This course explores the power of satire in works of fiction written by black Americans. As we read novels and essays written under the racist regime of Jim Crow and in its aftermath, we will approach satire as a flexible expressive practice that shapes critical judgment into an artistic form. Foundational to the form of the novel, satire is one of the oldest means by which literature has tried to intervene in the world. By examining the genre of satire in general and as African American writers have used it to interrogate the relationship between racism, capitalism, and cultural production in the U.S., we will examine how narrative fiction can critique the category of race and attempt to effect social change. With an attention to the political economy of racism in the US and the role of literature in anti-racist struggle, we will integrate readings in literary criticism, critical theory, and social history to inform our study of fictional works. Fictional works include George Schuyler’s Black No More (1931), an incisive work of science fiction and the first great African-American satirical novel; Ishmael Reed’s “NeoHooDoo” novel Mumbo Jumbo (1972); and Percival Everett’s experimental novel Erasure (2001) along with its recent film adaptation, American Fiction (2023). Critical writers may include M.M. Bakhtin, W.E.B. Du Bois, Ralph Ellison, Barbara Fields, Zora Neale Hurston, David Levering Lewis, Adolph Reed, Judith Stein, and Kenneth Warren. (20th/21st, Fiction)

From the Gilded Age to the age of Donald Trump, conservatives Christians have played a major role in shaping American politics and culture. This course will use primary and secondary sources to explore the development of the Christian Right in the United States. We will answer essential questions about the movement: Who joins it? Who leads it? And who funds it? We will examine how conservative Christians approach not only “moral” issues like abortion but also issues like economic regulation and foreign policy. Finally, we will seek to answer the question: What is the future of the Christian Right in an increasingly diverse America?

This course will explore in depth and in detail the 1925 Scopes Trial in Dayton, Tennessee, especially in light of its centennial. We will examine the transcript of the trial, newspaper editorials, cartoons, scholarly analyses, and various contemporary observations on the meaning and significance of the trial. Among the topics covered are the fundamentalist/modernist controversy of the 1920s and its consequences, interpretations of the origins and tenacity of the anti-evolution campaign, and broader debates about science and religion and the contested authority of experts in American society. Though much of the historical analysis will focus on the 1920s, some attention will be paid to the implications of this highly publicized trial and what it came to signify about larger cultural, political, and religious divisions in the United States.

There is a substantial portion of the psychological nature of human beings that is neither homogeneous nor fixed across time and space. At the heart of the discipline of cultural psychology is the tenet of psychological pluralism, which states that the study of “normal” psychology is the study of multiple psychologies and not just the study of a single or uniform fundamental psychology for all peoples of the world. Research findings in cultural psychology thus raise provocative questions about the integrity and value of alternative forms of subjectivity across cultural groups. In this course we analyze the concept of “culture” and examine ethnic and cross-cultural variations in mental functioning with special attention to the cultural psychology of emotions, self, moral judgment, categorization, and reasoning.

This course examines how religion has been shaped, constructed, and formed in response to and in the context of changing racial realities in America in the 20th century. The structure of the course is designed to approach and understand the intersection and melding of race and religion through literary, social scientific, historical and biographical angles. It is hoped that such variant approaches will deepen our understanding of a complex and changing reality, keeping in mind that “race” as a category and political and social reality has experienced profoundly different meanings in the course of the 20th century. Most of our emphasis will be attuned to the central black/white divide and Christian communities, though you are encouraged to write your final paper on a topic of your choosing that does not fit into any of these categories.

Ever since Alexis de Tocqueville visited the United States during the Jacksonian Era, his account of what he saw there, _Democracy in America_, has become a kind of latter-day founding document to which Americans turn again and again to understand themselves and their past. Although he was an aristocrat manqué and a failed politician-or perhaps because of it-Tocqueville saw into the heart of democratic society as it had advanced in North America, for better and for worse. In the decades since, generations of commentators and intellectuals have returned to his insights to develop an account of what makes democracy in America distinctive, and what ties it to the broader currents of the unfolding modern world. To explore this rich palimpsest of insight we will read Tocqueville’s masterpiece along with the contemporary and subsequent responses to it that have inscribed his analysis indelibly into the American political tradition. Coursework will culminate in an independent research project on the legacy of Tocqueville in America.

Since Africans were brought to the Virginia Colony (August 1619), throughout slavery and segregation until today, black Americans (men and women) have always owned wealth. They have always had human agency. These black families accumulated wealth and offered a concurrent narrative and framing from the mainstream understanding of black Americans as victims. Who are these black families who remain mainly invisible from the dominant black story? What is material, financial wealth? Who has it? And how did they get it?

This course will examine the development of environmental justice theory and practice through social scientific and ethical literature about the subject as well as primary source accounts of environmental injustices. We will focus on environmental justice issues in Chicago including, but not limited to waste disposal, toxic air and water, the Chicago heat wave, and climate change. Particular attention will be paid to environmental racism and the often understudied role of religion in environmental justice theory and practice. Throughout the course we will explore how normative commitments are expressed in different types of literature as well as the basis for normative judgments and the types of authorities authors utilize and claim as they consider environmental justice.

In this architecture studio course, you will learn and practice a range of architectural skills, using as a starting point the library as an institution, and in particular the range of libraries in and around Chicago. You will look at, sketch, and work within libraries across the campus and city, and think about the role the library plays in our time. Studio projects will focus on the library as a locus for learning, a public space, an organizational system, a set of social services, and an architectural opportunity. After a series of short design exercises, you will work in groups to design a proposal for a new library for Chicago, on a real site that you choose. The bulk of your time will be spent on these studio projects, but there will also be reading and conversation. Materials for drawing and making will be provided. While this class does not require prior experience, all ARCH studio courses require consent. Starting November 18, please visit arthistory.uchicago.edu/archconsent to request instructor consent for this class or other ARCH studios. (Please do not send consent requests by email.)