Return to the CURF home page
Return to the BFS home page
AFRC-078-401
Urban University Community Relations
Ira Harkavy
W 2-5 PM
Inspired by Penn's founder, Ben Franklin, President Amy Gutmann has identified rising to the challenge of a diverse democracy and educating students for democratic citizenship as critical goals of her administration. Since the present 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, problem-solving clusters, i.e., interrelated, cross-disciplinary, complementary sets of courses designed to stimulate and empower students to produce, not simply consumer, societally-useful knowledge. By societally-useful knowledge, we mean knowledge actively used to solve global strategic problems of democracy and society, schooling and society, health and society, poverty and society, environment and society, culture and society, etc., as those global problems manifest themselves locally at Penn and in West Philadelphia/Philadelphia.
An academically-based community service course.
ANTH-273-301
Globalization and Health
Adriana Petryna
R 1:30-4:30 PM
In some parts of the world spending on pharmaceuticals is astronomical. In others, people struggle to survive amid new and reemerging epidemics and have little or no access to basic or life-saving therapies. Treatments for infectious diseases that disproportionately affect the world’s poor remain under-researched and global health disparities are increasing. This interdisciplinary seminar integrates perspectives from the social and biomedical sciences to explore 1) the development and global flows of medical technologies; 2) how individual and group health is affected by medical technologies, public policy, and the forces of globalization as each of these affects local worlds.
The seminar is structured around specific case materials from around the world (Haiti, South Africa, Brazil, Russia, China, India, for example), each demonstrating how social and technological forces—increasingly global in nature—can influence biomedical processes and disease outcomes and their distribution. As we analyze each case and gain familiarity with ethnographic methods, we will ask how more effective interventions can be formulated. The course draws from ethnographic and historical writings, medical journals, ethical analyses, and films, and familiarizes students with critical debates on globalization and it local responses.
Probably no individual artist has been any more studied than Rembrandt, nor subjected to a wider variety of approaches over more than a century of art historical scholarship. This course aims to be both an introduction and analysis of one of history’s greatest artists as well as a course in the methods and historiography of art history through the questions that have been addressed for well over a century to Rembrandt’s works. We shall consider his use of the separate media of painting, drawing, and etching as well as the value and limitations of biographical and documentary explanations for a career. We shall consider individual works in depth and over time as well as how Rembrandt worked in different periods or on different types of art (e.g. landscapes) over the span of his career. Each student will pursue a semester-long research topic and will present the results of her findings to the seminar at the end of term on topics such as the following: a single work, a focused theme, a contemporary Dutch artist, or wider related cultural questions.
Does not count towards the BFS seminar requirement.
BENF-223-301
Art, Law, and Technology
Mari Shaw
TR 3-4:30
The concept of originality today functions in a very different world than it did in the mid 19th century when it was critical in defining Modernism in the visual arts. When a rapper records a song in which the music is largely sampled from other musicians’ material, has she created an original work? If a software developer comes up with a new use for existing software, has she done something original? If her purpose in coming up with the new use is to download music, has she created intellectual property that she is entitled to exploit or is she a wrong-doer who should be held responsible for violating the rights of the songwriter or the recording company? When an artist repurposes the image of a celebrity from a photograph, is she creating an original work or is she violating the rights of the photographer or the celebrity? What does originality and intellectual property mean in the context of a world where ideas and commerce flow freely among cultures with varying views of creativity, innovation, and ownership? We will study the works of 20th century artists who challenge traditional concepts of what constitutes an original work of art, the evolution of the law in redefining an original work whose creator is entitled to legal protection against being copied, destroyed, or used, and how technology has driven changes in our definition of originality first through mechanical and later through electronic means of reproduction and distribution. The artists we will study are Marcel Duchamp, who introduced the concept of the “ready-made;” Andy Warhol, who appropriated images of consumer products and celebrities; Sherrie Levine, who photographed the photographs of famous male photographers; Pierre Huyghe, whose works examine questions of possession and interpretation (exploring for example, whether Walt Disney or the singer who spoke and sang as “Snow White” is the legal owner of the voice of Disney’s “Snow White?”), and Matt Suib, who splices and reinterprets performances of iconic film and recording stars. Matt Suib will come to speak to the class about his work.
Ms. Shaw is a lawyer whose practice focuses on intellectual property and technology law, and the cases discussed in class will include cases in which she represented one of the parties. Ms. Shaw also serves on various museum and gallery advisory boards and collects art, and works of the artists discussed in class will be seen either at the Philadelphia Museum of Art or at Ms. Shaw’s home.
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.
The first half of the course treats Behavioral Genetics (e.g., genetic and environmental components of IQ, personality, and psychopathology; gene-environment interaction), and the second half deals with Evolutionary Psychology (e.g., evolution of altruistic, cooperative, and competitive behavior). There are no prerequisites, but previous courses in Psychology, Biological Basis of Behavior, Anthropology, Biology, or Statistics would be helpful preparation.
CPLN-506-401
Poverty, Racism, and Crime in West Philadelphia/Philadelphia and What Should Penn Do Democratically to Overcome Them: An Interdisciplinary Faculty Student-Seminar
Anthony Tomazinis/Ira Harkavy
R 3-6
CPLN 430 will be a university wide seminar to analyze West Philadelphia/Philadelphia as an ecological system and what policies its major institution, the University of Pennsylvania, can initiate to reduce poverty, racism, and crime in both the short and long run. During the Spring 2007 semester, the seminar will focus its attention on West Philadelphia (including Southwest Philadelphia). About 20 faculty will be involved with a maximum of 24 students divided into 6 studio groups for research in targeted West Philadelphia communities and the formulation of recommendations. The reports of the group will be presented to mid-term and final faculty juries for evaluation. Through the University’s Office of the Vice President for Government and Community Affairs, the recommendations proposed by the seminar will be submitted to the President for consideration and action. About 13 topics, one each week, will be covered by a lead faculty with the participation of others. These topics include: wealth, income and economic development; regional development; crime and delinquency; racism and pluralism, schooling and literacy; community healthcare; arts and culture; transportation; housing; neighborhood problems and issues; families, children and youth; political capital; and the environment. Each issue will be placed within the framework of West Philadelphia as a social and physical system.
The key institutions that will be examined as possible points of entry for change are: Penn; “eds and meds”; schools’; churches; and community organizations, including political parties and groups. It is expected that students in the seminar will start with these institutions as points of departure in doing research locally. In addition, Mr. Rick Redding, Director of Community Planning of the City Planning Commission, will be a seminar participant and make available a considerable body of data, including an inventory of social and business organizations in West Philadelphia. The seminar will take shape in the fall of 2006 through meetings of the collaborating faculty, community members and participants and in the presentation of preceptorials to be organized with the Student Committee on Undergraduate Education. These presentations are intended to recruit students that are interested in research and collaborative, real-world problem solving.
What actually was it that the Greeks were thinking of when they used the expression "politeia" -- an expression that we often translate by "constitution"? What do their thoughts suggest about prospects for constitution making 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 constitution making into today's constitution making efforts in Eastern Europe.
COML-310-401
The Medieval Reader
Victoria Kirkham
TR 12-1:30
Sector III: May be counted towards the Sector Requirement in Arts & Letters.
COML-380-401
The Bible in Translation: Exodus
Jeff Tigay
TR 4:30-6
This course is a careful textual study of the book of Exodus in the light of modern scholarship, including archaeological evidence and ancient Near Eastern documents, comparative literature and religion. Topics 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 reverberations of Exodus in later Judaism, Christianity, and Western (particularly American) Civilization.
Distribution III: May be counted as a Distributional course in Arts & Letters. May be repeated for credit.
COML-360-401
Critical Issues in Global and Transnational Studies
Roman de la Campa
TR 1:30-3
This course will focus on critical issues pertaining to global and transnational studies in the humanities. We will clarify conceptual paradigms as much as possible, outlining their historical evolvement in the 20th-Century, as well as their spheres of dissemination and contradiction, particularly in the Americas. We will then test these notions in literary and cultural texts (short stories, novels, poems, films, videos, music or other forms).
The course will be specifically organized around the following questions and themes: Postmodern, Postcolonial, Cosmopolitan and Subaltern proposals of the past twenty years. Do they offer new points of departure for literary and cultural studies? How do they situate notions of modernity in various part of the world? What role do notions such as hybridity and multiculturalism play in our understanding of transnational spheres? Are historical differences between the English and Hispanic legacies of colonialism in the Americas highlighted or erased through these discourses? What are the claims of diasporic, post-nationalist and post-humanist forms of writing and reading? What role does feminism play in them? Culture, Multitudes, New citizenry. Are contemporary subjects susceptible to a powerful aesthetic pull cultural studies attempt to address? Is there such a thing as an aesthetic of globalization? Can it be studied critically? Is it mostly visual? Does literature or critical thinking play a role in it? Performativity and Immanence. A look at various notions surrounding these new tropes; specifically their modes of reshaping intellectual subjects and the notions of creativity, autobiography and culture brokering prevalent in the pull towards techno-mediatic globalization.
The final list of writers, critics and theorists is still in progress. It will constitute a world-wide representation of authors such as Jorge Luis Borges, Judith Butler, Ernesto Laclau, Homi Bhabha, Gayatri Spivak, Octavio Paz, Roland Barthes, Walter Benjamin. Stuart Hall, Lisa Lowe, Rey Chow, Clarice Lispector, Stephen Greenblatt, Theodor Adorno, Gilles Deleuze, Paolo Virno, Allan Badiou, and others.
Distribution III: May be counted as a Distributional course in Arts & Letters.
COML-385-401
Geisha and Samurai on Stage: Introduction to Japanese Theater
Ayako Kano
T 1:30-4:30
Japan has one of the richest and most varied theatrical traditions in the world. In this course, we will examine Japanese theater in historical and comparative contexts. The readings and discussions will cover all areas of the theatrical experience (script, acting, stage design, costumes, music, audience). Audio-visual material will be used whenever appropriate and possible. The class will be conducted in English, with all English materials.
Distribution III: May be counted as a Distributional course in Arts & Letters.
Prerequisite(s): Reading knowledge of Japanese and/or previous coursework in literature/theater will be helpful, but not required.
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.
Prerequisite(s): CSE 260, CSE 262, and Math 240. Permission of the professor is required.
Probably no individual artist has been any more studied than Rembrandt, nor subjected to a wider variety of approaches over more than a century of art historical scholarship. This course aims to be both an introduction and analysis of one of history’s greatest artists as well as a course in the methods and historiography of art history through the questions that have been addressed for well over a century to Rembrandt’s works. We shall consider his use of the separate media of painting, drawing, and etching as well as the value and limitations of biographical and documentary explanations for a career. We shall consider individual works in depth and over time as well as how Rembrandt worked in different periods or on different types of art (e.g. landscapes) over the span of his career. Each student will pursue a semester-long research topic and will present the results of her findings to the seminar at the end of term on topics such as the following: a single work, a focused theme, a contemporary Dutch artist, or wider related cultural questions.
Japan has one of the richest and most varied theatrical traditions in the world. In this course, we will examine Japanese theater in historical and comparative contexts. The readings and discussions will cover all areas of the theatrical experience (script, acting, stage design, costumes, music, audience). Audio-visual material will be used whenever appropriate and possible. The class will be conducted in English, with all English materials.
Distribution III: May be counted as a Distributional course in Arts & Letters.
Prerequisite(s): Reading knowledge of Japanese and/or previous coursework in literature/theater will be helpful, but not required.
EDUC-545-401
Ethics in Practice
Sigal Ben Porath/Joan Goodman
M 2-4:50
Our topic is most ancient and most modern: What is the good life and does it differ from the worthy life? Along with Socrates, we will investigate whether there are moral frameworks and principled criteria that can and should guide the choices we make in our personal, professional and public lives. If so, how do they become operative as we frame our larger purposes and make day by day decisions? We will pursue this inquiry by starting with the fundamentals: What is ethics and why should we be mindful of it? We then wind our way through classical theories of moral justification and the substance of moral norms, with a particular focus on the debate between egoism and altruism. Although we continuously reference the relevance of theory to our daily lives, in this course we concentrate on common conflicts that arise in complex, yet ordinarily, life situations and ask, how should one balance commitments? The materials for the seminar include primary philosophical texts, secondary texts, and literature. Assignments will include comparative analysis of the texts as well as students' reflections on how the readings pertain to their contemporary and projected lives.
ENGL-326-301
Introduction to Shakespeare
Phyllis Rackin
MW 2-3:30
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 at the first meeting) along with background material on Shakespeare's theater and his culture. There will be one or two hour-exams, one or two short papers, and a final exam. In addition, students are expected to meet in study groups outside of class and to make thoughtful, well-informed contributions to the class listserv and discussions.
Distribution III: May be counted as a Distributional course in Arts & Letters.
ENGL-329-301
Poetry and Political Philosophy in Ancient Greece
Anne Hall
TR 1:30-3
In this course, we will take up questions central to a liberal education, that is, the education worthy of a free person. Those questions are the makeup of the human soul, the nature of happiness, the connection between virtue and political action, the role of poetry in teaching virtue, and the connection between personal happiness and the polity to which the individual belongs. Addressing such questions will establish a foundation from which to consider these questions as they are taken up by other great writers of later periods.
Along the way, we will hit some of the great moments in Greek literature-the meeting between Priam and Achilles in the midst of the Trojan War, the victory of the Greeks over the Persians at the Battle of Salamis, the Funeral Oration of Pericles and the destruction of the Athenian army in Sicily, Socrates being lowered to earth in a basket, the story of Theuth, and the rich tentativeness of Socrates’ remark, as he decides to leave behind a simple city in favor of a city with philosophical leisure afforded to some, “Perhaps it is for the best.”
We will read the following works in whole or in part: Homer’s Illiad, Herodotus’ Persian Wars, Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War, Aristophanes’ The Clouds, several dialogues of Plato (Apology, Meno, Gorgias, Republic, Phaedrus).
Distribution III: May be counted as a Distributional course in Arts & Letters.
ENGL-353-301
Nineteenth-Century New York City and American Modernity
Nancy Bentley
TR 12-1:30
When did the United States become “modern”? The premise of this course is that there is better way to pose the question, namely: where (not when) did the US become modern America? We will examine nineteenth-century authors who wrote about New York City, the site where the forces of modernity made their earliest and most concentrated appearance in America. Nineteenth-century New York 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 systems (global immigration and travel, the emergence of mass culture, the redefining of kinship and family, the importance of ethnic and sexual subcultures). A field trip or optional research trip to New York may be part of the course. The syllabus will include some 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 Martî, from Our America; Dreiser, Sister Carrie; Yezierska, Bread Givers; Crane, New York sketches; Wharton, Twilight Sleep; Johnson, Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man.
Distribution III: May be counted as a Distributional course in Arts & Letters.
ENGL-388-301
Topics in American Poetry
Bob Perelman
MW 2-3:30
We will structure the course around two major works of American poetry from the early 1920s, The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot and Spring and All by William Carlos Williams. These are fascinating pieces in their own right and more fascinating in juxtaposition. Williams loathed Eliot's erudite poetry; and Eliot's affirmation of literary and social hierarchy was a major spur for Williams to produce a democratic modernism. Opposed as the two works are, they share many common concerns. Crucial social questions of the day are deeply embedded in the texture of both works: the unprecedented barbarism of WWI; questions of women's sexuality and reproductive rights; questions of immigration and national purity.
We will read the poems, some critical background, and cultural contextualization. I expect that class interest will dictate some of the lines of investigation: birth control debates; the nascent science of anthropology; notions of 'the primitive', etc. This is not a course designed only for those with a sophisticated poetry background. The poems are complex but are far from illegible; and their ramifications reach into many areas of interest. Assignments: weekly reading & journals; a (not huge) final paper.
Distribution III: May be counted as a Distributional course in Arts & Letters.
ENGL-394-401
Critical Issues in Global and Transnational Studies
Roman de la Campa
TR 1:30-3
This course will focus on critical issues pertaining to global and transnational studies in the humanities. We will clarify conceptual paradigms as much as possible, outlining their historical evolvement in the 20th-Century, as well as their spheres of dissemination and contradiction, particularly in the Americas. We will then test these notions in literary and cultural texts (short stories, novels, poems, films, videos, music or other forms).
The course will be specifically organized around the following questions and themes: Postmodern, Postcolonial, Cosmopolitan and Subaltern proposals of the past twenty years. Do they offer new points of departure for literary and cultural studies? How do they situate notions of modernity in various part of the world? What role do notions such as hybridity and multiculturalism play in our understanding of transnational spheres? Are historical differences between the English and Hispanic legacies of colonialism in the Americas highlighted or erased through these discourses? What are the claims of diasporic, post-nationalist and post-humanist forms of writing and reading? What role does feminism play in them? Culture, Multitudes, New citizenry. Are contemporary subjects susceptible to a powerful aesthetic pull cultural studies attempt to address? Is there such a thing as an aesthetic of globalization? Can it be studied critically? Is it mostly visual? Does literature or critical thinking play a role in it? Performativity and Immanence. A look at various notions surrounding these new tropes; specifically their modes of reshaping intellectual subjects and the notions of creativity, autobiography and culture brokering prevalent in the pull towards techno-mediatic globalization.
The final list of writers, critics and theorists is still in progress. It will constitute a world-wide representation of authors such as Jorge Luis Borges, Judith Butler, Ernesto Laclau, Homi Bhabha, Gayatri Spivak, Octavio Paz, Roland Barthes, Walter Benjamin. Stuart Hall, Lisa Lowe, Rey Chow, Clarice Lispector, Stephen Greenblatt, Theodor Adorno, Gilles Deleuze, Paolo Virno, Allan Badiou, and others.
Distribution III: May be counted as a Distributional course in Arts & Letters.
An academically-based community service and CWiC course.
A study of the physiology and psychology of tobacco addiction, and a review of the history of the legal case now being made against the tobacco companies. Tobacco companies historically have targeted pre-adolescent potential smokers with aggressive advertising, in response to research that has shown that brand loyalty established early is very resistant to change. Penn students in the course will be sent into local middle schools to undertake to counter that advertising. The course will undertake to show that prevention of smoking at an early age may be a more effective strategy to reduce smoking than programs designed to encourage established smokers to quit. The substantive parts of this course will be taught by faculty in the Pulmonary Division of the Medical School.
At birth we are already unique individuals and as we grow, we become aware of our dissimilarities—thus the pursuit of originality began as awareness arrived. All else lies within the expanse of sharpening one’s perceptiveness and knowing how to be keen observers of nature as well as understanding the power of introspection because the pursuit of originality is the yearning for truth. There is no other discipline so driven by the need to see the truth as the Arts and art teaches us how to be observers, take notes and be generous. However, to participate in this seminar a student does not need to know how to draw or sing or write beautiful prose because the lessons herein are designed to be paradigms of methodology merely accessing the mind-set of artists. Students will participate in discussions precipitated by screenings of exceptional films and audio recordings, the readings of highly stimulating texts and conduct experiments in the PC lab with a unique video-paint software application specifically designed for experimental filmmakers and graphics designers.
Japan has one of the richest and most varied theatrical traditions in the world. In this course, we will examine Japanese theater in historical and comparative contexts. The readings and discussions will cover all areas of the theatrical experience (script, acting, stage design, costumes, music, audience). Audio-visual material will be used whenever appropriate and possible. The class will be conducted in English, with all English materials.
Distribution III: May be counted as a Distributional course in Arts & Letters.
Prerequisite(s): Reading knowledge of Japanese and/or previous coursework in literature/theater will be helpful, but not required.
GRMN-262-401
Women in Jewish Literature
Katherine Hellerstein
TR 10:30-12
This course will introduce Penn students of literature, women's studies, and Jewish studies -- both undergraduates and graduates -- to the long tradition of women as readers, writers, and subjects in Jewish literature (in translation from Yiddish, Hebrew, and in English). By examining the interaction of culture, gender, and religion in a variety of literary works by Jewish authors, from the seventeenth century to the present, the course will argue for the importance of Jewish women's writing. Authors include Glikl of Hameln, Cynthia Ozick, Anzia Yezierska, Kadya Molodowsky, Esther Raab, Anne Frank, and others. "Jewish woman, who knows your life? In darkness you have come, in darkness do you go." J. L. Gordon (1890).
Distribution III: May be counted as a Distributional course in Arts & Letters.
GSOC-162-401
Women in Jewish Literature
Katherine Hellerstein
TR 10:30-12
This course will introduce Penn students of literature, women's studies, and Jewish studies -- both undergraduates and graduates -- to the long tradition of women as readers, writers, and subjects in Jewish literature (in translation from Yiddish, Hebrew, and in English). By examining the interaction of culture, gender, and religion in a variety of literary works by Jewish authors, from the seventeenth century to the present, the course will argue for the importance of Jewish women's writing. Authors include Glikl of Hameln, Cynthia Ozick, Anzia Yezierska, Kadya Molodowsky, Esther Raab, Anne Frank, and others. "Jewish woman, who knows your life? In darkness you have come, in darkness do you go." J. L. Gordon (1890).
Sector III: May be counted towards the Sector Requirement in Arts & Letters.
GSOC-310-401
The Medieval Reader
Victoria Kirkham
TR 12-1:30
Sector III: May be counted towards the Sector Requirement in Arts & Letters.
ENVS-407-401
Prevention of Tobacco Use
Richard Pepino
TR 1:30-3
A study of the physiology and psychology of tobacco addiction, and a review of the history of the legal case now being made against the tobacco companies. Tobacco companies historically have targeted pre-adolescent potential smokers with aggressive advertising, in response to research that has shown that brand loyalty established early is very resistant to change. Penn students in the course will be sent into local middle schools to undertake to counter that advertising. The course will undertake to show that prevention of smoking at an early age may be a more effective strategy to reduce smoking than programs designed to encourage established smokers to quit. The substantive parts of this course will be taught by faculty in the Pulmonary Division of the Medical School.
An academically-based community service and CWiC course.
HIST-211-301
Crusades and Crusading
Jessica Goldberg
R 1:30-4:30
“Crusade” is a word with a variety of powerful meanings in the contemporary world, suggesting to some the noxious roots of European imperialism, to others an unparalleled example of religious commitment. In this seminar, we study the phenomenon known as the crusades from the perspectives of both Christian Europe and the Islamic Mediterranean to see how these events were understood by different cultures both at the time and in later generations. We examine the development of the idea of crusading in Europe, follow the successful progress of the first crusade, and look at the building and dissolution of crusader states in Palestine. We look at how eastern and western Christians, Jews and Muslims lived and failed to live together, and the extent to which their contact led to both cultural synthesis and a new cultural antagonism. Crusaders wrote accounts of their deeds, and the societies and groups they touched did the same.
Our readings will center on medieval chronicles of the crusades and crusader states in English translation from Latin, Old French, Hebrew and Arabic. To these we will add a variety of documentary sources, including church records, letters from those caught by events, and treaties between Crusaders and Muslims. For the long cultural afterlife of the crusades, we turn in the last part of the course to historical novels, essays, and films. By the end of the course, each of you will have researched one aspect of the crusades—either an event as narrated by several sources, or many events told by a single chronicler—in an effort to understand how the Crusades were perceived by medieval people.
HIST-212-301
Historians and Historiography
Jonathan Steinberg
M 2-5
This course is a reading course in history and theories about the writing of history, which for short we call "historiography". Each week we shall read together and discuss the methodological and practical implications of the weeks text. Some of the authors are philosophers but others are historians who both write history but also think about what that means theoretically. We shall alternate between works by practicing historians and those by philosophers and theoreticians, who look at history from the outside as a discipline. The object is to refine our own theoretical apparatus by confronting the positions articulated in the books (and that includes mine). Each student will take it in turn to lead the discussion and after the session will be expected to write a summary of the issues for circulation to other participants. In addition there will be a final examination. It will not be a conventional one but I am still thinking about what it ought to be.
HIST-214-401
Urban University-Community Relations
Ira Harkavy
W 2-5
Inspired by Penn's founder, Ben Franklin, President Amy Gutmann has identified rising to the challenge of a diverse democracy and educating students for democratic citizenship as critical goals of her administration. Since the present 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, problem-solving clusters, i.e., interrelated, cross-disciplinary, complementary sets of courses designed to stimulate and empower students to produce, not simply consumer, societally-useful knowledge. By societally-useful knowledge, we mean knowledge actively used to solve global strategic problems of democracy and society, schooling and society, health and society, poverty and society, environment and society, culture and society, etc., as those global problems manifest themselves locally at Penn and in West Philadelphia/Philadelphia.
An academically-based community service course.
HIST-216-401
Filming the Middle East
Eva Troutt Powell
W 2-5, film screenings R 7-9PM.
This course will explore the major historical conflicts and issues of the modern Middle East, as they have been seen in the eyes of Middle Eastern film-makers. The rapid change of national boundaries after World War I, the experience of life under the European mandates, the creation of Israel , the Lebanese civil war – these are some of the events that form the basis for many of the films we will study. We will also explore how Middle Eastern directors and writers portray the consequences of these harsh experiences, as well as other more intimate issues like marriage, divorce and the experience of poverty. These films come from all over the Middle East and North Africa: Egypt, Tunisia, Lebanon, Israel, Iran, Algeria and Syria. The course will also be the foundation for a Syrian film retrospective, and therefore a unique chance to see films from a country with little film distribution in the West.
ITAL-310-401
The Medieval Reader
Victoria Kirkham
TR 12-1:30
Through a range of authors from Augustine to Dante, Petrarch, Galileo, and Umberto Eco, this course will explore the world of the book in the manuscript era. Topics will include 1) readers as staged in fiction, male and female, good and bad; 2) books as precious material objects hand-produced in monasteries and their subsequent role in the rise of the universities; 3) medieval ideals of the book--as a repository of encyclopedic knowledge, as a symbol of God's created universe; 4) radical changes in book culture brought about by printing and the internet.
Sector III: May be counted towards the Sector Requirement in Arts & Letters.
JWST-100-401
Women in Jewish Literature
Katherine Hellerstein
TR 10:30-12
This course will introduce Penn students of literature, women's studies, and Jewish studies -- both undergraduates and graduates -- to the long tradition of women as readers, writers, and subjects in Jewish literature (in translation from Yiddish, Hebrew, and in English). By examining the interaction of culture, gender, and religion in a variety of literary works by Jewish authors, from the seventeenth century to the present, the course will argue for the importance of Jewish women's writing. Authors include Glikl of Hameln, Cynthia Ozick, Anzia Yezierska, Kadya Molodowsky, Esther Raab, Anne Frank, and others. "Jewish woman, who knows your life? In darkness you have come, in darkness do you go." J. L. Gordon (1890).
Sector III: May be counted towards the Sector Requirement in Arts and Letters.
JWST-102-402
The Binding of Isaac
David Stern
TR 10:30-12
The Akeidah, or the Binding of Isaac, as told in Genesis 22, is one of the great Biblical stories and the foundation for one of the great themes of Western religion, the near-sacrifice and restoration of the beloved son. The story is also one of the most problematic texts in all Biblical literature, and a source for countless later tales and re-imaginings in later Jewish, Christian, and Islamic literature. In this course, we will study the history of this tale and its theme from the Bible through the modern period in order to show how a Biblical tradition develops and changes in response to historical change. The focus will be on Jewish tradition but we will also consider Christian and Islamic parallels because, as we shall see, no religious tradition in Western culture has ever developed in a vacuum. In this way, we will also attempt to understand the very nature of Tradition—the process by which the past is received and handed on to future generations—as it figures in Judaism and Western culture in general.
Sector II: May be counted towards the Sector Requirement in History & Tradition.
JWST-255-401
The Bible in Translation: Exodus
Jeff Tigay
TR 4:30-6
This course is a careful textual study of the book of Exodus in the light of modern scholarship, including archaeological evidence and ancient Near Eastern documents, comparative literature and religion. Topics 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 reverberations of Exodus in later Judaism, Christianity, and Western (particularly American) Civilization.
Distribution III: May be counted as a Distributional course in Arts & Letters. May be repeated for credit.
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
Thomas Donaldson
MW 9-10:30
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 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-145-301
Ancient Iraq: Mesopotamian Culture
Grant Frame
T 3-6
A study of Mesopotamian civilization, its cultural impact on the ancient Near East and the Bible, and the legacy it bequeathed to Western civilization. Topics will include Mesopotamian religion, law, literature, historiography, and socio-political institutions.
Sector II: May be counted towards the Sector Requirement in History & Tradition.
NELC-154-401
Women in Jewish Liturature
Katherine Hellerstein
TR 10:30-12
This course will introduce Penn students of literature, women's studies, and Jewish studies -- both undergraduates and graduates -- to the long tradition of women as readers, writers, and subjects in Jewish literature (in translation from Yiddish, Hebrew, and in English). By examining the interaction of culture, gender, and religion in a variety of literary works by Jewish authors, from the seventeenth century to the present, the course will argue for the importance of Jewish women's writing. Authors include Glikl of Hameln, Cynthia Ozick, Anzia Yezierska, Kadya Molodowsky, Esther Raab, Anne Frank, and others. "Jewish woman, who knows your life? In darkness you have come, in darkness do you go." J. L. Gordon (1890).
Sector III: May be counted towards the Sector Requirement in Arts and Letters.
NELC-255-401
The Bible in Translation: Exodus
Jeff Tigay
TR 4:30-6
This course is a careful textual study of the book of Exodus in the light of modern scholarship, including archaeological evidence and ancient Near Eastern documents, comparative literature and religion. Topics 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 reverberations of Exodus in later Judaism, Christianity, and Western (particularly American) Civilization.
Distribution III: May be counted as a Distributional course in Arts & Letters. May be repeated for credit.
NELC-252-402
The Binding of Isaac
David Stern
TR 10:30-12
The Akeidah, or the Binding of Isaac, as told in Genesis 22, is one of the great Biblical stories and the foundation for one of the great themes of Western religion, the near-sacrifice and restoration of the beloved son. The story is also one of the most problematic texts in all Biblical literature, and a source for countless later tales and re-imaginings in later Jewish, Christian, and Islamic literature. In this course, we will study the history of this tale and its theme from the Bible through the modern period in order to show how a Biblical tradition develops and changes in response to historical change. The focus will be on Jewish tradition but we will also consider Christian and Islamic parallels because, as we shall see, no religious tradition in Western culture has ever developed in a vacuum. In this way, we will also attempt to understand the very nature of Tradition—the process by which the past is received and handed on to future generations—as it figures in Judaism and Western culture in general.
Sector II: May be counted towards the Sector Requirement in History & Tradition.
NELC-286-401
Filming the Middle East
Eva Troutt Powell
W 2-5, film screenings R 7-9PM.
This course will explore the major historical conflicts and issues of the modern Middle East, as they have been seen in the eyes of Middle Eastern film-makers. The rapid change of national boundaries after World War I, the experience of life under the European mandates, the creation of Israel , the Lebanese civil war – these are some of the events that form the basis for many of the films we will study. We will also explore how Middle Eastern directors and writers portray the consequences of these harsh experiences, as well as other more intimate issues like marriage, divorce and the experience of poverty. These films come from all over the Middle East and North Africa: Egypt, Tunisia, Lebanon, Israel, Iran, Algeria and Syria. The course will also be the foundation for a Syrian film retrospective, and therefore a unique chance to see films from a country with little film distribution in the West.
NURS-338-401
"Sweet Little Old Ladies and Sandwiched Daughters": Social Images and Issues in our Aging Society
Sarah Kagan ( alternate biography)
W 4:30-6:30
This honors course examines social issues and consequences of advancing age in the 21 st century. The examination is designed to create intellectual foundations as place from which to critique social images, constructions and processes. Contemporary and historical ideas ranging from stereotypes of the dirty old man and the sweet little old lady to language of intergenerational conflict and the sandwich generation are all material for building those foundations. Resources used include classical works in social gerontology and emerging research in aging studies and related fields. These works and those selected by the student are viewed through a critical lens built from understandings of diverse individual, familial, cultural and societal notions of aging and human experience and drawing on student and faculty background and life experience. Skills for participant observer field work in the tradition of thick description are built to allow reflection of current representations of aging and being old in contrast to the contemporary and historical ideas gleaned from the literature.
NURS-339-401
“Aging, Beauty, and Sexuality”: Psychological Gerontology in the 21 st Century
Sarah Kagan (alternate biography)
T 4-6
This honors course examines the psychological gerontology of advancing age and identity in the 21 st century. Examination emphasizes gendered notions of beauty and sexuality in ageing and the life span to foster discourse around historical notions and images of beauty and ugliness in late life in contrast to contemporary messages of attractiveness and age represented by both women and men. The course is designed to create intellectual foundations as place from which to critique socially mediated and personally conveyed images and messages from a variety of media and their influence on intrapersonal and interpersonal constructions and social processes. Contemporary and historical ideas encompassing stereotypical and idealized views of the older person are employed to reflect dialogue around readings and field work. Classical and contemporary scholarship from gerontology, anthropology, biomedicine and surgery, nursing, and marketing among other disciplines as well as select lay literature are critiqued and compared with interpretation of field work to build understandings of diverse individual, familial, and cultural impressions of aging and identity. Skills for participant observer field work in the tradition of thick description are built to allow reflection and analysis of discourse about aging, beauty, sexuality, and other relevant aspects of human identity.
PHIL-073-401
Ethics in Practice
Sigal Ben Porath/Joan Goodman
M 2-4:50
Our topic is most ancient and most modern: What is the good life and does it differ from the worthy life? Along with Socrates, we will investigate whether there are moral frameworks and principled criteria that can and should guide the choices we make in our personal, professional and public lives. If so, how do they become operative as we frame our larger purposes and make day by day decisions? We will pursue this inquiry by starting with the fundamentals: What is ethics and why should we be mindful of it? We then wind our way through classical theories of moral justification and the substance of moral norms, with a particular focus on the debate between egoism and altruism. Although we continuously reference the relevance of theory to our daily lives, in this course we concentrate on common conflicts that arise in complex, yet ordinarily, life situations and ask, how should one balance commitments? The materials for the seminar include primary philosophical texts, secondary texts, and literature. Assignments will include comparative analysis of the texts as well as students' reflections on how the readings pertain to their contemporary and projected lives.
This course parallels and extends the content of Physics 151. Topics will include electric and magnetic fields; Coulomb's, Ampere's, and Faraday's laws; Maxwell's equation; emission, propagation and absorption of electromagnetic radiation; geometrical and physical optics.
Sector VI: May be counted towards the Sector Requirement in Physical World.
Prerequisite(s): Successful completion of Physics GH170 (Well-prepared students who have taken Physics 150 and are co-registered in Math 240 or above are also eligible to take Physics 171). 1.5 c.u. 4 hours in lectures. 2 hours in labs.
PSYC-001-301
Introduction to Experimental Psychology
Paul Rozin
TR 3-5
Introduction to the basic topics of psychology, including learning, motivation, cognition, development, abnormal, physiological, social, and personality.
Sector V: May be counted towards the Sector Requirement in Living World.
PSYC-441-401
Genetics, Evolution, and Behavior
M. Frank Norman
TR 1:30-3
The first half of the course treats Behavioral Genetics (e.g., genetic and environmental components of IQ, personality, and psychopathology; gene-environment interaction), and the second half deals with Evolutionary Psychology (e.g., evolution of altruistic, cooperative, and competitive behavior). There are no prerequisites, but previous courses in Psychology, Biological Basis of Behavior, Anthropology, Biology, or Statistics would be helpful preparation.
RELS-129-402
The Binding of Isaac
David Stern
TR 10:30-12
The Akeidah, or the Binding of Isaac, as told in Genesis 22, is one of the great Biblical stories and the foundation for one of the great themes of Western religion, the near-sacrifice and restoration of the beloved son. The story is also one of the most problematic texts in all Biblical literature, and a source for countless later tales and re-imaginings in later Jewish, Christian, and Islamic literature. In this course, we will study the history of this tale and its theme from the Bible through the modern period in order to show how a Biblical tradition develops and changes in response to historical change. The focus will be on Jewish tradition but we will also consider Christian and Islamic parallels because, as we shall see, no religious tradition in Western culture has ever developed in a vacuum. In this way, we will also attempt to understand the very nature of Tradition—the process by which the past is received and handed on to future generations—as it figures in Judaism and Western culture in general.
Sector II: May be counted towards the Sector Requirement in History & Tradition.
In this course students will discuss Fyodor Dostoevsky's major writings within relevant historical, cultural and literary contexts. The course will be divided into three major parts: (1) The Age of Dostoevsky; (2) How to read Dostoevsky? and (3) Dostoevsky in action: "Crime and Punishment" and "The Brothers Karamazov." This class will consist of lectures, discussion, and four disputes.
Distribution III: May be counted as a Distributional course in Arts & Letters.
ROML-390-401
Critical Issues in Global and Transnational Studies
Roman de la Campa
TR 1:30-3
This course will focus on critical issues pertaining to global and transnational studies in the humanities. We will clarify conceptual paradigms as much as possible, outlining their historical evolvement in the 20th-Century, as well as their spheres of dissemination and contradiction, particularly in the Americas. We will then test these notions in literary and cultural texts (short stories, novels, poems, films, videos, music or other forms).
The course will be specifically organized around the following questions and themes: Postmodern, Postcolonial, Cosmopolitan and Subaltern proposals of the past twenty years. Do they offer new points of departure for literary and cultural studies? How do they situate notions of modernity in various part of the world? What role do notions such as hybridity and multiculturalism play in our understanding of transnational spheres? Are historical differences between the English and Hispanic legacies of colonialism in the Americas highlighted or erased through these discourses? What are the claims of diasporic, post-nationalist and post-humanist forms of writing and reading? What role does feminism play in them? Culture, Multitudes, New citizenry. Are contemporary subjects susceptible to a powerful aesthetic pull cultural studies attempt to address? Is there such a thing as an aesthetic of globalization? Can it be studied critically? Is it mostly visual? Does literature or critical thinking play a role in it? Performativity and Immanence. A look at various notions surrounding these new tropes; specifically their modes of reshaping intellectual subjects and the notions of creativity, autobiography and culture brokering prevalent in the pull towards techno-mediatic globalization.
The final list of writers, critics and theorists is still in progress. It will constitute a world-wide representation of authors such as Jorge Luis Borges, Judith Butler, Ernesto Laclau, Homi Bhabha, Gayatri Spivak, Octavio Paz, Roland Barthes, Walter Benjamin. Stuart Hall, Lisa Lowe, Rey Chow, Clarice Lispector, Stephen Greenblatt, Theodor Adorno, Gilles Deleuze, Paolo Virno, Allan Badiou, and others.
Distribution III: May be counted as a Distributional course in Arts & Letters.
EALC-385-401
Geisha and
Samurai on Stage: Introduction to Japanese Theater
Ayako Kano
T 1:30-4:30
Japan has one of the richest and most varied theatrical traditions in the world. In this course, we will examine Japanese theater in historical and comparative contexts. The readings and discussions will cover all areas of the theatrical experience (script, acting, stage design, costumes, music, audience). Audio-visual material will be used whenever appropriate and possible. The class will be conducted in English, with all English materials.
Distribution III: May be counted as a Distributional course in Arts & Letters.
Prerequisite(s): Reading knowledge of Japanese and/or previous coursework in literature/theater will be helpful, but not required.
Inspired by Penn's founder, Ben Franklin, President Amy Gutmann has identified rising to the challenge of a diverse democracy and educating students for democratic citizenship as critical goals of her administration. Since the present 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, problem-solving clusters, i.e., interrelated, cross-disciplinary, complementary sets of courses designed to stimulate and empower students to produce, not simply consumer, societally-useful knowledge. By societally-useful knowledge, we mean knowledge actively used to solve global strategic problems of democracy and society, schooling and society, health and society, poverty and society, environment and society, culture and society, etc., as those global problems manifest themselves locally at Penn and in West Philadelphia/Philadelphia.
An academically-based community service course.
URBS-403-401
Poverty, Racism, and Crime in West Philadelphia/Philadelphia and What Should Penn Do Democratically to Overcome Them: An Interdisciplinary Faculty Student-Seminar
Anthony Tomazinis/Ira Harkavy
R 3-6
CPLN 430 will be a university wide seminar to analyze West Philadelphia/Philadelphia as an ecological system and what policies its major institution, the University of Pennsylvania, can initiate to reduce poverty, racism, and crime in both the short and long run. During the Spring 2007 semester, the seminar will focus its attention on West Philadelphia (including Southwest Philadelphia). About 20 faculty will be involved with a maximum of 24 students divided into 6 studio groups for research in targeted West Philadelphia communities and the formulation of recommendations. The reports of the group will be presented to mid-term and final faculty juries for evaluation. Through the University’s Office of the Vice President for Government and Community Affairs, the recommendations proposed by the seminar will be submitted to the President for consideration and action. About 13 topics, one each week, will be covered by a lead faculty with the participation of others. These topics include: wealth, income and economic development; regional development; crime and delinquency; racism and pluralism, schooling and literacy; community healthcare; arts and culture; transportation; housing; neighborhood problems and issues; families, children and youth; political capital; and the environment. Each issue will be placed within the framework of West Philadelphia as a social and physical system.
The key institutions that will be examined as possible points of entry for change are: Penn; “eds and meds”; schools’; churches; and community organizations, including political parties and groups. It is expected that students in the seminar will start with these institutions as points of departure in doing research locally. In addition, Mr. Rick Redding, Director of Community Planning of the City Planning Commission, will be a seminar participant and make available a considerable body of data, including an inventory of social and business organizations in West Philadelphia. The seminar will take shape in the fall of 2006 through meetings of the collaborating faculty, community members and participants and in the presentation of preceptorials to be organized with the Student Committee on Undergraduate Education. These presentations are intended to recruit students that are interested in research and collaborative, real-world problem solving.