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2022-2023 Undergraduate Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]
Course Descriptions
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Theater Arts |
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TH 140 Fundamentals of Acting
Students work on basic acting skills such as developing the ability to produce free, imaginative, and purposeful behavior in relation to environments, objects, and other persons; individual silent exercises; and group exercises. This work leads to in-class performances of selected scenes from a variety of American contemporary plays with special focus given to the sensory requirements in the text.
No previous experience is required.
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TH 141 Role Play and Improvisation
In exploring the dimensions of theatrical self-expression, this course employs lecture, discussion and classroom activities to raise issues that stretch self-awareness through dramatic interaction involving imagination and creativity. Through theater games and dramatic situations, students learn a variety of performance skills and find themselves exploring their own creative and artistic possibilities.
No previous experience required.
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TH 150 Acting I: Foundations
Through improvisation and ensemble work, students will develop fundamental acting skills such as imagination, concentration, listening, emotional accessibility, honesty and commitment. Students will develop characters, invest in given circumstances, and invent unscripted stories. In addition, students will become familiar with the history of actor training—from Stanislavski to Bogart. This course is open only to Theater Arts majors and minors and to others with prior approval from the Theater Arts faculty.
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TH 159 Applied Voice for Musical Theater
(1 credit)
This course is an intensive study of the voice in the private studio. The teacher works with the student to improve vocal technique, to learn new vocal literature, to enlarge knowledge of diction and develop basic language skills, and to pursue other activities designed to better the voice for the musical theater actor. This course involves a 45 minute private lesson once per week at a time scheduled between the applied instructor and the student, a one-hour studio class once per month and public performances twice a semester in recital/cabaret format.
Prerequisite: Acceptance into the Musical Theater concentration (within the BFA degree in Acting; by audition only) or express permission of the instructor is required.
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TH 165 Method Acting
Long after the impact of Brecht, Artaud, Grotowski, Lecoq and Peter Brook, the art and practice of acting is still turning on the revelations and teachings of Constantine Stanislavsky. If the Stanislavsky “system” or “method” is applied literally, it leads merely to realism, but applied systematically with discrimination it can become the grammar of all styles. While based on the teachings of Stanislavsky, this course includes insights by other famous acting teachers such as Uta Hagen, Sanford Meisner, Lee Strasberg, Michael Chekhov and Stella Adler. This is an initial acting course with a focus on the practical and playable aspects of the “system’s” training, providing the actor with a resource to operate completely on his or her own in any and all production situations.
Studio course with lab requirement.
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TH 190 Introduction to Backstage with Lab
(2 Credits)
This course introduces students to backstage professions and the practices of technical theater. The course will use readings, guest lectures from working theater artists, hands-on instruction and practical projects to reveal the many layers of a realm that stays mostly hidden from the view of the audience but is essential to the art of theater. Students will have the opportunity to work backstage with an Arcadia theater production, and build a foundation of experience and practical knowledge that can be applied to a range of performance and storytelling contexts. The course lab provides opportunities for students to apply training to hands-on work in Arcadia’s scene and costume shops, and as crew members for Arcadia Theater productions.
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TH 191 Stage Practicum and Crew I
(0 credits)
This course includes scene construction, rigging, costume construction, drafting and stage lighting. It examines theater architecture and elements of scene, costume and lighting production. All students in the first year of the program are assigned on a rotating basis throughout the year to various crews that build and run the shows in the Theater performing series.
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TH 192 Stage Practicum and Crew II
(0 credits)
This course includes scene construction, rigging, costume construction, drafting and stage lighting. It examines theater architecture and elements of scene, costume and lighting production. All students in the first year of the program are assigned on a rotating basis throughout the year to various crews that build and run the shows in the Theater performing series.
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TH 199 Theater History
This course is a study of the development of the physical theater and concurrent developments in dramatic literature and musical theater. It surveys styles in acting, directing, dramatic criticism and production from historical, analytical and performance perspectives. It requires individual and group projects. Attendance at theater productions is included when possible.
No previous experience required.
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TH 200 Movement Training for Comfort, Power & Grace
(2 credits)
The course gives students a reliable way to feel better in their bodies. The course provides an understanding of how bodies function and gives each student insight into his or her personal habits outside this design that create tension in the body. Students learn to move more freely and gain new understanding of their aches and pains. Students come away with a working knowledge of the musculoskeletal system and how to cultivate true core support and to balance functioning of all muscle groups. We review the newest research in back pain and neuroplasticity, study the respiratory system and breathing patterns, and study how perception contributes to our bodily feeling and use patterns. The class is catered to anyone with an interest in feeling better and moving with increased ease and coordination. Assignments include exercises around public speaking, working at the computer, and lifting challenging objects (including an evening in the weight room). Students gain increased powers of self-observation, impulse control and improved coordination.
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TH 201 Script Analysis
There’s no other way to say it: Reading plays is difficult. To read a play in print is to encounter a work of art in unfinished and incomplete form. Visual artistry, physical presence and live audience dynamics are reduced to flat, static words on a page. In this course, students explore and practice with various techniques for reading and analyzing scripts: techniques designed to help theater artists discover more fully the dynamic potential of theatrical texts as blueprints for live performance. Students work with several techniques for analyzing play texts, explore conventional play genre labels (tragedy, comedy and tragicomedy), and examine the ideas of key theorists in Western theater history (Aristotle, and Brecht), to discover different perspectives from which plays may be read and evaluated critically. Class discussions, online discussions and writing assignments provide opportunities to develop and refine the critical/analytical skills addressed in course readings.
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TH 203 Voice and Speech III
(2 credits)
Actors explore second half of the Linklater voice progression. The focus is on developing each actor’s full vocal range. In addition to the voice exercises, students work on a variety of texts chosen to support their growing acquisition/skills.
Prerequisite: TH 102 .
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TH 204 Voice and Speech IV
(2 credits)
The focus is on speech. Clarity of articulation and effective use of vowels is developed by learning the International Phonetics Alphabet.
Prerequisite: TH 203 .
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TH 205 Music Skills for Actors
(3 credits)
Music Skills for Actors is a course designed to build and refine your musicianship, the ability to hear, perceive, understand, learn, and perform music. Specific focus will be placed on the practical applications of both aural and visual music theory skills commonly seen in the world of musical theatre. Basic and advanced rhythmic exercises, sight-singing, rhythmic, melodic and harmonic dictation, and tonal harmony will all be studied within the confines of musical theatre.
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TH 210 Yoga
(2 credits)
This course introduces study in the Indian exercises of relaxation and energy focusing. No previous experience necessary.
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TH 211 Stage Makeup
(2 credits)
This course seeks to illuminate the actor’s quest for character through a concise, easily understood exploration of the connection between makeup and character, emphasizing the total visual impact of the character on the audience and discussing in depth the contribution of props and costume to the overall effect. The course is intended to help performers. Students bridge the gap between understanding a role and expressing that understanding in tangible form. (Theater Acting majors only.)
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TH 212A Advanced Yoga
(2 credits)
This course is suitable for students who have a basic understanding of yoga and want to deepen their practice through exploration of intermediate yoga postures and techniques that promote mental clarity, relaxation, and total well being. An emphasis will be placed on the chakra system, the subtle energy centers in the body.
Prerequisite: TH 210 or previous yoga experience (approved by instructor).
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TH 220 Special Topics in Stagecraft
(3 credits)
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TH 221 Dance and Choreography
(3 credits)
Movement is inherently dramatic. Explore the wide range of movement that exists within our bodies and the world around us. This is a studio course that explores the elements of dance making and the craft of choreography through the manipulation of time, space and energy. The movement material explored is pedestrian movement and stylized dance. Each student works within his or her own technical skill level to uncover the endless possibilities of movement within the human body and the vast opportunities for communication of the human experience. No previous experience necessary.
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TH 222 Stage Combat I
(3 credits)
Starting with the basics of hand-to-hand combat, or weaponless fighting, the students are introduced to the idea of personal safety, how to be safe and remain safe onstage, including all the fundamental moves every actor needs to get by in this business. Students then study and practice the art of the sword and learn the techniques that keep the actor safe long after training is over. Coursework includes training in unarmed and single sword. No previous experience required.
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TH 223 Stage Combat II
(2 credits)
Picking up from basic stage combat, the student is drilled in the sword and works toward its perfection. An emphasis on fencing with the foil epee and saber becomes part of the student’s regimen to teach better coordination and focus, as well as the practical applications thereof. The latter part of the class is dedicated to the quarterstaff and its use. Students explore the weapon through exercises and choreography. Basic certification with Fight Directors Canada is possible upon completion of training.
Prerequisite: TH 222 .
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TH 224 Stage Combat III
(2 credits)
Rapier and Dagger: The traditional weapons of Shakespeare’s day; picking up from single sword technique, the additional weapon is added to the non-dominant hand, i.e. dagger. The student practices in this double fence style until he or she can use them with facility. Broadsword: The basics of this classic medieval weapon are taught in much the same way as the rapier. Starting with the rudimentary footwork and guards of the weapon, the cut and parries are taught and drilled. The students explore the use of the broadsword through choreography and styles taught. Basic certification with the Society of American Fight Directors is possible upon completion of training.
Prerequisite: TH 223 .
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TH 228 Dance Techniques for Musical Theater
(3 credits)
This beginning level dance technique class focuses on styles and performance elements of dance for musical theater. Through warm-up exercises and movement combinations, both set and improvisational, students will build a foundation of skills needed to dance in musical theater productions. Disciplines explored include jazz, ballet, African, tap, modern dance, partnering, ensemble work, solo work, floor work, hip hop and improvisation. Students will improve stamina, strength, range of movement, and performance commitment, and will acquire a deeper understanding of the challenges of musical theater dance.
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TH 229 Dance Techniques for Musical Theater II
3 Credits
This intermediate level dance technique class focuses on styles and performance elements of dance for musical theater. Through warm-up exercises and movement combinations, both set and improvisational, students will further develop a foundation of skills needed to audition for and dance in musical theater productions. Disciplines explored include jazz, ballet, African, tap, hip hop and modern dance. Class work will focus on partnering, ensemble work, solo work, floor work, and improvisation. Students will improve stamina, strength, range of movement, commitment to performance, and professionalism. Students will cultivate an ability to learn complex movement sequences, and will acquire a deeper understanding of the challenges of musical theater dance. Emphasis will be placed on differentiation of dance styles and strengthening audition skills.
Prerequisite: Prerequisite: TH 228 or permission of instructor through placement exam. Enrollment for students not pursuing the Musical Theater concentration (within the BFA degree in Acting) will be subject to prior approval from the instructor.
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TH 230 Modern Dance
(3 credits)
This is a modern dance technique class focusing on the connection and coordination of the upper and lower body. To this end, emphasis is placed on increasing abdominal strength, thereby gaining freedom and fluidity in the limbs. Warm-ups and exercises increase strength, stretch and stamina. Traveling sequences are geared toward gaining rhythmic accuracy and coordination. Class combinations and exercises increase in length and difficulty throughout the semester.
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TH 231 Intermediate Dance
This is a modern technique class that builds on the foundation in TH 230 Modern Dance . Emphasis is placed on increasing accuracy of articulation and range of movement and moving the body as a cohesive unit. As the body gains strength and flexibility, each student is encouraged to find his or her own stylistic voice and individuality in movement.
Prerequisite: TH 230 /TH 221 or instructor’s permission.
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TH 241 Acting II: Scene Study
This is a scene study class focusing on characterization and motivation. Students rehearse and perform contemporary plays as a means of furthering skills and craft. Both performance and personal journals are maintained on a continuing basis, and outside rehearsals on scenes are expected. The emphasis is on interpretation of the playwright’s intentions and finding actable, interesting choices for the actor. Studio course with lab requirement.
Prerequisite: TH 150 and permission of instructor.
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TH 244 Acting III: Language and Verse
The course begins with helping the student to feel the very heartbeat of the work, the students/actors have to know how to decipher and understand a text that may feel strange on the tongue, and they have to discover the text’s tone and tempo, mine its inner richness, and learn how to speak the text with ease. Lectures cover background with studio work and seminars built around improvised scenes along with scenes and monologues that are to be rehearsed outside the class for performance and critique during class.
Studio course with lab requirement.
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TH 252 American Women Playwrights
This course surveys some of the most influential plays written by American women of the 20th century. The course examines how female writers have participated in, responded to, and helped to shape the prevailing currents of American drama. No previous experience necessary.
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TH 253 African American Drama
This course views the social, political and cultural history of 19th- and 20th-century United States through the lenses provided by a diverse selection of African American playwrights and other theater artists. The plays (which range from one act to full-length, from the tragic to the satirical) address a variety of issues, including slavery and its abolition, civil rights, inter-racial relationships, Black Nationalism, women’s rights, and gay rights. Classes include script, scene and character analyses as well as student-directed and acted readings from selected scripts. The course also explores the educational applications the theater arts can have in related fields.
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TH 254 Introduction to Dramaturgy
(3 credits)
What the heck is a dramaturg? What does a dramaturg do? Why do we need dramaturges in the theater? This course explores the theory and practice of dramaturg as a creative art. Together we examine the responsibilities of a dramaturg in helping to shape a theatrical production and complete practical exercises that will help to build the skills and sensibility needed for real-life dramaturgical work. Members of the class attend and discuss theater productions and work together on dramaturgical research for a Theater Arts program’s production.
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TH 260 Puppet Theater
Starting with a survey of object animation traditions spanning Asia, Africa, Europe and the United States, students develop an understanding of how puppets have and continue to be used as a vibrant medium for communicating sophisticated ideas and the needs of the people they represent. From this historical and cultural foundation, students create their own original works of puppet theater by writing, developing, designing and building an animated short. The focus is primarily on puppet theater geared toward adult audiences utilizing non-narrative storytelling.
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TH 261 Stage Design
This is a two-part program of study: scene design for display, culminating in a scenic model; and stage lighting theory and practice, culminating in a full light plot. The course examines the history of design and its influence on the actor’s art, tools and techniques. It surveys the practical and theoretical elements of lighting instruments, their function and design. It includes a theater laboratory and assistance in the actual lighting of a production.
Offered in even years.
Prerequisite: No prerequisites required.
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TH 262 Costume Design
This is a two-part program of study: costume design for display, culminating in a full-costume plot. This examines the history of design and its influence on the actor’s art, tools and techniques. It surveys the practical and historical elements of costume, their function and design. It includes theater laboratory and assistance in the actual costuming of a production.
Offered in even years.
Prerequisite: No prerequisites required.
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TH 263 Stage Construction
(3 credits)
This course includes scene construction, rigging, costume construction, drafting and stage lighting. It examines theater architecture and elements of scene, costume and lighting production.
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TH 264 Stage Management
This course is divided into pre-production, rehearsal period, tech/running, and maintenance of production segments. The objective is to thoroughly introduce the student to the different venues of theater, from small storefront theater to large regional theaters. Although the emphasis is on management practices for theater venues, there is an element of the practical, day-to-day “nuts and bolts” in the stage management process.
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TH 265 Theater for Young Audiences
This is a course in the multiple aspects and practices of children’s theater in America. The course examines the theatrical conventions and structures of this distinct area of theater. It explores the multiple areas of children’s theater from performance to puppetry. The course includes writing a paper on a children’s theater or practitioner in America. The art of children’s theater is a loss of our present inhibition and a willingness to rediscover the child within. We discuss and explore all areas of performing for children. No previous experience required.
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TH 266 Craftwork Applications
This offering focuses on expanding the student’s skill set to include highly employable, specialized techniques utilized in the entertainment industry, fine arts and theatre. Through project based exercises, students explore leatherwork, thermoplastics, millinery, simple circuits, sculpting, mold making and casting as a means to develop creative expertise, fine craftsmanship and critical thinking skills.
Prerequisite: None.
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TH 267 Lighting Design
This course provides an introduction to the art of lighting design for the theater: from the reading and analysis of a script, through the design process and a completed production. Students will develop a sense of how lighting contributes to the audience’s understanding of a play, learn about the theories and concepts that inform lighting design, work with the various kinds of lighting instruments and other tools at a lighting designer’s disposal, and explore how the learn the qualities of light can be manipulated to shape audience perception of the human form, sculpt theatrical space and serve the needs of a theatrical production. Course work will also help students understand the basic scientific concepts of light and electricity, and master the technical demands of executing lighting designs in the theater.
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TH 293 Acting a Song
Acting a Song is a workshop class aimed at beginning actors or others who have an interest in musical theater and performance. Musical theater is often the first point of contact for students of theater, yet high school theater settings often do not allow the time needed to explore the process of performing a song effectively. Using songs from the American Musical Theater cannon the course seeks to reinforce lessons learned in Improv and Scene Study. Each student will memorize and perform two solo songs and one duet. Students will work with a live accompanist in class and will be required to bring to class a recording device that will allow them to record piano parts to the songs they are working on so that rehearsal away from class is possible.
Prerequisite: TH 150 or TH 241 or permission of the instructor.
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TH 299 Theater and the Global Majority
(4 credits)
This course investigates non-Western theatrical histories, performance practices and dramatic texts from across the globe. We will read and discuss play scripts, watch and analyze performances on video (or live performances, if and when the opportunity arises), and investigate some of the cultural histories, folk traditions, religious ritual practices and other contexts that inform the theatrical lives of these global regions. We will use the study of theater and performance as a means of approaching the cultures of unfamiliar societies, and seek understanding of how these theatrical traditions compare and contrast with our own. Units of study include China, India, South Africa, Nigeria, Caribbean, and South America.
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TH 300 Advanced Theater Practicum
(2 credits)
This course is an in-depth study in performance or production culminating in a performance project. The Theater Arts adviser must approve topic and project.
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TH 301 Neutral Mask
(2 credits)
Neutral mask work is central in actor training because it enables the actor to experience in its most startling form the chemistry of acting. Because the face is hidden, all expression depends on the body—the mask becomes an energizing force leading the actor to depend upon the richness of his or her inner life within a calm and balanced body. The mask then is a tool to help the actor to strengthen his or her inner feelings and power of concentration, develop physical powers of outward expression and diminish self-consciousness.
Studio course with lab requirement.
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TH 303 Business of the Arts
Students learn how the entertainment industry works and how to get started upon a career.
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TH 305 Voice & Speech V
(2 credits)
Breath work, vocal sounding and physical alignment are focused on poetry.
Prerequisite: TH 204 .
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TH 307 Dialects for the Stage
This course introduces students to the methods of working on and learning a stage dialect. Students learn to analyze dialect speech patterns in terms of musicality, rhythm, resonance, intonation, phonetic changes of vowels and consonants. We will work with Standard British, Cockney, Irish, American Southern, New York, French and German dialects. Additionally, students will build skills for teaching themselves new dialects, and learn one additional dialect of their own choosing.
Prerequisite: TH 203
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TH 330 Directing
This course is intended as an introduction to directing for the stage. The principles of working with actors and leading a team of designers accompany a series of small assignments leading to a final directing project. The course includes theory and practice in play directing: play selection, playscript interpretation, composition, movement, business management, casting, rehearsal, performance, director/designer and director/actor relationships. Students focus on perception and expression as a means of drawing inner and physical expression from others. The course requires prompt preparation of scripts, direction of scenes and one-act plays, and theater laboratory.
Prerequisite: Two 200-level Theater courses.
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TH 341 Acting in Modern Theater
This is a scene study of modern classic writers, such as, Ibsen, Strinberg, Chekhov, and American writers O’Neill, Miller, Hellman, Wilson, and Vogel.
Studio course with lab requirement.
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TH 343 Commedia del’ Arte
Not regularly scheduled.
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TH 345 Acting in Film and TV
In this course, students learn to deliver performances that are truthful, based on instinct rather than intellect. Participants work with student directors in preparing scenes selected from film, television, theater, or original material to be recorded on videotape for in-class presentation, discussion and critical analysis by the instructor.
Studio course with lab requirement.
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TH 349 Acting IV: Advanced Scene Study
Advanced Scene Study is a workshop class aimed at upper level acting majors or others who have a serious interest in acting. Students in consultation with the instructor and other members of the theater arts faculty will work on scenes that will strengthen identified weaknesses and take advantage of identified strengths to codify and deepen the understanding of the principles of acting. Individualized instruction will be given to each student as they work in class on scenes. Students will be expected to work at least 5 hours a week with partners outside of class. Students will present to the instructor and invited members of the theater arts faculty 4 prepared scenes for evaluation and comment.
Prerequisite: TH 241 or permission of the instructor.
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TH 350 Playwriting
Using the creative approach, the course examines several forms of scriptwriting (e.g., playscript, the screenplay and scripts for audio/visual media), introduces tools of critical analysis through critique of the student’s original work, and presents practical aspects of marketing the stage of screenplay. No previous experience required.
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TH 360 Acting V: Audition Techniques
This course is designed to help young actors begin to negotiate the world of the audition. Students hone their audition skills in a supportive atmosphere, through hands-on workshops focusing on various types of auditions: contemporary and classical monologues, commercials voiceovers, dance, and cold-copy commercial. By meeting and auditioning for working artists and casting directors from the professional world, students will gain insight into what awaits them in the real world as theatre artists, and refine the skills that will help them audition more effectively in all contexts.
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TH 361 Seminar: Modern Drama
This course is exploration of the styles and techniques of modern century theater, including selected British, American, and Continental plays by modern dramatists such as Ibsen, Strindberg, Chekhov, Shaw, Synge, O’Neill, Pirandello, Brecht, and Pinter.
Prerequisite: Junior standing or above.
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TH 370 Career Internship in Theater Arts
This is a working internship for one semester at a professional theater, television, or radio station.
Prerequisite: Junior standing or above.
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TH 389 Independent Study
In-depth study and research culminates in a substantial paper or performance project.
Prerequisite: Junior standing or above; a minimum GPA of 3.0 and permission of the Department Chair.
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TH 392 Musical Theater Scene Study
Musical Theater Scene Study examines and develops the various elements/techniques used to craft process for the musical theater actor. Specific focus is placed on partnering methods and ensemble collaboration through the active preparation and performance of musical theater scenes.
Prerequisite: Prerequisite: TH 150, TH 241 or TH 293 or permission of the instructor.
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TH 392 Musical Theater Scene Study
Musical Theater Scene Study examines and develops the various elements/techniques used to craft process for the musical theater actor. Specific focus is placed on partnering methods and ensemble collaboration through the active preparation and performance of musical theater scenes.
Prerequisite: TH 150 , TH 241 or TH 293 or permission of the instructor.
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TH 393 Special Studies in Theater Arts
This is an advanced course on special topics such as Solo Performance, Performance: From Ritual to Theater, autobiographical Adaptations: Ethnographic method for playwriting and performance, Spirituality and Theater, Movement Theater and the New Vaudeville, or New Perspectives on Theater Adaptation. The course is designed as a means of addressing the interdisciplinary nature of the art of theater and poses subjects of interest to students and faculty.
Prerequisite: Two Theater courses 200 level or above. Topics may vary; may be repeated for credit.
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TH 490 Advanced Workshop in Theater
This course is individual or small-group projects in acting styles, directing full-length plays, scene and lighting design, theater management, or other theater areas. It may involve directing or designing a major college production, a formal advanced class, or other approved topics.
Prerequisite: Individualized projects require the approval of the instructor.
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University Seminar |
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US 200 The Science of the Paranormal
Parapsychological phenomena—psychokinesis, after-death communications, pre-birth memories, out-of-body experiences, for example—are documented by cultures all over the world, but are considered pseudoscientific by most mainstream scientists. This course investigates accounts and analyses of parapsychological experiences to try to determine whether the scientific community’s view of the available research is paradigmatic or the result of conclusive evidence. Students will examine pop culture’s enthusiasm for supernatural/preternatural phenomena via firsthand narratives and cultural practices; assess the believability of phenomena via current academic scholarship, popular sources, guest speakers, and in-class experiments; and interpret phenomena through Eastern, Western, indigenous, and secular lenses.
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US 201 A Terrible Beauty: Ireland in the 20th Century
This is an undergraduate workshop course providing an interdisciplinary approach to the cultural myths and political realities of twentieth-century Ireland portrayed in important works of Irish film and literature. Open to students from all majors, this discussion course focuses on Ireland’s colonial and postcolonial conflicts with England (the UK), including Ireland’s massive, ongoing emigration, the Risings and Easter Rebellion, War of Independence, Civil War, Civil Rights Movement in the North, and The Troubles followed by the fragile 1998 Good Friday Peace Accord. The course probes cultural heritage underlying these ongoing conflicts, recognized in such themes as emigration and the myths of the West (including links to the U.S.); the role of women in Irish culture; and Ireland’s developing global identity created by a long historical relationship (social, political, economic, military, and cultural) joining the peoples of the U.K, the U.S., and Ireland. Songs, fiction, historical, and political documents, poetry all stand as living testimony to the discord and violence experienced by the Irish people whose diaspora and suffering, defiance and death, chart a century of boundary crossings whose paths continue into the 21st century. This course focuses on creative texts—Irish films and literature that students must keep up with for class discussions—supported by extensive background documents from historical, social, political, and journalistic sources.
Prerequisite: EN101
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US 203 Songwriting: A Blend of Poetry and Music
This course will be directed toward students who consider themselves poets and are interested in adding music, and/or musicians looking to write lyrics and investigate poetry, and/or for students that just want to write songs and be a part of a songwriting team. Either way, this interdisciplinary class is designed to teach students to make beautiful, memorable (maybe even sellable) songs. It will give them an understanding of some of the best songs ever written and how/why they became so good. In this class students will be poets, musicians, critics, and scholars.
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US 207 Global Citizenship: Who in the World Are We?
What does it mean to be a citizen of the world? This course will explore this question from a historical, political, cultural and personal perspective. Students will develop a clearer understanding of what citizenship is, a clearer understanding of the ways citizenship is changing as a result of globalization, and a strategy to enact change in an era of globalization.
The class will explore the question of where one’s identities come from. The class will look at global issues, such as climate change, crimes against humanity, and global poverty. What role have global citizens played in addressing these issues in the past? What will the emerging role of “global citizens” be in the future? Students will ultimately be required to take a perspective on what citizenship in a global era means for each of them. What are the rights and responsibilities associated with being a global citizen?
Finally, we will raise questions about social change. Historically, how have definitions of citizenship been used to bring about social change? How is this different in light of globalization? How can global citizens have a positive influence on global issues? What are the change mechanisms through which they can act?
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US 212 Where Race Lives, What Race Says
In a highly racialized society like the U.S., our lived experience of race is not theoretical or abstract, but rather it’s an embodied, sensory experience that has impacted every single one of us to varying degrees. This experience deserves a voice. In this course, we use memoir and storytelling, poetry and spoken word, bodymapping and spacemapping to explore and express how we have been impacted by race personally and also how racialization affects different bodies differently.
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US 213 Gender Bending & Film
By examining the history and analyzing the previously established norms regarding cis gender or heterosexual actors in drag and transgender performances, students will be able to examine and analyze the issues and changes in 21st century transgender characters in film. Students will begin by learning the history of actors playing characters in drag, cross-dressing, and transgender roles in film. They will learn about the LGBTQ+ community’s representation in film and become familiar with gender designation vocabulary. Students will work with a writing guide for film analysis that includes vocabulary and guidelines to: interpret symbols (images, lighting, sounds, etc.) not just for the ideas they represent but also for their effects on storytelling, including but not limited to the choices made in a film help to shape that film as a unique work of art, how a technique has a certain effect on the audience, and how filmmakers achieve that effect. Students will analyze examples of mainstream cinema, the evolution of transgender characters and storylines, and how that characterization effects the lives of transgender people. Finally, students will research, analyze, and critique the controversy regarding cisgender actors playing transgender roles.
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US 216 Social and Ethical Issues in Sports
There is a lot more to sports than what takes place on the field or on the court. Just read the sports page on any particular day. There are stories of steroid abuse, recruiting violations, questions of academic eligibility, playing hurt, gambling, paying college athletes, diversity and gender issues, violence, hazing, graduation rates of student athletes, youth sports, moral and religious issues, issues related to the Olympics and politics, and the media’s relationship to sports. In this seminar, students will read, view, and discuss texts that delve into these and other issues. Learning will occur through course readings, class discussion, lecture, and writing assignments. Class trips are planned to Citizens Bank Park and Lincoln Financial Field.
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US 219 The Politics of Climate Change
Why does California experience so many wildfires? How might we learn to see and read climate history, infographics, and photography? What do Bob the Flamingo, the Bramble Cay melomys, and Coleoptera the dung beetle have in common? Why is contact with humans so catastrophic for other life forms? How does climate change affect humans disproportionately, across geographic and socioeconomic dimensions, and gender, sex, ethnic, and racial identities? What are some of the local and regional responses to climate change? Finally, how might we use photography to communicate about climate change with the general public? Through experiential learning, visualization of climate science, readings, and photoethnography, this course introduces students to the challenges of environmental stewardship in the current geological age known as the Anthropocene. Weekly course materials include readings and visualizing climate change. The visualization of climate change is a central component of the course; visuals help us to better comprehend the politics inherent in climate change debates. The course materials further guide us in exploring critical insights from multidisciplinary research in global climate change and the environmental social sciences. In particular, we focus on the political and practical issues in climate change, including the ways that people are disproportionately impacted across geographic and socioeconomic dimensions. We pay special attention to how competing conceptualizations of self, culture, and society mediate the ways that humans experience climate change. Our initial focus is on the scientific observation of climate variables and the impact of sea-level rise due to climate change. By identifying various evidence used in climate modeling and data visualization, students determine the anthropogenic and natural causes of climate change and the impact of climate change on environmental and sociopolitical systems. Next, students examine the consequences of species extinction, natural disasters and conflict, and environmental racism in terms of the possibilities for a climate justice movement. Course assignments engage students in visual literacy, citizen science, public advocacy, and photoethnography to be agents in making sense of life with climate change.
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US 220 Education Stories: Films about Schools and What They Teach Us
Films depicting exemplary teachers and principals and their successful students have long provided many Americans with their sense of how quality educational environments are created. But how much can one really learn about education from these cinematic treatments? This University Seminar includes screening and discussion of numerous films to probe them for their major themes relating to innovative teaching techniques, genuine concern and respect for students, and students’ responses in the form of high achievement and improved personal behavior. The University Seminar also compares and contrasts these films with the latest scholarly research investigating the factors and influences that correlate with successful schools and students and that review and critique key educational and psychological theories of education. Written assignments, participation in classroom discussions, and oral classroom reporting in small groups help students to develop written and oral communication skills.
Note: US 220 can count toward the Psychology major and minor.
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US 225 Outcasts, Rebels and Other Normal People
This University Seminar focuses on compelling stories of individual and collective struggles and transformations in the midst of social oppression. Topics explored include identity, conformity, prejudice, rebellion, personal and societal transformation, pluralism, social reform, human rights, and freedom. Authors may include James Baldwin, Simone de Beauvoir, Frederick Douglass, Mohandas Gandhi, Khaled Hosseini, Martin Luther King Jr., Peter Matthiessen, Arthur Miller, and Walt Whitman, to name a few.
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US 226 Shakespeare on Stage, Page and Screen in 21st Century
This University Seminar asks the questions: Why do we still read and perform Shakespeare? How can these centuries-old play texts, written in a style of English that we no longer speak, still be meaningful for us today? This course seeks to answer these questions by approaching Shakespeare from three distinct perspectives: Shakespeare in performance, Shakespeare as literature, and Shakespeare as film. Using a combination of methodologies and approaches, this course fosters a fuller appreciation for how Shakespearean texts written for an Early Modern audience might resonate with present-day American cultural sensibilities. Students examine how aspects of performance, cinematic imagination, and literary analysis can work together to create urgent and relevant meanings for modern audiences. Particular attention is paid to the study of visual imagery associated with Shakespeare, including the examination of visual evidence from Elizabethan/Jacobean England and the analysis of how scenic, lighting, and costuming choices can communicate meaning in contemporary film and performance contexts. Students also work actively with the play texts in class, “on our feet,” to acquire a physical and kinesthetic sense of how live performance helps condition and contributes toward our understanding of a dramatic text.
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US 228 Science in Visual Arts
Art and science may seem to be polar opposites; however, they are inseparable disciplines in many ways. They share the same desire to understand and investigate the world by organizing our perception. The main content of this course examines the question, “Why do we see what we see?” We address this question by looking at visual arts through the lens of science. Understanding how we visually perceive artworks and how our brain processes that information enables both art and science students to not only enrich their knowledge but also gain interdisciplinary perspectives. As a result, students create informed artworks and innovatively approach scientific research.
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US 229 3-Dimensional Programming and Storytelling with Alice
This course is designed to introduce students to computer programming through the use of the “Alice” programming language. “Alice” is a very simple introductory language that students will almost immediately be able to use to create animations.
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US 230 International Computer Ethics
This University Seminar examines the ethical consequences of the expansion of computer usage in our society and internationally. The course aims to give students a solid grounding in ethics in general and the ethical dilemmas that are unique to computer applications.
Note: US 230 can count toward the Computer Science or Computing Technology majors and minors or the Philosophy major and minor. Non-major students who want an introduction to computer programming might consider US 229 3-Dimensional Programming and Storytelling with Alice
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US 231 Climate Change: Science and Policy
This course will cover the current understanding of the earth’s climate, the changes the climate is undergoing, and how U.S. and world-wide policies are developing to address the changes. Coverage will commence with an overview of the earth sciences and climate sciences and the scientific evidence for climate change, including historical evidence of previous climate changes. An understanding of the science and data sets the stage for an understanding of the political battle in the U.S. over what, if anything, should be done. Because climate science is not a core undergraduate science, it is necessary to present it first. This will serve as a basis for a rational discussion of the generation of policy, which depends so much on the trends that the climate data indicates have already started. How other nations are being affected by and responding to climate changes will also start with the climate changes impacting them, and thereby, policy development responding to these changes. Downstream impacts can include economics, geography, social disruptions, food security, and others. Students will also evaluate how the data has translated (or not) to policy implementation.
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US 233 Copy!-Right? Creativity and Copyright
“Blurred Lines” (2013) infringed on Marvin Gaye’s 1977 song “Got to Give It Up.” Or not. A person’s perspective on copyright and other intellectual property issues (inventions and patents) can depend a lot on if they are using someone else’s work or their work is getting used. This course explores how different ways of thinking about IP both protects and hinders creative expression. Visual and performing creators—formal or informal—will all gain something from taking it. Students create two transformative works of artistic expression as a basis for considering the different issues in actual practice.
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US 234 Representations of the Spanish Civil War
This University Seminar examines perceptions of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and their international implications. Topics discussed include the significance of the war, the political and social background of Spanish events and society, and how the conflict has been represented by Spanish, American, Canadian, English, and French writers and philosophers. Texts include journalistic perspectives as well as autobiographical accounts and poetic responses. Spanish and international films and documentaries are screened, covering topics such as women’s participation in the war and the origins of global responses to the war. This course is a bilingual course and is taught in both Spanish and English. Readings are in both Spanish and English.
Prerequisite: SP 102
Note: US234.1 can count toward the History, International Studies & Spanish majors and minors.
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US 236 Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Spain: From Eden to Exile
This course will examine the coexistence of the three principal religions: Christianity (Catholicism), Islam, and Judaism during the Middle Ages. Tenets and beliefs of each religion will be examined in detail. Art and architecture reflecting the three religions will be analyzed and will include such national treasures as the synagogues in Toledo, the mosque in Córdoba, The Alhambra in Granada, and the cathedrals of Santiago de Compostela and Seville. Topics discussed will include the Spanish Inquisition, The Catholic kings, the reconquest, and medieval life in Europe at that time. The historical time period will cover roughly from 700-1492. Readings will include various poems written by writers of the three religions, El Cid, La Celestina, and historical documents of the epoch. Teaching the coexistence of the three religions exposes students to different ideological discourses embodied in cultural fields of the time. The class will also examine the three religions and their role in Spanish society today. This course is a bilingual course and will be taught in both Spanish and English. Readings will be in both Spanish and English.
Prerequisite: EN 101 and SP 202
Note: US 236 can count toward the History, International Studies and Spanish majors and minors
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US 239 Soulfood: Poems for Now
In times of personal and social upheaval and uncertainty, people have always turned to poetry. This seminar delves into this phenomenon, focusing on recent and contemporary poets whose work responds to the uncertainty, anxieties, and social-justice struggles of our current time. Students draft and share their own poems inspired by and responding to these poets; they will also experience how creative work itself helps feed our souls and shows us paths forward. Designed for students with or without experience in writing poetry, the course includes instruction and exercises in specific techniques and skills. It has a Writing designation and requires three short essays as well as a portfolio of revised, polished poems.
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US 241 Invisible Women: An Exploration of Female Entrepreneurship
This course introduces students to the psychological, sociological, and economic dimensions of entrepreneurship as they review extant research on female entrepreneurs. Students will develop their understanding of the female entrepreneur’s (psychological) motivations for starting and owning a business, the (sociological) network of relationships she establishes to support and sustain her business, and the (economic) resources that her business uses and creates.
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US 242 Place, Space, and the Global World: Exploring Immigrants and Identity
In this University seminar, the lens of place is used to explore issues of immigration, migration, and ethnic identity. Immigrants and migrants have arrived, settled, built communities, laid down roots and moved on, with others arriving after them leaving layers of material traces that give significance to the present, document the past, and point to the future. They have left material traces and maintained connections with home villages in previous centuries of immigration as well as in contemporary times. Forms can be aesthetic expressions, hold memories and give meaning to everyday lives, and are symbolic of who we are in an increasingly globalized world. Students learn how different disciplines use place as an interpretive mode to understand the relationship of ethnicity to place(s), how difference (ethnicity, gender, race) is delineated in space, the politics of public space, issues of memory and place (including transnational connections), and globalization and place. A diverse range of reading assignments, images, video, and four field trips to Philadelphia will augment class discussion. The class visits a Puerto Rican urban garden and casita, a Palestinian mosque and deli, the 9th Street Market, and Chestnut Hill. The students hear firsthand from the people who work and live in these places their significance for them and the connections or disconnections of meaning they hold. An interdisciplinary approach is also reflected in the kinds of assignments required of students. In introducing students to the topic of diversity and difference, the concept of worldview and how it varies cross-culturally and over time is discussed. An ethnographic fieldwork project is required in which students must interview at least one person. During the course of the semester, through in-class exercises and take-home assignments, students are guided step-by-step in the methodology of conducting original research.
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US 243 Science and Popular Culture
This course will connect concepts and phenomena that are found in various scientific disciplines with aspects of popular culture. Students will explore science concepts in the areas of physics, astronomy, biology, and others. This will be achieved through media studies and analysis of popular culture mediums such as film, music, comic books, and television programs that incorporate scientific theories, principles, and people. Students will be challenged to determine accurate and inaccurate portrayals and use of science within these popular culture mediums. In doing so, students will gain a deeper understanding of scientific history and principles. Furthermore, this course will allow students to see the many ways in which science can influence popular culture.
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US 244 Sound Studies, Music, and Sound Arts
This introduction to the variety of sound-based methods of investigation and creative expression includes explorations of sound in our environment, sound as data for understanding cultural and ecological environments, and the use of found and human-made sounds for creating and performing music. Global, historical, and philosophical perspectives on sound and sound art are studied as resources for creating our own forms of sound art, music notations, and the construction of sound worlds for further exploration. Assignments include reflection on the sounds one hears and does not hear in contrasting locations, the creation of a musical instrument using found and recycled objects, experiments with visual representations of music compositions building upon the sounds of the found objects, performance of others’ compositions, and critique of contemporary experimental sound installations.
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US 245 Music & Storytelling
This seminar offers the student the opportunity to study the performing arts, literature, and music. The student response to the works read and viewed will be in the form of discussions and written assignments that vary from character analysis to formal research on a particular writer/composer/work. The uniqueness of the course lies in studying the connection between music and storytelling, in ballet, in plays and novels made into film and in Opera and modern dance.
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US 248 Flying Solo: The Art of Solo Performance
The “Solo Actor” has evolved from the ancient Greek and Roman mimes through the historic portrayals of presidents (GIVE “EM HELL HARRY) and literary greats (MARK TWAIN TONIGHT! and THE BELL OF AMHERST) to the provocative rants of “everyman/woman” in productions like Eve Ensler’s THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES and Anna Deavere Smith’s LET ME DOWN EASY. Shows can include satires, impersonations, anthologies, adaptations, and recitals but can also be classified as more personal autobiographical performance pieces. Hybrids combine a variety of performance types including mime, dance, music and poetry. What they have in common is that they are performed by one artist whose purpose is to tell a story to an audience.
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US 250 Exploring Art in Philadelphia
This class utilizes integrative learning to investigate the variety of artistic venues available in Philadelphia and the surrounding region. This seminar course will meet once a week at an arts venue in the Philadelphia/ Glenside area with mandatory asynchronous assignments offered via Canvas. Content delivered on Canvas will introduce, explore, and investigate the organizing principles governing art and design and will explore content and concepts in contemporary art and practice that students will experience at venues off campus. Student presentations and reflective journaling and notetaking will analyze and synthesize the experiences we have at each location. Exploring Art in Philadelphia serves as a way for students to connect what they are learning in the classroom to the variety of venues and experiences in the cultural artistic landscape around them. The course offers a working definition, through varied examples, of the artistic zeitgeist in the Philadelphia region.
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US 251 The Hero Culture: A Quest for Truth
The main purpose of this course is to provide each student with an opportunity to develop their own answers to the question, “What makes a person extraordinary?” Students will begin the course by examining established “heroes,” both real and imaginary, and compiling a list of the traits they possess and actions that they perform that the students deem worthy of the word “heroic.” Students will then be presented with lesser-known real-life individuals and fictional characters, those they normally might not connect with the word “hero,” and will be asked to examine them as potential repositories of excellence. What elements of this person or character are constructive or even potentially destructive to our ideas of self and the society we live in? What can I learn from their behavior? What of them do I see in myself, and what qualities do I value more than others? What does the word “heroic” really mean to others and to me? Should I re-examine, change, or expand my personal definition of heroism? How can I become more heroic in my daily life? By pursuing their individual responses, students will move away from traditionally accepted views of the “heroic” to formulate a more personalized vision of greatness. By making interconnections with fundamental sociological issues, students will be encouraged to integrate their heroic visions into their own philosophies of human existence.
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US 253 Science Fiction and Social Reality
This University Seminar will explore the genre of contemporary science fiction, focusing on several key themes that address the world outside the classroom. By reading several novels and watching and discussing television episodes and films, we will examine how science fiction—at once entertaining, inspiring, serious, instructive, and funny—reflects and shapes our current and future culture, beliefs, behavior, and selves. Students will read and watch texts in thematic units to gain an understanding of how science fiction frames questions about social issues and change (such as gender identity, racial equity, or environmental activism). Students will also conduct research on a contemporary social issue and have a chance to create and present their own work of speculative fiction that addresses how they would like to reflect and/or shape the conversation and the world of their own future with regards to that social issue.
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US 254 Coming Out
This University Seminar uses the intellectual practice of visual literacy to explore the idea of coming out—what it has meant historically and what it means in society today as it is applied to undocumented immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, those dealing with mental illness or drug addiction, survivors of sexual assault, and other stigmatized identities or experiences. Through the use of texts, pictures, videos, and personal and professional artwork, students explore the idea of coming out from many directions in multiple individual, social, and political contexts.
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US 256 Lying Maps (& Other Spatial Fictions)
This is a geohumanities course in learning how to see hidden realities in the everyday world and in learning to identify the values that are buried beneath the seemingly ordinary surface of our daily lives. Specifically, we will be making an interdisciplinary investigation into how the spatio-visual world is understood in the fields of cultural geography, art history, urban studies, and cartography. Our starting premise will be that if you stand on a hilltop and survey the environment as it spreads out in front of you, what you see is emphatically not what you get. To unpack this conundrum we will explore landscapes, cityscapes, and maps while asking questions like: what does it mean to decode a landscape? How can you “read” a cityscape as you walk down the street? What can we learn about a culture’s values by examining its built form? How is examining built forms different from interpreting or reading a map? How do maps and other visual representations actually help re-shape the physical world, rather than just report on what already exists? In what ways do maps lie? What contradictions exist between how places are represented and what they actually are?
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US 258 African American Religious History: From Slavery-Free
This course surveys the religious history of the African American enslaved. The course examines the origins of Black religion in America, the aspects of African religion that were retained by the enslaved, how enslaved African were evangelized and converted to Christianity, the nature of the Christianity to which the enslaved were converted and what was distinctive about religion in the slave quarters. The course will build students’ writing as well as analytical and research skills through completion of writing assignments, online discussions, readings, study of the Library of Congress’ narratives of the formerly enslaved, and a research paper.
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US 260 Eco-Cinema and Climate Change
The coming century brings grave uncertainty about our lives on the planet. Climate change may after our ways of life; our relationship to each other, and our collective future. This course examines the process of climate change in documentary films, fiction films, and reports issued by various government and agencies around the world. We will chart the end of the Anthropocene- man-made-climate through these sources to assess how we are representing the most crucial global issue of the moment. Documentary films include: Darwin’s Nightmare (2004), An Inconvenient Truth (2006), Up the Yangtze (2007), Gasland (2010), Chasing Ice (2012), Before the Flood (2016), An Incovenient Sequal-Truth to Power (2017), and The Age of Consequences (2017). Fiction films: The Day After Tomorrow (2004), The Last Winter (2006), Wall-E (2008), Edge of Tomorrow (2014), Downsizing (2017), and Geostorm (2017). We will examine scientific reports on impact of climate change on water availability and purity, air and pollution, radiation, mobility, etc. Assignments include weekly class participation, evaluations of films, a research project on a specific aspect of climate change and visual project/statement representing the urgency of climate change.
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US 261 Representations of the Holocaust
This course will examine perceptions of the Holocaust, the systematic state-sponsored persecution of Jews, Gypsies, gays, communists, and people with disabilities by the Nazi Regime and its collaborators. We will analyze the international implications, repercussions, and genocide. Topics discussed will include the significance of the holocaust, the political and historical events preceding it, philosophical debates about good and evil, theories of violence and authority, memory and survival, gender and holocaust representation, and the concept of a willing perpetrator. Readings will include various accounts of the Holocaust, both fictional and autobiographical, and we will study their effects on the reader. We will also examine visual culture and the Holocaust such as photos, movies, and comics and how popular culture shapes public memory.
Prerequisite: EN 101
Note: US261 can count toward the minor in German.
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US 262 Sex, Sin & Kin: The Genesis, Evolution and Future of Gender
The ways in which whole sets of ideologies and practices function to define, direct and limit gender and gendered activities differ markedly according to time, place and culture. The purpose of this course is to explore key issues and debates in the history of women and men, in cross-cultural perspective, within the framework of the relationship between gender and change. The main focus of the course is the gendered experiences of women in the modern world, specifically the West, North and Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and Far East, with selected references to historical antecedents in the pre-modern world. Students examine the variety of ways in which women have reflected upon and reacted to the gendered conditions of their lives. We explore representations and self-representations of women within and external to specific cultures. This includes understanding how the categorization as male and female determines so many aspects of individual lives and personal power, the power of groups, and the larger systems of power they confront. The course also raises the question of the future direction of gender, social responsibility and change. Assignments consist of readings in anthropology, history, gender theory, literature, and memoirs.
Note: US 262 can count toward the History and International Studies majors and minors.
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US 263 Postcolonialism on Screen
This course is primarily interested in how colonial and postcolonial subjects and identities have been constructed, negotiated, contested, and resisted. Thus, a fundamental question asked here is: How has the colonial experience restructured thinking about race, culture, class, economy, politics, and sexuality? To explore these key issues and questions, this course will examine how films have represented different themes in postcolonial studies. Students will read key texts in postcolonial studies and then attempt to understand how issues raised in these texts are represented in film.
Note: US 263 can count toward the International Studies major and minor.
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US 265 Jewish Humor
This course is taught from a historical perspective from the shtetls of Eastern Europe, to Jewish life in the U.S. between 1880 and 1924, to the Catskills of the 1940s (known as the Borscht Belt Comics), Lenny Bruce in the 1950s, Woody Allen and Jackie Mason in the 1960s and 70s, and contemporary Jewish humorists such as Joan Rivers, Jerry Seinfeld, Larry David, Adam Sandler, Sacha Baron Cohen, Chelsea Handler, and Sarah Silverman. We will analyze Jewish humor and its origins as a defense against suffering and persecution. We will watch films such as “Annie Hall” and “Borat” as well as clips of Seinfeld episodes and stand-up comedians and analyze the humor from a visual perspective such as the use of props, shticks, etc. We will examine Jewish humor—which originally started as a response to oppression, hardship, and terror—and what happens when that oppression disappears. Focus is on the importance of comedy in Jewish culture and in the immigration and assimilation of Jewish people.
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US 266 Understanding the Age of Genocide
This course takes an interdisciplinary approach to the study and understanding of genocide from several theoretical foundations and perspectives, including political science, international law, peace and conflict resolution, sociology, anthropology, psychology, and history. The course will harness different perspectives on the formation of genocide in modern and historical settings while highlighting the potential avenues for preventing future genocidal acts. Subjects covered will include the underpinnings of the concept of crimes against humanity, the psychology of group violence, historical revisionism, transitional justice, reconstruction, reconciliation, trauma healing, the responsibility to protect and humanitarian intervention, and conflict prevention and resolution. These main themes will be highlighted through numerous genocide case studies from each continent as well as exploring lesser known or contested historical cases. The course will also feature guest lectures from genocide survivors, opportunities for research and reflection, and a simulation on humanitarian intervention in a contemporary genocide case.
Note: US 266 can count toward the International Studies major and minor.
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US 268 Utopia/Dystopia
In this course students examine the twin phenomena of utopian/dystopian thought from several disciplinary angles–philosophical, political, literary, religious, and architectural. In doing so students will also explore the myriad ways in which utopian and dystopian thinking are related forms of social critique of the present moment. We will read novels, watch films, learn about experimental living on communes, and examine the plans of architects and urban planners. Throughout the semester we will ask questions like: what motivates people to try to construct a perfect world? What do utopian and dystopian expressions tell us about a society’s values? Where is the line between utopian and dystopian thinking?
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US 270 First Amendment Abridged
This class will focus on First Amendment rights. It is the foundation upon which we chose to build this country, and, yet, it is arguably the most debated and morphing of all rights. Why? We will look at precedent setting court cases that deal with First Amendment issues such as book banning, hate speech, obscenity, restriction during war time, etc. We will examine moments in time and the cultural climate that provides the rationale for our legal and moral attitudes about freedom of speech and expression and censorship. Students will come to understand what they consider to be their guaranteed right to freedom of expression and when and how they are willing to have those rights abridged (if at all).
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US 271 Great Cases in International Law
This course introduces students to international affairs through some major cases of international law, discussing their political and historical circumstances, the process and the outcome, with a conclusion on the impact on contemporary international affairs. Through the cases, the students examine some core principles of international law, including international human rights law, international criminal law, and the law of armed conflict, and discuss their parallel with rules of the domestic legal systems. The course also introduces students to the relevance of international law in the domestic legal system and the complexity of issues of international affairs. The course offers an overview of the most unique, pervasive, and influential international law cases with, in some instances, a particular interest for the United States.
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