Courses

510 Darwin: His Impact on His World and Ours
Darwin and Darwinism are studied from a variety of perspectives, including the ways thinkers used the prestige of scientific theory to justify contemporary business practices and social inequalities; the impact of Darwinism on literature; scientific developments since Darwin; the new sociobiology, the genetic and cultural evolutionary determination of human behavior.

522 The Eighteenth Century: Emergence of a New World View
The Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century transformed the intellectual climate of European civilization. In the century that followed, many argued that the rational methods of natural science could be applied to philosophy, religion, politics, aesthetics, and society. The impulse to Enlightenment was challenged by a generation of writers and satirists who, while often introducing new styles of poetry and prose, defended traditional humanistic values. From this tension between old and new, continuity and change, emerged a modern world view. This seminar will explore eighteenth-century culture in a variety of its manifestations, including science, literature, the arts, religion, and politics.

524 Ways of Knowing
We know many different things but we also know in many different ways. The poet and the biologist know nature in distinctive manners. What is the basis for scientific knowledge? How can we know the past? What kinds of knowledge are the province of literature and the arts? The seminar will explore several of the ways in which we know, concentrating on the scientific, the historical, and the literary.

526 Sound and Image
This seminar will consider the aesthetic interaction between ear and eye, especially in the mass-mediated forms of music, sound effect, dialogue, photograph, painting, and cinema.  We will read both theoretical and literary reflections on the subject, see some movies, and listen to recorded music.  Briefly considering the physics and physiology of hearing and vision, we will consider how the artistic imagination, delivered in audio and visual media, interacts with audience experience both as individuals and as a social group. 

528 Liberty
The concept of liberty is a relatively modern one; we can trace its development from the English Enlightenment to the 21st century.  This seminar will explore how the idea of liberty has developed as a political, economic, cultural and social ideal.  We will look at liberty in markets, individual rights, conflicts between equality and freedom, international relations, psychological explorations of freedom, conflicts between states and individual liberties, and other topics.  Materials will include classic texts and cultural explorations of liberty through literature and the arts.

532 Sex and Gender in Nature and Society
An interdisciplinary exploration of sex and gender, with emphasis on the perspectives of biology, psychology, history, art, and literature. We will examine the biological bases for differences between males and females and how evolution shapes sex roles in animal societies. We will consider the social and cultural differences between males and females and how gender and sex affect the social roles of men and women. How, if at all, have gender roles changed in the process of historical development? How does culture construct gender and in what ways can art and literature illuminate aspects of gender?

536 Meetings: East and West
Encounters between East and West play a significant role in world affairs.  This course explores the complex and evolving inter-relationships among East Asian nations and Western powers by focusing on how both Eastern and Western traditions and discourses encounter, resist, assimilate, and transform each other in unpredictable ways.  Sweeping themes, ranging from the formation of empire and efforts to create modern nation-states in China and Japan to cultural/intellectual interchanges between East Asia and the United States will be discussed through the examination of a wide variety of sources, including official documents, personal memoirs, oral histories, literary and artistic works, intellectual scholarship, and documentary films.                       

538 Ethics and Life
Selected topics dealing with the ethical dimension of human activities, institutions, and traditions. Topic for Fall 2005: International Relations. Considerations of the intersection between ethics and U.S. foreign policy, examining tensions and harmony between universal values and national interest. Examination of the extent ethics does, can, or should inform decisions about the U.S. role in international affairs.

540 Cinema and Society
Cinema exerts a powerful influence on society. It reflects, shapes and comments upon a variety of social and political concerns. Through careful analysis of films—classic as well as recent—and related texts, the seminar will explore varying representations of such themes as nation, gender, class, and race from literary, socio-scientific, and artistic perspectives.

546 Religion: An Interdisciplinary Approach
Religion has been a cultural universal in the past, and remains a constant in our current societies. Some of the questions that this cross-disciplinary seminar explores are as follows: What is religious experience? How does it interact with other facets of our psychological, sociological, economic, and cultural life? What was its role in traditional societies? What is its future? We shall look at religion from the perspectives of theologians, philosophers, psychologists, and social scientists.

548 Romanticism: Self and Society
The Romantic era (ca. 1780-1830) was a period of revolutionary change in politics, literature, music, and the visual arts. This seminar examines the evolving relation of self and society through five transformational decades of modern European history. Discussions will focus on the works of a number of major figures, including Blake, Burke, Schiller, Wordsworth, Keats, Schubert, and Mary Shelley.