An essential part of the General Education Program, the 200-level AIID 201 Studies in Arts & Humanities course addresses the objectives of the General Education Program by providing an opportunity for students to engage with enduring questions and issues in an interdisciplinary fashion by studying texts and other sources drawn from a range of different times and cultures.

Course Description

The Studies in Arts & Humanities is an interdisciplinary liberal arts course.  It provides students with an introduction to key texts, concepts, and artifacts from different fields in the humanities including, for instance, history, literature, philosophy, music, and art history. Each section of the course covers a variety of different cultures and at least four different periods in human history, which can range from the ancient world to contemporary works. The course is designated Writing Intensive and will require students to complete at least two different types of writing assignments. This is a core General Education course, required of all students

Class Schedule

AIID 201 - STUDIES IN THE ARTS & HUMANITIES

SIAH Section Descriptions, Fall 2024

Note:  We will do our best to maintain this list of instructors, times, and topics.  However, unexpected schedule changes may happen due to enrollment and other issues.

• Section 01: Professor Riki Traum Avidan
• Section 02: Professor TBA
• Section 03: Professor TBA
• Section 04: Professor Ziva Piltch
• Section 05: Professor Monika Giacoppe
• Section 06: Professor TBA
• Section 07: Professor TBA
• Section 08: Professor TBA
• Section 09: Professor TBA
• Section 10: Professor Riki Traum Avidan
• Section 11: Professor Diane Tomko
• Section 12: Professor TBA
• Section 13: Professor TBA
• Section 14: Professor TBA
• Section 15: Professor Vassiliki Flenga
• Section 16: Professor TBA
• Section 18: Professor TBA
• Section 50: Professor TBA
• [Section 53: Professor Fabien Rivière]

Section 01: Professor Riki Traum Avidan

Hybrid Monday 8:00 – 9:40, other work asynch
“The Love of Power and the Power of Love: Race, Class, and Intimacy”

“If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see.”

–James Baldwin

This course invites its participants to explore questions of power, domination, race, and love as categories that structure our social worlds and personal experience. We pay special attention to the concept of family: family that often provides security and stability, is also the primary seat of power. We examine family through its relation to ambivalent feelings and categories like power, domination, and violence. We also think about the ways political systems are grounded in everyday life, affect, shape, and form intimacy and love, and in this context also gender and race.

Assuming that race, gender, and intimacy are not ‘natural’ categories, we will look at the work that goes into making them appear so and consider the ways in which their meanings and efficacy change over time. The course will examine closely essays and literary works by Toni Morrison, Zadie Smith, Sigmund Freud, Anton Chekhov, Tillie Olsen, Judith Butler, June Jordan, Audre Lorde, and more. We will discuss Antigone by Sophocles and examine questions of race, class, and identity in “Recitatif” by Toni Morrison. Through these works we will ask how social identities—e.g., race, gender, sexuality, and social class—and regional contexts shape people’s experiences of close human relationships. In this course, we consider politics as a medium of domination and change. Thus, this course calls as much attention to those individual and collective forms of resistance as it does to their absence.

A main concept in this class – as you might surmise from the description above – is ambivalence.  We examine ambivalence in this course through literary as well as interdisciplinary frameworks.

Section 02: Professor TBA

Wednesday, 9:00 – 12:30
Title TBA

Description TBA

Section 03: Professor TBA

Wednesday, 6:05 – 9:35

Title TBA

Section 04: Professor Ziva Piltch

Wednesday 1:00 – 4:30

“The Hero’s Journey”

Our theme for this section will be the hero and hero’s journey and the ways in which the hero reflects the values of her/his culture in literature and in art. The term “hero” is both male and female and includes antiheroes as well.  Readings that emphasize this include The Epic of Gilgamesh, Oedipus or Medea, Othello, Candide, The Doll’s House, and The Metamorphosis. Through writing and discussion we will examine our own values as well.

From the Garden of Eden story in the Bible to the thoughts of early Greek and Hindu philosophers and from a story of love and murder set in 16th century Istanbul to the writings of a 19th century Hasidic master.

Studies in Arts and Humanities is a course in which we examine ancient and modern cultures through the lens of different disciplines.  We will examine the differing ways societies manage and question issues of proper government, morality, and personal relationships.  We will explore the process by which individuals and groups challenge authority and change perceptions of divinity, belief, social conventions, and norms of behavior.

Section 05: Professor Monika Giacoppe

Tuesday, 6:05-9:35

Title TBA

Description TBA

Section 06: Professor TBA

Wednesday, 6:05 – 9:35

Title TBA

Description TBA

Section 07: Professor TBA

Monday/ Thursday, 6:05 – 7:45

Title TBA

Description TBA

Section 08: Professor TBA

Tuesday / Friday, 11:50 – 1:30

Title TBA

Description TBA

Section 09: Professor TBA

Monday, 6:05-9:35

Title TBA

Description TBA

Section 10: Professor Riki Traum Avidan

Hybrid Monday/ Thursday 9:55 – 11:05, other work asynch

“The Love of Power and the Power of Love: Race, Class, and Intimacy”

“If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see.”

–James Baldwin

This course invites its participants to explore questions of power, domination, race, and love as categories that structure our social worlds and personal experience. We pay special attention to the concept of family: family that often provides security and stability, is also the primary seat of power. We examine family through its relation to ambivalent feelings and categories like power, domination, and violence. We also think about the ways political systems are grounded in everyday life, affect, shape, and form intimacy and love, and in this context also gender and race.

Assuming that race, gender, and intimacy are not ‘natural’ categories, we will look at the work that goes into making them appear so and consider the ways in which their meanings and efficacy change over time. The course will examine closely essays and literary works by Toni Morrison, Zadie Smith, Sigmund Freud, Anton Chekhov, Tillie Olsen, Judith Butler, June Jordan, Audre Lorde, and more. We will discuss Antigone by Sophocles and examine questions of race, class, and identity in “Recitatif” by Toni Morrison. Through these works we will ask how social identities—e.g., race, gender, sexuality, and social class—and regional contexts shape people’s experiences of close human relationships. In this course, we consider politics as a medium of domination and change. Thus, this course calls as much attention to those individual and collective forms of resistance as it does to their absence.

A main concept in this class – as you might surmise from the description above – is ambivalence.  We examine ambivalence in this course through literary as well as interdisciplinary frameworks.

Section 11: Professor Diane Tomko

Monday/ Thursday 4:10 – 5:50
“Love and Imagination”

Section 12: Professor TBA

Tuesday/ Friday, 3:40 – 5:20

Title TBA

Section 13: Professor TBA

Tuesday/Friday, 1:45 – 3:25

Title TBA

Description TBA

Section 14: Professor TBA

Tuesday / Friday, 8:00 – 9:40

Title TBA

Description TBA

Section 15: Professor Vassiliki Flenga

Monday/ Thursday, 2:15 – 3:55

Title TBA

Description TBA

Section 16: Professor TBA

Monday/ Thursday, 11:20 – 1:00

Title TBA

Description TBA

Section 18: Professor TBA

Tuesday/ Friday, 3:40 – 5:20
Title TBA

Description TBA

Section 50: Professor TBA

Online (asynchronous) course
Title TBA

Description TBA

[Section 53: Professor Fabien Rivière]

Online, asynchronous course
Title TBA