Fall Semester 2003 Courses |
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| Anthropology |
Chemistry |
Chinese |
Classics | | Comparative Literature | Economics | English | | Environmental Science | French | General Studies | Geology | | German | History | Japanese | Mathematics | Music | Philosophy | | Physics | Political Science | Psychology | Russian | Sociology | | Spanish | Studies in the Humanities | Women's Studies | See courses from 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2002, 2001, 2000 |
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The "First Course" is intended to provide a stimulating introduction to Colorado College, to enhance the research and writing skills important to academic success, and to reinforce excitement about learning, rigorous analysis and creative expression. First Courses include a substantial writing component and a research project. The seminar format and class size encourage active student involvement. The First Course also introduces students to the CC Library, the Writing Center, other academic support systems, and the Honor system. The courses are only a part of the first year; the entire first-year experience includes interaction with first-year peer advisors and student-organized events, such as speakers, films, performances, and workshops. The offices of Student Life, Residential Life and Community Service will work with first-year students throughout the academic year. Find out about picking courses with the point system. Winter Start Program Approximately 60 students (ten percent of the entering class) are expected to enter the freshman class in Spring 2002 as the first class in the winter start program. These students are free during the fall for work, travel, or off-campus study, and begin their studies in January. Although it will not be required, winter start students will be encouraged to stay for the college’s impressive Summer Session so that they can start the following fall with sophomore standing. Click here for Spring 2004 courses and to read more on the program from our admissions office. Anthropology Susan Carrese: AN 102/308 "Defining Culture: Boundaries in Anthropology and Literature" (Fulfills one unit of AP:B credit; two units of Social Science credit) In this two-block introduction to cultural anthropology and liberal education we will explore a seemingly universal human trait-the propensity to define ourselves by identifying our own community in opposition to "the other." Do humans as humans necessarily make boundaries, mark borders, classify peoples, and divide into castes, classes, societies and civilizations? Does culture, by definition, require such markers? Are boundaries necessary for civil society or are they the seeds of conflict? These are among the themes of the modern social science of cultural anthropology, but they have been a theme of western literature for millennia, since Homer's Odyssey, Sophocles' Antigone, Plato's cave parable, Shakespear's Tempest, and Robert Frost's poem "Mending Wall." We will pair these works with non-western works such as Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart and J.M. Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians. If we can transcend disciplinary boundaries to read literature as students of culture and ethnography as a storytelling about culture, then we will find a rich vein of material to illuminate our boundary questions and the fundamental question anthropology asks: What does it mean to be human? On this journey into personal, cultural, and disciplinary frontiers you will practice the close reading of literary texts and be introduced to some of the history and basic concepts of cultural anthropology. The methods, theory, and writing of such renowned anthropologists as E.B. Tylor, Franz Boas, Bronislaw Malinowski, Ruth Benedict, E.E. Evans-Pritchard, and Clifford Geertz will help to illuminate larger themes. Beyond anthropology, Indian-born novelist Salman Rushdie's recent work on borders and political theorist Benjamin Barber's Jihad vs. McWorld will be read to shed light on current events related to cultural definition. Class projects such as off-campus fieldwork, writing an ethnography, participating in a formal debate, and utilizing scholarly research will serve as pedagogical tools to explore the relationship between boundaries and culture.A set of linked one-block courses that must be taken together, with a single instructor. |
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Chemistry Sally Meyer and Howard Drossman: CH 107/EV 120 "Environmental Science: Elements of Sustainability" (2 units of Natural Science credit; 1 unit of Natural Science field/lab credit) This First Year Experience class combines one block of General Chemistry (CH 107) and one block of Topics in Environmental Science (EV 120). The descriptions of these individual courses are given in the Colorado College Catalog of Courses. 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 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 sustainability and The Colorado College campus. Class readings will be used to develop an understanding of sustainability through a systems approach. Short and frequent written and oral presentations will allow for reflection on one's personal connection with nature. The class research projects will focus on service projects that can make the campus more sustainable and involve an understanding of science (especially chemistry). Students are encouraged to continue pursuing this research throughout their four-year stay at Colorado College. 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. Prerequisite: Two years of high school algebra and one year of high school chemistry or consent of instructor. |
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Chinese Language and Culture Hong Jiang: CN 101/CN 250 "Chinese Language and Culture" (Fulfills the AP:B requirement; one unit of Language/Humanities credit and one unit of Culture/Humanities credit) Language opens the door to culture. This course will pay attention to the relationship between Chinese language and culture, and word and image. The course begins with the study of the Chinese language, with emphasis on basic grammar, speaking, and listening comprehension, as well as mastery of some 250 Chinese characters for reading and writing (mainly in Block 1), and then introduces students to the Chinese concept of Family, Nature and Self and to how Chinese language and philosophical thinking (Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism) transformed ways of life in the East, as well as the major forms of Chinese literature and art. This is an introductory course which attempts to lead students to study Chinese language and culture in a broader historical and social context. Students enrolled in this course can continue their language studies by enrolling in the second block of CN 101 Beginning Chinese in Block 4 (two units, Blocks 3 and 4); this two-block sequence (CN 101 in Block 1and in Block 4) will fulfill the college's language requirement. FYE Chinese language students are also expected to attend Professor Harrison Tu's class "Chinese Calligraphy and Ink-Painting" in Blocks 1and 2 (which will meet once a week throughout the blocks) to get hands-on experience with Chinese calligraphy and painting. A set of linked one-block courses that must be taken together, with a single instructor. |
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Classics Owen Cramer, Patricia Fitzgibbon and David Mason: CL 130/HY130 "The Reinvention of the Greeks, Identity, Empire, and Diaspora" (Fulfills the AP:A requirement; two units of Humanities credit) What does it mean to be Greek, or to carry a sense of such identity into alienating circumstances-other empires, other worlds? And how have Greece and Greeks been viewed by foreigners? 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 have been both Asian and European. Homer's Iliad, Euripides' Medea and parts of the New Testament remind us how much of Greek culture has its roots in Asia Minor. The great library now being rebuilt in Alexandria, Egypt, helps us recall that Alexander founded its original library with texts captured at the city of Pergamon in what is now Turkey. Through the history of the Byzantine Empire, the 400 years of Ottoman domination and the founding of a modern nation in the 19th century, the wars and changes of borders and governments in the 20th century, the Greek language has been a continuous if problematic presence, and at most of these historical periods Greeks produced wonderful literature, from folk poems to novels. In this class we will examine questions of ethnicity and identity not only in ancient texts, but also in poems and stories of the modern era: 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 examine the recent developments among women writers in Greece, 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. |
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Comparative Literature and General Studies Solomon Nkiwane and Ibrahima Wade: GS 234/CO 200 "An Introduction to Africa: History, Politics, Literature and Culture (Fulfills one unit of General Studies credit and one unit of Humanities credit) 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; confrontations between indigenous traditions on the one hand and colonialism, Arabo-Islamization, Westernization and modernization on the other. The ideologies of Negritude, Pan-Africanism and the African Personality will also be studied in the novels, poems and drama of Anglophone and Francophone African writers. The class will include reading and discussion, and we expect our students to do analytical writing. Final research projects will focus on issues and themes covered in the two blocks. A set of linked one-block courses that must be taken together, with one instructor in each block. Just how strong a force is ethnic identity in the face of history's permutations? How is it reflected in ancient and modern literature, and how is this literature related to geography and politics? These are major questions of our time, questions of colonial and post-colonial worlds, and we will find them very much alive in everything we read. A team-taught two-block course. Corinne Scheiner and Regula Evitt: CO 100 "Introduction to Comparative Literature: Literary Metamorphoses" (AP:C - meets either the AP:A requirement or the AP:B requirement; two units of Humanities credit) 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? As a FYE course with the theme of frontiers and boundaries, 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. |
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Economics Larry Stimpert: EC 160/ EC 331 "Perspectives on Business Management" (Two units of Social Science credit; designed especially for students who are fairly certain they plan to major in Economics- students completing this First year Experience will receive credit for one required course and one elective course in the Economics major). Complex business organizations are a relatively new phenomenon, developed only during the last two centuries. Yet today, they are the dominant feature in our society's economic, cultural, and social landscape. The two linked courses from the Economics and Business curriculum that make up this First Year Experience offer contrasting perspectives on the management of organizations. The first block will introduce you to the principles of financial accounting while helping you master the business and economics vocabulary. We will focus on the operating, investing, and financing activities that give rise to accounting data, how these data are reflected in financial statements, and how accounting data are used to make resource allocation decisions. In addition, we will discuss the historical development of accounting and debate the quality of information produced by accounting systems. We'll also spend a good deal of time developing your business modeling skills and working with accounting and spreadsheet software. Upon completing this course, you should know and understand:
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English Genevieve Love and Barry Sarchett: 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 crime stories, humans have been fascinated and repelled by those acts which violate 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 different forms of violence and crime in literary texts from Greek antiquity through the Renaissance and on into the contemporary world. Texts will include Euripides' Medea, the Old English epic Beowulf, Chaucer's "The Prioress' Tale," MacBeth, John Donne's poetry, Defoe's Moll Flanders, Swift's "A Modest Proposal," Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Sherlock Holmes stories, and William Burroughs' Naked Lunch. A two-block course with one instructor in each block; one grade will be given for the course as a whole (for both blocks together). Lisa B. Hughes: EN 207 "Masterpieces of Literature: Greeks to Modern" (Fulfills the AP:A requirement; two units of Humanities credit) 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 Sophocles' Antigone, Euripides' Bacchae and the book of Genesis. The philsophers 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 Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, Joyce, and Cather, 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 or in other literatures. A two-block course taught by one instructor. |
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Environmental Science Hillary Hamann and Phil Kannan: EV 121/EV 120 "Scientific and Regulatory Approaches to Environmental Problems" (Fulfills one unit of Natural Science credit without lab and one unit of Social Science credit) 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 linked set of one-block courses that must be taken together, with one instructor for each block. |
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French Ibrahima Wade/ Michael O'Riley: FR 304/305 "Cultural Contexts and Oral/Written Practice" (2 units of Humanities credit) This course is designed as a two-block sequence which will introduce students to the fascinating aspects of the French and Franchophone worlds while placing special emphasis on oral and written expression in French. The first block of the course, FR 304, will concentrate on improving students' oral proficiency while the following block of the course, FR 305, will concentrate on written expression through a special emphasis on Paris. Through diverse media such as internet tours, textual readings, cinema, art and cartoons, these two courses will provide students with a unique and exciting encounter with the French-speaking world. Through engagement with these diverse cultural aspects of the French-speaking world, the course will emphasize the development of effective oral communication and written skills engaging a variety of opportunities for oral and written expression in the target language. Using our cultural materials as a base in both FR 304 and 305, students will have the opportunity to develop different forms of communicative skills and strategies. In FR 304 students will target different forms of oral expression that are required to live in France. In FR 305, student will work on written self expression, including autobiographical, creative, and non-fiction writing. We will work on problem areas of oral and written expression in a small, workshop-oriented environment. One of the primary goals of the course is to prepare students for study abroad in Colorado College's France Program. We will study the different forms of French speech and writing that students will encounter in France and in their continued studies of the language and culture. The class final project will include the writing of a performance-oriented piece that could be presented to the public. Although student will receive a separate grade for each block, the two courses are designed to complement each other and enable students to express themselves in French in authentic situations abroad. 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. |
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General Studies Bill Davis, Director: GS 101 "Freedom and Authority" (Fulfills the AP:A requirement; two units General College 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 with one instructor in each block (except for section three, which is team-taught both blocks); one grade will be given for the course as a whole (for both blocks together). Section OneKeith Kester: GS 204 "Spirit and Nature: Religion and Science" (Fulfills the AP:A requirement; one unit of Humanities credit and one unit of non-laboratory Natural Science credit) Click here for 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 Fairth 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; 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. A two-block course taught by one instructor. |
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Geology Paul Myrow and Christine Siddoway: GY 130 "Introductory Geology" (Two units of Natural Science Lab credit) The Introductory Geology course makes full use of the local Rocky Mountains settings as a natural laboratory in which to investigate the record of Earth history. The course explores dynamic Earth processes as recorded in the mountain environment. The span of geological time is almost completely represented in the Colorado Front Range, allowing for interpretation of the succession of ancient environments, as well as ancient marine and terrestrial organisms that existed here in the past. The structural architecture and the sedimentary record exposed in Colorado's mountains offer a context for investigation of several cycles of mountain building activity related to plate tectonic events. The course devotes time to learning the language of geology and to recognition of Earth materials as the basis for field investigation and scientific questioning in the fields of Earth Science. Applied field and laboratory exercises range from the study of fossil assemblages for paleoclimate interpretation, to geological mapping of faults and folds on a topographic map base, to measurement of stream flow and stream chemistry for environmental assessment. The course will involve a considerable amount of time in the field, with local afternoon trips to multi-day excursions. This is a Geology class that fulfills the prerequisite in the department for all upper-level geology classes and meets the Environmental Science-Geology emphasis requirement for an introductory course. On a typical day the class will meet for morning lecture and afternoon lab; however, a day might equally well be spent entirely in the field for practical experience at deciphering outcrops and embracing real geological problems. The class also meets the goals of the FYE program and emphasizes writing skills in a variety of formats. Writing assignments will include informal journals; short, precise papers; and a major research paper. Verbal communication skills will be developed through persuasive debate on the outcrop, discussion of the philosophical readings, group investigation activities, and research presentations. A two-block course with one instructor in each block. |
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German William Davis and Richard Koc: GR 120 "German Language and Culture" (Fulfills one unit of Language/Humanities credit and one unit of Culture/Humanities credit) 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 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 Mitteleurope between East and West, Germany is a striking example through which to explore the issues of the FYE topic of "border 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. A two-block course, with one instructor in each block. |
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History Carol Neel: HY 105 "Civilization in the West" (Fulfills the AP:A requirement; two units of Social Science credit) This course treats the Western past by emphasizing what we have NOT become-the ways in which the past was deeply different from the modern world by which our imaginations are bounded. Drawing heavily from primary texts and images-works created by people who lived long ago, not works written or crafted by moderns about the people of the past, this course asks students to grapple with the ways in which others have invested meaning and beauty in their lives. Sources for Mediterranean antiquity will include Gilgamesh, elements of the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian gospels, and works of classical Greek and Roman mythology and philosophy. Medieval readings will treat visionary experience and secular love, works such as Hildegard's Scivias and the Lais of Marie de France, along with chronicles and cathedrals-that is architecture and glass expressing and eliciting an emotional connection to the divine. As we turn to consideration of the development of modernity, course participants will encounter historical popular culture in works like The Return of Martin Guerre, novels (among them Flaubert's Madame Bovary), and film as pathways, again, to seeing in their own terms what was important, inspiring, and disturbing to the people of the past. A two-block course taught by one instructor. Susan Ashley: HY 104 "Culture, Society and History: The Mediterranean" (Fulfills either the AP:A or AP:B requirement; two units of Social Science credit) 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 Muslims, paying close attention to the ways they imagined the cosmic order and translated these visions of the divine into social and political structures. We'll look at how each saw itself but also how each saw the others. Although often in conflict, these cultures still depended on each other in key ways. We'll examine the interplay of values and ideas as well as the moments of intense confrontation such as the early spread of Islam, 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. A two-block course taught by one instructor. Joy Hall: HY 105 "Civilization in the West" (Fulfills the AP:A requirement; two units of Social Science credit) The goal of this course is to try to make sense of the great sweep of "western" history from the most ancient times to the present. This may seem a daunting task, but we will structure our exploration by focusing on several of the most important and fundamental texts of the ancient world during the first block. Thus, we gain insight into how formative cultures of the Near East interpreted and ordered their world, then clashed and melded to form the great empires of classical Graeco-Roman civilization. In turn, new challenges fashioned a Mediterranean-centered medieval world out of the demise of antiquity. The major topics of our first block include creativity, confrontation, religion, and power structures. In the second block, we will momentarily narrow our focus to Europe with the Renaissance and Reformation, only to broaden it again as European culture extends into much of the world in early modernity. You will have many opportunities to engage in close reading and discussion of primary literary and philosophical texts, as well as to explore films and research projects, in both blocks. The texts range from the Bible and ancient classics to thinkers such as Luther, Marx, and Nietzsche. We will delve into fundamental questions about belief and power, class, national differentiation and conflict. 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. |
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Japanese Joan Ericson: JA 101/JA 250 "Japanese Language and Culture" (Fulfills the AP:B requirement; one unit of Language/Humanities credit and one unit of Culture/Humanities credit) 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 participating in the creation of a Japanese garden on the Colorado College campus. Readings, discussion, and writing assignments on the cultural component will be in English. Student 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 attending the Japanese language Adjunct course from Block 3. A set of linked one-block courses the must be taken together, with a single instructor. |
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Mathematics Marlow Anderson, Jonathan Bredin: NS 121/MA 221 "Bits, Bytes, and Nibbles: An Appetizer for Computer Science" (Two units of Natural Science credit) In this course we will look at the role of the computer and information technologies in our society, and also learn programming in the modern object-oriented language Java. The course will involve an exciting mix of reading, writing and computer programming. Over the past twenty years, information technologies have presented many conundrums to society, which we will encounter and discuss in this class. For example, does the Internet nourish freedom of speech by allowing anyone with computer access to publish ideas, or does it exacerbate division among economic classes? The ease with which ideas are exchanged on the Internet raises important questions about intellectual property: Who owns ideas? Should the flow of information be controlled, and if so, by whom and how? There are many technical questions, too. How can we protect privacy through cryptography or other security measures? How do businesses conduct secure transactions? The course will interweave the discussion of these important questions with a careful introduction to computer programming in the Java language, where we will consider such topics as control structures, objects, arrays, files, string processing, and networking. Many of the Java programming assignments will reinforce or implement ideas from the discussion topics. The course will be team-taught during the first block by Marlow Anderson and Jonathan Bredin of the mathematics department, and by Jonathan alone during the second block. The only prerequisite is high school algebra; no previous experience with computer programming is assumed. This FYE course will be at Baca September 8-16, 2003. A set of linked one-block courses that must be taken together, with two instructors in Block 1 and one instructor in Block 2. |
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Music Ofer Ben Amots and Dan Raffin: MU 228/AS 110 "Music and Movies: The Order and Chaos of 'Temporal Arts'" (Two units of Humanities credit) The first block focuses on music. The very essence of music is creating order from the chaos of natural sound. The development of instruments, notation methods and systems of tuning enables the musician to control timbres and to organize them according to refined musical concepts. The past one thousand years have witnessed the dramatic development of Western art music, from its monophonic origins in Gregorian chant through the intricate forms of polyphony cultivated in the sixteenth century, and up to the complex and conceptual music of the twentieth century. In the first block, the course will trace the changes in musical style throughout the millennium, with emphasis on the creative use of chaos and order by twentieth-century composers. In addition, we will examine the special connection between music and literature in genres like song, lied, and opera. The second block focuses on art. We take for granted the complex multimedia of the present: moving images and sound are fused in seamless events of great emotive and communicative power. But this seemingly given world is in fact elaborately constructed of fragments and the refinement of it only recent. There was much debate over its significance at its emergence at the beginning of the twentieth century, and it continues to be questioned by various artists and thinkers. This course will examine the history and theory of the combination of moving images and sound. We will look into the genesis of multimedia and the motives for its creation, the debates over its merit, and the future of such ventures. We will also explore the structure of image/sound relations through analysis of examples and the creation of short films using the computer. A set of linked one-block courses that must be taken together, with one instructor in each block. |
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Philosophy Jeremy Bendik-Keymer: PH 203 "Citizens of the World" (Two units of Humanities credit) The chaos of our current world depends strongly on the boundaries that keep human beings from each other. These boundaries are primarily economic, political, and religious, and involve historical and contemporary inequality, oppression, and war. Yet all cultures have categories of common humanity, and one of the deepest ideals of Western culture is the ideal of being a citizen of the world. In this course, we explore philosophical, literary, and other sources from the past and present on being a member of humanity or a citizen of the world. Both Western and non- Western sources are included. Topics studied include the universality of artistic creation or of love, duties to others around the world, the complex problems of contemporary global life, and the Enlightenment. A two block discussion-based course, with a single instructor. Development of expository writing will be stressed. |
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Physics Barbara Whitten and Stephanie DiCenzo: PC 123/124 "Revolutions in Physics: The Copernican Revolution and Relativity" (Fulfills the AP:A requirement; two units of Natural Science and lab credit) 'Tis all in pieces, all cohaerence gone; All just supply, and all Relation: Prince, Subject, Father, Sonne, are things forgot, For every man alone thinkes he hath got To be a Phoenix, and that there can bee None of that kinde, of which he is, but hee.'In 1543 Copernicus took the earth from its central position in the world and replaced it with the sun. By 1611 Galileo had turned his telescope to the heavens and found them as changeable and imperfect as the earth. Because the structure of the universe was intimately woven together with religion and social structure, these changes in the physical world shook the foundations of our relations with each other and with God. John Donne's poetic response illustrates the disorientation of losing your place in the world. Just what was the world in 1611, and how was it changing? We read from Plato, Copernicus, Galileo and Newton to sample the way thinkers have thought about the heavens from the ancient Greeks to the eighteenth century. We read Donne and others to sample the cultural response to the Scientific Revolution. We also repeat experiments and astronomical observations (with CC's 16" telescope) on which these models of the solar system were based. Newton's mechanical universe, with its particles moving through a Euclidian three-dimensional space, exerting forces on each other, and marking time with a universal clock, dominated physical thought for more than two centuries. However, early in the twentieth century questions about the propagation of light spurred Einstein to revise our ideas of space and time radically. In his theory, moving clocks tick slower than stationary clocks, and moving objects measure short, at least in their direction of motion. Weirder yet, moving sets of clocks cannot be synchronized to the satisfaction of all observers. How can we possibly believe such things? If we can accept this, what else can we, or must we, accept? We read from Einstein, Picasso, Woolf and others to learn the elements of the theory of relativity and the relation of the theory to its cultural context, especially in art and literature. A set of linked one-block courses that must be taken together, with one instructor each block. 'Henceforth space by itself, and time by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality.' |
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Political Science Robert Lee: HY 200/PS 203 "The Search for Islamic Order: Yesterday and Today" (Fulfills the AP:B requirement; two units of Social Science credit) '....The myth, perpetrated by Muslims and non-Muslims alike, is that "Islam" and the Islamic communities represent one community, one imma. This has never been true of the Islamic world since the years of the first caliphs...'In the first block, the course examines the historical development of four versions of Islamic order: The first emerged from the chaos of the 7th century under the leadership of Muhammad in Mecca and Medina. The Medina State, driven by the spirit of the Prophet himself, continues to represent a Muslim ideal. As the Islamic empire grew to encompass a belt of land from Iran to Morocco and Spain, it developed a new version of order grounded in law and orthodoxy, the order of the High Caliphates. Still a third version of Islamic order, this one more spiritual than worldly at the outset, emerged in the form of Sufism, the mystical movement within Islam. The Ottoman Empire, which dominated a major portion of the Islamdom from the 14th century until the 20th constitutes the fourth version of Islamic order considered in the first block. The second block confronts the questions of order and chaos in the contemporary Muslim Middle East, examining questions such as 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 Islamic world, the relationship of Islam to human rights, democracy, war, and violence more generally. A set of linked one-block courses (one credit in History, the other in Political Science) that must be taken together, with a single instructor. |
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Psychology John Horner and Kristi Erdal: PY 101 "Introduction to Psychology: Enduring Ideas and Present Principles" (Fulfills the AP:A requirement and the laboratory/field requirement for the Natural Sciences; two units of Natural Science credit) This course traces the historical development of Psychology as a science. Using primary sources from Aristotle to Freud to Sacks, psychological concepts, as well as popular misconceptions, will be traced to their current understanding. The first block will focus on learning, cognition, perception, and social psychology, and introduce students to the methods psychologists use to investigate phenomena, such as date collection, analysis, presentation and interpretation. The second block will focus on neuroanatomy, development, testing, psychopathology and the mechanisms of licit and illicit drugs. A two-block course with one instructor in each block. |
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Russian/Eurasian Studies/Political Science Alexei Pavlenko and John Simons: RU 101/RS 200: "Russia, Language, Literature, Film" (Fulfills one unit of AP:B; one unit of Humanities credit and one unit of Social Science credit) A two-block integrated study of the Russian language in the context of Russian literary and cinematic masterpieces. An overview of Russian cultural history through film (Andrei Rublyov, Mother, Earth, October, Man with a Movie Camera, War and Peach, Strike, Battleship Potyomkin, Ballad of a Soldier, Soliaris, Taxi Blues, and Prisoner of the Mountains). Readings will be taken from among Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Babel, Nabokov, Solzhenitsyn, and Zinik. This course will be an introduction to the basics of film and literary analysis. Russian culture has been perceived by the West as the Other and - often simultaneously- as the repository of the Western civilization's most cherished values. From Christianity to Marxism to capitalism, Russia - its history and art-has embodied the crucial conflicts which characterize modern mentality. In spite, and sometimes because, of the Bolshevik Revolution and the Cold War, much of the European and American intellectual landscape has been shaped by the Russian writers, film directors, artists and composers. Such defining cultural structures as existentialism, and formalism are unthinkable without Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Mayakovsky, Einsenstein, and Nabokov. In this course we integrate the cultural and linguistic 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 Dead Souls, Crime and Punishment or The Devils (The Possessed), War and Peace or Anna Karenina, Fathers and Sons, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, stories by Chekhov and Nabokov, poetry by Anna Akhmatova, Osip Mandelstam, and Vladimir Mayakovsky. It is our hope that students will emerge from this course with a more profound understanding of the Russian culture and will be inspired to become proficient speakers of Russian. A team-taught set of linked one-block courses that must be taken together. One grade will be given for the course as a whole. |
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Sociology Gail Murphy-Geiss: SO 100/235 "Family and Social Change" (Fulfills one unit of AP:B credit; two units of Social Science credit) 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. This course fulfills the "Thinking Sociologically" requirement for sociology majors. A set of linked one-block courses that must be taken together, with a single instructor. |
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Spanish Salvatore Bizzarro: SP 304/305 "Spanish Language and Culture" (Fulfills the AP:B requirement; two units of language credit) The first block emphasizing speaking and the second emphasizing writing; these two blocks are together a language and area program. The study of a foreign area without mastery of the language of that area is comparable to trying to study engineering without mathematics. Conversely, to study Spanish in the contemporary world as it has been taught traditionally-solely in terms of grammar and literature- is comparable to confining the teaching of mathematics to algebra, on the grounds that calculus is rather difficult. These two course will show that mastery of a foreign language involves more than the ability to decipher a written text. Spanish 304 begins with oral comprehension and encourages the student to speak as much like a native speaker as possible. The class will depend heavily on the small-group format. From the very first day each group of three to four students will be asked to express their ideas over an assignment, discussing varied topics such as machismo, the battle of the sexes, capital punishment, abortion, religion, astrology, and the differences between the Latin world and the United States, asking what do people in these different societies think? Spanish 304 purports to be a course of conversation and controversy. We shall make use of the Internet as well as newspapers and magazines, while reading literature that addresses the aforementioned topics as well as other topics that make the news. The materials used will be practical, the conversational approach simple and, hopefully, interesting, as students acquire a greater understanding of the language they have studied and its cultural aspects. Spanish 304 will lay the foundation for advanced study of the language that will begin in block 2 with Spanish 305. Spanish 305 will be more of a writing course. While the conversation and the oral practice will continue as an integral part of the two-block offerings, advanced composition is a primary requirement through the study of Hispanic literary texts and taking into account that our studying of an area or region is more cultural than geographic. Students will be encouraged to write papers in Spanish that present arguments and positions aimed at persuading and analyzing, while gathering and interpreting others' points of view. Spanish 305 is aimed at critical thinking, fostering progress in oral and written communication. While it is true that "language opens the door to culture," it is equally true that without the understanding of the culture of the area where the language is spoken speaking and understanding are superficial at best. In both courses we will be studying grammar inductively; i.e., we shall speak first and then learn why we are speaking in a certain grammatical context, with each class reviewing the usage of a particular grammatical point informally presented in the material and the text used. Grammar and vocabulary will be woven into exercises whenever possible, as we shall make exclusive use of Spanish to avoid translations and English in the classroom. Thus this First Year Experience in Spanish language and culture will depart somewhat from the Spanish you have learned traditionally in the classroom, will challenge you to speak and write about topics of concern in contemporary times, and is intended for students who have successfully completed four or more semesters of high school Spanish. A set of linked one-block courses that must be taken together, taught by one instructor. Prerequisite: At least two years of high school Spanish. |
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Studies in the Humanities Regula Evitt, Michael Grace, Jane Hilberry, Bob McJimsey, and Dick Hilt: HS 120 "Renaissance Culture" (3 blocks) (Fulfills the AP:A requirement; three units of Humanities credit) Block 1: "Community and Individuation of the Self" Regula Meyer Evitt (English/Comp. Lit), Art Historian (New Art Faculty). Block 1 of Renaissance Culture examines the re-ordering of European culture through the lens of classical art and literature from the 12th through 16th centuries. In literature, our readings will include selections from Augustine, Boethius, Marie de France, Troubadour/Trobairitz lyrics, Dante, Chaucer, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Machiavelli, late Medieval Drama, and Marlowe-specifically the impact of their ideas on such fundamental issues as the authority of classical antiquity, the correlated functions of love and political power, the construction of human identity, the cultural implications of increasing urbanization for later Renaissance literature. We will also examine the work of visual artists who, like their literary counterparts, expressed and at the same time gave shape to the principles of the Renaissance across Europe. These artists include Giotto, Brunelleschi, Donatello, Masaccio, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael and others. Block 2: "The Evolution of the Creative Artist" Michael Grace (Music), Jane Hilberry (English). In Block 2, we will look at the way that innovation in the arts, particularly music, was often perceived as threatening to disrupt the 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. We will related music 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 Othello and lyric poetry by Spenser, Shakespeare, Donne, Herbert, Herrick and Milton. Throughout the block, we will consider stylistic and formal similarities between music and literature. Block 3: "Revolution or Reform: How Shall the World Be Ordered" Robert McJimsey (History), Dick Hilt (Physics). Criticism of the established order was especially sharp during the Renaissance. The Reformation, the Wars of Religion and the expansion of Europe overseas demonstrate the conflict and chaos of transition to new ways of viewing the world and our relationships with it and with each other. This block examines these struggles and in particular those writers who kept alive the traditions of Humanist thought and criticism. A team-taught, THREE-block course with two instructors in each block. |
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Women's Studies Eileen Bresnahan and Tonja Olive: WS 110/WS/HS 118 "Sex and Power: An Introduction to Gender's Role in Shaping Self and Society" (One unit of General Studies credit, one unit of Humanities credit; one unit of AP:B credit) In all human societies, gender is an important organizing principle, shaping some of the frontiers and boundaries that confront each of us daily, as individuals and as a member of various social groups. These two linked courses will introduce students to some of the scholarship, the theories, and the debates that presently surround the attempt to understand gender, both in its present-day expressions and as historically organized. We will explore the ways in which gender forms an important aspect of our social existence as specific, embodied people living in a diverse social world, as well as how gender expresses and interacts with larger social, ideological, and cultural structures to produce normative regimes with which all of us constantly contend. The first block course, Introduction to Women's Studies, will provide students with the critical thinking skills and beginning information necessary to start to engage with the thorough-going and rigorous critique which feminism offers of human social organization. By its nature, feminism's social vision is radical, meaning that it seeks to "go to the root" of the deep structures of organization that create and keep in place women's social subordination. The pursuit of this vision is both intellectually and psychologically demanding, requiring careful study as well as a willingness to "think outside the box" in ways that students may, at least initially, find frightening and even threatening. However, the "pay off"-for those who diligently persevere-is the potential to achieve a transformed, liberatory vision of self and social life. The second course, Gender and Communication, will examine the central role of communication in the shaping and development of gender and sex. The course operates from the position that what we know as reality is constructed, consciously and unconsciously, within a system of power, through our society's use of a shared verbal and nonverbal symbol system. Students will examine different communication contexts and their role in the construction of gender, including family, education and organizational communication; public communication about gender in the media; and the personal and cultural ramifications of miscommunication. A set of linked courses that must be taken together, with one instructor each block; separate grades given for each block. |
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Spring 2004 First Year Experience Courses Biology Tass Kelso and Mark Wilson: BY 105/107 "Biology of the Good, the Bad, and the Tasty: Plants, Microbes and Human Affairs" (Meets the Lab/Field requirement for Natural Sciences and fulfills two introductory units in Biology) This class will combine two introductory Biology courses: Biology of Plants (Block 5) and Biology of Microbes (Block 6) over the two-block linked sequence. We will first examine the fundamentals of plant biology: structure, physiology and ecology of plants as complex organisms. In the following block, we focus on similar questions for diverse prokaryotic and eukaryotic microorganisms including bacteria, viruses and fungi. Throughout these blocks we will stress the interactions of these organisms with humans and their importance for food, medicine, infectious disease and global ecology. Student will learn basic laboratory skills in botany and microbiology, as well as greenhouse and field techniques. Lecture, lab, and discussion. High School biology and Chemistry strongly recommended. A set of linked one-block courses that must be taken together, with one instructor in each block. General Studies Dick Koc and Tonja Olive: GS 101 "Freedom and Authority" (Fulfills the AP:A requirement; two units General College credit) "Freedom and Authority" was the first interdisciplinary course at Colorado College and has been taught her 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 all grapple with these and other questions surrounding the human condition. A two-block course with one instructor in each block; one grade will be given for the course as a whole (for both blocks together). History/Southwest Studies Doug Monroy: HY 104/SW 200 "History, Culture, and Society" (Fulfills either the AP:A or AP:B requirement; two units of Social Science credit) "History, Culture, and Society" will take students from ancient Spain and Mexico to the New World Border. We will begin with Roman Iberia and the pre-European Mediterranean world and with the ancient stone age empires of Meso-America. Then we shall move to Islamic and Medieval Spain and the Spanish explorations and conquests of the Americas. The generation of mestizo culture in colonial Mexico and New Mexico will provide the medium for an in-depth discussion of how "race" is constructed. The Latin American fascination with the ideas of the Enlightenment will be contrasted with how those ideas took root in France and the United States as each experienced revolution or wars of independence. In this context of the Enlightenment we will then examine notions of servitude-slavery in Brazil, the Caribbean, and the United States, and peonage in Mexico-alongside the rise of Capitalism. Late 19th century ideas about protective tariffs and laissez faire capitalism as engines of development will then be investigated. The 20th century witnessed great peasant revolutions: we shall examine Russia and Mexico in tumultuous revolution. The Stalinist degradation of Marxism will be contrasted with New Deal Liberalism and the idea of state involvement in economic development. The course will then journey into the post-modern world of NAFTA, free trade, "border games" of drugs and immigration, and hip-hop Indians in Mexico and Los Angeles. A two-block course taught by one instructor. Mathematics Marlow Anderson and Travis Kowalski: MA 161 "Mathematics in a Cultural Context" (Fulfills the AP:C requirement; two units of Natural Science credit) '...as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name.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 precalculus, and hence will be well prepared for future courses such as MA 126 or CH 107. A two-block course with one instructor in each block. Psychology Carole Martin: PY 100/ PY 178 "An Introduction to Psychology and Its Implications for Children in Contemporary Society" (Two units of Natural Science credit, one unit of which receives a Natural Science lab credit) These two linked blocks will provide an exploration of universals and individual differences in human behavior. Students will discover that through a process of systematic observation and analysis, behavior that may have at first appeared chaotic or impenetrable assumes meaning and order. The first block provides an overview of psychological science from biobehavioral and sociobehavioral perspectives. Topics include the brain, perception, learning, intelligence, development, abnormal behavior, motivation and social behavior. The course provides an introduction to methods of scientific inquiry and students will participate in labs that elucidate the course content. This course fulfills the entry requirement for the psychology major. The second block focuses on children in context, exploring topics in applied developmental psychology. Students will read primary research materials and learn to critically evaluate popular claims about child development. The relationship between scientific evidence and social policy decisions will be examined. A set of linked one-block courses that must be taken together, with a single instructor. |
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The Point System for Bidding on Courses at Pre-registration Students pre-register for the following year's courses during the Spring semester. Each student receives 10 points per block and a total of 80 points to bid on their courses during pre-registration. Every student has the same number of points to work with. This allows every student to have the same chance to bid on a course. If the number of points bid on a course does not lead to the enrollment of the student in the class, the student will be placed on the waiting list for the class. Things to remember about the point system and pre-registration:
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