General Honors Courses - Fall 2000
Non-honors students can enroll in GH courses with permission of instructor. More information may be available: book lists or syllabi for courses, comments from Course Evaluation forms for professors. Faculty contact info is at GH_faculty.html


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Last updated: August 2, 2000

(009) AFRO-AMERICAN STUDIES

(465) ASIAN & MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES

(025) ANTHROPOLOGY

(101) CLASSICAL STUDIES

(000) COLLEGE

(113) COMPARATIVE LITERATURE

(169) ECONOMICS

(197) ENGLISH

(201) ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES

(213) FINANCE

(237) GENERAL HONORS

(261) GENERAL HONORS - LAW

(269) GENERAL HONORS - MEDICINE

(317) HISTORY

(321) HISTORY AND SOCIOLOGY AND SCIENCE

(353) JEWISH STUDIES

(373) LEGAL STUDIES

(401) MARKETING

(467) OPERATIONS AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

(497) PHYSICS

(525) PUBLIC POLICY AND MANAGEMENT

(505) POLITICAL SCIENCE

(541) RELIGIOUS STUDIES

(589) SOCIOLOGY

(657) URBAN STUDIES

(677) WOMEN'S STUDIES


(009) AFRO-AMERICAN STUDIES

AFAM 078-401. Urban University-Community Relations.
Cross-listed: URBS 078-401

W 2-5
Course Cancelled

(465) ASIAN & MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES

AMES 151-401. Great Books Of Judaism.
General Requirement III: Arts and Letters
TR 10:30-12
WILL 741
Cross listed: JWST 151-401 RELS 027-401

This course will be devoted to four classic works of Jewish literature: The Talmud, Biblical Commentary, the Passover Haggadah, and the Siddur or prayerbook. The course will introduce the student to these books through selected readings in order to show how they are to be read and appreciated, and through studying the history of their development and their place in Jewish tradition. We will also deal with the history of these classics as books and as material objects. All readings are in translation, and no previous background is required.

David Stern (Ph.D., Harvard, Comparative Literature, 1980), is professor of Post-Biblical and Medieval Hebrew Literature in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies. His primary field of research is early Biblical commentary, and he is generally interested in the history of literary interpretation and criticism, ancient and modern, and its relationship to imaginative and other types of literature.

(025) ANTHROPOLOGY

ANTH 241-301. Fundamentals of Archaeology.
Distribution II: History and Tradition
TR 9-10:30
MUSE 329
An introduction to the nature of archaeological data. The methods by which they are gathered and analyzed. Methods of dating. Problems of interpretation. Laboratory sessions.

This course will be taught by Robert Schuyler.

(101) CLASSICAL STUDIES

CLST 360-401. The Epic Tradition.
General Requirement III: Arts and Letters
TR 10:30-12
WILL 321
WATU credit optional
Cross-listed: COML 354-301.

This course looks at a number of strands in the broad epic tradition: narratives of warfare, quest narratives (both geographical and spiritual), and the combination of the two in narratives of chivalry and love. We will start with Homer, reading good portions of the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey",and then see how Homeric themes are reprised in Virgil's narrative oftravel, conquest, and empire, the "Aeneid". We will then look at St. Augustine's "Confessions", which has some claim to being considered an "epic" of spiritual discovery, and consider how Augustine reflects back upon his classical narrative sources. From there we will move to one medieval epic of warfare, conquest, and empire, the "Song of Roland", which emerges from the same kind of oral poetic culture that produced the ancient Homeric epics. In the last part of the course we will read some Arthurian romances, which take up certain themes familiar from epic, but place them in a new context: the medieval institution of chivalry, where the ancient warrior is replaced by the medieval knight, where the collective battle is replaced by the individual quest, and where the psychology of sexual desire is now foregrounded as a motivation for heroic self-realization.

This course will be taught by Prof. Rita Copeland

(000) COLLEGE

COLL 100-203. How Do You Know?
Proposed for Science Studies
TR 4:30-6
Location TBA
The GH section of this course is currently filled. The other recitation sections (201 and 202) have sapce available.
Recitations will be in the same time slot. Approximately every two weeks, one of the slots will be a recitation.

This course is devoted to understanding how we advance knowledge and understanding over the broad range of academic disciplines. A central concern is to further understanding of how a case is "made" for a particular claim. The nature of "evidence" will be at the forefront of the course. The problem of how do you know? is explored via two-week presentations by five different faculty members, from five very different disciplines. In each module, the faculty member, using original source readings related to his or her own work, demonstrates how progress is made within his or her discipline. The course integrator, who attends all lectures, extracts common themes, provides background including a short introduction to statistics, and leads students in an exercise exploring the pathway from a scientific finding to its presentation in the media.

The integrator for fall 2000 will be Paul Rozin of the Psychology department. The five faculty members will be Ian Lustick (Political Science), Harold Feldman (Epidemiology), Rebecca Bushnell (English), Dennis de Turck (Mathematics), and Judith Rodin (Psychology).

(113) COMPARATIVE LITERATURE

COML 354-301. The Epic Tradition.
General Requirement III: Arts and Letters
TR 10:30-12
WILL 321
WATU credit optional
Cross-listed:
CLST 360-401.

(169) ECONOMICS

ECON 001. Introduction to Economics - Micro.
General Requirement I: Society
Students must also enroll in lecture session ECON 001-003.
ECON 001-233. F 10-11 MOOR 224
ECON 001-234. F 11-12 NEGB 121

This course provides an introduction to economic analysis and its applications. The operation of the market economy will be examined to see how the size and composition of national output are determined. Economic tools will be used to analyze such issues as unemployment, inflation and international trade.

ECON 112-301. Topics in Economic Theory.
Distribution I: Society
TR 10:30-12
MCNB 167-8

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.

(197) ENGLISH

ENGL 335-301. Introduction to Shakespeare.
Distribution III: Arts & Letters
TR 1:30-3
BENN 219
This course is currently fully enrolled.

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. Students are expected to make thoughtful, well-informed contributions to the class listserver and discussions. Students who are not Benjamin Franklin Scholars will be admitted only with the instructor's permission.

Phyllis Rackin (Ph.D., University of Illinois, English, 1962) is Professor of English in General Honors. She is a past President of the Shakespeare Association of America and the author of numerous articles on Shakespeare and literary theory and of three books, Shakespeare's Tragedies, Stages of History: Shakespeare's English Chronicles and, with Jean E. Howard, of Engendering a Nation: A Feminist Account of Shakespeare's English Histories. A recipient of the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching, she has been associated with the BFS program for over thirty years.

ENGL 345-301. Topics in the 18th Century Novel: Gothic Fiction and the National Tale.
Distribution III: Arts and Letters
TR 3-4:30
BENN 227

This course will address the British novel from 1745 to 1848, focusing in particular on the relation between literary form and emerging British nationalisms. Our readings will examine how British writers represented key historical events both in Britain and in other European countries, and how their fictions transformed notions of "character," both individual and national. We'll read, for example, accounts of the 1745 Jacobite rebellion written by Henry Fielding and Walter Scott; we'll also survey a number of responses to the French Revolution by writers like Jane Austen, Maria Edgeworth, William Godwin, Robert Bage, Lady Morgan, and Mary Shelley. Alongside these authors we'll also read a number of histories of the novel as well as critical accounts written contemporary to our texts. There will be a number of responses, a few short essays, and a long essay project.

This course will be taught by Prof. Michael Gamer.

ENGL 383-301. Topics in 19th Century American Authors.
Distribution III: Arts & Letters
MWF 1-2

Course Cancelled.

ENGL 390-401. Topics in Women and Literature: Feminist Fairy Tales.
Distribution III: Arts & Letters
TR 3-4:30

In this course, we will address the question of how young American women are acculturated to see some roles as desirable and other roles as unacceptable. In particular, we will explore the impact of popular culture, especially fairy tales, on the formation of a woman's self-image. We will examine the value of beauty, kindness, youth, sexuality, and wealth from variety of angles, and we will also assess what fairy tales from different cultures suggest about a woman's size, age, intelligence, and aggressiveness.

We will begin by reading several versions of fairy tales from different time-periods and cultures, and we will contextualize those readings with commentaries that are also written from a range of perspectives: psychoanalytic, feminist, and socio-economic. Students will be required to see several film versions of the fairy tales we examine, although there will be no formal screenings. Once we have a fuller grasp of the variants of a given tale, it will be easier to appreciate what values are being endorsed by the popular dissemination of one particular version. We will then contrast the most well-known and influential versions of fairy tales with feminist revisions of those tales by Angela Carter, Jeanette Winterson, Tanith Lee, Jane Yolen, and others.

Requirements include a short (one-page) oral presentation, two 6-8 page papers, and a comprehensive final examination.

This course will be taught by Vicki Mahaffey, Professor of English.

(201) ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES

ENVS 404-301. Urban Environment: West Philadelphia.
SEM TR 1:30-3 HAYD 358
SEM TBA
and community time, to be announced.

A study of selected aspects of urban environments, with an emphasis on West Philadelphia. Students will engage middle school children in exercises of applied environmental research.

Robert F. Giegengack (Ph.D. Yale University, 1968) is professor of geology and co-director of the Institute of Environmental Studies. He is a member of the Education Advisory Council of the SEA Education Association and the Yellowstone-Bighorn Research Association. Professor Giegengack is the recipient of both the Lindback Award and the Ira Abrams Memorial Award, given each year to recognize distinguished teaching.

(213) FINANCE

FNCE 101-301. Monetary Economics.
MW 3-4:30
CPCR CHRM
Not for first year students.
Permission needed from instructor.

The purpose of this course is to develop an analytical framework to understand macroeconomics and policies in the context of a developed open economy. Although the objective of the course is to better understand policies and their operation, the course is analytical, not descriptive. The first part of the course extends the ideas and arguments developed in Econ 1 and 2; the analysis is both more sophisticated and developed in the context of a global economy. The second part of the course develops the monetary sector in considerable detail, examining how a complex financial system operates and affects the supply and demand for money, and thus the level of interest rates. The last part of the course is devoted to using the analytical framework developed in the first two parts to study phenomena such as the determination of wages and inflation, stabilization policies, the trade and federal deficits, etc. The course is conducted like a seminar. It is presumed that the students will have read all the materials before class. The class time will be devoted to a critical examination of these materials, not to lectures by the instructor. There will be two mid-term examinations and a final examination. (The last will probably be a take-home examination.) Students will also be required to write a term paper.

IMPORTANT: Permission to enroll in this class is needed for all students. Students must attend the first day of class to complete an application (applications will not be distributed until then). Students should register for another 101 course in case they are not accepted. Decisions will be made by the second class meeting.

Jamshed Ghandhi was born in India and educated in India, Switzerland, the United States and England, receiving a Ph.D. in economics from Cambridge. He taught at the universities of Manchester, Cambridge and Wharton, and was visiting professor at the American University of Beirut. He has a non-academic appointment as advisor on capital markets at the World Bank. He is currently consultant to the Capital Market Board, Turkey, and the Finance Ministry, Portugal, on development of their financial systems; the OECD on capital markets; Central Bank of Turkey and Citibank-Latino on manpower development programs. He is also a member of the European Community Committee on Financial Change.

(237) GENERAL HONORS

GENH 099 Independent Study.

Research and study under the direction of a faculty sponsor.

Research is an important part of an undergraduate career. Students should consult with faculty, department advisors,or the Research Directory for Undergraduates to gain ideas and insights, as well as to identify possible projects and sponsors. Students are encouraged to discuss their research ideas with the GH advising staff. Since research takes planning, students should begin well in advance. Research proposals must be completed and turned in to the General Honors office three days before the last day of Add. Proposal forms are available now.

GENH 204-301. Technology and Values: Workshop in Problem Formulation and Solution. General Requirement IV: Formal Reasoning and Analysis.
Prerequisite: Math 140 or permission of instructor.
T 7-9:30 PM
KCEH 106

Modeling is an integral part of problem definition and problem solving in any discipline; it is inherently interdisciplinary and more of a craft than a science in that there are specific techniques to be learned and a variety of approaches. Because most undergraduate courses deal with disciplinary fundamentals, especially during the first two years, the functional core of modeling is not usually taught. This course will show the student, using specific examples, that knowledge acquisition and its integration into new ideas, and their implementation are the essence of problem formulation and solutions, and that inherent to the successful pursuit of this process is the concept and application of modeling.

We will look at problems as they arise in the normal day-to-day disciplinary course routine of a student, and show that although once upon a time mathematics was essential for modeling and problem solving, the personal computer precipitated change in our approach. Now, powerful and user friendly software have brought explicit modeling (i.e. modeling based in advanced mathematics) within the reach of even the computer-non initiated. The beauty of this new technology is the versatility and latitude to the imagination that computer modeling affords. An explicit model of a problem is a mental laboratory: you can test for consistency; you can gently alter the different parts and see the consequences; and you can explore the limits of its validity.

Jorge Santiago-Aviles and Krimo Bokreta will co-teach this course.

GENH 205-301. Search for the Post Modernist Self.
General Requirement III: Arts & Letters
W 3-6
WILL 303
Permission of department required.
Juniors or seniors only. This course is currently fully enrolled.

What is this elusive entity called the "self", the "individual"? When was it born? How does it relate today to the notion of "community"? How can one be both a "self" and at the same time a member of a community?

Chaim Potok was born and raised in New York City. He received a BA summa cum laude in English literature from Yeshiva University, an M.H.L. and Rabbinic ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania. He served as a United States Army chaplain in Korea with a front-line medical battalion and an engineer combat battalion. He has been writing fiction since the age of sixteen and is widely known for his novels, The Chosen (Edward Lewis Wallant Award), The Promise (Athenaeum Prize), My Name is Asher Lev, In the Beginning, The Book of Lights, and Davita's Harp. His novel, The Gift of Asher Lev, published in May 1990, won the National Jewish Book Award for fiction. He is also the author of Wanderings: Chaim Potok's History of the Jews, and of numerous articles, short stories, and reviews. His plays, Out of the Depths and Sins of the Father, received their premiere productions in Philadelphia in 1990. His latest novel is The Gates of November. He is also author of I Am the Clay.

GENH 210-301. Faculty and Student Collaborative Seminar To Develop a Distinctive Penn Undergraduate Curriculum Integrating Learning, Teaching, and Research Through Real World Problem Solving
W 2-5
MELL 514

Inspired by its founder, Ben Franklin, President Judith Rodin has defined Penn's distinctive mission as helping students develop their capacity to integrate theory and practice in humanistic, action-oriented, real-world problem-solving. Since the present Arts and Sciences undergraduate curriculum falls short in this regard, the seminar aims to synthesize numerous, unrelated, academically- based community service courses into an effectively integrated curriculum.

As now envisioned, the new Penn curriculum developed by the seminar would have as a significant component "thematic clusters", i.e., interrelated, cross-disciplinary, complementary sets of courses designed to stimulate and empower students to produce, not simply "consume", societally-useful knowledge. By societally-useful knowledge, we mean knowledge actively used to solve universal strategic problems of democracy and society, schooling and society, health and society, poverty and society, environment and society, culture and society, etc., as those universal problems manifest themselves locally at Penn and in West Philadelphia / Philadelphia.

Good ideas take time to develop. The seminar, therefore, will extend over two semesters. Students who for one reason or another decide to take only the Fall semester, however, will receive one credit. Undergraduates who believe they might benefit from participating in the seminar, might contribute significantly to its work, and welcome the challenge to help produce societally-useful knowledge, are invited to apply for admission through General Honors.

For more information , please contact
Cory Bowman
Center for Community Partnerships
Room 519, 133 South 36th Street (across from the Penn Book Store)
bowman@pobox.upenn.edu
(215) 898-0289

GENH 219-301. Judges and Judging.
M 2- 5
WILL 303
Not for first-year students.

Judges in law courts are bound to decide facts according to law and to find law in keeping with precedent, statutes, and the Constitution. How do judges shoulder this great responsibility when the cases before them involve highly politicized, morally charged, socially divisive issues about which the judge may have formed a strong personal opinion? The course will address this question through a reading of cases and commentary, including in particular Robert Cover's Justice Accused and Lawrence Baum's The Puzzle of Judicial Behavior.

Gordon Bermant was Director of Planning and Technology at the Federal Judicial Center, Washington, DC. He was initially trained as a comparative and physiological psychologist, receiving a Ph.D. from Harvard in 1961 and then spending two years in the laboratory of the late Frank A. Beach at the University of California, Berkeley. Bermant taught and did research in these areas at the University of California at Davis. He then moved to Seattle where he developed a general research, conference, and fellowship program in behavioral and social sciences at the Battelle Seattle Research Center and lectured on a variety of psychological subjects at the University of Washington. His research interests moved in the direction of relations between psychology and law, and he became an early contributor to the development of that interdisciplinary field in the 1970's. He joined the Federal Judicial Center, which is the research and training agency of the United States court system, as its first psychologist in 1976. He subsequently returned to law school and graduated from George Mason University School of Law in 1991. Bermant is the author or editor of more than 70 books, articles, and reviews in various areas. He is a Fellow of divisions 6, 9, and 41 of the American Psychological Association and a Charter Fellow of the American Psychological Society.

(261) GENERAL HONORS - LAW

These courses are for students who do not necessarily intend to pursue a career in the law. They aim to communicate the nature of legal scholarship and thinking in the context of a specific area, such as intentional torts, affirmative action or civil rights. The courses will emphasize critical readings of case material, and will place this material in the appropriate social, cultural and legal contexts.

GLAW 064-301. The American Legal System.
Distribution I: Society
TR 1:30-3
LOGN 203

This course will examine how American civil law responds to economic, social, technological and political change. This course will trace selected areas of law which illustrate law's dynamic. Some of the areas of special current legal interest include the law as arbiter of scientific truth; issues of life and death (who decides on the giving or withholding of medical treatment of those who can -- and who cannot -- decide for themselves); the changing ground rules of sexual harassment in the workplace; rights of the disabled and the fine line between administering pain relief and medical intervention resulting in death; and the increasing expansion of legislation to speed "corrections" in the common law.

Samuel Diamond is a graduate of the Wharton School (1952) and the Law School (1955) of this University. After two years of service in the Navy, he has practiced law in Philadelphia, concentrating in real estate and corporate law. He has taught at Drexel University and at the Wharton and Law Schools of the University of Pennsylvania. He was 1990 chairman of the Philadelphia Bar Association section on real property law and 1997 Co-Chair of the Bar Association's Committee on Professional Responsibility.

(269) GENERAL HONORS - MEDICINE

GH medicine courses are designed for undergraduates, interested in considering human diseases from many aspects-biological, clinical and social. An attempt will be made to use each disease to illustrate modern approaches in biomedical research, problems in health maintenance and care, and socio-political effects of common severe disorders. The courses are not designed to provide technical information to premedical students in preparation for professional school.

GMED 073-301. Selected Topics in Medicine: Infectious Outbreaks and Epidemics.
CANCELLED This course will be offered Spring 2001.

GMED 073-302. Selected Topics in Medicine: Infectious Diseases.
Juniors or seniors only.
TR 4-5:30
JOHN 209

This course is concerned with the examination of the interactions between human beings, their organs and cells, and various infectious agents such as bacteria, viruses, and parasites. Both the biological and societal factors influencing these interactions will be studied.

Helen Davies (Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, 1960) is professor of microbiology in the School of Medicine. She is recipient of the Lindback Award and has been designated one of the two Distinguished Basic Science Educator Awardees in the School of Medicine. Prof. Davies is the author of more than seventy papers in the areas of bacterial bioenergetics, infectious diseases, enzyme kinetics, bacterial infections, discrimination in higher education, and affirmative action for women and minority groups.

GMED 073-303. Cancer.
M 2-5
MRGN 196

This will be a seminar course considering cancer as a problem, from the molecular to the psycho-socio-economic level. Topics will include the biology and biochemistry of cancer cells; environmental and genetic factors in causation; epidemiology and geography; natural history of common human cancers with problems in prevention, diagnosis, and treatment; and social and political aspects of cancer research and care.

Peter Nowell (M.D., University of Pennsylvania, 1952) is professor of pathology at the School of Medicine. His research is represented in over 400 publications dealing with various aspects of cancer, particularly the basic mechanisms of abnormal growth (e.g. oncogenes, chromosomal abnormalities). He has served as chairman of the department of pathology, and as director of the Cancer Center, and is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching.

(317) HISTORY

HIST 112-301. Utopian Thought.
Distribution II: History and Tradition
Freshman Seminar: First-Year Students Only
W 2-5
WILL 304

Technically, there is only one utopia, that imagined by Thomas More in the 16th century. More invented the term. For him, utopia was a pun: it was literally "no place." But it was also a homonym with eutopia - "the best place." The best place is also no place, a harmless dream, a piece of fantasy. Yet for More and for many others who created utopias, they were also serious business. Utopia is both daydream and aspiration.

This course will consider the ways in which Western society has represented "the best place" from Genesis and Plato through the Renaissance and the 18th century to the fantasies of science fiction. What is utopia? How have men thought about it? Why? What roles has utopia played in W estern culture? Critical for perspective on the topic will be reflecting on the present: is it possible to imagine utopia in the 20th century?

Readings for the course will consist entirely of primary sources - i.e. the utopias themselves. Students will be required to make one or two oral presentations and to write a paper (15 pages).

Michael Ryan is director of Special Collections at Van Pelt Library.

HIST 214-301. Media and Politics.
T 2-5
JAFF 201
This course is currently fully enrolled.

This course is an examination of the history of various media forms (newspapers, radio, television, films) and of the relationships between those media and traditional politics as well as the links between popular culture and politics more generally. It will be grounded in history, but will employ an interdisciplinary approach that will sample different media forms, different political issues and political moments as examples of the dialectic between media and politics and culture, including media representations of history and of politics. The course also will include political critiques of the mass media as ideological institutions.

This course will be taught by Prof. Barbara Savage.

HIST 214-402. The Emergence of Modern America.
T 2-5
WLNT 344B
Cross-listed: URBS 220-401.

This seminar focuses on the emergence of America as an urban, industrial, and multiethnic society between the early nineteenth century and the 1930s. Major topics include: work, class, and mobility; race and ethnicity; family and life course; and social policy and social institutions. Requirements include reading one book each week and short papers.

Michael B. Katz, the Sheldon and Lucy Hackney Professor in the History Department, was recently named a Spencer Foundation Senior Fellow. Dr. Katz, a specialist in American social history, received one of four awards given by the foundation in the past twelve months.

Dr. Katz focuses on three areas: the history of education, the history of urban social and family structure and the history of poverty and social welfare. He received his M.A.T. and Ed.D. from Harvard University. He has been a Guggenheim Fellow and a resident fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies at Princeton, the Russell Sage Foundation and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He also has held a fellowship from the Open Society Institute. He is a fellow of the National Academy of Education and the National Academy of Social Insurance.

Dr. Katz is the author of numerous books and essays, including The People of Hamilton, Canada West: Family and Class in a Mid-Nineteenth Century City, the 1975 winner of the Albert C. Corey Prize from the American and Canadian Historical Associations. His book, The Undeserving Poor: From the War on Poverty to the War on Welfare, was a 1990 finalist for the American Sociological Association's Distinguished Book Award. He is completing a book on the redefinition of the American welfare state since 1980, Market Price or Social Value? Redefining America's Welfare State.

(321) HISTORY AND SOCIOLOGY OF SCIENCE

HSSC 438-301. Who Owns the Past?
R 2-5
LOGN 337

The recent controversies over the Enola Gay exhibit and the teaching of U.S. history to school children have made exceptionally visible the degree to which history may be used to define national identity. Scientific achievements may play central roles in partisan accounts--both as testimonials to national virtue and as the means to resolve various sorts of disputes. This course will discuss the uses of history in contemporary and past situations, drawing examples from the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

This course will be taught by Prof. Henrika Kuklick.

(353) JEWISH STUDIES PROGRAM

JWST 151-401. Great Books of Judaism.
Gen Req III: Arts & Letters
TR 10:30-12
WILL 741
Cross Listed: AMES 151-401, RELS 027-401

(373) LEGAL STUDIES

LGST 101-301. Introduction to Law and Legal Process.
TR 10:30-12
SHDH 106

The first part of this course will inquire into the nature of law and the legal process, the second part will introduce the law of contracts, and the last will cover some of the basic principles of international law.

Eric Orts is associate professor of Legal Studies. His areas of research include corporate law, corporate governance, environmental law and policy. He is currently working on a project on corporate law in the European Union.

LGST 210-301. Corporate Responsibility and Ethics.
MW 1:30-3
SHDH 205

Explores theories of business responsibility from a multi-disciplinary and managerial perspective. Presents current theories of business ethics and examines how they apply to a number of case studies. Topics include ethical and social responsibility issues with regard to consumer product safety, advertising, affirmative action, sexual harassment, employee rights, whistle-blowing, conflicts of interest, and worker safety.

Alan Strudler is assistance professor of Legal Studies. His research ares include ethics negotiation, moral psychology, and corporate responsibility. His current projects include the law and ethics of insider trading and the social psychology of moral influence.

(410) MARKETING

MKTG 399-301. Probability Models in Marketing and Electronic Commerce
W 3-6
Location TBA
Pre-requisite: Math 140-141.

This course will expose students to the theoretical and empirical "building blocks" that will allow them to construct, estimate, and interpret powerful models of consumer behavior. Over the years, researchers and practitioners have used these models for a wide variety of applications, such as new product sales forecasting, analyses of media usage, and targeted marketing programs. Other disciplines have seen equally broad utilization of these techniques.

The course will be entirely lecture-based with a strong emphasis on real-time problem solving. Most sessions will feature sophisticated numerical investigations using Microsoft Excel. Much of the material is highly technical. Students must have a high comfort level with basic integral calculus, and recent exposure to a formal course in probability/statistics would be helpful (but not required).

This course will be taught by Peter Fader, Associate Professor of Marketing.

(467) OPERATIONS AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

OPIM 402-301. The Aesthetic Approach to Decision Making.
TR 4:30-6
SHDH 202
Pre-requisite: ability to play chess, at least on the level of novice.

The purpose of this course is to bring together decision-making in socio-economic field and in literature. In literature there are wonderful examples in which the heroes of the books make their own decisions. In these examples, the authors not only bring new sophisticated analytical parameters, but also use a variety of artistic means directed toward developing the imagination of the reader. Unfortunately, the methods used are far from being analytical; the modern analytical methods for decision-making developed in the socio-economic field are not used. The course proposed here would encompass socio-economic examples of decision-making conceptions, along with literature. The course must give a clear synthesis of analytic and artistic methods of thinking, which is important in connection with new situations. This course can be crucial in instructing aesthetically educated students who are pragmatically oriented. Finally, the students will better understand the value of nonpragmatic categories of art and their priceless role in the developing of their intellect and decision-making abilities.

Aron J. Katsenelinboigen was born in the Soviet Union. He graduated from Moscow State Economic Institute and obtained a Doctor of Sciences degree in Economics. He has worked in the USSR Academy of Sciences and was promoted to head of the Department of Complex Systems at the Central Economic Mathematical Institute. He also taught mathematical economics at Moscow State University. Since his emigration to the United States, Prof. Katsenelinboigen has been a visiting lecturer in the Department of Economics at the University of Pennsylvania. He joined the Social Systems Department and then the Decision Sciences Department as a professor. Prof. Katsenelinboigen is the author of fifteen books, nine of which were published in the United States. More than sixty articles of the author have been published, but only in western countries. His current research is concerned primarily with the category of indeterminism and the aesthetic method.

Vera Zubarev was born in the former Soviet Union. She graduated from Odessa University and obtained her masters degree in literature. Six years ago Vera emigrated to the USA. She was admitted to the doctoral program at the Slavic Department, University of Pennsylvania, and in 1994 she defended her doctoral thesis. She continues to teach Russian language at the University of Pennsylvania. In the last years Vera published several books in poetry, and a book in literary theory, A Systems Approach to Literature: Mythopoetics of Chekhov's Four Major Plays (Greenwood Press, 1997). Her current interests concern the linkage between literature and business in the frame of her research on literary problems.

(497) PHYSICS

PHYS 170-301. Honors Physics I.
General Requirement VI: Physical World
LEC MWF 10-11, DRLB 2C2
LEC M 2-3, DRLB A6
LEC T 11-12, DRLB A1
PHYS 170-302, LAB W 1-3, DRLB LAB

This is the first semester of a small-section three-semester sequence in introductory physics for well-prepared students. Topics will include classical laws of motion, interaction between particles, conservation laws and symmetry principles, rigid body motion, wave motion, and kinetic theory and thermodynamics.

Fay Ajzenberg-Selove's principal scholarly work has been the preparation of evaluated reviews and summaries of what is known about the nuclei with mass numbers 5 to 20. These include isotopes of hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium, boron, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, fluorine, neon and sodium. For her these elements are among the most interesting both from the point of view of basic nuclear research, and for understanding the nucleosynthesis of elements in stars. Applied uses include energy generation through fusion, dating of artifacts, and nuclear medicine. Each year, over 1200 scientific papers are written by scientists all over the world dealing with the spectroscopy of the light nuclei; that is, the ways in which these nuclei absorb and emit energy.

(525) PUBLIC POLICY AND MANAGEMENT

PPMT 201-301. Political Economics of Government.
TR 3-4:30
VANC 110
Pre-requisite: ECON 001 or equivalent

This introductory course explores the economics and politics of policy analysis and management in government. The first part of the semester is devoted to the analysis of the economics and politics of government policy formulation and implementation. This is followed by a detailed examination of why, how, and with what success/failure government intervenes in a variety of areas: health, education, welfare, law enforcement, housing and urban development, international trade, the environment are examples of the topics that may be covered. Finally, the course examines the growing importance of allowing competitive markets to provide publicly funded services, taking advantage of private management approaches to fostering innovation in public management. Three major areas in which this is occurring will be examined: privatization/contracting out of government activities; business improvement improvement districts: homeowners associations.

Janet Pack is professor of Public Policy and Management. Her current projects include Metropolitan Studies, and studies of the impact of urban poverty on city budgets and of the increasing role of the private sector in providing services traditionally the responsibility of local governments.

(505) POLITICAL SCIENCE

PSCI 298-303. American Democracy in Comparative Perspective.
M 2-5
MCNB 110

This seminar is intended for students interested in American politics or concentrating in American politics in their major. It will examine the origins and development of American democracy, compare its major differences with both the new and old democracies, and address its institutions that both have been copied by and perplexed other democracies.

The first weeks of the seminar will look at two of the celebrated 19th century European analysts of American democracy: A. de Tocqueville and James Bryce. Then the social and economic base of American democracy will be examined, particularly its political culture. The third theme is directed to comparisons of the Presidency, the Courts, the Federal, and local institutions, and the role of public opinion with other established democracies.

The seminar will conclude with the questions of democracy and foreign policy and why democracies succeed or fail. Written assignments are two papers and a set of final essays.

This course will be taught by Prof. Henry Teune.

PSCI 389-301. Interpreting the American Constitution.
Distribution I: Society
TR 10:30-12
WLNT 363B

The focus of this seminar is one of the most vital aspects of politics: identifying and interpreting the nation's most fundamental rules. It is concerned with a) the configuration of this polity in language that has binding authority and b) the public arguments made to justify constructions of meaning from this language and from other sources of constitutional values. The goal of the course is to provide a systematic approach to the problems of constitutional interpretation, through an emphasis on three interrogatives:

  1. What is the Constitution that is to be interpreted (what is its nature and what does it include)?
  2. Who may authoritatively interpret it?
  3. How should it be interpreted?
This is a liberal arts seminar in political theory and political science that uses law as its material; it is not a course in law for its own sake. Its more general objectives include assisting students in reading and criticizing political texts, assessing constitutional arguments and making compelling ones of their own, developing interpretive theory, and reasoning and writing more rigorously at a level of conceptual abstraction beyond policy preferences.
Half of the class will be admitted through PARIS during Advance Registration. The other half (non-BFS and closed-out BFS) will be admitted by permission of the instructor during Registration-Drop/Request, based on interviews during Advance Registration and after PARIS has filled the first half.

This course will be taught by Prof. Will Harris.

(541) RELIGIOUS STUDIES

RELS 027-401. Great Books of Judaism.
General Requirement III: Arts & Letters
TR 10:30-12
WILL 741
Cross Listed: AMES 151-401 JWST 151-401

(589) SOCIOLOGY

SOCI 425-401. Women and Political Activism.
Distribution I: Society
W 2-5
WILL 317
Cross-listed: WSTD 431-301.

This seminar explores the condition under which women become politically active and the relevance of gender to forms of activism, organizational practices, and choice of issues. Using contemporary and historical case studies, we will examine women's activism in feminist and anti-feminist movements and organizations; in single-sex organizations devoted to a broad range of goals; and in mixed-gender movements, including civil rights and trade unions.

This course will be taught by Dr. Robin Leidner.

(657) URBAN STUDIES

URBS 078-401. Urban University-Community Relations.
W 2-5
Cross listed: AFAM 078-401
Course Cancelled

URBS 220-401. The Emergence of Modern America.
T 2-5
WLNT 344B
Cross-listed: HIST 214-402

(677) WOMEN'S STUDIES

WSTD 431-301. Women and Political Activism.
W 2-5
WILL 317
Cross listed:
SOCI 425-401.


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Last updated: August 2, 2000