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mals@wfu.edu |
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(336)
758-5232 |
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758-4669 |
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MALS,
PO 6103
Wake
Forest University
Winston-Salem, NC 27109 |
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Fall 2003 Courses
MLS 701 Culture and Spirituality in Contemporary Native America
An interdisciplinary survey of Native American issues in cultural, political, and religious life, including the arts and literature. Special emphasis will be placed on the impact of the Conquista, encounters with Northern Atlantic societies, and contemporary themes and developments. The course will include several film screenings and discussion-oriented classroom instruction. The class readings are authored or co-authored by Native American Indian scholars and writers. If there is interest, a visit to a regional Pow-Wow will be arranged.
MLS 702 Daughters of the South
The Southern Lady remains one of the most prominent icons of the American South. Yet Southern women, past and present, have always defied such simplistic categorization. This course begins by examining the construction of the Southern Lady ideal. Where did it come from? Is it a vestige of the Old South or a Hollywood creation? We will then explore the origins of other stereotypes about Southern women as well. Southern women, white, black, Native American, or immigrant, have always devoted themselves to families and work, to struggling and surviving. Their contributions to the South have been enormous, if all too frequently overlooked. We will consider how a variety of Southern women made sense of themselves and their world in the midst of great social and political change over the past two centuries. Using novels, autobiographies, history and film, our goal will be to understand the complex and transforming nature of Southern womanhood.
MLS 703 Seeing Us as Others See Us: The U.S. and U.K. Compared
What are the United Kingdom’s attitudes to the United States? Can the U.K. continue to have a “special relationship” with the U.S.A.? This course will examine the similarities and differences that help define the two great western democracies, and use that comparison to throw light on the nature of the contemporary United States and on contemporary overseas reactions to it. It will examine the history and changing relationship of the U.K. and U.S. over time. “U.S. exceptionalism” and “ the peculiarities of the English” will be explored. We will discuss whether the U.K.’s experience of Empire and Decline foreshadows the U.S.’s own. The course will draw parallels and lessons from the comparison of class systems, gender patterns and immigration; and it will examine the nature of shared political projects (from Reagan-Thatcher to Clinton-Blair).
MLS 704 Science, Values and Culture
This is a course designed to allow non-scientists to better understand the impact of science on society and of society on the scientific process. In this course we will examine what distinguishes science from other ways of knowing, what is or is not science, who are the great scientists, and what made their discoveries great. We will also look at the relationship between science and religion, the differences between scientific creativity and other forms of creativity or imagination, the future of science, and what scientists really do and how they do it. Finally, we will discuss the ethical issues surrounding some of the important scientific controversies of today, including cloning, stem cell research, gene therapy and genetic engineering. Readings will include The Unnatural Nature of Science by Louis Wolpert, Ingenious Pursuits:Building the Scientific Revolution by Lisa Jardine and Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder by Richard Dawkins.
MLS 728 Prose Fiction Workshop
This workshop will take a self-conscious, practical, laboratory – or “hands on” approach to various techniques used in writing fiction. Students will do weekly exercises in such things as narrative voice, dialogue and group conversations, various kinds of description, control of verb tenses, and flashbacks and forwards, and present them to the class for discussions, and the professor will edit the students’ work. Radiant and diverse examples of published fiction will be assigned each week to illustrate and clarify the demands of the weekly exercise and to inculcate both ambition and humility. While style, subject matter, and syntax are a writer’s individual choices – as long as we may criticize how well they work – the goal of the course is to help students to develop control, to build a repertoire, and to be ready and able when inspiration strikes.
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