| Spring 2008 |
Charry,Eric S.
01/28/2008 - 05/10/2008
Thursday 06:00 PM - 08:30 PM
Music Studios 301
Since the early 20th century, downtown New York has been one of the most artistically vital and creative geographic areas in America, known for its avant-garde, counter, and alternative cultural tendencies. Home or workplace of Upton Sinclair and the muckrakers, Jackson Pollack and the abstract expressionist visual artists, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and the beat poets, and Merce Cunningham and the modern dancers, Greenwich Village and neighborhoods to the east and south continue to attract a special breed of artists and activists. Musical artists were not only integral to this scene--one can argue that they defined it.
The unique confluence of musical currents in downtown New York in the 1950s and 60s was extraordinary. The intensity, diversity, and critical inclinations of the music communities that lived and worked side by side within the roughly one square mile below 14th Street were unparalleled. In this course, we will study the history and simultaneous flourishing of four distinct music communities that inhabited and shaped downtown New York culture: Euro-American experimentalists (Edgard Varese, John Cage, Lamont Young), an African American jazz-based avant-garde (Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman, and Sun Ra), blues and folk revivalists (Leadbelly, Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan), and Lower East Side rock groups (The Fugs, Velvet Underground). Although they had much in common, most notably a drive to create something new that critiqued, countered, or provided an alternative to mainstream American values, they also had significant, even insurmountable differences. Much of the course will be devoted to understanding their points of convergence and divergence, especially in conversation with broader currents of the time (e.g. the civil rights movement and related notions of freedom, shifting youth subcultures, and avant garde aesthetics).
We will read about and listen to recordings of a wide variety of musicians, identify aesthetic trends, and study the local industry that supported them. This will include examining the catalogs of record labels (Folkways, Vanguard, Elektra, ESP), analyzing the environments and bookings of coffee houses, clubs, and concert spaces (Village Gate, Five Spot, Gerde's Folk City, the Electric Circus, the New School), and reading primary local sources, such as the Village Voice (inaugurated in 1955), and the East Village Other (inaugurated in 1965).
A course packet, including chapters from Sally Banes, Greenwich Village 1963; Bockris and Malanga, The Velvet Underground Story; Beard and Berlowitz, Greenwich Village; Robert Cantwell, The Folk Revival; and A. B. Spellman, Four Lives in the Bebop Business.
Assignments include one essay (5-7 pages) on each of the four genres covered (folk, jazz, experimental, rock), totaling four essays for the term. The topics are to be chosen in consultation with the instructor.
Eric Charry (B.M., M.M. New England Conservatory of Music; M.F.A., Ph.D. Princeton University) is associate professor of music. He is author of Mande Music: Traditional and Modern Music of the Maninka and Mandinka of Western Africa (University of Chicago Press, 2000), and has two books in progress: The Emergence of an Avant Garde in Jazz, 1956-1965 and Downtown: Music as a Cultural Force, New York in the 1950s and 60s. Click here for more information about Eric Charry.
ENROLLMENT INFORMATION
Open to Auditors: Yes
Consent of Instructor Required: No
|
Format: Seminar | Level: GLSP | Credits: 3 | Enrollment Limit: 18 |
READING MATERIALS ARE AVAILABLE AT BROAD STREET BOOKS, 45 BROAD STREET, MIDDLETOWN, 860-685-7323 Order your books online
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Copyright Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459
| Spring 2008 |
Plageman,Laura
01/28/2008 - 05/10/2008
Tuesday 06:00 PM - 09:00 PM
Zilkha Gallery 106
This studio course is designed to help students advance their personal photographic vision and develop a focused body of work. Students will look at new techniques for making photographs, explore strategies for sequencing, and investigate how different modes of presentation and context alter the meaning of photographs.
In additon to discovering new tools to physically facilitate picture making, this course will introduce issues in the forefront of contemporary photography through slide lectures and weekly reading assignments. The objective is to aid students' abilities to think and speak critically about images and image making, providing a solid foundation of technical and conceptual skills to further the production of an original, cohesive, and thoughtful portfolio of images.
Weekly handouts will be required reading. The suggested text for this course is Art and Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland.
Throughout the semester students will work with assignments that will challenge their technical understanding of the medium as well as their personal relationship to their work. There will be informal discussions/critiques of assigned work and its relevance to students' personal aesthetic interests and vision.
Students may work with images that they have made previously, but they will also be required to create new work.
This course is designed to accommodate students with a wide range of experience with this medium, but basic familiarity with film-based and/or digital photographic processes is expected. Students may work with digital and/or film cameras and equipment. Whatever their chosen medium, students will be responsible for shooting and printing outside the class. It will be the student's responsibility to have film, contact sheets and prints developed by a contracted lab in time to meet assignment deadlines.
Enrollment is limited to 14 students.
A syllabus for this course is available at:
Course Syllabus
Laura Plageman (B.A., Wesleyan University; M.F.A., California College for the Arts) teaches at California College for the Arts and will be visiting assistant professor of art at Wesleyan University in spring 2008. Her most recent exhibit was "New Landscape," at the PLAySPACE Gallery in San Francisco (November 2006). Her work and biography are viewable on her website.
ENROLLMENT INFORMATION
Open to Auditors: No
Consent of Instructor Required: No
|
Format: Seminar | Level: GLSP | Credits: 3 | Enrollment Limit: 12 |
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Contact
glsinquire@wesleyan.edu to submit comments or suggestions.
Copyright Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459
| Spring 2008 |
Waite,Peter
01/28/2008 - 05/10/2008
Wednesday 06:30 PM - 09:00 PM
Art Workshop 105
In this course, we will make drawings on a large scale, typically in the four by six foot range, with these objectives: To consider what happens to one's field of vision when making large pictures; how it becomes almost cinematographic and in the picture plane. To become more intimately aware of subject matter when translating something small to big. To break down certain inhibitions perhaps encountered by past, smaller, more precious work. To become physically engaged, to experience the use of one's whole body in drawing, to engage in the creative struggle of swinging one's arms fully or using the feet as would a fencer or boxer. Examples of such drawings include: a clothes pin enlarged to six feet becomes something else--a triumphant arch, or a menacing, predatory form. But in the process, the renderer has to experience the form from micro to macro, to understand a full use of materials and the power of simple charcoal when used on a large scale, to participate in class assignment but to also create a focused body of work (6 to 8 large finished drawings) whose subject matter is chosen with scale and conceit in mind by each student.
Participants will focus on a series of drawings that will be in the 4 to 6 foot range, working on rolls of paper or large sheets tiled together to form an even larger dimension. Charcoal, pastels, and washes will be used for subject matter ranging from simple small objects to figures, portraiture, architecture, nature, and monuments.
Enrollment is limited to 10 students
Additional fee: $85
Peter Waite (B.F.A. Hartford Art School; M.F.A. School of the Art Institute of Chicago) has been a Guggenheim fellow and has taught at Wesleyan University and at the University of Connecticut, Fairfield University, and Bennington College. His work is represented by the Edward Thorp Gallery in New York City. He has 15 solo exhibitions, including the Edward Thorp Gallery (2005, 2002, 2001, 1996, 1994), the Winston/Wachter Gallery (Seattle, 2006), and the Olin Gallery of Roanoke College (Salem, VA, 2005). View his paintings on his Web site at www.peterwaite.com.
ENROLLMENT INFORMATION
Open to Auditors: No
Consent of Instructor Required: No
|
Format: Studio | Level: GLSP | Credits: 3 | Enrollment Limit: 10 |
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Contact
glsinquire@wesleyan.edu to submit comments or suggestions.
Copyright Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459
| Spring 2008 |
Shinohara,Keiji
01/28/2008 - 05/10/2008
Monday 06:00 PM - 09:00 PM
Art Workshop 105
Sumi-e is a style of black-and-white calligraphic ink painting that originated in China and was introduced into Japan by Zen monks around 1333. Concentrating on the four basic compositions of sumi-e—bamboo, chrysanthemum, orchid, and plum blossom—we will explore the central techniques and principles of style. We will also study the works of the more famous schools, such as Kano. Students will be encouraged to work in the classical style and to build on that style toward expressing their own creative vision.
Students will create a portfolio of class exercises and their own creative pieces.
Enrollment is limited to 14 students.
Additional fee: $140
Keiji Shinohara, a master Ukiyo-e woodcut printmaker, is visiting artist in art and East Asian studies. His work has been exhibited at the Library of Congress, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Worcester Museum of Art, the Asia Society, and the Smithsonian. He is known for highly sculptural landscape prints, which speak to the spirit of Ukiyo-e in a modern voice. His Sumi-e paintings were featured in the collaborative artists' book, The Language of Her Body, with photos by Derek Dudek, fragments of text by Amy Bloom, and typography by Robin Price. Click here for more information about Keiji Shinohara.
ENROLLMENT INFORMATION
Open to Auditors: No
Consent of Instructor Required: No
|
Format: Studio | Level: GLSP | Credits: 3 | Enrollment Limit: 14 |
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Contact
glsinquire@wesleyan.edu to submit comments or suggestions.
Copyright Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459
| Spring 2008 |
Nascimento,Claudia Tatinge
01/28/2008 - 05/10/2008
Monday -
As Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez remarked in his Nobel Prize acceptance lecture, Latin America's violent history includes colonization and seventeen military coups. For economic and political reasons, many of its citizens have emigrated or left for exile. The main goal of this course is to examine how Latin American and Latino artists tell the continent's history via performance. In that, we will look at the intersection between individual experience and larger socio-political contexts in the works of artists from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, as well as those living in the United States and Europe. Though the focus of the course is theater, at times we will also draw from other art forms.
Course readings include Griselda Gambarro, Three Plays by Griselda Gambarro; Charles Philip, Latin American Theater in Translation; Judith Weiss, Colombian Theater in the Vortex; Mario Vargas Llosa, The Methuen Book of Contemporary Latin American Plays; The Theater of Nelson Rodrigues.
A syllabus for this course is available at:
Course Syllabus
Claudia Nascimento (B.A., Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro; M.A., University of Akron; Ph.D., University of Wisconsin) is assistant professor of theater. Click here for more information about Claudia Nascimento.
ENROLLMENT INFORMATION
Open to Auditors: Yes
Consent of Instructor Required: No
|
Format: Seminar | Level: GLSP | Credits: 3 | Enrollment Limit: 18 |
| Register for Courses |
Contact
glsinquire@wesleyan.edu to submit comments or suggestions.
Copyright Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459
| Spring 2008 |
Bobrick,Elizabeth A.
01/28/2008 - 05/10/2008
Thursday 06:30 PM - 09:30 PM
Center for the Americas 3
In this course, we will focus on short narrative nonfiction, or the personal essay. Although such essays are often categorized by theme or genre--as memoir, say, or cultural criticism--those boundaries are not always hard and fast. One of the most famous essays in the English language, for example, Orwell's "Shooting the Elephant," is both straightforward memoir as well as a meditation on colonialism, cowardice, and alienation.
Readings will include both contemporary and classic essays, by writers such as James Baldwin, John Lahr, Edwidge Danticat, Richard Rodriguez, and Jo Ann Beard. In both our reading and writing, we will pay close attention to technique: how narratives are shaped by theme, structure, voice, and the use of dialogue and descriptive detail.
The goal of the course is to help students become more experienced and fluent writers. In addition to reading and discussing assigned essays, students will write an essay every week, read and discuss each other's work, and complete short writing exercises in class, as well as a longer final project based on their work over the semester.
Evaluations will be based on progress, class participation, and completion of assignments.
No special experience is required; all are welcome.
A syllabus for this course is available at:
Course Syllabus
Elizabeth Bobrick (B.A., Marlboro College; Ph.D., The Johns Hopkins University) has been visiting assistant professor in English, classical studies, and the College of Letters at Wesleyan University. She has also taught classical studies at the University of Missouri and the University of Virginia. Her work has appeared in Salon, Fiction, The Hartford Courtant, Wesleyan Magazine, Psychology Today, and other publications. Her most recent essay, "Oriole Magic," is forthcoming in the spring 2008 special issue of Creative Nonfiction.
ENROLLMENT INFORMATION
Open to Auditors: No
Consent of Instructor Required: No
|
Format: Seminar | Level: GLSP | Credits: 3 | Enrollment Limit: 18 |
READING MATERIALS ARE AVAILABLE AT BROAD STREET BOOKS, 45 BROAD STREET, MIDDLETOWN, 860-685-7323 Order your books online
| Register for Courses |
Contact
glsinquire@wesleyan.edu to submit comments or suggestions.
Copyright Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459
| Spring 2008 |
Greene,Anne F.
01/28/2008 - 05/10/2008
Monday 07:00 PM - 09:30 PM
Downey 100
Offered in conjunction with the spring 2008 Distinguished Writers series, this writing course will study--for technique and inspiration--the work of contemporary writers whom the program brings to speak on campus. Readings include pieces by these speakers as well as a range of other authors. The course has two components: classes meet on Monday evenings for the writing course, and on several Wednesdays the writers will read and discuss their work. Students are required to attend at least four such readings. The guest speakers will include fiction writers and writers of nonfiction, including award winning Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Adichie, award winning writer Andre Aciman, political journalist Philip Gourevitch, and music critic Alex Ross.
Course readings will include works by such writers as W.G. Sebald, Robert Stone, Edward P. Jones, Dubravka Ugresic, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, John McPhee, and Joan Didion.
Class assignments will include short exercises emphasizing new techniques as well as a longer piece. Assignments may be adjusted if students have ongoing projects they would like to continue. Students may choose to work on short or long fiction, narrative or personal essays, memoir, profiles, or journalistic pieces. (Please note: this is not a course for poets.) Evaluation will be based on progress shown in the writing and contributions to class discussion.
Writers at all levels of accomplishment are welcome.
Anne Greene (B.A. Harvard College, M.A. Brandeis University) is adjunct professor of English, director of writing programs, and director of the Wesleyan Writers Conference. She was awarded the 2006 Binswanger prize for excellence in teaching. Click here for more information about Anne Greene.
ENROLLMENT INFORMATION
Open to Auditors: No
Consent of Instructor Required: No
|
Format: Seminar | Level: GLSP | Credits: 3 | Enrollment Limit: 18 |
False Papers, Andre Aciman
We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow..., Philip Gourevitch
Accidental Masterpiece, Michael Kimmelman
Best American Essays 2005, Orlean editor
Still Life with Oysters and Lemons, Mark Doty
Art of the Personal Essay, Lopate ed.
Book of Unforgettable Journeys, Conde Nast
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glsinquire@wesleyan.edu to submit comments or suggestions.
Copyright Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459
| Spring 2008 |
Friedberg,Harris A.
01/28/2008 - 05/10/2008
Wednesday 06:00 PM - 08:30 PM
Downey 100
This course will study how our ideas of human nature--categories like life and death, body and soul, shame and guilt, love and sex, honor and glory--evolve while exploring the most important literary genre before the novel. We will be reading those canonical works that constitute the very idea of Western Civilization, articulate its values, and define the heroic--the ideology or implicit value system of patriarchy. They are also works of great power. Starting with the dawn of history and ending with the dawn of the modern era, we will interrogate how those ideas and ideals construct the idea of human nature by seeing how they are constructed chronologically.
We will study Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Virgil's Aeneid, Dante's Inferno and Milton's Paradise Lost.
Students are responsible for two papers and a class presentation.
For the first class meeting, students should have read books 1-5 of Homer's Iliad.
Harris Friedberg (B.A. Harvard University; Ph. D. Yale University) is associate professor of English. Recent publications include: "Prose and Poetry: Wimsatt's Verbal Icon and the Romantic Poetics of New Criticism," Poetics Today, 26 (2005). Click here for more information about Harris Friedberg.
ENROLLMENT INFORMATION
Open to Auditors: Yes
Consent of Instructor Required: No
|
Format: Seminar | Level: GLSP | Credits: 3 | Enrollment Limit: 18 |
Homer, ILIAD (Penguin), Paperback
Homer, ODYSSEY (Penguin), Paperback
John Milton, PARADISE LOST (Norton), Paperback
Virgil, AENEID (Bantam), Paperback
READING MATERIALS ARE AVAILABLE AT BROAD STREET BOOKS, 45 BROAD STREET, MIDDLETOWN, 860-685-7323 Order your books online
| Register for Courses |
Contact
glsinquire@wesleyan.edu to submit comments or suggestions.
Copyright Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459
| Spring 2008 |
Karamcheti,Indira
02/22/2008 - 03/30/2008
Note: Special Schedule 09:00 AM - 05:00 PM
285 Court Street
This course will meet over two weekends: February 22-24 and March 29-30.
Literature is often seen, in the First World, as separate from the public sphere of politics and knowledge. In the Third, or Postcolonial, World, writers have a much more significant impact on public life. In this course, we will study three writers who hold celebrated status in the Third World, where they influence and even create public policy. Aime Cesaire (Martinique), V.S. Naipaul (Trinidad/England), and Salman Rushdie (Pakistan/India/Britain) are enormously well known and well read by the literati and the masses alike, to great praise and great blame.
This class will attempt to understand what these authors mean and what they stand for, both in the First World and in the Third. In order to comprehend the sometimes radically divergent responses to and interpretations of these authors, we will look closely at their writings, and will examine literary criticism and journalistic discussion of these writers. Our goal will be to analyze how the Western and the postcolonial reader respond differently to these authors: What makes these authors so powerful in the Third World? What is the nature of the West's reception of them, which varies from praise to indifference? How do these writers define themselves and their goals?
Cesaire, an essayist, poet, and playwright, is also a powerful and provocative politician, and a major figure of politics and aesthetics in the Caribbean. We will discuss his seminal poetic epic, Notebook of a Return to the Native Land, which raises important questions about the responsibility of the artist to his community, nation, and race. What is the relationship of that responsibility to the manner of writing? Can surrealism, usually considered a "European" literary style, serve anti-imperialistic, nativistic uses? We will also examine Cesaire's political career, read his interviews, and study one of his plays, A Tempest. This play deliberately refashions Shakespeare's The Tempest to serve the ends of the Third World, addressing historical, racial, and class domination and injustice in a style that incorporates Shakespearean grandeur, Creolisms, and delirious flights of surrealism.
Unlike the revolutionary Cesaire, Naipaul is often vilified in the Postcolonial world for his politics: he accepted knighthood from Queen Elizabeth, was awarded the 2001 Nobel Prize for Literature, and has served as an authority on all things non-European for the West. How are his politics and his aesthetics connected? We will read and discuss his two best known novels, A House for Mr Biswas and A Bend in the River. Mr Biswas, written early in Naipaul's career, follows the life of an Indo-Trinidadian, an insignificant man who attempts to claim a place and an identity for himself, to "accommodate himself," as he says, in a land that manifests either contempt or indifference for this descendant of Indian indentured servants. Naipaul uses both the realistic novel form and the powerfully symbolic desire for home ownership to convey the pathos and the significance of this fictional life story. His later Bend in the River, set in an African nation plagued by political instability as well as First World humanistic and research organizations, explores the dilemmas faced by a man of Indian descent in a newly independent country. Where does he belong? What is his proper role in a newly "Black" nation? Here, Naipaul raises the issues of race, nationalism, and the long-term consequences of imperialism in ways that will strike many of us as disturbingly contemporary.
Salman Rushdie may be the best known Postcolonial writer. He is famous in the West for the Iranian fatwa calling for his death after publication of his novel Satanic Verses. This political response to a fictional work is unimaginable in our world, and we will attempt to understand the nature of the responses from both his defenders and his detractors. Reading portions of this novel and documents about the controversy, we will ask: What was considered so offensive? On what grounds can a writer justify (allegedly) defaming a religion? What license does a fiction writer have to tamper with history or to critique his society? What is the author's responsibility to the public? Does an author enjoy autonomy from such obligations? We will also read his earlier novel Midnight's Children, which, memorializing the birth of the Indian nation, also, in one (in)famous formulation, gave it a "voice." In what way can a particular novel and its aesthetic style be or create the "voice" of a nation?
Readings include the texts discussed above plus relevant literary criticism, interviews, and journalism.
Students will be responsible for six response papers of 1-2 pages each, one class facilitation with an accompanying paper of 3-5 pages, and a final research paper of 10-15 pages.
A syllabus for this course is available at:
Course Syllabus
Indira Karamcheti (B.A., M.A., Ph.D. University of California, Santa Barbara) is associate professor of English and American Studies. Her teaching and research interests include postcolonial literature and theory, the literature of the South Asian diaspora, and the writing of ethnic and racial minorities in the United States. Her publications include Professing the Postcolonial (Blackwell, forthcoming) and The Collected Plays of Aime Cesaire (Avebury, forthcoming). Click here for more information about Indira Karamcheti.
ENROLLMENT INFORMATION
Open to Auditors: Yes
Consent of Instructor Required: No
|
Format: Seminar | Level: GLSP | Credits: 3 | Enrollment Limit: 18 |
Aime Cesaire, A TEMPEST (Theatre Communications Group), Paperback
V.S. Naipaul, A HOUSE FOR MR. BISWAS (Vintage), Paperback
V.S. Naipaul, A BEND IN THE RIVER (Vintage), Paperback
Salman Rushdie, MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN (Random House), Paperback
Salman Rushdie, SATANIC VERSES (Picador), Paperback
READING MATERIALS ARE AVAILABLE AT BROAD STREET BOOKS, 45 BROAD STREET, MIDDLETOWN, 860-685-7323 Order your books online
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Copyright Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459
| Spring 2008 |
Weiner,Stephanie Kuduk
01/28/2008 - 05/10/2008
Thursday 06:00 PM - 08:30 PM
Downey 100
This course focuses on two groups of artists and intellectuals whose ideas about art and society were deliberately and self-consciously dissident and experimental: the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, formed at Oxford in 1848 and active in London until the early 1870s; and the "decadent" circle centered around Oscar Wilde in the 1890s. We will examine a variety of literary and non-literary texts, from poetry to novels to aesthetic theory and paintings. Issues to be addressed include: theories of art for art's sake and their political valences; experimental and avant garde ideas and practices of art; the social and cultural space occupied by well-educated and often well-off artists--an "elite margin"; the interaction among various modes of artistic expression, most especially painting and poetry; the relation between "high" art and the aesthetic way of life, which by turns embraced artisanal crafts, popular culture, industrial production, and the decorative arts; and the sexual, gender, class, and (inter-) national dynamics of artistic production and consumption during these years.
Sources to be studied include George Meredith, The Egoist; Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure; Henry James, Portrait of a Lady; Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest; poems by Alfred Tennyson, William Morris, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Christina Rossetti, Algernon Swinburne, Oscar Wilde, Lionel Johnson, W.B. Yeats, Ernest Dowson, Arthur Symons, Katherine Bradley, Edith Cooper; and prose works by William Wordsworth, Matthew Arnold, Walter Pater, Oscar Wilde.
Course requirements include ten short essays (2 pages) and class participation.
This course may, by petition, count toward the Arts concentration.
A syllabus for this course is available at:
Course Syllabus
Stephanie Weiner (B.A., University of Minnesota; Ph.D., Stanford University) is associate professor of English. Click here for more information about Stephanie Weiner.
ENROLLMENT INFORMATION
Open to Auditors: Yes
Consent of Instructor Required: No
|
Format: Seminar | Level: GLSP | Credits: 3 | Enrollment Limit: 18 |
Henry James, THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY (Oxford University Press), Paperback
Cecil Lang, PRE-RAPHAELITES & THEIR CIRCLE (University of Chicago Press), Paperback
George Meredith, THE EGOIST (Norton), Paperback
Andrea Rose, THE PRE-RAPHAELITES (Phaidon Press), Paperback
Frances Spaulding, WHISTLER (Phaidon Books), Paperback
Oscar Wilde, THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING ERNEST & OTHER PLAYS (Oxford University Press), Paperback
READING MATERIALS ARE AVAILABLE AT BROAD STREET BOOKS, 45 BROAD STREET, MIDDLETOWN, 860-685-7323 Order your books online
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Contact
glsinquire@wesleyan.edu to submit comments or suggestions.
Copyright Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459
| Spring 2008 |
Rushdy,Ashraf H.A.
01/28/2008 - 05/10/2008
Wednesday -
This course will primarily be concerned with examining in some detail the recent proliferation of African American fiction about slavery. After a preliminary discussion of some notable antebellum slave narratives, we will study eight contemporary "narratives of slavery" and define the three most notable forms of representing slavery in contemporary fiction: 1) "Neo-Slave narratives"--that is, novels that are contemporary rewritings of antebellum slave narrative forms and conventions; 2) "Palimpsest narratives," which are novels set in late 20th-century America but tracing modern social relations within an explicit representation of the slave experience; and 3) historical novels set in the antebellum South.
Required texts include David Bradley, The Chaneysville Incident; Octavia Butler, Kindred; Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave; Charles Johnson, Middle Passage and Oxherding Tale; Gayl Jones, Corregidora; Toni Morrison, Beloved; Ishmael Reed, Flight to Canada; Sherley Anne Williams, Dessa Rose.
Grades will be based on several factors: a consideration of the overall achievement and degree of improvement over the course of the marked essays, the quality of the unmarked reading assignments, attendance, and participation. Students will required to write very short response papers for the readings in the class (one page) as well as four essays: one short, ungraded essay for the instructor's information; two short essays (four pages); and one longer essay (eight pages).
A syllabus for this course is available at:
Course Syllabus
Ashraf Rushdy (B.A., M.A. University of Alberta; Ph.D. University of Cambridge) is professor of English and African American studies. He is author of Remembering Generations: Race and Family in Contemporary African American Fiction (University of North Carolina Press, 2001); Neo-Slave Narratives: Studies in the Social Logic of a Literary Form (Oxford University Press, 1999); The Empty Garden: The Subject of Late Milton (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992), and more than 35 articles and essays. Click here for more information about Ashraf Rushdy.
ENROLLMENT INFORMATION
Open to Auditors: Yes
Consent of Instructor Required: No
|
Format: Seminar | Level: GLSP | Credits: 3 | Enrollment Limit: 18 |
Octavia Butler, KINDRED (Beacon), Paperback
Frederick Douglass, NARRATIVE OF THE LIFE OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS, AN AMERICAN SLAVE (Penguin), Paperback
Harriet Jacobs, INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF A SLAVE GIRL, WRITTEN BY HERSELF (Harvard University Press), Paperback
Charles Johnson, MIDDLE PASSAGE (NAL), Paperback
Charles Johnson, OXHERDING TALE (Plume), Paperback
Gayle Jones, CORREGIDORA (Beacon), Paperback
Toni Morrison, BELOVED (NAL), Paperback
Ishmael Reed, FLIGHT TO CANADA (Atheneum), Paperbck
Sherley Anne Williams, DESSA ROSE (Berkley), Paperback
READING MATERIALS ARE AVAILABLE AT BROAD STREET BOOKS, 45 BROAD STREET, MIDDLETOWN, 860-685-7323 Order your books online
PLEASE NOTE: A course packet will also be available for purchase at PIP Printing, 179 Main Street, Middletown, (860) 344-9001. Click here to order your packet online.
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Contact
glsinquire@wesleyan.edu to submit comments or suggestions.
Copyright Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459
| Spring 2008 |
Rider,Jeff
01/28/2008 - 05/10/2008
Tuesday 06:30 PM - 09:00 PM
Romance Languages 106
In the Middle Ages, a church was a particularly effective venue for murder. Once inside a church, a victim would find escape difficult. In addition, by killing somebody in a church, particularly a political figure such as a bishop or a count, assassins could claim that their actions were justified in some way: God wanted the murder committed because He did not prevent it from happening in this sacred and public place. Despite this, targets of assassination, perhaps hoping to be considered martyrs, would often choose to be confronted in a church. This course will study three 12th-century assassinations: Bishop Gaudry of Laon in 1112, Count Charles of Flanders in 1127, and Archbishop Thomas Becket of Canterbury in 1170. The events raise some surprising issues about, among other things, the existence of a medieval "model of behavior" followed by assassins and victims alike, which involved killing the victims in a church at a morning religious service. We will examine these assassinations through the various contemporary historical accounts of the murders and their consequences. Students will learn to recognize and investigate the ways in which historical works render actions intelligible and meaningful, and the ways "instinctive" human behavior, from the Middle Ages to our times, is perhaps more "practiced" and shaped by society than we think.
The readings will include Guibert of Nogent, Memoirs; Suger, The Deeds of Louis the Fat; Herman of Tournai, The Restoration of the Monastery of Saint Martin of Tournai; Walter of Therouanne, The Life of Charles The Good; Galbert of Bruges, The Murder of Charles the Good; Guernes of Pont-Sainte-Maxence, The Life of Saint Thomas the Martyr of Canterbury; Edward Grim, The Life of Saint Thomas.
Students will write three short papers (5-7 pages) or one longer one.
This course may, by petition, count toward the Social Sciences concentration.
A syllabus for this course is available at:
Course Syllabus
Jeff Rider (B.A. Yale University; Diplome d'Etudes Medievales, U. Catholique de Louvain, Belgium; M.A., Ph.D. University of Chicago) is professor of romance languages and literatures and chair of the Medieval Studies Program. He is author of numerous books, essays, and articles, including God's Scribe: The Historiographical Art of Galbert of Bruges (Catholic University of America Press, 2001) and "Medieval Romance and the Register of the Extraordinary," forthcoming in Romantic Review. Click here for more information about Jeff Rider.
ENROLLMENT INFORMATION
Open to Auditors: Yes
Consent of Instructor Required: No
|
Format: Seminar | Level: GLSP | Credits: 3 | Enrollment Limit: 18 |
Galbert of Bruges, THE MURDER OF CHARLES THE GOOD, COUNT OF FLANDERS, Paperback
READING MATERIALS ARE AVAILABLE AT BROAD STREET BOOKS, 45 BROAD STREET, MIDDLETOWN, 860-685-7323 Order your books online
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Copyright Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459
| Spring 2008 |
Fieldsteel,Adam
01/28/2008 - 05/10/2008
Thursday 06:00 PM - 08:30 PM
Science Tower 139
Linear algebra is a subject with a dual nature; the central ideas are both algebraic and geometric. While the power of the subject comes from the algebra, the ideas are perhaps best understood by emphasizing their geometric content, which is the geometry of lines, planes, and their higher dimensional analogues.
In this course, we will develop the subject first in two dimensions, where the geometry and algebra are simplest, and then in three dimensions, where it is still possible to visualize the geometry. Once the subject is understood in these settings, we will see how (and how easily) the subject extends to higher dimensions. In particular, we will see how the algebra we develop with the aid of geometry can then be used to investigate geometric objects that we are unable to visualize.
Regular homework will be assigned and will be an essential part of the learning process.
No mathematical background is required beyond high school algebra and geometry.
A syllabus for this course is available at:
Course Syllabus
Adam Fieldsteel (A.B. Brown University; Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley) is professor of mathematics. His research focuses on ergodic theory and topological dynamics, and his recent publications include: (with A. Blokh), "Sets that force recurrence," Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society (2002); (with K. Dajani), "Equipartition of interval partitions and an application to number theory," Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society (2001); (with R. Hasfura), "Dyadic equivalence to completely positive entropy," Transactions of the American Mathematical Society (1998). Click here for more information about Adam Fieldsteel.
ENROLLMENT INFORMATION
Open to Auditors: Yes
Consent of Instructor Required: No
|
Format: Seminar | Level: GLSP | Credits: 3 | Enrollment Limit: 18 |
READING MATERIALS ARE AVAILABLE AT BROAD STREET BOOKS, 45 BROAD STREET, MIDDLETOWN, 860-685-7323 Order your books online
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Copyright Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459
| Spring 2008 |
Reid,James D.
01/28/2008 - 05/10/2008
Tuesday 06:00 PM - 08:30 PM
Science Tower 109
A classical trichotomy splits mathematics into three parts -- Algebra, Analysis, and Geometry -- and this classical view still has a certain validity. Broadly speaking most people might view Algebra as the art of symbolic manipulations and Geometry as the study of spatial shapes and relationships. That leaves Analysis.
For purposes of discussion, we view Analysis as having to do with the study of infinitesimal processes as codified in the concept of a limit. The gateway to Analysis, the basic ideas, form the content of what is called Calculus. This course will study the foundations of Calculus, the motivation for its existence, and the structure of the resulting theory.
The basic idea is that of "limits." This appears notably in discussing continuity of functions, in the idea of the derivative, and in the definition of the integral. We will make a careful study of this fundamental concept and examine some of its most important applications. Participants in the course should come away with a solid understanding of the fundamental ideas of Calculus, and through many examples, a deep appreciation of its power.
Weekly problem sets will be assigned to help in the assimilation of ideas. Grades will be based on these assignments together with participation in class.
As prerequisites we cite familiarity with the idea of notation of functions and the representation of functional relationships by means of graphs, though these will be reviewed and every effort will be made to make the course accessible to those in attendance. Most important is the willingness to think hard and the patience to let things sink in.
A syllabus for this course is available at:
Course Syllabus
James Reid (B.S., M.A. Fordham University; Ph.D. University of Washington) is professor of mathematics, emeritus. He has published extensively in the field of Abelian Groups, including recent papers "Quotient divisible groups, omega-groups, and an example of Fuchs. Abelian groups, rings, modules, and homological algebra", 265-273, Lect. Notes Pure Appl. Math., 249, Chapman & Hall/CRC, Boca Raton, FL, 2006; "Endomorphism Rings of Free Modules," Rocky Mtn. J. Math., 2002; and "Some Matrix Rings Associated with ACD Groups," Proc. International Conference on Abelian Groups and Modules, Dublin, 1998.
ENROLLMENT INFORMATION
Open to Auditors: Yes
Consent of Instructor Required: No
|
Format: Seminar | Level: GLSP | Credits: 3 | Enrollment Limit: 18 |
READING MATERIALS ARE AVAILABLE AT BROAD STREET BOOKS, 45 BROAD STREET, MIDDLETOWN, 860-685-7323 Order your books online
PLEASE NOTE: Copious notes will be provided to augment the discussion in the text.
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Copyright Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459
| Spring 2008 |
Carney,Sarah Kristin
01/28/2008 - 05/10/2008
Thursday 06:30 PM - 09:00 PM
Public Affairs Center 421
As we enter the 21st century, topics that fall under the heading of "forensic psychology" have attracted a great deal of popular attention. Issues such as eye witness testimony, false confession, DNA exoneration, profiling, interrogation techniques, jury selection, domestic violence and child sexual abuse have captured print headlines, become story lines in crime dramas, and spawned countless television news magazine stories. Forensic psychology has become both a form of clinical practice and a legitimate area of social scientific research. This course will provide students with a close look at some of the most pressing topics in the field today, including some of the areas noted above as well as evaluating competency, the insanity defense, jury decision-making, the role of the psychologist as expert witness, the psychology of victims, children as defendants, women offenders, cultural representations of crime, punishment/prisons, and current research and policy regarding the use of the death penalty in Connecticut.
Through reading of psychological research, legal case studies, and cultural products such as films/documentaries, students will learn how psychological research can illuminate and enhance our understanding of the judicial process itself, and how psychological research can be used/is being used to open up our understandings about social justice for all.
Participation in the discussion of class readings is a critical part of this seminar. Students are responsible for the assigned readings, for bi-weekly "reaction" papers that comment on the class readings, for taking part in class discussions, and for presenting an oral summary of their semester topic paper. This 10-15 page final paper on the topic/issue/research question of the student's choice is due at the end of the term.
This course may count, by petition, within the Social Sciences concentration.
A syllabus for this course is available at:
Course Syllabus
Sarah Carney (B.A. Connecticut College, M.A. Wesleyan University, Ph.D. City University of New York, Graduate Center) is visiting assistant professor of psychology. Click here for more information about Sarah Carney.
ENROLLMENT INFORMATION
Open to Auditors: Yes
Consent of Instructor Required: No
|
Format: Seminar | Level: GLSP | Credits: 3 | Enrollment Limit: 18 |
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Contact
glsinquire@wesleyan.edu to submit comments or suggestions.
Copyright Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459
| Spring 2008 |
Powzyk,Joyce Ann
01/28/2008 - 05/10/2008
Wednesday 07:00 PM - 09:30 PM
Shanklin 314
As we study the biology of sex in the animal world, it is apparent that there is a multitude of ways in which organisms mate and reproduce. Sex is often defined according to sexual reproduction, whereby two individuals that are male and female mate and have offspring. However, many organisms engage in asexual reproduction or a combination of the two reproductive strategies. Reproductive anatomy and behavior will be addressed so we can thoroughly explore a variety of organisms and their reproductive methods ranging in topics from marine mollusks and their sex changes as well as the (female) marmoset monkey who can give birth to a chimera (an offspring with more than two parents). As organisms pursue sex, what are the mating strategies, are all genes selfish (individual selection vs. group selection), and what are the chemicals of sex (pheromones and hormones). By examining the biology of sex in detail we will debate age-old topics such as whether sexual reproduction is sexist (favoring one sex over the other), and whether differences in the male and female brain dictate male and female behavioral profiles.
Sources to be studied include Linda Fedigan, Primate Paradigms: Sex Roles and Social Bonds; Joann Rodgers, Sex: A Natural History; Adrian Forsyth, A Natural History of Sex: The Ecology and Evolution of Mating Behavior; Jared Diamond, The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal; Olivia Judson, Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation: The Definitive Guide to the Evolutionary Biology of Sex; William Eberhard, Female Control: Sexual Selection by Cryptic Female Choice; Malte Andersson, Sexual Selection; Helena Cronin, The Ant and the Peacock: Altruism and Sexual Selection from Darwin to Today.
Grades will be determined by a midterm, a final exam, a short presentation, and participation in classroom discussions.
This course will be a lecture/discussion class and students will be asked to read original research papers together with selections from a textbook.
A syllabus for this course is available at:
Course Syllabus
Joyce Powzyk (B.S. Principia College; Ph.D. Duke University) is visiting assistant professor of biology. She is author with C.B. Mowry of "The Feeding Ecology of Indri indri." In, Gould, L and Sauther, M.L. (eds.) Madagascar's Lemurs: Ecology and Adaptation on an Island of Diversity, Springer, New York, (in review) and is author and illustrator of a variety of books and posters about animals and plants. Click here for more information about Joyce Powzyk.
ENROLLMENT INFORMATION
Open to Auditors: Yes
Consent of Instructor Required: No
|
Format: Seminar | Level: GLSP | Credits: 3 | Enrollment Limit: 18 |
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Contact
glsinquire@wesleyan.edu to submit comments or suggestions.
Copyright Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459
| Spring 2008 |
Herbst,William
01/28/2008 - 05/10/2008
Monday 06:30 PM - 09:00 PM
Van Vleck Observatory 110
A particular theory of the universe, known popularly as the Big Bang Theory, is the working model for all serious modern cosmology. What is the Big Bang Theory? How did it arise from observation? What evidence supports it? What are its strengths, weaknesses, and limitations? How are current observations, including those being done with the Hubble Space Telescope, contributing to our knowledge of the structure and evolution of the universe? This course focuses on the largest sphere of human thought: the whole universe.
The reading in the course will be assigned from recent books written by distinguished astrophysicists such as Stephen Hawking, Roger Penrose and Steven Weinberg.
One paper, of approximately ten pages in length, is required. In addition, students will choose a topic to explore in depth and report on in class.
We explore the nature of stars, galaxies, and even larger structures, studying their origins and likely fates. The treatment is primarily non-mathematical and previous study of astronomy is not required. Telescopes and equipment of the Van Vleck Observatory will be used to view objects under discussion, as weather permits.
A syllabus for this course is available at:
Course Syllabus
William Herbst, (B.A. Princeton University; M.Sc. University Toronto, Ph.D. University Toronto), is John Monroe Van Vleck Professor and chair of Astronomy and director of the Van Vleck Observatory. He and his team of students recently discovered a sun-like star that is eclipsed in a way never before seen—not by another star, planet or moon, but by dust grains, rocks and maybe even asteroids orbiting it in a clumpy circumstellar disk. Astronomers expect this discovery to open new doors in studying the origins and evolution of planets. He is primary or contributing author of more than 130 publications in the astronomical literature, including the recent "KH 15D: Unraveling the Mystery of a Peculiar Winking Star," American Astronomical Society (2004). Click here for more information about William Herbst.
ENROLLMENT INFORMATION
Open to Auditors: Yes
Consent of Instructor Required: No
|
Format: Seminar | Level: GLSP | Credits: 3 | Enrollment Limit: 18 |
Thomas Kuhn, THE COPERNICAN REVOLUTION (Harvard University Press), Paperback
READING MATERIALS ARE AVAILABLE AT BROAD STREET BOOKS, 45 BROAD STREET, MIDDLETOWN, 860-685-7323 Order your books online
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Copyright Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459
| Spring 2008 |
McAlear,Michael A.
01/28/2008 - 05/10/2008
Tuesday -
Over the last two decades, advances in modern molecular genetics have provided insights into the underlying genetic basis for many of humankind's inherited disorders. The information associated with the sequencing of the human genome, combined with sophisticated gene mapping strategies, is yielding an increasing number of genetic variations (mutations) that are associated with specific human diseases. This course will cover these advances, and how they relate to dominant, recessive, and sex-linked mutations, single gene disorders such as cystic fibrosis and Huntington's disease, as well as multi-factorial disorders including cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. We will also consider how advances in genetic testing and screening can apply to early diagnosis and the prospect of individualized medicine. Furthermore, we will discuss how specific mutations vary between sub-populations, and the impact that these variations have on the interactions between individuals and their environment.
Readings will include review articles, primary scientific literature, and chapters from texts on the different diseases.
Along with two course examinations, students will be expected to research one of these topics in depth, and to give an in-class presentation as well as submit a paper.
A background in basic cell biology would be helpful, but is not required.
A syllabus for this course is available at:
Course Syllabus
Michael McAlear (B.S., Ph.D. McGill University) is associate professor of molecular biology and biochemistry. His research focuses on DNA replication, DNA repair, and rRNA metabolism in yeast, and his articles have appeared in the journals Biochemistry, Molecular and Cellular Biology, Genetics, Molecular Genetics, and the Journal of Biological Chemistry. Click here for more information about Michael McAlear.
ENROLLMENT INFORMATION
Open to Auditors: Yes
Consent of Instructor Required: No
|
Format: Seminar | Level: GLSP | Credits: 3 | Enrollment Limit: 18 |
| Register for Courses |
Contact
glsinquire@wesleyan.edu to submit comments or suggestions.
Copyright Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459
| Spring 2008 |
McAlister,Elizabeth
01/12/2008 - 01/21/2008
Note: Special Schedule 09:00 AM - 05:00 PM
Public Affairs Center 421; Science Tower 72
This course will meet over two weekends: January 12-13 and January 19-21.
This course examines how some religious groups in the U.S. herald the hastening of the End Times, when a Messiah will appear to cleanse the earth of all unrighteousness. We will focus on selected societies in U.S. history including Puritans, Messianic Jews, Christian Fundamentalists, Branch Davidians, Rastafari, the Nation of Islam and Christian Identity, and on genres of representation including fiction, film and popular music. Among the themes we will discuss will be Americanism, or the ways groups imagine the United States to be favored by God, religious politics, and the ways that American eschatologies ("end-of-the-world" theologies) are gendered and racialized.
Texts to be studied include Nancy Ammerman, Bible Believers; Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower; David Chidester, Salvation and Suicide; Tim LaHaye, Left Behind; Hal Lindsey, Late Great Planet Earth; Mark Jurgensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God.
Students will be responsible for a one-page weekly response paper, two mini-projects, and an in-class presentation.
A syllabus for this course is available at:
Course Syllabus
Elizabeth McAlister (B.A. Vassar College; M.A., Ph.D. Yale University) is associate professor and chair of religion, and professor of African American studies and American studies. She is author of Rara! Vodou, Power, and Performance in Haiti and Its Diaspora (University of California Press, 2002). Click here for more information about Elizabeth McAlister.
ENROLLMENT INFORMATION
Open to Auditors: Yes
Consent of Instructor Required: No
|
Format: Seminar | Level: GLSP | Credits: 3 | Enrollment Limit: 18 |
Octavia Butler, PARABLE OF THE SOWER (Grand Central Publishing), Paperback
David Chidester, SALVATION AND SUICIDE (Indiana University Press), Paperback
Tim LaHaye, LEFT BEHIND (Living Books), Paperback
Hal Lindsey, LATE GREAT PLANET EARTH (Zondervan), Paperback
READING MATERIALS ARE AVAILABLE AT BROAD STREET BOOKS, 45 BROAD STREET, MIDDLETOWN, 860-685-7323 Order your books online
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Contact
glsinquire@wesleyan.edu to submit comments or suggestions.
Copyright Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459
| Spring 2008 |
Eisner,Marc A.
01/28/2008 - 05/10/2008
Wednesday 06:00 PM - 08:30 PM
Public Affairs Center 421
How does one make sense of contemporary American politics? The past fifteen years have witnessed an historic shift in the control of Congress, with Republicans claiming majorities in both chambers for the first time in four decades. Despite the fact that a Democrat, Bill Clinton, was president, and the economy was on a trajectory of sustained growth, the 1990s also witnessed the end of AFDC, a centerpiece of the welfare state constructed during the New Deal and the Great Society. Despite the popularity of Clinton, his presidency ended in impeachment. There was little to suggest that the new millennium would bring greater stability. The 2000 presidential election was decided by the Supreme Court. The first term of the new Bush administration was marred by a terrorist attack on New York and Washington DC, a recession, a war in Afghanistan, a preemptive war in Iraq, and a federal budget that has gone from surplus to unprecedented deficits. In part, as a response to the unpopularity of the war, Democrats reclaimed the Congress in the 2006 midterms. Will 2008 bring a return to unified Democratic control or will the Republican Party rise from the ashes?
The 2008 elections should be of great interest to any study of American politics and public policy. Given the narrow majorities in both chambers of Congress and the uncertainties of war, it could bring massive shifts in the partisan control of the federal government. Moreover, a number of significant policy issues face the nation, including the ongoing war on terrorism (and its domestic ramifications for civil liberties), the war on drugs, the need to salvage social security and Medicare in the face of unprecedented demographic shifts and liabilities, controlling illegal immigration, global climate change, looming budget deficits, and gay marriage. This course is designed to provide a context for understanding the upcoming elections and the stakes involved. It is the goal of this course to prepare participants to better understand the factors shaping American politics and the key dimensions of important policy dispute.
Students will be required to write short essays.
A syllabus for this course is available at:
Course Syllabus
Marc Eisner (B.A. University of Wisconsin; M.A. Marquette University; M.B.A. University of Connecticut; Ph.D. University of Wisconsin) is professor of government and Henry Merritt Wriston chair in public policy. He is author of six books, including Governing the Environment: The Transformation of Environmental Governance (Lynne Rienner, 2007), and is past president of the New England Political Science Association. Click here for more information about Marc Eisner.
ENROLLMENT INFORMATION
Open to Auditors: Yes
Consent of Instructor Required: No
|
Format: Seminar | Level: GLSP | Credits: 3 | Enrollment Limit: 18 |
Fiorina, Abrams & Pope, CULTURE WAR? (Longman), Paperback
Jonathan Rauch, GOVERNMENT'S END (Public Affairs), Paperback
Ryan Sager, ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM (Wiley), Paperback
READING MATERIALS ARE AVAILABLE AT BROAD STREET BOOKS, 45 BROAD STREET, MIDDLETOWN, 860-685-7323 Order your books online
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Contact
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Copyright Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459
| Spring 2008 |
Finn,John E.
01/28/2008 - 05/10/2008
Tuesday 06:00 PM - 08:30 PM
Public Affairs Center 422
Civil Liberties is designed to introduce students to a uniquely American, and to some ways of thinking, a wonderfully naive contribution to politics: The written specification of individual liberties and rights that citizens possess and can juridically enforce against the state. Civil Liberties is not, however, a course on law. It is instead a course in political science about law, or a course that has as its subject the relationship of law to the most fundamental sorts of questions about politics.
During the semester, we shall see that most of the serious difficulties (and there are many) in the politics of civil liberties arise from conflicts between our commitments to two or more positive values. There are, for example, inevitable and recurrent conflicts (despite our attempts to ignore them) between the values of liberty and equality. As Felix Frankfurter once wrote, these and other such conflicts are "what the Greeks thousands of years ago recognized as a tragic issue, namely the clash of rights, not the clash of wrongs." In this course, we examine these clashes in light of the broader philosophical and institutional problems of the constitutional order. I hope to show that constitutional "answers" to problems like those of abortion, freedom of speech, and affirmative action require a coherent understanding of the Constitution, and of the assumptions it makes about human nature and the proper ends of government and civil society.
We will, therefore, examine the doctrinal development of specific liberties and rights, such as due process and privacy, but we shall consider them in a broader theoretical context. We shall want to know what overall conception of liberties, rights, and governmental powers most nearly reflects and promotes our best understanding of the Constitution and the polity it both constitutes and envisions. In addressing these issues, we will confront a welter of difficult and controversial questions. It is unlikely that we will succeed in our attempts to answer them fully or finally. What we can hope to achieve, however, is an improved and more sophisticated appreciation of the importance (or not) of our commitment to civil liberties, and of the sacrifices we must make if we choose to honor that commitment.
Texts for the course include Kommers, Finn, & Jacobsohn, American Constitutional Law: Essays, Cases, & Comparative Notes (Rowman, 2004); Rossiter, ed., The Federalist Papers; and van Geel, Understanding Supreme Court Opinions (2nd ed.).
Course requirements include several short essays/papers on topics to be determined by the instructor.
A syllabus for this course is available at:
Course Syllabus
John Finn (B.A. Nasson College; J.D. Georgetown University; M.A., Ph.D Princeton University; Grande Diplome, French Culinary Institute) is a trained chef and professor of government at Wesleyan University, where his favorite course addresses the history and cultural politics of cuisine. Click here for more information about John Finn.
ENROLLMENT INFORMATION
Open to Auditors: Yes
Consent of Instructor Required: No
|
Format: Seminar | Level: GLSP | Credits: 3 | Enrollment Limit: 18 |
Clinton Rossiter, editor, THE FEDERALIST PAPERS (Signet), Paperback
Optional Text:
T.R. Van Geel, UNDERSTANDING SUPREME COURT OPINIONS (Longman), Paperback
READING MATERIALS ARE AVAILABLE AT BROAD STREET BOOKS, 45 BROAD STREET, MIDDLETOWN, 860-685-7323 Order your books online
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Copyright Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459
| Spring 2008 |
Eudell,Demetrius L.
03/10/2008 - 03/15/2008
Note: Special Schedule 09:00 AM - 05:00 PM
Off-Campus Site
This course meets Monday-Saturday.
For this course, students will travel to Alabama to retrace the unfolding of the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement, which has increasingly come to be identified as but a stage of the modern struggle for freedom for blacks in the United States. Such a retracing will enable a rethinking of the path the movement took in order to better understand how it emerged, what were its magnificent triumphs and what were its unfortunate shortcomings and disappointments.
The course will be based, as was much of the early phase of the movement, in Montgomery, Alabama, where Rosa Parks's refusal to give up her seat sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and also where a then little known preacher, Martin Luther King Jr. got his start at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. The class will visit the innovative Rosa Parks Museums at Troy State University in downtown Montgomery. One museum is dedicated to educating children, while the second floor of the main museum is dedicated to research, where students will spend some time looking at historical documents and conducting research with assistance from museum staff. The Montgomery portion of the course will also involve visits to the State Capitol and the first White House of the Confederacy, Dexter King Memorial Church, and the Civil Rights Memorial and Memorial Center at the Southern Poverty Law Center. This segment of the course will conclude with visits with several foot soldiers of the Montgomery Bus Boycott who are still around and continue to be active around issues of social justice. It is such interactions that cannot be provided by simply reading a book or watching a film.
Historians have often noted that one of the preconditions of the kind of activism that defined the Civil Rights Movement was the disappointing return of black war veterans who found themselves still confronting discrimination after having served their country. This dynamic is one that has defined the military participation of Blacks since the 1776 War for National Independence, and led James Baldwin to state that blacks have pledged allegiance to a country that has yet to pledge allegiance to them. To address this dynamic, the class will visit Tuskegee, Alabama, home of Booker T. Washington's Tuskegee Institute and the Tuskegee Airmen Museum. Students will actually meet with Colonel Carter and his wife, Mildred, herself one of the first women to obtain a pilot's license during the 1940s. In addition to visiting the museum, we will hear first hand accounts of the riveting history that would lay the groundwork for the movement.
A decade after the bus boycott, a series of marches occurred that began in Selma and attempted to reach Montgomery. Organized by Amelia Boynton Robinson, the first march was inspired by the continued discrimination together with tactics of intimidation that prevented Selma's black population from registering to vote and exercise their rights. The march was also intended to commemorate the death of Jimmie Jackson, who was attempting to protect his mother during a demonstration. The first Selma march did not make it very far (only to Edmund Pettus Bridge, six blocks away), because lawmen attacked the peaceful demonstrators (in front of the media) with tear gas, clubs, and whips. For this reason, March 7, 1965 became known as Bloody Sunday. The second march was also aborted due to legal constraints. It would only be the third attempt that made it all the way to Montgomery on March 25, 1965. We will visit the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail that memorializes this momentous event in the development of the Civil Rights Movement.
The course will conclude in Birmingham, Alabama, the location of the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church. On another bloody Sunday, September 15, 1963, members of the Ku Klux Klan planted dynamite in the basement of the church on Youth Day, killing four young girls and injuring many others. We will visit the church, as well as the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, also located on 16th Street. The Institute prides itself for being the only accredited Civil Rights Museum, as well as being designed to inspire reflection and dialogue.
Since the historiography examining this important era in United States history has been increasing at a substantial pace, now is the perfect opportunity to supplement such tremendous history writing with a visit to the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement, one that not only transformed the United States, but also became the paradigm for social change across the world. Moreover, central to this travel course we will be trying to understand in a concrete manner, as Martin Luther King Jr. stated in 1968: where do we go from here?
Demetrius Eudell (B.A. Dartmouth College; M.A., Ph.D. Stanford University) is associate professor of history and director of the Center for African American Studies. He is author of The Political Languages of Emancipation in the British Caribbean and the U.S. South (University of North Carolina Press, 2002). Professor Eudell's research interests include the history and culture of the Americas, slavery, abolition, and emancipation. Click here for more information about Demetrius Eudell.
ENROLLMENT INFORMATION
Open to Auditors: No
Consent of Instructor Required: No
|
Format: Seminar | Level: GLSP | Credits: 3 | Enrollment Limit: 14 |
Robert Allen, BLACK AWAKENING IN CAPITALIST AMERICA: AN ANALYTIC HISTORY
Jo Ann Gibson Robinson, MONTGOMERY BUS BOYCOTT: WOMEN WHO STARTED IT
Steven Lawson, DEBATING THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
READING MATERIALS ARE AVAILABLE AT BROAD STREET BOOKS, 45 BROAD STREET, MIDDLETOWN, 860-685-7323 Order your books online
PLEASE NOTE: Texts should be read in the order listed above.
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glsinquire@wesleyan.edu to submit comments or suggestions.
Copyright Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459
| Spring 2008 |
Grimmer-Solem,Erik
01/28/2008 - 05/10/2008
Thursday 06:30 PM - 09:00 PM
Public Affairs Center 004
This course analyzes the processes that led to Hitler's rise to power, the nature of the National Socialist regime, and the origins and implementation of its policies of aggression and genocide. The basic premise of this course is that National Socialism was from the outset driven by a belligerent and genocidal logic. The course will therefore critically analyze the racial, eugenic and geopolitical ideology of National Socialism and the policies of discrimination, conquest, economic exploitation and extermination that followed. At the same time, the role of structural factors in explaining these outcomes will also be explored in great depth from the perspective of everyday life. We will analyze how German society was shaped by Nazism, considering conformity and opposition in the lives of ordinary people in both peacetime and war. The course seeks to impart an awareness of the complex factors that produced a regime of unprecedented destructiveness, and it aims to develop a critical understanding of the ongoing problems of interpretation that accompany its history.
Sources to be studied include William Sheridan Allen, The Nazi Seizure of Power: The Experience of a Single German Town 1922-1945; Michael Burleigh, The Third Reich: A New History; Eric Johnson, Nazi Terror: The Gestapo, Jews and Ordinary Germans; Detlev Peukert, Inside Nazi Germany: Conformity, Opposition and Racism in Everyday Life.
Course assignments are two response papers, a midterm exam and a final exam.
A syllabus for this course is available at:
Course Syllabus
Erik Grimmer-Solem (B.A. Brigham Young University; M.Sc. London School of Economics and Political Science; M.Phil. Cambridge University; D.Phil. University of Oxford) is associate professor of history and author of The Rise of Historical Economics and Social Reform in Germany, 1864-1894 (Oxford University Press, 2003). Click here for more information about Erik Grimmer-Solem.
ENROLLMENT INFORMATION
Open to Auditors: Yes
Consent of Instructor Required: No
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Format: Seminar | Level: GLSP | Credits: 3 | Enrollment Limit: 18 |
Omer Bartov, THE HOLOCAUST (Routledge), Paperback
Michael Burleigh, THE THIRD REICH (Hill and Wang), Paperback
Eric Johnson, NAZI TERROR (Basic Books), Paperback
Detley Peukert, INSIDE NAZI GERMANY (Yale University Press), Paperback
READING MATERIALS ARE AVAILABLE AT BROAD STREET BOOKS, 45 BROAD STREET, MIDDLETOWN, 860-685-7323 Order your books online
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Contact
glsinquire@wesleyan.edu to submit comments or suggestions.
Copyright Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459
| Spring 2008 |
Gottschalk,Peter S.
01/28/2008 - 05/10/2008
Tuesday 07:00 PM - 10:00 PM
Public Affairs Center 107
This course introduces students to the empirical study of Islam and some of the religious perspectives of Muslims. It seeks to provide familiarity with some of the basic teachings and practices of Islam while exploring the diversity of religious traditions among Muslims in Egypt, India, and the United States. This effort will involve the study and use of the tools of comparative religious studies. It will also require critical assessment of Western views of Islam and Muslims.
Major readings include Geneive Abdo, No God but God; Frederick Denny, An Introduction to Islam; Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X; Attia Hosain, Sunlight on a Broken Column; as well as a course packet.
Peter Gottschalk (BA College of the Holy Cross; MA University of Wisconsin-Madison; PHD University of Chicago) is associate professor of religion at Wesleyan University. His research and teaching concentrate on the confluence of religious cultures in South Asia , with a particular focus on Muslims and Hindus in contemporary rural India . His work investigates issues of identity, social memory, modernity, and epistemology. Among other works, he has written Beyond Hindu and Muslim: Multiple Identity in Narratives from Village India (2000), co-written Islamophobia: Making Muslims the Enemy (2007), and co-designed the interactive website "A Virtual Village" (2001). Click here for more information about Peter Gottschalk.
ENROLLMENT INFORMATION
Open to Auditors: Yes
Consent of Instructor Required: No
|
Format: Seminar | Level: GLSP | Credits: 3 | Enrollment Limit: 18 |
| Register for Courses |
Contact
glsinquire@wesleyan.edu to submit comments or suggestions.