HUM 397 Exhibiting Antiquity: The Culture and Politics of Display
How do institutions such as museums—and websites and archaeological sites developed as tourist destinations—shape and construct our notions of the past? How are these institutions enmeshed with broader cultural and political agendas regarding cultural identity and otherness, the formation of artistic canons, and even the concept of ancient art? This course explores modern strategies of collecting, classification, and display of material culture from ancient Egypt, the Middle East, Greece, and Rome, both in Europe and the U.S. and in their present-day homelands. By analyzing programs of collecting and display, it seeks to understand both the development of modern scholarship in ancient art and the intersection of institutional and scholarly programs. Topics will include the historical development of modern displays devoted to ancient civilizations in museums, notions of authenticity and identity, issues of cultural heritage and patrimony, temporary and “blockbuster” shows, virtual exhibitions and museums, and the archaeological site as a locus of display.
Fulfills Distro 6 (Literature and Fine Arts) Co-listed with CLASSICS 390-0.
Ancient Rome is visible in Chicago — walk the city and learn to "read" the streets, buildings, and monuments that showcase Chicago's engagement with the classical past! You'll gain digital mapping and video editing skills as you collaborate on a virtual walking tour mapping Chicago's ongoing dialogue with antiquity. With a combination of experiential learning and rigorous research methodologies, you'll explore architecture, history, visual arts, and urban topography in this quintessential modern American city.
Islamic law—the sacred law of Islam grounded in the Qur'an, the practice of the Prophet Muhammad, and the writings of Muslim scholars and jurists—stretches back nearly 1400 years. This course offers, first, an overview of the origins and evolution of Islamic law from the life of Muhammad to end of the classical era. We then seek, secondly, to understand how colonialism and the modern nation-state affected the conceptualization and implementation of Islamic law in the modern period. To these ends, we look in-depth at two specific areas of law—marriage and divorce, and criminal law—and two regions: the Ottoman empire and contemporary Iran.
This course surveys the field of new media art, or digital art. It considers Western art and artistic practices employing digital computational technologies from the room-sized mainframe computer to today's mobile and ubiquitous media, from the 1960s to the present. We will attend to the work of a variety of artists working in a host of emergent genres (net art, glitch art, GIFs, etc.) in order to gauge the ways in which digital media has changed, continues to change, and has failed to change contemporary art, culture, and experience more broadly. Topics to be studied include new media art's vexed relation to the art world, networked sexuality, and Chicago and Midwestern ties to new media art. The course will include visits to fall 2018 exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, the VGA Gallery, and the Block Museum.
HUM 395-0-20 Race/Gender/Sex and Science: Making Identities and Differences
Fulfills Distro 3 (Social and Behavioral Sciences) or Distro 5 (Ethics and Values).
In this seminar, we will focus on the interplay between science, technology, and medicine, on the one hand, and race, gender, and sexuality, on the other. Taking up a series of controversies from the recent past and the present, we will consider the implications of developments in the life sciences for politics, social identity, and cultural belonging. In our readings and discussions, we will consider the roles of science, technology, and medicine in redefining race, gender, and sexuality; the ways in which cultural beliefs about race, gender, and sexuality have influenced scientific research and the development of knowledge and medical practice; and the efforts by individuals and social movements to challenge scientific institutions and assert new claims about identity, difference, and inequality.
Fulfills Distro 6 (Literature and Fine Arts)
Fulfills Distro 3 (Social and Behavioral Sciences) or Distro 5 (Ethics and Values).