Supplemental Descriptions for Fall 2008 Classes

Economics

The subject is the actions of individuals and firms in markets within an economy.   We learn about how we choose to allocate our time, opportunity cost, the how and why of firm pricing and output decisions and how that is determined by market structure, and efficiency.  Topical subjects include return on investment in a college education, income tax reform, economic damages, and sub-prime mortgage rescue plans.

The course uses the Internet, the computer, and multi-media materials to teach the content in an innovative way.  The class meets weekly.  In the first half of the period, the class meets for a multimedia lecture in the eThomson Learning Center of the Library, which is a high tech classroom with a dual screen projection system.  In the second half of the period, we adjourn to the Micro Lab (Room 3.05G) for computer exercises using data and interactive economic diagrams.   The course requirements include weekly online quizzes and homework assignments, three hourly tests, and a cumulative final exam.

The course has no prerequisites, is open to all students, and has an enrollment cap of 23 students.

This course meets Content Area Two: Social Sciences.

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The course content is the same as for the face-to-face Econ 1201. 

In the online format there are no in-class meetings, except for two proctored exams: an  hourly exam on October 31 at 1:30 pm – 2:30 pm, and a 2-hour cumulative final exam on December 12 at 1:30 pm to 3:30 pm.  Exam sites are at the Storrs Campus: Monteith Building, Lab Room 203, The Instructional Research Center, Center for Undergraduate Education Building, (CUE), Room 214, and the Stamford Campus: Classroom Building, Micro Lab Room 3.05;  on both dates and times listed.  A certified testing center can be used as an alternate location with instructor notification.  

All the course materials (including lecture presentations in PowerPoint with audio narration by the instructor, reserve readings, drill exercises, homework, and textbook) are available online.  The course grade is determined by 3 hourly exams, a cumulative final exam, and weekly online homework assignments.  Class discussion and office hours are conducted asynchronously 24/7 via instructor moderated online discussion forums. 

The course has no prerequisites, is open to all students, and has an enrollment cap of 35 students.
 
This course meets Content Area Two: Social Sciences.

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English

Back to the Future:  The Making of the Modern Self in British and American Literature

Stories are so deeply imbedded in our understanding of ourselves that we tend to forget they are, in fact, stories. This is especially true of a kaleidoscope of narratives which come together under the term “Modernism,” for many of the ideas and ideologies which we regard simply as life now, began at the turn of the century – the 19th century.

The early 1900s brought unprecedented change – Freud wrote of our unconscious life; Einstein theorized that time and space are relative; Women moved into the work force, and demanded the vote; World War I destroyed forever the notion that any individual or country is immune from the grotesque suffering of modern warfare. Artists and architects broke with centuries of tradition; philosophers echoed the death of God and religion; scientists were lured by not only the survival of the fittest, but the creation and development of new human beings bred to conquer all the ills of mankind. At the same time, a new medium emerged and became the dominant form of story-telling in our times: Film.  It developed alongside drama and the novel, influenced by these traditions and influencing them in turn. Finally, we arrive at a moment when we recognize that the future is past, as over and quaint as Y2K collectibles -- Post-Modernism, a time when, once again, we redefine the "new." This is the story of “isms” we are still living out in our own stories.

This course centers on texts by E.M. Forster, D.H. Lawrence, James Joyce, Tennessee Williams, Vladimir Nabokov, Kurt Vonnegut and Tony Kushner, but will involve interdisciplinary readings in philosophy, psychology, film, popular culture and the visual arts.

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This course will cover major American and British writers. We will study and analyze Shakespeare's Othello, Joyce's The Dead and Hardy's Tess of the Durbervilles. Then we will cross the ocean to explore Fitzgerald's Great Gatsby, Morrison's Song of Solomon, Wilson's Piano Lesson, Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and Hosseini's Kite Runner. We will also fulfill the university's writing requirements for the "W" course.

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ENGL 1701  (formerly 146)

Creative Writing

M     2:35pm - 5:15pm

The goal of the course is to help you understand and appreciate writing as a worthy endeavor -- in its reading and in your writing.
We will encounter and consider good worthy works of literature. The course will introduce you to effective writing as a form of expression and a source of pleasure. You will be asked to consider aspects of good prose and good poetry. You will be asked to implement style and grace in your own writings. This course will help you to see that you are capable of reading and writing well and effectively. You will be asked to express yourself in writing that will improve over the course of the semester. The ability to communicate with style and intelligence will serve you beyond this semester.

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English 2100 is a survey of British literature from the Medieval period to the Restoration of the Stuart monarchy in 1660. The course will examine literature in its historical contexts as well as objects of art. Major writers included in the syllabus are Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare and Milton, in addition to other, lesser well known writers.

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ENGL 2203  (formerly 271)

This course will cover major American writers of the late 19th and 20th centuries. We will study American Realism, featuring Twain’s The Adventures of Huck Finn, and the rise of Naturalism, especially Kate Chopin’s The Awakening. The rest of the semester will explore American Modernism, including texts by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, T.S. Eliot, and William Faulkner, and Toni Morrison. We will conclude the semester by studying Tennessee Williams’ Streetcar Named Desire and one film by the Coen Brothers.

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ENG 2301   (formerly 227)

The current discussion of globalization and post- as well as neo-colonialism has created a growing interest in the literature of developing countries with a rich intellectual life and cultural history. This course will concentrate on African literature(s) and offer an introduction to a selection of writers and their work in different genres as well as theoretical texts on post- and neo-colonialism. The course will take a particular look at issues like negotiation between cultural heritage and colonial past, the influence of modern media like TV and the internet, the changing role of women, the different religions, oral traditions, and post-independence warfare. Selected guest speakers may visit to enrich our class with more in-depth information about the history context of the works we read. The writers we will read in the class will include but not be restricted to the following: Ama Ata Aidoo, Nawal El Saadawi, Ngugi wa Thiongo, Kofi Anyidoho, Chris Abani, Farah, Nuruddin, and Wole Soyinka.

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ENGL 2401 (formerly Engl 210)

Poetry

The goal of the course is to help you understand and appreciate poetry as a form of expression for shaping meaning, in articulating thoughts and portraying emotions.  It studies acknowledged poetic masterpieces for their own sake. The course introduces you to poetry as a form of discourse and source of pleasure.  You will be asked to consider rhythm, meter, figurative language, imagery, irony, persona, and symbolism.  You will encounter traditional forms such as the sonnet, rhymed couplets, blank verse, and the ode. This course will help you to realize that you understand poetry …and, it is hoped, even like it.  You will be asked to express your responses to particular poems by discursive and intuitive writing (rather than multiple choice answers). You will develop the confidence to defend your love of the poem and to defend your dislike of it.  Good reading will also inspire the foundational sentence for the course’s required papers …and build upon the good reading, from paragraph to page, from page to conclusion …the remembered thought, carried on the backs of honored language, to a memorable end.  I encourage you to speak of such things or any things with the same honoring of language; to subdue the moment’s shyness so as to raise expression higher than you ever thought possible.  You have the key to the door. 

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ENGL 3003W    (formerly 249W)

2 sessions:  Tu   2:35pm - 5:15pm and Tu   6:00pm - 8:40pm

Writing effective letters, memos, proposals, reports, press releases, and job descriptions.

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English 3011W

   M     5:30pm - 8:10pm

Blogs. Wikis. MySpace. Facebook. YouTube. Web 2.0* technologies are changing the ways in which we live, think, learn, and associate. All of these technologies and the activities they make possible involve writing, and more broadly composing, in one format or another. In this course, we will study online texts that combine verbal, visual, audio, and hypertextual elements and are produced through such technologies. We will produce similar texts ourselves through reading, writing, research, and revision.

Assignments will include written responses to course readings, rhetorical analyses of various online texts, and a research project on how marginalized groups use the web and its new technologies to effect positive change in “real” life. This is not a course on web design; we will approach web 2.0 technologies and their social networking capabilities from the humanities perspective; therefore, a user’s knowledge of the Internet and computers—and an interest in online technologies and their social impact—is all you need.

* “Web 2.0 is a trend in World Wide Web technology, and web design, a second generation of web-based communities and hosted services such as social-networking sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies, which aim to facilitate creativity, collaboration, and sharing among users” (Wikipedia).

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ENGL 3503 (formerly 230)

Tu   2:35pm - 5:15pm

This course will help you enjoy and understand Shakespeare at a deeper level by making you familiar with the historical and political contexts, resources of language, and stage conventions that shaped his greatest plays, from comedies such as Twelfth Night and As You Like It  to tragedies and histories such as Richard III, King Lear and Othello.  To accomplish this you must be prepared to  read and re-read the assigned plays and criticism, and arrive ready to talk about the plays and sometimes perform a scene. During the semester you'll attend a production of a play and write about it. You will also be asked to come up with questions for group discussion. We will regularly watch scenes on film, and you’ll discuss and write about these performances.  Come with an open mind and ready spirit, because Shakespeare will stay with you the rest of your life if you meet the challenge. As Hamlet tells us, “Ripeness is all.”   Note to students planning to graduate in 2008-09:  This course is required of all majors and offered just once a year.

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ENGL 3117W (formerly 223W)

Victorian Literature

We use the term "Victorian" with pleasure or derision; to indicate attention to detail or prudery.  The literature studied in this course will recall these characterizations/caricatures and many more.  The age of Queen Victoria, the second two-thirds of the nineteenth century in England, set standards for the modern world while putting forth paradigms that Modernism rebelled against.  At a time when the sun never set on the British Empire (quite literally, since global colonial holdings encompassed 25% of the world's population at its height), the cultural production in the form of novel, poetry, nonfiction prose, and even drama was unsurpassed in quantity as well as diversity.   We will examine such a broad range of genres, and we will read literature as cultural history.  The texts produced during the age teach about the invention of understandings of race, gender, and sexual orientation.  They articulate socioeconomic difference as they challenge those very categories.  The new science and the old religion struggled to have the last word.  Classification in every field, social order and organization paralleled in the new social sciences, came to define this era shaped by a politics of identity and identification.  Obsessions with past times and far-off places competed with faith in progress, productivity, and movement forward.  From city to country, salon to slum, spaces small and large -- in art and in life -- became sites for the naming of the self.  

We will also explore our own inventions of the past: how we have come to view the Victorian era and how, in our public, political culture, we new Victorians look to the nineteenth century for both our radicalisms and reactionariness.  You may choose to attend the annual conference of the North American Victorian Studies Association to be held at Yale University in November 2008.  Your writing in this class will be commensurate with the expectations of the W designation. 

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ENGL 3119  (formerly 226)

Modern English Literature

This course focuses on 20th century British Literature from approximately 1900 to the present.  Class work will focus on historical and biographical background of authors and works as well as close readings of the texts. We begin with the writings of World War I veterans Robert Graves, Wilfred Owen, and Sigfried Sassoon together with suffragette writings by Rebecca West, Emmeline Pankhurst, and Sylvia Towndsend Warner.  Short stories by  Virginia Woolf, Katherine Mansfield, and D. H. Lawrence are included. We also trace the diversification of British literature, especially after World War II through the literature of former British colonies:  these include contemporary works by Margaret Atwood (Canada) and  Chinua  Achebe (Africa).

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ENGL 3216W (formerly 277W)

Black American Writers II

This course will explore major African American writers from Malcolm X and the Black Arts Movement to the current day. We will consider the political and social milieu of the texts we study, as well as the biographical backgrounds of the writers as they confront racism that has become increasingly institutionalized. Among the topics we will consider are the following: 1960s Black Nationalism and its critics, African American Feminism, the “NBA” (New Black Arts Movement), black philosophical and religious literature. Among the writers we will read are the following: Malcolm X, John Edgar Wideman, Ishmael Reed, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Gloria Naylor, Charles Johnson. We will also explore the work of recent black film directors, including Spike Lee and Charles Burnett. This course fulfills both a W and a Diversity/Multicultural requirement. Also, it is crosslisted with African American Studies 3211.

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ENGL 3420 (formerly 200)

In this course, we will explore the birth and development of children's literature from the 18th century to the present. Covering both a broad time period and several countries (including the U.S., Great Britain, and Western Europe), the reading will be divided by theme: early examples of writing for children & fairy tales, the relationship between text and image in illustrated work, survivalist literature, the Old West, colonialism and the exotic "Other", the "girl" book, fantasy and its 19th century British roots, and the adaptation of children's literature into film. Class discussion will focus on providing multiple critical interpretations for each text and the application of relevant literary theory in those interpretations.

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ENGL 3619 (formerly 241)

Topics in Literature and Human Rights: Literature of the Holocaust

It has been more than 60 years since the end of World War Two, and literature concerning the Holocaust continues to be published.  That historical event remains an ongoing phenomenon through its resultant cultural production.  The Holocaust lives today even as the events and people connected to it become part of the past.  The literature calls to awareness in our present moment while its history still unfolds. 

In this class we will analyze a range of different works pertaining to Holocaust studies, including memoirs and nonfiction prose, fiction, drama, film, and poetry.  We will entertain guest speakers and make at least one field trip to Holocaust-related exhibitions in New York City.  The texts we will evaluate range from the mid-20th century to the 21st and interrogate diverse perspectives and cultural experiences. 

This course concerns the notion of "survival" and "survivors," broadly conceived.  Even as we contemplate the atrocity of genocide, the miracle of life's endurance will serve as our recurring theme.  We will "look for the helpers" and interrogate meanings of "humanitarian effort" at individual and collective levels.  What do studies of "survival" teach us in terms of public policy and human interaction, community and relationship?  How do we (in E. M. Forster's words) "only connect"?  How do we survive?

This course satisfies Category 6, Diversity, for the English major.

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ENGL 3623  (formerly 217)

Literature, art, drama, and film betray fascination with the not-quite-human, the bestial, and the misshapen. What does it mean to be normal or abnormal; who makes the rules about who plays Beauty and who the Beast? How does it feel to inhabit an “extraordinary body,” forced to perform a self once called monstrous and now called disabled? Who are the bogeymen and women of 2008 – aliens, freaks, or avatars of our fractured selves? How do notions about race, gender inflect these fantasms? Why do the realms of horror and comedy feed off each other, breeding laughter that is part panic, part delight?  To struggle toward some answers and better questions, we will “think with monsters,” considering travel narratives, black comedy, sci-fi, fantasy, the Gothic and the surreal, as well as carnivals, freakshows, and festivals of blood. Writers may include Dante, Mandeville, Rabelais, Poe, Mary Shelley, Baudelaire, Albert Jarry, Flannery O’Connor, Angela Carter, Donna Haraway, Octavia Butler, Umberto Eco; and film auteurs such as Bunuel, Hitchcock, Fellini, Cocteau, Browning, Lynch, Cronenberg, Spike Lee, and Jane Campion. Students are encouraged to collaborate in designing the course: bring in suggested readings, films, etc., the first week of class. A long project combining writing and visual research is required.

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ENGL 4600W  (formerly 268W)

 F      10:00am - 12:40pm

This course focuses on the writings of two leading female modernists—Virginia Woolf and Hilda Doolittle.  Both Woolf and H.D. were shapers of influential modernist avant-garde groups:  Woolf lived at the center of the iconoclastic Bloomsbury group, and H.D. worked among the originators of modernist poetry—especially imagism (e.g. Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, and Richard Aldington) Literary modernism usually refers to experimental trends in early twentieth century literature:  for example,  modernist writers of fiction (e.g. James Joyce and William Faulkner) rejected traditional linear and realist plots, and modernist poets (e.g. Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot) favored free verse over traditional rhymes and meters.  Modernist literary innovations may seem to be merely technical experiments, but are, in  fact, motivated by profound alienation from status quo social and literary conventions as well as fundamental political questioning. In their personal lives and in their writings,  Woolf and Doolittle reflect and respond to the profound changes in psychology, the arts, technology, science, and philosophy that fostered modernist literary experimentalism.Their work is especially concerned with war and male violence against women and both reconstitute gender, language, narrative, and myth in their quest for personal and cultural rebirth. This is a “capstone” course, fulfilling both the Information Literacy and the Writing in the Major requirements for the English major.  In capstone courses English majors develop sophisticated reading, writing, and research skills. Students will be required to write two ten page papers, read secondary as well as primary sources, and develop advanced research methods in literary analysis. For further information on the capstone courses see http://english.uconn.edu/faculty_info.html OR Dr. Cramer Room 320, 251-8412.

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Hebrew & Judaic Studies

A study of the major ideas, personalities and literary works of the Judaic tradition from the Bible to Modern Israel. The course will consist of readings from some of the major texts of the Judaic genius, examining the historical context in which they were produced and the major ideas that they reflect.

Among the topics to be discussed are:

• The major personalities and ideas of the Hebrew Bible
• The Judaic experience and literary production during the time of Jesus and early Christianity
• Rationalism and Mysticism (the Kabbalah)
• "Fiddler on the Roof" and other expressions of the East European Diaspora experience
  
• Zionism and Modern Israel
  
• The American Jewish Experience
  
• Judaic attitudes to women's issues such as monogamy, divorce, abortion, and women's rights, from early Judaic civilization to modern interpretations

No previous knowledge necessary! All works will be read in English translation! This three-credit course fulfills the General Education Requirements in the following areas:
Content Area 1: Arts and Humanities
Content Area 4: Diversity and Multiculturalism

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History

Instructor: Sharmistha Roy Chowdhury

This course examines the development of our contemporary world from an historical perspective. We will study the responses of different civilizations to major political, social, economic and cultural developments. Following a chronological framework, this course pays particular attention to the varied effects of modernization in different parts of the world.

We will examine the impact on the world of such global processes as colonialism, industrialization, modern warfare and immigration. For example, we will study the impact of modernization on Japan as it was forced to open up to the west. We will also analyze the attempted modernization of the Russian, Austro-Hungarian and the Ottoman Empires and try to understand why these efforts remained partial and incomplete.

Over the course of the semester, we will use both secondary sources and primary sources such as novels, poetry and memoirs to gain a deeper understanding of the processes that have shaped the modern world.

This course meets Content Area1-C

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Women in History

This course examines the experiences of American women during the 20th century.  It focuses on major social and poltical changes that have impacted the lives of American women in all economic classes and various ethnic backgrounds. Specific topics include the suffrage movement, immigration, urbanization, and the second wave women's movement to name a few.

This course meets Content Area1-C and Content Area 4 and can count toward the WS Minor. See a WS  advisor for details.

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This course will investigate the Roots of the Western Experience in the Middle East and the development of civilization that introduced a complex way of life.  Students will achieve an understanding of the cultural processes and institutional connections as they developed from Antiquity through the Age of European Expansion.   To promote analytical and critical thinking, students will read and then discuss in class the ideas of great thinkers such as the religious beliefs of Akhenaton, Constantine, Joan of Arc, Margery Kempe, and Luther; the conception of empire and government held by Alexander the Great, Caesar Augustus, Charlemagne, and Elizabeth I; and the divisions within society described in “Antigone” and the “Canterbury Tales.”  This course will also focus on the evolving status of women within Middle Eastern and European culture.  Within one semester, students will travel through thousands of years as they learn about humankind’s greatest adventure and experiment: civilization.

This course meets Content Area 1-C

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Modern Western Traditions – multiple sections

This course meets Content Area 1-C

This course will trace Western Civilization from 1500 and the origins of the modern state through the age of revolution to the contemporary period.  In considering the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, Imperialism, and the major conflicts of the twentieth century, this course will demonstrate how the developments within Western Civilization have become increasingly global in nature.  To understand how these social, economic, and political processes helped create the modern world, students will read and discuss in class the ideas of the important thinkers such as Machiavelli, Locke, Hobbes, Marx, Sartre, and even the negative ideology of Hitler.  Students will also consider the expansion of women’s rights and discuss the ideas Olympe de Gouges, Catherine the Great, J. S. Mill, Simone De Beauvoir, and Ellen Goodman.  These discussions will promote analytical and critical thinking as students analyze the possible causes of human motivation and cultural change.

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History 101 studies the history of western civilization focusing on Europe and its interactions with the world from the Renaissance and Reformation until the present.  Among topics that will be emphasized are the Protestant and Catholic Reformations, the rise of constitutional and absolutist states, social and economic changes in Early Modern Europe, the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment, the Ancien Regime, the French Revolution and Napoleon, the Industrial Revolution, the birth of modern political ideologies, change and resistance to change during the Nineteenth Century, revolutions and civil wars during the Nineteenth Century, the unifications of Italy and Germany, social and economic change during the Nineteenth Century, the changing roles of women from the French Revolution through the Nineteenth Century, thought and culture during the Nineteenth Century, World War I, the Communist Revolution of November 1917 in Russia, the Paris Peace Conference and Versailles Treaty, the Interwar years including the Great Depression, the rise of Fascism in Italy and Germany, World War II, the Holocaust, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and Europe from 1945-2008.

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This section of History 101 examines social, political, religious, economic, and cultural developments in Western Civilization with a view to the process of modernization.  The course begins with the Renaissance, Reformation, and the Discoveries, and analyzes the impact of the dual revolution of the 18th century on Europe.  The shifting power balance among the Great Powers is considered against the forces of nationalism, imperialism, and the rise of the masses in the era of “World Policy.”  World War I spawned worldviews and new systems of government—communist and fascist—that competed with liberal democracy for much of the remainder of the 20th century. 

Lectures will be supplemented by several films.  Students are expected to participate in discussion of primary and secondary readings.

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The Historian’s Craft

 The goal of this class is to teach students how to be historians.  In this class, we will spend a lot of time learning how to read both primary and secondary sources analytically and critically, how to research a historical problem, and how to write a history research paper.  We will be doing several library-based exercises to get you familiar with the university library and how to find the information you need there. 

This will be a seminar-style class.  This means that I will not be lecturing to the class every week.  Rather, everyone will be expected to come to class prepared to take part in discussion and analysis of the materials for that week.  We will also be doing peer reviews of papers in small groups.  All students will have to make a brief presentation late in the semester describing their research topic and what they have discovered about it.

The unifying theme for this course will be two aspects of British history.  The first part of the course will focus on the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, as we explore the rapid transformation of Great Britain into an industrial society, and all of the problems that went along with that transformation.  The second part of the course will likely focus on Victorian London.  Throughout the class we will explore the many different ways that historians can examine these periods and the different types of histories that result:  economic, social, intellectual, cultural, political, gender, and many other types of history.  We will also look at some of the same material that the historians did, and see for ourselves if we agree with their analyses.

Open to all sophomores and above.  Students considering the History Major should take this required course at the earliest opportunity.

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Europe in the Nineteenth Century

This course covers the period between the French Revolution and the outbreak of World War I, in other words what historians traditionally call the long nineteenth century. Although in retrospect, the nineteenth century may seem to be a rather stable century, it was in fact an extremely eventful period of profound upheaval, change and dislocation that set the stage for the world in which we live. During this period, the legitimacy of the rule of kings was shattered by revolution. The Industrial Revolution completely transformed the social and material conditions of everyday life. The rhythms of rural life were accelerated by the rapid growth of cities, railways and factories. The rise of consumerism influenced the production of art, religion and culture, and gave rise to the fear of the coming of mass society. The drive to modernize gave rise to the modern nation state and as modern states materialized, they came to compete for resources and territory that created the unstable international order that existed on the brink of World War I.

This course will examine the upheavals of the nineteenth century from two perspectives. On the one hand, we will look at the political and social developments created by the French and Industrial Revolutions, the rise of Napoleon and the revolutions of the mid-nineteenth century and the emergence of new ultra-nationalist states in the second half of the nineteenth century. On the other hand, we will examine each week how the political and social development informed consciousness and the intellectual and artistic developments of the nineteenth century. To this end, we will examine trends such as the rise of idealism and Romanticism in the early nineteenth century, artistic movements and reactions to the transformations of society such as Realism and Impressionism, and how the expansion of industry and democracy gave rise to something we might call mass culture – a defining aspect of the twentieth and twenty first centuries.

Open to Sophomores and above. This course meets History Group B.

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Personality and Power

 Personality and Power in the Twentieth Century will study Stalin, Mussolini, Carlo Rosselli, Hitler, Churchill, and J.F. Kennedy.  The course will place these large figures into their historical contexts. It will attempt to explain their actions, motivations, and significance as well as what their careers tell us about personality and power during the Twentieth Century.  We will focus on specific issues and crises in their careers; for example, the roles of their youths in their formations, the ways the three dictators rose to power and consolidated it, Hitler and the Holocaust, Carlo Rosselli and Resistance against Fascism, Churchill in 1940, and John F.Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis.  There will be a mid-term exam, a final exam, a paper, and weekly paragraphs from the reading. Class discussion will be encouraged.

This course meets:  History Group B.

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Women & Gender in the US, 1790-present

This course examines the lives of women in the United States from 1790 to the end of the twentieth century. We will consider the lives of well-known women such as Catharine Beecher, Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Margaret Sanger and Rosa Parks as well as changes in the daily lives of unknown women. We will discuss the experiences of pioneer farmers, wartime construction workers, prostitutes, nurses, nuns, lawyers, physicians, social workers and domestic servants. We will ask what women from different races, classes, sexual identities, religions, and ethnicities have in common and what has divided them. Political activism to expand women's rights will be an important topic as well as changing ideas of  women's work, femininity, sexuality, motherhood, and marriage.

This course meets: History Group C, WS Minors, American Studies Core & Track 1, BGS American Experience Focus, and is a Related Field in most CLAS Majors (check with your advisor).

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The Modern Middle East from 1700 to the Present

This course will cover tradition, change, modernization and development in the Middle East from the period of Ottoman decline and the rise of successor states to more recent events. It will survey the religious, political, economic, social, and intellectual movements that shape the region. Geographically, it will span the area from North Africa to the eastern border of Iran. The focus, however, will be on Egypt, Turkey, and the heartland of the Middle East.   No prior study of the Middle East is expected.

Open to juniors and above. This course meets Content Area 1 and Content Area 4-International; History Group D; credit towards the Certificate in Judaic and Middle East Studies is available for students meeting certain criteria.  See the instructor or Prof. Nehama Aschkenasy  for details.

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Management

(International Business) gives an overview of international business and of the business firms and other institutions involved in it. The course provides an introduction to how international factors influence modern business decision-making and introduces students to some appropriate problem-solving skills for understanding and functioning in a global business-economic environment. The course examines both theory and practice, but the emphasis is on practice. Subjects covered in the course include: patterns in international trade and investment, global competition among business firms and national governments, the impact of economics, national political systems, and social and cultural diversity on different functional elements of businesses (such as marketing, finance, or operations), and how this diversity can create concerns about ethical business behavior and corporate social responsibility. Class sessions will usually include several different activities: lecture-discussion-questions on the readings assigned for that day (including business case studies focusing  on  applied, practical problems), in-class group exercises, student presentations ("news reports") of current topics reported in the press and media about international business, and one or more in-class international cross-cultural business negotiation simulations.

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Women's Studies

“Is it a boy or a girl?” is usually the first question asked when a baby is born. The answer can determine everything from the color of the baby’s clothes to the development of the teenager’s body image to the adult’s experience of love and intimacy. This course presents basic concepts about gender and power and introduces the discipline of women’s studies. In considering the myths about and realities of differences between women and men, we will use readings ranging from theoretical essays to intensely personal narratives.  As we explore women’s experiences of socialization, education, body image, family, intimacy, sexuality, work and religion, we will pay attention to differences among women of varied races, classes, ethnic backgrounds and life experiences. Outside speakers and videos will be presented. Class discussion is a significant part of the course.

This class meets General Education Content Areas 2 and 4.

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An examination of the role of gender in shaping the American workplace and the lives of women and men workers.  Discussion of important issues such as comparable worth and sexual harassment drawing on research done in a variety of social science disciplines.

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This course will explore the range and impact of women of color feminists, writers and theorists in the United States.  We will examine some of the historical forces which have silenced or distorted the perspectives of feminist women of color from the 1960’s to the current day.
 
This course welcomes students from all different backgrounds (race/ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, religion, etc.) to study and identify with women of color as models for self-expression and autonomy.  Thus, the course assignments/learning activities are designed to help students examine how the works of feminists of color have influenced and shaped the American landscape as well their own individual voices and perspectives, even those students who are not women of color.

Concomitantly, we will also examine the strategies these same women have adopted to empower themselves and exercise or re-claim their voices. To do so, students will read and analyze short stories, essays, and poetry by groundbreaking theorists, writers, and feminists of color such as: Cherie Moraga, Gloria Anzaldua, Audre Lorde, BeBe Moore Campbell, Alice Walker, Naomi Littlebear, Merle Woo, and many more.

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Prerequisite: COMM 1000 or instructor consent; open to juniors or higher.
Differences in male/female communication, and an examination of cultural assumptions regarding gender in the communication process. Critically analyze the theory, politics and practice of communication and gender.

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How do we understand a culture in which Brokeback Mountain, a love story between two male cowboys, became one of the highest grossing films of 2005 and in the same year nearly 1 in 5 hate crime reported on the National Crime Victimization Survey were based on sexual orientation? Given the proliferation of HIV/AIDS, how do we understand a culture whose government rejected a national survey of sexual practices designed to better combat this disease? When comprehensive sex education is widely supported by the American public, how do we understand a culture in which less than half of American public schools offer such curriculum? If you would like to explore these and other questions, register for sociology of sexualities this fall.

In this course we will examine sexuality through a sociological lens by looking at identities, practices, social actors, social groups and institutions. The first half of the course will introduce history and theory. We will question our assumptions about the past and build a foundation to examine the present, including a set of theoretical tools for understanding sexuality and ending with an exploration of the nature-nurture debates. The second half of the course will address sexuality through major social institutions: health care, households/family, community, educational, governmental/legal, market, religious, and political. Throughout this course, rather than fracturing identities by looking at various sexualities in isolation, we will adopt the perspective that sexual identities and practices are best understood in context and in conjunction to (inseparable from) gender, race, economic and other facets of selfhood.

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