Courses

CITY B185 Urban Culture and Society

Fall 2024

Examines techniques and questions of the social sciences as tools for studying historical and contemporary cities. Topics include political-economic organization, conflict and social differentiation (class, ethnicity and gender), and cultural production and representation. Philadelphia features prominently in discussion, reading and exploration as do global metropolitan comparisons through papers involving fieldwork, critical reading and planning/problem solving using qualitative and quantitative methods.

Course does not meet an Approach

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Counts Toward: Anthropology; International Studies.

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CITY B190 Histories of the Built Environment

Spring 2025

This course studies the city as a three-dimensional artifact. A variety of factors, geography, economic and population structure, politics, planning, and aesthetics are considered as determinants of urban form.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward: Environmental Studies; History of Art.

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CITY B201 Introduction to GIS for Social and Environmental Analysis

Fall 2024, Spring 2025

This course is designed to introduce the foundations of GIS with emphasis on applications for social and environmental analysis. It deals with basic principles of GIS and its use in spatial analysis and information management. Ultimately, students will design and carry out research projects on topics of their own choosing. Prerequisite: At least sophomore standing and Quantitative Readiness are required (i.e.the quantitative readiness assessment or Quan B001).

Quantitative Readiness Required (QR)

Counts Toward: Classical & Near Eastern Arch; Data Science; Environmental Studies; Environmental Studies.

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CITY B207 Topics in Urban Studies

Section 001 (Fall 2025): Philadelphia Architecture & Urbanism

Not offered 2024-25

This is a topics course. Course content varies.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

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CITY B217 Quantitative Methods for Urban Research

Section 001 (Spring 2025): Quantitative Methods

Spring 2025

This course offers a hands-on introduction to quantitative research methods for urban planning and policy analysis. Students will work on a real-world research project to develop the practical skills needed to design, conduct, and analyze original research at the complexity of a thesis-length project. The course teaches research design (crafting strong research questions and selecting appropriate methods), quantitative research methods (survey design and collection and analysis of secondary socio-spatial data), and data analysis (basic descriptive and inferential statistical analysis using Excel and SPSS). Additionally, students will engage with both the philosophical foundations and real-world best practices of ethical research.

Course does not meet an Approach

Quantitative Methods (QM)

Counts Toward: Data Science.

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CITY B226 Introduction to Architectural Design

Fall 2024

This studio design course introduces the principles of architectural design. Suggested Preparation: drawing, some history of architecture, and permission of instructor.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

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CITY B228 Problems in Architectural Design

Spring 2025

A continuation of CITY 226 at a more advanced level. Prerequisites: CITY B226 or permission of instructor.

Course does not meet an Approach

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CITY B229 Topics in Comparative Urbanism

Section 001 (Spring 2025): Post-Conflict Urbanism
Section 002 (Spring 2025): Post-Conflict Urbanism

Spring 2025

This is a topics course. Course content varies.

Writing Intensive

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward: Anthropology; International Studies; Latin American Iberian Latinx.

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CITY B240 Cities of the Global South

Not offered 2024-25

This course surveys the dynamic social and spatial processes that make (and constantly re-make) cities in the Global South. We examine what it means to be a city in the 'Global South' and study the commonalities that unite these spaces in a post-colonial, post-Bretton Woods world. That said, this is a course that centers diversity among cases in Latin America, the Middle East/North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia: the unique demands and interventions of people and community groups working for a better urban life, the experimental efforts of local political leaders and planners, and the ways in which particular local histories layer upon themselves to produce a world of singular urban experiences. Local film, memoir, activist non-fiction, and interviews with local planners and practitioners will supplement academic readings to provide a 'street-level' view of everyday life in global cities.

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CITY B248 Architectural History Research Workshop

Fall 2024

This course aims to build students' mastery at working with historical documents, both visual and textual, and the rich body of scholarly writings that offer key materials for research in architectural and urban history. The course will operate as a collective workshop that will frame structured adventures in research, starting with a detailed focus on the evolution of places through time. We will work with a wide range of document types, and among our best new friends will be highly detailed old maps and historical views, from watercolors and prints to early photographs. City directories, records of ownership, census information, newspaper notices, and documents related to building construction and form will complement these to fill in key elements in emerging narratives. Such sources will also allow us to explore the agency of individuals in a variety of roles that have shaped places, and the lives framed by those building activities. Beyond focusing on specific sites to construct microhistories, we will also look for larger patterns of built form in which they participate, alongside other contingent narratives from the practices of architects to the activities of developers, well-defined building typologies, and the roots of demographic distributions. In our workshop sessions we will engage different types of evidence and analytical resources through small exercises, imagining the kinds of questions and curiosities such materials might inform, as well as inverting such inquiries, starting with the questions. Our overall model will be to delve in and then report out, in a range of ways.

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

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CITY B250 Topics: Growth & Spatial Org of Cities

Not offered 2024-25

This is a topics course. Course content varies.

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CITY B253 Before Modernism: Architecture and Urbanism of the 18th and 19th Centuries

Spring 2025

The course frames the topic of architecture before the impact of 20th century Modernism, with a special focus on the two prior centuries - especially the 19th - in ways that treat them on their own terms rather than as precursors of more modern technologies and forms of expression. The course will integrate urbanistic and vernacular perspectives alongside more familiar landmark exemplars. Key goals and components of the course will include attaining a facility within pertinent bibliographical and digital landscapes, formal analysis and research skills exercised in writing projects, class field-trips, and a nuanced mastery of the narratives embodied in the architecture of these centuries.

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward: History of Art.

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CITY B254 History of Modern Architecture

Fall 2024

A survey of the development of modern architecture since the 18th century.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward: History of Art.

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CITY B280 Reading Architecture

Not offered 2024-25

Reading and responding to different species of writing about the built environment, old and new, participants will closely weigh intent and form, and will try their own hand at each.

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CITY B306 Advanced Fieldwork Techniques: Places in Time

Spring 2025

A hands-on workshop for research into the histories of places, intended to bring students into contact with some of the raw materials of architectural and urban history. A focus will be placed on historical images and texts, and on creating engaging informational experiences that are transparent to their evidentiary basis.

Counts Toward: History of Art.

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CITY B328 Topics in Advanced GIS

Section 001 (Spring 2025): Advanced GIS for Social and Environmental Analysis

Spring 2025

An advanced course for students with prior GIS experience involving individual projects and collaboration with faculty. Completion of GIS (City 201)

Quantitative Readiness Required (QR)

Counts Toward: Data Science.

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CITY B337 The Chinese City

Spring 2025

This course examines Chinese urbanization as both a physical and social process. Drawing broadly on scholarship in anthropology, political science, geography, and city planning, we will construct a history of the present of Chinese cities. By taking the long view on China's urban development, this course seeks to contextualize and make sense of the sometimes dazzling, sometimes dismal, and often contested landscape of everyday life in contemporary urban China. Prior familiarity with China and the Chinese language is welcomed but not required.

Course does not meet an Approach

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CITY B340 History and Design Workshop

Not offered 2024-25

This course combines historical and theoretical research with studio and design practice in architecture. It is project based and allows students to work collaboratively on research questions relevant to built environments. This iteration tracks the form and choices shaping three successive built landscapes over five centuries - from the agricultural communities of Quakers in Wales and the Welsh Tract in Lower Merion in the 17th and 18th centuries to the commuter suburb of the 19th and 20th. The course also looks ahead from this history as a studio collectively exploring key elements of a "New Bryn Mawr" as an idealized sustainable community of 1000 residents whose design specifically addresses environmental concerns, inequality, anxiety, joblessness, and spatial fragmentation.

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CITY B350 Urban Projects: Cities Praxis

Spring 2025

In this course advanced students will work with local groups around concrete projects. Class sessions will convene to discuss background readings as well as evaluation of tools and experiences.

Course does not meet an Approach

Counts Toward: Praxis Program.

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CITY B360 Topics: Urban Culture and Society

Section 001 (Fall 2024): Carceral Geographies
Section 001 (Spring 2025): The Legal City
Section 002 (Spring 2025): Finance, Race and Space
Section 001 (Fall 2025): Finance, Race and Space
Section 02 (Fall 2025): Urban Theory

Fall 2024, Spring 2025

This is a topics course. Course content varies.

Current topic description: This course examines the relationship between finance, race, and space. Students will draw on multiple disciplinary approaches to understand how the development of financial tools, mechanisms, political-legal arrangements, and historical patterns of accumulation shape and are shaped by racialized accumulation, displacement, and racial violence. Topics include financialization, gentrification, accumulation by dispossession, and the political economy of credit and debt. Assignments include a research paper. Counts towards Africana Studies.

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CITY B365 Topics: Techniques of the City

Section 001 (Spring 2025): Urban Renewal

Spring 2025

This is a topics course. Course content varies.

Counts Toward: Anthropology.

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CITY B377 Topics in Modern Architecture

Section 001 (Fall 2024): Multiplicity & Singularity in later 19th C. Archit
Section 001 (Fall 2025): Queer Pedagogies

Fall 2024

This is a topics course on modern architecture. Topics vary.

Current topic description: TBA

Counts Toward: Environmental Studies; History of Art.

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CITY B378 Formative Landscapes: The Architecture and Planning of American Collegiate Campuses

Not offered 2024-25

The campus and buildings familiar to us here at the College reflect a long and rich design conversation regarding communicative form, architectural innovation, and orchestrated planning. This course will explore that conversation through varied examples, key models, and shaping conceptions over time.

Counts Toward: History of Art.

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CITY B398 Senior Seminar

An intensive research seminar designed to guide students in writing a senior thesis.

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CITY B403 Independent Study

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CITY B415 Teaching Assistant

An exploration of course planning, pedagogy and creative thinking as students work to help others understand pathways they have already explored in introductory and writing classes. This opportunity is available only to advanced students of highest standing by professorial invitation.

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CITY B420 Praxis Fieldwork Seminar

Note: Students are eligible to take up to two Praxis Fieldwork Seminars or Praxis Independent Studies during their time at Bryn Mawr.

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CITY B425 Praxis III: Independent Study

Praxis III courses are Independent Study courses and are developed by individual students, in collaboration with faculty and field supervisors. A Praxis courses is distinguished by genuine collaboration with fieldsite organizations and by a dynamic process of reflection that incorporates lessons learned in the field into the classroom setting and applies theoretical understanding gained through classroom study to work done in the broader community. Note: Students are eligible to take up to two Praxis Fieldwork Seminars or Praxis Independent Studies during their time at Bryn Mawr.

Counts Toward: Praxis Program.

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CITY B450 Urban Internships/Praxis

Individual opportunities to engage in praxis in the greater Philadelphia area; internships must be arranged prior to registration for the semester in which the internship is taken. Prerequisite: permission of instructor.

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AFST B204 #BlackLivesMatterEverywhere

Spring 2025

#BlackLivesMatterEverywhere: Ethnographies & Theories on the African Diaspora is a interdisciplinary course closely examines political, cultural, intellectual, and spiritual mobilizations for Black Lives on local, global and hemispheric levels. We will engage an array of materials ranging from literature, history, oral histories, folklore, dance, music, popular culture, social media, ethnography, and film/documentaries. By centering the political and intellectual labor of Black women and LGBTQ folks at the forefront of the movements for Black Lives, we unapologetically excavate how #BlackLivesMatterEverywhere has a long and rich genealogy in the African diaspora. Lastly, students will be immersed in Black queer feminist theorizations on diaspora, political movements, and the multiplicities of Blackness.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Counts Toward: Africana Studies; Anthropology; General Studies; Growth and Structure of Cities; Latin American Iberian Latinx; Museum Studies.

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ANTH B210 Medical Anthropology

Not offered 2024-25

Medical Anthropology is one of the most dynamic subfields in anthropology with relevance for health professionals and researchers interested in the complexity of disease, diagnostic categories, treatment modalities, especially in multicultural contexts. This course examines the relationships between culture, society, disease and illness in light of global, historical, and political and economic forces, in anthropological perspective. It considers a broad range of health-related experiences, discourses, knowledge and practices among different cultures globally and among diverse individuals and groups in different positions of power. We will explore illness experiences, disease etiologies, practices and rituals surrounding healing, patients and social groups, practitioners, biomedicine, traditional medicine and other forms of medical knowledge cross-culturally, epistemologies and practices, and the production of health and medical knowledge in a variety of settings, among other topics. While disease may appear to be a matter of biology, health and illness are culturally constructed and socially conditioned and essential in anthropological approaches to understanding human experiences of affliction and well-being. In this course we will ask: how are ideas of health, illness, and healing intertwined with belief, ideas about culture, concerns of social relations and social organization, and how they influence or are influenced by political and economic relations?

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Counts Toward: Environmental Studies; Environmental Studies; Growth and Structure of Cities; Health Studies; Health Studies.

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ANTH B223 The Global Middle East: Colonialism, Oil, the War on Terror

Fall 2024

A central premise of this course is that European colonial intervention in the Middle East did not just impact the Middle East, but mobilized social, material, and ideological projects which fundamentally transformed Europe itself, producing the modern "West" and the contemporary globe. Challenging tendencies to think of the Middle East as distant and different, students will explore the ways that Euro-American intervention in the Middle East shapes our everyday lives in the contemporary U.S. We will explore how the economy, culture, identity, and social organization of contemporary life in Europe and the U.S. builds off of, and is dependent upon, this history of intervention. We will conclude with an examination of global solidarity movements, with a focus on Black American activists' solidarity work in the Arab world, to ask how this global interconnection makes the Middle East an important site for building and imagining a more just world.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Counts Toward: Growth and Structure of Cities.

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ANTH B354 Political Economy, Gender, Ethnicity and Transformation in Vietnam

Spring 2025

Today, Vietnam is in the midst of dramatic social, economic and political changes brought about through a shift from a central economy to a market/capitalist economy since the late 1980s. These changes have resulted in urbanization, a rise in consumption, changes in land use, movement of people, environmental consequences of economic development, and shifts in social and economic relationships and cultural practices as the country has moved from low income to middle income status. This course examines culture and society in Vietnam focusing largely on contemporary Vietnam, but with a view to continuities and historical precedent in past centuries. In this course, we will draw on anthropological studies of Vietnam, as well as literature and historical studies. Relationships between the individual, family, gender, ethnicity, community, land, and state will pervade the topics addressed in the course, as will the importance of political economy, nation, and globalization. In addition to class seminar discussions, students will view documentary and fictional films about Vietnamese culture. Prerequisite: Sophomore standing or higher or first years with ANTH 102.

Writing Attentive

Counts Toward: Environmental Studies; Gender Sexuality Studies; Growth and Structure of Cities; International Studies; International Studies.

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ANTH B356 The Politics of Public Art

Not offered 2024-25

In this class we will explore the politics of public art. While we will look at the political messaging of public art, we will also seek to understand how public art, through its integration into a social geography, has a political impact beyond its meaning. We will see how art claims public space and structures social action, how art shapes social groups, and how art channels economic flows or government power. By tracing the ways that art is situated in public space, we will examine how art enters into urban contest and global inequality. Class activity will include exploration of public art and students will be introduced to key concepts of urban spatial analysis to help interrogate this art. One 200-level course in Social Sciences, Humanities, or Arts fields, or permission of the instructor

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ANTH B364 Anthropology of Global Public Health

Spring 2025

This course will use an anthropological lens to explore the field of contemporary global public health. Through readings and ethnographic case studies in cultural anthropology, medical anthropology, applied and critical anthropology, and related social sciences, the class will examine the participants and institutions that make up the production of global health, as well as the knowledge, and value production that have shaped agendas, policies and practices in global health, both historically and in the contemporary. The course will also explore anthropology's relationship to and perspectives on the history of global health. We will examine how local communities, local knowledge and political forces intersect with, shape, and are shaped by global initiatives to impact diseases, treatments, and health care delivery. As well, what the effects are on individuals, families and children, communities, urban and rural areas, and nations. Among other topics, the course will explore health disparities, epidemics/pandemics, global mental health, climate change and infectious diseases, chronic illness, violence, and diseases such as polio, HIV/AIDS, Covid-19, Tuberculosis, etc. Prerequisite(s): ANTH B102/H103 recommended; sophomore standing or higher

Course does not meet an Approach

Counts Toward: Child and Family Studies; Environmental Studies; Growth and Structure of Cities; Health Studies.

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ANTH B367 Policing the Crisis 2020: Police Narrative and Black Lives Matter

Spring 2025

The Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, sparked by the police murder of George Floyd, led to a collapse in public support for the police. Radical demands to defund or abolish the police gained prominence and public legitimacy. This course studies the ways that police and their allies have worked to reassert police authority in the years since 2020. We will draw on Stuart Hall's classic essay, "Policing the Crisis," which examined police propaganda after a similar upheaval in the 1970s. Using Hall's work as a model, we will design and conduct a research project, using archival and qualitative methods to track the reassertion of police authority since 2020. At the end of the course, we will publicize our findings.

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Counts Toward: Africana Studies; Africana Studies; Growth and Structure of Cities.

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ARCH B203 Building the Polis: Ancient Greek Cities and Sanctuaries

Fall 2024

A study of the co-development of the Greek city-states and their sanctuaries. Archaeological evidence is surveyed in its historic context. The political formation of the city-state and the role of religion is presented, and the political, economic, and religious institutions of the city-states are explored with a focus on regional variations in timelines of development, building styles, and connectivity. The logistics of building construction, religious travel, and interregional influences will also be addressed.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward: Classical Languages; Classical Studies; Classics; Growth and Structure of Cities; Museum Studies.

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ARCH B244 Great Empires of the Ancient Near East

Fall 2024

A survey of the history, material culture, political and religious ideologies of, and interactions among, the five great empires of the ancient Near East of the second and first millennia B.C.E.: New Kingdom Egypt, the Hittite Empire in Anatolia, the Assyrian and Babylonian Empires in Mesopotamia, and the Persian Empire in Iran.

Writing Attentive

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward: Growth and Structure of Cities; History; International Studies; Political Science.

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ARCH B249 The Archaeology of Urban Revolutions in Western Asia

Spring 2025

This course examines the archaeology of one of the most fundamental developments to have occurred in human society in the last 6,000 years, the origins of cities. Via assigned readings, class work and lectures we will consider the varied factors which led (or did not lead) to the emergence of cities, questioning what cities were (and are) and how they functioned in the ancient world. We will explore different trajectories towards urbanism that can be identified in the archaeological record and consider societies that did not experience these changes. By exploring processes and practices over the long-term, students will address issues of inequality in the earliest urban societies, developing an understanding of how axes of power and difference interacted to produce inequalities and hierarchies. We will also discuss the impacts these developments have had, and continue to have, on modern society and culture in the Middle East, North Africa and beyond. Themes covered will include the 'urban revolution', rurality and urbanism, urban planning and growth, houses and households, communication and mobility, climate and environment, power and inequality.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Counts Toward: Growth and Structure of Cities.

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ARCH B252 Pompeii

Spring 2025

Introduces students to a nearly intact archaeological site whose destruction by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 C.E. was recorded by contemporaries. The discovery of Pompeii in the mid-1700s had an enormous impact on 18th- and 19th-century views of the Roman past as well as styles and preferences of the modern era. Informs students in classical antiquity, urban life, city structure, residential architecture, home decoration and furnishing, wall painting, minor arts and craft and mercantile activities within a Roman city.

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward: Classical Languages; Classical Studies; Classics; Growth and Structure of Cities; History of Art; Museum Studies.

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ARCH B260 Daily Life in Ancient Greece and Rome

Not offered 2024-25

The often-praised achievements of the classical cultures arose from the realities of day-to-day life. This course surveys the rich body of material and textual evidence pertaining to how ancient Greeks and Romans -- famous and obscure alike -- lived and died. Topics include housing, food, clothing, work, leisure, and family and social life.

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ARCH B316 Trade and Transport in the Ancient World

Not offered 2024-25

Issues of trade, commerce and production of export goods are addressed with regard to the Bronze Age and Iron Age cultures of Mesopotamia, Arabia, Iran and south Asia. Crucial to these systems is the development of means of transport via maritime routes and on land. Archaeological evidence for traded goods and shipwrecks is used to map the emergence of sea-faring across the Indian Ocean and Gulf.

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ARCH B352 Ancient Egyptian Archaeology

Not offered 2024-25

This course will examine two aspects of ancient Egyptian Archaeology. This first is the history of archaeological work in Egypt: tracing methodological developments, the impact of imperialism, colonialism, and race-based theories of the 19th and early 20th centuries on the development of archaeological thought, and where the field of archaeology in Egypt stands today. The second will examine settlements in ancient Egypt - from workmen's villages to planned "temple towns" to "lost cities" - in order to understand the built environment inhabited by the ancient Egyptians. Although the material that the ancient Egyptians used to build their homes, as well as their location in the flood-plain, often makes finding and studying settlements difficult, there are sources of evidence that can help us to rediscover where and how the ancient Egyptians lived, and allow us to reevaluate older theories about ancient Egyptian culture and society.

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BIOL B262 Urban Ecosystems

Not offered 2024-25

Cities can be considered ecosystems whose functions are highly influenced by human activity. This course will address many of the living and non-living components of urban ecosystems, as well as their unique processes. Using an approach focused on case studies, the course will explore the ecological and environmental problems that arise from urbanization, and also examine solutions that have been attempted. Prerequisite: BIOL B110 or B111 or ENVS B101.

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ECON B208 Labor Economics

Fall 2024

Analysis of labor markets. Focuses on the economic forces and public policies that determine wage rates and unemployment. Specific topics include: human capital, family decision marking, discrimination, immigration, technological change, compensating differentials, and signaling. Prerequisite: ECON B105.

Course does not meet an Approach

Counts Toward: Growth and Structure of Cities.

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ECON B213 Industrial organization and Antitrust

Spring 2025

Introduction to the economics of industrial organization and regulation, focusing on policy options for ensuring that corporations enhance economic welfare and the quality of life. Topics include firm behavior in imperfectly competitive markets; theoretical bases of antitrust laws; regulation of product and occupational safety, environmental pollution, and truth in advertising. Prerequisite: ECON B105.

Course does not meet an Approach

Counts Toward: Growth and Structure of Cities.

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ECON B214 Public Finance

Fall 2024

Analysis of government's role in resource allocation, emphasizing effects of tax and expenditure programs on income distribution and economic efficiency. Topics include sources of inefficiency in markets and possible government responses; federal budget composition; social insurance and antipoverty programs; U.S. tax structure and incidence. Prerequisites: ECON B105.

Counts Toward: Growth and Structure of Cities; Health Studies; Health Studies.

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ECON B225 Economic Development

Fall 2024

Examination of the issues related to and the policies designed to promote economic development in the developing economies of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. Focus is on why some developing economies grow faster than others and why some growth paths are more equitable, poverty reducing, and environmentally sustainable than others. Includes consideration of the impact of international trade and investment policy, macroeconomic policies (exchange rate, monetary and fiscal policy) and sector policies (industry, agriculture, education, population, and environment) on development outcomes in a wide range of political and institutional contexts. Prerequisite: ECON B105.

Course does not meet an Approach

Counts Toward: Environmental Studies; Growth and Structure of Cities; International Studies; International Studies.

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ECON B236 Introduction to International Economics

Fall 2024, Spring 2025

An introduction to international economics through theory, policy issues, and problems. The course surveys international trade and finance, as well as topics in international economics. It investigates why and what a nation trades, the consequences of such trade, globalized production, the role of trade policy, the economics of immigration, the behavior and effects of exchange rates, and the macroeconomic implications of trade and capital flows.Prerequisites: ECON B105. The course is not open to students who have taken ECON B316 or B348.

Counts Toward: Growth and Structure of Cities; International Studies; International Studies.

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ECON B253 Introduction to Econometrics

Fall 2024, Spring 2025

An introduction to econometric terminology and reasoning. Topics include descriptive statistics, probability, and statistical inference. Particular emphasis is placed on regression analysis and on the use of data to address economic issues. The required computational techniques are developed as part of the course. Class cannot be taken if you have taken H203 or H204. Prerequisites: ECON B105 and a 200-level elective. ECON H201 does not count as an elective.

Quantitative Methods (QM)

Counts Toward: Data Science; Growth and Structure of Cities.

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ECON B314 The Economics of Social Policy

Not offered 2024-25

Introduces students to the economic rationale behind U.S. government programs and the evaluation of U.S. social policies. Topics include minimum wage, unemployment, safety net programs, education, health insurance, and climate change. Additionally, the instructor and students will jointly select topics of special interest to the class. Emphasis will be placed on the use of statistics to evaluate social policy. Writing intensive. Prerequisites: ECON B200 and (ECON B253 or ECON B304)

Writing Intensive

Counts Toward: Growth and Structure of Cities.

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ECON B324 The Economics of Discrimination and Inequality

Fall 2024

Explores the causes and consequences of discrimination and inequality in economic markets. Topics include economic theories of discrimination and inequality, evidence of contemporary race- and gender-based inequality, detecting discrimination, identifying sources of racial and gender inequality, and identifying sources of overall economic inequality. Additionally, the instructor and students will jointly select supplementary topics of specific interest to the class. Possible topics include: discrimination in historical markets, disparity in legal treatments, issues of family structure, and education gaps. Writing Intensive. Prerequisites: At least one 200-level applied microeconomics elective; ECON 253 or 304; ECON 200.

Writing Intensive

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Counts Toward: Gender Sexuality Studies; Growth and Structure of Cities.

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EDUC B266 Geographies of School and Learning: Urban Education Reconsidered

Spring 2025

This course examines issues, challenges, and possibilities of urban education in contemporary America. We use as critical lenses issues of race, class, and culture; urban learners, teachers, and school systems; and restructuring and reform. While we look at urban education nationally over several decades, we use Philadelphia as a focal "case" that students investigate through documents and school placements. Weekly fieldwork in a school required.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Counts Toward: Africana Studies; Child and Family Studies; Growth and Structure of Cities; Praxis Program; Sociology.

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ENVS B202 Environment and Society

Fall 2024, Spring 2025

An exploration of the ways in which different cultural, economic, and political settings have shaped issue emergence and policy making. We examine the politics of particular environmental issues in selected countries and regions, paying special attention to the impact of environmental movements. We also assess the prospects for international cooperation in addressing global environmental problems such as climate change.

Writing Attentive

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Counts Toward: Environmental Studies; Growth and Structure of Cities; Political Science.

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GEOL B209 Natural Hazards

Spring 2025

A quantitative approach to understanding Earth processes that impact human societies. We will examine earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides, storms, and floods and explore the risks that they pose to communities. Course emphases include the fundamental physical principles and processes that govern natural hazards, approaches to mitigating the effects of natural disasters and responding in their aftermath, and examples of natural disasters from the recent and historical past. Lecture three hours a week.

Quantitative Methods (QM)

Quantitative Readiness Required (QR)

Scientific Investigation (SI)

Counts Toward: Environmental Studies; Environmental Studies; Growth and Structure of Cities.

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GERM B217 Representing Diversity in German Cinema

Not offered 2024-25

German society has undergone drastic changes as a result of immigration. Traditional notions of Germanness have been and are still being challenged and subverted. This course uses films and visual media to examine the experiences of various minority groups living in Germany. Students will learn about the history of immigration of different ethnic groups, including Turkish Germans, Afro-Germans, Asian Germans, Arab Germans, German Jews, and ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe. We will explore discourses on migration, racism, xenophobia, integration, and citizenship. We will seek to understand not only the historical and contemporary contexts for these films but also their relevance for reshaping German society. Students will be introduced to modern German cinema from the silent era to the present. They will acquire terminology and methods for reading films as fictional and aesthetic representations of history and politics, and analyze identity construction in the worlds of the real and the reel. This course is taught in English

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Counts Toward: Film Studies; Gender Sexuality Studies; Growth and Structure of Cities.

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GERM B245 Interdisciplinary Approaches to German Literature and Culture

Not offered 2024-25

This is a topics course. Taught in German. Course content varies. Previous topics include, Women's Narratives on Modern Migrancy, Exile, and Diasporas; Nation and Identity in Post-War Austria.

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GERM B321 Advanced Topics in German Cultural Studies

Section 001 (Spring 2025): Weimar Cinema (1918-1933)

Spring 2025

This is a topics course. Course content varies. Recent topic titles include: Asia and Germany through Film; The Letter, the Spirit, and Beyond: German-Jewish Writers and Jewish Culture in the 18th and 19th Century.

Course does not meet an Approach

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Counts Toward: Film Studies; Gender Sexuality Studies; Growth and Structure of Cities.

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GNST B145 Introduction to Latin American, Iberian and Latina/o Studies

Not offered 2024-25

A broad, interdisciplinary survey of themes uniting and dividing societies from the Iberian Peninsula to the Americas. The class introduces the methods and interests of all departments in the concentration, posing problems of cultural continuity and change, globalization and struggles within dynamic histories, political economies, and creative expressions. Course is taught in English.

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GNST B245 Introduction to Latin American, Iberian and Latina/o Studies

Not offered 2024-25

A broad, interdisciplinary survey of themes uniting and dividing societies from the Iberian Peninsula to the Americas. The class introduces the methods and interests of all departments in the concentration, posing problems of cultural continuity and change, globalization and struggles within dynamic histories, political economies, and creative expressions. Course is taught in English.

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HART B103 Survey of Western Architecture

Not offered 2024-25

The major traditions in Western architecture are illustrated through detailed analysis of selected examples from classical antiquity to the present. The evolution of architectural design and building technology, and the larger intellectual, aesthetic, and social context in which this evolution occurred, are considered. This course was formerly numbered HART B253; students who previously completed HART B253 may not repeat this course.

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HART B110 Introduction to Medieval Art and Architecture

Fall 2024

This course takes a broad geographic and chronological scope, allowing for full exposure to the rich variety of objects and monuments that fall under the rubric of "medieval" art and architecture. We focus on the Latin and Byzantine Christian traditions, but also consider works of art and architecture from the Islamic and Jewish spheres. Topics to be discussed include: the role of religion in artistic development and expression; secular traditions of medieval art and culture; facture and materiality in the art of the middle ages; the use of objects and monuments to convey political power and social prestige; gender dynamics in medieval visual culture; and the contribution of medieval art and architecture to later artistic traditions. This course was formerly numbered HART B212; students who previously completed HART B212 may not repeat this course.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward: Growth and Structure of Cities.

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HART B310 Topics in Medieval Art

Section 001 (Fall 2025): Kings, Caliphs, and Emperors: Images of Authority

Not offered 2024-25

This is a topics course. Course content varies. Prerequisite: one course in History of Art at the 100- or 200-level or permission of the instructor. Enrollment preference given to majors and minors in History of Art.

Course does not meet an Approach

Counts Toward: Growth and Structure of Cities; History.

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HART B330 Topics in Renaissance and Baroque Art

Not offered 2024-25

This is a topics course. Course content varies. This course was formerly numbered HART B323.

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HART B346 The History of London Since the Eighteenth Century

Spring 2025

Selected topics of social, literary, and architectural concern in the history of London, emphasizing London since the 18th century. This course was formerly numbered HART B355; students who previously completed HART B355 may not repeat this course. Prerequisite: one course in History of Art at the 100- or 200-level or permission of the instructor. Enrollment preference given to majors and minors in History of Art.

Course does not meet an Approach

Counts Toward: Growth and Structure of Cities.

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HART B370 Topics in History & Theory of Photography

Section 001 (Spring 2026): Race & Identity in the Photographic Archive

Not offered 2024-25

This is a topics course. Course content varies. Prerequisite: one course in History of Art at the 100- or 200-level or permission of the instructor. Enrollment preference given to majors and minors in History of Art. This course was formerly numbered HART B308.

Current topic description: This course focuses on constructions, representations and interpretations of racial and social identities within the history of lensed media.  To this end, we will consider critical, historical and theoretical approaches that seek to problematize the racial, cultural and political matrices through which identity has historically been constructed and represented in photography and film.  Throughout the course, we will ground our analysis in a consideration of a range of photographic media and genres from the daguerreotype to the polaroid, from landscape photography to the portrait.  The goal of this course is to engage with an array of aesthetic, historical and theoretical texts that will enrich our critical interrogations of a medium that continues to shape the ideological contours of the present. Class work will be supplemented by visits to Special Collections and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Assignments will include short response papers that will scaffold a final research paper.

Course does not meet an Approach

Counts Toward: Growth and Structure of Cities.

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HART B375 Topics in Contemporary Art

Section 001 (Fall 2024): Latin American Conceptualisms
Section 001 (Spring 2026): Visual Culture & the Holocaust
Section 002 (Spring 2026): Latin American Conceptualisms

Fall 2024

This is a topics course. Course content varies. Prerequisite: one course in History of Art at the 100- or 200-level or permission of the instructor. Enrollment preference given to majors and minors in History of Art. This course was formerly numbered HART B380.

Current topic description: TBA

Current topic description: This seminar explores a variety of Latin American artistic approaches to conceptual practice in the 1960s and 1970s.

Course does not meet an Approach

Counts Toward: Growth and Structure of Cities.

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HIST B208 Monuments, Museums, and Memory

Spring 2025

In this course we will examine how U.S. history circulates in public, investigating the ways scholarly, curatorial, archival, and creative practices shape popular conceptions of the American past, in particular understandings of racial, gender, sexual, and class oppression and resistance. Students will build skills in historical interpretation and archival research and explore possibilities and challenges in preserving and presenting the past in a variety of public contexts-monuments, memorials, museums, historical sites, movies and television, genealogy, and community-based history projects.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Counts Toward: Growth and Structure of Cities; Museum Studies.

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HIST B237 Themes in Modern African History

Spring 2025

This is a topics course. Course content varies

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward: Africana Studies; Gender Sexuality Studies; Growth and Structure of Cities; International Studies; International Studies; Museum Studies.

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HIST B257 British Empire I: Capitalism and Slavery

Not offered 2024-25

Focusing on the Atlantic slave trade and the slave plantation mode of production, this course explores English colonization, and the emergence and the decline of British Empire in the Americas and Caribbean from the 17th through the late 20th centuries. It tracks some of the intersecting and overlapping routes-and roots-connecting histories and politics within and between these "new" world locations. It also tracks the further and proliferating links between developments in these regions and the histories and politics of regions in the "old" world, from the north Atlantic to the South China sea.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward: Growth and Structure of Cities; International Studies; International Studies.

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HIST B319 Topics in Modern European History

Section 001 (Fall 2024): History of Sexology
Section 001 (Spring 2026): Growing Up in Communism

Fall 2024

This is a topics course. Course content varies.

Current topic description: This course explores European communism as a lived experience from the 1950s until the disintergration of the Soviet Union in 1991. It examines various aspects of life in the socialist Eastern Block ranging from education, youth culture, Communist Party life, law and policing to leisure, consumerism, disability, sex and romance. Beyond looking at how life was lived during communism the course will also ask how life under communism has been remembered, represented and understood since the end of the Cold War.

Counts Toward: Growth and Structure of Cities; International Studies; International Studies.

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HIST B325 Topics in Social History

Fall 2024

This a topics course that explores various themes in American social history. Course content varies. Course may be repeated.

Counts Toward: Gender Sexuality Studies; Growth and Structure of Cities; Health Studies; Political Science.

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HIST B341 Go Burbs: Local Histories of Modern America

Spring 2025

If "all politics is local," then so too is all history. This course takes a local approach to the history of the United States, focusing on the nearby Philadelphia suburbs as a microcosm of modern American society and culture. Paying particular attention to Delaware County, students will investigate local history and local cultural sites and integrate them into a broader historical context.

Writing Attentive

Course does not meet an Approach

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Counts Toward: Growth and Structure of Cities; Political Science.

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ITAL B240 Philadelphia the Global City: The Italian Legacy across Time

Not offered 2024-25

This course investigates the history and evolution of Philadelphia as a globalized and multi-ethnic city, using as a case study for this analysis the impact and legacy of transnational Italian culture across the centuries. By adopting a cross-cultural, trans-historical, and interdisciplinary approach, the course explores the influence that - along with and in intersection with many other cultural inputs - also Italian arts and cultures have exerted on the city, making it become the cosmopolitan and transnational urban environment that it is today. Throughout the centuries and way before Italy even started existing as a state, Philadelphians traveled to the peninsula and brought back objects to display in emerging cultural institutions or studied the country's art and architecture styles to shape the evolving aspect of the city. Simultaneously, incoming immigration formed new neighborhoods - such as South Philly, home to the Italian Market - and Italian figures came to prominence and became part of the social fabric of the city. Nowadays, many non-profit organizations work to preserve the traces that Italian migrants left within Philadelphia's multi-ethnic urban environment as well as to extend the city's global profile and celebrate its heritage and diversity. Through specific field trips, on-site experiential activities, and forms of civic engagement this course highlights both the enduring fascination of Philadelphians with Italy (or with the idea thereof) across the centuries and the role that the Italian Diaspora played in the development of the city. The course ultimately challenges geographical, chronological, and cultural boundaries by showing how places, arts, identities that today are perceived as 'American' have in most cases an intersectional, multi-ethnic, and cross-cultural history to tell. This course will be taught in Philadelphia as part of the Tri-Co Philly Program. All readings and class discussion will be in English, and no knowledge of Italian is required. Students seeking Italian credits will complete their assignments in the target language.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Counts Toward: Growth and Structure of Cities; History; History of Art; Museum Studies; Praxis Program.

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MEST B210 The Art and Architecture of Islamic Spirituality

Not offered 2024-25

This course examines how Muslim societies across time and space have used art and architecture in different ways to express and understand inner dimensions of spirituality and mysticism. Topics to be studied include: the calligraphical remnants of the early Islamic period; inscriptions found on buildings and gravestones; the majestic architecture of mosques, shrines, seminaries, and Sufi lodges; the brilliant arts of the book; the commemorative iconography and passion plays of Ashura devotion; the souvenir culture of modern shrine visitation; and the modern art of twenty-first century Sufism. Readings include works from history, religious studies, anthropology, sociology, and the history of art and architecture.

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POLS B224 Comparative Political Phil: China, Greece, and the "West"

Not offered 2024-25

An introduction to the dialogic construction of comparative political philosophy, using texts from several cultures or worlds of thought: ancient and modern China, ancient Greece, and the modern West. The course will have three parts. First, a consideration of the synchronous emergence of philosophy in ancient (Axial Age) China and Greece; second, the 19th century invention of the modern "West" and Chinese responses to this development; and third, the current discussions and debates about globalization, democracy, and human rights now going on in China and the West. Prerequisite: At least one course in either Philosophy, Political Theory, or East Asian Studies, or consent of the instructor.

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POLS B256 Global Politics of Climate Change

Not offered 2024-25

This course will introduce students to important political issues raised by climate change locally, nationally, and internationally, paying particular attention to the global implications of actions at the national and subnational levels. It will focus not only on specific problems, but also on solutions; students will learn about some of the technological and policy innovations that are being developed worldwide in response to the challenges of climate change. Only open to students in 360 program.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Counts Toward: Environmental Studies; Environmental Studies; Growth and Structure of Cities.

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SOCL B200 Urban Sociology

Not offered 2024-25

How do social forces shape the places we live? What makes a place urban? What is a suburb and why do we have them? What's environmental racism? Why are cities in the US still highly racially segregated? We will take on these questions and more in this introduction to urban sociology. Classic and contemporary urban social theories will inform our investigations of empirical research on pressing urban issues such as housing segregation, the environment, suburbanization, transportation and inequality. The course has a special focus on the social, economic and political forces that shape in urban space in ways that perpetuate inequality for African Americans.

Course does not meet an Approach

Counts Toward: Africana Studies; Growth and Structure of Cities.

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SOCL B205 Social Inequality

Spring 2025

In this course, we will explore the extent, causes, and consequences of social and economic inequality in the U.S. We will begin by discussing key theories and the intersecting dimensions of inequality along lines of income and wealth, race and ethnicity, and gender. We will then follow a life-course perspective to trace the institutions through which inequality is structured, experienced, and reproduced through the family, neighborhoods, the educational system, labor markets and workplaces, and the criminal justice system.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Counts Toward: Child and Family Studies; Gender Sexuality Studies; Growth and Structure of Cities.

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SOCL B235 Mexican-American Communities

Spring 2025

For its unique history, the number of migrants, and the two countries' proximity, Mexican migration to the United States represents an exceptional case in world migration. There is no other example of migration with more than 100 years of history. The copious presence of migrants concentrated in a host country, such as we have in the case of the 11.7 million Mexican migrants residing in the United States, along with another 15 million Mexican descendants, is unparalleled. The 1,933-mile-long border shared by the two countries makes it one of the longest boundary lines in the world and, unfortunately, also one of the most dangerous frontiers in the world today. We will examine the different economic, political, social and cultural forces that have shaped this centenarian migration influx and undertake a macro-, meso-, and micro-levels of analysis. At the macro-level of political economy, we will investigate the economic interdependency that has developed between Mexico and the U.S. over different economic development periods of these countries, particularly, the role the Mexican labor force has played to boosting and sustaining both the Mexican and the American economies. At the meso-level, we will examine different institutions both in Mexico and the U.S. that have determined the ways in which millions of Mexican migrate to this country. Last, but certainly not least, we will explore the impacts that both the macro-and meso-processes have had on the micro-level by considering the imperatives, aspirations, and dreams that have prompted millions of people to leave their homes and communities behind in search of better opportunities. This major life decision of migration brings with it a series of social transformations in family and community networks, this will look into the cultural impacts in both the sending and receiving migrant communities. In sum, we will come to understand how these three levels of analysis work together.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Counts Toward: Gender Sexuality Studies; Growth and Structure of Cities; Latin American Iberian Latinx; Praxis Program.

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SOCL B260 A City of Homes: Housing Issues in Philadelphia

Spring 2025

In the late 19th century, Philadelphia's boosters described the city as the "City of Homes" to celebrate its success compared to other major cities in the US in providing housing and opportunities for homeownership for its growing population of workers. This class investigates the unique history of housing in Philadelphia. We will cover the problems the city has faced and still faces in providing affordable housing, fair access to housing and creating diverse and vibrant neighborhoods and its great legacy of innovation in this area. We will use Philadelphia as a case for investigating the relationship between housing, the economy, locational resources, and neighborhood development. We will see how racial capitalism shapes what housing is built, where it is built and who has access to it. Through the Tri-Co Philly program students will engage with this literature as part of an immersive experience in the city and gain a deeper understanding of the practice of engaging with housing issues for professionals and political actors.

Counts Toward: Growth and Structure of Cities.

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SOCL B276 Making Sense of Race

Spring 2025

What is the meaning of race in contemporary US and global society? How are these meanings (re)produced, resisted, and refused? What meanings might we desire or imagine as alternatives? In this course, we will approach these questions through an array of sources while tracking our own thinking about and experiences of raced-ness. Course material will survey sociological notions of the social construction of race, empirical studies of lived experiences of race, and creative fiction and non-fiction material intended to catalyze thinking about alternative possibilities.

Course does not meet an Approach

Counts Toward: Africana Studies; Gender Sexuality Studies; Growth and Structure of Cities.

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