Quantitative Reasoning Fall 2007 | Spring 2008
Natural Science I Fall 2007 | Spring 2008
Natural Science II Fall 2007 | Spring 2008
Conversations of the West Fall 2007 | Spring 2008
World Cultures Fall 2007 | Spring 2008
Societies and the Social Sciences department courses
Expressive Culture Fall 2007 | Spring 2008
Think Green! Please consider the environment before printing this webpage.
Quantitative Reasoning
Quantitative Reasoning courses are intended for first-year and sophomore students. Approved substitute courses are available for other students still needing to satisfy the Quantitative Reasoning component of the MAP.
FALL 2007 V55.0101 Quantitative Reasoning: Mathematical Patterns in Nature
Prof. Kosygin (Mathematics)
Prof. Weare (Mathematics)
Prof. Hand (Mathematics)
The role of mathematics as the language of science, through case studies selected from the natural sciences and economics. Topics include the scale of things in nature; the art of making estimates; cross-cultural views of knowledge about the natural world; growth laws, including the growth of money and the concept of "constant dollars"; radioactivity and its role in unraveling the history of Earth and the solar system; the notion of randomness and basic ideas from statistics; scaling laws-why are things the size they are?; the cosmic distance ladder; the meaning of "infinity." This calculator-based course aims to help students use mathematics with some confidence in applications.
FALL 2007 V55.0105 Quantitative Reasoning: Elementary Statistics
Prof. Hu (Mathematics)
Prof. Curtis (Mathematics)
Prof. Goldberg (Mathematics)
An introduction to the use of statistical methods. Mathematical theory is minimized. Actual survey and experimental data are used. Computations are done with desk or pocket calculators. Topics: description of data, elementary probability, random sampling, mean, variance, standard deviation, statistical tests, and estimation.
FALL 2007 V55.0107 Quantitative Reasoning: Probability, Statistics and Decision Making
Prof. Hoppenstead (Mathematics)
Elementary probability theory from the point of view of games and gambling. Topics include probability, expectation, introduction to game theory, gambler's ruin, gambling systems, and optimal strategies. Examples are taken from games of chance, including backgammon, blackjack, craps, and poker.
SPRING 2008 V55.0101 Quantitative Reasoning: Mathematical Patterns in Nature
Prof. Novikoff (Mathematics)
Prof. Vishe (Mathematics)
Staff (Mathematics)
The role of mathematics as the language of science, through case studies selected from the natural sciences and economics. Topics include the scale of things in nature; the art of making estimates; cross-cultural views of knowledge about the natural world; growth laws, including the growth of money and the concept of "constant dollars"; radioactivity and its role in unraveling the history of Earth and the solar system; the notion of randomness and basic ideas from statistics; scaling laws-why are things the size they are?; the cosmic distance ladder; the meaning of "infinity." This calculator-based course aims to help students use mathematics with some confidence in applications.
SPRING 2008 V55.0105 Quantitative Reasoning: Elementary Statistics
Prof. Newman (Mathematics)
Prof. Cameron (Mathematics)
Prof. Chumakova (Mathematics)
An introduction to the use of statistical methods. Mathematical theory is minimized. Actual survey and experimental data are used. Computations are done with desk or pocket calculators. Topics: description of data, elementary probability, random sampling, mean, variance, standard deviation, statistical tests, and estimation.
SPRING 2008 V55.0107 Quantitative Reasoning: Probability, Statistics and Decision Making
Prof. Knuepfer (Mathematics)
Elementary probability theory from the point of view of games and gambling. Topics include probability, expectation, introduction to game theory, gambler's ruin, gambling systems, and optimal strategies. Examples are taken from games of chance, including backgammon, blackjack, craps, and poker.
SPRING 2008 V55.0108 Quantitative Reasoning: Games of Chance
Prof. Jain (Mathematics)
Prof. Hu (Mathematics)
Staff (Mathematics)
This course is designed to present the elementary theory of probability through its historical origins – gambling. Illustrations will be taken from the following games of chance: Lotteries, poker, blackjack, backgammon, craps, roulette, coin tossing, and variations on these games. Students are presumed to be familiar with high school algebra.
top of page
Natural Science I
The prerequisite for all Natural Science I courses is completion of or exemption from Quantitative Reasoning, or completion of an approved substitute course.
FALL 2007 V55.0202 Natural Science I: The Cosmos and the Earth
Prof. Blanton (Physics) syllabus
This course is an introduction to modern astronomy. Stars, white dwarfs, neutrons stars, black holes, galaxies and quasars populate the universe. Evidence points to the stars as the source of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and nearly all the elements that are important for life on Earth. Exploding stars, as bright has hundreds of billions of normal stars, have been seen across the universe. New stars have been caught in the act of forming, while more than one hundred planets orbiting other stars have been discovered. Some stars evolve into bodies of such high density that even light cannot escape from its gravitational influence, forming black holes. Galaxies, collections of billions of stars, come in a variety of shapes and sizes. We inhabit one such galaxy, the Milky Way, and by observing it "from the inside" astronomers have learned about the detailed internal structures of stars and gas that inhabit galaxies. By observing other galaxies from the outside, astronomers have learned about their global structure and about how they change over time. Furthermore, the majority of galaxies move away from us, indicating that the Universe is expanding and has been since about fourteen billion years ago, the epoch of the "Big Bang." We will touch on all of these aspects in this survey course.
FALL 2007 V55.0203 Natural Science I: Energy and the Environment
Prof. Brenner (Chemistry) syllabus
Uses the principles of chemistry to analyze the environmental implications of energy usage and policy decisions concerning energy and the environment. Topics include the atmosphere, ozone and its depletion, greenhouse gases, and acid rain. Case studies from the New York City environment, such as the Hudson River, are used to focus discussions. Finally, questions about the basis of our need for energy, fossil fuels and their supplies, and the available alternatives are discussed.
FALL 2007 V55.0203 Natural Science I: Energy and the Environment
Prof. Jordan (MAP) syllabus
Uses the principles of chemistry to analyze the environmental implications of energy usage and policy decisions concerning energy and the environment. Topics include the atmosphere, ozone and its depletion, greenhouse gases, and acid rain. Case studies from the New York City environment, such as the Hudson River, are used to focus discussions. Finally, questions about the basis of our need for energy, fossil fuels and their supplies, and the available alternatives are discussed.
FALL 2007 V55.0204 Natural Science I: Einstein's Universe
Prof. Brujic (Physics) syllabus
Addresses the science and life of Einstein in the context of 20th-century physics, beginning with 19th-century ideas about light, space, and time in order to understand why Einstein's work was so innovative. Einstein's most influential ideas are contained in his theories of special relativity, which reformulated conceptions of space and time, and general relativity, which extended these ideas to gravitation. Both these theories are explored quantitatively, together with wide-ranging applications of these ideas, from the nuclear energy which powers the sun to black holes and the big bang theory of the birth of the universe.
FALL 2007 V55.0214 Natural Science I: How Things Work
Prof. Stein (Physics) syllabus
Do you know how electricity is generated? How instruments create music? What makes refrigerator magnets stick? For that matter, why is ice skating possible, how do wheels use friction and why can someone quickly remove a tablecloth without moving any dishes? All of the devices that define contemporary living are applications of basic scientific discoveries. The principles underlying these devices are fascinating as well as useful, and help to explain many of the features of the world around us. This course familiarizes you with some basic principles of physics by examining selected devices such as CD and DVD players, microwave ovens, the basic electronic components of computers, lasers and LEDs, magnetic resonance imaging as used in medicine, and even nuclear weapons. In learning the basic physics behind these modern inventions, you will develop a deeper understanding of how the physical world works and gain a new appreciation of everyday phenomena that are ordinarily taken for granted. The course is designed for non-science students with an interest in the natural world. The basic physical ideas needed to understand how things operate are presented using some mathematics, but none beyond elementary high school-level algebra.
FALL 2007 V55.0214 Natural Science I: How Things Work
Prof. Adler (Physics) syllabus
Do you know how electricity is generated? How instruments create music? What makes refrigerator magnets stick? For that matter, why is ice skating possible, how do wheels use friction and why can someone quickly remove a tablecloth without moving any dishes? All of the devices that define contemporary living are applications of basic scientific discoveries. The principles underlying these devices are fascinating as well as useful, and help to explain many of the features of the world around us. This course familiarizes you with some basic principles of physics by examining selected devices such as CD and DVD players, microwave ovens, the basic electronic components of computers, lasers and LEDs, magnetic resonance imaging as used in medicine, and even nuclear weapons. In learning the basic physics behind these modern inventions, you will develop a deeper understanding of how the physical world works and gain a new appreciation of everyday phenomena that are ordinarily taken for granted. The course is designed for non-science students with an interest in the natural world. The basic physical ideas needed to understand how things operate are presented using some mathematics, but none beyond elementary high school-level algebra.
SPRING 2008 V55.0202 Natural Science I: The Cosmos and the Earth
Prof. Weiner (Physics) syllabus
This course is an introduction to modern astronomy. Stars, white dwarfs, neutrons stars, black holes, galaxies and quasars populate the universe. Evidence points to the stars as the source of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and nearly all the elements that are important for life on Earth. Exploding stars, as bright has hundreds of billions of normal stars, have been seen across the universe. New stars have been caught in the act of forming, while more than one hundred planets orbiting other stars have been discovered. Some stars evolve into bodies of such high density that even light cannot escape from its gravitational influence, forming black holes. Galaxies, collections of billions of stars, come in a variety of shapes and sizes. We inhabit one such galaxy, the Milky Way, and by observing it "from the inside" astronomers have learned about the detailed internal structures of stars and gas that inhabit galaxies. By observing other galaxies from the outside, astronomers have learned about their global structure and about how they change over time. Furthermore, the majority of galaxies move away from us, indicating that the Universe is expanding and has been since about fourteen billion years ago, the epoch of the "Big Bang." We will touch on all of these aspects in this survey course.
SPRING 2008 V55.0203 Natural Science I: Energy and the Environment
Prof. Ward (Chemistry) syllabus
Uses the principles of chemistry to analyze the environmental implications of energy usage and policy decisions concerning energy and the environment. Topics include the atmosphere, ozone and its depletion, greenhouse gases, and acid rain. Case studies from the New York City environment, such as the Hudson River, are used to focus discussions. Finally, questions about the basis of our need for energy, fossil fuels and their supplies, and the available alternatives are discussed.
SPRING 2008 V55.0203 Natural Science I: Energy and the Environment
Prof. Jordan (MAP) syllabus
Uses the principles of chemistry to analyze the environmental implications of energy usage and policy decisions concerning energy and the environment. Topics include the atmosphere, ozone and its depletion, greenhouse gases, and acid rain. Case studies from the New York City environment, such as the Hudson River, are used to focus discussions. Finally, questions about the basis of our need for energy, fossil fuels and their supplies, and the available alternatives are discussed.
SPRING 2008 V55.0204 Natural Science I: Einstein's Universe
Prof. Adler (Physics) syllabus
Addresses the science and life of Einstein in the context of 20th-century physics, beginning with 19th-century ideas about light, space, and time in order to understand why Einstein's work was so innovative. Einstein's most influential ideas are contained in his theories of special relativity, which reformulated conceptions of space and time, and general relativity, which extended these ideas to gravitation. Both these theories are explored quantitatively, together with wide-ranging applications of these ideas, from the nuclear energy which powers the sun to black holes and the big bang theory of the birth of the universe.
SPRING 2008 V55.0209 Natural Science I: Quarks to Cosmos
Prof. Mincer (Physics) syllabus
Modern science has provided us with some understanding of age-old fundamental questions, while at the same time opening up many new areas of investigation. How old is the Universe? How did galaxies, stars, and planets form? What are the fundamental constituents of matter and how do they combine to form the contents of the Universe? The course will cover measurements and chains of scientific reasoning that have allowed us to reconstruct the Big Bang by measuring little wisps of light reaching the Earth, to learn about sub-atomic particles by use of many-mile long machines, and to combine the two to understand the Universe as a whole from the sub-atomic particles of which it is composed.
SPRING 2008 V55.0214 Natural Science I: How Things Work
Prof. Grier (Physics) syllabus
Do you know how electricity is generated? How instruments create music? What makes refrigerator magnets stick? For that matter, why is ice skating possible, how do wheels use friction and why can someone quickly remove a tablecloth without moving any dishes? All of the devices that define contemporary living are applications of basic scientific discoveries. The principles underlying these devices are fascinating as well as useful, and help to explain many of the features of the world around us. This course familiarizes you with some basic principles of physics by examining selected devices such as CD and DVD players, microwave ovens, the basic electronic components of computers, lasers and LEDs, magnetic resonance imaging as used in medicine, and even nuclear weapons. In learning the basic physics behind these modern inventions, you will develop a deeper understanding of how the physical world works and gain a new appreciation of everyday phenomena that are ordinarily taken for granted. The course is designed for non-science students with an interest in the natural world. The basic physical ideas needed to understand how things operate are presented using some mathematics, but none beyond elementary high school-level algebra.
top of page
Natural Science II
The prerequisite for all Natural Science II courses is completion of or exemption from Quantitative Reasoning, or completion of an approved substitute course. The completion of Natural Science I is recommended prior to taking Natural Science II.
FALL 2007 V55.0303 Natural Science II: Human Genetics
Prof. Blau (Biology) syllabus
We are currently witnessing a revolution in human genetics, where the ability to scrutinize and manipulate DNA has allowed scientists to gain unprecedented insights into the role of heredity. Beginning with an overview of the principles of inheritance such as cell division and Mendelian genetics, we explore the foundations and frontiers of modern human genetics, with an emphasis on understanding and evaluating new discoveries. Descending to the molecular level, we investigate how genetic information is encoded in DNA and how mutations affect gene function. These molecular foundations are used to explore the science and social impact of genetic technology, including topics such as genetic testing, genetically modified foods, DNA fingerprinting, and the Human Genome Project. Laboratory projects emphasize the diverse methods that scientists employ to study heredity.
FALL 2007 V55.0306 Natural Science II: Brain and Behavior
Prof. Glimcher (Neural Science) syllabus
The relationship of the brain to behavior, beginning with the basic elements that make up the nervous system and how electrical and chemical signals in the brain work to effect behavior. Using this foundation, we examine how the brain learns and how it creates new behaviors, together with the brain mechanisms that are involved in sensory experience, movement, hunger and thirst, sexual behaviors, the experience of emotions, perception and cognition, memory and the brain's plasticity. Other key topics include whether certain behavioral disorders like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder can be accounted for by changes in the function of the brain, and how drugs can alter behavior and brain function.
Note: Handling of animals and animal brain tissue is required in some labs.
FALL 2007 V55.0309 Natural Science II: The Body - How It Works
Prof. Goldberg (Chemistry) syllabus
The human body is a complex system of mutually interdependent molecules, cells, tissues, organs and organ systems. We examine the human body with the goal of understanding how physiological systems operate at these varying levels. Examples include the circulation of blood, the function of our muscles, the utilization of oxygen in respiration, and how our immune system detects and fights foreign invaders. Disturbing the delicate balance of these systems can produce various human diseases, which will also be examined throughout the course. Laboratory work provides firsthand experience with studying molecular processes, cell structures, and physiological systems.
FALL 2007 V55.0310 Natural Science II: The Molecules of Life
Prof. Jordan (MAP) syllabus
Our lives are increasingly influenced by the availability of new pharmaceuticals, ranging from drugs that lower cholesterol to those that influence behavior. We examine the chemistry and biology of biomolecules that make up the molecular machinery of the cell. Critical to the function of such biomolecules is their three-dimensional structure that endows them with a specific function. This information provides the scientific basis for understanding drug action and how new drugs are designed. Beginning with the principles of chemical bonding, molecular structure, and acid-base properties that govern the structure and function of biomolecules, we apply these principles to study the varieties of protein architecture and how proteins serve as enzymes to facilitate biochemical reactions. We conclude with a study of molecular genetics and how recent information from the Human Genome Project is stimulating new approaches to diagnosing disease and designing drug treatments.
FALL 2007 V55.0313 Natural Science II: The Brain: A User's Guide
Prof. Azmitia (Biology) syllabus
The Human Brain is the most complex organ. Despite the central position it has in nearly every aspect of our daily lives, it remains to many a mystery. How does it work? How can we care for it? How long will it function? This MAP course is designed to provide answers to these questions, and many more at an academic level accessible to the non-scientist student, and of interest to the scientist with little exposure to neuroscience. The aims of the course are to provide the student with a firm foundation in what the brain looks like and what each of the parts do. To accomplish this, we will learn about the functions of the cortex in higher learning and memory, as well as discuss the basic work of the brainstem in regulating the internal environment of the body. The importance of nutrition on neurotransmitter synthesis, the function of sleep on memory and why we need so much of it, and the effects of alcohol and drugs on brain harmony and the meaning of addiction will be some of the points covered in this course. We will look at brain development and the special needs of children, as well as brain aging and illness and the difficulty of helping. The laboratories are designed to provide hands-on experience in exploring the structure of the brain as well as learning how to measure brain functioning. We will provide specially prepared slides so the student can recognize a neuron and differentiate a dendrite from an axon. The molecular shape of neurotransmitter will be covered, as well as learning how to measure alcohol and determining its levels in your body. It is expected that by the end of the course, the student will be familiar with the biological basis of brain structure and function, and not only be able to detect how a normal brain works, but also how to help keep it healthy.
SPRING 2008 V55.0305 Natural Science II: Human Origins
Prof. Bailey (Anthropology) syllabus
An introduction to the approaches and methods scientists use to investigate the origins and evolutionary history of our own species. This interdisciplinary study synthesizes research from a number of different areas of science. Topics include reconstructing evolutionary relationships using molecular and morphological data, the mitochondrial Eve hypothesis, ancient DNA, human variation and natural selection, the use of stable isotopes to reconstruct dietary behavior in prehistoric humans, the Neandertal enigma, the importance of studies of chimpanzees for understanding human behavior, and the 6-million-year-old fossil evidence for human evolution.
SPRING 2008 V55.0306 Natural Science II: Brain and Behavior
Prof. Hawken (Neural Science) syllabus
The relationship of the brain to behavior, beginning with the basic elements that make up the nervous system and how electrical and chemical signals in the brain work to effect behavior. Using this foundation, we examine how the brain learns and how it creates new behaviors, together with the brain mechanisms that are involved in sensory experience, movement, hunger and thirst, sexual behaviors, the experience of emotions, perception and cognition, memory and the brain's plasticity. Other key topics include whether certain behavioral disorders like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder can be accounted for by changes in the function of the brain, and how drugs can alter behavior and brain function.
Note: Handling of animals and animal brain tissue is required in some labs.
SPRING 2008 V55.0309 Natural Science II: The Body - How It Works
Prof. Goldberg (Chemistry) syllabus
The human body is a complex system of mutually interdependent molecules, cells, tissues, organs and organ systems. We examine the human body with the goal of understanding how physiological systems operate at these varying levels. Examples include the circulation of blood, the function of our muscles, the utilization of oxygen in respiration, and how our immune system detects and fights foreign invaders. Disturbing the delicate balance of these systems can produce various human diseases, which will also be examined throughout the course. Laboratory work provides firsthand experience with studying molecular processes, cell structures, and physiological systems.
SPRING 2008 V55.0310 Natural Science II: The Molecules of Life
Prof. Kallenbach (Chemistry) syllabus
Our lives are increasingly influenced by the availability of new pharmaceuticals, ranging from drugs that lower cholesterol to those that influence behavior. We examine the chemistry and biology of biomolecules that make up the molecular machinery of the cell. Critical to the function of such biomolecules is their three-dimensional structure that endows them with a specific function. This information provides the scientific basis for understanding drug action and how new drugs are designed. Beginning with the principles of chemical bonding, molecular structure, and acid-base properties that govern the structure and function of biomolecules, we apply these principles to study the varieties of protein architecture and how proteins serve as enzymes to facilitate biochemical reactions. We conclude with a study of molecular genetics and how recent information from the Human Genome Project is stimulating new approaches to diagnosing disease and designing drug treatments.
SPRING 2008 V55.0311 Natural Science II: Lessons from the Biosphere
Prof. Volk (Biology) syllabus
Provides a foundation of knowledge about how Earth's biosphere works. This includes the biggest ideas and findings about biology on the global scale-the scale in which we live. Such knowledge is especially crucial today because we humans are perturbing so many systems within the biosphere. We explore four main topics: (1) Evolution of Life: How did life come to be what it is today? (2) Life's Diversity: What is life today on the global scale? (3) Cycles of Matter: How do life and the non-living environment interact? (4) The Human Guild: How are humans changing the biosphere and how might we consider our future within the biosphere? Laboratory experiments are complemented by an exploration at the American Museum of Natural History.
SPRING 2008 V55.0314 Natural Science II: Genomes and Diversity
Prof. Siegal (Biology) syllabus
Millions of species of animals, plants and microbes inhabit our planet. Genomics, the study of all the genes in an organism, is providing new insights into this amazing diversity of life on Earth. We begin with the fundamentals of DNA, genes and genomes. We then explore microbial diversity, with an emphasis on how genomics can reveal many aspects of organisms, from their ancient history to their physiological and ecological habits. We follow with examinations of animal and plant diversity, focusing on domesticated species, such as dogs and tomatoes, as examples of how genomic methods can be used to identify genes that underlie new or otherwise interesting traits. Genomics has also transformed the study of human diversity and human disease. We examine the use of DNA to trace human ancestry, as well as the use of genomics as a diagnostic tool in medicine. With the powerful new technologies to study genomes has come an increased power to manipulate them. We conclude by considering the societal implications of this ability to alter the genomes of crop plants, livestock and potentially humans.
top of page
Conversations of the West
FALL 2007 V55.0400 Conversations of the West: Topics - Democracy, Ancient and Modern
Prof. Pasquino (Politics) syllabus
History and political theory of institutions focusing on comparison of Athenian "demokratia" of the 4th century b.c.e. and contemporary constitutional democracy, and changes in paradigmatic doctrines of "good government" from ancient "mixed" constitutions to modern "constitutional" democracy. Reading include selections from Aristotle, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Madison, Kelsen, Schumpeter.
FALL 2007 V55.0400 Conversations of the West: Topics in Antiquity and Modernity - Literature and Music
Prof. Hamilton (Comparative Literature) syllabus
The Orpheus myth in over two thousand years of varying interpretations, setting, and appropriations. The power of music and the fatality of passion, the expropriating effects of language and the regenerating promise of poetry, individual uniqueness and the conditions of knowledge, are but a few of the themes addressed and elaborated within the myth's threefold configuration of harmony, descent, and dismemberment. In addition to investigating the rich literary tradition, significant versions in opera, film, and the visual arts are also considered. The emphasis throughout is on close reading, with attention to philosophical, aesthetic, and theological ramifications. Readings, authors, and artists: Genesis, Song of Songs, John; Pindar; Plato; Vergil; Ovid; Boethius; Petrarch; Monteverdi; Spenser, Poussin; Gluck; Novalis; Wordsworth; Nietzsche; Rimbaud; Rilke; Cocteau; Blanchot.
FALL 2007 V55.0401 Conversations of the West: Antiquity and the Middle Ages
Prof. Rust (English) syllabus
Odysseys, Quests, and Other-Worldly Journeys: "The man of many twists and turns, O Muse, of him sing to me, time and again / driven off course, once he had plundered Troy's hallowed heights...." So begins Homer's account of Odysseus' ten-year voyage home to Ithaca after the Trojan war. By turns exciting, poignant, funny, and tragic, the story of his journey offers clear reflections on the "journey" of life we all undertake. At the same time, the nearly three-thousand-year journey of Homer's poem, The Odyssey, comprises a case study in the migrations of culture--arts, learning, customs--across continents and centuries. We enter into a conversation about both these kinds of journeys--individual and cultural--one in which the "speakers" include not only ourselves but also works of the Middle Ages and antiquity, enacting an inter-textual dialogue with each other. Readings include Homer's Odyssey, Sophocles' Oedipus, Plato's Symposium, selections from Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian New Testament, Vergil's Aeneid, Augustine's Confessions, the Voyage of St. Brendan, the Voyage of Bran, Dante's Divine Comedy, an Arthurian romance, Chaucer's House of Fame.
FALL 2007 V55.0402 Conversations of the West: Antiquity and the Renaissance
Prof. Gilman (English) syllabus
The "Renaissance" understands itself as an age bearing witness to the "rebirth" of classical antiquity. In art, philosophy, and literature it also assumes the task of reconciling the cultural inheritance of Greece and Rome with the Christian tradition (itself entering into a moment of crisis as allegiances split between the Catholic church and the "reformed" church of Luther and Calvin). Our first task is to look at antiquity; our second, to explore the ways in which European culture between 1400 and 1700 invents the modern by making itself conversant with the past. Readings: Homer's Odyssey; Sophocles' Antigone; Plato's Phaedo and Symposium; Vergil's Aeneid; Genesis, Exodus, Job, Luke, Acts, John; Augustine's Confessions; Castiglione's Book of the Courtier; Machiavelli's Prince; Erasmus's Praise of Folly; Montaigne's Essays; More's Utopia; Shakespeare's Tempest.
FALL 2007 V55.0402 Conversations of the West: Antiquity and the Renaissance
Prof. Gerety (Collegiate Professor) syllabus
What is the soul? Is it the conscious self or something more? Does our identity persist beyond death? What is the relation between the soul and good and evil? Some say that Socrates 'discovered' the human soul, but the idea that we have souls that outlast our bodies is as old as humanity. Our understanding of the nature of our souls often dictates the way we feel we should live. We will explore ideas from Homer and Heraclitus through Socrates himself and then on to Sophocles, Plato, Aristotle, the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament (including the Gnostics), Augustine, and Vergil. We look for the elements that make up personal identity and value in the ancient world, both religious and secular, and see how much these change from Homer's world to that of Augustine and the Roman Empire. We then turn to Dante, who provides a bridge to some of the great thinkers and artists of the Renaissance--most notably Shakespeare and DaVinci but also Montaigne and Villon. In all of these, the permanence and even presence of our souls seem more uncertain, more threatened by death and obliteration, than in Plato or Paul, and this threat reaches our morality and values as well. In this way, the Renaissance marks the beginning of the world in which all of us must now find our way.
FALL 2007 V55.0402 Conversations of the West: Antiquity and the Renaissance
Prof. Zezula (French) syllabus
Renaissance—the French term for rebirth—refers to the epoch in which the awareness of the dignity of the human being, inspired and nurtured in many shapes and forms by the legacy of antiquity, set in motion the flowering of arts and sciences, and the rise of the world we now call "modern." Readings: selections from Hebrew and Christian Scriptures; Hesiod's Theogony; Sophocles' Oedipus and Antigone; Plato's Apology and selections from Republic; Petronius' Satyricon; More's Utopia; Machiavelli's Prince and Mandragola; Cellini's Autobiography; Marlowe's Doctor Faustus; selections from Castiglione, Marguerite de Navarre, Montaigne, Rabelais.
FALL 2007 V55.0402 Conversations of the West: Antiquity and the Renaissance
Prof. Bolduc (French) syllabus
Explores how books give shape, meaning, and purpose to the world and human experience. As it reinterprets the Greek and Roman legacy, the Renaissance faces crucial epistemological shifts triggered by new discoveries that call to mind our own struggles: making sense of a world in constant flux where truths are not only put into question but also lead to bloodshed. Grouped under four main themes--epic and the human experience, tales of beginnings and ends, battles for truth, writings of the self--we consider the purpose of this conversation between writers of different epochs and its relevance for understanding our own culture. Reading: Vergil's Aeneid, Cervantes' Don Quixote, Hesiod's Theogony, selections from Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, Machiavelli's Prince, Navarre's Heptameron, Sophocles' Antigone, Shakespeare's Hamlet, Plato's Symposium, Augustine's Confessions, selections from Montaigne's Essays.
FALL 2007 V55.0403 Conversations of the West: Antiquity and the Enlightenment
Prof. Connolly (Classics) syllabus
"Know yourself" was the phrase inscribed over the entrance to the temple of Apollo at Delphi. How did the ancient Greeks and Romans come to know themselves and those around them--as mortal men and women, civilized or barbarian, slaves to fate or masters of their destinies, naturally virtuous or vicious--and how did Enlightenment thinkers rework classical thought about the self? We trace the arguments of historians, philosophers, poets, and priests in defense of their chosen paths to self-knowledge: memory, imagination, reason, passion, taste, and religious devotion. We ask: how do the communities we create (family, nation, church, race) affect individual identity? Must we understand the past to make sense of the present? How do philosophical ideals and literary inventions relate to practical ideas about the truly well-lived life? What about the unpredictable effects of love, the irrational, the unknown, and luck? Readings: Exodus, Ephesians; Euripides' Bacchae; Plato's Phaedo and Symposium; Thucydides' Peloponnesian War; Vergil's Aeneid; Augustine's Confessions; Olaudah Equiano's Interesting Narrative; Kant's "What is Enlightenment?" and "Idea for a Universal History"; Rousseau's Social Contract; Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Women.
FALL 2007 V55.0403 Conversations of the West: Antiquity and the Enlightenment
Prof. Garrett (Philosophy) syllabus
How should one live? And where should one look for guidance in deciding how to live: to religion, to the state, to reason, to feeling? These are among the most basic questions that every person must answer, and they are questions that are addressed with special urgency in both antiquity and the Enlightenment. Readings: Genesis, Exodus, Job, Luke, Acts; Sophocles's Oedipus and Antigone; Plato's Republic; Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics; Augustine's Confessions; Spinoza's Theological-Political Treatise; Locke's Second Treatise of Government; Rousseau's Confessions; Hume's Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals; Kant's Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals; Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Woman.
FALL 2007 V55.0404 Conversations of the West: Antiquity and the 19th Century
Prof. Mitsis (Classics) syllabus
We will be reading, not kneeling at the shrine of, a selection of ancient and more recent texts which, whether one likes it or not, have set a standard of measurement for those wishing to engage in any authentic forms of individual thinking or of moral and social criticism. Since these texts also happen to be inescapably difficult and complex, this course offers no reassuring thematic overviews, dumbed-down summaries of historical contexts, or hip nods to contemporary popular culture. What it offers instead is an opportunity to become more practiced in the pleasures and pains of aesthetic experience, in the rational canons of moral and political argument, and in what used to be characterized as the proper use of one's solitude, that is, examining what it means to be a human being faced with death, or perhaps even worse, faced with eternal life. Readings from Homer, Sophocles, Euripides, Thucydides, Plato, Lucretius, Epictetus, Hebrew and Christian scriptures, Augustine, Mill, Marx, Nietzsche, Tolstoy, Freud, Proust.
FALL 2007 V55.0404 Conversations of the West: Antiquity and the 19th Century
Prof. Chioles (Comparative Literature) syllabus
The examination of some ethical issues as these emerge in philosophical and dialogic writings. Readings: Genesis, Matthew; Aeschylus' Persians; Sophocles' Women of Trachis; Euripides' Alcestis and Heracles; Conrad's Heart of Darkness; selections from the Presocratics, Plato, philosophies of the Academy, Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, Augustine, James' "Does Consciousness Exist?" and Varieties of Religious Experience, Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents.
FALL 2007 V55.0404 Conversations of the West: Antiquity and the 19th Century
Prof. Corradi (Sociology) syllabus
A guide to the intellectual heritage distinctive to the West, with special attention to the nature of the person, freedom, rationality, democracy, and the social order. The works we study continue to shape the way people understand themselves and the world. They are 'classic' in the sense that they have not finished saying what they have to say. We situate them in historical context, looking for ways in which later authors responded to themes introduced by earlier ones. From the particularity of the West, these themes show a vocation for universality. Readings include: Genesis, Exodus, Luke, Corinthians; Sophocles' Oedipus and Antigone; Plato's Apology and Republic; Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics; Pericles' Funeral Oration; Epictetus' Discourses; Augustine's Confessions; Tocqueville's Democracy in America; Mill's On Liberty; Darwin's Origins of the Species; Marx and Engels' Communist Manifesto; Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling; Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morality; Weber's Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism; Lincoln's Gettysburg Address; Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents.
FALL 2007 V55.0404 Conversations of the West: Antiquity and the 19th Century
Prof. Ulfers (German) syllabus
A conversation between two paradigms informing Western culture: the dominant, optimistic one, revolving around notions of historical progress toward absolute knowledge and utopian visions of the world and society; and the subterranean, pessimistic one, which looks on the former as a human construct or fiction that must come to naught. Readings: works from the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, Plato, and Sophocles; Augustine's Confessions; selections from Darwin; Marx and Engels' Communist Manifesto; Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy; Freud's Interpretation of Dreams; Kafka's Metamorphosis; Mann's Death in Venice.
FALL 2007 V55.0404 Conversations of the West: Antiquity and the 19th Century
Prof. Renzi (MAP) syllabus
Some problems about justice, suggested by an extended reading of Plato's Republic: What is justice? Where does it come from? What does it mean to lead a just life? In examining these questions Plato reminds us that if we knew the answers they would not be problems, and also that it seems impossible to search for what one does not know. It looks, therefore, as if we are necessarily bound to start with the wrong or with ill-formed questions. With this Platonic paradox in mind, our constant supplement is Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morality--an approach which leads us to consider whether it isn't rather something other than justice that we were seeking all along. Readings: Genesis, Exodus, Matthew, Galatians; Rosenberg and Bloom's Book of J; Aristophanes' Clouds; Plato's Apology and Republic; Euripides' Medea; Sophocles' Oedipus; Augustine's Confessions; Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling; Marx' and Engels' Communist Manifesto and selections of Marx' 1844 manuscripts; Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morality; Freud's case of Lucy R. and Civilization and Its Discontents.
FALL 2007 V55.0414 Conversations of the West: Antiquity and the 19th Century -- Writing Intensive
Prof. Renzi (MAP) syllabus
Some problems about justice, suggested by an extended reading of Plato's Republic: What is justice? Where does it come from? What does it mean to lead a just life? In examining these questions Plato reminds us that if we knew the answers they would not be problems, and also that it seems impossible to search for what one does not know. It looks, therefore, as if we are necessarily bound to start with the wrong or with ill-formed questions. With this Platonic paradox in mind, our constant supplement is Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morality--an approach which leads us to consider whether it isn't rather something other than justice that we were seeking all along. Readings: Genesis, Exodus, Matthew, Galatians; Rosenberg and Bloom's Book of J; Aristophanes' Clouds; Plato's Apology and Republic; Euripides' Medea; Sophocles' Oedipus; Augustine's Confessions; Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling; Marx' and Engels' Communist Manifesto and selections of Marx' 1844 manuscripts; Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morality; Freud's case of Lucy R. and Civilization and Its Discontents.
Note: Offered in conjunction with selected sections of V40.0100, Writing the Essay.
SPRING 2008 V55.0400 Conversations of the West: Topics in Antiquity and Modernity - Science, Literature, and the Imagination
Prof. Freccero (Italian) syllabus
In modernity, the development of scientific investigation has accustomed us to thinking of literature and science as widely divergent activities, despite instances in which they may be said to have arisen from common sources in the imagination of the West. While scientific activity is commonly defined in terms of experimentation and mathematical analysis, there is a creative dimension of science which is logically prior to these institutional activities. We are thus not concerned with the "influence" of science on literature, or vice-versa, but rather with examining the imaginative themes which writers and scientists have in common in three revolutionary moments in the history of the West. The first is the Copernican revolution in the early sixteenth century, the second is what has been called the "Machiavellian moment," at about the same time. The last, one that is still with us, is the Darwinian revolution of the nineteenth century. Like all revolutions, however, these had their antecedents and their posterity, extending back to antiquity and forward to our own time. Readings: Genesis, Lucretius' On the Nature of Things, Augustine's Confessions, Dante's Inferno and Paradiso, Italo Svevo's Confessions of Zeno, Galileo's Starry Messenger, Darwin's Origin of Species, George Eliot's Middlemarch, Machiavelli's Prince, Shakespeare's Richard III, Nicholas of Cusa's Learned Ignorance, Pico's Dignity of Man, Pope's Essay on Man, Giordano Bruno's Ash Wednesday Supper, Gramsci's The Modern Prince, selections from Plato, Ovid, John Donne.
SPRING 2008 V55.0400 Conversations of the West: Topics - Sublimation and Desire
Prof. Goebel (German) syllabus
How do key texts of the European tradition discuss and try to solve the conflict between asocial individual desires and social requirements, the conflict between instincts and reason? Freud's famous essay on Civilization and Its Discontents is our theoretical starting point, from which we interpret famous religious and philosophical works from antiquity to the present. Freud claimed that human beings have to replace the essentially asocial pleasure principle with the reality principle if survival in a hostile world is to become possible. So too, each individual, being forced to renounce instinctual drives, experiences again what is the course of civilization. The suppression of egoistic drives-be they sexual or aggressive-makes social cooperation possible and in turn enables human beings to dominate nature by developing a stable society, modern science, culture, and distractions. According to Freud, there is a twofold promise of civilization: Renouncing pleasure does not mean to give up the hope forever. Civilization is first conceived as a detour finally leading to a paradise where pleasure can be found as happiness. Secondly, there is the hope that by cultivating these desires, by transforming them into socially useful skills, the very substance of them might be changed. The key concept here is sublimation. With this term Freud designates the human ability to change the object of the drive, the change from sheer egotism to social responsibility. Freud observes, however, that total renunciation of the instincts is not possible, so all civilization is and remains haunted by frustration, or discontents. In this light we read texts dealing with Freud's paradox throughout history, leading to a defense of civilization, since it is assumed that Freud did not think his concept of sublimation entirely through: Is it not perhaps that only through civilization can we become at all aware of what our true desires are? Readings include: Ecclesiastes, Romans; Plato's Symposium; Winckelmann's "On Grace"; Schiller's "On Grace and Dignity"; Goethe's "Trilogy of Passion"; Marcuse's Eros and Civilization; Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents; Mann's Death in Venice; selections from Ovid's Metamorphoses, Hobbes' Leviathan, Sartre's Being and Nothingness.
SPRING 2008 V55.0400 Conversations of the West: Topics - Education as a Way of Life
Prof. Arcilla (Education, Humanities & Social Sciences in the Professions) syllabus
Why do we learn? Many people would answer that we do so in order to achieve certain practical goals. In order to become a physician, I go to medical school; I practice reading maps in order to avoid getting lost on the road. In these and similar examples, if I did not care about the goals there would be little reason to invest in these educations. Could there be a kind of learning, however, that is necessary for us because it is rooted in our very nature? After all, regardless of whether or not one wants to be a doctor or confident traveler, one is a human being. Suppose it were the case that to be human is also to be a learning being. Would it not follow that to live a human life is to pursue a certain education, call it a liberal education, as a way of life? We examine this potential tie between our humanity and liberal education. Specifically, we explore how the latter two may emerge together from the experience of a particular predicament: that of having to search for something important enough to which to commit our lives. Liberal education would be a way we recover from skeptical doubt that there is any such thing; overcoming this doubt with the help of others would help us also recognize our common humanity. Readings: Genesis, Job, Matthew, Romans, Galatians; Sophocles' Oedipus and Antigone; Plato's Meno, Apology, Phaedo; Augustine's Confessions; Descartes' Meditations; Austen's Persuasion; Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground; Marx and Engels' Communist Manifesto; selections from Montaigne, Wordsworth, Emerson. Films: Zwigoff's Ghost World, the Dardennes' Rosetta.
SPRING 2008 V55.0402 Conversations of the West: Antiquity and the Renaissance
Prof. Gilman (English) syllabus
The "Renaissance" understands itself as an age bearing witness to the "rebirth" of classical antiquity. In art, philosophy, and literature it also assumes the task of reconciling the cultural inheritance of Greece and Rome with the Christian tradition (itself entering into a moment of crisis as allegiances split between the Catholic church and the "reformed" church of Luther and Calvin). Our first task is to look at antiquity; our second, to explore the ways in which European culture between 1400 and 1700 invents the modern by making itself conversant with the past. Readings: Homer's Odyssey; Sophocles' Antigone; Plato's Phaedo and Symposium; Vergil's Aeneid; Genesis, Exodus, Job, Luke, Acts, John; Augustine's Confessions; Castiglione's Book of the Courtier; Machiavelli's Prince; Erasmus's Praise of Folly; Montaigne's Essays; More's Utopia; Shakespeare's Tempest.
SPRING 2008 V55.0403 Conversations of the West: Antiquity and the Enlightenment
Prof. Chazan (Hebrew & Judaic Studies) syllabus
Focuses on the understanding of knowledge and truth in antiquity and the Enlightenment. Divergent perspectives on knowledge and truth have important implications for society and the individual. They lead to alternative notions of how society should be ordered, who should exercise power in society, the goals of individual endeavor, and the nature of individual fulfillment. Key texts from antiquity and the Enlightenment will be read and analyzed with these issues uppermost in mind. Readings: Genesis, Exodus, Luke, Acts, Galatians; Sophocles' Antigone; Euripides' Bacchae; Plato's Apology and Symposium; Augustine's Confessions; Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico-Politicus; Locke's Letter Concerning Toleration; Lessing's Nathan the Wise; Montesquieu's Persian Letters; Voltaire's Letters Concerning the English Nation; Paine's Age of Reason.
SPRING 2008 V55.0404 Conversations of the West: Antiquity and the 19th Century
Prof. Baker (English) syllabus
Examines Western conceptions of the relation between humans and the natural world. Considers how 19th-century thinkers embraced, revised, and overturned ancient ideas about creation, natural order, the distinction between humans and animals, and the risks and rewards of probing nature's mysteries. Readings: Homer's Odyssey, Hebrew and Christian scripture, Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound, Shelley's Frankenstein, Darwin's Origin of Species, and works by Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Emerson, Goethe, and Nietzsche.
SPRING 2008 V55.0404 Conversations of the West: Antiquity and the 19th Century
Prof. Ertman (Sociology) syllabus
Explores the ancient foundations of traditional Western culture by examining the political and social institutions, religious beliefs, and value systems of the Israelites, Greeks, Romans, and early Christians; then turns to the radical challenges to this traditional culture, in the areas of the economy, politics, religion, and morality, that arose over the course of the 19th century, challenges that continue to reverberate to this day. Readings: Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy, Luke, Acts, Romans; Thucydides' Peloponnesian War; Plato's Apology and Symposium; Vergil's Aeneid; Augustine's Confessions; Smith's Wealth of Nations; Marx and Engels' Communist Manifesto; Mill's On Liberty; Darwin's Origin of Species; Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morality; Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents.
SPRING 2008 V55.0404 Conversations of the West: Antiquity and the 19th Century
Prof. Renzi (MAP) syllabus
Some problems about justice, suggested by an extended reading of Plato's Republic: What is justice? Where does it come from? What does it mean to lead a just life? In examining these questions Plato reminds us that if we knew the answers they would not be problems, and also that it seems impossible to search for what one does not know. It looks, therefore, as if we are necessarily bound to start with the wrong or with ill-formed questions. With this Platonic paradox in mind, our constant supplement is Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morality--an approach which leads us to consider whether it isn't rather something other than justice that we were seeking all along. Readings: Genesis, Exodus, Matthew, Galatians; Rosenberg and Bloom's Book of J; Aristophanes' Clouds; Plato's Apology and Republic; Euripides' Medea; Sophocles' Oedipus; Augustine's Confessions; Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling; Marx' and Engels' Communist Manifesto and selections of Marx' 1844 manuscripts; Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morality; Freud's case of Lucy R. and Civilization and Its Discontents.
SPRING 2008 V55.0404 Conversations of the West: Antiquity and the 19th Century
Prof. Renzi (MAP) syllabus
Some problems about justice, suggested by an extended reading of Plato's Republic: What is justice? Where does it come from? What does it mean to lead a just life? In examining these questions Plato reminds us that if we knew the answers they would not be problems, and also that it seems impossible to search for what one does not know. It looks, therefore, as if we are necessarily bound to start with the wrong or with ill-formed questions. With this Platonic paradox in mind, our constant supplement is Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morality--an approach which leads us to consider whether it isn't rather something other than justice that we were seeking all along. Readings: Genesis, Exodus, Matthew, Galatians; Rosenberg and Bloom's Book of J; Aristophanes' Clouds; Plato's Apology and Republic; Euripides' Medea; Sophocles' Oedipus; Augustine's Confessions; Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling; Marx' and Engels' Communist Manifesto and selections of Marx' 1844 manuscripts; Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morality; Freud's case of Lucy R. and Civilization and Its Discontents.
SPRING 2008 V55.0404 Conversations of the West: Antiquity and the 19th Century
Prof. Calhoun (Sociology) syllabus
A guide to the intellectual heritage distinctive to the West, with special attention to the nature of the person, faith, ethics, and the social order. The works we study continue to shape the way people understand themselves and the world. We situate them in historical context, looking for ways in which later authors responded to themes introduced by earlier ones. Readings include: Genesis, Exodus, Luke, 1 Corinthians; Sophocles' Oedipus; Plato's Apology and Crito; Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics; Epictetus' Discourses; Augustine's Confessions; Shelley's Frankenstein; Tocqueville's Democracy in America; Mill's On Liberty; Marx and Engels' The Communist Manifesto; Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling; Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morality; Weber's Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism; and Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment.
top of page
World Cultures
FALL 2007 V55.0500 World Cultures: Topics - Empires and Political Imagination
Prof. Burbank (History) & Prof. Cooper (History) syllabus
Comparative study of empires, from the Romans to the present, and the ways that empires have inspired and constrained their subjects' ideas of rights, belonging, and power. Throughout history, few people lived for very long in a state that consisted entirely or even mainly of people with whom they shared a language and culture. Empires--polities that maintained social and cultural distinction even as they incorporated different people--have been one of the most common and durable forms of political organization. An examination of the variety of human cultures must take account of how people lived in empires--sometimes seeking higher degrees of autonomy, sometimes accommodating to rulers' authority, sometimes trying to extend their own power over others. The study of empire expands our ideas of citizenship and challenges the notion that the nation-state is natural and necessary. We investigate how empires were held together--and where they were weak--from perspectives that focus on political and economic connections over long distances and long time periods. We also explore how scholars have approached the topic of empires, examining their methods and their interpretations. Readings include historical scholarship on the Roman, Chinese, Mongol, Spanish, Russian, French, British, and American empires, as well as primary sources produced by people living in these and other imperial polities.
FALL 2007 V55.0502 World Cultures: Islamic Societies
Prof. Chelkowski (Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies) syllabus
Examines the common base and regional variations of Islamic societies. An "Islamic society" is here understood as one that shares, either as operative present or as historical past, that common religious base called Islam. For Muslims, Islam is not simply a set of beliefs or observances but also includes a history; its study is thus by nature historical, topical, and regional. Here our particular focus is on the society of Shi'i Muslims. Shi'ism has been neglected in the last 200 years of the Western study of Islam, and only since the 1978–79 Islamic Revolution in Iran has it received attention in the West. Now, with American forces in Iraq, Shi'ism is suddenly one of the main topics of interest for the news media. The Shi'is of Iraq are the majority—some 60%—of the population, but historically they have been deprived of power in the government and of access to the political and economic life of the country.
FALL 2007 V55.0502 World Cultures: Islamic Societies
Prof. F. Peters (Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies) syllabus
An introduction to Islam as a religion, as a society, and as a culture. For Muslims, Islam is not simply a set of beliefs or observances but also includes a long and rich history. The study of Islam is therefore by nature historical, topical, and regional. The emphasis here is in explaining the foundations of Islam: first the Quran and the life of Muhammad, then the development of Islamic law, political theory, theology, and mysticism. For more recent times, the focus is on the search for Muslim religious and political identity. Throughout, students are exposed to Islamic history and values in the words of Muslims themselves.
FALL 2007 V55.0505 World Cultures: Africa
Prof. Amkpa (Social & Cultural Analysis) syllabus
A critical study of Africa south of the Sahara through the works of creative artists, cultural theorists, and historians, using case studies from West, East, and Southern African regions to examine how Africans engage their contemporary realities and issues of modernity, globalization, and democracy through cultural practices such as music, drama, novels, and films. Explores three broad themes: history and politics, cultural practices and political engagement, cities and citizenships.
FALL 2007 V55.0509 World Cultures: The Caribbean
Prof. Aching (Spanish & Portuguese) syllabus
The Caribbean and Revolutionary Thought: Examines the Caribbean in four units as a site where radical challenges to and within Western thought have emerged. Begins with the 16th-century theological problem of how to explain the existence of the American continent when these lands were unaccounted for in the Scriptures and the debate in the Spanish court and universities on whether the "Indian" possessed a soul. The second focus is on the enigmas of freedom during the Haitian Revolution (1791–1804), when slaves defeated Napoleon's army, thereby creating the world's only successful slave rebellion and the second independent nation-state in the hemisphere. Third, we consider the Cuban Socialist Revolution (1959) through an interrogation of the relationship between man and society that Fidel Castro and Che Guevara advocated. Finally, we ask whether the Caribbean is currently undergoing a revolution based on invigorated, neoliberal economics. Here, the focus is on Jamaica and its long traditions of both participating in and resisting the world economy. Materials for analysis include political speeches, films, and song lyrics.
FALL 2007 V55.0509 World Cultures: The Caribbean
Prof. Khan (Anthropology) syllabus
Examines the impact of the Caribbean's long colonial history from the perspective of its diverse populations, through race, class, culture, gender, and sexuality. Known for its beauty, cultural vitality, and mix of peoples, cultures, and languages, the Caribbean is where today's global economy began, some 500 years ago. Its sugar economy and history of slave labor and colonialism made it the site of massive transplantations of peoples and cultures from Africa for more than four centuries and from Asia since the mid-19th century, and of a sizable influx of peoples from Europe all along. Readings examine the history of the region's differing forms of colonialism; the present postcolonial economic and political structures; anthropological material on family and community life, religious beliefs and practices, gender roles and ideologies; and ways in which national, community, and group identities are expressed today.
FALL 2007 V55.0512 World Cultures: China
Prof. X. Zhang (East Asian Studies) syllabus
An introduction to the main issues and foundational texts of imperial and modern China. Selected readings include excerpts from early Chinese classics such as Classic of Odes and the Analects to the vernacular novels of late imperial China. The classical canon is then coupled with central texts from modern China, from the initial reflections of the mandarin scholars on a rapidly changing world, to writings on revolution, the modern state, and the new culture of the enlightened individual by leading Chinese intellectuals in the 20th century. Rather than a display of cultural and literary edifices, our intellectual and critical interest is to rethink Chinese traditions, both imperial and modern, in terms of continuity as well as discontinuity.
FALL 2007 V55.0514 World Cultures: Ancient Israel
Prof. M. Smith (Hebrew & Judaic Studies) syllabus
The culture of the ancient Israelite societies of biblical times, covering the period from about 1200 b.c.e. to the conquests of Alexander the Great, in the fourth century b.c.e. Topics include the achievements of these societies in the areas of law and social organization, prophetic movements, Israelite religion, and ancient Hebrew literature. The Hebrew Bible preserves much of the creativity of the ancient Israelites, but archaeological excavations in Israel and neighboring lands, as well as the discovery of ancient writings in Hebrew and related languages, have added greatly to our knowledge of life as it was lived in biblical times. The civilizations of Egypt and Syria-Mesopotamia also shed light on Israelite culture. Of particular interest is the early development of Israelite monotheism, which, in time, emerged as ancient Judaism, the mother religion of Christianity and Islam.
FALL 2007 V55.0516 World Cultures: India
Prof. Rajagopal (Culture & Communication) syllabus
By examining representations of the Indian diaspora in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Caribbean, we see that a fixed idea of "India" is misleading in the effort to understand its changing manifestations. We investigate the ways in which colonialism reshaped indigenous society, as well as the currents of religious, cultural, and political change that developed in the process, leading to Indian nationalism and its contemporary variations.
FALL 2007 V55.0529 World Cultures: Contemporary Latino Cultures
Prof. Saldana (Social & Cultural Analysis) syllabus
We begin with an examination of key historical events leading to formation of "Latino" identity in the U.S.: the 1848 U.S. war against Mexico, the 1898 U.S. war against Spain, the 1910 Mexican Revolution, the 1959 Cuban revolution, the U.S. covert wars against Central Americans in the 1980s. While Latin Americans are inevitably fleeing either poverty or political unrest, these migratory factors are often set in motion by direct territorial expansion and annexation of Latin America by the U.S., or by its neo-colonial relations of economic "development" strategies and covert intelligence operations. Second, we examine the psychic life of race through poststructuralist and psychoanalytic theories of subject and psychic formation (Foucault, Freud, Butler). Finally, we explore the cultural production--theater, film, literature, and visual art--produced by Latinos in the U.S. in the 20th century. Authors include Americo Paredes, Julia Burgos, Tomas Rivera, Piri Thomas, Sandra Estevez, Reinaldo Arenas, Lourdes Casal, Rodolfo Gonzalez, Miguel Pinero, Marjorie Agosin, Cherrie Moraga, Achy Obejas. Filmmakers: Robert Young, Luis Valdez, Cristina Ibarr, Alex Rivera. Performance and visual artists: Culture Clash, John Leguezamo, Esther Hernandez, Carmen Lomas Garza, Isis Rodriguez, Guillermo Gomez Peña.
FALL 2007 V55.0536 World Cultures: Indigenous Australia
Prof. Myers (Anthropology) syllabus
The indigenous people of Australia have long been the subject of interest and imagination by outsiders for their cultural formulations of kinship, ritual, art, gender, and politics, and they have entered into representations as distinctively "Other"—whether in negative or positive formulations of the "Primitive." These representations—in feature films about them such as Walkabout and Rabbit Proof Fence, in New Age Literature, or museum exhibitions—are now also in dialogue with their own forms of cultural production. At the same time, Aboriginal people have struggled to reproduce themselves and their traditions in their own terms, asserting their right to forms of cultural autonomy and self-determination. We explore the historical and geographical range of Aboriginal Australian forms of social being through ethnographic texts, art, novels, autobiographies, film and other media, and consider the ways in which identity is being challenged and constructed.
SPRING 2008 V55.0500 World Cultures: Topics - Nations and Nationalism: Islam, Jews and the West
Prof. Berenson (History) syllabus
Considers problems of nationalism and national identity in the modern world: what a nation is, how nations came to be, what historical experiences particular nations have undergone, and what forms of nationalism their peoples have displayed. In pursuing these objectives, we examine different theories of nationalism and then look in detail at four case studies, each representing a different form of nationalism: 1) The rise of Arab nations and nationalism amid the collapse empire—Ottoman, British, and French (1914-58); the extreme racist nationalism epitomized by Nazi Germany (1918-45); the nationalism of the movement for national liberation in Algeria (1954-62); and the rival religion-tinged nationalisms of Jews and Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians, since 1917. We conclude with some reflections on the persistence of nationalism in our globalized world.
SPRING 2008 V55.0502 World Cultures: Islamic Societies
Prof. Gilsenan (Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies) syllabus
One of the most widespread and fastest-growing religious traditions in the contemporary world, Islam attracts a disproportionate share of media attention, much of it negative and distorted. Through readings of primary texts in translation, we examine and problematize prevalent images of Islam and engage with various facets of the tradition. Often perceived as monolithic, Islamic discourse provides a range of symbols, concepts, and practices that have been appropriated and re-interpreted in many ways in different historical and cultural contexts. We survey many of the most influential trends in Islamic thought and practice (including Islamic law, ritual, and mysticism) and trace the ways in which they have been redefined and transformed in changing circumstances.
SPRING 2008 V55.0505 World Cultures: Africa
Prof. Beidelman (Anthropology) syllabus
Key concepts for understanding sub-Saharan African cultures and societies, and ways of thinking critically and consulting sources sensibly when studying non-Western cultures. Topics include: problems in the interpretation of African literature and history, gender issues, the question of whether African thought and values constitute a unique system of thinking, the impact of the slave trade and colonialism on African societies and culture, and the difficulties of and means for translating and interpreting the system of thought and behavior in an African traditional society into terms meaningful to Westerners. Among the readings are novels, current philosophical theory, and feminist interpretations of black and white accounts of African societies.
SPRING 2008 V55.0505 World Cultures: Africa
Prof. Hull (History) syllabus
Vital issues facing contemporary African cultures through an exploration of their genesis. Our human origins are explored through the findings of archaeologists, paleontologists, and molecular biologists. The problems of governance in modern Africa are viewed through the prism of political science. Conflicts between traditional and modern society are reflected in the writings of African novelists and art historians. Africa's rich musical heritage resonates through the voices of ethnomusicologists. Slavery and the slave trade are viewed through the experiences of its victims and perpetrators. Students come to appreciate the richness and diversity of African societies and develop skills at exploring issues widely, deeply, and critically.
SPRING 2008 V55.0506 World Cultures: The Chinese and Japanese Traditions
Prof. Roberts (East Asian Studies) syllabus
Essential aspects of Asian culture—Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, and Shintoism—studied through careful reading of major works of philosophy and literature. A roughly equal division between Chinese and Japanese works is meant to give a basic understanding of the broad similarities and the less obvious, but all-important, differences among the cultures of Confucian Asia. One reading is a Vietnamese adaptation of a Chinese legend. The last two readings, modern novellas from Japan and China, show the reaction of the traditional cultures to the Western invasions.
SPRING 2008 V55.0511 World Cultures: Middle Eastern Societies
Prof. Fahmy (Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies) syllabus
The histories, societies, and cultures of "the Middle East"—a relatively recent name for a very diverse region of western Asia and northern Africa. Focusing on the period from the heyday of Ottoman power in Europe and the Middle East in the sixteenth century until the present, we use a range of materials, including translated texts, novels and short stories, films and videos, and photographs, to explore changing forms of individual and collective identity, patterns of social life, and modes of government. We pay special attention to how people in the region experienced and grappled with the profound transformations their societies underwent from the eighteenth century onward, especially the expansion of European economic, political, and cultural power; colonial rule; and the rise of new nation-states. We conclude by discussing the Middle East today and some of the issues its peoples face.
SPRING 2008 V55.0514 World Cultures: Ancient Israel
Prof. Schiffman (Hebrew & Judaic Studies) syllabus
The culture of the ancient Israelite societies of biblical times and the second Temple period and the emergence of classical Judaism, covering the period from c. 1400 B.C.E. to the third century C.E. Topics include the achievements of these societies in law and social organization, prophetic movements, history of Israelite religion and early Judaism, and ancient Hebrew and Jewish literature. The Hebrew Bible and Rabbinic literature preserve much of the creativity of ancient Israel; and archaeological excavations in Israel and neighboring lands, as well as the discovery of ancient writings in Hebrew and related languages have added to our knowledge. In addition, new discoveries in the Dead Sea Scrolls contribute greatly to our understanding of the history of Judaism and the emergence of Christianity. Of particular interest is the early development of Israelite monotheism, which, in time, emerged as ancient Judaism, the mother religion of Christianity and Islam.
SPRING 2008 V55.0528 World Cultures: Russia since 1917
Prof. S. Cohen (Russian & Slavic Studies) syllabus
Major periods, developments, and interpretative issues in Russian politics, history, and society, from the 1917 revolution to the present. The emphasis is on the Soviet experience, though the Tsarist past and post-Soviet developments are also considered. Special attention is given to the role of historical traditions, leadership, ideology, ramifying events, and socioeconomic factors.
SPRING 2008 V55.0537 World Cultures: Modern Israel
Prof. Zweig (Hebrew & Judaic Studies) syllabus
Modern Israel—Society and Culture: Despite its small size and population, Israel is a diverse, dynamic, and complex society. To understand its ethnic, religious, and political divisions, the different ethnic origins of the Jewish population over the last 150 years will be examined, and the growing role of the Arab population (approaching 20%) in Israeli society will be discussed. The special role of religion in the secular state, the development of Hebrew speaking culture, the political system, the settlement movement and the peace movement, gender issues, and the role of the army in everyday life are all addressed, concluding with a survey of the debate on whether Israel is a Jewish state or a state of all its citizens. Although the controversial issues that keep Israel in the headlines are touched on, the focus is the character of Israeli society and the impact on everyday life of living in the international limelight.
SPRING 2008 V55.0539 World Cultures: Asian/Pacific/American Cultures
Prof. Pham (Social and Cultural Analysis) syllabus
Major issues in the historical and contemporary experiences of Asian Pacific Americans, including migration, modernization, racial formation, community-building, and political mobilization, among others. Asian Pacific America encompasses a complex, diverse, and rapidly changing population of people. As an expression/reflection of their cultural identities, historical conditions, and political efforts, we pay particular attention to Asian Americans' use of cultural productions-films, literature, art, media, and popular culture.
top of page
Societies and the Social Sciences
The Societies and the Social Sciences component can be satisfied through completion of an approved major or minor program, by completing an approved department course or by completing a special MAP course offering.
Expressive Culture
FALL 2007 V55.0720 Expressive Culture: Images
Prof. Rice (Art History)
What is the place of art in an image-saturated world? We begin by considering the power and taboo of images and the ways in which individuals and institutions that constitute "the art world" classify some of these images as works of art, turn to explore the visual and conceptual challenges presented by major works of sculpture, architecture, and painting, and conclude with a selection of problems raised by art today. Students develop the vocabulary to both appreciate and question the artistic "gestures" of society in various places and times.
FALL 2007 V55.0722 Expressive Culture: Images - Architecture in New York Field Study
Prof. Broderick (Art History) syllabus
New York's rich architectural heritage offers a unique opportunity for firsthand consideration of the concepts and styles of modern urban architecture, as well as its social, financial, and cultural contexts. Meets once a week for an extended period combining on-campus lectures with group excursions to prominent buildings. Attention is given both to individual buildings as examples of 19th- and 20th-century architecture and to phenomena such as the development of the skyscraper and the adaptation of older buildings to new uses.
FALL 2007 V55.0730 Expressive Culture: Sounds
Prof. Beckerman (Music)
Our lives pulsate with patterns of sounds that we call music. We encounter these sounds in our homes, cars, stores, and exercise salons; they accompany us to the grocery store, the dentist's office, and the movies; yet we rarely think consciously about what they mean. Through a series of specific case studies we investigate the function and significance of music and the musician in human life. We raise basic questions about how music has been created, produced, perceived, and evaluated at diverse historical moments, in a variety of geographical locations, and among different cultural groups. Through aural explorations and discussion of how these vivid worlds "sound" in time and space, we assess the value of music in human experience.
FALL 2007 V55.0730 Expressive Culture: Sounds
Prof. Daughtry (Music) syllabus
By concentrating on the voice-by allowing ourselves to "get lost" in the voice for a time-we will gain a new appreciation for its complexity and its power in our lives. We give primary emphasis to a number of musical voices, including those of throat singers, beatbox artists, singers of experimental jazz, Colombian traditional and African-American gospel music. At the same time, we also think about voice as the result of a complex physiological process; a vehicle for communication; a gendered, racialized and in other ways essentialized text; a technologically-mediated commodity; and a master trope for all manners of identity and agency. We will attend to voices that silence others and voices that have been silenced themselves, and in so doing learn something about the voice's articulation with politics, ethics, and violence. Perhaps most importantly, though, we will use our own voices, both to generate our own discourse and to experience the visceral and intellectual pleasure of making a chorus of sounds together.
FALL 2007 V55.0740 Expressive Culture: Performance
Prof. Harries (English) syllabus
Examines selected plays central to the development of Western drama, with critical emphasis on a cultural, historical, and theatrical analysis of these works. Includes Greek and Roman drama, medieval drama, French neoclassical drama, and theater of the European Renaissance. Topics include ritual, the politics of theater, popular performance practices, and the histories of genres, especially tragedy.
Note: For Fall 2007, this course is approved by the Department of English and the Program in Dramatic Literature to substitute for V41.0125 / V30.0110, History of Drama and Theater I.
FALL 2007 V55.0750 Expressive Culture: Film
Prof. Z. Zhang (Cinema Studies) syllabus
Examines contemporary urban films produced in the People's Republic of China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. The recent geopolitical reconfigurations of the region and the forces of globalization have exerted great pressure on the disparate yet increasingly interconnected film industries centered in four Chinese metropolises (Hong Kong, Taipei, Beijing, Shanghai), as well as unleashed new creative energy. We focus on the innovative cinematic articulations of new urban and cosmopolitan identities as a result of intensified local, regional, and global interactions in the 1990s. A related inquiry concerns the conversations between the Chinese-language film world with the larger transnational scene of film production and reception, including the important roles played by festival culture, trans-Asia popular culture, and diasporic crossings. Screenings include works by Hou Hsiao-hsien, Ang Lee, Wong Kar-wei, Fruit Chan, Jia Zhangke, Ning Ying, and others.
SPRING 2008 V55.0720 Expressive Culture: Images
Prof. Silver (Art History) syllabus
What is the place of art in an image-saturated world? We begin by considering the power and taboo of images and the ways in which individuals and institutions that constitute "the art world" classify some of these images as works of art, turn to explore the visual and conceptual challenges presented by major works of sculpture, architecture, and painting, and conclude with a selection of problems raised by art today. Students develop the vocabulary to both appreciate and question the artistic "gestures" of society in various places and times.
SPRING 2008 V55.0721 Expressive Culture: Images - Painting and Sculpture in New York Field Study
Prof. Broderick (Art History) syllabus
New York's public art collections contain important examples of painting and sculpture from almost every phase of the past, as well as some of the world's foremost works of contemporary art. Meets once a week for an extended period combining on-campus lectures with group excursions to the museums or other locations where these works are exhibited.
SPRING 2008 V55.0730 Expressive Culture: Sounds
Prof. Mueller (Music) syllabus
Our lives pulsate with patterns of sounds that we call music. We encounter these sounds in our homes, cars, stores, and exercise salons; they accompany us to the grocery store, the dentist's office, and the movies; yet we rarely think consciously about what they mean. Through a series of specific case studies we investigate the function and significance of music and the musician in human life. We raise basic questions about how music has been created, produced, perceived, and evaluated at diverse historical moments, in a variety of geographical locations, and among different cultural groups. Through aural explorations and discussion of how these vivid worlds "sound" in time and space, we assess the value of music in human experience.
SPRING 2008 V55.0730 Expressive Culture: Sounds
Prof. Daughtry (Music)
By concentrating on the voice-by allowing ourselves to "get lost" in the voice for a time-we will gain a new appreciation for its complexity and its power in our lives. We give primary emphasis to a number of musical voices, including those of throat singers, beatbox artists, singers of experimental jazz, Colombian traditional and African-American gospel music. At the same time, we also think about voice as the result of a complex physiological process; a vehicle for communication; a gendered, racialized and in other ways essentialized text; a technologically-mediated commodity; and a master trope for all manners of identity and agency. We will attend to voices that silence others and voices that have been silenced themselves, and in so doing learn something about the voice's articulation with politics, ethics, and violence. Perhaps most importantly, though, we will use our own voices, both to generate our own discourse and to experience the visceral and intellectual pleasure of making a chorus of sounds together.
SPRING 2008 V55.0750 Expressive Culture: Film
Prof. Simon (Cinema Studies) syllabus
American narrative films, produced primarily during the period 1965-75, considered as an innovative cycle of filmmaking in dialogue with significant historical, political, and cultural transformations in American society. Examines developments in film genre during this period especially in relation to political and cultural change. Narrative innovations are emphasized, with special attention to the specificity of film form and style (e.g., editing, mise-en-scène, sound). Provides an introduction to the methods and principles of film analysis as well as dealing with this period of filmmaking in depth. Includes films by Kubrick, Coppola, Altman, and Scorsese.