Summer I (May 30–July 12, 2012)
University closed July 4–6 LS689.41: American Film Classics
This course encourages students to examine and reflect upon traditional American values as reflected in a set of eight vintage films. The central focus of the films chosen will vary, but could include foundational myths like the self-made man, the cowboy and the Wild West, the pioneer spirit, or individual freedom.
Dr. Randall Donaldson, Monday and Wednesday, 6:30–9:00 [5/30/2012–7/11/2010, no meeting on 7/4] (C)
Required of all students in their first semester. LS657.51: Service and Meaningful Work
What is "service"? Why is it so important to the human spirit and community? What are the problems and pitfalls we encounter as we try to serve others? How can we integrate other-directed work with one's own need for financial stability and personal fulfillment? How can our work in the world be meaningful and satisfying -- a "vocation" and not merely a "job"? These are not merely theoretical questions; our life is an expression of the answers we formulate. Still, philosophers and spiritual texts, both Western and Eastern, can do much to help us think through these crucial issues. Throughout the course we will weave together theoretical understandings and personal experience. Students will have the opportunity to reflect upon their own lives, and to be challenged and illuminated by a variety of rich texts.
Dr. Drew Leder, Monday and Wednesday, 3:00–5:30 [5/30/2012–7/11/2010, no meeting on 7/4] (T) LS771: Communication and Culture in Contemporary and Modern France
The course will focus on the work and lives of three public intellectuals—Emile Zola, Simone de Beauvoir and Azouz Begag. In addition to looking broadly at the involvement of these writers in French cultural life within each specific period—Second Empire and Third Republic France, the Post-World War II period, and contemporary France—the group will explore the involvement of these three public intellectuals with a major cultural/political issue of the time.
Drs. Sharon Nell & Elliott King, TBA [Course includes a ten-day trip to Paris, France, June 16–26, 2012; for details contact either of the two instructors] (C) LS 620.51: Power and Money: Understanding a Global Economy in Flux
Why don't countries with McDonalds go to war with each other? What are the real costs (and benefits) of American energy dependence? What has been the most effective poverty alleviation scheme of the hundred years (hint: not the World Bank or IMF)? How can you turn trees into HDTVs? What is "too big to fail"? And will you ever be able to retire? Power and Money approaches these and other political economy enigmas with lively and erudite discussions of the classics, the controversial, and current events.
Dr. James Quirk, Tuesday and Thursday, 6:30–9:00 [5/31/2012–7/12/2012, no meeting on 7/5] (H) Summer II (July 16–August 23, 2012) LS632.41: Tradition and Revolt in Literature: Twentieth Century Modernism(s)
This course explores the complexities of the literary movement known as Modernism and examines the shift in scholarly understanding from a single "Modernism" to multiple "modernisms." For much of the twentieth century, the term “Modernism” described the works of a limited number of writers, usually T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, W.B. Yeats, William Faulkner, James Joyce, and Virginia Woolf. In an age dominated by accelerated industrialization, urbanization, the first global war, and new technologies which transformed daily life, these writers redefined the nature of literary expression, developing literary forms such as stream-of-consciousness narrative, free verse, the long poem, and Imagism to express their twentieth-century experience. Yet there were many other authors, African American writers, working class writers, feminist writers, and popular writers working at the same time whose poems, novels, stories, and plays were excluded from the conventional scholarly definition of Modernism. Nonetheless their works illuminate new angles of vision and express sometimes startling perspectives on early twentieth-century modernity. By pairing canonical and marginal texts, the course will undertake to determine what makes a text "modern."
Dr. Sondra Guttman, Monday and Wednesday, 3:00–5:30 [7/2016/2012–8/22/2012] (H) LS690.51: The 1970s: Ideas have Consequences
This class examines writings and films produced during the decade in which our current culture, for better or worse, took clear shape. During the 1970s, most aspects of the cultural revolution of the 1960s were absorbed into “mainstream” culture, even as a conservative counter-cultural revolution began to emerge that would, in the 1980s, reach full bloom. In this class, we will study works that are either interesting in their own right, or that shed light on the ideas and debates that prevailed during a curious and tumultuous time we associate with the rise of postmodernism, feminism, libertarianism, mass narcissism, and much more. We will consider why film historians regard the 1970s as a particularly rich decade that brought forth both the “American New Wave” as well as the rise of the summer blockbuster—Hollywood’s standard for success for years to come. We will read Tom Wolfe’s The Me Decade and Christopher Lasch’s The Culture of Narcissism, among other titles.
Dr. Brian Murray, Tuesday and Thursday, 6:30–9:00 [7/17/2012–8/23/2012] (C)
Required of all students in their first semester. |
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