SPRING 2017 SPECIAL COURSE DESCRIPTIONS UNDERGRADUATE COURSES SORTED BY DEPARTMENT AH 3091 A TOPICS: MICHELANGELO: MONUMENTS AND MYTHMAKING This course will examine both Michelangelo’s extensive artistic production—in painting, drawing sculpture, architecture, and poetry—as well as the image of him created by contemporary and subsequent biographies, critiques, and theoretical texts. Exalted as the pinnacle of creative genius within his own lifetime, we will consider how the multi‐faceted exemplar of Michelangelo shaped the visual culture of his age and continued to have a lasting impact on generations of artists that followed. Course Objectives: Students will gain a firm foundation in important artistic and cultural trends of the period, and hone their skills in unpacking visual and textual primary sources. Further, they will be challenged to engage with secondary sources in art history, historiography, and cultural studies, and will refine their ability to analyze contemporary scholarship. The assignments, as outlined below, are designed to promote self‐aware, critical inquiry that will enable students to develop complex theses grounded in‐depth historical research. AH 4090: SENIOR SEMINAR: NY 1945‐1965 – THE END OF PAINTING The impact of the avant‐garde art that emerged in the US in the post–World War II has affected drastically and durably the way art has since been conceived, received and exhibited. Students will conduct an in‐depth inquiry into the critical reception of American art produced during this (short) period of 20 years that has seen the rise and fall of abstract expressionism, the birth of Pop, the appearance of conceptual art forms and, overall, a complete reformulation of our cultural landscape. The seminar is geared toward the examination of primary sources (artworks, critical texts, archival documents) in order to question, ultimately, the canonical picture of this crucial historical moment. AR 2091 TOPICS: MONOTYPE, COLLAGE, AND THE CAPTURED SHADOW Expanded and Applied Techniques in 2‐Dimensional Art: Monotype, Collage, and the Captured Shadow. Through the centuries, artists have shown great flexibility and adaptability to new processes and materials for the creation of their works. This course teaches early modern innovations that led to surprising forms of expression in printmaking and painting. Students will learn how to make watercolor and oil monotypes, (a single printed image created through the transfer of a drawing or painting from a non‐absorbent matrix to a receptive surface). Later in the semester these works will be combined with collage, (the cutting up and fixing of images on a support). Finally, early photographic techniques, photo‐transfer methods, and laser printing methods will be taught in order to expand the visual vocabulary of 2‐dimensional art to its utmost. BA 4091 TOPICS : ENTREPRENEURSHIP OPTIONS This course prepares students to start their own business and is designed to assist entrepreneurs to strengthen and manage their business skills. To do so, students will evaluate their options and will gain knowledge related to how and why prospective entrepreneurs select start‐ups, buy‐
outs, franchises, corporate spin‐offs, involvement in family business or social enterprises as an avenue to entrepreneurship. It therefore prepares students to: (1) acquire an existing business or franchise; (2) start up a new venture; (3) manage an existing family business for growth; (4) engage in entrepreneurship – the development of new products or programs or evaluation and pursuit of potential merger or acquisition within a mature corporation; and (5) create a social enterprise. CL/ PL 3017 KEY TEXTS: SOCRATES, SOPHISTS AND THE STAGE This course is a grand tour of 5th cent. BCE Athens, during this fascinating time of unrest. You will witness how the founding fathers of drama staged, and mocked, the issues of their day. You will be introduced to the inventors of history and observe them figuring out what it means to be Greek, both in terms of glorious achievement and cold‐blooded genocide. War becomes a revealer of truths about individuals and civilizations, showing how values can either achieve or lose their meaning in face of the common experience of death. We will sample showpieces of sophistry and make sure you get to know Socrates, the acclaimed champion of down‐to‐earth philosophy for everyone, from different perspectives: as a comely wise man, a caricature sophist‐scientist, and as the sublime role model in heroic battle against intellectual inertia and sophistic relativism that lives on in the dialogues of Plato. CM 2091 A TOPICS IN CIVIC MEDIA/TACTICAL MEDIA Description to be added CM/AN 3091 TOPICS : ANTHROPOLOGY OF FOOD This class is dedicated to the study of food and the senses from an anthropological perspective. We begin with an introduction to key theoretical texts and then move on to a series of ethnographic texts situated in a vast array of cultural contexts. Generally speaking, anthropologists are interested in critically examining the relationship between our foods and foodways, on the one hand, and our social, cultural, political and economic contexts, on the other. Students will also participate in a series of small in‐class tasting exercises and trips. They will be asked to critically reflect on such experiences by using ethnographic methodologies and perspectives. Please be aware that there is a small fee for this course and that while it is fun for those who love food and tasting, a serious intellectual commitment is also required. CM 4090 / CM 4091 TOPICS: ATTENTION & UBIQUITOUS MEDIA This course explores three major areas of research in digital culture: 1. Attention, and Emotion, 2. Circulation of content and Influence, and 3. Trust and Belief. It explores how communicators in public life and the marketplace strategically circulate content and how and why consumer‐
citizens react (or not) to it, with a particular focus on the interplay of digitized traditional media (films, TV, newspapers) and social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Foursquare, Instagram, etc. The aim is to be able to understand, analyze, and make well‐reasoned arguments about how effective strategic communicators are based on the knowledge gained about the new attention economy and digital culture. Lastly, we will discuss how technological, political, and economic influence on attention affects human freedom, trust, and knowledge, while creating new forms of power. EC 3091 : ECONOMICS OF GLOBALIZATION The process of economic globalization has been intensifying over the past two decades. Economic, political, and social relations increasingly transcend national borders. This course analyzes the causes, nature, and effects of the growing internationalization with particular attention to trade, finance, and economic development linkages in an integrating world. It evaluates the arguments of both the advocates and critics of globalization and assesses public policy options for improving international cooperation and global governance. FM 2091 TOPICS: SCI‐FI & FANTASY: OTHER WORLDS ON SCREEN The lavish imaginary worlds that cinematic technology made it possible to create became part of the earliest filmmaking endeavors in both America and Europe. In this course, students overview the roots of science fiction and fantastic cinema, from early experimental filming to short fiction to the Freudian concept of the uncanny. They analyse how these early developments have shaped the filmmaking decisions of directors such as Lynch, Gilliam, Kurosawa and others. The focus of the course is not only on science fiction and fantasy as genres but also on their role in the evolution of cinematic storytelling. A special section on the birth of the Sci‐fi Hollywood dynasty is also featured. FR/PY 3090 TOPICS: ENTRER DANS LE LANGAGE, DEVENIR HUMAIN Grâce à des récits fictionnels ou autobiographiques, mais aussi à des histoires cliniques, ce cours se propose de répondre à deux séries de questions : • Qu’est‐ce qu’une langue ? Acquérir un système de communication si complexe demande des facultés exceptionnelles : comment s’y prend le bébé ? Il faut dire que les enjeux (stakes) affectifs sont énormes : il s’agit pour lui d’entrer dans la communauté des humains. • À 2 ans, d’ordinaire, un enfant assemble deux mots. À 4 ans, il sait parler. Certains, pourtant, restent silencieux. Pourquoi environ 10% des enfants n’entrent dans le langage qu’avec difficultés, ou même jamais ? Quel est donc ce message silencieux qu’ils envoient à la communauté ? Les étudiants apprendront à comprendre la naissance du langage chez les enfants et ses illustrations cliniques mais aussi le fonctionnement littéraire des livres pour enfants. Leur travail final sera un travail d’écriture créative : composer (écriture et illustration) un livre pour enfant qui parle du langage ou des difficultés d'apprentissage. Entre littérature, linguistique et psychanalyse, ce cours, enseigné en français, s’adresse à tous les étudiants intéressés par le langage et son acquisition, sa créativité merveilleuse mais aussi sa faculté thérapeutique : « Dis une parole et je serai guérie ! ». (Ce cours comptera comme « elective » pour le minor en linguistique). (Les étudiants sont encouragés à écrire leurs devoirs en français mais pourront le faire en anglais. Des textes théoriques seront également disponibles en anglais). GS/LW 3091 TOPICS: NORMS & NARRATIVES: (GENDERED) LAWS OF IDENTITY What does it mean to live in a “normative universe”? Where is it located in our everyday lives, beyond the maintenance of categories of “right” and “wrong”, “legal” and “illegal”, “normal” or “abnormal” ? What impact does it have on our understandings of identity as they are expressed through gender, sexuality and culture? Due to the force and visibility of the formal institution of law and the conventions of the social world, we often identify norms with questions of explicit social control. Yet, these legal and social trappings are only a small part of the normative universe, because of the central role of narrative (or story telling) in both legal and social discourse. Indeed, in the words of legal scholar Robert Cover “no set of legal institutions or [social] prescriptions exists apart from the narratives that locate and give them meaning”. In this class we will investigate the various ways in which gendered norms of identity are defined, constructed, enforced, managed and even adjudicated through the narratives that inform and produce our social and legal realties. Class reading will include works by Anthony Appiah, Judith Butler, Wendy Brown, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Denise da Silva and Nivedita Menon, among others. HI/ CL 2091 TOPICS: WRITING & DEMOCRACY WORKSHOP This 2‐credit course is part of the Center for Critical Democracy Studies. We will explore ways in which ‘invisible’ members of society, and invisible aspects of our social world, can be given visibility. When we try to imagine ‘others’, when we try to give voice to aspects of our own lives which are marginalized, when we try to make visible activities placed outside prevalent systems of political and cultural representation, we engage in a process and we create a relation which is ethical and political. The course will combine theoretical speculation and a writing workshop. We will observe, meet, attempt to understand people that we otherwise might not consider; we will read and think about ways others have done this and thought critically about this; we will write, and we will critique and improve our writing. As we attempt to understand positions of alterity and build representations of them, we will move between generalizing forms of understanding (thinking too about ways of presenting statistics and data powerfully, visually and in writing), and those which aim at something more singular (including the force of fiction and poetry as political and ethical acts). All through this process, we will think about what position we occupy as observers and as those who make representations, and what kind of relation this implies with the people and activities we represent. There is a strong emerging tradition in France of writing that moves between fictional and sociological forms. We will learn about and draw on this tradition, as well as thought about representation that has emerged from post‐colonial, queer, feminist, and anti‐racist thought, and ideas and practices from anthropology and translation studies. We will work with the ‘Raconter la vie’ (‘Narrating Life’) project, whose manifesto imagines a ‘Parliament of the Invisible’, and the Mass‐observation project in the UK. Visiting speakers at the Center for Critical Democracy Studies will feed into our work, as will connections with associations and institutions in Paris and beyond. Regular writing exercises will make our thought concrete, and issue in a form of group presentation – a reading or a publication at the end of the semester. HI 2091 A TOPICS: REVOLUTION IN THE ATLANTIC Course description to be added HI 2091 B TOPICS: APPROACHES TO HISTORY ACROSS THE AGES This course examines different approaches to history from the Ancient Greeks (Herodotus), the early modern period (Vico), the nineteenth century (Michelet) through the twentieth century (Michel Foucault). The course is designed to familiarize students with classic texts on how the past has been interpreted in different periods. The course fulfills the Junior Workshop requirement for History majors and satisfies the History elective requirement for History, Law and Society majors. HI/PO 3091 TOPICS: DEMOCRACY LAB: GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP In our age of globalization, citizenship is experiencing major transformations, in practice as in theory. Migrants destroying their passports, states offering citizenship for sale, an increasing number of people holding multiple passports – what do such realities entail? As global governance is gaining traction, citizenship, a concept that used to be conceived in national terms, is receiving a cosmopolitan imagination. But what could global citizenship consist of? This Democracy Lab explores this question in very concrete terms. It provides a hands‐on, design‐thinking, experimental space where students elaborate a specific problem of global citizenship and devise a potential solution together. PO/LW 4091 TOPICS: RULE OF LAW IN RUSSIA AND CHINA "As the inherent contradictions and weaknesses of democratic governance come under closer scrutiny, scholars and pundits alike question whether democracy is robust enough to manage to complex challenges of 21st century politics. A recent spate of scholarship argues that the Russian and Chinese examples of an authoritarian style of leadership present an alternative to democracy. But, just as with democracy, questions arise as to whether there are one or several implementation models for authoritarian government, and whether Russia and China incarnate new or distinct models for a democratic alternative. Is authoritarianism adaptive, sustainable and the best method for promoting national prosperity and well‐being in either case? This course will examine Russian and Chinese adaptive authoritarianism in the political, economic and judicial spheres, and compare governing strategies with the democratic standards set by their own national texts. Assigned readings and lectures will emphasize the judicial transformations necessary for Russia and China to achieve rule of law, a framework which the Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping governments claim to uphold. While neither country is predisposed to authoritarian government, elite desire for great power status through a coordinated presence in the international arena has led to reoccurring transformations that largely resemble the traditions they claim to transform. This course will posit that the current authoritarian paradigms for governance in Russia and China are neither new, nor multiple. Both nations have adopted authoritarian models that are surprisingly similar in their construction, despite their adaptation to specific local histories. Both models of authoritarianism have provided current leadership with renewed great power status within a rapid timeframe. And both models fall far short of the nationally articulated project for democracy embodied in their constitutions, one that remains at odds with the " PY 3091 A TOPICS: GROUP DYNAMICS People are highly social beings. An essential part of their lives is spent in groups; much effort is spent trying to get into groups and trying to get out of groups. The odd thing about humans in groups is that not only do they interact with others based their own thoughts and emotions, but they are also strongly influenced by others – individuals, groups, and organizations. This course examines group dynamics, focusing on cooperation and obedience, group identity formation, leadership and power processes, group creativity, intersubjectivity, and cultural dynamics. Particular attention will be paid to the emergence of group processes in particular milieus, such as crowds, families, therapeutic groups, and organizational and work cultures. PY3091 B TOPICS: TREATMENT OF REPRESSED EROTICISM Clinical Psychotherapy, a psycho‐dynamic (neo‐psychoanalytic) approach to long term psychotherapy with a patient suffering from massive repression of childhood and adolescent memories and from a specific trauma. The therapy lasted for seven (7) years. The clinical material will be presented sequentially/developmentally; each year will take two weeks, i.e., four lecture/presentations (=5 hrs+20 mins). Once a week, after the first lecture/presentation, in which students will actively engage the professor in attempts to analyze the clinical material presented. PY4090 SENIOR SEMINAR: WORK, GENDER AND HEALTH This course is designed to provide students with the opportunity to be involved in a research study in the area of gender, injury and work. More specifically, we will focus on the psychological processes involved in adjustment to a physical injury (burns) in males and how this intersects with return to work processes. A substantial part of the course will be concerned with developing students’ ability to analyze real‐world psychological data and facilitating their conceptual‐analytic skills as related to issues of gender, psychological adjustment to trauma, family dynamics, rehabilitation, culture, and work identity. Students will also improve their skills in reading, critiquing and conducting research, strengthen their ability to effectively communicate their scholarship, and clearly define their scholarly interests in relation to their future goals. Students will be expected to produce a high‐quality, publishable‐ready psychology journal article. SC 1091 TOPICS: A WORLD OF FOOD & AGRICULTURE A World of Food and Agriculture (1 credit) is being taught as a short course, periods 7‐8 (10‐14 April). This course is open to all students and may be added on top of a 16 credit load without any additional charge. This course may be audited by graduate students. This short course will be taught by Professor Eric Pallant from Allegheny College in Pennsylvania. Professor Pallant was awarded a Fullbright award to work in the UK this year. Read more about Professor Pallant on Allegheny’s website http://sites.allegheny.edu/news/2016/03/15/environmental‐science‐professor‐eric‐pallant‐
awarded‐second‐fulbright‐award/ This course, A World of Food and Agriculture is a critical interdisciplinary survey of food production around the world. We will discuss all aspects of agriculture and food systems: soil management and crop production; insect and pest management; energy and water requirements; food processing and preparation; food distribution and food justice; food politics and economics; culture, cooking, diet and health. You will learn to critically evaluate what you eat and what others eat, how and where your food is grown, and the pros and cons of conventional, organic, sustainable and local food production. The goal of this course is to help you develop more nuanced and informed ideas of the complexities involved in producing sufficient high quality food for a global population of more than seven billion people. In the process, the course seeks to help build critical thinking skills and empower you to be active and effective participants in environmental problem solving. GRADUATE COURSES SORTED BY DEPARTMENT CM5020 D SOCIAL MEDIA FOR BUSINESS COMMUNICATIONS This course will explore the theory and the practicalities of applying social media in a business communications context. It will include reputation management, research & insights, brand campaigns and social media influencers. You will come out of this course with a thorough understanding of how social media is re‐shaping the PR and marketing disciplines and a perspective on the innovation happening in the world of brands and specialist consultancies. This course will be run by Drew Benvie, founder of Battenhall, the global communications agency. Drew is one of the most experienced social media consultants around, having first wrote the page on social media in 2006, and with experience as a CEO of both PR and digital consultancies, representing brands and celebrities alike. www.battenhall.net CM 5020 F ‐ THE QUIRKS AND ARCS OF VIDEO STORYTELLING ‐ 2 credits This two‐credit course taught by long time Paris television correspondent and Associate Professor Jim Bittermann will delve into the practicalities of constructing clear and concise video, film or photo stories for video, television and the internet. Whether it be long or short form, whether it's story telling for Hollywood or Vines, some techniques and challenges are no different than those employed and encountered by storytellers of ten millennia ago. But today there are new parameters and new metrics for storytelling, which have to be respected in the professional world. The module will be taught over two weekends with four, 4‐1/2 hour sessions on Friday evenings and Saturday afternoons. Students can expect writing assignments and should bring lap top computers to class if they have them. CM5021 PARIS FASHION AND DESIGN TEMPLATE This course examines how and why Paris became the centre of the contemporary fashion world. In part one, through reading history and cultural theory and visiting certain key sites in Paris, students will develop an in‐depth understanding of a city which is often considered to have been the template for modern urbanism – the ‘capital of the nineteenth century’, to use Walter Benjamin’s expression. In part two of the course, the emphasis shifts: the rise of the great couture houses becomes the focus. When did couture emerge, how was it transformed in the twentieth century, what is the place of couture today with the rise of ecological concern and with it sustainable fashion? How did the couture house fit in with the changing cultural environment in Paris, with wider aesthetic, social, and moral concerns? In taking Paris Fashion Template, students will be cognisant of the city’s evolution from the seventeenth century onwards and have a strong sense of the businesses and institutions which made the city a centre of global industry. CM 5091 A TOPICS: MAKING A DOCUMENTARY This workshop introduces students to a range of documentary film and video practices and imparts the technical skills to create their own documentary short and feature subjects. We will explore how form contributes to content, and engage issues in contemporary documentary practice from the avant‐garde to commercial production. Students will build their skills in using research, interview, camera strategies, editing, sound and time to explore their ideas. The best preparation for this class is a combination of tracking one’s own ideas, breaking down and responding to a wide range of documentary work and taking a previous video production course. CM 5091 B TOPICS: BRANDING PLACE: TRAVEL, TOURISM & IDENTITY Communication has always been about travel–be it the intimate transfer and transmission of ideas or the circulation of people and cultures locally, regionally, nationally, globally. This course undertakes an exploration of the cultures of travel in the age of globalized branding. How does the communication of travel experience, narratives and images generate cultural value? How does the circulation of bodies through travels, trips, voyages and tourism create meaning (let alone produce capital revenue exceeding 1.5 trillion USD in 2014 according to the UNWTO)? Through critical cultural studies and political economy approaches, we will investigate: the emergence of mass tourism and related leisure industries; travel, globalization and cultural hybridity; the concepts of place branding and of competitive identity and their roles in marketing, in civil society development, in public diplomacy and in social sustainability; the varieties of tourism and tourist practices: from cultural tourism and memory tourism to dark tourism and eco‐tourism; heritage and heritage tourism and the tourist's desire for communicated history and material authenticity; the cultural politics of travel from neo‐colonial legacies to travel as soft power public relations engaged in public diplomacy; mediated travel, from the tourist reflex of capturing photographic images to the explosive use of ICTs and social media; media and cinema‐induced travel; and travel and the contemporary drive to consume and communicate cultural difference be it through food, drink and the experience of "other spaces." The focus of the course will be on the communication and circulation of experience‐
based branding. This course provides a solid foundation for either of the two branding practica in the second summer session. PO/LW 5091 A TOPICS: RULE OF LAW IN RUSSIA AND CHINA "As the inherent contradictions and weaknesses of democratic governance come under closer scrutiny, scholars and pundits alike question whether democracy is robust enough to manage to complex challenges of 21st century politics. A recent spate of scholarship argues that the Russian and Chinese examples of an authoritarian style of leadership present an alternative to democracy. But, just as with democracy, questions arise as to whether there are one or several implementation models for authoritarian government, and whether Russia and China incarnate new or distinct models for a democratic alternative. Is authoritarianism adaptive, sustainable and the best method for promoting national prosperity and well‐being in either case? This course will examine Russian and Chinese adaptive authoritarianism in the political, economic and judicial spheres, and compare governing strategies with the democratic standards set by their own national texts. Assigned readings and lectures will emphasize the judicial transformations necessary for Russia and China to achieve rule of law, a framework which the Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping governments claim to uphold. While neither country is predisposed to authoritarian government, elite desire for great power status through a coordinated presence in the international arena has led to reoccurring transformations that largely resemble the traditions they claim to transform. This course will posit that the current authoritarian paradigms for governance in Russia and China are neither new, nor multiple. Both nations have adopted authoritarian models that are surprisingly similar in their construction, despite their adaptation to specific local histories. Both models of authoritarianism have provided current leadership with renewed great power status within a rapid timeframe. And both models fall far short of the nationally articulated project for democracy embodied in their constitutions, one that remains at odds with the " PO / LW 5091 B Course description to be added TOPICS: ETHICS AND THE ENVIRONMENT