HSS2034 Modern European History: Wars, Nationalities, Identities and Human Rights
4 Intermediate Liberal Arts CreditsThis course features The French Revolution, The Russian Revolution, World War I, World War II and contemporary ethnic conflicts to examine the processes and consequences of modernization and nationalism in Europe and Russia. At the end of the 18th Century, the individual and the nation state were constructed as sources of meaning and identity and were legitimated naturally and politically. At the beginning of the 21st Century, these legitimations are still uncertain and under construction. We will focus on the concepts of human, civic, political and natural rights to study this problematic history.

Prerequisites: (FCI1000 or AHS1000) and (WRT1001or RHT1000)

ANT4606 Modern Israel: Conflicts in Context
4 Advanced Liberal Arts Credits

The goal of this seminar is to provide a broad, anthropological context for Israeli culture, politics, and history on a global scale. Through a combination of scholarly texts, films, artwork, and other works of fiction and non-fiction from both Jewish Israelis and Palestinians, we will consider the conception, founding, and current conflicts surrounding the state of Israel, its occupied territories, and the Palestinian people. Our topics will cover the diasporic history of the Jewish people, the international optics of Israeli self-determination, the internal ethnic and cultural conflicts of modern Israeli society, as well as the history of Palestinian resistance and the current state of suspension in Gaza and the West Bank. Students will be expected to emerge with a nuanced understanding of the past and current political realities of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and an appreciation for the complexities, ambiguities, and possible futures of Israeli/Palestinian society.

Prerequisites: Any combination of 2 ILA (HSS, LTA, CSP, LVA, CVA)

HSS2038 Modern Middle East
4 Intermediate Liberal Arts CreditsThis course studies Middle Eastern politics, culture, and society from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. To do this, we will focus on a wide variety of historical developments in different areas of the Middle East, starting with the late Ottoman period and moving into the Mandates of the interwar period, moments of decolonization, and eventually focusing on the post-independent states that emerge in the second half of the 20th century. Additionally, the course provides historical contexts to events, actors, and conflicts that have come to shape the present-day Middle East as well as the world, such as the Arab-Israeli conflict, the politics of oil, the rise of Islamism, and the US-Middle East relations. In order to understand these complex issues, we will engage with works of scholarly analysis, primary documents, memoirs, fiction, and film.

Prerequisites: (FCI1000 or AHS1000) and (WRT1001or RHT1000)

LTA2045 Modernism and the Making of the New
4 Intermediate Liberal Arts CreditsThe British novelist Virginia Woolf declared that human nature underwent a fundamental change _on or about December 1910.The first few decades of the twentieth century are characterized by a fervent desire to break with the past and to reject traditions that seemed outmoded and too genteel to suit an era of psychological and technological breakthroughs and violence on a grand scale. This class will look at works that reflect ideas of experimentation, in both form and content, and that engaged new understandings of time, space, and human subjectivity. We will read writers such as Virginia Woolf, Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, E.M. Forster, Djuna Barnes, and Katherine Mansfield, as well as the theories of Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein (this is a tentative list). Be prepared; there is a lot of reading. These are difficult and challenging texts that do not rely on straightforward plot and narrative; they require careful analysis and critical engagement.

This course is typically offered in the following semesters: Spring or Fall

Prerequisites: (FCI1000 or AHS1000) and (WRT1001or RHT1000)

LTA2014 Money and Literature
4 Intermediate Liberal Arts CreditsThis course looks at money and economic thinking in literature. We will examine works from a wide range of periods and genres, with a strong grounding in fiction and drama from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. Aesthetic genres such as naturalism, modernism, post-modernism, and expressionism will be considered in terms of how they inform and are informed by thinking about money. There will also be contextual/theoretical readings from Marx, Benjamin, Simmel, Freud, Lacan, and others.

Prerequisites: (FCI1000 or AHS1000) and (WRT1001or RHT1000)

CSP2057 Narratives of Sustainability
(Formerly CVA2057 Imagining Sustainability)
4 Intermediate Liberal Arts CreditsThe primary focus of this course is on the exploration of the concept of sustainability as a juncture of economic, environmental and social concerns. With the rapid expansion of globalization, and the attenuating crises that accompany it, with regard to these concerns, future business and public policy leaders will need to be in the vanguard at determining how best to effect solutions. To that end, this course will examine a variety of sources in the consideration both of what allows for the implementation of sustainability and what prohibits it--from business case study to philosophical/economic analysis to literary memoir. Within this context, students will be invited to examine what we mean when we talk about _justice,_ _ethics,_ _profit,_ _growth,_ and _community._ In sum, we will explore how concepts that contribute to our understanding of individual and communal responsibility might be revisited and redefined in the effort to create a world that offers sustainable economic opportunity for all, ensured within a vital commitment to environmental stewardship.

This course is typically offered in the following semesters: Spring or Summer

Prerequisites: (FCI1000 or AHS1000) and (WRT1001or RHT1000)

LTA 2007: Out of the Mouths of...Children Narrators

4 Intermediate Liberal Arts Credits

Children's minds work differently from those of adults; it's the way they make sense of the world, the way a child's own small world is the whole world and, at the same time, an ever-evolving concept, as they learn and grow and change. They understand and react instinctively. This can result in thoughts and actions that are both naïve and profound, innocent and wise, non-sensical and brilliant. And even when they don't (or can't) understand sophisticated issues, they remain keen observers. At Babson, there's a great deal of emphasis in thinking about your future self, the person you will be in five years or in twenty years. Clearly, that has value. But this course asks if there is also benefit in looking to the past. Through our texts and discussions, we will look at the ways we look at the world as children, the ways our perceptions change as we grow older, and the ways in which that evolution is both positive and negative.

Prerequisites: (FCI1000 or AHS1000) and (WRT1001or RHT1000)

ART1200 Painting Through Poetry

4 Free Credits

Artists have long produced work in conversation with others in their communities. This exchange is particularly vital and enduring among painters and poets. In this course, we will trace the relationships of contemporary and historical practitioners. With poems as our prompts, we will explore painting as a visual language that is fundamentally relational. Through a series of visual experiments, from painting to collage, we will interrogate the relationship between parts and wholes, representation and abstraction, text and image. We will consider moments in which language constrains meaning while painting expands it and vice versa. Together, through making, we will uncover questions, generate ideas, and apply the specificity of poetry to the space of painting.

Prerequisites: None

CSP2055 Peoples and Cultures of the Americas

(Formerly CVA2055)
4 Intermediate Liberal Arts Credits

This course looks at the Peoples and Cultures and Cultures of Latin America from within. The course covers topics such as resistance movements against dictatorships, feminist movements, Indigenous and environmental movements, racial and social justice movements. These issues are presented from the perspective of those on the ground, actively engaged with pushing for social movements that shape these countries.

What do we need to pay attention to when we are trying to understand Latin America? What are the forces that shape the region? These very complex questions should not be reduced to simple answers. However, the dynamics in Latin American countries (as well as elsewhere) are in large part a result of contentious processes between those that are trying to control the state and those trying to change it. The mainstream narrative about the history and politics of Latin America explains the region from the perspective of those who have access to the means of power, and have more leverage on how national states are governed. This is, though, only part of what we need to keep in mind. It is crucial to inquire into the movements that push against these dominant forces and narratives. This course invites students to investigate the social processes carried out by those who are often forgotten. Although frequently ignored, the consequences of these dynamics are constitutive of Latin America. This is an intermediate course designed to provide business students with the necessary tools to understand and engage with peoples and cultures of the region.

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Prerequisites: (FCI1000 or AHS1000) and (WRT1001or RHT1000)

CSP2035 Peoples and Cultures of the Middle East

(Formerly CVA2035)
4 Intermediate Liberal Arts CreditsWhile the Middle East continues to dominate Western foreign policy concerns and is a focus of Western media, understanding of this region is often based on stereotypes that do not consider the everyday lives of Middle Eastern people, and that do not attempt to differentiate between peoples of this region. This course will introduce several groups and cultures of the Middle East in detail, while focusing on thematic topics that are of particular interest to current world events. A brief survey of the history and geography of the region will be followed by more in-depth study of topics such as political Islam, the Israeli-Palestine conflict, the war in Afghanistan, gender and sexuality, and human rights issues. The course will be highly interactive, and will make frequent use of documentaries, movies, literature, and current news events as well as anthropological and ethnographic material.

Prerequisites: (FCI1000 or AHS1000) and (WRT1001or RHT1000)