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Spread Sheet of Fall 2008 BFS Courses
AFRC 078-401, Cross Listed with: HIST 173-401, URBS 178-401
Urban University and Community Relations
Ira Harkavy / Lee Benson
W 2-500PM
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.
ANTH-234-301
Pharmaceuticals and Global Health
Adriana Petryna
W 2:00 - 5:00
BFS Sector I and Cross-cultural
In some parts of the world spending on pharmaceuticals is astronomical. In others people do not have access to basic or life-saving drugs. Individuals struggle to afford medications; whole populations are neglected, considered too poor to constitute profitable markets for the development and distribution of necessary drugs. This seminar analyzes the dynamics of the burgeoning international pharmaceutical trade and the global inequalities that emerge from and are reinforced by market-driven medicine. Questions about who will be treated and who will not filter through every phase of pharmaceutical production -- from pre clinical research to human testing, marketing, distribution, prescription, and consumption.
Whether considering how the pharmaceutical industry shapes popular understandings of mental illness in North America and Great Britain, how Brazil has created a model HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment program, or how the urban poor in Delhi understand and access healthcare, the seminar draws on anthropological case studies to illuminate the roles of corporations, governments, non-governmental organizations, and individuals in relation to global pharmaceuticals. As we analyze each case and gain familiarity with ethnographic methods, we will ask how individual and group health is shaped by new medical technologies and their evolving regulatory regimes and markets. The course familiarizes students with critical debates on globalization and with local responses to globalizing processes; and it contributes to ethical and political debates on the development and access to new medical technologies.
Does not count towards the BFS seminar requirement.
BENF-219-301
Judges and Judging
Gordon Bermant
T 1:30-4
BFS Sector I
Judges and Judging introduces contemporary legal issues to students through the words and institutional perspectives of judges. 2008 marks the 35th anniversary of one of the most controversial decisions in the history of the Supreme Court: Roe v. Wade. The Judges and Judging seminar will therefore be devoted to close readings of this case and the major cases that have followed from it. Case texts will be supplemented with commentaries representing the diverse viewpoints that have surrounded courts’ decisions on abortion rights since Roe was decided. Students will gain an appreciation of how judges structure and rationalize their positions and disagreements about this highly-charged, morally significant topic, and how such disputes are inevitably transformed into arguments about legal principles such as standing, due process of law, federalism, separation of powers, and facial vs. as-applied challenges to constitutionality. Strategic and rhetorical distinctions among majority opinions, concurrences, and dissents will be highlighted.
The course is conducted in seminar style. Weekly question sets guide students through the reading assignments and form the basis of student-centered class discussions. A term paper on a topic selected by the student is the major and concluding class assignment.
For additional information, please contact gordon.bermant@verizon.net.
BFLW-064-401
Christian Legal Theory; Religion, Law & Lawyer
David Skeel
T 4:30-6:30
This seminar explores the relationship between Christianity and American law and legal theory, focusing principally on the perspectives of Catholic, Protestant and (to a lesser extent) Orthodox theologians and scholars on law and legal issues since the late nineteenth century, and on the political influence of Christian groups historically and in the present. At the outset of the semester, many of the readings will be drawn from the essays in The Teachings of Modern Christianity on Law, Politics, and Human Nature (Witte & Alexander, eds. 2005). We then will consider a variety of different topics, including Prohibition; gambling regulation; the Civil Rights era; the Moral Majority and the rise of the Religious Right; recent developments in Catholic Social Thought; and the debt relief movement.
Guest speakers may be invited to join the seminar on occasion. Students will be required to write brief (less than 1 page) response papers for at least 9 of our classes. These papers will not be graded, but will be treated as part of the student’s class participation. Students will be required to write one long paper. The paper should be a maximum of twenty pages (double-spaced) in length (with references given in footnotes, not endnotes), and will be due at the end of the semester. Each student’s grade will be based on the paper and the student’s class participation.
Open to juniors and seniors only.
BFMD-073-301
Infectious Diseases
Helen Davies
TR 4-5:30
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.
Open to juniors and seniors only. Permission of instructor required.
Science Studies Class of 2009 only.
BIOL-011-301
Humans in a Microbial World
Dustin Brisson
MW 3:30-5
Living World Sector (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.
BIOL 219-410: Crosslisted with: BIBB 109-410, PSYC 109-410
Introduction to Brain and Behavior
Loretta Flanagan-Cato
MWF 11-12
Living World Sector (All Classes)
Must also register for recitation 411 (T 12-1:30)
Introduction to the structure and function of the vertebrate nervous system, the physiological bases of motor control, sensory activity, perception, drive and higher mental processes. This course is intended for students interested in the neurobiology of behavior. Familiarity with elementary physics and chemistry will be helpful.
BIBB 109-410: Crosslisted with: BIOL 219-410, PSYC 109-410
Introduction to Brain and Behavior
Loretta Flanagan-Cato
MWF 11-12
Living World Sector (All Classes)
Must also register for recitation BIBB 109-411 (T 12-1:30)
Please see Biology 219-401 For Course Description
COML- 057-401, Cross Listed with: NELC 156-401, NELC 456-401, RELS 027-401, JWST 151-401
Great Books of Judaism
David Stern
TR 10:30-12:00
BFS Sector III
The study of four paradigmatic classic Jewish texts so as to introduce students to the literature of classic Judaism. Each text will be studied historically--"excavated" for its sources and roots--and holistically, as a canonical document in Jewish tradition. While each text will inevitably raise its own set of issues, we will deal throughout the semester with two basic questions: What makes a "Jewish" text? And how do these texts represent different aspects of Jewish identity? All readings will be in translation.
COML 257-401, Cross Listed with: JWST 153-401, NELC 158-401, NELC 458-401, RELS 223-401
Jewish Literature in The Middle Ages;
Maimonides and His Image
Talya Fishman
M 2-5
BFS Sector III
Moses Maimonides, a Jewish thinker of twelfth century Andalusia and Eqypt, sought to demonstrate the compatibility of Revelation's teachings with the insights of the intellect. But was he an arch-rationalist or a mystic? Through readings in English translation of Maimonides' code of law his philosophical treatise and other writings, this course will explore his conceptions of the ideal curriculum, the purpose of religious observance, love and fear of God, the nature of idilatry, the role of Christianity and Islam in the divine scheme and the Messianic Age. The course will also consider the image of Maimonides at different moments in the history of Jewish culture.
Fulfills Distribution CRS Arts & Letters - Class of '09 and prior.
ECON-212-301
Game Theory
Andrew Postlewaite
http://www.econ.upenn.edu/cgi-bin/mecon/bin/view.cgi?id=157
TR
10:30-12
Pre-Reqs: 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.
ENGL-016-302
Trauma, Time, Fiction
Paul Saint-Amour
TR 9-10:30
BFS Sector III
Bombs rising into planes; smoke returning to smokestacks; a wound that gives pain in advance of its infliction. Why do so many novels about historical mass-trauma involve time-travel or reversals in chronology and causality? Can such works constitute a flight from mass-violence? Can they, contrastingly, participate in collective mourning over trauma? And how do we understand the political, ethical, and psychological work of counterfactual fiction, which explores an alternate history unfolding from some past crux (e.g., a history in which F.D.R. was assassinated before World War II)? Readings to include fiction by Martin Amis, Octavia Butler, Philip K. Dick, and D.M. Thomas and essays by contemporary trauma theorists and their critics.
ENGL-326-301
Shakespeare and the Argument of Comedy
Anne Hall
TR 9-10:30
BFS Sector III
Fulfills Pre-1700 or Pre-1900 Seminar Requirement of the English Standard Major Fulfills Sector 3 of the English Standard Major
This course will first examine Shakespeare's comedies and attempt to come up with a description of kinds of comedy. Then it will examine how Shakespeare uses these different kinds of comedy in his histories and tragedies in order to make complex arguments about leadership, tradition, governance, spirituality, and imagination. Emphasis will fall on the architectonics of the plays. We will read Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night, Measure for Measure, Richard II, Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, Hamlet, King Lear, and Antony and Cleopatra. There will be 2 papers about 8 pages in length.
ENGL-341-301
Beast Culture
Chi-Ming Yang
TR 10:30-12
BFS Sector III
Fulfills Pre-1900 Seminar Requirement of the English Standard Major Fulfills Sector 4 of the English Standard Major Fulfills Sector 5 of the English Standard Major
In this course, we will explore the European fascination with animals in early modern print culture. How do understandings of animal difference inform what it means to be human previous to the 21st century? How did practices like pet-keeping, horse racing, hunting, and zoos become such a central part of our modern day culture?
ENGL-352-301
19th Century New York City and America Modernity
Nancy Bentley
TR 1:30-3
BFS Sector IV
Fulfills Pre-1900 Seminar Requirement of the English Standard Major Fulfills Sector 5 of the English Standard Major
This seminar will examine the concept of "modernity" by examining the way nineteenth- and early twentieth-century authors wrote about New York City. Because New York City was the site where the forces of modernity made their earliest and most concentrated appearance in America, it will be a focal point for exploring crucial changes in American literature, culture, and social life. We will be paying attention to changes in interiority and feeling (the experience of walking city streets, the desire to go shopping, new sensations in speed, time, and place, new forms of social belonging) as well as examining profound changes in large social sytems (global immigration and travel, the emergence of mass culture, the redefining of kinship and family, the importance of ethnic and sexual subcultures). Did the emerging urban world represent alienation or a depletion of human experience, or did it open up possibilities for greater freedom and new kinds of social solidarity? Is modern life good for human beings, or does it unleash forces that are ultimately destructive? These questions gained sharp urgency for many artists and intellectuals of this period and stimulated a range of new literary styles and critical thought.
The syllabus will include some historical and sociological texts on the category of modernity (Simmel, Weber, Giddens). Literary works will probably include: Poe stories; Whitman, Leaves of Grass; Melville, "Bartleby the Scrivener"; Jose Marti, from Our America; Dreiser, Sister Carrie; Yezierska, Bread Givers; Crane, New York sketches; Wharton, Twilight Sleep; Johnson, Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man. A field trip or optional research trip to New York may be part of the course.
ENGL-360-301
Theory and Practice of the Novel
Toni Bowers
TR 3-4:30
BFS Sector III
Fulfills Pre-1900 Seminar Requirement of the English Standard Major/ Fulfills Sector 4 of the English Standard Major Fulfills/ Sector 5 of the English Standard Major
What is a novel, exactly? We may think we know, but in fact that question has been debated for hundreds of years, and there have been a surprising number of different answers. What counts as a novel, it turns out, depends largely on who's asking, when, and for what purposes.
In this course, we'll read a few works that might be novels, and the work of a large number of theorists from the early eighteenth century to the end of the twentieth century. We'll ask how helpful each theorist's work is to understanding our primary texts and what's at stake in determining whether a work "is" or "is not" a novel.
This is an advanced seminar designed for upper-division students who anticipate graduate study in a humanistic discipline. Substantial, fast-moving reading and individual research will be required. Advanced English majors and advanced students from humanistic departments other than English are welcome.
ENVS-404-401, Cross Listed with: HSOC 404-401
Urban Environment: West Philadelphia
Rich Pepino
TR 10:30-12
BFS Sector VII
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.
An ABCS course
FNAR-238-401, Cross Listed with: FNAR -538-401
Open Book: A Visual Exploration
Sharka Hyland
W 4:30-7:30
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. (Benjamin Franklin Scholar Seminar)
FREN-250-401, Cross Listed with: FREN 360-401
The Enlightenment
Joan DeJean
M 2-5
BFS Sector III and Crosscultural
Books have many powers. All too rarely, however, do they shape public opinion and change history.
The greatest works of the Enlightenment are perhaps the most striking exception ever to this rule. Our seminar will attempt to understand what the Enlightenment was and how it made its impact. We will read above all the works of the three individuals who, more than anyone else, defined the age of Enlightenment: Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau. We will see, for example, how Voltaire used his works to teach Europeans to believe in such concepts as brotherhood and the fraternity of man. We will retrace Rousseau’s invention of autobiography and his redefinition of education. And we will explore the construction of perhaps the most characteristic of all Enlightenment masterpieces, the Encyclopédie edited by Diderot and d’Alembert.
We will pay particular attention to the risks each of these authors ran in making such controversial works public: they were constantly threatened by censorship from both church and state; Voltaire was exiled; Diderot was sent to prison. The seminar will meet on the 6th floor of Van Pelt Library so that we can have access during our meetings to the original editions of many Enlightenment classics. We will thus be able to discuss both ways in which these works were shaped by the fear of censorship and techniques devised by their authors to elude censorship.
We will also consider topics such as what the Enlightenment meant for women and the Enlightenment’s global influence in the 18th century, particularly on the founding fathers of this country. We will thus read works by the greatest women authors of the age, as well as Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography.
FREN 360-401, for French Major or Minor credit WORK WILL BE IN FRENCH
GSOC-318-401, Cross Listed with: HSOC-341-401, NURS 318-401
Race, Gender, Class: History
Julie Fairman
W 2-5
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.
GEOL-109-001
Intro to Geotech Science
(Lab section required)
Gomaa Omar
MWF 11-12
Sector VI and QDA
An introduction to processes and forces that form the surface and the interior of the Earth. Changes in climate and the history of life. Earth resources and their uses.. Open to architectural and engineering majors as well as Ben Franklin Scholars. Field trips. Relations of rocks, rock structures, soils, ground water, and geologic agents to architectural, engineering, and land-use problems.
GEOL 109-101 Lab section for Intro to Geotech Science Staff M 2:30-5:30
HSOC-341-401, Cross Listed with: GSOC 318-401, NURS 318-401
Race, Gender, Class: History
Julie Fairman
W 2-5
Please see GSOC 318-401 for course description
HSOC-404-401
Urban Environment: West Philadelphia
Rich Pepino
TR 10:30-12
BFS Sector VII
Please see ENVS 404-401 for course description
HIST 111-301
Holy War, Medievals and Moderns
Jessica Goldberg
TR 10:30-12BFS Sector II
In 1099, people claiming to be Christian pilgrims massacred crowds of men, women and children taking refuge at the Temple Mount as the last step in the conquest of Jerusalem, and celebrated that they had waded in blood up to their knees. More than 900 years later, people claimed Muslim martyrdom in flying airplanes into skyscrapers and killing crowds of men and women going about their daily business. Are these events related? Do they express the essence of the religion the actors say they represent, or a strange and abhorrent aberration? More broadly, how did some adherents to these religions come to understand warfare as a legitimate part of religious practice, or even a religious obligation? How widely shared were these views at different points in history, how disputed?
In this course, we will focus on the problem of Crusade and Jihad in Christianity and Islam, the forms of Holy War that cast the longest shadow into the modern world. We will begin by looking at the roots of ideas of Holy War in the scriptures of these two traditions. We will then spend a number of weeks looking at the history of medieval Crusade and Jihad to see how scripture, society, and cultural interaction shaped the way ideas of holy war developed and were disputed. We will then turn to the 20th century and contemporary events and look modern interpretations of the relationship between religion and warfare, and how the history of the medieval period has been written, re-written, and re-interpreted in debates about that relationship. As we explore this material, students will be challenged to think about how solid and sturdy the "facts" of scripture and history are, and the stakes involved in constructing these facts.
HIST-173-401, Cross Listed with: AFRC 078-401URBS 178-401
Urban University and Community Relations
Ira Harkavy / Lee Benson
W 2-5:00PM
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.
HIST-212-301
Classical Liberal Thought
Alan Kors
T 3-6
BFS Sector II
This discussion and research seminar will examine the competing and diverse currents of antistatist and radically individualist thought that have been a part of the Western dialogue from the nineteenth century to the present. The course requires active participations in discussion and two papers, one brief and one a longer research paper.
HIST-214-401, Cross Listed with: JWST 214-401, URBS 220-401
Jews and The City
Beth Wenger
R 1:30 - 4:30
BFS Sector II
Jews have always been an extraordinarily urban people. This seminar explores various aspects of the Jewish encounter with the city, examining the ways that Jewish culture has been shaped by and has helped to shape urban culture. We will focus on both European and American cities and consider Jewish involvement in political, social and cultural life, the various neighborhoods in which Jews have lived, relations with other ethnic groups, as well as many other topics. We will read some classic works in the field along with contemporary scholarship.
http://www.history.upenn.edu/faculty/wenger.shtml
JWST 151-401, Cross Listed with: NELC 156-401, NELC 456-401, RELS 027-401,COML- 057-401
Great Books of Judaism
David Stern
TR 10:30-12:00
BFS Sector III
The study of four paradigmatic classic Jewish texts so as to introduce students to the literature of classic Judaism. Each text will be studied historically--"excavated" for its sources and roots--and holistically, as a canonical document in Jewish tradition. While each text will inevitably raise its own set of issues, we will deal throughout the semester with two basic questions: What makes a "Jewish" text? And how do these texts represent different aspects of Jewish identity? All readings will be in translation.
JWST-153-401, Cross Listed with: COML 257-401, NELC 158-401, NELC 458-401, RELS 223-401
Jewish Literature in The Middle Ages;
Maimonides & His Image
Talya Fishman
M 2-5
BFS Sector III
Moses Maimonides, a Jewish thinker of twelfth century Andalusia and Eqypt, sought to demonstrate the compatibility of Revelation's teachings with the insights of the intellect. But was he an arch-rationalist or a mystic? Through readings in English translation of Maimonides' code of law his philosophical treatise and other writings, this course will explore his conceptions of the ideal curriculum, the purpose of religious observance, love and fear of God, the nature of idilatry, the role of Christianity and Islam in the divine scheme and the Messianic Age. The course will also consider the image of Maimonides at different moments in the history of Jewish culture.
Fulfills Distribution CRS Arts & Letters - Class of '09 and prior.
JWST 214-401, Cross Listed with: HIST-214-401, URBS 220-401
Jews and The City
Beth Wenger
R 1:30 - 4:30
BFS Sector II
Jews have always been an extraordinarily urban people. This seminar explores various aspects of the Jewish encounter with the city, examining the ways that Jewish culture has been shaped by and has helped to shape urban culture. We will focus on both European and American cities and consider Jewish involvement in political, social and cultural life, the various neighborhoods in which Jews have lived, relations with other ethnic groups, as well as many other topics. We will read some classic works in the field along with contemporary scholarship.
http://www.history.upenn.edu/faculty/wenger.shtml
LGST-101-301
Introduction to Law and the Legal Process
Kevin Werbach
MW 10:30- 12
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.
LGST-210-301
Corporate Responsibility and Ethics
Alan Strudler
MW 12 - 1:30
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 shareholders? Can a manager fire an employee just because he doesn't’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.
NELC 154-402, Cross Listed with: GRMN 262-402,
JWST 102-402,
GSOC 162-402,
NELC 154-402
Woman in Jewish Literature
Kathryn Hellerstein
TR 10:30-12
Fulfills College requirements/ Arts & Letters Sector (All Classes)/ Cross Cultural Analysis/ Class of 10' and after
This course introduces students of literature, women's studies, and Jewish studies to 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 relation 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 & poetry from the past century. The course is devided 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 pre-modern 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 and a memoir written by women in Yiddish, Hebrew, and English.
NELC 156-401, Cross Listed with: ,COML- 057-401 NELC 456-401, RELS 027-401, JWST 151-401
Great Books of Judaism
David Stern
TR 10:30-12:00
Sector III
Please see COML 057-401 for course description
NELC 158-401, Cross Listed with: COML 257-401, JWST-153-401, NELC 458-401, RELS 223-401
Jewish Literature in The Middle Ages;
Maimonides & His Image
Talya Fishman
M 2-5
BFS Sector III
Moses Maimonides, a Jewish thinker of twelfth century Andalusia and Eqypt, sought to demonstrate the compatibility of Revelation's teachings with the insights of the intellect. But was he an arch-rationalist or a mystic? Through readings in English translation of Maimonides' code of law his philosophical treatise and other writings, this course will explore his conceptions of the ideal curriculum, the purpose of religious observance, love and fear of God, the nature of idilatry, the role of Christianity and Islam in the divine scheme and the Messianic Age. The course will also consider the image of Maimonides at different moments in the history of Jewish culture.
Fulfills Distribution CRS Arts & Letters - Class of '09 and prior.
NELC 458-401, Cross Listed with: COML 257-401, NELC 158-401, ,JWST-153-401 RELS 223-401
Jewish Literature in The Middle Ages; Maimonides & His Image
Talya Fishman
M 2-5
BFS Sector III
Moses Maimonides, a Jewish thinker of twelfth century Andalusia and Eqypt, sought to demonstrate the compatibility of Revelation's teachings with the insights of the intellect. But was he an arch-rationalist or a mystic? Through readings in English translation of Maimonides' code of law his philosophical treatise and other writings, this course will explore his conceptions of the ideal curriculum, the purpose of religious observance, love and fear of God, the nature of idilatry, the role of Christianity and Islam in the divine scheme and the Messianic Age. The course will also consider the image of Maimonides at different moments in the history of Jewish culture.
Fulfills Distribution CRS Arts & Letters - Class of '09 and prior.
NURS-318-401, Cross Listed with GSOC 318-401, HSOC 341-401
Race, Gender, Class: History
Julie Fairman
W 2-5
See GSOC for description
PHYS-170-301
Honors Physics I (Lab section required)
Larry Gladney
MWF 10-11, M 2-3, T 5-6.
College Sector VI and QDA
PHYS 170 is a difficult course, as one would expect for BFS offering. It is possible to start in PHYS 170 and transfer to PHYS 150 in the first few weeks if you find the course too difficult. The instructor would prefer that you be co-registered in Math 240 or higher. It is no longer possible to place out of the predecessor math course, Math 114, purely on the basis of advanced placement scores, but the Math department offers placement tests at the beginning of the fall semester. Students co-registered in Math 114 (formerly Math 141) have done well in PH170 in the past, but they often need to do some extra work to make up for math topics they have not yet covered. Students co-registered in Math 104 (formerly Math 140) have usually done poorly in PHYS 170, so we suggest they register for PHYS 150. Note that you may pursue a major in Physics and Astronomy after taking either of these introductory sequences. Either of these sequences is also appropriate for majors in other physical sciences or engineering. Moreover, it is possible to take PHYS 171 ( Physics II) Spring 2009 instead of PHYS 151 if you do very well in PHYS 150 in the Fall.
PHYS-171-302 Lab section for Physics I W 1-3
PHYS-171-303 Lab section for Physics I F 1-3
PSCI 010-301
Politics of Crime and Punishment
Marie Gottschalk
M 2-5
BFS Sector I , also fulfills CDUS
This freshman seminar analyzes the connection between punishment, politics, and race in the United States. Questions to be covered include: What explains the country’s extraordinarily high incarceration rate and the fact that one in four black males born today and one in six Hispanic males will spend some time in jail or prison during their lives? What is the relationship between the crime rate and the incarceration rate? What impact does public opinion have on criminal justice policy-making? How do penal policies contribute to—or ameliorate—social, political and economic inequalities? What role has race played in the development of the criminal justice system, in the politics of law and order, and in the “war on drugs”?
The course will include at least one visit to a local prison.
PSCI-291-301
Citizenship and Democratic Development
Henry Teune
T 2-5
BFS Sector I
An idea generating, research focused seminar on the question of how to assess the contributions of universities to democratic education and democratic political development. It is an interdisciplinary seminar with the participation of faculty from around the university. This fall the seminar will focus on targeted student populations at Penn on their democratic values, habits, competencies. The research will build on previous surveys on hundreds of students at Penn as well as at three other local colleges and universities. The primary assignments will be data analyses and written reports on research done both individually and in research groups. Students will be taught to use appropriate soft-ware programs.
This fall the seminar will also attempt, as it has in the past, to assess the impact of Penn on the community immediate surrounding Penn. The seminar will be divided into research task forces that will focus on a neighborhood and assess the role Penn has in developing social and political infrastructures for political engagement.
The results of the seminar are being disseminated to faculty/student seminars in other countries that are collaborating in a global research program on Universities as Sites of Citizenship. This research program is also involved with the Council of Europe and has collected pilot data in Australia, Korea, South Africa as well as 15 university sites in Council of Europe countries and 15 in the U.S.
PSYC-020-301
Probability & Statistics
David White
TR 9-10:30
An introduction to statistics, statistical methods, and probability theory. The course will cover: the nature of statistical data; estimation and hypothesis testing; concepts of statistical inference; measures of central tendency and variability; elementary probability; ANOVA; regression and correlation; non-parametric methods. Emphasis will be placed on application
to research in the behavioral sciences. In addition, there will be an introduction to some of the most popular computer-based statistical programs.
PSYC-109-410, Cross Listed with: BIBB 109-410, BIOL 219-410
Introduction to Brain & Behavior
Loretta Flanagan-Cato
MWF 11-12
Must also register for Psych 109-411Recitation (T 12-1:30)
Introduction to the structure and function of the vertebrate nervous system, the physiological bases of motor control, sensory activity, perception, motivation and higher mental processes. This course is intended for students interested in the neurobiology of behavior. Familiarity with elementary physics and chemistry will be helpful.
www.med.upenn.edu/ins/faculty/flanagan.htm
PSYC 278-301
Constraints on Family Size
Frank Norman
T 1:30 - 4:30
Decisions to have children are influenced by cultural norms and economic constraints. Cultural and economic conditions have changed drastically, and, as a result, recent years have seen a sharp, nearly worldwide decline in birth rate, and exceedingly low birth rates in contemporary Europe and Japan. The history, causes, and consequences of this "fertility transition" are the central topics of this seminar. Historical topics include the emergence of the concept of deliberate family size restriction, which fostered birth rate declines in some countries long before the introduction of efficient contraceptives. Causes include the escalating cost of rearing children. Consequences include population aging and resultant difficulty funding pensions for retirees. (The "social security crisis" is much worse in Europe and Japan than in the USA.) The seminar also considers contemporary women's career-family conflicts, which illustrate some of the psychological, sociological, and economic factors with which the seminar is concerned. Non-BFS students do not need special permission to enroll.
http://psych.upenn.edu/courses/psych270hrd/syl278-07.pdf
Please see COML 057-401 for course description
RELS-223-401, Cross Listed with: COML 257-401, JWST 153-401, NELC 158-401, NELC 458-401
Introduction to Judaism;
Maimonides & His Image
Tayla Fishman
M 2-5
BFS Sector III
Moses Maimonides, a Jewish thinker of twelfth century Andalusia and Eqypt, sought to demonstrate the compatibility of Revelation's teachings with the insights of the intellect. But was he an arch-rationalist or a mystic? Through readings in English translation of Maimonides' code of law his philosophical treatise and other writings, this course will explore his conceptions of the ideal curriculum, the purpose of religious observance, love and fear of God, the nature of idilatry, the role of Christianity and Islam in the divine scheme and the Messianic Age. The course will also consider the image of Maimonides at different moments in the history of Jewish culture.
Fulfills Distribution CRS Arts & Letters - Class of '09 and prior.
RUSS-202-301
Tolstoy
Ilya Vinitsky
TR 1:30-3
BFS Sector III and Cross-cultural
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 author’s 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. The 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.
SOCI-041-301
Mistakes Accidents and Disasters
Charles Bosk
TR 3-4:30
BFS Sector I
The purpose of Soc 041 is to provide a basic understanding of some rather ubiquitous social phenomena: mistakes, errors, accidents and disasters. We will look at these misfiring's across a number of institutional domains: aviation, nuclear power plant, and medicine. Our goal is to understand how organizations "think" about these phenomena, how they develop Strategies of prevention, how these strategies of prevention create new vulnerabilities to different sorts of mishaps, how organizations respond when things go awry, and how they plan for disasters.
At the same time we will be concerned with certain tensions in the sociological view of accidents, errors, mistakes and disasters at the organization level and at the level of the individual. Errors, accidents, mistakes and disasters are embedded in organizational complexities; as such, they are no one's fault. At the same time, as we seek explanations for these adverse events, we seek out whom to punish. We will explore throughout the semester the tension between a view that sees adverse events as the result of flawed organizational processes versus a view that sees these events as a result of flawed individuals.
URBS 220-401, Cross Listed with: HIST 214-401, JWST 214-401
Jews in the City
Beth Wenger
R 1:30 - 4:30
BFS Sector II
Please see HIST 214-401 for course description