Courses

Capitalism shapes every aspect of our daily lives. Thinkers on both the left and the right of the political spectrum agree that capitalism structures our economic, social, and political relationships. Yet, there is little agreement as to the definition of capitalism and its normative implications. The definition and interpretation of capitalism differs across time and space, always evolving in response to challenges, crises, and contradictions. The aim of this course is to provide students with analytical tools to think critically and historically about the concept of capitalism. By studying how philosophers, economists, and political theorists have defined and described the concept of capitalism throughout its history (from the early seventeenth century to the present), students will be provided with a set of terminologies and analytical frameworks that enable them to interrogate the various dimensions of capitalism. The readings in the course are selected to illustrate the fact that capitalism has always been controversial. We will read texts authored by both proponents and critics of capitalism. We will explore how various canonical figures have thought about private property, markets, money, economic growth, injustice, inequality, alienation, and socialism.

This lecture examines how the American presidency evolved into the most important job on earth. It examines how major events in US and world history shaped the presidency. How changes in technology and media augmented the power of the president and how the individuals who served in the office left their marks on the presidency. Each class will make connections between past presidents and the current events involving today's Commander-in-Chief. Some topics to be discussed: Presidency in the Age of Jackson; Teddy Roosevelt and Presidential Image Making; Presidency in the Roaring ‘20s; FDR and the New Deal; Kennedy and the Television Age; The Great Society and the Rise of the New Right; 1968: Apocalyptic Election; The Strange Career of Richard Nixon; Reagan's Post Modern Presidency; From Monica to The War on Terror.

This course charts the expansion of U.S. military power from a band of colonists to a globe-girdling colossus with over 2.1 million personnel, some 750 bases around the world, and an annual budget of approximately $754 billion — almost half of federal discretionary spending, and more than the next nine nations combined. It introduces students to the history of American military power; the economic, political, and technological rise of the military-industrial complex and national security state; the role of the armed services in international humanitarian work; and the changing role of the military in domestic and international politics. A three-point semester-long course, compressed into six weeks; visit bobneer.com for a complete syllabus.

As a population, Latino, Latina, Latine, and Latinx peoples have been prominent in the public sphere in popular culture, the media, and especially around discussions of immigration. Though individuals with a tapestry of Spanish-Indian-African ancestry (who may be described as “Latinas/os” “Hispanics” or “Latinxs” today) explored the lands of present-day Florida and New Mexico long before English colonizers reached Plymouth Rock, Latina/o/x communities are continually seen as foreigners, immigrants, and “newcomers” to American society. This course aims to place Latina/o populations in the United States within historical context. We begin by asking:  Who are Latinas/os in the U.S. and how did they become part of the American nation-state?  Why are they identified as a distinct group? How have they participated in American society and how have they been perceived over time?  The course will familiarize students with the broad themes, periods, and questions raised in the field of Latinx History.  Topics include conquest and colonization, immigration, labor recruitment, education, politics, popular culture, and social movements.  The course emphasizes a comparative approach to Latinx history aiming to engage histories from the Southwest, Midwest, and Eastern United States and across national origin groups—Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Dominicans, Central Americans, and South Americans. This class is taught in mostly the modern period (after 1750) within United States history so it can count toward the history major or concentration. Where the course points may be applied depends on a student’s field of specialization within their major or concentration. The course can also count toward the Global Core requirement, which is reflected on the Columbia online registry.  The class can, moreover, serve as three elective points toward degree progress or as non-technical elective credits. Finally, the course is regularly cross-listed with both the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and the Institute for the Study of Human Rights as well as with American Studies.

This course analyzes Jewish intellectual history from Spinoza to the present. It tracks the radical transformation that modernity yielded in Jewish thought, both in the development of new, self-consciously modern, iterations of Judaism and Jewishness and in the more elusive but equally foundational changes in "traditional" Judaisms. Questions to be addressed include:  the development of the modern concept of "religion" and its effect on the Jews; the origin of the notion of "Judaism" parallel to Christianity, Islam, etc.; the rise of Jewish secularism and of secular Jewish ideologies, especially the Jewish Enlightenment movement (Haskalah), modern Jewish nationalism, and Zionism; the rise of Reform, Modern Orthodox, and Conservative Judaisms; Jewish neo-Romanticism and neo-Kantianism, and American Jewish religious thought.

This course endeavors to understand the development of the peculiar and historically conflictual relationship that exists between France, the nation-states that are its former African colonies, and other contemporary African states. It covers the period from the 19th century colonial expansion through the current ‘memory wars’ in French politics and debates over migration and colonial history in Africa. Historical episodes include French participation in and eventual withdrawal from the Atlantic Slave Trade, emancipation in the French possessions, colonial conquest, African participation in the world wars, the wars of decolonization, and French-African relations in the contexts of immigration and the construction of the European Union. Readings will be drawn extensively from primary accounts by African and French intellectuals, dissidents, and colonial administrators. However, the course offers neither a collective biography of the compelling intellectuals who have emerged from this relationship nor a survey of French-African literary or cultural production nor a course in international relations. Indeed, the course avoids the common emphasis in francophone studies on literary production and the experiences of elites and the common focus of international relations on states and bureaucrats. The focus throughout the course is on the historical development of fields of political possibility and the emphasis is on sub-Saharan Africa. Group(s): B, C Field(s): AFR, MEU

This course aims to introduce students to classic and more recent literature on the intellectual and cultural history of the Enlightenment. The field has expanded far beyond the cohort of free-thinking philosophes around which it was initially conceived to encompass broader cultural, economic, and religious preoccupations. Given these tendencies, how has the significance of the Enlightenment shifted as a historical period and interpretive framework? In what ways do scholars explicate its origins, outcomes, and legacies? The readings trace the development of Enlightenment thought and practices from their early manifestations in Britain and the United Provinces before shifting attention to France, the geographical focal point of the movement by mid-century. Topics to be addressed include the relationship of traditional political authorities to an emerging public sphere, the invention of society as a means of mediating human relationships, the entrepreneurial and epistemological innovations made possible by new media, the struggles of the philosophe movement for legitimacy, debates surrounding luxury consumption and commercial society, the rise of political economy as field of knowledge and practical platform, and arguments between Christian apologists and radical atheists over the status of religious truth.

The development of the modern culture of consumption, with particular attention to the formation of the woman consumer. Topics include commerce and the urban landscape, changing attitudes toward shopping and spending, feminine fashion and conspicuous consumption, and the birth of advertising. Examination of novels, fashion magazines, and advertising images.

This course will offer an examination of the birth and development of the Franciscan Order between 1200-1350. The topics will include Francis of Assisi, the foundation of the three orders of Franciscans, education, poverty, preaching, theology internal strife, antifraternalism, and relations with secular governments and papacy.

This seminar will expose students to classical texts in political theory relating to revolutionary action, political ethics and social militancy from the Communist Manifesto to 1968. The course will explore the idea of revolutionary ethics as conceived by Western and non-Western political philosophers and militants. The discussion will stress the connection between philosophers and revolutionary leaders and the transformation of the idea of radical politics through the dialogue between these two discourses (the philosophical and the militant) and the public reception of revolutionary events in the media and commemorative writings. Authors will be examined according to their historical context and their role in the tradition of political thought and the history of radical politics from 1848 to the mid-sixties. Students will be exposed to different discourses of political militancy and radical politics and to reflect on the ethical implications of the history of radical thought and action in comparative perspective.

This course will provide a wide-ranging survey of conceptual foundations and issues in contemporary human rights. The class will examine the philosophical origins of human rights, contemporary debates, the evolution of human rights, key human rights documents, and the questions of human rights enforcement. This course will examine specific civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights and various thematic topics in human rights.