Fall 2009 First-Year WRiting Seminars

APPLIED ECONOMICS & MANAGEMENT 1103 SEM 101

Why Do We Eat What We Do? The Hidden Ingredients of our Food Choices

Fast food or slow food? Genetically modified food or organic food? Local food or imported fair trade produce? We are now more than ever influenced in our food consumption decisions by the media, government policies, and corporations. In this writing seminar, we will take a close look at what influences food consumption decisions besides taste preferences and budget. We will analyze how health concerns, concerns about the environment, marketing, food policies, and the globalization of the food system influence our food choices. Drawing on readings from Eric Schlosser, Michael Pollan, Marion Nestle, and others, we will determine to which extent external factors impact what we choose to eat. Writing assignments will challenge critical thinking and focus on clear formulation of ideas and arguments.

TR 02:55–04:10 p.m. Annelies Deuss 26435 Steven Kyle

AMERICAN INDIAN STUDIES 1120 SEM 101

Science Meets Spirit: Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Natural Resource Management

Native peoples across the Western hemisphere use knowledge systems that differ fundamentally from those of Western science. Using traditional oral as well as written texts and contemporary writings by Native and non-Native scholars, we will examine the tensions and complementarities of these two knowledge systems. Using Iroquois knowledge systems in the northeast as a focal point, we will examine how they conceptualized their ecosystem and used it for agriculture, comparing it to resource management based on Western science. We will also explore how contemporary indigenous communities negotiate with non-Indian scientists, policy-makers, and legislators across boundaries that reflect very different ways of knowing. Through reading and writing activities, students will critically examine these issues and define their own views on what constitutes knowledge.

TR 08:40–09:55 a.m. Jane Mt.Pleasant 26713

ANTHROPOLOGY 1112 SEM 101

Love Ltd: Charity, Philanthropy, and Humanitarianism

Has democratization increased the demand for elite philanthropies and one-sided humanitarian interventions? Is the commercialization of kindness impossible to critique? Many herald the inexorable growth of NGOs, philanthropies, and international humanitarianism as a new age in the politics of care. But daunting new questions arise from this so-called “charitable turn.” This seminar will examine what goes without saying when a price is placed on vital support for strangers. Course readings and essay assignments address “local” obstacles to international aid; the racialization of goodwill; the gendered orientations of private donation; philanthropy as a public relations mechanism; charity as a form of governance; the sacrificial logic of humanitarianism; and the tacit obligation to return gifts. This seminar will focus in particular on global NGOs, religious charities, and multinational relief agencies.

TR 02:55–04:10 p.m. Christopher Garces 26930

ANTHROPOLOGY 1114 SEM 101

Virtual Politics, Imitation Democracy: Society and Spectacle in the former USSR

With the disintegration of the USSR, a system that structured all aspects of social life suddenly disappeared. Where socialist friendship of the people once reigned, war, conflict, and chaos emerged as the spoils of the “evil empire” were divided. This course will consider these geopolitical transformations on their own terms and as markers of global transformations of knowledge, power, and culture in the twenty-first century. Literature to be covered includes the theoretical and practical aspects of politics (Marx, Debord, Baudrilliard), market processes (informal economy, consumption, mafia), and questions of culture/identity. We will explore these issues together through ethnographic and recent writings on the former USSR (ethnic conflict, “colored” revolutions). Assignments will include response papers, critical essays, and a final essay on a chosen topic.

MWF 09:05–09:55 a.m. Michael Bobick 26931 Hiro Miyazaki

ANTHROPOLOGY 1115 SEM 101

Language, Identity, and Culture

The goals of this course will be to expose the students to concepts related to the languages we use and their effects on our identities and cultures. Some or our questions for discussion and writing assignments will include: how does the language we use affect the ways we view the world? How do we use language to categorize ourselves and other peoples/cultures? In what ways does language use (ours and others) affect the development of our identities? For example, who is a “Third World” person? Who is an “Asian” person? And what is “Native American” culture? We will address these issues using an interdisciplinary approach from anthropology, linguistics, sociology, and semiotics. Also, we will use contemporary examples from literature, music, and film that deal directly with individual and group identities.

TR 08:40–09:55 a.m. Michael Carpentier 26932 Hiro Miyazaki

ANTHROPOLOGY 1116 SEM 101

Ghosts and Spirits

Stories of ghosts and spirits are commonplace across many different societies, but the relationship between living and dead individuals varies. While Hollywood (and its global counterparts) provides various interpretations and depictions of ghosts (ranging from the horrific to the psychoanalytic), many others are to be found in folklore, religion, and the everyday lives of people around the world. This class will examine the idea of ghosts and spirits from an anthropological perspective, using examples from around the world as a starting point to explore other belief systems. In addition to reading anthropological studies, viewing films (e.g., The Haunting, Ringu), and reading folklore dealing with spirits and spirit cults, students will read some theoretical works by anthropologists and other thinkers (e.g., Freud), and will write response papers analyzing and synthesizing the ethnographic examples in light of the theory.

MWF 12:20–01:10 p.m. Andrew Johnson 26933 Hiro Miyazaki

ANTHROPOLOGY 1118 SEM 101

Indians and Archaeologists

Who has the authority to interpret past Native cultures? What are the consequences of those interpretations? This course will examine the troubled relationship between archaeologists and Native American communities in the interpretation of the past. In discussion and writing assignments, we will look at the long history of archaeological research in conjunction with Native scholarship critiquing the theories and methods used by archaeologists. By looking at case studies throughout North America, we will consider how archaeologists have been influenced by their cultural and political contexts, how academic knowledge has been privileged over local knowledges, religion, and sovereignty, and how more recent developments such as NAGPRA and Native-directed research has begun to collapse the dichotomy. Writing will be used as a tool for the students to think through the complex issues of the subject matter as well as a way to clearly articulate their thinking to others.

TR 08:40–09:55 a.m. Beth Ryan 26934 Hiro Miyazaki

ANTHROPOLOGY 1120 SEM 101

The Know How: Anthropology of Expertise Across Cultures

Ranging from the Witch, to the Architect, to the Development Expert, this course looks anthropologically at the knowledge-world of experts across cultures. Taken as a historically specific mode of social expression, the function and form of expert practice can tell us a great deal about the culture in which we find it. Readings for the most part will be of two types: ethnographies of expert cultures (Taussig’s Shamanism, Colonialism, and the Wild Man, for instance), and short articles and book excerpts, such as Foucault’s Archeology of Knowledge. Through writing assignments—analytic essays, weekly reading responses, and short interview-based ethnographies with local experts—students will begin developing the ability to write, think, and speak analytically about the cultural forms that surround us in our daily lives.

TR 11:40–12:55 p.m. Noni Session 26936 Hiro Miyazaki

ANTHROPOLOGY 1121 SEM 101

Medicine, Magic, and Healing

Anthropologists have long written about how understandings of misfortune (such as illness) gives social meaning to pain and the healing process. This course examines anthropological approaches to how people across societies bring the physical experience of pain into the folds of cultural understanding. Medical systems, including biomedical and psychiatric systems, identify pathology based on a shared understanding of what constitutes social norms. The scope of what is defined as illness and the treatment offered thus depend upon what people see as being locally relevant. Readings and writing assignments for this class focus upon analyzing what it means to heal through practices ranging from shamanism, witchcraft, and consumerism.

MWF 10:10–11:00 a.m. Daena Funahashi 26937 Hiro Miyazaki

ANTHROPOLOGY 1122 SEM 101

Studying Digital Culture

Today, more and more people are participating in digitally mediated spaces, sharing personal information over social networking applications such as Facebook or Twitter, and playing games such as Second Life or World of Warcraft. Ethnography, the situated cultural study of people’s way of life, provides us with the tools to better understand why people are moving online and how that might change the way they interact with each other and the world around them. In this class, you’ll learn to use the “tools” of ethnography, including participant observation and interviewing, and gain experience applying them online. We will also read a variety of texts, from science fiction to media theory, and engage in discussions about what, if anything, make cyberspace different from “regular” space.

MWF 10:10–11:00 a.m. Matthew Bernius 26938 Hiro Miyazaki

ANTHROPOLOGY 1134 SEM 101

The Archaeology of Myth

Memory is often a faulty thing, and yet there are hints that memories can remain alive in the mythologies of groups for thousands or even tens of thousands of years. This course will attempt to examine certain situations where these myths and oral histories have proven archaeologically productive, as well as those where they have not. Texts will include works by Plato on Atlantis and Homer on Troy, on possible archaeological explanations for the fabulous monsters of ancient Greece and Asia, as well as those discussing the recent discovery of the miniature hominid species recently uncovered in Indonesia. Writing assignments will discuss and evaluate the use of oral histories and mythology in the design, execution, and interpretation of archaeological excavations.

MWF 01:25–02:15 p.m. Maureen Costura 26988 HIro Miyazaki

ANTHROPOLOGY 1162 SEM 101

Excavating the Postcolumbian World: Artifacts, Spaces, Texts

If there are plenty of historical documents, why do archaeology? Because the information preserved in the ground can’t be found anywhere else! This seminar explores the interplay between artifacts, spaces, and texts by examining archaeological sites from the past 600 years in North America, Africa, and Australia, a period during which modern attitudes toward economic systems, race relations, and gender roles emerged. We will read and write about the work of James Deetz, Susan Lawrence, Diana Wall, and Charles Orser to unearth the physical histories of contemporary ideas. Students will ground their own texts in durable principles of writing by using thorough revision, peer review, proper citation, and ample supporting evidence.

TR 11:40–12:55 p.m. Kurt Jordan 26781

ART HISTORY 1118 SEM 101

From Parchment to Paper: Medieval Manuscripts and Early Printed Books

In this course, students will gain an intimate knowledge of selected secular and religious manuscripts and early printed books from the medieval period, including Books of Hours, folios from a Quran, and a Hebrew medical book. The course will focus on various aspects of medieval book production as well as on such themes as text/image relationships, patronage, and audience. Students will have the opportunity to work with manuscripts and early printed books from the Kroch Rare and Manuscript Collection as well as the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art. Writing assignments for this course are intended to improve students’ analytical skills, to encourage them to conduct original research, and to help them learn to clearly communicate their ideas in both written and oral presentations.

TR 10:10–11:25 a.m. Taryn Chubb 26590 An-Yi Pan

ART HISTORY 1129 SEM 101

Blasting the Machine: Questioning Technology through Art

Over the last decades, media artists and activists have adopted consumer technologies to intervene and participate in mainstream media culture. Their works are exhibited and used in virtual and public spaces such as the internet, supermarkets, health clinics, and museums. Artists create these works from the premise that technologies are not neutral: they carry assumptions about communal culture and the individual body. But we become accustomed to such technologies and their assumptions: they become a "natural" part of our social fabric. In our class, we will survey the strategies that artists and technologists use to highlight the cultural implications of “new” technologies, from the work of SubRosa to Wafaa Bilal and others. For discussion, reading, and writing, students will explore issues raised by these works, identifying critical topics for exploration from both an arts context and beyond.

TR 11:40–12:55 p.m. Claudia Pederson 26451 An-Yi Pan

ART HISTORY 1132 SEM 101

Seeing, Reading, and Writing the Alhambra

This course is centered on Granada’s Alhambra, built, for the most part, during the middle decades of the fourteenth century A.D. Both the most complete surviving medieval Islamic palace and the most popular tourist destination in Spain, throughout the more-than-six centuries of its existence, the Alhambra has inspired admiration and interpretation, this latter being influenced by intellectual trends and cultural currents as varied as Romanticism, positivism, Orientalism, post-structuralism, post—colonial theory, and literature for tourists—it was even the setting for Washington Irving’s famed Tales of the Alhambra. In this class, students will learn to view and to write about the Alhambra through the lenses offered by these various movements and currents, as well as through the eyes of its contemporary audience, the fourteenth-century poets, courtiers, kings, mystics, and the occasional Christian ally who frequented its beautifully ornamented halls and patios.

MW 02:55–04:10 p.m. Cynthia Robinson 26465

ART HISTORY 1133 SEM 101

A Sea of Islands: Identity and Art in the Pacific

An exciting adventure into Pacific visual culture awaits you in this adventure through “A Sea of Islands.” In this course, we explore the art of Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia to understand how Pacific artists visually represent identity in terms of gender, the body, diaspora, and tradition, etc. We look at a wide variety of art forms including film, performance, body adornment, painting, sculpture, textiles, and Pacific Hip Hop. The geographical scope of the course covers art from Samoa to Guam to Papua New Guinea and beyond. To see art on campus, we will visit the Costume and Textile Collection, the McGraw Hall Museum, and the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art. Assignments will develop critical skills for readings, thinking, and writing about art and identity.

MWF 11:15–12:05 p.m. Bernida Webb-Binder 26473 An-Yi Pan

ASIAN STUDIES 1100 SEM 101

Fictional Fascinations: Literature from Colonial Southeast Asia

This course introduces students to academic writing through reading and writing about colonial fiction set in Southeast Asia. Known as a “crossroads of the world,” the region of Southeast Asia fascinated many famous Western writers from the late nineteeneth century into the twentieth century. The writings of these authors have constructed many of the ideas we have of the “exotic” countries of Southeast Asia, and in this class we will explore some of this fiction in conjunction with short historical readings about the specific cultural contexts they depict. In our writing assignments, we will emphasize various elements such as organization, tone, and style, that contribute to persuasive academic writing. Writings include texts by Joseph Conrad, Somerset Maugham, Graham Green, and George Orwell.

TR 10:10–11:25 a.m. Lorraine Paterson 26644

ASIAN STUDIES 1103 SEM 101

Japan Performs! Myth, Storytelling, and Dorama

How has performance in Japan adapted to suit the tastes of different audiences over time? How have Japan’s traditional performing arts influenced its modern media culture? This course introduces Japan’s performing arts, from its mythic origins in a risque dance by a celestial shamaness, medieval war ballads recited by itinerant, blind musicians, the puppet theatre on stage and screen, the all-male kabuki plays, all-female Takarazuka musicals, to TV melodramas popular throughout Asia. Focusing on issues of orality, literacy, and gender, writing assignments will range from short responses to formal critical essays on a variety of readings, including dramatic literature, critical treatises by playwrights, and academic writing. Short video clips of various performances will also be shown.

TR 02:55–04:10 p.m. Janice Kanemitsu 26478

ASIAN STUDIES 1109 SEM 101

Asian Religions in American Literature, Art, and Politics

What do Thoreau, Kerouac, Bruce Lee, cartoon character Lisa Simpson, and basketball coach Phil Jackson have in common? All have drawn in substantial ways from Asian religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism. In this course, we will explore the ways in which Asian Religions have shaped and inspired the literary productions of notable American artists, how Asian Religions have been central to many Americans' spiritual quests, and how Asian traditions have been presented in the American media and popular culture. We will employ various academic methods to address each of these points. Our writing assignments will focus on learning how to produce clear, academic prose. However, students will also have the opportunity to write ethnographies, opinion articles, creative writing pieces, and more.

TR 10:10–11:25 a.m. Jonathan Young 26591 Anne Blackburn

AFRICANA STUDIES AND RESEARCH CENTER 1800 SEM 101

Cultural History of Global Ethiopia

Ethiopia is the only country in Africa that successfully defended herself against colonialism. Ethiopia's culture and traditions of independence have inspired transnational and independent church movements in the African Diaspora. The purpose of this course is to explore the historic factors that contribute to a heightened sense of identity and resistance against oppression both in Africa and the African Diaspora. Selected readings from a required text and a reader will be used to write a series of essays on topics, such as Religion, Interfaith Relations, Food, Agriculture, Environment, Aesthetics, Monarchy, and Rastafari movement.

TR 02:55–04:10 p.m. Ayele Bekerie 27097

AFRICANA STUDIES AND RESEARCH CENTER 1811 SEM 101

Women Writing in South Africa

In this course, students will explore the works of Southern African women. We will read and respond in discussion and writing to testimonies, films, stories, songs, and many other texts that represent the voices of women in Southern Africa. In our studies, we will discover what the voices of Southern African women are and how their discourse expresses experiences in the countries of South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Swaziland, and Mozambique.

TR 11:40–12:55 p.m. Sarah Mkhonza 26532

AFRICANA STUDIES AND RESEARCH CENTER 1815 SEM 101

Race Matters: Frederick Douglass to W. E. B. Du Bois

This seminar investigates matters of race in relation to society, politics, and culture. It explores main ideas and concepts in the philosophy and sociology of race. Relevant questions are: what do we mean by race? Is race a construct or is race real? Which is prior in race matters—nurture or nature? Is the primary contradiction in the society race or class? Are we in a post race era? Our exploration proceeds from Frederick Douglass’ Selected Writings and Du Bois’ Souls of Black Folk. Our conversation continues with writings of other scholars such as Charles Mills, Bernard Boxill, Lucius Outlaw, Lewis Gordon, and Robert Gooding Williams.

TR 10:10–11:25 a.m. Adeolu Ademoyo 26533

AFRICANA STUDIES AND RESEARCH CENTER 1816 SEM 101

Black Life Writing: Zora Neale Hurston

An examination of selected works by Zora Neal Hurston. Framed within the logic of the life story, we will pay attention to how Hurston experienced and represented life as an African American Woman in the U.S. South, the North, and in the African Diaspora. We will read and respond to a selection of works by Hurston in different genres—the letter, essay, short story, folk tale, novel, life story (or autobiography). Students will engage a variety of issues that pertain to this writer and simultaneously address issues of self-invention, creativity, writing, and the imagination. We will explore various approaches to writing through which students will work on and develop writing skills in critical areas.

TR 02:55–04:10 p.m. Carole Boyce Davies 26960

ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY 1640 SEM 101

Writing the Ocean Waves: Marine Sciences at Cornell

What do tsunamis, bioluminescence, coral reefs, and whale songs all have in common? They are among the many ocean phenomena being studied at Cornell! During this semester we will explore what marine scientists at Cornell are learning and how they are communicating their findings to different audiences. We will visit scientists' labs, read popular and technical literature about ocean research, and write about what researchers at Cornell are learning about our oceans. Writing assignments include short vignettes for a radio program on ocean sciences, longer Discover magazine-style articles about specific marine science topics, and letters to congressional representatives about the value of studying our oceans. The course will culminate in a student-written brochure on Marine Sciences at Cornell.

TR 02:55–04:10 p.m. Marie Nydam 26592 Jim Morin

ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY 1640 SEM 102

Environmental Issues

Valuing our environment and developing a sustainable relationship with it is the major challenge for the growing human population. We are facing the need for significant lifestyle and economic adjustments. This seminar will provide an opportunity to explore both classic and contemporary writings that call attention to growing environmental challenges. Writings about the environment are rich in the variety of styles and approaches to communication. Understanding both the form and substance of different kinds of exposition will provide opportunities to explore and expand your writing skills.

TR 08:40–09:55 a.m. Brian Chabot 26593

CLASSICS 1531 SEM 101

Greek Myth

The course will focus on the stories about the gods and heroes of the Greeks as they appear in the works of ancient Greek literature. We will read a selection from Greek authors, inquiring into the relationship between myths and cultural, religious, and political realia of the society in which they were shaped and perpetuated. Alongside the primary texts, we will read a number of recent scholarly works on the subject. We will start by discussing myths in general terms (theories, basic concepts) and will proceed toward the analysis of individual stories and cycles. This fascinating material will serve as a vehicle for improving your written communication skills. Assignments will include preparatory writing and six essays focusing on our readings and discussions in class.

MWF 03:35–04:25 p.m. Ioannis Ziogas 26540 Hunter Rawlings

CLASSICS 1583 SEM 101

Colonial Classicism and the Founding Fathers

This course will investigate the ways in which America's founding fathers, including Jefferson, Madison, Adams, and Hamilton, studied and used the works of Greek and Roman authors in considering how best to form their young country's new government. We will undertake to understand the effects on these men of an education based in the Greek and Roman Classics, as we read their writings together with the works of Classical authors including Thucydides, Polybius, Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero. The aim of the course is to allow students to develop the ability to read closely a variety of texts varying in period and style, and to write cogently about the relevancy of ancient texts to our modern life.

MWF 09:05–09:55 a.m. Allison Boex 26543 Hunter Rawlings

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE 1108 SEM 101

Language and Politics: Crises and Confessions

Some of the greatest works of Western literature are written in the form of confessions. From reality shows to personal blogs, the seemingly voluntary admission of unflattering acts and attributes continues to form a vital part of our culture. Why, what, when and for whom do we confess? What is the relation of confessing to witnessing and truth? In order to explore these questions, we will read selections from Plato’s Apology, the famous Confessions of Saint Augustine and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, as well as works by Gérard de Nerval, Samuel Beckett, and Thomas Bernhard. Theories of Michel Foucault, Sigmund Freud, and/or Paul de Man may be considered. Our focus will be on close reading and the articulation of arguments in critical writing.

MWF 12:20–01:10 p.m. Klas Molde 26594 Petrus Liu

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE 1108 SEM 102

Language and Politics: Politics and Truth in Social Realism

As a genre, Social Realism seeks to lay bare the truths of everyday life, peeling back the layers that gild our image of reality in order to expose the darker ties between people and their environments. But if realism allegedly mirrors life, what happens when its “objectivity” comes with a political imperative? Can a political view also be objective? In this class, we will look to literature, film, and other visual arts from around the world in an attempt to answer those questions. Possible texts range from short pieces by Bertolt Brecht and Maxim Gorky to a novel by Upton Sinclair and films by Ken Loach. Assignments will be devoted to every step of the writing process, including brainstorming, informal journal entries, and formal essays.

TR 11:40–12:55 p.m. Sarah Pickle 26595 Petrus Liu

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE 1108 SEM 103

Language and Politics: The Question of the Animal

Beginning by debating the question of a firm divide between humans and animals we will consider the animal in the many diverse and problematic roles it plays as “other” to the human—as object of spectatorship, symbol or totem, scapegoat, experimental creature, object of consumption or possession, and even companion. We may begin to think about the potential of a different kind of otherness—one that challenges our societal and personal beliefs, and one which allows us to rethink the notion of “rights,” of the “subject,” and with it, perhaps even the idea of the human itself. Fictional and critical readings from Aesop, Descartes, Swift, H. G. Wells, Kafka, Woolf, J. M. Coetzee, Barbara Gowdy, and Temple Grandin, vary widely in their audience and style. Through discussion and writing assignments, students will work with (and sometimes against) varied approaches and arguments of these authors.

TR 02:55–04:10 p.m. Allison Weiner 26604

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE 1108 SEM 104

Language and Politics: Literature on the Brink

How do certain works of literature explode tradition, shatter old expectations, and construct new norms? What is the relationship of literature to genius and to avant-garde movements? How does literature respond to political and moral catastrophe? This course will examine some of the most radical and most important artistic experiments of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, focusing on stories, poems, essays, manifestos, and films from Europe and the U.S., and reading them in their political and philosophical contexts. Movements to be considered include Romanticism, Symbolism, Surrealism, and the Theater of the Absurd; authors and artists may include Goethe, Baudelaire, Dali, Woolf, Kafka, and Beckett. We will focus on strategies of close reading and development of arguments in class discussion and a variety writing assignments.

MWF 09:05–09:55 a.m. Audrey Wasser 26605 Petrus Liu

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE 1109 SEM 101

Writing Across Cultures: Music in Black and White—Cuba, Brazil, and the U. S.

From jazz, to son, to bossa nova, the racial identity of music in the Americas is often a complex issue. This class will expose students to different musical genres of Cuba, Brazil, and the U. S. and will examine the ways in which music has become racially and, in some cases, nationally identified. In addition to listening to musical repertoires, we will refer to a range of texts, including excerpts from magazines and periodicals, travelogues, poetic reflections on music, writings in ethnomusicology and music history, scholarly articles, and music biographies, in order to probe questions concerning the themes of racial and national authenticity of music. Through writing assignments, students will cultivate critical thinking skills while confronting the notion of music as racial and national property.

MWF 01:25–02:15 p.m. Ryan Dreher 26645 Petrus Liu

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE 1114 SEM 101

Multiple Voices: The Fatal Allure of Narcissism

Narcissism, or the obsession with one’s own image, can importantly shape the way people participate in their social and cultural worlds. This course will examine the role played by narcissism in the formation of identity and in the ways we approach literature and art. Readings will include Freud’s essay On Narcissism, Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, and Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, as well as encounters with contemporary art and film. Students will develop critical faculties and writing skills through writing essays analyzing their own personal responses to a variety of texts.

MWF 11:15–12:05 p.m. Yoon Oh 26646 Petrus Liu

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE 1118 SEM 101

Literature and Morality: Being No One—Literary and Philosophical Explorations of Selfhood

What is the relation between the mind and the world? This surprisingly difficult question has been explored for centuries by philosophers, scientists, and mathematicians as much as by poets, novelists, and artists. While comparing literary, philosophical, and scientific examinations of consciousness, we will pose questions about the nature of truth and knowledge, about the sources of meaning and value, and about the possibility of freedom. We will even ask if meaning, value, and freedom actually exist. These explorations will illuminate basic concepts in the study of mind; they will raise fundamental questions about being human, and dangerous possibilities about being nothing at all. Since serious argument is a major aspect of literary studies and philosophy, this course will accordingly be geared towards rigorous work on writing, at the level both of specific techniques and of general strategies.

TR 01:25–02:40 p.m. Aaron Hodges 26647 Petrus Liu

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE 1126 SEM 101

Comparative Arts: Dance as Writing, Writing as Dance

This is a combined studio and reading-based course that utilizes principles from modern and contemporary dance as elements for writing development. We will explore concepts such as structure, composition, style, and logic in dance through exercises and improvisations, as a way of guiding and understanding the process of writing. Readings, weekly video screenings, and watching performances allow students to learn how other artists negotiate between the physical and the textual, and provide the basis for writing assignments. No dance experience required.

MW 08:40–09:55 a.m. Meredith Talusan 26648 Petrus Liu

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE 1126 SEM 102

Comparative Arts: Sound, Sound Art, and Social Relations

This course will be cheap, enjoyable, and demanding. In discussion and essay assignments, students will address these questions, among others: How does sound affect social relations? How can we use language to register an awareness of sound and silence? What is the quietest religion? How have the police and the military (mis)used sound as a weapon? What use has medicine made of sound? What part has sound played in installation art? Has music been made so thoroughly into a commodity that it cannot serve emancipatory ends? What is your favorite bird call? We will visit several sonically significant local sites: the Bioacoustics Research Program at Sapsucker Woods; various musicians' studios; a Cornell dining hall; Taughannock Falls; the Johnson Museum of Art; a factory, and others suggested by students.

MWF 10:10–11:00 a.m. Barry Maxwell 26649

CITY AND REGIONAL PLANNING 1109 SEM 101

Communicating Urban Environmental Change

As the world's urban population overtakes that of rural areas, the environmental quality of cities is increasingly important to sustainable development. This seminar looks at how cities change through the work of influential designers, planners, citizens, and writers, including Frederick Law Olmsted, Jane Jacobs, and Anne Whiston Spirn. We consider the ways in which they communicated their ideas. With these observations as a starting point, class discussions and essays focus on the role of writing in developing solutions to global environmental problems.

TR 02:55–04:10 p.m. Peter Sigrist 26673 Kieran Donaghy

CITY AND REGIONAL PLANNING 1109 SEM 102

Urban Comebacks: Resilient Cities and the People Who Call them Home

What makes a city resilient in the face of crises? How do citizens respond to crises in their cities? How does geographic and emotional proximity affect the memory and representation of urban crises in written texts? In this seminar on urban comebacks, we will examine personal accounts of the challenges faced in cities like Detroit, New Orleans, and others. Readings will explore the concept of resilience as it relates to cities and will include personal accounts of related challenges, uncovering the important relationship between people and place. Students will write personal essays on the topic of resilience, will investigate crises currently affecting cities across the world, and will develop written arguments supporting their perspectives on urban crises and associated responses.

MW 08:40–09:55 a.m. Margaret Cowell 26674 Kieran Donaghy

CITY AND REGIONAL PLANNING 1109 SEM 103

Social Movements and Collective Action in the Age of Globalization

Globalization processes have had profound economic, social, and cultural consequences on the peoples of both developed and developing countries. The last decade has been marked by what the media has referred to as a rising tide of “anti-globalization protests.” Who are these protestors and what are they protesting against? In this course, we will examine social movement responses to globalization processes. In particular, we will explore how movements channel grievances into collective action by focusing on neighborhood, women’s, indigenous, and environmental groups. We will also investigate how social movements have scaled up mobilization to the global level, and assess whether movements have taken advantage of the opportunities created by globalization. Students will reflect on these issues in short response papers and critical essays.

TR 08:40–09:55 a.m. Abdulrazak Karriem 27534

DEVELOPMENT SOCIOLOGY 1200 SEM 101

Having a Lot on Our Plates: An Introduction to the Sociology of Food

In this course, we will explore why people eat what they do in the United States and around the world, the consequences of our diet, and how we might adopt alternatives. Particular emphasis will be placed on the social, political, economic, and philosophical influences on and repercussions of the way we eat. The course will also include an introduction to the “sociological imagination” and basic sociological concepts, such as social structure, agency, class, inequality, and rationalization. In this intensive seminar, we will write about topics explored in class, review the work of your peers, and utilize campus resources that are in place to help students improve their writing skills. The course will also include readings by and discussions about food writers who have been recognized for the quality of their work.

TR 10:10–11:25 a.m. Andrea Woodward 26650 Chuck Geisler

DEVELOPMENT SOCIOLOGY 1201 SEM 101

Spies Like Us: Social Science, Research, and Knowledge

This course uses the metaphor of spying to examine research. Researchers, like spies, produce knowledge about their subjects. This knowledge, which is often taken as “fact,” is based on conditional and often-unstable relationships with the people and things they work with. Their subjects regularly see, and treat, researchers as spies, revealing some things while concealing others. Research data, like “intelligence,” is selectively interpreted and presented to tell particular stories about the world. Reading authors such le Carré and Capote, critically exploring existing studies, and developing our own research projects, we will ask how thinking of researchers as spies changes our perception of social science. We will explore the “back-stories” of research and ask how taking these stories seriously can transform how we understand scientific facts.

MW 02:55–04:10 p.m. Jason Cons 26651 Chuck Geisler

EARTH AND ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES 1400 SEM 101

Writing in the Sciences: Environmental Perspectives

As a global society, we're facing a dilemma: a growing population seeks an ever-increasing standard of living, but the environmental consequences of our actions have become too costly to ignore. How do we gather information to make informed decisions about the environment? How does this new information change our view of the world and our place in it? This course examines interactions between humans and the environment from individual, societal, and scientific perspectives. Readings include scientific journal articles and book excerpts, such as Tom Friedman's Hot, Flat, and Crowded, James Lovelock's Gaia, and Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. A portion of the course will be devoted to a research project about a current environmental issue, such as global climate change, pollution, or threats to biodiversity.

TR 01:25–02:40 p.m. Stephen Jessup 26782 Arthur Degaetano

EARTH AND ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES 1420 SEM 101

Sustainable Earth, Energy, and Environmental Systems

Developing a sustainable society while confronting global change is one of the leading challenges facing our planet during the twenty-first century. The themes we will explore include: climate change, science and policy, threats to sustainable ecosystems on land and sea, and challenges for food, water, and energy. Each theme will be developed around a seminar presented by speakers in the Sustainable Earth, Energy, and Environmental Systems seminar series. Knowledge and critical thinking skills will be developed through reading scientific and popular literature, discussions, writing, and peer review. Writing assignments based on the readings will provide students with a foundation for developing written communication skills, intended for both scientific and public audiences. A special focus will be placed on writing to inform and to persuade.

MW 07:30–08:45 p.m. Louise McGarry 27074 Charles Greene

ENGLISH 1105 SEM 101

Gender and Writing: Against the Grain—Subcultures and Selves

What do the Sex Pistols, Star Trek fanfiction writers, and Oscar Wilde have in common? They all belonged to a movement or subculture whose members pressed—and sometimes pounded—against the boundaries of self-expression. But how do you burn down the British empire within the structure of a pop song? What kinds of plot manipulations aren’t allowed, even in the interest of a Spock/Kirk tryst? In this course, we will work closely with texts by the aforementioned cultural figures and others, such as queer filmmaker Derek Jarman, graphic novelist Alison Bechdel, and rock journalist Greil Marcus. Through discussion, creative written responses, and close reading assignments, students will investigate how subcultures can offer individuals liberty by also giving them limits.

MWF 10:10–11:00 a.m. Lily Cui 26807 Molly Hite

ENGLISH 1105 SEM 102

Gender and Writing: Haunted and Gendered Spaces

In this course, we will examine gender, the supernatural, and the domestic space. What role does gender play in the portrayal of domestic spaces? Of haunted spaces? In what different ways does the supernatural infiltrate the home? In critical discussion and writing, we will explore traditional gender roles and how they are supported, maintained, or critiqued in literature. We will also expose the meanings behind ghosts, curses, and other supernatural literary devices, and explore the psychology of haunting. Reading selections may include Coleridge, Tennyson, Poe’s short stories, Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper, and Brontë’s Jane Eyre.

MW 02:55–04:10 p.m. Jolene Zigarovich 26808

ENGLISH 1105 SEM 103

Gender and Writing: The Making of the American Heroine

This course concentrates on how you can develop your voice while honing your analytic skills. As a focus for this process, we will explore what it means to create an "American" heroine. We will read texts by American women authors questioning the meaning of both "American" and "woman." How do these texts define American? What relations exist between gender and national identity? How does historical legacy shape what is and isn't part of identity? How do forms of mobility (chosen or forced) or migration affect identity? What impact do race, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and regional identity have on gender identity? And what insights can this literature offer us into the condition of contemporary American womanhood?

TR 01:25–02:40 p.m. Kate McCullough 26809

ENGLISH 1105 SEM 104

Gender and Writing: Nineteenth-Century Women on Race

How is knowledge about gender shaped by racial representations? This course examines nineteenth-century women's writing about race. When women narrated the racial economies of the nineteenth century, they also used writing as a process for becoming social subjects. We will consider how the rhetorical and argument choices that different women made produced a range of "truths" about gender. Yet, the divisive nature of race in the nineteenth century also meant that gender underwent constant redefinition as different women took up the pen. We will examine writing by women of different races, classes and U.S. regions, including Louisa May Alcott, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mary Eastman, Sojourner Truth, Anna Julia Cooper, Pauline Hopkins, Sui Sin Far, and Mary Denison.

MWF 01:25–02:15 p.m. Heidi Hoechst 26904

ENGLISH 1108 SEM 101

Writing About Film

A writing course that focuses on film, particularly on Hollywood classics, past and current. How is a film put together so that it will manipulate and move its audience? What are the roles of editing, camera movement, soundtrack, and image? What does a film tell us about its culture and our cultures? About the relations between women and men, between filmer and filmed? We explore such questions as we analyze six films. We read about film history, techniques, and analysis. Students write both short exercises designed to sharpen attention to details of each film and regularly scheduled essays on a wide range of topics, such as relations between men and women as represented in these films, the appeal of movie stars, ways of identifying a director's characteristic style, and the tension between the soundtrack and the visual composition in a particular scene.

MWF 09:05–09:55 a.m. Matthew Bucemi 26810 Lynda Bogel

Students must be free to attend screenings on Mondays at 6:30 and Thursdays at 4:45. Choose another writing seminar if your schedule conflicts with these screenings.

ENGLISH 1108 SEM 102

Writing About Film

MWF 10:10–11:00 a.m. Nicholas Roth 26811 Lynda Bogel

Students must be free to attend screenings on Mondays at 6:30 and Thursdays at 4:45. Choose another writing seminar if your schedule conflicts with these screenings.

ENGLISH 1108 SEM 103

Writing About Film

MWF 11:15–12:05 p.m. Avery Slater 26812 Lynda Bogel

Students must be free to attend screenings on Mondays at 6:30 and Thursdays at 4:45. Choose another writing seminar if your schedule conflicts with these screenings.

ENGLISH 1108 SEM 104

Writing About Film

TR 10:10–11:25 a.m. James Cecil 26813 Laura Brown

Students must be free to attend screenings on Mondays at 6:30 and Thursdays at 4:45. Choose another writing seminar if your schedule conflicts with these screenings.

ENGLISH 1109 SEM 101

Culture of the Raj

Judging from the recent spate of popular novels and movies dealing with the British rule in India, the "Raj" was a time of pageantry and color, adventure, and romance. But to what extent is this image historically accurate? How did people live their lives, and how did the colonial rule affect not only Indian society and culture but also contemporary Britain? The Raj did invent many of the modern forms of spectacle and public ceremonial display, but is there anything else that survives to the present day? What do we know about "race" and nationalism, for instance, or literature and imperial ideology, and the various "cultural" ways we understand ourselves—then as much as now? To explore these topics, we will discuss and write about both literary and historical texts, as well as some current films and popular fiction.

MWF 10:10–11:00 a.m. Satya Mohanty 26814

ENGLISH 1111 SEM 101

Thinking Across Cultures: Working Classics—The Literature of American Work

What role does the American working class play in literature that attempts to speak of, by, and for the American worker? This course will explore not only various representations of working class life, but also the problems that arise when attempting to fit this life into literature. We will also examine, in light of contemporary economic changes, whether there still exists such a thing as an American “working class,” or whether such a term has become synonymous with the “middle class.” Topics for writing assignments will be drawn from the poetry of Rita Dove and James Wright, as well as the lyrics of Bruce Springsteen. Additionally, we will read, among others, James Agee, Karl Marx, John Steinbeck, and Arthur Miller’sDeath of a Salesman.

MW 08:40–09:55 a.m. Christopher Kempf 26815 Laura Brown

ENGLISH 1111 SEM 103

Thinking Across Cultures: Good Taste—Food and Writing

What do our tastes say about us, our families, and our countries? Can meals separate or unite individuals? How do we even write about the ineffable experience of eating? In this seminar, we will use food, the most literal object of taste, to inspire and direct student writing on aesthetics and ethics. Beginning with a brief history of food criticism, we will read philosophies of taste from the eighteenth through the twenty-first centuries. We will also draw from a spectrum of gastronomical essays, placing such works in their larger cultural, social, and economic contexts. Shared tastings will be mandatory, and writing assignments will include restaurant reviews, description exercises, and longer essays on timely ethnographic and political issues such as ecological sustainability, globalization, prohibitive costs, and obesity.

TR 10:10–11:25 a.m. Sarah Cote 26817 Laura Brown

ENGLISH 1111 SEM 104

Thinking Across Cultures: Good Taste—Food and Writing

TR 11:40–12:55 p.m. Sarah Cote 26818 Laura Brown

ENGLISH 1111 SEM 105

Thinking Across Cultures: Home and “Back Home”

Every September, New York City’s West Indian community gathers for the Labor Day Parade, a reproduction of the carnivals that occur annually “back home” in the Caribbean. Why are “old world” customs, such as the Labor Day Parade, essential to immigrants and immigrant communities? How do immigrants and the descendants of immigrants negotiate the relationship between where they live and where they or their families are from? Primarily through in-class writings, short writing assignments, and critical essays, students will explore questions of immigration, focusing on how transplantation affects individual and community notions of home. The syllabus will concentrate on literary texts written by West Indians and West Indian Americans, but may include work from Black American and Spanish- and French-speaking Caribbean writers, as well as the films House of Sand and Fog and The Kite Runner.

TR 11:40–12:55 p.m. Jon Katz 26819 Laura Brown

ENGLISH 1111 SEM 106

Thinking Across Cultures: Novel Science—From Astrophysics to Zoology

What happens when science and literature meet? Traditionally, scientists and writers stay on separate sides of the quad, but they specialize in the same things: observing and recording. When the two disciplines combine forces, they create a book that both uses science to illuminate the human condition and the human condition to illuminate science. In this course, we will read books that represent this union. Some are written by professional scientists (Primo Levi, Alan Lightman), others by professional writers (Andrea Barrett, Jonathan Lethem). While reading, we will constantly ask questions and write answers. How does science relate fundamentally to our humanity? Why have literature and science been separated by an intellectual gap, and what can we gain by building a bridge?

TR 01:25–02:40 p.m. Sarah Scoles 26820 Laura Brown

ENGLISH 1111 SEM 107

Thinking Across Cultures: “You Can’t Go Home Again”—Narratives of Return

Is it possible to come home again once you’ve left? Does home tell us who we are, or is it somewhere we must leave to shape our identities? This course will explore these and other questions in a range of narratives about returning home, an experience shared by travelers, soldiers, and college freshmen. Through reading, discussion, and writing, we’ll think about how these homecomings challenge ideas about what “home” means and its relationship to personal identity. Texts will include plays, short stories, and novels by Thomas Hardy ( The Return of the Native) and Toni Morrison (Sula). We will also examine the contemporary relevance of this topic by watching documentaries about soldiers returning from Iraq and ancestors of slaves returning to their genetic homelands in Africa.

MWF 11:15–12:05 p.m. Adam Grener 26821 James Adams

ENGLISH 1123 SEM 101

From Dickens to Zombie Haiku: The Serial Novel Goes Graphic

Charles Dickens was only in his twenties when his illustrated first novel, The Pickwick Papers, was published in monthly parts in 1836-37. The Victorian middle class soon became obsessed with this serial, anxiously awaiting each installment much as TV fans count the days until the next episode of Grey's Anatomy or 24. Today’s graphic novels and television serials emerged from the mass-culture phenomenon of the Pickwick Papers and from the development of early newspaper strips and comic-book superheroes. In this course, we will study and write about serial publication/broadcast as an economic, technological, and literary phenomenon, reading a Dickens novel, and selections from early comic strips and books, as well as recent works such as Spiegelman's Maus, manga novels, or Ryan Mecum's Zombie Haiku.

MWF 09:05–09:55 a.m. Kaelin Alexander 26822 David Faulkner

ENGLISH 1123 SEM 102

From Dickens to Zombie Haiku: The Serial Novel Goes Graphic

MWF 11:15–12:05 p.m. Zachary Harris 26823 David Faulkner

ENGLISH 1123 SEM 103

From Dickens to Zombie Haiku: The Serial Novel Goes Graphic

TR 02:55–04:10 p.m. David Coombs 26824 James Adams

ENGLISH 1127 SEM 101

Shakespeare

This seminar provides a unique opportunity for students to work very closely with just a few of Shakespeare's plays: a total of four or five over the course of the semester. We will use these texts as a source and motivation for our own reading, writing, and critical analysis, but we will be attentive also to the plays as performances. Film screenings, performances, and historical materials related to the plays in production will be included in each seminar, though the particulars will vary according to the instructor. Course work will involve extensive writing—both formal and informal—and drafting.

MWF 10:10–11:00 a.m. Matthew Kennedy 26825 Jenny Mann

ENGLISH 1127 SEM 102

Shakespeare

MWF 11:15–12:05 p.m. Brant Torres 26826 Jenny Mann

ENGLISH 1127 SEM 103

Shakespeare

TR 08:40–09:55 a.m. John Robbins 26827 Jenny Mann

ENGLISH 1134 SEM 101

Memoir and Memory

In this course, we will examine how authors construct their public, written selves. Since the self is, at best, a difficult and multi-faceted concept, we will consider a variety of texts in our endeavor to understand an author's choices of literary techniques in his or her narration of the remembered, created self. While book-length memoirs such as Kincaid's My Brother or Tobias Wolff's This Boy's Life will figure in our investigation of methods of self-exploration and presentation, other readings will be drawn from non-fiction profiles, reflective essays, plays (e.g., The Laramie Project), poems, and visual renderings (e.g., Maus). Through reading and the frequent writing of essays we will explore how and why people write about themselves, while always asking, "How does writing shape lived experience?"

MW 08:40–09:55 a.m. Nandini Ramesh Sankar 26828 Roger Gilbert

ENGLISH 1134 SEM 102

Memoir and Memory

MWF 09:05–09:55 a.m. Elizabeth Tshele 26829 Joe Martin

ENGLISH 1134 SEM 103

Memoir and Memory

MWF 10:10–11:00 a.m. Orlando Lara 26830 Joe Martin

ENGLISH 1134 SEM 104

Memoir and Memory

MWF 11:15–12:05 p.m. Venessa Strachan 26831 Joe Martin

ENGLISH 1134 SEM 106

Memoir and Memory

MWF 01:25–02:15 p.m. Jennifer Ray 26833 Laura Brown

ENGLISH 1134 SEM 107

Memoir and Memory

TR 08:40–09:55 a.m. Anne Marie Rooney 26834 Joe Martin

ENGLISH 1147 SEM 101

The Mystery in the Story

What makes a story, and what makes it a mystery story? In this course, we'll study and write about the nature of narratives, taking the classic mystery tale written by such writers as Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, and Dashiell Hammett as typical of intricately-plotted stories of suspense and disclosure that have been written and filmed in many genres: Greek tragedy, horror tales by Poe and Shirley Jackson, psychological thrillers by Ruth Rendell and Patricia Highsmith, neo-noir films such as The Usual Suspects and Memento, and postmodern mystery parodies such as those of Paul Auster and Jorge Luis Borges. We'll look at the way they hang together, the desire and fear that drive them, and the secrets they tell—or try to keep hidden.

MW 07:30–08:45 p.m. Will Smiley 26836 Stuart Davis

ENGLISH 1147 SEM 102

The Mystery in the Story

TR 08:40–09:55 a.m. Noor Hashem 26837 Stuart Davis

ENGLISH 1147 SEM 103

The Mystery in the Story

MWF 10:10–11:00 a.m. Christopher Lirette 26838 Stuart Davis

ENGLISH 1147 SEM 104

The Mystery in the Story

MWF 08:00–08:50 a.m. Mariam Wassif 26839 Stuart Davis

ENGLISH 1147 SEM 105

The Mystery in the Story

TR 02:55–04:10 p.m. Stuart Davis 26840

ENGLISH 1158 SEM 101

American Literature and Culture: Strange Visions

Seeing is believing. We all know the cliché. But how can we think about texts that use various kinds of vision to disrupt beliefs about the world? This course will explore the ways in which literature—as well as film and comics—forces us to rethink the way we see our environment (from nature to the suburbs), cultural objects (from pop songs to icons), and even the ways in which we think and feel (from personal memories to desires). We will focus on developing critical reading skills, and sharpen the techniques necessary to make new arguments through extensive and varied writing practice. Texts will include stories by Denis Johnson and George Saunders, films by Alfred Hitchcock and David Lynch, and comics by Chris Ware and Laura Park.

MW 08:40–09:55 a.m. Ryan Dirks 26841 Roger Gilbert

ENGLISH 1158 SEM 102

American Literature and Culture: Horrific Journeys

Haunted houses, locked trunks, live burials: Gothic literature is often associated with these interior spaces, but the Gothic also turns up in writing about the wider space of America from the earliest days of exploration. What is terrifying about travel? How are the horrors of places and landscapes represented? What makes those places so disturbing? From yawning chasms to ghostly ships, this course will examine intersections between the Gothic and experiences of travel and exploration in America’s past and literature. Writing assignments will include short responses and multi-draft essays on writings by Christopher Columbus, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, Cormac McCarthy, and others. Through these texts we will explore what is unsettling about individual journeys and probe the anxieties that lie beneath them.

MW 08:40–09:55 a.m. Melissa Gniadek 26842 Shirley Samuels

ENGLISH 1158 SEM 104

American Literature and Culture: American Writers Revising the Dream

Often popularized as a blandly suburban ideal, the American Dream is a complicated and powerful concept in American literature. In 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. famously linked his dream of racial equality to this national ideal. In this course, we will consider the ways in which contemporary writers re-imagine the Dream. Bringing together a range of social issues, including immigration, rural poverty, homophobia, and workers’ rights, and a diverse cast of characters that includes Junot Díaz’s “Dominican nerd” ( The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao), Annie Proulx’s star-crossed ranch hands (Brokeback Mountain), Susan-Lori Parks’s Lincoln impersonator (The America Play), and employees of Wal-Mart (Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickle and Dimed), through discussions and writing assignments, we will analyze these visions of America and consider how they impact our own definitions of American culture.

MWF 12:20–01:10 p.m. Virginia Heatter 26844 Laura Brown

ENGLISH 1158 SEM 105

American Literature and Culture: Hollywood Babylon

Dream factory or nightmare? Promised land or wasteland? This course will explore Hollywood’s symbolic role in American culture, considering the many complex and often contradictory ways the film capital has been constructed and understood. As we examine representations of Hollywood in relation to stardom, scandal, and self-making, our chief focus will be on developing critical reading and viewing skills and, through extensive and varied writing practice, sharpening techniques of argument and expression. Course texts will range from the 1920s to the present, and include films ( A Star is Born, Sunset Blvd., Barton Fink, L.A. Confidential, and Mulholland Dr.), novels (The Love of Last Tycoon, The Day of the Locust, and Myra Breckinridge), and artwork (by Joseph Cornell, Andy Warhol, and Cindy Sherman) about Hollywood.

MWF 01:25–02:15 p.m. Chad Bennett 26845 Roger Gilbert

ENGLISH 1158 SEM 106

American Literature and Culture: What Makes a Family?

One of the purposes of literature, arguably, is to make the familiar unfamiliar and the unfamiliar familiar: showing the reader what we have in common with others seemingly so different from ourselves, and also showing us what is strange and unusual about every human life. This course will look at “familiarity” in the sense of the literal family, exploring literature that upends or complicates the question of what makes a family unit, addressing topics such as marriage, divorce, adultery, parenthood, homosexuality, and love. We’ll study and write about short stories and books by authors such as John Cheever, Alison Bechdel, Ann Beattie, and Junot Diaz, and explore the ways they shed light on the question, Just what is an American family?

MW 07:30–08:45 p.m. Matthew Grice 26847 Laura Brown

ENGLISH 1158 SEM 107

American Literature and Culture: Contemporary African-American Literature and Culture

This course will examine contemporary African-American literature and culture. Through aesthetic, generic, and contextual approaches, we will consider how African-Americans are defining themselves and our contemporary world. We will pay particular attention to questions of race in contemporary American life and African-American cultural production as well as how race intersects with others markers of identity such as gender, sexuality, and nationality. Texts for the course will include: Toni Morrison's Beloved; Essex Hemphill's Brother to Brother: New Writings by Black Gay Men ; Paul Beatty's White Boy Shuffle Spike Lee's Bamboozled; Elizabeth Alexander's American Sublime; Barack Obama's "A More Perfect Union"; and, a range of Hip-Hop tracks.

TR 01:25–02:40 p.m. Dagmawi Woubshet 26848

ENGLISH 1158 SEM 108

American Literature and Culture: Patriotic Gore

A battlefield in Pennsylvania. A hospital in Washington. Family homes in New York, Massachusetts, and South Carolina. The Civil War was fought, and felt, throughout the United States. This seminar will focus on the experiences—recorded in prose and verse, as fiction and nonfiction—of those who lived through it. We will pay particular attention to how new technologies like the telegraph and the photograph affected the war’s reception. We will also try to gauge to what extent our current ideas of race, citizenship, war, and death can be traced to the conflict and its aftermath. We will read, discuss, and write about authors such as Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Herman Melville, Louisa May Alcott, and Walt Whitman, and watch films such as Glory.

MWF 11:15–12:05 p.m. Alex Gonzales 26850 Roger Gilbert

ENGLISH 1158 SEM 109

American Literature and Culture: On the Road Again

Although most cultures produce journey stories, so many American literary and cinematic characters have hit the road that being in motion has become a defining trope of American narrative art. While doing close readings of narratives that depict Americans out on the road or else back home contemplating their cars, we'll examine and write about different kinds of road stories and the characters' responses to their vehicles. Is the road story principally a male story? Is the immigrant's road story different from the story of the native-born traveler? Do race, class, gender, or sexuality affect the characters' perceptions of their trips or cars? Texts may include: Jack Kerouac, Denis Johnson, Flannery O'Connor, Junot Díaz, Louise Erdrich, Raymond Carver, Richard Ford, and Gish Jen and the film Little Miss Sunshine.

TR 11:40–12:55 p.m. Stephanie Vaughn 26854

ENGLISH 1158 SEM 110

American Literature and Culture: Guns, Gals, and Gold—Legends of the Old West

Gunslingers, gamblers, prostitutes, and prospectors: these icons of the Western frontier inhabit American consciousness. In this course, we will explore mainstays of the western genre—the laconic lawman, the mystic savage, the whore with a heart of gold—and the stories we tell about them. Using fiction, film, painting, ballads, and poetry, we will examine narratives of community, self reliance, and utopian idealism. How do these legends define a nation’s identity and values? We’ll also consider how the western survives and thrives cross culturally and in our contemporary imaginings. Writing assignments will include short responses and multi-draft critical essays on works by Louis L’Amour, Zane Grey, Sherman Alexie, Annie Proulx, and others. We’ll watch such films as High Noon, The Proposition, Dead Man and selected episodes from Deadwood and Cowboy Bebop.

MWF 01:25–02:15 p.m. Shilo McGiff 26855 Roger Gilbert

ENGLISH 1158 SEM 111

American Literature and Culture: Writing Nature and the Environment—Journalism, Science, and the Arts

Ever hugged a tree? Recent concerns of “greening” and “going green” fill today's news, scientific research, and politics. Yet, nature/environmental issues have been in American writing and thought since Henry David Thoreau lived on Walden Pond. In this course, we will explore the ways environmental issues-from sustainable living to climate change-impact our lives. From American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau (2008), we'll read works by Rachel Carson, Woody Guthrie, Leslie Marmon Silko, César Chávez, Al Gore, and Michael Pollan. Writing assignments will include close readings and multi-draft analytical essays. Our class time will incorporate peer review and revision-focused writing assignments as we work toward a final research paper in which you will develop an argument based on a nature-related issue of your choosing.

TR 10:10–11:25 a.m. Emily Rosko 27280

ENGLISH 1158 SEM 112

American Literature and Culture: "I Hear America Singing"—Poetry and Song in the United States

From Walt Whitman on, American poets have often described themselves as singers, while songwriters from Irving Berlin and Robert Johnson to Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell have been hailed as poets. In this seminar, we'll explore the meeting ground of these two major art forms, considering both similarities and differences between printed poems and song lyrics. Our main focus will be on the intricacies of language and verse form that make for a great lyric. We'll also look at poems that aspire to the immediacy and memorability of song. Musical examples will be drawn from many different genres, including folk ballads, blues, Broadway, country, rock, and rap. Though the primary work of the course will consist of critical essays, students will also have the opportunity to write their own lyrics.

MW 02:55–04:10 p.m. Roger Gilbert 27334

ENGLISH 1158 SEM 113

American Literature and Culture: Telling "Unspeakable" Stories: The Fiction of Toni Morrison

How does a writer express the "unspeakable"? For Toni Morrison, the first African American writer to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, the unspeakable might be the secrets of America's long racial nightmare or the resilience of its survivors; it might be the slipperiness of memory or the complexities of kinship. In telling such untold stories, Morrison has revolutionized the novel as a form. We will explore this process through close readings of works such as The Bluest Eye, Beloved, and A Mercy, and through our own discussions, written responses, and formal essays. Morrison herself will be reading at Cornell in October, and attending this special event will be an important and exciting component of this course.

MWF 10:10–11:00 a.m. Emily Lordi 27503

ENGLISH 1158 SEM 114

American Literature and Culture: Telling "Unspeakable" Stories: The Fiction of Toni Morrison

MWF 12:20–01:10 p.m. Emily Lordi 27504

ENGLISH 1168 SEM 101

Cultural Studies: Happy Stories—From Jane Austen to Barack Obama

What moves us to like the things we like? Why are some stories so enjoyable and repeatable while others fail to deliver what we seek in them? From Jane Austen to Barack Obama, it seems that we always prefer our stories to tell of someone who makes it “against all odds.” We will examine “happy stories” in this class; and we will talk about the politics of our enjoyment. What narrative conventions and cultural expectations govern how stories function, and how we choose to interpret them? Texts forming the basis of our discussion may include Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Depression-era movies, the media coverage of the last presidential elections, and essays by Freud and Marx. Writing requirements will consist of weekly responses and multi-draft essays.

TR 08:40–09:55 a.m. Christine Suwendy 26860 Reeve Parker

ENGLISH 1168 SEM 102

Cultural Studies: Happy Stories—From Jane Austen to Barack Obama

TR 01:25–02:40 p.m. Christine Suwendy 26861 Jane Juffer

ENGLISH 1168 SEM 103

Cultural Studies: Digital Media and Virtual Experience

From YouTube and blogs to iPhones and video games, digital technology has transformed daily life. This course will explore the virtual worlds that computers open up—and the actual world they sometimes help us forget. If digital media make our fantasies into reality, how do they impact our identities, bodies, and communities? Student essays will examine the portrayal of digital media in texts by William Gibson, Ursula Le Guin, Philip K. Dick, and others, as well as films such as Ghost in the Shell, The Matrix, and Terminator 2. In response to hands-on experience with digital media, from mobile phones to experimental digital art, we will explore how technology impacts the act of writing, what we write about, and how we read.

TR 08:40–09:55 a.m. Seth Perlow 26862 Jane Juffer

ENGLISH 1168 SEM 104

Cultural Studies: The End of Us and Them? Rethinking Humans and Animals

What makes a creature “human”? What makes it an “animal”? Can creatures without language communicate? Would humans and animals be better off if we went “back to nature”? In this course, we will examine the basis of basic categories we have used to organize life on earth: nature and culture, the wild and the domestic, animals and humans. These categories have helped us shape ideas about what we should eat and what we should love, where we should live, and what we should protect. We will read, discuss, and write about novels including Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Craik, non-fiction including Animals in Translation and Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma, and films including Grizzly Man and March of the Penguins.

TR 01:25–02:40 p.m. Sarah Weiger 26863 Reeve Parker

ENGLISH 1168 SEM 105

Cultural Studies: The End of Us and Them? Rethinking Humans and Animals

TR 02:55–04:10 p.m. Sarah Weiger 26864 Jane Juffer

ENGLISH 1168 SEM 106

Cultural Studies: Theater and Ethnic Identity

Why do we sometimes assume that performance is set apart from “real” identity? How do masks deepen into complicated forms of identity? How are gender, race, ethnicity, and class performed? What cannot be performed? How does a comparison of African American, Native American, “white” American, Asian American, and Latina(o) drama illuminate these questions? This intensive writing course will introduce you to some of the most innovative American playwrights. Writing assignments will focus on particular performance choices as particular interpretations of a script. Our texts may include Suzan-Lori Parks's Topdog/Underdog, Luis Valdez's Zoot Suit, David Henry Hwang's M. Butterfly, Hanay Geiogamah's Body Indian, and Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues.

TR 08:40–09:55 a.m. Margo Crawford 26905

ENGLISH 1170 SEM 101

Linked Stories

We will investigate a number of short fiction collections that concern a defining incident or trace the development of a character (or characters) over a period of time and/or geographical space. When these stories are read together as a collection, they can define a world. This course, then, in discussion and frequent writing, explores some of the finest achievements of modern short fiction that share a common setting, characters, or an overarching plot. Texts may include works by the following authors: Sherwood Anderson, Raymond Carver, Edwidge Danticat, Junot Diaz, Louise Erdrich, Denis Johnson, James Joyce, Alice Munro, Gloria Naylor, Tim O'Brien, and Flannery O'Connor.

MW 07:30–08:45 p.m. Jennifer Adams 28865 Sarah Jefferis

ENGLISH 1170 SEM 102

Linked Stories

MWF 11:15–12:05 p.m. Michael Canavan 26866 Sarah Jefferis

ENGLISH 1170 SEM 103

Linked Stories

MWF 09:05–09:55 a.m. Ingrid Diran 26867 Sarah Jefferis

ENGLISH 1170 SEM 104

Linked Stories

TR 08:40–09:55 a.m. Elinathan Ohiomoba 26868 Sarah Jefferis

ENGLISH 1170 SEM 105

Linked Stories

MWF 10:10–11:00 a.m. Sarah Jefferis 27464

ENGLISH 1170 SEM 106

Linked Stories

MWF 01:25–02:15 p.m. Sarah Jefferis 27465

ENGLISH 1185 SEM 101

Writing About Literature: Writing the Self—The Art of Autobiography

In this class, students will read selections from the Confessions of St. Augustine and Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, The Liar's Club by Mary Karr, and All Over But the Shoutin by Rick Bragg. They will write short critical papers about each of these works, as well as a brief memoir of their own. In addition each student will give an in-class report on an autobiographical work of their choice.

MW 02:55–04:10 p.m. Robert Morgan 26906

ENGLISH 1185 SEM 102

Writing About Literature: Shakespeare in Film and Fiction

Shakespeare has long been a fixture of highbrow culture, but his works are also continually being reinvented in global popular culture—evident most recently in an explosion of comic book, film, and television adaptations. What does it mean to be “Shakespearean” in this context? In answering this question, this course will investigate how three plays have been adapted and performed since the seventeenth century: The Taming of the Shrew, Hamlet, and The Tempest. In addition to studying each play, we will analyze theatrical appropriations such as Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and Aimé Césaire’s A Tempest, as well as film adaptations such as Kiss Me Kate, Michael Almereyda’s Hamlet, and the sci-fi classic Forbidden Planet.

TR 01:25–02:40 p.m. Jenny Mann 26907

ENGLISH 1185 SEM 103

Writing About Literature: Visionaries, Madmen, and Prophets

Can we break the bonds of reason, cleanse the doors of perception, and access the infinite? We will be looking at major writers who explored the limits of reason and came back to (more or less) tell us about it. Our readings will include the mad poetry of Christopher Smart, visionary poetry (William Blake), science fiction (Philip K. Dick’s A Scanner Darkly), Shakespeare’s epic portrayal of madness (King Lear), apocalyptic visions of Hollywood (Nathaniel West’s Day of the Locust), and forays into the strange logical worlds of Lewis Carroll, Georges Cantor, and Kurt Godel. By analyzing works that sometimes defy analysis, we will be forced to develop creative approaches to argument, analogy, and writing style that will translate across academic disciplines.

TR 10:10–11:25 a.m. Brad Zukovic 26908 Barbara Correll

ENGLISH 1185 SEM 104

Writing About Literature: Playing the Fool

Do you know the difference between a bitter fool and a sweet one? No? How about between a hawk and a handsaw? Between method and madness? Wisdom and folly? In this course, we will study literary fools, both sweet and bitter. On the one hand, there’s Tristram Shandy, who tries to write his autobiography but can’t get himself born. On the other hand, there’s Heath Ledger’s Joker, who just wants to know why everyone he’s terrorizing is so serious. On the third hand, there’s Shakespeare’s motley crew, jesters who romp between comedy and tragedy, cracking dirty jokes. As we puzzle out foolish utterances through careful reading (and watching), you’ll work on your control of language, crafting essays to express your thoughts in clear writing.

MWF 12:20–01:10 p.m. Matthew Fellion 26909 Barbara Correll

ENGLISH 1185 SEM 105

Writing About Literature: Blasphemy! God’s Shock Value in the Twentieth Century

An “obscene” portrait of the Virgin Mary sparks a political uproar. Cartoons picturing Muhammad outrage millions, leading to international demonstrations and violence. A man named Jesus is crucified for the blasphemous crime of calling himself God. Why is blasphemy so threatening, so powerful? Why does it disturb yet compel us? This seminar will investigate how blasphemy works as both subject matter and style. In literature by writers such as Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, and Mina Loy, and in other media including film and comics, we’ll encounter provocative portrayals of things that many hold sacred. We’ll analyze and write about what happens when great writers dare to combine the sacred and the profane, bringing God and worldly things—sexuality, the human body—too close for comfort.

MW 02:55–04:10 p.m. Steven Pinkerton 26910 Barbara Correll

ENGLISH 1185 SEM 106

Writing About Literature: No Future—Apocalyptic Writing in Our Times

From what perspective does the progress of civilization look like a pile of wreckage? What do our fantasies about the end of the world tell us about the society we live in? Can these destructive fantasies help us to imagine a new society? With these and other questions in mind, we will investigate the relevance of apocalyptic writing to historical understanding. We will read, discuss, and write about such twentieth-century and contemporary authors as Samuel Beckett, Cormac McCarthy, Thomas Pynchon, Margaret Atwood, and W. B. Yeats. Our writing projects will include short responses and polished critical essays.

MWF 12:20–01:10 p.m. Benjamin McCormick 26911 Barbara Correll

ENGLISH 1185 SEM 107

Writing About Literature: Hotel Narratives in Twentieth-Century Literature

Hotels are everywhere in twentieth-century novels and short stories. They provide the backdrop for all manner of encounters, as characters from widely divergent places and backgrounds are brought together within the confines of the hotel building. In this course, we will read and write about various hotel narratives (and watch one or two key films), examining both the stories themselves and the hotel space in literary, historical, and architectural contexts. Potential authors include Henry James, Graham Greene, E. M. Forster, Arnold Bennett, Steven Millhauser, and Anita Brookner.

MWF 01:25–02:15 p.m. Randi Saloman 26912

ENGLISH 1185 SEM 108

Writing About Literature: Games and Laughter in Medieval Literature

What do you do when a giant green knight challenges you to a beheading game? What are all those dirty stories doing in the Canterbury Tales? We’ll ponder these and other questions as we examine the uses of humor, play, games, and laughter in medieval literature. We’ll think about how humor functions in medieval literature, why games are often portrayed as being so dangerous, the stakes so high, and what literature tells us about the role of games and humor in medieval societies. Students will pursue these questions while developing writing skills in a series of short responses, drafts, and essays. Texts include Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Chaucer’s Miller’s Tale, and even a fifteenth-century fortune-telling game.

TR 11:40–12:55 p.m. Susan Winders 26913 Andrew Galloway

ENGLISH 1185 SEM 109

Writing About Literature: Wild Justice—The Literature of Revenge

Why is there so much literary obsession with revenge? The dream of getting even is one of the oldest ideas in literature and has inspired some of the most compelling stories. Revenge tragedies raise challenging questions about justice, ethics, and authority. Who has the right to retaliate? Does private revenge put the law out of office? Does pursuing retribution defend an old order or establish a new one? Where does revenge lead? This class will pursue these vindictive questions, and even ask if literary works themselves can be acts of revenge. We will explore the long tradition of revenge stories, from Renaissance drama such as Hamlet to recent films such as ‘V’ for Vendetta. Writing assignments will include critical and analytical essays.

TR 02:55–04:10 p.m. Douglas McQueen-Thomson 26914 Walter Cohen

ENGLISH 1185 SEM 111

Writing About Literature: Mothers and Metaphors

“Love begins with a metaphor,” Milan Kundera writes, “Which is to say, love begins at the point when a woman enters her first word into our poetic memory.” What is the relationship between love and metaphor? Between one’s love of the mother (or any other) and one’s metaphors for her? With special attention to the relationship between the figure of the mother and the figurative act of reading and writing, this seminar will explore literal and literary representations of the mother in various—autobiographical, sexual, colonial, religious—contexts. Through class discussions, reading responses, and writing assignments, we will examine novels and memoirs, photographs and experimental essays, by Marcel Proust, Virginia Woolf, E. M. Forster, Roland Barthes, and Julia Kristeva, among others.

TR 11:40–12:55 p.m. Sang Yin Wu 26916 Barbara Correll

ENGLISH 1185 SEM 112

Writing About Literature: Never Forget—Monuments and Memory

From tombstones to war memorials, monuments surround us. What can these monuments tell us about who and what we are? Taking our point of departure in epitaph as both a literary genre and a cultural practice, in this course we will reflect on why monuments are such an important part of our lives. In the course of our reflection, we will raise questions about topics such as: memory and forgetting, permanence and transience, writing and speech. We will read literary and philosophical texts exploring the relation between writing, memory, and time. Students will write critical essays on authors such as Aristotle, John Milton, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, William Wordsworth, Charles Baudelaire, and Sigmund Freud.

MW 07:30–08:45 p.m. Bradley Depew 26917 Cynthia Chase

ENGLISH 1185 SEM 113

Writing About Literature: Playing with Time in Non-Linear Narrative

We’re all familiar with novels that start at the beginning of the hero’s life and march straight through until he or she meets marriage or death. But what about novels that begin in the middle of things and move back and forth between past and future as if life were a tennis match? Or novels that don't rely on just one character to tell the story, but rather call in a host of narrators, cranky, quirky, or otherwise, telling stories that don’t line up? In this seminar, we will discuss and write about a variety of texts that treat stories like jigsaw puzzles, labyrinths, and mysteries, drawing from works by Vladimir Nabokov, Amitav Ghosh, Virginia Woolf, William Faulkner, Alan Lightman, and Jorge Luis Borges.

TR 10:10–11:25 a.m. Erin Penner 26918 Molly Hite

ENGLISH 1185 SEM 114

Writing About Literature: Stolen Childhoods

Most of us think of childhood as sacred. But is childhood actually a fiction? If children are inherently more innocent, imaginative and open-minded than adults, what happens to these qualities when children undergo trauma such as abuse, poverty, or neglect? We’ll ponder these questions and more as we read and discuss literature in which children grapple with tragedy and navigate strange, sometimes magical, worlds. In addition to writing and revising analytical essays, we’ll do some informal creative writing about our own childhood memories. Texts may include Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street, Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things, Lois-Ann Yamanaka’s Blu’s Hanging, and Karen Russell’s St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, as well as poems by Bishop, Lowell, Doty, and others.

MW 02:55–04:10 p.m. Allison Barrett 26919 Laura Brown

ENGLISH 1185 SEM 115

Writing About Literature: Monsters, Inc.

This course will examine iconic monsters in nineteenth-century British literature. While the nineteenth century saw the revolution of society, self, and culture, it also saw reactions to scientific discovery, religious skepticism, and colonization. For this course, we will explore the ways in which the monster in literature was a response to changing social ideas of nationalism, class, empire, gender roles, and religion. We will discover that the monster, as metaphor, can transform and embody a multiplicity of psychic fears. What does it mean to be “monstrous”? How is a monster’s body the locus of fear? What social threats does a monster pose? Literary texts may include Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

MWF 01:25–02:15 p.m. Jolene Zigarovich 26920

ENGLISH 1190 SEM 101

Great Books? Exploring the Literary Tradition

What do Beowulf and Virginia Woolf have in common? In this course, we will examine and question some of the major works of English literature across various genres and periods. Authors may include Chaucer, Shakespeare, Swift, Austen, Woolf, and Joyce. Touching upon such themes as sex and satire, romance and reason, and travel and colonialism, we will ask what makes these works "great" literature, why we continue to read them, and how they have generated traditions of readership over the ages. Writing assignments will focus on introducing and developing skills in close reading and literary interpretation.

MWF 12:20–01:10 p.m. Kamila Janiszewska 26921 Wendy Jones

ENGLISH 1190 SEM 102

Great Books? Exploring the Literary Tradition

MWF 10:10–11:00 a.m. William Rogers 26922 Wendy Jones

ENGLISH 1190 SEM 103

Great Books? Exploring the Literary Tradition

MWF 11:15–12:05 p.m. Jane Kim 26923 Wendy Jones

ENGLISH 2700 SEM 101

The Reading of Fiction

This course examines modern fiction, with an emphasis on the short story and novella. Students will write critical essays on authors who flourished between 1870 and the present, such as James, Joyce, Woolf, Hurston, Lawrence, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Faulkner, Rhys, Welty, Salinger, and Morrison. Reading lists vary from section to section, and some may include a novel, but close, attentive, imaginative reading and writing are central to all.

MW 08:40–09:55 a.m. Daniel Schwarz 26924

First-year students may enroll only if they have taken one First-Year Writing Seminar, scored a "4" or "5" on the Princeton AP examination, or received a "700" or better on the English Composition or CEEB tests.

ENGLISH 2700 SEM 102

The Reading of Fiction

MWF 09:05–09:55 a.m. David Faulkner 26925

ENGLISH 2700 SEM 103

The Reading of Fiction

TR 02:55–04:10 p.m. Reeve Parker 26926

ENGLISH 2700 SEM 104

The Reading of Fiction

TR 02:55–04:10 p.m. Molly Hite 26927

ENGLISH 2710 SEM 101

The Reading of Poetry

How can we become more appreciative, alert readers of poetry, and at the same time better writers of prose? This course attends to the rich variety of poems written in English, drawing on the works of poets from William Shakespeare to Sylvia Plath, John Keats to Li-Young Lee, Emily Dickinson to A. R. Ammons. We may read songs, sonnets, odes, villanelles, even limericks. By engaging in thorough discussions and varied writing assignments, we will explore some of the major periods, modes, and genres of English poetry, and in the process expand the possibilities of our own writing.

MWF 10:10–11:00 a.m. Lynda Bogel 26928

ENGLISH 2710 SEM 102

The Reading of Poetry

TR 01:25–02:40 p.m. Debra Fried 26929

FRENCH 1103 SEM 101

Introduction to French Short Fiction

As French culture has moved through centuries, across oceans, and into ethnically diverse populations, how have its form, purpose, and content changed? This class will cover some highlights of French short fiction from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century, in translation. We will track themes from ancient and medieval culture through different authors’ tales, examining how they are transformed. We will investigate the movement of themes as a way of thinking about modular textual knowledge (small pieces of information meant to be moved around). For example, human-to-animal transformations appear in many works we will read, from the wolf-man of the medieval Bisclavret to the

mule-women of the Tales of Amadou Koumba. Authors will include Marie de France, Perrault (Mother Goose), Balzac, Maupassant, Gide, and Sartre. No knowledge of French required.

TR 08:40–09:55 a.m. Antonio De Ridder 26682 Kathleen Long

FRENCH 1105 SEM 101

Masters, Slaves, and “New Men”: Beyond The Colonial Encounter

How can we better understand the antagonisms now rampant around the globe? How can we understand the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized? How have both used race, language, and religion for purposes of political oppression, or for revolution? To explore and write about such questions, we will examine the political and cultural history of French colonialism and its aftermath in Africa and the Caribbean. Our texts, the basis for discussion and essay assignments, will include popular fiction and plays, as well as “texts” such as films, games, comic books, and post cards—readings from mass culture which show how colonial ideas have become “normal” elements of everyday life, but which have also provided new modes of resistance for postcolonial writers.

MWF 09:05–09:55 a.m. David Fieni 26684

GERMAN STUDIES 1105 SEM 101

Language of Alchemy: The Romantic Tale

Alchemy: can lead be changed into gold? Is there an elixir that can cure disease and prolong life? As the French revolution and its aftermath split Europe, another—and no less drastic—revolution took place in the realm of science: the discovery of oxygen gave rise to modern chemistry. The ground for this break was, however, long prepared by alchemy, the esoteric knowledge of binding and separating the elements. Alchemists led the way for philosophers and writers in the Romantic era in a quest for the legendary "philosophers' stone" and in seeking what they called the "chemical marriage." Reading representations of alchemy by Goethe, Novalis, Hoffmann and more recent texts such as Hofmannsthal's Andreas. we will analyze and write about the tensions between the mystical and the scientific.

TR 10:10–11:25 a.m. Anna Glazova 26686 Brent McBride

GERMAN STUDIES 1109 SEM 101

From Fairy Tales to the Uncanny: Exploring the Romantic Consciousness

As didactic texts that present explicit—and implicit—moral lessons, fairy tales shape cultural identity by questioning as well as affirming dominant cultural values. This seminar uses selections from the Brothers Grimm to analyze characteristic features of the genre and examine its evolution to the present day. Our investigation will focus on how the transformation of oral folk tales into literary texts in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries sparked an interest in androids, the paranormal, and the pathological and spurred German Romantics to experiment with new forms of fiction that established the matrix for popular genres like horror, mystery, fantasy, and sci-fi. The emphasis of the course is on improving writing skills.

MW 08:40–09:55 a.m. Arina Rotaru 26654 Brent McBride

GERMAN STUDIES 1109 SEM 102

From Fairy Tales to the Uncanny: Exploring the Romantic Consciousness

TR 01:25–02:40 p.m. Katrina Nousek 26653 Brent McBride

GERMAN STUDIES 1170 SEM 101

Marx, Nietzsche, Freud: Is Morality Material?

A grasp of Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud is essential to understanding critical discourse in the humanities and social sciences. This seminar introduces the three thinkers and the revolutionary analytic models they pioneered: political economy, post-metaphysical philosophy, and psychoanalysis. Our investigation will focus on three texts that shaped modern ideas on the contingency of moral values: Marx’s German Ideology, Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals, and Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents. Our goal will be to answer both aspects of a single, ambiguous question: Is morality material? (Is it material in the sense of being produced by physical—as opposed to metaphysical—forces? Is it material in the sense of being relevant to contemporary life?) The emphasis of the course is on improving writing skills.

MWF 11:15–12:05 p.m. Douglas McBride 26655

GERMAN STUDIES 1170 SEM 102

Marx, Nietzsche, Freud

A grasp of Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud is essential to understanding critical discourse in the humanities and social sciences. This seminar introduces (1) the three revolutionaries who shaped modern and postmodern thought and practice; and (2) the key terms of the analytic models they pioneered: political economy, post-metaphysical philosophy, and psychoanalysis (including differences and points of intersection). Discussions and assignments will focus on short texts and excerpts from longer texts that are essential to understanding their work and lay a foundation for critically analyzing global society, politics, and culture. The core problem: Do alternative ways of thinking and acting exist in opposition to how we already think and act? The emphasis of the course is on improving writing skills.

MWF 12:20–01:10 p.m. Jens Schellhammer 26657 Brent McBride

GOVERNMENT 1101 SEM 101

Power and Politics: Bad Grrrls—Feminism, Religion, and Politics

This course will discuss the future of feminism and how it interacts with another rising force across the world: religion. On one hand, secular feminists often maintain that the global rise of religion is detrimental to women's rights; on the other hand, religious women argue that such an interpretation is outdated and advocacy for women's rights must include a woman's right to be religious. The course will investigate how religious feminists reconcile their goals of gender equality with their systems of faith over issues such as reproductive rights, dress, leadership, and homosexuality. Drawing on reading assignments such as The Vagina Monologues, Bad Grrrls, and Cornell Professor Mary Katzenstein’s Faithful and Fearless, writing assignments will range from creative political monologues to formal debate materials and research essays.

TR 10:10–11:25 a.m. Julie Ajinkya 26716 Mary Katzenstein

GOVERNMENT 1101 SEM 102

Power and Politics: Passions, Politics, and Violence

The turn of the twenty-first century has seen the emergence of unsettling forms of political resistance and violence—suicide bombings, labor strikes, hunger strikes. This course seeks to consider the role of violence in politics, asking whether violence is an irrational anomaly or an actual means of political expression. We will be particularly interested in the influence of the passions and imagination on how violent political actions are formed, executed, and received. To engage with the topic, we will read selections from the works of seminal figures in Western political thought, ranging from Machiavelli, through Hobbes and Marx, to Franz Fanon. Writing assignments will encourage students to develop their ability to inquire into the role of violence in politics from a variety of critical perspectives and with solid historical insight.

TR 11:40–12:55 p.m. Pinar Kemerli 26719 Susan Buck-Morss

GOVERNMENT 1101 SEM 103

Power and Politics: Islam and Development in the Comparative Perspective

Students in this class will undertake an in-depth survey of economic development and political power in the Muslim world. The world contains well over one billion Muslims, and the majority of them live under authoritarian regimes, in conditions of economic hardship if not abject poverty. Yet this underdevelopment exists alongside glimpses of prosperity in Dubai and Kuala Lumpur, amidst astounding natural resource wealth, and despite widespread popular dissatisfaction with incumbent governments. In discussion, readings, and writing, we will study the political economy of the Muslim world in order to understand the varying development trajectories of Muslim-majority countries.

TR 02:55–04:10 p.m. Thomas Pepinsky 26721

GOVERNMENT 1101 SEM 104

Power and Politics: Utopia

Utopias are imaginary idealistic visions of what society might be. In some cases(dystopias), these visions are forbidding predictions of what society will become. In this course, we will read widely, devouring both utopias and dystopias, in search of the fundamental principles that shape societies. As we discuss these readings, you will be asked to design a utopian society, choosing how you would structure power, arrange economic production, create architectural forms and their spatial connections, harness and exploit technology, ensure compatibility with the natural environment, socialize the young, and incorporate religious belief. When you are finished constructing your utopian vision, we will ask you to explain how we might create that society, given where we are now.

TR 11:40–12:55 p.m. Richard Bensel 26724

GOVERNMENT 1101 SEM 105

Power and Politics: Causes of War and the War in Iraq

Why do states fight wars? Moreover, what can existing theories of war tell us about the causes of modern conflicts such as the most recent war in Iraq? In this course, we will begin by examining prominent theories of war. We will then study the events leading up to the war in Iraq, assessing which theories best explain why, when, how, and with whose cooperation the Iraq war was fought. Students will answer these fascinating questions in writing assignments that are designed to help them hone their analytical skills and learn to communicate their ideas clearly.

MW 08:40–09:55 a.m. Jessica Weeks 26726

GOVERNMENT 1101 SEM 106

Power and Politics: Assessing China’s Rise—Policy and the Emergence of a New Great Power

Does China’s emergence as a great power present new opportunities or dangerous challenges for the United States? In this course, we will think critically about the implications of China’s rise in terms of economics, security, and the environment. We will explore the relationship between China and the U.S. on a set of concrete policy topics that may include security/military relations, Taiwan, human rights, and environmental degradation. Students will read articles and policy documents by experts in academia, policy think-tanks, and government that express a variety of viewpoints on these issues. Through a series of writing assignments, students will develop well-supported policy positions on particular topics, as well as a broader perspective on whether the United States should engage China or attempt to contain its rise.

TR 01:25–02:40 p.m. Danielle Cohen 26727 Allen Carlson

HISTORY 1115 SEM 101

Magna Carta: Defender of Individual Rights?

In modern American culture, the words “Magna Carta” are synonymous with freedom. The charter is spoken of in the same breath as the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, and it has been cited by the Supreme Court as recently as 2005. But what is Magna Carta? In this course, we will study Magna Carta both in the context of the barons’ revolt of 1215 and in the ways it has been appropriated to serve different political purposes in the eight centuries since then. We will read interpretations of Magna Carta ranging from the American founding fathers to modern Marxists. Writing assignments will include historical essays and a legal memo in which students will make an argument based on Magna Carta.

TR 10:10–11:25 a.m. Thomas McSweeney 26728 Paul Hyams

HISTORY 1117 SEM 101

Hiroshima Past and Present: Nuclear Anxiety and Collective Memory

Situated at the crossroads between history and cultural studies, this interdisciplinary course on Hiroshima in history and memory takes up a few of the following issues: How do images shape collective identity? What are the limits of textual and visual representation as groups seek to come to terms with traumatic pasts? Primarily through an engagement with films, but also through such media as photography and manga, students will have the opportunity to gain insight into critical reading practices of both texts and images. Films include Resnais’s Hiroshima mon amour, Kurosawa’s I Live in Fear, and Takahata’s Grave of the Fireflies. Writing assignments encourage students to be cognizant of the emotional impact of images as they craft critical responses to various modes of cultural production.

TR 02:55–04:10 p.m. Franz Hofer 26738 Dominick LaCapra

HISTORY 1118 SEM 101

Optimism and Pessimism: The Best or Worst of All Possible Worlds?

This course explores the development of optimism and pessimism during the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, with an emphasis on historical context. The course will begin with a reading of Leibniz’s writings on theodicy, in which the author asserts that ours is “the best of all possible worlds,” and will conclude with a study of the pessimistic philosophy of Schopenhauer, who suggested that ours is “the worst of all possible worlds.” In tracing, through discussion and frequent writing assignments, the development of optimism and pessimism in the Age of Enlightenment, we will devote special attention to the different forms that optimistic and pessimistic ideas assumed, as manifested in the philosophical treatise, the dialogue, poetry, and satire. Readings include works by Leibniz, Pope, Voltaire, Hume, and Schopenhauer.

TR 01:25–02:40 p.m. Taran Kang 26741 Dominick LaCapra

HISTORY 1119 SEM 101

Environment and Agriculture in Modern China

Mao Zedong wrote in 1949 that economic production would be the solution to China's population problem. What impact did the ideas of Mao and other leaders have on agriculture and the environment? How have society and the so-called natural world in China been transformed over the past two centuries? This course introduces students to modern Chinese environmental history and uses specific historical episodes to theorize about the connections between agriculture, social change, and the environment in other contexts. Readings are drawn from a wide range of sources, including agricultural treatises, speeches, and fiction. Students will practice reading historical documents with an eye toward the environment and turn their analyses into convincing written arguments about environmental and social change.

MW 02:55–04:10 p.m. Peter Lavelle 26744 Sherman Cochran

HISTORY 1127 SEM 101

Inventing Race: Racial Ideas in European and American Culture 1750-2000

This course explores the many ways people in Europe and North America have thought about race, past and present. How many “races” were there, and how did people tell which was which? Was skin color more important than behavior? Why did it matter what race a person belonged to? Looking at the work of writers, scientists, government officials, and cultural figures, we’ll ask why and how they sorted people into various racial groups, and what they thought these racial differences meant. We will also examine how these questions continue to cause controversy today. Readings include shorter historical pieces from different countries and time periods, as well as current debates. Response papers to some readings and several longer papers are required, covering readings chosen by students.

TR 11:40–12:55 p.m. Peter Staudenmaier 26754 Dominick LaCapra

HISTORY 1230 SEM 101

Monstrous Births, Scheming Midwives: Childbirth in Europe 1500-1700

When Mary Toft gave birth to rabbits in 1726, only some (but not all) doctors thought she was faking. Why was her story plausible, and how were the rabbits explained? Who controlled childbirth, and who had the power to decide whether a pregnancy was real? How did Mary Toft experience the event? Monstrous births, dishonest midwives, infanticide, and the powers of pregnant women were topics of fascination and debate in early modern Europe and America. In this course, we use writings by midwives, medical treatises, letters, autobiographies, news reports, and trial records to examine practices and beliefs surrounding childbirth, and at how these in turn reflected concerns about property, sexuality, health, and religion.

TR 11:40–12:55 p.m. Rachel Weil 26671

LINGUISTICS 1100 SEM 101

Language, Thought, and Reality: Language Processing and Disorders

How does the human brain produce and understand language? What happens when our linguistic capacity breaks down? We will address these questions by looking at and writing about three important lines of psycholinguistic research. First, students will acquire a background in the theory of language processing. Second, students will learn about brain imaging techniques and how they are used to study normal language processing. Third, students will evaluate real case studies of various language disorders such as dyslexia, aphasia, and naming problems in Alzheimer's Disease. Students will then be asked to draw implications from these studies as to the nature of language deficits, as well as how language is processed in the brain.

TR 01:25–02:40 p.m. Julie Balazs 26689 John Whitman

LINGUISTICS 1100 SEM 102

Language, Thought, and Reality: Words and Pictures

This class will explore the roles and relationship of language and visual imagery. Words and pictures are symbols for ideas, and we use both every day to communicate with one another. But how do they work? Imagine seeing a painting and a no-smoking sign hung next to each other on a wall: how do you know that one is art and the other is just an efficient way of delivering instructions? What happens when we translate images into words, and vice versa? Is a picture really worth a thousand words? Writing assignments will vary from formal descriptions of images and art objects at Cornell's Johnson Museum to analytical essays about the work of linguists, philosophers, culture critics, and art historians such as Ferdinand de Saussure, Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, Meyer Schapiro, and Susan Sontag.

MWF 11:15–12:05 p.m. Tova Friedman 26690 John Whitman

LINGUISTICS 1100 SEM 103

Language, Thought, and Reality: Biological Foundations of Language

What is so special about the human brain that only it, and no other animal brain, can create language? To consider this question, we will examine the current state of knowledge about the biological substrate for all aspects of language, including the most up-to-date research on phonetics, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. We will look at the heated debates in the research on child language development, aphasia, and brain imaging technology. Students will learn how to read scientific texts about language critically, as they write about these in essays, including reviews, critiques, and research proposals.

MWF 12:20–01:10 p.m. Kyle Grove 26691 John Whitman

LINGUISTICS 1100 SEM 104

Language, Thought, and Reality: Testing the Language Instinct

When children first acquire language, in all its complexity, they do so with such ease and effortlessness that it seems they are pre-programmed for it, as an instinct. Linguists are discovering common properties throughout the world’s languages; perhaps the universals are due to a common biology. In this seminar, we will examine the issues surrounding the debate on language innateness. We will focus on the contrast between taught and untaught knowledge of language. How do children learn to speak? How are languages similar to and different from each other? Do other animals have language? Do some people speak more “grammatically” than others? Readings will include Steven Pinker’s 1994 bestsellerThe Language Instinct. Students will write a series of short papers and a longer paper.

MWF 09:05–09:55 a.m. Jo Johnson 26694 John Whitman

LINGUISTICS 1100 SEM 105

Language, Thought, and Reality: Creating the Science of Language

What makes a science science? Is it the methodology used or the subject of study? We will consider these questions by exploring the development of linguistics as a science. We will have many questions to write about and discuss concerning science and linguistics as a science: Can the mind be a domain of scientific study? Is our conception of science biased by history or culture? In addition to readings from linguists such as Steven Pinker and Noam Chomsky, we will draw from historical and contemporary sources. We will look at the writings of Galileo and his contemporaries to learn what controversies beset the establishment of physics as a science; to examine current conceptions of science and language, we will turn to sources such as newspaper articles, magazines, and blogs.

TR 10:10–11:25 a.m. Christina Bjorndahl 26696 John Whitman

LINGUISTICS 1100 SEM 106

Language, Thought, and Reality: Structure in Poetry

Poems are among the most highly structured texts human beings produce. While some poetic devices are completely arbitrary, most are natural extensions of structural properties inherent in language itself. The aim of this seminar will be to reveal the ways in which poetry is structured at every level, from rhyme to metaphor, and to show how poetic structure relates to linguistic structure. The emphasis will be on reading and analyzing specific poems, with some reading assignments in linguistics and literary theory. In writing assignments, students will use what has been learned in class to enhance their understanding of the structure and meaning of poems of their own choosing, as well as to assist them in their own prose writing. Poets read may include Shakespeare, Herbert, Blake, Dickinson, Hardy, Frost, Yeats, Williams, Stevens, and Ashbery.

TR 02:55–04:10 p.m. John Bowers 26698

MATHEMATICS 1890 SEM 101

Certainty and Ambiguity: Exploring Mathematical Concepts Through Writing

Ever wonder how a line can fill a square and how we can count infinities? In this course, we consider these and other mathematical notions. We analyze and practice writing as a means to learning mathematics. We read outstanding texts about the nature of mathematics, such as (but not limited to) Reuben Hersh’sThe Mathematical Experience, William Byers’s How Mathematicians Think, and Ivars Peterson’s Mathematical Tourist. We also debate the merits of the research into how mathematicians think and what they do in their profession; occasionally we will invite Cornell faculty to join in our discussions and share their experience of mathematical practice. The assignments will concern well known mathematical concepts, as well as the relationship between mathematics and language, literature, art, music, and nature.

TR 08:40–09:55 a.m. Mircea Pitici 26701 Maria Terrell

MEDIEVAL STUDIES 1101 SEM 101

Aspects of Medieval Culture: Questioning Spanish Medieval Art, 700–1492

Understanding different religious and cultural perspectives is not just a modern issue. Jews, Christians, and Muslims coexisted for eight hundred years in Spain (with varying degrees of success). This course will introduce students to the visual culture of all three confessional groups, starting with the Visigothic period and ending with Ferdinand and Isabel. Students will learn to use observation, description, and historical context to more fully understand how coexistence among religious groups is reflected in both architecture (like the Mosque of Cordoba and Toledan synagogues) and objects (such as manuscripts or altarpieces). Writing assignments will initially center on formal and comparative analysis (including a field trip to the Johnson Museum!) and then on the readings.

TR 10:10–11:25 a.m. Jessica Streit 26766 Andrew Galloway

MEDIEVAL STUDIES 1101 SEM 102

Aspects of Medieval Culture: The Fair and the Foul in the Middle Ages

Purity and filth are important contrasting terms in a wide range of medieval literary texts. In this course, we will explore this contrast in selections from Leviticus, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Piers Plowman, saints’ lives, and selected medieval and Celtic romances. We hope to contrast the tradition of medieval bawdry and the medieval aspiration to unearthly purity, a series of contrasts that will illumine the medieval world view. Assignments will include formal essays and in-class writing exercises.

MWF 10:10–11:00 a.m. Amanda Mita 26939 Thomas Hill

MEDIEVAL STUDIES 1102 SEM 101

Literature of Chivalry: Love is a Battlefield—Chivalric Romance in Late Medieval England

Interested in finding love? How about adultery, incest, and murder? The Arthurian tradition is full of sordid goings-on juxtaposed with the glittering world of tournaments and courtesy that we traditionally associate with the Knights of the Round Table. We will focus on the chivalric literature of late medieval England: Malory, Gawain and the Green Knight, and some of the anonymous Middle English romances, though we will also acquaint ourselves with select earlier works. We will read these texts to discover how love was represented in medieval literature and whether, as Malory says, “love at that time was not as it is nowadays.” Students will complete several papers, emphasizing close reading and research skills, but also allowing some creative freedom.

TR 11:40–12:55 p.m. Benjamin Weber 26940 Samantha Zacher

MEDIEVAL STUDIES 1103 SEM 101

Legends, Fantasy, and Vision: Parallel Worlds—The Medieval Supernatural

What supernatural “other worlds” did medieval people imagine as parallel to their world of ordinary experience? In this class we will examine a range of medieval literary texts that depict and complicate the boundary between humans and their supernatural counterparts. As we analyze the worlds these texts construct (spiritual realms, dream worlds, and magical kingdoms), our writing and discussion will address whether and how they conflict, as well as what they reveal about human identity, the tension between individuals and communities, and the desire to connect with something beyond what is seen. Readings may include Arthurian legends, Breton lais, dream visions, saints' lives, the Norse epic

of Sigurd the Dragon Slayer, and mystical texts of the great medieval spiritual writers. TR 02:55–04:10 p.m. Corey Wronski-Mayersak 26942 Andrew Galloway

MEDIEVAL STUDIES 1103 SEM 102

Legends, Fantasy, and Vision: Introduction to Oral Tradition and Literature

Literature as usually defined and studied consists of a canon of "authorized" texts—texts written by specific authors and then made public ("published") in a fixed form. An alternative tradition of literature, however, is "oral"/"traditional" literature, texts such as ballads and folktales which were disseminated orally and which change from performance to performance. This course will serve as an introduction to "oral"/"traditional" literary forms, concentrating on English and Scots ballads and folktales, but giving some attention to literary authors such as Malory and Tolkien who either write in a traditional mode or who imitate "traditional"/"oral" literature in their fictions.

MW 07:30–08:45 p.m. Thomas D. Hill 26943

MEDIEVAL STUDIES 1103 SEM 103

Legends, Fantasy, and Vision: Seeing the Real through the Imagined—Medieval Dream Visions

What are dreams? Are they, as Thoreau asserts, "the touchstones of our character"? Was Yeats correct in his assertion that dreams are "the beginning of responsibility"? Perhaps a dream is only, as Disney reminds us, "a wish that the heart makes." For the medieval writer dreams, as literary devices, encompassed all of the above while providing the opportunity for blunt and candid critiques of the medieval world. In this class, we will carefully examine the genre of the medieval dream vision. The course will focus particularly on the use of the dream vision as a mechanism for introspection and social commentary. Texts to be read may include: selections from Piers Plowman, Pearl, selections from The Romance of the Rose, and The Inferno.

MWF 08:00–08:50 a.m. Katie Compton 26944 Andrew Galloway

MUSIC 1701 SEM 101

Sound, Sense, and Ideas: World Musics, Global Cultures

This course focuses on questions of mobility, migration, and cultural exchange of globalized musics: topics include the “fusion music” of African-French hip-hop, the bhangra soundtrack of Indian cinema, pan-European electronica, Muslim-American punk, Indonesian emo, and the global, online creation (and interaction with) music. We will seek to understand music and musical cultures as an important part of the contemporary processes of globalization. Questions we will ask include: What happens when global musics move across national borders, language “barriers,” and between different media formats? How do musical sounds, images, and performances intersect with issues related to nation, ethnicity, and gender in the increasingly globalized environment? Finally, in connection with our own consumption of “world music,” how might we better understand our responsibilities as agents of globalization?

MWF 11:15–12:05 p.m. Samuel Dwinell 26798 Judith Peraino

MUSIC 1701 SEM 102

Sound, Sense, and Ideas: Rock, Rap, and Ethics

This course will examine the ethical issues surrounding inflammatory rock and rap artists such as Ozzy Osborne, Marilyn Manson, 2 Live Crew, and Eminem. Students will read and discuss writings on ethics; articles for and against censorship and about the effect of music on youth culture; and writings about various legal actions taken against musicians. Students will write about their responses to the music and articles, and will be encouraged to develop their own ideas about the relationship between social practice, artistic expression, and ethical behavior.

TR 02:55–04:10 p.m. Judith Peraino 26799

NEAR EASTERN STUDIES 1987 SEM 101

Writings From Muslim Africa: A Celebration of Diversity

How have African Muslims engaged with their communities’ struggles over religion, gender, ethnicity, and race in the twentieth century? The range of intriguing answers to these questions lies in the words of Sudanese al-Tayyib Salih, Egyptian Haggag Hassan Oddoul, and Tanzanian Taarab performers among others. We will explore these men’s and women’s thoughts on race and ethnicity, gender, and religion and discuss the strategies they employ to speak about difference. Students will write reading responses and analytical essays to interrogate these writers’ and performers’ assumptions about religious and cultural conflict and accommodation.

MW 02:55–04:10 p.m. Rose-Louissa Oburra 26768 Deborah Starr

PHILOSOPHY 1110 SEM 101

Philosophy in Practice: Science and Pseudo-Science

What are the aims of science? What are scientific methods? What makes them scientific? What distinguishes science from non-science? What questions if any lie beyond the scope of science? We'll examine competing answers to these questions through focusing on and writing about two issues: (1) the status of "creation science" and intelligent design as alternatives to Darwinian evolution and (2) the role of racial ideology in twentieth-century discussions of IQ and race. The seminar will meet in Becker House and members of the seminar may, if they wish, eat lunch together either before or after the seminar. Professor Boyd will join them for lunch before class on Tuesdays and after class on Thursdays.

TR 11:40–12:55 p.m. Richard Boyd 26946

PHILOSOPHY 1110 SEM 102

Philosophy in Practice: Morality and Sacrifice

Should you be giving up more to help the poor? Is it wrong to kill in self-defense? More generally, does morality require severe self-sacrifice? Or does morality allow you to give priority to your own interests and to the interests of people near and dear to you? In our seminar, we will examine how these general, philosophical questions relate to practical issues such as famine relief, abortion, and war. Students will write short essays that explain and evaluate the arguments of Immanuel Kant, Peter Singer, Judith Jarvis Thomson, and other philosophers.

TR 11:40–12:55 p.m. John-Paul Erdel 26948 Richard Miller

PHILOSOPHY 1111 SEM 101

Philosophical Problems: Philosophy in Literature

Some of the best literature draws heavily on philosophical themes from ethics (What is right and wrong? What does justice require?) and metaphysics (What things exist? e.g., Does God exist? Does morality depend upon God?). We will read authors, such as Plato, Sophocles, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Voltaire who construct fictional or quasi-historical situations in which to expound philosophical ideas. This course will explore themes from Ancient Greek ethics and discuss their relevance for contemporary questions about morality and religion. Writing exercises will involve reviewing films, extracting and developing philosophical ideas and arguments, and distinguishing literary, expository, and argumentative writing styles.

MW 02:55–04:10 p.m. Andrew Alwood 26950 Richard Miller

PHILOSOPHY 1111 SEM 102

Philosophical Problems: Rightness, Wrongness, and Virtue

“How should one live?”—many of us can’t avoid asking this gripping question at some point in our lives. But contemporary ethicists approach the question in three divergent ways. One approach answers it by emphasizing the consequences of one’s actions (e.g., utilitarianism). Another approach (e.g., deontology) focuses on one’s duties to act or refrain from acting. We shall spend the first half of the semester discussing these two approaches. But a third approach, known as virtue ethics, will occupy us for the remainder of the term. Instead of emphasizing duty or consequence, this third approach focuses on the virtuous character of persons (e.g., charity, courage, etc.). Readings will be drawn from contemporary sources, and assignments will aim at developing writing and critical thinking skills.

MW 02:55–04:10 p.m. Brent Kyle 26951 Richard Miller

PHILOSOPHY 1111 SEM 103

Philosophical Problems: Knowledge and Objectivity

This course is both an introduction to the philosophy of science and an introduction to philosophical writing. We will focus on a number of twentieth-century debates about what properties, exactly, define scientific knowledge. The primary writing for the course will consist of a sequence of papers addressing issues related to the “demarcation problem,” which is the problem of determining what criteria (if any) separate scientific theories from non-scientific theories. However, we will also briefly examine some related philosophical ideas, including falsification, scientific objectivity, the nature of prediction and explanation, and the role of social ideology and norms in scientific practice. Our readings will be a mixture of classic articles in twentieth-century philosophy of science and science and technology studies, organized around readings from an introductory textbook.

TR 02:55–04:10 p.m. Mark Fedyk 26952 Richard Miller

PHILOSOPHY 1111 SEM 104

Philosophical Problems: Science and Objectivity

By examining the writings of feminists, philosophers, scientists, and sociologists, we will address and develop answers through discussion and writing assignments to some of the following questions: Is objectivity a characteristic of individual researchers, methods of inquiry, or knowledge? Does science consist of objective truths about the world or is it the product of cultural traditions? What separates good science from bad science? What are the effects of gender on science? Is objectivity necessarily opposed to subjectivity? Is there a unique standpoint which can provide objective knowledge?

TR 02:55–04:10 p.m. Neelam Sethi 26953

PHILOSOPHY 1112 SEM 101

Philosophical Conversations: The Good Life

Is the good life a life of happiness or a life of virtue? Does one have to choose between them? The focus of this course will be on happiness and moral virtue and on the relationship between the two. Philosophers' accounts of the relationship have diverged so widely that one might wonder if they are really talking about the same thing. To help us sort through the issues, we will read accounts drawn from throughout the history of philosophy, with an emphasis on Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, and John Stuart Mill. Writing assignments will focus on clearly explicating the views of our authors and on critically responding to their views. We will pay particular attention to formulating good arguments clearly and persuasively.

TR 01:25–02:40 p.m. Sydney Penner 26955 Richard Miller

PHILOSOPHY 1112 SEM 102

Philosophical Conversations: The Trial and Death of Socrates

Who is Socrates and why was he put to death by an Athenian jury? Plato, one of Socrates’ students and one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy, wrote five dialogues depicting the trial and death of Socrates. These dialogues, written some time after Socrates’ death in 399 BCE, include the Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, and Phaedo. In these works, Plato does not merely offer an account of Socrates’ trial and death, but also presents Socrates’ philosophical views as well as his own later developments. We will examine these views through a close reading of Plato’s texts. Highlights include the Socratic method of inquiry, Meno’s paradox, the theory of recollection, the theory of forms, and the immortality of the soul. Writing philosophy papers will be integral to the process of understanding and responding to philosophical arguments.

TR 01:25–02:40 p.m. Saul Rosenthal 26956 Richard Miller

PHILOSOPHY 1112 SEM 103

Philosophical Conversations: Why is Freedom Important?

The concept of “freedom” shows up in almost all American political debates: it is the central shared value of American political culture. But political debates assume this value, and thus obscure consideration of why or if freedom is valuable. To explore “why freedom is important,” we will read classic texts in the history of Western political thought such as Plato, Hobbes, Rousseau, and Mill. Students will write papers addressing these texts and the central question of the course, learning in the process how to take thoughts and concepts that are difficult and unclear and present them clearly and precisely. Philosophy is, after all, the practice of making clear and explicit what is normally implicit and muddled.

TR 02:55–04:10 p.m. Patrick Mayer 26957 Richard Miller

PHILOSOPHY 1112 SEM 104

Philosophical Problems: Free Will

Do we have free will? If all of our thoughts and actions are determined by such factors as our genetics, upbringing, and environment, do we ever really act freely, and are we responsible for what we do? In this course, we will examine views, both historical and contemporary, that propose solutions to this problem. Drawing on class discussion and texts on the subject by such writers as Hume, Hobbes, and Frankfurt, essay assignments will aim at helping students develop the ability to critically assess these views, and to construct clear and effective arguments to support their own positions.

MWF 01:25–02:15 p.m. Sean Stapleton 27648 Richard Miller

PLANT PATHOLOGY 1200 SEM 101

Evolution: Evaluating the Public Debate

Though we live in a world infused with science and technology, most of the general public and many Cornell students do not believe in evolution. Evolution, the theory that organisms are connected by genealogy and change over time, is well supported and accepted as true by the scientific community. Nevertheless, there is an emotional debate outside scientific circles about the legitimacy of evolution as an explanation for the diversity of life on earth, and the existence of humans in particular. One outcome has been an effort to disrupt scientific education through political activities. Readings will explore the evidence for evolution and aspects of political controversy, both current and historical. Zimmer’s Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea will be supplemented with current articles and broadcasts. Assignments will emphasize the development of critical thinking skills and writing styles used to inform and to persuade.

TR 02:55–04:10 p.m. Rosemary Loria 26770

PSYCHOLOGY 1120 SEM 101

How the Mind Works: Consciousness, Neurocomputation, and Evolution

How does a brain, composed of billions of neurons, create our mental world? What is the purpose of consciousness? How do subconscious knowledge structures influence our daily lives? How has evolution driven people towards power, sex, compassion and violence? In this class, we explore the contemporary scientific literature on how the mind works, a wide-ranging collection of texts which has left major footprints on academic scholarship, including Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, The Trouble with Testosterone, Evolution in Four Dimensions, Sync: How Order Emerges from Chaos, The Illusion of Conscious Will, and The Computational Brain. Through personal and collaborative assignments sparking natural intellectual curiosity, students will synthesize their own theoretical frameworks on how the mind works, and will learn to communicate in arresting prose.

MWF 09:05–09:55 a.m. Michael Wojnowicz 27054 Melissa Ferguson

PSYCHOLOGY 1120 SEM 102

The Pursuit of Happiness

Happiness is a goal in most of our lives, but, like most important life goals, happiness is not something easily gained or even understood. In this seminar, we will be exploring the idea of happiness by exploring questions such as: how do we get to be happy and, once we are happy, how can we stay happy? How do we define happiness for ourselves and is that definition useful for others like the government and psychologists? Through critical thinking and writing exercises, we will investigate happiness, both from a technical psychological point of view and from a broader cultural stance. Students will examine the psychological definition of happiness and consider more fully what it means on a personal level through a series of critical writing assignments.

TR 02:55–04:10 p.m. Sarah Anderson 27055 James Maas

PSYCHOLOGY 1130 SEM 101

Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters—Queens Fans Only!!

All ye Jumping Frenchmen of Maine, do you find pavements sexy? Keep a log of all the road-kills you encounter? Swallow the change before your Big Mac? If so, get help! Join us!! We will discuss, learn, and write about the psychology, biology, and behavior of some of the more arcane maladies of the mind and their malcontents, even imagining ourselves as patients, writing of our experiences in the first person. Course material will include award-winning texts such as Oliver Sacks’s The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.

TR 11:40–12:55 p.m. Bernard Tarr 27056 Timothy DeVoogd

ROMANCE STUDIES 1104 SEM 101

In the Face of Brutality

Writers in Spain and Latin America have always engaged with complex political and social issues. In this course we will focus on how novels have addressed themes such as personal responsibility, the nature of truth and the survival of the human condition amidst political instability and repression. Specifically, we will examine how humans cope in the face of brutality, whether through complicity, resistance, humor or madness. Works to be studied include: Javier Cercas’s The Soldiers of Salamis (Spain), Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Dominican Republic/USA), Laura Restrepo’s Delirium (Colombia), and Roberto Bolaño’s By Night in Chile. Students will write brief essays on a particular aspect of their choosing from the readings culminating in a research paper due at the semester’s end.

TR 08:40–09:55 a.m. Tamra Fallman 26771

ROMANCE STUDIES 1106 SEM 101

Civilization, Barbarism and the “Other”: Examining the Latin American Short Story

Latin American literature has always had a strong short story tradition, so much so that Jorge Luis Borges, arguably the most influential Latin American writer of the twentieth century only wrote fiction in this genre. In this course, we will read stories that span 200 years of Latin American history and culture, and we will explore such themes as: the clash of modernity and traditional societies, civilization and barbarism, and the dominating force of the “other,” whether it be a supernatural force or the urges of one’s subconscious. Works will include stories from Dario, Peri Rossi, Borges, Garcia Marquez, Cortázar, and Vargas Llosa. Students will write brief essays on a particular aspect of their choosing from the readings culminating in a research paper at the semester’s end.

TR 10:10–11:25 a.m. Tamra Fallman 26772

ROMANCE STUDIES 1106 SEM 102

Civilization, Barbarism, and the “Other”: Examining the Latin American Short Story

TR 11:40–12:55 p.m. Tamra Fallman 26773

SOCIETY FOR THE HUMANITIES 1110 SEM 101

Reporting from Hell

When you’re being bombed, hunted down, or otherwise persecuted, can you objectively report on what’s happening? Does your report have special value compared with that of a bystander? Is your on-the-spot report more reliable than testimony you give months or years later? We will address these and related questions through discussion and analytic writing about the legendary Edward R. Murrow’s radio broadcasts during the bombing of London in World War II; diaries kept by Jewish children hiding from the Nazis; and a report smuggled out of a Soviet labor camp for women political prisoners. We will also examine documentary film footage; oral testimony of Holocaust and Soviet camp survivors; and recent reports from Human Rights Watch, newspapers, and the Internet.

TR 01:25–02:40 p.m. Sidiney Orlov 26774

SOCIETY FOR THE HUMANITIES 1130 SEM 101

Propaganda

How does propaganda work? Does it necessarily involve lies? Why is so much of it kitsch? What is its curious relationship to religion? We will explore these questions in the context of propaganda in Soviet Russia, the United States, and Nazi Germany, especially World War II propaganda for domestic consumption. Our wide-ranging materials will include scholarly writing on propaganda; propaganda posters; speeches by Stalin; Life magazine advertisements; films from Frank Capra's famous series Why We Fight; propaganda advice from Hitler and his Minister for Propaganda; and Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will—sometimes called the greatest propaganda film ever made. If time permits, we will look at some current American propaganda and anti-propaganda legislation submitted to Congress. Our essays will be analytic.

TR 10:10–11:25 a.m. Sidney Orlov 26775

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY STUDIES 1123 SEM 101

Technology and Society: Culture of Transportation or Mobil Utopia? Society and the Technologies of Displacement

Why do we move? How do we displace? We will consider most modes of transportation and personal mobility: bicycles, automobiles, boats, trains, subways, airplanes, and so on. And we will meander into the avenues that shape our complex culture of transportation, such as design, perception, technology, networks and systems, techno-politics, gender, and race. Looking both to the past and the future, we will discuss physical and virtual modes of displacement: below and above land, and through water, air, and space. Film excerpts will be the perfect backdrop for our themes and a set of provoking readings will provide a snapshot of our “mobile society.” Writing will range from the anecdotal to the analytical; from reportage to a formal essay.

MW 08:40–09:55 a.m. Victor Marquez 26776 Ronald Kline

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY STUDIES 1123 SEM 102

Technology and Society: Do Cyborgs Have Ethics? Social and Ethical Issues in Science Fiction

How do stories about imaginary futures challenge us to think about the social and ethical implications of science, medicine, and technology? How can histories of race, gender, and colonialism inform how we contextualize and understand these issues? Through short stories, novels, essays, and films, we will explore how struggles over the powers of science, medicine, and technology are fertile grounds for analyzing fundamental issues about humanity and its Others in the past, present, and imagined futures. Authors we will read include: Isaac Asimov, Octavia Butler, Philip K. Dick, Nalo Hopkinson, Tamai Kobayashi, and Larissa Lai. Writing assignments will include reading responses and analytic essays.

TR 08:40–09:55 a.m. Darla Thompson 26777 Ronald Kline

THEATRE, FILM & DANCE 1205 SEM 101

Crossing the Border: Latinos Perform the Theatre of Immigration

The U.S. border with Mexico is believed by many to be the physical barrier between the “first-world” and the “other” nations of the Americas. As problematic as that view is, it is this us/them dichotomy that transforms those who cross the border into “others” and “aliens,” terms that strip individuals of identity and humanity. This class examines the idea of the border and the ways that performance and theatre present the experiences of immigrants, both legal and illegal, as they cross the dangerous borders from the South into the North (by land, sea, and air). Focusing on plays by Latin Americans and U.S.-Latinos, students will explore how these works challenge dominant American ideology and culture. Through comparative and analytical writing, students will explore critical questions.

TR 02:55–04:10 p.m. Jimmy Noriega 26784 Sabine Haenni

THEATRE, FILM & DANCE 1230 SEM 101

Performing Asian/American Identities of the Twentieth Century

What does it mean to be “Asian” or “Asian American”? What are the boundaries or correlations between the two identities? When do Asians become Asian Americans and vice versa? We will begin with materials that engage topics at hand such as “culture,” and “identity” through critics such as Raymond Williams and Marvin Carlson. Critical writings will help students also grapple with the following questions: How might these materials discuss such topics as race, class, gender, national identity, citizenship, and ethnicity? How might we define these terms through the textual and visual artifacts we will be covering? We will read a play, movie, or literary text a week from playwrights such as Henry David Hwang, Ping Chong, and Lao She to unpack Asian/American identities.

TR 11:40–12:55 p.m. Jen-Hao Hsu 26789 Sabine Haenni

THEATRE, FILM & DANCE 1290 SEM 101

Southern Stages: Theatre, Performance, and Regional Identity

What is Southern about the South, and is there such a thing as “Southern drama”? Southern literature is arguably the most recognized “regional” literature in the U.S., characterized by a love of the land, a strong sense of family and tradition, and a deep ambivalence about the region’s troubled racial history. But neither the South nor its literature is homogeneous. This course explores some of the many things it means to be “Southern” through plays like Tennessee Williams’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Zora Neale Hurston’s Polk County, and Tony Kushner’s Caroline, or Change. We will consider, furthermore, how culture is “performed” not just in theatre, but in music, folklore, and everyday life. Students will write argumentative essays based on analyses of the plays.

TR 10:10–11:25 a.m. Lindsay Cummings 26792 Sabine Haenni

THEATRE, FILM & DANCE 1480 SEM 101

Literary Bodies, Literal Bodies: Correspondences in Twentieth-Century Dance and Fiction

For centuries, dance has excluded speech and thus been judged as taking a back seat to literature. Nevertheless, dance offers one significant element that eludes literature even today: the literal body. In order to open a dialogue between these opposing disciplines, this course pairs novels and choreographers. Our readings in fiction will facilitate an introduction to three twentieth-century dance innovators—Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, and Pina Bausch. We will also consider a parallel narrative emerging in novels by Colette, Thomas Pynchon, and Elfriede Jelinek, whose female characters strive to overcome the objectifying constraints of male-dominated social structures in search of—like dance—a voice. Students may expect frequent short writing assignments and classroom exercises emphasizing argumentative structure and compositional craft.

TR 08:40–09:55 a.m. Ryan Platt 26794 Sabine Haenni

WRITING 1370 SEM 101