New
WINTERSESSION & Spring 2010 Courses
(Pending approval by Academic Council)
Department of Art
ARTH 297/397 Seminar. Architecture in India in the Post-Mughal Era: 1650–1950
Cummings
With the decline of the Mughal empire in the late-seventeenth century, India’s regional seats of power developed an abundance of new and hybrid architectural styles. Secular and religious architecture blended conformity to older Indian building with influence from Islamic courts, a blend that was expressed in a variety of ways in different regions. Added to this blend were European architectural idioms, whose forms were often incorporated into otherwise vernacular Indian architecture. This course will examine secular and religious architecture in India from the decline of Mughal supremacy and the early colonial period in India, to the immediate post-Independence era. This course may be taken as 297 or, with additional assignments, 397.
Prerequisite: 297 open to all students; 397 requires one of the following: 239, 240, 264, SAS 211/ REL 281, or permission of instructor.
Distribution: Arts, Music, Theatre, Film, Video
Semester: Spring Unit: 1.0
Comparative Literature
CPLT 208/REL 208 Legend, Satire, and Storytelling in the Hebrew Bible
Department of Economics
ECON 226 Economics of Education Policy
Dills
Applies microeconomic analysis to important questions in education policy. Should private school vouchers be implemented? Are there teacher shortages and how can they be solved? What are the long-term benefits of early childhood education? The course uses conceptual insights from microeconomics to understand these and other questions; particular emphasis is placed on economic interpretation of case studies and contemporary policy debates.
Prerequisite: 101 and 103 (or [QR 199])
Distribution: Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semester: Spring Unit: 1.0
ECON 329 Labor Economics
Dills
The course will use economic models and empirical research to analyze labor markets. The main topics include the determinants of the supply of labor, the demand for labor, unemployment, and wage differentials across workers. Students will explore the wage gap between men and women, the effects of immigration on the U.S. labor market, and the effects of labor unions.
Prerequisite: 201 and 203
Distribution: Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semester: Spring Unit: 1.0
Department of Geosciences
GEOS 219 Geology in New Zealand
Hawkins, Besancon
New Zealand is one of the best localities in the world to observe a wide range of active geologic processes, geologic features, and geomorphology in a small area. The country spans two types of plate tectonic boundaries and the interaction of these plates produces a wide variety of landforms and geological features such as active volcanoes, alpine mountains, complexes of metamorphic and igneous rocks formed deep in the crust, sedimentary rocks deposited in a variety of environments, and active glaciers and associated landforms, river systems and deposits. Students will keep daily field observation notebooks, complete field exercises, give oral presentations in the field and lead group discussion sessions. Normally offered in alternate years. Subject to Dean's Office approval.
Prerequisite: 101 or 102 and permission of the instructor.
Distribution: Natural and Physical Science
Semester: Wintersession Unit: 0.5
Department of Music
MUS 225/325 Topics in World Music
Sholes
Topic for 2009-10: African Influence on Western Composers of the Nineteenth Century to the Present. In the nineteenth century, the European colonization of Africa and a fascination with the “exotic” resulted in the influence of African musics and cultures on composers and musicians of Europe and the United States. This influence has since deepened due to the ever-increasing facility of global travel and communication. Drawing on research by ethnomusicologists, Africanists, and music historians and theorists, this course examines African influences on a variety of musical works created in Europe or the United States from the nineteenth century on. We will focus on Verdi’s opera Aida (1871), the music of African American jazz “great” Duke Ellington; and the use of African rhythms by contemporary composer Györgi Ligeti. Students enrolled at the 300 level will be expected to include musical analysis in their final research papers.
Prerequisite: 225: None. 325: Permission of the instructor. Music majors must elect this course at the 300-level.
Distribution: Arts, Music, Theater, Film, Video
Semester: Spring Unit: 1.0
MUS 300 Seminar: Studies in History, Theory, Analysis, Ethnomusicology
Topic C: The Haunting Melody: Music, Emotion, and Subjectivity in Psychoanalysis and Neuroscience, 1900-2009
Johnson
What is music, and why is it so powerful? How does it incite intense emotions, conjure deep memories, and even trigger involuntary physical reactions? These questions have haunted musical thinkers for centuries, and have especially crystallized over the past century, with the development of contemporary psychology and neuroscience. This module will offer an intellectual history of psychoanalytic, psychological, and neuroscientific theories of music in the twentieth century, beginning with Freud's anxieties about music, Reik's writings on Mahler, and various psychoanalytic studies of Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, and Wagner, and ending with current neurological research on music and emotion. We will also interrogate the complex philosophical dimensions of studying musical affect from a scientific perspective, especially given music’s long historical relationship to notions of spirituality and transcendence.
Prerequisites: Open to music majors/minors and others with permission of the instructor.
Distribution: Arts, Music, Theatre, Film, Video
Semester: Spring Unit: 0.5
Topic D: The Grain of the Voice
Brody
The performing voice has long been understood as an intense, corporeal presence and a medium of ethereal beauty. Vocal music and critical writing have played on this gamut, and the paradoxical effects of the singing voice have become thematic in Western musical discourse. We will begin with a set of listening/writing exercises aimed at developing a critical vocabulary for analyzing the "grain" of the voice--qualities that defy traditional modes of analysis--and their expressive values. We will also consider how vocal performance has been marshaled to represent thresholds of human identity in music and music criticism, with reference to diverse examples: vocalists such as Ethel Merman, Joni Mitchell, and Prince, and composers from Lully to Ligeti.
Prerequisites: Open to music majors/minors and others with permission of the instructor.
Distribution: Arts, Music, Theatre, Film, Video
Semester: Spring Unit: 0.5
Department of Philosophy
PHIL 218 Gender, Knowledge and Science
Wearing
What, if anything, does gender have to do with knowledge? This course investigates ways in which gender might influence our conception of knowledge and our practices of seeking it. We will examine how gender might situate and affect a knower, in order to investigate whether our practices of inquiry have systematically disadvantaged or excluded women (and other subordinated groups). We will consider three proposals for reforming those practices: feminist empiricism, feminist standpoint epistemology, and feminist postmodernism. Our investigations will also explore several questions about science: Do feminist (or any other) values have a legitimate role to play in scientific inquiry? Is our conception of objectivity or of rationality gendered? Is science inherently sexist or is it a feminist’s ally?
Prerequisite: Open to first-year students who have taken one course in philosophy and to sophomores, juniors, and seniors without prerequisite.
Distribution: Epistemology and Cognition
Semester: Spring Unit: 1.0
Department of Sociology
SOC 310 Comparative Perspectives on Immigration
Levitt
Each year, approximately 5 million people cross a national border to settle in a new land. This course looks comparatively and historically at the social and cultural aspects of the immigrant experience. We will begin with an overview of immigration in the United States, paying particular attention to the experiences of the children of immigrants. We will then look at how relatively new countries of settlement (such as Europe) compare to long-term plural societies (such as Malaysia). How is ethnic, racial, and religious diversity managed in each of these contexts? What do we learn about the nation by looking at how it "encounters the other?" We will also focus on how national cultural institutions represent the immigrant experience by looking at novels, films, art exhibitions, the media, and museums. Class projects will include oral histories, media and literary analyses, and a major research paper on a topic of students' choice. Some class time will be devoted to how to design, carry out, and analyze qualitative research.
Prerequisite: At least one prior social science course.
Distribution: Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semester: Spring Unit: 1.0
Theater Studies
THST 130/JPN 130 Japanese Animation (in English)
Morley
What makes Japan tick? New visitors to Japan are always struck by the persistence of traditional esthetics, arts, and values in a highly industrialized society entranced by novelty. Through animation films (English subtitles) and readings on animation we will explore this phenomenon from the inside. Focus is on the works of Tezuka Osamu, Hayao Miyazaki, and others. No Japanese language required. Students may register for either THST 130 or JPN 130 and credit will be granted accordingly.
Prerequisite: None
Distribution: Language and Literature or Arts, Music, Theatre, Film, Video
Semester: Spring Unit: 1.0
THST 251/JPN 251 Japanese Writers and Their Worlds (in English)
Morley
A study of the emerging voice of the writer in Japan from the tenth through the eighteenth centuries. Texts will include the early poetic diaries of the Heian Court ladies, The Tale of Genji, the Noh plays, puppet plays and the haiku poetry of Matsuo Basho. Emphasis is on the changing world of the Japanese writer, the influence of Buddhism and Confucianism, and the role of the texts in shaping Japanese aesthetic principles. Selected films shown throughout course. Students may register for either THST 251 or JPN 251 and credit will be granted accordingly.
Prerequisite: None
Distribution: Language and Literature
Semester: Spring Unit: 1.0
THST 255/JPN 255 Japan on Stage
Morley (Theatre Studies)
This course provides an introduction to Japanese theater with an emphasis on the development of the performance text from the eighth century to the contemporary period. Our work will be a combination of textual analysis and hands-on performance. Using videos and translated texts, as well as critiques by actors (in particular those of the medieval noh actor Zeami Motokiyo and the kabuki collection of actor's analects), and scholarly studies, we will cover three units: noh and kyōgen; kabuki and bunraku puppet theater; and contemporary theater. Students will have an opportunity to experiment with writing a modern noh play based on their understanding of the noh theatrical conventions, and to perform in a kyōgen play. No previous experience in Japanese Studies or Theater Studies required. Students may register for either THST 255 or JPN 255 and credit will be granted accordingly.
Prerequisite: None
Distribution: Arts, Music, Theatre, Film, Video
Semester: Spring Unit: 1.0