FR 579: French Feminisms
Julie Gaillard, gaillard@illinois.edu
Tue, 3:00 - 4:50 PM
This course explores various aspects of the lives of women and their empowerment in France after 1950 through the lens of their representation in literature, cinema, and other forms of cultural production. The term “French feminism” is often associated with a series of feminist theoreticians who, in the wake of the Mouvement de Libération des Femmes, drew on psychonalysis to denounce phallogocentrism and foreground a feminine difference. While also addressing this common understanding and its historical context, this course centers the vitality and diversity of French feminisms in the 21st century. Course participants will learn to situate a series of key feminist claims critically with respect to various trends of feminist thought. We will discuss essays, literature, and films engaging engaging topics and/or approaches such as reproductive rights, reproductive work, gender-based and sexual violence, afrofeminism and movements for intersectional justice, ecofeminism, or transfeminist deconstructions of hetero
AAS 539: Youth, Culture and Society
Soo Ah Kwon, sakwon@illinois.edu
Tue, 2:00-4:50 PM
This course examines youth as a historically and culturally specific social formation. It examines the discursive and material positioning of youth within broader intersecting racial, cultural, socio-economic, political, and global contexts to situate youth and youth cultural practices. Specific topics include youth culture, juvenile justice, education, labor, consumerism, sexuality, and politics and activism, as well as methodological considerations of conducting research on youth. Also EPOL 518/ HDFS 539.
FR 574: Reading in the 19th-Century French Novel
Francois Proulx, fproulx@illinois.edu
Wed, 3:00 - 4:50 PM
As the novel gains popularity and prestige the 19th century, it increasingly represents readers and reading in complex ways. We will examine how characters in books read other books (real and fictional), outlining particular practices of reading and writing. Our inquiry will extend to related topics: book history and the history of reading; gender history and theory; canon formation and the 19th-century emergence of literary studies as a discipline; methods and theories of critical reading today. Readings include works by Stendhal, Balzac, Sand, Flaubert, Rachilde, Huysmans. Taught in French.
PHIL 501: Seminar on the History of Philosophy: Kant and Arendt
Helga Varden, hvarden@illinois.edu
Thur, 4:00-6:50 PM
This course focuses on two major works of Immanuel Kant—the Doctrine of Right in The Metaphysics of Morals and the Critique of the Power of Judgment—and two works of Hannah Arendt— The Human Condition and Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy. Arendt was deeply inspired by Kant as she developed her political ideas, and especially by his Critique of Judgment. Unfortunately, however, Arendt died before she wrote the last part of Life of the Mind, where she was going to show us how to use Kant’s Critique of Judgment to develop an Arendtian political theory. In comparing Kant and Arendt’s political philosophies, one main question we will address throughout this course is how a Kant- and Arendt-inspired political philosopher today—what we can call a “Karendtian” political philosopher—can draw upon from both as they develop their own political philosophies.
CWL 571/GER 570: Medical Humanities
Stephanie Hilger, hilger@illinois.edu
Wed, 3:00-5:00 PM
Medical Humanities, and its extension, the Health Humanities, are a growing field of research and teaching with implications far beyond the humanities. This seminar will begin with an overview of the history of and the major debates in the discipline. We will then familiarize ourselves with specific subsets and related fields such as narrative medicine, graphic medicine, public health humanities, translational health humanities, and veterinary humanities. We will also investigate Medical/Health Humanities’ intersections with the study of race, gender, and disability. In addition to narratives by patients and physicians, we will read Susan Sontag’s Illness as Metaphor, MK Czerwiec’s Graphic Medicine Manifesto, Rita Charon’s Narrative Medicine, Tobin Siebers’ Disability Theory, Anne Fausto Sterling’s Sexing the Body, among other texts.
GER 575: The Frankfurt School
Anna Hunt, anelhe@illinois.edu
Tue, 3:00-5:00 PM
The Frankfurt School is a school of “social thought” and, at the same time, is known for its programmatic emphasis of “critical theory.” It was, however, above all an experimental initiative designed to foster new forms of interdisciplinary research in the humanities and social sciences. Because the full interdisciplinarity of this project exceeds the scope of a single course, this seminar will engage social, political and theoretical dimensions through the critical analysis of literature, culture, art and aesthetics. This course is not designed according to historical chronology, nor is it a systematic inventory of all authors who might possibly be included in the Frankfurt School. Instead, the primary purpose of the course is to build familiarity and comfort-level with the notoriously difficult “lingo” of twentieth-century German social, political and aesthetic theory. Key questions and problems will be developed in a handful of the most crucial mid-twentieth century texts and authors. Chronology and historical contexts will inform all of the readings. Examples of such backgrounds include two World Wars, the Holocaust, the Frankfurt School’s exile in the Unites States, the political and intellectual dynamics of post-War Germany, as well as the increasing modernization, industrialization and “rationalization” of society. Meets with CWL 551, JS 502, and ENGL 581.
MUS 523: Seminar in Musicology: Sound and Power
Carlos Ramirez, crr97@illinois.edu
Tue, 1:00-3:50 PM
"SOUND AND POWER." This seminar explores the intersections between sound and power, moving beyond music to encompass a range of sonic phenomena. Drawing from Foucault’s foundational theories of power and contemporary critical frameworks—including postcolonial theory, critical race theory, and feminist theory—this course examines how sound is used to reinforce, challenge, and disrupt power structures across various cultural and historical contexts. Students will engage with theoretical and applied approaches to sound’s relationship with identity, space, and technology, investigating topics such as sonic warfare, urban soundscapes, colonial power, and the sonification of the cosmos. Participants will critically analyze how sound functions as both a tool of control and resistance. Guided readings and weekly in-class discussions constitute the primary mode of instruction. The assessment of seminar participants is based on discussion participation and a series of short papers on a topic of the participants’ choice that is related to the seminar theme. No previous knowledge of musical notation or performance is required for this seminar. Graduate students interested in sound studies from any disciplinary perspective are welcome to register.
Law 657: International Human Rights Law
Francis Boyle, fboyle@illinois.edu
Mon&Tue, 3:00-4:30 PM / Online
Studies established and developing legal rules and procedures governing the protection of international human rights, including Marxist and Third World, as well as Western, conceptions of those rights.