Fall 2013 Benjamin Franklin Seminars
BENF-099 (Independent Study)
BENF-099
Does not count towards the BFS seminar requirement.
Benjamin Franklin Seminars (MED)
Infectious Diseases
BFMD-073-301
TR 4:00 PM-5:30 PM
Helen Conrad Davies
Special requirements
Juniors and seniors only; all students need permission of the instructor, Dr. Helen Davies. ALL students must send Helen Davies
an e-mail message explaining their background and why they want to take the course.
This course will examine the interactions between human beings, their organs and cells, and various infectious agents such as bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites. The biological, societal and historical factors influencing these interactions will be analyzed and emerging infectious diseases will be particularly studied. Important infectious pathogenic agents will be surveyed in terms of their physiological functions, properties that permit them to be pathogens, pathogenesis of infections, clinical pictures of the disease states, therapeutic agents, and methods of prevention of infection. Each student will choose an infectious disease, and make an oral and written presentation on it and in this way will learn how to keep up with the topic of infectious diseases.
Biology
Humans in Microbial World
BIOL-011-301
MW 3:30 PM-5:00 PM
Dustin Brisson
Sector V—all Classes
Microbes are a fundamental part of life on this planet. This course will explore the causes and consequences of the distribution and abundance of microbes (microbial ecology) as well as microbial evolution on human health and disease risk. We will address the interplay between human society and microbial ecology and evolution in shaping disease risk and directing scientific study. This course will apply concepts from basic biology, ecology, and evolution to study infectious microbes as living creatures.
Cinema Studies
Cinema & Globalization
CINE-392-401, Cross Listed with: ARTH-391-401; COML-391-401; ENGL-392-401
TR 3:00 PM-4:30 PM
Rita Barnard
BFS Sector III
In this course, we will study a number of films (mainly feature films, but also a few documentaries) that deal with the complicated nexus of issues that have come to be discussed under the rubric of “globalization.” Among these are the increasingly extensive networks of money and power; the transnational flow of commodities and cultural forms; and the accelerated global movement of people whether as tourists or migrants.
At stake, throughout, will be the ways in which our present geographical, economic, social, and political order can be understoodand represented. What new narrative forms have arisen to make sense of contemporary conditions? Films will include: The Year of Living Dangerously, Perfumed Nightmare, Dirty Pretty Things, Monsoon Wedding, Babel, Y Tu Mama Tambien, Maria Full of Grace (or Sugar), In This Word, Darwin’s Nightmare, Black Gold, Life and Debt, The Constant Gardener, Syriana, and Children of Men.
In addition to studying the as signed films carefully, students will also be expected to read a selection of theoretical works on globalization (including Zygmunt Bauman’s Globalization: The Human Consequences) and, where appropriate, the novels on which the assigned films are based. Advance viewing of the films is required. (I find it is best to place films on reserve for students’ use, or to ask that students get their own DVDs from Amazon or Netflix, but screenings can certainly be arranged.) Writing requirements: either a mid term and final paper, or an in class powerpoint presentation and final paper.
Adaptation
CINE-392-402, Cross Listed with: COML-391-402; ENGL-392-402
TR 1:30 PM-3:00 PM
Timothy Corrigan
BFS Sector III
The continual exchanges between literature and film throughout the twentieth century—from the Silent Shakespeares of the 1900s to the 2012 Anna Karenina—have made it virtually impossible to study one without the other. Since 1895 the relationship between the two practices has evolved and changed dramatically, always as a measure of larger cultural, industrial, and aesthetic concerns.
Well beyond questions of textual fidelity, today the debates about the interactions of film and literature have opened and enriched specific textual case studies of adaptation but also pointed to larger concerns and debates which resonate more broadly across both literary studies and film studies: for instance about the cultural and textual terms of authorship, about the economic and political pressures permeating any adaptation, about the literature’s appropriation of cinematic and other media structures.
Indeed, today adaptation studies now move well beyond just literature and film, involving video games, YouTube mash ups, and numerous other textual and cultural activities that invigorate and complicate the importance of theories, practices, and histories of adaptation into the 21st century.
Classical Studies
Classics & American Government
CLST-370-401, Cross Listed with: GAFL-570-401
MW 2:00 PM-3:30 PM
John J. Mulhern
BFS Sector II
This course focuses mainly but not exclusively on the education of James Madison, Father of the Constitution, and its influence on his understanding of government. It begins with a review of the classical works that Madison actually read, drawing on reports of Madison’s early education at home and on records of his activity at the Robertson School in Virginia as well as on what we know of his collegiate education at Princeton, so that students have an opportunity to relive Madison’s classical educational experience. The classical works will be read in translation by the students, though the professor will be prepared to comment on the Greek and Latin texts for those who have an interest.
The course goes on to trace the influence of this education in Madison’s conception of the history of government and in his explanation of the American situation before, during, and after the adoption of the U.S. Constitution. It also covers scholarship on the influence of classical education on others of the American founders, including the antifederalists and Jefferson.
Communications
Global Digital Activism
COMM-270-401, Cross Listed with: SOCI-230-401
W 2:00 PM-5:00 PM
Guobin Yang
BFS Sector I
This seminar examines the forms, causes, and consequences of global digital activism, defined broadly as activism associated with the use of digital media technologies (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, mobile phones, and the Chinese Weibo). The goal is to provide students with a theoretical tool-kit for analyzing digital activism and to develop a critical understanding of the nature of contemporary activism and its implications for global social change. Major cases to be examined include the “Occupy Wall Street” movement in the US, the Arab Spring, the “indignados” protests in Spain, and internet activism in China.
Students are required to conduct primary, hands-on research on a contemporary case (or form) of digital activism and produce a final research paper. This research project may be done individually or in small groups.
Economics
Game Theory
ECON-212-301
TR 12:00 PM-1:30 PM
Andrew Postlewaite
Special requirements
Pre-requisites: ECON 101, MATH 104 and MATH 114 or MATH 115. Permission needed from Economics department (McNeil building)
An introduction to game theory and its applications to Economic analysis. The course will provide a theoretical overview of modern game theory, emphasizing common themes in the analysis of strategic behavior in different social science contexts. The economic applications will be drawn from different areas including trade, corporate strategy and public policy.
English
The Literature & Historiography of National Trauma: Partition & South Asia
ENGL-393-401, Cross Listed with: COML-392-401; ARTH-391-402; SAST-323-401
TR 12:00 AM-1:30 PM
Suvir Kaul
BFS Sector III
This course will examine the ways in which imaginative literature and film have addressed the difficult socio-political issues leading up to, and following from, the independence and partition of British India. Pakistan and India came into being as nation-states in moments of great national trauma: historians have long argued over the process that led up to Partition, and we will study some of these debates, but for the most part we will examine novels, short stories, poetry, and some films to think about the impact of Partition and Independence on communities and individuals in South Asia. In doing so, we will recognize the continuing role played by these events and experiences in shaping the cultural, social, and political realities of contemporary South Asia. We will also learn about the crucial role played by literary and creative texts in making available to us the full dimensions of human tragedy, especially those precipitated when the imperatives of nation-formation redefine the lives of individuals or of sub-national communities.
Introduction to Shakespeare
ENGL-326-301
MW 2:00 PM-3:30 PM
Phyllis Rosalyn Rackin
BFS Sector III
Although Shakespeare’s plays are usually studied as high canonical literature, they were originally written as playscripts designed for the entertainment of a disorderly, socially heterogeneous crowd and the financial profit of the players. This course will attempt to resituate the plays in their original theatrical setting. We will study a representative selection of Shakespeare’s comedies, tragedies, and histories (to be chosen by the class at the first meeting) along with background material on Shakespeare’s theater and his culture.
There will be one or two hour-exams, one or two short papers, and a final exam. In addition, students are expected to meet in study groups outside of class and to make thoughtful, well-informed contributions to the class listserv and discussions.
Reading Joyce
ENGL-358-301
TR 9:00 AM-10:30 AM
Jean-Michel Rabate
BFS Sector III
The ambition of this course is to be able to analyze and understand Ulysses. In order to approach the novel and assess Joyce’s point of departure, we will take a look at Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Exiles. Our main focus will be Ulysses. We will study its main themes, the artist vs. the citizen, Irish nationalism and cosmopolitanism, the role of the city of Dublin in the book, issues of tolerance and religious difference, the aesthetics of everyday life, the place of women, the role of paternity. We will use Declan Kiberd’s Ulysses and Us as a guide through the chapters.
Environmental Studies
Speaking About Lead in West Philadelphia
ENVS-404-401, Cross Listed with: HSOC-404-401
TR 10:30 AM-12:00 PM
Richard Pepino
Sector VII—all classes
Lead poisoning can cause learning disabilities, impaired hearing, behavioral problems, and at very high levels, seizures, coma and even death. Children up to the age of six are especially at risk because of their developing systems; they often ingest lead chips and dust while playing in their home and yards. In ENVS 404, Penn undergraduates learn about the epidemiology of lead poisoning, the pathways of exposure, and methods for community outreach and education. Penn students collaborate with middle school and high school teachers in West Philadelphia to engage middle school children in exercises that apply environmental research relating to lead poisoning to their homes and neighborhoods.
Fine Arts
Open Book
FNAR-238-401
W 4:30 PM-7:30 PM
Sharka Hyland
BFS Sector IV
“Open Book” will focus on visual communication of information. It will address two methods of inquiry and the corresponding means of visual representation: the objective, well structured research of facts and images, and the creative process of their subjective evaluation and restatement. Students will propose a topic based on their area of interest and engage in a focused, semester-long exploration, which they will present in the form of a designed and printed book.
Photographic Thinking
FNAR-239-301
W 4:30 PM-7:30 PM
Nancy Davenport
BFS Sector IV
This course will explore and interrogate the key issues surrounding the medium of photography, led through these questions by lectures, group discussions and assignments/projects-based work. Students will be asked to complete readings & photo assignments, make in-class presentations and complete a final written or photographic project. Students should have a strong interest in art histories, philosophy and should be motivated to work independently & experiment creatively.
French
The Novel and Marriage
FREN-250-401, Cross Listed with: COML-272-401
W 2:00 PM-5:00 PM
Joan Elizabeth Dejean
BFS Sector III and XC—all classes
Historians have argued that early novels helped shape public opinion on many controversial issues. And no subject was more often featured in novels than marriage. In the course of the 18th and the 19th centuries, at a time when marriage as an institution was being radically redefined, almost all the best known novels explored happy as well as unhappy unions, individuals who decided not to marry as well as those whose lives were destroyed by the institution. They showcased marriage in other words in ways certain to provoke debate. We will both survey the development of the modern novel from the late 17th to the early 20th century and study the treatment of marriage in some of the greatest novels of all time.
We will begin with novels from the French and English traditions, the national literatures in which the genre first took shape, in particular Laclos’ Dangerous Liaisons, Austen’s Persuasion, Brontë’s Jane Eyre, Flaubert’s Madame Bovary. We will then turn to works from other European traditions such as Goethe’s Elective Affinities and Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina.
We will begin the course by discussing the novel often referred to as the first modern novel, The Princess de Clèves, an ideal beginning for this course, since The Princess de Clèves was also the first novel centered on an exploration of questions central to the debate about marriage for over two centuries – everything from the question of whether one should marry for love or for social position to the question of adultery.
German
Women in Jewish Literature
GRMN-262-402, Cross Listed with: GSWS-162-402; JWST-102-402; NELC-154-402
TR 1:30 PM-3:00 PM
Kathryn Ann Hellerstein
Sector III All Classes
“Jewish woman, who knows your life? In darkness you have come, in darkness do you go.” J. L. Gordon (1890)
This course will bring into the light the long tradition of women as readers, writers, and subjects in Jewish literature. All texts will be in translation from Yiddish and Hebrew, or in English. Through a variety of genres devotional literature, memoir, fiction, and poetry we will study women’s roles and selves, the relations of women and men, and the interaction between Jewish texts and women’s lives. The legacy of women in Yiddish devotional literature will serve as background for our reading of modern Jewish fiction and poetry from the past century. The course is divided into five segments.
The first presents a case study of the Matriarchs Rachel and Leah, as they are portrayed in the Hebrew Bible, in rabbinic commentary, in premodern prayers, and in modern poems.
We then examine a modern novel that recasts the story of Dinah, Leah’s daughter. Next we turn to the seventeenth century Glikl of Hamel, the first Jewish woman memoirist. The third segment focuses on devotional literature for and by women. In the fourth segment, we read modern women poets in Yiddish, Hebrew, and English. The course concludes with a fifth segment on fiction written by women in Yiddish, Hebrew, and English. The works we read for this course offer an alternative canon of Jewish literature.
The course requirements will likely include, along with regular attendance and participation, informal writing, a reading journal, and an informal, in class presentation, as well as two short essays and a longer final essay.
History
The Immigration Debate
HIST-214-401
T 1:30 PM-4:30 PM
Michael B Katz
BFS Sector II
In the years since the 1965 repeal of nationality based quotas, immigration to the United States has surged. Not only has the number of immigrants reached record highs, they have come from different places. During the last great wave of immigration in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, immigrants came largely from southern and eastern Europe. Today, they come from Latin America and Asia. Formerly, they usually settled in cities, moving outward as their prosperity increased; today, many bypass cities, heading straight for suburbs where a majority of immigrants now live. This new immigration has touched off a fierce national political debate that makes arguments about immigration which often contain assumptions or assertions about the history of immigration –often inaccurate – that influence positions on policy. There are few public issues in which history matters as much as it does for immigration.
This seminar will provide the historical back ground essential for framing discussions of immigration today. It will consider the origins, demography, and geography of immigration and will pay special attention to the history of immigration policy. Requirements include reading approximately one book per week, writing several short commentary papers on readings, and leading workshops on the primary sources for the study of immigration history.
The Novel and Marriage
HIST-251-401
W 2:00 PM-5:00 PM
Joan Elizabeth Dejean
Human Rights and History
HIST-414-301
M 2:00 PM-5:00 PM
Benjamin Nathans
BFS Sector II
The idea of universal, inalienable rights – once dismissed by the philosopher Jeremy Bentham as “nonsense upon stilts” – has become the dominant moral language of our time, the self-evident truth par excellence of our age. Human rights have become a source of inspiration to oppressed individuals and groups across the world, the rallying cry for a global civil society, and not least, a controversial source of legitimation for American foreign policy. This seminar asks: how did all this come to be? We will investigate human rights not only as theories embodied in texts, but as practices embedded in specific historical contexts.
Are human rights the product of a peculiarly European heritage, of the Enlightenment and Protestantism? Did human rights serve as a “civilizing” mask for colonialism? Can universal rights be reconciled with genuine cultural diversity? Through case studies and close readings, the seminar will work toward a genealogy of human rights.
Legal Studies
Introduction to Law & Legal Process
LGST-101-301
TR 10:30 AM-12:00 PM
William S. Laufer
This course presents law as an evolving social institution, with special emphasis on the legal regulation of business. It considers basic concepts of law and legal process, in the U.S. and other legal systems, and introduces the fundamentals of rigorous legal analysis. An in depth examination of contract law is included.
Corporate Responsibilities and Ethics
LGST-210-301
MW 10:30 AM-12:00 PM
Diana C. Robertson
This course offers a multifaceted, philosophical introduction to business ethics. We begin with the “big” questions about economic life. What is the rationale for capitalism? Is it just? Who should make the most money? How should we decide who does the hard work? What role (if any) does deception play in our system?
After looking at the big issues, we will look at more concrete questions about the obligations of corporations, managers and employees. Do corporations have any obligations besides making money for their share holders? Can a manager fire an employee just because he doesn’t like him? If a multinational operates in a country where child labor is the norm, does that make it alright for the company to hire children? Readings will be drawn from moral and political philosophy, business reviews, economics, magazines, and popular literature. Special emphasis will be placed on issues relating to labor and employment.
Nursing
Race, Gender, Class and the History of American Health Care
NURS-318-401, Cross Listed with: GSWS-318-401; HSOC-341-401
W 3:00 PM-6:00 PM
Julie A. Fairman
BFS Sector I —also fulfills CDUS
This multidisciplinary course surveys the history of American health care through the multiple perspectives of race, gender, and class, and grounds the discussions in contemporary health issues. It emphasizes the links between the past and present, using not only primary documents but materials from disciplines such as literature, art, sociology, and feminist studies that relate both closely and tangentially to the health professions and health care issues.
Discussions will surround gender, class-based, ethnic, and racial ideas about the construction of disease, health and illness; the development of health care institutions; the interplay between religion and science; the experiences of patients and providers; and the response to disasters and epidemics. Skills for document analysis and critique are built into the course as is the contextual foundation for understanding the history of health care.
US Child Health 1800-2000
NURS-324-401, Cross Listed with: GSWS-324-401; HSOC-324-401
W 3:00 PM-6:00 PM
Cynthia A. Connolly
BFS Sector II
This course explores the impact of historical ideas, events, and actors pertaining to the history of children’s health care in the United States. Emphasis is placed on tracing the origins and evolution of issues that have salience for twenty-first century children’s health care policy and the delivery of care.
Physics
Honors Physics I
PHYS-170-301
MWF 10:00 AM-11:00 AM
Eugene J Mele
Sector VI and QDA
Special requirements
Co-requisite: MATH114 or permission of instructor. Students must also enroll in either PHYS-170-302 or PHYS-170-303 (lab section.)
This course parallels and extends the content of PHYS 150, at a significantly higher mathematical level. Recommended for well prepared students in engineering and the physical sciences, and particularly for those planning to major in physics. Classical laws of motion: interaction between particles; conservation laws and symmetry principles; rigid body motion; noninertial reference frames; oscillations.
Psychology
The Embodied Mind
PSYC-045-301
R 6:00 PM-8:00 PM
Gordon Bermant
BFS Sector VII
Advances in cognitive science enlarge and challenge traditional concepts of mind, will, and self. This seminar explores alternative frameworks that accept the reality of mind as embodied without sacrificing respect for the significance of immediate experience, personal agency, and individual responsibility. The core text for the seminar is The Embodied Mind (Varela, Thompson & Rosch, MIT Press, 1991).
Working from their combined expertise in neuroscience, philosophy, and psychology, these authors provided a framework founded in principles of phenomenology and Mahayana Buddhism. Because the book is almost 20 years old, its technical presentations need to be brought forward. But the framework it established remains sturdy.
The seminar will allow students to comprehend this framework, contrast it with alternatives both traditional and novel, and evaluate what they learn in light of recent theories and controversies in cognitive science and philosophy. Authors whose work might be consulted include, for example, the Churchlands, Clark, Dennett, Flanagan, Freeman, Koch, Libet, Taylor, Thompson, Wegner, and Williams.
Russian
Tolstoy
RUSS-202-301
W 2:00 PM-5:00 PM
Ilya Vinitsky
BFS Sector III
This course consists of three parts. The first, How to read Tolstoy? deals with Tolstoy’s artistic stimuli, favorite devices, and narrative strategies. The second, Tolstoy at War, explores the authors provocative visions of war, gender, sex, art, social institutions, death, and religion. The emphasis is placed here on the role of a written word in Tolstoy’s search for truth and power. he third and the largest section is a close reading of Tolstoy’s masterwork The War and Peace (1863-68) a quintessence of both his artistic method and philosophical insights.
Urban Studies
Faculty/Student Collaborative Action Seminar
URBS-178-401, Cross Listed with: AFRC-078-401; HIST-173-401
TR 12:00 PM-1:30 PM
Ira Harkavy
CDUS
One of the seminar’s aims is to help students develop their capacity to solve strategic, real world problems by working collaboratively in the classroom and in the West Philadelphia community. Students work as members of research teams to help solve universal problems (e.g., poverty, poor schooling, inadequate health care, etc.) as they are manifested in Penn’s local geographic community of West Philadelphia.
The seminar currently focuses on improving education, specifically college and career readiness and pathways. Specifically, students focus their problem solving research at Sayre High School in West Philadelphia, which functions as the real world site for the seminar’s activities. Students typically are engaged in academically based service learning at the Sayre School, with the primary activities occurring on Mondays from 3-5. Other arrangements can be made at the school if needed.
Another goal of the seminar is to help students develop proposals as to how a Penn undergraduate education might better empower students to produce, not simply “consume,” societally-useful knowledge, as well as function as life long societally-useful citizens.
The Immigration Debate
URBS-220-401
T 1:30 PM-4:30 PM
Michael B Katz
BFS Sector II
In the years since the 1965 repeal of nationality based quotas, immigration to the United States has surged. Not only has the number of immigrants reached record highs, they have come from different places. During the last great wave of immigration in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, immigrants came largely from southern and eastern Europe. Today, they come from Latin America and Asia. Formerly, they usually settled in cities, moving outward as their prosperity increased; today, many bypass cities, heading straight for suburbs where a majority of immigrants now live. This new immigration has touched off a fierce national political debate that makes arguments about immigration which often contain assumptions or assertions about the history of immigration –often inaccurate – that influence positions on policy. There are few public issues in which history matters as much as it does for immigration.
This seminar will provide the historical background essential for framing discussions of immigration today. It will consider the origins, demography, and geography of immigration and will pay special attention to the history of immigration policy. Requirements include reading approximately one book per week, writing several short commentary papers on readings, and leading workshops on the primary sources for the study of immigration history.