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Philosophy [clear]
| Title | Offering | Standing | Credits | Credits | When | F | W | S | Su | Description | Preparatory | Faculty | Days | Multiple Standings | Start Quarters | Open Quarters |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Michael Paros and Steven Scheuerell
Signature Required:
Winter
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Program | FR–SRFreshmen - Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | F 12 Fall | W 13Winter | "The question of all questions for humanity, the problem which lies behind all others and is more interesting than any of them, is that of the determination of man's place in nature and his relation to the cosmos." - T.H. HuxleyCrop agriculture and animal production dominate human-managed ecosystems. Both provide forms of human sustenance yet simultaneously disrupt natural ecological functions. Tensions often exist between nature conservationists and agricultural communities. How do we balance biodiversity conservation and modern agricultural production? Is it possible to have both? Should public policy emphasize agricultural intensification to spare land for wildlife areas and keep conservation areas separate from human production activities? Can our planet afford to preserve culturally and biologically diverse agricultural systems? Are traditional agricultural practices vital to our sustainable future?Faculty and students will challenge and develop their own personal ethical framework in an attempt to address the many questions that arise when we alter natural systems through agriculture. This will be accomplished through experiential field trips, reading, writing, scientific analysis and open discussion. Students will visit a variety of Washington and Oregon farming operations and conservation areas that illustrate the agricultural and environmental ethical dilemmas that society currently faces. Multiple perspectives from land stakeholders will be presented. Fall quarter will focus on the fundamental principles of conservation biology and ethical theory, while familiarizing students with basic agronomic practices. In winter quarter, students will develop a personal land ethic while analyzing tensions between agriculture and conservation specific to a particular locale.This program will interest students who are open-minded and want to think critically about the agricultural sciences, conservation biology, and ethics. | Michael Paros Steven Scheuerell | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Fall | Fall Winter | ||||
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Julia Zay, Shaw Osha (Flores) and Kathleen Eamon
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Program | FR–SOFreshmen - Sophomore | 16 | 16 | Day | F 12 Fall | W 13Winter | - In this program, we want to think about art, and we want to think about work, but we want to think about them in a historically-specific sense. We will be talking about art and work as practices and discourses specific to “modernity,” and we will talk about modernity as marked by the emergence of art and work as distinct from the rest of social life. And we will ask what it means to live, work, and make art right now. Two broad disciplines, visual studies and philosophy, will orient us, and we will also look to the spirit of the (1919-1933) and its struggle to define a modernist art school curriculum as a way of making these questions concrete. We will work our own intellectual and theoretical capacities right alongside our skills and techniques in visual and time-based art. We will come to understand what it takes to have both intellectual and artistic , as well as how to produce our own intellectual and artistic . In terms of coverage, the program will offer foundational work in visual and cultural studies, art and media practice, as well as 18 -20 century European philosophy. We will study history in order to understand our own moment better. We will begin our study with important texts that respond to the gradual rise of industry as the dominant mode of production, and we will continue our examination into the eras that follow. We will trace the emergence of two tendencies that stand in some tension with one another: the idea of “work” undergoes some disenchantment with the rise of large-scale industry, but it also takes on a romantic aspect with the possibility of greater egalitarianism. “Art,” and its work, is also simultaneously both debased and exalted, thought of as both epitome and critic of commodity culture, a space apart from and the ironic fulfillment of the market economy. Following our study of the we will look to the rise of conceptualism in art in the 1960s and 70s and contemporary forms and institutions of art that are grappling with the question of art as labor and artists as workers under current economic pressures. All of these case studies will support our study of how the meaning and value of art has become invested in the everyday and uses labor as an organizing principle of the aesthetic. We will pursue our themes by thinking, looking, and making. In fall we will set our foundation by studying major philosophical and artistic movements and texts, basic skills in visual and time-based art, but also by developing our skills in reading, discussing, and writing about challenging texts in philosophy, cultural theory, and art history. In winter quarter, we will build on our foundation. One of our central aims will be to reconcile our own utopian aspirations, inspired by the struggles of the , by developing “schools” of our own. Each of our schools will be responsible for designing a curriculum around a specific discipline and for making collaborative “work” across those disciplines. We will study a range of theorists, artists, objects and practices. Authors include: G. W. F. Hegel, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, Michel de Certeau, Judith Butler, Linda Nochlin, Julia Bryan-Wilson, and Miwon Kwon. Artists include: Joseph Albers, Walter Gropius and others affiliated with the Fluxus-affiliated artists, Robert Morris, Yvonne Rainer, Mika Rottenberg, Chantal Akerman, Charles Burnett, the Maysles Brothers, Fritz Lang and John Sayles. We will also read from a variety of sources in art and media history and theory, and social theory. Program work will include research, writing (both formal academic writing as well as writing experiments), and the making of visual and media art. | humanities, visual studies, gender studies, cultural studies, education and communications. | Julia Zay Shaw Osha (Flores) Kathleen Eamon | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO | Fall | Fall Winter | |||
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Rebecca Chamberlain and Richard Miles
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Program | FR–SRFreshmen - Senior | 16 | 16 | Day and Evening | S 13Spring | This interdisciplinary program will combine science and humanities, as we learn beginning to intermediate astronomy through lectures, discussions, interactive workshops, and observation. We will use naked eyes, binoculars, and telescopes. We will learn about the evolution and structure of our universe and celestial bodies. How are stars born and why do they shine? How do stars die, and how can they contribute to new life? How do we know there is dark matter? How do we know that the universe is expanding - and even accelerating? What evidence is there for the Big Bang? We will study roles of science and of storytelling in human searches for understanding and meaning.How have people across cultures and throughout history understood, modeled, and ordered the universe they perceive? From sacred stories to physics-based astronomy, we will explore a variety of cosmological concepts in science, literature, mythology, philosophy, history and/or archaeoastronomy. We will use scientific methods and other inquiry-based learning strategies that engage the imagination. Through readings, lectures, films, workshops, and discussions, participants will deepen their understanding of astronomy, and they will refine their understanding of the role that cosmology plays in our lives through the stories we tell, the observations we make, and the questions we ask. We will develop skills and appreciation for the ways we find our place in the universe through stories and science, imagination and intellect, qualitative and quantitative processes. Finally we will ask, how does our understanding of astronomy and cosmologies influence our understanding of sustainability and the quality of life on Earth?We will work together as a learning community, in large and small groups. We will read and discuss science texts and do quantitative workshops and homework. Students will build and take home astronomical tools such as spectrometers and position finders. Students will analyze literary works related to astronomy and cosmology, and will develop an original piece of writing, either fiction or non-fiction. We will also share star stories from different cultures. Student teams will meet for pre-seminar discussions and assignments and will write short essays and responses to peers' essays. Research teams will explore questions of personal interest through observations, readings and calculations; and students will share their findings through presentations to classmates and the community. Students are invited to help organize observation field trips to eastern Washington or other regions with clearer skies. | Rebecca Chamberlain Richard Miles | Tue Thu | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Spring | Spring | ||||
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Rebecca Chamberlain
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Program | FR–SRFreshmen - Senior | 8 | 08 | Day and Evening | Su 13Summer Session II | The program combines interdisciplinary study of science and humanities with fieldwork. We will explore a variety of cosmological concepts from mythology, literature, philosophy, and history, to an introduction to astronomy, archeo-astronomy, and theories about the origins of the universe. We will employ scientific methods of observation, investigation, hands-on activities, and strategies that foster inquiry based learning and engage the imagination. This class is focused on field work, and activities are designed for amateur astronomers and those interested in inquiry-based science education, as well as those interested in exploring literary, philosophical, cultural, and historical cosmological traditions.Students will participate in a variety of activities from telling star-stories under the night sky to working in a computer lab to create educational planetarium programs. Through readings, lectures, films, workshops, and discussions, participants will deepen their understanding of the principles of astronomy and refine their understanding of the role that cosmology plays in our lives through the stories we tell, the observations we make, and the questions we ask. Students will develop skills an appreciation for the ways we uncover our place in the universe through scientific theories and cultural stories, imagination and intellect, qualitative and quantitative processes, and "hands on" observation.We will visit Pine Mountain Observatory, and participate in field studies at the Oregon Star Party, which include workshops with mentors, scientists, storytellers, and astronomers. We will develop a variety of techniques to enhance our observation skills including use of star-maps and navigation guides to identify objects in the night sky, how to operate 8” and 10” Dobsonian telescopes to find deep space objects, and how to use binoculars and other tools. We will be camping and doing field work in the high desert for a week. | Rebecca Chamberlain | Wed | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Summer | Summer | ||||
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Stephen Beck and Thomas Rainey
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Program | SO–SRSophomore - Senior | 8 | 08 | Evening and Weekend | S 13Spring | This inter-disciplinary, coordinated studies program will explore, in considerable detail, the classical world of ancient Greece and Rome. It will focus on the history, literature, philosophy, and culture of these two vitally connected and overlapping classical civilizations. We will also consider how ancient Greece and Rome created the foundations of Western civilization. Our readings will be drawn from such writers as Homer, Sophocles, Euripides, Plato, Aristotle, Virgil, Suetonious, Plutarch, Seneca, and Aurelius. | Stephen Beck Thomas Rainey | Mon Wed | Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Spring | Spring | ||||
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Jamyang Tsultrim
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Course | FR–SRFreshmen - Senior | 4 | 04 | Weekend | S 13Spring | In what ways do our constructive emotions/perceptions enhance our ability to see reality? Are there effective methods for training the mind to cultivate positive thought/emotions? Students will analyze the nature of constructive emotion/thoughts, their influence on our mental stability and brain physiology, and methodologies for influencing and improving mental development and function. Students will explore the correlation between mental training of the mind and physiological changes in the brain. We will also examine the nature of the genuine happiness from Eastern and Western psychological models of mind/emotion. | Jamyang Tsultrim | Sat | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Spring | Spring | ||||
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Jamyang Tsultrim
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Course | FR–SRFreshmen - Senior | 4 | 04 | Weekend | F 12 Fall | Jamyang Tsultrim | Sat | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Fall | Fall | |||||
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Nancy Koppelman and Joseph Tougas
Signature Required:
Winter
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Program | JR–SRJunior - Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | F 12 Fall | W 13Winter | History is unkind. This program will consider the possibilities for human rights in light of the tragedies of history.The phrase "human rights" suggests high moral principles and political ideals. It champions the dignity of all persons who have ever lived based solely on their humanity. It calls forth an image of a world better than the one we are in now--a world in which ideals have become realities and people can hold high moral principles with complete integrity. But humanity existed long before human rights.Historians show that in any particular historical moment, people can think and act only with the conceptual tools they have. Structural realities can cause people to harm one another because they do not have the ability or desire to challenge or resist them. As a result, violence, racism, anti-Semitism and sexism are central to our history. For most people who have ever lived, there was no hope for their human rights. What are we to make of these tragic features of history?What if Hegel is right, and "history is the slaughter-bench of happiness"? Are suffering and injustice the costs of making progress toward a better world? When and how does moral idealism help or hinder aims of "social justice"? If we can find out, how might that knowledge shape efforts to make a better world in our own time?Before human rights, suffering was thought to be caused by mysterious forces - divine or human. For example, when John Adams defended British soldiers who fired into an angry mob during the Boston Massacre of 1770, he noted that there are "state-quakes in the moral and political world" akin to earthquakes in the physical world. Our program will examine a range of "state-quakes," and particularly those that shaped the lot of Native peoples, the Puritans, American slaves and their owners, and generations of women, immigrants, and people devoted to the life of the mind. We will learn about the philosophical history of human rights from its precursors in the ancient world through the Enlightenment. We will consider the rise of the nation-state in the 19th and 20th centuries, tensions between political liberalism and pluralism, and the emergence of 21st century internationalism which seems to eclipse mutual obligations tethering citizens to states. Writing will focus on employing the skills of close analysis and developing sound arguments informed by our texts. Students will write lengthy term papers that could serve as writing samples in graduate school applications.Students who have completed substantial studies in the humanities and social sciences and who are prepared for advanced level work are warmly invited to join this program. | Nancy Koppelman Joseph Tougas | Junior JR Senior SR | Fall | Fall Winter | ||||
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Nancy Koppelman, Trevor Speller and Charles Pailthorp
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Program | FR–SRFreshmen - Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | S 13Spring | What is character but the determination of incident? What is incident but the illustration of character? - How do we determine what to do when faced with hard choices? Is our own happiness uppermost in our minds, or is something else--loyalty to a friend, say, or religious principles? How can we live with integrity in the face of temptation or tragedy? These ethical questions demand that we think carefully about character. Character comprises not only our distinctive qualities, but also our disposition to act in certain ways, for good or ill. Indeed, our word "ethical" derives from the Greek word for character, , which, like our word, can refer to a literary figure (a character) or to an individual's qualities and dispositions. In this program, we study works of philosophy, history, drama and fiction that illuminate our understanding of character. We explore how character affects, and is affected by, desire, deliberation, action and suffering. We read literary and historical accounts that illustrate the character of people or a people. These accounts may portray profound moral dilemmas or day-to-day trials woven into the fabric of human experience. Texts in ethical philosophy will broaden our notions of character, particularly in relation to external goods, habit, happiness, friendship and duties. They provide powerful interpretive tools and a refined vocabulary for grappling with questions raised by our other texts. Authors will include Plato, Aristotle, Sophocles, Immanuel Kant, Soren Kierkegaard, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edith Wharton, among others.This program suits students who are prepared not only to think critically, but to investigate their own beliefs and submit them to rigorous scrutiny: that is, to practice ethical thinking as well as study it. Writing will be central to that practice, and students will write long and short essays submitted to peer and faculty review. | Nancy Koppelman Trevor Speller Charles Pailthorp | Mon Wed Thu | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Spring | Spring | ||||
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Stacey Davis
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SOS | FR–SRFreshmen - Senior | 4, 6, 8 | 04 06 08 | Day | Su 13Summer Session II | Students will work independently, studying the social, political, gender, and intellectual trajectories of the French Revolution from 1789 through the Terror and the Napoleonic Empire. To understand the origins of the Revolution, students will read philosophy and political theory from Enlightenment authors like Voltaire, Rousseau, and Montesquieu. Students will share a reading list in common and have the option to meet periodically for book discussions as a group and with the faculty member. Since this is an independent readings course, students enrolled at different credit levels will read different texts and write different numbers of essays. Students enrolled for more than 4 credits will complete a library research paper on one aspect of the Enlightenment or the French Revolution. | Stacey Davis | Mon | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Summer | Summer | ||||
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Ryo Imamura
Signature Required:
Spring
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Contract | SO–SRSophomore - Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | S 13Spring | This is an opportunity for sophomore, junior and senior students to create their own course of study and research, including internship, community service, and study abroad options. Before the beginning of spring quarter, interested students should submit an Individual Learning or Internship Contract to Ryo Imamura, which clearly states the work to be completed. Possible areas of study are Western psychology, Asian psychology, Buddhism, counseling, social work, cross-cultural studies, Asian-American studies, religious studies, nonprofit organizations, aging, death and dying, deep ecology and peace studies. Areas of study other than those listed above will be considered on a case-by-case basis. | Ryo Imamura | Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Spring | Spring | |||||
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Leonard Schwartz
Signature Required:
Fall
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Contract | SO–SRSophomore - Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | F 12 Fall | contract proposals in the area of poetics for the winter quarter. This could include literary studies of modernist figures or examinations of avant-garde movements. It could also involve projects in literary theory, continental philosophy, or theories of language. | Leonard Schwartz | Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Fall | Fall | |||||
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Marianne Bailey and Leonard Schwartz
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Program | SO–SRSophomore - Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | F 12 Fall | W 13Winter | In this program we will study the function of myth, the concept of art as ritual and the critique of language and representation in vanguard poetry, theater and opera. We are interested in the work of the artist as creator of new, unexpected artistic languages which attempt to communicate that which is inexpressible, that which lies behind and beyond ordinary words. We will consider how it is that a poet's words can say more than they mean, or that a symbol, as philosopher Paul Ricoeur writes, points toward a meaning otherwise inaccessible. The poets, dramatists, philosophers and theorists whom we will study never relent in their fascination with reconceiving their means of expression, and act with the reckless abandon of the free spirit described by Nietzsche in his essay "On Truth and Lie in an Extramoral Sense". Two of the major figures under study in our work will be the composer Richard Wagner and the poet and theoretician of the theater, Antonin Artaud, both of whom dreamed of a work of art that would contain word, image, music, flesh and movement in a single medium; both realized ritualized spectacles, in opera and in theater, capable of the transformation of their participants. We will read extensively from Artaud's work, considering his poetry, his essays comprising Theater and its Double, as well as his records of personal quests to places which he considered privileged, in which the Marvelous or the divine was written on the face of the land. We will view and listen to both Strauss's and Wagner's . Wagner's "Total Art" or "Gesamtkunst" realized the 19th Century artists' dream of a perfect language, in which music, words, gestures and scenic symbols spoke as one single language. The philosophizing of Friedrich Nietzsche, embedded in the creative power of myth, will also be crucial for us in terms of conceptualizing the life-giving presence of myth in creative expression and the nature of language itself, as both problematic and world generating. Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy also takes us back to the Greeks, their masterpieces of theater as communal ritual, their metaphor of the artist as "entheos" imbued with the god, and their art as arising from the whispering of a muse, or an Orpheus. During fall quarter, our reading will include as well the Dark Romantic and Symbolist poets of the later 19th Century, their reconception of art, and their aesthetic and philosophical groundwork for 20th Century Modernism. In addition to our work on Artaud, Wagner and Nietzsche during both quarters, readings will be drawn from Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Mallarmé and Rilke in the European poetic tradition. During winter quarter, we will study Aimé Césaire, as well as Aioné and Kamau Brathwaite, contemporary Caribbean poets. We will read Robert Duncan, Barbara Guest, Alice Notley, Fanny Howe, Nathaniel Mackey and others from the contemporary American poetic tradition growing out of the Black Mountain School. We will study composers Strauss and Berg in the Modern Western operatic tradition, and daring theatrical creators such as Peter Weiss and Peter Brooks. Other theoreticians to be considered during both fall and winter might include Rene Girard's , Blanchot’s , Bataille’s , Sigmund Freud's , and Robert Duncan's All students will read, write and analyze poetic, philosophical and critical texts, will discuss key theorists in aesthetics, and will choose between weekly workshop/seminars on either creative writing or on the key philosophical writings of Friedrich Nietzsche. Over the two quarters of this program, students will develop and complete a major personal project. This substantial body of work students will develop over the first weeks of the quarter, and carry through over two quarters; this offers serious creative writers and dramatists, and students of theory, philosophy and literary interpretation the opportunity to undertake a collection of poetry, a play or performance/spectacle, an interpretive work on Nietzschean philosophy, or a research-based project on your choice of themes and artists in our curriculum.This upper-division program demands a serious commitment of time and effort; the works which we will study are demanding, and the reading and writing will be significant. | the humanities. | Marianne Bailey Leonard Schwartz | Mon Wed | Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Fall | Fall Winter | ||
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Jamyang Tsultrim
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Course | FR–SRFreshmen - Senior | 4 | 04 | Weekend | W 13Winter | This course will emphasize mindfulness psychology as a clinical tool as well as a method of professional self-care. Recent research has proven the effectiveness of mindfulness training to treat conditions such as stress and pain, addictions, chronic depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and other health conditions. Students will explore the similarities and differences between various mindfulness clinical approaches and gain practical skills to help alleviate the psychological suffering of others while maintaining emotional balance and professional ethics. Students will have opportunities for personal practice, observational learning, and the development of counseling skills through role-play, reading, and discussion. | Jamyang Tsultrim | Sat | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Winter | Winter | ||||
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Stephen Beck
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Course | FR–SRFreshmen - Senior | 4 | 04 | Day | Su 13Summer Session I | Plato's dialogues have been of persistent interest to readers. Why? Some are drawn by the enigmatic character of Socrates, usually on center stage. Some are attracted or puzzled by the philosophical positions that Plato explores through the dialogues. Some are inspired by the conception of philosophical practice that they represent. In this course we will read, discuss, and write about several of Plato's dialogues with these topics in mind. | Stephen Beck | Tue Thu | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Summer | Summer | ||||
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Daniel Ralph
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Course | SO–SRSophomore - Senior | 4 | 04 | Evening | W 13Winter | This course will primarily consist of a cover-to-cover reading of Plato’s Republic. The primary course activities will be seminar discussion, workshops and a series of writing assignments. Previous exposure to Plato’s works is helpful but not mandatory. Students who enroll should be prepared to engage in a focused learning experience fueled by a challenging set of readings. | Daniel Ralph | Tue | Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Winter | Winter | ||||
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Peter Bohmer and Elizabeth Williamson
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Program | FR–SRFreshmen - Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | S 13Spring | 1968 and 2011 were world historic years. In both cases, uprisings spread within and between countries. In 1968, major resistance to the existing order produced movements for liberation in Vietnam (Tet offensive); France (May, 1968); Czechoslovakia (Soviet invasion, August, 1968); Mexico, (Tlatelolco and Olympics) and the United States--including the rebellions after Martin Luther King's assassination, the Columbia University occupation, the protests against the Democratic Party Convention in Chicago, and the major growth of the women's and Black liberation movements. There were major uprisings in many other countries. New left theory and practice were integral to those movements. 1968 was perhaps the central year of the 1960s--a decade where the status quo was challenged culturally, socially and politically; a period of experimentation where countercultures emerged and revolution was in the air.2011 was another major year of uprisings. Social movements against repressive governments and against social inequality spread from Tunisia to Egypt to Yemen, Syria, Libya, Bahrain--among many others. The nature and goals of the uprisings vary from country to county, but all are connected by an egalitarian and democratic spirit where youth play a major role. Inspired partially by the events in the Middle East, Wisconsin residents and especially public sector workers occupied the State Capital in the spring of 2011, and there were massive demonstrations against the frontal attack on public sector unions, and on education and social programs. These so-called "austerity measures" and the growing resistance to them are occurring all over the United States. There is also occupation of public spaces led by the young and independent of political parties, demanding the end of unemployment and the maintenance of social program in Greece, France, Spain and other countries in Europe.In this program we will examine the political, economic, and cultural contexts of the uprisings in both of these periods--paying attention to local, national and global connections. We will study these uprisings, and the socio-political forces that helped shape them, through cultural and political economic analysis, fiction and non-fiction literature, movies, music, and participant experiences. Particular attention will be paid to developing research skills and writing for a broader audience.In addition to developing a greater awareness of the historical impact of these uprisings, we hope to better understand the philosophy, goals, strategy and tactics of the organizers of these movements. We will conclude by comparing and contrasting 1968 to 2011 in order to develop lessons for the present and future. | teaching social studies; organizing; working for an economic or social justice organziation--locally, nationally or globally; graduate school in social sciences or cultural studies. | Peter Bohmer Elizabeth Williamson | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Spring | Spring | ||||
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Harumi Moruzzi
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Program | SO–SRSophomore - Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | F 12 Fall | For the West and Japan, the 19th century was a heady century that embraced the utopian notion of perfectibility of human society through science and technology. However, by the beginning of the 20th century this giddy sense of unremitting human progress and spread of democracy began to be gradually challenged by various iconoclastic ideas, such as Freudian psychoanalytic theory, Einstein's theory of relativity and Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. A sense of confusion, anarchy and dread expressed itself in various art works in the first decade or so of the 20th century in strikingly similar ways to that of our own time, which suffered perhaps a more radical and real disillusionment regarding humanity and its future through its experience of Nazi holocaust and the atomic bomb explosions in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Our contemporary experience, at the beginning of the 21st century, is still generally and vaguely called the postmodern time or postmodernity. But, what is postmodernity? What is postmodernism? In this program we will explore the complexities of the concepts of postmodernity and postmodernism through lectures, book seminars, films and film seminars.At the beginning of the quarter, students will be introduced to the rudiments of film analytical terms in order to develop a more critical attitude toward the film-viewing experience. Early in the quarter, students will also be introduced to major literary theories in order to familiarize themselves with varied approaches to the interpretation of literature. Then, students will examine postmodernity and postmodernism as manifested in the literary works of John Barth, Don DeLillo, Haruki Murakami and Thomas Pynchon as well as in the films directed by Godard, Lynch, and other contemporary filmmakers, while exploring the significance and implications of such literary and cinematic works through the various theoretical works of Baudrillard, Foucault, Jameson, Lyotard and other influential thinkers. | Harumi Moruzzi | Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Fall | Fall | |||||
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Marianne Bailey
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SOS | FR ONLYFreshmen Only | 16 | 16 | Day | S 13Spring | In this SOS, first year students will learn how to conceive, plan, structure and successfully carry through a major independent learning project. More importantly, they will have the pleasure and fulfillment of realizing their first major college level independent body of work. Students have an exciting array of humanities and artistic areas to work in. For example, I can foresee projects as different from one another as a well edited collection of stories or free form poetry, perhaps illustrated and bound in a beautiful book, or a research project in religious symbolism and ritual in Celtic or Haitian worldviews, or in archetypal characters such as the Trickster, the Underworld mediators, or the artist/Orpheus and his quest. A student could write and compile an innovative collection of essays and images dealing with a philosopher such as Nietzsche or Foucault; or with a philosophical topic, such as the human/nature relationship, or the power and nature of artistic language. Students could also plan and research a transformational, pilgrimage journey, keep a rich travel journal, make art quality photographs and present the pilgrimage experiences at the quarter’s end to your colleagues in the class. Students could plan a multimedia spectacle or a short film based on artistic work as a small group in the style of the Surrealists.In other words, if it is a challenging academic or artistic body of work which you find deeply fascinating and which will keep you going enthusiastically for a quarter, we can shape this idea and make it possible for you to carry it through. We will do this step-by-step, in close collaboration between professor and individual student, and with the support of a small group of other program students working in similar veins of inquiry or creation, who will serve as a critique and support group. At Evergreen this mode of intellectual and creative work is a hallmark of our belief in fostering self-direction, intellectual discipline and stamina, and in pursuing academic projects about which we are passionate. It is no easy feat, however, to master the fine art of writing and proposing, let alone bringing to fruition, a top quality independent learning project. The purpose of this SOS is first, to coach you through the conception stage, then, to help you to choose your readings and activities and make your schedule, and finally, to guide and support you along the path to completion of the best work of which you are capable.During the first eight weeks of spring quarter, students will meet every week with their professor as an individual, and as a member of a small work and critique group. We will meet as a large group, as well. Students will report in writing and orally on their progress every week. In the final weeks of the quarter, all students will present their completed work to the group.Students enrolling should have a first proposal of a project which they want strongly to undertake, including, at least, the kind of work you plan to do, for example: writing poetry, studying the work of a given writer or philosopher, and/or studying a particular kind of religious or mythic symbolism. This should be carefully written, typed and ready on the first day of class. The rest we will do during the first two weeks of the program. You may enroll in this program for 12 or 16 credits. | Marianne Bailey | Mon Wed | Freshmen FR | Spring | Spring | ||||
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Ryo Imamura
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Program | FR–SOFreshmen - Sophomore | 16 | 16 | Day | F 12 Fall | W 13Winter | Western psychology has so far failed to provide us with a satisfactory understanding of the full range of human experience. It has largely overlooked the core of human understanding--our everyday mind, our immediate awareness of being with all of its felt complexity and sensitive attunement to the vast network of interconnectedness with the universe around us. Instead, Western psychology has chosen to analyze the mind as though it were an object independent of the analyzer, consisting of hypothetical structures and mechanisms that cannot be directly experienced. Western psychology's neglect of the living mind--both in its everyday dynamics and its larger possibilities--has led to a tremendous upsurge of interest in the ancient wisdom of the East, particularly Buddhism, which does not divorce the study of psychology from the concern with wisdom and human liberation.In direct contrast, Eastern psychology shuns any impersonal attempt to objectify human life from the viewpoint of an external observer, instead studying consciousness as a living reality which shapes individual and collective perception and action. The primary tool for directly exploring the mind is meditation or mindfulness, an experiential process in which one becomes an attentive participant-observer in the unfolding of moment-to-moment consciousness.Learning mainly from lectures, readings, videos, workshops, seminar discussions, individual and group research projects, and field trips, we will take a critical look at the basic assumptions and tenets of the major currents in traditional Western psychology, the concept of mental illness, and the distinctions drawn between normal and abnormal thought and behavior. We will then investigate the Eastern study of mind that has developed within spiritual traditions, particularly within the Buddhist tradition. In doing so, we will take special care to avoid the common pitfall of most Western interpretations of Eastern thought--the attempt to fit Eastern ideas and practices into unexamined Western assumptions and traditional intellectual categories. Lastly, we will address the encounter between Eastern and Western psychology as possibly having important ramifications for the human sciences in the future, potentially leading to new perspectives on the whole range of human experience and life concerns. | Ryo Imamura | Tue Thu | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO | Fall | Fall Winter | |||
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Kathleen Eamon
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Program | FR–SRFreshmen - Senior | 8 | 08 | Day | Su 13Summer Session I | Using Freud’s famous essay on as our starting point, we will investigate this category of experience which has been described as hovering between the natural and the supernatural. Although our approaches will be diverse (including philosophical and psychoanalytic texts, as well as short stories and other media), we will focus on the way "the uncanny" has been mined for insight onto life, politics, and experience in modernity. Other possible authors include Kant, Baudelaire, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Edgar Allan Poe, Otto Rank, Tzvetan Todorov. The program will be reading, writing, and conversation intensive. | Kathleen Eamon | Mon Tue Thu | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Summer | Summer | ||||
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Trevor Speller
Signature Required:
Fall Winter Spring
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Program | JR–SRJunior - Senior | V | V | Day | F 12 Fall | W 13Winter | S 13Spring | Students of the humanities who are nearing the end of their Evergreen education may wish to pursue a major research project, senior thesis or capstone project in their particular field of interest. Often, the goal is to contruct an original argument around a particular body of literature, set of ideas or historical events. These kinds of projects develop advanced research skills in the humanities, including the ability to read deeply and critically in a particular field, and to discover and engage with important theoretical writings in that field. Students will also gain valuable skills in reading, analyzing, synthesizing, writing and editing long pieces of complex prose. The best kinds of this work will be invaluable for graduate school applications, and will be an asset to those entering the job market directly following graduation. (British/anglophone literature) specializes in the long eighteenth century (1650-1830), including the Restoration, the Enlightenment, and Romanticism. Students who wish to study the literature and political philosophy of these periods are welcome to propose research projects, including capstone projects and senior theses. Particular interests include the rise of the novel, the conception of reason and rationality and representations of space and place. Previous projects have included studies of Romantic women writers and travel writing. Students are also welcome to work with the faculty member to develop his ongoing research projects on such authors as Daniel Defoe, John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Bishop Berkeley, Jonathan Swift and John Milton. Please go to the catalog view for specific information about each option. | Trevor Speller | Junior JR Senior SR | Fall | Fall Winter Spring | |||
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Trevor Speller
Signature Required:
Fall Winter Spring
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Research | JR–SRJunior - Senior | V | V | Day | F 12 Fall | W 13Winter | S 13Spring | Students of the humanities who are nearing the end of their Evergreen education may wish to pursue a major research project, senior thesis, or capstone project in their particular field of interest. Often, the goal is to contruct an original argument around a particular body of literature, set of ideas, or historical events. These kinds of projects develop advanced research skills in the humanities, including the ability to read deeply and critically in a particular field, and to discover and engage with important theoretical writings in that field. Students will also gain valuable skills in reading, analyzing, synthesizing, writing and editing long pieces of complex prose. The best kinds of this work will be invaluable for graduate school applications, and will be an asset to those entering the job market. (British/Anglophone Literature) specializes in the long eighteenth century (1650-1830), including the Restoration, the Enlightenment, and Romanticism. Students who wish to study the literature and political philosophy of these periods are welcome to propose research projects, including capstone projects and senior theses. Particular interests include the rise of the novel, the conception of reason and rationality, and representations of space and place. Previous projects have included studies of Romantic Women Writers and Travel Writing. Students are also welcome to work with the faculty member to develop his ongoing research projects on such authors as Daniel Defoe, John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Bishop Berkeley, Jonathan Swift, and John Milton. | Trevor Speller | Junior JR Senior SR | Fall | Fall Winter Spring | |||
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Stephen Beck and Susan Preciso
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Program | FR–SRFreshmen - Senior | 16 | 16 | Day and Evening | F 12 Fall | W 13Winter | In this two-quarter program, we will examine the nature and place of work in human life and culture. Studying literature, philosophy, and history in the Western tradition, we will develop an understanding of work that goes well beyond the concept of work as a way to pay the bills. We will consider important questions: Why is work important in a complete human life? What roles can it play both for an individual and for the whole social system? What meaning does, or can, work have in a person's life and in a society? What ways of working should a person strive to practice? Who does what work? To better understand and critique challenging material, we will spend time improving skills in close reading, critical reasoning, writing clearly and well, and in research methods. We will examine the ways in which approaching an idea through different disciplinary lenses allows us to deepen our understanding of it—often complicating the picture in generative ways. During fall quarter, we begin our study of ideas about the place of work in the human condition. We will begin reading Hannah Arendt’s and central ancient texts, including passages from the Bible, Hesiod, Aristotle, and the Stoics. We will continue our study by considering medieval ideas about work, as seen in art, philosophy, and literature, through passages from as well as histories of feudal life and thought. The quarter will conclude with examination of the move into the modern world, focusing on the Protestant Reformation and the rise of capitalism. We will analyze selections from John Locke and Adam Smith, and we will read , putting this work into its complicated historical and cultural context. Winter quarter’s work will begin with the 19th century and the great changes that came with the Industrial Revolution and take us into the 20th century. Our reading will include Karl Marx, Henry David Thoreau's , Elizabeth Gaskell’s , and Daniel Rodgers’ . We will examine the ways in which the new industrial economy changed where people lived, the work they did, and the ways in which some challenged the capitalist model. We will conclude the program by examining more recent ideas about the values and challenges of work and working. We will conclude our study of Arendt's , and students will learn directly from people about the work they do, by interviewing them and taking their oral histories, seeing the ways in which people answer the questions with which we began: Why is work important in a complete human life? What roles can it play both for an individual and for the whole social system? What ways of working should a person strive to practice? Who does what work? They will document work and working through writing and other media they find useful and effective. | Stephen Beck Susan Preciso | Mon Wed Thu | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Fall | Fall Winter |
