Graduate Courses

Fall 2026

ENL 248: Ruins of Empire

CRN: 48383
Location: Seminar Voorhies Hall 308
Time: T,R  4:10-6:00 PM
Instructor: Nicolazzo, S.

This seminar takes as its point of departure eighteenth-century British writers’ well-known fascination with ruins: as aesthetic objects, as signs of cultural capital for those who could undertake the “Grand Tour,” as emblems of imperial power, and as warnings of imperial decline. From texts like John Dyer’s “The Ruins of Rome” to Anna Laetitia Barbauld’s “Eighteen Hundred and Eleven” and Volney’s Ruins of Empires, many of the texts we’ll read literally portray ruins in these terms. But this seminar also asks more broadly: what constitutes a “ruin” as an aesthetic, as a theory of history, as a material relation to time, or as a form? What material remnants attain meaning as “ruins,” both in the eighteenth century and for us as contemporary readers? Can a person be a ruin? A book? A nation? A shipwreck? A climate? Why were the ruins of past empires so profoundly important to British imperial ideology in the eighteenth century? How might “ruin” or “ruination” work as categories of critical analysis in our approaches to imperial pasts from our own ruinous imperial present? Topics will include the place of ancient history and deep time in eighteenth-century theories of empire, the place of ruins and ruination in postcolonial theory and approaches to colonial literature, the racial and imperial politics of classical reception, geology, antiquarianism, historiography, and materialisms old and new. 

Oil painting of two robed youths pointing, horsemen, palm tree and archway

Gavin Hamilton, James Dawkins and Robert Wood Discovering the Ruins of Palmyra (1758), oil on canvas. National Gallery of Scotland. 

REL 200A Historical Roots of the Study of Religion

Section 001 (CRN: 44830)
Time: W,  2:10-5:00 PM
Instructor: Dhanani, Lynna

In this graduate seminar, we examine how “religion” emerges as distinct category of analysis and understanding by looking at its relationship with the intertwined categories of alchemy, medicine, and science from pre-modernity through the Reformation, Scientific Revolution, Enlightenment, and modern period. Drawing on primary sources—including theological, alchemical, yogic, scientific, medical, and theosophical texts—from European, Islamic, and Indian contexts, we trace the shifting boundaries and epistemologies between religion, science, and medicine as we explore views of the material world, body, and self in these texts and contexts.

Engraving of a robed alchemist at a steaming alembic with course text and UC Davis logo

Spring 2026

REL 230B/COM 210A Religion & Translation; Religion in Translation

Section 001 (CRN: 54353/54437)
Time: R,  2:10-5:00 PM
Instructor: Venkatesan, Archana

Colorful graphic featuring course details with an illustration of people in traditional attire.

Required Books

·       Ronit Ricci. Islam Translated: Literature, Conversion, and the Arabic Cosmopolis of South and Southeast Asia
·       Shankar Nair. Translating Wisdom: Hindu-Muslim Intellectual Interactions in Early Modern South Asia. Berkeley: UC Press, 2020.
·       Elaine Fisher. The Meeting of Rivers: Translating Religion in Early Modern India. New York: Oxford University Press, 2026.
·       Anna Schultz. Echoes of Translation: Audibility and Relationality in Bene Israel Women’s Song, 2026.

·       Hephzibah Israel. Religious Transactions in Colonial South India: Language, Translation, and the Making of Protestant Identity. Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.

In addition, we will read several articles and will have several guest speakers-Prof. Frank Clooney (Harvard University), Prof. Elaine Fisher (Stanford University), Prof. Anna Schultz (University of Chicago) and Prof. Shankar Nair (University of Virginia)

Winter 2026

HIS 201S Science and Empire, 1500-1900

Section 001 (CRN: 40513)
Location: SSH 4202
Time: T,  3:10-6:00 PM
Instructor: Stolzenberg, Daniel

This graduate seminar surveys the intertwined histories of sciences and empires from the age of Columbus to the apogee of European colonialism at the turn of the twentieth century. Reading a combination of secondary and primary sources, we will investigate how empires shaped the development of scientific disciplines; how scientific knowledge and expertise served imperial projects; and how indigenous knowledge contributed to colonial science. The scientific dimension of European imperialism will be a major theme, including the ideological function that the idea of “modern science” played in forming European/Western identity and justifying colonialism. At the same time, we will consider recent studies of science in non-Western imperial contexts, such as the Ottoman Empire, China, and Japan. History students can count this class toward the minor in World History as well as Science and Medicine. It also counts toward the STS DE.

SPA 259 Cervantes and the Novel

Section 001 (CRN: 40672)
Location: Olson 109
Time: T,  4:10-7:00 PM
Instructor: Gutierrez-Flores, Daniela

FLYER

Fall 2025

ENL 246: Cosmocriticism and Celestial Entanglements from Copernicus to Cavendish

  • (CRN: 49380); W 12:10-3:00 PM; Seminar Voorhies Hall 396
  • Werth, T.

This course examines how historical celestial aspirations, from Copernicus to the heliocentric revolution and imagined lunar voyages, shape contemporary attitudes toward space exploration. Recent Presidential proclamations to “plant the stars and stripes on Mars” revitalize a long history of celestial imaginings within western culture. Yet conventional nationalist rhetoric seldom examines the cultural attitudes that help grow such ambitions. This study heeds medievalist Carl Phelphstead’s call for “cosmocriticsm,” to examine how attitudes toward heaven shape those on earth.  Its methodology draws upon recent schools of thought under the rubric of posthumanist theory that seeks to respond to the entangled relations of systems, bodies, and species. Its archive will be early modern literary texts, visual culture, and astronomical instruments and observatories to connect past imaginings of the heavens with modern space ethics. Participants in the seminar may have opportunities to join two related research events, a symposium on the early modern sky sponsored by the UCLA Clark Library (Feb 26) and a Newberry Library / Adler Planetarium workshop (April 26). This class will cover seminal literary texts from the 16th and 17th century historical fields lists. Spring 2025

Image from Petrus Apianus Astronomicum Caesareum [Ingolstadt: Factvm et actvm Ingolstadii in aedibvs nostris, Anno a Christo nato sesqvimillesimo qvadragesimo mense maio [1540]. Huntington Library RB 32891.

Image from Petrus Apianus Astronomicum Caesareum [Ingolstadt: Factvm et actvm Ingolstadii in aedibvs nostris, Anno a Christo nato sesqvimillesimo qvadragesimo mense maio [1540]. Huntington Library RB 32891.

PHI 290: Women and Gender in Early Modern Philosophy

What did Poulain de la Barre mean when he confidently announced that “the mind has no sex” centuries before social constructionism about gender was first articulated and defended?

Why did Gabrielle Suchon advocate for a “celibate life, freely chosen” as a way for women to achieve happiness?

A central part of Anne Conway’s theodicy is that not all divine punishment and reward occur in the afterlife but is instead doled out via a system of reincarnation. In particular, human beings who are “brute in spirit” (VI.7, p.36) are punished by being reincarnated as animals and, on the other hand, animals which act rationally are rewarded by returning to life as human beings. But why is a brutish life worth punishing and a rational life worth rewarding? And is it just to punish an agent for acting brutely by turning them into a brute, considering that this might make it harder for them to achieve a more perfect life? 

These questions are rarely discussed in seminars on early modern philosophy, in part because the story of this period as it is usually taught is full of glaring omissions, both in terms of the topics represented and the figures deemed worth including. This seminar is meant to help address some such lacunae by focusing on (1) theories of gender and gender inequality; (2) discussions by
women on the essence of the human being and its relation to the body; and, relatedly, (3) discussions by women regarding the achievability of happiness in an imperfect – and often sexist – world.

Although some acquaintance with early modern philosophy would certainly be welcome, it is not presupposed. This seminar will be accessible to any graduate student or highly motivated advanced undergraduate.

Alejandro's course

REL 200A: Historical Roots of the Study of Religion

  • (CRN: 49014); W 2:10-5:00 PM; Seminar Voorhies Hall 396
  • Dhanani, L.

In this graduate seminar, we examine how “religion” emerges as distinct category of analysis and understanding by looking at its relationship with the intertwined categories of alchemy, medicine, and science from pre-modernity through the Reformation, Scientific Revolution, Enlightenment, and modern period. Drawing on primary sources—including theological, alchemical, yogic, scientific, medical, and theosophical texts—from European, Islamic, and Indian contexts, we trace the shifting boundaries and epistemologies between religion, science, and medicine as we explore views of the material world, body, and self in these texts and contexts.

Flyer for REL 200A

Spring 2025

PHI 290: History of Philosophy

Leibniz: Existence, Necessity, and Substance
 
Why is there something, rather than nothing? What explains why some things exist, and some do not? Why are some things possible and some impossible?
 
Leibniz has answers. This world exists because it was created by God. In fact, He created the best of possible worlds. The things that exist are exactly those that occupy this perfect world; the things that are possible are those God considers while making the Decision.
 
In this seminar, we’ll make sense of these answers and, more generally, we’ll study Leibniz’s work on metaphysics with a focus on his theory of modality (including the notions of existence, contingency, and necessity) and his theory of bodies (including the notions of substance, monad, and idealism).
 
Other topics include: metaphysical principles (such as that of sufficient reason, non-contradiction, and the identity of indiscernibles), extension and material composition, Leibniz’s arguments against necessitarianism, and the problem of evil.

Winter 2025

Classics (CLA) 200A: Approaches to the Classical Past 

French (FRE) 207A: 18th-Century Literature: Philosophies - "Decadence and the Memoir"

  • (CRN: 41461); T 2:10-5; Olson 144

  • André Naffis-Sahely

    Course Description: This course will consider one of the world’s longest and most controversial autobiographies, Giacomo Casanova’s Histoire de ma vie, and place the infamous Venetian conman in the context of his time, with an emphasis on eighteenth century gender politics, morality and philosophy.

History (HIS) 201Q: Cross-Cultural Women's History 

  • (CRN: 41805); W 3:10-6; SSandH 4202

  • Lisa Masterson 

    Course Description:  This year’s 201Q will examine the diverse ways that gender has shaped colonial projects, colonial subjecthood, and post-colonial nation building. Readings will cover North America, Latin America, Africa, and Asia and will explore a range of themes through comparative and transnational frameworks. These topics include knowledge and power, suffrage and citizenship, masculinity, multiracial identities, sexuality and reproduction, anticolonial revolution, and post-colonial reparations.

    Tentative Reading List

  • Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism (Verso, 1983).
  • Laura Briggs, Reproducing Empire: Race, Sex, Science, and U.S. Imperialism in Puerto Rico (UC, 2003).
  • Antoinette Burton, Burdens of History: British Feminists, Indian Women, and Imperial Culture, 1865-1915. (UNC, 1994).
  • Tanya Harmer, Beatriz Allende: A Revolutionary Life in Cold War Latin America (UNC, 2020).
  • Rachel Jean-Baptiste, Multiracial Identities in Colonial French Africa: Race, Childhood, and Citizenship (Cambridge, 2022).
  • Adria L. Imada Aloha America: Hula Circuits through the U.S. Empire (Duke, 2012).
  • Edward Said, Orientalism (Verso, 1978)
  • Tiffany A. Sippial, Celia Sánchez Manduley: The Life and Legacy of a Cuban Revolutionary (UNC, 2003).
  • Elizabeth Thompson, Colonial Citizens: Republican Rights, Paternal Privilege, and Gender in French Syria and Lebanon (Columbia, 2000).
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Philosophy (PHI) 290: History of Philosophy