CHN 410/510 “Contemporary Chinese Literature: Reading and Study of Mo Yan’s Novel Life and Death are Wearing Me Out” / Professor Stephen Durrant
Students enrolling in this class will read the Chinese Writer Mo Yan’s novel Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out, which won the Nobel Prize for Literature, the first China-based winner of this prestigious award. Mo Yan is also of interest because he has been the object of considerable criticism, mostly political in nature. In defense of himself, Mo Yan said in his Noble Prize speech “for a writer, the best way to speak is by writing. You will find everything I need to say in my works. Speech is carried off by the wind; the written word can never be obliterated.” Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out paints a vivid account, largely from the perspective of the Chinese countryside, of the fifty years from Mao’s rise to power to the dawning of the new millennium in 2000. As a result, it gives the reader an opportunity to learn something of those decades, at least from one fascinating point-of-view, and thus provokes conversation about this critical period of Chinese history.
PSY 407/507 “Psychological Perspectives on Self and Identity” / Professor Inga Schowengerdt
The psychological constructs of identity and self will be utilized to survey the varying ways in which the experience and nature of “one’s own sense of self” is examined and elucidated across the major sub-fields of psychology, including: developmental; personality, social, cognitive, abnormal, counseling, organizational, occupational, humanistic, existential, and transpersonal psychology. Particular consideration will be given to the significance of such cultural and contextual factors as race, ethnicity and gender.
GEOG 410/510 “Geography of the US/Mexico Borderlands” / Professor Scott Warren
This regional geography course explores the environment, history, culture, politics, and economy of the United States and Mexico borderland. The borderland is a contact zone where cultures come together and break apart, where multibillion dollar industries exist alongside intense poverty, and where crises and problems (both real and imagined) seem to never end. As a geography course, we are especially interested in the relationship between people and place in the borderland, and how people’s lives are impacted by the international line. In this class we will put the problems of the border into a larger context and move toward a deeper understanding of this important region.
PS 275 “Legal Process” / Prof. Alison Gash
This class explores the nature of the American judiciary—its structure, its players and its impact on American public policy–in order to understand its capacity to handle these stressors. We will start from the premise that the American judicial system displays a unique set of characteristics, specifically a focus on what some scholars refer to as “adversarial legalism.” During the first half of the class we will analyze the components of the American judicial system. How did American law develop? What is the role of law in American culture? What contributions have lower courts, state courts and the Supreme Court made to American public policy and the functioning of government? What is the impact of professional legal culture on the practice of law? How do plaintiffs experience the American legal system? The second half of the course explores the role of the courts in adjudicating over issues regarding civil rights, civil justice, criminal rights, and politics.
CLAS 301 “Greek and Roman Epics” / Professor Mary Jaeger
The main project of this class is to survey the three greatest surviving epics of classical antiquity. Gaining familiarity with these texts contributes to any student’s store of cultural knowledge. They are fundamental to understanding almost any part of the culture of the Greco-Roman world and provide a valuable background for the study of art and literature from antiquity to the present day. Reading and rereading them will inform you and help you become observant; discussing and writing about them will help you become more articulate.
SOC 410/510 “Race, Gender, and Poverty in the United States” / Professor Ellen Scott
This country was founded on principles of inequality, despite aspirations otherwise stated in the Constitution. In the generations since, the fundamental inequalities based on race, gender and class, as well as other bases of difference and identity, remain foundational to our society. While the way social inequality is exercised and enforced has changed, the fact of our society being built on a bedrock of inequality has persisted, and class inequality is greater now than at any time in the history of this nation. In this course, we will read about the structures and experiences of race, gender and class inequality in the United States through ethnographies, sociological sources that rely on in-depth, rich data to examine complex social conditions.