Humanities Courses Fall 2022

Fall 2022 Humanities Courses

HUM 001: Becoming a Fashion Critic
Prof. Claire Goldstein

When Clark Kent and Peter Parker become superheroes, we can tell because they have changed their outfits.

When Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden in the book of Genesis, the first thing they did was clothe themselves. The biblical text marks the transformation from the state of nature to the dawn of civilized society with the act of putting on clothing.

When people in 18th-century France demanded a new form of government, men showed their revolt against aristocratic privilege by rejecting the knee-breeches (culottes) worn by noblemen and instead wearing long pants. The revolutionaries were known thereafter as the sans-culottes.

Why did Melania Trump wear a blouse with a pussy bow to her husband’s presidential election? And what did Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wear to the 2022 Metropolitan Museum Gala?

In this two-unit Humanities course*, we will delve into the cultural significance of fashion from the high heels King Louis XIV of France donned as part of his campaign to dominate his unruly court to the white pants suits both Democratic and Republican women have worn to claim the legacy of the suffragists. We will study fashion icons (Marie Antoinette, Mao, the Marlboro Man) as well as ethical issues fashion raises, and the role fashion plays in social movements and identity formation. In short readings and slide lectures we will explore a wide range of approaches to better understand the role fashion plays in our world and our everyday lives.  Approaches will include anthropology; cultural studies; sociology; literary reading; semiotics; psychoanalysis; race and gender studies; and economic, historical and art historical analysis. GE credit: AH.

*Students enrolled in the lecture have the option of enrolling in a once-a-week discussion section, HUM 001D, for two additional units and additional GE credit (Writing). There are four available sections (Monday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday). Taking a discussion section along with the lecture earns you GE credit: AH, WE.

Professor Contact: cbgoldstein@ucdavis.edu

Course Meetings: Tuesdays 4:10-6 in Hunt 100

HUM 001D: Issues in Humanities
Prof. Claire Goldstein

HUM 015: Language & Identity
Prof. Eric Russell

In this course, you will explore language and different communicative acts that are deemed inappropriate, offensive, or otherwise taboo. Through this, you will come to better understand how these language activities reflect our complex identities. Working together and guided by readings, we will peel back several layers of what may go by unnoticed in day-to-day life, confront some of our own preconceptions about language and power, and begin to understand the ways that language shapes and is shaped by forces such as race, class, gender, and sexuality.

Among many of the questions we will explore are the following:

  • Why is it so offensive in our society to talk about some things that other societies find normal or welcome, and the reverse?
  • Why are some words judged to be crass (e.g. ass, shit) while others, which refer to the same thing (e.g. bum, feces) are not?
  • How do racialized, offensive insults (e.g. n****r or terrorist) reflect our society’s construction of power, inclusion, and privilege? And why is it so difficult to come up with an offensive word for those who identify in certain ways, such as "straight white males"?
  • Why are there so many insulting forms targeting women, but relatively fewer that target men? And why do those that insult men frequently associate them to women, but the reverse doesn’t seem to be true?
  • Who gets to decide what language is “right” or “wrong”? What sorts of things are “just locker room talk” or are “fighting words”? What does this suggest about the ways our society is configured?

Please note! You will be expected to confront words and expressions that can be offensive or shocking, and to do this with as much critical thinking and intellectual acumen as possible. Much of the language we will examine and discuss is offensive and shocking, to me as well as the vast majority of participants in our class. This is important, however: our intent will never be to offend or shock. Our goal is to explore these very real facets of our experience and understand them better - and perhaps even see how they might be disrupted. Please be very careful to avoid insulting or degrading any person or group, even as we discuss how different people and groups are the target of insulting or degrading language.

All students will be expected to sign and return to the TA the “Student Agreement & Acknowledgment”. This agreement outlines expectations of all participants in our class with regard to language use, gives guidelines as to how you can address any concerns, and explains in detail the language issues we will wrestle with and explore together.

Objectives and goals

Throughout the quarter, you will meet the following objectives:

  • Understanding of language: you will learn how to describe language acts and language forms, as well as abstract concepts such as reference, connotation and association that help us to better understand how language functions in the social world. You will be able to describe communication using this terminology.
  • Understanding of culture: you will learn basic terminology and concepts that help us describe culture and cultural practices, as well as abstract ideas like power, authority, and hegemony. You will be able to describe cultural phenomena using this terminology.
  • Analytical skills: you will interpret your and others' use of language and will critically comment on widely held opinions about language. You will apply these intellectual skills to the analysis of particular language “moments” (forms and acts), developing arguments about how these can be understood to reflect societal structures and configurations.
  • Intellectual posture: you will adopt and apply objectivity with regard to language forms, opinions about language, and the description and analysis of linguistic practice. You will critically interrogate the relationship between language and culture, specifically about the types of communication that are deemed “bad” or “unacceptable.”

Furthermore, you are expected to hone your writing skills, focusing on form, rhetoric and style appropriate for the humanities and human sciences. You will practice effective academic communication in a number of shorter exercises; you will apply themes from class lectures and readings in two project papers, demonstrating an ability to form coherent ideas and express these effectively and appropriately.