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Fall 2001 Arts and Humanities (E103)
E103 How Thought Depends on Language (Keller, H.)(0033) 2:30p - 3:45p MW CH 033
A demonstration of how the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis embodies the proposition that foreign languages are not simply
elaborate codes for English. This course will bring alive the long-postponed apologia for why we study a foreign
language. We will see how the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis fits into daily life by highlighting the contrasts in the
categories of the native language and the "foreign" language.
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E103 Quantum Mysteries for Everyone (Dickson, W.)(0040) 9:05a - 9:55a MW BH 109
Underneath our world of familiar objects is the strange quantum world. We will begin by performing several experiments,
to see just what is so strange about the quantum world. Then, following in the footsteps of physicists like Einstein,
we will think critically about the philosophical puzzles raised by those experiments, and some proposed solutions to
those puzzles. Our aim is to learn to think about science and the philosophical challenges that it faces, while also
respecting its amazing success. No prior knowledge of physics or mathematics is presumed. There are several short
writing assignments and a web-based project.
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E103 Star Trek and Religion (Weaver, M.)(0045) 2:30p - 3:45p TR EP 220
Star Trek and Religion is an introduction to the critical study of religion by way of popular culture. It is possible
to find episodes whose themes are hostile to religion, much like the writings of David Hume, Karl Marx, and Sigmund
Freud. We can also find episodes that take a more constructive approach to religious belief, sounding sometimes like
William James, Clifford Geertz, or even like medieval mystics or modern cosmologists. We will use the Star Trek cluster
(Original Series, Next Generation, DS-9, and Voyager) to explore these ideas, and the course reader will introduce you
to the writings of classic critics of religion, mystics, and constructive thinkers who combine some insights from modern
physics with religious ideas.
Each week will have four components: lecture, episode watching, short quiz (on the ways in which the episode resonates
with the theme of the writings) and some opportunities for tutorial work. Each student will be required to write a
short term paper using an episode to find religious themes and explore them. Class attendance (like work assignments
on a starship) is required.
Students do not need to know anything about Star Trek or about the academic study of religion. This course will
introduce you to both.
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E103 Literary Classics in Popular Culture: Beauty and the Beast (Zarifopol-Johnston, I.)(0046)
9:05a - 9:55a MW FA 102
This course examines twentieth-century popular culture (movie, TV adaptations, musicals, plays and even comic strip)
versions of literary classics. We will explore these remakes in terms of the socio-historical context in which the
adaptations are made. We will address the fact that most remakes are movies-ours is a visual culture and cinema was
the invention of our century-and we will ask ourselves the question "What aesthetic or thematic changes does the
alteration in the medium of expression trigger?" Moreover, many of the literary "classics" were popular in their
time. So we will ask ourselves "what constitutes a classic?" and "what is popular culture?," and we will define the
relationship between the two. We will be reading classics by Shakespeare, Victor Hugo, Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, and
Anton Chekhov and we will view famous remakes such as Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Batman, Kenneth Branagh's
Frankenstein, Nikita Mihalkov's Dark Eyes, and Clueless.
Requirements: students are required to keep a journal; three four-page papers and a final essay exam. Participation
in class discussion is also a must.
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E103 Utopias (Hanson, K.)(0051) 1:25p - 2:15p MW WH 120
What would an ideal society be like? How would its members relate to one another and to the physical world? Would
the ideal state impose any unwelcome restraints or require any personal sacrifices? Is there an inevitable conflict
between a human desire for happiness and a human desire for freedom? Must individuality be diminished for communal
good? Are the problems of actual societies a product of social structures or are they due to human nature?
In considering these questions raised by utopian theories, we will read both philosophical and literary sources,
including Plato (The Republic), Aristotle (Politics), More, Freud (Civilization and Its Discontents). Students will be
expected to participate in class discussions and analytical debates, to write some short papers, and to complete a
take-home final examination.
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E103 Rebels with and without a Cause: the Roots of Rebellion (Mickel, E.)(0056) 9:05a - 9:55a MW BH 204
This course will be set within the shadow of Romanticism, an eighteenth and nineteenth century movement that has been
defined as revolutionary in all its aspects: social, political, philosophical and artistic. Scholars often explain the
dramatic change in western civilization as the result of religious, scientific and philosophical changes begun in the
Renaissance and brought to full fruition in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. We will explore the philosophical and
theological roots of this rebellion in antiquity.
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E103 Soviet Women in World War II: Soldiers and Home-Front Fighters (Perlina, N.)(0060)
1:00p - 2:15p TR BH 005
On June 22, 1941, despite the non-aggression pact that the two countries had signed, and without a declaration of war,
military troops of Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, moving in three directions: toward Leningrad (Saint Petersburg,
the city founded by Peter the Great), toward Kiev (the major city of ancient Rus, and the capital of Ukraine), and toward
Moscow - the capital of the USSR and Russia. After the initial shock of invasion, the populace concentrated its energies
on the smashing of the enemy and saving "Mother Russia." The war was proclaimed to be Russia's Holy War, the Great
Patriotic War, the People's War, and immediately, along with men called up for military service, 800,000 young girls and
women were mobilized for wartime service and frontline duties with the Red Army. Far in the rear behind the front line,
most of the horrendous work-load was carried on by women. And during the heroic Siege of Leningrad, the city endured the
900 days of blockade thanks to the work and suffering of women. But once victory had been achieved, their contribution to
the feat of life and survival was played down, and their memoirs and authentic accounts of the events ignored as
incompatible with the teachings of Stalin's official version of History.
The proposed course will discuss different roles of Soviet women in the war by focusing on the view points chosen by
women themselves so that their variously narrated individual stories will confront, amend, and complement the solidified
position of the official History.
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E103 Who Wrote the Bible? (Marks, H.)(0064) 7:-00p - 7:50p MW WH 120
More than any work of literature, sacred or profane, the Bible forces us to confront the problem of authorship. Who
wrote the Bible? Was it Moses? Was it God? Was it a prophet or a priest in the time of King David, or a college of
scribes in exile in Babylonia? Or do readers themselves complete the writing of the texts they read? Traditional
religious answers to the question of authorship have attempted to defend the Bible's unity. Modern critical answers,
by contrast, stress the composite nature of even the smallest units (individual psalms, brief narrative episodes, and
points of law). What does it mean in the age of relativity to entertain multiple, or even conflicting viewpoints?
The course has three principal aims: to explore the diversity of biblical writing, to introduce students to the excitement
of literary analysis through exercises in close reading, and to test the role of the reader in the "construction" of
literary meaning. Lectures and discussion sections will take up such topics as mythic origins, the relation of
history-likeness to history, and the role of women in biblical narrative. Our readings will be drawn from many parts of
the Bible-particularly from the narrative sections of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament)-augmented by brief selections from
ancient Near Eastern and Hellenistic literature and from the history of biblical interpretation. Theological questions
will be treated from a secular and critical perspective, but with respect for individual beliefs and for the diverse
traditions of religious instruction.
In addition to midterm and final exams, students will be required to write short weekly response papers (1-2 pages) on
set themes and to master the basics of library research.
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E103 Yo Quiero Latino Popular Music (Jaquez, C.)(0069) 11:15a - 12:05p TR WY 015
The imagery and diverse conceptions about Latino culture in popular contexts raise a number of questions. How does this
visibility reflect upon U.S. Latino communities in daily life? What cultural stereotypes are invoked and what do they
mean? What does it mean when Latino culture is attributed with certain qualities - i.e. "hotness" or "spiciness?" How
can popular music expression influence social change and our conceptions about certain groups of people? Students will
be introduced to ethnographic research methods such as participant/observation as well as learn critical analysis of
popular culture images and contexts. They will develop music listening skills in analyzing musical expression through
developing vocabularies and basic understanding of key musical concepts.
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E103 The Meaning of Life: Existential Perspectives (Spade, P.)(0072) 10:10a - 11:00a MW WH 120
This semester we will concentrate on two important figures in the existential tradition: Soren Kierkegaard and Jean-Paul
Sartre. Main themes will include: human freedom and "criterionless choice," the existence or non-existence of God, the
nature of belief, the structure of human consciousness, the notion of an "unconscious" mind, human emotions,
self-deception and morality. Two lectures and one discussion section per week.
Readings will be from: Kaufmann, Existentialism From Dostoevski to Sartre (a collection); Kierkegaard, Fear and
Trembling, Sartre's weird novel, Nausea. There will be short weekly quizzes, two essay-type examinations and several
short papers.
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E103 What is the Feeling behind the Text? (Volkova, B.)(0077) 1:00p-2:15p TR BH 006
This course serves to introduce students to the fundamentals of meaningful reading, semiotics, linguistics and
communication theory. We shall look at texts from the point of view of underlying feelings and implied human values,
as well as cultural conditioning (male, racist, nationalist biases). We shall find out what is the author telling us
about him/herself often without meaning to.
We shall analyze passages from contemporary popular as well as less popular literature and later include some
theoretical readings on semantics. Assignments will be exercises in analyses of short passages from novels, poems,
newspapers, Bible, etc. Each student will present two short analyses and two short essays on selected topics.
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E103 Electronic Zen: Problem of Irrationality (McRae, J.)(0081) 10:10a - 11:00a TR CH 033
Zen Buddhism is often described as a kind of religious experience that cannot be understood by the ordinary rational
mind. Intentionally illogical sayings such as "what is the sound of one hand clapping" are used in order to force the
religious practitioner to dispense with rational analysis in favor of some type of profoundly intuitive and
non-discriminating understanding.
This is a public university, however, where we work to explore difficult issues by reading, research, discussion, and
writing, and just because Zenheads say what they're doing is beyond rational analysis doesn't mean we shouldn't go ahead
and try to understand what they're up to after our own fashion. In fact, the academic study of Zen presents us with some
very interesting problems. First, obviously, how do we go about studying the irrational using the rational mind? Looked
at in this way, the study of Zen has a lot in common with the study of other forms of religious mysticism, although we'll
have to decide, of course, how useful it is to think of Zen as mysticism. Second, are there any strategic benefits that
lead the proponents of Zen to declare it irrational, beyond culture and history? That is, what do such claims do for the
people who make them, and do they mask rational patterns they might prefer to have hidden? Third, how do claims for the
irrationality of Zen relate to assertions that bind the religion to Chinese or Japanese (or Korean) culture, i.e., that
Zen represents the very heart of Asian culture (or one of the East Asian cultures), or that Zen cannot really be
understood unless you're Chinese, or Japanese, or Korean?
Over the course of the semester we'll move through a series of questions designed to explore the problems described just
above. Each week's lectures and readings will introduce a basic problem in the understanding of Zen by rational, academic
means, presented in an order based on logical and methodological concerns rather than historical sequence.
There will be no tests, and all grading will be done on the basis of section participation and the completion of
assignments. In addition to their role at discussion meetings, sections will be led by AIs as exercise and cooperative
work labs. In fact, students will have the option of participating in a monitored and guided electronic mail discussion
section rather than a conventional "face-to-face" meeting.
Assignments will be designed to maximize mutual assistance and collaboration, and they will include exercises intended to
achieve mastery of basic skills of library and archival research, expository writing and editing. All assignments for
this course will be designed so as to create contributions for a World Wide Web site for the study of Zen Buddhism.
Students will be required to master the ordinary use of Netscape Navigator and to communicate by electronic mail; all
assignments will be written for use on the Web and to be submitted electronically. However, students will not have to
learn any kind of programming or computer-related technology beyond the ordinary use of mouse and keyboard, and lots of
assistance will be made available.
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E103 Images: Japan (Jones, S.)(0086) 11:15a- 12:05p MW BH 340
From ancient picture scrolls to current films, manga comics, and industrial and fashion designs, the Japanese are
recognized for their skill in visual arts. More importantly, the entire history of Japan's culture is characterized by
an extraordinarily strong tendency toward conveying ideas and stories in pictures and performances rather than in words.
The course will introduce students to Japanese culture through the images it has created, train them in close "picture
reading," and help them think about interactions between American and Japanese cultures in images they have created of
each other. Basic materials include classical paintings, calligraphy, and theatrical spectacles as well as current films,
manga, animated videos, TV programs and advertisements. Students are required to attend two film showings in the evening
besides the lecture and discussion sessions. There will be two quizzes in addition to a midterm and a final examination.
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E103 Examined Lives (Senchuk, D.)(0089) 2:30p - 3:20p TR OP 105
The word "philosophy" means "love of wisdom" and, since its origin among the ancient Greeks, philosophy has claimed
to be a way of life, or to have implications for how one lives. What is wisdom, and what would it be like to live in
love with wisdom? Can such a life be lived by anyone, or is it exclusively for a gifted elite? Furthermore, what is
the value of such a life? Socrates famously said that the unexamined life is not worth living, but is this true? To
be sure, the reflective life of philosophy has its costs: as Socrates himself learned, societies and states resent the
ways in which philosophers question and criticize traditional beliefs and values, and philosophers have found
themselves persecuted, even sentenced to death, by their fellow-citizens. In response, they have developed a rich
variety of conceptions of the individual's complex relation to society, and a rich variety of ways of living and
writing in the face of resentment.
In this course, students will be introduced to some central philosophical personalities, texts, problems and methods.
They will learn to discern philosophy in dialogues, plays, letters, treatises and movies, and they will be invited to
draw on their own creative talents in order to explore whether philosophical lives might be lived here and now, and what
such lives might be like. What are the unexamined assumptions of the society in which we live? How might we question
those assumptions and might our conclusions challenge society's foundations? What role might philosophical questioning
play in a contemporary democracy? Could we lead examined lives today? There will be 2 short papers, some brief
homework, a midterm and a final.
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E103 American Best Sellers and Their Movies (Gutjahr, P.)(0094) 2:30p - 3:20p MW JH 124
This course will explore novels that have sold an extraordinary number of copies in the United States, either when they
were first published or over an extended period of time. Beginning with Susannah Rowson's 1791 seduction tale, Charlotte
Temple, and ending with Mario Puzo's 1969 crime epic, The Godfather, students will be asked to consider the reasons
behind, and the influence of, popular novels in the United States. We will examine issues such as how might one define
the term "best seller," who writes these books, who publishes them, who reads them, and how are they distributed.
Students will learn how to examine books as complex entities whose production and reception involves a host of forces
and figures, including authors, editors, booksellers, book clubs, librarians, movie moguls, politicians, and teachers.
Students will, in turn, learn what role certain popular novels have played in changing our country's language idioms,
fashions, politics, notions of gentility, sexual mores, etiquette, and religious values.
Aside from attending lectures and discussion sections, other elements of the class will include writing papers, reading
quizzes, and a midterm and final examination. This course will also involve watching motion picture versions of all but
one of the books we will read. Students will be responsible for attending these evening movie screenings and examining
these movies in a way which complicates and enhances their analysis of the novels under discussion. The reading list for
the course includes: Rowson's Charlotte Temple (1791), Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans (1826), Stowe's Uncle Tom's
Cabin (1852), Hull's The Sheik (1921), Metalious' Peyton Place (1956) and Puzo's The Godfather (1969).
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E103 Religion and Communal Identity in Islamic Inner Asia (DeWeese, D.)(0113) 9:30a - 10:45a TR GY 126
This course will explore, conceptually and historically, the intimate connections between religious affiliation and
notions of communal identity, using the example of the post-Soviet republics of Central Asia and the Volga-Ural region,
which are just now defining themselves, on the world stage, as 'national' communities. The course will employ a
multidisciplinary approach, drawing chiefly on history, folklore, anthropology, and religious studies, toward both
traditional and modern expressions of communal identity, in an effort to understand the contemporary competition among
Soviet, nationalist, and various Islamic (traditional, modernist, rigorist) visions of communal identity in Central and
Inner Asia.
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E103 Art and Power (Facos, M.)(0114) 10:10a - 11:00a MW FA 102
The control and exercise of power is a constant in human society. Those either possessing, criticizing, or seeking to
displace power have always relied heavily on visual culture's ability to persuade audiences. In this course we will
examine various kinds of power and the ways in which power has harnessed visual culture, an inherently powerful mode
of communication, to achieve its goals. Our discussion stretches from ancient times to the present, but concentrates
on the modern era. Emphasis is placed on learning to "read" and "decode" visual imagery in order to discover and then
interpret its various meanings, and also on expressing, orally and in writing, the ways in which these images of power
can be understood. Mostly, this course is about looking critically at visual culture and learning to ask questions that
enable us to "see" beneath the surface and to understand images in their cultural and historical contexts. Finally, we
ask: what are the devices which artists use in order to exercise power over viewers?
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