Fall 2021
Approved
Textiles in Context: Byzantine Textiles from Late Antique Egypt
This cluster provides a multidisciplinary approach to the technical analysis and historical interpretation of early Byzantine textiles from Egypt. Students will undertake hands-on technical analysis of materials and engage with historical production techniques. Students will learn how to relate technical evidence to questions of early Byzantine textiles' function, social meaning, and public display in both the late antique and contemporary periods. This cluster introduces students to the shifting uses of these objects in early Byzantine life and death as well as the changing ways in which scholars have interpreted and displayed these objects over time. Equipped with this background, students will produce original research on previously unpublished early Byzantine textiles in the Jefferson University (Philadelphia) Textile and Costume Collection and will have the opportunity to contribute to that institution’s publicly accessible online collection catalog. Students will also present their knowledge and interpretations through public presentations to the Bryn Mawr College community.
Courses:
- CHEM 208: Analysis of Art: Early Byzantine Textiles (Weldon, Special Collections)
- HART 218: Byzantine Textiles in Life, Death, and Afterlife (Walker, History of Art)
360 Course Units: 2 units
Field Component: Hands-on textile analysis and production, multi-day field trip to regional museums (tentative), contribution to digital, public facing collection catalog
Special Programming: Guest speakers
Prerequisites: none
Open/Closed: CHEM 208 available to 360 students only, HART 218 available to non-360 students
Academic Year 2021-2022
Approved
Decolonizing Knowledges
This cluster uses the lenses of physics, sociology, and literary studies to critically and comparatively examine the ways we imagine and reimagine the worlds in which we live, from the cosmos to social structures and from cultural to personal experiences. It exposes students to the ways in which our social locations inform our world-views as well as our disciplinary perspectives and methodologies. We will probe western and Indigenous cosmologies, normative and alternative gender and sexuality structures, and imperial and decolonial racial systems. 360 participants will explore various ways knowledge can be decolonized in the academic context, including how knowledge development can be treated as an active and collaborative process.
Courses:
- Fall 2021:
- PHYS 121: Modern Physics (Kate Daniel, Physics)
- NOTE: Students who have previously completed PHYS 121 may enroll in PHYS 40X: Decolonizing Physics, which will be taught concurrently
- PHYS 121: Modern Physics (Kate Daniel, Physics)
- Spring 2022:
360 Course Units: 3 units
Field Component: 10-day field study on Hawai’i, Lāna’i, and O’ahu islands (tentatively scheduled March 3-12, 2022)
Special Programming: guest lecture series, film series, star-gazing field trips
Prerequisites: MATH 101 is co-requisite for PHYS 121
Open/Closed: PHYS 121 is open to non-360 students; SOCL 258 and ENGL 277 are available to 360 students only
Spring 2022
Approved
Eurasia in the Anthropocene
This cluster focuses on the unique cultural, linguistic, and environmental ties between Russia and its southern neighbors (Ukraine OR Georgia, and Kazakhstan) and differences/similarities between Eurasian and North American views of nature. Spanning two continents, Russia has long occupied a delicate position between the East and West, for both values of the East and the West have profoundly shaped the country’s history, culture, economy, foreign policy, and environment. Ukraine, Georgia, and Kazakhstan, meanwhile, have seen their relations with their vast neighbor to the north fluctuate along with the ebb and flow of political events (the collapse of the Soviet Union, annexation of the Crimea peninsula, wars in Eastern Ukraine and in Georgia) and with the increasing number of technogenic disasters in the region (such as the nuclear reactor meltdown in Chernobyl, Ukraine; shrinking of the Aral sea in Kazakhstan during a disastrous Soviet irrigation project; or the diesel spill near Norilsk, Russia, in 2020). Our 360 will therefore probe the cultural, linguistic, and environmental intersections between Russia, Ukraine/Georgia, and Kazakhstan and consider how they compare to the view of nature in the US. The Russian language, once used in all of these places, is still considered lingua franca in the majority of these territories, despite various political issues standing in the way of cultural understanding.
Courses:
- BIOL 225: Biology and the Ecology of Plants (Sydne Record, Biology)
- RUSS 227: Eurasia, its Ecology, and the Anthropocene: Cultural and Historical Perspectives (José Vergara, Russian)
- RUSS 106: Intensive Survival Russian (Irina Walsh, Russian)
360 Course Units: 3 units
Field Component: 10-day field study in Ukraine/Georgia and Kazakhstan (tentatively scheduled March 3-12, 2022)
Special Programming: local field trips
Prerequisites: none
Approaches Met: CI, CC, SI
Open/Closed: all courses open to non-360 students
Special Note: Students with Russian language experience will enroll in a language course at the appropriate level, rather than Intensive Survival Russian
Approved
Europe from the Margins
Established narratives of Europe tend to be Western European and focused on high politics. This cluster changes the focus from structures to stories, using an interdisciplinary approach (incorporating political science, history, and German studies) to critically examine Europe’s past and present from the margins. What does Europe look like from the perspectives of those whose voices are usually missing from mainstream narratives – the disempowered, queers, migrant laborers, artists, refugees, and people from Europe’s eastern and southern peripheries? By inserting and foregrounding perspectives of the historically marginalized along with an examination of their theoretical, cultural, and political contributions to European society, this 360 aims to provide critical analytical tools to not only foster greater understanding of the broader context of modern Europe but to rethink what Europe itself is.
The field trip to Berlin will provide an opportunity to examine historical legacies as well as current cultural politics and grassroots initiatives of the marginalized.
Courses:
- GERM 217: Representing Diversity in German Cinema (Qinna Shen, German)
- HIST 238: “From Bordellos to Cybersex” – The History of Sexuality in Modern Europe (Anita Kurimay, History)
- POLS 205: European Politics: Coming Together or Falling Apart? (Carol Hager, Political Science)
360 Course Units: 3 units
Field Component: 10-day field study in Berlin, Germany (tentatively scheduled March 3-12, 2022)
Special Programming: Guest speakers, film series, group lunches
Prerequisites: none
Approaches Met: CI, CC, IP
Open/Closed: HIST 238 and POLS 205 available to non-360 students; GERM 217 available to 360 students only
Approved
Nicaragua: Places and Names
This cluster focuses on the rich geologic and linguistic history and present of Nicaragua to explore the ongoing interconnectedness between landscape and language. Central to this cluster is the theme that a place must be explored through a variety of lenses to be more fully understood. In geology, the places of Central America are often discussed because of the active tectonism that affects that region but rarely cover how geology and people intersect to produce the full history of a place. Likewise, the languages spoken in Nicaragua and those used to name (the places of) Nicaragua offer an additional view into the history of colonialism and empire and the ongoing power dynamics resulting from this.
Courses:
- GEOL 350: Geology and Place: Nicaragua (Pedro Marenco, Geology)
- LING 105: Language and Place: Nicaragua (Brook Lillehaugen, Linguistics)
360 Course Units: 2 units
Field Component: 10-day field study in Granada/Ometepe, Nicaragua (tentatively scheduled March 3-12, 2022)
Special Programming: Language learning opportunities, group dinners
Prerequisites: SI requirement must have been met
Approaches Met: CC
Open/Closed: all courses available to 360 students only
