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Fall 2004 Courses
MLS 711 Global Population & the Environment: Moral Choices & Public Policy
From the beginning of time, human global population has slowly been increasing. It took until 1950 for the world population to reach 2 billion. From 1950 to 2000, the world population increased to 6 billion. By 2100 the population is projected to reach between 9 and 13 billion. As a result, the competition for living space poses a threat of extinction for as many as 30% of the earth’s species and has led to a dramatic reduction in the arable land available for food production. The scarcity of natural resources and freshwater is becoming a limiting factor in development. Industrialization in the developed countries is leading to pollution of air, soil, and water, and is responsible for global climate change. In this course we will examine the impact of human population growth on the environment, the economy, and on the social structure of developed and third world nations, and the related ethical and public policies issues.
MLS 727 An African Atlantic
This seminar investigates the African experience on both sides of the English-speaking Atlantic from 1750 to 1815, when their number made up eighty percent of the immigrants to the Americas. Using their memoirs, narratives, political tracts, poems and other writings, this course examines the Africans’ encounters with American Indians and Europeans in the colonies and their adaptation to slave traders in West Africa. Another question raised in this seminar is: how did Africans and African-descended people in Britain and its colonies respond to changes in British policy? Although Britain carried more slaves into its colonies and benefited more than any other European power, Britain began to reverse its position on the progressive effects of enslavement, promoting instead abolition and emancipation. Other topics include: their identity as Africans, Afro-Britons, and African Americans; African royal status and its implications for enslavement; reactions to loss, captivity, and enslavement; yearnings for liberation, both spiritual and corporeal; the Africans’ role in abolitionism and revolution; and their return to Africa as missionaries and colonists. The course will also examine white patronage and representations of Africans in art and print.
MLS 731 The Cultural Politics of American Presidents
From the First Roosevelt to the Second Bush, U.S. presidents have viewed politics as a cultural war. This war is to be waged primarily with images, especially images that linked the nation’s well being to their own positioning as virile and virtuous men. Presidents deployed these images against other male rivals, creating contested cultural grounds where they vied over anti-communism, family politics, racial imagery, and homophobia, among others. We will examine how selected presidents of the twentieth century drew these issues for the raw material of their presidential images, and at the same time injected images of their own. We end the semester by studying the “war on terrorism” in this election year.
MLS 768 Love, War, & Wisdom: Hebrew Literature from the Bible to Today
We will study in translation some of the great prose and poetry of the Hebrew Bible (“Old Testament”), as well as masterpieces of modern literature written since the revival of Hebrew as a living language in the last century. Biblical texts will include stories from Genesis that typify Hebraic narrative techniques; selected psalms, Song of Songs, Ruth, and Jonah. We will then explore some medieval poems reflecting the courtly environments of Moslem and Christian Spain, as well as a sample of liturgical poetry influenced by both biblical and secular literature. Then we will examine the remarkable regeneration of Hebrew as a modern language in the 20th century. At least half of the semester will be devoted to modern and contemporary Israeli texts by a significant number of women writers as well as men. Among the representative writers are Amichai, Bialik, Hareven, and Oz. Although our emphasis will be on the literary culture, we will consider social, political, and religious contexts as appropriate.
MLS 775 Twins & Doubles: Carbon Copies in Literature & Science
The doppelgänger, or ghostly double, has fascinated humankind for an eternity, and artists and writers have supplied a ready store of material on this captivating topic. From ancient sacred texts and Greek myths, to works by Shakespeare, Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Fyodor Dostoevsky, literature offers probing insights into our universal fascination with and trepidation about twins and doubles. After the successful cloning of the sheep named Dolly in 1997, science suddenly began to imitate art. With the possibility of human cloning on the horizon, the same age-old questions of identity and individuality are at the forefront. This seminar offers a literary focus on the topic of “carbon copies,” both imagined and real, which we will approach decidedly as humanists rather than as scientists. In addition, time will be devoted to strengthening student writing. |