ALICE KAPLAN INSTITUTE FOR THE HUMANITIES

HUM 220-0-20: Health, Biomedicine, Culture, and Society
(SOCIOL 220)
Steve Epstein (Sociology)

Fulfills Distro 3 (Social and Behavioral Sciences), Distro 5 (Ethics and Values), or Interdisciplinary Distro

Present-day medicine and health care are flashpoints for a bewildering array of controversies--about whose interests the health care system should serve and how it should be organized; about the trustworthiness of the medical knowledge we rely on when we are confronted with the threat of illness; about the politics and ethics of biomedical research; about whether health care can be made affordable; about how the benefits of good health can be shared equitably across lines of social class, race, and gender; and about the proper roles of health professionals, scientists, patients, activists, and the state in establishing medical, political, and ethical priorities. By providing a broad introduction to the domain of health and biomedicine, this course will take up such controversies as matters of concern to all. We will analyze the cultural meanings associated with health and illness; the political controversies surrounding health care, medical knowledge production, and medical decision-making; and the structure of the social institutions that comprise the health care industry. We will examine many problems with the current state of health and health care in the United States, and we will also consider potential solutions.

HUM 325-4-20: Digitizing Folk Music History
(HISTORY 395-0, AMER_ST 310-0)
Michael Kramer (History)

Fulfills Distro 4 (Historical Studies)

The United States folk music revival is typically thought of as an antimodern movement with acoustic guitars, camp fires, and "Kumbaya" politics. To study it through digital means, however, reveals important connections between the history of the revival and issues of technology, culture, and politics in the modern world. To investigage these connections, we'll examine this revival through readings, audio listening, documentary films, seminar discussions, and extensive digital analysis. We'll probe what was at stake in the folk revival in relation to American culture and politics; questions of race, class, gender, age, and region; and music-making, memory, and power. No previous digital or musical training is required for the course.

HUM 370-3: Race and Indigeneity in the Pacific
(ASIAN_AM 303-0 / AF_AM_ST 380-0)
Nitasha Sharma (African American Studies, Asian American Studies, Performance Studies) and Hi‘ilei Julia Hobart (Native American and Indigenous Studies)

Fulfills Distro 3 (Social and Behavioral Sciences)

NOTE: This course includes travel to Honolulu, Hawaii`i, the week before fall quarter begins (Sept. 10-17, 2017). Enrollment in this class is by application only. The application deadline is May 10, 2017. Full details are here: http://www.humanities.northwestern.edu/undergraduate/Courses/race-and-indigeneity-in-the-pacific.html

Since the so-called Age of Discovery, the Pacific has been conceptualized as a crossroads between the East and the West. By the twentieth century, places like Hawaii`i came to be idealized as harmonious multicultural societies. This class examines how race and indigeneity are constructed within the Pacific using an interdisciplinary approach. Drawing from works within indigenous studies, ethnic studies, and critical race studies, students will address themes of sovereignty, settler colonialism, diaspora, and migration in order to interrogate and problematize the concept of the multicultural 'melting pot' across time. We focus on the impacts of U.S. plantation economies, militarism, and tourism in shaping the triangulation of indigenous, Black, and Asian groups in Hawaii`i and across the Pacific.

HUM 370-4-21: Slavery, Religion, and the Philosophy of Freedom in Ancient and Modern Times
(RELIGION 379-0 / PHIL 361-0)
Mark Alznauer

Fulfills Distro 4 (Historical Studies)

This course examines one of the most important ideals of our time -- freedom -- within the context of slavery and religion. Rather than assuming slavery and freedom are unrelated opposites, this class focuses on the relationship between freedom and slavery within the context of religion and philosophy from ancient to modern times. Four general periods receive focus: antiquity, medieval, early modernity, and developments since the nineteenth century. The course readings will focus on key themes that include: the role of slavery and freedom in religious traditions; Hegel's conception of freedom and slavery; the Haitian Revolution; slavery and abolition; the causal relation between slavery and freedom; gender and reform movements and their relation to slavery and feminism; the sex-trade and slavery; and recent movements for abolition democracy.