2007 Seminars

War Crimes, Tribunals, and Truth Commissions

 *This seminar has been designated as part of a Residential Learning Community.

In 1994 approximately 800,000 Rwandans were brutally murdered by their fellow citizens as part of a genocidal campaign to remove Tutsi “cockroaches” and their Hutu sympathizers. How does Rwandan society come to terms with these atrocities? Is it best to focus on prosecuting leaders? How about the tens of thousands of citizens who killed their neighbors? Does it make more sense to forget the past and focus on unifying the country? What should be done for the victims? In the Rwandan case, the international community established a War Crimes Tribunal, like a similar one established in Bosnia, to prosecute leaders of the genocide. Another model for dealing with massive human rights violations is a Truth Commission, a mechanism focused on uncovering the truth about clandestine human rights violations rather than holding perpetrators accountable for their actions. A Truth Commission differs from a War Crimes Tribunal in that it is generally a national mechanism, whereas the international community oversees War Crimes Tribunals. Unlike Rwanda, South Africa and Chile established Truth Commissions to come to terms with systematic violations of human rights (including murder and torture) in their own countries. In this course we will examine the historical context and workings of the Bosnian and Rwandan War Crimes Tribunals and the South African and Chilean Truth Commissions. We will engage in debates about the best model to deal with past abuses and discuss means to create a human rights culture. Has justice been achieved in each case? Are there other considerations besides justice? Stability? Reconciliation? How important is the human dignity of victims?

Professor:  Jeremy Ball, History

Tell Me Why: The Role of Information in Society

 *This seminar has been designated as part of the Global Issues Learning Community cluster .

Who are you? Which came first:  the chicken or the egg? What’s love got to do with it?
In this seminar, we will witness the power of the question, and we will study the methods used throughout history to answer questions. We will examine the history of recorded information from the oral traditions of ancient philosophers through the age of the Internet, and how different methods of communication affect the circulation of information. We will examine different types of information - including books, films, magazines, photographs, and websites - for their value and reliability. We will learn how to ask questions, and how to answer them. We will address all kinds of questions, from the inane to the intellectual, and from the practical to the theoretical. We will engage in such activities as telling stories from different points of view, building a personal history, and creating our own websites. We will discuss issues such as censorship, plagiarism, and the cost of information. Emphasis will be placed on how to properly engage in college-level research, and how to skillfully report the findings of that research. In this seminar we will learn to develop our intellectual curiosity by becoming proficient seekers, finders, and reporters of information.

Professor:  Christine Bombaro, Library

The Challenge of Global Poverty

 *This seminar has been designated as part of the Global Issues Learning Community cluster .

The contrast between the prosperity that the current era of globalization has brought to many parts of the world and the abject poverty still endured by billions has renewed world attention on the problem of global poverty. From the UN, to national governments, to academics, to rock and pop stars, the eradication, or at least the substantial reduction, of global poverty has been a goal that has received much discussion and debate in recent years. The purpose of this seminar is to examine the problem of global poverty and competing ideas of how best to approach it. At the core of the seminar will be two books with very different views on the question of how those of us in the rich, Western world should approach the problem of global poverty. In his book, The End of Poverty, Jeffrey Sachs (who rock star and anti-poverty activist Bono referred to as “his professor”) makes a moral and strategic case for large infusions of Western aid while William Easterly in The White Man’s Burden is sharply critical of such aid efforts as well-meaning but misguided failures. Students in this seminar should expect to read up to 100 pages per week and to write and debate continually about the issues raised therein.

 Russ Bova, Political Science/International Studies

Shared Futures

 *This seminar has been designated as part of a Residential Learning Community.

“A twenty-first century liberal education must provide students with the knowledge and commitment to be socially responsible citizens in a diverse democracy and increasingly interconnected world.”  (“Shared Futures: Global Learning and Social Responsibility,” AACU, 2005)

This course will invite students to explore the ways in which being a “citizen of the world” requires that you consider the world’s challenges and opportunities not as someone else’s problems but as issues directly impacting each of us. Building on the work of the noted scholar, Martha Nussbaum, students will be challenged to develop the three capacities she describes as essential for “cultivating humanity.” They include: the development of the capacity for critical examination which requires questioning what we think we know about ourselves and our world in search of a more complete knowledge. Next, it requires that we develop an understanding of ourselves as citizens of an increasingly interconnected world which should lead to the understanding of the global as local. Finally, the cultivation of humanity requires the development of the “narrative imagination,” the capacity to put ourselves in the place of others.

Through the examination of a number of sources, we will uncover and challenge many of the ideas that cause us to narrow our view of humanity into categories of “us and them.” We will study common problems that connect us and consider solutions to these problems. Through the narratives of others we will enhance our capacity to recognize how inextricably interconnected we are, how much we all are part of a “shared future.”

Joyce Bylander, Associate Provost, Campus Academic Life

Don Juan: From Spanish Legend to Modern Myth

 Who is Don Juan? Why is he so universally appealing? And why have so many plays, movies, and books been written about this legendary rake? His exploits have inspired over 1700 versions of this legend. This seminar will study the legend of Don Juan. We will start by examining the literary origins of the Don Juan legend in a 17th century Spanish play by Tirso de Molina, El burlador de Sevilla/The Trickster of Seville (in translation). We will then look at Romantic representations of Don Juan in three different countries: England, France and Spain. We will read selected cantos of Lord Byron’s poem Don Juan, Molière’s play Dom Juan ou Le Festin de Pierre (in translation), and Zorilla’s Don Juan Tenorio, the most famous version of the play in the Hispanic world. We will also look at the Don Juan legend in opera in Mozart’s Don Giovanni. The last third of the class will be devoted to analyzing representations of the Don Juan legend in the movies. We will watch and discuss films such as Don Juan de Marco (1997) and Dangerous Liaisons (1988). Throughout this seminar, we will consider the ways in which Don Juan legend serves as an agent of social change, initiating change as well as restoring order. This seminar will be linked with the Clarke Forum’s theme “A Gendered World.”

Eva Marie Copeland, Spanish

Practice and Theory of Political Art

 The course will focus on how artists and societies have historically dealt with art of a political nature. We will study not only the contexts in which this work is created, but also stylistic approaches, media used, distribution, and the relative success or failure of its proscribed function. Students will explore a variety of media to create artwork including printmaking, photography, drawing and sculpture, and digital media. We will view and analyze the work of a great many artists, both historical and contemporary.

Ward Davenny, Art/Art History

The role of wine in American Society

 Wine has been a part of culture since ancient times. But wine is viewed in vastly different ways by different cultures. This course will examine the role of wine in contemporary American society. Wine can be viewed from a variety of perspectives besides the obvious perspective (of taste). We will examine the wine industry from a number of these perspectives including: historical, political, economic, regulatory, health, business, production, religious, sociological, literary, and artistic. For example, the book Napa, by James Conaway, provides an excellent introduction to many issues and players in the American wine industry. At the same time, it includes an interesting discussion of the political geography of the most restrictive land use statutes in the United States. In a different vein, The French Paradox, by Lewis Perdue, argues that French consumption of red wine is responsible for the fact that the French have little heart disease, despite the richness of their diet. In response to a 60 Minutes report on the French Paradox, domestic consumption of red wine soared in the early 1990s, despite the fact that producers were prohibited from mentioning the French Paradox in their advertising.

Steve Erfle, IBM

Transforming Lives: Social Justice Activists of the 19th and 20th Centuries.

 *This seminar has been designated as part of a Residential Learning Community.

This course will explore the lives, writings, and activism of a range of 19th and 20th century social justice leaders in the United States. Drawing from autobiographies, personal narratives, and biographies we will focus on 19th century and 20th century suffrage activists such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony; Dorothy Day, a socialist from the early 20th century who started the Catholic Worker Movement; and W. E. B. DuBois, the first African American to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard and one of the founders of the National Association to Advance Colored People (the NAACP). We will explore what propelled them to become social justice activists, the ways that their ideas and tactics changed over the course of their lives, and the influence that their work had on the lives of others. Toward the end of the semester you will have an opportunity to research a social justice activist of your own choosing. This seminar will include field trips to local social justice organizations to see and compare the work of contemporary activists to that of these 19th and 20th century Americans.

Amy Farrell, American Studies

Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics

 *This seminar has been designated as part of the Global Issues Learning Community cluster.

The title of this seminar is a quotation typically attributed to the nineteenth century British statesman Benjamin Disraeli and later popularized in the United States by Mark Twain. While many believe that there is some truth in this statement, there is no arguing that we need statistics to help make sense of our complicated world. In this course we will learn about the persuasive power of data and how statistical evidence can be used to support both accurate and inaccurate claims. The focus will not be on learning to perform statistical analysis, but will concentrate on learning to critically evaluate statistical arguments from a layperson’s perspective.

Richard Forrester, Math/Computer Science

Public Speaking for the 21st Century

 Exam
1.  Public speaking is an art that properly draws on the creative juices and passions of the individual speaker. TRUE  FALSE  (circle one)

2.  Public speaking is a science, where formulaic rules are followed in order for a speaker to communicate effectively with his or her audience. TRUE  FALSE  (circle one)

3.  Good public speakers are born, not made. TRUE  FALSE  (circle one)

4.  Good public speakers can be created through study and practice. TRUE  FALSE  (circle one)

5.  Public speaking is really not that important any more, now that we have email, IM, text messaging, and whatever is coming next. TRUE  FALSE  (circle one)

6.  The ability to speak effectively in a public setting is as critical, as appreciated, and as central to success in professional and community life as it has ever been. TRUE  FALSE  (circle one)

7.  If I want to be as successful as I can be in life, I would be well advised to sign up for this first-year seminar. TRUE  FALSE (circle one)

Answers:  1. True.   2. True.   3. False.   4. True.   5. False.   6. True.   7. True.
 
Synopsis:  Learn the art and science of public speaking by studying the speeches of others, and by practicing your own speeches (including extemporaneous discourse, debate, solo and group work, and technology-assisted speeches) in a demanding, but fun and supportive environment.

James Hoefler, Political Science

Where is the electron?!? – The strange and fascinating theory of quantum mechanics

 Quantum Mechanics is a theory that describes nature on the very small scale of atoms and molecules. This fascinating theory has some very peculiar features that make it seem as though it cannot possibly describe the world around us, and yet quantum mechanics is the most accurate theory ever proposed. Trying to understand quantum mechanics is a mind boggling exercise that is likely to frustrate everyone that attempts it. This theory is so strange that Albert Einstein could not accept quantum mechanics and devoted much of his life to trying to disprove it. In this seminar, we will investigate this strange and wonderful theory and look at some of the bizarre and counterintuitive features that led Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman to say, “Nobody understands quantum mechanics.”

David P. Jackson, Physics/Astronomy

Golem: The Creation of an Artificial Life

 *This seminar has been designated as part of a Residential Learning Community.

The creation of an artificial human being, a Golem, has been an age-old dream of humankind. Frankenstein is perhaps the most famous example, but in fact this figure originated in the Jewish magical and mystical traditions on the artificial anthropoid. The course deals with the origins in the Hebrew Bible, its manifestations in mysticism and magic, in literature (including children’s books), in cinema and television, on stage and in art, and last but not least, in science, mainly computer science (artificial intelligence, internet) and cloning. The course uncovers the religious roots of these traditions, explores the variety of reactions the Golem aroused, ranging from attraction to revulsion, and discussing the nature of responses to the ethical problems involved. The focus is on the question of how the various secular varieties of the Golem theme develop out of the religious culture of Jewish mysticism/magic. The course also raises the gender issues of creating an artificial anthropoid. The emphasis is on the contemporary-secular metamorphosis of the Golem notion, and its relevancy to our life in the 21st century.

Nitsa Kann, Religion

Globalization: Its Contents and Discontents

 *This seminar has been designated as part of the Global Issues Learning Community cluster.

In their scope and nature, the economic, social, and cultural interactions and interdependence among nations and regions have undergone significant changes in the latter half of the twentieth century, in a process seemingly set to continue in the new millennium. In this seminar we will consider these phenomena from various, at times sharply conflicting, perspectives, asking and attempting to answer questions such as: Are the current processes of globalization desirable or not (and for whom)? Are they inevitable? Are they sustainable in the long run? Are there any alternative scenarios possible for humankind?

Sinan Koont, Economics

America in the Eyes of the World

 *This seminar has been designated as part of a Residential Learning Community.

This seminar, as its title indicates, will explore the way America (i.e., the United States) and Americans are viewed in various countries throughout the world. The aim of this seminar is to bring the students to shed their ethnocentric views and opinions and to begin looking at their own country from the perspective of other countries and cultures. We will concentrate on continents and countries in which Dickinson has a program of studies and where our students are likely to spend a semester or a year: Latin America (Mexico); Europe (Britain, Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Russia); Africa (Cameroon); Asia (China and Japan). We will adopt a historical and cultural approach to determine why each country holds its specific views about the U.S. The course will involve intensive monitoring of the foreign press through the internet and will therefore introduce the students to the major issues in international relations. The tragic events of September 11, 2001, illustrate how essential it is for Americas to become more keenly aware of how their country is perceived throughout the world and this seminar will initiate that process.

Dominique Laurent, French/Italian

Mediated Realities

 Most people would say they want to know the truth about the world -- to know fact from fiction, genuine from fake, real from imaginary. But things aren't that easy. Sometimes we inadvertently fool ourselves; sometimes we are deliberately fooled by others; and sometimes we really don't want to know or accept the "truth" because the "lie" is more comforting or useful. In this seminar, we will look at a variety of forces that "mediate," or stand between, us (whatever "we" are) and reality (whatever "it" is). We will begin with some broad philosophical questions about reality that have puzzled philosophers since the time of Plato, and have been the basis for popular movies such as The Matrix and The Truman Show. We will go on to consider some of the ways our deeply held, and often invisible, biases and prejudices shape our realities -- issues raised in Malcolm Gladwell's intriguing book, Blink. We will look at some specific ways in which others attempt to influence our perceptions of reality to serve their own ideological or economic purposes -- including the advertising industry, politicians and news outlets. And we will consider how rapidly developing technologies are creating new "real" worlds and further complicating the picture. Underlying all these topics are important ethical and political questions to which we will return again and again -- about how we wish to live as individuals and as members of a free society.

Richard Lewis, adjunct

Discerning Fact From Fallacy in Nature and Medicine

 Scientific information comes to us from many sources, including the media, friends and associates, doctors, teachers, books and articles, web sites, documentaries, and the like. Often the information conflicts, and the consequences of the conflicts can be puzzling, expensive, or even life-threatening to individuals. Using nature and health as our general topic areas, in this seminar we will ask how can one sort out good information from false or misleading information, how good information is gathered, and how (ideally) information should be presented to the general public. We will begin with select examples of studies in behavior and ecology of wild and domestic animals, in order to establish the nature of good vs. bad science and to look at the ways that scientific information is disseminated. We will then move to some more complicated and controversial issues of nature and human health, such as the validity of claims for herbal medicine. We will cover some simple experimental design and data analysis techniques to establish a firm basis for evaluating the validity of scientific information. Field trip options on certain Saturdays or Sundays will allow opportunity to hike the local area and see phenomena relevant to the class, such as hawk migrations and populations of medicinally valuable wild plants.

Carol Loeffler, Biology

Stand Up and Be A Man: Exploring Representations of Maleness, Masculinity and Manhood

 What does mean it be to a man? Do we expect too much from men, be they brothers, fathers, friends, or ourselves? Who teaches boys to become men? How should men relate to women? How do women relate to men? Regardless of your answers to these questions, issues surrounding what it means to be a man impact your life on a daily basis, whether you’re male, female, or transgendered. In this course we will study and question dominant and deviant notions of manhood, masculinity, and maleness. We will study anthropological ideas about manhood across cultures. We will analyze, discuss, and research representations of manhood in literature, art, and film, and consider feminist interpretations of gender politics as well as some of the growing work in “men’s studies” that has arisen in response to feminist theory. From The Odyssey to Fight Club” men are frequently represented as violent, but scholars in men’s studies have advocated for more nuanced views of what it means to be a man. We will seek out these nuances, study representations of manhood from ancient myths through modern popular culture, and explore what it has meant and what it means today to stand up and be a man.

Ian Andrew MacDonald, French/Italian

Ancient Democracy: A Modern View

 Born in ancient Greece, democracy is the most important original contribution to humanity, literally shaping public life, personal freedom, civil rights, education and intellectual advancement ever since, therefore forming the cornerstone of our modern ‘western’ civilization. This seminar ventures an interdisciplinary investigation of ancient democracy (with special emphasis on the Athenian democracy), its origins, history and evolution, rise and fall, and its diachronic legacy through a complex multivariate approach and a challenging synthesis of diverse evidence, including: the archaeological record, such as public buildings in the agoras (prytaneia, stoas, bouleuteria, assembly areas, law courts, prisons); relevant iconographical evidence in contemporary sculpture and vase-painting; select ancient literary sources and testimonia (i.e. Aristotle, Plato, Thucydides, Xenophon, Old Oligarch, Aristophanes); historical accounts and epigraphic evidence on the laws, principles, structure, organization, and function of various democratic institutions and offices, voting, lot and ostracism mechanisms and procedures. Discussions will then focus on the pathology of democracy, an analysis of its diagnostic features and diachronic values, and an evaluation of the legacy and influence of ancient democracy on the earliest modern democratic systems (USA 1776, France 1789-93, Greece 1821-1830) and the variant forms of its modern revival.

Christofilis Maggidis, Classical Studies

Gender and Globalization

 *This seminar has been designated as part of the Global Issues Learning Community cluster.

This course examines some of the ways that what is commonly referred to as ‘globalization’ effects men and women in specific places. We begin by examining the meaning of ‘globalization,’ a term that, if properly interrogated, may help us understand a number of contemporary social problems in the United States and other parts of the world. We will analyze globalization in relation to shifting political-economic processes that have occurred world wide over the past several decades, including for example, neoliberal economic policies, structural adjustment programs, offshore businesses, and income distribution. We will then spend the majority of course meetings examining the
 
increasing participation of women in the international division of labor and the way that ‘global’ processes affect the meanings and practices of gender in local places. Our explorations will include ethnographic examples from various parts of the world, for example, parts of the United States, Europe, Thailand, Malaysia, Mexico, Jamaica, and parts of Africa. This course will be linked directly with the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues, and will include a number of discussions with guest speakers.

Heather Merrill, Clarke Forum/Anthropology

The Philosophy of Human Rights

 *This seminar has been designated as part of a Residential Learning Community.

What does it mean to have a right? Are some human rights inalienable? What is the relationship between rights and the law? How ought human rights to be enforced? Is humanitarian intervention ever morally, politically, and legal justified? These are the kinds of issues that we will be addressing in our attempts to understand the nature and limitations of human rights. Along the way, we will examine both traditional and contemporary philosophical treatments of human rights—paying particularly close attention to how these views can provide us with helpful lenses through which to examine the current geo-political state of affairs with respect to rights.

Thomas Nadelhoffer, Philosophy

The Myth of Frankenstein

 *This seminar has been designated as part of a Residential Learning Community.

Why does Mary Shelley’s monster—whose name is not “Frankenstein”—still scare us after 190 years? How did a 19-year-old young woman, as she wondered herself, come “to think of . . . so very hideous an idea?” Why is the story of Frankenstein (that’s the doctor’s name!) one of the dominant myths of the modern era? What is a modern myth and why are myths important? This seminar will explore the story of Victor Frankenstein and his monster from the early 19th century, when it was first imagined, to the present day, when it remains the subject of countless films, advertisements, Halloween costumes, and parodies. We will study two versions of this modern masterpiece, will examine the life of the remarkable young woman who composed the tale, and will study her circle of family and friends. Throughout the semester we will also look at films: James Whale’s masterpiece, Kenneth Branagh’s monstrosity (which gets better with age), and Mel Brooks’s “I-gor” text, a surprisingly serious parody. Our goal will be to translate a Romantic myth from 1816 into the modern era. We will also seek to understand what still scares us in this creation story, and why . . . ?

 Ashton Nichols, English

Science, Culture, and the Future of Civilization

 *This seminar has been designated as part of a Residential Learning Community.

The Problems: Pandemic Disease, Malnutrition, Global Warming…

The Solutions: Drugs and Gene Therapy, Genetically Modified Food, Alternative Energy…

If you want a problem solved, give it to a scientist. If this statement were true AIDS would be eradicated and fusion power would heat our homes. There must be more to these problems than the quick ‘technological fix.’ How do we even start? This seminar will explore the complexities of some of the world’s most pressing problems to discover the role science and technology play in the larger context of global economics and politics, diverse religious, cultural, and ethical beliefs, and limited natural resources. Historical writings and interpretations of Malthus, Darwin, Spencer, Snow, and others will show us how we got to the present state of the world. Writings by Friedman, Wilson, and others will help us to understand the present. Alternative future scenarios and their implications will be debated using writings by Hardin, Lovelock, Lomborg, Diamond, and others. The challenges come in making decisions about our future path. Our discussions will include the role of a liberal arts education to confront the status quo of a world struggling to sustain 6.5 billion individuals and to find ways to educate globally, nationally, and individually as we seek ways to bring positive change.

Jeff Niemitz, Geology

Preserving planet Earth as we know it

 *This seminar has been designated as part of the Global Issues Learning Community cluster.

One of the biggest challenges of this present and the next generation is the preservation of our planet for future generations. This First-Year seminar deals with the most important issues that pertain to the survival of planet Earth. In the first part of the seminar we will focus on global climate change and its consequences for humankind. You will learn about the scientific issues that are relevant to global weather change, such as the release of greenhouse gases, the thermal equilibrium of planet Earth, and why different scientists arrive at different conclusions based on the same data. We will address questions such as: Is global warming real? What causes global climate change? Should there be strict emission legislation? Should we have signed the Kyoto Protocol? When will our oil supplies run out? Can we not just compensate for the lack of oil by utilizing the planet’s large repository of coal? How much greenhouse gas does the burning of tropical rainforests produce? To reduce the rate at which the Earth’s average temperature increases we need to stop the continual increase in greenhouse gas emissions. Thus in the second part of this seminar we will investigate alternative energy sources and discuss the controversies that accompany these energy production schemes. What kind of alternative energy sources should we explore? How do nuclear reactors work and how safe are they? What is a fusion reactor? How efficient is the latest generation of photovoltaics? Finally, realizing that we are using about six times as much in resources per capita as Europeans, we will focus in the third part of the seminar on ideas that will move us toward sustainable living. This First-Year seminar aims at raising environmental awareness and seeks to elucidate our responsibilities as stewards of our planet and educated global citizens.

Hans Pfister, Physics/Astronomy

American Lives

 Autobiography has emerged as one of the great American literary forms.  It is also an important, though extremely challenging type of historical evidence.  This seminar will explore various themes and practices in American autobiography, from Benjamin Franklin’s famous effort to nineteenth-century slave narratives to the recent explosion in personal (and sometimes fictionalized) memoirs.  The course will begin with an overview of the international and religious history of the genre and then will describe its American and secular evolution. During the semester, students will evaluate questions concerning the elusive nature of memory and changing concepts of the self.  They will analyze the lines between fact and fiction.  They will consider the American penchant for using autobiography as a political strategy. They will seek understanding about national history and culture through the lens of individual lives.  But mostly they will attempt to come to their own terms with one of the more controversial and fascinating genres in the American tradition.  

Matthew Pinsker, History

The Rise and Fall of the Global Recording Industry

 *This seminar has been designated as part of a Residential Learning Community.

Object: Have students realize the function, composition, and results of globalization (or more accurately, the delocalization) of the music recording industry.  It will examine the nature of the relationship between the corporate middleman (companies associated with the recording, distribution, and marketing of music) and artists, and between the middleman and audiences.  It will examine the effect of the centralized process for preserving and marketing music, how marketing objectives intersect and/or contradict artistic objectives, and the social function of music making, the relationship between creators and performers of music and the society within which they do so. Recordings will be examined in their archival capacity, in their function for cross-cultural and professional exchange. Materials for the course will include monographs and articles on the history of recording technology and the industry (including its incipience and up to recent legal, commercial, and social challenges that are currently eroding the industry), representative recordings from the entire span of recording history, representing a diverse array of musical genres and styles, nations and practices, as well as some significant non-musical recordings. The recording industry will be studied in its capacity as a force for cultural imperialism and suppression of some cultures. The course will also study the economic, artistic, and social impact of recording on how we hear and what we expect of performances (i.e. live vs. recorded).

Robert Pound, Music

Knowing America Through Baseball

 French-born American writer, educator, and historian Jacques Barzun wrote, "Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball, the rules and realities of the game …" Herbert Hoover, the thirty-first President of the United States, once said, "Next to religion, baseball has furnished a greater impact on American life than any other institution."  This course will examine the extent to which baseball both reflects American society and has shaped it. Issues of race, class, gender, immigration, myths, legends, economics, ethics, and globalization will be explored. Why did the "Negro Baseball League" and the "All-American Girls Professional Baseball League" exist? Why did the Boston Red Sox have to pay over $51 million just to negotiate with Japanese star Daisuke Matsuzaka? Why does the Dominican Republic supply more players to Major League Baseball than any other country outside the U.S? Why did Major League Baseball recently establish a new drug policy? More importantly, how do answers to questions like these inform us about American society? The prerequisite for this seminar is not knowledge and love of baseball, but a willingness to think critically about how a "game" can facilitate the understanding of a culture.

Michael Roberts, Biology

Sex Changes and Role Reversals

 Transgender is out of the closet and a subject of popular culture as well as Gender and Queer Studies. Transgendered people make clearer that gender roles are socially constructed, are cultural performances, are subversive of cultural norms that are taken for granted by the rest of society. We will discuss theories, memoirs, literary texts, and films on the transgendered subculture, and what light it sheds on the mainstream culture.

Gisela Roethke, German

Globalization, Transnationalism, and the New Americans

 *This seminar has been designated as part of a Residential Learning Community.

Focusing primarily on Mexican (im)migration – and to a lesser extent Hmong and  South Asian immigration - this seminar will explore the conditions and meaning of contemporary diasporas for New Americans and for the United States. We will examine the causes and consequences of migration, and the impact on individuals, families, and communities involved in both sending and receiving communities through readings, interviews, and film. Our seminar will be linked with another seminar on the South Asian Indian Diaspora in a learning community.

Susan Rose, Sociology

Explaining Illness to Ourselves

 A 70 year-old learns she has breast cancer. A 30 year-old receives a positive HIV test result. A college student catches a cold during the last week of the semester. Each scenario prompts its own explanation, which includes images of the kind of person it describes and how the affliction came about: an explanatory model. The goal of the seminar is to explore and critically appraise explanatory models of illness.

We’ll investigate the historic and cultural evolution of such models, their relationship to medical and scientific understanding of disease, and the consequences of our explanations for how we treat both the sickness and the sick person. What do our explanatory models reveal about our notions of causality, contamination, morality, and responsibility? Why are some illnesses more “legitimate” than others? How can we use scientific methods in studying explanatory models?

The seminar will use nonfiction, fiction, discussions, and student-administered experiments to explore what Susan Sontag called “the kingdom of the ill.”

Andy Skelton, Psychology

Deconstructing Brewster’s Millions

 Suppose you were given 30 million dollars to spend in 30 days. Could you do it? Oh, and there is a catch: you can’t give it away, you can’t tell anyone why you are doing this, and you can’t have any assets when you are done. That is the premise of Brewster’s Millions, the 1985 movie staring Richard Prior and John Candy. That premise will serve as the starting point for this seminar. We will read the original 1902 novel Brewster’s Millions, watch early Hollywood and modern Bollywood adaptations, listen to Jack Benny perform it on the radio, and read scripts from Broadway and the London stage. We will explore the transformation of Brewster’s Millions over the past century and parallel transformations in society. And, we will try to spend that 30 million dollars ourselves.

Gregory J. Smith, Psychology

1492: The Year the World Changed

 This course will examine Spain in the year 1492 through the lens of three, key events: Columbus's “discovery” of America; the fall of Muslim Granada to the Christians, and the expulsion of the Jews. We will study history, literature, and art in order to examine this transformational year that serves as a dividing line between the Middle Ages and the modern world, and how it continues to shape the identity of millions to this day.  

Wendell Smith, Spanish/Portuguese

The Indian Diaspora in the US: Constructing Identities in Local and Global Contexts

 *This seminar has been designated as part of a Residential Learning Community.

Immigrants from the Indian subcontinent have arrived to the US in increasing numbers since the 1965 immigration reform. This population is quite diverse, including Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Christians. Further, new immigration continues even as earlier immigrants have settled and raised a generation of American-born Indian Americans. This course will closely examine issues of identity and acculturation among Indian populations in the U.S. We will pay particular attention to the negotiation and construction of various social identities in the context of American racial, ethnic, and gender politics, as well as ongoing interaction and identification with India. These themes will come alive as we read ethnographies and fictional work by Indian American authors, and interact with the Indian American community of central Pennsylvania.

Shalom Staub, Academic Affairs/Religion

Contemporary Writers of Color

 In this course, we will examine a range of literature written in the mid to late 20th century by American writers of color. We will work primarily with fiction but will also study a fair amount of film and poetry, some non-fiction prose, and a bit of visual art. We will thus be looking at a very wide spectrum, tasting bits and pieces of this and that.  Nevertheless, the sampling will give a sense of literatures (and cultures and politics) that are clearly not mainstream North American. The questions to think about, then, should perhaps foreground this difference, not so much to come to easy conclusions about how cultural sub-groups makes sense of life but rather to begin by acknowledging the complexity of culture, identity, and representation. We can use the occasion of this complexity to ask ourselves some more basic questions: What is literature, after all?  How does one go about judging what is and what is not art? what is (should be, can be, etc.) the connection between politics and art? culture and identity? life and representation of life?

Sharon Stockton, English

Food: Growing, Eating, and Globalization

 *This seminar has been designated as part of the Global Issues Learning Community cluster.

Food is a basic part of everyday life. It is also an excellent subject for thinking about critical issues such as globalization, cultural differences, poverty, justice, health, and sustainability. Few people in modern societies grow or raise more than a small amount of the food they eat. Not only are there very few farmers left in the United States, but food is moved across international boundaries in enormous amounts—for example, bananas and coffee into the U.S., grains out of the U.S.—transforming rural environments everywhere. How and when did food become so globalized? Global movements of plants and animals, as well as food products themselves, have been important for hundreds of years. More recently, the production and consumption of food have become even more globalized within an industrial food system. From growing to eating, the fundamental significance of food has made it the subject of serious research by a wide range of scholars and writers. In this seminar, we discuss a variety of provocative writings that place food in historical, social, cultural, political, social, economic, geographical, and environmental context. Major topics will include Global Interconnections, Cultural Differences, Global Spread of Plants and Animals, The Industrial Food System, New Agrarianism, Hunger, and Health/Nutrition. We will consider concrete examples from within the United States and around the world, emphasizing how globalization over the long term has changed both growing and eating.

Jeremy Vetter, History

Ethics of Hunting and Fishing

 *This seminar has been designated as part of the Global Issues Learning Community cluster.

Animal populations around the world face increasing pressure from habitat destruction and other environmental impacts of human population growth and economic development. Ironically, these same animal populations support hunting and fishing activities that provide recreation for millions of people and generate billions of dollars in revenue every year. In this seminar, we will examine issues such as the role of hunting in managing animal populations, the ethics of hunting and fishing for “wild” animals that have been raised in captivity, the environmental impacts of hatcheries and stocked fish, whether hunting and fishing cause animals to experience pain and fear, and the morality of catch-and-release fishing.

Tim Wahls, Mathematics/Computer Science

Detecting Cultural Narratives

 What could mystery novels set in Victorian England, 1930s California, 1950s Harlem, 1960s Stockholm, and 1970s Amsterdam have in common? How do they reflect or interrogate the cultures that produced them? Why did Conan Doyle set much of The Hound of the Baskervilles on remote Dartmoor?  Why does Philip Marlowe constantly encounter sexual “deviancy” in The Big Sleep?  What does Sjowall and Wahloo’s The Laughing Policeman suggest about Swedish politics in the 1960s? What is van de Wetering saying about Holland’s colonial past in novels? These are some of the questions we will explore as we study the “cultural work” of one of the most popular forms of genre fiction:  detective novels. If time allows, we will also look at one or two film adaptations to see how a different medium transforms works of literature. Last, but not least, we’ll tackle the big question:  just why have these sorts of novels remained so popular?

Bob Winston, English

Politicizing Science: Who Controls What We Know?

 *This seminar has been designated as part of a Residential Learning Community.

Science is often portrayed as a field of study that is free from human bias, and outside influence. But just how true is that assumption? In this course, we’ll examine the forces that influence science and science policy in the U.S. We’ll begin by examining the scientific method and how one distinguishes science from pseudo-science and “junk science.” Next, we’ll examine the role of the media in disseminating scientific “knowledge” to the public. We’ll then focus in on specific examples of science in the public realm. Potential discussion topics include the tobacco debate, the Dover school issue debate, climate science, and the current furor over stem cells. An overarching goal of this course is to improve scientific literacy and critical thinking skills in evaluating what is considered “science,” through various readings, films, and outside speakers.

Amy Witter, Chemistry

Myth, Religion and the Creative Impulse

 This seminar will consider how an essentially, officially secular culture like the United States tends to give expression through the creative arts to manifestations of spirituality. We will understand "religion" in a broad sense to embrace both formal religious ideas and conceptions of secular "myth"   like baseball in Field of Dreams or "the circle of  Life" in the Lion King   that express a longing for transcendent meaning. The seminar will examine how the arts create and reflect the spiritual dimensions of American culture, and the various ways in which music, theater, film, and art depict spiritual subjects and themes. Informed by readings in anthropology and comparative religion, students will examine a wide variety of art forms both as a group, and in individual projects.
 
Todd Wronski, Theatre/Dance

The Language of Power and the Power of Language

 Language matters. From courtroom to classroom and from summit talks to small talk, what we say and how we say it influence every aspect of our lives. We need language as much as we need air and food, but we often overlook it.

This course examines the politics of language from two general perspectives. First, we investigate how language divides us and our communities. Specifically we want to find why the powerful and the powerless, the old and the young, the whites and the people of color, and men and women do not often understand each other and what languages they actually speak. Second, we investigate how we can use language to achieve our goals every day. We explore what we say and what we do not say, when we say it, and how we say it affect the outcome of our linguistic communication.

In classroom we look into various hypotheses about language use, and outside classroom we test these hypotheses by observing what people say, how they say it, and what goals they actually achieve. In the end we want to be better language users, using language to unite us and our communities and to become winners in communication.

Minglang Zhou, East Asian Studies