Cluster Programs: Defining Difference
This course cluster will examine the ways in which people divide themselves (and often, their lands) into exclusive groupings. People’s decisions about which characteristics will define them change over time and place. How much biological continuity is there among groups, how scientific are our categories, how different is the “other,” and how has science weighed in on these questions? Why do some societies define themselves by race (the US), and others by religion (Ireland, the Ottoman empire)? How would societies look if belonging were defined by handedness, and outsiders were sinister? Why do some insist on religious definitions of belonging, while others demand linguistically-based identities (Kurds, Basques)?
This cluster, and its related cluster, Border Crossings, explores what happens once boundaries have been drawn, as each group further defines itself and the “other,” and as the new boundaries become (or remain) blurred. How does a new state impart a collective identity, and what do they do with those inside the borders who do not “belong”? What happens when some in the group live outside the borders? What do we do with those who refuse their new identity? How do people who challenge gender roles create belonging? How does the new “we” handle people who transgress boundaries?
HIST 202, Borders and Crossings (Core course) [SS]
AFAM 269, Black Nationalism in the United States [HM]
BIOL 427, Human Diversity and Population Genetics [NS]
HIST 538, Middle East and the West [SS]
LING 306, Language and Nationalism [HM]
RELI 481, Religion, Fundamentalism and Nationalism [HM]
ROML 377, The Evolution of “Frenchness” since WWII [HM]
RUES 469, Conflict and Intervention in the Former Yugoslavia [SS]
The four Divisions of the College of Arts and Sciences, with their abbreviations:
[HM]: Humanities
[FA]: Fine Arts
[SS]: Social and Behavioral Sciences
[NS]: Natural Sciences and Mathematics