Fall 2021 GRADUATE COURSE LISTINGS

  • ALL COURSES ARE RESTRICTED AND REQUIRE AN ACCESS CODE TO REGISTER. 
  •  If you are NOT an SCA graduate student, but wish to enroll in a course, you must FIRST contact the professor requesting permission to enroll and then the graduate program coordinator: jt133@nyu.edu.  
  • SCA graduate courses (unless otherwise noted) are located at 20 Cooper Square, 4th Floor. 

 

AMST-GA 2100.001 - Introduction TO CRITICAL THEORY

Maria Saldana
Wednesdays 2:00PM-4:45PM
20 Cooper Sq - Rm 471 CONF

An introduction to principal schools of social theory for the interpretation of history, culture, politics, and art. We think deeply with social theorists who critique ideology and power from different disciplinary perspectives, developing fluency in theoretical languages shared by many branches of the humanities and social sciences. Beginning with Marx's critique of the Enlightenment, we move through the Frankfort school; Freudian psychoanalysis; Foucauldian discourse analysis; Derridean deconstruction & semiotics; critical race, performance, & queer theory; postcolonial & decolonial theory. As an introductory overview, the course is by no means exhaustive. Authors include but are not limited to: Marx, Freud, Benjamin, Foucault, Derrida, Spivak, Butler, Viego, Silverman, Spillers, Hartman, Chakrabarty, Mignolo, Guha, and Mahmood.


AMST-GA 3212.001 MAKING BLACK URBANISMS

Kimberly Johnson
Mondays 2:00PM-4:45PM
20 Cooper Sq - Rm 471 CONF

Making black urbanism investigates the modes of inhabiting, imagining and making cities through the critical lens of race. We ask whether notions of “blackness” or difference can offer new and perhaps overlooked understandings of the form and function of the contemporary city. Black urbanism is interrogated through an multitude of approaches ranging from the sociological imagination to popular culture.


AMST-GA 3213.001 HOW TO BE A CRITIC

Caitlin Zaloom
Thursdays 4:55PM-7:40PM
20 Cooper Sq - Rm 485 SEM

This class is for graduate students interested in developing a practice in public scholarship. We will read classic and contemporary work that spans disciplinary fields and media forms to build shared understandings of the possibilities for publicly engaged criticism. We will hear from guest lecturers who have developed the craft of long-form review essays that treat the work of others with rigor and respect but also introduce original ideas and arguments. We will discuss how to review works that is close to our own expertise as well as how to review work in adjacent fields. We will examine the use of different modes of evaluation and different critical voices, from high praise to spirited attack. Using Public Books as a model and resource, students will learn how to pitch, develop, and complete a long-form review.


AMST-GA 3301.001 - AMERICAN STUDIES SEMINAR

Lisa Duggan
Wednesdays 4:55PM-7:40PM
20 Cooper Sq - Rm 471 CONF
*Required course for PHD and SCA MA student's

In this introductory graduate seminar, we will review classic texts in American studies, models of intersectional scholarship, and new work addressed to new publics in the field of American Studies,broadly defined. We’ll examine the shifting intellectual parameters and political interventions of American Studies scholarship. Some of the questions we will address include: What theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches have shaped the field? How has the field intersected with other institutionally insurgent interdisciplinary fields, including (but not limited to) feminist and queer studies, labor studies, comparative ethnic and diaspora studies, environmental studies,native and dis/ability studies?


AMST-GA 3302.001 - MARXISM AND CULTURAL STUDIES

Nikhil Pal Singh
Wednesdays 11:00AM-01:45PM
20 Cooper Sq - Rm 471 CONF

Centering on the writings of Stuart Hall, this course will provide an introduction to key debates in Marxism inaugurated by cultural studies starting in the 1970s that continue to our contemporary moment. We will spend some time contextualizing these debates in light of a longer history of Marxist interpretations of culture (sometimes derided on the right today as “Cultural Marxism”), by specifically examining how black, feminist and anti-colonialist politics and struggles emerged within and diverged from Marxist theory and party formations. 
  

CROSSLISTED COURSE


AFRS-GA 3213.001 | HIST-GA 2020.001 - Slavery and Capitalism (5 SPOTS)

Steven Hahn
Wednesdays 9:30AM-12:15PM
King Juan Carlos Center - Rm 607

This is a course designed to engage the developing literature on the relations of slavery and capitalism. We will read some of the major historical literature on the rise of capitalism and on the international expansion of slavery. We will also read some of the recent literature that attempts to look at the interrelationships.