Survey of the sources and main features of Germanic religion and of the transition from paganism to Christianity in northern Europe and the Germanic territories of western Europe. Subjects include cosmogonic myths; the origin of man and of society; the concept of the soul; gods and goddesses and their mythology; and the organization of worship.

Selected masterpieces of continental fiction in English translation; representative novelists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Close readings of the most influential Scandinavian texts, including works by Nobel Prize-winning authors such as Knut Hamsun and Selma Lagerlof, as well as the playwrights August Strindberg and Henrik Ibsen while addressing important themes caused by the revolutionary transition to modernity in Scandinavia around 1900, including emancipation of women and sexuality.

The life and writings of Saint Birgitta of Sweden, fourteenth-century visionary, religious reformer, and pilgrim, examined and compared with her predecessor Hildegard of Bingen (Germany), her successor Margery Kempe (England), as well as Margery's mentor, Julian of Norwich. Social and historical contexts for all four of these women mystics will be explored in depth.

The historical roots of Dutch "tolerance" and how it plays a role in current Dutch culture and attitudes towards religious, gender, and sexual differences, as well as drug use, prostitution, and euthanasia. Exploration of the stereotypes and the actuality of these Dutch attitudes and policies from an international comparative perspective.

An introduction to the work of women filmmakers from Scandinavia, Germany, as well as to the viewing and interpretation of films in general.

Art, architecture, and emerging civic identity in Florence, Siena, Venice, and other Italian Renaissance city-states.

A study of graphic novels from Scandinavia, Germany, and Holland to understand the art form of comics and the influence of the cultures in which they were produced. Readings, all in English, cover various genres and time periods.

Examine popular music and its role in political struggle and collective identity formation in the Balkans. Analyze music genres in this region in the context of the historical changes it underwent in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including the fall of Communism and -- in the case of former Yugoslavia -- the formation of seven new nation-states through a series of bloody and brutal wars.

Examine French and Italian films through the lens of stardom.

Analysis of Italian television commercials in order to identify changes that have taken place at the level of language, with some attention to socio-cultural dynamics.

Study of representative texts in visual arts, film, literature, and opera, from the Renaissance to the present, in their historical context.

Examine theoretical readings and concrete examples of how translation politics, translation-induced reconstruction of literary systems, censorship, manipulation, and market dynamics affect the production, distribution, and reception of translated products in the realm of arts and entertainment, news media and politics, and various academic disciplines in the Middle East, United States, and beyond.

Examine major social and political trends, events, and debates that have informed the works of artists living and working both at the margins of Parisian society as well as in its most celebrated salons. Interpret texts as artifacts that reflect the historical, social, and cultural circumstances of the environment that inspired their creation and reflect upon their role in the cultural symbiosis between America and France.

Explore LGBTQI stories and political struggles in Eastern Europe with a focus on the region's queer culture: literature, cinema, and the arts.

Explore innovative European ideas that reshaped United States history and society: Freud and settlement houses, models for education (from Switzerland to Dewey at the University of Chicago), and the labor movement (Marx to Eugene V. Debs and Mother Jones)

Examine different ways of narrating the Chernobyl disaster and general disasters through history, environmental history, sociology, art, film, fiction, and science.

Explore the cultural renaissance between 1880 and 1925 in Northern and Central Europe, covering the period often called the Modern Breakthrough in Scandinavia, but also known as la belle epoque in France and "the gilded age" in the United States.

Explore several representative novels by German, Scandinavian, or Dutch writers, along with representative texts and essays on the novel as a genre and interpretative strategies. Examine these works in their literary and cultural contexts via lectures and discussions.

Explore a variety of texts, films, and artifacts from Northern and Central Europe for the insights they provide about the interrelationships between nature and culture and strategies for developing a sustainable relationship to the world around us.

Explore silent film and filmmaking in Germany and Scandinavia.

Explore Italian modes of resistance and their representations in a variety of media.