Most RC courses are open to LS&A students and may be used to meet distribution requirements.
RESIDENTIAL COLLEGE WAIT LIST PROCEDURES
Residential College students are given priority in all Residential College courses during the Early Registration and registration periods, and from waitlists. RC courses which satisfy specific Residential College graduation requirement are reserved for RC students only (e.g., RC language courses).
Waitlists of Residential College courses are maintained in the Residential College Counseling Office, 134 Tyler, East Quad. When a course fills, students should contact the RC Counseling Office (647-4359) to be placed on a waitlist if one is being maintained.
RC sections of LS&A courses
These sections will be letter graded for all students
Chem 130, Sections 111 General Chemistry, Macroscopic Investigations & Reaction Principles.
Students must elect lecture Section 100 in conjunction with this course. See Chemistry 130.
Chem 210 Section 190 Structure & Reactivity.
Students must elect lecture section 211 in conjunction with this course.See Chemistry 210.
Math 115 Section 110 Analytical Geometry & Calculus.
See Math 115.
Arts and Ideas | Comparative Literature | Creative Writing |
Drama | Music |
Take me to the Fall Time Schedule
311. Intellectual Currents of the Renaissance. Sophomore standing. (4). (HU).
Section 001 - Shakespeare and Rome. In this course we will read a selection of Shakespeare's roman plays (Titus Andronicus, Julius Caesar, Anthony and Cleopatra, and Cymbeline) in the light of their ancient sources, especially Ovid, Livy, Plutarch, and Caesar. We will ask what the figure of "Rome" means in the context of each play, and how that historical reference point is used to frame problems of contemporary import in Shakespeare's own time. As comparison and contrast, we will also examine the reclamation of Rome by artists of the Renaissance and the Counter-reformation, especially Mantegna, Titian, and Caravaggio, in order to make arguments concerning antiquity and memory; martyrdom and authority; and the status of the image. This course will focus on Shakespeare's plays as texts to be read, studied, and interpreted. From time to time, however, members of the Residential College Drama concentration will visit the class to talk about the plays as genuine theater productions on the stage. (Sowers)
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313/Slavic Film 313. Russian Cinema. (3). (HU). Laboratory fee ($50) required.
See Slavic Film 313. (Eagle)
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333. Art and Culture. (4). (Excl).
Section 001 - The Subject in the Aftermath of Revolution. This course is intended to address a problem by now quite familiar to individuals interested in critical theory, that of the subject. The problem will be approached through sets or groupings of literature and the visual arts, each set accompanied by a reading in theory or philosophy. We will begin from a position at once topical and drastic, the notion of the radically constructed subject of 20th century revolutionary utopia - the subject conceived as a work of art. This subject is situated in a history believed to be inevitable, oriented towards an attainable future of social justice, requiring only the overcoming of reactionary obstacles to be realized. The "new man or woman" of this project operates both as the engine and the index of historical fulfillment. The course will then backtrack to trace the paradoxical genealogies of the revolutionary subject through the stages of essentialist romanticism; the willed, but "natural" subject of 18th and 19th century progressive/enlightenment models; the ethical self of free choice; the arbitrary or semiotic subject of post-structuralism; and finally a return to the ethical subject, face to face with the Other that has emerged with special power at the end of this history of restless revision and reconstruction. (Sowers)
Introduction: Totalitarian Aesthetics
Boris Groys, The Total Art of Stalin
The Gesture of Longing for Immortality
Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther
Caspar David Friedrich paintings
Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origins of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful
The Aftermath of Revolution
George Buchner, Danton's Death
G.W.F. Hegel, selections from the Phenomenology of Spirit (the "beautiful soul;" the "master/slave relationship.")
Theodore Gericault paintings
A Mirror of the Social Order
Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady
Edgar Degas portraits
Beautiful Souls
Milan Kundera, Immortality
The Ethical Self Face to Face with the Other
Magdalena Abakanowicz sculpture
Jacques Derrida, The Gift of Death
Section 002 - Frames of Identity: Self-Portraiture and Autobiography Since the Renaissance. Leonardo Da Vinci's Aphorism "every painter paints himself" indicates a common assumption we have about visual and literary art - that the self of the artist is somehow embodied in the work. Romanticism, Idealist philosophy, and Freudian psychology have provided modern artists, viewers, and readers with modern justifications for locating the artist within the artwork or text. This course will investigate self-representation and self-performance in Western art since the fifteenth century, in the genres of portraiture and life-writing, as well as in other forms that are not supposed to offer explicit likenesses of the artist. We will attempt to understand the "self" as a changing historical concept, and in most instances we will treat self-portraiture as a deliberate statement about artistry. At the same time, we will consider how different cultural ideas of the artists - such as craftsman, gentleman, visionary, bohemian, or genius - figure in the creation of particular artists' personas, as embodied and performed in particular works of visual or verbal art. Artists to be considered include Michelangelo, Albrecht Dürer, Titian, Bernini, Rubens, Poussin, Caravaggio, Artemisia Gentileschi, Vermeer, Rembrandt, Caspar David Friedrich, Edgar Degas, Edvard Munch, Anselm Kiefer, Cindy Sherman, Lorna Simpson, Yasumasa Morimura. Four short papers will be required, as well as a term paper. Readings will include social and psychological theories of the self, art history, literary criticism, autobiography, and poetry. (Willette)
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275. The Western Mind in Revolution: Six Interpretations of the Human Condition. (4). (Excl).
This course will treat six major reinterpretations of the human condition from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries generated by intellectual revolutions in astronomy (Copernicus: the heliocentric theory), theology (Luther: the Reformation), biology (Darwin: evolution of the species), sociology (Marx: Communism), psychology (Freud: psychoanalysis), and physics (Einstein: the theory of relativity).
All six reinterpretations initiated a profound revaluation of Western man's concept of the self as well as a reassessment of the nature and function of his/her political and social institutions. Since each of these revolutions arose in direct opposition to some of the most central and firmly accepted doctrines of their respective ages, we will study: (1) how each thinker perceived the particular "truth" he sought to communicate; (2) the problems entailed in expressing and communicating these truths; and (3) the traumatic nature of the psychological upheaval caused by these cataclysmic transitions from the past to the future - both on the personal and cultural level.
If the function of humanistic education is to enable the individual to see where he/she stands in today's maelstrom of conflicting intellectual and cultural currents, it is first necessary to see where others have stood and what positions were abandoned. The emphasis of this course will not be upon truths finally revealed or upon problems forever abandoned, but rather upon certain quite definite perspectives that, arising out of specific historical contexts, at once solved a few often technical problems within a specialized discipline while unexpectedly creating many new ones for Western culture as a whole. Texts: Copernicus, On the Revolution of the Heavenly Bodies (1543); Luther, Appeal to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation (1520), Of the Liberty of a Christian Man (1520); Darwin, The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859); Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts (1844), Das Kapital (1867, 1885, 1894); Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905); and Einstein, Relativity, the Special and the General Theory: A Popular Exposition (1921). (Peters)
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317. The Writings of Latinas. A course in women's studies or Latina/o studies. (4). (HU).
This course brings to the forefront the abundant literary production of Latinas in the United States. The core of the work will comprise reading and discussion of works (essays, poems, narrative fiction) of Chicana writers, as well as women writers from Puerto Rico, Cuba, Central America, the Caribbean, and South America. Among the authors to be studied are Julia Alvarez, Sandra Cisneros, Cristina Garcia, Judith Ortiz Coffer, Gloria Anzaldúa, Helena Maria Viramontes, Elena Castedo, and Alicia Partnoy. Films and visual art by Latinas will supplement the literature in the course.
The works selected are richly textured, filled with cultural content, and imbued with nostalgic evocation of what has been lost. Representing a broad range of Latina experience, they confront such issues as colonial domination and political and/or economic exile. All of the texts relate to the history of the Americas, and address the position of women within their own cultural/ethnic/racial group as well as within a dominant culture.
Students will be expected to keep a journal of their reactions to the works read or viewed and to write three substantial papers which reflect their ability in critical reading of the texts. They will also prepare and deliver seminar presentations on selected poetry in the course. Tentative readings: Alvarez, Julia. In the Time of the Butterflies (Chapel Hill: Algonguin Books of Chapel Hill, 1994); Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands/LaFrontera (San Francisco: Aunt Lute Book Company, 1987); Castedo, Elena, Paradise*; Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street (New York: Vintage Books, 1989); Coffer, Judith Ortiz, Silent Dancing (Houston: Arte Publico Press, 1990); Garcia, Cristina, Dreaming in Cuban* (New York: Ballantine Books, 1992); Partnoy, Alicia, The Little School (Pittsburgh: Cleis Press, 1986). (Moya-Raggio)
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410. Upperclass Literature Seminar. (4). (HU). May be repeated for credit.
Section 001 - Father & Sons. Be it the relationship between Odysseus and his son Telemachus in The Odyssey or Creon and his son Haemon in Antigone or Noah and his sons in The Old Testament, from the beginning of literature relationships between fathers and sons have often involved complex and passionate emotions the source and meaning of which elude the pair's understanding. Fathers may have narcissistic expectations for their sons, and certainly expect - indeed need - fathers to be models of behavior, attitudes, beliefs. It is satisfying, even inspiring, when a father fulfills these expectations - and in our study we shall encounter a number who do - but not all fathers can or do fulfill them and this often results in torturous confrontations and long standing conflicts. We will examine a variety of narratives that tell of both harmonious and troubled relationships: novels such as Chain Potok's The chosen, Saul Bellow's Seize the Day, Richard Russo's The Risk Pool, short stories such as Ernest Hemingway's "Indian Camp," "The Doctor and the Doctor's Wife," "comic" books such as Art Spiegelman's Maus: A Survivor's Tale, I and II, plays such as Arthur Miller's The Death of a Salesman or Eugene O'Neills A Long Days Journey into Night or Athol Fugard's Master Harold...and the boys, poems such as Ken Mikolowski's "michael/alternatives," autobiographies such as Philip Roth's Patrimony, and films such as Pat Conroy's The Great Santini or Elia Kazan's East of Eden. For purposes of comparison, we will read one work that deals with a mother-daughter relationship. Students will write at least two papers plus a midterm and final exam. Films will be viewed at night. (H. Cohen)
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451/Russian 451. Survey of Russian Literature. A knowledge of Russian is not required. (3). (HU).
See Russian 451. (Schönle)
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476/Chinese 476/Asian Studies 476. Writer and Society in Modern China. No knowledge of Chinese is required. (4). (HU).
See Chinese 476. (Feuerwerker)
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380. Greek Theatre. (4). (Excl).
Section 001 - Greek Theatre and Modern Adaptations. This hands-on experience with ancient texts will incorporate acting, movement and voice as we explore the timeless masterpieces of Greek drama. Our process will examine the time and place of the drama as well as it's universal themes and relationships. Classwork will focus on intensive scene study from a half-dozen plays by Aeschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles. At the end of term, we will bring their work into the present through the rehearsal and performance of several important modern adaptations. Students should have had previous acting experience. Those with a background in movement or music are also encouraged, as are prospective directors. Admission is by interview/audition and permission of instructor. (Mendeloff)
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381. Shakespeare on the Stage. Hums. 280. (4). (HU).
This course involves intensive study of Shakespeare's plays as performed events. Students will read, discuss, analyze, and explore through performance outstanding scenes from nine major plays, representing all genres Shakespeare practiced, in order to discover how Shakespeare's drama communicates it meaning to an audience in a theatre. Attention to the conventions and conditions of the Elizabethan stage, the shape of Shakespeare's career as a whole, and modern interpretations of the plays will supplement this activity. Requirements: two fully prepared scenes and one monologue; four short "precept papers," or quizzes; required play-viewing (which may be accomplished by an optional field-trip to the Stratford Festival); and an end-of-term presentation cum final. The principal plays covered will be: Comedies: Midsummer Night's Dream, Twelfth Night; Histories: Henry IV, Parts 1 & 2; Tragedies: Julius Caesar, Hamlet, King Lear; "Problem Plays" (Tragicomedies): Much Ado About Nothing; Romances: The Tempest. No prerequisites. Although some previous experience as theatre-goer/actor/student of Shakespeare is advisable. First-Year students may consider this an entry level course for the RC Drama Concentration and the equivalent of Introduction to Theatre and Drama. For more advanced Theater students there will be ample opportunities for directing scenes and developing Shakespearean/Elizabethan audition pieces as part of one's requirements. (Walsh)
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484. Seminar in Drama Topics. Upperclass standing, Hums. 280, and three 300- or 400-level drama courses. (4). (Excl). May be repeated for credit.
Section 001 - Stratford Festival Field Trip. In depth study of the current criticism and trends in production of the plays to be viewed, prior to an October field trip to the Stratford Festival. Requirements: an in-class presentation on one of the designated plays and, after extended group discussions, short critiques (or final exam) on the productions seen. Most Likely Weekend: October 23-24, with the possible productions: Much Ado About Nothing, Julius Caesar, Two Gentleman of Verona, Molière's The Mser. (Walsh)
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250. Chamber Music. (1). (CE). Offered mandatory credit/no credit.
No audition required. All students who are interested in participating in instrumental ensembles may enroll for one or two hours of credit. The second hour of credit is at the discretion of the instructor. Every student must elect Section 001 for one hour; those students who will fulfill the requirements for two hours of credit MUST also elect Section 002 (with an override from the instructor) for the additional hour of credit.
For one hour of credit students must participate in two ensembles; for two credit hours, students must participate in the large ensemble and two smaller ones. Responsibilities include three to four hours of rehearsal time per week per credit hour (i.e., 6-8 hours of practice and rehearsal for 2 credits) and participation in one or more concerts per term, if appropriate. Course may be used to fulfill the Residential College's Arts Practicum Requirement. Ensembles have included: mixed ensembles of strings and winds; brass quintet; intermediate recorders; string quartet; woodwind quintet; and some other duos and trios, including piano and harpsichord. (Barna)
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251. Topics in Music. (4). (HU).
Section 001 - Across Borders: The Imagery of the East in the Music of the West. The aim of this course is to place the European musical tradition within the context of the different musical cultures. The course will combine the ethnomusicological and musicological approaches by discussing European music not as an isolated phenomenon, but as a constant exchange between Eastern and Western cultures. The idea of "West" and "East" proposed in the title of this section will be deconstructed by exploring the question of Diaspora - the spread and intermixture of various cultures, particularly Mediterranean.
This course is a chronological excursion though different historical periods, with discussions of musical types, genres, composers and pieces. At the beginning of the course, we will explore chronologically both influences and representations of the East. For instance, we will study how, in later centuries, the reorganization of Christian church and the formulation of Gregorian chant coincided with the emergence of Islam and the tradition of Qur'anic recitation. We will also discuss how the art of the European troubadours parallels the tradition of the Jewish hasan, Turkish ashiks and Arabic poets.
We will observe that the separation of East and West surprisingly increased in the age of the geographic "discovery" when the cultural connections began to appear on a different level. For example, during the European renaissance, baroque, and especially classical periods, musicians repeatedly rediscovered the imagery of the East. In the romantic era, the panorama of European music expanded, including eastern regions such as Hungary and Russia. The latter had its own "East," represented in Russian classical music.
We will find out that at the end of the nineteenth century, like Gauguin in art, many musicians and composers sought their identities in historical or territorial distance. The interest to the distant cultural idioms became a signature of the musical modernism. Finally, we will enter the twentieth century which began with a new musical Diaspora, including Stravinsky, Schoenberg, and many others. (Later even the popular attempted to connect West and East.) It is hoped that this course will provide students with knowledge of European musical history in the context of world musical diversity. This course will give students a sense of their place in an historical/geographical/cultural continuum. (Naroditskaya)
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253. Choral Ensemble. (1). (CE). Offered mandatory credit/no credit.
Section 001 - Women's Choral Ensemble. Group rehearses twice weekly and prepares a thematic concert of music from the vast Women's Chorus Repertoire. Vocal skills, sight singing, and basic musicianship are stressed. No prerequisites, but a commitment to the group and a dedication to musical growth within the term are required. No audition necessary.
Section 002 - Mixed Choral Ensemble. Four-part works from a variety of musical styles are rehearsed and prepared for performance in concert. Meets twice weekly. Vocal skills, sight singing, musicianship, and ensemble singing are stressed. No prerequisites, but a commitment to the group and musical growth within the term, are required. No audition necessary.
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