As undergraduate students begin registering for courses for the spring semester, there are a few new courses being offered that they will see in the Tulane University Course Catalog. From history to classical studies, new courses have been approved and set in motion.

The history department is offering three new courses — HIST 4570: Internship & Public History, HISL 4910: Monsters in History and HISA 4200: Dante’s World. 

HIST 4570 is taught by professor Jana Lipman and provides students an opportunity to have an internship with a community partner, attend regular seminars with guest speakers and go on field trips. 

HISL 4910 will be taught by professor Guadalupe Gracia and provides students with a historical framework for analyzing and understanding representations of monstrosity in Latin American culture. 

HISA 4200 will be taught by professor Thomas Luongo and explore the world Dante created in “Divine Comedy.”

“The course will combine a close reading of the comedy with exploration of important issues engaged by Dante in politics and government; religion and morality; economic theory and social order; gender and social relations; and creativity and the arts,” Brian Demare, director of undergraduate studies of the history department, said.

This semester the department of classical studies is offering a new course that is about the COVID-19 pandemic as it relates to ancient Roman times, LATN 3070: Roman Exile Literature. The description of this course is, “‪The COVID-19 pandemic has separated all of us from our “normal lives”. We need to keep physically distant from our loved ones, our classmates, our communities, for an undetermined amount of time. The phenomenon of political exile at Rome forced individuals into a similar kind of isolation, and for this class we will read their literary records and hopefully find a renewed sense of connection through the past. Readings will include Cicero’s letters, Ovid’s poetry and Seneca’s consolations.”

THEA 2810: Global Theatre and Performance will be taught by professor Ryder Thorton in the spring. Previously this class was a tier-one writing class, but has transitioned into a School of Liberal Arts tier-two writing intensive, in the spring. 

“This course surveys the origins of global theatre traditions and their legacies in modern and contemporary drama. Course materials draw from predominantly non-Western practices (those of India, Africa, China, Japan, The Caribbean and Latin America) as well as Europe and ancient Greece,” the course description says. 

The department of Jewish studies is offering two new classes in the fall as well, JWST 4811: American Jewish Economic History taught by professor Michael Cohen, and JWST 4812: Jewish Comics & Graphic Novels taught by professor Golan Moskowitz. 

Vicki Mayer, associate dean for academic initiatives and curriculum, spoke about upcoming new courses in the School of Liberal Arts.

“Africana [Studies] and Music have a series of interesting new classes on everything from the sociology of black resistance to the history of house music,” Mayer said. “Then there are courses in Theatre from Creative Markets and Online Promotion to Topics on Global Theater. We are teaching about current events in context, from the economics of pandemics, to social justice in the Bible, to the study of ‘monsters’ in history.”