Students will gain an artistic and cultural understanding of the art of Africa, ancient to contemporary.  Sculpture will be the main focus of study, but also included will be architecture, painting, and weaving.  African aesthetics derived from religious and cultural principles will be examined in their own context, in their influence in the African diaspora in Latin America and the American South, as well as in contrast to Western art.  Students will gain an understanding of and critical use of the vocabulary of art, as well as an aesthetic and cultural understanding of Africa.

This course will examine how artists, writers, and graphic designers use their work to raise ethical questions and to advocate social change. A wide range of visual and material culture will be presented, including propaganda, posters, advertising, graphic novels, and theater. Content will focus on propaganda and patriotism during wartime (WWII, Vietnam, the Gulf War, and the war in Iraq); the antiwar and ecology movements in the 1960s; the pro-democracy movement; AIDS activism; culture jamming; and current issues of human rights. Graphic design and artwork will include work from Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, China, Latin America, Japan and the USA. Students will view and analyze the film version of Tony Kushner's epic play, "Angels in America."

This course covers the three basic techniques of silkscreen printing: stencil printing, the drawing fluid method, and the photo emulsion process. Students will apply their knowledge of color and the elements of design to the three basic silkscreen techniques. We will approach these processes as prints on paper or fabric. The rich and diverse history of silkscreen printing, along with contemporary images from the world of design, will provide inspiration. For students seeking an alternative to conventional methods of image-making, this course will provide an opportunity to apply ideas that will create new imagery.

Prerequisite: ART 268 or instructor’s signature (must have ample knowledge of Adobe Photo Shop software).

This course will focus on the structural and functional changes underlying major transitions in vertebrate evolution. Following introductory lectures, students will read papers from the primary literature exploring current controversies on such topics as the origin of vertebrates, the emergence of tetrapods onto land, the extinction of the dinosaurs, the origin of bird flight, the rise of mammals, and the evolution of intelligence. Students will be expected to come to class with written critiques for each article and questions and ideas to present for discussion. Students will also be required to present and lead the discussion for one assigned article during the semester, and research a topic of their choice for presentation at the end of the semester.

Prerequisite: BIOL 112 General Zoology and at least one other biology course.

From some time to come, managers and their organizations face increasing numbers and types of diverse employees and the challenges and benefits which accompany these differences. The key components for organizations in managing human diversity are to understand, celebrate and promote it. This course focuses mostly on the first component – understanding diversity – because without understanding diversity, one cannot celebrate or promote it. The process of understanding diversity requires a skill set that is different from dealing with traditional organizational planning, operations and effectiveness issues. That skill set includes being willing and able as an organization and as individual employees to confront and answer the questions: Who are we as a diverse organization? How am I diverse as an employee? Where do I and the organization stand with regard to the diversity of others?

Adopting an inside-out approach, this course first looks at differences that make us individuals (inside) and then moves to factors and conditions that enrich our individuality and ability to be related to and work with others, as well as how our organization relates to differences (outside). Through experiential learning, presentations, academic papers and class discussions, students will be asked to confront their own ignorance, biases and stereotypes from intellectual, affective and social perspectives, in addition, to studying how organizations confront theses issues. Course topics include: personality preferences, individual learning styles, personal values, sexual orientation, religion, age, gender identity, physical and mental abilities, ethnicity, social status and cultural competence.

Prerequisite: Enrollment is limited to a maximum of twenty students, with junior or senior class standing, from any academic department.

This course will explore the use of mythology, archetypes, and storytelling to create a cohesive and compelling image across an organization. We will focus on how legendary organizations have built trust and created iconic brands by understanding and applying these principles. In this course we will discuss the use of imagery (visual and mental) to create a theme that is enduring, powerful, and integrated throughout the organization. Students will explore ways that organizations and people can develop deep and lasting relationships with their customers and other stakeholders through the understanding and application of these storytelling techniques.

To what can extent can, or should, writing (and also reading) function as a kind of activism? Can written work change minds and hearts? Should it be designed to do so? Can writing be more than a hobby--but also more than a vocation? That is, can the acts of writing and reading be seen as moral acts, as part of living a fully engaged life? In this course we will examine these and other questions as we read, discuss, and emulate both factual/documentary and imaginative works (ranging from op-ed pieces and documentaries to song lyrics and novels). Possible topics for discussion include environmental concerns, responses to war, issues of poverty and economic class, racism, and gender equity; possible works will range from the historical (e.g. Henry David Thoreau, Wilfred Owen, Langston Hughes, James Agee and Walker Evans) through the contemporary (e.g. Wendell Berry, Denise Levertov, August Wilson, Dorothy Allison). Students will be expected to read and respond to published work and to write both factual/documentary and imaginative works of their own.

Prerequisite: Enrollment by permission of instructor only.

Displacement—migration, exile, or marginalization within a nation—is a phenomenon seen across the world, and one that currently is a frequent topic of discussion. This course will examine such issues among the diverse Latin American cultures through the lens of fiction. These texts and films deal directly with moments of social transformation, power differences, and cultural (mis)understanding. Studying these works will help you better understand the timely issues of displacement, as well as how these issues are perceived and represented. The course will be conducted in entirely in English.

Prerequisite: As a 200-level course, it is designed for students with at least a sophomore-level standing.

This seminar examines questions of citizenship and identity, as well as the subtle categories of inclusion and exclusion that shape different groups’ experiences in society. Through a careful study of literary and filmic representations and multi-disciplinary secondary sources, we will focus on particular examples in the South American Southern Cone of the ways in which individuals and groups negotiate their place in society. Students will also have the opportunity to do individual research.

Prerequisites: SPAN 230 Advanced Spanish Grammar and Composition and another 200-level Spanish course (or the equivalents abroad) or instructor permission.

This course presents a broad introduction to the history and culture of India, or South Asia.  Utilizing primary sources from the Indian tradition, we will examine the Vedas, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Indian states, caste society, folklore, British colonialism, Indian nationalism, and post-independence politics and society across South Asia.  

This course explores the ways the images, experiences, and practices of masculinity changed in Europe in the modern era.  How did men make their moral choices as men, as fathers, political leaders, and as spouses? For instance, how did the images and institutions of sensitive masculinity, so prevalent in 18^th-century experience, vanish from the repertoire of male imagery in the twentieth century? In the late 18^th century, weak men were considered incapable of making decisions and moral choices. Or did they? How did the changes in recreational activities, sports, music, dance, and dueling change the culture of European man in the 19^th century? How were the space and time for men’s activities separated from those of women? How did the right-wing reaction to the rapid economic and social modernization of Europe since the mid-nineteenth century change the models of male behavior? Were the men supposed to be ruthless and unethical unlike the women who started to occupy the realm of ethical life? For instance, how did the patterns of fascist and Nazi masculinity and gender, based on the model of ruthless and unethical man, emerge? The focus of the class is Germany, but British and especially French experiences will be considered as well.

This course explores the history of the Moravians as an 18^th-century transatlantic community. Their communities are an interesting example of 18th-century intentional communities. How were their congregations organized? What did Moravians believe and how does this relate to other religious groups? How did they perceive their own history and how did Moravians record history? Eighteenth-century Moravians were controversial; we will take a look at some of the polemical writings. In the course we will also explore issues of gender, race and sexuality.

Open only to students who have completed a 100-level History course, or with Chair’s signature.

This course will introduce and analyze recent events in the Republic of South Africa and its neighbors.  The course will emphasize the development of political, economic, and social structures; current actors; and prospects for change.  Specific topics will include:  British, Afrikaner, and Portuguese colonial policies; the development of African nationalism and the transition to majority rule; and the policies and problems of modern Angola, Botswana,

Lesotho, Namibia, Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe.

Open only to students who have completed a 100-level History course, or with Chair’s signature.

In this course we examine the development and transformation of communities and communal conflicts in modern South Asia.  The major themes include religious communities and conflicts, caste society, and globalization.

Open only to students who have completed a 100-level History course, or with Chair’s signature.

Modern medieval historians have always been interested in the role of religion in the Middle Ages, but they have adopted different methodologies and arrived at distinct conclusions. This course explores the writings of medieval historians on religion through a combination of lecture and discussion. Students will read, discuss, present on, and write about articles and books from historians whose work reflects the major academic concerns in this field. Topics include the religious experience of women; sacred violence; ritual expressions; the relationship between the dead and the living; reform in the Church; and the interaction between folk culture and high religion.

Open only to students who have completed a 100-level History course, or with Chair’s signature.

Beginning with the Scottish explorer Mungo Park in the late eighteenth century, Europeans began to explore the interior of tropical Africa.  By the late nineteenth century, Europeans had "discovered" most of this part of the world, and by the early twentieth century, they had conquered the continent and were exploiting its resources.  What ideas and attitudes did these Europeans have toward Africa and Africans?  How did ideas and attitudes change across this period?  How did Europeans justify their conquest?  Students in the course will write a substantial research paper analyzing the life of an individual explorer or conqueror

Open only to students who have completed a 100-level History course and HIST 270, or with Chair’s signature.

The Middle Ages are too often dismissed as being a dark period that produced little of enduring intellectual weight. A closer look reveals a fervent tradition of scholarship and debate that still evokes interest and admiration among modern historians. This research seminar introduces students to the greatest thinkers of the Middle Ages, and challenges participants to read, discuss, and write a research paper about some of their most remarkable works. The foremost theme of our inquiry will be the relationship between faith and reason. Could a belief in God be reconciled with truths derived from everyday experience? How was the interrelationship between faith and reason fertile for producing intellectual debate? How did these academic debates reflect the broader culture that produced them?

Open only to students who have completed a 100-level History course and HIST 270, or with Chair’s signature.

(See FORL 291 for description)

(See ART 292 for description)

In The Conquest of Happiness, Bertrand Russell makes us look at the many ways we choose to be miserable despite our circumstances. This course will explore the different meanings and definitions of happiness, the way western culture tries to measure it, as opposed to the way eastern culture approaches it. Individual happiness versus social happiness, who says happiness is a promised part of the human condition? Was paradise The Happy Place? How and why did we lose it?  Is guilt part of our self inflicted misery/punishment? Is happiness moral? How are well-being, welfare, contentment, fulfillment, satisfaction or absence of pain related to happiness? Is happiness comparing ourselves to the less fortunate? Is counting our blessings a key to happiness? Is happiness a mean or a goal? Can one buy a positive outlook on life? How does one pursue happiness? What did Aristotle, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Kierkegaard write about happiness? Happiness as viewed by art, psychology, sociology, economy and religion.

Graph theory deals with the study of graphs that consist of a finite set of points connected by lines. Topics include graphs as models, undirected and directed graphs, trees, connectivity, traversability, graph colorings, matchings, and network flows. Problems will be formulated and analyzed in diverse areas such as transportation and project networks, organizational structure, tournaments, group structure in psychology and sociology, and scheduling.

Prerequisite: MATH 216 or instructor's signature.

Prerequisites:  Junior and Senior Music majors or permission of instructor.

This course is an introduction to the American political party system. It will use the ongoing 2008 presidential and congressional campaigns to examine how American political parties are organized, the technologies and techniques of modern campaigning, the ethical controversies surrounding the role of money, the use of negative and advocacy advertising, the structural bias against third parties, and the level of disaffection among voters.

(See HIST 297 for description)

This course will be a study of the place and nature of the moral life in the Hindu, Buddhist, Confucian and Taoist traditions. Classical sources will be supplemented with works by selected modern adherents focusing on contemporary problems. Comparisons with western perspectives will be made throughout but especially in examining a contemporary issue or issues.

This seminar, open to Religion Majors and Minors, will focus on the theological ethical model developed by Traci C. West in order to explore social issues of racism, welfare reform, heterosexism and more.  Class members will expand upon West’s work to further analyze economics and health care reform using this theological method. 

This course will provide an in-depth examination of the ways in which various measures taken by the government since 9/11/2001 impact the basic civil rights liberties of the U.S. population. Emphasis will be placed upon various aspects of the Patriot Act, the domestic eavesdropping program, the Geneva Conventions, and U.S. laws dependent upon those conventions, as well as upon other related programs affecting individual rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights under the U.S. Constitution

This seminar will trace the evolution of Rock ‘n’ Roll music from its rise as a blending of primarily (though not exclusively) white and African-American musical traditions amidst the youth-oriented culture of post-World War II America to its subsequent diversification and internationalization in the 21^st century.  We will explore these shifts in the context of the political, historical, demographic, cultural, and technological forces at work while attempting to develop a comprehensive methodology for listening to the broader narratives that underscore the nature of contemporary adolescent life that parallels the music’s expansion into popular culture.

This course will look at the field of bioethics and its impact on medical practice in the United States from a sociological perspective.  We will focus on the impact of culture on the historical development of the field and how culture shapes bioethical debates. What issues are discussed by bioethicists, hospital committees, and the media and what other issues are not broached? This question and others will be addressed employing broader theories of social structure and culture using some cross-cultural comparisons.

This course will introduce the student to "the way of rhetoric": a systematic method of analyzing and producing argumentative and persuasive discourse in all sorts of areas: political speech, advertising, literature, and popular culture. We will seek to understand the rhetorical nature of language in presenting a "self," in positioning a "reader," and in shaping a "reality." We will learn to read and analyze rhetorically, and we will practice writing rhetorically as well. This course therefore will offer practice and experience in critical thinking, a particularly important skill for the first-year college student to acquire.

This course provides an application of the theory underlying people's involvement in sport and human movement. Contemporary issues affecting the role of the player, coach and other professionals in the field of sports will be examined, with a concentration on the sport of soccer. Using writing as a process for learning, the primary objectives are to create a greater awareness of the social significance of contemporary sport and examine features of social interactions within contexts of physical activity. The use of research, writing (and editing), debating and peer review will be essential to developing the writing skills of the students.

With soaring temperatures threatening a world-wide environmental catastrophe, the official U.S. position on climate change caused by human activities remains mired in politics and special interests. Through a variety of progressively more challenging writing assignments, students will critically examine this hot topic and seek fresh ideas and actions to raise awareness of and help curb this crisis. Emphasis on individual thinking, focused writing, and individual work reviews with the instructor.

based on letters will be studied.

Even though they depict a supernatural world of enchantment, fairy tales have functioned for centuries to pass on norms and gender roles. This course will explore elements of the fairy tale genre--such as narrative structure; fantasy; gender; sexuality; constructions of class and ethnicity--and uses to which fairy tales have been put. Special attention will be given to the long-lost women narrators of fairy tales who motivated the Brothers Grimm and what these tales reveal about women’s lives.

Exit polls following the 2004 presidential election indicated that religious beliefs and issues greatly influenced its outcome. Matters such as abortion, gay marriage, the death penalty, euthanasia, and war set off conversations, often heated, about where God stands on these issues. People of faith continue to read the same Bible yet often draw opposite conclusions concerning what these sacred texts say about social and political issues. This course will provide opportunities to read, discuss, and write about how politics and religious rhetoric are interwoven in today’s American society.

This course exposes students to various types of writing on, about, or inspired by war. Course readings will be in the form of poetry, short narratives or novel excerpts, and non-fiction (letters, essays, etc.), ranging historically from the American Civil War, to World War I, to World War II, to the September Eleventh bombings. This course’s fundamental objective is to improve the writing skills of the students; thus, writing assignments will be derived from the course’s topic. But this is not a literature course, so course readings and historical background information will only serve as a "jumping-off" point.

This course will focus on the development of academic writing through the examination of students' ideas and experiences. While conventions of academic writing will be the primary focus, personal perspectives will be the means through which we explore and develop writing skills and strategies. To accomplish this, we will utilize frequent reading and writing exercises as well as a collaborative workshop setting. This class will culminate in the development of a final portfolio that showcases students' best work.