Winter Quarter 2025 A&H courses
This is for informational purposes only. Areas of inquiry, degree requirements, fees, and course descriptions may change. Check the time schedule or MyPlan BEFORE you register.
Always refresh your degree audit after registering for courses or changing your schedule.
For more A&H courses, use the Time Schedule: http://www.washington.edu/students/timeschd/
African American Studies
http://www.washington.edu/students/timeschd/WIN2025/afamst.html
Afram 214 – Intro to African American Literature (5 credits)
Diversity credit
Introduction to various genres of African American literature from its beginnings to the present. Emphasizes the cultural and historical context of African American literary expression and its aesthetics criteria. Explores key issues and debates, such as race and racism, inequality, literary form, and canonical acceptance. Offered jointly with ENGL 258..
Afram 261 – African American Experience through Literature (5 credits)
Instructs students in hermeneutical and sociological methods of analyses. Analyzes selected novels, essays, poems, short stories, and plays with the purpose of understanding the structures and functions of both society and personality. Offered jointly with SOC 261.
Afram 337 – Popular Music, Race, Identity, and Social Change (5 credits)
Diversity credit
Focuses on popular music, shifting formations of race and identity and social change in various cultural, historical, and political contexts. Explores popular music as a tool for social change, a vehicle for community-building and a form of political and aesthetic expression.
Afram 350 – Black Aesthetics (5 credits)
Black Power, Sex Work, and “Queers’: Historical Approaches to Blaxploitation Film. The course critically explores 1970s films labeled as “Blaxploitation”. Students are required to read critical essays that historize film during the 20th century. We will heavily interrogate how the genre conveys meaning around gender, sex work, sexuality, and race.
Asian American Studies
https://www.washington.edu/students/timeschd/WIN2025/asamst.html
AAS 401 – Asian-American Literature to the 1940s (5 credits)
Diversity credit
Asian American literature from nineteenth-century immigrants to the 1940s. Emphasis on Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino writings detailing the experience and sensibility of first generation immigrants. Early twentieth-century writing focus on the development not only of Asian American community, but also of second generation American-born Asian American writers.
American Indian Studies
https://www.washington.edu/students/timeschd/WIN2025/ais.html
AIS 305 – American Indian and Indigenous Storytelling (5 credits)
Diversity credit
Stories tell us who we are, where we come from, and how to properly relate to the other creatures with whom we share this world. In telling and listening to these stories, we build community. Hear stories from two master storytellers, one local, one from Cherokee Nation, and learn to tell your own stories in this rich and interactive course.
AIS 310 – Linguistic Approach to Culture: Southern Lushootseed Seasonal Calendar (5 credits)
Diversity credit
This course begins with readings and research to build discussions pertaining to cultural calendars, historical ways of life and cultural sensitivities. Topics of research and study will include stories of seasons, the moons cycles tides, commonly used language terms and a geographical study that demonstrates plant, food sources and typical weather all of which takes place during each season and month. The historical studies will provide the necessary connections that will build an understanding to what cultural aspects still continue today and aid in the production of modern cultural calendars as each student will construct an individual calendar through their own research. Although not required, this course is an excellent avenue for additional study of the 3-course Lushootseed language sequence.
AIS 377 – Contemporary American Indian Literature (5 credits)
Diversity credit
Creative writings (novels, short stories, poems) of contemporary Indian authors; the traditions out of which these works evolved. Differences between Indian writers and writers of the dominant European/American mainstream. Offered jointly with ENGL 359.
Architecture
https://www.washington.edu/students/timeschd/WIN2025/archit.html
Arch 150 – Appreciation of Architecture I (3 credits)
Online/asynchronous
Online course. Historical survey of global architecture and built environments with reference to environmental, technological, and socio-cultural contexts, from prehistory to 1400. For nonmajors.
Arch 151 – Appreciation of Architecture II (3 credits)
Historical survey of global architecture and built environments with reference to environmental, technological, and socio-cultural contexts, from 1400 to the present. For nonmajors. No pre-reqs.
Arch 351 – World Architecture, 700-1750 (3 credits)
Surveys episodes in the history of world architecture during the period from about 700 to 1750. Course restriction: No Freshmen.
Art History
http://www.washington.edu/students/timeschd/WIN2025/arthis.html
Art H 205 – Arts of Africa (5 credits)
Writing credit
Thematic exploration of art and artists from Africa and its diaspora.
Art H 220 – American Art (5 credits)
Writing credit
$30 course fee
Broad survey of key issues and achievements in the history of the visual arts, including painting, sculpture, architecture, photography and prints, among other media, made in the United States or by American artists living abroad from the colonial era to the present.
Art H 260 – Fashion, Nation, Culture (5 credits)
Introduction to Italian culture focusing on fashion and manners from the late Middle Ages to today. Explores common assumptions about nation, gender, clothes, make-up, and manners, through literary and visual analysis. In English. Offered jointly with ITAL 260/JSIS A 260.
Art H 270 – Art/Identity/Politics: Issues of Representation in Contemporary Art (5 credits)
Online, asynchronous
Diversity credit
This course is designed to introduce participants to numerous ways contemporary artists and art movements, primarily in the U.S., have explored the intersection of visual representation, identity (gender, ethnic, racial, sexual) and politics, one of the most persistent themes in art since the 1960s. This course is entirely online and asynchronous. Participants will work through sequences of materials and assignments organized in weekly “modules” on Canvas according to their own individual schedules with a great degree of flexibility.
Course content will be delivered through a series of Panopto video lectures and coordinated readings where participants will explore how artists have contested dominant representations of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, as well as other minority “subjectivities,” and how artists have proposed alternatives for the representation of these constituencies. Online discussion forums, reflective papers on readings, online quizzes and assignments have been designed to engage students with course topics, foster creative and critical thinking, allow dialogue concerning the stakes involved in visual representations, and allow instructor assessment and evaluation of participants’ progress.
Asian Language and Literature
http://www.washington.edu/students/timeschd/WIN2025/asianll.html
Asian 207B – Special Topics in Literature and Culture of Asia: Decolonizing Authenticity in Southeast Asian Translation (5 credits)
Introduction to the literature of one or more Asian traditions considered in its cultural context. Content varies depending on the specialization and interest of instructor. Texts in English translation.
Asian 494 – The Ramayana in Comparative Perspective (5 credits)
Diversity credit
Discover the story of Rama and Sita, the Ramayana. This most famous adventure and love story continues to be influential not only in South Asia, its area of origin, but all over Asia. More than an attractive tale, it has guided millions of people in religious and moral as well as cultural, artistic, social, and political life. We’ll take a tour of the diverse regional tellings before delving into some of the most beloved episodes and considering their enduring relevance. Students will lead class discussions around topics of their choice, keep a class diary, and work towards a final presentation and paper. Offered jointly with Glits 314/JSIS A 461.
Chicano Studies
https://www.washington.edu/students/timeschd/WIN2025/chist.html
CHSTU 332 – Chicano Film (5 credits)
Diversity credit
Provides a historical overview of the evolution of Chicano culture through film. Critically examines the portrayal and self-portrayal of Chicanos in film and selected works of narrative. Taught in English. Offered jointly with Comp Lit 357A/Glits 314B.
CHSTU 466 – Chicano Literature: Fiction (5 credits)
Examines nineteenth- and early twentieth-century fiction, as well as contemporary works in attempts to trace the development of Chicano fiction in the proper historical trajectory. Taught in English. Offered jointly with Comp Lit 321B/Span 466A/Glits 313B.
Classics
http://www.washington.edu/students/timeschd/WIN2025/clas.html
Clas 239 – Greece: From Ancient to Modern (5 credits)
How are Ancient and Modern Greece connected to each other? Partly real and partly invented, the bond between them can simultaneously be described in terms of revival and continuity, but also in terms of discontinuity, tension, appropriation and conflict. In the first half of the course we will look at some of the most distinctive features of and moments in Ancient Greek culture: the combination of competition and collaboration that gave rise to tyranny, oligarchy, and radical democracy, tragedy and comedy, athletic competition, and a much imitated style of art and architecture; how the Greeks presented themselves for generations to come in their literature, art, and architecture and saw themselves in relation to other peoples around them. In the second half of the course we look at Modern Greece and its relationship with Ancient Hellas: how has the heritage of Ancient Greece shaped Modern Greece? How have the excavations at Knossos and the debate about the Parthenon marbles impacted Modern Greek identity? How have Ancient Greek drama, myth and ritual been revived and to what end? What lies behind the modern (Greek) institution of the Olympic Games? How has the ancient Greek concept of democracy been used, appropriated, and abused?
We will explore primary texts and images both ancient and modern (poetry, history, novels, painting, sculpture, photography, and film) and a wide range of secondary readings in history, archaeology, literary criticism, cultural studies, and political science. There are no prerequisites. Offered jointly with JSIS A 239.
Clas 330 – Age of Augustus (5 credits)
Offered jointly with HSTAM 330
In the year 31 BCE, the adoptive son and grand-nephew of Julius Caesar stood alone at the forefront of the Roman state. He had vanquished his last rival and put an end to nearly two decades of civil war and political violence. With an army at his back, he was the undisputed authority in Rome. In hindsight, we now say that this man, soon to rename himself “Augustus,” was the first emperor of Rome.
But what does it mean to say the Roman Republic “ended” and the Empire “began?” What did it feel like to live through this period of civil turbulence and political transformation? Would Roman onlookers have realized they were on the precipice of a new system, one that would last for centuries?
This course traces the political and cultural history of ancient Rome from 63 BCE to 14 CE—the period of Augustus’ long life. We analyze how he sought to put an end to the discord of the civil wars and re-found Roman society and, exploring a wide range of sources and media—coins, monuments, art, poetry, prose, and more—we reconstruct the wide range of competing perspectives upon the turbulent end of the Republic and the contested beginning of the Empire.
Clas 430 – Greek and Roman Mythology (3 credits)
To be arranged. Online course.
Check Time Schedule for details on registration.
Principal myths found in classical and later literature.
Communications
http://www.washington.edu/students/timeschd/WIN2025/com.html
Com 200 – Introduction to Communication (5 credits)
Introduces theories and research in communication. Explores the myriad ways scholars approach fundamental issues of contemporary human communication. Focuses on theories and research of communication (e.g. relational, group, political, cultural, and international). Acts as a gateway to knowledge about the communication discipline.
Com 220 -Intro to Public Speaking (5 credits)
Designed to increase competence in public speaking and the critique of public speaking. Emphasizes choice and organization of material, sound reasoning, audience analysis, and delivery.
Com 231 – Intro to Rhetoric (5 credits)
To be arranged. Go to time schedule for details.
Introduces students to the over two thousand year old discipline of rhetoric. Through contemporary examples of texts and images from politics and popular culture, students will explore concepts such as: the public, identity, persuasion, difference, and ethics.
Comparative History of Ideas
http://www.washington.edu/students/timeschd/WIN2025/chid.html
Chid 211 – Apocalypse and Popular Culture: Popular Culture and the Aesthetics of the A.I. Apocalypse (5 credits)
Hybrid course
Diversity credit
This course focuses on philosophical, literary, and visual depictions of the technological singularity, or what some have referred to as the AI apocalypse. We will study primary and secondary texts to gain a better understanding of the role art and aesthetics play in shaping the social imagination about advancing technology. Given that this is an interdisciplinary course, we will examine the core topics of aesthetics, apocalypse, and singularity through various theoretical groundings and methodological approaches.
Our course is 50% hybrid and will meet in person on Tuesday afternoons. The structure of the course is meant to allow for time to view assigned films and complete readings before our campus meeting. You will be asked to rent 2-3 films throughout the quarter (not all are available through the UW library), but I'll do my best to keep this to a minimum.
Chid 212 – Critical Perspectives on Belonging in Western Europe (5 credits)
Hybrid course
Diversity credit
Emergence of ideals now associated with Western Europe through analysis of literary, artistic, or cinematic sources. How those ideals contrast with reality as experienced by marginalized others within and without its borders. In person once a week, remote otherwise.
Chid 220 – Literature and Science (5 credits)
Writing credit
This class examines how science circulates across society, in particular, the stakes of conveying scientific ideas and information in narrative form. The scientific enterprise has enormous effect across modern life – how citizens and non-scientists understand its nature and purposes is crucial for its impact. Coursework includes frequent, low-stakes, canvas posts, plus several short analytical essays. Offered jointly with Com Lit 210/Glits 315A.
Chid 234 – Environmental Justice and the Humanities: Climate Change and the Emotions (5 credits)
The effects of a warming world are ever more apparent and the ecological losses of our time register even more profoundly with those at the frontlines of the climate crisis. This course takes an interdisciplinary, multimedia approach to the feelings that arise in the climate crisis, such as ecoanxiety and ecological grief, while exploring other affects that stem from our deep connection to the natural world, including wonder and love. The premise of this course is that feelings are inextricably connected to political possibility, and that navigating and engaging with climate emotions is critical to the task of pursuing environmental justice.
Cinema and Media Studies
http://www.washington.edu/students/timeschd/WIN2025/cms.html
CMS 272 – Film Genre: Contemporary Indian Directors (5 credits)
With a focus on India's Hindi language cinema in the current millennium, this course introduces students to several directors whose films range from big budget epic blockbusters featuring some of the biggest stars of the Indian subcontinent, to more small-scale and personal expressions. Around 2000 or so, some things changed dramatically in Hindi film making, and this course is an introduction to that transformed landscape of Hindi cinema.
This is primarily a course of close analysis: students learn how to look closely at movies, and notice how film editing, color, cinematography, sound, mise-en-scene, and narration work together to construct a compelling audiovisual world. Along the way, students also acquire some sense of the history of cinema in India. Finally, they encounter scholarship on caste, class, religion, and the range of issues affecting contemporary South Asia, to the extent that these are relevant for film analysis.
CMS 321 – Oppositional Cinema/Media
Diversity credit
Approaches film and related media as socially and politically engaged practice, with focus on screen media produced or received in "opposition" to dominant cultural and entertainment industry norms. Topics vary.
Drama
https://www.washington.edu/students/timeschd/WIN2025/drama.html
Drama 103 – Theatre Appreciation (5 credits)
Group Start Online course, to be arranged. Go to Time Schedule for details.
Covers the art of live theatrical performance. Discussion of how theatre is assembled, who the artists are, what they do, how theatre differs from other media, and how the various genres and styles of performance function, to create a deeper understanding of live performance.
DXArts
https://www.washington.edu/students/timeschd/WIN2025/dxarts.html
DXArts 200 – Digital Art and New Art Media (5 credits)
To be arranged. Group start online course. Go to Time Schedule for details.
$20 course fee
Investigates and illuminates Digital Art and New Media from a creative, theoretical, and historical perspective. Towards an exploration and discovery of the future of art, examines the paradigm shifts implicit in the inception and expansion of media art, as well as the dynamic core ideas that underscore digital art practices in the early twenty-first century.
English
http://www.washington.edu/students/timeschd/WIN2025/engl.html
Engl 207 – Intro to Culture Study (5 credits)
Writing credit
No seniors period I registration
Introduces cultural studies as an interdisciplinary field and practice. Explores multiple histories of the field with an emphasis on current issues and developments. Focuses on culture as a site of political and social debate and struggle.
Engl 257 – Asian-American Literature (5 credits)
Diversity credit & writing credit
No seniors period I registration. Add code required.
Examines the emergence of Asian American literature as a response to anti-Asian legislation, cultural images, and American racial formation. Encourages thinking critically about identity, power, inequalities, and experiences of marginality.
Engl 259A – Literature and Social Difference (5 credits)
Diversity credit & writing credit
No seniors period I registration
Literary texts are important evidence for social difference (gender, race, class, ethnicity, language, citizenship status, sexuality, ability) in contemporary and historical contexts. Examines texts that encourage and provoke us to ask larger questions about identity, power, privilege, society, and the role of culture in present-day or historical settings.
Engl 265 – Environmental Humanities (5 credits)
Diversity credit & writing credit
No seniors period I registration
Introduces the study of the environment through literature, culture, and history. Topics include changing ideas about nature, wilderness, ecology, pollution, climate, and human/animal relations, with particular emphasis on environmental justice and the unequal distribution of environmental crises, both globally and along class, race and gender lines.
Engl 368 – Women Writers (5 credits)
Open to all students period II registration
Diversity credit
Investigates how perceptions of "woman writer" shape understandings of women's literary works and the forms in which they compose. Examines texts by women writers with attention to sociocultural, economic, and political context. Considers gender as a form of social difference as well as power relationships structured around gender inequality.
Engl 372 – World Englishes (5 credits)
Open to all students period II registration
Diversity credit
Examines historical, linguistic, economic, and sociopolitical forces involved in the diversification of Global/New Englishes. Attention to changing power relations, language hierarchies, and inequalities associated with the teaching, learning, and use of English. Explores current debates on linguistic imperialism and resistance, concepts of 'mother tongue', nativeness, comprehensibility/intelligibility judgments, and language ownership.
French
https://www.washington.edu/students/timeschd/WIN2025/french.html
French 378 – Contemporary France
Study of the historical origins and subsequent development of contemporary problems and characteristics of French government and politics, economy, and society. Taught in English. No pre-reqs.
Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies
https://www.washington.edu/students/timeschd/WIN2025/gwss.html
GWSS 272 – Gender and Fandom (5 credits)
Hybrid course
Diversity credit
Examines gender, race, and sexuality in transformation of cultural products by online fandoms, in both domestic and transnational contexts, across a wide variety of media.
GWSS 445 – Feminist Science (Fiction) Studies (5 credits)
This course addresses science fictional narratives to trouble and transform the human, the inhumane, the scientific apparatus, and the natural world. Students examine gender, race, sexuality, and ability, alongside relevant scientific documents and feminist theory, to better understand both science and fiction through feminist lenses. Recommended: GWSS 200 or equivalent.
GWSS 454 – Women, Words, Music (5 credits)
Diversity credit
Hybrid course
Comparative analysis of use of myths, tales, music, and other forms of expressive culture to account for, reinforce, and change women's status and roles. Offered jointly with ANTH 454.
Global Literary Studies
https://www.washington.edu/students/timeschd/WIN2025/glits.html
Glits 251B – Global Literatures Cross Cultural Themes: Cultures of Music: Harmony and Discord (5 credits)
Offered jointly with German 285A/Comp Lit 251B
Music is often claimed to be a universal language. It transcends cultural and national boundaries like no other discourse or artform and forges bonds of community between disparate people. Even in times of quarantine, music has provided a way for people to connect—whether singing together from apartment balconies, or coordinating zoom performances across continents. But music always emerges from a particular culture and has often been used to create exclusive groups and incite hatred as well as love. In this course, we will explore the history of musical experience in Germany as an introduction to cultural studies. We will listen to Bach and Turkish-German Rappers, watch films about Mozart and Cabaret, and read influential texts in music theory and ethnomusicology. We’ll learn about identity and hybridity, high and low culture, transcendent and ‘degenerate’ art. Music is a powerful emotional force that both unites and divides people, giving voice to the most beautiful and disturbing aspects of human culture.
By the end of the quarter, students should be able to:
-Analyze musical works in terms of: sound, text, context, intertext, and interpretation
-Articulate their own emotional reactions to music in language
-Engage in both formal analysis and historical-cultural research of music
-Describe major developments in history of musical experience in Germany
-Use knowledge of musical history to illustrate cultural phenomena
-Show how musical culture is complicit in--though sometimes critical of--society's racism, classism, and sexism
-Speculate intelligently on the connections between musical and social forms
Glits 252C – Intro to Global Literatures: Genres Across Time and Place: Global Comics (5 credits)
An introduction to literary study. Literature from around the globe, with focus on a specific genre such as novel, short story, fairy tale, myth, drama, lyric or epic poetry. Topics vary.
Glits 313A – Literature Across Places: Travel, Migration, Exile (5 credits)
Strategies of reading and imagined dialogues between texts from disparate places. Topics vary. Offered jointly with Comp Lit 215A/Slavic 320A.
History of Modern Europe
https://www.washington.edu/students/timeschd/WIN2025/modeuro.html
HSTEU 276 – Postwar Europe: European History and Film After 1945 (5 credits)
Writing credit
Diversity credit
How did Europeans attempt to come to terms with the aftermath and legacy of the Second World War? As they sought to rebuild their cities, laws, empires, economies, and social relations in the wake of the war, the place of Europe in the world seemed ever more fragile. In this course, we will explore efforts to reconstruct Europe and European identity after 1945, as well as assessing the successes and failures of these efforts. We will address the themes of poverty and affluence, postwar justice, Americanization, the expansion and collapse of communism, decolonization, migration, and ongoing ethnic tensions that threatened new forms of warfare.
Throughout this tumultuous period, film offered a powerful way for Europeans to rethink their identity. We will focus on films that illustrate how Europe tried to memorialize (and forget) the wartime past, and what arguments Europeans made about how they might build a new future. The course thus provides students with an opportunity to explore the historical uses of film, and to sharpen their skills of visual analysis, along with an overview of key themes in post-1945 European history.
Films will include Roberto Rossellini's Germany Year Zero, Wolfgang Becker's Goodbye, Lenin, Stephen Frears' Dirty Pretty Things, and Quentin Tarentino's Inglourious Basterds. Readings include Primo Levi's Reawakening, Frantz Fanon's A Dying Colonialism, and Slavenka Drakulic's Cafe Europa: Life After Communism.
History of North America and Canada
https://www.washington.edu/students/timeschd/WIN2025/histam.html
HSTAA 365 – Culture, Politics, and Film in 20th Century America (5 credits)
Diversity credit
Writing credit
Explores relationship between film and twentieth century U.S. cultural, social, and political history. Examines the ways that films responded to, participated in, and helped shape understandings of modernity, national identity, political power, race and ethnic relations, gender, and crises such as economic depression and war.
Jackson School of International Studies: Area Studies
https://www.washington.edu/students/timeschd/WIN2025/jsisa.html
JSIS A 207 – Asian Civilizations: Traditions (5 credits)
Writing credit
Online asynchronous course
Interdisciplinary introduction to the civilizations of Asia, particularly those of India, China, Japan, and Korea. Explores the religion, philosophy, literature, art, and social and political thought of these civilizations from ancient times to the seventeenth century.
Jackson School of International Studies: Jewish Studies
https://www.washington.edu/students/timeschd/WIN2025/jewst.html
Jew St 427 – Russian Jewish Experience (5 credits)
Diversity credit
Examines the literature and cinema dealing with the experience of Jews from the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union from the end of the 19th century to the present; the experience of Jews in imperial-era and Soviet-era Ukraine will be particularly emphasized. We will study: the cultural artifacts dealing with the inter-ethnic violence of the late Imperial period; experiences of and reflections on the Bolshevik Revolution, Stalinism, the Holocaust, the post-Stalin period; the place of Jews as individuals and members of a minority group within Soviet society, ideology, and culture; migration and emigration; everyday life in the USSR, and among immigrant communities in America and elsewhere at the beginning of the 21st century. All readings in English translation. Offered jointly with Russ 427.
Landscape Architecture
http://www.washington.edu/students/timeschd/WIN2025/landscape.html
L Arch 353A – History of Modern Landscape Architecture (5 credits)
Development of profession and art of landscape architecture in the United States, Europe, South America, and Japan in relation to prevailing social, economic, political, and cultural factors. Relationships with other professions, especially architecture and urban planning, and other arts, such as painting and sculpture. Open to non-majors.
L Arch 361A – The Human Experience of Place (3 credits)
Diversity credit
Interdisciplinary approaches to exploring the reciprocal relationship between people and the landscapes of everyday life. Through readings, discussion, in-class activities and mini-projects, students study place attachment, relationships to nature, environmental attitudes and perception, personal space, territoriality, urban public space, diversity, participation, and the politics of space. Open to nonmajors.
Linguistics
http://www.washington.edu/students/timeschd/WIN2025/ling.html
Ling 200 – Intro to Linguistic Thought (5 credits)
RSN credit
Not open for credit to students who have completed LING 201 or LING 400.
Language as the fundamental characteristic of the human species; diversity and complexity of human languages; phonological and grammatical analysis; dimensions of language use; and language acquisition and historical language change.
Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures
http://www.washington.edu/students/timeschd/WIN2025/neareast.html
Melc 229 – Introduction to Islamic Cultures (5 credits)
Covers major developments in the formative, classical, and modern periods of Islamic civilization from seventh century Arabia to the contemporary Muslim world. Looks at the development of Islamic religious thought and legal practice as well as the Muslim polities, cultures, and intellectual traditions of Asia, Africa, Europe, and America. Offered jointly with JSIS A 210.
Melc 231 - Intro to the Quran (5 credits)
Hybrid course
A literary, historical, and theological introduction to the Quran. Looks at the historical circumstances of the text's compilation; its collection and redaction; its narrative structure; its rhetorical strategies; its major themes; it connections to and departures from the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament; commentary and exegesis; translation; and its impact on political and religious thought. Offered jointly with RELIG 212.
Melc 243 – Iran and the Persianate Worlds: Afghanistan Beyond the Headlines (5 credits)
Explores culture of this Middle Eastern region through a multi-disciplinary approach that includes such manifestations as architecture, carpet-weaving, story-telling, and the composition of poetry.
Melc 269 – Musical Cultures of the Silk Road (5 credits)
Diversity credit
Hybrid course
Explores music cultures of the Silk Road lands of Central Eurasia, China, and the Middle East from anthropological perspectives. Examines the interconnections between music and culture, and the political ramifications and the sociohistorical contexts of colonization, imperialism, and sovereignty on the production of musical expressions. Topics include culture, ethnicity, diversity of musical expression, literature, religion, and colonialism. Offered jointly with MUSIC 269.
Melc 286A – Themes in Middle Eastern Literature: Middle East Illustrated (5 credits)
Welcome to Middle East Illustrated! This course explores the powerful blend of verbal and visual expression in graphic novels and animations focused on the Middle East. Through close readings, discussions, and creative exercises, you’ll dive into how images and words interact to tell complex stories.
We'll examine diversity in the Middle East, a region divided by borders but rich in cultural variety, while considering how issues like Orientalism, stock imagery, and different ways of seeing shape our understanding. Along the way, you’ll learn about both the history and modern realities of Middle Eastern cultures.
You’ll also develop skills in visual and verbal literacy—key tools in today’s media-driven world. While the focus is on graphic novels and animation, you’re encouraged to include films, video games, and anime in your projects and portfolios. Get ready to think creatively and critically as we explore the art of graphic novel: this particular way of storytelling!
Students will read, write and draw (doodle if necessary) as well as translate from visual to verbal expression as a means to
- strengthen skills in reading and looking analytically and critically
- establish a basic knowledge of Near and Middle East since the second half of the 20th century
- appreciate the issues related to diversity in the region as well as among artists of the graphic novels.
- consider an evolving genre (graphic novel) creatively
- practice writing skills by producing portfolio entries, in-class writing exercises, and essays that require peer review, editing, and revision
- practice doodling/drawing/sketching (as much as they can) [I am not a drawing instructor, but I love to communicate with shapes, emoji, to draw and copy, and I would like to dare my students to use their pens to express themselves in alphabetic and non-alphabetic shapes, signs and symbols]
- understand representation and subliminal messages inherent to images as well as language
By the end of the course students are expected to develop (1) an appreciation of visual and verbal literacy, (2) a better understanding of diversity in Near and Middle East, and (3) better skills to express themselves. Offered jointly with Glits 314C/TXTDS 401C.
Melc 308 – Gender and Sexuality in the Ancient Near East: Women in the Ancient Near East (5 credits)
Diversity credit
Investigates and critically assesses trends and topics in recent studies of gender and sexuality in the ancient Near East, pertaining especially to texts, artifacts, art and images from ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt and the Levant. Explores ancient Near Eastern taxonomies and functions of gender and sexuality, and examines social, political and religious forces that inform and construct gendered categories of gods, humans, and their worlds. Recommended: MELC 201.
Melc 335 – Language Conflict and Identity in the Middle East and North Africa (5 credits)
Hybrid course.
Explores social and linguistic aspects of the languages and cultures of the Middle East and North Africa, focusing on the relationship between language and national/ethnic identity from the perspective of group conflict. Considers language policies in colonial and post-colonial states, and individual strategies of accommodation and resistance to these policies.
Music
https://www.washington.edu/students/timeschd/WIN2025/music.html
Music 120 – Intro to Classical Music (5 credits)
Studies in listening, with emphasis on the changing components of Western art music. Illustrated lectures, laboratory section meetings, and presentations by guest artists. Intended for non-majors.
Music 131 – History of Jazz (5 credits)
Group start online course. Check time schedule for details.
Extensive overview of important musicians, composers, arrangers, and stylistic periods of jazz history from emergence of the first jazz bands at the turn of the twentieth century through post-modern bebop era of the 1990s.
Music 160 – American Folk Music (5 credits)
Diversity credit
Explores the U.S. as a complex multicultural society through folk music traditions of European Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, Mexican Americans, and Jewish Americans. How racial, ethnic, and cultural groups have influenced each other and the power dynamics; historical/contemporary inequities in race, ethnicity, class, national origin, and immigration status. Folk music as a means of protesting social injustices.
Music 162 – American Pop Song (5 credits)
Group start online course. Check time schedule for details.
Diversity credit
Historical, social, and stylistic study of popular idioms from the late nineteenth century to the present. Most attention to contemporary idioms (rock, country-western, soul, hip-hop). Various facets of the industry examined to learn how they influence taste and musical style.
Music 185 – The Concert Season (2 credits)
Group start online course. Check time schedule for details.
Performances from the School of Music concert season, supplemented by lecture topics related to concert repertoire. Analysis of applicable musical topics appropriate for enhanced appreciation of historical and cultural contexts of works performed. Attendance at ten concerts required.
Music 251 – Music of the Americas (5 credits)
Music of the Americas.
Philosophy
http://www.washington.edu/students/timeschd/WIN2025/phil.html
Phil 242 – Medical Ethics (5 credits)
Writing credit
Introduction to ethics, primarily for first- and second-year students. Emphasizes philosophical thinking and writing through an in-depth study of philosophical issues arising in the practice of medicine. Examines the issues of medical ethics from a patient's point of view.
Phil 243 – Environmental Ethics (5 credits)
Focuses on some of the philosophical questions that arise in connection with environmental studies. Topics to be considered include: the ideological roots of current issues, values and the natural world, public policy and risk assessment, intergenerational justice, and social change. Offered jointly with ENVIR 243.
Scandinavian Studies
http://www.washington.edu/students/timeschd/WIN2025/scand.html
Scand 100 – Intro to Scandinavian Culture (5 credits)
The Scandinavian experience from the Viking Age to the present day. Covers the background for contemporary Scandinavian democracy with major emphasis on the cultural, political, and religious development of the Scandinavian countries.
Scand 345 – Baltic Cultures (5 credits)
Cultures and peoples of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Baltic literature, music, art, and film in social and historical context. Traditional contacts with Scandinavia and Central and East Europe. Offered jointly with JSIS A 345.
Scand 427 – Scandinavian Women Writers (5 credits)
Diversity credit
Selected works by major Scandinavian women writers from mid-nineteenth-century bourgeois realism to the present with focus on feminist issues in literary criticism. Offered: jointly with GWSS 429.
Slavic
https://www.washington.edu/students/timeschd/WIN2025/slavic.html
Slavic 101 – Slavic Lands and Peoples (5 credits)
Master the ability to place the present-day Slavs, their lands and peoples, on a geopolitical map and develop an understanding of the complexities of living in diverse Slavic societies. Consequently, you will be able to speak about most important features (geography, politics, language, literature, culture) of each country under the domination of the present-day Slavs. You will necessarily be equipped to juxtapose views stemming both from within Slavdom, the present-day Slavs themselves, and from outside Slavdom, including institutions such as the United Nations and the European Union, thus encouraged to think critically on topics such as power, marginality, and sociocultural relevance, as well as effective communication across cultural differences.
Slavic 320 – Eastern European Fiction: Migrant Writers & Their Journeys (5 credits)
Introduces post-WWII Eastern European fiction created during and after the communist era, both in Eastern European countries and in exile. Includes works by Polish, Czech, Yugoslav, post-Yugoslav, Hungarian, and Baltic writers. Taught in English. Offered jointly with Glits 313A/Comp Lit 251A.
Slavic 426 – Ways of Feeling (5 credits)
Investigate the diversity of human experience by focusing on culture specific aspects of linguistic expression of emotion. Examination of the meaning and form of emotion words in different languages, facial expressions, cultural attitudes to emotion and emotional behavior, and gender-specific emotional expressions. Offered jointly with Honors 394C.