Art History |
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Hour: 10A Instructor: Steven Kangas |
Requirements Met: WCult: W; Distrib: ART |
Course Title: Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and Their Modern Successors |
Description: |
According to the dictionary, the word wonder may refer to "a monumental human creation regarded with awe." We know that as early as the fifth century B.C.E. the Greek historian Herodotus identified certain monuments in the Greek world that inspired a sense of wonder. Over time other creations were acknowledged for their unsurpassed level of technological achievement and imagination, resulting in a list of "seven ancient wonders." The membership in the original list of "seven ancient wonders" was changeable, but in the Renaissance there emerged the canonical list familiar to us today. From this list only one monument, the pyramids at Giza, remains in existence. This course will focus on the canonical "seven wonders" of the ancient world and explore, via their reconstructions, the features that made them unique in their time. We will study the cultural context from which they emerged, whether in the Near East, Egypt, or Greece, from ca. 3000 B.C.E. to ca. 200 B.C.E. More recently, a new list of "Wonders of the World" has been created that incorporates ancient as well as modern monuments. The class will also consider these newly identified "wonders" in a comparative perspective. We will try to understand why certain monuments were selected and why others did not make the list. Readings will incorporate the works of ancient authors such as Herodotus and Pliny with modern scholarly analyses. |
Biology |
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Hour: 11 Instructor: Lisa Treat |
Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: TAS |
Course Title: Biotechnology for Global Health Needs |
Description: |
Millions of lives can be improved — or saved — by sharing the knowledge, resources and technology of the developed world with those who need it most. However, new and existing technologies must be adapted to the unique constraints present in developing countries. This first-year seminar will explore some of the challenges of bringing biotechnology to resource-poor settings for the diagnosis and treatment of diseases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. Topics include diagnostic technologies, nutrition technologies, vaccine delivery, safe water accessibility, and implementation of electronic medical records. Social, economic, political, and gender issues will also be considered as they relate to challenges in implementation of biotechnology for global health needs. Readings will include original research articles, review articles, essays, and commentaries by leaders in the field, including Paul Farmer and our own President Jim Yong Kim. Students will be required to read, present and discuss materials in class and write position papers articulating and/or defending particular perspectives on the development of biotechnology for global health needs. |
Classical Studies |
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Hour: 10A Instructor: Katherine Kretler |
Requirements Met: WCult: W; Distrib: LIT |
Course Title: Literature and the Environment, Ancient and Modern |
Description: |
"Forgive me, best of men: I am a lover of learning. Now, these country spots and trees are not willing to teach me anything, while the people in the city do." (Plato, Phaedrus 230d) At this moment, and other important moments real and fictional, people have turned away from nature as a source of wisdom. Nature has not seemed to offer advice on how to live. When people claim that it does so, such claims are often transparently a mask for political motivations, or a bad faith denial of such motivations. This course is not concerned with turning "back" to nature as a source of wisdom, but in asking:
a) How has the natural environment been explored in ancient and modern literature? Is the extra-human world used only as metaphor for human society or mind? Do these authors seem to have an interest in nature for its own sake? What would that look like?
b) What principles, ideas, or habits should govern our relationship with the natural environment? What are we to do about the urgent situation in which we now find ourselves? How can we best think about and speak to one another about the environment? What rhetorical traps (e.g., "natural resources" ) are we stuck in?
c) What is the relationship between these two sets of questions? Can wrestling with ancient thinkers help us get clear on or expand our own thinking, or is it naive to expect such a thing from authors whose situations differed so drastically from our own? Even more broadly, how do literature and art, ancient or modern, enable a serious engagement with the natural world, and how do they stand in the way?
Our pursuit of these questions will help us shed light on the "how" as well as the "what" of literary meaning-making. Readings will include: Gilgamesh; Homer (excerpts); Hesiod, Works and Days; Presocratic philosopher-poets; Plato; Aristotle; Theocritus; Virgil, Eclogues and Georgics; Rousseau; Schiller, "On Naive and Sentimental Poetry"; Wordsworth, Prelude; Rachel Carson; Wendell Berry; J. M. Coetzee; Robert Hass.
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Computer Science |
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Hour: 2 Instructor: Sara Sinclair |
Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: SOC |
Course Title: The Economics of Information Security |
Description: |
From identity theft to password choice, malicious hackers to social engineering attacks, a host of human factors influence the success or failure of computer security in modern society. In this course, we will use economics, psychology, organizational theory, and principles of computer usability to study the problems that arise at the intersection of secure computer systems and human beings. In addition to excerpts from The Craft of System Security, Security and Usability, and Predictably Irrational, we will read recent research papers such as "Cars, Cholera and Cows: The Management of Risk and Uncertainty," "Do Data Breach Disclosure Laws Reduce Identity Theft?" and "Spamalytics: An Empirical Analysis of Spam Marketing Conversion." The focus of the course will be on constructing and dissecting arguments about technology and society, although students without a formal technical background are also encouraged to enroll. |
English |
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Hour: 10A Instructor: Lynda Boose |
Requirements Met: WCult: W; Distrib: LIT |
Course Title: Shakespeare on Film |
Description: |
This seminar will take one play from each of the major genres in which Shakespeare wrote and will focus on the relationship of the play to the various available films that have been made of it: from comedy, Twelfth Night; from history, Henry V; and from tragedy, Macbeth. During the several weeks we will spend reading, discussing, and writing about each play, all students will view three of the play's different filmed versions, made available via Blackboard streaming. Additionally, all students will be assigned to work with four other students on just one play and its filmed versions. They will be responsible for not only the films on Blackboard but for the 3 additional films of it that will be on reserve. Then, during the final two weeks, the three groups will each have a two-hour session in which to present a formal, in-class, video assisted presentation that comparatively analyzes the play as mediated through its various filmed versions. In addition to the three plays, for helpful information in discussing film techniques, students will read from David Bordwell and Kristin Thopson's Film Art: An Introduction. They will also read selected essays from Shakespeare Quarterly and from a variety of collections on Shakespeare and Film. |
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Hour: 10A Instructor: Woon-Ping Chin |
Requirements Met: WCult: CI; Distrib: LIT |
Course Title: Buddhism in American Literature |
Description: |
This course studies the impact of Buddhist thought on American literature, with emphasis on the literature of the Beats. Its focus is on the contribution of Buddhist thought to aesthetic practice and metaphysical expression in the American literary tradition. A central question addressed in the course is the possibility, in a "First World" reading of "Third World" religious texts and in the process of cross-fertilization between "East" and "West", of moving beyond the impasses of Orientalism. |
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Hour: 2A Instructor: Nancy Crumbine |
Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: LIT |
Course Title: Religion and Literature: Revisioning the Invisible |
Description: |
Physicists write about God, clergy draw metaphors from nature, playwrights, poets and philosophers continue to weave, meld, clash, and intertwine the two, revisioning the invisible. In the search for meaning, nothing finally suffices but the company of those who seek to express the inexpressible. Readings include: Sophocles's Antigone along with Anouilh's retake, Dillard's Holy the Firm, Miller's The Crucible, and Morrison's Beloved; selected poems of Auden, Blake, Dickinson, Eliot, Kabir, Kenyon, Rilke, Roethke, and Rumi; and selections from the writings of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures. |
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Hour: 2 Instructor: D Zachary Finch |
Requirements Met: WCult: W; Distrib: LIT |
Course Title: The Idea of Originality in American Literature |
Description: |
In this course we will explore what modern American poets and writers have thought about the concept of originality. What does it mean to be an original writer? How is originality really possible for writers consciously working within a long-standing tradition of literature to which they are indebted? How have notions of originality changed over time? How does the fiction of originality fare under postmodern conditions like our own? These are just some of the basic questions that we will be asking as we encounter a handful important writers whose work has helped to define the contours of American literature. |
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Hour: 11 Instructor: Bed Giri |
Requirements Met: WCult: NW; Distrib: LIT |
Course Title: Literary South Asia |
Description: |
This course introduces first-year students to some fun works of South Asian literature written in English. Inter alia, it instructs students to write well-crafted essays of a specific kind: literature-based argument and analysis. Our cast of characters includes dharma seekers, levitating sadhus, Tamil insurgents, Islamic fundamentalists, forensic archeologists, Christian missionaries, pleasure gardens, intercontinental love, prophet's hair, holy cows, Queen Isabella, Ruby Slippers, Chekov, and Zulus. Works to be discussed include Michael Ondaatje's Anil's Ghost, Gita Mehta's Karma Cola, Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Salman Rushdie's East, West, Amitav Ghosh's Shadow Lines and possibly a Bollywood film or two. |
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Hour: 10A Instructor: Catherine Tudish |
Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: LIT |
Course Title: The New American Short Story |
Description: |
This seminar will explore the growing cultural diversity of literature written in America within the past thirty years. We will be reading work by writers of African, Asian, Latin, and European descent to examine common and divergent themes and modes of expression. The stories will be considered in light of their social and historical context, the way they embrace or reject trends in popular and elite culture. Writing assignments will include close readings of various texts, as well as a research paper on a body of work by one writer. Shorter writing assignments and presentations will augment the readings throughout the course. Some or all of the following writers will be considered: Julia Alvarez, Rick Bass, Sandra Cisneros, Peter Ho Davies, Junot Diaz, Ha Jin, Edward P. Jones, Jhumpa Lahiri, Antonya Nelson, ZZ Packer, Annie Proulx, Amy Tan, and Alice Walker. |
Environmental Studies |
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Hour: 2A Instructor: Michael Dorsey |
Requirements Met: WCult: CI; Distrib: SOC |
Course Title: Environmental Justice: Issues of Culture, Class, and Space |
Description: |
This course is an effort to map/locate the phenomena of environmental (in)equity, (in)justice and racism in space and time—conceptually and ideologically. Accordingly, the course explores the problems that myriad nations, communities, individuals and organizations face as they are differentially impacted and burdened by certain environmental hazards.
The course examines at least: (1) the theoretical and discursive foundations of racism, classism and environmentalism; (2) the economic, social, psychological and political aspects of race and poverty; (3) the emergence of environmentalism and social justice; (4) the dynamics of environmental policy surrounding issues of environmental equity, justice and racism; and (5) the birth of environmental justice movements at local, national, and international levels.
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Film Studies |
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Hour: 11 Instructor: Amy Lawrence |
Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: ART |
Course Title: TV and Space |
Description: |
This course will examine television's place in the home, the way TV has been represented in fictional domestic spaces, the presence of TV in public spaces, and the way science fiction as a genre has reflected historical fears concerning television technology as a means of communication and surveillance. Programs include The Jetsons, Outer Limits, Twilight Zone, NASA files, The Avengers, and 24-hour news. |
Government |
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Hour: 10A Instructor: Dale Turner |
Requirements Met: WCult: W; Distrib: TMV |
Course Title: Aboriginal Rights in Canada |
Description: |
Since 1982, the rights of the Aboriginal peoples in Canada have been entrenched in the second part of the Canadian Constitution. Section 35(1) reads: "The existing Aboriginal and treaty rights of the Aboriginal peoples of Canada are hereby recognized and affirmed." The Supreme Court of Canada has determined the meaning and content of Aboriginal rights; which has, over the past 28 years, established the nascent field of Aboriginal law. The purpose of this seminar is to explore the field of Aboriginal rights in Canada and gain a greater understanding of the complex nature of the Aboriginal-Canadian state legal and political relationship. |
History |
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Hour: 10A Instructor: M Cecilia Gaposchkin |
Requirements Met: WCult: W; Distrib: SOC |
Course Title: Medieval Paris |
Description: |
In the thirteenth century, the city of Paris was the most exciting, forward-looking, cosmopolitan city in Medieval Europe. This course looks at the kings, politics, ideology, people, and topography, arts, university, and social life of medieval Paris during the so-called "long thirteenth-century" — that is, between about 1150 and 1350. In this period Paris became the capital of the French monarchy, the home of the great University of Paris, and the birthplace of Gothic art and architecture. Centering our narrative around the reigns of three kings — Philip Augustus, Louis IX, and Philip the Fair — we will watch Abelard and Heloise fall in love, the Abbot Suger build the first Gothic Cathedral, Thomas Aquinas compose the Summa Theologica, and the king of France go after the Order of the Templars and the " heretic" mystic Marguerite Porete.
This class is above all an introduction to scholarly investigation, writing, and research. My primary goal is for students to gain an understanding of, first, how to ask historical questions and, second, the dialogue of scholarship in the discipline of history over those questions. We will thus read primary sources with a view of asking questions of those sources, and secondary scholarship with a view of understanding the argument, and how those arguments are in dialogue with other arguments.
Readings will include: The Letters of Abelard and Heloise; Suger's Deeds of Louis the Fat; Joinville's Life of Louis IX, the trial documents of the Templars, trial documents of Joan of Arc, and secondary readings on art, letters, and society.
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Hour: 3A Instructor: Jean Kim |
Requirements Met: WCult: CI; Distrib: SOC |
Course Title: The Natural Body in History |
Description: |
Throughout the course we will examine the question of what constitutes the "normal" human body, and how those conceptions have changed over time. The contexts for normative conceptions of the ideal body include colonial expansion, industrialization, and corresponding changes in categories of class, gender, and race in a dynamic society. Anthropological exhibits at World's Fairs organized under scientific pretenses form one venue for exploring how representations and spectacles of extraordinary bodies have incited public awe, professional explanation, reassurances of one's own normality in an alienating mechanical age, and calls for regulation. Other relevant case studies include endocrine or genetic intersexuality; the "fat positive" movement; definitions of and social responses to disability; diagnostic debates over emerging body dysmorphias; and plastic surgery as a response to the simultaneous rejection of the idea of the "natural" body and the medicalization of the problem of non-normative forms of physical beauty. Readings include Susan Bordo's Unbearable Weight; Jana Evans Braziel and Kathleen LeBesco's Bodies Out of Bounds: Fatness and Transgression; Rosemarie Garland Thomson's Freakery; and Anne Fausto Sterling's Sexing the Body. |
Italian |
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Hour: 2 Instructor: Graziella Parati |
Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: INTL/COMP |
Course Title: Under the Italian Sun: Travelers to Italy |
Description: |
Italian culture in the cultural imagination is the focus of this seminar. Students will work on representations of travels to Italy created for a non-Italian readership. A proliferation of ideas of Italy will appear in texts by Mark Twain, E.M. Forster, Frances Mayes, and mystery novels by Donna Leon and Michael Dibdin. Students will also work on representations of Italy in film, such as Roman Holiday and Martin Scorsese's My Trip to Italy. |
Linguistics |
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Hour: 2A Instructor: Timothy Pulju |
Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: SOC |
Course Title: The Origin of Language |
Description: |
Human language is a universal element of human societies, and all human languages are fundamentally similar to one another. Yet the communication systems of our nearest evolutionary relatives, the chimpanzees and other great apes, are markedly different from human language, and the same was presumably true for the common ancestors of apes and humans.
How, then, did human language develop, and when, and why? We will look for answers to those questions in this class, using evidence from a variety of fields, including theoretical linguistics, paleoanthropology, comparative anatomy, neurology, and developmental psychology.
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Mathematics |
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Hour: 2A Instructor: Andrea Kremer |
Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: TAS |
Course Title: Hazardous Data: Uncovering the Truth and Analyzing the Consequences |
Description: |
Unfortunately, many numbers, charts, and graphs routinely used in publications fictionalize the truth. Yet, these very same numerical misrepresentations form the rationale for economic, political, and social policies. Furthermore, misleading statistics often form the basis for personal "informed" decisions.
This course will examine the misconceptions that often are embedded in the data published in the health care field. Students will learn epidemiologic methods and analytical techniques to differentiate numerical fact from fiction. Then students will apply these techniques to communicate effectively how and why numbers can misrepresent a purported relationship. The intricacies and fallacies of study designs, the strategies of sampling methods, the application of statistical tests, the validity of statistical predictions, the role of confounding factors, the requirements for proving causality, and the criteria for accurately graphing data are some areas that will be examined.
Selected readings will be distributed in class; they include articles about conflicts of interest that influence health care policy, clinical decision- making, medical care ethics, and health care reform. The required texts will present an overview of epidemiological concepts and the role of social epidemiology in evaluating current public health issues.
A background in statistics is not a prerequisite for this course.
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Hour: 10A Instructor: Andrea Kremer |
Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: TAS |
Course Title: Hazardous Data: Uncovering the Truth and Analyzing the Consequences |
Description: |
Unfortunately, many numbers, charts, and graphs routinely used in publications fictionalize the truth. Yet, these very same numerical misrepresentations form the rationale for economic, political, and social policies. Furthermore, misleading statistics often form the basis for personal "informed" decisions.
This course will examine the misconceptions that often are embedded in the data published in the health care field. Students will learn epidemiologic methods and analytical techniques to differentiate numerical fact from fiction. Then students will apply these techniques to communicate effectively how and why numbers can misrepresent a purported relationship. The intricacies and fallacies of study designs, the strategies of sampling methods, the application of statistical tests, the validity of statistical predictions, the role of confounding factors, the requirements for proving causality, and the criteria for accurately graphing data are some areas that will be examined.
Selected readings will be distributed in class; they include articles about conflicts of interest that influence health care policy, clinical decision- making, medical care ethics, and health care reform. The required texts will present an overview of epidemiological concepts and the role of social epidemiology in evaluating current public health issues.
A background in statistics is not a prerequisite for this course.
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Music |
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Hour: 10 Instructor: Steve Swayne |
Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: TMV |
Course Title: Addiction, Obesity, Pollution, Thievery, and Other Music-related Topics |
Description: |
Music in most of our lives is both ubiquitous and invisible: ubiquitous, in that it surrounds us in nearly every environment in which we find ourselves (provided, of course, we unplug ourselves from our mp3 players); and invisible, in that few people talk about the musical hyper-saturation we experience. In this seminar, we will explore how music operates in our everyday lives and ask questions about whether its ubiquity and invisibility has a dark side.
We will begin by looking at research that considers the neurobiological aspects of our musical lives — why we listen to music in the first place, how we develop our likes and dislikes, what effects music has on our bodies — and then explore the questions that a neurobiological understanding of music naturally presents (e.g.: Can music become an addictive substance? Is it possible to "consume" too much music? How does music change our bodies and our environments?).
We will also explore the ongoing controversies surrounding digital music, investigating to what degree lawmakers and music industry spokespeople are out of step with the digital music revolution, whether there can be such a thing as "free music," how we view ourselves in light of current definitions of illegal downloading, and other such questions.
Readings will include newspaper stories, legal decisions, Plato and Quintilian, and other texts. Students will write of their own experiences with music as well as interact with the various readings.
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Native American Studies |
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Hour: 2 Instructor: Melanie Benson-Taylor |
Requirements Met: WCult: CI; Distrib: LIT |
Course Title: "Reel Indians": Native Americans in Film and Literature |
Description: |
Do film and literature merely reflect reality, or do they help to create it? This question guides our exploration of American Indian representations on the silver screen and the page. We begin with a survey of the myriad ways that Indians have been created by non-natives in American pop culture, often for self-serving or nationalistic needs. We will examine the modes and motives of such representations, particularly in the wake of American cinema — one of the most potent media for the proliferation of iconic images and stereotypes. The course then turns to Native Americans' own self-representations in 20th and 21st century literature and film in an effort to assess the impact of American pop-culture on even the Indian cultural imagination. We will critique subversive, ironic, and sometimes reactionary films by Indian artists such as Chris Eyre, Sandra Osawa, and Sterlin Harjo. Additionally, we will read fiction and poetry by contemporary writers Sherman Alexie, Gerald Vizenor, Thomas King, Louise Erdrich, and others who pointedly resist, revise, and sometimes repeat damaging tropes and stereotypes. While we will explore the important cultural revisions accomplished by these productions, we will also ponder the obstacles faced by Indian artists in a cultural market dominated by non-native resources, expectations, and fantasies. |
Physics |
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Hour: 10A Instructor: Gary Wegner |
Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: SCI |
Course Title: History and Future of the Universe |
Description: |
We will examine ideas about the origins and fate of the universe. Starting with some ancient concepts, we will concentrate on 20th and 21st century developments and ideas about the origin and future of the universe. This will include the expansion, the cosmic microwave background, large-scale structure, and the roles of modern physics, consisting of quantum mechanics, general relativity and the fundamental forces and particles. |
Psychological & Brain Sciences |
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Hour: 3B Instructor: Richard Granger |
Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: SCI |
Course Title: Brain Evolution |
Description: |
What's in a human brain, and how did it get there? How are brains built via genetic and developmental mechanisms? What makes one brain different from another, between species and within species? What makes populations different from each other? Who are our ancestors, and what was their evolutionary path to us? How did human brains get to their enormous size? How do brains differ from other organs? What mechanisms are at play over evolutionary time? The class will cover a set of related topics including brain structure, anthropology, evolution, genetics, development, cognition, race, and intelligence. Throughout the class, we will write about these topics, producing drafts, revisions, and final documents. |
Sociology |
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Hour: 2A Instructor: Douglas Goodman |
Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: SOC |
Course Title: This Generation |
Description: |
Your generation is unique. Your life has been shaped by unprecedented historical events and social forces. Technology has transformed your daily interactions. Your future is more connected to global possibilities. Because you are immersed in your generation, it is difficult to fully understand. This class will use research, writing and discussion to help you develop your own perspective on your generation. |
Theater |
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Hour: 11 Instructor: Mara Sabinson |
Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: ART |
Course Title: Theater for Social Change |
Description: |
This course will trace particular developments in American and Western European Theater from the First World War through the present. Artists and theater groups under consideration will be those whose work has focused on contemporary social conditions and the potential of performance to effect social change. In addition, students will experiment with developing scripts and performances based on current events. Readings will include selections from the writings of Erwin Piscator, Bertolt Brecht, The Federal Theatre Project, Harold Pinter, Augusto Boal, August Wilson, etc. as well as newspapers, news magazines, and other media sources. In addition to creative and critical writing, students will be assigned one major research project. Emphasis will be on class participation.
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Women's and Gender Studies |
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Hour: 2 Instructor: Veronika Fuechtner |
Requirements Met: WCult: CI; Distrib: TMV |
Course Title: Sex: A Brief and Incomplete History |
Description: |
In this seminar we will analyze key texts on sex and sexuality by authors such as De Sade, Freud, Kinsey, Beauvoir, Foucault and Butler. The seminar will focus on the question how categorizations of sex in scientific and socio-cultural terms connect to historical notions of femininity, masculinity, homosexuality and sexual pathology. This seminar will not provide a total account of sexuality, but will analyze select historical moments, which are influential to the different ways we think about the sexes today. We will connect these readings with contemporary historical studies and theory on the relationship between sex, sexuality, and gender. |
Writing Program |
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Hour: 10A Instructor: Sara Chaney |
Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: SOC |
Course Title: Writing to Change the World |
Description: |
In this course, we will look closely at the art of manifesto writing in social and historical perspective. We will consider: How has manifesto writing been used to proclaim social change and fight for social justice? Under what circumstances are such proclamations most powerful? Why does history remember some manifestos, and quickly forget others? Using the tools of classical and contemporary rhetorical analysis, we will work together to understand the manifesto as a unique form of writing. Students will also use various media to create and display their own manifestos.
Course readings may include: The Necessity of Atheism, The Communist Manifesto, The Manifesto in Surrealism, Silent Spring, The Hacker Manifesto, and The Cyborg Manifesto.
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Hour: 10 Instructor: John Donaghy |
Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: ART |
Course Title: Dartmouth Writers |
Description: |
In "Dartmouth Writers" we will consider writing as a form of problem solving, of exploring the unknown, of moving from confusion to sophisticated clarity. We will try to work our way underneath the particularities of discipline and genre down to the processes that may be common to every act of composition. We will read the works of current Dartmouth faculty (10-15) — creative writers, scientists, mathematicians, social scientists and humanities scholars — and we will ask those writers to help us understand precisely how they bring their puzzlement, their hunches and their intuitions into clear, strong language.
In addition students will read short articles in composition and genre theory as well as brief selections from a variety of fields (philosophy, psychology, brain-science, linguistics) which take the relation of thought to language as their subject.
Students will pursue one term-long writing project in a genre of their choosing. In addition they will write several very short "process" papers and one 6-10 page research paper.
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Hour: 10 Instructor: Gary Lenhart |
Requirements Met: WCult: None; Distrib: ART |
Course Title: The Practice of Writing |
Description: |
Attention to writing is often secondary to subject, which may be stem cells, the relation of wages to worker productivity, melting glaciers, zone defense, or Pirates of the Caribbean #7. But the form, context, and occasion of writing shape expression and articulate thought. In this course, we will emphasize the practical and artful aspects of writing by composing letters, articles, interviews, reviews, poems, blogs, personal narratives, and research essays. Writing assignments will be weekly and sometimes daily, and there will be one 3,000-word research paper. Readings will include writing in a range of disciplines by writers such as Stephen Jay Gould, Terry Tempest Williams, Joan Didion, Clifford Geertz, Maria Rosa Menocal, James Baldwin, and Pankaj Mishra, and also readings from newspapers, blogs, and websites. |
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