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Semester Specific Course
Descriptions
SPR 2012
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SPTP course descriptions this semester
ACC 348
AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES
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SPTP course descriptions this semester
AFRICAN
STUDIES
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SPTP course descriptions this semester
ANTH 248 A: SPTP-Dealing with the Dead
Ever wonder how ancient Egyptians, Mesopotamians, and Mayans viewed and treated their dead? Curious about cemeteries, mummification, trophy heads, and sacrifice? Through an examination of death, burial, and ritual this course will explore the treatment of the dead by ancient and living cultures around the world. In addition, this course will examine what types of information can be obtained from burials and human skeletal remains, including health and disease, violence, and status. Recommended for students interested in how archaeology relates to death, dying, and survivors.
ANTH 262/ ASIA 264A: Ancient India
This course explores the rich past of the South Asian subcontinent by examining the archaeology and early history of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh from its cultural beginnings up to the first centuries AD. We will investigate the earliest physical evidence for human settlement on the subcontinent, the origins of agriculture and urban life, and the growth of religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity. The course also covers the Indus Valley civilization, the Vedic period, the states and cities of the Indo-Gangetic plain, the rise of the Mauryan Empire, and the ancient maritime trade between South India and the Roman Empire.
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SPTP course descriptions this semester
FA 248 A/FILM 248 B: SPTP-Exp. and Narrative Video
This course is an introduction to the theory and processes of generating experimental short films and video art. Students will create digital films individually and in small groups, utilizing techniques such as pre-production, camera language, lighting, sound and non-linear editing. Emphasis is on art-making, conceptual development and experimentation
FA 348 A/PCA 312 A: SPTP- By Design- Using Text, Image, Video, & Sound to Influence Others
What if three activists share the same overarching goal—say, to promote fair trade coffee—but are tasked with persuading three very different audiences—say, college-aged students, middle-aged housewives, and the folks who do the purchasing for a major restaurant chain? ¬What if the first of these activists produces a two-dimensional billboard campaign aimed at drivers moving along an interstate at high speeds, the second produces a public service announcement for a local radio station that depends solely on audio to make its point, and the third creates an interactive website complete with text, images, video, and sound? This course, specifically designed for students interested in art and communication, will explore how one makes choices based on an audience, a purpose, and the constraints and possibilities of a given medium. While some attention will be paid to persuasive texts that already exist and to classical and contemporary theories of influence, this course will focus on students’ production and revision of original texts. (No prerequisites. Permission of instructors required.)
FA 490 A: SYE-Senior Seminar
This course is designed to provide a basis for continuing one’s creativity in a professional and effective manner following graduation. Additionally, it is intended to give students a greater understanding of exhibition/gallery practices and to enlighten the student in the areas of independent art production: specifically the professional and personal challenges/rewards that lie therein. This course is comprised of readings, written assignments, studio work, and an exhibition.
ASIAN STUDIES
ASIA 299 C/ HIST299 C:SEM-Civil War and Rebellion in Asia
In this course we will study four large-scale and historically important civil wars in late 19th century Asia. We start with the Taiping Rebellion in China in 1850 led by a man claiming to be the younger brother of Jesus Christ, and end with the Tonghak Peasant Rebellion in Korea of 1895, which sparked a war between China and Japan. We also study the Indian Revolt of 1857 against British rule and the Meiji Restoration of 1868 in Japan. Themes we will consider include the global context, the goals and views of the rebels themselves, and the consequences of the wars for world history. As a history department sophomore seminar, the course includes practice in historical research methods and analysis of primary documents. The class is discussion based, and students will write a bibliographic essay on a related topic.
ASIA 264A/ ANTH 262: Ancient India
This course explores the rich past of the South Asian subcontinent by examining the archaeology and early history of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh from its cultural beginnings up to the first centuries AD. We will investigate the earliest physical evidence for human settlement on the subcontinent, the origins of agriculture and urban life, and the growth of religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity. The course also covers the Indus Valley civilization, the Vedic period, the states and cities of the Indo-Gangetic plain, the rise of the Mauryan Empire, and the ancient maritime trade between South India and the Roman Empire.
BIOCHEMISTY
BIOCH 347A SPTP-SEM: Transcriptional Regulation
Proper regulation of gene transcription is critical to the functioning of all organisms, and altered transcriptional regulation plays a key role in many diseases. We will use primary and secondary literature sources to examine how eukaryotes turn their genes on and off in response to development/cellular differentiation and changing environmental conditions. Students will improve their ability to read, understand and discuss scientific literature while learning about this fundamental biochemical process. Carries credit toward the biochemistry major and the biology major/minor. Prerequisites: Biochemistry 309, Chemistry 309, or Biology 245, 246 or 309. Offered only in the spring semester for the last seven weeks.
BIOLOGY
BIOL 248 B: SPTP-Food From the Sea
Throughout history human populations and cultures have been shaped by their use of finfish, shellfish, and seaweeds from the marine biome. What species have been exploited, how has this changed over time, and can these marine resources be used in a sustainable way to feed the growing global population of humans? This course will explore these larger questions as it uncovers (a) the biodiversity and ecology of marine fishery organisms (whales, fish, squid, clams, etc.), (b) the impacts of human predation on these organisms, (c) efforts to aquaculture and conserve certain seafood species, (d) human health issues related to seafoods, and (d) seafood marketing. This seminar course will be based largely on class discussions and projects will explore sustainable uses of marine and even freshwater species.
BIOL 348 A/ NRSCI 348 A: SPTP-Current Topics in Neuroscience
This is a seminar course that will cover a wide variety of topics related to current neuroscience research. Our main source of information will be neuroscience primary literature articles available in the public domain. Students enrolled in the course will decide on the topics that will be addressed throughout the semester, will read the primary literature and will lead critical and comprehensive discussions on each subject. Examples of topics that can be covered in this course include: epigenetics; mirror neurons; autism spectrum disorders; neurobiology of mental disorders; learning and memory; drug abuse and addiction; and the aging brain. Counts as a non-lab elective for the Neuroscience Major or as an MCR course for biology majors.
BIOL 348 B: SPTP: Population Ecology
Species are shaped by their populations and how these survive and persist in a given community or environment. Population ecology studies persistence, growth and decline in populations of organisms. Some of the questions that population ecologists seek to answer include – how can we use the dynamics of births, deaths, immigration and emigration to characterize the populations of a species? What intrinsic and extrinsic processes define population growth in a species? Why are the populations of some species more susceptible to extinction than others? How do population dynamics of a species influence its long term conservation? As conservation managers, can we use present day population numbers to predict their long term viability and sustainably manage them? How do individual populations of a species interact with each other or with those of another species? How do individual populations contribute to the evolution in a species? In this course, we will use some basic texts, readings and case studies to will explore these exciting and interesting concepts in population ecology.
CANADIAN STUDIES
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SPTP course descriptions this semester
CARIBBEAN LATIN
AMERICAN STUDIES
CLAS 299A/ HIST 299A:SEM-U.S. and Cuba
This course is a sophomore/junior level seminar designed for students interested in majoring in History, although the subject matter may be of interest to others. Our purpose will be to hone the skills in research, analysis, and interpretation integral to the “doing” of history.The topics of the seminar are the shifting relationship and often close, but contentious interactions between the United States and the island of Cuba from the mid- nineteenth century to the present. We will examine how Cuba’s evolution from Spain’s “ever faithful isle,” to occupied colony and protectorate of the United States, to revolutionary beacon or nemesis in a global context of imperialism and Cold War has informed historical interpretations of the relationship between the two countries. We will be especially interested in the representations (in texts and images) of Cuba and Cubans and the US and Americans and how these representations affect or shape the way histories are told and remembered. Students’ research projects will focus on the revolutionary period from the mid-1950s onward. The final product of the course will be a paper analyzing how and why historians have interpreted a particular aspect of the US-Cuban interactions since the mid-1950s.
CLAS 347 A/GS347A/NAS 347A SPTP: Human Rights Clinic
This course seeks to develop both theoretical and practical skills related to human rights through involvement in concerted and focused activities such as narrative analysis; investigation and documentation of human rights violations; support of advocacy initiatives before United Nations, regional, and national human rights bodies; and engagement with global and local human rights campaigns. Students take on primary responsibility for their cases and projects with guidance and mentoring from the professor. The cases and projects will be based primarily on topics related to the US/Mexico border. We will have frequent Skype sessions with activists as well as a compulsory trip to El Paso, Texas, and some agricultural farms nearby located in New Mexico and Texas during the spring break. Students will be paid for their expenses while on the field trip but will be responsible for purchasing their own round-trip air ticket to the border (cost is approximately $700.00). The course also examines the cultural, philosophical and political contestations over human rights, and provides students with critical grounding in the major theoretical debates over conceptualizations of human rights. The readings, seminar framings and discussions are aimed at developing a critical human rights framework, one that considers human rights as a contested terrain, as both an instrument of state power and a tool for social activism and political emancipation. We will interrogate the neoliberal turn in human rights, the development of a human rights industry, and the role of the Inter-American system and international law in global governance. Although attentive to the limits of human rights as a structuring discourse and as a state ethics of power, we will explore the role of human rights in enabling claims to gender justice, social and cultural rights, as well as for mapping distinct poetic and cultural imaginaries. By Permission only.
CLAS 448 A/SPAN 448 A: SPTP- Hispanic Protest Music
From the classic song "Guantanamera" to the recent "Los Hijos de las Piedras" (Marwan) the history of protest music in Spain and Latin America have been enriching, stimulating and renovating. These innovations also represent powerful ethical commitments to ongoing social struggles. In this class we will study important works of protest music and poetry in relation to the sociohistorical moments in which they were produced. These include works by Jose Marti, Antonio Machado, Miguel Hernandez, Cesar Vallejo, Octavio Paz, Luis Eduardo Aute, Joan Manuel Serrat, Victor Jara, Silvio Rodriguez, Pablo Milanes, Violeta Parra, Mercedes Sosa, Joaquin Sabina, Ismael Serrano, Mana, and Marwan, among others. Students will write analytical papers and will have the opportunity to do creative projects which will contextualize historically the ethical commitments to which these songs and poems are calling our attention.
CHEMISTRY
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SPTP course descriptions this semester
CHINESE
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SPTP course descriptions this semester
COMMUNITY BASED
LEARNING
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SPTP course descriptions this semester
COMPUTER SCIENCE
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SPTP course descriptions this semester
ECONOMICS
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SPTP course descriptions this semester
EDUCATION
EDUC 203 A: Contemporary Issues in American Education (w/CBL)
A multidisciplinary consideration of current issues in education, to serve as a vehicle by which students may explore the idea of entering the teaching profession. The course includes a multi-cultural examination of current educational issues through lectures, readings, research and discussions of position papers prepared by the student. A field experience in the public schools is required in which issues involving Community-Based Learning (CBL) are explored. All students must register for one of the afternoon CBL labs associated with the course. Not open to first year students.
EDUC 270 A: Outreach to Schools I
“Outreach to Schools” is both a set of courses and a University program, originally known as “Bridging the Gap.” The program seeks to connect the University campus and the public schools by having college students teach lessons in public schools as requested by the K-12 school teachers. The EDUC 270 course focuses on public education and the development of teaching skills by exposing students to research-based educational practices in designing and teaching lessons using constructivist theory; it is a student-run course tightly structured and monitored by the instructor. Open only to students who have declared a minor in Education. In addition, students must have completed at least one of the following pre-requisites: EDUC 203, 301, or 305
EDUC 370 A: Outreach to Schools II
“Outreach to Schools” is both a set of courses and a University program, originally known as “Bridging the Gap.” The program seeks to connect the University campus and the public schools by having college students teach lessons in public schools as requested by the K-12 school teachers. The EDUC 370 course focuses on advanced teaching skills as well as organizational and evaluative skills important for effective operation of the program. Open only to Education minors who have completed EDUC 270 as a pre-requisite.
EDUC 455 A: Language Acquisition and Literacy Development Across the Curriculum (w/CBL)
A multidisciplinary consideration of the ways young people learn the language arts (speaking, reading, writing and listening) across the subject matter disciplines. This course addresses language acquisition and literacy development for students who are native English speakers and students who are English language learners. A field experience in the public schools is required in which issues involving Community-Based Learning (CBL) are explored. All students must register for one of the afternoon CBL labs associated with the course.
ENGLISH
ENG 247 A/GNDR 247 A/FILM 347 D: SPTP-Dreams, Desire, and Madness in Film and Literature
Literary representations of the alienated mind interrogate the relationship between social definitions of normality and seeing otherwise, whether that is manifested as vision, rebellion, disease, or fantasy. Seeing otherwise is often thought of as symptom (e.g., mental illness), but it can also be symptomatic—a reaction to a cultural condition that is repressive, oppressive or quite literally maddening. To deal with the unsustainable societal demands we often repress our desires, but this does not make them disappear—instead they make themselves felt through expressions of the unconscious in our dreams, fantasies, slips of the tongue and somatic symptoms. Art and artistic expression have often represented or explored such mechanisms. In this course we will read fiction and analyze films that represent the encoded and diseased ways that repressed desires express themselves through madness and hysteria. Students will also connect the personal (experience, dreams and affect) with the materials we are reading and watching over the course of the semester.
ENG 247B: SPTP-Poets in the Natural World
Despite the recent buzz around eco-poetry, poets have been engaged with the political and social consequences of marking a given space “natural” or “artificial” for centuries. Beginning with the seventeenth century’s country house poems and moving through the late-eighteenth century poetry of rural retirement and endangered villages, until we reach the development of British and American Romanticism, this course will introduce students to some of the dominant tropes poets employ when writing about “nature.” It will raise formal questions about distinctions between spontaneity and tradition and the beautiful and the sublime.
Alongside the poets of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, students will read the work of self-identifying contemporary eco-poets, as well as 20th century poets like Frost whose work has been traditionally allied with environmental positions. Theoretical texts will include excerpts from Kant, Raymond Williams, and from contemporary eco-critics like Lawrence Buell and Ursula Heise. Students will have the option of a creative final project with a critical introduction.
ENG 247C: SPTP-Truth in Nonfiction
Joan Didion writes, “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” Whether it’s Truman Capote writing of the murder of the Clutter family and their killers, Joyce Carol Oates writing about the young woman left at the bottom Poucha Pond by Ted Kennedy, Jon Krakauer following a trail into the wild of Alaska, Bernard Cooper succumbing to his therapist’s insistence on “truth serum,” Ander Monson writing what The New York Times Book Review hailed as an “anti-memoir,” Nasdijj writing about life on a Navajo reservation, or a film documentarian exposing the thin blue line between justice and the murder of a Dallas police officer, stories have consequences. As the space between fact and fiction--in life and in literature--dissolves, we ask, “Is it true?” Writer Tim O’Brien says if you have to ask, you have your answer.
ENG 307A: 20th Century American Short Story
Using John Updike’s Best American Short Stories of the Century as its central text, this course will track the generic changes in the American short story, ranging from naturalism (Dreiser, Crane, Wharton) through realism (Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Cather) to regional fabulation (Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Richard Wright, Flannery O’Connor). Particular attention will be paid to later 20th century movements in the American short story, including Jewish-American fiction (Malamud, Roth, Elkin, Ozick), The New Yorker story (Salinger, Cheever, Updike, Alice Munro, Sherman Alexie, Junot Diaz), metafiction (Barth, Barthelme, Coover), minimalism (Carver, Beattie, Hempel) and latter-day American realism (Baldwin, Oates, Richard Ford, Lorrie Moore, Thom Jones, Denis Johnson, Edward P. Jones, Amy Proulx).
ENG 347A: SPTP-AS: Ayn Rand’s fiction
Rand is easily one of the most controversial writers of the twentieth century. On one hand, critics dismiss her novels as sexist, poorly written justifications for greed. Susan Brownmiller seethes over Rand’s “philosophy of rape” and labels her “a traitor to her own sex.” Ralph Nader dismisses Rand’s ideas as narcissistic and “abhorrent.” Gene H. Bell-Villada sniffs at Rand’s style, observing that the only thing Rand can teach a writer is “how not to write.” On the other hand, feminists such as Mimi Gladstein and Judith Wilt hail Rand’s creation of strong female protagonists, advocating the inclusion of her novels in courses for women’s studies. Libertarians, businessmen such as John Allison, and even entertainers such as the band Rush celebrate Rand’s concepts of individualism and freedom. And readers have ranked Atlas Shrugged as the greatest book of the twentieth century, and as the work that has most influenced them (second only to the Bible). What is the truth? What do Rand’s fictions really say, and how do they say it?
We will answer these questions by closely reading four of her works: Night of January the 16th, Anthem, The Fountainhead, and Atlas Shrugged. We will supplement these readings with essays by Rand on form and values, film clips, and criticism that opens up debate about her writings. The reading load will be very substantial. In addition, students will take an exam, deliver an oral presentation, write several short papers plus an essay, and attend a lecture by a guest speaker.
ENG 347 B/FILM 347 B: SPTP-GS: Literary Adaptations for Film
How does the shape of a literary short story or novel shift when it is transformed into a screenplay, and then into a film? When and how does the pressure get exerted by a film studio to alter the story or novel’s conclusion in hopes of appealing to a popular audience? This course will concentrate on the transformations that happen between page, screenplay, and production, seeking to discover what changes are dictated by the translation from one medium to another, and what changes are the consequence of less aesthetic, more fiduciary purposes. Writers include James Joyce, Thomas Mann, William Faulkner, Graham Greene, Julio Cortazar, Joyce Carol Oates, Raymond Carver, and Russell Banks; screenwriter/filmmakers include John Huston, Vittorio DeSica, Horton Foote/Joseph Anthony, Greene/Carol Reed, Michaelangelo Antonioni, Joyce Chopra, Robert Altman, Atom Egoyan.
ENG 347 C: SPTP-AT: Re-Collections: How the Past is Shaped into Literature
Since the dawn of literature, the past - whether based in pain or pleasure, personal experience or cultural event - has been shaped into literature. In fact, much of creative writing, one could argue, is a kind of re-collection, a reckoning with memory, an attempt to deal with its depredations and its passing, a re-configuration of what once was. This course will look at the ways in which the pieces of the lived past are re-collected on the written page in selected short stories, poems and personal essays, explore the motivation behind that re-collection and its effects on the reader and, lastly, ask students to write a piece in two of the above genres exploring their own past.
ENG 450A: SYE-Cooking the Books
Every writer who ever traded a fork for a pen ended up expressing important personal and cultural biases. Preparing, consuming, and celebrating food cannot help but approach aesthetics, gender, psychology, culture, and economics. Examining the history of literary food writing, from Jean Anselme Brillat-Savarin’s seminal study The Physiology of Taste to recent food essays published in The New Yorker and elsewhere, is one way to survey how questions of taste have tasted us. “Tell me what you eat,” said Brillat-Savarin, “and I will tell you who you are.” This is not a course in how to be a gourmet; it’s an exploration of a tiny corner of the rich literature of culinary writing, with an emphasis on sustained studies of literary genres. Whether your focus has been fiction, creative nonfiction, or literary criticism, there’s something for you at this table.
ENG 450 B: SYE- Research and Writing Seminar
Each student in this intensive research and writing seminar will write a proposal for and complete a sustained writing project, either a single long piece or a collection of related shorter pieces, and provide a background and/or research reading list. Each week students will distribute drafts for critique, or present research findings to the class. By the end of the term students will have completed a substantial project from 35-75 pages in length. Permission of instructor required.
ENVS 187 A/SOC 187 A: Environment and Society
Social life and the natural environmental are inextricably linked. While human societies and the natural world have long since been intertwined, today issues of climate change, population growth, globalization, ecosystem degradation, environmental justice and a desire for a ‘greener’ future have placed social issues of the environment on center stage.The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the important linkages existing between the social world and the environment. Specifically, to inspire critical thinking about how societies relate, think about, and exist in the natural world and ultimately examine ‘the big picture’ of how ‘we’ situate ourselves in the natural world and what kind of future we really want. The first part of this course will introduce students to what environmental sociology is and explore environmental degradation on local and global scales. The second part of this course will investigate race, class and environmental justice issues and conclude by looking at sustainability and the ‘green’ movement as a societal response to environmental problems.
ENVS 348 A: SPTP- EcoSystemBased Management
Over the past four decades, the management of environmental problems has undergone significant shifts in philosophy and practice. Once, addressing environmental problems was considered the province of technical experts applying scientific knowledge, current practice seeks to involve community members and stakeholders in adaptive process that seek to achieve ecological and social goals. This course will examine the theory and practice of adaptive and collaborative management frameworks for addressing environmental problems related to conservation and ecological restoration. In doing so, it seeks to address the role of science in environmental decision making and explore integrated perspectives linking rural communities and forest landscapes.
ENVS 327 A: Environmental Sustainability – Natural Fiber Traditions –knitting and spinning wool and other natural fibers
This course examines traditional and modern modes of production of fibers and textiles, primarily for clothing, considers the impacts of production, and their usefulness in helping to build sustainable, regional economies based on local knowledge and resources. We will explore the techniques of preparing and processing wool, and spinning and dyeing yarns for knitting and weaving. We will compare the environmental impacts of large-scale, industrial production and processing with local or regional production. The course will also examine examples of fiber businesses in conservation, sustainable development, and organic production. Several traditions from around the world will be introduced. Fiber types considered will include wool, cotton, silk, flax as well as traditional “wild fibers” (musk ox, yak, camel, alpaca, bison) and newer ones such as tencel, soy, casein (milk protein), ramie and seaweed.
FILM 247 A/ ENG 247 A/GNDR 247 A SPTP-Dreams, Desire, and Madness in Film and Literature
Literary representations of the alienated mind interrogate the relationship between social definitions of normality and seeing otherwise, whether that is manifested as vision, rebellion, disease, or fantasy. Seeing otherwise is often thought of as symptom (e.g., mental illness), but it can also be symptomatic—a reaction to a cultural condition that is repressive, oppressive or quite literally maddening. To deal with the unsustainable societal demands we often repress our desires, but this does not make them disappear—instead they make themselves felt through expressions of the unconscious in our dreams, fantasies, slips of the tongue and somatic symptoms. Art and artistic expression have often represented or explored such mechanisms. In this course we will read fiction and analyze films that represent the encoded and diseased ways that repressed desires express themselves through madness and hysteria. Students will also connect the personal (experience, dreams and affect) with the materials we are reading and watching over the course of the semester.
FILM 248 B/ FA 248 A: SPTP-Exp. and Narrative Video
This course is an introduction to the theory and processes of generating experimental short films and video art. Students will create digital films individually and in small groups, utilizing techniques such as pre-production, camera language, lighting, sound and non-linear editing. Emphasis is on art-making, conceptual development and experimentation
FILM 347 B/ENG 347 B: SPTP-GS: Literary Adaptations for Film
How does the shape of a literary short story or novel shift when it is transformed into a screenplay, and then into a film? When and how does the pressure get exerted by a film studio to alter the story or novel’s conclusion in hopes of appealing to a popular audience? This course will concentrate on the transformations that happen between page, screenplay, and production, seeking to discover what changes are dictated by the translation from one medium to another, and what changes are the consequence of less aesthetic, more fiduciary purposes. Writers include James Joyce, Thomas Mann, William Faulkner, Graham Greene, Julio Cortazar, Joyce Carol Oates, Raymond Carver, and Russell Banks; screenwriter/filmmakers include John Huston, Vittorio DeSica, Horton Foote/Joseph Anthony, Greene/Carol Reed, Michaelangelo Antonioni, Joyce Chopra, Robert Altman, Atom Egoyan.
FILM 248 A/GER 248 A: SPTP- German Film: From Berlin to Hollywood
In this class, we will gain an overview of the classic German films of the “golden twenties,” and of the film personnel that created these films. While learning about the filmic output we will also discuss the socio-political context of a new democracy in Germany, which lead to shifts in the film industry. The second half of the semester will be dedicated to the innovations made in Hollywood by the exiles and émigrés from Germany
FILM 248 C/ PCA 212 A: SPTP-MediaCommunication&Society
The focus of this class will be on various aspects of media and mass communication. Its goal is to foster media literacy. We will discuss the overall historical role that various media have played in shaping and reflecting the cultural values of our society. We will analyze the effects that different modes of media financing have on the content. Ultimately, we will ask whether we can still keep talking about mass communication at a time when more and more people rely on personalized social websites or smart phones for contact with the outside world.
FILM 347 A: Festival! Film Festivals and the Shaping of Modern Cinema
For more than half of cinema’s short history, the film festival has played a vital and complex role in shaping the aesthetics and the business of modern film art. In the 1950s and 60s, Canne, Venice and other festivals helped foster national cinemas and resist Hollywood hegemony; the 1970s and 80s saw festivals like Sundance, Berlin and Toronto shaped the modern ‘art’ and ‘indie’ film and transformed celebrity directors into hot commodities. Festivals in South Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America have sparked the emergence of a truly global art cinema-- and a new wave of celebrity auteurs. This course offers a critical look at this history but will also focus on festivals that are shaping cinema right now—including documentary and activist films of every sort. NOTE: There will be a significant film making component to this course, as we make short films that reflect on—and theorize about--the festivals and films we encounter.
FINE ARTS
see Art and Art History
FRANCOPHONE STUDIES
FR 426 A: L'autre France: Les Antilles
This course will study, conducted entirely in French, will explore the literature and culture of the three principal areas of the French Caribbean: Martinique, Guadeloupe, and Haiti. We will read several kinds of texts, and we will examine historical, geographical, aesthetic, and political questions. We will be constantly reflecting on the place of the French Caribbean in the world order, and the relations between peoples of former European colonies and industrialized societies.
FR 426 B: Le Midi
This course, taught entirely in French, will explore the culture, history, and literature of the regions in the south of France: Provence, Corsica, Le Roussillon. There will be a good bit of reading, writing, and vocabulary work aimed at helping students expand their knowledge of the French language. We will watch several films, study plays, and read short works of fiction. Authors to be studied include Mérimée, Pagnol, Giono, Varda, Daudet, and Berri.
GNDR 247 A/FILM 247A/ ENG 247 A : SPTP-Dreams, Desire, and Madness in Film and Literature
Literary representations of the alienated mind interrogate the relationship between social definitions of normality and seeing otherwise, whether that is manifested as vision, rebellion, disease, or fantasy. Seeing otherwise is often thought of as symptom (e.g., mental illness), but it can also be symptomatic—a reaction to a cultural condition that is repressive, oppressive or quite literally maddening. To deal with the unsustainable societal demands we often repress our desires, but this does not make them disappear—instead they make themselves felt through expressions of the unconscious in our dreams, fantasies, slips of the tongue and somatic symptoms. Art and artistic expression have often represented or explored such mechanisms. In this course we will read fiction and analyze films that represent the encoded and diseased ways that repressed desires express themselves through madness and hysteria. Students will also connect the personal (experience, dreams and affect) with the materials we are reading and watching over the course of the semester.
GEOL 248 A: SPTP-Volcanology Field Methods
Volcanology is a relatively young and exciting field of geology that explores one of the Earth's most complex and dynamic features - volcanoes. Physical volcanologists work in various locations round the world to study the processes and deposits of volcanic eruptions. In this course, we will examine processes related to explosive and effusive volcanism, depositional mechanisms, and the deposits formed. Seminars throughout the semester will be supplemented by site-specific investigations into areas of interest. The main class component is a 7 - 10 day field excursion. Students must be able to hike long distances and possession of a valid passport may be required. Prerequisites are GEOL 103 and GEOL 248 (which can be taken concurrently).
GEOL 248 D: SPTP-Tropical Paleoclimates
The course explores the climatic responses of tropical environmental systems (ice, water, air, vegetation, and land) as they developed through Earth’s history. The course will provide an understanding of the multidisciplinary scope of paleoclimate studies, including a range of disciplines—geology, sedimentology, paleontology, paleoecology, glaciology, oceanography, meteorology, biogeochemistry, climate modeling, atmospheric chemistry, and hydrology. The course will cover important methods for past climate reconstruction with an emphasis on long-term and orbital-scale climate changes. Topics will include the climate archives, data and models; carbon dioxide and long-term climate; plate tectonics and long-term climate; greenhouse, icehouse and transitional worlds; astronomical control of solar radiation; insolation control of monsoons and ice sheets; orbital-scale changes in carbon dioxide and methane; millennial oscillations of climate; and future climatic change.
The course will also include a fieldtrip to East Africa and the Mt. Kilimanjaro.
GEOL 348 A: SPTP-Economic Geology w/Lab
Economic geology is the field of geology that studies the distribution, tectonic setting, enrichment processes, genesis, and products of economic significance. In this course we will examine the types of economic deposits and how they were formed. Lectures and discussions will be supplemented by the study of mineral and rock suites related to each of the important types of deposits. A trip to the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada Conference in Toronto is planned for March 4-7th, 2011 and will help us develop an appreciation of the modern exploration industry. Prerequisites are GEOL 203 and GEOL 302 (which can be taken concurrently).
GERMAN STUDIES
GER 248 / FILM 248: SPTP- German Film: From Berlin to Hollywood
In this class, we will gain an overview of the classic German films of the “golden twenties,” and of the film personnel that created these films. While learning about the filmic output we will also discuss the socio-political context of a new democracy in Germany, which lead to shifts in the film industry. The second half of the semester will be dedicated to the innovations made in Hollywood by the exiles and émigrés from Germany.
GLOBAL STUDIES
GS 247 B PEAC/ 247 B SPTP: Facilitating Intergroup Dialogue (.5 units; Seven weeks, from beginning of semester; permission of instructor required; preference given to sophomores and juniors) Wed. 7-10 pm In a multicultural society, discussions about issues of conflict and community are needed to facilitate understanding between social/cultural groups. In this course, students will develop knowledge and skills that will help them to participate in dialogues across social identity groups in situations where social justice knowledge, critical listening skills, communication skills, and bridge building skills are needed. This course will also prepare students to become potential dialogue facilitators. The course will be structured around scholarly readings and discussions focused on social justice issues.
GS 247 C/ PEAC 247 C: SPTP: Practicum for Intergroup Dialogue (.5 units; starts midsemester; permission of instructor required) Wed. 7-10 pm and 1 additonal hour TBA )
"Facilitating Intergroup Dialogue" is a prerequisite for this course. Normally students will enroll in the Facilitation course in the first half of the semester and then act as a facilitator in the second half. Students in the Practicum course will facilitate weekly seminars and work with the instructor through regular consultations to:
• Discuss and prepare work for weekly dialogue sessions
• Strengthen facilitators’ own understanding of intergroup relations
• Further develop the co-facilitation relationship and experience
• Discuss theory and practice of group observation, conflict intervention, intergroup communication, and community building
• Continue facilitators’ own personal growth and development in the intergroup dialogue process
This course focuses on helping students develop and improve their skills as dialogue facilitators. This will be done in the context of the belief that facilitation skills can be used throughout life to create positive social change. Effective facilitators are effective social change agents. Moreover, by debriefing their actual dialogue experiences, facilitators can deepen their learning about identity, discrimination, privilege, and social justice. Student facilitators will run dialogues for three hours per week for seven weeks and will meet with faculty supervisors for one hour per week.
GS 247 D/ PEAC 247 D/ SPTP: Intergroup Dialogue
In a multicultural society, discussions about issues of conflict and community are needed to facilitate understanding between social/cultural groups. In this course, students will participate in intergroup dialogues across social identity groups. Students will discuss relevant reading material, explore group experiences in various social and institutional contexts and examine narratives that include historical, psychological, and sociological materials. Students will participate in exercises that will be debriefed in class and in weekly journals. Students will learn about pertinent issues facing the participating groups on campus and in society. The intended outcome of this course is to create a setting in which students engage in open and constructive dialogue across different identity groups. Pass/fail only
GS347 SPTP: Human Rights Clinic
This course seeks to develop both theoretical and practical skills related to human rights through involvement in concerted and focused activities such as narrative analysis; investigation and documentation of human rights violations; support of advocacy initiatives before United Nations, regional, and national human rights bodies; and engagement with global and local human rights campaigns. Students take on primary responsibility for their cases and projects with guidance and mentoring from the professor. The cases and projects will be based primarily on topics related to the US/Mexico border. We will have frequent Skype sessions with activists as well as a compulsory trip to El Paso, Texas, and some agricultural farms nearby located in New Mexico and Texas during the spring break. Students will be paid for their expenses while on the field trip but will be responsible for purchasing their own round-trip air ticket to the border (cost is approximately $700.00). The course also examines the cultural, philosophical and political contestations over human rights, and provides students with critical grounding in the major theoretical debates over conceptualizations of human rights. The readings, seminar framings and discussions are aimed at developing a critical human rights framework, one that considers human rights as a contested terrain, as both an instrument of state power and a tool for social activism and political emancipation. We will interrogate the neoliberal turn in human rights, the development of a human rights industry, and the role of the Inter-American system and international law in global governance. Although attentive to the limits of human rights as a structuring discourse and as a state ethics of power, we will explore the role of human rights in enabling claims to gender justice, social and cultural rights, as well as for mapping distinct poetic and cultural imaginaries. By Permission only.
GOVT 348 A/ASIA 348 A: SPTP-South Asia: Interrogating Newness
This course will deal with the contemporary global engagements of South Asia from the perspective of the South Asian communities. Thus spaces of globalization, transnationalism and global cultural spheres will be introduced and critically engaged in the course. The course will feature a theoretical approach using a mix of cultural politics, anthropological discovery and transnational discourses.
The course navigates through four major themes, namely, nationalism, democracy, social movements and transnational spaces. These four themes explore contemporary forces that shape South Asian communities, South Asian polity and global linkages.
Ideologies and structures of Nationalism and nationalist projects will be discussed broadly; nationalism has driven many social and political movements, uprising and conflicts in the region and shaped both internal and external policies of the individual states in the region.
The course will engage with the political question of democracy in South Asia and explore the various democratic challenges and achievements in the region. Contemporary challenges to democracy in the region and their linkages to discourses of conflict, security and development will be discussed. The discussion will also feature the tensions between the values of Western/Liberal democracy and democracy in the South Asian view point.
The course attempts to introduce contemporary social movements in South Asia that have had significant impact on the South Asian polity both at ideological and policy levels. Social and political movements such as the Maoist movement in Nepal and the Naxalite movement in India will be given emphasis.
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The course will focus on elements of transnationalism in the context of globalization, exploring the impact of movement of people, cultures, objects and knowledge practices across the globe. As a consequence of globalization and opening up of economic barriers of entrance and exit to the region has created an unprecedented surge in the movements of people and capital across the globe.
Some of largest migrant and diaspora communities in many Western locations are made out of South Asian immigrants. Thus the shaping of global cultures through immigration and diaspora politics of host and home state will be a key focus of the course. In the discussion of globalization and spaces of transnationalism, emerging issues of identity politics, art and culture in and outside of South Asian will also be incorporated in the course.
HIST 248 A: SPTP- The Modern Middle East
This course examines the history of the Middle East from the end of World War I to the Present. It will address such issues as the development of national states, the rise of political Islam, changing understandings of gender and sexuality, the Arab-Israeli Conflict, oil, and the growing U.S. involvement in the Middle East.
HIST 299 B: SEM-Major Themes in Southern History
This course is designed for history majors and minors to study and practice the historian’s craft, however non-majors and minors are welcome to take the course. The main focus of HIST 299 is to learn the “history of the history” of particular topics, also known as historiography.In this course we will explore major themes of southern history and how the United States South has shaped U.S. history and how the South has been depicted in U. S. history. We will explore themes such as the history and the historiography of slavery, Reconstruction, the origins of segregation, and the southern civil rights movement. Course requirements include (but are not limited to) active participation in discussion of assigned readings each class period, completion of a historiographic essay, and class discussions/presentations on students' research topic.
HIST299 C/ASIA 299 C: SEM-Civil War and Rebellion in Asia
In this course we will study four large-scale and historically important civil wars in late 19th century Asia. We start with the Taiping Rebellion in China in 1850 led by a man claiming to be the younger brother of Jesus Christ, and end with the Tonghak Peasant Rebellion in Korea of 1895, which sparked a war between China and Japan. We also study the Indian Revolt of 1857 against British rule and the Meiji Restoration of 1868 in Japan. Themes we will consider include the global context, the goals and views of the rebels themselves, and the consequences of the wars for world history. As a history department sophomore seminar, the course includes practice in historical research methods and analysis of primary documents. The class is discussion based, and students will write a bibliographic essay on a related topic.
HIST347A/PHIL 347A: Behind Bars in the United States
In this 300-level interdisciplinary course, we will take an historical and philosophical look at America’s role as the “incarceration nation.” Units in this course include: voices from the inside, the history of criminal justice in the U.S., the modern prison-industrial complex, and alternative models of justice. Students interested in this course should expect a healthy workload and intensive classroom engagement
HIST 480 B: SYE- Atlantic Migrations
This course is designed as a research seminar, primarily for history majors and minors, the product of which will be a substantial (25-30 pages) research paper. The general focus of the course is the Atlantic world from 1492 to the mid-nineteenth century. Our theme will be the migrations, encounters, and interactions among the peoples of the continents that border the Atlantic ocean – the Americas, Europe, Africa, and the many islands in the Atlantic ocean. The first several weeks of the course will be spent becoming familiar with some of the theoretical and methodological issues that frame current research on migration in the Atlantic world—i.e. the concept of diaspora and comparisons of forced and free migration. The rest of the semester will be devoted to students’ defining, executing, and sharing the fruits of an individual research project on a specific aspect of migration or group of migrants within the Atlantic world.
JAPANESE STUDIES
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SPTP course descriptions this semester.
LITERATURE IN TRANSLATION
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SPTP course descriptions this semester
MATH 348A: SPTP- Dynamical Systems
The goal of this course is to introduce some of the spectacular new discoveries that have been made over the past twenty years in the field of mathematics known as Dynamical Systems. We will explore the dynamics of real functions, with the main focus being the concept of mathematical chaos. We will define chaos and explore various dynamical systems that exhibit chaotic behavior. If time allows, we will delve into the complex plane and examine the Mandelbrot set and Julia sets.
MATH 348 B: SPTP- Combinatorics
This research seminar will focus on counting techniques and combinatorial proofs. The course will review basic counting principles, combinations, permutations, Fibonacci numbers, and recurrences before covering more advanced topics such as the principle of inclusion-exclusion, partitions, and generating functions. Students will research a problem of their choosing and/or creation, presenting their results in both written and oral form.
MATH 450 B: SYE- Combinatorics
This research seminar will focus on counting techniques and combinatorial proofs. The course will review basic counting principles, combinations, permutations, Fibonacci numbers, and recurrences before covering more advanced topics such as the principle of inclusion-exclusion, partitions, and generating functions. Students will research a problem of their choosing and/or creation, presenting their results in both written and oral form.
MATH 450 C : SYE- Dynamical Systems
The goal of this course is to introduce some of the spectacular new discoveries that have been made over the past twenty years in the field of mathematics known as Dynamical Systems. We will explore the dynamics of real functions, with the main focus being the concept of mathematical chaos. We will define chaos and explore various dynamical systems that exhibit chaotic behavior. If time allows, we will delve into the complex plane and examine the Mandelbrot set and Julia sets.
MUSIC
MUS 027A: Rhythm and Roots Ensemble
Girl Band! In spring 2012 we focus on American popular music performed by women ranging from Memphis Minnie to Miranda Lambert and Regina Spektor. See http://rockhall.com/exhibits/women-who-rock/. We are looking particularly for female instrumentalists. Auditions held the first week of the semester.
MUS/PHYS 120A: SPTP- Physics and Perception of Music
Music is an interaction between the production of sound and the listeners' perceptive abilities. In this course, the physical details of the production and perception of “musical” sound and their interaction will be explored. In a hands-on, experiment-based course, the physics of sound vibrations and waves, the overtone series, the workings of the human ear, the construction of various types of musical instruments, methods of sound recording (both analog and digital), and other topics will be explored.
MUS 227A/PCA 227 A: Recording Arts
Recordings of audio materials are a growing part of our world, and making professional recordings is an art that is now within the reach of many. Especially appropriate for music and PCA students, this course is designed to hone skills in producing recorded materials. The technology of recording is a combination of listening and performance skills and electronics. This course is a practical survey of materials and methods, with core principles applied to projects that will provide an understanding of how to achieve quality recordings by intelligent use of available equipment and spaces. Also offered as PCA 227A.
MUS 247 A: SPTP- The Art of Listening
How do you listen to music? What strategies can you use for listening to different musical forms in varied musical styles? In this course, we will examine the relations between idea and sound in music. Students will (1) observe and analyze several pieces of music from a composer's point of view; (2) develop their skills in listening for different sonic aspects of music; and (3) make music using sounds from the non-Western world. Prerequisite: MUS 100/101 or permission of instructor.
MUS 347A: SPTP- Michelangelo’s Lessons-How Renaissance Musicians Learned their Craft
Through study and performance we’ll explore what music education was like in the pre-keyboard and pre-score era. How did musicians learn their notes? How did composers compose? We’ll look at primary sources (manuscripts and early prints), learn their notation (“Where are the bar lines?!”), read what 16th-century music theorists had to say, learn to sing and maybe how to play a crumhorn (a what?!) REALLY in tune and in time, explore the principles of classical rhetoric as they applied to composition and performance, and listen to some of the most glorious music ever written. Prerequisite: MUS 200/201.
NATIVE AMERICAN STUDIES
NAS 347A/ CLAS347 A/GS347A SPTP: Human Rights Clinic
This course seeks to develop both theoretical and practical skills related to human rights through involvement in concerted and focused activities such as narrative analysis; investigation and documentation of human rights violations; support of advocacy initiatives before United Nations, regional, and national human rights bodies; and engagement with global and local human rights campaigns. Students take on primary responsibility for their cases and projects with guidance and mentoring from the professor. The cases and projects will be based primarily on topics related to the US/Mexico border. We will have frequent Skype sessions with activists as well as a compulsory trip to El Paso, Texas, and some agricultural farms nearby located in New Mexico and Texas during the spring break. Students will be paid for their expenses while on the field trip but will be responsible for purchasing their own round-trip air ticket to the border (cost is approximately $700.00). The course also examines the cultural, philosophical and political contestations over human rights, and provides students with critical grounding in the major theoretical debates over conceptualizations of human rights. The readings, seminar framings and discussions are aimed at developing a critical human rights framework, one that considers human rights as a contested terrain, as both an instrument of state power and a tool for social activism and political emancipation. We will interrogate the neoliberal turn in human rights, the development of a human rights industry, and the role of the Inter-American system and international law in global governance. Although attentive to the limits of human rights as a structuring discourse and as a state ethics of power, we will explore the role of human rights in enabling claims to gender justice, social and cultural rights, as well as for mapping distinct poetic and cultural imaginaries. By Permission only.
NEUROSCIENCE
NRSCI 348 A/BIOL 348 A: SPTP-Current Topics in Neuroscience
This is a seminar course that will cover a wide variety of topics related to current neuroscience research. Our main source of information will be neuroscience primary literature articles available in the public domain. Students enrolled in the course will decide on the topics that will be addressed throughout the semester, will read the primary literature and will lead critical and comprehensive discussions on each subject. Examples of topics that can be covered in this course include: epigenetics; mirror neurons; autism spectrum disorders; neurobiology of mental disorders; learning and memory; drug abuse and addiction; and the aging brain. Counts as a non-lab elective for the Neuroscience Major or as an MCR course for biology majors.
ND 147 A: SPTP- Sustainability Studies
Sustainability refers to the capacity of a society to meet current needs without degrading ecological, social, and economic systems on which the society will rely for meeting future needs. This course will examine key topics in sustainability studies from a variety of disciplinary perspectives drawing on the expertise of the SLU academic community as well as community partners in the North Country. The course will incorporate opportunities to acquire both knowledge and skills applicable to a sustainable lifestyle and may include a spring break field trip to examine urban sustainable practices.
OUTDOOR STUDIES
ODST 247 A: SPTP-Principals of Outdoor Leadership and Education
This course is an intensive, field-based course that will teach the basic principles of outdoor leadership and education. With the nearby mountains and rivers of the Adirondacks as their classroom, students will focus how to effectively teach and lead in wilderness settings, and develop backcountry and outdoor skills. The course will explore teaching styles, leadership strategies, modern risk management models, environmental and outdoor recreation resource impact, backcountry navigation, and wildness medicine. The course will require an extended field experience during mid-semester break and is required for the course.
ODST 247B SPTP:Introduction to River Dynamics & Safety
Primarily field-based, this course will look at river hydrology and dynamics, objective and subjective hazards associated with riverine environment, swift water risk assessments to mitigate hazards, leadership challenges in a river environment as well as leadership styles, heuristics and group management. Students will learn the foundation principles of the topics above through readings, discussion and extensive field experiences.
ODST 248A: SPTP- Advanced Topics of Outdoor Leadership and Education
This intensive, field-based course will involve a two-week expedition in which students will be required to apply the leadership and teaching skills learned previously in Principals of Outdoor Leadership and Education. This course is a student-designed and instructor-facilitated experience, in which students will develop risk management plans, course itineraries, and outdoor education lesson plans specific to a wilderness expedition. During the course, students will assume direct leadership roles implementing their developed lesson plans. The course is designed for students who will work as outdoor guides and educators in the St. Lawrence University Outdoor Program and other professional organizations 10 day field experience at the end of May required.
PEAC 247 B/GS 247 B SPTP: Facilitating Intergroup Dialogue (.5 units; Seven weeks, from beginning of semester; permission of instructor required; preference given to sophomores and juniors) Tues 1:15pm-4:15pm 01/24-03/04
In a multicultural society, discussions about issues of conflict and community are needed to facilitate understanding between social/cultural groups. In this course, students will develop knowledge and skills that will help them to participate in dialogues across social identity groups in situations where social justice knowledge, critical listening skills, communication skills, and bridge building skills are needed. This course will also prepare students to become potential dialogue facilitators. The course will be structured around scholarly readings and discussions focused on social justice issues.
PEAC 247 C/GS 247 C SPTP: Practicum for Intergroup Dialogue (.5 units; starts midsemester; permission of instructor required) Wed. 7-10 pm and 1 additonal hour TBA ) 03/19-05/04
"Facilitating Intergroup Dialogue" is a prerequisite for this course. Normally students will enroll in the Facilitation course in the first half of the semester and then act as a facilitator in the second half. Students in the Practicum course will facilitate weekly seminars and work with the instructor through regular consultations to:
• Discuss and prepare work for weekly dialogue sessions
• Strengthen facilitators’ own understanding of intergroup relations
• Further develop the co-facilitation relationship and experience
• Discuss theory and practice of group observation, conflict intervention, intergroup communication, and community building
• Continue facilitators’ own personal growth and development in the intergroup dialogue process
This course focuses on helping students develop and improve their skills as dialogue facilitators. This will be done in the context of the belief that facilitation skills can be used throughout life to create positive social change. Effective facilitators are effective social change agents. Moreover, by debriefing their actual dialogue experiences, facilitators can deepen their learning about identity, discrimination, privilege, and social justice. Student facilitators will run dialogues for three hours per week for seven weeks and will meet with faculty supervisors for one hour per week.
PEAC 247 D/ GS 247 D SPTP: Intergroup Dialogue- 03/19-05/04
In a multicultural society, discussions about issues of conflict and community are needed to facilitate understanding between social/cultural groups. In this course, students will participate in intergroup dialogues across social identity groups. Students will discuss relevant reading material, explore group experiences in various social and institutional contexts and examine narratives that include historical, psychological, and sociological materials. Students will participate in exercises that will be debriefed in class and in weekly journals. Students will learn about pertinent issues facing the participating groups on campus and in society. The intended outcome of this course is to create a setting in which students engage in open and constructive dialogue across different identity groups. Pass/fail only
PEAC 248 A: SPTP- Mediation
In this course, students will learn about mediation and its role in helping resolve conflicts nonviolently. Students will learn about different theoretical models of mediation, and will study some historical cases of its use at different levels of conflict resolution, from the interpersonal to the international level. The course will culminate in a 4-day (32-hour) mediation training over spring break. You must be able to participate in this training in order to take this course. This training will be led by a New York State certified mediation trainer. Upon conclusion of this training, students will be qualified to participate in St. Lawrence University’s peer mediation program. After the training, a few follow-up sessions for the mediation “apprenticeship” will be required for full certification.
PCA 212 A/FILM 248 C:SPTP-MediaCommunication&Society
The focus of this class will be on various aspects of media and mass communication. Its goal is to foster media literacy. We will discuss the overall historical role that various media have played in shaping and reflecting the cultural values of our society. We will analyze the effects that different modes of media financing have on the content. Ultimately, we will ask whether we can still keep talking about mass communication at a time when more and more people rely on personalized social websites or smart phones for contact with the outside world.
PCA 227 A/ MUS 227A: Recording Arts
Recordings of audio materials are a growing part of our world, and making professional recordings is an art that is now within the reach of many. Especially appropriate for music and PCA students, this course is designed to hone skills in producing recorded materials. The technology of recording is a combination of listening and performance skills and electronics. This course is a practical survey of materials and methods, with core principles applied to projects that will provide an understanding of how to achieve quality recordings by intelligent use of available equipment and spaces. Also offered as PCA 227A.
PCA 312 A/FA 348 A: SPTP- By Design- Using Text, Image, Video, & Sound to Influence Others
What if three activists share the same overarching goal—say, to promote fair trade coffee—but are tasked with persuading three very different audiences—say, college-aged students, middle-aged housewives, and the folks who do the purchasing for a major restaurant chain? ¬What if the first of these activists produces a two-dimensional billboard campaign aimed at drivers moving along an interstate at high speeds, the second produces a public service announcement for a local radio station that depends solely on audio to make its point, and the third creates an interactive website complete with text, images, video, and sound? This course, specifically designed for students interested in art and communication, will explore how one makes choices based on an audience, a purpose, and the constraints and possibilities of a given medium. While some attention will be paid to persuasive texts that already exist and to classical and contemporary theories of influence, this course will focus on students’ production and revision of original texts. (No prerequisites. Permission of instructors required.)
PCA 312 B: SPTP- Dramaturgy
In contemporary theatre practice, a dramaturg is someone who functions variously as an ally and assistant for the playwright, the director, the actors, and the audience.Typically, the dramaturg contributes research and provides additional perspective(s) to make a theatre production as powerful, moving, and successful as it can be. Diverse models for the dramaturg abound: Joel Schechter sees the ideal dramaturg as someone “actively involved in the cultural and political affairs of the day,” Geoffrey S. Proehl describes the dramaturg as a “midwife assisting at the birth of a new work of art,” and Martin Esslin envisions the dramaturg as “a kind of court jester, licensed to be as rude as possible.” In this course, students will have the opportunity to try on many of these roles. Students will function as new-play dramaturgs who aid this semester’s playwriting students, and will also contribute dramaturgy to the department’s spring mainstage production. Other major units will include how theatre companies select production seasons; the politics and practice of adapting and altering a playwright’s script; and the careful research and creative thinking necessary to stage plays from hundreds and even thousands of years ago so as to teach and to please audiences today.
PHIL 248 A/ PHYS 248 A: SPTP- Science: Good, Bad, and Bogus
This course examines the basic questions: “What is the nature of scientific evidence?” and “What counts as scientific reasoning?” We will address these questions from a theoretical framework and by examining case studies of how science goes wrong or how it is abused for political and economic ends. Examples include cold fusion, homeopathic medicine, parapsychology (psychic phenomena), facilitated communication with autistic children, creation science, and the science of climate change. The course will be taught as a mix of lecture and seminar activities. Assignments will emphasize argumentative writing, speaking, and developing reflective judgment. Students will write a paper on a topic of their own choice and present their work at the Festival of Science.
PHIL 347A/ HIST347A/: Behind Bars in the United States
In this 300-level interdisciplinary course, we will take an historical and philosophical look at America’s role as the “incarceration nation.” Units in this course include: voices from the inside, the history of criminal justice in the U.S., the modern prison-industrial complex, and alternative models of justice. Students interested in this course should expect a healthy workload and intensive classroom engagement.
PHIL 347B: Philosophy of Psychiatry
Study of the philosophical and normative assumptions underlying psychiatric diagnosis and treatment. In particular, this course considers how to define mental disorder, how to draw the line between normalcy and abnormalcy, what cultural and gender assumptions permeate psychiatry, and the insights to be gained from studying cross-cultural to mental illness. A special emphasis is given to the debate over whether we should prescribe psychiatric medications for enhancement purposes.
PHYS 120A/ MUS/120 A: SPTP- Physics and Perception of Music
Music is an interaction between the production of sound and the listeners' perceptive abilities. In this course, the physical details of the production and perception of “musical” sound and their interaction will be explored. In a hands-on, experiment-based course, the physics of sound vibrations and waves, the overtone series, the workings of the human ear, the construction of various types of musical instruments, methods of sound recording (both analog and digital), and other topics will be explored.
PHYS 248 A/PHIL 248 A: SPTP- Science: Good, Bad, and Bogus
This course examines the basic questions: “What is the nature of scientific evidence?” and “What counts as scientific reasoning?” We will address these questions from a theoretical framework and by examining case studies of how science goes wrong or how it is abused for political and economic ends. Examples include cold fusion, homeopathic medicine, parapsychology (psychic phenomena), facilitated communication with autistic children, creation science, and the science of climate change. The course will be taught as a mix of lecture and seminar activities. Assignments will emphasize argumentative writing, speaking, and developing reflective judgment. Students will write a paper on a topic of their own choice and present their work at the Festival of Science.
PSYC 247 A: SPTP-Psychological Research and Public Policy
This course explores the contributions that psychological science can make and has made to public policy. Topics include decision-making about issues related to numerous fields of psychology such as clinical (e.g., diagnoses and treatment of psychopathology), school and educational (e.g. student assessment and performance), industrial-organizational (e.g., personnel selection), environmental (e.g., resource use and community planning), community (e.g., social justice), and law (e.g., eyewitness testimony and capital punishment).
RELIGIOUS STUDIES
REL 248 A: SPTP- Fantasy Religion-Anime in the Japanese Spiritual Imaginary
Animated films or anime in Japan are a fascinating part of pop culture that attracts a huge audience of fans. As part of a global leisure industry, anime often offer an imaginary space not only to entertain, but to explore key questions about spirituality and the sacred. By viewing films like Anno Hideaki’s Neon Genesis Evangelion, Shirō Masume’s Ghost in the Shell, and Miyazaki Hayao’s My Neighbor Totoro, this class will explore topics as the nature of the gods (kami), nature religion, Christianity Japanese style, apocalyptic (end of the world) themes in anime, evil and the demonic, and so on.
REL 347 E: SPTP-Religion and Theology in the Fantasy World of J.R.R Tolkien
In addition to providing his readers with an elaborate history and meta-history of his world, J. R. R. Tolkien has created a hierarchy of being that has some of the attributes of a theology. Furthermore, since the prequel to The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, begins with two versions of a creation myth containing both cosmogony and “theogony,” we are justified in asking whether or not Tolkien’s world also contains gods, a word that Tolkien never uses in these works. The problem of constructing either category is complicated by the different relationships that different beings have to “higher” beings and to their understanding or even knowledge of the stories about them. On the other hand, ritual is poorly developed and other attributes that we might ascribe to religion are altogether absent. This seminar will attempt to investigate to what extent Tolkien has created a “theology” and whether or not he imbued his world with a “religion.”
SOC 187 A/ ENVS 187 A: Environment and Society
Social life and the natural environmental are inextricably linked. While human societies and the natural world have long since been intertwined, today issues of climate change, population growth, globalization, ecosystem degradation, environmental justice and a desire for a ‘greener’ future have placed social issues of the environment on center stage.The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the important linkages existing between the social world and the environment. Specifically, to inspire critical thinking about how societies relate, think about, and exist in the natural world and ultimately examine ‘the big picture’ of how ‘we’ situate ourselves in the natural world and what kind of future we really want. The first part of this course will introduce students to what environmental sociology is and explore environmental degradation on local and global scales. The second part of this course will investigate race, class and environmental justice issues and conclude by looking at sustainability and the ‘green’ movement as a societal response to environmental problems.
SOC 248A: SPTP-Community and the Environment: A “Hands-On” Approach
Contemporary culture is increasingly marked by questions concerning the environment and how societies interact, think about, and treat the natural world. From green energy and food systems, to issues about fossil fuels and climate change, we are living in a time where there are more questions than answers. The purpose of this course is to engage students in community-based projects focusing on environmental issues. Using a hands-on practicum approach, students will work together to design research questions, and gain skills to answer those questions in a meaningful way. If you learn by doing, enjoy working in a collaborative context and have a keen interest in environmental issues at the community level this is the course for you!
SOC 248 B: SPTP- Food and Sustainability
The modern food system is an exciting and timely topic, yet a complicated social phenomena in both our local and global communities. The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the cultural and social dimensions of food from production to consumption. The first part of this course will examine concepts related to the food system, sustainability, and the undeniable link between food and the environment. The latter part of this course will examine demographic food landscapes by way of social patterns in food consumption, and will conclude with a section on food and environmental policy. The course is organized under 4 guiding sections: 1) The Food System and Sustainability, 2) Food, Society and the Environment, 3) Food Landscapes: Race, Class and Food Security, and 4) Food and Environmental Policy.
SOC 224 A: Family, Community, and Globalization w/CBL
The process of globalization no longer requires a workforce rooted in place. Rather, the need of this new, “flexible capitalism” is for a workforce that is mobile, unencumbered by connections to family, place and community. These larger structural changes do not operate as abstractions. They affect the lives of people at all levels. This course examines the influence of globalization on families and communities. To facilitate an understanding of these processes and their consequences, integrated into this course is a required experiential component through Community-Based Learning. Students develop reciprocity between their classroom experience and work within the local community. Fulfills the Experiential requirement for Sociology majors.
SOC 290 A: Independent Study
Optional 0.5 credit independent study/CBL opportunity for students enrolled in SOC 275A Medical Sociology. Fulfills the Experiential requirement for Sociology majors. By permission of instructor.
SOC 343 A: WI Comparative Historical Research Methods
This course is designed to acquaint students with important methods and works in the field of comparative and historical sociological research. Comparative scholars ask questions about large social structures and processes across time and space, and take into account social and cultural differences among societies or phenomena. The major agenda is to explain social change. Such methods are used to: look for causal regularities in history, to use concepts to interpret history, and to apply general models to history. The research methodologies and the readings are cross-disciplinary and interdisciplinary. We will examine selected “classics” in the field of CHS in this course, will analyze methods, and compare works. We will read contemporary writers and discuss their agendas and approaches. Each student will also “practice” methodology in class and in written work. Fulfills the Research Methods Requirement for Sociology majors.
SOC 348 A: SPTP- Economy and Society
Early sociologists, like Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, and Max Weber, were interested in the causes and consequences of the rise of capitalism, and the analyses of changes in economic behavior patterns were important pieces in their works. Then for most of the 20th century, sociologists turned away from the study of economic activities. Under the division of labor, the study of economic behavior was considered to be the turf of economists. That changed in early 1980s when sociologists started to reclaim the lost land and bring a sociological lens to the study of the economy that emphasizes the importance of social structures, relationships, values, and even emotions in shaping economic behavior. This course will offer a survey of the growing field of economic sociology and look at how social institutions, social networks, power, and values affect the economy. We will also compare the different approaches that economists and sociologists take. Fulfills the Capstone seminar requirement for Sociology majors. Also open to non-majors, space permitting.
SOC 377 A: Sociology of Consumption
This course is designed to understand the logic of consumption from a sociological perspective. Currently, consumption and consumerism are so central in the economic and cultural life of the social world. The act of consumption is identified as patriotic duty and the value of consumerism is representative of the culture norm. Consequently, the importance of exchange value sustaining commodity production is replaced by use value and the fetish of commodity consumption. The course’s aim is (1) to shed light on the skewed logic that privileges use value to the detriment of exchange value and (2) to understand why capitalism while substantively based on production processes, swears by its formally veneer of consumption actions. Through the works of Veblen and Baudrillard based on Marx’s notion of the double nature of the commodity – real and fetish – the concrete historical dimension of consumption is appreciated. Fulfills the Capstone seminar requirement for Sociology majors. Also open to non-majors, space permitting. Dual-listed with Environmental Studies.
SSES 248 A:SPTP:PrincOfFit&Wellnss
This course addresses health and wellness issues that society currently encounters. Topics include nutrition, fitness, obesity, stress management, and adherence. Physical inactivity is studied as a disease risk factor. The health impact of lifestyle and behavioral choices is studied.”
SPANISH
SPAN 448 A/CLAS 448 A: SPTP- Hispanic Protest Music
From the classic song "Guantanamera" to the recent "Los Hijos de las Piedras" (Marwan) the history of protest music in Spain and Latin America have been enriching, stimulating and renovating. These innovations also represent powerful ethical commitments to ongoing social struggles. In this class we will study important works of protest music and poetry in relation to the sociohistorical moments in which they were produced. These include works by Jose Marti, Antonio Machado, Miguel Hernandez, Cesar Vallejo, Octavio Paz, Luis Eduardo Aute, Joan Manuel Serrat, Victor Jara, Silvio Rodriguez, Pablo Milanes, Violeta Parra, Mercedes Sosa, Joaquin Sabina, Ismael Serrano, Mana, and Marwan, among others. Students will write analytical papers and will have the opportunity to do creative projects which will contextualize historically the ethical commitments to which these songs and poems are calling our attention.
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XREG- CROSS-REGISTRATION COMMON COURSES
The courses will meet 20 days from 3:00pm-5:15pm or 7:00pm-9:15pm, Monday or Wednesday on January 23, 25, 30, February 1,6, 8, 12,15,20,22, March 5, 7, 26, 28 and April 2, 4, 16, 18, 23, 25. Transportation will be provided by the Associated Colleges if needed. Students can register for the courses via APR but must also submit completed cross-registration forms to the Registrar's Office.
XREG 101 X: XR-Intro to American Legal Systems
A general overview of the American legal system, including federal and state court structures, the roles and responsibilites of various participants in the legal process, and the progress of civil and criminal cases through the courts. Taught at SUNY Canton, Location TBA-Instructor William Jones
Textbooks Needed Author: Walston-Dunham, Title: Intro. To Law; Publisher: Cengage Learning: Edition: 6th; ISBN: 9781111311896
XREG 102 X: XR-Contemporary Spanish II
Sequel to SPAN 101. Emphasis on listening comprehension, speaking, reading and writing. Prerequisite: SPAN 101 or equivalent. Taught at SUNY Potsdam, Location Kellas Hall, Rm 101-Instructor Lilana Trevizan Equivalent to SLU SPAN 102
XREG 103 X: XR-Contemporary Chinese III
Contemporary Chinese III (3) This is the third part of the elementary Chinese course. The course is designed for non-native Chinese speakers who have completed Chinese 101 and 102 or equivalent courses. In this course, students will learn to build vocabulary and sentence patterns in communicative contexts, and build a solid foundation in pronunciation. Students will expand their abilities to carry out simple conversations in Chinese on a limited range of topics. Reading and writing, simplified form, will be expected to speak, read, and write all new words that appear in the textbook vocabulary lists. This course will also lead students to deeper understanding of Chinese culture and society. Prerequisite: CHIN 102 or equivalent. Taught at SUNY Potsdam, Location Flagg Hall Rm 240, Instructor Ningyun Cai Equivalent to SLU CHIN 103
Textbooks: Integrated Chinese: Level 1, Part 2 (Simplified Character) Workbook (Chinese Edition) by Tao-Chung Yao Integrated Chinese: Level 1,
Part 2 (Simplified & Traditional Character) Character Workbook (Chinese Edition) by Yuehua Liu Integrated Chinese: Textbook Simplified Characters, Level 1
XREG 201 X: XR-Digital Photography
Students will develop competency in digital image capture, processing, and critical evaluation. Hands-on activities and studio/lab will permit each student to investigate the applications of applied digital and hybrid photography. Through technical studio assignments, critiques, and presentations, students will increase their skills in image printing, camera operation and using computer imaging software. Students will also develop critical awareness of composition and the relationship of digital photography to other media.No required text. DSLR camera (recommend Nikon D3100), memory card, card reader, and a tripod are required. Taught at SUNY Canton , Location Wicks Hall 006, Instructor Gregory Kie
XREG 405 X: XR-SustainabiltyTheory&Practice
This course will offer an overview and critical assessment of some of the founders, fundamental assumptions and contributions of the sustainability movement as an emerging worldview. We will read and assess critically key sustainability texts, authors, metrics and solutions. Graduate students enrolled in PHIL 505 will be required to perform additional work to that required of undergraduate students enrolled in PHIL 405. Taught at Clarkson University, Location BH Snell Hall, Rm 177, Instructor William Vitek
Textbooks:
1.) State of the World 2010 (SOTW), The Worldwatch Institute, Paperback: 244 pages, Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company; Original edition (January 12, 2010), ISBN-10: 039333726X, ISBN-13: 978-0393337266
2.) Nature as Measure, Wes Jackson, Paperback: 304 pages, Publisher: Counterpoint; Original edition (October 11, 2011), ISBN-10: 1582437009, ISBN-13: 978-1582437002
3.) Cradle to Cradle, William McDonough and Michael Braungart, Paperback: 208 pages, Publisher: North Point Press; 1st edition (April 22, 2002), ISBN-10: 0865475873, ISBN-13: 978-0865475878
4.) Resilience Thinking, Brian Walker and David Salt, Paperback: 192 pages, Publisher: Island Press (August 22, 2006), ISBN-10: 1597260932, ISBN-13: 978-1597260930
5.) Agenda for a New Economy, David Korten, Paperback, Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2nd Edition updated and expanded (September 1, 2010) (THIS EDITION ONLY), ASIN: B004V09IFE
6.) Blessed Unrest, Paul Hawken, Paperback: 352 pages, Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (April 1, 2008), Language: English, ISBN-10: 0143113658, ISBN-13: 978-0143113652
Recommended: First Along the River, Benjamin Kline, Paperback: 208 pages, Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers; Fourth Edition (January 16, 2011) OR ANY EDITION WILL DO; Language: English, ISBN-10: 1442203994, ISBN-13: 978-1442203990
Other readings will be posted on Moodle
XREG 447 X: Nuclear Physics
An introduction to nuclear structure, nuclear radiation and elementary particle physics.Topics include properties of nuclei, the two nucleon forces, complex nuclei, interaction of radiation with matter, accelerators, nuclear reactions, elementary particles and their classification. Graduate students enrolled in PH 554 will be required to perform additional work to that required of undergraduate students enrolled in PH 447. Taught at Clarkson University, Location and Instructor to Be Announced.
Textbook: Introductory Nuclear Physics, by Kenneth Krane Publisher: John Wiley ISBN: 9781118311646 According to the publisher, the University Bookstore will have an abridged version of the book that will only contain the necessary chapters to be covered in the course.
The above ISBN applies to this custom book, and probably will not match the ISBN of the full book.