Special Topics Courses

ARTH 140 Introductions to the Art and Architecture of Latin America

This introductory survey will study the art and architecture of present-day Latin America from pre-Columbian times through the twentieth century. The course will be divided into three chronological sections: Pre-Columbian, Iberian Colonial, and post-Independence/Modern. Though the emphasis of the course will be on the built environment, art and sculpture will be discussed along with the evolution of urban centers. Students may choose to write research papers on painting, sculpture, or architecture. The main objective of this course is to help students develop the historical knowledge and visual literacy that will better enable them to critically interpret the art and architecture of Mexico, Central, and South America.

Certain themes recur in the course of Latin American art and architectural history: the primacy of both urban and natural landscapes in shaping identity, settlement, ritual, and worldview; the appropriation of imagery and architecture to represent and promote corporate identities (race, ethnicity, class, trade, place of origin) and/or nation; the complicated connection between religion and politics; and the separations between public and private realms, between elites and commoners, and between center and periphery.

Other areas of inquiry will include the continuance of indigenous traditions and cultural syncretism during the colonial period; a revival and reinterpretation of pre-Columbian forms and iconography in the twentieth century; an ambivalence toward European practices and aesthetics notable intermittently from the late colonial period through Modernism; and the practice of art and architecture from the pre-Columbian period through the development of various art academies and schools beginning in the late colonial/post-Independence periods.

10363 ARTH 180 Special Topics in Art History: Sex, Sexuality, and Gender in Italian Art

This course examines how questions of gender and gender roles, sexual practices and preferences, and theoretical writings on sex and sexuality influenced the form and production of art in Italy between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. Themes include gender stereotypes and the rhetorical power of art; male and female portraiture; challenges and opportunities for women artists and patrons; sexuality and the Renaissance artist; the representation of “good” and “bad” women; Petrarchism and ideals of female beauty; the visual rhetoric of masculinity; male and female nudes; images of rape as metaphors for political authority; and erotica. Students will engage with a range of theoretical and methodological approaches, including iconography; feminist theory; psychoanalysis; and semiotics. Overall, students are invited to think about the many ways in which gender and sexuality provided a visual vocabulary for constructing and enforcing Renaissance political and social structures.

10338/10342  CS 180/280 01 ST: Network Security
In this course we will study the threats against computer networks and the various techniques used to provide computer and network security. We will cover some networking principles, and the most important security issues such as authentications, encryption, message authentication codes, and hash functions. Students will learn to detect and respond to network attacks. Undergraduate students write survey papers on a specific topic. Graduate students conduct small-scale research where they identify a problem, execute research, and write up and present the results.

Prerequisite: CS 064

10538/10619 DNC 014/114 Techniques in International Dance Styles: Dancehall
Dancehall is a popular Jamaican music and dance genre. Within the Dancehall genre, music and dance are intrinsically linked and the pulse and rhythm of the music have a reciprocal relationship with the movements that accompany it. This class will explore popular Dancehall dance styles and embrace the improvisational quality of the dance that is fundamental to the Jamaican dance form. The class will mainly focus on the styles that are linked to the male and female dancers and also explore the historical and social contexts of the Jamaican dance aesthetic. 

10620/10621 EDUC 180A/280A ST: Urban Education
This course focuses on various perspectives on urban education, conditions for teaching and learning in urban public schools, current theories of pedagogy in urban classrooms along with a close examination of a few representative and critical issues. While our focus is on schools in the United States, we will broaden our discussion at times to examine the same issues from an international perspective. The course is designed around the following themes (1) perspectives on urban education, (2) the broader urban context of K-12 schooling, (3) teaching and learning in urban settings, and (4) responses to the persistent challenges in urban schools. These themes should provide multiple lenses with which to explore the complexities of urban education. We will also examine major theoretical perspectives on schooling and various proposals by researchers and policymakers that address particular challenges in urban education.

We begin an examination of urban schools from a range of perspectives including students, teachers, and researchers. The next section of the course provides an overview of historical, political, economic, legal, sociological, and anthropological frameworks for understanding urban education. Subsequently, we look more closely at pedagogical issues addressing youth engagement and curriculum development. We address several key and persistent issues in urban education such as school violence and language issues. Finally, drawing on our developing conceptual frameworks, we examine some of the current responses to the challenges of urban education. Moving between macro-examinations of the conditions of urban schooling and close up studies of particular schools, we will look at contested terrains in which social issues such as inequality, discrimination, and cultural pluralism are being debated and challenged.

Work for the course includes observation and inquiry in a range of local educational settings. Students will produce a few short reflective memos and a final portfolio that ties together course reading, discussion, and investigations in local community settings.

10515 EDUC 180 01 ST: Literacy and Youth Culture
This course is designed to provide graduate students, undergraduates and practicing teachers with a lens to explore the interconnectedness of popular culture and literacy practices in the lives of contemporary adolescents. Many students demonstrate a complex range of literacy skills in their lives that result in social success outside of the classroom setting. However, many of these same students—as well as many educators—are unaware of how those same skills can be applied in school.

The overall goals of the course are to provide participants with background on issues of contemporary popular culture in the lives of adolescents and offer an introduction to qualitative field research skills for purposes of curriculum development for use in schools. In part these goals will be achieved by raising perplexing theoretical questions, discussing controversial educational issues, and challenging course participants' pre-existing viewpoints. Students will be required to participate in class discussions, complete writing assignments, and give presentations in the classroom. During the semester, everyone is encouraged to be open to dialogue and varying perspectives.

As a result of this course, students will be able to:

1) Articulate a theoretically-grounded and inclusive approach to literacy that takes into account the contemporary contexts of the lives of adolescents.

2) Analyze race, class, and gender issues as manifested through certain forms of contemporary popular culture (sport and hip hop in particular).

3) Employ basic qualitative field research methods to gather information on the literacy practices and popular culture preferences of students.

4) Develop instructional strategies that will integrate dimensions of popular culture and literacy in the classroom, in order to improve the teaching and learning of diverse literacy skills.

10191/10194  ENG 180/280 01 ST: Before the Closet: The Queer Premodern
Queer theory has tended to focus largely on modern texts, perhaps in part because of Foucault's famous declaration that homosexuality is a nineteenth-century invention. But if we accept Foucault's premise, what might queerness look like in the premodern period?   As we will see this semester, sexuality itself is a queer concept during this time. It is extremely fluid, and intersects, often in unexpected ways, with other identities and realms, including race, national identity, class, religion, and gender. Sexuality serves as a regulatory device in discussions of language, money and gender in the period and, simultaneously, slips from those regulatory regimes.

In the beginning of the semester we will read theories of sexuality (premodern and some modern) in order to create a vocabulary and a theoretical foundation for thinking about queerness in a premodern age. We will then turn to a wide range of premodern texts. Texts may include: Peter Damian's The Book of Gomorrah (a twelfth-century text that some scholars consider critical to the invention of the sodomite as Foucault understands it); The Ancrene Wisse (a handbook for enclosed nuns that might disclose part of the effaced history of lesbian desire); Alan de Lille's The Complaint of Nature (which uses sodomy as a trope for bad grammar) ; the anonymous French romance Silence (which features a transgendered protagonist); Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; cross-dressing saints lives; and Chaucer's The Pardoner's Tale.

We will see that the idea of queerness can serve as a deconstructive tool, enriching our understanding of early literature. In turn, premodern sexualities challenge us to reexamine some contemporary theories and assumptions about the history of sexuality and desire.

Undergraduate students will have the opportunity to write three short papers (around 6-8 pages) or one short paper and one longer paper (15-20). Graduate students will write one short paper and one longer essay (20-25 pages). No prior knowledge of queer theory or medieval literature is required. Do note that there will be a few readings in Middle English, but it is fun (I promise)!

10206/10208  ENG 180A280A 01 ST:Language, Rhetoric, Politics &Social Change
This course will focus on advanced critical writing and speaking skills as well as the analytical study of language in a variety of media and public discourse. We will explore the evolution of rhetoric and rhetorical theory in English, the ways in which language use shapes political and social debate, as well as perceptions of and reactions to political and social issues. We will evaluate effective communication strategies in speech and writing ranging from investigative reporting to advertising. Our analyses will include current public policy discussions and political debates.

10209/10211  ENG 180B/280B 01 St: The Craft of Nonfiction - Magazine and Digital Storytelling
In this craft course we will study how exploring the exterior landscape – through observation, interviews, and other kinds of information gathering – can strengthen a writer's voice. The aim is to have fun looking outward as well as within, and to take risks with new approaches, styles and technologies. We will consider the narrative demands of writing for different audiences and for different media, and we will pay particular attention to story structure within a tight (short-form) framework.

As an integral part of this craft course we will raise questions about what is happening to nonfiction writing on the electronic frontier and in what ways some writers are thinking differently about their craft. What new skills might a writer embrace? We'll explore and critique a range of multimedia approaches, including video stories, blogs, podcasts and book trailers.  What works? What fails, and why?

Students will critique a wide variety of work. They will develop several shorter pieces and one final project that will employ what the journal Creative Nonfictions calls "that unique blend of experience, perception and accurate journalistic detail that uniquely defines our genre."

No prior technological skills are required.

Additionally, qualified students may, with the permission of the professor, enroll for an extra .25 credit to experiment with and create their own digital/multimedia narratives.

10214/10227  ENG 180C280C 01 ST: Arts, Educ, Thry &Pedagogy
This course continues the study of arts education theory and pedagogy by focusing on the practical elements of teaching the literary arts in diverse community settings. This practicum component allows time and space for student-teachers to implement their proposed workshops and continue building relationships with community organizations. Students will work closely with the course instructor to ensure effective delivery of their projects.

*Note: This course is a 0.5 credit; it meets three times during the semester and includes a required teaching component. Students may register for this course twice. Prerequisite: Students must have completed Eng 180E or 280E offered Fall 2011.

10293 ENG 280D 01 ST: Oral Traditions
In this course we will explore a range of orally transmitted literary forms produced by a diversity of U.S. regional, cultural, and ethnic groups. We will access these texts in manuscript (written) form, as well as through video and audio recordings. The following is a partial list of the orally transmitted forms we will be addressing: the Blues, African American Spirituals, African American Folktales, Appalachian Jack Tales, Native American Folklore, the Toasts, Signifying and the Dozens, Rap, Children's jump rope and game songs, urban legends. Students will have the opportunity to identify, collect, and analyze orally transmitted forms that are being produced today.

10622 HIST 180 ST: China and US in the 20th Century
Meets the Historical Perspective Gen Ed requirement

The relationship between China and the U.S. in the 20th Century has historically been a relationship of extremes. From China as an uncivilized, xenophobic land in the beginning of the century to China as a close ally in WWII, from China as part of the evil enterprise of world communism to China as a strategic counterweight to Soviet influence a la Nixon, this relationship saw a series of dramatic swings that seems bewildering and even incomprehensible at first glance. This course approaches this relationship in two inter-connected spheres of engagement. We begin by examining state-to-state policy considerations and interests from the Open Door to Tiananmen Square in 1989. We then query how this history of state-to-state encounters can be further understood in the broader and parallel context of cultural construction and social perception, e.g., the interplay between religion and policy, China and the U.S. in popular imagination, and China as a liberal myth.

10427/10428  MATH 180/280 01 ST: Topology
In mathematics, topology is essentially geometry without a notion of distance. The main goal of topology is to understand properties of an object that are intrinsic to its shape –properties that occur regardless of size and are not disturbed by any amount of stretching or bending (but not breaking, tearing or puncturing). Compare a standard coffee cup to a doughnut, and you'll notice that they both have exactly one hole through which one might stick a finger. If the coffee cup were made of some malleable material, rather than fired clay, we can imagine gently pulling the bottom of the part of the cup that holds the coffee up, and then pushing this around the handle until the cup resembled the doughnut. Because of this, a topologist sees the coffee cup and the doughnut as essentially the "same." Of course, in everyday life, the rigid shape of the coffee cup is important, since you can't very well drink from a donut, but a topologist seeks to understand coarser qualities as a first step towards understanding their physical geometry. In this course, students will be introduced to the basic ideas and tools that topologists use to distinguish shapes.

Prerequisite: MATH 141 or consent of instructor

Meets the following Gen Ed requirement (Quan. & Comp. Reasoning)

10396 PPOL 180 01 ST: Women and Politics
Students will explore the challenges and opportunities to women's political participation in the U.S.  We begin by looking at the history of women's participation as voters, candidates, and elected officials, examine the difference gender makes in terms of public policy, then turn to the mechanics of electoral politics and how these interact with gender.  Students will hear from women involved in politics in a variety of roles, as candidates, elected officials, and campaign consultants. Students will develop both theoretical and practical knowledge.

10288 SOC 180A 01 ST: Introduction to Social Network Analysis

How connected are the 6,970,501,381 people on the planet?  How does contagion work?  Does "networking" really help you find a job?  How many "degrees of separation" are you from "perfect strangers"?  What's the best way to deal with a terrorist organization that's not really an organization?  Do all the metaphorical uses of the word "web" describe, essentially, the same phenomenon?  Which of your Facebook friends know one another and what does this say about you?  Did Twitter make a difference in Arab spring?  Why are sociologists, physicists, and primatologists all using the same tools?   This course will introduce you to the new science that allows us to answer questions like these.

In both the behavioral and natural sciences, interest in social network analysis has exploded in recent years.   We use it to study friendship formation, peer influence, marketing, career mobility, social movements, socioeconomic inequality, organizational competition, the emergence of markets, immigration, economic development, international trade, diffusion of innovations, crime, epidemiology.

In this interdisciplinary, undergraduate‐level course, students will learn the theoretical foundations, methods for collecting data, and the analytical/computational tools needed to carry out a network analysis project along with considering ethical and legal implications of network research.