This seminar examines the role of sports culture in the social and political construction of individual and collective American identities. Special attention will be given to issues of power, and race, gender, sexuality, class, and nationalism. Readings and films will cover contemporary and historical issues in baseball, basketball, football, boxing, and cheerleading.

This course will introduce students to a wide variety of approaches to studying how globalization has transformed American culture, as well as the ways in which American culture has circulated globally. As the dominant global power through much of the twentieth century, the United States has been particularly influential in shaping processes of globalization, and American culture has circulated widely and though multiple processes; from Hollywood films, to government sponsored cultural and sports programs and military interventions, to corporate and private initiatives. We will examine how American culture has interacted with nations and cultures abroad. A primary goal of the course is to introduce students to a wide variety of perspectives on globalization. Another goal is to explore multiple research methods for approaching topics of globalization. We will critically examine and use the web as an important tool for our investigations along with on-line and traditional archival collections.

This course will examine the interaction between different racial groups in the U.S. from the 19th century to our present moment. Conventionally, such studies focus solely on the relationship between African Americans and whites, relying on the hackneyed Black-white paradigm of U.S. race relations. This seminar explodes that dichotomy, searching for a broader historical model, which includes yellow, brown, red, and ethnic white.

• In other words, how did African Americans respond to the internment of Japanese Americans?
• What made desegregation cases like Mendez v. Westminster important precedents in the run-up to Brown v. Board of Education?
• What is a “model minority,” and why did Asians inherit the mantle from Jews?
• What is a “protest minority,” and why were Blacks and Jews labeled as such during the Civil Rights Movement?
• What is the relationship among Black Power, Yellow Power, the American Indian Movement, and Chicano Power, if any?

We will critically interrogate the history of contact that exists between and among these diverse “groups,” and whether conflict or confluence dominates their interaction. If conflict, what factors have prevented meaningful alliances? If confluence, what roles have these groups played in collectively striving for a multiracial democracy?"

This first-year seminar introduces students to the historical challenges faced by people of Mexican descent in the United States. We will discuss the social, economic, and political changes that influenced the day-to-day life of Mexicans/Mexican Americans. To organize the class, we will question the meaning of a racialized Mexican identity in the United States. This class will highlight the racial, class, gender, and sexual diversity within the Mexican-American community. We will consider how different groups of Mexicans have historically understood these ideas and their relationships to other Americans and other Latino groups. Part of our work will also consider Chicano history’s political and intellectual underpinnings as an academic discipline.

Semiotics is the study of meaning. In this seminar we will explore how humor is meaningful, and to whom, to what ends. We will investigate the formal techniques of humor: how do comics work? When do they fail? At the same time, we will ask how humor resonates with political and social struggles. We will not limit our study to comics who write or perform in the U.S.; we will also explore comedy (subtitled or in translation) in other places, including the former Soviet Union, India, the UK, and others.

This course combines several approaches, drawing materials from urban and more broadly, cultural anthropology by focusing on cities and communities; media and visual anthropology, taking into account popular cultural forms and life ways as portrayed on the big screen; and musicology and film studies, asking how—and why—film scores are matched and used to evoke particular cinematic narratives. We will watch, read about, listen to and discuss a selection of films and consider the many ways in which, in them, music and images are arranged to convey meanings, symbols, places, cultural practices and political relations. Evaluations will be based on class participation, a short, autobiography about your personal history and relationship to film, a take-home midterm essay, and ongoing group projects organized around distinct film genres, culminating in a final collective paper and presentation.

This course will consider the historical roots of today’s rapidly changing nature and cultural tourism industries. We will review relevant theories and methods for the analysis of safari hunting, extreme adventure tourism, socially conscious and low ecological impact tourism, and participation in ritual practice. The course includes both films (streamed via CTOOLS) and assigned readings, and will work to instill critical reading and viewing skills. These assignments focus on practices of consumption by tourists, expectations and challenges among residents whom tourists visit, and power dynamics of tourist/local encounters. The final few weeks of the seminar entails reading entire books, ethnographic monographs about these forms of tourism, each of which integrates history, social theory and political-economic analysis. Students will produce two papers for the course, counting for 30% and 40% of the grade, respectively. A presentation of one week’s materials, and overall participation count for the remaining 30%.

In this first-year seminar class we will try together to get a better understanding of traditional Chinese culture by reading and discussing a novel that has both been praised as a veritable encyclopedia of Chinese life, and which has mattered deeply to countless Chinese readers, some of whom read it year after year. Because the novel focuses on life within the household and the majority of its major characters are female, one of the foci of the course will be on the life of Chinese women during the time the novel was written. Class meetings will feature a number of different activities. One of these will be class debates on specific topics. The main goal of the various debates will be to permit us to get a wider and richer view of the novel and the culture that produced it, but we will also be interested in relating what we see in the novel to life around us and material we have learned in other contexts. The procedure of debating topics from different points of view will also help us be more critical about our own beliefs and predilections.

Students will examine the world’s briefest poem, the haiku. How does this 17-syllable, 3-line poem signify? What assumptions about the nature of language and meaning lie behind its composition and interpretation? What social milieu produced it? What is its link to Zen practice and other Zen arts? Readings will be from the poetry and critical commentaries of the master Bashô and his disciples, with later poets such as Buson and Issa, as well as haiga (haiku paintings), providing opportunities for comparative study. The Western understandings of haiku in the Imagist movement, Ezra Pound, the beat generation, and Barthe’s Empire of Signs will also be examined. Secondary sources are available in English, but given the brevity of the poems, analysis of some Japanese texts and their various English renditions will often be possible.

This course surveys major themes in the history of the Philippines, paying particular attention to their cultural dimensions. Starting with its inception as a colony of Spain, through the American colonial period, to the post-colonial present, we will draw from Philippine historiography, ethnography, literary works and popular culture to examine the cultural effects of processes such as religious conversion and colonial encounter; revolution and nationalism; hybridity and language; regionalism and identity formation; modernity, globalization, and migration. Class format will consist of lectures and discussion, with several classes dedicated to exploring the University of Michigan’s vast collections of Philippine-related material. Students will be expected to be present for all classes, participate in discussion, and carry out individual research projects. Grades will be determined by short-answer exams, reading response papers, and the final paper.

In this course we will read what Asians from different times and places have written about the places (real and imagined) where they have traveled. By doing so we better understand both the places and the travelers themselves. The writers will be from various parts of Asia and various time periods, and their destinations will include places in Asia and elsewhere. All readings will be in English.

Credit Exclusions: Credit is granted for a combined total of 17 credits elected in introductory biology.

A neuroscientist will lead a broad survey which critically explores scientific and religious views of life on Earth. Take this course if you want to learn the basics either about DNA and evolution or about religion and Christianity. Avoid this course if you wish to protect a traditional Christian or Islamic outlook from criticism and scrutiny.

Credit Exclusions: Credit is granted for a combined total of 17 credits elected in introductory biology.

A neuroscientist will lead a broad survey which critically explores scientific and religious views of life on Earth. Take this course if you want to learn the basics either about DNA and evolution or about religion and Christianity. Avoid this course if you wish to protect a traditional Christian or Islamic outlook from criticism and scrutiny.

This course introduces students to biophysics and its role in the life sciences. The historical example of the discovery of the structure of DNA by Watson and Crick is discussed and re-created using modern techniques. As a highlight, the structure of a DNA crystal will determined using the synchrotron at the Argonne National Laboratory. Students will compose a term paper that critically compares the historical and the modern techniques at each step of the structure determination.

Intended audience: First-year students interested in the natural sciences and medicine.

Course Requirements: Student presentations, quizzes, and a term paper.

Class Format: Class will meet twice for 3 hours per week in a lecture/discussion format plus a 2 hpw laboratory. In addition, a field trip to the Argonne National Laboratory is planned.

Taking its title from the Langston Hughes poem, this seminar will explore psychological aspects of race, ethnicity, and other cultural differences in the United States. What are some of the opportunities and obstacles to our joining with Hughes in affirming, “They'll see how beautiful I am . . . I, too, sing America?” Topics include stereotyping, communication, cooperation, conflict, justice, and discrimination. What psychological theories address how individuals and groups might benefit most from life in pluralistic societies? What are some psychological dynamics of stereotyping? What are possible connections between various forms of discrimination, e.g., racism, sexism, homophobia, and anti-Semitism?

For most of the last half the twentieth century, scholars, journalists, and policy advocates have considered African American men to be in a state of crisis. This course provides a critical examination of works that aim to document and interpret that crisis. We will explore a range of arguments produced in the past thirty years that aim to define the state of Black masculinity and the social condition of African American men. These works will stimulate our effort to pose and answer questions about what, if anything, constitutes a condition of crisis for African American men and what needs to happen to and for them in order to improve their prospects in American society.

How do racial/ethnic inequalities affect possibilities for building community in a democratic society? Students will explore group identity, inequality, and community building in a democratic society, taking into account issues of power, conflict, coalition, and common ground. Emphasis will be placed on how these issues are dealt with in the U.S. presidential election as well as in case examples of ethnic/sectarian conflicts around the world. This course uses dialogue techniques for discussion within the class, exploration of the student's own social identity and the identities of their classmates, small group learning exercises, as well as reading and writing (two 15-page papers written in sections with feedback for revision). This course is part of two educational programs: The Michigan Community Scholars Program (a living-learning program located in Couzens Hall) and the Program on Intergroup Relations.

This course will examine the interaction between different racial groups in the U.S. from the 19th century to our present moment. Conventionally, such studies focus solely on the relationship between African Americans and whites, relying on the hackneyed Black-white paradigm of U.S. race relations. This seminar explodes that dichotomy, searching for a broader historical model, which includes yellow, brown, red, and ethnic white.

• In other words, how did African Americans respond to the internment of Japanese Americans?
• What made desegregation cases like Mendez v. Westminster important precedents in the run-up to Brown v. Board of Education?
• What is a “model minority,” and why did Asians inherit the mantle from Jews?
• What is a “protest minority,” and why were Blacks and Jews labeled as such during the Civil Rights Movement?
• What is the relationship among Black Power, Yellow Power, the American Indian Movement, and Chicano Power, if any?

We will critically interrogate the history of contact that exists between and among these diverse “groups,” and whether conflict or confluence dominates their interaction. If conflict, what factors have prevented meaningful alliances? If confluence, what roles have these groups played in collectively striving for a multiracial democracy?"

It is common knowledge that the fault lines of gender and sexuality were far more pronounced and prominent in Black public culture during the post-civil rights era than during the high tide of the Black freedom movement. In recognizing gender as a crucial aspect of discourses of black identity and authenticity in the art, literature, and politics of the Black freedom movement, we will reexamine that assumption. We will draw on secondary sources, as well as a range of primary sources, including government documents, fiction, drama, periodicals, popular music, and visual art-to explore the centrality of gender and sexuality as markers for notions of "authentic" Black identity.

Descriptions of food and drink abound in ancient literature. This course will examine the role of food and banquets in a variety of works, from Aristophanes’ comedies to Horace’s Petronius’ Satyricon. We will consider actual evidence about dining practices, but our central emphasis will be on the representation of food in literature. Much more than mere sustenance, food has the potential to reveal one’s origins, status, personal taste and style. In addition to bi-weekly papers, each student will also investigate one practical feature of ancient dining (e.g., seating, food preparation, “china”) as preparation for an authentic banquet of our own at the end of term.

This seminar is a study of voluntary associations in Greek and Roman societies. These include religious, secular, professional, and social clubs.

In this course we will read the 18 surviving plays of Euripides, c. 480-405 BCE. (Greek tragedies are short, though this is not as much as it looks).

These are a wild mixture of pure tragedies, plays of adventure with happy endings, and miniature soap operas. We will concentrate on how Euripides can be relevant for us--what we can enjoy, what we can learn from — but also on what in these plays is strange and hard to understand no matter how much we study it.

The course introduces first-year students to cultural studies in general and Dutch Studies in particular, integrating social, political, and economic history with literary renderings, and artistic representations of colonialism. The Netherlands has been an active participant in shaping the world as we know it, through mercantile and political involvement around the globe. The Dutch were colonizers of Indonesia and its many islands, founders of New Amsterdam/New York, traders in West Africa, first settlers in Capetown in South Africa, and the first trading partners with the Japanese. The Netherlands held colonial power over Suriname until 1975; other West Indies islands, i.e., Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao are still part of the Dutch Kingdom. We will trace the origin and development of the Dutch expansion in the world, how countries were conquered and political systems were established. Mercantile gains as shown in the spice trade and the many aspects of the slave trade will be emphasized. The role of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), once called the world's largest multinational in the 17^th and 18^th century, will be examined. We will read from the vast body of Dutch literary works related to the East and West Indies, started as early as the 17^th century.

After the release of the first affordable camcorder in 1965, American video artists championed the new medium’s potential to create a “participatory democracy.” In this course, we will investigate the claims for video as a radically democratic medium, and interrogate the societal, political, and artistic local contexts that fueled these aspirations. How did video artists construct the medium as a response to television, and what implications did this approach have for underrepresented segments of the population? By looking closely at artists’ videos, scholarly and popular articles, memoirs, technical handbooks, trade journals, and poetry, you will develop the skills needed to read critically, ask questions, and interpret visual material. In this writing-intensive course, you will then use these skills to improve your rhetoric and craft your own written arguments.

For post-modernists, there’s no such thing as ‘the human race’; there are only people, whose beliefs and practices are sometimes wildly different from one another. Our own culture has taught us that among the things that make us ‘human’ is our ability to use the three elements of the old medieval curriculum: grammar, logic, and rhetoric. But many ‘inhuman’ acts have been engendered and justified by their use, so ‘human’ is a vexed term. We’ve also been told that an important product of any culture is its written records, especially its ‘literature’, which is usually a key to that culture’s ‘beliefs’. In this course we’ll explore these assumptions, not with the aim of endorsing them but rather of interrogating them. We’ll talk about the so-called ‘trivium’, and we’ll read literature of various sorts, but we’ll start by trying to understand what some of our own unspoken assumptions are, and also how we think, how we learn, what it means to ‘read’ something, where our values come from, whether they are testable, and most especially whether we can communicate our findings about these matters to others, both orally and in writing; that is to say, whether we know how to deploy grammar, logic, and rhetoric. We’ll do all this in a spirit of free enquiry, but predicated upon your readiness to care about both the questions and the texts, to read, think, discuss, and write about them intelligently, and to become involved in discussion in every class session. Note: thinking for yourself isn’t easy; if you think it is, just list your ten favorite ideas, then cross off all the ones that aren’t either clichés or opinions from someone else. Readings will be varied, and will be from class handouts, a few purchased books, and an on-line coursepack. There will be regular brief in-class reports, periodic short essays, and either a final exam or a final long essay.

A course in the nature and technique of contemporary short fiction, from the reader-writer's point-of-view. Close analysis of twelve examples of recent American prose, with an eye on authorial technique. Written work will consist of exercises in imitation, an effort to enter the style and specific rhetoric of the examples at hand. We will read short stories from Andrea Barrett, John Barth, Charles Baxter, Raymond Carver, Ernest Hemingway, Richard Ford, Jamaica Kincaid, Bernard Malamud, Lorrie Moore, Bharati Mukherjee, Tim O'Brien, and Flannery O'Connor. Additional reading will be drawn from THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES (ed. Stephen King), 2008. The article of faith on which this course is based is that imitation is not merely the sincerest form of flattery, but also a good way to grow.

Stewardship of the Earth is not a new ideal. American Indians have long fostered the belief that humans are merely caretakers of the environment. Over time, industrialized society has made attempts to carry forward this tradition. In the 1970's, when the modern environmental movement was born, our country enacted sweeping environmental laws. In the decades since, however, our commitment to environmental protection has waned. This course will explore the human connection to the environment and the evolution of American attitudes toward the natural world as reflected in environmental literature. Using language to understand our connection to the world around us, we will examine our relationship with nature in various works of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and film. In addition to exploring environmental literature and film, students will complete a social service requirement that benefits the health of the environment or furthers understanding of environmental issues. By fostering a greater appreciation for our connection to the environment and our attempts to reconcile our ambivalent attitudes toward nature, this course will help us define our place in the natural world.

Required texts/authors may include:

• Edward Abbey Desert Solitaire
• Diane Ackerman The Whale by Moonlight
• Rachel Carson Silent Spring
• Ralph Waldo Emerson Selected Essays
• Ted Kerasote The Return of the Wild
• Donald Knowler The Falconer of Central Park
• Craig Lesley Winterkill
• Aldo Leopold Sand County Almanac
• Ellen Meloy Eating Stone
• Scott Momaday The Man Made of Words
• Gary Snyder The Practice of the Wild
• Jack Turner The Abstract Wild

Inquiry into the fundamental changes occurring in the natural environment (including humans) and in human social systems and culture, to explore the question "To what extent, in what ways and why are current trends in human impacts on the environment and social relations unsustainable/sustainable? The seminar will introduce the major contrasting responses being made to this question along with their differing scenarios of the future in terms of their visions, strategies, and examples of practices to be pursued.

Learning resources will be selected from four types of information:

1. scientific,
2. religious/spiritual,
3. documentation of innovative environmental, social (including economic and political) and technological practices and
4. personal experiences and commitments.

Religions to be considered include those of Native Americans and other indigenous peoples as well as world religions, e.g., Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. The consideration of spirituality is based on individuals' experiences and recognition of "sacred" or "ultimate" realities that are variously understood and characterized.

Students will be asked to engage in interdisciplinary, seminar based inquiry through reading and thinking critically, reflecting on and analyzing their own values, beliefs and practices, sharing the results of their own inquiries through discussions, writing, and presentations and by comparing and contrasting their own beliefs and ideas with others who have different backgrounds and current values, beliefs and goals.

It is expected that students enrolling in this seminar will have differing backgrounds of knowledge and experience in relation to the environment, science, religion/spirituality, and unsustainability/sustainability. Both students with religious commitments are welcome as well as students who are agnostics, atheists or who would describe themselves as secular humanists, skeptics, and “undecided" or by some other name for their highest values and related belief systems and practices. This opportunity for participatory inquiry will require enrolled students to engage in respectful dialogue along with acceptance of people with backgrounds and present commitments and beliefs that are different from their own.

Credit Exclusions: No credit granted to those who have completed three of GEOSCI 105, 107, and 205. Those with credit for one of GEOSCI 105 and 107 may only elect GEOSCI 146 for two credits. Those with credit for GEOSCI 205, or both GEOSCI 105 and 107, may only elect GEOSCI 146 for one credit.

Two hundred million years ago the Earth's continents were joined together to form one gigantic super-continent, called Pangea. Plate tectonic forces broke Pangea apart and caused the continents to drift. We study the evidence for plate tectonics and the large-scale dynamics of the Earth's interior that is responsible for mountain building, earthquakes faulting, volcanic eruptions, changes in Earth's magnetic field and much more.

The course involves three hours of weekly meeting time and selected reading material. No background in Earth science is necessary. Evaluation is based on class participation, three exams, a series of student presentations on selected topics and written essays on the same subject.

Credit Exclusions: Those with credit for GEOSCI 107 or 205 may only elect GEOSCI 147 for 2 credits. Those who have credit for both GEOSCI 107 and 205 may only elect 147 for 1 credit.

This first-year seminar examines the geologic origin, as well as economic and societal impact of natural hazards such as earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides, floods, tsunamis, climate change, and meteorite impacts through lectures, discussion, student presentations, and research projects.

Credit Exclusions: No credit granted to those who have completed or are enrolled in GEOSCI 284. Those with credit for GEOSCI 109 may only elect GEOSCI 148 for 2 credits.

This seminar will focus on a wide spectrum of possible interactions between people and their physical environment. Fundamental principles important to the study of environmental geology will be presented followed by readings of case histories and discussions of selected environmental problems, in particular those of anthropogenic origin. Examples of topics discussed include issues related to global warming, energy (fossil fuels, nuclear energy), water resources (impacts of excessive groundwater withdrawal, allocation of surface water rights), radioactive waste disposal, and geological aspects of environmental health.

Survey of oceanography and the resources of the ocean. Consideration of conflicts arising from overexploitation and competing uses of the ocean and its resources.

This class draws on theories of narrative from Western and Asian art and literature to explore various exemplars of Japanese narrative art. Lectures will survey the history of visual storytelling in Japan from the seventh to twenty-first centuries, emphasizing close visual and textual analysis. Lively class discussions explore a range of issues concerning narrative in Japan, including visual modes of storytelling in the scroll format, concepts of literary and pictorial genres in the premodern period, and the functions of picture scrolls as tools of persuasion, repositories for nostalgic visions of the classical past, vehicles for the mythologization of religious institutes, and stages for satiric representation. The objects to be analyzed range from twelfth-century Genji scrolls to modern animation, with special emphasis on illustrated texts.

III. 2, 3

This class mixes history, literature, and sociology. The purpose of the class is two fold: first, to introduce a number of selected texts on family, friendship, and love in Chinese culture; second to provide a broad conceptual framework on self and society in traditional and contemporary China. I have organized the classes each week around specific selected topics and have assigned a variety of literary as well as social science texts. We are interested in these texts less as artistic achievements and more as guides to Chinese values and to the function of literature in Chinese culture.

This class assumes no prior knowledge of Chinese culture. There will be close to 250 pages of required reading – more fiction than social science each week. The readings will be posted on a Ctools site, with the exception of "The Story of the Stone" and "The Plum of the Golden Vase". You will be required to purchase these online. These books will also be placed on reserve at the Undergraduate Library.

Every week students should post a short discussion question on the next week's readings on our class Ctools site for class discussion. In addition to the reading, Students are responsible for leading class discussion on the reading for a specific week; discussion leaders may want to consult with me before their class presentation. You will also prepare two short papers (1000 and 2500 words respectively). Poorly written papers will be returned to be rewritten. Two classes, listed as Paper Conferences on the schedule, will be devoted to the discussion of students’ papers. The papers will be posted on the Ctools site prior to the class.

Most of our communication will be through class discussions. Attendance and participation are absolutely required. Students who are absent without an acceptable excuse will be penalized severely.

It is common knowledge that the fault lines of gender and sexuality were far more pronounced and prominent in Black public culture during the post-civil rights era than during the high tide of the Black freedom movement. In recognizing gender as a crucial aspect of discourses of black identity and authenticity in the art, literature, and politics of the Black freedom movement, we will reexamine that assumption. We will draw on secondary sources, as well as a range of primary sources, including government documents, fiction, drama, periodicals, popular music, and visual art-to explore the centrality of gender and sexuality as markers for notions of "authentic" Black identity.

In a world in which violence seems endemic — from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (2003- and 2001-, respectively), “militia” violence in the Darfur region of Somalia (2003-), pogroms in Gujarat, India (2002), ethnic cleansing in Kosovo (1999), to genocide in Rwanda (1994) … — this course examines the ability of history, as a discipline, to represent violence. This course is concerned, in particular, with the limits of the existing historiography of violence, and gauges whether other disciplines or genres (specifically anthropology, literature, and film) have been more successful in capturing the multifaceted – and often elusive – causes of violence, and its impact on society.

While this course addresses a broad theme, it will focus, principally, on a single historical event: the partition of India in 1947. Due to this historical event, which accompanied India’s independence from British colonial rule, some 12 million people migrated, 1 million people were killed, and perhaps as many as 75,000 women were victims of sexual violence. The study of the partition has produced a rich and diverse body of scholarship that helps address the broader theoretical questions about violence and history that this course engages.

This course has no prerequisites.

Evaluation in this course will be based on participation, two 3-4 page essays, and a final exam.

Required texts: Gyanendra Pandey, Remembering Partition (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002)

This first-year seminar introduces students to the historical challenges faced by people of Mexican descent in the United States. We will discuss the social, economic, and political changes that influenced the day-to-day life of Mexicans/Mexican Americans. To organize the class, we will question the meaning of a racialized Mexican identity in the United States. This class will highlight the racial, class, gender, and sexual diversity within the Mexican-American community. We will consider how different groups of Mexicans have historically understood these ideas and their relationships to other Americans and other Latino groups. Part of our work will also consider Chicano history’s political and intellectual underpinnings as an academic discipline.

Global warming and climate change! Energy shortages! An impending water crisis! Genetically altered foods! Natural disasters! Cloned animal products!! — the relations between human beings and the non-human world have never seemed so urgent or troubled as they do today. Each of these crises—and many others—has a history behind it. We have arrived at our environmental present through a series of human choices, made within the constraints imposed by the non-human world in which we live. Environmental history studies this past.

We will examine not simply historical documents, but also landscapes, maps, rivers, city streets, works of art, climate studies, demography, animal population studies, legal decisions, and more. The course, in other words, is explicitly interdisciplinary, drawing on a range of humanities and sciences. We will focus on the United States, taking as our primary case study our own back yard—the City of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan. No special background is required. As a first-year seminar, the class will meet twice each week in a seminar setting, and will include walking trips through Ann Arbor and sessions at the Arboretum and at the Bentley Historical Library. Evaluation will be based on reading journals and a short primary-source research paper and class presentation. Course materials will include selected journal articles and books by Carolyn Merchant, Michael Pollan, and Mark Kurlansky.

The ideological labels of the modern world—liberalism, conservatism, socialism, fascism, environmentalism, feminism, etc.—have all taken on new meanings in the 21st century. Nonetheless, we continue to use those labels to frame the way we discuss our collective problems and define our political identities. When one calls oneself a liberal or a conservative, one evokes a rich ideological tradition (whether knowingly or not), carrying into the present the assumptions, values, and goals of a long line of predecessors. This class will explore the major traditions of political thought that have shaped modern history, with a focus on key texts from a wide range of seminal authors across the political spectrum, from Adam Smith to Karl Marx. As we read these classics we will study both their historical origins and their present-day appropriations, finding examples from contemporary media to see how the ideas of the 19th and 20th centuries are being used today.

This course surveys major themes in the history of the Philippines, paying particular attention to their cultural dimensions. Starting with its inception as a colony of Spain, through the American colonial period, to the post-colonial present, we will draw from Philippine historiography, ethnography, literary works and popular culture to examine the cultural effects of processes such as religious conversion and colonial encounter; revolution and nationalism; hybridity and language; regionalism and identity formation; modernity, globalization, and migration. Class format will consist of lectures and discussion, with several classes dedicated to exploring the University of Michigan’s vast collections of Philippine-related material. Students will be expected to be present for all classes, participate in discussion, and carry out individual research projects. Grades will be determined by short-answer exams, reading response papers, and the final paper.

How Jewish were Jesus and his followers and what difference does it make? The narratives we tell about the beginnings of Christianity and Judaism, their complicated relationship, and how and when they emerged as distinct categories are often more about our present day ideas and assumptions than about the complexities of ancient history. This seminar will examine the intertwined early histories of Christianity and Judaism together with various modern contemporary scholarly and popular accounts thereof. Besides drawing upon primary sources (such as the New Testament and Rabbinic literature) we will be viewing and analyzing recent and twentieth century films (and responses to them) that feature narratives about Jewish-Christian beginnings (Jesus Christ Superstar, The Life of Brian, King of Kings).

How Jewish were Jesus and his followers and what difference does it make? The narratives we tell about the beginnings of Christianity and Judaism, their complicated relationship, and how and when they emerged as distinct categories are often more about our present day ideas and assumptions than about the complexities of ancient history. This seminar will examine the intertwined early histories of Christianity and Judaism together with various modern contemporary scholarly and popular accounts thereof. Besides drawing upon primary sources (such as the New Testament and Rabbinic literature) we will be viewing and analyzing recent and twentieth century films (and responses to them) that feature narratives about Jewish-Christian beginnings (Jesus Christ Superstar, The Life of Brian, King of Kings).

Much of our current knowledge of early civilizations is due to the deciphering of ancient scripts and languages, which requires an understanding of how scripts and languages work as well as a bit of luck. This course examines successful decipherments of the past (e.g., of Egyptian and of languages written in cuneiform scripts), recent breakthroughs (e.g., in deciphering Mesoamerican languages), and cases that remain unsolved. Hands-on exercises are based on real examples.

In this course we discuss linguistic theories and techniques in analyzing pronunciation, using English as the primary example. We shall also compare English with other languages and discuss how to evaluate ‘foreign accents’ objectively, using computer instruments. There is no prerequisite for this course.

We will study Semantics and Pragmatics in this class, focussing on why and how one asks interesting questions, and why and how one recognizes satisfying answers to them; these are the bases of all education, the so-called Socratic method. This class is especially designed for incoming students who are worried they might be interested in too many subjects; the professor has spent 48 years in college being interested in practically everything, and strongly recommends curiosity.

Credit Exclusions: No credit granted to those who have completed a 200-level or higher Mathematics course.

Introduces students to the science of constructing and attacking secret codes. An important goal is to present the mathematical tools – from combinatorics, number theory, and probability – that underlie cryptologic methods.

Background and Goals: This course is an alternative to MATH 185 as an entry to the Honors sequence. Students are expected to have previous experience with the basic concepts and techniques of first-semester calculus. The course stresses discovery as a vehicle for learning. Students will be required to experiment throughout the course on a range of problems and will participate each semester in a group project. Grades will be based on homework and projects with a strong emphasis on homework. Personal computers will be a valuable experimental tool in this course and students will be asked to learn to program in either BASIC, PASCAL or FORTRAN.

Content: This course gives a historical introduction to Cryptology and introduces a number of mathematical ideas and results involved in the development and analysis of secret codes. The course begins with the study of permutation-based codes: substitutional ciphers, transpositional codes, and more complex polyalphabetic substitutions. The mathematical subjects treated in this section include enumeration, modular arithmetic and some elementary statistics. The subject then moves to bit stream encryption methods. These include block cipher schemes such as the Data Encryption Standard. The mathematical concepts introduced here are recurrence relations and some more advanced statistical results. The final part of the course is devoted to public key encryption, including Diffie-Hellman key exchange, RSA and Knapsack codes. The mathematical tools come from elementary number theory.

Alternatives: MATH 115 (Calculus I), MATH 185 (Honors Calculus I), or MATH 295 (Honors Mathematics I).

Subsequent Courses: MATH 176 (Dynamical Systems and Calculus), MATH 186 (Honors Calculus II), or MATH 116 (Calculus II).

Credit Exclusions: No credit granted to those who have completed a 200-level or higher Mathematics course.

Introduces students to the science of constructing and attacking secret codes. An important goal is to present the mathematical tools – from combinatorics, number theory, and probability – that underlie cryptologic methods.

Background and Goals: This course is an alternative to MATH 185 as an entry to the Honors sequence. Students are expected to have previous experience with the basic concepts and techniques of first-semester calculus. The course stresses discovery as a vehicle for learning. Students will be required to experiment throughout the course on a range of problems and will participate each semester in a group project. Grades will be based on homework and projects with a strong emphasis on homework. Personal computers will be a valuable experimental tool in this course and students will be asked to learn to program in either BASIC, PASCAL or FORTRAN.

Content: This course gives a historical introduction to Cryptology and introduces a number of mathematical ideas and results involved in the development and analysis of secret codes. The course begins with the study of permutation-based codes: substitutional ciphers, transpositional codes, and more complex polyalphabetic substitutions. The mathematical subjects treated in this section include enumeration, modular arithmetic and some elementary statistics. The subject then moves to bit stream encryption methods. These include block cipher schemes such as the Data Encryption Standard. The mathematical concepts introduced here are recurrence relations and some more advanced statistical results. The final part of the course is devoted to public key encryption, including Diffie-Hellman key exchange, RSA and Knapsack codes. The mathematical tools come from elementary number theory.

Alternatives: MATH 115 (Calculus I), MATH 185 (Honors Calculus I), or MATH 295 (Honors Mathematics I).

Subsequent Courses: MATH 176 (Dynamical Systems and Calculus), MATH 186 (Honors Calculus II), or MATH 116 (Calculus II).

This course examines moral dimensions of the University and its faculty, students, and staff in their roles as citizens of an academic community.  Our goal is to help students think about how to approach participation in this community and develop their deliberative competencies by questioning academic life and the University from moral and social standpoints.  We will organize our inquiries into three domains:  academic integrity; the University as an academic community; the University’s moral obligations as an institution.

Our choices about what to eat are, more or less universally, expressive of some sort of value. Some are expressive of our aesthetic values: of our judgments about which foods are or are not tasty, appealing, delicious, revolting, etc. Some are expressive of our moral values: of our judgments about which foods we are permitted, obligated, or forbidden to eat. Both sorts of values are tremendously important to the ways we live our lives, and it's worth having a careful look at the sorts of values that inform our food choices.

We'll start with, and focus primarily on, issues about the ethics of food. In particular, we'll begin by considering the arguments for and against a variety of views about which foods it is permissible to eat. We'll examine arguments for vegetarian and vegan diets, for eating organic, for eating local, and for restricting oneself to only humanely raised and slaughtered meat.

This will involve us in a number of important moral issues. We'll investigate such questions as:

• Which sorts of entities are deserving of moral consideration?
• What sorts of harms is it permissible to cause, to which sorts of entities, and for what sorts of reasons?
• What sorts of moral obligations, if any, do we have toward non-human animals?
• What are the environmental and social consequences of various sorts of eating habits?
• To what extent does the presence of those sorts of consequences generate moral obligations to adopt (or to abandon) the relevant eating habits?

We'll close by considering some issues in aesthetics:

• To what extent are our aesthetic judgments about food objective?
• What does it mean, exactly, for such a judgment to be objective?
• What are aesthetic judgments about, exactly?

Our choices about what to eat are, more or less universally, expressive of some sort of value. Some are expressive of our aesthetic values: of our judgments about which foods are or are not tasty, appealing, delicious, revolting, etc. Some are expressive of our moral values: of our judgments about which foods we are permitted, obligated, or forbidden to eat. Both sorts of values are tremendously important to the ways we live our lives, and it's worth having a careful look at the sorts of values that inform our food choices.

We'll start with, and focus primarily on, issues about the ethics of food. In particular, we'll begin by considering the arguments for and against a variety of views about which foods it is permissible to eat. We'll examine arguments for vegetarian and vegan diets, for eating organic, for eating local, and for restricting oneself to only humanely raised and slaughtered meat.

This will involve us in a number of important moral issues. We'll investigate such questions as:

• Which sorts of entities are deserving of moral consideration?
• What sorts of harms is it permissible to cause, to which sorts of entities, and for what sorts of reasons?
• What sorts of moral obligations, if any, do we have toward non-human animals?
• What are the environmental and social consequences of various sorts of eating habits?
• To what extent does the presence of those sorts of consequences generate moral obligations to adopt (or to abandon) the relevant eating habits?

We'll close by considering some issues in aesthetics:

• To what extent are our aesthetic judgments about food objective?
• What does it mean, exactly, for such a judgment to be objective?
• What are aesthetic judgments about, exactly?

This course will explore how gender influences construction of the self and how we understand our own and others' emotions. Taught from a social justice perspective, this class will explore psychologically, socially and morally complex issues surrounding gender identity, transsexualism, sexual orientation, and relationships. Students will examine their own beliefs and experiences as well as become familiar with basic controversies in this area.

This seminar will focus on twinship. Throughout historical time, and across many cultures, twins have been the source of much fascination. In literature, they have served as a metaphor to explore identity, good vs. evil, multiple life options, symmetry, and soul mates, and in science, they have been used to disentangle genetic and environmental influences on health and behavior. In order to gain an understanding of the experience, influences, and impact of twinship, we will examine literature and films that have used twins, interview twins, parents, siblings, and spouses of twins, and consider theory and research on the biology and psychology of twins, and on changes related to the recent increased incidence of twinning. A class web site will be integral to the course. Students will be expected to participate actively in both class and web site discussions, as well as to keep up with weekly reading and written assignments. In addition, there will be two group projects and a final exam. The number of points accumulated on these various options will determine final grades.

This seminar will study the relationship between law and psychology within a general framework. We will examine a number of real cases that have been covered by the popular press (e.g., the trial of Lorena Bobbitt) as well as some fictional accounts (e.g., Grisham's A Time to Kill) with regard to how the law defines the limits of personal responsibility. We will also discuss the psychological import of legal issues such as the insanity defense, and battered wife syndrome. Each student will write a weekly commentary as well as a "closing argument" that will be presented to the class for one of the cases under consideration.

How do racial/ethnic inequalities affect possibilities for building community in a democratic society? Students will explore group identity, inequality, and community building in a democratic society, taking into account issues of power, conflict, coalition, and common ground. Emphasis will be placed on how these issues are dealt with in the U.S. presidential election as well as in case examples of ethnic/sectarian conflicts around the world. This course uses dialogue techniques for discussion within the class, exploration of the student's own social identity and the identities of their classmates, small group learning exercises, as well as reading and writing (two 15-page papers written in sections with feedback for revision). This course is part of two educational programs: The Michigan Community Scholars Program (a living-learning program located in Couzens Hall) and the Program on Intergroup Relations.

In this seminar, we will discuss the political psychology of public opinion, voting, leadership, and media coverage of elections. Examples of pertinent questions include: Do citizens vote in self-interested ways? Or are other, more symbolic aspects more important? And to what extent does a candidate’s race matter? In seeking answers to such questions, we will rely upon scholarship in psychology, political science, sociology, history, and geography, and we will pay particular attention to the 2008 elections as they apply to these domains. Students will approach these issues via readings, class discussion, short papers, and a data collection project.

Taking its title from the Langston Hughes poem, this seminar will explore psychological aspects of race, ethnicity, and other cultural differences in the United States. What are some of the opportunities and obstacles to our joining with Hughes in affirming, “They'll see how beautiful I am . . . I, too, sing America?” Topics include stereotyping, communication, cooperation, conflict, justice, and discrimination. What psychological theories address how individuals and groups might benefit most from life in pluralistic societies? What are some psychological dynamics of stereotyping? What are possible connections between various forms of discrimination, e.g., racism, sexism, homophobia, and anti-Semitism?

Artists, craftspeople, and cultural knowledge-makers have been instrumental but not acknowledged as creators of social action. This seminar will explore several types of creative work such as performances, exhibits, and lectures – especially those that involve both visual and narrative materials (pictures and stories). We will study how such activities have produced social action, especially among disadvantaged or stigmatized groups (like youth, persons with brain disorders, prisoners, the elderly, people with HIV/AIDS) in the United States and South Africa. Using methods from community psychology students will learn ways to assess critically creative work and social action.

Why do people hurt each other? When do they choose good over evil? In this course, we will examine how violent, hurtful behavior and caring, empathic behavior both arise from the cognitive and emotional processes of the human brain. We will consider how these biological and psychological factors interact with an individual's social context and environment. Our discussions will include psychological, psychiatric, neurological, genetic, and evolutionary perspectives. Topics will include a wide range of evil and good, from individual acts of aggression and helping behavior to large-scale phenomena such as genocide.

Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, belongs to those European cities that fascinate as unique historical amalgams whose composition defies disciplinary boundaries. The course traces Prague’s history, culture, architecture, the symbiosis of ethnic groups within its walls, and its current spirit. Topics include Prague as: a medieval city; the center of religious reformation; the center of arts and science, but also alchemy and black magic, in the early modern times; an architectural project of the baroque period; a center of the Czech nationalist revival; a center of music; the city of Jews; and last but not least- the showcase of modernism in the twentieth century. We will read literature inspired by Prague, including Neruda, Kafka, and Apollinaire; study visual documents; and watch films including Paul Wegener’s Golem.

Both utopia (describing an imaginary ideal society) and dystopia (describing an imaginary evil society) have captured the imagination of numerous generations of readers. This course investigates the history of these exciting genres across national boundaries through critical writing and reading. It traces the evolution of the genres from the works of antiquity and the Renaissance, through the nineteenth century and the development of Socialist rationalist utopia, to the great age of dystopia, and up to postmodern parodic novels. It explores how English, Russian, American, Czech, Polish, and other utopias/dystopias respond to key socio-political developments in the world, and how they react to various cultural movements (e.g., Romanticism, the Avant-Garde, Postmodernism), as well as how they take on various aspects of fantasy and science fiction. Authors will include Thomas More, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Evgeny Zamyatin, Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, Karel Čapek, Stanisław Lem, Thomas Pynchon, and Vladimir Voinovich. Select Anglo-American, German, and Russian movies will be shown.

The region of the Balkans includes Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, and the countries of the former Yugoslavia. Named during the centuries-long Ottoman occupation, the region has politically been defined as the periphery of civilized Europe.

Through the literary renditions and theoretical elaborations of myths created in the region, as well as those created about the region by the Western literature, film industry, and in the recent years, media, we will delve into the problematics of identity, ethnicity, gender, body, memory, totalitarianism, violence, exile, and the gaze. Simultaneous with our mythical journey through history will be our historical journey through myth, as we follow the development of pertinent mythical themes from classical antiquity to modern times. Central to our discussion will be the key metaphor of the Balkans as a bridge between East and West

PRIMARY TEXTS:

• Ivo Andrić, The Bridge on the Drina (Yugoslavia, 1945, Nobel Prize 1961);
• Ismail Kadare, The Three-Arched Bridge (Albania, 1978);
• Rhea Galanaki, The Life of Ismail Ferik Pasha (Greece, 1989);
• Orhan Pamuk, White Castle (Turkey, 1985);
• B. Wongar, Raki (Australia, 1994).

OTHER READINGS: Select poetry and short fiction by the following authors: Constantine Cavafy, Odysseus Elytis (Nobel Prize, 1979) (Greece), Marin Sorescu, Lucian Blaga (Romania), Nâzim Hikmet (Turkey), Elisaveta Bagryana (Bulgaria), Danilo Kiš (Yugoslavia).

FILMS:

• Ulysses’ Gaze (Theo Angelopoulos, Greece, 1995),
• Before the Rain (Milčo Mančevski, Macedonia, 1994), and
• The Time of Gypsies (Emir Kusturica, Yugoslavia, 1989).

An introduction to the sociological study of inequality through an analysis of three of its fundamental dimensions — class, race and gender. The course will explore how each of the three dimensions of inequality is related to the development of modern capitalist society as described by Marx and Weber. The course will provide an introduction to basic concepts in class analysis, to contemporary issues in feminist theories of gender, and to recent work on the social construction of race. It will also trace both the similarities and differences among the three dimensions, their relationship to one another and to the underlying dynamics of capitalist modernity.

Texts include Barbara Ehrenreich, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting Buy in America; Richard Feldman and Michale Beltzold, End of the Line: Autoworkers and the American Dream; Susan Kessler and Wendy McKenna, Gender: An Ethnomethodological Approach; Oyeronke, Oyewumi, The Invention of Women; Joe Feagin and Melvin Sikes, Living with Racism: The Black Middle Class Experience; Ron Takaki, Iron Cages: Race and Culture in Nineteenth Century America, as well as selected readings from Marx and Weber.

That America is a nation of immigrants is one of the most common yet truest statements. In this course we will survey a vast range of the American immigrant experience: that of the Irish, Germans, Jews, Italians, Blacks, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Cubans, Koreans, and Japanese. Immigration to America can be broadly understood as consisting of four major waves: the first one, that which consisted of Northwest Europeans who immigrated up to the mid-19th century; the second one, that which consisted of Southern and Eastern Europeans at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th; the third one, the movement from the South to the North of Black Americans and Mexicans precipitated by two World Wars; and the fourth one, from 1965 on, is still ongoing in the present, of immigrants mostly from Latin America and Asia. At all times, our effort will be to understand the immigrant past of these ethnic groups, both for what it tells us about the past as well as their present and possible future.

Course requirements: The written requirements for this class consist of two written, in-class exams (one essay and some short answers) plus a book review (about 8 pages long) of a social science book on an immigrant/ethnic/racial group of the student’s choice.

This seminar will explore a wide range of issues on social identity and intergroup relations, notions of community, and everyday democracy. It will examine the possibilities for building community across race, gender and class as students explore their own racial and other social group identities. How do we have constructive conversations and dialogue about our different perspectives, beliefs, experiences, and backgrounds? How do we develop the practice of civic engagement along with the skills of boundary-crossing to strengthen a diverse democracy in our schools, neighborhoods, cities, and governments? To what extent do the American ideals and its democratic principles continue to provide a bond for our society in the face of growing social divisions and inequities? Students from diverse backgrounds are encouraged to enroll in this seminar, bringing personal experience and perspective to enrich the discussion of theoretical readings. All students are expected to participate actively in class discussions, read carefully, and write extensively. Students will observe and participate in a number of engaging intergroup dialogue exercises and community-based activities.

Credit Exclusions: No credit to those who have completed or are enrolled in SOC 210, IOE/STATS 265, STATS 350, 400, 412, ECON 404, ECON/STATS 405, or ENVIRON/NRE 438.

The course establishes techniques for determining whether relationships between variables, particularly intervention and outcome variable, exist in the sense that the appearance of an association can't be explained by chance. The course formalizes and extends the set of phenomena that can be numerically represented in a way as to permit these modes of analysis. This is done in the interest of making predictions and judgments, particularly about what hypotheses are and are not supported by a set of data and to what extent the data support them. It introduces general perspectives from the field of Statistics to a broad audience of lower-division students.

Can you really make statistics say anything you want? Yes and no. Some common statistical comparisons are susceptible to coercion, but there are others that can be trusted to tell the truth. We explore their differences, using examples from the social and medical sciences and cutting-edge computing and graphical techniques.

Is it fair to compare As to Bs without also adjusting for other potentially important variables? (Often it isn't, but sometimes it is.) What do graphs contribute to statistical comparisons? (Some merely heighten statistical illusions; others can be uniquely illuminating.) How should we interpret claims to having found "significant" differences? (Often, very differently than how those making the claims would like us to.) The course will engage with these questions as they arise in economics, medicine, and politics, among other fields, as well as in aspects of student life, and it will leverage modern computing tools and an inductive approach to pedagogy to engage them in an unusually conceptual way. By the end of the course, students will be well-versed in new ways to leverage computing and graphics to reveal structure in data as well as traditional principles of using data to draw conclusion.

The course will be divided into 4 segments: 1) dichotomous & categorical Data; 2) quantitative data; 3) observational comparisons of groups; and 4) a capstone.

1. Dichotomous & Categorical Data

   Using statistical data of the simplest kinds, we introduce several themes of the course: presenting meaningful and relevant summaries; connecting numeric and visual descriptions; recognizing and avoiding fallacies and deceptions; chance versus systematic differences between groups; the distinction between active and passive observation; causal inference from experiments.

   Topics:
   • Fisher's test for everyday experiments, as elaborated with Wardrop's "skeptic vs. advocate" scheme
   • Simulation associated with Fisher's test
   • Summarizing categorical variables one or a few at a time, using traditional graphs, such as bar graphs, informatively colored maps, and modem graphs, including spine plots and mosaic plots.
   • Introduction to "Mondrian" software for making these plots and for efficient summary of variables
   • Critical appraisal of use of graphics in the media
   • Measurement validity

   Text: R.L. Wardrop (1995) Statistics: Learning in the Presence of Variation, chapters 1-7,

   Project: conduct, analyze and write up an experiment.

2. Quantitative Data

   Without introducing new concerns to study design or to statistical inference, quantitative data call for more sophisticated plots and summary measures, as well as more judgment in the choice of plots and summaries. Topics:

   • Summarizing quantitative data numerically, via measures of location and spread
   • Building intuition for these measures; additional critical appraisal of use of graphics in the media
   • Graphical and permutation-based assessments of bivariate association (Buja & Cook 1999, Buja, J. Comp. Graph. Stat. 2004)
   • Permutation tests for comparison of two groups on a measurement variable

Text: N. Maxwell (2004) Data Matters: conceptual statistics for a random world, Key College Publishing, Emeryville CA; chapters 6-8.

Project: Descriptive analysis project, in small groups, with oral presentation.

3. Observational comwarisons of groups

   Non-experimental comparisons occupy a spectrum between highly trustworthy and highly fallible. This course segment treats locating and improving a comparison's position on this spectrum, emphasizing conceptual over technical issues.

   Topics:
   • Simpson's paradox
   • Stratified comparisons
   • Direct standardization
   • Simultaneous graphical comparison of groups along several variables
   • Propensity score stratification and matching (as time permits)

4. Capstone

   The final segment ties the sections of the course together. Case studies are used to show how statistical evidence of various kinds, from various sources, can be assembled into a persuasive whole, despite imperfections of each of the parts. In particular, these case studies will illustrate effective uses of the logic of experimentation and of descriptive analysis.

Intended audience: This will be a First-Year Seminar intended for freshmen with interests in statistics, computing or mathematics, and making sense of data in the health, public policy, and social science sciences.

Course Requirements: Two projects, involving data collection and data analysis, with write-up; quizzes; and problem sets.

Class Format: 3 hours a week in seminar format.

This course is distinguished by its use of hands-on, participatory approaches to learning, by its substantial component of descriptive and graphical statistics, and by its narrow and conceptually-focused treatment of statistical inference. Rather than preparing students in specific techniques they may be likely to encounter in later courses, it offers an introduction to general ideas of statistical inference and to specific methods of exploratory analysis and data display.

This seminar will focus on how people listen to music and music's impact on communities of people who listen to it. In the first weeks of the course, students will learn how to listen to music and explore the interaction of different elements of music, such as rhythm, melody, and harmony. As we begin to listen to a wider range of music, we will explore the impact of music in cases such as the Paris riot of 1913 following the performance of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring or the reaction of King George to the Hallelujah Chorus at the conclusion of Handel's Messiah. We will consider the impact of popular music, religious music, and the band as examples of how music has reached out into all types of communities. Students will attend three musical events and write reviews of each based on concepts explored in class. The professor will present and perform numerous examples of music on the piano, there will be invited soloists and chamber ensembles, and students who wish may share their musical talents in class.

Issues of human sexuality and gender are explored from many perspectives including historical, cross-cultural, religious, and physiological. All people are sexual throughout their lives, although the expression of our sex and gender is one of the most diverse and controversial areas in personal and public arenas. The diversities of biological sex, gender identity, gender roles, sexual orientation, sexual identity, and sexual behavior and the interplay among them are presented and reinforced through readings, exercises, videos, guest speakers, and weekly written assignments. We will discuss sexual difficulties such as infertility, STDs, sexual dysfunction, and sexual victimization along with prevention and treatment strategies. We will examine social and political issues such as civil rights for sexual minorities, sex and the law, date rape, pornography, the impact of AIDS, public and private morality.

Issues especially relevant for students are explored, including:

• choice of sexual partners and behaviors
• the influence of drugs, alcohol, and smoking on sexual function and sexual decision-making
• sexual values and religious attitudes toward sex, and
• the wide range of possible lifestyles from celibacy to polyamory to paraphilias.

The course requires access to the Internet and uses a variety of Web-based resources and communication modes, as well as a textbook and readings from various journals. Weekly short papers and a semester project are required. Opportunities for help with developing presentation skills are available.

We study the development of medicine as a science and how the perception of it has been changed through the media. Students explore their own beliefs about medicine through literature such as The House of God, The Intern Blues, The Double Helix and movies and television series such as the Story of Louis Pasteur, The Hospital, Medic, Ben Casey, Marcus Welby, M.D., ER, and Saint Elsewhere, as well as more recent offerings such as John Q, House, and Grey's Anatomy. Much of the course focuses on the discussion of ethical issues and the crystallization of students' own beliefs about medicine in the 20th century.

This service-learning course explores the dynamics of formal and informal education in urban setting through traditional coursework integrated with personal reflection and community involvement. We will study the effects of social history and culture on the life prospects of children and youth. Students will work closely with members of the community and program staff to observe and document beliefs and practices that shape social identity and expectations. This course is intended for students with an interest in teaching, or urban and community studies, or both.

As an integral part of this course, students will be placed as tutors at a Detroit school beginning the week following the first class. This is a commitment of four hours per week (including travel time from campus). Students must be able to participate during one of the following time slots: Monday 8-12 (secondary); Tuesday 2-6 (elementary); Wednesday 8-12 (secondary); Thursday 9-1 (elementary); or Thursday 2-6 (elementary).

Students will examine the development of dentistry from its origins to its present status as a scientifically-driven health care discipline. Students will evaluate critically how science has influenced the development of dentistry as a discipline for the past century and explore how emerging scientific disciplines are likely to change the practice of dentistry in the next millennium.

Please attend every session if possible. If you are unable to attend a class, please email me beforehand. This is not a lecture course with a final written exam. Students will be expected to participate in class discussions, ask questions, and offer opinions.

Indeed this is the age of scientific discovery! With each passing day, knowledge in the life sciences is increasing exponentially in many areas, including stem cell biology, patterns of birth defects, and the phenomena of aging, dying and death. This new information, while important to human health, surfaces the complex and intertwining issues of ethics and values that will be of special consideration in this seminar. Each of the daily learning modules and discussion topics laid out in a course “blueprint” is designed to expand current thinking and personal experiences on the “risks and benefits” between world of scientific discovery and its impact on human health and society.

Biological Perspectives. The “organizational plan” of the human body serves as a keystone as we probe the interplay of genes, cells, morphogenesis, and the environment in which we live. A myriad of biological advances will be considered, including such examples as:

1. Birth defects and population patterns
2. Phenomena of aging, dying, and death
3. Stem cells in biology and health

This last topic alone opens up a world of biological concepts and principles that can influence our understanding of how the human body — YOUR human body — is shaped prior to birth and throughout life. Thus, "life inside the box."

Ethical and Societal Perspectives. However stimulating "life inside the box" may be, that is not the whole story! In the excitement of so many dramatic scientific advances over the last ten years, efforts to understand the ethical implications have not kept pace. It is vital that researchers and clinicians be aware of and sensitive to the legal, cultural, and societal issues spawned by their work. What is society (nationally and internationally) asking for on principles and policies that should be in place to guide further research and application of such discoveries? Addressing this question focuses our attention on those environmental events occurring outside biology laboratories and outside our own human bodies. Thus, "life outside the box.”

Examples of key experiences in UC 154 include: open sharing of ideas and information on issues and priorities in biological and health care research; open class discussions on readings from a select text and from select case studies; and open sharing of ideas on strategies for information collection and assessment needed to guide the preparation of a required research paper on a topic of a student’s own interest as related to the course scope.

This course will explore how issues of identity surrounding gender, race, community, and nationality have been articulated in opera and musical theater. Questions to be addressed include: What kind of "inside" exposure do the composer and lyricist/librettist need to present a sensitive and compelling portrayal of the characters? How is heroism expressed across country and ethnicity? Are there themes carried across genres that reveal patterns in how masculinity and femininity are portrayed? How do works from the past hold up in today's political climate? The repertoire will be drawn from well-known works in musical theater (e.g., West Side Story, South Pacific, Carmen Jones, Miss Saigon) and opera (such as Carmen, Aida, and Madama Butterfly). No prerequisites.