Baruch College

Office of the Registrar

Spring 2010 Special Topics Courses

ANT 3085 KM24: Topic: Ethnography of the US

ART 3040 OU3: Topic: Contemporary Art

BLS 3085 KM24: Topic: Nuyoricans Poetry, Culture and Identity

COM 4101 MW6A: Topic: Writing for Public Relations

COM 4101 T6A: Topic: Writing for Public Relations

COM 4101 XZ13A: Topic: Public Relations Campaigns

COM 4900 MW6A: Topic: Conflict Resolution

COM 4900 TR6A: Topic: Conflict Resolution

COM 4900 TV24A: Topic: Ethical Issues in Professional Communication

ENG 2100 DG24A: Topic: The Dramatic in English Literature

ENG 2100 JM13B: Topic: Witnessing the World Around Us

ENG 2100 PS13A: Topic: Crazy in Love

ENG 2100 TW24A: Topic: Music and Identity

ENG 2100 MW74A: Topic: Hauntology

ENG 2100 TR54A: Topic: Becoming: Transformation and Self-Discovery

ENG 2100T EL13A: Topic: Entrepreneur Report

ENG 2100T EL24A: Topic: Science, Technology, and Society

ENG 2100T TZ13A: Topic: The Eye of the Beholder

ENG 2100T TR57A: Topic: Intellectual Milestones: Coming of Age as a Critical Thinker and Writer

ENG 2150 AD24A: Topic: Belonging in America: Immigration, Place, and Spectacle

ENG 2150 DG13B: Topic: Happiness

ENG 2150 DG13C: Topic: Food Glorious Food: Sustainable Agriculture and Social Justice Issues

ENG 2150 DG13D: Topic: The Myth of the Vampire: Cultural Reinventions of Bloodsuckers

ENG 2150 DG13E: Topic: Americans on Planet Earth: Where Are We Going?

ENG 2150 DG24A: Topic: You Can’t Pick Your Family: Learning from Literature

ENG 2150 DG24B: Topic: Music, Lyrics and Language

ENG 2150 DG24D: Topic: Food Glorious Food: Sustainable Agriculture and Social Justice Issues

ENG 2150 DG24E: Topic: Magic, Myths and Dreams

ENG 2150 FJ13A: Topic: Immigration

ENG 2150 FJ13B: Topic: The View from the Margins

ENG 2150 FJ13C: Topic: The Power of Darkness

ENG 2150 JM13A: Topic: Uncreative Writing

ENG 2150 JM13B: Topic: Americans on Planet Earth: Where Are We Going?

ENG 2150 JM13D: Topic: The American Dream

ENG 2150 JM13F: Topic: The Mystery Narrative and its Derivatives

ENG 2150 JM13G: Topic: At War with Ourselves: Literature of Psychological Challenge

ENG 2150 JM24B: Topic: You Can’t Pick Your Family: Learning from Literature

ENG 2150 JM24D: Topic: The Dramatic in English Literature

ENG 2150 JM24E: Topic: Humor: Mirth to the Absurd

ENG 2150 JM24F: Topic: Culture and Identity

ENG 2150 LP13A: Topic: Immigration

ENG 2150 LP13B: Topic: Race and Justice

ENG 2150 PS13A: Topic: Writing the Lives of Women

ENG 2150 PS13B: Topic: The American Dream

ENG 2150 PS13D: Topic: Social Upheaval and Ibsen’s Legacy

ENG 2150 PS13E: Topic: Humor: Mirth to the Absurd

ENG 2150 RU13B: Topic: The Power of Darkness

ENG 2150 RU13C: Topic: The Mystery Narrative and its Derivatives

ENG 2150 TW24B: Topic: Magic, Myths and Dreams

ENG 2150 TW24C: Topic: Food 101

ENG 2150 TW24E: Topic: Authorship: A Study in the Nature of Authority

ENG 2150 TW24G: Topic: Living with New Media

ENG 2150 UX13A: Topic: Autobiographical Narratives

ENG 2150 UX13C: Topic: Social Upheaval and Ibsen’s Legacy

ENG 2150 WZ13B: Topic: Crazy in Love

ENG 2150 MW54A: Topic: Politics and Literature

ENG 2150 TR54A: Topic: The American Dream

ENG 2150 TR54B: Topic: Literary Spaces: Places and Absence in Multicultural Literature

ENG 2150 TR54C: Topic: Food 101

ENG 2150T FM24A: Topic: Food: Choices, Celebrations, Consequences

ENG 2150T TZ13A: Topic: Reading the World

ENG 2150T TZ13B: Topic: Growing Up in America

ENG 2150T MW57A: Topic: Kissing and Telling

ENG 3032 SU13A: Topic: Ethnic Literature: Asian-American Literature

ENG 3940 OQ13A: Topic:  Blaxploitation

ENG 3940H XZ24H: Topic: The Film of Anxiety, Fear, and Paranoia

ENG 3950 FH24: Topic: Narrative Theory and British Detective Fiction

ENG 3950 SY3 : Topic: Poetry and Imitation

ENG 3950H SY3H: Topic: Poetry and Imitation

ENG 3950 WY13A: Topic: Mystery and Melodrama: Gothic Literature    Revisited

ENG 3950 TR73: Topic: Global Narratives and the Contemporary Novel

FLM 4900 WY13A: The Forties: Hollywood's Pivotal Decade

HIS 3360 TR6: Topic: Revolutionary France 1780-1815

HIS 3460 JL24: Topic: Sound Tracks:  American History and Pop Music    

HIS 3460 XZ13: Topic: Risk, Trust, and Confidence in American Economic

HIS 3860 PR13: Topic: United States and Latin America International

HSP 3085 KM24: Topic: Nuyoricans Poetry, Culture and Identity

IDC 4050H TV24H: Topic: New World Triad: History, Culture, and Race in  New York, New Orleans, and Havana

IDC 4050H MW6H: Topic: Cuba: From Castro to Cohibas (Cuban Cigars)

JRN 3900 KM13: Topic: Madness, Media, Mass Culture

JRN 3900 TV24: Topic: The Literature of Jazz in Journalism and the Visual Art

JRN 3900 PR13: Topic: Sports Writing

PHI 4900 MW6: Topic: Capstone Course: Memory and the Mind                 

PHI 4905 KM24: Topic: Capstone Course: Global Justice       

POL 3999 EG24: Topic: Global Governance and International Law

PSY 3042 JQ1: Topic: The Psychology of Stigma       

PSY 3042 XZ13: Topic:  The Role of Psychology in Current Global Issues

PSY 9786 M6: Topic: Training and Development

PSY 9786 R6: Topic: Job Satisfaction and Organizational Surveys

PSY 9789 M6: Topic: Training and Development

PSY 9789 R6: Topic: Job Satisfaction and Organizational Surveys

THE 4102 TZ5: Topic:  The Theatres of Asia

ANT 3085 KM24         Topic: Ethnography of the US 

We will investigate political, economic, social and cultural aspects of the United States, primarily through reading ethnographies from different theoretical orientations and periods.  These ethnographies will be complemented by readings from the fields of history, geography, economics, sociology, and social theory, in order to explore differing analyses of race, class, gender, and sexuality within the US, as well as issues like rural-urban-suburban development, changing forms of work and debt, policing and militarism, religious and social movements, and immigration.  We will also consider the challenges of conducting research in the US, including questions of reflexivity and political responsibility.  Finally, our discussions will regularly connect to the current economic crisis, domestic political debates, and the shifting role of the US in global relations.  

ART 3040 OU3            Topic: Contemporary Art

This course serves as an introduction to issues relating to the production and reception of art since 1965. We will examine the impulse towards social engagement in 20th and 21st century art, the desire to make art beyond the gallery, the global expansion of art from its previously Eurocentric frame, and the role of photography, performance as well as alternative media in art production. Spanning the historic avant-garde to current artistic practice, the course will focus on the following recurrent issues: the relationship of aesthetic form to political context, ideas of community and publicness, the ideal of collaborative artistic production, and the alternative presentations of art to its audiences. The class will consist of lecture, gallery and site-specific visits, as well as include a number of guest speakers. Prerequisite:  ART 1011 or ART 1012 or permission of the department.

BLS 3085 KM24          Topic: Nuyoricans Poetry, Culture and Identity

"The principal varieties of cultural expression of Puerto Ricans in New York City (Nuyoricans) will be examined in extensive detail.  Special attention will be given to folk culture, traditional beliefs, cultural practices, educational theories, and the tradition of Nuyorican Poetry; and will also include extensive discussion on the cultural influences, impacts and practices of popular Puerto Rican/Nuyorican experience with music in NYC.  This course will begin with a brief history of the Puerto Rican experience in New York City starting at the 1960s to the present."

COM 4101 MW6A:      Topic: Writing for Public Relations

COM 4101 T6A:          Topic: Writing for Public Relations

COM 4101 XZ13A:       Topic: Public Relations Campaigns

COM 4900 MW6A:      Topic: Conflict Resolution

COM 4900 TR6A:        Topic: Conflict Resolution

COM 4900 TV24A:   Topic: Ethical Issues in Professional Communication  

ENG 2100 DG24A: Topic: The Dramatic in English Literature

The dramatic is often an essential part of literature.  Readers are drawn by it through a work of art, and made at the end aware of a story’s significance. This is true, of plays, of course, but also short stories and poetry. The course, starting with Antigone, a play by Sophocles; Romeo and Juliet, a play by Shakespeare; “My Last Dutchess”, a poem by Browning; “Young Goodman Brown,” a short story by Hawthorne; “The Killers,” a short story by Hemingway; and ending with “The Lottery,” a short story by Shirley Jackson, will also help the student understand how the dramatic differs from other ways of storytelling. Through this process, the students will come to understand how the dramatic strengthens the social significance of each work. The students will attend a play, meet the actors, and will have the opportunity to ask questions of the director and actors.  In addition, the students will write 5 papers that emphasize different kinds of writing practices in order to help them use writing to learn.

First and foremost, however, this will be a course in written composition. The primary purpose of this course will be to enhance students’ writing skills and rhetorical sophistication, particularly with regard to argumentative prose. The goal is to prepare students not only for success in academic writing but also for effective participation in and critical understanding of the public and professional discourses of the "real" world beyond school.

ENG 2100 JM13B: Topic: Witnessing the World Around Us

We are witnesses to the world around us, often bridging, in our lives, the personal and political, what we might call the social.  In this class, we will delve into how the private and public influence one another, the way historical and social conditions connect our daily lives to the public sphere, rendering us indirect or direct witnesses.  The texts were selected to inspire deep thought about ethics and the social world, about racism, sexism, the ecology, economics, forms of oppression, and the ways in which writers of different genres (short fiction, poetry, drama, non-fiction) think about language as a critical means of encouraging change and awareness of injustices, as well as how it is sometimes used to do the opposite.  Readings will include texts by Martin Luther King, Jr., John Stuart Mill, Virginia Woolf, Mark Twain, Anne Frank, Toni Morrison, among others.  

First and foremost, this will be a course in written composition. Along with considering the course’s theme, the emphasis will be on the development of your expository writing, on the processes and methods by which you can transform ideas into well-organized and original formal essays, while expanding your understanding of the conventions of written English and your ability to use language properly and powerfully.  As you learn academic essay forms such as the “argument,” all writing, reading assignments and class discussions will encourage you to think and write imaginatively, as well as analytically, and to find your own voice.

ENG 2100 PS13A: Topic: Crazy in Love

Dante writes, “Behold a god more powerful than I, who, coming, will rule over me.” The god referred to here is Love, and Dante literarily goes through hell for it.

In this course, we will look at love through the poetry of such masters as Dante, Shakespeare, Marvell, Whitman, Dickinson, Rossetti, and Donne, and through stories by Chopin, Gilman, Hong Kingston, Natalia Ginzberg, Virginia Woolf, Hemingway, Faulkner, Langston Hughes, Irwin Shaw, and Updike, among others. We will read plays by David Ives and Susan Glaspell, excerpts of novels by Marguerite Duras, Jean Rhys, and Tim O’Brien, and also examine films on the topic. We will read these works closely to analyze how culture, social mores, gender, and the theme of madness affected the writings about love in different epochs.

First and foremost, however, this will be a course in written composition. The primary purpose of this course is to enhance students’ writing skills and rhetorical sophistication, particularly with regard to argumentative prose. The goal is to prepare students not only for success in academic writing but also for effective participation in and critical understanding of the public and professional discourses of the "real" world beyond school.

ENG 2100 TW24A: Topic: Music and Identity

Music is something that we can all relate to.  In fact, scientific studies have shown that music forms an integral part of our experience from even before birth.  Every single one of us is inundated with music on a daily basis from a variety of different media and in an array of different contexts.  We encounter music in theme songs and jingles on television, songs played at important ceremonial events like weddings, funerals, and graduations, nursery rhymes sung by parents, and even in the bass booming from a car stereo when we’re trying to sleep at three in the morning.  Music is also a vital part of both the most intimate and the most public aspects of our lives; it involves many of the issues that are important to us, including those related to politics, race, class, sexuality, family, love, war, work, leisure, and many others. 

Using Music and Culture, a reader edited by Anna Tomasino, we will look at a wide variety of approaches to writing about music through a number of different genres, including biography, autobiography, journalism, official government documents, and scholarly analysis.

First and foremost, this will be a course in written composition. The primary purpose of this course is to enhance students’ writing skills and rhetorical sophistication, particularly with regard to argumentative prose. The goal is to prepare students not only for success in academic writing but also for effective participation in and critical understanding of the public and professional discourses of the "real" world beyond school.

ENG 2100 MW74A: Topic: Hauntology

In this class we'll be exploring the figure of the haunting, examining the narrative and metaphorical dimensions of the haunted mind, the haunted house, and the haunted community. Hauntology (the study of being haunted) is a place where literature, psychoanalysis, and daily life can come into communication with one another. As such, our readings will draw from fiction, psychoanalysis, and contemporary journalism, including Freud's "Mourning and Melancholia," Laurence Rickels' Aberrations of Mourning, Wendy Brown's Politics Out of History, Shirley Jackson's Haunting of Hill House, and Henry James' Turn of the Screw. Additionally, we will be viewing a few exemplary films, including Poltergeist and Psycho. 

First and foremost, however, this will be a course in written composition. The primary purpose of this course will be to enhance students’ writing skills and rhetorical sophistication, particularly with regard to argumentative prose. The goal is to prepare students not only for success in academic writing but also for effective participation in and critical understanding of the public and professional discourses of the "real" world beyond school.

ENG 2100 TR54A: Topic: Becoming: Transformation and Self-Discovery

 Our lives are a long journey of development and transformation. During this journey, we grow and change at least partially as a result of our interactions with our immediate environment and those around us.  Although most of us may be only dimly aware of their significance, these interactions and the way we live them provide insights into the people we become as adults.  This dynamic offers fertile ground for writers pondering aspects of the human experience.

In this course, we will analyze, discuss and write about the ways various writers have considered the experiences of and influences on individuals on their paths from childhood to adulthood.  Our readings will include short stories, poems and at least one play that look at how we are shaped by our childhood, loss of innocence, family, expectations and cultural heritage and identity.  Our texts will be drawn mostly from the works of late 19th to 21st century English-speaking writers.  Among these are Gerard Manley Hopkins, Kate Chopin, James Joyce, William Faulkner, Theodore Roethke, Dylan Thomas, James Baldwin, Toni Cade Bambara, Alice Walker, August Wilson, Amy Tan, Ray A. Young Bear and Lorna Dee Cervantes.

ENG 2100T EL13A: Topic: Entrepreneur Report

There are over 200,000 small-business entrepreneurs in New York City; men and women who own their own businesses. In this course, students will read a variety of articles, short stories, short biographies and essays about these peoples and the problems facing them. We will read excerpts from the books "The Millionaire Next Door" and "Millionaire Women Next Door," short stories such as Hemingway's "Cat In The Rain" and essays about mid-century New York in Joseph Mitchell's "Up In The Old Hotel." and the historic essay "Black Innovators and Entrepreneurs Under Capitalism." Entrepreneurs in developing countries are represented in "Lessons from the Poor: Triumph of the Entrepreneurial Spirit." Students will also investigate the role of the small business entrepreneur and prepare a written report of their findings

In this writing course, intended for students who speak languages in addition to English, multiple writing assignments will help second-language students improve their skills in standard and idiomatic English.

ENG 2100T EL24A: Topic: Science, Technology, and Society

This course will examine how science and technology impact nature and society within shifting institutional, cultural and political contexts. Topics will include earth science, astronomy, bio medicine, high-energy physics and the technology around us. The course will trace the development and application of these various scientific avenues of research and discovery to assess how their applications influence power, politics, nature, and our everyday lives.

Readings will include a host of current events articles connected to global warming, health and medicine, the application and availability of military technology, terrorism, and how everyday high-tech gadgets impact culture and how we communicate.

Literary texts will include various readings from the English Romantic poets, with an emphasis on works by Wordsworth, PB Shelley, a short novel by Mary Shelley, and possibly an additional short novel (TBA).

First and foremost, however, this T section is a course in written composition for speakers of languages in addition to English. The primary purpose of this course will be to enhance students’ writing skills, particularly with regard to argumentative prose as well as to improve fluency in written English. The goal is to prepare students not only for success in academic writing but also for effective participation in and critical understanding of the public and professional discourses of the "real" world beyond school.

ENG 2100T TZ13A: Topic: The Eye of the Beholder

We view, we interpret, and we give meaning to all things we encounter visually – so much so, that we often encounter images with a certain amount of passivity, never pausing to ask ourselves how an image works aesthetically, sociologically, and psychologically.  This course is a writing course intended for speakers of languages in addition to English;  while we will spend much of our energy studying the process of essay writing, essay structure, methods of analysis, methods of argument, and sentence-level grammar, we will center our writing on the ideas we glean from our studies of the image.  We will study the fine arts and photography, pop culture images, advertisements, comic books, and literature.  Readings will include two graphic novels (Jimmy Corrigan by Chris Ware, and Palestine by Joe Sacco) one novella (Women Without Men by Shahrnush Parsipur), one book of essays (Ways of Seeing by John Berger), one book on writing (Seeing and Writing by Donald McQuade and Christine McQuade), and various handouts.  In addition to readings and classroom discussions, we will take a field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Students will write several short, ungraded assignments, three three-page papers, and a final six-page persuasive paper; students will also give a group presentation.

ENG 2100T TR57A: Topic: Intellectual Milestones: Coming of Age as a Critical Thinker and Writer

All of you are in the process of “coming of age.” As you start your college experience, you are marking the passage from adolescence to young adulthood. Some of you already have had a head start in this process by leaving your country to begin a new life in America, whether on your own or with family. We can think of these events as “milestones,” or rites of passage. In this course, we will read essays, short stories and articles that deal with this theme. Authors will describe their own milestones, both developmentally and intellectually, as they refer to such topics as childhood memories, customs and trends, gender differences, racism, environmental protection and animal rights.

The course begins with a close look at the narrative essay and progresses toward a focus on argument.  Students will write four typed papers, present an oral report, and participate in a variety of writing and speaking activities. Specific assignments include essays about Richard Wright’s transformation by reading H. L. Mencken (Black Boy), the shaping of Russell Baker’s personality as a child growing up in the Great Depression (Growing Up), the history of slavery and struggle for civil rights in America as depicted by Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King, Jr. (“The Meaning of the Fourth of July for the Negro,” “Letter from Birmingham Jail”), and the protest of environmentalist Edward Abbey against the misuse of national parks (“Polemic: Industrial Tourism and the National Parks”).

The primary goal of this course is to improve your expository writing. To this end, you will be introduced to academic writing and learn how to organize and develop ideas into coherent, interesting and effective essays that respond to a text. As you “wrestle with” your own opinions and beliefs, you will be coming of age both as a critical thinker and writer.

ENG 2150 AD24A: Topic: Belonging in America: Immigration, Place, and Spectacle

In this course we will explore what it means to belong in a nation and more specific locations within it such as classrooms, neighborhoods, or workplaces.  We will think about who is in control of belonging.  We will read documents describing requirements of U.S. citizenship, short stories, poems, and autobiographical essays by immigrants and their children such as Richard Rodriguez’s “Complexion” and Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue.”  We will view two PBS documentaries about migrant farm work and illegal immigration. We will also view the 1961 film version of Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun and read the graphic novel Jimmy Corrigan, The Smartest Kid on Earth as we think about what it means to belong and feel comfortable in a neighborhood, home, or family as well as what gets in the way of such comfort.  Lastly, we will view clips from reality TV and listen to musical selections as we analyze what it means to be and/or view a spectacle versus belong in ordinary life.

First and foremost, however, this will be a course in written composition. The primary purpose of this course will be to enhance students’ writing skills and rhetorical sophistication, particularly with regard to argumentative prose. The goal is to prepare students not only for success in academic writing but also for effective participation in and critical understanding of the public and professional discourses of the "real" world beyond school. This course requires three formal papers, short writing assignments, reading quizzes, and active participation.

ENG 2150 DG13B: Topic: Happiness

Everyone wants to be happy, or at least we all think we do. But what is happiness? Why do advertisements, pharmaceutical companies, doctors, parents, and friends all think they know the big answer?

In “Happiness,” Dead Prez writes, “we can’t escape from the realness/happiness is all in the mind.” Following this notion that “happiness is all in the mind,” this course will begin by exploring and interrogating recent work in the recent field of psychology often referred to as “happiness studies,” beginning with excerpts from Daniel Gilbert’s Stumbling on Happiness. The course will also include a wide variety of texts, with an emphasis placed on looking at scientific studies and newspaper articles alongside literature (both contemporary and canonical). Some possibilities include: experiments with personality tests and happiness barometers, Todd Solondz’s film, Happiness (1998), “Brain Gain” by Margaret Talbot, selections from Cicero, Mark Twain, Emily Dickinson, Ralph Ellison, and Susan Sontag. Through a wide variety of readings and writing assignments, a focus will be placed on the connection between ideas and human culture.   This course will emphasize both the process and product of academic writing through in-class writing assignments, weekly response papers, rough draft workshops, self and peer edits, and individual conferences with me.

ENG 2150 DG13C: Topic: Food Glorious Food: Sustainable Agriculture and Social Justice Issues

 Ever since the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge tempted Eve, food has been a subject of endless fascination in prose and poetry. Food reveals our values, assumptions, and sometimes, political convictions. What we eat, where it grows, who grows it and why, is fast becoming a central social justice issue within the scope and complexity of oil and fossil fuels usage. Is the small, multi-crop farmer a relic of an agrarian American long past, or will the growing Farmers Green Market movement (or the 100-mile movement) reshape the way Americans choose to eat? In this course, we will discuss food from a historical and literary perspective to improve our critical writing and thinking skills.

In New York City, the largest urban setting in the country, the Farmers Market and Handmade Food Renaissance producer offer an alternative model to corporate style agri-business and reinforce the need in an economic crisis for tightly knit entrepreneurial alliances. At the same time, Internet-based social networks are now increasingly important to Foodies and local farmers alike.

First and foremost, however, this will be a course in written composition. The primary purpose of this course will be to enhance students’ writing skills and rhetorical sophistication, particularly with regard to argumentative prose. The goal is to prepare students not only for success in academic writing but also for effective participation in and critical understanding of the public and professional discourses of the "real" world beyond school.

ENG 2150 DG13D: Topic: The Myth of the Vampire: Cultural Reinventions of Bloodsuckers

Although we live in an age of science and secularism, perhaps no myth of the supernatural has had equal popularity and appeal as the vampire narrative. This course will investigate the reinvention and reinterpretation of these stories over the last two-hundred years. From Bram Stoker’s classic, Dracula, to contemporary incarnations such as the characters in Stephenie Meyer’s series, Twilight, we will study how writers have adapted the vampire myth to the needs and desires of their audiences while at the same time drawing off a universal fear and fascination with macabre narratives. The course will focus on a central debate: are vampires blank screens on which writers and readers project their own cultural interests (for example, vampire stories being allegories for adolescent experiences with sexuality) or do they represent emotions that are primal in all human beings (lust, consumption, power, etc.)? Readings will include Bram Stoker’s Dracula (A Norton Critical Edition), Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire, Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight, and The Penguin Book of Vampire Stories.

Since this is a continuation of English 2100, we will hone our analytical skills through the practice of writing. Although most of our discussions will be focused on the vampire theme, we will spend several classes practicing methods for writing about literature. Course requirements will include vigorous class participation, several short response papers, weekly quizzes, three formal essays, a midterm and a final exam. Additionally, two films will be shown outside of class.

ENG 2150 DG13E: Topic: Americans on Planet Earth: Where Are We Going?

Using sources from film, media, literature, environmental science, business, news reports and personal narratives, the class will investigate the current conditions of the natural world. Readings will be taken from the works of authors like Walt Whitman, Al Gore, Rachel Carson, Henry David Thoreau, Sarah Orne Jewett, John Muir, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Annie Dillard. Topics will include current issues related to water, air, land use, the food chain, climate, energy, endangered species and population. We will work to gain insight into what it means for each of us to become a good citizen, participating in the government not just of a nation, but of the world.

First and foremost, however, this will be a course in written composition. The primary purpose of this course will be to enhance students’ writing skills and rhetorical sophistication, particularly with regard to argumentative prose. The goal is to prepare students not only for success in academic writing but also for effective participation in and critical understanding of the public and professional discourses of the "real" world beyond school.

ENG 2150 DG24A: Topic: You Can’t Pick Your Family: Learning from Literature

What does family mean?  How is it portrayed in literature?  How do people deal with various situations?  We will examine how there are different definitions of family.  In addition, we will observe various strategies people use to survive in the family.  Hopefully, since you can’t pick your family you will learn from literature how to make the best of the situation.

The textbook will be Literature: The Human Experience Reading and Writing Edited by Richard Abcarian and Marvin Klotz, Shorter Ninth Edition, 2007, NY: Bedford/St. Martin’s.  We will read about the absent parent.  Some of the selections will include “Araby” by James Joyce, “Good Country People” by Flannery O’Connor, “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, and “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

First and foremost, however, this will be a course in written composition. The primary purpose of this course will be to enhance students’ writing skills and rhetorical sophistication, particularly with regard to argumentative prose. The goal is to prepare students not only for success in academic writing but also for effective participation in and critical understanding of the public and professional discourses of the "real" world beyond school.

ENG 2150 DG24B: Topic: Music, Lyrics and Language

In this course, students will analyze and compose argumentative essays about a broad sampling of 19th- and 20th-century writers and musicians including Ashbery, James Baldwin, Miles Davis, Annie Dillard, Bob Dylan, George Gershwin, Robert Hayden, Wallace Stevens, Walt Whitman and Thom Yorke. Students will read a variety of argumentative essays, and will also study lyricism: the differences between poem and song, the ways that language contains elements of sound and the way that language changes when it is coupled with music. There will also be an emphasis on rhetorical language, and the specious ways that a stirring speech or performance might “convince” even if it is absent logical reason: the notion that a person might be swayed by a dynamically performed political speech in the same way that they are “convinced” by live or recorded music.

First and foremost, however, this will be a course in written composition. The primary purpose of this course will be to enhance students’ writing skills and rhetorical sophistication, particularly with regard to argumentative prose. The goal is to prepare students not only for success in academic writing but also for effective participation in and critical understanding of the public and professional discourses of the "real" world beyond school.

ENG 2150 DG24D: Topic: Food Glorious Food: Sustainable Agriculture and Social Justice Issues

 Ever since the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge tempted Eve, food has been a subject of endless fascination in prose and poetry. Food reveals our values, assumptions, and sometimes, political convictions. What we eat, where it grows, who grows it and why, is fast becoming a central social justice issue within the scope and complexity of oil and fossil fuels usage. Is the small, multi-crop farmer a relic of an agrarian American long past, or will the growing Farmers Green Market movement (or the 100-mile movement) reshape the way Americans choose to eat? In this course, we will discuss food from a historical and literary perspective to improve our critical writing and thinking skills.

In New York City, the largest urban setting in the country, the Farmers Market and Handmade Food Renaissance producer offer an alternative model to corporate style agri-business and reinforce the need in an economic crisis for tightly knit entrepreneurial alliances. At the same time, Internet-based social networks are now increasingly important to Foodies and local farmers alike.

First and foremost, however, this will be a course in written composition. The primary purpose of this course will be to enhance students’ writing skills and rhetorical sophistication, particularly with regard to argumentative prose. The goal is to prepare students not only for success in academic writing but also for effective participation in and critical understanding of the public and professional discourses of the "real" world beyond school.

ENG 2150 DG24E: Topic: Magic, Myths and Dreams

The persistence of myths, archetypal patterns, magical transformations and ghosts in drama and stories from Oedipus to the present.  Using Edith Hamilton’s Mythology as a jumping off point, we will look at the way writers from Sophocles and Shakespeare to Kafka, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Joyce Carol Oates and Margaret Atwood have made use of the mysterious and the otherworldly in their works.

First and foremost, however, this will be a course in written composition. The primary purpose of this course will be to enhance students’ writing skills and rhetorical sophistication, particularly with regard to argumentative prose. The goal is to prepare students not only for success in academic writing but also for effective participation in and critical understanding of the public and professional discourses of the "real" world beyond school.

ENG 2150 FJ13A: Topic: Immigration

The theme of this course is Immigration. Our readings will be drawn from Imagining America, the Persea Press anthology of short stories edited by Wesley Brown and Amy Ling.  First and foremost, however, this will be a course in written composition. The primary purpose of this course will be to enhance students’ writing skills and rhetorical sophistication, particularly with regard to argumentative prose. The goal is to prepare students not only for success in academic writing but also for effective participation in and critical understanding of the public and professional discourses of the "real" world beyond school.

ENG 2150 FJ13B: Topic: The View from the Margins

While much great literature has described the fictional feats of larger-than-life heroes, many of literature’s most memorable figures have been drawn from the margins of society and can be defined against the contours of the conventional hero. In this course, we will explore novels, short stories, non-fiction, art, and film that feature “marginal” individuals – loners, outcasts, eccentrics, oddballs – and we will consider the special perspective afforded by these characters. What does it mean to be an outsider? Why is the figure of the artist or writer so frequently located on the margins of society? In what ways does modern culture sometimes privilege this “outsider’s” perspective? In addition to our reading, we will consider visual art related to our subject.

First and foremost, however, this will be a course in written composition. The primary purpose of this course will be to enhance students’ writing skills and rhetorical sophistication, particularly with regard to argumentative prose. The goal is to prepare students not only for success in academic writing but also for effective participation in and critical understanding of the public and professional discourses of the "real" world beyond school.

ENG 2150 FJ13C: Topic: The Power of Darkness

For the most part, this course will explore the choices people make to follow the dark side of their nature. The focus will be on the struggle within the human being to choose good over evil, to choose rational behavior over that behavior which is violent and destructive. The archetypal tension between Apollonian and Dionysian modes of being, so clearly presented in Greek Drama will form the beginning and end of the course--and this conflict will be followed through the entire course, as humans are shown fighting--and often losing--the battle between darkness and light, good and evil, as violence pervades much of human behavior, on individual and group (national) levels.

While it is both undeniable and obvious that humans have too often inflicted violence on other humans, the course will not focus on the violence per se, but will explore the element of choice--even desire--in those who choose violence. Of course, choice involves the possibility of restraint, self-control, and these aspects of possible choices--as well as the absence thereof --will form an essential aspect of the course. Thus, the readings, discussions, and writings in the course will focus on the WHY and the HOW of atrocious actions perpetrated by all too many people, nations, and--especially in the twentieth century--the leaders of nations. The emphasis will not be psychological, but generally philosophical. Students will be instructed to inspect, to analyze, the possible reasons, the deep motives, the behavioral choices in acts of violence, especially as these reflect the struggle between Apollonian and Dionysian forces in human nature--with a push from Narcissus as well.

ENG 2150 JM13A: Topic: Uncreative Writing

It’s clear that long-cherished notions of creativity are under attack, eroded by file-sharing, media culture, widespread sampling, and digital replication. How does writing respond to this new environment? This course will attempt to answer that question by examining such sites of appropriation as hip-hop, videogames, fan fiction, and avant-garde poetry. We will also consider the ethical and legal implications of these practices as they relate to intellectual property. In the final third of the class, we will move into a discussion of propaganda and advertising, especially as it relates to the military-entertainment complex.

In addition to traditional academic research and writing, this course will give students experience in employing strategies of appropriation, replication, plagiarism, sampling, and plundering as compositional methods for writing.

ENG 2150 JM13B: Topic: Americans on Planet Earth: Where Are We Going?

Using sources from film, media, literature, environmental science, business, news reports and personal narratives, the class will investigate the current conditions of the natural world. Readings will be taken from the works of authors like Walt Whitman, Al Gore, Rachel Carson, Henry David Thoreau, Sarah Orne Jewett, John Muir, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Annie Dillard. Topics will include current issues related to water, air, land use, the food chain, climate, energy, endangered species and population. We will work to gain insight into what it means for each of us to become a good citizen, participating in the government not just of a nation, but of the world.

First and foremost, however, this will be a course in written composition. The primary purpose of this course will be to enhance students’ writing skills and rhetorical sophistication, particularly with regard to argumentative prose. The goal is to prepare students not only for success in academic writing but also for effective participation in and critical understanding of the public and professional discourses of the "real" world beyond school.

ENG 2150 JM13D: Topic: The American Dream

This course engages the topics of immigration and The American Dream. We tackle both the myth and the reality of The American Dream and how that dream relates to large scale immigration and the immigration experience.  What is the body of rhetoric that led to the foundation and development of the United States, and how has the rhetoric evolved? What would it mean for immigrants and others to achieve The American Dream today? How does the current day immigrant experience relate to historical experiences in the U.S.? Is the notion of America as the land of opportunity for anyone around the globe a myth or reality? We will explore these pressing questions through historical and sociological texts, fictional accounts, memoirs, and film. Authors we will read include Amy Tan, Jhumpa Lahiri, Richard Rodriguez, Edwidge Danticat, Junot Diaz, Joseph O’Neill and Lucette Lagnado.

First and foremost, however, this will be a course in written composition. The primary purpose of this course will be to enhance students’ writing skills and rhetorical sophistication, particularly with regard to argumentative prose. The goal is to prepare students not only for success in academic writing but also for effective participation in and critical understanding of the public and professional discourses of the "real" world beyond school.

ENG 2150 JM13F: Topic: The Mystery Narrative and its Derivatives

The mystery narrative is one of the most popular forms in both text and film, but it is also a tradition that deeply penetrates our lives.  According to the great mythologist Joseph Campbell, every story is, ultimately, the exploration of who we, as individuals and as a people, really are.  As we do a close reading of how this genre works, we will look at a variety of media (text, art, photography, film) in order to examine how the mystery or detective narrative has been stretched and distorted into an uncomfortable, often surreal journey of the self.  Authors will include one of the first “mystery” dramatists, Sophocles, and his intriguing masterpiece, Oedipus Rex, but we will also have fun with Edgar Allen Poe and Noir writers like Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett.  Masters of Magical Realism such as Carlos Fuentes and Julio Cortàzar, and experimental writers, such as Alain Robbe-Grillet and Paul Auster, will also inform our exploration. We will end the semester by looking at how poets, such as Eliot, Rich, Sexton, Pesoa, and Nakayasu, "investigate" the darker regions of self and society.

First and foremost, however, this will be a course in written composition. The primary purpose of this course will be to enhance students’ writing skills and rhetorical sophistication, particularly with regard to argumentative prose. The written assignments  will be comprised of formal argumentative essays, shorter in-class responses to the readings, peer editing and evaluating, as well as several fun and creative exercises.  You will also be expected to participate actively and meaningfully during each class session.

ENG 2150 JM13G: Topic: At War with Ourselves: Literature of Psychological Challenge

The theme of the course will be the responses of individuals to conditions of extreme psychological challenge. Sometimes when we are going through a rough patch in our lives, we are told we are our own worst enemies. Why is this the case? The reason, more often than not, is that our trouble is caused not just by external factors but by our own demons, which prevent us from dealing effectively with whatever we perceive as threatening. This is strikingly true of Hamlet, whose own ambivalence toward completing his assigned task is an issue to which he cannot effectively respond. Likewise, Young Goodman Brown in Hawthorne's short story of that name is faced with the challenge of reconciling his ingrained Puritan morality with a suppressed desire to be free of it. Similarly, Louise Mallard in Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour," upon learning of the sudden death of her husband, is rocked by an internal conflict she didn't know existed: her love for him and an equal or stronger need to be free of him.

First and foremost, however, this will be a course in written composition. The primary purpose of this course will be to enhance students’ writing skills and rhetorical sophistication, particularly with regard to argumentative prose. The goal is to prepare students not only for success in academic writing but also for effective participation in and critical understanding of the public and professional discourses of the "real" world beyond school.

ENG 2150 JM24B: Topic: You Can’t Pick Your Family: Learning from Literature

What does family mean?  How is it portrayed in literature?  How do people deal with various situations?  We will examine how there are different definitions of family.  In addition, we will observe various strategies people use to survive in the family.  Hopefully, since you can’t pick your family you will learn from literature how to make the best of the situation.

First and foremost, however, this will be a course in written composition. The primary purpose of this course will be to enhance students’ writing skills and rhetorical sophistication, particularly with regard to argumentative prose. The goal is to prepare students not only for success in academic writing but also for effective participation in and critical understanding of the public and professional discourses of the "real" world beyond school.

ENG 2150 JM24D: Topic: The Dramatic in English Literature

The dramatic is often an essential part of literature.  Readers are drawn by it through a work of art, and made at the end aware of a story’s significance. This is true, of plays, of course, but also short stories and poetry. The course, starting with Antigone, a play by Sophocles; Romeo and Juliet, a play by Shakespeare; “My Last Dutchess”, a poem by Browning; “Young Goodman Brown,” a short story by Hawthorne; “The Killers,” a short story by Hemingway; and ending with “The Lottery,” a short story by Shirley Jackson, will also help the student understand how the dramatic differs from other ways of storytelling. Through this process, the students will come to understand how the dramatic strengthens the social significance of each work. The students will attend a play, meet the actors, and will have the opportunity to ask questions of the director and actors.  In addition, the students will write 5 papers that emphasize different kinds of writing practices in order to help them use writing to learn.

First and foremost, however, this will be a course in written composition. The primary purpose of this course will be to enhance students’ writing skills and rhetorical sophistication, particularly with regard to argumentative prose. The goal is to prepare students not only for success in academic writing but also for effective participation in and critical understanding of the public and professional discourses of the "real" world beyond school.

ENG 2150 JM24E: Topic: Humor: Mirth to the Absurd

This course will begin with Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales-–in which a colorful medieval group sets off on a pilgrimage one bright springtime day. And it will conclude with Sarah Ruhl’s imaginative contemporary play The Dead Man’s Cell Phone.

We will also read and write about comic rivalries, in romance and with siblings, as they appear in Chekhov’s one-acts “The Bear” and “The Wedding”; and in Sam Shepard’s play True West. Then, we will examine female journeys of the absurd and serious-comic sort: in Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl”; in Tim O’Brien’s “The Sweetheart of Song Tra Bong”; and in Marjane Satrapi’s  graphic arts memoir “The Socks.”

We will hear from humor experts in three fields as we explore its faces and dynamics:   in psychology, Sigmund Freud’s classic Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious;  in anthropology, Elliot Orang’s recent Engaging Humor (“Appropriate Incongruities”);  and in communications, Joanne Gilbert’s recent Performing Marginality: Humor, Gender, and Cultural Critique.

First and foremost, however, this will be a course in written composition. The primary purpose of this course will be to enhance students’ writing skills and rhetorical sophistication, particularly with regard to argumentative prose. The goal is to prepare students not only for success in academic writing but also for effective participation in and critical understanding of the public and professional discourses of the "real" world beyond school.

ENG 2150 JM24F: Topic: Culture and Identity

Anthropology, the science of physical and social origins of human behavior, defines culture as the conduct and beliefs transmitted from one generation to another. In this course, we will explore the contradictions and imperatives of various “cultures” in contemporary society by engaging with different literary genres (short fiction, novel, screenplay, and poetry). In Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, a “novel-in-stories” about the Vietnam War, we will look at “war culture” and its relation to gender. In Hanif Kureishi’s screenplay My Beautiful Laundrette, we will examine “capitalist culture” and its impact on race, sexuality and class. In Jerzy Kosinsky’s satirical novel Being There, we will consider “media culture” and its role in shaping American expectations of success and failure. Finally, through poetry, we will reflect on the subjectivities of self in specific cultural contexts. Employing the theme of culture and identity, the goal of this course is to develop your critical thinking skills and master the conventions of standard written English. We will work to demystify the sometimes daunting composition process, to learn to identify what works and what doesn’t in one’s own writing and that of others. Writing is something one learns by doing; draft and revision are key components. It is my hope that students will emerge from this course as more confident, productive writers—better able to identify their interests, strengths and weaknesses—and more discerning readers.

ENG 2150 LP13A: Topic: Immigration

The theme of this course is Immigration. Our readings will be drawn from Imagining America, the Persea Press anthology of short stories edited by Wesley Brown and Amy Ling.  First and foremost, however, this will be a course in written composition. The primary purpose of this course will be to enhance students’ writing skills and rhetorical sophistication, particularly with regard to argumentative prose. The goal is to prepare students not only for success in academic writing but also for effective participation in and critical understanding of the public and professional discourses of the "real" world beyond school.

ENG 2150 LP13B: Topic: Race and Justice

The theme of this course is race and justice. Questions about how race influences justice and shapes legal foundations are never far from hand. They can be found on television and in newspapers, movies and music videos. Our task will be to trace this discourse through its various cultural manifestations and to write about it. Through close readings, we will focus on writers who have contributed to the discourse surrounding race and justice through their particular contributions and uses of literary forms. Viewings of relevant film and television offerings, consideration of legal and literary theories, and thoughtful critical responses will shape our focus and lend depth to our discussions. Readings will include Herman Melville's “Benito Cereno” and Philip Roth's The Human Stain, as well as a selection of critical non-fiction by writers like Ward Churchill, Tim Wise and bell hooks. Students may also be asked to attend lectures on relevant subjects outside of class time.

First and foremost, however, this will be a course in written composition. The primary purpose of this course will be to enhance students’ writing skills and rhetorical sophistication, particularly with regard to argumentative prose. The goal is to prepare students not only for success in academic writing but also for effective participation in and critical understanding of the public and professional discourses of the "real" world beyond school.

ENG 2150 PS13A: Topic: Writing the Lives of Women

This course will focus on the novels, the poetry, and the lives of the Bronte sisters, Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Amy Lowell. The key text for the course is Amy Lowell's poem, "The Sisters," in which she reflects on her literary ancestry, so to speak, and on the women who prefigured her own literary career. Through studies of biography (notably in The Bronte Myth by Lucasta Miller) and in biographical treatments of Dickinson and Lowell, this course will explore how the lives and literature of these important writers have been shaped by the genres of literary biography and drama—for instance, Susan's Sontag's play Alice in Bed that features scenes with Alice James and Emily Dickinson.

First and foremost, however, this will be a course in written composition. The primary purpose of this course will be to enhance students’ writing skills and rhetorical sophistication, particularly with regard to argumentative prose. The goal is to prepare students not only for success in academic writing but also for effective participation in and critical understanding of the public and professional discourses of the "real" world beyond school.

ENG 2150 PS13B: Topic: The American Dream

This course engages the topics of immigration and The American Dream. We tackle both the myth and the reality of The American Dream and how that dream relates to large scale immigration and the immigration experience.  What is the body of rhetoric that led to the foundation and development of the United States, and how has the rhetoric evolved? What would it mean for immigrants and others to achieve The American Dream today? How does the current day immigrant experience relate to historical experiences in the U.S.? Is the notion of America as the land of opportunity for anyone around the globe a myth or reality? We will explore these pressing questions through historical and sociological texts, fictional accounts, memoirs, and film. Authors we will read include Amy Tan, Jhumpa Lahiri, Richard Rodriguez, Edwidge Danticat, Junot Diaz, Joseph O’Neill and Lucette Lagnado.

First and foremost, however, this will be a course in written composition. The primary purpose of this course will be to enhance students’ writing skills and rhetorical sophistication, particularly with regard to argumentative prose. The goal is to prepare students not only for success in academic writing but also for effective participation in and critical understanding of the public and professional discourses of the "real" world beyond school.

ENG 2150 PS13D: Topic: Social Upheaval and Ibsen’s Legacy

Some of our best writers and artists had the audacity to explore the new, and the unconventional.  In this course we will explore what it takes to change people’s minds and the prevailing conventions.  We will look at different topics—like coming of age, death, war, culture, race relations, love and commitment, and painting—from the point of view of how social attitudes change, what is conventionally acceptable, into a different way of seeing the world.

For example, Henrik Ibsen’s plays flew against the conventional wisdom of his day.  It took many generations, and the evolution of women’s rights and suffrage, before A Doll’s House was full accepted.  Ibsen’s legacy is embodied in any work that goes against the flow of conventional opinion.  

In this course we will examine written works that follow in Ibsen’s footsteps—works that defied the conventional, that challenged existing stereotypes, and that made their readers examine preconceived notions.

irst and foremost, however, this will be a course in written composition. The primary purpose of this course will be to enhance students’ writing skills and rhetorical sophistication, particularly with regard to argumentative prose. The goal is to prepare students not only for success in academic writing but also for effective participation in and critical understanding of the public and professional discourses of the "real" world beyond school.

ENG 2150 PS13E: Topic: Humor: Mirth to the Absurd

This course will begin with Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales-–in which a colorful medieval group sets off on a pilgrimage one bright springtime day. And it will conclude with Sarah Ruhl’s imaginative contemporary play The Dead Man’s Cell Phone.

We will also read and write about comic rivalries, in romance and with siblings, as they appear in Chekhov’s one-acts “The Bear” and “The Wedding”; and in Sam Shepard’s play True West. Then, we will examine female journeys of the absurd and serious-comic sort: in Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl”; in Tim O’Brien’s “The Sweetheart of Song Tra Bong”; and in Marjane Satrapi’s  graphic arts memoir “The Socks.”

We will hear from humor experts in three fields as we explore its faces and dynamics:   in psychology, Sigmund Freud’s classic Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious;  in anthropology, Elliot Orang’s recent Engaging Humor (“Appropriate Incongruities”);  and in communications, Joanne Gilbert’s recent Performing Marginality: Humor, Gender, and Cultural Critique.

First and foremost, however, this will be a course in written composition. The primary purpose of this course will be to enhance students’ writing skills and rhetorical sophistication, particularly with regard to argumentative prose. The goal is to prepare students not only for success in academic writing but also for effective participation in and critical understanding of the public and professional discourses of the "real" world beyond school.

ENG 2150 RU13B: Topic: The Power of Darkness

For the most part, this course will explore the choices people make to follow the dark side of their nature. The focus will be on the struggle within the human being to choose good over evil, to choose rational behavior over that behavior which is violent and destructive. The archetypal tension between Apollonian and Dionysian modes of being, so clearly presented in Greek Drama will form the beginning and end of the course--and this conflict will be followed through the entire course, as humans are shown fighting--and often losing--the battle between darkness and light, good and evil, as violence pervades much of human behavior, on individual and group (national) levels.

While it is both undeniable and obvious that humans have too often inflicted violence on other humans, the course will not focus on the violence per se, but will explore the element of choice--even desire--in those who choose violence. Of course, choice involves the possibility of restraint, self-control, and these aspects of possible choices--as well as the absence thereof --will form an essential aspect of the course. Thus, the readings, discussions, and writings in the course will focus on the WHY and the HOW of atrocious actions perpetrated by all too many people, nations, and--especially in the twentieth century--the leaders of nations. The emphasis will not be psychological, but generally philosophical. Students will be instructed to inspect, to analyze, the possible reasons, the deep motives, the behavioral choices in acts of violence, especially as these reflect the struggle between Apollonian and Dionysian forces in human nature--with a push from Narcissus as well.

ENG 2150 RU13C: Topic: The Mystery Narrative and its Derivatives

The mystery narrative is one of the most popular forms in both text and film, but it is also a tradition that deeply penetrates our lives.  According to the great mythologist Joseph Campbell, every story is, ultimately, the exploration of who we, as individuals and as a people, really are.  As we do a close reading of how this genre works, we will look at a variety of media (text, art, photography, film) in order to examine how the mystery or detective narrative has been stretched and distorted into an uncomfortable, often surreal journey of the self.  Authors will include one of the first “mystery” dramatists, Sophocles, and his intriguing masterpiece, Oedipus Rex, but we will also have fun with Edgar Allen Poe and Noir writers like Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett.  Masters of Magical Realism such as Carlos Fuentes and Julio Cortàzar, and experimental writers, such as Alain Robbe-Grillet and Paul Auster, will also inform our exploration. We will end the semester by looking at how poets, such as Eliot, Rich, Sexton, Pesoa, and Nakayasu, "investigate" the darker regions of self and society.

First and foremost, however, this will be a course in written composition. The primary purpose of this course will be to enhance students’ writing skills and rhetorical sophistication, particularly with regard to argumentative prose. The written assignments  will be comprised of formal argumentative essays, shorter in-class responses to the readings, peer editing and evaluating, as well as several fun and creative exercises.  You will also be expected to participate actively and meaningfully during each class session.

ENG 2150 TW24B: Topic: Magic, Myths and Dreams

The persistence of myths, archetypal patterns, magical transformations and ghosts in drama and stories from Oedipus to the present.  Using Edith Hamilton’s Mythology as a jumping off point, we will look at the way writers from Sophocles and Shakespeare to Kafka, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Joyce Carol Oates and Margaret Atwood have made use of the mysterious and the otherworldly in their works.

irst and foremost, however, this will be a course in written composition. The primary purpose of this course will be to enhance students’ writing skills and rhetorical sophistication, particularly with regard to argumentative prose. The goal is to prepare students not only for success in academic writing but also for effective participation in and critical understanding of the public and professional discourses of the "real" world beyond school.

ENG 2150 TW24C: Topic: Food 101

The theme of this ENG 2150 course is food. What are we eating? Where does our food come from? What is the relationship between our government and Iowa farmers?  How does a corporation turn a sugary soft drink into an American institution?  What is food engineering? What’s on the lunch menu at your neighborhood middle school?  What is the “slow food movement”?  How are “natural flavors” created and marketed? These are just some of the many questions we will entertain throughout the term.

First and foremost, however, this will be a course in written composition. The primary purpose of this course will be to enhance students’ writing skills and rhetorical sophistication, particularly with regard to argumentative prose. The goal is to prepare students not only for success in academic writing but also for effective participation in and critical understanding of the public and professional discourses of the "real" world beyond school.

ENG 2150 TW24E: Topic: Authorship: A Study in the Nature of Authority

The theme of our course is “Authority.” In what ways do we assert our authority with family members, friends, teachers, bosses, coworkers, and strangers, or fail to, in our daily lives? In what ways have we been affected by authority—our own and that of others? How does authority affect our lives on a global scale? What are some ways of gaining authority? Is writing an assertion of authority? What is the word “author” doing in the word “authority?” Why does an essay written in a clear, meditative, and factual voice assert authority? In what ways can playing with the form of our essays (writing personal narratives, opinion pieces, research papers, etc.) assert our authority, or detract from it?

Our course will be split into three main sections. First we will discuss the role authority plays in personal relationships. Next, we will look at the effect authority has on the world around us, on a global scale. Lastly, we will look at writing as a way of asserting authority, and we will make sure that our writing has the power to grant us the authority we need, for the rest of college and beyond, and for our personal satisfaction. We will build on the skills acquired in English 2100 by finding ways to use our knowledge about composition with more authority, be it through experimentation with different stylistic voices or through a nuanced use of punctuation or paragraph form.

Each of our three units will culminate in an essay, at least one of which will involve research. We will also practice writing outside the essays (by writing outlines, by practicing free writing, by writing in journals) in order to prepare for and reflect on our writing. Our readings will include Joan Didion's "Why I Write" and "On Keeping a Notebook;" George Orwell's "Why I Write," "Shooting an Elephant," and "Politics and the English Language;" Kurt Vonnegut's "How to Write With Style;" and Stanley Milgram's "An Experiment in Autonomy." We will also regularly read work written by the students in our class.

ENG 2150 TW24G: Topic: Living with New Media

Since when did saying “I love you” become simply ILY typed into a digital screen? What are the consequences of being addicted to the availability of a cellular phone or email? When we socialize online, how does the fact that we can edit our own profiles impact our sense of identity? This course will explore the ways in which our basic human communication is being altered by the onslaught of technology and new media devices such as the Internet (Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, dating sites, blogs, etc.), cell phones, and PDA’s. It will also take a look at the discrepancies between our “real life” personalities and our online identities and avatars, as well as how these differences can color our senses of self and our insecurities.

First and foremost, however, this will be a course in written composition. The primary purpose of this course will be to enhance students’ writing skills and rhetorical sophistication, particularly with regard to argumentative prose. The goal is to prepare students not only for success in academic writing but also for effective participation in and critical understanding of the public and professional discourses of the "real" world beyond school.

ENG 2150 UX13A: Topic: Autobiographical Narratives

What is it that compels us to tell our life story, or to read someone else’s? Most of us have written an autobiographical narrative of some kind – in a diary or letter, for instance – and many of us are compelled to read the published autobiographies or memoirs of others. Whereas a public figure may write an autobiography to cement his or her legacy and place in history, a “regular person” may write about an event (or a series of events) that has confounded and/or changed him. Whether we read them or write them, autobiographical narratives can help us ascribe meaning to events and incidents in our lives; they can also reveal the extent to which we construct our lives via narrative. In this class, we will read extensively in the genre of autobiography and memoir, exploring the spectrum of styles and forms writers have used to tell their life stories. These will range from the more traditional, well-known works of autobiography, such as Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Benjamin Franklin’s The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin to more contemporary and experimental works, such as Joe Brainard’s I Remember and Lyn Hejinian’s My Life.

First and foremost, however, this will be a course in written composition. The primary purpose of this course will be to enhance students’ writing skills and rhetorical sophistication, particularly with regard to argumentative prose. Students will write three formal essays (including one autobiographical essay) and three response papers; they will also be asked to keep a journal and participate regularly in in-class writing and discussion.

ENG 2150 UX13C: Topic: Social Upheaval and Ibsen’s Legacy

Some of our best writers and artists had the audacity to explore the new, and the unconventional.  In this course we will explore what it takes to change people’s minds and the prevailing conventions.  We will look at different topics—like coming of age, death, war, culture, race relations, love and commitment, and painting—from the point of view of how social attitudes change, what is conventionally acceptable, into a different way of seeing the world.

For example, Henrik Ibsen’s plays flew against the conventional wisdom of his day.  It took many generations, and the evolution of women’s rights and suffrage, before A Doll’s House was full accepted.  Ibsen’s legacy is embodied in any work that goes against the flow of conventional opinion.  

In this course we will examine written works that follow in Ibsen’s footsteps—works that defied the conventional, that challenged existing stereotypes, and that made their readers examine preconceived notions.

First and foremost, however, this will be a course in written composition. The primary purpose of this course will be to enhance students’ writing skills and rhetorical sophistication, particularly with regard to argumentative prose. The goal is to prepare students not only for success in academic writing but also for effective participation in and critical understanding of the public and professional discourses of the "real" world beyond school.

ENG 2150 WZ13B: Topic: Crazy in Love

Dante writes, “Behold a god more powerful than I, who, coming, will rule over me.” The god referred to here is Love, and Dante literarily goes through hell for it.

In this course, we will look at love through the poetry of such masters as Dante, Shakespeare, Marvell, Whitman, Dickinson, Rossetti, and Donne, and through stories by Chopin, Gilman, Hong Kingston, Natalia Ginzberg, Virginia Woolf, Hemingway, Faulkner, Langston Hughes, Irwin Shaw, and Updike, among others. We will read plays by David Ives and Susan Glaspell, excerpts of novels by Marguerite Duras, Jean Rhys, and Tim O’Brien, and also examine films on the topic. We will read these works closely to analyze how culture, social mores, gender, and the theme of madness affected the writings about love in different epochs.

First and foremost, however, this will be a course in written composition. The primary purpose of this course is to enhance students’ writing skills and rhetorical sophistication, particularly with regard to argumentative prose. The goal is to prepare students not only for success in academic writing but also for effective participation in and critical understanding of the public and professional discourses of the "real" world beyond school.

ENG 2150 MW54A: Topic: Politics and Literature

This course examines the relationship between political movements and the written word. How do different kinds of writing (speeches, poems, plays, novels) shape political discourse and inspire action? What rhetorical devices do authors use to reach their audiences? How do readers respond to and resist these efforts? Students will learn to read and interpret a range of different genres, writing literary-critical essays as well as persuasive political pieces of their own. Readings will include selections from Plato's Republic, William Shakespeare's Henry V, and Jonathan Swift's “A Modest Proposal,” combined with speeches by Barack Obama, John McCain, and other contemporary leaders.

ENG 2150 TR54A: Topic: The American Dream

The idea of the “American dream” has been imagined and represented in innumerable ways throughout the brief history of our nation, not only by “ordinary people” with everyday hopes and aspirations, but also by politicians, advertisers, authors, musicians, and performers whose “versions” of the American dream often reach large audiences and help to shape and change our ideas about national culture and identity.  In this course, we will examine how the American dream has been used as a theme in literary works from a variety of genres—essays, poetry, novels, and short stories—as well as in films, advertisements, television shows, speeches, and popular songs.  We will consider how versions of the American dream have changed over time and have been re-created by people of different genders, races, and ethnicities; in addition, we’ll also look at texts that satirize, critique, or challenge the idea of the “American dream,” instead portraying it as something of a nightmare.  Students will use the thematic content of the course to participate in class discussions and to develop ideas and topics for writing assignments.  Work for the course will consist of four papers (including one creative assignment and one research-oriented assignment), an in-class presentation, and regular participation in class discussions.

ENG 2150 TR54B: Topic: Literary Spaces: Places and Absence in Multicultural Literature

In this course, we will consider the connections that link memory to physical space—in Hamlet, for example—and why those connections often remain implicit, rather than explicit.  We will also create contrasting frameworks for global literature—using Derek Walcott’s “A Far Cry from Africa” to interrogate such texts as Toni Cade Bambara’s “The Lesson”—to examine the influence of place on character.  This 2150 course is writing-intensive, and, as a community of writers, we will also contend with the effects of how the demands of the classroom shape our own writing.

The primary purpose of this course will be to enhance students’ writing skills and rhetorical sophistication, particularly with regard to argumentative prose. The goal is to prepare students not only for success in academic writing but also for effective participation in and critical understanding of the public and professional discourses of the "real" world beyond school.

ENG 2150 TR54C: Topic: Food 101

The theme of this ENG 2150 course is food. What are we eating?  Where does our food come from? What is the relationship between our government and Iowa farmers?  How does a corporation turn a sugary soft drink into an American institution?  What is food engineering? What’s on the lunch menu at your neighborhood middle school?  What is the “slow food movement”?  How are “natural flavors” created and marketed? These are just some of the many questions we will entertain throughout the term.

First and foremost, however, this will be a course in written composition. The primary purpose of this course will be to enhance students’ writing skills and rhetorical sophistication, particularly with regard to argumentative prose. The goal is to prepare students not only for success in academic writing but also for effective participation in and critical understanding of the public and professional discourses of the "real" world beyond school.

ENG 2150T FM24A: Topic: Food: Choices, Celebrations, Consequences

A day doesn’t go by when we all don’t think about food to some extent, but what we actually choose to buy, cook and eat varies greatly. The average American eats 65 pounds of beef per year and would think nothing of sitting down to a juicy steak, whereas vegetarians couldn’t imagine eating anything that was once alive. In this course we will look at the food choices we make, whether based on individual tastes, our cultural heritage, health concerns, body images or the cost or convenience of the food itself.  We will also look at the broader picture of food and how its growth, production, transportation and consumption affect our society and the world at large. All the readings and writings that students do in the course will focus on the theme of food.  The goals of the course are for students to continue in their mastery of writing while also improving their critical reading and thinking skills. Students will be required to write one personal narrative, one analytical essay, one comparison/contrast essay and one argumentative essay. They will also have an oral presentation and several shorter writings and quizzes based on the readings.

First and foremost this T section is a course in written composition for speakers of languages in addition to English. The primary purpose of this course will be to enhance students’ writing skills, particularly with regard to argumentative prose as well as to improve fluency in written English. The goal is to prepare students not only for success in academic writing but also for effective participation in and critical understanding of the public and professional discourses of the "real" world beyond school.

ENG 2150T TZ13A: Topic: Reading the World

 Is reading a book the only way to enjoy a good story?  What about listening to it on your MP3 player or reading it on a Kindle?  Surfing the Internet? Watching TV?  Watching Oprah’s book club or attending one? Or playing a video game? We know that reading is important, but the nature of reading is changing. We will begin by reading accounts of learning to read and then examine the shape of reading in today’s world and in the future.  Readings may include Reading Lolita in Tehran, Fahrenheit 451, Persepolis, and related articles. Topics will center on how people read, what happens when they can’t, how reading changes in different societies, what reading will be like in the future, and censorship.  Formal writing assignments will include a personal narrative, an analytic argument, a comparison/contrast paper, an evaluation and a group project.  There will also be many chances to improve your writing through ungraded assignments both in class and at home.

First and foremost, this T section is a course in written composition for speakers of languages in addition to English. The primary purpose of this course will be to enhance students’ writing skills, particularly with regard to argumentative prose as well as to improve fluency in written English. The goal is to prepare students for success in academic writing as well as for effective participation in and critical understanding of the public and professional discourses of the world beyond school.

ENG 2150T TZ13B: Topic: Growing Up in America

How do we become who we are as adults?  How do family, peers, and education affect us? What influence do class, gender, race and ethnicity have on us? We will examine these issues in poetry (Sharon Olds, Gwendolyn Brooks, Peter Meinke, Langston Hughes), autobiography (Tobias Wolf This Boy’s Life, Frederick Douglass), short stories (Alice Walker, Sandra Cisneros, Amy Tan, Sherman Alexie) and a short play (Wendy Wasserstein). We will also analyze articles dealing with contemporary issues that affect teens and college students.  Students will write 4 essays, including comparison/contrast, analytical argument and narrative.

First and foremost, however, this T section is a course in written composition for speakers of languages other than English. The primary purpose of this course will be to enhance students’ writing skills, particularly with regard to argumentative prose as well as to improve fluency in written English. The goal is to prepare students not only for success in academic writing but also for effective participation in and critical understanding of the public and professional discourses of the "real" world beyond school.

ENG 2150T MW57A: Topic: Kissing and Telling

The world’s greatest writers are obsessed with dating and mating. The stories, poems, films and plays that deal with such juicy business as sex, fidelity, cuckoldry, marriage, breakups, jealousy, love and lust are extremely compelling, perhaps because they address the deep human secrets your best friend is reluctant to share. Chekhov said that everyone leads their “most interesting life under the cover of secrecy.” Naturally, the most carefully-guarded of these are secrets are about love and relationships.  We’ll uncover them as we read and discuss stories by Andrea Barrett, Jhumpa Lahiri, John Cheever, and Lorrie Moore; plays by Ibsen and Shakespeare; poems by Sharon Olds, Li Po, Marilyn Chin, and Edna St. Vincent Millay.

Considering these issues in the safety of our class could change your life! Bad relationships cost money and stress. Before you leap, read what some of our greatest thinkers have to say on the matter.

Assessment will be based on, two formal essays of 750 words, two in-class open book tests, regular quizzes, low stakes writing, peer review of student writing, conferences, class discussions, and an oral presentation of a poem.  There will be opportunity for extra credit and regular conferences with the instructor.

First and foremost, however, this T section is a course in written composition for speakers of languages in addition to English. The primary purpose of this course will be to enhance students’ writing skills, particularly with regard to argumentative prose as well as to improve fluency in written English. The goal is to prepare students not only for success in academic writing but also for effective participation in and critical understanding of the public and professional discourses of the "real" world beyond school.

ENG 3032 SU13A:   Topic: Ethnic Literature: Asian-American literature

A survey of the contribution of Asian-American writers to American literature, with a particular focus on the writers of the 1990s.  The reading will include memoirs, novels, and short stories by authors such as Toshio Mori, Gish Jen, Patti Kim, Ha Jin, Sigrid Nunez, Susan Choi, and Kirin Desai. (The last three authors have Baruch connections.)  One or two films will be included.  Through literary analyses, we will discuss issues such as ethnic identity, acculturation, response to racism, and the relations among the various Asian groups.

ENG 3940 OQ13A       Topic:  Blaxploitation

In this course, we will study the 1970s African American film genre known as blaxploitation.  Our critical engagement with films such as “Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song”  (1971), “Shaft”  (1971), “Super Fly”  (1972), “Cleopatra Jones,” (1973), “Foxy Brown”  (1974), and “The Spook Who Sat By the Door”  (1973), will allow us to explore converging political, sexual and racial dynamics of American culture within the contexts of civil rights, decolonization and the Vietnam War.  We will also engage the ways in which blaxploitation’s cinematic structures correspond with other genres such as the action/adventure of the James Bond series, martial arts films made famous by Bruce Lee, and classic horror such as “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre”  (1974).  Our readings of cultural and film theory will lead us to a better understanding of the language of cinema criticism and contemporary film.  The course will culminate with a final research paper.

ENG 3940H XZ24H:    Topic: The Film of Anxiety, Fear, and Paranoia

This course will explore representations and manifestations of fear, anxiety, and paranoia in American films between the end of WWII and the present. We will consider the ways in which films speak to broader cultural anxieties particular to specific historical moments. We will likewise explore the ways in which the stylistic and aesthetic means of representing fear and anxiety on screen have evolved over the medium’s history. Viewing will include a variety of films across periods and genres including Pickup on South Street, Rear Window, Dawn of the Dead (Romero and Snyder versions), The Conversation, and The Manchurian Candidate (Frankenheimer and Demme versions). Readings will include works of social history as well as theoretical texts on spectatorship, the psychology of fear and paranoia, film genres, and film aesthetics; they will facilitate a critical exploration of the complex ways popular films are informed by, play on, and reinforce prevailing fears and anxieties.

ENG 3950 FH24          Topic: Narrative Theory and British Detective Fiction

Detective stories may seem light and entertaining, but the forms they take raise interesting questions about how authors structure their narratives and what we expect as readers.  Beginning with the progenitors of the genre, we will consider how literary genres take shape:  what needs do they fill for their societies?  We will see detective fiction evolving in the work such famous mystery writers as Arthur Conan Doyle, Dorothy Sayers, and Agatha Christie, considering notions of narrative contract and genre rigidity.  Next we will explore the influence of postwar prosperity on the seminal work of Ted Lewis and Margaret Allingham and then the postmodern iteration of the detective story in the hands of such writers as Val McDermid, Ian Rankin, Ken Bruen, and Colin Bateman.  Throughout our survey we will blend a narratological approach with a focus on how cultural and political factors can nudge generic evolution.  The roles of masculinity and femininity, of spaces (country/city, nation, etc), of race and fears of contamination, as well as of legal documents and the power of the written word will also be ongoing concerns in our discussions.  Due to the nature of the genre, the reading assignments will almost always be long and will always be fun; please come to the first class session having read half (about 260 pages) of  Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone.

ENG 3950 SY3 : Topic: Poetry and Imitation

In this poetry workshop, we will write poems based on our study of the rich and varied poetic movements of present day and 20th century schools of thought including Ezra Pound and the Imagists, Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance poets, Frank O’ Hara and the New York School, Allen Ginsberg and the Beat Poets, Saul Williams and other Slam Poets.   We will study the manifestoes, personages, and pioneering poems as well as the socio-political and aesthetic ferment that gave rise to such rich flourishings in American poetry. We will study poems, read correspondences, listen to recordings, and acquaint ourselves with important biographies.  SECTION SY3 PREREQUISITES: ENG 2150 OR ENG 2850/LTT 2850 OR ENG/2800/LTT 2800 And Written Permission From Prof. Bernstein

ENG 3950H SY3H       Topic: Poetry and Imitation

This honors course in literature is open to students in an official honors program and to other qualified students with an overall 3.4 GPA. See honors program information in this schedule. Prereq: ENG 2150 or the equivalent; open only to Program Code-J Program code H or GPA 3.4. Closed to graduate students.

In this poetry workshop, we will write poems based on our study of the rich and varied poetic movements of present day and 20th century schools of thought including Ezra Pound and the Imagists, Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance poets, Frank O’ Hara and the New York School, Allen Ginsberg and the Beat Poets, Saul Williams and other Slam Poets.   We will study the manifestoes, personages, and pioneering poems as well as the socio-political and aesthetic ferment that gave rise to such rich flourishings in American poetry. We will study poems, read correspondences, listen to recordings, and acquaint ourselves with important biographies.

PREREQ: PROGRAM CODE H OR 3.4 OVERALL GPA, ENG 2150 OR ENG/LTT 2850 OR ENG 2800/LTT 2800 AND WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM PROF. BERNSTEIN      

ENG 3950 WY13A:     Topic: Mystery and Melodrama: Gothic Literature Revisited

Against a background of haunted castle, demonic predators and victims who unconsciously collaborate in their own ruin, Gothic Literature takes us on a journey into the dark recesses of the human psyche that fascinated Freud, and examines its insatiable appetite for danger and forbidden pleasure.  Through psychoanalytical and feminist lens, we will explore Gothic stories written by both men and women. 

We will see how Victorian medical attitudes towards the body forced the female writer of the Gothic novel to create erotically coded texts which psychologists are still unraveling today.  If you like exotic settings, you will revel in Jean Rhys's Caribbean Gothic novel, Wide Sargasso Sea about fatal passion, voodoo priestesses, sexual addiction, and mad Creole heiresses set in the lush islands of Jamaica and Dominica.  You will love Bram Stoker's nineteenth century masterpiece of voluptuous terror, Dracula which changed the way we view vampires forever.  Stoker transformed the traditional emaciated vampire into a tantalizingly dangerous predator who provides his victims with a taste of ecstasy before luring them into the world of the damned.   Readings will include Mary Shelley's

classic of monstrous creation, Frankenstein, Sheridan Le Fanu's dark tale of female vampirism, Carmilla, Charlotte Bronte's multi-layered, erotically coded novel, Jane Eyre and R.L. Stevenson's psychological thriller, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

ENG 3950 TR73: Topic: Global Narratives and the Contemporary Novel

As a historical reality reflecting the last development of modern technological civilization, globalization refers to a complex web of relations between nation-states, corporations, institutions and individuals. At the same time, our inter-connectedness is amplified by the information revolution (from television to social media), which has transformed our world into a spectacle both fascinating and frightening.

In this course, we will examine positive and negative consequences of globalization by discussing contemporary novels by Don DeLillo, Dave Eggers, Leslie Marmon-Silko and Orhan Pamuk. The course will focus on these writers’ response to phenomena such as politico-economic networks, humanitarian interventions, illegal immigration and sexual tourism.

FLM 4900 WY13A:The Forties: Hollywood's Pivotal Decade

At the beginning of the decade Hollywood was in top form, producing classics such as Citizen Kane and The Ox-Bow Incident.  With the outbreak of World War II, the film industry produced distinguished portrayals of men in combat (A Walk in the Sun) and began to explore at the same time a darker version of the American dream in films such as Laura in what came to be known as film noir.  In the aftermath of the war movies took on controversial subjects such as anti-Semitism in Crossfire and explored the alienation of soldiers returning home (The Best Years of Our Lives).  This was also the era of the woman's film (Daisy Kenyon) and the postwar confrontation with racism (Pinky).  And yet by the end of the decade box office receipts were declining, the Hollywood studio system was breaking down, and the advent of a new entertainment medium, television, threatened the movie business's grip on the American imagination.  Through the study of Hollywood films in the 1940s and an exploration of the studios, directors, and actors who made movie history, this course will assess the enormous changes in culture and mass media that continue to have an impact on contemporary America.

HIS 3360 TR6:      Topic: Revolutionary France 1780-1815

This course will cover the events of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Empire, focusing on the French attempts to found a new government based on the principles of popular sovereignty and the rights of man. Particular attention will also be paid to the issues raised by the Revolution, including questions of representative democracy, human rights, the relation between warfare and politics, changes in political culture, revolutionary violence, and the legacy of the Revolution.

HIS 3460 JL24      Topic: Sound Tracks:  American History and Pop Music    

This course will examine the development of postwar American popular music through the prism of history. It focuses on both the stylistic developments and historical contexts in which such popular music styles as the blues, folk, soul, rock, disco, punk, alternative rock and rap evolved during the second half of the 20th century. The connection between popular styles and the changing notions of race, gender and social class, as well as the impact that music has had on American social and political history will be explored.

HIS 3460 XZ13      Topic: Risk, Trust, and Confidence in American Economic History           

This course will explore the roles that risk, trust, and confidence played in the booms, busts, panics, and bubbles in American economic history. Students will read both original sources and contemporary writers and thinkers in this seminar-based class. This course will particularly focus on the implications of recent behavioral economics work in dismantling the view of markets as self-correcting, rational, and perfectible, and attempt to define the justifications and limits of financial regulation and government intervention.

HIS 3860 PR13        Topic: United States and Latin America - International Relations Since 1900

The course will focus on international relations between the United States and Latin America since 1900 with emphasis on political and economic developments. A study of the Good Neighbor policy, Alliance for Progress, North American Free Trade Agreement and international trade and immigration will be explored. Emphasis on Cuba, Mexico and recent relations with Venezuela will be included. Students will develop a full understanding of the evolution of U.S. policy toward Latin America while exploring in-depth a topic of their choice.

HSP 3085 KM24          Topic: Nuyoricans Poetry, Culture and Identity

"The principal varieties of cultural expression of Puerto Ricans in New York City (Nuyoricans) will be examined in extensive detail.  Special attention will be given to folk culture, traditional beliefs, cultural practices, educational theories, and the tradition of Nuyorican Poetry; and will also include extensive discussion on the cultural influences, impacts and practices of popular Puerto Rican/Nuyorican experience with music in NYC.  This course will begin with a brief history of the Puerto Rican experience in New York City starting at the 1960s to the present."

IDC 4050H TV24H      Topic: New World Triad: History, Culture, and Race in New York, New Orleans, and Havana

Prof. Ted Henken & Prof. Ned Sublette

This class undertakes a comparative cultural and sociological history of three great cities, each founded (or taken over) by one of the three major European colonial powers: England, France, and Spain.  We approach them as both parallel and intersecting histories, emphasizing the contributions of Africans and Creoles to each unique urban environment.  Focusing on the individual cities, we highlight their different slave regimes and the influence of Africans and other ethnic groups on the development of the particular cultures by examining the musical and dance styles (son, jazz, blues, rumba, mambo, Broadway, salsa, hip-hop, reggaeton) characteristic of each of the individual cities.  Broadening our perspective, we also examine the lives of cultural entrepreneurs who have acted as ambassadors among the three cities.  

IDC 4050H MW6H     Topic: Cuba: From Castro to Cohibas (Cuban Cigars)  Prof. Wayne Finke & Prof. Alfonso Guerriero                                

American interest in Cuba dates from the mid-nineteenth century, as an examination of pre-Castro Cuba shows.  Beginning with the doctrine of Manifest Destiny, the Spanish-American war, the Platt Amendment, and American business interests in the 1930’s – 1950’s, the class will then explore the emergence of Fidel Castro, his alliance with the Soviet Union, and the tumultuous relations with the United States from 1961 to the present. As a mirror of this historical process, the arts in Cuba have reflected the daily reality of the Cuban people. The course concludes with close study of films and literature that will allow us to interpret the past and consider possibilities for the future.

JRN 3900 KM13         Topic: Madness, Media, Mass Culture

What does it mean to be "normal" and what does it mean to be "abnormal"? Where is the line between these categories -- and how has each been imagined by experts and writers at different historical moments? Are the origins of "mental illness" to be found in a "sick society"? Or is the problem a chemical imbalance in individuals? Ranging from the age of Freud to the era of pharmaceuticals, this course will examine theories of mental illness as represented in the mass media and popular culture.

In addition to news reports and magazine articles from the _New York Times_ and elsewhere, we will watch fictional and documentary films (including _The Manchurian Candidate_, _Lilith_ and _Titicut Follies_) and read popular novels, stories, and autobiographies. Among the characters that will make an appearance are coldhearted mothers and weak fathers, perverse lovers, fascist sympathizers, sadistic asylum staff, desperate housewives, paranoid rebels and psychotic killers. Some of the texts we will read and discuss include: Ken Kesey's _One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest_, Sylvia Plath's _The Bell Jar_, Paul Auster's _City of Glass_, Thomas Szasz's "The Myth of Mental Illness," Truman Capote's _In Cold Blood_, and Frederick Crews' "Talking Back to Prozac."

JRN 3900 TV24           Topic: The Literature of Jazz in Journalism and the Visual Art Jazz has figured prominently in American culture for a century  (1911-2010), and it keeps on defining our creative imaginations. It is the common ground: poet-wordsmiths like Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, James Baldwin and John A. Williams cut their creative teeth there. Visual artists in painting, collage and photojournalism – Romare Bearden, Gordon Parks, Margaret Bourke-White, and Albert Murray – “riffed” on the visual force of the written word and improvised on the sonorous impact of the jazz chorus. In this course, we’ll be reading, writing, listening and looking: at such short fiction as James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues;” such novels as John Clellon Holmes’ _The_ _Horn_ or Rafi Zabor’s _The_ _Bear_ _Comes_ _Home_ (about a bear who plays jazz saxophone). We’ll look at collaborations like Langston Hughes and Roy DeCarava’s “The Sweet Flypaper of Life,” or Albert Murray and Romare Bearden’s Profile: Part I: The Twenties. Our visual soundtrack will be Ken Burns’ multi-part documentary Jazz, or Clint Eastwood’s “Straight No Chaser” (about legendary pianist/composer Thelonious Monk).

JRN 3900 PR13           Topic: Sports Writing

This course is for students interested in sports reporting for print publications and online. Learn to write game recaps, feature articles and opinion pieces, how to work on tight deadlines and what to do when you're asked to cover a sport that you are not an expert on. The course will also cover how the Internet has placed new expectations on sports reporters, such as getting quality audio, blogging and even using social networking sites.

PHI 4900 MW6       Topic: Capstone Course: Memory and the Mind  

PHI 4905 KM24       Topic: Capstone Course: Global Justice       

POL 3999 EG24       Topic: Global Governance and International Law

PSY 3042 JQ1              Topic: The Psychology of Stigma       

This course will focus on the social and psychological experience of stigma, particularly from the perspective of the stigmatized individual.  In discussing the experience of the stigmatized, we will focus on how they understand and interpret their stigmatization, how they cope with it, and how it affects their psychological well-being and cognitive functioning. As an example of stigma’s negative consequences, the second half of the course will focus on stereotype threat—the psychological discomfort felt by stereotyped individuals (such as women in male-dominated fields) when they are at risk of fulfilling a negative stereotype about their group.

PSY 3042 XZ13 Topic:  The Role of Psychology in Current Global Issues

The world faces numerous challenges that are difficult to understand and even more difficult to address.  This course will examine current global issues from a psychosocial and socio-cultural perspective.  We will apply current psychological theories to better understand global issues and gain an appreciation for the complex factors that cause and maintain these issues.  This class is designed to be highly interactive so that as a group we share perspectives to better understand the issues presented.

PSY 9786 M6     Topic: Training and Development

The course is designed to provide students with a basic understanding of training, development and organizational learning as it is found in business and industry today. The course covers training needs assessment, design, methods, evaluation, organizational learning and the strategic role of training and development in the organization.

PSY 9786 R6    Topic: Job Satisfaction and Organizational Surveys

This course focuses on understanding and measuring job satisfaction with organizational surveys. It will cover the major theories and research in support of the science and practice of these topics. As well, the course will include practical skills regarding survey development, survey analysis, and the effective use of surveys for improving job satisfaction and organizational effectiveness. 

PSY 9789 M6      Topic: Training and Development

The course is designed to provide students with a basic understanding of training, development and organizational learning as it is found in business and industry today. The course covers training needs assessment, design, methods, evaluation, organizational learning and the strategic role of training and development in the organization.

PSY 9789 R6    Topic: Job Satisfaction and Organizational Surveys

This course focuses on understanding and measuring job satisfaction with organizational surveys. It will cover the major theories and research in support of the science and practice of these topics. As well, the course will include practical skills regarding survey development, survey analysis, and the effective use of surveys for improving job satisfaction and organizational effectiveness. 

THE 4102 TZ5:            Topic:  The Theatres of Asia

This class is an introduction to the exciting, multi-faceted world of Asian theatre. Through video recordings, field trips, class discussions and selected readings we will explore theatre from China, Japan, India, Korea, and Indonesia, as well as the work of Asian-American theatre artists. This class will showcase the diversity of the work of Asian performing artists, focusing on the innovative work of contemporary theatre artists more than on traditional theatre. We will also look at the ways in which Asian theatres have influenced modern theatre in Europe and the United States.