works, the course explores why and how the […]
Locating the International
This two-part course begins by exploring how we understand ‘the international’. Usually, we tend to think of the international as being defined by the line between the domestic and the foreign. However, this line is often moving, blurrier than we think, and even appears in new places. By engaging students with a range of material […]
International Crisis Management
While nation states and regional political groupings complete and sometimes clash, no one seeks conflict per se. Common objectives, however, often imply different approaches toward an endpoint of peace, security, and prosperity. Human and natural disasters bring disruption to human well-being. Drawing on simulations from U.S. Army War College tabletop exercises and matrices developed for […]