This course will explore food in modern American history as a story of industrialization and globalization. Lectures, readings, and discussions will emphasize the historical dimensions of—and debates about—slave plantations and factory farm labor; industrial processing and technologies of food preservation; the political economy and ecology of global commodity chains; the vagaries of nutritional science; food restrictions and reform movements; food surpluses and famines; cooking traditions and innovations; the emergence of restaurants, supermarkets, fast food, and slow food. The core concern of the course will be to understand the increasingly pervasive influence of the American model of food production and consumption patterns.

Through investigating cross-cultural case studies, this course introduces students to the anthropological study of the social institutions and symbolic meanings of family, gender, and sexuality. We will explores the myriad forms that families and households take and considers their social, emotional, and economic dynamics.

Complementary to 21L.001. A broad survey of texts - literary, philosophical, and sociological - studied to trace the growth of secular humanism, the loss of a supernatural perspective upon human events, and changing conceptions of individual, social, and communal purpose. Stresses appreciation and analysis of texts that came to represent the common cultural possession of our time. Enrollment limited. HASS-D, CI.
Readings this semester ranging from political theory and oratory to autobiography, poetry, and science fiction reflect on war, motives for war, reconciliation and memory. The readings are largely organized around three historical moments: the Renaissance and first contacts between Europe and America (Machiavelli, Cortés, Sahagún); the European age of revolutions (Voltaire, Blake, Williams); the American Civil War and the abolition of slavery (Stowe, Whitman, Lincoln). Readings from the twentieth-century include poetry by Lowell and Walcott and fiction by Ondaatje and O.S. Card.

This course comprises a broad survey of texts, literary and philosophical, which trace the development of the modern world from the seventeenth to the early twentieth century. Intrinsic to this development is the growth of individualism in a world no longer understood to be at the center of the universe. The texts chosen for study exemplify the emergence of a new humanism, at once troubled and dynamic in comparison to the old. The leading theme of this course is thus the question of the difference between the ancient and the modern world. Students who have taken Foundations of Western Culture I will obviously have an advantage in dealing with this question. Classroom discussion approaches this question mainly through consideration of action and characters, voice and form.

This course covers French politics, culture, and society from Louis XIV to Napoleon Bonaparte. Attention is given to the growth of the central state, the beginnings of a modern consumer society, the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, including its origins, and the rise and fall of Napoleon.

There has been much discussion in recent years, on this campus and elsewhere, about the death of the book. Digitization and various forms of electronic media, some critics say, are rendering the printed text as obsolete as the writing quill. In this subject, we will examine the claims for and against the demise of the book, but we will also supplement these arguments with an historical perspective they lack: we will examine texts, printing technologies, and reading communities from roughly 1450 to the present. We will begin with the theoretical and historical overviews of Walter Ong and Elizabeth Eisenstein, after which we will study specific cases such as English chapbooks, Inkan knotted and dyed strings, late nineteenth-century recording devices, and newspapers online today. We will also visit a rare book library and make a poster on a hand-set printing press.

This subject examines interactions across the Eurasian continent between Russians, Chinese, Mongolian nomads, and Turkic oasis dwellers during the last millennium and a half. As empires rose and fell, religions, trade, and war flowed back and forth continuously across this vast space. Today, the fall of the Soviet Union and China’s reforms have opened up new opportunities for cultural interaction.

Short Description:
The Future of the American Negro (1899) is a novel by American educator Booker T. Washington. The novel presented his opinions on the history of enslaved and freed African-American people, as well as his ideas regarding using education as a means to advance themselves.

Long Description:
The Future of the American Negro (1899) is a novel by American educator Booker T. Washington. The novel presented his opinions on the history of enslaved and freed African-American people, as well as his ideas regarding using education as a means to advance themselves.

Word Count: 38640

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically as part of a bulk import process by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided. As a result, there may be errors in formatting.)

This course examines the definition of gender in scientific, societal, and historical contexts. It explores how gender influences state formation and the work of the state, what role gender plays in imperialism and in the welfare state, the ever-present relationship between gender and war, and different states’ regulation of the body in gendered ways at different times. It investigates new directions in the study of gender as historians, anthropologists and others have taken on this fascinating set of problems.

This course examines the definition of gender in scientific, societal, and historical contexts. It explores how gender influences state formation and the work of the state, what role gender plays in imperialism and in the welfare state, the ever-present relationship between gender and war, and different states’ regulation of the body in gendered ways at different times. It also investigates new directions in the study of gender as historians, anthropologists and others have taken on this fascinating set of problems. Students taking the graduate version complete additional assignments.

This course explores how gender shaped the historical experiences and cultural productions in the North American West during the time it was being explored, settled, and imagined. The North American West of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries provides a fascinating case study of the shifting meanings of gender, race, citizenship, and power in border societies. As the site of migration, settlement, and displacement, it spawned contests over land, labor disputes, inter-ethnic conflicts and peaceful relations, and many kinds of cultural productions.
The Graduate Consortium in Women’s Studies (GCWS)
This course is part of the Graduate Consortium in Women’s Studies. The GCWS at MIT brings together scholars and teachers at nine degree-granting institutions in the Boston area who are devoted to graduate teaching and research in Women’s Studies and to advancing interdisciplinary Women’s Studies scholarship. Learn more about the GCWS.

This course considers a wide range of issues related to the contemporary and historical use of technology, the development of new technologies, and the cultural representation of technology, including the role women have played in the development of technology and the effect of technological change on the roles of women and ideas of gender. It discusses the social implications of technology and its understanding and deployment in different cultural contexts. It investigates the relationships between technology and identity categories, such as gender, race, class, and sexuality, and examines how technology offers possibilities for new social relations and how to evaluate them.

This subject explores the legal history of the United States as a gendered system. It examines how women have shaped the meanings of American citizenship through pursuit of political rights such as suffrage, jury duty, and military service, how those political struggles have varied for across race, religion, and class, as well as how the legal system has shaped gender relations for both women and men through regulation of such issues as marriage, divorce, work, reproduction, and the family. The course readings will draw from primary and secondary materials in American history, as well as some court cases. However, the focus of the class is on the broader relationship between law and society, and no technical legal knowledge is required or assumed.

This course examines contemporary and historical cultural production on and from Africa across a range of registers, including literary, musical and visual arts, material culture, and science and technology. It employs key theoretical concepts from anthropology and social theory to analyze these forms and phenomena. It also uses case studies to consider how Africa articulates its place in, and relationship to, the world through creative practices. Discussion topics are largely drawn from Francophone and sub-Saharan Africa, but also from throughout the continent and the African diaspora.

This course will focus on the emergence and evolution of industrial societies around the world. The student will begin by comparing the legacies of industry in ancient and early modern Europe and Asia and examining the agricultural and commercial advances that laid the groundwork for the Industrial Revolution. The student will then follow the history of industrialization in different parts of the world, taking a close look at the economic, social, and environmental effects of industrialization. This course ultimately examines how industrialization developed, spread across the globe, and shaped everyday life in the modern era. Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to: identify key ideas and events in the history of industrialization; identify connections between the development of capitalism and the development of modern industry; use analytical tools to evaluate the factors contributing to industrial change in different societies; identify the consequences of industrialization in the 19th and 20th centuries in different societies; critique historical interpretations of the causes and effects of industrialization; and analyze and interpret primary source documents describing the process of industrialization and life in industrial societies. (History 363)

This subject examines the paradoxes of contemporary globalization. Through lectures, discussions and student presentations, we will study the cultural, linguistic, social and political impact of globalization across broad international borders.
We will pay attention to the subtle interplay of history, geography, language and cultural norms that gave rise to specific ways of life. The materials for the course include fiction, nonfiction, audio pieces, maps and visual materials.

This subject examines the paradoxes of contemporary globalization. Through lectures, discussions and student presentations, we will study the cultural, linguistic, social and political impact of globalization across broad international borders.
We will pay attention to the subtle interplay of history, geography, language and cultural norms that gave rise to specific ways of life. The materials for the course include fiction, nonfiction, audio pieces, maps and visual materials.

40th Annual International Conference of the Society for Interdisciplinary French Seventeenth-Century Studies

Word Count: 30528

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History holds many economic lessons. The Great Depression, in particular, is an event that provides the opportunity to teach and learn a great deal about economics-whether you're studying the economic reasons that the Depression took place, the factors that helped it come to an end or the impact on Americans who lived through it. This curriculum is designed to provide teachers with economic lessons that they can share with their students to help them understand this significant experience in U.S. history.

In this course, superhero Jack of All Trades and his sidekick Andy are confronted by a villain that threatens to disrupt society and rob the world of the certainty people have come to expect. And this dastardly villain is...Inflation. Jack and Andy time travel to the period known as The Great Inflation to discover the truth about inflation. With the help of Dr. Equilibrium, professor of economics, they learn that inflation is the result of too much money chasing too few goods and that the Federal Reserve System plays a key role in maintaining stable prices.