Courses

The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular term. Please refer to the published schedule of classes on the MyBU Student Portal for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.

• CAS SO 837: Seminar: Sociology of Culture
  Sociology of culture in the twenty-first century. Focuses on the connection between the mind and culture. Examines the interdependence between culture, society, and individuals, and how belief, faith, knowledge, symbol, ritual, and the like both produce and are products of social organization.
• CAS SO 838: Seminar on International Migration
  Graduate Prerequisites: graduate standing. - The course will explore key themes in international migration. It will emphasize connections between current topics in immigration, and sociological theories that explain immigrant pathways, mobilities, and outcomes. Students will engage in analytical memo-writing that make these links, and write a final term paper. Throughout, the course will emphasize how the intersection of inequalities--of legal status, gender, race and class--shape immigration processes. Effective Fall 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Social Inquiry II, Research and Information Literacy.
  BU Hub Learn More

  • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
  • Research and Information Literacy
  • Social Inquiry II
• CAS SO 839: Seminar: State Building and Failure in the Developing World
  Considers the political significance of failed and fragile states in the developing world in the post-9/11 era. Students analyze historical patterns of state formation and its relevance in contemporary society.
• CAS SO 840: Seminar: Comparative Political Cultures
  Explores the "deep cultural" level behind the daily conduct of politics. A theoretical framework relying upon Tocqueville and Weber is developed and then applied to unveil the political cultures of the United States, Germany, England, Russia, China, Japan, and Mexico.
• CAS TL 500: History and Theory of Translation
  The goal of this course is to familiarize students with the history of translation and the main trends in Translation Studies. Students learn to apply concepts acquired in class to analyze and critique translations and develop their own strategies. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness, Critical Thinking.
  BU Hub Learn More

  • Aesthetic Exploration
  • Critical Thinking
  • Historical Consciousness
• CAS TL 505: Literary Style Workshop
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: Admission to the MA program in translation or permission of instructor. First Year Writing Seminar (e.g., CASWR 100 or WR 120). - Workshop cultivating awareness of and sensitivity to style, cohesiveness, and patterning in literary English. Topics range from text-type to subtle effects of rhythm and sound. Imitation practice. Emphasis on translators' process, from strategic decisions to editing. Workshop format. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Critical Thinking, Creativity/Innovation.
  BU Hub Learn More

  • Creativity/Innovation
  • Critical Thinking
  • Writing-Intensive Course
• CAS TL 540: Translation Seminar
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: Proficiency in a second language; Undergraduate Corequisite: CASTL 542. - Graduate Prerequisites: Proficiency in a second language; Graduate Corequisite: CASTL 542. - Translation seminar where students produce substantial literary translations into English from their language of choice with the guidance of the instructors and language-specific mentors. Students hone their translation skills, read, and discuss articles about practical issues of translation. Students are required to register for co-requisite CASTL 542.
• CAS TL 541: Translation Today
  Undergraduate Corequisites: (CASTL542) - Weekly lectures and discussions with prominent literary translators from Boston and elsewhere. Students engage with a variety of languages and several genres: poetry, drama, essay, fiction, and more. Focus on concrete, practical translation issues arising from the speakers' work. Students are required to register for co-requisite CAS TL 542. Effective Spring 2022, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, The Individual in Community, Creativity/Innovation.
  BU Hub Learn More

  • Creativity/Innovation
  • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
  • The Individual in Community
• CAS TL 542: Literary Translation
  Undergraduate Corequisites: (CASTL540 OR CASTL541) - Guest lecture series in literary translation. Mandatory co-requisite with CAS TL 540 and CAS TL 541. This course cannot be taken on its own.
• CAS TL 551: Topics in Translation
  May be taken multiple times for credit if topics are different. Section A1: Examines Giovanni Boccaccio’s legacy through English translations and adaptations. Questions conventional boundaries between translation and adaptation by analyzing historical translations alongside modern reinterpretations across multiple media. Students engage with Boccaccio as both translation scholars and practitioner-translators from any language. Effective Spring 2027, fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness, Critical Thinking.
  BU Hub Learn More

  • Aesthetic Exploration
  • Critical Thinking
  • Historical Consciousness
• CAS WR 698: Teaching Composition
  Presents central theoretical questions and accepted best practices in writing pedagogy, and specific principles underlying the CAS Writing Program curriculum. Required of all graduate writing fellows prior to their first semester of WR 120 teaching.
• CAS WS 501: Justice and Community Engagement
  Community engagement as it exists at the intersection of justice - social justice, criminal justice, educational justice, food justice, housing justice, restorative justice, and healing justice - will be central to this course. You will examine these through both historical and contemporary perspectives. Using writing as a tool for advocacy, activism, and change-making, you will engage with seminal texts, critical discussions, and reflective practices to examine topics including racism, gender justice, LGBTQIA rights, and other social justice movements. Voices of those doing the work of change are highlighted and invited as guests. We will investigate justice and public health issues including attention to individual, intergenerational, and systemic trauma. With an intersectional lens, we explore how social justice issues are uniquely shaped by identity characteristics (race, gender, sexuality). Collectively, the class engages diverse approaches to understanding and facilitating justice and resilience. Inclusive and trauma-informed approaches to inquiry and writing provide a foundation for community centered justice work. Designed to foster a deeper understanding of change-making, we hope to equip you with practical skills to become an effective agent of change in your community and beyond.
• CAS WS 505: Topics in Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies
  May be repeated for credit as topic changes.
• CAS WS 507: Diversity of Sex
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: senior or graduate standing, and at least one of the following courses or equivalent: CAS BI 225, BI 309, BI 315, BI 4 07, or BI 410; or consent of instructor - Examines the integrative and comparative biology of sex and sexes based on readings drawn from recent primary literature, review papers, and book chapters. Effective Fall 2023, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Oral and/or Signed Communication. Effective Fall 2025, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub area: Oral and/or Signed Communication.
  BU Hub Learn More

  • Oral and/or Signed Communication
• CAS WS 512: Sexual Violence
  This course engages the topics of sexual deviance and sexual trauma through multiple lens. These lenses include psychological, sociological, criminal justice, public health, and social justice perspectives. The course explores multiple facets of understanding sexual deviance and sexual trauma including legal and philosophical perspectives, historical activism, understanding and treatment of sexual offending, and survivor responses. The roles of multiple systems including the media, mental health organization and the criminal justice system are taken into account. This course includes ongoing group work that engages critical inquiry, addressing relevant topics in sexual trauma in practical ways. Students utilize knowledge of theory and research methodology to pursue real world responses to issues of sexual violence and trauma.
• CAS WS 525: Judith Butler
  Undergraduate prerequisites: two previous XL, WS, or PH courses; or consent of instructor. Graduate prerequisites: graduate standing. - An intensive study of Judith Butler's philosophical thought and social theory from the 1990s to the present, with an emphasis on the continuities and discontinuities between Butler's early work on gender performativity and more recent writings on racial justice, war, and violence.
• CAS WS 526: Food, Gender and Sexuality
  In Food, Gender and Sexuality, we will explore ways in which language and behaviors around food both reinforce and challenge gender hierarchies and restrictive norms around sexuality. Using frameworks developed in gender and sexuality studies, we will interrogate our contemporary foodscape through close readings of many media, including food blogs, magazines, TV shows and advertisements. The course will include reading, research, field work, discussion, and cooking to help us understand why and how food has been gendered and how the process differs across place, time, and culture.
• CAS WS 530: Global Intimacies: Sex, Gender, and Contemporary Sexualities
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: advanced undergraduate standing or graduate standing, or consent of instructor. - Explores theoretical and ethnographic approaches to gender, sex, and sexuality as linked to globalizing discourses and transnational mobilities. Readings and discussion emphasize intersections of sex, gender, labor, love, and marriage in a globalized world.
• CAS WS 542: Language, Race, and Gender
  Do women talk differently from men? How do race and ethnicity relate to the way people use language? This course examines these interrelated questions from the perspective of modern sociolinguistic theory, analyzing a range of languages and communities throughout the world.
  BU Hub Learn More

  • Social Inquiry I
  • Teamwork/Collaboration
• CAS WS 545: Seminar: Black Feminist Art and Performance
  Prerequisites: First-Year Writing Seminar (e.g., CASWR 100 or WR 120). - This course explores the work of eleven Black femme artists, coupled with theoretical and critical texts written primarily by Black femme thinkers. It is structured as a semester long reading group. Each week, students give presentations on a single artwork and facilitate discussion of the assigned readings. Over the semester, students debate what Black feminism is, and what makes a work of art or set of ideas Black feminist. Is it an identity, a method, an interpretive frame?