FYE Courses - Colorado College

Fall Semester 2004 Courses

Students completing this First Year Experience will receive credit for two required courses in the Anthropology major.
This course introduces students to the foundations of Anthropology by exploring humanity from multiple viewpoints. Team-taught by an ethnographer and a physical anthropologist, this course will examine issues from both a cultural and biological perspective. We will focus on ten themes of great importance for humans in both a historical and modern context. Students will explore topics including the origins of modern people, social order and conflict, food production, and treatment of the dead from cross-cultural perspectives. All of these will help to demonstrate the holistic approach anthropology takes to the study of humanity.

Students will be introduced to the study of cultural anthropology. We will examine some basic concepts, research methods, and theories. This course will address several important characteristics of anthropology: (1) the concept of culture and its multiple meanings; (2) people as social and cultural beings; (3) linguistics and how it relates to the construction of cultural meaning; (4) ethnographic research and how people make sense of their way of life; (5) comparative analysis and how it helps us to understand human behavior in different periods and places.

At the core of biological anthropology are several issues. Students will learn about the scientific theory of evolution and how it applies to all living organisms. We will come to understand our own status as a primate and witness the physical and behavioral similarities among the living primates. There will be exploration of those traits that make us uniquely human and how they have developed throughout time including the cultural record of modern Homo sapiens sapiens.

The course will directly engage students in anthropological work and teach the methods used by anthropologists in their fieldwork. This includes several days devoted to primate observation at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in order to explore the relationship between humans and the non-human primates, our closest living relatives. Additional fieldwork will occur during the third week of block one in northern New Mexico, where students will investigate folk art of the Southwest and conduct detailed analyses of artifacts in addition to learning about native traditions of the area. A team-taught two-block course; one grade will be given for the course as a whole.

This course offers a broad introduction to Asian art and makes use of a variety of methods for approaching art history. It provides a useful base for further studies in art, art history, or Asian studies.
The two blocks are divided into six thematic segments: 1) "picturing religious ideals," which covers Indian Buddhist sculpture, Indian and Cambodian temple and palace architecture, and Chinese pictorial art from tombs; 2) "interpreting landscapes," which covers, in a selective way, the development of Chinese landscape painting from the 10th through the 14th centuries, inquiring into the reasons for reorientations towards the landscape; 3) "art and ritual," which examines ritual elements of Japanese art from court art to zen paintings and tea aesthetics to Edo period political representations; 4) "Asian art in the era of colonialism," which investigates cross-cultural contacts in the early modern period through a variety of examples; 5) "Asian artists and the emerging public market," which investigates particular word/image and class issues in Chinese and Japanese print culture; and 6) "postmodern selves," investigating modern Chinese and Japanese art.

Methodologically, the course draws on formal analysis, social art history, and text/image studies, as well as analyses of orientalism, colonialism, and post-colonialism. Writing will be emphasized through frequent reading responses, a short paper and a long paper for each block. There will also be a midterm and a final in each block.

One day will be devoted to a practicum in using Chinese ink and brushes, followed by a visual assignment. Arrangements will also be made to attend a Japanese tea ceremony. There will also be one museum trip. There will be several afternoon films and one interview project. Interpretations of the art will be in many cases accompanied by primary source readings in religious texts and literature. A two-block course taught by one instructor; one grade will be given for the course as a whole.

The discipline of microbiology is informed by three separate but interlocking traditions: infectious disease, microbial ecology and molecular microbiology. Accordingly, we will explore these three traditions in microbiology through intensive hands-on laboratory work combined with lectures, small group work, and individualized library research.

During Block 1, we will first discuss a short text that explains the social and philosophical context of biological inquiry. We will then take microbiology as our specific subject in applying the key intellectual tools scientists use to understand the natural world. Through lectures and small group work that is integrated with significant laboratory experience, we will learn the basic vocabulary of microbiology as well as the foundational skills necessary for studying bacteria in the laboratory. The topics covered in lecture include the origins of life on Earth, the isolation and cultivation of bacteria, properties of eukaryotic microbes and the biology of viruses that infect human cells. In the lab, students will learn how to maintain axenic cultures of bacteria, different methods of enumerating bacteria, and techniques for determining a bacterium’s susceptibility to antimicrobial agents.

During Block 2, we will use the foundations gained in Block 1 to understand important contemporary topics in the three major traditions of microbiology. We will spend the most time studying infectious disease, focusing on diseases of the respiratory, gastrointestinal and genitourinary tracts. We will pay particular attention to the top killers worldwide: acute respiratory infections, AIDS, diarrheal disease, tuberculosis and malaria. We will also read an autobiography written by one of the fathers of molecular microbiology. The author has strived to lead an intellectually rigorous life in science while also cultivating a critical moral sensibility about the appropriate practice of science in a world with all too many institutionalized social inequalities. In response to this book, students will keep an electronic journal toward the eventual goal of writing a short autobiography describing their own intellectual journeys. The laboratory experience will culminate in a group project investigating the physiology of Serratia marcescens, a brick-red bacterium likely responsible for "miracles" in which religious artwork appeared to "bleed" during several infamous events recorded in Renaissance literature. Many aspects of this organism’s biology remain unexplored, and the students will perform authentic research investigating the environmental regulation of pigment production.

This FYE is a Biology class that fulfills one of the pre-requisites for upper-level biology courses. On a typical day, the class will meet for morning lecture/discussion and for afternoon laboratory work. Writing assignments will include electronic journaling, short papers in response to the books we read, thorough laboratory reports that emphasize critical thinking and integration of laboratory work with materials from lecture/discussion, and a 5-8 page library research paper. Students will improve their verbal communication skills through short in-class exercises and a formal oral presentation of their library research. A two-block course taught by one instructor; one grade will be given for the course as a whole.

This course combines one block of General Chemistry (CH 107) and one block of Topics in Environmental Science (EV 120). By linking these two courses you will be prepared to use the chemistry learned in the first block to better appreciate the complex environmental issues discussed in the second block. The CC course catalog description of EV 120 reads: Selected topics of current societal interest that relate to our environment offered when interest and opportunity arise. Without a one block limit, the topics covered in this course could last an entire four years or even a lifetime! This first year experience will limit the environmental topics to those that involve issues of sustainable agriculture. The chemistry learned Block 1 will be used to better understand issues related to such topics as pesticides, fertilizers, and water use in agriculture. Block break will be spent at the Land Institute in Salina, Kansas participating in the annual Prairie Festival. The Festival is a celebration of sustainable agriculture and will give us an opportunity to learn from many experts in the field.

This course is a unique opportunity to use chemistry to understand environmental problems. Students who need to take General Chemistry as a prerequisite for another course or as a requirement of the Chemistry, Biochemistry, Biology, Neuroscience, Geology, or Environmental Science major, as well as a pre-health professional program, will benefit from this set of linked courses. We will have an opportunity to better understand how Chemistry is needed for an understanding of many other fields in science. A set of linked one-block courses that must be taken together, with one instructor in each block; separate grades will be given for each block.

Prerequisite: Two years of high school algebra and one year of high school chemistry or consent of instructor.

Ted Lindeman and Phillip Cervantes: PC 148/CH 149 "Physics and Chemistry By Experiment"
(Two units of Natural Science credit)

Does the idea of taking science classes at CC make you nervous? Are you fairly sure you will major in social science or humanities and plan to take the minimal amount of science to get by? Then this course might be just for you. It is intended primarily for first-year students who do not plan to major in chemistry or physics, especially those who doubt their aptitude for physical science. The course’s mission is to put a tangible, accessible face on these subjects that are often thought of as too abstract or unreal. We will teach students to learn science from an investigative approach, explicitly avoiding the use of standard texts. That is, you will experience science by conducting experiments, making observations and measurements, and then discovering mathematics that helps understanding.

The class will construct a coherent picture of the mechanical world as if we were Renaissance natural philosophers publishing our findings for the benefit of human enlightenment. We plan to pick up the hunt with questions that concerned Archimedes, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Hooke, and others, and students will design and carry through their own experiments to resolve hypotheses that they have framed.

The second part of the course takes a comparable approach to selected chemical, atomic, and molecular questions, accompanied by some readings and research papers in the history of alchemy, chemistry, and materials science. A team-taught two-block course; one grade will be given for the course as a whole.

Note: This course is not intended for students who are thinking about majoring in a science or have an academic record that reflects a strong background in science. If past learning* has given you the "answers" to the questions we plan to investigate, your prior knowledge will disrupt our intended process of discovery by experiment. The professors would in such a case have to construct a separate track for you to pursue, and this would deny you the peer-collaboration benefits of the First Year Experience course. (*The background we consider inappropriate is approximately the following: 1) You've taken high school physics and/or chemistry and received a B or higher. 2) You've taken AP: calculus, physics, or chemistry and received a grade higher than a C.)

Greek contributions to American life are many and various. But what does it mean to be Greek? In more than three thousand years of history, Greeks have been masters, slaves, war-mongers and pacifists. They gave us the word "democracy" but also "tyranny." Culturally and geographically, they started as both Asian and European. Homer's Iliad, Euripides' Medea and the New Testament remind us how much of Greek culture has roots in Western Asia. The new library in Alexandria, Egypt, reminds us that Hellenism was most at home in northeast Africa. Through a millennium of Byzantine, and 400 years of Ottoman, rule, through the founding of modern Hellas in the 19th century and the disasters and renewals of the 20th century, the Greek language has been a continuous (if problematic) presence, and at most of these periods Greeks produced wonderful literature, from folk poems to novels.

We will examine questions of ethnicity and identity in ancient epic, philosophy and drama, and in modern poems and stories: the nationalist Dionysios Solomos; the island story-teller Alexandros Papadiamantis; the Alexandrian C.P. Cavafy, whose sense of estrangement involved sexuality as well as history; the Cretan novelist and poet Nikos Kazantzakis; the Nobel Prize-winning poet George Seferis, who lost his childhood home in Asia Minor in 1922. We will read recent women writers, and trace the theme of exile even to Colorado, where a Cretan who took the name Louis Tikas played a heroic role during the Ludlow Massacre of 1914. And we will examine key perceptions of Greece by non-Greeks from Byron on down.

The course is a good introduction to literary and historical studies, classics and cultural studies. No knowledge of Greek is required. There will be one day-trip to the Southern Colorado coalfield area (Pueblo, Ludlow, Trinidad). A team-taught two-block course; one grade will be given for the course as a whole.

What is literature? What are genres? How should they be read, interpreted and evaluated? What social and personal functions does writing have? How is writing related to oral tradition? How do writers compare themselves to others (admiration and imitation, rejection, transformation)? Why are so many authors obsessed with the morphic qualities of the human and of language? This course will treat literature as a venue for experiences of transformation and recognition such as Odysseus' return in Homer's Odyssey, Marie de France's self-discovery of the bestial human in the werewolf-self in Bisclavret, Dante's journey of self-judgment in Hell, Shakespeare's exploration of performative selves in The Taming of the Shrew, Blake's inquiry into the transposition of innocence and experience, Orlando's experience of gender morphing over time in Woolf's Orlando, and Gregor Samsa's awakening as a bug in Kafka's The Metamorphosis. As the above texts suggest, we will also look at the morphic capacity of genre itself. This course emphasizes close reading of literary texts as well as critical research, analysis, and writing. CO 100 fulfills the entry course requirement for the Comparative Literature major. A two-block course with one instructor in each block; one grade will be given for the course as a whole.

These two blocks will provide a survey of African cultures and civilizations, and an introduction to the literatures of Africa, in a two-block linked sequence. After a brief survey of African history, Block 1 will focus on politics, society and culture in Sub-Saharan Africa. Particular emphasis will be paid to issues of contemporary interest and concern. Some African states have been more successful than others in achieving political order and economic growth since independence in the 1960s and 1970s. We will look at what steps are currently being taken in the continent's more troubled nations to reach these goals. These issues and others will be explored and discussed within the framework of this course.

Block 2 will deal with many of these same issues and themes, but from the perspective of traditional and contemporary African writers from the continent's several regions. African literature deals with a variety of themes amongst which we can discern the ever-present theme of Cultural Rehabilitation and Renaissance; Dialectical Confrontations between Indigenous Traditions and Colonial Cultural Legacies; Arabo-Islamization, Westernization and Modernization/Globalization on the other. The ideologies of Negritude, Pan-Africanism and the African Personality will also be studied through the novels, poems and drama of Anglophone and Francophone African writers. Class assignments will include readings/students presentations on assigned research topics, discussions, etc. We expect our students to do analytical writing. Final research projects will focus on issues and themes covered during the two blocks. A set of linked one-block courses that must be taken together, with one instructor in each block; separate grades will be given for each block.

Economics as a discipline deals with scarcity. This central phenomenon requires individuals and societies to make choices and develop institutions. Throughout human history, different economic approaches to this problem of scarcity have been developed to meet new challenges. And yet, the enduring constant in all economics remains scarcity of resources, knowledge, and time. This FYE course uses as a foundation Principles of Economics, a long-standing two-block course that explores the discipline and develops analytical techniques and conceptual approaches. Building upon this basic understanding of the "enduring concepts" in the field, three "new challenges" are explored: 1) pollution and environmental disruption; 2) poverty vs. wealth of nations and people in a global setting; and 3) intergenerational equity issues of youth and the elderly.

Through supplementary readings, videos, individual and team exercises, speakers and field trips, these 3 "applications" of basic economic understanding will be used to reinforce common objectives in each FYE course:

a. consideration of challenging issues
b. exploration through the critical analysis of texts and sources of information
c. expression of ideas orally and in writing
d. development of research skills and techniques

A two-block course taught by one instructor; one grade will be given for the course as a whole.

This introduction to the study of literature addresses many of the vital questions that recur across time and human culture. Starting at the intersection of nature, myth, and history, we will read major works of literature and to a lesser extent philosophy by authors from antiquity to modern times, in various genres such as epic, tragedy, comedy, pastoral and the modern novel. Homer's Iliad, a meditation on mortality, friendship, passion, and the individual's relation to society, provides the basis for reading Greek tragedy and selections from the Old Testament. The philosophers weigh in on these issues, and we will read Aristotle's Poetics and Plato's Symposium. Nietzsche revisits The Birth of Tragedy and Virginia Woolf investigates the role of classical learning in "On Not Knowing Greek." Our understanding of the literature of the ancient world will offer a vitalizing context for these and other later authors such as Shakespeare, Milton, Cather, and Pynchon, who see their own work as grounded in this rich tradition. This is a good general introduction to the humanities and to western civilization, and is especially useful for those considering a major in English, Classics or other literatures. A two-block course taught by one instructor; one grade will be given for the course as a whole.

Genevieve Love and Rashna Singh: EN 203 "Tradition and Change in Literature: Transgression and Violence in Literature"
(Fulfills the AP:A requirement; two units of Humanities credit)

From Greek myths to modern novels, humans have been fascinated and repelled by violent and transgressive behavior that violates our most sacred, cherished values. We need to make sense of transgression, perhaps because we must constantly question and at the same time reaffirm the boundaries we create and maintain in order for societies to function. This course will examine how literary texts from Greek antiquity through the Renaissance and on into the contemporary world have represented and responded to transgression, and how they have responded to each other. Texts will include Euripides' Medea, the Old English epic Beowulf, Chaucer's "The Prioress' Tale," Shakespeare's The Tempest, Milton's Paradise Lost, Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, Brontë's Jane Eyre, Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea, Walcott's Pantomime, and Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. A two-block course with one instructor in each block; one grade will be given for the course as a whole.

These two linked blocks will explore the interdisciplinary nature of environmental issues and will apply concepts, methods and models from many disciplines to the major problems facing a sustainable management of the environment.

During Block 1, Introduction to Environmental Science, students will explore key environmental problems of the twenty-first century, including human population, air and water pollution, deforestation, loss of biodiversity and global climate change. The course will review the science needed to help understand these problems -- basics in ecology, geology, atmospheric and hydrologic processes -- and will examine the power of science to mitigate them. We will also address the gap between the technical power of science and the political and social limitations on the implementation of science. This discussion will set the stage for Block 2 where the role of government and environmental regulations in bridging this gap will be studied.

In Block 2, Environmental Protection and Property Rights: Competing Interests, students will consider the role of regulations in protecting the environment. Regulating the use property owners can make of their land has emerged as a primary focus of environmental protection. For example, development of coastal land has been prohibited, commercial grazing permits on public land have been limited to accommodate the needs of wild burrows, and fencing of private rangeland has been prohibited to allow elk migration. While such regulations may be beneficial for the environment, they can cause economic harm to the property owner. This course will seek to understand both sides in this conflict and will search for principles that define the boundaries between permissible regulation for the public environmental benefit and the "taking" of the private property subject to the regulations. We will trace the history of this conflict from the chaotic laissez-faire stage to present regulatory structure.

Block 2 will be taught primarily by the case study method where students will be assigned court cases (opinions) each day. Early cases will show the environmental harm that resulted from individuals pursuing their own self-interest in an unregulated society and the powerlessness of that society to prevent environmental degradation. Later cases will introduce governmental structure that, as a means to protect the environment, limits individuals' freedom to use property. By comparing cases in which the regulation has been held to be so severe as to be a taking of private property with cases in which the regulation was judged to be a proper exercise of governmental authority, we try to understand the uncertain boundaries in this conflict. In addition to cases, we will read articles, laws, and regulations. A set of linked one-block courses that must be taken together, with one instructor for each block; separate grades will be given for each block.

PLEASE CHOOSE ONE OF THE FOLLOWING SECTIONS

Section One
Block 1: Pam Riley (Drama) and Gresham Riley (Philosophy)
Block 2: Bill Hochman (History) and Gresham Riley (Philosophy)

Section Two
Block 1: Sam Williams (Religion)
Block 2: Michael O'Riley (Romance Languages)

Section Three
Blocks 1 & 2: Amanda Udis-Kessler (Sociology and Women's Studies)

Section Four
Blocks 1 & 2: Jim Matson (Asian History)

Section Five
Block 1: Malcolm Howard (Journalism)
Block 2: Merr Shearn (Art)

Section Six
Blocks 1 & 2: Beverly Lumumba (African Literature and African American Studies)

Section Seven
Block 1: Pete Peterson (Romance Languages)
Block 2: David Finley (Political Science)

"Freedom and Authority" was the first interdisciplinary course at Colorado College and has been taught here for over 40 years. It is a two-block course focusing on the conflict between individual freedom and the limits imposed on this freedom by the state and its laws, by religion institutions and scriptures, and by attitudes of the society in which we live. As an interdisciplinary course, it studies literary, philosophical, religious, historical, and scientific texts in a thematic context. It focuses on four main themes: personal authority, social authority, political authority, and religious authority. Behind all of these themes are questions such as: What constitutes personal identity? What are the sources of our individual values and commitments? How much of what we are can be traced to ethnic and cultural background? What should one do when conscience and laws conflict? How does the individual relate to the group? How do authority and power work to constrain and mold individuals? How do sources of authority legitimate themselves? Through reading, writing, discussion, and critical thinking we will grapple with these and other questions surrounding the human condition. A two-block course with one instructor in each block (except for section one, which is team-taught both blocks); one grade will be given for the course as a whole.

Bonnie Stapleton: GS 170 "The Rhetoric Of Civil Rights"
(Fulfills the AP:B requirement; two units of General Studies credit)

Rhetoric of Civil Rights examines the persuasive discourse and campaigns related to civil rights struggles in 20th-century America, including those of racial minorities, class, gender, and sexual orientation. Through a critical examination of primary texts and rhetorical artifacts, the student is exposed to the viewpoints of those seeking social change relating to civil rights, and establishment reaction to those movements. The course stresses development of criteria for success and failure of the rhetoric examined, and rhetorical theory is used as a starting point for this development. The study examines both the effect of the rhetoric on social structures and institutions, as well as the rhetoric’s relationship to identity construction. The course progresses chronologically, examining the development of the rhetorical movements, their periods of rhetorical crisis, and their consummation. A special emphasis is placed on the rhetoric of American Indian Activists as an example of this type of development. Assessment methods include both written and oral critical examinations of the discourse. A final project will challenge the students to design and engage in a rhetorical campaign for social change in the field. A two-block course taught by one instructor; one grade will be given for the course as a whole.

Keith Kester: GS 204 "Spirit and Nature: Religion and Science"
(Fulfills the AP:A requirement; one unit of Humanities credit and one unit of Natural Science credit. May provide one unit of laboratory/field Natural Science credit pending faculty approval)

Click here to visit the course homepage.

Come and explore the realms of spirit and nature, and within those realms the human spirit and human nature. Examine where good and evil are to be found. Study the parallels and differences between religion and science; and how meaningful relationships develop between the natural and the supernatural, between immanence and transcendence, between the animate and the inanimate, between the sacred and the secular. Consider how a person of integrity can be both religious and scientific. Explore our world in both natural and religious settings. Become aware of the diversity of life, and of religions, and look for ways to nurture and protect both diversities. Come away looking at our world and all its components, including the spiritual and the natural, in new and different ways.

The course will look at the development of the theory of evolution through the eyes of Charles Darwin and his voyage on the Beagle; explore faith and the plurality of religions through Paul Tillich's Dynamics of Faith and Diana Eck's Encountering God, consider The Sacred Depths of Nature with Ursula Goodenough; share E. O. Wilson's concerns about Conserving Earth's Biodiversity, reflect on human-human, and human-nature interactions and the nature of evil with the aid of Rosemary Reuther's Gaia and God, and Lance Morrow’s Evil: An Investigation; experience different religious communities; and read and recite nature poetry. There will be field projects in bio-diversity, the geologic history of the Garden of the Gods, and in surveying parts of Cheyenne Mountain State Park for signs of wildlife. Class will be held at the Baca campus (located about 175 miles, southwest of campus) for one week during Block I. A two-block course taught by one instructor; one grade will be given for the course as a whole.

This course will introduce students to German language and culture. In the two blocks we will cover half of the language material usually covered in the two blocks of Elementary German (GR 101), combined with lessons in German culture (which will draw on topics in history, politics, literature, music, art, film, theater, etc.). With a basic understanding of the structures of the German language, students will be in a position to analyze and comprehend German culture (in its distinctive Germanness) in depth. Located in the heart of Europe, i.e., in Mitteleuropa between East and West, Germany is also a striking example through which to explore issues of borders and frontiers. Particularly with its 20th century history as a divided country and the home of the Iron Curtain, Germany has represented borders and frontiers (geopolitically) in a most vivid manner. Upon completion of the course students who wish to continue with German language studies may enroll in the second block of GR 101 offered later in the year. The language component of the course is at the beginning level. It is not assumed or required that students already have previous experience in German to enroll in this course. A two-block course with one instructor in each block; one grade will be given for the course as a whole.

This course focuses on the Mediterranean Sea and on the cultures it supported, connected, and divided. We'll examine the ways the sea itself shaped the societies which emerged on its edges, looking at the links between geography, ecology, and history. In particular, we'll explore three major cultures: The Greek and the Roman, the Christian, and the Islamic, paying close attention to how they viewed the divine and to how they translated these visions into social and political life. The course also looks at how each of these cultures saw, used, and dealt with the others. Thus we'll investigate the interplay of values and ideas as well as moments of intense confrontation such as the Crusades and the current "clash of civilizations."

Primary texts, films, and historical studies will provide the basis for our collective discussion of the connections and conflicts between East and West, self and other, across and around the Mediterranean.

This course fulfills the entry requirement for the History, History/Political Science and Classics/History/Politics majors. A two-block course taught by one instructor; one grade will be given for the course as a whole.

Tip Ragan : HY 105 "Civilization in the West"
(Fulfills the AP:A requirement; two units of Social Science credit)

This course seeks to make sense of the great sweep of "western" history from ancient times to the present. It emphasizes what separates and what connects us to patterns of life and ways of thinking in the past. We will structure our exploration by focusing on several of the most important and fundamental texts of the ancient and medieval worlds in the first block. From these, we will gain insight into the ways that the cultures in the early Near East, classical Greece and Rome, and in what became Europe clashed and melded. We will look in particular at systems of belief, the organization of power, and ways of life.

In the second block, we examine Europe in the Renaissance and follow its development and the extension of its political and cultural authority across the globe during the early modern and modern periods. We will continue to focus on issues of belief, power, class, as well as on how ordinary people lived their lives.

The course involves close reading and discussion of primary literary and philosophical texts complemented by selected historical studies and films.

This course fulfills the entry requirement for the History, History/Political Science and Classics/History/Politics majors. A two-block course taught by one instructor; one grade will be given for the course as a whole.

Bryan Rommel-Ruiz and John Williams: HY 104: "Culture, Society and History"
(AP:C meets either the AP:A requirement or the AP:B requirement; two units of Social Science credit)

This course compares and contrasts European and Asian Civilizations from the ancient period to the modern. By focusing on political order, material culture, and religion, among other values, we will examine how people structured their lives in these major civilizations similarly and differently. As we move to the modern period we will take these lenses of comparison to look at how cultures and societies developed in the Atlantic World and the Pacific Rim.

This course fulfills the entry requirement for the History, History/Political Science and Classics/History/Politics majors. A team-taught two-block course; one grade will be given for the course as a whole.

Italian culture has a considerable presence in America. Many college students will be familiar with at least a few of the following cultural icons and/or ideas: Dante, Boccaccio, the Renaissance, Michelangelo, Veronica Franco, Galileo, Leonardo da Vinci, Garibaldi, Roberto Benigni, Federico Fellini, Sofia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni, Isabella Rossellini, Madonna, The Sopranos, The Godfather, Armani and Italo Calvino, to name a few. This course emphasizes the significant link that language and culture share. "Italian Language and Culture" not only introduces students to the fundamental elements of Italian conversation and grammar in an inviting and Italian-only setting, but also stresses Italy’s cultural heritage. Throughout the course we will examine short stories, poems, newspaper and magazine articles, movies, recipes, television programs and the visual arts, consistently linking new grammatical structures with Italian civilization and tradition. In addition to language, we will cover topics such as the mafia, regional identity, gender relations, the role of the Catholic church, media culture and technology, the political system, terrorism, the educational system, immigration and Italian-American identity. No previous knowledge of Italian is required. A two-block course with one instructor in each block; one grade will be given for the course as a whole.

This course explores the intersection of Japanese language with the concepts that inform Japanese culture, both traditional and modern. Through an introduction to Japanese, you will have easier access to the underlying aesthetics of literature (from classical poetry and drama to manga) and art forms (from calligraphy and gardens to anime). By the end of the two blocks you will be able to appreciate recent anime such as "Princess Mononoke" or "Spirited Away" through a better understanding of the cultural and historical referents, as well as catch the excitement through sections of the original dialogue.

Equal time will be spent on learning language (speaking, listening, reading, and writing) and discussing readings and videos about the history, literature (including portions of The Tale of Genji, the world's first novel), and other aspects of Japanese culture. You will have many hands-on opportunities: calligraphy sessions, cooking Japanese meals, and community service learning. Readings, discussion, and writing assignments on the cultural component will be in English.

Students of this course can continue their language studies by enrolling in the second block of JA 101 "Beginning Japanese" in Block 4 (2 units, Blocks 3 & 4); this two-block sequence (JA 101 in blocks 1 & 2 and in Block 4) will fulfill the college's language requirement. You will also be able to continue practicing your language skills by enrolling in the Japanese language adjunct course. A set of linked one-block courses that must be taken together, with a single instructor; separate grades will be given for the language portion and the cultural portion of this class.

How often have you heard the phrase "mathematics is the language of science"? While it is certainly true that modern science as we know it could not exist without mathematics, this does not mean that mathematics is nothing more than a tool for doing science. In this course we will explore the way in which mathematics, and in particular calculus, touches almost all areas of human thought and creativity.

This course will be a calculus course, designed especially for students who have already had a year of calculus in high school, and is the equivalent of Calculus 1 and Calculus 2 in one package. In other words, this course will prepare you for Calculus 3 if you want. But because you will already be familiar with some of the routine and mechanical aspects of calculus, we will be able to spend more time exploring why calculus is important, how it is applied to the real world, and what other sort of interesting and fun things can be done with it.

This course will not be like any math course you have ever had. You will solve lots and lots of math problems just like in any other math course, but you will also read novels, write papers, look at art, watch films, and do anything else we can think of that involves mathematics. Our goal in this course is to change the way you think about mathematics forever. A set of linked one-block courses that must be taken together, with one instructor in each block; separate grades will be given for each block.

Prerequisite: One year of high school calculus.

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This course is a survey of music in the United States from the colonial era to the present. Both popular and classical music traditions will be studied with special attention given to the social and political contexts in which they developed. In the first block, classical music traditions will be examined: the emergence of innovative U.S. composers in the 18th and 19th centuries will be seen as the foundations for the nationalistic works of Ives, Copland and others; after study of Tin Pan Alley and the Broadway musical, the block will conclude with an examination of the modern and postmodern movements of the mid and late 20th century. In the second block, popular music traditions from the same period will be examined, beginning with both European and African roots; the course will survey the evolution of popular genres such as the blues, minstrelsy, jazz and folk, and end with the rock and hip hop cultures. A team-taught two-block course; one grade will be given for the course as a whole.

Since September 11, 2001, Americans have begun take greater interest in Islam, and they have begun to discover that it is not easy to speak about the Islamic world as a whole. Is there an Islamic way of organizing society? What do Islamists mean when they talk about an Islamic state? Why do some Muslims insist that Islam offers a program for political action, while others insist that religious belief has nothing to do with politics? How is it that a single set of revelations passed to Muhammad in the seventh century represents a hope for a new moral order, on the part of some, and recipe for violence, in the minds of others?

In the first block, the course examines the historical development of several versions of Islamic order. What was the nature of the Islamic state Muhammad established in Medina? How did the subsequent Arab Empires reflect and differ from that experience? In what atmosphere did scholars construct the legal system of Islam? How did the political order proposed by Shi'ism differ from that characterized by Sunnism? Why did mysticism penetrate both the Shi'a and Sunni communities? To what extent did the Ottoman Empire, which brought together a significant portion of the Muslim world from 1300 until 1918, reflect earlier versions of Islamic order and did it innovate?

The second block confronts the questions of order and chaos in the contemporary Muslim Middle East, examining the place of the nation-state in Islamic theory, the impact of imperialism, liberalism, and socialism; the rise of Islamist movements, the position of women in the Muslim world, and the relationship of Islamic doctrine to human rights, democracy, and violence. A set of linked one-block courses that must be taken together, with a single instructor; separate grades will be given for each block.

Juan Lindau and Timothy Fuller: PS 103 "The Western Political Tradition in a Global Context"
(Fulfills the AP:A and introductory sequence to the Political Science major. The course also fulfills distribution requirements in the Social Sciences)

This course explores the genesis of the Western political tradition in ancient Greece, its expansion and development, and its encounter with the world. A tradition is neither static nor defined by a single thought or idea; it undergoes constant actions of both preservation and innovation and contains numerous voices establishing its character. A tradition is a complex, unsystematic whole encompassing both argument and agreement. We will consider a variety of writings on politics from ancient to modern times, paying attention to continuities and discontinuities in the tradition of thinking about politics. Assignments will also include materials covering the impact of the West on the rest of the world and the reaction of other cultural and intellectual traditions to the spread of Western ideas. We believe that understanding the contours of the tradition sheds light on the current ways we interpret and respond to the world and is of value to students as citizens, whatever major they may ultimately choose. A two-block course with one instructor in each block; one grade will be given for the course as a whole.

This course introduces students to the study of normative and atypical human behavior. Students will read original research, theory and clinical case material to explore distinctions between normative approaches to the study of human behavior and investigations of individual differences. Through laboratory research, students will be introduced to the tools of psychological inquiry in several areas of the field including human attachment, animal learning, social behavior, memory and neuropsychology. The first block will focus on learning, cognition, neuropsychology and social psychology. We will study individual and group differences in intellectual performance, examining work on stereotyping and prejudice as well research on learning disabilities. The second block will focus on normative and atypical development, abnormal psychology, emotion and motivation. Human development in western and non-western settings will be examined and mental illnesses as it is understood in diverse cultural settings will be explored. This course fulfills the entry-level requirement for the Psychology major. A two-block course taught by one instructor; one grade will be given for the course as a whole.

What’s to be done? Who is to blame? What is the Russian soul? These are the "cursed" questions over which the Russian writers, film directors, artists, and intellectuals have been debating since the beginning of the 19th century. Why and how do these questions relate to us today?

Russian culture has been perceived by the West as the Other and–often simultaneously– as the repository of the West’s most cherished values. From Christianity to Marxism to postmodernism, Russia -- its history and art -- has embodied the crucial conflicts which characterize contemporary consciousness. In spite of the Bolshevik Revolution and the Cold War, much of the European and American intellectual landscape has been shaped by Russian writers, film directors, artists and composers. Some of the most defining trends in European cultural history of the 20th century -- Realism, Modernism, Existentialism, Symbolism, and Formalism -- are inconceivable without Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Mayakovsky, Eisenstein, Tarkovsky, Nabokov, and other Russian writers and film directors.

In this course, we will integrate the study of the Russian language with the great tradition of Russian literature and film. We begin with the premise that each of these disciplines (i.e., the study of a language, and the concomitant study of literature, film and culture) infuses and cross-fertilizes the other. Major literary texts will be chosen from among Crime and Punishment, Anna Karenina or The Cossacks, Fathers and Sons, and stories by Chekhov, Solzhenitsyn, Nabokov, and Tatyana Tolstaya. A two-block course taught by one instructor; one grade will be given for the course as a whole.

This course will look at family structures and relationships over time and across cultures, with continued focus on the wider social contexts, especially industrialization, feminism, race, class, sexual orientation and technology. What is family? How have our definitions changed? What social factors influence those changes? What are the current issues related to family and what lies ahead? Is the family in decline or undergoing social change? Which of these -- decline or change -- translates to chaos and which to order?

The first block will explore sociological thinking in general, including basic theory, methods, and an introduction to the terminology and themes in the field. The goal will be to provide the tools and set the context for deeper sociological analysis. The second block will focus specifically on sociology of family. Assignments will include classic and contemporary readings, debates over controversial issues, as well as research into local family service organizations. A set of linked one-block courses that must be taken together, with a single instructor; separate grades will be given for each block.

This course introduces students to our fascinating backyard by using diverse perspectives on the region's histories, peoples, and cultures through an interdisciplinary and intercultural approach. Taught by an anthropologist, a historian, and a community activist, the course will explore the complex place we call the Southwest and the varied peoples who have lived, fought, traveled, written, raised families, farmed, and survived there. The course asks how people construct and articulate a sense of place, and explores the implications of this for the relationships people develop between themselves, the environment, and others. The course will start by examining the human past and present by looking at the historical and anthropological records left in the region and the debates over whose voices get to define the region. We will look at the artistic and literary traditions and innovations of the region and consider the enduring impact of conquest. The second block will examine long-term economic and social challenges such as racism, immigration and the debate around the "border," and the problems of using and protecting a unique environment. The course includes a 4-day field trip during Block 2 to various communities in the Southwest where students will do research on issues that concern the region in the present. This course will be integrated over the two blocks with students working on individual and group projects that extend over both blocks. A team-taught two-block course; one grade will be given for the course as a whole.

A study of the emergence of modern culture through an interdisciplinary course taught by four faculty members. Discussion of the classical and Christian origins of the Renaissance and of the new science and philosophy which set the groundwork for the modern outlook. Disciplines represented are art, history, literature, music, politics and religion. Students may receive separate grades for each block of this course, but must be enrolled in both blocks in order to receive credit.

This course will be offered in two sections. While the content of the sections will be different, classes will meet together for occasional plenary sessions on major topics and the hope is that students in both sections will converse with one another about common themes and ideas. In addition, both classes will retreat together to the Baca Campus during the second week of Block 2.

The following topics will likely be included in the plenary sessions:

• Plato’s Symposium
• Dante’s Divine Comedy
• The Poetry of Petrarch
• Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel
• Renaissance Historiography: Murder Most Foul: How they wrote history in the Renaissance
• Galileo’s Starry Messenger
• Shakespeare’s The Tempest
• The First Opera–Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo (1607)

PLEASE CHOOSE EITHER SECTION 1 OR SECTION 2

Section 1:

Block 1: Marie Daniels (Spanish), Robert McJimsey (History): "Constructing a Renaissance Ideal"

The first block introduces students to the major texts of both the Italian and Northern European Renaissance, a period covering approximately 1300 to 1633. Its main purpose is to explain how writers used the ideals of classical culture to reshape the outlook of their own time and the ensuing struggle over this effort with the forces of established authority. Readings will include selections from the writings of Dante, Petrarch, Pico della Mirandola and Castiglione from the Italian perspective. Northern European figures include Desiderius Erasmus, Thomas More, Michel de Montaigne. The course offers a consideration of the problems of the Protestant Reformation and concludes with a section on the trial of Galileo in 1633.

Block 2: Marcia Dobson (Classics), Dick Hilt (Physics): "The Renaissance Imagination: Myth and Cosmos"

The second block focuses upon transformations of the Classical tradition in Renaissance myth, philosophy and science. Themes of love, beauty and the nature of the soul will be considered in their classical and allegorized forms in literature, art, and music. Readings will include Plato’s Symposium, Marsilio Ficino’s Commentary on the Symposium and Letters on the Soul, and the myth traditions of Venus and Cupid, Orpheus and Eurydice, and Apollo, among others. We will spend the second week of the block at the Baca Campus, where we will explore the changes in our view of the Cosmos. Starting with the Ptolemaic (geocentric) model of the solar system we trace the modifications that ended with a heliocentric universe. The writings of Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo are our principal guides. A two-block course with two instructors in each block: separate grades will be given for each block.

Section 2:

Block 1: Rebecca Tucker (Art History) and Regula Meyer Evitt (English): "Embodying the Renaissance"

Block 1 examines the re-ordering of European culture through the lenses of literature and art from the 12th through 16th centuries. We will consider changing representations of the human body–sacred and profane–in both literary and visual texts as a means for exploring the authority of classical antiquity, the correlated functions of love and political power, and the cultural implications of increasing urbanization for the Renaissance. In literature, our readings will cover a range of late Medieval and early Renaissance genres (auto-biography, narrative poetry, lyric poetry, drama) and include selections from the following authors: Augustine's Confessions, Marie de France's Yonec, Dante's Commedia, Petrarch's Rime Sparza, Boccaccio's Decameron, Chaucer's Pardoner's Tale, Everyman (anon.), The York Crucifixion (anon.), Machiavelli's Prince, Marlowe's Jew of Malta. In the visual arts, we will look at a variety of works from the period in Europe, with a focus on in-depth study of crucial paintings, sculpture, and architecture by artists ranging from Giotto, Brunelleschi, Botticelli, and Michelangelo to Jan van Eyck, Durer and Pieter Bruegel.

Block 2: Michael Grace (Music), Jane Hilberry (English): "‘All In Doubt’: Revising Traditions"

"The new philosophy calls all in doubt," John Donne wrote at the beginning of the 17th century in his "Anatomy of the World" In Block 2, we will look at the ways aesthetic decisions relate to prevailing philosophies, and how the disciplines of music and literature mirror radical changes in beliefs throughout the middle ages and Renaissance. Innovation in the arts, particularly music, was often perceived as threatening to disrupt an established (and God-given) order. We will trace such innovation through the musical compositions of Leonin, Guillaume de Machaut, Josquin des Pres and Claudio Monteverdi, and some theoretical/philosophical writings by Boethius, Tinctoris and Pico. In our examination of music we will relate forms and styles to the art and architecture studied in Block 1. In the study of literature the course will also build on the literary texts studied in Block 1. We will look at the way literary production, especially poetry and drama, both appropriated and departed from the work of medieval writers. Literary texts include Shakespeare's Tempest and lyric poetry by Sydney, Shakespeare, Donne, Herbert, Marvell and Milton. Throughout the block, we will consider stylistic and formal similarities between music and literature. A two-block course with two instructors in each block: separate grades will be given for each block.

In all human societies, gender is an important organizing principle, shaping some of the frontiers and boundaries that each of us confronts everyday, as individuals and as members of various social groups. Gender has been used to define thought and experience by associating masculinity with the mind, logic, reason, and knowledge, and femininity with the body, emotion, intuition, and myth. This course will introduce students to some of the scholarship, the theories, and the debates that presently surround the attempt to understand the gendered nature of mind and body. We will explore the ways in which gender forms an important aspect of our social existence as thinking, embodied people living and interacting in a diverse social world.

This is a two-block, team-taught course investigating gender from the perspectives of psychology and communication theory. In the first block, we will explore historical, theoretical, and methodological practices that uphold the oppositional divisions between sex/gender, men/women, and mind/body. In the second block, we will apply these understandings to a number of contemporary gender issues that reflect the mind/body dualism, including violence, media representations, the family, sexuality, and reproduction. This course will emphasize building students' experience and expertise in research processes, critical thinking and writing, and oral communication. A two-block team-taught course; one grade will be given for the course as a whole.

This course is a unique opportunity to use chemistry to understand environmental problems. Students who need to take General Chemistry as a prerequisite for another course or as a requirement of the Chemistry, Biochemistry, Biology, Neuroscience, Geology, or Environmental Science major, as well as a pre-health professional program, will benefit from this set of linked courses. We will have an opportunity to better understand how Chemistry is needed for an understanding of many other fields in science. A set of linked one-block courses that must be taken together, with a single instructor; separate grades will be given for each block.

Prerequisite: Two years of high school algebra and one year of high school chemistry or consent of instructor.

General Studies

Lisa Hughes: GS 101: “Freedom and Authority”
(Fulfills the AP:A requirement; two units General Studies credit)

“Freedom and Authority” was the first interdisciplinary course at Colorado College and has been taught here for over 40 years. It is a two-block course focusing on the conflict between individual freedom and the limits imposed on this freedom by the state and its laws, by religion institutions and scriptures, and by attitudes of the society in which we live. As an interdisciplinary course, it studies literary, philosophical, religious, historical, and scientific texts in a thematic context. It focuses on four main themes: personal authority, social authority, political authority, and religious authority. Behind all of these themes are questions such as: What constitutes personal identity? What are the sources of our individual values and commitments? How much of what we are can be traced to ethnic and cultural background? What should one do when conscience and laws conflict? How does the individual relate to the group? How do authority and power work to constrain and mold individuals? How do sources of authority legitimate themselves? Through reading, writing, discussion, and critical thinking we will grapple with these and other questions surrounding the human condition. A two-block course taught by one instructor; one grade will be given for the course as a whole.

To this end, our story traces Latin American history beginning in pre-contact times with an examination of the Iberian peninsula and the Amerindian Kingdoms of the Sun constructed by Aztecs and Incas in the fifteenth century. How was the so-called Conquest viewed by participants and how have different historians explained it over time? And who conquered who anyway? What about the Indo-European silver civilizations of sixteenth and seventeenth century Peru and Mexico and how did they compare and contrast with the Afro-European, slavocratic sugar empire of Portuguese America? Traditionalists, liberals and neo-Marxists look at political independence in the 1810s from different perspectives and focus on different issues as did the makers of Latin American independence themselves and so will we.

The class will move on to the nineteenth and twentieth century histories of four countries: Brazil, Argentina, Mexico and Chile. Topics will include caudillismo (strong man, charismatic rule), the late nineteenth-century export economies, the sometimes overt and sometimes covert presence of the Catholic Church, the military and the United States in the course of events, and the causes, controversies and legacies associated with industrialization, populism, bureaucratic authoritarianism and neo-liberalism. Finally we’ll look at issues of gender and at the remarkable interplay between race and class over the centuries in Latin America.

The course will include a heavy writing component, including a “final” twelve to fifteen-page research essay. Part of the third week will be spent at the Baca campus. A two-block course taught by one instructor; one grade will be given for the course as a whole.

Humans have, since the beginning of time, sought to define, to name, and to understand the mysteries of the world around them and their place in relation to them. These attempts manifest themselves in various ways: as language, as religion, as law, as art, as philosophy...and as mathematics. This two-block First Year Experience considers mathematics as an integral part of human culture, intimately connected with other aspects of a human worldview, including art, language, religion, and law. By studying several different human cultures and societies, taken from every corner of the globe and every period of history, we shall examine (1) how the particulars of an individual culture's worldview determine the nature of its mathematics, and (2) how the particulars of an individual culture's mathematics reveal important aspects of its worldview.

During the first block we shall discuss these two questions by examining several pre-industrialized human societies- including those from ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, and India, as well as indigenous peoples of Africa and the Americas--unearthing deep and unifying connections between their unique worldview (as revealed by their art, their gods, their stories, and their history) and the mathematics created to help express it. During the second block, we will follow the role of mathematics in the intellectual and social history of the West, paying close attention to the contributions of Greek geometry, Muslim algebra, and the eventual joining of the two during the Renaissance. In the process, students will have the opportunity to review much of high school geometry, algebra, and pre-calculus, and hence will be well prepared for future courses such as MA 126 or CH 107. A two-block course with one instructor; one grade will be given for the course as a whole.

• There are over 10,000 course changes at Colorado College every academic year. This means that there is a lot of change in class enrollments. Students will sign up for multiple waiting lists over eight blocks. As students add and drop courses, students on waiting lists are called by the Registrar and asked to come in and add a course, usually within 48 hours.



• Courses offered in the second semester are usually easier to get into than courses offered during the first semester.



• Students should have the appropriate prerequisite for the desired course. More importantly, courses with prerequisites have fewer students competing for available places.



• The best advise about the assigning of points to a particular course selection is available from a student's peers. You are encouraged to talk to other students and the resident advisor in the dorm. Students should also consult with the instructor.



• Beginning science courses are high demand courses; they require a lot of points.



• All-College requirements such as AP:A and AP:B courses are usually in high demand.



• Some professors are in high demand; again, lots of points will be needed.



• Multiple block courses will allow students to put points on fewer courses over the eight blocks; this allows the student to gain an advantage in course distribution over eight blocks. Example: a student uses 80 points on 6 courses instead of 80 points for 8 block courses.



• Advanced courses in a major usually require fewer points. The courses are aimed at majors (a finite number), usually require prerequisites, and have less students competing for a spot.



• Note how many times the course is taught during the academic year. A student's opportunity to get in a class is enhanced if the course is offered many times during the year.



• Students need to set priorities. If you really want a course in high demand, you must decide whether or not you should use most of the points for the course and take your chances on the other blocks. Prioritize the courses which you have selected, identifying the courses you "absolutely" have to take versus those which are less important for your course schedule. The allocation of points for the proposed schedule would then follow this priority list.



• The Registrar's office is willing to answer questions about courses and a student's schedule if any arise after they have met with their advisors.