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Benjamin Franklin Seminars

Spring 2004

(009) AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES

(465) ASIAN & MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES

AMES 225.401 Modern Middle Eastern Literatures in Translation
MW 4:30-6
Towne 319
(Cross-listed: COML 212)
Distribution III
R. Allen / N. Gold

Professors Roger Allen (Arabic), Nili Gold (Hebrew-Israeli)‹UPenn; Paul Sprachman (Persian)‹Rutgers; Sibil Erol (Turkish)--NYU This course serves as an introduction to the literary traditions of the Middle East through the examination of contemporary works translated from Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, and Turkish. It is team-taught, involving four specialists in Middle Eastern literature. This course is offered simultaneously at Penn and Rutgers University. Each week, the Wednesday session will be linked by video-conference between the two universities. The course deals with the modern literary tradition of each culture through poetry, the short story and long narrative. All readings are in English.

Dr. Allen's home page http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~rallen/?M=D

AMES 255.401The Bible in Translation: Exodus
TR 4-5:30
Bennett 323
(Cross-listed JWST 255, and RELS 224)

(038) Benjamin Franklin Seminars

Research and study under the direction of a faculty sponsor. Research proposals are due to the Benjamin Franklin Scholars office by noon on January 21st. Students are encouraged to discuss their research ideas with the BFS advising staff. Information and registration directions can be found on the BENF 099 page.

BENF 222.301 Leadership and Ethics
F 9-12
(place)
P. Dean

(description)

(053)BIOLOGY

Students will be introduced to the art of reading a scientific paper. Students will develop critical reading and analytic skills as well as an appreciation for experimental design. The course will focus on The Philadelphia Chromosome and other chromosomal translocations leading to cancer. Relevant techniques in molecular biology will be introduced. No prior knowledge of biochemistry is expected.

(049)BIOLOGICAL BASIS OF BEHAVIOR

Genetic and environmental components of IQ, personality, and psychopathology. Evolutionary psychology; basic evolutionary theory; evolution of altruistic, cooperative, and competitive behavior. The course develops and makes extensive use of elementary mathematical and statistical models.

For non-BFS students wishing to enroll: Applicants must attend the first class meeting; admission decisions will be made immediately after that meeting. In addition, applicants are asked to email Professor Norman the following information: 1. Class, 2. Major, 3. Previous Psychology, BIBB, Biology and Statistics courses, and 4. A brief statement of why this course is of special interest to you.

Frank Norman (Ph.D., Stanford, 1965) is professor of psychology. Most of his publications are concerned with mathematical models for evolution and psychological processes. (For a list of publications, see psych.upenn.edu/~norman/pubs.html). Besides the topics covered in Psychology 441, his current interests include microcomputers and psychological testing.

Dr. Norman's web page http://www.psych.upenn.edu/~norman/

(101) CLASSICAL STUDIES

What actually was it that the Greeks were thinking of when they used the expression politeiaó, an expression that we often translate by constitution? What do their thoughts suggest about prospects for constitutionmaking today? This course builds on contemporary scholarship to reconstruct what we may call the constitutional tradition as it develops in the main ancient texts, which are read in English translations. The ancient texts are taken from Herodotus, Xenophon, the Pseudo-Xenophon, Thucydides, Plato, the author of the Aristotelian Athenian Constitution, Aristotle himself, Polybius, Cicero, Augustine, and the codifiers of Roman law. The course traces this tradition through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance and the great thinkers of the Seventeenth Century, following linguistic and other clues that carry one up to Madison and put the work of the U.S. Constitutional Convention in a somewhat new light; and it continues through Nineteenth Century and Twentieth Century constitutionmaking into today's constitutionmaking efforts in Eastern Europe.

The course is conducted as a group tutorial. In each session, the professor offers a prelecture to the class on the text that they will read next to help them understand its historical, literary, and political context. In the next class, the students read short papers on the text, and these papers are discussed by other students and by the professor. The professor then provides a summary lecture on the text just completed and a prelecture on the reading set for the next class. At the end, the students have reconstructed the constitutional tradition for themselves from the sources.

Bio of Dr. Mulhern http://www.classics.upenn.edu/faculty/mulhern.html

CLST 352.301. Teaching Plato's Republic.
an academically-based community service course.
MWF 11-12
Logan 203
Ralph Rosen

Plato's "Republic" begins as a casual conversation among Socrates and his friends about morality and justice, and ends up constructing an elaborate utopian city which would promote justice and happiness among all its citizens. It is no surprise that this monumental project has engaged readers so intensely since antiquity, for it manages to address so many of the perennial questions of human existence: what, for example, constitutes the "good life"? How do we balance the demands of the state and those of the individual? On what criteria can a society base its ethical system? Beyond such grandiose questions other very practical ones are discussed, such as what kinds of art should be allowed in the ideal city, whether women are fit for military service, or how children should be educated. This seminar sets out to accomplish two intersecting goals: the first is to allow students to savor the full text of the Republic, and its relation to other Platonic works, through close, detailed reading over an entire semester; second, it will approach Plato's work as a dynamic and vibrant pedagogical text that can inspire even young students to to reflect on the most urgent, if often puzzling, questions of life.

Ralph Rosen is associate professor and chair of Classical Studies. He received his PhD from Harvard in 1983, after which he came to Penn. His main area of research is with Greek comic genres, including Athenian comic drama (such as Aristophanes) and various forms of satirical, often invective poetry. His website can be found at http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/clst/rrosenhome.html

(113) COMPARATIVE LITERATURE

COML 380.401The Bible in Translation: Exodus
TR 4-5:30
Bennett 323
(Cross-listed JWST 255, and RELS 224)
J. Tigay

This course is a careful textual study of the book of Exodus in translation in the light of modern scholarship, including archaeological evidence and pertinent ancient Near Eastern documents. Topics covered will include the events surrounding the Israelite exodus from Egypt, its date, the first Passover, the role of Moses as a prophet, the Ten Commandments, civil and religious law in the Bible, the golden calf incident, and the impact of the book on Western civilization.

Dr. Tigay's web page http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~jtigay/index.html

(129) COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING

The purpose of this course is to introduce undergraduate students in computer science and engineering to quantum computers (QC) and quantum information science (QIS). This course is meant primarily for juniors and seniors in CSE. No prior knowledge of quantum mechanics (QM) is assumed. Permission of the professor is required.

Dr. Mintz's home page http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~mintz/home.html

(169) ECONOMICS

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 problems as unemployment, inflation and international trade. Introductory economics is a two semester course; either or both semesters may be taken as Benjamin Franklin Seminars.

(197) ENGLISH

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.

Dr. Mahaffey's bio http://www.english.upenn.edu/People/Faculty/Standing/mahaffey.html

ENGL 125.401 Arguments with Attitude
TR 5-6:30
Bennett 326
Fulfils College Writing Requirement.
D. Burnham

The personal essay is at least as old as Defoe, and as new as an unfinished memoir. Conventional definitions of the genre include memoir, elaborated description, criticism and advocacy, but the boundaries get pushed each time that a writer's idiosyncratic experience embraces, slams or dodges the external world. Thus we have essays that show the questioning self looking at and writing about movies, guns, books, bread, dancing, families, dumpsters, rivers, insults and stars.

Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of these essays is the way they include both the external world and the idiosyncratic voice of the writer. We¹ll be reading mostly contemporary essayists who present what I call arguments with attitude. While the writing assignments will be explicitly non-fiction prose, the disciplines and freedoms of writing such pieces can benefit poets and fiction writers as well.

Writing assignments will include weekly short exercises, and four longer pieces. You¹ll learn more about developing thesis and argument as well as discovering and shaping your personal voice. Classes will include both student-led discussions of assigned writings and workshop sessions.

If you have questions, please feel free to write to me: dburnham@writing.upenn.edu.

Dr. Burnham's bio http://www.english.upenn.edu/People/Faculty/Adjuncts/burnham.html

ENGL 365.301 Finnegans Wake
TR 1:30-3
(place)
General Distribution III
V. Mahaffey

This will be an unusual course devoted to a most atypical, experimental book, James Joyce's Finnegans Wake. Finnegans Wake took Joyce 17 years to write; it uses approximately forty languages to produce a macaronic "language" of the unconscious mind in sleep, which moves across the world and through human history in an attempt to correlate the nonrational way the mind moves with the equally unpredictable ways that the world and time move. It is extraordinary in that it is not written for the individual, but for people working together to construct "meaning" across national, linguistic, and historical boundaries, and in that sense it anticipates in extremely challenging ways the phenomenon of globalization. Anyone considering taking this course should be forewarned that most readers do not consider Finnegans Wake intelligible in the usual sense of the word, and many find it frustrating and even indefensible as a literary experiment. It has been defended, though, as the verbal equivalent to the achievement of splitting the atom; by splitting the word, Joyce aims to unleash previously untapped creative and interpretive energy, which he hoped would produce widespread revolutionary effects.

Instead of reading all of Finnegans Wake, we will concentrate on getting a fuller understanding of selected episodes by reading them carefully (using annotations), understanding their evolution through different stages of composition, and situating them contextually. For example, when we do the Prankquean episode, we will also read a book about Grace O'Malley, the Irish Renaissance pirate; when we read the Mookse and the Gripes and the Ondt and the Gracehoper, we will also read Aesop. Additional supplemental texts will include Freud's Interpretation of Dreams, Ibsen's The Master Builder, Vico's The New Science, material on Napoleon and Wellington, Buddha and Mohammed, St. Patrick and St. Kevin. Students will be responsible for indepth oral reports and for two 8-10 page papers involving extensive research, each of which will focus on an individual episode. For a course like this to work, everyone involved must agree to do the difficult reading with care and diligence, and to "wipe their glosses with what they know," as well as what they learn.

Dr. Mahaffey's bio http://www.english.upenn.edu/People/Faculty/Standing/mahaffey.html

ENGL 383.301 The Politics of Mourning and Memory in American Literature and Culture
W 2-5
Bennett 319
General Distribution III
A. Kaplan

The experience of 9/11 has shown us how public trauma and personal grief can be used for varied - and often conflicting - political ends.  This course explores the intersections of private expressions of loss and national occasions of mourning in recent American literature and culture. Starting with nineteenth-century precedents, our readings center on responses to World War II, the Vietnam War, and the AIDS epidemic. We will ask how memorializing the dead may contribute to a sense of national or communal belonging or to a sense of alienation. We will raise ethical questions about why some losses are mourned while others remain invisible to the public view.  We will explore the centrality of historical memory to this process, how representations of loss involve wrestling with, reconstructing, and even forgetting competing version of the past. The literature will be framed by theoretical discussions about psychoanalysis, sentimentalism, trauma, and nationalism, and will be supplemented by debates about specific public memorials, such as the Vietnam War Memorial, the Holocaust Museum the AIDS Quilt, and current plans for the World Trade Center.  In addition to novels, we will examine film, poetry, memoir, and drama by U.S. artists and others from among the following: Bobbie Ann Mason, Tim O'Brien, Nguyen Khai, Leslie Marmon Silko, Joy Kogawa, Toni Morrison, Art Spiegleman, Mark Doty, Tony Kushner, Primo Levi, W.G. Sebald, Ariel Dorfman and Anne Michaels.

Dr. Kaplan's bio http://www.english.upenn.edu/People/Faculty/Standing/kaplan.html

ENGL 384.301 Modern America
TR 9-10:30
General Distribution III
R. Barnard

CANCELLED

In this course we will study some of the most important and challenging American modernists, including Gertrude Stein, Nathanael West, William Faulkner, and Richard Wright. Our discussions will focus on the impact of social modernity on the forms of fiction. We will investigate the influence of the mass media (movies, comic strips, advertising, the newspaper, etc.) on literature; we will consider the impact of World War I, urbanization, and the Great Depression; we will ponder the legacy of slavery and racism; and we will think about money--about the intersections of literature and economics at a period when the producer-capitalist culture of the nineteenth century was being transformed into our present culture of consumption. The reading list may include: Gertrude Stein, Three Lives and The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas; Malcolm Cowley, The Exile's Return; Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio; Ernest Hemingway, In Our Time and The Sun Also Rises; Nathanael West, Miss Lonelyhearts, A Cool Million, and The Day of the Locust; Nathan Asch, Pay Day; William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury, Light in August, and Go Down Moses; and Richard Wright, Lawd Today! and Native Son. One class period will be devoted to a round-table discussion of a number of documentary texts from the 1930s, and we will close by viewing a relevant film or two, like Sullivan's Travels and The Moderns. Requirements: two papers--a mid-term and a final of about 8-10 pages each.

Dr. Barnard's bio http://www.english.upenn.edu/People/Faculty/Standing/barnard.html

ENGL 394.301Visions and Re-Visions: Twice-Told Tales Storytelling and Narrative Authority
TR 10:30-12
Rittenhouse Labs 4C4
General Distribution III
R. Potok

This course will investigate seven pairings of well-known literary texts with later, twentieth-century re-interpretations, visions, and revisions. The purpose of our study will be to set up a dialogue between canonical works of English and American literature and their contemporary counterparts. Our discussions will focus on the ways in which the concerns of past generations of writers are refracted through the lens of more recent literary works, and on the question of how a narrative's authority and integrity are challenged as texts are re-imagined. We will examine plays, novels, and children's literature by British and American writers; we will also read a selection of theoretical works on narration and literary authority. Requirements: Two short papers, and one longer research term paper; two in-class presentations. Among the works we will read are: William Shakespeare, Hamlet and Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead; William Shakespeare, King Lear and Jane Smiley, A Thousand Acres; Emily Bronte, Jane Eyre and Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea; Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland, and excerpts from Alternative Alices and Fantastic Alice; Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita and Pia Pera, Lo's Diary; Frank L. Baum, The Wizard of Oz, and Geoff Ryman, Was; Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway and Michael Cunningham, The Hours.

Dr. Potok's bio http://www.english.upenn.edu/People/Faculty/Adjuncts/potok.html

(201) ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES

Cigarette smoking is a major public health problem. The Centers for Disease Control reports that more than 80% of current adult tobacco users started smoking before age 18. The National Youth Tobacco Survey indicated that 12.8% of middle school students and 34.8% of high school students in their study used some form of tobacco products.

In ENVS 407, Penn undergraduates learn about the short and long term physiological consequences of smoking, social influences and peer norms regarding tobacco use, the effectiveness of cessation programs, tobacco advocacy and the impact of the tobacco settlement.

Penn students will collaborate with middle school teachers in West Philadelphia to prepare and deliver lesson plans to 6th through 8th graders. The undergraduates will survey and evaluate middle school and Penn student body smoking usage. One of the goals of this course is to raise awareness of the middle school children to prevent addiction to tobacco smoke during adolescence. The collaboration with the middle schools gives the Penn students the opportunity to apply their study of the prevention of tobacco smoking to real world situations.

ENVS 408.401 Urban Environments: The Urban Asthma Epidemic.
an academically based community service course
TR 10:30-12
Hayden Hall 358
(Cross-listed: HSOC 408)
CWIC
Elaine Wright

Asthma as a chronic pediatric disease is undergoing a dramatic and unexplained increase. It has become the #1 cause of public-school absenteeism and now accounts for a significant number of childhood deaths each year in the USA.

In ENVS 408, Penn undergraduates learn about the epidemiology of urban asthma, the debate about the probable cause (or causes) of the current asthma crisis, and the nature and distribution of environmental factors that modern medicine describes as potential triggers of asthma episodes.

Penn students will collaborate with community-service home visitors employed in a clinical research study at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). The Penn students accompany CHOP staff to the homes of children undergoing outpatient treatment for chronic asthma at CHOP. They instruct the families of those children in strategies to establish and maintain a trigger-free space within each child's home in which he/she can sleep, play, and study. The Penn students also conduct on-site ACLOTEST procedures in each home to determine the concentration of dust-mite feces in the rooms children will be using as safe sapces. They will then summarize the results of their work in a format appropriate to the assessment phase of the CHOP clinical study.

ENVS 409.301 Environmental Impacts of Urban Housing.
an academically based community service course
M 2-4:50
Hayden 358
CWIC
E. Wright

ENVS 409 focuses specifically on the problems of building and renovating homes to minimize environmental health risks and the waste of natural resources and to optimize the impact on physical surroundings. Homes can be built and renovated to decrease environmental health risks. Households are large consumers of natural resources such as energy, water, and raw materials as well as contributors of significant amounts of waste to local landfills. Conservation of natural resources not only has a positive economic benefit but also is also important in saving diminishing resources.
The goal of the Housing course is to provide the students with the knowledge and the opportunity to apply their learning to real-world projects in the community. The Housing course would encourage good stewardship of natural resources and raise awareness of the environmental impacts of house building and renovation.
Penn students will be working with people in the community to jointly build and renovate homes that will contribute to the vitality of the neighborhoods. These building days will serve as a laboratory for the students to apply their learning and to explore research opportunities. Collaboration with Habitat for Humanity and other groups will provide the community service-learning component of this course. ENVS 409 will be offered in the spring and summer sessions.