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Course Number |
Course Title and Description |
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10101-01 10101-02 |
Medical Mindfulness: Exploring the Patient-Provider Relationship Associate Professor Barbara Belyea and Associate Professor Michael Buck |
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10102-01
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American Politics in the Age of Obama This course will examine the challenges that the United States faces in the areas of foreign policy, the troubled economy, and environmental policy under the Obama administration. We will also explore the demographic changes in the electorate that made possible the historic and successful candidacy of Barack Obama and begin to understand how those demographic changes will affect the Obama administration’s policies. The course will use books, newspapers, and blogs to examine issues not as isolated problems, but often as interconnected dilemmas requiring more systematic solutions. Associate Professor Don Beachler |
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10103-01 |
Why are we here?: Youth Culture and the Quest for a College Education What does it mean to be educated? Are you here to get a job or to get a life? To answer these questions, we will explore competing rationales behind collegiate study and engage in advanced literary and cultural analyses. We will study historical precedents, scholarly and journalistic articles, social critiques, and fictional collegians. We will conduct primary research into youth culture and attitudes toward education, develop rhetorical skills by sharing our findings, and write extensively across a variety of genres. Individually, you will articulate your personal philosophy of education and develop your own personal goals. Collaboratively, we will analyze the extent to which our readings and writings fit with our evolving understanding of the goals for collegiate study. Assistant Professor Elizabeth Bleicher |
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10104-01
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A History of Secrets For thousands of years, people have concealed information. Sophisticated techniques have been created in order to hide messages from unwanted eyes. We will investigate the history of and the ideas behind enciphering and deciphering messages. We will learn how mathematics is the basis of secret message writing and uncover the espionage history of cryptography, focusing on key moments when cryptography changed history. We will also discuss issues related to government control of encryption methods and issues of individual privacy versus government security. Associate Professor David Brown |
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10105-01
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Understanding a Visual Language in Film and other Media In this seminar we will use readings, significant films, and other media to examine different visual languages used to represent important historical and contemporary ideas or movements and to examine larger questions of cultural formation and artistic expression. Assistant Professor Changhee Chun |
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10106-01 |
Music of Latin America This course surveys the most significant music from Central and South America, with emphasis on the four most important Latin American styles: Mexican, Afro-Cuban, Brazilian and Argentinean music. Aspects of each country’s musical tradition and its most significant stylistic features will be analyzed and illustrated in class. Assistant Professor Pablo Cohen |
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10107-01 |
Rights and Wrongs: The Philosophy and Practice of Human Rights Are there some acts so cruel, harmful, or disrespectful that they are wrong anywhere, anytime, for any reason? This course is an introduction to philosophical issues connected with the idea of universal human rights. We will examine several philosophical readings about human rights that claim to supply rights with objective foundations. We will test these accounts by examining real-life case studies. Additionally, we will confront challenges to the idea of universal human rights. These challenges include the claim that moral truth is always relative to one's own culture, and the claim that universal human rights must be broadened to encompass the rights of non-human animals. Assistant Professor Craig Duncan |
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10108-01
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Exploring Creativity We are often urged to “be creative” or we engage in activities that are labeled “creative”. But what does this really mean? Is playing a Mozart piano sonata more or less creative than inventing a new football defense? In this course we will examine the concept of creativity from a variety of perspectives, including psychology, the arts, and business. We will also look at the effects of creativity on individuals and whether creativity can be enhanced. We will engage in a variety of “creative” pursuits including creating a service learning project. Associate Professor Mary Ann Erickson |
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10109-01
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“What did you say”? Language and Communication Language is like oxygen: all around us but little noticed until things go wrong. In this course we will examine our linguistic environment as a first step in recognizing more or less effective language use. It’s helpful to examine some famous utterances, to note how even specific word choices combine for powerful effect or sometimes unfortunate effect. Examining the choices made by Obama or McCain; Clinton or Bush; you or your classmate will help students develop informed opinions about the use of language. Associate Professor Howard Erlich |
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10111-01 |
Living with the Land In this seminar we will learn how humans have come to dominate the earth’s ecosystems and the resultant risks to the biosphere. From this starting point we will explore sustainable and environmentally friendly solutions involving individual actions and lifestyle choices. From Harlan Hubbard’s Payne Hollow to the Nearing’s Forest Farm we will look at different approaches to living with the land instead of just on it. Efforts will be made to investigate local approaches to the land such as Ecovillage at Ithaca, the CSA movement, and green building. Students in this course will explore living with the land through readings, in-class discussions, research projects, field-trips, tests, and films. The course culminates with students designing their own 20 acre homestead. Assistant Professor John Hopple |
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10112-01 |
Musical Meaning in a Global Context Do our musical tastes suggest our politics? Doesn't music help to sustain or resist the social order, enrich or waste our spiritual wellness, or affect our sense of race, class, gender, or national identity? Doesn't music serve as a backdrop for war, peace, and justice? In this course we will explore these questions and compare "our music" to the music from various parts of the world such as West Africa, the Middle East, and Indonesia. We will develop a critical understanding of musical meaning through directed listening, critical writing, and discussion catalyzed by reading, and in-class performance. Associate Professor Naeem Inayatullah |
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10113-01 |
Girlstories In this course we will be examining how girlhoods are constructed in our society. We will first see the images we get of "appropriate girls"--in fairytales, young adult literature, and romantic comedies. As the course progresses, we will look at some theories about how our culture shapes girls, and we will read real-life stories about some less conventional girlhoods. Authors will include: Toni Morrison, June Jordan, Dorothy Allison, Francesca Lia Block and Eve Ensler. Associate Professor Katharine Kittredge |
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10114-01 |
Experiencing College Athletics: The Myths and Realities of Playing This course is aimed at first-semester athletes who are coping with the transition to college-level athletic competition in addition to the usual issues confronted by first-semester students. The focus will be on what our culture tells us about sports and how we come to define ourselves as athletes. We will be exploring a wide range of material, including film, poetry, and fiction, as well as nonfiction writing about sports. Topics may include children’s sports, player/coach relationships, team dynamics, trash-talking, sports injuries, and gender roles. Associate Professor Katharine Kittredge |
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10115-01
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Moral Psychology and the Seven Deadly Sins Assistant Professor Brendan Murday |
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10116-01
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Critical Thought, Analysis, and Expression: In the Ring with Larry King Traversing the red carpet, the Paris Hiltons of Tinseltown can negotiate a 5-interview with bland off-the-cuff answers and superficial one-liners. Such responses require little reflection or analysis. However, in a more in-depth Q&A platform, like Larry King Live, avoiding a knockout punch requires skills of critical thought, analysis, and expression. Through the readings and discussion in this course you will become a better thinker, reader, writer, and communicator, while exploring core questions such as, who am I, how do I know, and how do I act responsibly. In short, by the end of the semester you will be ready to trade punches with the likes of Larry King. Assistant Professor James Pfrehm |
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10117-01 |
Youth: Culture, Cohorts, and Politics The transition to adulthood in western societies has become protracted, and a clearly defined social category, youth, clearly emerged after World War II. Though a transitional status, youth nonetheless has come to be a quite distinctive social category, often evincing distinctive norms and politics. In this course we focus on the forces that have shaped and are continuing to shape the current generation of youth as well as the different experiences that youth have based on variations in social class, gender, race and ethnicity. We also examine the forces that shape student life in colleges and universities and the political activities of contemporary youth. Associate Professor Jim Rothenberg |
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10118-01 |
What was in Aristotle's Medicine Cabinet? The Origins of Modern Medicine The focus of this seminar is on the development of theories of disease and healing, and the evolution of ideas about the body, health, and disease. The growth of medicine will be studied in the context of the historical, cultural, social, and religious beliefs that affected it. Students’ thinking also will be led into the broader domains of geography and changing religious and cultural beliefs throughout history. The goals of the course include increasing students’ knowledge as well as helping them learn to think critically about the role of time, place, and religion on the development of acceptable ideas about the body, health, disease, and who was qualified to treat it. Reading and writing skills will be stressed. Requirements will include a research project and one essay requiring the student to struggle with and defend a position on an historical medical issue (e.g., what development had the greatest impact on the reduction of disease in the Middle Ages?). Associate Professor Richard Schissel |
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10119-01 |
The Golden City: The Rhetorical Construction of Classical Athens This seminar will consist of a multidisciplinary investigation of the myths and realities of Classical Athens. We will inquire critically into the city’s political and social structures, its aesthetic monuments, its intellectual milieu and its everyday life. The seminar will not, however, be a conventional historical accounting of who did what when in ancient Greece. We will examine Athens as an instance of rhetorical self-creation and examine the material of Athenian history as rhetorical artifacts. Rhetoric, first conceptualized and codified in Athens, is more than the art of political speechifying that it is often conceived to be. Rhetoric is the strategic use of language to accomplish things in the world. A rhetorical approach to Classical artifacts foregrounds the rich political, social, and cultural contexts that underlie historical and aesthetic self-portraiture. Accordingly, we will re-engage the disputes that vitalized Athenian life - and in doing so may well come to see the contemporary American experience through a radically different lens. Associate Professor Robert Sullivan |
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10120-01 |
Math and Nature: Exploring the Outer Worlds This course will combine mathematical problem solving skills with nature-related activities, including both hands-on projects done outside the classroom and talks on the environment by guest speakers both from campus and from the Ithaca community. The course will include a writing component. You will spend more than half of the class times in the woods. Assistant Professor Jack VanDerzee |
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10121-01
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Understanding Jerusalem, City of Faith, City of Struggle This course introduces students to the city of Jerusalem as a site of religious faith and political struggle. It is both a real city where people have lived their ordinary lives and a city of imagination – the earthly Jerusalem juxtaposed to the heavenly Jerusalem. This course examines the many facets of Jerusalem – its history, archeology, and geography, its religious meaning, and its architecture – with the aim of understanding how the city has come to be holy to Jews, Christians, and Muslims and why they have struggled to control it. Assistant Professor Rebecca Lesses |
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10122-01
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Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms Alcohol, tobacco, and firearms represent three aspects of social life that we as Americans are deeply conflicted about. On the one hand, there is widespread agreement that these activities are a matter of personal choice. On the other hand, we regulate these activities tightly – placing restrictions on who can engage in each activity as well as when and where each activity is appropriate. This course is designed to explore this conflict from the perspective of ethics (the claims that people make about how others ought to behave), history of law (how these activities have been regulated throughout US history), and social science (what research can tell us about who engages in such activities and the social forces that influence people’s attitudes and behaviors). Assistant Professor Kimberly Baker |
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10155-01 10155-02 |
Message and Meaning: Creating Our Values This course will examine the nexus of values and communication. In particular, this course will explore the role of communication in the creation, maintenance, and transmission of values in our society. Students will exercise skills associated with the research, analysis, synthesis, and presentation of messages in both informational and persuasive contexts. Students cannot get credit for this course and Public Communication (SPCM 11000). Assistant Professor Scott Thomson |
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10160-01
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Writing About Sex and Love This course will examine conventional perspectives of love and sex--based on myths, mysticism, and other transcendental ideas--and contrast those ideas with more progressive perspectives from the fields of evolution, sociology, psychology, and literature. We will look at some bio-evolutionary theories of sex and love, discuss how social perspectives affect our attitudes concerning sex and love, examine the debate between sex with love and sex without love, and we will look at divorce in our culture. This course will be writing-intensive and will satisfy departmental and school requirements for a 100-level writing course equivalent to WRTG-10600 or WRTG-10800. Associate Professor Cory Brown |
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10162-01
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Tribes and Scribes This seminar considers the lives of American Indians today as revealed in stories they tell about their history in North America, their ongoing relations with mainstream culture, and the cultural traditions and values that have sustained them since the arrival of Columbus over 500 years ago. We will focus on the American Indian future such as, how do Native Americans respond to the challenge of "living in two worlds"? How do they resist both stereotyping and mythologizing by a mainstream culture? What relation to the natural world are they committed to, and how do they envision our common environmental future? This course will be writing-intensive and will satisfy departmental and school requirements for a 100-level writing course equivalent to WRTG-10600 or WRTG-10800. Associate Professor Ron Denson |
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10163-01 |
The Art of Politics: Language and power in Classical Athens This honors seminar will combine the study of history, political philosophy, and rhetorical theory and practice. It will explore canonical texts, such as Sophocles’ Antigone and Plato’s Apology, that have generated Western traditions of literature and political philosophy and secondary sources such as Irving F. Stone’s The Trial of Socrates. This course will be writing-intensive and will satisfy departmental and school requirements for a 100-level writing course equivalent to WRTG-10600 or WRTG-10800. Assistant Professor David Flanagan |
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10164-01 |
Writing about Nature and the American Experience In this seminar we consider our human relationship with the natural world. Discussion focuses on the complex, often contradictory, ways Americans have addressed questions about nature from the days of exploration and colonization to the present. Students read works by American writers who have struggled to articulate the meaning of nature and its relation to the human experience. This course will be writing-intensive and will satisfy departmental and school requirements for a 100-level writing course equivalent to WRTG-10600 or WRTG-10800. Assistant Professor Marlene Kobre |
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10165-01 |
Fairy Tales: The Hero's Journey Fairy tales are the maps of our psyches, the mirrors of our longings and fears. In them we find the questions and answers we need to continue the shaping of our own lives. This course (while also introducing students to the language and appropriate use of academic writing) will focus on the study of classic and literary fairy tales, with an emphasis on themes of self discovery and transition/transformation. Readings will be drawn from the tales themselves, essays about them, and contemporary reworkings of these stories in fiction and poetry. This course will be writing-intensive and will satisfy departmental and school requirements for a 100-level writing course equivalent to WRTG-10600 or WRTG-10800. Professor Katharyn Machan |
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10166-01 |
Writing Critically in Response to Film and Theatre This class is designed to develop the academic writing and analytical skills that are fundamental to college coursework. Students in this seminar will view contemporary films and attend local productions of dramatic works that are chosen for their relevance to significant social issues of our time. Students will write critical film and theater analyses drawing on the popular and cultural knowledge they bring to school. This course will be writing-intensive and will satisfy departmental and school requirements for a 100-level writing course equivalent to WRTG-10600 or WRTG-10800. Associate Professor Jerry Mirskin |
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10167-01
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Writing About Aging: Media Images and True Stories Associate Professor Mary Beth O’Connor |
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10168-01
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Writing About Survival Survival Literature includes stories of shipwrecks, lost arctic expeditions, plane crashes, and risk-taking adventurers. Such tales are worthwhile because they enlarge the experiences of their readers and raise important questions about human psychology. In this course students will explore survival literature and draft essays, analyze texts, think critically and argue points of view. This course will satisfy departmental and school requirements for a 100-level writing course equivalent to WRTG-10600 or WRTG-10800. Assistant Professor Jim Stafford |
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10169-01
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How the Mind Works: Writing About Consciousness What is consciousness? Does it mean we each possess a unique soul or is it simply an elaborate illusion produced by the brain? How do we think, feel, and remember, and do these activities constitute a genuine self? In this course, we will explore theories of consciousness through engagement with philosophy, science, film, and especially literature. This course will be writing-intensive and will satisfy departmental and school requirements for a 100-level writing course equivalent to WRTG-10600 or WRTG-10800. Assistant Professor Jack Wang |
Ithaca Seminar Courses for 2009
