Special Preview - Summer 15 Courses

ARTS

Monotype Printmaking: Keiji Shinohara 

The monotype print is a free form of printmaking more akin to painting than to the traditional woodcut or etched print. It is also a process in which the artist encounters fewer technical difficulties than in other traditional printmaking methods. You will create images using engraving techniques on woodblocks and plexi-glass, found flat objects such as leaves, and will print with watercolor and water-based and oil-based inks.

Keiji Shinohara, a master Ukiyo-e woodcut printmaker, is visiting artist in art and East Asian studies.

Alfred Hitchcock: Steve Collins

Alfred Hitchcock’s brilliant directorial style evolved across his career. Understanding Hitchcock’s films begins with understanding of them on the entertainment level, then as artful expressions of a subjective state of mind, then about the nature of looking and cinema itself.  The genius is that they can be all these things at once.  

Stephen Collins (B.A., Wesleyan University, M.F.A., University of Texas, Austin) is assistant professor of Film Studies.

Music and Culture of Africa and its Diaspora:  Eric Charry

There is a wealth of musical expression in Africa and its diaspora, including the Caribbean and Latin America. You will study West African griots, mbira music from Zimbabwe, South African choral singing, Cuban son, Jamaican reggae, Trinidadian steel band, Brazilian samba, and others. We will use music as an entry point for investigating the history and culture of Africa and its diaspora

Eric Charry (B.M., M.M., New England Conservatory of Music; M.F.A., Ph.D., Princeton University) is professor of Music.

HUMANITIES

Luminous Forms: Personal Pieces and Professional Writing: Anne Greene

You are invited to write personal essays, short stories, journalistic pieces, local history, or even professional reports; whatever reflects your interests. Practice and experiment are encouraged to help you expand your range and find your voice.

Anne Greene (B.A., Radcliffe College, M.A., Brandeis University) is adjunct professor of English, director of writing programs, and director of the Wesleyan Writers Conference.

The Short Story: Study through Imitation: Stephanie Dunson

Part literature seminar and part writing workshop, we will borrow a method commonly practiced by developing artists: that is to study form and develop skills by imitating the work of masters. We will read the work of master writers of the short story (e.g., Hemingway, O’Connor, Carver, Chopin, O’Brien, and Oates) with an eye toward writing fiction pieces that mimic their key elements of structure, language, narrative form, and point of view.

Stephanie Dunson (B.A., M.A., Ohio University, M.A., Ph.D., University of Massachusetts - Amherst) is Director of Writing Programs at Williams College. 

New York City in the 1940s: Sean McCann

We will consider the cultural and intellectual life of the Big Apple in the years during and after World War II. Our main focus will be on the fiction, poetry, and drama that contributed to the decade's literary renaissance. But we'll read that material in the context of contemporaneous developments in painting, photography, film, and music, as well as in the era's prominent theories of culture and society. We'll discuss the social and political factors that made New York a vibrant cultural center during the '40s and a bellwether of the developments that would transform the United States in the decades after World War II.

Sean McCann (B.A., Georgetown University; Ph.D., City University of New York) is professor of English and American studies.

Forms of Poetry: Joseph Fitzpatrick

You will examine the concept of form (and the attendant concepts of structure, ambiguity, and closure) in poetry through a survey of the most important fixed forms of the English poetic tradition. Our emphasis will be on the close reading of poetry, and particularly of representative ballads, sonnets, odes, pastoral elegies, and dramatic monologues. We will conclude with an extended study the epic, our example of which will be Milton’s Paradise Lost.

Joseph Fitzpatrick (B.A., Harvard University, Ph.D., Duke University) is visiting assistant professor in the College of Letters.

MATHEMATICS

Single Variable Calculus: Irene Mulvey

This course will cover all the topics in Differential Calculus in all their detail: limit, continuity, derivative, differentiation rules, implicit differentiation, extreme values, Mean Value Theorem, curve-sketching, and optimization. Also, all the topics in Integral Calculus in all their detail: area under a curve, definite integral, the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, some transcendental functions (exponential, natural logarithm), techniques of integration, and applications of the Integral Calculus. 
We will supplement the course with historical readings on the discovery/invention of Calculus, and explore how the TI-83 graphing calculator has transformed the way we teach Calculus. Students will submit solved homework problems at every class. Final grades will be based on the graded homework.

Irene Mulvey (B.A., Stonehill College, Ph.D., Wesleyan University) is professor of mathematics at Fairfield College.

SCIENCES

Animal Reproduction: Joyce Powzyk

Are the reproductive strategies of the male and female animals locked in a competative "arms race?" As we study the biology of sex in the animal world, we see a multitude of ways in which organisms mate and reproduce. 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).

Joyce Powzyk (B.S., Principia College; Ph.D., Duke University) is visiting assistant professor of Biology.

Coastal Ecology: Geoffrey Hammerson

In this field course, you will focus on life at the edge of the sea: the life histories and ecological relationships of plants and animals of coastal dunes, shores, salt marshes, and waters of southern New England. In addition, we discuss the post-Pleistocene history and dynamics of the coastal environment. Students must be capable of the physical exertion involved in extensive walking, wading, and canoeing/kayaking.

Geoffrey Hammerson (B.S., University of California, Berkeley; Ph.D., University of Colorado, Boulder) is Research Zoologist at NatureServe.

Conceptual Development: Anna Shusterman

What accounts for our human capacity to perceive and reason about the world? We will explore the origins and development of human knowledge in the individual child, with an emphasis on the special relationship between language and conceptual development. Questions include: How do human biology and human culture constrain and support human mental life? How variable is knowledge across different cultures? What aspects of knowledge are unique to our species and what aspects are shared by other animals? How does knowledge change as children grow and as adults gain expertise?

Anna Shusterman (Sc.B, Brown University, Ph.D., Harvard University) is associate professor of Psychology.

SOCIAL SCIENCES

Anthropology of Sexuality: Margot Weiss

How do meanings and expressions of gender, sexual identity, and desire vary across different cultures? What does culture have to do with gender and sexuality, with family configurations, with poverty, or religious beliefs? How are more traditional forms of gender or sexuality changing in a rapidly globalizing world? How might studying those variations reveal and challenge some of our society’s assumptions about masculinity, femininity, sex, and sexuality? And what are the ethical issues entailed in studying people unlike—or like—ourselves? This course is an introduction to anthropological study of gender and sexuality.

Margot Weiss (B.A., University of Chicago, MA, Ph.D., Duke University) is associate professor of American Studies and Anthropology.

Peace versus Power: International Relations in the Modern Age: Giulio Gallarotti

While globalization and international organizations have currently integrated the world into networks of peace, ethnic and regional wars have driven nations and groups further apart. This coexistence of conflict and cooperation marks the evolution of the international system. We will forge an understanding of the foundations of this coexistence through an analysis of the central concepts, theories, and empirical findings in the study of international politics. As case studies, we will pay special attention to the Cuban Missile Crisis, Truman's decision to drop the A-bomb, and development in West Africa.

Giulio Gallarotti (B.A., Hunter College; M.I.A., Ph.D., Columbia University) is professor of Government.

The Tudors (and the Making of English History): Gary Shaw

The Tudors have for a long time been at the very center of English historical consciousness and their reputation and indeed notoriety have made them the most fascinating and controversial English family and dynasty. We will trace the social, political, intellectual, and religious developments that were characteristic of the period. While many of the most important acts and events were connected to the Tudor family and their extraordinary private lives that became simultaneously crucial public business, we will also survey the great social changes of the age.

Gary Shaw (B.A., McGill University; D.Phil, Oxford University) is professor of History.

Religion, Science, and Empire: Peter Gottschalk

The Age of Discovery not only coincided with the rise of European imperialism, it was abetted by it. The development of modern science – and of modernity itself – depended in part on the expansion of Western political and economic control across most of the globe and the majority of its inhabitants. Meanwhile, religion was integral to both the roots of European science and Western encounters of the rest of the world.

Peter Gottschalk (B.A., College of the Holy Cross; M.A., University of Wisconsin-Madison; Ph.D., University of Chicago) is professor of Religion.