Courses

CITY B185 Urban Culture and Society

Fall 2025

Examines techniques and questions of the social sciences as tools for studying historical and contemporary cities. Topics include political-economic organization, conflict and social differentiation (class, ethnicity and gender), and cultural production and representation. Philadelphia features prominently in discussion, reading and exploration as do global metropolitan comparisons through papers involving fieldwork, critical reading and planning/problem solving using qualitative and quantitative methods.

Course does not meet an Approach

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Counts Toward: Anthropology; International Studies.

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CITY B190 Form of the City: Histories of the Built Environment

Spring 2026

This course studies the city as a three-dimensional artifact. A variety of factors, geography, economic and population structure, politics, planning, and aesthetics are considered as determinants of urban form.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward: Environmental Studies; History of Art.

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CITY B201 Introduction to GIS for Social and Environmental Analysis

Fall 2025, Spring 2026

This course is designed to introduce the foundations of GIS with emphasis on applications for social and environmental analysis. It deals with basic principles of GIS and its use in spatial analysis and information management. Ultimately, students will design and carry out research projects on topics of their own choosing. Prerequisite: At least sophomore standing and Quantitative Readiness are required (i.e.the quantitative readiness assessment or Quan B001).

Quantitative Readiness Required (QR)

Counts Toward: Classical & Near Eastern Arch; Data Science; Environmental Studies; Environmental Studies.

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CITY B207 Topics in Urban Studies

Section 001 (Fall 2025): Philadelphia Architecture & Urbanism

Fall 2025

This is a topics course. Course content varies.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

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CITY B218 Qualitative Methods for Urban Research

Spring 2026

This course offers a hands-on introduction to qualitative research methods for urban planning and policy analysis. Students will work on a real-world research project to develop the practical skills needed to design, conduct, and analyze original research at the complexity of a thesis-length project. The course teaches research design (crafting strong research questions and selecting appropriate methods), qualitative methods (semi-structured interviews, ethnographic observation, and document analysis), and data analysis (qualitative coding and data analysis using NVivo). Additionally, students will engage with both the philosophical foundations and real-world best practices of ethical research.

Course does not meet an Approach

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CITY B226 Introduction to Architectural Design

Fall 2025

This studio design course introduces the principles of architectural design. Suggested Preparation: drawing, some history of architecture, and permission of instructor.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

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CITY B228 Problems in Architectural Design

Spring 2026

A continuation of CITY 226 at a more advanced level. Prerequisites: CITY B226 or permission of instructor.

Course does not meet an Approach

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CITY B229 Topics in Comparative Urbanism

Spring 2026

This is a topics course. Course content varies.

Writing Intensive

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward: Anthropology; International Studies; Latin American Iberian Latinx.

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CITY B240 Cities of the Global South

Spring 2026

This course surveys the dynamic social and spatial processes that make (and constantly re-make) cities in the Global South. We examine what it means to be a city in the 'Global South' and study the commonalities that unite these spaces in a post-colonial, post-Bretton Woods world. That said, this is a course that centers diversity among cases in Latin America, the Middle East/North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia: the unique demands and interventions of people and community groups working for a better urban life, the experimental efforts of local political leaders and planners, and the ways in which particular local histories layer upon themselves to produce a world of singular urban experiences. Local film, memoir, activist non-fiction, and interviews with local planners and practitioners will supplement academic readings to provide a 'street-level' view of everyday life in global cities.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Counts Toward: International Studies; International Studies.

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CITY B248 Architectural History Research Workshop

Not offered 2025-26

This course aims to build students' mastery at working with historical documents, both visual and textual, and the rich body of scholarly writings that offer key materials for research in architectural and urban history. The course will operate as a collective workshop that will frame structured adventures in research, starting with a detailed focus on the evolution of places through time. We will work with a wide range of document types, and among our best new friends will be highly detailed old maps and historical views, from watercolors and prints to early photographs. City directories, records of ownership, census information, newspaper notices, and documents related to building construction and form will complement these to fill in key elements in emerging narratives. Such sources will also allow us to explore the agency of individuals in a variety of roles that have shaped places, and the lives framed by those building activities. Beyond focusing on specific sites to construct microhistories, we will also look for larger patterns of built form in which they participate, alongside other contingent narratives from the practices of architects to the activities of developers, well-defined building typologies, and the roots of demographic distributions. In our workshop sessions we will engage different types of evidence and analytical resources through small exercises, imagining the kinds of questions and curiosities such materials might inform, as well as inverting such inquiries, starting with the questions. Our overall model will be to delve in and then report out, in a range of ways.

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

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CITY B253 Before Modernism: Architecture and Urbanism of the 18th and 19th Centuries

Spring 2026

The course frames the topic of architecture before the impact of 20th century Modernism, with a special focus on the two prior centuries - especially the 19th - in ways that treat them on their own terms rather than as precursors of more modern technologies and forms of expression. The course will integrate urbanistic and vernacular perspectives alongside more familiar landmark exemplars. Key goals and components of the course will include attaining a facility within pertinent bibliographical and digital landscapes, formal analysis and research skills exercised in writing projects, class field-trips, and a nuanced mastery of the narratives embodied in the architecture of these centuries.

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward: History of Art.

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CITY B254 History of Modern Architecture

Fall 2025

A survey of the development of modern architecture since the 18th century.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward: History of Art.

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CITY B328 Topics in Advanced GIS

Section 001 (Spring 2026): Advanced GIS for Social and Environmental Analysis

Spring 2026

An advanced course for students with prior GIS experience involving individual projects and collaboration with faculty. Completion of GIS (City 201)

Quantitative Readiness Required (QR)

Counts Toward: Data Science.

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CITY B340 History and Design Workshop

Spring 2026

This course combines historical and theoretical research with studio and design practice in architecture. It is project based and allows students to work collaboratively on research questions relevant to built environments. This iteration tracks the form and choices shaping three successive built landscapes over five centuries - from the agricultural communities of Quakers in Wales and the Welsh Tract in Lower Merion in the 17th and 18th centuries to the commuter suburb of the 19th and 20th. The course also looks ahead from this history as a studio collectively exploring key elements of a "New Bryn Mawr" as an idealized sustainable community of 1000 residents whose design specifically addresses environmental concerns, inequality, anxiety, joblessness, and spatial fragmentation.

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CITY B350 Urban Projects: Cities Praxis

Section 001 (Spring 2026): Oral Histories of New Urbanism

Spring 2026

In this course advanced students will work with local groups around concrete projects. Class sessions will convene to discuss background readings as well as evaluation of tools and experiences.

Course does not meet an Approach

Counts Toward: Praxis Program.

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CITY B360 Topics: Urban Culture and Society

Section 001 (Fall 2025): Finance, Race and Space
Section 001 (Spring 2026): The Legal City
Section 001 (Fall 2026): Finance, Race and Space

Fall 2025, Spring 2026

This is a topics course. Course content varies.

Current topic description: This course examines the relationship between finance, race, and space. Students will draw on multiple disciplinary approaches to understand how the development of financial tools, mechanisms, political-legal arrangements, and historical patterns of accumulation shape and are shaped by racialized accumulation, displacement, and racial violence. Topics include financialization, gentrification, accumulation by dispossession, and the political economy of credit and debt. Assignments include a research paper. Counts towards Africana Studies.

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CITY B365 Topics: Techniques of the City

Section 001 (Spring 2026): New Urbanism and Its Discontents

Spring 2026

This is a topics course. Course content varies.

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CITY B377 Topics in Modern Architecture

Section 001 (Fall 2025): Queer Pedagogies

Fall 2025

This is a topics course on modern architecture. Topics vary.

Counts Toward: Environmental Studies; History of Art.

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CITY B378 Formative Landscapes: The Architecture and Planning of American Collegiate Campuses

Fall 2025

The campus and buildings familiar to us here at the College reflect a long and rich design conversation regarding communicative form, architectural innovation, and orchestrated planning. This course will explore that conversation through varied examples, key models, and shaping conceptions over time.

Counts Toward: History of Art.

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CITY B398 Senior Seminar

An intensive research seminar designed to guide students in writing a senior thesis.

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CITY B399 Senior Thesis

Students can write a senior thesis written as an independent study in the spring under extraordinary circumstances and with special permission.

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CITY B403 Independent Study

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CITY B415 Teaching Assistant

An exploration of course planning, pedagogy and creative thinking as students work to help others understand pathways they have already explored in introductory and writing classes. This opportunity is available only to advanced students of highest standing by professorial invitation.

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CITY B420 Praxis Fieldwork Seminar

Section 001 (Fall 2025): Seeking Spatial Justice

Note: Students are eligible to take up to two Praxis Fieldwork Seminars or Praxis Independent Studies during their time at Bryn Mawr.

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AFST B101 Black Matters: Introduction to Black Studies

Fall 2025

This interdisciplinary course situates the study of Black lives, known interchangeably as African American Studies, Black Studies, Africana Studies, or African Diaspora Studies, within the context of ongoing struggles against anti-Black racism. We will explore the founding principles and purposes of the field, the evolution of its imperatives, its key debates, and the lives and missions of its progenitors and practitioners. In doing so we will survey, broadly and deeply, the diverse historical, political, social, cultural, religious/spiritual, and economic experiences and expressions of the African Diaspora in the Americas and beyond.

Writing Intensive

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Counts Toward: Africana Studies; Gender Sexuality Studies; Growth and Structure of Cities; Latin American Iberian Latinx.

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AFST B125 Introduction to Black Geographies

Spring 2026

This course interrogates the relationship between Blackness and the social production (and imagining) of space and place across the Americas. Drawing on geography, history, ethnography, and other disciplines in the humanities, we will examine the tensions and possibilities that emerge when Black people are rendered "ungeographic" (McKittrick 2006) as a fundamental component of colonial-racial capitalism. We explore how Blackness across the diaspora is shaped by anti-Blackness but also by a continuous tradition of creating spaces of freedom.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Counts Toward: Growth and Structure of Cities.

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AFST B204 #BlackLivesMatterEverywhere

Spring 2026

#BlackLivesMatterEverywhere: Ethnographies & Theories on the African Diaspora is a interdisciplinary course closely examines political, cultural, intellectual, and spiritual mobilizations for Black Lives on local, global and hemispheric levels. We will engage an array of materials ranging from literature, history, oral histories, folklore, dance, music, popular culture, social media, ethnography, and film/documentaries. By centering the political and intellectual labor of Black women and LGBTQ folks at the forefront of the movements for Black Lives, we unapologetically excavate how #BlackLivesMatterEverywhere has a long and rich genealogy in the African diaspora. Lastly, students will be immersed in Black queer feminist theorizations on diaspora, political movements, and the multiplicities of Blackness.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Counts Toward: Africana Studies; Anthropology; General Studies; Growth and Structure of Cities; Latin American Iberian Latinx; Museum Studies.

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ANTH B223 The Global Middle East: Colonialism, Oil, the War on Terror

Spring 2026

A central premise of this course is that European colonial intervention in the Middle East did not just impact the Middle East, but mobilized social, material, and ideological projects which fundamentally transformed Europe itself, producing the modern "West" and the contemporary globe. Challenging tendencies to think of the Middle East as distant and different, students will explore the ways that Euro-American intervention in the Middle East shapes our everyday lives in the contemporary U.S. We will explore how the economy, culture, identity, and social organization of contemporary life in Europe and the U.S. builds off of, and is dependent upon, this history of intervention. We will conclude with an examination of global solidarity movements, with a focus on Black American activists' solidarity work in the Arab world, to ask how this global interconnection makes the Middle East an important site for building and imagining a more just world.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Counts Toward: Growth and Structure of Cities; M Eastern/C Asian/N African St; Middel Eastern Central Asian; Middle Eastern Central Asian.

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ANTH B259 The Creation of Early Complex Societies

Fall 2025

In the last 10,000 years, humans around the world have transitioned from organizing themselves through small, egalitarian social networks to living within large and socially complex societies. This archaeology course takes an anthropological perspective to seek to understand the ways that human groups created these complex societies. We will explore the archaeological evidence for the development of complexity in the past, including the development of villages and early cities, the institutionalization of social and political-economic inequalities, and the rise of states and empires. Alongside discussion of current theoretical ideas about complexity, the course will compare and contrast the evolutionary trajectories of complex societies in different world regions. Case studies will emphasize the pre-Columbian histories of complex societies in the Americas as well as some of the early complex societies of the Old World.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward: Growth and Structure of Cities.

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ANTH B354 Political Economy, Gender, Ethnicity and Transformation in Vietnam

Not offered 2025-26

Today, Vietnam is in the midst of dramatic social, economic and political changes brought about through a shift from a central economy to a market/capitalist economy since the late 1980s. These changes have resulted in urbanization, a rise in consumption, changes in land use, movement of people, environmental consequences of economic development, and shifts in social and economic relationships and cultural practices as the country has moved from low income to middle income status. This course examines culture and society in Vietnam focusing largely on contemporary Vietnam, but with a view to continuities and historical precedent in past centuries. In this course, we will draw on anthropological studies of Vietnam, as well as literature and historical studies. Relationships between the individual, family, gender, ethnicity, community, land, and state will pervade the topics addressed in the course, as will the importance of political economy, nation, and globalization. In addition to class seminar discussions, students will view documentary and fictional films about Vietnamese culture. Prerequisite: Sophomore standing or higher or first years with ANTH 102.

Writing Attentive

Counts Toward: Environmental Studies; Gender Sexuality Studies; Growth and Structure of Cities; International Studies; International Studies.

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ARCH B252 Pompeii

Not offered 2025-26

Introduces students to a nearly intact archaeological site whose destruction by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 C.E. was recorded by contemporaries. The discovery of Pompeii in the mid-1700s had an enormous impact on 18th- and 19th-century views of the Roman past as well as styles and preferences of the modern era. Informs students in classical antiquity, urban life, city structure, residential architecture, home decoration and furnishing, wall painting, minor arts and craft and mercantile activities within a Roman city.

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward: Classical Languages; Classical Studies; Classics; Growth and Structure of Cities; History of Art; Museum Studies.

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ECON B208 Labor Economics

Spring 2026

Analysis of labor markets. Focuses on the economic forces and public policies that determine wage rates and unemployment. Specific topics include: human capital, family decision marking, discrimination, immigration, technological change, compensating differentials, and signaling. Prerequisite: ECON B105.

Course does not meet an Approach

Counts Toward: Growth and Structure of Cities.

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ECON B213 Industrial organization and Antitrust

Spring 2026

Introduction to the economics of industrial organization and regulation, focusing on policy options for ensuring that corporations enhance economic welfare and the quality of life. Topics include firm behavior in imperfectly competitive markets; theoretical bases of antitrust laws; regulation of product and occupational safety, environmental pollution, and truth in advertising. Prerequisite: ECON B105.

Course does not meet an Approach

Counts Toward: Growth and Structure of Cities.

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ECON B225 Economic Development

Fall 2025

Examination of the issues related to and the policies designed to promote economic development in the developing economies of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. Focus is on why some developing economies grow faster than others and why some growth paths are more equitable, poverty reducing, and environmentally sustainable than others. Includes consideration of the impact of international trade and investment policy, macroeconomic policies (exchange rate, monetary and fiscal policy) and sector policies (industry, agriculture, education, population, and environment) on development outcomes in a wide range of political and institutional contexts. Prerequisite: ECON B105.

Course does not meet an Approach

Counts Toward: Environmental Studies; Growth and Structure of Cities; International Studies; International Studies.

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ECON B236 Introduction to International Economics

Fall 2025, Spring 2026

An introduction to international economics through theory, policy issues, and problems. The course surveys international trade and finance, as well as topics in international economics. It investigates why and what a nation trades, the consequences of such trade, globalized production, the role of trade policy, the economics of immigration, the behavior and effects of exchange rates, and the macroeconomic implications of trade and capital flows.Prerequisites: ECON B105. The course is not open to students who have taken ECON B316 or B348.

Counts Toward: Growth and Structure of Cities; International Studies; International Studies.

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ECON B314 The Economics of Social Policy

Fall 2025

Introduces students to the economic rationale behind U.S. government programs and the evaluation of U.S. social policies. Topics include minimum wage, unemployment, safety net programs, education, health insurance, and climate change. Additionally, the instructor and students will jointly select topics of special interest to the class. Emphasis will be placed on the use of statistics to evaluate social policy. Writing intensive. Prerequisites: ECON B200 and (ECON B253 or ECON B304)

Writing Intensive

Counts Toward: Growth and Structure of Cities.

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ENGL B364 Slum Fiction: From Dickens to The Wire

Fall 2025

David Simon's acclaimed television show The Wire has repeatedly been related to the Victorian novel. This course links Victorian London and 20th-century Baltimore by studying: literary relations between Dickens and Poe; slum writing; the rise of the state institution; a genealogy of serial fiction from the nineteenth century novel to television drama.

Counts Toward: Growth and Structure of Cities.

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ENVS B202 Environment and Society

Fall 2025, Spring 2026

An exploration of the ways in which different cultural, economic, and political settings have shaped issue emergence and policy making. We examine the politics of particular environmental issues in selected countries and regions, paying special attention to the impact of environmental movements. We also assess the prospects for international cooperation in addressing global environmental problems such as climate change.

Writing Attentive

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Counts Toward: Environmental Studies; Growth and Structure of Cities; Political Science.

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GEOL B209 Natural Hazards

Spring 2026

A quantitative approach to understanding Earth processes that impact human societies. We will examine earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides, storms, and floods and explore the risks that they pose to communities. Course emphases include the fundamental physical principles and processes that govern natural hazards, approaches to mitigating the effects of natural disasters and responding in their aftermath, and examples of natural disasters from the recent and historical past. Lecture three hours a week.

Quantitative Methods (QM)

Quantitative Readiness Required (QR)

Scientific Investigation (SI)

Counts Toward: Environmental Studies; Environmental Studies; Growth and Structure of Cities.

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GERM B217 Representing Diversity in German Cinema

Spring 2026

German society has undergone drastic changes as a result of immigration. Traditional notions of Germanness have been and are still being challenged and subverted. This course uses films and visual media to examine the experiences of various minority groups living in Germany. Students will learn about the history of immigration of different ethnic groups, including Turkish Germans, Afro-Germans, Asian Germans, Arab Germans, German Jews, and ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe. We will explore discourses on migration, racism, xenophobia, integration, and citizenship. We will seek to understand not only the historical and contemporary contexts for these films but also their relevance for reshaping German society. Students will be introduced to modern German cinema from the silent era to the present. They will acquire terminology and methods for reading films as fictional and aesthetic representations of history and politics, and analyze identity construction in the worlds of the real and the reel. This course is taught in English. Additional hour taught in German for German credit.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Counts Toward: Film Studies; Gender Sexuality Studies; Growth and Structure of Cities.

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GERM B245 Interdisciplinary Approaches to German Literature and Culture

Not offered 2025-26

This is a topics course. Taught in German. Course content varies. Previous topics include, Women's Narratives on Modern Migrancy, Exile, and Diasporas; Nation and Identity in Post-War Austria.

Writing Attentive

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Counts Toward: Comparative Literature; Gender Sexuality Studies; Growth and Structure of Cities.

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GNST B245 Introduction to Latin American, Iberian and Latina/o Studies

Spring 2026

A broad, interdisciplinary survey of themes uniting and dividing societies from the Iberian Peninsula to the Americas. The class introduces the methods and interests of all departments in the concentration, posing problems of cultural continuity and change, globalization and struggles within dynamic histories, political economies, and creative expressions. Course is taught in English.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Counts Toward: Africana Studies; Growth and Structure of Cities; International Studies; International Studies; Latin American Iberian Latinx; Spanish.

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HART B310 Topics in Medieval Art

Section 001 (Fall 2025): Kings, Caliphs, and Emperors: Images of Authority
Section 001 (Fall 2026): Kings, Caliphs, and Emperors: Images of Authority

Fall 2025

This is a topics course. Course content varies. Prerequisite: one course in History of Art at the 100- or 200-level or permission of the instructor. Enrollment preference given to majors and minors in History of Art.

Current topic description: This course casts a critical eye on the question of how Byzantine art and architecture have been represented in surveys of art history, medieval art, and Byzantine art. In addition to reading survey texts themselves, students will consider scholarship that analyzes and critiques the representation of Byzantine art in these books and in the fields of art history and archaeology more broadly. The course provides a historiographic overview of Byzantine art history and addresses questions of canon formation, the relationship of textbooks to current scholarship, and the role of museums and exhibitions in the interpretation and public presentation of Byzantine art.

Course does not meet an Approach

Counts Toward: Growth and Structure of Cities; History.

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HART B370 Topics in History & Theory of Photography

Section 001 (Spring 2026): Race & Identity in the Photographic Archive

Spring 2026

This is a topics course. Course content varies. Prerequisite: one course in History of Art at the 100- or 200-level or permission of the instructor. Enrollment preference given to majors and minors in History of Art. This course was formerly numbered HART B308.

Course does not meet an Approach

Counts Toward: Growth and Structure of Cities.

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HART B375 Topics in Contemporary Art

Section 001 (Spring 2026): Visual Culture & the Holocaust

Spring 2026

This is a topics course. Course content varies. Prerequisite: one course in History of Art at the 100- or 200-level or permission of the instructor. Enrollment preference given to majors and minors in History of Art. This course was formerly numbered HART B380.

Course does not meet an Approach

Counts Toward: Growth and Structure of Cities.

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HIST B237 Themes in Modern African History

Section 001 (Spring 2026): Public History in Africa
Section 001 (Fall 2026): Public History in Africa

Spring 2026

This is a topics course. Course content varies

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward: Africana Studies; Gender Sexuality Studies; Growth and Structure of Cities; International Studies; International Studies; Museum Studies.

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HIST B257 British Empire I: Capitalism and Slavery

Fall 2025

Focusing on the Atlantic slave trade and the slave plantation mode of production, this course explores English colonization, and the emergence and the decline of British Empire in the Americas and Caribbean from the 17th through the late 20th centuries. It tracks some of the intersecting and overlapping routes-and roots-connecting histories and politics within and between these "new" world locations. It also tracks the further and proliferating links between developments in these regions and the histories and politics of regions in the "old" world, from the north Atlantic to the South China sea.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward: Growth and Structure of Cities; International Studies; International Studies.

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HIST B319 Topics in Modern European History

Section 001 (Spring 2026): Growing Up in Communism

Spring 2026

This is a topics course. Course content varies.

Counts Toward: Growth and Structure of Cities; International Studies; International Studies.

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ITAL B240 Philadelphia the Global City: The Italian Legacy across Time

Fall 2025

This course investigates the history and evolution of Philadelphia as a globalized and multi-ethnic city, using as a case study for this analysis the impact and legacy of transnational Italian culture across the centuries. By adopting a cross-cultural, trans-historical, and interdisciplinary approach, the course explores the influence that - along with and in intersection with many other cultural inputs - also Italian arts and cultures have exerted on the city, making it become the cosmopolitan and transnational urban environment that it is today. Throughout the centuries and way before Italy even started existing as a state, Philadelphians traveled to the peninsula and brought back objects to display in emerging cultural institutions or studied the country's art and architecture styles to shape the evolving aspect of the city. Simultaneously, incoming immigration formed new neighborhoods - such as South Philly, home to the Italian Market - and Italian figures came to prominence and became part of the social fabric of the city. Nowadays, many non-profit organizations work to preserve the traces that Italian migrants left within Philadelphia's multi-ethnic urban environment as well as to extend the city's global profile and celebrate its heritage and diversity. Through specific field trips, on-site experiential activities, and forms of civic engagement this course highlights both the enduring fascination of Philadelphians with Italy (or with the idea thereof) across the centuries and the role that the Italian Diaspora played in the development of the city. The course ultimately challenges geographical, chronological, and cultural boundaries by showing how places, arts, identities that today are perceived as 'American' have in most cases an intersectional, multi-ethnic, and cross-cultural history to tell. This course will be taught in Philadelphia as part of the Tri-Co Philly Program. All readings and class discussion will be in English, and no knowledge of Italian is required. Students seeking Italian credits will complete their assignments in the target language.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Counts Toward: Growth and Structure of Cities; History; History of Art; Museum Studies; Praxis Program.

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MEST B210 The Art and Architecture of Islamic Spirituality

Spring 2026

This course examines how Muslim societies across time and space have used art and architecture in different ways to express and understand inner dimensions of spirituality and mysticism. Topics to be studied include: the calligraphical remnants of the early Islamic period; inscriptions found on buildings and gravestones; the majestic architecture of mosques, shrines, seminaries, and Sufi lodges; the brilliant arts of the book; the commemorative iconography and passion plays of Ashura devotion; the souvenir culture of modern shrine visitation; and the modern art of twenty-first century Sufism. Readings include works from history, religious studies, anthropology, sociology, and the history of art and architecture.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Counts Toward: Growth and Structure of Cities; History; History of Art; International Studies; Visual Studies.

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POLS B256 Global Politics of Climate Change

Fall 2025

This course will introduce students to important political issues raised by climate change locally, nationally, and internationally, paying particular attention to the global implications of actions at the national and subnational levels. It will focus not only on specific problems, but also on solutions; students will learn about some of the technological and policy innovations that are being developed worldwide in response to the challenges of climate change. Only open to students in 360 program.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Counts Toward: Environmental Studies; Environmental Studies; Growth and Structure of Cities.

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POLS B279 City and Immigration

Fall 2025

This course explores how immigration has shaped the social, economic, and political development of American cities. We will examine urban governance, racial and ethnic politics, and the formation of immigrant communities through foundational theories and contemporary case studies. Students will engage with frameworks such as political machines (Erie, Banfield & Wilson), urban regime (Stone), urban growth regimes (Logan & Molotch), and political incorporation (Browning, Marshall, and Tabb), applying them to modern-day issues like sanctuary cities, gentrification, labor resistance, and coalition politics. Particular attention will be paid to Philadelphia-a city shaped by waves of migration, industrial transformation, and immigrant-led activism. American cities have always been built at the crossroads of aspiration and exclusion. From the German and Irish wards of 19th-century Philadelphia to Korean grocery stores in post-uprising Los Angeles, immigrant communities have created, contested, and redefined the urban experience. Yet these same communities have often been scapegoated, surveilled, or displaced by freeways, by finance, by reformers in the name of progress. This course invites students to trace these contradictions through the lens of gender, race, and class, from Chinese homecare workers in New York City to Puerto Rican migrants in Philadelphia to the immigrants resisting displacement today. We will read theory, walk the streets of Chinatown, and ask: who builds the city-and who is it for?

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Counts Toward: Growth and Structure of Cities.

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SOCL B200 Urban Sociology

Fall 2025

How do social forces shape the places we live? What makes a place urban? What is a suburb and why do we have them? What's environmental racism? Why are cities in the US still highly racially segregated? We will take on these questions and more in this introduction to urban sociology. Classic and contemporary urban social theories will inform our investigations of empirical research on pressing urban issues such as housing segregation, the environment, suburbanization, transportation and inequality. The course has a special focus on the social, economic and political forces that shape in urban space in ways that perpetuate inequality for African Americans.

Course does not meet an Approach

Counts Toward: Africana Studies; Growth and Structure of Cities.

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SOCL B232 A Sociological Journey to Immigrant Communities in Philly

Spring 2026

This course will use the lenses of sociology to critically and comparatively examine various immigrant communities living in greater Philadelphia. It will expose students to the complex historical, economic, political, and social factors influencing (im)migration, as well as how migrants and the children of immigrants develop their sense of belonging and their homemaking practices in the new host society. In this course, we will probe questions of belonging, identity, homemaking, citizenship, transnationalism, and ethnic entrepreneurship and how individuals, families, and communities are transformed locally and across borders through the process of migration. This course also seeks to interrogate how once in a new country, immigrant communities not only develop a sense of belonging but also how they reconfigure their own identities while they transform the social, physical, and cultural milieus of their new communities of arrival. To achieve these ends, this course will engage in a multidisciplinary approach consisting of materials drawn from such disciplines as cultural studies, anthropology, history, migration studies, and sociology to examine distinct immigrant communities that have arrived in Philadelphia over the past 100 years. Although this course will also cover the histories of migrant communities arriving in the area in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a greater part of the course will focus on recent migrant communities, mainly from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean and arriving in the area of South Philadelphia. A special focus will be on the Mexican American migrant community that stands out among those newly arrived migrant communities.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Counts Toward: Child and Family Studies; Growth and Structure of Cities; Latin American Iberian Latinx.

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SOCL B235 Mexican-American Communities

Not offered 2025-26

For its unique history, the number of migrants, and the two countries' proximity, Mexican migration to the United States represents an exceptional case in world migration. There is no other example of migration with more than 100 years of history. The copious presence of migrants concentrated in a host country, such as we have in the case of the 11.7 million Mexican migrants residing in the United States, along with another 15 million Mexican descendants, is unparalleled. The 1,933-mile-long border shared by the two countries makes it one of the longest boundary lines in the world and, unfortunately, also one of the most dangerous frontiers in the world today. We will examine the different economic, political, social and cultural forces that have shaped this centenarian migration influx and undertake a macro-, meso-, and micro-levels of analysis. At the macro-level of political economy, we will investigate the economic interdependency that has developed between Mexico and the U.S. over different economic development periods of these countries, particularly, the role the Mexican labor force has played to boosting and sustaining both the Mexican and the American economies. At the meso-level, we will examine different institutions both in Mexico and the U.S. that have determined the ways in which millions of Mexican migrate to this country. Last, but certainly not least, we will explore the impacts that both the macro-and meso-processes have had on the micro-level by considering the imperatives, aspirations, and dreams that have prompted millions of people to leave their homes and communities behind in search of better opportunities. This major life decision of migration brings with it a series of social transformations in family and community networks, this will look into the cultural impacts in both the sending and receiving migrant communities. In sum, we will come to understand how these three levels of analysis work together.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Counts Toward: Gender Sexuality Studies; Growth and Structure of Cities; Latin American Iberian Latinx; Praxis Program.

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