Upper-Division

HISC 102 Philosophy and Poetics

Introduction to the relationship between philosophy and poetics in some major 19th- and 20th-century poets and thinkers.

Credits

5

Requirements

Enrollment restricted to juniors and seniors.

HISC 103 The Problem of California

From Muir Woods to Hollywood and Silicon Valley to the Central Valley, California has been a path breaker that has shaped politics and cultural production. The state's rich diversity makes it an especially exciting site for studying the relations between divergent social, economic, cultural, political, and ecological forces. Course investigates the histories, cultures, and geographies of California by exploring relations between power and place through ethnographic, archival, critical, and aesthetic lenses. Also examines the role of identity within constructions of inequality and struggles for political change. Course fulfills one upper-division course requirement for the minor in the history of consciousness.

Credits

5

General Education Code

ER

HISC 104 Political Writing

Explores the politics of writing by moving beyond rehearsals of established form into an analysis of the politics of writing, asking: What are the philosophical and political implications of the writing forms we choose?

Credits

5

General Education Code

IM

HISC 105 Antisocial Media

Provides an introduction to critical scholarship on media infrastructures with a focus on cybernetic systems, internet protocol, surveillance, logistics, and finance. It explores how these configurations of power are reorganizing our societies and restructuring our subjectivities.

Credits

5

General Education Code

PE-T

HISC 106 The U.S. Horror Film: Race, Capitalism, and Monsters

Analyzes films and images to consider how the genre of horror has screened the problems, expectations, and fantasized afterlives of racism, labor exploitation, ruin, and war.

Credits

5

General Education Code

ER

HISC 107 The Idea of Reality

Examines the "real" in a variety of registers—from realism in art to reality TV, from virtual reality to the real number system—and asks what, if anything, these usages have in common, what distinguishes the real from the unreal, from the ideal, and from the lie. Through writing, films, and television ranging from the serious to the whimsical, course looks at the ways in which the idea of "reality" is invoked, how it is represented, and to what ends.

Credits

5

General Education Code

TA

HISC 108 Parables for a Warming Planet: The Politics of Climate Change

Takes up the literary form of the parable to illuminate a pressing and complex problem: the threat of global climate change. How can the simplest of stories help us to explore our options for a planetary future?

Credits

5

General Education Code

TA

HISC 109 Liberalism and Violence

Explores the meanings of modernity, religion, and violence and examines the conceptual status that war and sovereignty, long associated with religious belief, have since been accorded within the modern humanist and secular tradition. Also explores aspects of this tradition and their relationship to questions of morality and violence and how violence-and its relationship to secularism-can be better understood today as a mode of negotiating human existence in a world dominated by technology and its myths.

Credits

5

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to juniors and seniors.

HISC 110 Histories of the Atom

This interdisciplinary course considers the atom in four respects: as philosophical idea, as weapon, as catastrophe, and as clock. Students will learn about ancient atomisms, radiometric dating, the Manhattan Project, the bombing of Hiroshima, and the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

Credits

5

General Education Code

PE-T

HISC 111 States, War, Capitalism

Survey of seminal work on ancient origins of the state, diverse geo-political systems of war and diplomacy, and consequences of the formation of the world market on the evolution of geo-political systems up to and beyond the wars of today.

Credits

5

Requirements

Enrollment restricted to juniors and seniors.

HISC 112 Foundations in Critical Theory

Concentrates on the Marxist tradition of critical theory, centering on classical texts by Marx and by writers in the Marxist tradition up to the present.

Credits

5

General Education Code

TA

HISC 113 History of Capitalism

Surveys major developments in the capitalist world economy from the 13th century to today. Topics include: the transition to capitalism in Europe; the emergence of banking; colonization, slavery, and uneven development; industrialization; and globalization.

Credits

5

Instructor

Jack Davies

General Education Code

CC

Quarter offered

Fall

HISC 114 Histories of Miseducation

Examines the history of the idea of "miseducation" through a transnational lens. Focuses in particular on histories of the (mis)education of people of African descent, drawing on historical cases and theorizations from both the Continent and the diaspora. This class will trace the emergence of the concept and proximate theorizations of "education" itself through an array of different social movements, institutional formations, and texts.

Credits

5

General Education Code

CC

HISC 115 The Radical Right, A Symptom of Capitalism

Provides the historical context and the theoretical tools necessary for understanding today's radical right. Specific focus on considering the far right in the context of radical constructions under conditions of late capitalism.

Credits

5

General Education Code

ER

HISC 116 What is Species?

Studies the multiplicity of meanings of the word "species" explored in Donna Haraway's "When Species Meet," including its use in biology, racial and gendered uses, religious and economic meanings. Examines discourses surrounding species from the ancient Greeks through the present.

Credits

5

Instructor

Banu Bargu

General Education Code

PE-E

Quarter offered

Fall

HISC 117 Making the Refugee Century: Non-Citizens and Modernity

Examines the material, discursive, and racialized conditions that have produced refugees in the last century. Also examines the social claims made by refugees, institutional responses to them, and political alternatives to state belonging

Credits

5

Cross Listed Courses

CRES 117

General Education Code

CC

HISC 118 What is Money?

Explores what happens if money is examined as a material and politically contingent phenomenon in its own right, rather than assuming the classic "three functions of money" (unit of account, means of exchange, and store of value). Students examine these functions separately with an eye to the tensions that arise between them, and trace a deep history of monetary systems as the outcome of a process of negotiation and contestation. Topics considered include palace economies, cowrie shells, metallic coinages, the modern monetary revolution, and contemporary struggles over student debt.

Credits

5

General Education Code

PE-H

HISC 119 Politics of Recognition

Course touches on the philosophical roots of Hegel's text, starting from the pre-World War II rereading of Hegel's master/slave dialectic that became the kernel of postwar thought arising from struggles over capitalism, communism, fascism, racism, colonialism, and feminism.

Credits

5

Instructor

Robert Meister

HISC 120 What is a State?

Examines the modern concept of state, its anthropological assumptions, categories, its critique, and its crisis. Inquires into the concept of representation, borders, security and control in thinkers, such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant, G.W.F. Hegel, Karl Marx, Carl Schmitt, and Lenin.

Credits

5

Instructor

Massimiliano Tomba

General Education Code

TA

Quarter offered

Spring

HISC 121 What Is Politics?

Examines the concept of politics, its anthropological assumptions, categories, and its crisis. It proposes to inquire into the concept of politics, justice, conflict and law in thinkers, such as Aristotle, Plato, Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant, Karl Marx, Carl Schmitt, Hannah Arendt, Fanon, and Gandhi.

Credits

5

Instructor

Massimiliano Tomba

HISC 122 What is the Psyche?

Explores the clinical, political, and philosophical relevance of the (post) Freudian psyche. Examines how the psyche takes shape around various social forms (e.g., child, woman, queer, colonial, Black, proletarian, religious, digital), as well as how the social is shaped by psychical processes (e.g., projection, introjection, transference, splitting, repression, dissociation, identification, sublimation). Approaches the psyche from various disciplinary perspectives. Clinical and experimental research is used to illustrate a range of theoretical constructs.

Credits

5

General Education Code

PE-H

HISC 125 Queerness and Race

Gives students a grasp of different definitions and uses of the concept queerness in its relationship to race and how it's tied to the politics of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) identity.

Credits

5

HISC 129 Politics of Violence

Inquires into the relationship between politics and violence as articulated by early modern, modern, and contemporary political theorists. Investigates the role of violence in the constitution and maintenance of sovereign power and the construction of the modern subject of politics.

Credits

5

Instructor

Banu Bargu

General Education Code

TA

HISC 131 Postcolonial Paths

How postcolonial thought occasions the reconsideration of the Western tradition of political philosophy and the discovery of alternative pathways of modernization within it.

Credits

5

Instructor

Massimiliano Tomba

General Education Code

CC

HISC 135 What is Freedom?

Seminar in modern political thought. The focus and outcome of the course is developing the skill of analytical thinking and clear formulation of concepts in writing. Raises and discusses a set of fundamental questions around the method and methodology of moral and political thought, to which every member in the seminar contributes.

Credits

5

HISC 136 Latin American Thought

Does Latin American thought have to appeal to quintessential Western philosophical questions regarding knowledge, ethics, reality? Course explores how concepts such as identity and abstraction, as well as realities of indigeneity and diversity, both cause and effect the development of analytical and political frameworks across Latin America. Examines what difference social, political, and ethnic inequality might make to the development of core conceptual and philosophical questions and frameworks.

Credits

5

Instructor

Rasmus Winther

General Education Code

CC

HISC 140A Africa: How to Make a Continent

Introduces the histories of exploration, museum collection, and photography that shape historical and contemporary ideas about race, culture, and place in Africa.

Credits

5

Cross Listed Courses

CRES 140A

General Education Code

CC

HISC 150 Radical Political Theory

Provides an introduction to classical and contemporary texts of radical political theory, a body of work that critically examines fundamental premises of politics. Addresses the question What is the 'political?'

Credits

5

HISC 160 Advanced Topics in History of Consciousness

Provides students an opportunity for in-depth analysis of advanced topics within the history of consciousness arena. Course topic changes; see the Class Search for current topic.

Credits

5

Repeatable for credit

Yes

HISC 163 Freud

The development of Freud's concept of mind. Extensive reading tracing the origins and development of Freud's theories and concepts (e.g., abreaction, psychic energy, defense, wish-fulfillment, unconscious fantasy, dreams, symptoms, transference, cure, sexuality) and emphasizing the underlying model of the mind and mental functioning.

Credits

5

HISC 166 Race, Science, and Humanities

Is race a social construct or (partially at least) a biologically grounded reality? Which medical, biological, social, and political agendas are at play with respect to the genomics of race? Genomic results of the past few decades have added significant complexity to the view that race is primarily a social construct. The debates rage, and the stakes are high. Course engages the history, philosophy, and anthropology of the genetics and genomics of race from the 19th century to today, also introducing the basic science on a "need-to-know" basis.

Credits

5

Instructor

Rasmus Winther

General Education Code

ER

Quarter offered

Winter

HISC 169 Blue Humanities: Oceans, Humanity, and the Future

As steerers of planetary climate systems, loci of biodiversity, sources of food, and cradles of inspiration to poets, philosophers, artists, and society in general, the oceans are essential to our future. Course combines history, philosophy, literature, and cinema, using them as lenses through which to analyze, understand, and effect positive change on troubled oceans. Course fits well with UCSC's oceanside location and marine campus.

Credits

5

Instructor

Rasmus Winther

Quarter offered

Fall, Winter, Spring

HISC 185C Comparative Religion: A Critical Introduction

Introduces the comparative study of world religions and provides critical entry points toward the understanding of its history as a discipline. Special emphasis on the troubled history of imperialism, orientalism, and facile generalizations that have always accompanied the attempt to understand foreign or dead cultures.

Credits

5

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to sophomores, juniors, and seniors.

General Education Code

CC

HISC 185T Marxism and Feminism

Critically engages with feminist-Marxist perspectives on social-reproduction. Introduces the foundation of Marxism and feminist-Marxist critique while examining the international feminist struggle historically from the origins of capitalism to the present moment.

Credits

5

HISC 187 The Emergence of the Avant-garde from Disenchantment to Dada

Examines the socio-political and cultural origins of early 20th-century avant-garde movements focusing on the vanguard movement of futurism, the roles played by the disenchantment of the world, and technological rationalization as it relates to warfare and aesthetic production.

Credits

5

General Education Code

TA

HISC 190 Nature or Nurture?

Examines baseline philosophical and scientific views of human nature in the context of the debate about existence and the role of human nature., Considers whether human nature is singular or plural, genetic or environmental, and what role it plays in political and social thought. Examines race and sex/gender as biological and/or cultural categories and realities. Concludes with explicit attention to theoretical and conceptual frameworks highlighting nurture, the environment, and social construction, vis-a-vis human "nature." As a critical and exploratory course, no ultimate position on human nature is endorsed. Prerequisite(s): HISC 166 and by permission of instructor.

Credits

5

Instructor

Rasmus Winther

HISC 199 Tutorial

A program of individual study arranged between an undergraduate student and a faculty member. Students submit petition to sponsoring agency.

Credits

5

Repeatable for credit

Yes

Cross-listed courses that are managed by another department are listed at the bottom.

Cross-listed Courses

DANM 250F Film, Moving Image Installation, and Curatorial Lab

Workshop investigating moving and still images to create visual and sonic languages for production, exhibition and installation. Core faculty Mark Nash and Isaac Julien invite students to participate in ongoing projects as well as present and discuss their own work. Established artists, film makers and curators are also invited to present their work to the group. (Formerly offered as Research Group: Isaac Julien Studio Lab.)

Credits

5

Cross Listed Courses

FILM 250F, HISC 250F

Instructor

Isaac Julien

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to graduate students.

FMST 212 Feminist Theory and the Law

Interrogation of the relationship between law and its instantiating gendered categories, supported by feminist, queer, Marxist, critical race, and postcolonial theories. Topics include hypostasization of legal categories, the contest between domestic and international human rights frameworks, overlapping civil and communal codes, cultural explanations in the law, the law as text and archive, testimony and legal subjectivity.

Credits

5

Cross Listed Courses

HISC 212

Instructor

Gina Dent

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to graduate students.

HAVC 245 Race and Representation

Explores how human subjects come to be visually defined and marked by race discourse. Covers diverse theoretical literatures on the topic, primarily in visual studies, but also in cultural studies, post-colonial studies, and psychoanalysis.

Credits

5

Cross Listed Courses

HISC 245, FMST 245

Instructor

Jennifer Gonzalez

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to graduate students.

LIT 149H The Future

Examines modes of thinking and imagining the future throughout human history, and considers the fate of the future today. Topics include apocalyptic religion, utopia and dystopia, progress, revolution, finance, and everyday life. Critical approach designations: Histories, Power and Subjectivities. Distribution requirement: Global.

Credits

5

Cross Listed Courses

HISC 149H

Instructor

Christopher Connery

General Education Code

PR-E

LIT 149J The Good Life

The social, affective, and psychic structures of our neoliberal era make it difficult to live a good life. Drawing on the broad tradition of critical theory and utopian imaginings, the course aims to give practical and theoretical guidance toward achieving a good life.

Credits

5

Cross Listed Courses

HISC 149

Instructor

Christopher Connery

General Education Code

TA

Quarter offered

Spring