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Electives: Spring 2006
H107 Introduction to Creative Writing / Swann / W 9-12
H207 Music Cultures of the World / Kaminski / M 6-9
H319 Russian Art, Architecture & Literature / Bartelik / M 11-12, T 9-11
H344 Science and the Cultural Imagination / Rodas / M 11-12, W 9-11
H352 The Personal Essay / Swann / T 11-12, Th 9-11
H358 Studies in Cinema / Hoberman / W 6-9, Th 6-8
H361 Philosophy of Religion / Richardson / M 9-11, W 11-12
H362 Black Literature in a World Perspective / Wylie / M 9-11, W 11-12
H373 Seminar in Humanities: (Topic for Spring 2006) Research Seminar on Political Economy/ del Cerro / T 3-6
H375 Critical Theory / Perta / T 11-12, Th 9-11
H377 General Linguistics / Weir / T 11-12, Th 9-11
H430 Postmodernism and Technology / Sayres / W 6-9
S337 American Foreign Policy: Terrorism and International Affairs / Siegel / Cancelled
S345 R.G. Brown Seminar: (Topic for Spring 2006:The Future of the American Economy. Technology Growth and Inequality) / Madrick / Th 9-12
S347 Macroeconomics / Sarich / T 6-9
S368 History of Modern Asia / Kim / T 11-12, Th 9-11
S372 Global Issues / Griffin / M 9-11, W 11-12
S374 Contemporary Social Psychology / Satler / Th 2-5
S379 Race & Nation in the Americas / Schultz / T 11-12, Th 9-11
H107 Introduction to Creative Writing
Brian Swann
A course to introduce the writing of poetry, fiction, drama, and creative non-fiction. In addition to weekly exercises and assignments students will be expected to read widely and attend readings.
H207 Music Cultures of the World
Joseph Kaminski
Music Cultures of the World, is an ethnomusicology course that allows students to examine the role of culture in shaping musical conception and behavior. Topics include music from Africa, Australia, Asia, Europe and the Americas. Conceptions of music are often rooted in social structures, symbolism, religion, or philosophy. Musical behaviors stem from the assert conceptions in ritualistic ways and become habitual in sustaining social aggregation. Such conceptions and behaviors influence musical structures regarding instrumentation, tonality, relation of parts, rhythm, aesthetics, form of the music, and where and when the music is played. Knowledge from this course may be applied to independent thinking in the analyses of other cultures not covered. A prior background in music is not required for enrollment.
H319 Russian Art, Architecture & Literature:Between the East and the West
Marek Bartelik
This class will examine the development of Russian art, architecture and literature, focusing on the period from the late 19th century to the present. Major artistic formations and movements will be placed in the broader socio-political and cultural contexts of their time and the surrounding critical/psychological discourse. Topics include: Dominant artistic styles of the 19th century: romanticism, realism, and symbolism; Russian and Soviet avant- Garde: cubo-futurism, suprematism, constructivism, and productivism; Soviet architecture of the 1920s and 1930s; Soviet theater, film, and music; Socialist Realism in art and architecture, 1930s-1960; Soviet Conceptualism and Sots Art in the 1970s and 1980s. A trip to the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, will be scheduled in March. The meetings will be divided between lectures accompanied by slides and/or videos and films and discussions focused on critical readings and the examination of works of art. In writing research papers, students will be encouraged to make a contribution to the class from within their own discipline: Engineering, Archituture, or Studio Art. (.Not to the left, not to the right, but to the necessary.. . (V. Tatlin, 1923.)
H344 Science and the Cultural Imagination
Julia Miele Rodas
This class will explore the issues that materialize at the intersection of science and culture. Beginning with an overview of the scientific enterprise as it emerged during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the course will read and interpret texts which express our complex social ambivalence regarding the scientific enterprise. Although it will offer an historical context, the class will be arranged thematically rather than chronologically. Among other topics, it will address: The contest between science and religion; the rise of modern medicine; the invention of race; the eugenic impulse; the idea of a "golden age"; and the atomic imagination. Assignments will be designed to encourage an interdisciplinary approach. Assigned reading will include: Darwin's Origin of Species, Gosse's Father & Son, Bellamy's Looking Backward, Huxley's Brave New World, Frank's Alas, Babylon, and Shiras's Children of the Atom. In addition, students will be expected to view a number of films and videos, and to read several essay-length texts.
H352 The Personal Essay
Brian Swann
For more than 400 years, the personal essay has been one of the richest and most vibrant literary forms. As Edward Hoagland (one of its most distinguished practitioners) has written: essays are how we speak to one another in print. We write them, not just to convey packages of information, but with a special edge or bounce of personal character. In this course we will study and discuss essays in Phillip Lopate, ed., The Art of the Personal Essay, and we will also write our own, on any topics we choose, on all manner of subjects ? the daily round, pleasures and pains, taking a walk, solitude, friendship, in short, our personal responses to any number of objects and situations, multiplying ourselves in the process.
H358 Studies in Cinema
James Hoberman
Studies in Cinema (Poetic Horror, Pop Existentialism, and Cheap Sci-Fi, 1948-68). In the aftermath of World War II, filmmakers developed a set of metaphors and scenarios to imaginatively address post Auschwitz, post Hiroshima guilt and anxiety. Using Kafka's "Metamorphosis" as a prophetic literary analog, the course surveys and analyzes such attempts-commercial movies, documentaries, and avant-garde films, produced in the US, Europe, and Japan. Filmmakers include Jean Cocteau, Alfred Hitchcock, and Alain Resnais.
H361 Philosophy of Religion
Robert Richardson
One of the most striking features of the world is that, with respect to most issues, there are differences of opinion amongst individuals who seem to be equally knowledgeable and sincere. Moreover, individuals who are informed to the same extent and equally interested in the truth frequently affirm incompatible perspectives. This particular form of diversity is nowhere more evident than in religious thought. This course will investigate the issue of such religious diversity from the perspective of contemporary philosophy. The following are some of the questions that will be asked: how pervasive is religious diversity, really; does diversity require a response and, if so, what kind; it is incoherent to recognize diversity and still be justified in claiming that only one perspective is correct; if so, is it morally justifiable to attempt to convert others to a different perspective?
H362 Black Literature in a World Perspective
James Wylie
An examination of black literature from South America to Papua New Guinea, chiefly in the 20th Century. Stress is placed on the connections between various literatures and how they form a world culture. The course Considers oral literature, the Harlem Renaissance, Negritude poetry, the African novel and Indian Ocean poets.
H373 Seminar in Humanities: Research Seminar on Political Economy
Gerado Del Cerro
This course will introduce students to fundamental topics in political economy by surveying works by Smith, Marx, Weber, Polanyi, Wallerstein, Arrighi, and Castells. The course will explore controversial debates in the field and will try to apply classical approaches to the analysis of contemporary problems, such as the globalization of capitalism. This is a research seminar and therefore based on class discussions rather than on instructor.s lectures. In addition to frequently writing critical comments on the readings, students are expected to write a research paper on a topic agreed on with the instructor. Contributions to new knowledge in political economy, however modest, will be encouraged.
H375 Critical Theory
Litia Townes Perta
This course will focus on appearances and the negotiation of self-hood within contemporary theory and will include strains in continental philosophy, structuralist theory and film. We will investigate the ways in which appearance is inextricably linked to human existence and take as a starting point the etymology of the term existence as (ex)sistere - literally, to stand out, to show oneself against a ground, to appear. Various spheres of agency will be explored, primarily the political, the ethical and the aesthetic and we will look at the ways in which these spheres both limit and proliferate the possibilities of the self. The course will concentrate on key texts by suck authors as Nietzsche, Woolf, Heidegger, Benjamin, Foucault, Barthes and Derrida in addition to the more current theorists who most relevantly problematise this work. Close attention will be paid to visual practice and the ways in which critical theory has come to be both a way of thinking and, increasingly, a disciplinary field in its own right.
H377 General Linguistics
David Weir
This course is an introduction to three major approaches to language: the study of diachronic changes in language as a historical phenomenon; the synchronic or structuralist analysis of language as system; and the examination of the cognitive or psychological features of language as a biological event in human evolution. The study of diachronic linguistics (or how languages change over time) will begin with the problem of defining Natural language, and then focus on the various systems used to classify and describe the world.s languages. This part of the course will include brief descriptions of several ancient and modern languages, including Latin, Old English, Mandarin, KiSwahili, and pre-Columbian Mayan, among others. The study of synchronic linguistics (the analysis of language as a system) will proceed from a reading of Ferdinand de Saussure's Course in General Linguistics (1915) to a discussion of some of the linguistics-based theories (structuralism, semiotics, deconstruction) that have developed in the human sciences as a result of Saussure.s ideas. The third part of the course will focus on Noam Chomsky.s theory of generative grammar and on recent extrapolations of that theory by cognitive psychologists that have led to the new discipline of biolinguistics. Course requirements: a mid-term examination, a 10 page paper, occasional quizzes and exercises.
H430 Postmodernism and Technology
Sohnya Sayres
This seminar explores the relationship between the culture and theory of postmodernity and the practice of science and technology. All are welcome. The course presumes no formal background in cultural theory or science. We will develop our sense of the present, however, drawing from separate members' knowledge of art or science, as well as from our sense of what is urgent in our contemporary world. Discussion will focus around readings, films, and demonstrations.
S337 American Foreign Policy: Terrorism and International Affairs (Cancelled)
Fred Siegel
American Foreign Policy in the twentieth century challenges to western liberalism came from fascism and communism, while more recent challenges have come from terrorist movements on the one hand and the European Union on the other. This course examines American Foreign policy since the collapse of Communism in the context of these changing challenges.
S345 R.G. Brown Seminar (Topic for Spring 2006: "The Future of the American Economy. Technology Growth and Inequality")
Jeffrey Madrick
What do we know the future of the U.S. economy? Is it still a New Economy? This course will examine how technology and government policies affect economic growth, the creation of jobs, and the levels of incomes. It will provide a basic theoretical framework for analyzing economic issues. We will discuss current economic issues in the news, and analyze them in terms of economic theory. We will examine current economic controversies as well, including the trade-off between laissez faire market economics and government regulation and intervention. In particular, we will examine how new technology contributes to the economy, as well as the ongoing myths and exaggerations about technology, growth, and development.
S347 Macroeconomics
John Sarich
This course will introduce the basic concepts of macroeconomic theory and policy analysis. We will begin by deriving the basic categories used in measuring the national wealth and show how these categories form the foundation for national income accounting as it is practiced today. We will then move into a discussion of the determination of output, employment and inflation and confront the debates around the uses and effectiveness of fiscal and monetary policy. This will be followed by a discussion of the determinants and aggregate demand and aggregate supply, including theories of investment, consumption, government, the trade balance, the behavior of money and the relationship between output and prices.
S368 History of Modern Asia
James Kim
This course seeks to explore the history of Asia from the late imperial eras of China, Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia into the modern era. We will examine a wide variety of political, social, economic, and cultural issues that predominated this period. While emphasizing the distinctive nature of East Asia, the course will stress the wide diversity and interconnectedness of ideas, technologies, and religions of Modern East Asia.
S372 Global Issues
Anne Griffin
Since the end of the Cold War, certain international issues have achieved a level of global significance. Global Issues will consider some of the most pervasive of these as well as their implications for policy and decision-making now and in future decade trends. The course will begin by providing a basic vocabulary and framework for understanding, such as (1) the reconfiguration of political authority: supra-national organizations and sub-national identities; (2) the emergence of global economy; (3) the environment and sustainable development; (4) population, demographic, and epidemiological changes; (5) the revolution in communications and information technologies; (6) the new politics of identity, including gender, ethnicity, religion and territoriality, and (7) the development of new security issues, including societal and environmental stress. While the subject matter is broad and crosses a number of disciplines, the approach taken will be essentially political. After considering the factors contribut ing to each of these changes, we will attempt to identify a range of possible outcomes and related issues and the interests that would be affected by them.
S374 Contemporary Social Psychology
Gail Satler
Utilizing a variety of social psychological perspectives, general issues such as human nature, socialization, attitude formation and change, verbal and non-verbal language, interpersonal behavior and the art of persuasion will be explored with interest in cross-cultural comparisons. The core questions we will explore include: What does it mean to be human? How is the self defined and determined? What impact do social groups, culture and the (built) environment have on the development of the self and on our everyday behavior? From family to friends; from work groups to anonymous crowds, we will consider how an understanding of the interplay of groups and individual actions facilitate better group dynamics and also the achievement of personal goals or inder them.
S379 Race and Nation in the Americas: Aesthetics, Culture and Politics
Kirsten Schultz
Studies the interrelated ways in which the race and nation have been defined in Latin America and the United States. The course identifies various paradigms of race and nation across the hemisphere and examines peoples and movements that challenge those paradigms. Readings illuminate ways in which cultural, racial and national differences have been defined and challenged in literature and politics, as well as in scientific discourse and visual culture.