This year’s cycle of Humanities Core is organized around the theme Empire and Its Ruins, which will emphasize how humans have made sense of the rise and fall of societies and the effects of dominant structures on people who are marginalized. Empire will take us to a variety of settings, including ancient Rome, the clash between Spanish and Inca civilizations, and U.S. imperialism in Asia. This quarter, we will address the formation and maintenance of the Roman Empire, the concept of “ruins” in painting and film, and the American ideology of Manifest …
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Winter
This quarter centers on various forms of resistance to empire. We will challenge the idea of conquest through an examination of the Inca empire; reflect on how literary revisions of traditional texts, such as Shakespeare’s Tempest, undermine the structures of power that sustain empire; and critique the responses of Indian anti-colonialists to the British Raj. We will reflect on how empire structures the way we think about conquest, mastery, oppression, rebellion, resistance, revolution, race, …
Spring
This quarter centers on diaspora and empire’s effect on individual experience, and you will have the opportunity to direct your own research. Drawing on the many writing and research skills you learned over the course of the year, you will produce an oral history project and a research paper that will center on your own interests in Empire …
