11:15-12:30 MW WH 120
In this class we will examine how foreign cultures really are. Are
different culture forms ways for people to express basically similar
needs and concerns to the ones we have? Or do these differences
actually articulate fundamentally different views about how the world
ought to work and people ought to behave? Taking as an example the
Mongols of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries—a culture of
Buddhist nomadic herdsmen ruled by a hereditary nobility—we will look
at clothes, marriage, housing, local government, education and
morals, art and religion, comparing them with their more familiar
equivalents in American society. The concept of imitation of
authoritative patterns versus self-expression will be a guiding
framework for the class.  Class assignments will include section
assignments stressing factual material, three essays (three-five
pages), one creative writing assignment, and one eight-page final
essay. Grading will be on a 100-point scale. The four section
assignments count 30 points, the first four essays/writing
assignments 40 and the final essay will count 20 points.  Attendance
and participation 10 points. There is no midterm or final exam.