Spring 2012 Course Descriptions: PDF / word
ILS 157
Bradly Roundtable Seminar
1 credit.
Prerequisites: Open to Freshmen.Students must be residents of the Bradley Learning Community.
Course description: The Bradley roundtable seminar addresses various topics of interest to the residents of the Bradley Learning Community
ILS 198/199
Directed Study
1-3 credits.
Prerequisites: Graded on a Cr/N basis; requires cons inst and con reg in two ILS courses.
Open to Freshmen.
If you are interested in pursuing an undergraduate thesis, please talk to a professor who shares your area of interest.
ILS 200 -This course will not be taught in Spring 2012.
Critical Thinking & Expression
Kristin Hunt
2:25-3:15 T
What does it mean to think critically? To find fault? To employ intellectual rigor? Can we imagine a method of critical thought that produces writing with the potential to change the world? This course takes the definition of “critical thought” seriously in order to expand our idea of what critical communication is and has the potential to be. Getting beyond the standard connotation of “critical” thought as finding fault with others’ ideas, we will explore other definitions of the word “critical,” including:
- Constituting a crisis
- Involving grave uncertainty or risk
- Crucial or essential
- Constituting a turning point
Taking these definitions as versions of what critical thinking is or can do, we will examine critical pieces of writing and other forms of expression from Western, colonial, and post colonial experience, asking ourselves what part the simple act of thinking critically had in the most important events in our history, and honing our own writing and thinking skills along the way. Material for the class will include texts and artwork from the history of colonization and independence in the Atlantic Rim, seminal works from the contemporary avant-garde, important speeches from the American Civil Rights movement and the radical youth movements of the 1960s, as well as a variety of other examples of truly critical human thought and expression. Through a semester of careful investigation of the power of critical thinking, students will be asked to broaden their own ideas of what their own writing and thinking have the capacity to do or become in the world.
Assignments for this course emphasize the development of written and oral communication skills essential for a variety of kinds of real-world success, as well as academic excellence. This course fulfills the Communications B requirement.
ILS 201
Western Culture: Science, Technology, Philosophy I
Michael Shank
9:55 - 10:45 M & W
This course is the first in a two-term sequence that examines the development of science in cultural and intellectual context from antiquity to the twentieth century. These two courses (ILS 201 and 202) are, in turn, part of a sequence of four courses that fulfill the Letters & Science breadth requirement in natural science. This course begins with an examination of perspectives towards the natural world in poetry, philosophy, and medicine of ancient Greece. It follows the movement of the classical tradition into medieval Islam and Christendom, and concludes with the transformation of European science during the 16th and 17th centuries. Throughout our investigation of what 'science' has been in the past, we will pay particular attention to issues which still have relevance today, such as the interaction between science and religion, the importance of different institutional settings for science, and the relationship between science and government. Grading will include frequent quizzes in discussion sections, class participation, and three exams.
ILS 202
Western Culture: Science, Technology, Philosophy II
Richard Staley
1:20 M & W
ILS 202 continues ILS 201, but may be taken independently. This course confers natural science breadth credit. Here we explore the history of the sciences from the scientific revolution through to World War I, with the aim of understanding how science came to be so important in modern culture, and the varied ways in which it has shaped the intellectual, cultural and material environment in which we now live. In many respects this period provided what we can think of as a critical infrastructure that is still visible in our educational system and the disciplinary framework of the sciences, as well as in several key controversies that currently challenge the relations between science and society (like the debate surrounding the teaching of evolution in the US).
Beginning with philosophical foundations and the development of new institutions like the scientific societies, we move on to study methods in practice across the different fields of mechanical philosophy, natural history, and the physical and life sciences. Students will be introduced to the work of Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, and Albert Einstein, but they will also be brought to question the limits of understanding, the role of gender in knowledge formation, and how changing views of nature have delivered new perspectives on what it means to be human.
Tracing links between ideas, instruments and institutions across both disciplinary and national boundaries will provide critical insight into the changing relations among science and technology, science and religion, and science and the state. Thus, examining the historical significance of fundamental concepts like gravity, energy, and evolution will show just how deeply scientific and social values have been interwoven in Western culture. In turn, understanding how much such values have changed – and the historical process by which this occurred – will help us use a contextual understanding of science to raise the possibility of critiquing some of the assumptions underlying common views of nature and culture.
ILS 204
Western Culture: Literature & the Arts II
Michael Vanden Heuvel1:00 - 2:15 TR
ILS 204 is the continuation of ILS 203, but may be taken independently. The course does not presume special background in the arts and literature, and is introductory in scope and method. Course objectives include, first and foremost, providing students with a broad overview of major trends in the arts and literature, as well as in the history of ideas, from the early modern period (or Renaissance) to the present. Examples of painting, sculpture, architecture, drama, scientific thought, poetry, fiction, and music will be placed in the context of prevailing cultural history, values and ideas. Therefore, given the tremendous scope of the material to be covered, the readings and examples of visual art are intended to be broadly representative rather than exhaustive. The class thus differs from an art history or literature course, and no attempt is made to cover all developments in the arts in a sequential order.
To bring focus to our trek across so long a historical period and so wide a field of artistic and cultural forms, we will sometimes feature a specific major thinker or artist, and at other times larger movements and schools of thought or art. As well, we will keep several themes before us during the term around which we will try to gather readings and discussion. They may include the following:
1. The idea of "culture" as an ongoing site of struggle, conflict and contested meanings and values, rather than established great works.
2. Evolving attitudes and constructions of what is meant by "nature," and the human relationship to it.
3. The manner by which Western culture measures the world in order to have knowledge and power over it.
4. The discovery of "Others" (that which is different, strange and exotic from [in this case] Western norms and expectations), both within and external to the individual, and the social, cultural and psychological effects these may produce.
5. The creation of a peculiarly "Western" sense of Self/Identity based in particular ways of seeing.
The focus of the course is on how cultural context--the ideas and values regarding religion, philosophy, political views, social practices, aesthetics and so on-- shape and make possible the various expressions found in the arts and literature of the period. As well, students are asked to look critically at the results of Western civilization even as they are invited to admire its achievements.
ILS 206
Western Culture: Political, Economic & Social Thought II
Richard Avramenko
11:00-11:50 T & R
The objective of this course is two-fold. First, this course introduces students to the basics of Western political, economic, and social thought. Through a careful reading of canonical texts, the elementary symbols and concepts of Western thought will be discussed. Our second objective is to learn how these symbols and concepts can be brought to bear on contemporary problems and how they can inform questions concerning our own political and social order. What part, for instance, does reason play in our world? What does a good citizen look like? What is the good human life? What is the place of violence? What does justice look like? Thinkers such as Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides, Plato, Aristophanes, Aristotle, and Augustine may be considered.
ILS 234
Genres: Western Religious Writing
Eric Carlsson
1:00 - 2:15 T & R
This course introduces some key aspects of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic thought and historical experience by exploring a range of texts from antiquity to the modern era. We begin by considering major themes in the sacred scriptures of each religion—themes conveyed via such literary genres as narrative, law, prophecy, gospel, epistle, apocalyptic, and poetry—with a focus on ways in which later texts interact with earlier ones. The middle unit of the course examines different approaches, in the medieval and early modern periods, to knowing and experiencing the divine. We will consider how monotheistic thinkers drew on Greek ideas about reason and knowledge, and we will read bits of philosophical theology, mystical writing, and polemical treatises on the nature of religious and intellectual authority. In the final course unit we will read two spiritual autobiographies and a novel to explore relationships among religious tradition, identity, and the search for meaning in the modern world.
ILS 251
Contemporary Physical Science
Cathy Middlecamp
3:30 - 5:30 T & R
Real-world problems and societal issues draw us into the world of the physical sciences. In turn, this world connects to the biological sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities. This course engages students in a contemporary topic such as energy, radioactivity, or global climate change. The course begins with stories in which real-world people must deal with real-world issues on some part of the planet. Students then choose a similar story elsewhere on the planet, research it, argue a point of view, and present it to their classmates.
ILS 252 - This course will not be taught in Spring 2012.
Contemporary Life Sciences
Tom Brandner
Contemporary Life Science examines the biological underpinnings of modern human civilization. To understand the modern condition, we will explore history beginning with the evolution of humans and the principle plants upon which people depend. This course will consider plants and human evolution, human migrations, how the ice age influenced the origins of agriculture, the rise of cities, and the cultural and political evolution that followed. We will consider the expansion and collapse of civilizations in classical times, then shift to the age of exploration and discovery in the 15th century and the mass migrations of plants, people, and disease. As exploration shifted to settlement, growing populations set the stage for the industrial revolution. The products of the industrial era set the stage for the modern agriculture that has fueled unprecedented human population growth. Increasing human impacts on the global landscape today raise questions about how the future of humanity will unfold. Careful scientific practice has given rise to the incredible technical advances society enjoys today, but these same advances have led to unintended complications that are best addressed holistically. This course will use a systems approach to consider why modern human civilization has come to function as it does and where it is headed in this century.
You make decisions each day that help determine the shape of the world in which you will live. Near the end of our semester, we will consider how human civilization will rise to meet the challenges posed by the increasingly apparent modern ecological crisis. When situations are uncertain, people can turn away or they can work to direct the change. This course may leave you uneasy about the future, but it will also give you tools for moving forward. I hope you will be excited by the role you can play in shaping the future of our communities, our culture, and the world.
ILS 275 Special Topics in ILS
Narratives of Justice and Equality in Multicultural America
Shawn F. Peters
1:00 - 2:15 T & R
Evolving and contested concepts of justice and equality are an integral part of American public life – they play a key role in mediating our relationships with one another and with the state. But where do these ideas come from, and, as significantly, what kind of real-world impact do they have on the lives of individuals hailing from a diverse array of racial, ethnic, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds? Moreover, how are narratives about justice and equality rendered in American culture, and how do such stories reflect and/or influence the way we live today?
This interdisciplinary course examines such questions by engaging a variety of narrative texts, including the first season of the award-winning HBO drama The Wire. The critical inquiry sparked by these works will allow us to focus our discussion of justice and equality on four broad areas: economics and poverty; race and ethnicity; law and public policy; and the criminal justice system. One of our main goals throughout the semester will be to chart the overlaps and interconnections between these realms – the complex and sometimes unpredictable ways in which they shape, and are shaped by, one another. To help us make meaning of these linkages, we'll scrutinize the myriad ways in which notions of justice and equality are rendered in cultural forms ranging from scholarly books and articles to songs, films, television programs, and even underground DVD's.
ILS 338
Peer Mentoring for First-Year Liberal Education Seminar
Prereq: Consent of Instructor; Level: Intermediate; L&S Credit Type C. Credit range: 2. Not open to Freshmen.
ILS 371 - Interdisciplinary Studies in the Arts and Humanities
Lecture 1: Books by Crooks: Prison Narrative
Richard Ralston
This is a history seminar in comparative prison studies. By using an extended essay by Foucault as a launch pad, it begins with a rapid examination of the formal and popular history of the penitentiary in the West. We then turn to a deeper exploration of prison-inspired narrations (some written word, some recited, some musical, some artistic) in pursuit of common or comparative themes of confinement experience. The principal mode of analysis consists of placing "published" narratives by or about prisoners of color or others of deprived status in a global and comparative context. Uniquely, these imprisoned men and women have managed to affect or inspire the political struggles of predominantly distressed communities from which they sprang. They have also influenced political debate and analyses of notions of power and authority, the contestation between control and resistance far distant from the world of the convict. And, how have the apparently powerless sought to affect the quality or "rehabilitative" prospects of their own confinement? In short, we interrogate known and less well-known narratives of captivity in their interesting, challenging, far-flung contexts overtime of imprisonment or liberty deprivation.
11:00 - 11:50 M W & F
ILS 371 Lecture 1 Spring 2012 Syllabus
Lecture 2: Tragedy and Society
Kristin Hunt
11:00 - 12:15 T & R
This course examines several versions of tragedy, none of which will correspond very well to the white marble vision that often looms over our imagination in regards to the ancient Greeks. We will read from several playwrights judged “canonical,” but often from less well-known works, and from material extending well beyond traditional theatre to media and forms such as film, television, performance art, digital art, biography and the graphic novel. Most importantly, we will ask ourselves again and again the central question of the course – “how do particular Western cultures attempt to define themselves through tragedy?” We will pay special attention to the ways in which tragic playwrights, performers, writers, artists, and directors define, redefine, and transgress cultural boundaries surrounding the performance of gender, class, sexuality, race, and ethnicity. The work of the class will include not only critical thinking, discussion and writing, but also performance and aesthetic experiments that will serve as a laboratory in which we test our ideas and intuitions."
ILS 371 Lecture 2 Spring 2012 Syllabus
ILS 400
ILS Capstone on Education, Leadership, & Character:Meiklejohn's Ideal
Shawn F. Peters
1:00-3:30 W
We often think of innovations as being the products of lone geniuses -- solitary figures who labor long hours in isolation before experiencing a creative epiphany that gives the world something entirely new and different. But in a variety of creative efforts, the reality is usually somewhat different. In fields ranging from biotechnology to visual art to religion, innovators have appropriated from and built upon the works of others in order to create new forms.
For many, this remixing or hybridizing has become a central element of the creative process. (Some even go so far as to proclaim, "Everything is remix.") Others, however, view it as nothing little more than a glorified form of stealing -- a theft of intellectual property that might be punishable under the laws of copyright or patent.
This multi- and interdisciplinary course traces the long and contested history of appropriation in the Western tradition. Although "remix" is term most often associated with music, we'll discover that inherently combinatorial practices have contributed to innovations in literature, visual arts, and architecture. We'll also examine how combinatorial evolution has shaped patterns of development in the biological and technological realms. In addition to looking at traditional producers, we'll also consider how consumers and fans remake cultural artifacts -- often for subversive ends.
As we trace these patterns, we'll pay careful attention to how they are complicated by such factors as the underlying philosophy of copyright/intellectual property law, long-held ideas about authorship, and bioethical norms.
ILS 401
Global Cultures Capstone Seminar
Joe Elder
1:15-4:15 F
The purpose of this Seminar is to provide those of you earning your Global Cultures Certificate with an opportunity to reflect thoughtfully upon your global-cultural or multicultural experiences, to present your reflections orally in the form of a 25-minute Seminar Report to the rest of the class, and to receive feedback from the rest of the class. One of the most direct forms of reflection is to make comparisons -- identifying differences/similarities (e.g., family patterns, "youth cultures," women's/men's roles, rites of passage, forms of education, ways to make a living, political systems, poverty, militarism, health care, forms of protest, music, art, dance, foods, recreation and leisure patterns, etc.). Another form of reflection is to make observations about yourself and your different responses when you have been in two (or more) cultural contexts. Still another form of reflections might be to think how your global-cultural or multicultural experiences have changed you (or might change you) ... and why. In your Seminar Report you are encouraged to be creative. At the end of the semester, you will submit a printed (and probably revised) double-spaced 15-18 page version of your oral Seminar Report. This will provide much of the basis for our grade in this Seminar.
ILS 490
Research in Integrated Liberal Studies
1-3 credits. If you are interested in pursuing a research program in ILS, please talk to a professor who shares your area of interest.
ILS 681/682
Undergraduate Honors Thesis
If you are interested in pursuing an undergraduate honors study, please talk to a professor who shares your area of interest.
ILS 691/692
Undergraduate Thesis
If you are interested in pursuing an undergraduate thesis, please talk to a professor who shares your area of interest.
