Government………………………………………………………………………16

Home , Harvey Mansfield

A COURSE GUIDE for the HARVARD HUMANIST 2nd Edition

Compiled in 2019 by AAI Staff, Interns, and Harvard Student Fellows

Order of Contents

Literature and Art………………………………………………………………..2

Foreign Cultures…………………………………………………………………3

The Classics……………………………………………………………………...6

The Occident……………………………………………………………………..8

Religion and Philosophy…………………………………………………………11

Historical Imagination…………………………………………………………....14

Government………………………………………………………………………16

Economy………………………………………………………………………….18

Literature and Art

Bargaining with the Devil: the Faust Legend COMPLIT 180 Professor John T. Hamilton Goethe's tragic play and its themes: the problem of evil, the human will, forbidden knowledge, and the lust for learning.

What’s Love Got to Do With It; Love and Poetry of the Middle Ages and Early Modernity COMPLIT 193 Professor Luis Giron Negron Jewish, Christian, and Muslim love poetry; a study of love's intersection with philosophy and theology.

Opera MUSIC 20 Professor Carolyn Abbate Opera as a multimedia performance to invoke the passions, focusing on evolution over time, famous works, and attending live performance.

Marcel Proust and his Times FRENCH 110 Professor Virginie Greene

A close look at Proust’s In Search of Lost Times, especially his interest in the visual arts, visiting several important art museums in Boston.

Milton’s Paradise Lost ENGLISH 131P Professor Gordon Teskey The greatest long poem in English: Milton’s generation of the sublime, scene development, and characterization of Satan.

The Politics of Storytelling RELIGION 1920 Professor Michael Jackson Addressing Hannah Arendt’s understanding of storytelling as a bridge between the private and public.

Foreign Cultures

Power and Civilization: China GENED 1136 Professors William Kirby and Peter K. Bol In China today we see a new country built on the bedrock of an ancient civilization. China’s re-emergence as a global economic power and political model has deep roots. From Rome to the Romanovs, from Byzantium to the Ottomans, on to the global empires of the West, all the great multiethnic empires of the world have come and gone, while a unitary, multi-national, Chinese empire has endured. The ancient Chinese ideal of a single, unified civilized world has had consequences. It was, and still is, a grand vision: all peoples unified under a single ruler and an integrated social order that finds a place for every person in security and harmony. It created the first centralized bureaucratic state; it institutionalized meritocracy; its economy became the world’s greatest market; its philosophies provided models of humane governance; its inventions spread across the globe. And yet in practice it has also been a story of conflict and control, of warring states and competing peoples. We will discuss how the choices China has made in the past bear

on the challenges it faces today, when a modern “China model,” with ancient roots, competes with the United States for global leadership.

The Greatest Chinese Novel CHNSLIT 140 Professor Wai-Yee Li The Story of the Stone (also known as The Dream of the Red Chamber) by Cao Xueqin (1715?-1763) is widely recognized as the masterpiece of Chinese fiction. It is also a portal to Chinese civilization. Encyclopedic in scope, this book both sums up Chinese culture and asks of it difficult questions. Its cult status also accounts for modern popular screen and television adaptations. Through a close examination of this text in conjunction with supplementary readings and visual materials, the seminar will explore a series of topics on Chinese culture, including foundational myths, philosophical and religious systems, the status of fiction, conceptions of art and the artist, ideas about love, desire and sexuality, gender roles, garden aesthetics, family and clan structure, and definitions of socio-political order.

Japanese Religions in the 20th and 21st Centuries JAPNHIST 120 Professor Helen Hardacre An examination of religion and society from the end of the Meiji period (1912) to the present. This course explores the meaning of the modern in Japanese religions, the development of the public sphere and religion's relations with it, religion and nationalism, and the interconnections of religion and social change with materialism, consumerism, pacifism, and spiritualism.

Permanent Impermanence: Why Buddhists Build Monuments GENED 1083 Professors Jinah Kim, Yukio Lippit, Eugene Wang Everything changes. This is, in its simplest and most fundamental formulation, one of the essential teachings of Buddhism. Buddhist communities throughout history have preached, practiced, and written about the ephemerality and illusoriness of our everyday lives and experiences. Ironically, however, many of these same communities have attempted to express these teachings in the form of monumental structures meant to stand the test of time. Some of the world’s greatest cultural heritage sites are a legacy of this

seeming contradiction between the impermanence that is a central presupposition of Buddhist thought and the permanence to which these same monuments seem to aspire. If the world is characterized by emptiness and the Self is illusory, how does one account for the prodigious volume of art and architecture created by Buddhists throughout history? This Gen Ed course takes a multicultural and reflective engagement with the challenges presented by this conundrum through a study of Buddhist sites scattered throughout time and space. Pertinent topics such as cosmology, pilgrimage, materiality, relics, meditation, and world-making will be explored. Through these Buddhist monuments in South and Southeast Asia, the Himalayas, Central Asia, China, Korea, and Japan, students will learn about the rich, diverse world of Buddhist practice and experience.

The Two Koreas in the Modern World GENED 1100 Professor Carter Eckert How and why did there come to be two competing and adversarial states on the Korean peninsula in our contemporary world, one a prosperous capitalist democracy of global reach, and the other an impoverished dictatorship, bordering on theocracy and almost totally estranged from the international community—both claiming exclusive rights to speak for the Korean people and the Korean “nation” as a whole? In this course, we will explore not only the two contemporary Korean societies, North and South, but also to Korea’s pre-modern and colonial periods, and to explore together the roles played by China, Japan, the United States, and Russia (Soviet Union) in shaping modern Korean history. We will look beyond the headlines to come to a more complex and nuanced understanding of the conflict on the Korean peninsula as one grounded in the history and legacies of the past hundred years. By showing the tumultuous changes, some good, some ill, on the Korean peninsula since the late 19th century, the course challenges us to confront the constantly shifting nature of historical forces, and to examine the ethical dimensions of particular historical choices. Readings will include primary source materials from each period, and assignments will culminate in a research paper or other capstone project that engages with the individual actors, historical forces, and global politics that have shaped the two Koreas.

The Incas and their Empire GENED 1152 Professor Gary Urton The Incas forged an empire across altitudinal extremes and without writing, markets, and the wheel – all typical components of the standard conception of “empire.” How did they do it, and what made their civilization so different from other ancient empires? Did their empire’s collapse after the Spanish conquest eliminate the beliefs, values, and institutions

at the heart of Inca society, or might the Spaniards have been influenced by the Incas without knowing it? This course will engage you in conversations about empire and influence, power and defeat, contrasting what we know of the Inca Empire with our knowledge of other ancient civilizations, as well as the first global empire of early modern Spain. In addition to lectures, films and discussions, students will explore the cultural world of the Inca Empire through the hands-on study of ancient Peruvian artifacts in the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Readings will include such texts as T. D’Altroy’s, The Incas (2015), on the nature and organization of the Inca Empire, and J. Sharman’s Empires of the Weak (2019), arguing against the long-held belief that European military superiority after 1500 was decisive in Europe’s global expansion.

The Classics

Introductory Ancient Greek I/Introductory Latin I GREEK I/LATIN I Professor Ivy Livingston Greek I is a starting point for those interested in learning to read ancient Greek. Participants will begin to gain direct access to the literature and culture of Greece through its writings. The specific dialect studied is that of Athens, which is the language of, e.g., Plato, Euripides, and Thucydides, as well as the basis for the language of the New Testament.

History of Greek Literature I GREEK 112A A survey of early Greek poetry and prose, with readings from Homer, Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, lyric poetry, and Herodotus. Discussions of genre in relation to performance, historical contexts, thematic (dis)continuities, oral tradition.

The Ancient Greek Hero GENED 1074 Professor Gregory Nagy How to face death? Concentrating on this central human question, we will explore some of the greatest works of ancient Greek literature (in English translation). For

the Greeks, a special way to address the problem of death was to think long and hard about what they called heroes in their myths. Our purpose in this course is to extend that kind of thinking to the present. Assignments invite you to engage in personal reflections on the meaning of life and death in the light of what we read in Greek literature about the ordeals of becoming a hero.

Horace: Satires and Epistles LATIN 111 Professor Richard Thomas Examines a selection of poems from both works in detail, to illuminate Horace's poetic development, attitudes to politics, patrons and power, and his philosophy of life.

Ancient Greek Warfare CLS-STDY 118 Professor Natasha Bershadsky This course will introduce students to the history and myths of ancient Greek warfare. At its center will be the hoplite phalanx: its transformations through time, its relationship to wider social organization, its rules and rituals, and its lethal potential. We will also explore other modes of fighting, such as naval warfare, cavalry battle, sieges, ambushes, and feints, as well as the employment of mercenary troops and the participation of women and non-Greeks. We will examine many different kinds of ancient evidence, from epic poetry and vase painting (using the collections in the Harvard Art Museums) to historical writings and archaeological finds of arms and armor, and question how these sources can be combined or contrasted to yield radically different interpretations of ancient practices and ideologies.

Apocalypse Then! Forging the Culture of the Medieval Rus’ SLAVIC 138 Professor Michael Flier When the natives of Medieval Rus' (later Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians) accepted Orthodox Christianity in the 10th century, their nature-based paganism gave way to a powerfully sensual belief system that made good use of the visual and the verbal to prepare these newest Christians for the coming Apocalypse and Last Judgment. We

investigate this transformation from the conversion of Saint Vladimir and the excesses of Ivan the Terrible through the Time of Troubles and the modern turn of Peter the Great. The class features close analysis of architecture, icons and frescoes, ritual, folklore, literature, and history to understand this shift in worldview, including the role of women. Special attention is devoted to the ways in which Medieval Rus' is portrayed in film, opera, and ballet.

The Occident

The Political Thought of Christendom HIST 14U Professor James Hankins; Eric Nelson The establishment of Christianity as the state religion of the Roman Empire in the fourth century created a series of distinctive political problems that continued to shape Western ideas about government and religious belief down to modern times. This course concentrates on Christian political thought from the conversion of the emperor Constantine to the Reformation. We will look at problems such as the relationship between political and religious authority, religious pluralism in Christian societies, the morality of economic life, regime theory, popular sovereignty, the scope of the political, and the impact of Christian theology on political concepts such as freedom, equality, tyranny, and legitimacy. Readings in Augustine of Hippo, Thomas Aquinas, William of Ockham, Bartolus of Sassoferrato, Marsilius of Padua, Erasmus and Martin Luther.

The Crusades and the Making of East and West HIST 14U Professor James Hankins; Eric Nelson The establishment of Christianity as the state religion of the Roman Empire in the fourth century created a series of distinctive political problems that continued to shape Western ideas about government and religious belief down to modern times. This course concentrates on Christian political thought from the conversion of the emperor Constantine to the Reformation. We will look at problems such as the relationship between political and religious authority, religious pluralism in Christian societies, the morality of economic life, regime theory, popular sovereignty, the scope of the political, and the impact of Christian theology on political concepts such as freedom, equality, tyranny, and legitimacy. Readings in Augustine of Hippo, Thomas Aquinas, William of Ockham, Bartolus of Sassoferrato, Marsilius of Padua, Erasmus and Martin Luther.

1000 Years of Listening MUSIC 1 This course aims to introduce you to a variety of music, and a range of ways of thinking, talking and writing about music. The majority of music dealt with will be drawn from the so-called "Classical" repertory, from the medieval period to the present day, including Monteverdi, Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, and Schoenberg. Class will explore the technical workings of music and together we will build a vocabulary for analyzing music and articulating a response to it; we will explore music as a cultural phenomenon. By the end of class, students will be equipped to embark on a lifetime of informed listening.

Ancient and Medieval Political Philosophy GOV 1060 Professor Harvey Mansfield Classical and medieval political philosophy, from Plato to Thomas Aquinas, with special attention to the question of natural right.

Western Intellectual History: Greco-Roman Antiquity HIST 1300 Professor James Hankins A survey of major themes in the intellectual history of the Greek and Roman World, with special attention to metaphysics, psychology, ethics and the philosophic life. Readings in the Presocratics, Plato, Aristotle, Lucretius, Epictetus, Cicero, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Plotinus, Augustine, and Boethius.

Early Christian Thought I: The Greek Tradition RELIGION 1401 Professor Charles Stang

This introductory course will focus on the major Greek authors of the late antique Christian East (third through eighth centuries). Authors will include Origen, Antony the Great, Athanasius, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa, Evagrius of Pontus, Cyril of Alexandria, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, Maximus the Confessor, and John of Damascus.

The Crusades and the Making of East and West GENED 1088 Professor Dimiter Angelov A series of wars in the later Middle Ages, the Crusades are one of the most significant and deeply symbolic events in human history. Marked by warfare and cross-cultural encounter between Christians and Muslims, they saw the first large-scale migration and colonization by Europeans before the Age of Discovery, the rise of the Italian merchant republics, and the solidification of religious and cultural identities across Europe and the Mediterranean. Students will learn about the origins of the Crusades, the most important expeditions, the expansion of crusading toward new targets, and the decline of crusading after the sixteenth century. This course is about the Crusades both in history and in memory, about communities in war and peace, and about stories and memories that have endured to the present day. With the help of fascinating texts written by Westerners, Byzantines, and Muslims, it explores how each culture interpreted and remembered the Crusades, and how the Crusades have come to mark our understanding of the East and West as distinct cultural traditions.

the Crusades have come to mark our understanding of the East and West as distinct cultural traditions.

Religion and Philosophy

A Humanities Colloquium HUMAN 10A/B Professors Louis Menand, Stephen Greenblatt, Alison Simmons, David L. Carrasco, Melissa M. McCormick, Nicholas Boylston, Leath Whittington, David Armitage, Samantha Matherne, David Elmer, Katharina Piechocki 2,500 years of essential works, taught by six professors. Humanities 10a includes works by Homer, Plato, Sappho, Murasaki, Rumi, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, Shakespeare, Descartes, Austen, Woolf and García Márquez, as well as the Bible and the Quran. One 75-minute lecture plus a 75-minute discussion seminar led by the professors every week. Students also receive instruction in critical writing one hour a week, in writing labs and individual conferences. Students also have opportunities to visit cultural venues and attend musical and theatrical events in Cambridge or Boston.

Ancient Ethics and Modern Morality PHIL 6 Professor James Doyle An historical introduction to ethics, from the Greeks to, roughly, now. We begin with the concept of virtue in Homer and trace its development through Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics and Aquinas. In the modern period we look, in a somewhat skeptical spirit, at the rise of the 'moral' as a supposedly sui generis category of reasons, traits, obligations etc, as this is found in Hume, Kant, Mill and others.

The Song at the Sea: Seminar

HEBREW 236 Professor Jon Levenson A close reading of Exodus 13:17-15:21 and parallel biblical texts in the context of the Hebrew Bible and the ancient Near East.

Introduction to the Qur’an ISLAMCIV 158X Professor Shady Nasser A critical introduction to the Qur’an as text and as scripture, focusing on its origins, form, and content, with attention to its ongoing life in the Arab-Islamic society. As we examine traditional scholarship, contemporary views on the Qur’an (mainly through YouTube videos, lectures, interviews) will be presented and discussed in comparison with the classical-traditional views on various themes of the Qurʾānic text. No previous study of Arabic or Islam is required. Mainly for undergraduate students.

The Conduct of Life in Western and Eastern Philosophy GENED 1128 Professors Roberto Mangabeira Unger and Cornel West A study of approaches in the philosophical traditions of the West and the East to the conduct of life. Philosophical ethics has often been understood as meta-ethics: the development of a method of moral inquiry or justification. Here we focus instead on what philosophy has to tell us about the first-order question: How should we live our lives?

Literature of Modern Religious Experience and Reflection: Texts in the Christian Tradition RELIGION 61 Professor James Engell Works in various genres—e.g., poems, sermons, fiction, exhortations, philosophical reflections, essays—that represent a range of Christian lived experience and reflection on it. Existential issues of mortality, charity, love, sex, sin, injustice,

contemplation, and forgiveness. Male and female authors from the last 600 years. Writers may include Julian of Norwich, William Langland, John Donne, George Herbert, S. T. Coleridge, Frederick Douglass, William James, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, Jr., Marilynne Robinson.

The Rationalists PHIL 120 Professor Jeffrey McDonough The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were among the most exciting and revolutionary periods in the history of philosophy. Among the most prominent philosophers working in that period, Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz have traditionally been grouped together under the label “Continental Rationalists” in virtue of their embrace of systematic metaphysics and emphasis on rational reflection as a source of knowledge. This undergraduate level course aims to provide an overview of the development of early modern rationalism while exploring in detail a number of central issues, arguments and controversies. Topics will include philosophical methodology, skepticism, knowledge, substance, mind- body relations, and the metaphysical foundations of science.

Incarnation and Desire RELIGION 40 Professors Courtney Lamberth, David Lamberth, Cornel West The course offers an introduction to Christian thought by considering major texts, figures and ideas from the first century to the present in their changing cultural contexts. Central themes include the categories of body, flesh and soul; free will, desire and sin in relation to divine grace; and the meaning of incarnation. Texts include canonical and non-canonical early Christian literatures, Patristic and medieval texts, Reformation theologies, as well as modern and contemporary authors. Students will develop a sense of the distinguishing features of the Christian world view, while gaining an appreciation for the significant diversity across the tradition.

Historical Imagination

Byzantine Imperialism HIST 1935 Professor Dimiter Angelov The Byzantine Empire is perhaps best known today as the medieval successor to imperial Rome and as a model for later empires in the Eastern Mediterranean and Eastern Europe. The course investigates imperialism both as an idea and as a practice in Byzantium. We will focus on a variety of themes, such as the role of Constantinople, the methods of governance, the role of coercive and soft power, the integration of diverse communities, the views of empire among the inhabitants of the capital, provincials, and frontiersmen. Primary sources and important secondary works will enable us to examine the specificity of Byzantine imperialism and gain deeper insight into empire as a historical phenomenon.

From Type to Self in the Middle Ages COMPLIT 157 Professor Luis Giron Negron It has been argued that the poetic "I" in premodern literatures is not a vehicle for self-representation, but an archetype of the human. The course will examine this thesis against the rise of autobiographical writing in medieval and early modern Europe. Readings include spiritual autobiographies (Augustine, Kempe, Teresa of Ávila), letter collections, maqama literature, troubadour lyric, Hispano-Jewish poetry, pilgrimage narratives, medieval allegories, Dante and the picaresque novel. Theoretical perspectives by Spitzer, Lejeune, Zumthor and DeCerteau.

The Holocaust GENED 1118 Professor Kevin Madigan Who is responsible for genocide? Through the lens of the Holocaust – perhaps the most-studied genocide of the modern era – we will grapple with the issues of good and evil, blame and responsibility, duty and dissent as they pertain to violence

enacted at the personal and state levels. What is the responsibility of “citizens and citizen leaders” in the face of local and global crises brought on by genocide, refugee catastrophes, terror, neo-fascism, etc.? And how do we make meaning out of what seems senseless? The course will address the historical background and context of the Holocaust, competing theories about who was responsible and why, and representations of the Holocaust in film and literature.

Secrets and Lies in European History HIST 13S Professor Mary Lewis How should one distinguish what is “true” or “real” from what is “false” or “fake”? What is the difference between concealing the truth (secrecy) and lying? Is falsehood ever justifiable? These questions are newly important but not novel. This course will draw on “case histories” that lie at the source of some of Europe’s most infamous economic and political scandals, examining themes such as forgery, sensationalism, conspiracy, espionage and false evidence. While studying falsehood and fakery, the course will endeavor to teach students to be “true” to their sources: to conduct research, build an evidentiary base, and make verifiable arguments.

Texts in Transition GENED 1034 Professors Ann Blair and Leah Whittington We live in a moment of “crisis” around regimes of preservation and loss. As our communication becomes ever more digital— and, therefore, simultaneously more ephemeral and more durable—the attitudes and tools we have for preserving our culture have come to seem less apt than they may have seemed as recently as a generation ago. This course examines how texts have been transmitted from the past to the present, and how we can plan for their survival into the future. We will examine what makes texts durable by considering especially the media by which they are transmitted, the changing cultural attitudes toward their content, and the institutions by which they are preserved. The European Renaissance will provide a central case study. During this period scholars became aware of the loss of ancient texts and strove to recover and restore them insofar as possible. These interests prompted new developments in scholarly conservation techniques which we still value today (philology, libraries, and museums) but also the creation and transmission of new errors, ranging from well-intentioned but overzealous corrections and “improvements” to outright forgeries. What can the Renaissance teach us about how to engage productively with these problems, both as the source of our current attitudes toward preservation and loss, and as a case study of another culture dealing with anxiety over preservation and loss? Ultimately, we hope that students will be able to think productively about how to preserve from the past and the present for the future, while recognizing that all preservation inherently involves some kind of transformation.

Transforming Society: Revolution or Reform GENED 1055 Professors James Simpson Is revolution or reform the best way to transform society? To answer this question, we will explore the relation between utopian Enlightenment cultures and dystopian literary cultures in Western history. For each moment of rapid change, from Plato to the Communist and surveillance revolutions of the twentieth century, we will focus on two texts: one that promotes the enlightened and revolutionary utopian social blueprint; and one that offers an alternative, often dystopian model of transformation. You will come away from this course having a chronologically wide and intellectually serious immersion in 2500 years of European philosophical and literary history. Throughout, you are encouraged to think about what resources we use to imagine social transformation and to ask if revolution is in fact the best way to effect social transformation.

Government

Aesthetics and Politics SOC-STD 98RG Professor Ana Isabel Keilson Since Ancient Greece, political philosophers have theorized politics and society alongside a consideration of the aesthetic, defined alternately as the appreciation of beauty and the sensible, non-rational experience of the world. This course considers the aesthetic theories of major political and social theorists - as well as literary, visual, and performing artists - of the modern era, including Kant, Burke, Nietzsche, and the Frankfurt School. This is a junior tutorial.

Political Thought of the American Founding GOV 1074 Professor Eric Nelson John Adams observed that the American Revolution took place, not on the battlefield, but rather "in the minds of the people...before a drop of blood was shed

at Lexington." This course will examine the political debates leading to American independence, and, later to the ratification of the Federal Constitution. Famous works of the period, such as Paine's Common Sense and The Federalist, will be placed in the wider context of American political writing from 1763 to 1789.

Political Thought in the French Revolution GOV 1089 Professor Richard Tuck How modern political thought came into being, against the background of the Revolution. No French is required: texts will be in translation.

Rouseau’s Political Thought GOV 2072 Professor Richard Tuck This course offers an opportunity to read Rousseau’s writings on politics and to understand his intellectual development.

Constitutional and Legal History of Medieval Continental Europe MEDVLSTD 119 Professor Charles Donahue A survey of continental European constitutional and legal history from the fall of the Roman Empire to the "Rise of absolutism'' at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Focuses on the main expressions of European legal culture over this long period of time. In each period an effort is made to relate the types of law produced to social, political, and religious history.

Is War Inevitable? GENED 1095 Professor Derek Penslar

Why is there war? Will there always be war? This course tackles these questions through a historical overview of human conflict that incorporates approaches from International Relations, Psychology, Ethics, and Comparative Literature. The course begins by discussing the socio- biological roots of human aggression and altruism, and pre-modern justifications for war and attempts to place limits on its conduct. We will then move on to a series of case studies of modern wars, divided into six types - interstate, revolutionary, civil, colonial, separatist, and global. We will examine each type of war’s effects on fighters and non-combatants alike and repercussions for post-war society. We will see how each type of war has fostered different approaches – ranging from international humanitarian law, organizations like the League of Nations and United Nations, and anti-war protest movements –to the prevention, mitigation, or resolution of conflict. We will conclude with two final case studies: the Cold War (1947-1991) and “War on Terror” (2001 -), which have reduced war’s intensity but rendered it more difficult to eradicate and more potentially destructive.

The History of Modern Political Philosophy GOV 1061 Professor Harvey Mansfield Political philosophy from Machiavelli to Nietzsche, with attention to the rise and complex history of the idea of modernity.

Economy

Principles of Economics (Microeconomics/Macroeconomics) ECON 10A/10B Professors Jason Furman and David Laibson Economists study human behavior using a combination of models and data. Ec 10A introduces students to economic models by using intuitive discussions, graphical analysis and, in some cases, very basic algebra. The models study individual decision-making and markets, and range from classical approaches like supply and demand to more recent approaches that consider informational limitations and behavioral mistakes. We will also use data to understand the strengths and weaknesses of these models. The course also discusses the role that ethics and values play in people’s choices and in policy discussions—including an understanding and critique of approaches like utilitarianism and libertarianism. The ultimate goal of the course is to provide students with a set of tools that will help them develop answers for themselves on how to make better choices and participate in debates on major public policy issues in areas including tax policy, inequality, discrimination and the environment.

Capitalism, Time, and Value SOC-STD 98SV Professors Tracey Rosen College students are often counseled to "make the most valuable use of their time." The "budgeting" of hours, days, and weeks of a semester often rests on an evaluation of how much time an activity is worth. In this tutorial we will explore how capitalism might shape the way we perceive, understand, and value time. We start from the premise that economic systems do more than organize the production and distribution of goods; they also help organize how we experience the world as well as the meanings and values that shape our actions within it. In order to ground the dynamics of time and value within capitalism, we begin by drawing from anthropological and historical examples to consider the relationship of time and value in a variety of pre-capitalist contexts. The course then considers the way in which capitalist transformations coordinate new forms of value and perceptions of time. We end with an examination of our everyday, contemporary experience of time against the backdrop of "neoliberal" capitalism and the rise of "futures" markets. This is a junior tutorial.

American Capitalism GENED 1159 Professors Sven Beckert How did capitalism emerge, expand and transform daily life in North America over the past 500 years? In this course, students will gain an in-depth understanding of how North America turned from a minor outpost of the Atlantic economy into the powerhouse of the world economy, how Americans built a capitalist economy and how that capitalism, in turn, changed every aspect of their lives. In the process, they will come to understand how contemporary capitalism is the result of centuries of human engagement, struggle, and aspirations. Topics range from the structure of Native-American economies to the economic consequences of the Civil War; from the impact of capitalism on gender relations to the changing structures of American businesses; and from the position of the United States in the world economy to the role of the government in channeling economic development. Boston merchants and Georgia sharecroppers, enslaved cotton growers and reforming statesmen, workers at the Ford assembly line and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs will all appear in the story. The course will put particular emphasis on the global context of American economic development and situate it deeply in political and social changes. Ultimately, students will gain an understanding of how the contemporary capitalism that so powerfully shapes all of our lives has emerged over the course of several centuries, and how the tools to understand the history of American capitalism can be applied to understanding our contemporary situation. Assignments in particular will encourage students to think about contemporary problems from historical perspectives.

Religion and the Rise of Capitalism ECON 1776 Professors Benjamin Friedman Examines the influence of religious thinking on the intellectual revolution, associated with Adam Smith and others, that created economics as we know it as an independent discipline; also examines how the lasting resonances from these early religious influences continue to shape discussion of economic issues and debates about economic policy down to our own day.

Economics and Morality ECON 1436 Professors Benjamin Enke Questions related to morality pervade the economic and political discourse. However, traditionally, economists have paid little attention to the structure and consequences of people’s moral concerns. This course introduces students to research in an emerging field that studies the determinants and consequences of heterogeneity in moral reasoning through the lens of economics. The main objective of the class is to highlight (i) how moral reasoning matters for economic and political outcomes, and (ii) how economic needs in turn generate particular moral systems. To understand the bidirectional relationship between economics and morality, we will study empirical research papers that consider questions such as: What is the difference between universalizing and relational approaches to moral reasoning, and how do these matter for economics? How do Americans’ moral intuitions vary across space and over time? What is the role of moral values in U.S. presidential elections, or for policy preferences related to redistribution? Why do Republicans and Democrats give to different types of charities? What are the functional economic origins of morality? How and why are moral systems culturally variable? From a methodological viewpoint, the class uses standard empirical economics techniques to study morality-related concepts and ideas from psychology and anthropology.