Tuesday, 6:30-9:00, Baltimore
Dr. Paul Richard Blum
"Nature tends to hide itself," this adage by the Greek philosopher Heraclitus was one of the first philosophical statements about nature. And we are still seeking. This course will explore how the concept of nature has evolved: the early Greeks made it the foundation of metaphysics; Christian thinkers like Augustine despised it, or they made it overlap with the concept of God, before early modern thinkers like Descartes gave it a mechanistic outlook; then it turned out that nature seems to have a history and an 'evolution'; the 20th century witnessed the dissolution of the concept of nature in relativity and indeterminacy as well as the revival of nature as a 'person' that suffers and has its own rights, so that through environmentalism nature has turned into a political asset. We will read and discuss exemplary primary sources of all areas. Participants are encouraged to contribute from their professional points of view. Inclusion of science, current affairs, or literature will depend on specific engagement of participants. As it spans all epochs of Western philosophy and touches upon a variety of disciplines, this course may serve as a general overview of philosophy.
Thursday, 6:30-9:00, Baltimore
Dr. Brian Murray
For more than twenty years between the 1950s and 1970s the American film industry released many films focusing directly on social problems and political themes. Often considered “controversial,” these movies represent the high point of twentieth-century American liberalism: they assume that artful presentations of (for example) racism, materialism, and militarism would help prompt discussions that would lead eventually to a more perfect society and a more peaceful world. In this class we will not only examine such films as The Harder They Fall (1956), The Defiant Ones (1958), Bird Man of Alcatraz (1961), and Seven Days in May (1964), but—with the help of selected critical readings—we will consider how the values and attitudes of these popular if rather didactic films, with all their sociological trimmings, contributed to the cultural environment we inhabit today. Saturday, 9:30-12:00, Columbia
Dr. John DiJoseph An investigation of contemporary American culture through the lenses of the guru of the Electronic Revolution, Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980), who coined the phrases "global village" and "the medium is the message." Forty years ago, he predicted the Internet and electronic mail and popularized such terms as "feedback" and "iconic." Our media-driven American culture of the twenty-first century cannot be understood without understanding McLuhan’s theories.
Thursday, 6:30-9:00, Columbia
Mr. Steven Burr
Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre, contemporaries in French philosophy and literature, both recognized that a sense of alienation was characteristic of human existence. In their view, the individual is best seen as an ‘exile.’ While certain aspects and conditions which characterize existence may be universal, the individual is ultimately left to engage that existence alone. Starting with basically similar premises, Camus and Sartre both attempted to discover the particular ‘worth’ of such an existence. Yet they finally arrived at different conclusions. Within the context of the writings of both Camus and Sartre, this course will attempt to situate the notion of exile, offering a possible explanation of the depth of the meaning of this condition, while searching for ways in which this condition may perhaps be overcome. The group will be challenged to raise and answer the question on two fronts, addressing the individual’s solitary engagement with nature and existence, as well as the individual’s engagement with other similarly-situated individuals.
Wednesday, 6:30-9:00, Timonium
Dr. Elliot King
The news media play a central role in the construction and maintenance of public life in America. This course examines the history of and development of news media in America and explores how political, social, economic and cultural factors have helped shape the production and consumption of news over time. Participants will engage the central issues associated with the analysis and assessment of media performance including objectivity and fairness, partisanship, privacy, the social responsibility of the media, and the news media as an agent of political and social change. The course will examine what citizens expect from the news media as well as the constraints on the media in meeting those expectations. Finally, the impact of the emergence of successive waves of new channels of communication from television to the Internet on the role of the American news media will be investigated. The course will incorporate a wide variety of materials including books, videos, newspapers, magazines and Web sites and highlight specific instances of notable press performance as well as current events. Tuesday, 6:30-9:00, Timonium
Dr. James Snow Although most Americans will consume well over 75 tons of food in their lifetimes, food has remained on the margins of academic scholarship. This course brings cooking and eating from the margins using food as the focal point for an examination of culture, class, gender, and finally, the self. The preliminary thesis will be that how we gather, prepare, and eat food reveals, and even establishes who we are. Intentionally and unintentionally, we express who we are by what we eat.
Monday, 6:30-9:00, Timonium
Dr. Charles Donahue
An investigation of the changing parameters of the struggle for African-American civil rights in the United States from 1968 to 1985. This study begins with the pivotal year of 1968, a year which saw the splintering of the Civil Rights Movement in the aftermath of the deaths of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy, and the siphoning off of many of its most important activists into other movements. The study continues into the critical years of 1970s and the variety of efforts at integration and equality related to housing, education, and employment. The study concludes with the middle years of the Reagan administration and the shifting sands of public and governmental opinion regarding Affirmative Action. |
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