Courses
Our curriculum equips students with the foundation to pose their own questions and pursue their answers. Through four divisions and six professional schools, the University offers courses in a variety of topics spanning many fields. The following are a sample of courses that explore diverse peoples, issues, and ideas. Many more courses are offered through our degree options.
The listings below are courses that have been offered at the University of Chicago. This is not an exhaustive list, and some may not be offered in the upcoming quarter. To view all courses offered this quarter, please visit the University’s time schedules.
Divinity School
| HCHR 42901 | Christianity and Slavery in America 1619–1865 This course examines the history of Christian thought and practice in respect to slavery in the United States. |
| THEO 40801 | Theology and Cultural Studies This seminar will study models of cultural studies and cultural analyses. Students will engage different cultural analyses and develop their own cultural approach to constructing theologies. |
| AASR 50082 | Robert Bellah and the Historical-Comparative Sociology of Religion This class is a close reading of the opus magnum of the greatest living sociologist of religion, Religion in Human Evolution by Robert Bellah. |
| HCHR 48801 | The Multidisciplinary Study of American Culture This seminar surveys the rich and varied multidisciplinary study of American culture as it is currently practiced at the University of Chicago. |
| THEO 40600 | Black Theology: 2nd Generation The purpose of this course is to interrogate critically the rise of a second generation of black theologians from 1978 and to identify major theological themes. |
| BIBL 31000 | Introduction to the Hebrew Bible: Jewish Thought and Literature The course will survey the contents of all twenty-four books of the Hebrew Bible, and introduce critical questions regarding its figures, events, ideas, and relation to the larger culture of the ancient Near East. |
| ISLM 30601 | Islamic Thought and Literature This course covers the period from ca. 600 to 1100, concentrating on the career of the Prophet Muhammad; Qur’an and Hadith; the Caliphate; the development of Islamic legal, theological, philosophical, and mystical discourses; sectarian movements; and Arabic literature. |
| ISLM 45402 | Christians, Muslims, and Jews in Late Medieval Spain This course will focus on the contexts and conditions of religious pluralism in late medieval Iberia, including the period commonly associated with the collapse of that pluralism. |
| HREL 34110 | Buddhism and the West This course, focusing on East Asian Buddhism, looks at Buddhist history in China, Korea, and Japan, and the interpretation and reception of these traditions by and in “the West.” |
| HREL 40800 | Myths of Transvestism and Transsexuality Studies in selected Greek and Hindu myths, literature, opera, and film. |
| RETH 41000 | Feminist Philosophy The course is an introduction to the major varieties of philosophical feminism. |
| HCHR 45600 | African American Religion in the 20th Century: History and Historiography We explore the major interpretations of African American religions in the U.S. in the 20th century. |
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Harris School of Public Policy
| PPHA 31510 | Education Policy in an International Context This course covers policy issues related to primary and secondary education in developed, middle-development, and developing countries. It provides an overview of global and regional trends in schooling and a research-based critical assessment of major education policies and reforms as they are implemented worldwide. |
| PPHA 33901 | Matching, Efficiency, and Inequality Individuals’ choice of an employer, a spouse, or a neighborhood to live in can be described in terms of matching. Individuals aim at choosing the best possible match given their preferences. The course will explore the determinants of the efficiency of matching from the individuals’ point of view: search costs, informational barriers, etc. |
| PPHA 35110 | Economic Demography and Public Policy This course will discuss the economic and policy causes and consequences of population change. Topics will include shifting patterns of fertility and family formation, changes in longevity and disability rates, and immigration. |
| PPHA 35201 | Economics and Public Health in the Developing World This course uses the tools of applied microeconomics to explore major public health issues in the developing world. |
| PPHA 36400 | Economics and Public Health in the Developing World Epidemiology is the study of the distribution and determinants of health and disease in human populations. This course introduces the basic principles of epidemiologic study design, analysis, and interpretation. |
| PPHA 40900 | Work and Family: Policies to Promote Family Well-Being and Child Development This multidisciplinary course will draw from research in psychology, sociology, demography, and economics to examine the conditions shaping America’s working families, and the public policies that can help improve the quality of parent and child well-being in working families. |
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Division of the Humanities
| AFAM 23100 | Jazz This survey charts the history and development of jazz from its African roots to the present. |
| AFAM 25910 | Modernism, Imperialism, and Race This course looks at British and American texts from the early twentieth century in order to investigate modernism's complicity with imperialism and primitivism, as well as its potential for political critique. |
| AFAM 27320 | Emancipation and Literature By taking up a variety of writers, we examine how the struggle over how to understand and represent the emancipation of the nation's Southern black populations shaped novel writing during the late nineteenth century. |
| ARTV 24105 | Negotiable Skin This course addresses the exchange and influence between contemporary visual arts production, the media, popular culture, and the transformation of traditional social norms that program the conventions on identity. |
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Law School
| LAWS 59800 | American Law and the Rhetoric of Race This course presents an episodic study of the ways in which American law has treated legal issues involving race. Two episodes are studied in detail: the criminal law of slavery during the antebellum period and the constitutional attack on state-imposed segregation in the twentieth century. |
| LAWS 43401 | Employment Discrimination This seminar deals with the problem of discrimination in the American workplace and the federal and state statutes that have been enacted to prohibit it. |
| LAWS 90913 | Civil Rights Clinic: Police Accountability The Civil Rights and Police Accountability Project is one of the nation's leading law civil rights clinics focusing on issues of criminal justice. Through the lens of live-client work, students examine how and where litigation fits into broader efforts to improve police accountability and ultimately the criminal justice system. |
| LAWS 65013 | Immigrant Children's Advocacy Project The Immigrant Child Advocacy Project promotes the best interests—safety and well-being—of unaccompanied immigrant children in the United States. |
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Pritzker School of Medicine
| MEDC 30009 | Scholarship & Discovery: Global Public Health This course is intended to provide an overview of key issues in global public health. It will be taught as a seminar where students actively participate in case-based discussions on topics and concepts drawn from the assigned readings. |
| MEDC 30110 | Scholarship & Discovery: Community Health Participants will receive training in asset-based community development, community organizing, service-learning, advocacy, policy narrative, community-based participatory research, and other topics related to community health. |
| MEDC 60803 | The U.S. Healthcare System in Aging, Ethnically Diverse America Join us as we learn about the history and current structure of the U.S. health care system and the difficulties frail, older Americans face as they navigate this complex system. |
| ANCC 34600 | Scientific Basis of Sickle Cell Disease This course reviews biochemistry and physiology of sickle cell disease and provides the foundation for understanding therapeutic interventions. It will also include clinical presentations and current management strategies for patients who have sickle cell disease. Finally, we will discuss the social consequences of the disease and patients who live with it. |
| MEDC 31600 | Scholarship & Discovery: Global HIV Epidemiology and Community Outreach This course is designed to provide students with a detailed understanding of the epidemiology of HIV disease from an international public health perspective and then how to communicate transmission information to the community here on the South Side of Chicago. |
| MEDC 53500 | Tropical Dermatology in Malawi, Africa This month-long international elective takes place at Kamuzu Central Hospital’s Skin and Leprosy Clinic in Lilongwe, Malawi. Medical students will participate in daily clinics, gaining familiarity with tropical dermatoses, skills in clinical diagnosis, and an understanding of the challenges of initiating effective therapies in a resource-restricted setting. |
| MEDC 59511 | Religious Traditions and Medical Ethics Students will outline the moral dimensions of the practice of medicine and the great human questions that are at stake in medical decision-making. Each week, they will then learn from the texts of and a speaker from each of several particular religious traditions. The goal is to understand how those traditions inform the practice of medicine and medical decision-making, particularly in areas of ethical complexity and controversy. |
| MEDC 30700 | Social Context of Medicine This course covers topics including the effects of race and class on people’s health and on the delivery of medical care, Medicare, Medicaid, and private health insurance, managed care, challenges facing hospitals, problems with cost quality, and access to care in the United States. |
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Division of the Social Sciences
| SOCI 20102 | Social Change This course focuses on economic development, political development, social movements, and opinion change. Case materials are drawn from developing countries, European historical patterns, and the contemporary United States. |
| SOCI 20103 | Social Stratification Social stratification is the unequal distribution of the goods that members of a society value (e.g., earnings, income, authority, political power, status, prestige). This course introduces various sociological perspectives about stratification. |
| SOCI 20104 | Urban Structure and Process This course reviews competing theories of urban development, especially their ability to explain the changing nature of cities under the impact of advanced industrialism. |
| SOCI 20129 | Economic Development in the Inner City This course explores conceptually what the issues are around the economic position of cities in the early twenty-first century, as well as how to think creatively about strategies to generate economic growth that would have positive consequences for low-income residents. |
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School of Social Service Administration
| SSAD 44401 | Sexuality across the Life Cycle From birth through old age, sexuality is an essential component of human development impacting identity formation, self-esteem, and relationships. This class will focus on the developmental aspects of sexuality relevant to each life stage as viewed through the multiple social constructions impacting sexuality, gender, and sexual orientation. |
| SSAD 44800 | Urban Adolescents in Their Families, Communities, and Schools: Issues for Research and Policy Early and mid-adolescence is a critical stage in the life course. Urban adolescents face special risks and often have fewer supports and opportunities to guide them through this critical period. |
| SSAD 60700 | Cultural Differences in Clinical Work This course covers the clinical importance of cultural differences as well as how to address those differences in practice. The course will discuss the differences and universalities of human experience as they are relevant to clinical work. |
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