Courses

2012: Jewish Ceremonial Art in Context

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The goal of the course is to give students an understanding of the range of ceremonial art used in the practice of Judaism, and how individual works were fashioned out of a creative tension between the minimal demands of Jewish law and models in the art of surrounding cultures. Another aim is to enable a student to analyze a work visually and to connect the work to others that are similar in style and form. Students will have an opportunity to curate an exhibition based on a collection of Judaica in Middletown.

 

ARHA 212: Jewish Ceremonial Art in Context

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Jewish Ceremonial Art in Context covers the history of Judaica from its beginnings in the classical period of Antiquity until the present. The halakhic or legal requirements in Jewish law for Judaica are one context for understanding the objects; the second is their relationship to the forms and style of similar pieces of the “decorative arts” in the period of their creation.

The earliest Jewish ceremonial art dates to the period of Roman rule and the early Byzantine era that follows. There is then a gap of hundreds of years until the High Middle Ages. The 16th century was a particularly significant time in the history of Jewish ceremonial art: new forms were created that are represented both by existing works and archival testimony.

2012: Ritual, Health and Healing

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In this course, we will problematize this narrative historically, ethnographically, and methodologically. We will explore on the one hand the moral and material worlds of ritual and religious healing in a variety of settings and, on the other, the phenomenologies and politics of encounter between local systems of healing and state-sponsored medicines increasingly intent in the present moment on promoting secular and neoliberal models of global health and civil society. Topics include the intersections of illness, subjectivity, and socio-historical experience; spirit possession; shamanism; indigenous medicine; gender and healing; epistemologies of embodiment; colonialism and affliction; and alternative medicine.

In addition, through a weekly movement lab and because the body is so integral to human ritual, health, and healing, we will use physical explorations, exercises, and improvisations as an additional means of inquiry into concepts significant to the study of ritual and healing. Putting texts, con/texts, and soma in conversation, we will explore questions like: What kinds of mode of knowing are rituals? Why are bodies and embodiment so critical to healing rituals? How do rituals heal and what do they heal? What can rituals contribute to the health of individuals and communities as a political project? And how do rituals talk back to hegemonic systems?

2012: Archaeological Analysis

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On the triangle of land between Vine Street, Cross Street, and Knowles Avenue (known as the Beman Triangle), a community of African Americans began to build houses from the mid-19th century on land owned by one of their community, Leveret Beman. Although few above-ground traces now suggest the presence of this community, material about their lives survives in the record of their trash and other archaeological features that remain beneath the backyards of the houses on this land.

 

In this class we will study the archaeology of this site, in partnership with members of the wider Middletown community, particularly from the AME Zion Church. Academic material in the class will cover the archaeology of 19th-century African Americans and studies of how community archaeology projects can be formulated as an equal partnership between community stakeholders and archaeologists.

 

We will conduct two weekends of excavation at the site that will involve learning to excavate, processing archaeological materials, and how to tour visitors around the excavations. We will also work with community members to collect oral histories about the site and will hold discussions to determine local wishes in relation to how the heritage of the site should be presented and preserved. Our other angle of research will delve into local archives to supplement historical knowledge about the site and to interpret objects and features found on excavations.

Croucher Discusses Beman Triangle

 

 

ANTH 227: Middletown Materials

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Buried beneath you as you walk the streets of Middletown is the residue of former residents. Mostly consisting of fragments of ceramics, glass, and other objects, these hold the potential to begin to unlock the day-to-day history of their past owners and users.

2011: Working in Prisons

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Particular focus will be given this semester to theater programs that have been developed for prison populations, and students will have the opportunity to create collaborative performance projects in local prisons. Pedagogical principles will be based on the theater techniques of Augusto Boal. Collaboratively devised performance scripts will be adapted from classical literature (Shakespeare, Dante, ancient Greek drama, etc.).

 

 

HIST 171: Middletown History

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In most courses students read books by eminent authors and then offer their own opinions. This course is different. In this seminar students will learn about the history of Middletown, and then select one facet of that history to explore in depth. Participants will devote most of the semester to research, write an essay based on their own digging, and present their findings to others outside the seminar. In the process they will develop skills at research, writing, and oral presentation that could serve them well in future research essays, senior theses, and other projects.

Although members of the Wesleyan community may be unaware of it, many of the significant themes in America’s past can be seen during the course of Middletown’s 360-year-long history–among them encounters between the colonists and indigenous peoples, the emergence and elaboration of the slave trade, the imprisonment of Americans loyal to King George, the social and cultural transformations wrought by industrialization and immigration, trade with China, shifting relations among ethnic and religious group, labor history, business history, church history, the impact of wars on the home front, the civil right movement, the effects of urban renewal and urban sprawl, and the history of public and private schools and colleges.

Despite its history, and the documentary materials readily available at Olin and other libraries and archives, Middletown has attracted relatively little attention from historians. Consequently, students in this seminar can make a genuine contribution to deepening knowledge of this area in which they spend their college years.

PSYC 301: Community Development

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In this course, students learn about community development through readings, discussion, and direct experience. Subtopics include ecological theory, prevention, intervention, and program implementation, evaluation, and assessment. Direct experience involves working in an elementary school.

PSYC 264: Cultural Psychology

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Cultural psychology is an interdisciplinary field, where the focus is jointly on the person and culture, and how both are mutually constructed. This course will draw from cultural psychology, cultural studies, and anthropology to examine the theoretical underpinnings and empirical work of the field and will incorporate a developmental perspective. Topics will include the theoretical underpinnings of cultural psychology, the role of cultural activities in communities, how cultural change occurs, and how culture influences child rearing and adolescent development. Students will be encouraged to participate in a field placement and write a paper that incorporates their experiences with the coursework.