A study, under faculty supervision, of a problem, area or topic not included in the formal curriculum.

A study, under faculty supervision, of a problem, area or topic not included in the formal curriculum.

A study, under faculty supervision, of a problem, area or topic not included in the formal curriculum.

A study, under faculty supervision, of a problem, area or topic not included in the formal curriculum.

A study, under faculty supervision, of a problem, area or topic not included in the formal curriculum.

This seminar will explore the historical relationship between these two regions from the early modern age to the present. We will examine the history of trade, particularly the slave trade, and its cultural and political legacy. We will compare the experiences of European imperalism--how the scramble for Africa dovetailed with the last decades of the Ottoman Empire--with an eye to how this shaped nationalist movements in both regions. The course will also explore the decades of independence with a special eye towards pan-Africanism and pan-Arabism. We will also study the ramifications of the Arab-Israeli conflict on the relationship between African and Middle-Eastern countries, from Uganda to Ethopia, from OPEC to Darfur. This course will pay close attention to migrations through the regions, whether forced or economic or religious. Whenever possible we will explore, through film and literature, how people in Africa and the Middle East see their connections, and their differences.

This course will deal with the history and aesthetics of twentieth-century experimental filmmaking, American post-war avant-garde artists and the ways in which they examined the perceptual capacities and formal properties of film. The course will include a one-day workshop on analog filmmaking methods.

This course explores how immigration, industrialization, racial segregation, and the growing authority of science transformed the fundamental conditions of women's lives in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Building on previous effforts by female reformers to perfect society, women at the turn of the century organized large social movements dedicated to improving the lives of women and children and gaining public access to political power. We will examine the fruits of this activism as well as the consequences of subsequent events for the rise of several important social movements in the latter half of the century -- including civil rights, women's liberation, and gay rights -- in which women played a vital role. The course concludes with an assessment of feminism in the present day, with special emphasis on the responses of younger women to its legacy.