Everyone loves a cheery Impressionist painting, but the style was once considered radical. This course will investigate the aesthetic innovations and social challenges surrounding Impressionism and other avant-garde art movements, from the mid nineteenth century to the early twentieth. We will examine the dangerous politics of the mid- nineteenth -century Realist school in France; the revolution in style and subject matter offered by the Impressionists; and the extension of the senses explored by the Post-Impressionists. We will also study other innovative art movements including: the British Pre-Raphaelites, who hoped to reform a world corrupted by industrialization; the cosmopolitan sensualism the Art Nouveau movement; the enigmas of the Symbolists; the anxieties of modernity explored by the German Expressionists; and the shocking early twentieth-century French colorists, known as the “wild beasts” (fauves). The course will consider not only stylistics, but also the effects of new technologies in the later nineteenth century such as the railroads, which helped spur the development of a middle-class leisure industry, as well as photography, electric light, new research in optics, and other developments, which reframed the nature of perception and representation itself. Similarly, the course will consider the fine arts in terms of social and political changes, including such issues as the waxing and waning power of state-controlled cultural authority; the roles of women as artists and as subjects of art, and the possibilities of both objectification and liberation through representation; and the relationship of Western Europe to the rest of the world, including the vogue for collecting Asian art, the symbolic power of Orientalism, depictions of racial difference, and the relation of the fine arts to Colonialism. Readings will include both primary texts from the period and critical reevaluations of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century art in recent scholarship.
Days: MO WE  12:00-01:20 PM

In 1633, Galileo was brought before the Inquisition in Rome.  He was forced to recant, his most recent publication was put on the Index of Forbidden Books, and he spent the rest of his life under house arrest.  Why was Galileo condemned?  We will answer this question by exploring the events leading up to and following Galileo's condemnation, as well as historians'' assessments of Galileo's encounters with the Inquisition.
Prerequisite: Satisfactory completion of the Lower-Division Writing requirement.


Days: MO  10:00-12:50 PM

This is a documentary history of atheism in that we chronologically trace and read primary sources over the centuries. It’s is an upper-level, once-a-week, three-hour class conducted as a seminar—with weekly conversations arising from our reading of various authors from 500 BCE to modernity. These primary writings represent only a tiny portion of a very large literature of religious skepticism in the West, a literature that (almost) no one gets exposed to in their educational career, from kindergarten through a Ph.D. (Why is that?) There is considerable weekly work to do. Weekly assignments include reading and then writing short summaries of that reading (to prove you read it) and then composing a short ‘thought essay’ about some idea of your choosing from the reading. To pass the class, you must talk in our weekly discussions, and obviously you must show up for that. You are graded weekly on your writing and speaking, with an absence resulting in the loss of speaking points for that week. There will be a cumulative test at the end of the term. The principal required textbook is  “Varieties of Unbelief from Epicurus to Sartre,” edited by J.C.A. Gaskin—available for free as a PDF, for purchase or for renting in the UCI bookstore and other online sites, and for borrowing at UCI’s Langson Library Reserves. There will be a few PDFs of other authors, and possibly a second required book called “The Quotable Atheist” by Jack Huberman. 
Same as Rel Std 103
Days: WE  03:00-05:50 PM

This class addresses the history of the Second World War within the context of its origins in Europe. The course will discuss some of the many wars that made up this global conflict, such as the civil wars between collaborators and resistance movements in Nazi-occupied Europe, the Allied bombing war that targeted civilians, the Nazi war against the European Jews. The course will highlight the moral dimensions of World War II that appeared in the daunting choices faced by both individuals and groups. We will examine the attempts, at the war's end, to administer justice and address questions of memory and of loss.
Days: TU TH  02:00-03:20 PM

Emphasis/Category: World Religions (Category 1)

This is a documentary history of atheism in that we chronologically trace and read primary sources over the centuries. It’s is an upper-level, once-a-week, three-hour class conducted as a seminar—with weekly conversations arising from our reading of various authors from 500 BCE to modernity. These primary writings represent only a tiny portion of a very large literature of religious skepticism in the West, a literature that (almost) no one gets exposed to in their educational career, from kindergarten through a Ph.D. (Why is that?) There is considerable weekly work to do. Weekly assignments include reading and then writing short summaries of that reading (to prove you read it) and then composing a short ‘thought essay’ about some idea of your choosing from the reading. To pass the class, you must talk in our weekly discussions, and obviously you must show up for that. You are graded weekly on your writing and speaking, with an absence resulting in the loss of speaking points for that week. There will be a cumulative test at the end of the term. The principal required textbook is  “Varieties of Unbelief from Epicurus to Sartre,” edited by J.C.A. Gaskin—available for free as a PDF, for purchase or for renting in the UCI bookstore and other online sites, and for borrowing at UCI’s Langson Library Reserves. There will be a few PDFs of other authors, and possibly a second required book called “The Quotable Atheist” by Jack Huberman. 
Same as HISTORY 114


Days: WE  03:00-05:50 PM

Introduction to the major authors and movements of Iberian literature and culture from the Middle Ages to the present.
Prerequisite: SPANISH 3 or SPANISH 3H or AP Spanish Literature Exam with a minimum score of 4. Placement into SPANISH 101A is also accepted.

Days: TU TH  09:30-10:50 AM