Reqs: HU

The Problem of the "We"

This course will explore the riot of ideas, conflicts, and material realities that have defined and shaped culture in the U.S. from the Civil War to the present. Focusing on the relationship between ideology, culture, and power in U.S. history, the course will draw on a range of methods and sources — including fiction, music, movies, architecture, historical research, and images in art — to reconstruct a history of ways in which Americans have imagined their nation and the ways in which this "imagined community" has been continually transformed.

This course focuses on problems in journalistic ethics and provides an historic overview of traditional journalistic ethics coupled with a detailed study of changing values in news coverage. It studies journalists' responsibilities to their profession and to the public, and examines proposed solutions to the problems of ethics violations.

Enforced Prerequisites:

With permission of instructor.

Advisory Prerequisites:

COMM 351 or 371 strongly recommended.

Reqs: HU

Course Notes:

This course focuses on examining and employing academic argumentation. Students hone their skills at the presentation, explanation, and assessment of claims through effectively crafted writing that utilizes appropriate evidence. The course builds on and refines skills from first-year writing courses and provides a basic introduction to incorporating research.

The primary goal of this course is to teach you to write well-reasoned, well-crafted arguments: arguments in which the connection between your claims and your evidence is strong. Of course, before we can make claims, we must understand what we really think about a given subject — to that end, this course will focus not only on writing well but on thinking well. To become rigorous thinkers, we will learn to challenge assumptions, question beliefs, and consider alternate points of view, using in-class debates and discussions of assigned readings to practice these skills.

The readings for this class have been chosen not only because the authors hold a wide range of views on contemporary (often controversial) subjects, but because they use a variety of rhetorical strategies and styles in their attempt to persuade the reader. As a class, we will examine these strategies, debate their effectiveness, and strive to emulate the more persuasive modes of argumentation in our own writing. My hope and expectation is that you will emerge from this course with your critical thinking skills sharpened; your ideas challenged and complicated; and your ability to write complex, nuanced arguments strengthened.

Enforced Prerequisites:

With permission of instructor.

Advisory Prerequisites:

Completion of the First-Year Writing Requirement.

Reqs: ULWR

In this course, we will explore the genre known as Creative or Narrative Nonfiction: nonfiction prose that is reflective, investigative, and analytical and borrows rhetorical elements such as characterization, scene, theme, setting, lyricism, and metaphor from fiction and poetry. We will examine the way writers use driving questions to focus and propel their work and explore the different ways of structuring an essay, always striving to produce clear, sustained nonfiction essays that combine the rigor of fact-based, investigative scholarly writing with the beauty, elegance, and imagination of poetry and fiction.

You should expect to produce essays in this class that are more sophisticated and complex, both in content and in length, than the work produced in lower-level writing courses. The minimum length for each essay in this class will be 8-10 pages; most students will find they need more to accomplish their goals. This is an upper-level writing class, and the standards are high.

Required texts:

• A course pack, which is available at Dollar Bill Copy (611 Church Street)
• Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays, by Zadie Smith (available in paperback)
• Please also print out any readings posted on CTools and bring them with you to class. You should also please figure in the cost of printing copies of your essays for workshop into course costs.

Enforced Prerequisites:

With permission of instructor.

Advisory Prerequisites:

Completion of the First-Year Writing Requirement.

Reqs: ULWR

ENGLISH 325.103 provides the opportunity to concentrate on exploration and style. The emphasis may be on interdisciplinary improvisation as well as experimentation with different genres. Writing might include personal essays, aesthetic critique, memoirs, argumentative and persuasive essays, and various combinations and blendings of these genres. We will strive to further develop individual voice, tone, nuance, and rhythm, as well as matters of audience and perspective.

Enforced Prerequisites:

With permission of instructor.

Advisory Prerequisites:

Completion of the First-Year Writing Requirement.

Reqs: ULWR

A review of the fundamentals of composition with further practice in writing expository prose. Materials are drawn in part from the student's fields of interest.

Enforced Prerequisites:

With permission of instructor.

Advisory Prerequisites:

Completion of the First-Year Writing Requirement.

Sexual Rights are Human Rights: The History of International Human Rights Law and its Application to Gender, Sexuality, and Sexual Orientation

This course examines the development of international human rights principles regarding gender and sexual rights over the past several decades and the application of these principles in different national legal contexts. It begins by exploring the history of the notion of universal human rights and the creation of international human rights resolutions and conventions in the aftermath of World War II, with emphasis on the inclusion of gender and sexual rights. The second part of the course examines the interpretation and application of international human rights principles to gender and sexual rights in selected Latin American nations. The final part of the course will be devoted to analysis of students’ research on a relevant legal case in a nation of their choice and to attaining a new analytical perspective on the relationship between international law and local legal practices around the world.

Course Requirements:

No data submitted

Intended Audience:

No data submitted

Class Format:

No data submitted

Reqs: SS, RE

In this course we examine the interplay between language and ideological processes, particularly as they function below the level of conscious awareness. We are concerned with the suppression of linguistic variation; that is, with the development of a standard language ideology, which is understood to be a bias toward an abstracted idealized, (but ultimately unattainable) homogenous spoken language, modeled on variants favored by the white, middle American mainstream. This ideology is one of many social practices on which people depend without close analysis of underlying assumptions. In this class, we will look into those assumptions linguistic and social and about the arguments used to uphold them. We will examine the way in which these behaviors are institutionalized by the media, the entertainment industry, school systems, business community, and the judicial system, all of which promote standard language ideology and underwrite assimilatory and often discriminatory practices, the goal of which is to suppress perfectly functional language variation intimately linked to homeland, race, ethnicity, ability (e.g., as it relates to the use of signed rather than spoken languages), or gender. We will look at issues of language choice and accent as legal issues in the courts, including battles about hate speech. This course should be of interest to those concerned with non-mainstream language varieties as a cultural resource and asset, historical heritage, and potential complication in supre-cultural communication. An introductory linguistics course would be helpful but is not essential.

Advisory Prerequisites:

LING 210.

Credit Exclusions:

Credit is granted for only one of PHIL 180 or 201.

Logic is, at its heart, the study of good and bad ways of thinking. It is concerned with describing and identifying not what thoughts we should have, but rather how we should reason with those thoughts. In this introduction to logic, we will begin with classical theories, which focus on the relationships between thoughts like "If P, then Q" (in propositional logic) and "All As are Bs" (in predicate and categorical logic). But these theories have limits. On the one hand, our normal reasoning involves many more concepts than these systems allow for. On the other, these systems focus on infallible reasoning, but our normal reasoning is fallible. We will study several puzzles and paradoxes that highlight these shortcomings. Each of these will serve as an introduction to more sophisticated logical theories as well as related topics in contemporary philosophy.

Reqs: SS

Abnormal psychology entails the scientific study of aberrant behaviors, broadly defined. However, there is no universal consensus on the definition, classification, and treatment of psychological disorders. As we shall quickly see, what is deemed abnormal and how it develops or is treated will partly depend on the particular perspective taken. Hence, a key goal of this course is to guide students toward a broad and critical understanding of 'abnormal behavior' from a number of different perspectives. We will accomplish this by exploring, evaluating, and discussing various strengths and weaknesses of different perspectives for understanding psychology based on the theoretical and empirical literature. Films may be used to illustrate some of the important concepts mentioned in the lectures and in the readings.

Your final grade will be based on the total number of points you obtain from regular quizzes and exams. In addition, a paper may be required. Note, it is the student's responsibility to be in attendance for all lecture classes. Quizzes, which are given at the start of class, cannot be made up for any reason, and will be given starting the second lecture class. (Therefore, students interested in taking this course should make sure to attend the first lecture class.) Students who are late or who do not attend lectures risk missing quizzes and exams that cannot be made up. Missing lectures, quizzes, exams, and failing to complete a paper, will have a direct impact on your final grade.

Enforced Prerequisites:

One of the following: PSYCH 111, 112, 114, or 115.

Reqs: SS

This course explores patterns of family life in the U.S. in relation to social structures and social processes on the one hand, and to 'the family' as an ideology on the other. Like other institutions, families are embedded in and shaped by race, class, gender, and sexual orientation as structures of privilege and inequality. As such, family organization and processes are dynamic and diverse, although ideological representations of 'the family' are relatively static and monolithic. Specific topics of study include the origin of the contemporary U.S. family ideal, changes in family life in relation to historical events and social movements, household structure, shifting patterns of fatherhood and changes in the meaning and practice of mothering, 'gay' families, the gendered division of family labor and authority, violence within families, alternative family forms, and the same-sex marriage debate.

Advisory Prerequisites:

One introductory course in Sociology.

A general analysis of the sociological factors producing deviance, the effects of social control efforts on the course of deviant development, and the functional significance of deviance in social systems.

Advisory Prerequisites:

One introductory course in sociology.

A general analysis of the sociological factors producing deviance, the effects of social control efforts on the course of deviant development, and the functional significance of deviance in social systems.

Advisory Prerequisites:

One introductory course in sociology.