FYS/Composition Seminars for 2005-2006: Course Descriptions
Fall, 2005
FYS
So What is a Family Anyway? A Cross-Cultural Examination of Contemporary Families (Acheson & Wegner)
Did you know that the traditional nuclear family forms only four percent of contemporary American households? Did you know that sixty percent of all new marriages in the U.S. end in divorce? If these questions interest you, we invite you to join this course. From an anthropological perspective, a complex array of contemporary family issues will be addressed. Reading and discussion will focus on cross-cultural definitions of family: polyandry—when a wife takes several husbands; polygyny—when a husband takes several wives; patrilocal households—when the groom and bride live with the groom’s family; and matrilocal households—when the bride and groom live with the bride’s family. Nuclear families, extended families, and same-sex marriages will be studied as well. Throughout the course students will be introduced to ways of seeing, reading and writing that are fundamental to ethnographic research.
Music in Film (Carlsen)
Music and film have been close partners from the inception of moving pictures. The emotions and drama depicted on screen are enhanced when accompanied by some well-chosen music. In the early days, the accompaniment was usually played live by an orchestra, an organist, or a pianist in a silent-movie theater pit. With the advent of sound, the film’s background music became a fixed element of the production. It might be a lavish symphonic score timed to the second to match the length of each scene; it might be a soundtrack assembled from previously-recorded popular songs. Music itself has also been the subject of films, whether it be a Luciano Pavarotti concert film, a Madonna music video, a Count Basie soundie, a Mozart biography, or a film such as Fantasia derived directly from classical compositions. These examples and more will be the subject of the course. Through selected readings, film clips, recordings, discussion, and written assignments, we will address the fundamental question “What is the role of music in film?”
Sport in US Culture (Davis, Beaudoin, & Pratt)
This course will explore current topics and issues related to the significance of sport in U.S. culture. The approach will be interdisciplinary in nature, with an emphasis on critical analysis of media and organizational structures. Issues of ethics, integrity and incident prevention and rectification will be examined from multiple vantage points. Topics are likely to include: sportsmanship, performance enhancing drugs, violence, gambling, cheating and equity in terms of access, support and discrimination at various levels. The impact of these issues in sport on youth and society at-large will also be considered. This course will have a service-learning component involving interaction with athletics in the local community.
The Power of Illusion (Denison)
This course challenges students to reflect on ways that illusion shapes social relationships and individual lives. Students will view films, read fiction and non-fiction, discuss these texts and films, and write papers that explore the hidden and not-so-hidden ways the exercise of the power of illusion shapes our experiences.
World Ideologies (Farmer, R.)
A comparative study of the major ideologies that developed in the pre-modern world, such as Buddhism, Islam, Taoism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Christianity, etc. Our approach will be both historical and sociological: How did these ideologies arise, and how do they continue to influence people’s values and perspectives today? Reading will include Earth and its Peoples: A Global History (Vol.I, to 1500), as well as primary sources such as the Koran and the Tao Te Ching.
Logic and
Incompleteness (Gies)
We will center our study on the book Godel,
Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter. We will write
papers, do activities and discuss ideas from the book, and support our
activities by learning the basics of mathematical logic, up to and including the
work of Kurt Gödel, one of the most important and unusual mathematicians in
history. The class will only assume that students enjoy mathematics, and that
they have an understanding of high school algebra and geometry.
Contemporary Moral Problems (Miller)
What principles should we live by? Should we respect the choices of others? Should we try to make all sentient creatures as happy as possible? Should we just look out for ourselves? We will investigate these, and other moral principles by looking at how they apply to some common moral problems of our time, such as abortion, capital punishment, animal rights, and our use of the environment. The course goals include (a) getting everyone involved in ethical inquiry, (b) learning about some historically significant ethical theories, and (c) improving everyone’s ability to articulate the moral principles they live by.
Welcome to the Hellmouth: Analyzing Buffy, Angel, and the Buffyverse (Overstreet)
How did TV’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer become role model, conscience point, gender text, and kick‑ass hero across seven seasons and several generations of fans? This is the question that we try to answer as we examine the Buffyverse through the lens of multiple academic disciplines. Just as Buffy itself crossed genre boundaries, Buffy studies are non‑discipline specific. Join us for reading, writing, discussing, and viewing the Buffyverse!
The Narrative Study of Lives (Quackenbush)
Have you ever felt as if your life was one long story? Have you ever suspected that the major episodes in your personal history are really chapters in a novel that you just can’t seem to put down? In this course we will examine the role played by narratives in understanding ourselves and other people. Drawing on relevant literature in the social sciences and the humanities, as well as the examples of significant historical personalities, we will examine the possibility that the quest to change ourselves and our world requires reflection on the stories we tell about our lives.
The Spirit of Learning (Thorson)
This class explores the learning process – what is it? How does it happen? What are the results? Why do we do it? Students will read and discuss essays about education from different points of view, and then decide what to do. Last year’s class did original research, finger-painted, wrote poetry and philosophy, and took walks. What do you want to do?
The Faustus Legend (Brown)
This course will explore various treatments of the legendary Doctor Faustus – the magician/scholar/undeclared major who sold his soul to the devil for forbidden knowledge. We'll study a series of texts and films related to this figure, from the sixteenth to the twenty-first century, and write extensively on the nature of temptation, the limits of human understanding, and the construction of the diabolical. No prerequisite (but Defense against the Dark Arts helpful).
Reading and Writing the Past (Darrohn)
This course explores the presence of the past in the present. Reading and writing texts that meditate on the relationship between present and past for individuals and entire cultures, we will address fundamental questions: How do we preserve, understand, and use our past? How does the past, even when we prefer not to face it, impinge on our present? What is a productive relationship between present and past, and what hinders such a relationship? What are the opportunities and problems specifically for writers as they read others’ texts and produce their own texts while shaping and transmitting memory? (This course is part of the “One Hundred Years Ago” cluster; students are not required to take other courses in the cluster, but those who do are invited to bring what they learn in those other courses into the class discussions and essays for this course.)
Whose Words Matter? Status & Power in Language Communities (Donahue)
If you are interested in how people in different communities and settings use language to manipulate, to persuade, to include or exclude, or to have power over others, this is the seminar for you. We will study whose language is marginalized in situations of power and status (politics, education, and other “elite” social institutions) and whose language is privileged. You will learn to recognize the value and richness of a variety of discourses and you will explore your and others’ thoughts on whether language use in different settings (especially school settings) should remain as it is or change. The course invites you to choose a language community in which you have a special interest and to study that community all semester through reading, research, analysis, and short papers. Your final project will develop from that work. Because this is a seminar that counts for your first-year composition course, we will also learn about academic discourse as a way of entering the university “conversation,” about how to participate successfully in that conversation, and about what is at stake for you in your engagement.
The Songs of Bob Dylan (Yetter)
We will spend
the semester listening to, reading and analyzing the songs of Bob Dylan. We
will talk about how his work reflects his own life and times, but more
importantly, we will look at the timeless significance of the words and music.
Not only will we become familiar with Dylan’s songs, but we will also use them
as a way to explore a number of other great writers: poets such as John Donne
and Robert Browning, essayists Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson and
contemporary critics like Greil Marcus and Jonathan Cott. The American voice,
the tension between personal freedom and social responsibility and the fluid
nature of love are just a few of the far-ranging themes we will explore through
the work of Dylan and others.
Composition Seminars (seminars that fulfill the ENG 100 requirement)
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Spring, 2006
FYS
Music and Film (Carlsen) (see Fall listing)
The Power of Illusion (Denison) (see Fall listing)
World Ideologies (Farmer, R.) (see Fall listing)
Chemistry that Changed History (Heroux)
Since the end of the Stone Age and the beginning of the Bronze Age much of history can be defined by the technology available. Through the industrial revolution to today’s technological age, fundamental chemical discoveries have impacted all aspects of change in human society. Through readings of popular science books and discussions, this course will examine the discoveries that have affected some of the major turning points of history as well as the chemistry hidden behind many of the social, economic, and political changes.
Japan Pop (Maline)
This class explores the vibrant world of Japanese popular art and culture since 1600. In the Edo period, an ancient feudal culture began to collapse under a dynamic new commerce-based society that found its entertainment in the pleasure quarters of the Yoshiwara. The new affluent class – the merchants – mingled with the formerly exalted samurai at the brothels and kabuki theatres of old Tokyo (Edo). This new society demanded new arts, arts that would impact popular culture for the next four hundred years. Ukiyo prints, kabuki theatre and a new irreverent popular literature blazed the way for today's manga, anime and great contemporary Japanese art, film and literature.
Reading and Writing the Past (Darrohn) (see Fall listing)
Women, War & Peace (Sharkey)
How do war and militarism affect women and their dependent children? Are women less violent than men? Do women have a role to play as women in the peacemaking process? Drawing on mythology, literature, visual imagery, case studies, and scholarly analysis across a range of disciplines, this seminar will examine the many faces of women confronting war: its impact and their response. We will conclude by exploring women's growing international presence as war resisters.
The Songs of Bob Dylan (Yetter) (see Fall listing)
Composition Seminars (seminars that fulfill the ENG 100 requirement)