Fall 2019 Offerings
ASIAN STUDIES
ASIA 399 Asian Studies Capstone
Dr. Elisabeth Wengler, TR, 2:40
In this Asian Studies capstone, students will write a paper that showcases their understanding of the Asian Studies field by focusing in-depth on one topic selected in consultation with the course instructor and others.
ART
ART 240F Photography in China (FA)
Dr. Carol Brash, TR, 2:20, SJU
By the 1840s, the medium of photography had arrived in China. Nearly two centuries later, it is still a powerful and popular medium. This writing and discussion intensive course explores some of the major themes addressed by photographers in China over this long history: the photograph as art, science, document, propaganda, popular culture, memory, identity. It focuses on the history of photography in China, the visual analysis of images, and a discussion of how a viewer’s context plays a role in understanding the works. Although the primary topic is the history of photography as art in China by Chinese artists, the course includes a brief history of photography as art in the west and also examines western photographers who focus on China as a subject. Students will investigate both primary texts (the photographs, writings by photographers and artists, etc.), and secondary texts (scholarly articles and books about the photographs, artists, etc.). Offered periodically.
ART 240H Art History (FA)
Dr. Carol Brash, TR, 10:00, SJU
This course is an introduction to art history through the analysis of major monuments/trends in Asia, Europe, and Colonial America from ca. 1400-1850. As a course covering an extraordinary area and amount of time, it will be impossible to be truly comprehensive; the focus will be on art created by or for the dominant cultural centers of the particular time. Each class period will focus on a number of issues, which will be introduced through specific examples of art. Any object in this survey may be examined from several points of view: as an independent work of art, as an example of a particular style developed within a chronological framework, or as a type which illustrates features associated with a particular style developed within a chronological framework, or as a type which illustrates features associated with a certain locale, country, religious, political, or social context. Art will be compared across cultures as well, either because it arose in response to similar needs or because of interactions between cultures. This course will consider intersections of class, gender, sexuality, religion, and culture.
ENGLISH
ENGL 383 Post Colonial Literature (HM, IC)
Dr. Madhu Mitra, MWF, 9:30, CSB
A study of literature, partly in translation, from African, Asian and the Caribbean countries. The course examines the specific historical and cultural contexts in which these literatures arise. Prerequisite: Sophomore standing.
ENGLISH
ENGL 385K Bollywood & Social Change (IC, HM)
Dr. Madhu Mitra, TR CD Mod (TR, 2:40-4:00/T 4:15-6:00)
This course examines the intimate relationship between the Indian film industry—the largest in the world—and modern Indian society, the largest democracy in the world. Focusing primarily on the Bollywood film industry based in Mumbai (formerly Bombay), we will investigate how commercial cinema has shaped and been shaped by social changes in India, especially in the last three decades. The course will highlight how Bollywood films have addressed contentious topics like national identity, gender injustice, and globalization in contemporary India. Special attention will be given to the economic impact of this $3.2 billion industry. This course (4 credits) contains an international field component and will be taught partly on campus and partly abroad (in India). The first part, taught in the CD Mod of fall 2019, will introduce students to Bollywood cinema and its impact on Indian society. We will watch films (about six or seven) that demonstrate the dynamic connection between popular films and the socio-political climate of a country. Course units will cover the following topics: • Cultural role of Indian cinema in pre-independence India • Social cinema and “nation-building” in post-independence India • The emergence of “Bollywood” in the 1990s; “Bollywood” cinema as consumerist utopia • From Mother India to Miss India to #MeToo: the changing role of women in Indian cinema • Bollywood and Social Justice
ETHICS (ES)
ETHS 390-03A: Ethics in War
Dr. Christi Siver, TR, 2:20, SJU
If General Sherman was right that "war is hell," the concept of ethics seems completely irrelevant. However, as human society has evolved, numerous politicians, philosophers, and religious figures have agreed on the need for an ethics in war, even if they have not agreed on the content of those ethics. Students will be introduced to formal ethical frameworks and discover the dilemmas they encounter when applying these frameworks to real world situations. Students will compare how these ethical frameworks overlap and diverge from political values. We will debate particular dilemmas in warfare, including which authorities can declare war and when they are justified in doing so, what methods can be used in war, and what obligations both combatants and non-combatants have. Students will work with a basic ethics text supplemented by contemporary articles outlining modern dilemmas related to ethics of war.
GLOBAL BUSINESS LEADERSHIP
GBUS 323 Consumer Behavior
Dr. Tony Yan, T, 6:15, SJU
This course examines the process of consumer decision making in the context of the psychological, social, and ethical environments with special regards to motivation, personality, lifestyle, attitudes, and cultural & social influences. This course emphasizes the use of research and theory in developing marketing strategies. Prerequisite GBUS 321 or permission of instructor.
GBUS 330 International Organization Behavior (IC)
Dr. Debra Pembleton, TR, 12:45, SJU
This course is an inter-disciplinary examination of the international dimensions of organizational behavior. Course content includes topics such as cross-cultural management, cross-cultural communication, and global aspects of leadership, motivation, team management, and decision-making. There are no prerequisites for this course, although the course is limited to juniors and seniors.
HISTORY
HIST 317 China: Global Domination (HM, IC)
Dr. Elisheva Perelman, MWF, 11:50, CSB
How did China become the economic and political success story of the 21st century? This class analyzes China’s rise from the collapse of the imperial system, the failed republic, and the chaos of multiple wars as the nation revises, redefines, and resuscitates communism throughout the last 100 years. This course is suitable for those without a background in history or Asian studies.
HIST 395F: War Games (Remembering and Revising the Pacific War)
Dr. Elisheva Perelman, TR, 2:40, CSB
This class is designed to introduce and hone advanced skills of historical analysis. We will focus our reading, writing, and discussion this semester on the concept of historiography. The term has several interconnected meanings: the philosophy of historical analysis, the study of the history of historical analysis, and the changing ways historians have written about a particular topic over time. We will explore these three principle meanings of historiography as we read about, write about, and discuss how historians have interpreted and debated Japanese involvement in the Second Sino-Japanese War, World War II, and its aftermath.
HONORS
HONR 350U Why Travel? (IC)
Dr. Madhu Mitra, TR, 9:55, CSB
Responding to this question, the noted travel writer Pico Iyer has said, “We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next, to find ourselves.” But how might that happen? Since the end of the nineteenth century, our experience of travel has increasingly been shaped by an enormously lucrative tourism industry. We see and experience what profit-driven tour developers want us to see and experience. Then we go back for more. We look for ease and convenience, having long forgotten the etymological connection between “travail” and travel. Iyer’s comment is a timely reminder of the mindfulness that could (should?) be a part of our experience of travel. This course is an attempt to recuperate that mindfulness. How does travel affect us? This is the central question around which this course is organized. Taking a historical view of both the concept and the experience of travel, we will focus on what happens to our sense of ourselves and our world when we travel. The aim is to understand the motives, the enabling conditions (cultural and socio-economic), and the consequences of travel. Conceived in the spirit of T.S. Eliot’s famous comment that travel leads us back to the place we started from and enables us to see it “for the first time,” this course will examine not only the how travel can familiarize the strange, but—perhaps more importantly—how it can de-familiarize the known. The result, I hope, will give us a new sense of what it means to be a worldly person: not simply one who has seen the world, but one who has learned to see one’s own place from the perspective of others. Our readings will include a history of travel (Eric Zuelow, A History of Modern Tourism), some philosophy of travel (selected chapters from George Santayana’s The Philosophy of Travel, and Alain de Botton’s Art of Travel), and ancient and modern travel accounts. We will start with the The Odyssey and end with . . . I haven’t decided yet. Perhaps Jamaica Kincaid’s A Small Place, a book that excoriates seekers of the sun-drenched, fun-filled vacation and lays bare the dissembling, exploitative underbelly of the global tourism industry. In between we will read excerpts from the writings of early travelers like Faxian (4th C), Xuanzang (7th C), and Ibn Battuta (14th C); selected portions of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s Turkish Embassy Letters, 1716-18 (published in 1763), Mary Wollstonecraft’s Letters Written in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark (1796), and Mark Twain’s Innocents Abroad (1869). We will read Che Guevara’s Motorcycle Diaries (first published in 1995) and Amitav Ghosh’s In an Antique Land (1993) in their entirety. And because not all travel is voluntary, we will also read selected chapters of The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789) and some more recent accounts of forced migration.
POLITICAL SCIENCE
POLS 121 Introduction to International Relations (IC)
Dr. Christi Siver, MWF, 11:30
Students learn about global issues through different theoretical lenses, including realism and liberalism. Using these lenses, students investigate international security, civil conflict, economic interactions, and the influence of globalization. They also examine the influence of important actors in the international arena, including states, intergovernmental organizations, and non-governmental organizations. Students examine their understandings of culture and how it shapes understanding of concepts like human rights. This broad overview helps students have a better understanding of the world around them and how their worldview shapes their perceptions of international events.
POLS 358B Ethics in War
Dr. Christi Siver, TR, 2:20, SJU
If General Sherman was right that "war is hell," the concept of ethics seems completely irrelevant. However, as human society has evolved, numerous politicians, philosophers, and religious figures have agreed on the need for an ethics in war, even if they have not agreed on the content of those ethics. Students will be introduced to formal ethical frameworks and discover the dilemmas they encounter when applying these frameworks to real world situations. Students will compare how these ethical frameworks overlap and diverge from political values. We will debate particular dilemmas in warfare, including which authorities can declare war and when they are justified in doing so, what methods can be used in war, and what obligations both combatants and non-combatants have. Students will work with a basic ethics text supplemented by contemporary articles outlining modern dilemmas related to ethics of war.
THEOLOGY
THEO 365 Islam (TU, IC)
Dr. Jon Armajani, TR, 1:05, CSB
This course explores the history of Islam and its interpretations, as well as doctrines and practices among Muslims in various parts of the world. It examines the Quran and Hadith, and topics related to women and gender, Islamic law, and Islam and politics, and it examines the relationship between Islam and the Judeo-Christian tradition. Prerequisite: THEO 111 or HONR 240A
THEO 369B Modern Islamic Political Movements (TU, IC)
Dr. Jon Armajani, TR, 2:40, CSB
After providing an introduction to the beliefs, practices, and history of Islam, this course will analyze some of the relationships between Islam and politics in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries among Islamist (or “fundamentalist Islamic groups”) in the Middle East, South Asia, and other parts of the world. Specifically, the course will examine the histories, ideologies, and structures of groups. This course will examine the religious, theological, and political, foundations of these groups while analyzing their work in education, literacy, social service to people in many sectors of societies (including the underprivileged), religious and political instruction, and community-building. The course will also explore the various perspectives of members of these groups and movements toward peace and violence as well as their religiously- and politically-based reasons for attacking various targets. Finally, the course will compare and contrast those Islamist trends with those represented by some liberal Muslims. Prerequisite THEO 111 or HONR 240A