Interdisciplinary Project in the Humanities
The Interdisciplinary Project in the Humanities (IPH) is a rigorous program for highly motivated students whose interests draw them beyond traditional academic categories. The major, which usually leads to a degree with honors, combines an introductory core — a focused study of texts central to the European, American and Asian philosophical, religious and literary traditions — with an area of concentration: an advanced cluster of courses and research tailored to the special interests of each student in the program. For students pursuing concentrations in, for example, American intellectual history, in the European avant-garde in the 20th century, or in Renaissance political thought (to take three among many possible concentrations), the introductory core provides a crucial foundation for advanced interdisciplinary work. The core also provides a useful background for students undertaking comparative concentrations in such topics as encounters between East Asian and Western medical traditions or the literature of mysticism.
All students in the major learn to write and speak clearly and flexibly. They are given broad exposure to a range of canonical texts, and they engage in the historical and formal analysis of those and many other texts. They become skilled at research in at least one foreign language, and they are given considerable experience in creative, independent scholarly inquiry. Their work in the humanities bridges disciplines and fosters in them the two fundamental interpretive skills of contextualization and criticism. Students in the program will be well prepared for a range of graduate programs in the humanities, for professional careers in law and public service, and for the vital work of critical citizenship and life-long intellectual discovery.
Contact Info
Phone: | 314-935-4200 |
Email: | iph@wustl.edu |
Website: | http://iph.wustl.edu |
Director
Joseph F. Loewenstein
Professor
PhD, Yale University
(English; IPH; Comparative Literature)
Participating Faculty
Jami Ake
Senior Lecturer
PhD, Indiana University
(IPH; English; Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies)
Anupam Basu
Assistant Professor
(English)
Kurt Beals
Associate Professor
PhD, University of California, Berkeley
(German; Comparative Literature)
Tili Boon Cuillé
Associate Professor
PhD, University of Pennsylvania
(Romance Languages and Literatures)
Eric Brown
Associate Professor
PhD, University of Chicago
(Philosophy)
Matt Erlin
Professor
PhD, University of California, Berkeley
(German)
Amy Gais
Lecturer
PhD, Yale University
(IPH; Political Science)
Robert Henke
Professor
PhD, University of California, Berkeley
(Performing Arts; Comparative Literature)
Christine Johnson
Associate Professor
PhD, Johns Hopkins University
(History)
Catherine Keane
Professor
PhD, University of Pennsylvania
(Classics)
Thomas Keeline
Associate Professor
PhD, Harvard
(Classics)
Stephanie Kirk
Associate Professor
PhD, New York University
(Spanish; Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies)
Frank Lovett
Associate Professor
PhD, Columbia University
(Political Science; Legal Studise)
Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp
Archer Alexander Distinguished Professor
PhD, Yale University
(Religion and Politics)
Timothy Moore
John and Penelope Biggs Distinguished Professor of Classics
PhD, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
(Classics)
Philip Purchase
Senior Lecturer
PhD, University of Southern California
(IPH; Classics; Comparative Literature)
Matthew Rickard
Mellon Fellow in Modeling Interdisciplinary Inquiry in the Humanities
PhD, Princeton University
(IPH; English)
Graham A. Sack
Mellon Fellow in Modeling Interdisciplinary Inquiry in the Humanities
(IPH; English)
Luis Alejandro Salas
Assistant Professor
PhD, University of Texas
(Classics)
Trevor Sangrey
Lecturer
PhD, University of California, Santa Cruz
(Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies)
Wolfram Schmidgen
Professor
PhD, University of Chicago
(English)
Michael Sherberg
Professor
PhD, University of California, Los Angeles
(Italian)
Kristoffer Smemo
Lecturer
PhD, University of California in Santa Barbara
(History)
Zoe Stamatopoulou
Associate Professor
PhD, University of Virginia
(Classics)
Lynne Tatlock
Hortense and Tobias Lewin Distinguished Professor in the Humanities
PhD, Indiana University
(German; Comparative Literature)
Mark Valeri
Reverend Priscilla Wood Neaves Distinguished Professor of Religion and Politics
PhD, Princeton University
(Religion and Politics; Religious Studies)
The Major in the Interdisciplinary Project in the Humanities
Total units required: 44
Foundations for the major include four of the Text and Traditions core courses, shown below, which may include a humanities-based Ampersand first-year program (IPH 201C Classical to Renaissance Literature: Text and Traditions and IPH 203C Early Political Thought: Text and Traditions taken in the same semester) plus two of the IPH courses in the core.
Code | Title | Units |
---|---|---|
IPH 201A | Puzzles and Revolutions: Text and Traditions | 3 |
IPH 201B | The Great Economists: Text and Traditions | 3 |
IPH 201C | Classical to Renaissance Literature: Text and Traditions | 3 |
IPH 203C | Early Political Thought: Text and Traditions | 3 |
IPH 207C | Modern Political Thought: Text and Traditions | 3 |
IPH 209 | Scriptures and Cultural Traditions: Text & Traditions | 3 |
IPH 3050 | Literary Modernities in Europe and America: Text and Traditions (IPH 3050 is an updated version of IPH 205C Literary Modernities) | 3 |
IPH 310 | The Intellectual History of Sex and Gender: Text and Traditions | 3 |
IPH 320 | The Intellectual History of Race and Ethnicity: Text and Traditions | 3 |
IPH Core
The IPH core consists of four courses drawn from the Text and Traditions program, which may include an Ampersand first-year course sequence. Students begin taking core courses during their first year but generally not later than the spring of the sophomore year.
Students apply to the major during their sophomore year by submitting a portfolio of three previously written essays and a letter of recommendation from a Text and Traditions professor; admission is completed by means of an assessment interview with the IPH Director. Once admitted to the program, each student designs — in consultation with their IPH advisor — a program of advanced course work called the Area of Concentration.
During the spring semester of the sophomore year, students undertake their first sustained research project, the Sophomore Research Tutorial, under the mentorship of a member of the faculty who has agreed to work with them on the topic and who has been approved by their IPH advisor. During their sophomore and junior years, students focus on their Area of Concentration courses and continue to plan their capstone/thesis project.
In the spring semester of the junior year, students take the IPH Theory and Methods Seminar and the IPH Thesis Prospectus Workshop in anticipation of their capstone/thesis project. For their capstone/thesis projects, students work with a faculty member who has agreed to mentor them and two other faculty members who will read their thesis. All mentors and committee members must be approved by the student's IPH advisor. In late February and early March, students seeking honors take written and oral comprehensive exams.
In the fall of the senior year, students take an IPH Interdisciplinary Topics course and the Senior Thesis Tutorial; in the spring, they take the Senior Colloquium. In addition, they complete and present their capstone/thesis projects before the end of March.
Foreign Language Competency
By the fall semester of the senior year, IPH majors must have completed a four-course sequence in a non-native language and must take an IPH-administered Language Application Exercise as evidence of their foreign-language competency.
Areas of Concentration
With their IPH faculty advisors, students construct a coherent interdisciplinary sequence of five courses for advanced study. This "area of concentration" must include at least one course in political or cultural history, which will normally be taken between the third and seventh semesters of the program. Some students will pursue concentrations that reflect the long-standing research interests of a number of faculty in the humanities. Among these latter fully developed concentrations are the tracks in the following areas:
- Renaissance Studies
- Literature and History
- History of Media
- Data Science in the Humanities
- Carceral Studies
Other recent areas of concentration have included the following:
- Domesticity and Political Thought
- Religion and 19th-Century Literature
- Jurisprudence
- Madness in Classical Greek Drama
- Rural Chinese Environmentalism
- Central European Nationalism and the Zionist Movement
- Feminist Opera
- Space Law
Required Courses
Required courses for the major are as follows:
Code | Title | Units |
---|---|---|
Four core Text and Tradition courses | 12 | |
IPH 301 | Sophomore Research Tutorial | 2 |
IPH 401 | IPH Thesis Prospectus Workshop | 3 |
IPH 403 | Senior Thesis Tutorial | 3 |
Area of Concentration courses | 15 | |
IPH 405 | Theory and Methods in the Humanities | 3 |
IPH 450 | Interdisciplinary Topics in the Humanities | 3 |
or IPH 470 | Interdisciplinary Topics: Data Signs-A Literary History of Information | |
IPH 455 | IPH Senior Colloquium: Interdisciplinary Topics in the Humanities | 3 |
Total Units | 44 |
The Minor in Text and Traditions
Units required: 15
Text and Traditions is a minor open to first-year and sophomore students. In this program, students read, reflect on, and analyze — both orally and in writing — the foundational texts of Western literary, philosophical, scientific, and political culture, with comparative excurses into non-Western texts and traditions.
For students majoring in a science, the Text and Traditions minor provides a firm grounding in the humanities. All courses in the minor fulfill Arts & Sciences distribution requirements. Five courses satisfy the requirements for a minor in Text and Traditions.
Required courses:
Students take five of the following courses (15 units):
Code | Title | Units |
---|---|---|
IPH 200C | Sanity and Madness in Literature from Ancient Greece to the Renaissance | 3 |
IPH 201A | Puzzles and Revolutions: Text and Traditions | 3 |
IPH 201B | The Great Economists: Text and Traditions | 3 |
IPH 201C | Classical to Renaissance Literature: Text and Traditions | 3 |
IPH 203C | Early Political Thought: Text and Traditions | 3 |
IPH 207C | Modern Political Thought: Text and Traditions | 3 |
IPH 209 | Scriptures and Cultural Traditions: Text & Traditions | 3 |
IPH 3050 | Literary Modernities in Europe and America: Text and Traditions | 3 |
IPH 307 | Ampersand: Literary Modernities in East Asia: The Interplay of Tradition, Modernity, & Empire: Text & Tradition | 3 |
IPH 310 | The Intellectual History of Sex and Gender: Text and Traditions | 3 |
IPH 320 | The Intellectual History of Race and Ethnicity: Text and Traditions | 3 |
Elective courses:
Students may elect to substitute one of the above Text and Traditions courses with a text-centered course that emphasizes primary sources. Prior consultation and IPH advisor approval are required.
Additional Information
Enrollment is by application through the IPH program. Students must earn a grade of C or better for the course to count toward the minor.
The Minor in Data Science in the Humanities (DASH)
Units required: 15
Any humanities student will feel at home in this minor and in its active research community. No previous experience with computational methods is required; the curriculum equips students with the skills and knowledge necessary to navigate the field of Digital Humanities, and those skills and that knowledge are eminently "transferable." Computational approaches to questions in the humanities are slowly migrating from the methodological fringes of the disciplines of cultural, artistic and historical inquiry. Students in the minor will have the opportunity to engage with the emerging future of their fields and to help shape that future.
A student who does have previous computational experience — a computer science major, for instance — will also benefit from this minor. By grafting that knowledge to the problems of cultural and historical analysis and working on challenging new projects within unfamiliar fields, computer-savvy students will find themselves becoming more versatile and more attractive to graduate admissions committees and potential employers.
For the minor, students take 6 or 7 units from the four DASH courses plus at least 3 units of internship (which can be repeated for up to 8 credits). The internship research experience is required and consists of working under the director of a faculty on a project through IPH or the Humanities Digital Workshop. The DASH courses and internship can be supplemented with elective courses in Computational Humanities, Digital Culture and Design, or Computer Science.
DASH Courses
Code | Title | Units |
---|---|---|
IPH 312 | Introduction to Digital Humanities | 3 |
IPH 431 | Statistics for Humanities Scholars: Data Science for the Humanities | 3 |
IPH 430 | Data Manipulation for the Humanities (1 unit) | 1 |
IPH 432 | Programming for Text Analysis (Now 3 units) | 3 |
IPH 399 | Internship in Digital Humanities (Can be repeated [up to 8 total credits]) | 3-8 |
Electives | 3-6 |
Elective DASH Courses
Students may supplement the DASH requirements with elective courses taken from three categories: Computational Humanities, Digital Culture and Design, or Computer Science. The IPH reaches out to other faculty to identify courses that may be counted as DASH elective courses. DASH minors must reach out to their IPH/DASH advisor for approved elective courses.
Internship Research
The DASH minor is unusual among humanities programs in its focus on hands-on undergraduate research via internship. STEM fields provide relatively straightforward pathways toward research, whereas humanities students sometimes struggle to define what humanities research entails and how to get involved. Research opportunities are built into the DASH minor. DASH requires every student to take at least 3 units of directed research during an internship on a faculty-led project, and students are encouraged to work on more than one project or to advance their skills during another semester or summer. Students may take up to 8 units of internship/research. Lists of projects can be found on the IPH and Humanities Digital Workshop websites.
Every summer, the Humanities Digital Workshop invites applications from students for its summer fellowships. The fellowships pair students with humanities faculty engaged in digital humanities projects for 8 weeks, and past participants have overwhelmingly found this experience to be valuable.
Visit online course listings to view semester offerings for L93 IPH.
L93 IPH 150 First-Year Seminar: Topics in Interdisciplinary Inquiry
Credit 3 units. A&S: FYS A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L93 IPH 200C Sanity and Madness in Literature from Ancient Greece to the Renaissance
We will consider explicit and implicit models of mental life, motivation, and action in works by authors studied in 201C. We will investigate how concepts related to madness are formulated and regulated in these literary texts and in the societies that produce them, and we will read scholarship from the 19th through 21st centuries that has debated the scale and scope of irrationality in ancient, medieval, and early modern cultures.
Credit 3 units. A&S: AMP A&S IQ: HUM BU: BA, HUM EN: H
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L93 IPH 201A Puzzles and Revolutions: Text and Traditions
One major force in human history has been inquiry into the natural world. Especially after 1550, natural science, by virtue of its role in the development of technology and the improvement of health, has brought about great changes on all scales of human existence, first in Western Europe and then globally. In this course, the changing character of inquiry into the natural world, from antiquity forward, will be the object of study. Does natural science enable us, for example, to study nature as it is in itself, or are culturally-determined perspectives or frameworks inescapable? How is it that natural science has, especially since 1800, proved so useful in the development of technology? How has it impinged on the arts? The requirements will include writing several short papers and brief responses to the readings.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Art: HUM BU: HUM EN: H
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L93 IPH 201B The Great Economists: Text and Traditions
Examination of the great economic thinkers, the problems they sought to solve, the historically-conditioned assumptions that they bring to their work, and the moral issues they raise. The class will read from the works of Adam Smith, Ricardo, Malthus, Marx, Veblen, Keynes, Schumpeter, Galbraith, and others as well as commentary from Heilbronner. These readings will be paired with selected texts on the social and moral issues of their times.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L93 IPH 201C Classical to Renaissance Literature: Text and Traditions
Students enrolled in this course engage in close and sustained reading of a set of texts that are indispensable for an understanding of the European literary tradition, texts that continue to offer invaluable insights into humanity and the world around us. Homer's Iliad is the foundation of our class. We then go on to trace ways in which later poets and dramatists engage the work of predecessors who inspire and challenge them. Readings move from translations of Greek, Latin and Italian, to poetry and drama composed in English. In addition to Homer, we will read works of Sappho, a Greek tragedian, Plato, Vergil, Ovid, Petrarch, and Shakespeare.
Credit 3 units. A&S: AMP A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM EN: H
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L93 IPH 203C Early Political Thought: Text and Traditions
A selected survey of the political and moral thought of Europe from the rise of Athenian democracy to the Renaissance, with emphasis on analysis and discussion of writers such as Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, Castiglione, and Machiavelli. The course aims to introduce students to basic texts in the intellectual history of Western Europe, understood both as products of a particular time and place and as self-contained arguments that strive to instruct and persuade. The texts are simultaneously used to chart the careers of such fundamental notions as liberty, virtue, and justice.
Credit 3 units. A&S: AMP A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM EN: H
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L93 IPH 207C Modern Political Thought: Text and Traditions
What is power? Why are societies divided along lines of race, class, and gender? When did politics become split between the right and the left? Can religion be reconciled with the demands of modern life? Can democracy? These are some of the questions that will be addressed in this survey of modern political thought. Thinkers covered will include Thomas Hobbes, Immanuel Kant, Karl Marx, W.E.B. Du Bois, Hannah Arendt, and Michel Foucault.
Credit 3 units. A&S: AMP A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L93 IPH 209 Scriptures and Cultural Traditions: Text & Traditions
When we think of the word "scripture" in antiquity, we might think of the texts that have been compiled in the different holy books that we currently have today. Yet the function of "scriptures" within a community, and the status given to different texts treated as "scriptural," has changed in different times and places. In this course, we will consider texts that would eventually come to be part of the Hebrew Bible, New Testament, and the Qu'ran as well as several of the exegetes and reading communities that shaped their various interpretations. We will explore how non-canonical sources played a role in the formation of the various canons we have today, comparing the authoritative status given to these texts to that given to other works from antiquity, such as the epics of Homer. Special attention will be played to the role of the receiving community in the development of "scripture," and the variety of the contexts in which scripture can function in the construction of and opposition to religious authority.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: ETH EN: H
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L93 IPH 211A Digital Humanities: Information Representation, Analysis and Modeling
It is a truism that computers have changed our lives, the way we think, but in fact systematic efforts to apply current technologies to the thinking about history and culture have been rare. This course enables students to consider how these technologies might transform the humanities. Students explore the various ways that ideas and data in the humanities can be represented, analyzed and communicated. Topics include forms of information, modeling and simulation, geospatial (GIS) and temporal representations of data, and ways of creating and using audio and visual information. Readings and classwork are supplemented by small assigned digital projects culminating in a project chosen by the students themselves. Students should be comfortable with using the internet and a word processor. No other special computing skills are required.
Credit 3 units.
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L93 IPH 260 From Literature to Opera
Much operatic repertoire is based on classics of literature, from the very first operas of 1598-1600 to the present day. From Literature to Opera will introduce students to the world of opera through a close study of a few select works based on major literary subjects, beginning with the literary works themselves and proceeding to the ways the texts are adapted for the musical stage and then transformed into another genre through their dramatic musical settings. For 2018 the works studied will be Virgil's and Ovid's versions of the Orpheus myth set to music by Claudio Monteverdi in 1607 as one of the earliest operas. Next we will move on to Carlo Goldoni's play, Don Juan, which was composed by Mozart as Don Giovanni in 1787. Shakespeare will be represented by the ultimate tragedy of words, Othello, and Giuseppe Verdi's Otello of 1887. The course will conclude with Claude Debussy's Pélleas et Mélisande of 1902, based on Maurice Maeterlinck's 1892 symbolist play of the same name. No previous musical experience required. The class will be conducted as a seminar focused on student participation. Each student will also choose an opera based on a literary work as the subject of two 10-page papers. The first, due at midterm, will study the literary source and the way it is adapted as an operatic text (libretto). The second, due at the end of finals week, will analyze how the libretto is dramatized through the music. One of the important purposes of class discussion will be to develop a usable vocabulary for describing music and its dramatic effects.
Credit 3 units. A&S: FYS A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM EN: H
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L93 IPH 301 Sophomore Research Tutorial
A practical introduction to research in the humanities. Students develop and complete a project in a research area of possible long-term interest.
Credit 2 units. A&S IQ: HUM EN: H
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L93 IPH 3050 Literary Modernities in Europe and America: Text and Traditions
The course examines the various facets of modernity in major works of European, Eurasian, and, sometimes, American literature from the early 17th century to the 1920s, starting with "Don Quixote." We will explore, among other things, the eruption of the novel, the secularization of autobiography, the literary discovery of the city, and the rise of literary and aesthetic criticism that takes literature and art seriously as political and social institutions. In addition to literary works, the course will engage with two or three important models of critical practice (e.g., Wollstonecraft's "Vindication of the Rights of Women"; Marx's "German Ideology"; Freud's "The Interpretation of Dreams"; Eliot's "Tradition and the Individual Talent"; or perhaps that great work of fictionalized literary criticism, Borges' "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote").
Credit 3 units. A&S: AMP A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM EN: H
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L93 IPH 307 Ampersand: Literary Modernities in East Asia: The Interplay of Tradition, Modernity, & Empire: Text & Tradition
This course will explore the complex forces at work in the emergence of modern East Asia through a selection of literary texts spanning fiction, poetry, and personal narrative. Our readings — by Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese writers and poets — will point to the distinctively different and dramatically-shifting circumstances of modern East Asian nations and peoples, as well as to their shared values and aspirations.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: IS EN: H
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L93 IPH 310 The Intellectual History of Sex and Gender: Text and Traditions
When did sexuality begin? Is it safe to assume that gender constructions are universal and timeless? In this course, we will engage with a broad range of readings that serve as primary texts in the history of sexuality and gender. Our aims are threefold: (1) to analyze the literary evidence we have for sexuality and gender identity in Western culture; (2) to survey modern scholarly approaches to those same texts; and (3) to consider the ways in which these modern theoretical frameworks have become the most recent set of primary texts on sexuality and gender.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, SC, SD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA EN: H
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L93 IPH 312 Introduction to Digital Humanities
It is a truism that computers have changed our lives and the way we think and interact. But in fact systematic efforts to apply current technologies to the study of history and culture have been rare. This course will enable students to consider how these technologies might transform the humanities. We will explore the various ways in which ideas and data in the humanities can be represented, analyzed and communicated. We will also reflect on how the expansion of information technology has transformed and is continuing to transform the humanities, both with regard to their role in the university and in society at large. Readings and classwork will be supplemented by class presentations and a small assigned group project.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, WI Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM EN: H
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L93 IPH 3123 Introduction to Digital Humanities
It is a truism that computers have changed our lives and the way we think and interact. But in fact systematic efforts to apply current technologies to the study of history and culture have been rare. This course will enable students to consider how these technologies might transform the humanities. We will explore the various ways in which ideas and data in the humanities can be represented, analyzed, and communicated. We will also reflect on how the expansion of information technology has transformed and is continuing to transform the humanities, both with regard to their role in the university and in society at large. Readings and classwork will be supplemented by class presentations and a small assigned group project.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM EN: H
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L93 IPH 315 Independent Study in the Interdisciplinary Project in the Humanities
Credit 3 units.
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L93 IPH 3191 The European Avant-Garde: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities, 20th Century
The first half of the 20th century witnessed the emergence of artistic movements characterized by revolt against tradition, emphasis on radical experimentation and redefinition of the art work. This course familiarizes students with the avant-garde's main currents: Italian Futurism, English Vorticism, Russian Constructivism, "stateless" Dadaism and French Surrealism. We ask ourselves how to define the avant-garde, how it is related to modernity and whether its aesthetic is necessarily political. Texts include Futurist Manifestos, Cendrars' Trans-Siberian Prose, Stein's Tender Buttons, Breton's Nadja. We also examine artworks such as Duchamp's "Large Glass" and films such as Buñuel's Un Chien Andalou.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L93 IPH 320 The Intellectual History of Race and Ethnicity: Text and Traditions
This course is designed to introduce students to a wide range of historical ideas, contexts, and texts that have shaped our understandings of race and ethnicity. We will examine the ways in which our definitions and categories of race and ethnicity have helped us to construct (and continuously reinvent) our sense of who counts as human, what counts as human behavior, the possibilities of artistic expression, the terms of political engagement, and our critical and analytical frameworks. Students should be prepared to do quite a bit of reading of some very challenging yet rewarding texts.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, SC Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA, ETH, HUM
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L93 IPH 3311 Laughter from Joubert to Bataille: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities
In this course we will trace a tradition of writing on laughter. While we will read texts that might explain laughter by way of comedy or humor, we will be interested in laughter itself. What does the body in laughter look like? How does laughter sound? Where, when and how does laughter happen? What is laughter's relation to language, to song, to thought? What kind of communities does laughter form? We will read texts by Joubert, Erasmus, Hobbes, Descartes, Chesterfield, Kant, Bergson, Freud, Bataille, Sarraute, and Ellison. We will listen to music like Louis Armstrong's "Laughin' Louie" and we will watch films like Laughing Gas, The Man Who Laughs and A Question of Silence.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L93 IPH 332 Visual Culture
In this interdisciplinary course, we explore this long history of vision and visual representation from antiquity to the present so as to shed light on how people at different moments have understood vision, have seen their own seeing and have encoded this seeing in different artifacts and media. More specifically, we explore the role of the visual in the historical production of subjectivity and collectivity; the political, religious and ideological uses and abuses of vision; the relation of images to words and stories; the implication of sight in competing systems of truth, enlightenment and scientific progress; and the function of seeing within different media of art, entertainment and virtualization — from ancient cave painting, medieval icons and early modern church designs to modernist paintings and motion pictures.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM BU: ETH EN: H
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L93 IPH 3451 Histories of Intelligence: Topics in Science and Society
The use of data, computing, and quantitative methods has become central to politics, economics, and daily life. This course uses the concept of "intelligence" to survey the history of technoscientific efforts to understand and represent the intersections of minds, machines, and society. The course title has a deliberate double meaning; it is about both the people who seek to study and measure humans and their knowledge capacities as well as the knowledge or information that is increasingly collected, measured, and automated by machines. Organized topically and chronologically, this discussion-based seminar will examine the changing meanings and significance of intelligence, their impact on politics and social organization, and the questions raised about the relationship between specific technologies and specific models of human reasoning. We will consider these questions from diverse perspectives, including race, gender, class, ability, and materiality from the 19th century to the present. Topics covered include histories of artificial intelligence, racial dynamics, meritocracy, informational labor, state secrecy, and the self as data.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM
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L93 IPH 3473 Race, Rights, and Humanity in European History
This course explores discourses of human rights as natural rights in Europe from the Enlightenment to the present. While Europe -- and particularly France -- has been quick to declare itself the birthplace of human rights, a closer look reveals a broad continuum of conceptions of political, social, and economic rights. The course functions as a kind of survey of Modern European history, touching on the Age of Revolutions, the rise of European overseas empires, international anti-slavery movements, totalitarianism, and postwar development. It focuses on how political, social, and economic rights have always been articulated incompletely, to the benefit of some and to the detriment of others.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS
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L93 IPH 3587 From Genghis Khan to the Taliban: War and Peace in Central Asia
From romantic invocations of the Silk Road and isolated nomads to medieval barbarisms of the Taliban, Western media and popular culture often portray Central Asia as a region out of step with time. However, Central Asia has long been a center for culture, innovation, and political power, and it has a history that is hard to reconcile with popular images of a place stuck in the past. This course, which is intended for advanced undergraduate and graduate students, traces the transformation of Central Asia from Genghis Khan's 13th-century conquests to the present, covering the territories of former Soviet Central Asia, Western China (Xinjiang), and Afghanistan. Although the course covers nearly 1000 years, the primary emphasis is on the imperial schemes and transformations of the past 300 years. All readings will be in English, and no prior knowledge in Central Asian history is expected or required.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L93 IPH 3951 Shakespeare's Sonnets: Framing the Sequence
We will begin by exploring ways of reading a small number of individual sonnets, proceeding thereafter to think about patterns of meaning in language and image across broader groupings and the sequence as a whole. We will investigate the influence of earlier sonnet tradition, especially Petrarch's sonnets, and the relationship of the poems to modes of sexuality and selfhood. Finally, we will ask how some of Shakespeare's most creative readers — including Wilde, Booth, and Vendler — have responded to the challenges of the sonnets. Students will work on writing their own commentary on a group of poems.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L93 IPH 399 Internship in Digital Humanities
A practicum in digital humanities. Students will work on one or more faculty research projects sponsored by the Humanities Digital Workshop. While we will try to assign students to projects that align with their research interests, we will also aim for assignments that will help students extend their skills.
Credit variable, maximum 6 units.
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L93 IPH 401 IPH Thesis Prospectus Workshop
Students assist each other in developing viable thesis topics, compiling bibliographies, and preparing research plans. Students give formal and informal oral presentations of their proposed topics. Prospectuses and, if possible, drafts of first chapters are peer-edited.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, WI EN: H
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L93 IPH 405 Theory and Methods in the Humanities
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L93 IPH 4052 Citizenship: Historical, Cross-Cultural, and Interdisciplinary Perspectives
Although some have posited that citizenship may become obsolete in an increasingly globalizing and interconnected world, citizenship has never been more relevant. Discussions of migration, statelessness, naturalization policies, borders, and so many other contemporary topics hinge on questions of citizenship. In this course, we will be taking an interdisciplinary approach to the study of citizenship, drawing on a wide range of work from historians, social scientists, journalists, and writers. This is an interdisciplinary and transnational course intended for advanced undergraduate and graduate students. Examples will draw from around the world and from a variety of disciplines. Assigned materials include the work of historians, anthropologists, political scientists, sociologists, and journalists as well as novels, films, and audio and visual sources.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA EN: H
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L93 IPH 4111 Pastoral Literature: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities, Antiquity
This course will open with a survey of the classical tradition in pastoral/bucolic. We will consider questions of genre, intertextuality and ideology, and we will ask how "the lives and loves of herders" became favored ground for literary meditation on issues of surface and depth, reality and illusion, artifice and sincerity. This portion will involve intensive reading in translation of Theocritus, Vergil and Longus. In the second half of the semester, we will consider the survival, adaptation and deformation of ancient pastoral themes, forms and modes of thought in British and American writing from the 19th and 20th centuries. We will read works of Mark Twain, Kenneth Grahame, Thomas Hardy and Tom Stoppard.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD EN: H
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L93 IPH 4171 Roman Remains: Traces of Classical Rome in Modern British Literature
This course will examine the use of the Roman textual and material inheritance in poets, novelists and critics of the late 19th and 20th centuries working in Britain, and will ask how modernity addresses the claims of the classical tradition. We will place Thomas Hardy's Poems of 1912-13 next to Vergil's Aeneid, then survey Hardy's relationship to the visible remainders of Rome and the people it conquered — roads, barrows, forts — in the landscape of Dorset. After examining the representation of the Celtic hill-fort in fiction, and the legacy of Vergilian representations of the countryside in poetry, we will consider representations of Rome in light of modern imperialism (Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Ezra Pound's "Homage to Sextus Propertius") and examine the place of Vergil in T.S. Eliot's critical and poetic practice.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM EN: H
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L93 IPH 425 Humanities by the Numbers: Essential Readings in Digital Humanities
To what extent can computational techniques that draw on statistical patterns and quantification assist us in literary analysis? Over the semester, we juxtapose the close reading of historical documents or literary works with the "distant reading" of a large corpus of historical data or literary texts. We ask how the typically "human" scale of reading that lets us respond to literary texts can be captured on the "inhuman" and massive scales at which computers can count, quantify and categorize texts. While this class introduces students to basic statistical and computational techniques, no prior experience with technology is required. Prerequisites: two 200-level or one 300-level course in literature or history. This is a topics-type course and the specific documents and works examined vary from semester to semester. Consult semester course listings for current offerings.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L93 IPH 426 Imagining the City: Crime and Commerce in Early Modern London
The astonishing demographic and economic growth of early modern London, and the rapid increase in spatial and social mobility that accompanied this growth seemed to harbinger, in the eyes of many contemporaries, a society in crisis and perhaps on the brink of collapse. As increasing numbers of vagrants or masterless men flocked to the metropolis and a growing number of people — apprentices, domestic labor, street vendors, etc. — lived on the fringes of legitimacy and at risk of lapsing into vagrancy, policing early modern London provided unique challenges for authorities. At the same time, the very notion of the social — a shared space of kinship and community — could often seem to be under threat as an emerging market and a burgeoning commodity culture reshaped the traditional underpinnings of social and economic transactions. Yet, late Tudor and early Stuart London remained by far England's most prosperous metropolis, its primary market, home to a burgeoning print culture and nourishing theater and emerged, eventually, as the epicenter of a global economy. This course considers the topographic, social and institutional configuration of early modern London and the ways in which these were reimagined and negotiated in the literature of the period. Drawing on the drama of the period and a wide array of pamphlet literature, we discuss how civic institutions handled the growing influx of the poor and adapted to the increasing power of an emerging bourgeoisie who asserted themselves in unprecedented ways. In addition we consider secondary sources ranging from maps, theories of urban space and social and economic historiography as well as digital archives and computational techniques that allow us to "scale up" our thinking about early modern London to a vast corpus of texts and documents.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM EN: H
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L93 IPH 427 Technology and Feminist Practice: Gender Violence Prevention Tools
How can we best use technology, and the tools and insights of the Digital Humanities in particular, to promote effective approaches to addressing gender-based violence? What are the most effective ways to bridge the innovations of the research university with the everyday work of practitioners seeking to prevent violence or intervene in its aftermath? What are the ethics involved in constructing tools for public and professional use? Which interests should govern the choices in content, design and dissemination of information? This course will introduce students to the strategies and challenges of devising technological tools for violence prevention for use beyond the classroom. Class readings and discussions will be supplemented by hands-on project work with Washington University's Gender Violence Database and lab sessions that focus on skill-building in digital project construction. Prerequisite: For undergraduate students, L77 393 01 or previous work experience with the Gender Violence Database. Graduate students by permission of instructor.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SC, SD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA, ETH EN: H
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L93 IPH 430 Data Manipulation for the Humanities
The course will present basic data modeling concepts and will focus on their application to data clean-up and organization (text markup, Excel and SQL). Aiming to give humanities students the tools they will need to assemble and manage large data sets relevant to their research, the course will teach fundamental skills in programming relevant to data management (using Python); it will also teach database design and querying (SQL). The course will cover a number of "basics": the difference between word processing files, plain text files, and structured XML; best practices for version control and software "hygiene"; methods for cleaning up data; regular expressions (and similar tools built into most word processors). It will proceed to data modeling: lists (Excel, Python); identifiers/keys and values (Excel, Python, SQL); tables/relations (SQL and/or data frames); joins (problem in Excel, solution in SQL, or data frames); hierarchies (problem in SQL/databases, solution in XML); and network graph structures (nodes and edges in CSV). It will entail basic scripting in Python, concentrating on using scripts to get data from the web, and the mastery of string handling.
Credit 1 unit. EN: H
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L93 IPH 431 Statistics for Humanities Scholars: Data Science for the Humanities
A survey of statistical ideas and principles. The course will expose students to tools and techniques useful for quantitative research in the humanities, many of which will be addressed more extensively in other courses: tools for text-processing and information extraction, natural language processing techniques, clustering & classification, and graphics. The course will consider how to use qualitative data and media as input for modeling and will address the use of statistics and data visualization in academic and public discourse. By the end of the course, students should be able to evaluate statistical arguments and visualizations in the humanities with appropriate appreciation and skepticism. Details. Core topics include: sampling, experimentation, chance phenomena, distributions, exploration of data, measures of central tendency and variability, and methods of statistical testing and inference. In the early weeks, students will develop some facility in the use of Excel; thereafter, students will learn how to use Python or R for statistical analyses.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, AN EN: H
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L93 IPH 432 Programming for Text Analysis
This course will introduce basic programming and text-analysis techniques to humanities students. Beginning with an introduction to programming using the Python programming language, the course will discuss the core concepts required for working with text corpora. We will cover the basics of acquiring data from the web, string manipulation, regular expressions, and the use of programming libraries for text analysis. Later in the course, students will be introduced to larger text corpora. They will learn to calculate simple corpus statistics as well as techniques such as tokenization, chunking, extraction of thematically significant words, stylometrics and authorship attribution. We will end with a brief survey of more advanced text-classification terminology and topics from natural language processing such as stemming, lemmatization, named-entity recognition, and part-of-speech tagging.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L93 IPH 435 Practicum in Digital Humanities: Enslavement in St. Louis
This is a variable topics course, and content will change from semester to semester.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM BU: HUM EN: H
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L93 IPH 440 The Ethics, Politics, and Law of Big Data
This course will explore the phenomenon of "big data" -- the use of very large datasets that make new predictive algorithms and other advanced data analytics possible -- and provide students with an opportunity to think critically about the applications of new information technologies and to develop an awareness of their ethical and political context. We will begin by addressing the philosophical question of what, if anything, is special about big data -- what makes today's digital data ecosystems different from the ways in which scholars, governments, and businesses have used data and statistics for centuries. We will then examine questions about the ethics, politics, and law of contemporary information technology. Topics will include the moral philosophy of privacy; the theoretical foundations of American and European privacy law pertaining to big data; the ethics of using predictive algorithms in criminal sentencing and marketing; the ethical considerations that bear on academic research using "big data"; and differences and similarities between the ways in which computer code ("West Coast Code") and laws ("East Coast Code") regulate conduct. Readings will include excerpts from Ian Hacking's "The Taming of Chance"; Safiya Umoja Noble's "Algorithms of Oppression"; Cathy O'Neil's "Weapons of Math Destruction"; Evgeny Morozov's "To Save Everything, Click Here"; and Frank Pasquale's "The Black Box Society." Assignments for the course will include both academic papers and practical exercises, such as drafting a mock privacy policy for a tech company accumulating large quantities of personal data about its consumers.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM BU: BA, ETH EN: H
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L93 IPH 450 Interdisciplinary Topics in the Humanities
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, WI Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L93 IPH 4502 The Intellectual History of Race and Ethnicity
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, SC BU: BA EN: H
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L93 IPH 450A Interdisciplinary Topics in the Humanities
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L93 IPH 455 IPH Senior Colloquium: Interdisciplinary Topics in the Humanities
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L93 IPH 465 The Pre-History of Blogging: Social Media of the Enlightenment
This course will explore the ways in which the Enlightenment — in France, England, Germany and the U.S. — was shaped by the emergence of new literary forms, media and technologies of communication. Like our blogs, Facebook and email, the 18th century had its new social media — newspapers and literary journals, letters that surged through the national postal systems — as well as new social institutions — salons and coffeehouses — that served as forums for public debate. We will examine these novelties in order to investigate the often ambivalent heritage of the Enlightenment: the use of media to exchange knowledge and express dissent; the use of media for surveillance and state control.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM EN: H
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L93 IPH 470 Interdisciplinary Topics: Data Signs-A Literary History of Information
Various interdisciplinary topics are explored that may includes around the humanities, social sciences and data sciences.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM EN: H
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L93 IPH 494 Milton and the Trials of Conscience: Poetry, Poetics, and Polemics
Major poems and prose works in relation to literary and intellectual currents of the 17th century.
Same as L14 E Lit 494
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L93 IPH 498 The Spenser Lab
This course involves graduate and undergraduate students in the ongoing work of the Spenser Project, an inter-institutional effort to produce a traditional print edition of the Complete Works of Edmund Spenser.
Same as L14 E Lit 498
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM EN: H
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L93 IPH 498W The Spenser Lab
In this Writing Intensive course, the students will be given a variety of writing tasks: writing commentaries, introductions, software manuals, grant proposals, software requirements, and design documents (SRDDs).
Same as L14 E Lit 498W
Credit 4 units. A&S IQ: HUM, WI EN: H
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