E105:  CULTURE AND SOCIETY
		SPRING 2006 THEME: CARNAVAL AND FESTIVAL

FESTIVAL AND CARNAVAL.  Have you been to Mardi Gras in New Orleans?
Do you celebrate Christmas, Channukah, Ramadan, or other religious
holidays, and if so, how?  In societies around the globe people
celebrate events and ideas in national holidays, private rituals,
concerts, and contests.  At designated times and specially prepared
places participants put on costumes and masks, prepare feasts and
indulge themselves, enact dramas and contests, play music and dance,
seek out partners, and tell stories about it.  In exploring festival
and carnival in a diversity of cultures we will examine both the
differences and the similarities that define humanity.

Whether religious, historical, occupational or seasonal, people engage
in masquerade, parades, and pilgrimage, sometimes breaking taboos and
expressing resistance to authority and at other times concentrating on
devotion and artistic expression.  These forms of celebration permit
the expression of experience and emotion, identity and ideas about
themselves and about others.  Through the study of these intriguing
events that encourage play and creativity, reveal status and
hierarchy, and sometimes flirt with danger, we will learn how
societies think about themselves and others, what kinds of social
relationships define a community, how people express differences, and
what kinds of art are created and experienced.

FORMAT:  The course involves two lectures and one discussion session
each week that meets with an assistant instructor.  The lectures are
50 minutes and will include videos and guest speakers.

EVALUATION AND GRADING:  Students will be graded on several short
exercises including participation/observation of a festival or
carnaval,  in class quizzes, class participation and attendance, group
presentations, a midterm exam, and a final exam.

Readings will include texts and readings placed on e reserve.