Related Courses | MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale

EMST 744/HSAR 764

This seminar explores recent scholarship on Italian visual culture and architecture, c. 1400–1600. Potential themes include the relationship between art and the environment; transmedial approaches that exceed conventional definitions of painting, sculpture, and architecture; artistic production, patronage, and reception in relation to dynamics of gender, race, labor, and class; the movement of artists and materials; and expanding notions of artistic geography both within and beyond the peninsula. While sessions focus on secondary literature from recent decades, they also put newer scholarship in dialogue with longer historiographic traditions and primary sources. The course is a chance for graduate students not only to inform themselves about trends in the field but also to debate and situate their own voices in relation to them.

Fall 2024

F 1:30pm-3:20pm

FREN 241/GMAN 301/LITR 397

How to write, how to narrate after war? In this course we read alternatingly some of the greatest novels and novellas after 1945 (until ca. 1968) from German speaking countries and from France. This can but does not necessarily mean novels about fascism and democracy, aggression and resistance (Sartre, Grass). It also means negotiating radical break and reorientation, politically and ideologically (German “Zero Hour”, the absurd, existentialism in France); and the attempt to reinvent literary writing in general (‘nouveau roman’ in France, Handke and Bernard in Austria). Further authors include Camus, Duras, Robbe-Grillet, Le Clezio, Koeppen, Wolf, Handke, Bachmann.

Fall 2024

Th 3:30pm-5:20pm

ANTH 541

An interdisciplinary examination of agrarian societies, contemporary and historical, Western and non-Western. Major analytical perspectives from anthropology, economics, history, political science, and environmental studies are used to develop a meaning-centered and historically grounded account of the transformations of rural society. Team-taught.

Fall 2024

W 1:30pm-3:20pm

ANTH 615/HSHM 755

The course focuses on ethnographic work on scientific and technical topics, ranging from laboratory studies to everyday technologies. Selected texts include canonical books as well as newer work from early scholars and the most recent work of established scholars. Divided into four units, this seminar explores the theme of “boundaries,” a perennial topic in anthropology of science that deals with the possibility and limits of demarcation. Each week, different kinds of boundaries are examined, and students learn to see their social constructedness as well as the power they carry. We begin by exploring where science is and isn’t, followed by the boundary between ourselves and technology, which is a specific example of the third boundary we examine: the one artificially drawn between nature and culture. We end with readings on geopolitics and the technologies of delineating nation from nation as well as thinking about postnational scientific states. Class discussion guides each session. One or two students each week are responsible for precirculating a book review on the week’s reading, and a third student begins class by reacting to both the texts and the review. The final assignment is a research paper or a review essay.

Fall 2024

W 1:30pm-3:20pm

This course is an introduction to statistics and their application in public policy and global affairs research. It consists of two weekly class sessions in addition to a discussion section. The discussion section is used to cover problems encountered in the lectures and written assignments, as well as to develop statistical computing skills. Throughout the term we cover issues related to data collection (including surveys, sampling, and weighted data), data description (graphical and numerical techniques for summarizing data), probability and probability distributions, confidence intervals, hypothesis testing, measures of association, and regression analysis. The course assumes no prior knowledge of statistics and no mathematical knowledge beyond calculus. Graded only, sat/unsat option is not permissible.

Fall 2023

MW 1pm-2:15pm

CLSS 846/HSAR 639

This graduate-level seminar approaches sacred space in ancient Italy (ca. 500 BCE–100 CE) from several evidential and methodological perspectives. The class probes how different kinds of sacred artifacts (places, buildings, and bodies) textured ritual space, forming its recognizable character then and now. While assessing the available evidence (material, literary, epigraphic) for each of these categories, we devote time to untangling the ways that modern scholars and Roman authors have written about ancient holy places. The emphasis on “approach” also provides an avenue to begin to reconstruct the lived experiences of sacred space, moving from the realia of locations, structures, and objects to the possible responses of ancient people.

Fall 2024

Th 9:25am-11:15am

ANTH 385/ARCG 385/ANTH 785/ARCG 785

Archaeological methods for analyzing and interpreting ceramics, arguably the most common type of object found in ancient sites. Focus on what different aspects of ceramic vessels reveal about the people who made them and used them.

Fall 2024

Th 1:30pm-3:20pm

ANTH 743

An effective proposal requires close consideration of all steps of research design, from statement of the problem to data analysis. The course is designed to provide an introduction to the principles by which archaeological research projects are devised and proposed. Students receive intensive training in the preparation of a research proposal with the expectation that the final proposal will be submitted to national and international granting agencies for consideration. The course is structured around the creation of research questions; hypothesis development and statement of expectations; and the explicit linking of expectations to material patterning, field methods, and data analysis. Students review and critique examples of funded and nonfunded research proposals and comment extensively on each other’s proposals. In addition to developing one’s own research, learning to constructively critique the work of colleagues is imperative for becoming a responsible anthropological archaeologist.

Fall 2024

F 9:25am-11:15am

ANTH 531/CLSS 815/EALL 773/HIST 502/HSAR 564/JDST 653/NELC 533/RLST 803

An introduction to the legal systems of the Roman and post-Roman states and Han- and Tang-dynasty China. Emphasis on developing collaborative partnerships that foster comparative history research. Readings in surviving law codes (in the original or English translation) and secondary studies on topics including slavery, trade, crime, and family. This course serves as an Archaia Core Seminar. It is connected with Archaia’s Ancient Societies Workshop (ASW), which runs a series of events throughout the academic year related to the theme of the seminar. Students enrolled in the seminar must attend all ASW events during the semester in which the seminar is offered.

Fall 2024

M 1:30pm-3:20pm

HSAR 247/ARCG 161/CLCV 161

Visual exploration of Greek mythology through the study of ancient Greek art and architecture. Greek gods, heroes, and mythological scenes foundational to Western culture; the complex nature of Greek mythology; how art and architecture rendered myths ever present in ancient Greek daily experience; ways in which visual representations can articulate stories. Use of collections in the Yale University Art Gallery.

Fall 2024

MW 10:30am-11:20am

RSEE 313/LITR 210/SLAV 313/THST 314

This interdisciplinary seminar is devoted to the study of protest art as part of the struggle of society against authoritarianism and totalitarianism. It focuses on the example of the Soviet and post-Soviet transformation of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine. The period under discussion begins after the death of Stalin in 1953 and ends with the art of protest against the modern post-Soviet dictatorships of Alexander Lukashenka in Belarus and Vladimir Putin in Russia, the protest art of the Ukrainian Maidan and the anti-war movement of artists against the Russian-Ukrainian war. The course begins by looking at the influence of the “Khrushchev Thaw” on literature and cinema, which opened the way for protest art to a wide Soviet audience. We explore different approaches to protest art in conditions of political unfreedom: “nonconformism,” “dissidence,” “mimicry,” “rebellion.” The course investigates the existential conflict of artistic freedom and the political machine of authoritarianism. These themes are explored at different levels through specific examples from the works and biographies of artists. Students immerse themselves in works of different genres: films, songs, performances, plays and literary works.

Fall 2024

T 1:30pm-3:20pm

CPLT 933/ENGL 928/FILM 751/FILM 461/ENGL 384/LITR 364/THST 416

Key films and topics in British cinema. Special attention to the provincial origins of British cinema; overlaps between filmic, literary, and visual modernism; attempts to build on the British literary and dramatic tradition; cinema’s role in the war effort and in redefining national identity; postwar auteur and experimental filmmaking; “heritage” films and alternative approaches to tradition. Accompanying readings in British film theorists, film sociology (including Mass Observation), and cultural studies accounts of film spectatorship and memories. Films by Mitchell and Kenyon, Maurice Elvey, Anthony Asquith, Len Lye, John Grierson, Alfred Hitchcock, Alberto Cavalcanti, Humphrey Jennings, Michael Powell, Carol Reed, David Lean, Karel Reisz, Lindsay Anderson, Richard Lester, Peter Watkins, Stanley Kubrick, Laura Mulvey, Ken Loach, Mike Leigh, Terence Davies, Terry Gilliam, Peter Greenaway, Michael Winterbottom, Patrick Keiller, Steve McQueen.

Fall 2024

M 7pm-10pm / T 1:30pm-3:20pm