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International Studies [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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Hirsh Diamant and Tomoko Hirai Ulmer
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Program | FR–SRFreshmen–Senior | 8 | 08 | Weekend | S 16Spring | This program will introduce the history, culture and philosophy of China and Japan. We will use the theme of Silk Roads in our examination of China as the heart of Asian civilization and Japan as a constant presence at the eastern end of the routes. We will examine Asian philosophies including Daoism, Confucianism, Buddhism and Shintoism. We will learn the ideographic languages and their embedded worldview and sensitivities as expressed in poetry and literature; and we will envision contemporary and future Silk Roads with new trends, aspirations, and beliefs. Our inquiry into Chinese and Japanese history will focus on periods in which foreign influences were most influential, for example the time when Buddhism, along with tea, traveled on Silk Roads. Another transformation occurred in the 20 century, with devastating conflicts of WWII. Most of today’s complex political issues between China and Japan stem from this war. For centuries China has played, and is continuing to play, a central role in Asia. Japan embraced Chinese culture while modifying it to fit Japan’s political and cultural climate and needs. Japanese language, architecture, literature and art are steeped in Chinese influences. Japan is also a repository of both tangible and intangible Chinese culture that has disappeared from China itself. Treasures from the Silk Road and Tang Dynasty dance and music from the 8 century still survive in Japan. Such heritage has, in turn, helped produce a present day cultural renaissance in China. Much scholarship about China has been continually flourishing in Japan and the contemporary pan-Asian culture is developing beyond national borders. Program activities will include field trips to the Chinese and Japanese gardens in Portland, Oregon; calligraphy demonstrations and workshops; and learning about Chinese tea culture and Japanese tea ceremony. | Hirsh Diamant Tomoko Hirai Ulmer | Sat | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Spring | Spring | ||||
Steven Niva and Catalina Ocampo
Signature Required:
Winter
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Program | FR–SRFreshmen–Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | F 15 Fall | W 16Winter | Periods of war and violence are also periods of immense cultural production. Those who engage in war and violence often draw upon and rearrange existing cultures and forms; at other times, they invent new cultural traditions and forms to legitimate and facilitate their actions. At the same time, others draw upon resources in the existing culture or invent new cultural forms to respond to, contest, and resist war and violence. If war and violence can be made through culture, they can also be unmade through cultural practices. This two-quarter program will examine the production of culture in a variety of wars and violent contexts drawn largely from the Middle East and Latin America in the 20 and 21 centuries. Utilizing theoretical perspectives and methods from political science, cultural studies, and literature, we will examine questions such as: What forms does violence take? What cultural forms facilitate violence? What cultural forms are produced by violence? What cultural forms can respond to or resist war and violence? We will examine diverse types of war and violence in the modern period, from interstate war to new forms of warfare and violence. We will focus on case studies of insurgency, civil war, counterinsurgency, and the “drug wars” in places such as Guatemala, Colombia, and Mexico, as well as the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq and forms of violence in Israel-Palestine and Lebanon. In all of these cases, we will study representations of violence in literature and art, as well as cultural production and resistance by artists observing and responding to violence. For example, we will look at how a mayor used performance to lower rates of urban violence in Bogotá, Colombia, how an Iraqi performance artist used his body to question war, and how a rebel-poet in Chiapas, Mexico, has led a revolution of indigenous peasants largely through literary production. The primary learning goals of the program include obtaining a thorough knowledge of cases of war and violence in the present period; furthering an understanding of cultural production in Latin America and the Middle East; and developing skills in literary and artistic interpretation, critical thinking, analytical and creative writing, and cross-cultural communication.The program will explore the meaning and practice of violence through a variety of formats and media, including novels and testimonies, films and video, and historical and analytical texts. Exercises and assignments will include class presentations, role-plays, writing workshops, and analytical papers. The program’s objective is to push us to think more deeply about how violence can transform cultures and how cultural production can be mobilized to disrupt cycles of violence. The program will provide a stimulating context for political and intellectual dialogue and guidance on writing, research methods, Internet research, and approaches to challenging texts and ideas. | Steven Niva Catalina Ocampo | Tue Tue Wed Wed Fri Fri | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Fall | Fall Winter | |||
Martha Rosemeyer, Thomas Johnson and Carolyn Prouty
Signature Required:
Winter Spring
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Program | SO–SRSophomore–Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | W 16Winter | S 16Spring | More than three-quarters of the arable land mass of the planet is influenced by human needs and desires for food and fiber. There are competing visions for the future of our agriculture and food systems. A global, fossil-fuel-based system provides large quantities of inexpensive food along with significant environmental and social impacts. Another vision is a local, community-based system that produces higher quality, but more expensive, food while seeking to minimize environmental and social impacts. Critical questions that will inform our inquiry include: Can we grow high-quality food that is available to everyone? How did we get into this current agricultural predicament of industrial production and a global population that is simultaneously both “stuffed” and “starved?” How can an individual make a difference?This program will provide an interdisciplinary study of agriculture in the context of food systems. We will explore competing ideas while developing ecological and holistic thinking, which will be applied in hands-on laboratory and field exercises, expository and scientific report writing, critical analysis of film, and quantitative reasoning. Seminar will examine history, policy, and socioeconomic and political contexts of agriculture and health.In winter, we will focus on soil science, particularly soil ecology and nutrient cycling in lecture and lab. We will also examine food and agricultural policy at the national, state and local level, as well as the prospects for creating more sustainable food systems. Our learning will be supported by an extended field trip to the Ecological Farming Conference in California and visits to a number of rural farms and urban agriculture projects. Seminar will examine U.S. agricultural history, food system policy, economics, and moral and ethical dimensions of food production. In spring, we will combine the topics of global farming systems, public health, and the health of agricultural workers. We will study basic ecological principles and practices involved in sustainable agriculture, indigenous agriculture, and permaculture. Farming intersects with larger questions of occupational health, including health-related burdens of workers in agriculture broadly, and specifically in migrant laborers in the United States. Integrating scientific and political population-based analyses, students will examine public health principles, tools, and policies related to pesticide exposure and other chemical, biological, and physical risks faced by agricultural workers. Seminar will focus on understanding structural history of agriculture, exploring the common roots of both malnutrition, hunger, and obesity. A three-day field trip and three-credit independent project or in-program internship will complete in-class learning. | Martha Rosemeyer Thomas Johnson Carolyn Prouty | Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Winter | Winter Spring | ||||
Tomoko Hirai Ulmer
Signature Required:
Summer
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Program | FR–SRFreshmen–Senior | 8 | 08 | Day, Evening and Weekend | Su 16 Session I Summer | Experience Japan is an intensive, in-country program that gives students first-hand experience of contemporary Japanese culture, society and language. This program will take you to Tamagawa University in Tokyo, Evergreen’s long-time exchange partner. You will attend classes, engage in activities with the students and conduct research on a topic of your choice. Classes at Tamagawa University include regular bilingual classes and seminars specially designed for Evergreen students. Extra-curricular activities and field trips, arranged by the faculty and Tamagawa students, will take you to Tokyo's historically and culturally significant sites, including the Kabuki Theatre and Ghibli Museum, and nearby towns such as Kamakura and Hakone. Admission is open to all students regardless of language ability. 2016’s planned departure date is Friday, June 17 and return date, Saturday, July 9. Interested students should contact Tomoko Hirai Ulmer via email at and request an application form. | Tomoko Hirai Ulmer | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Summer | Summer | |||||
Lee Lyttle and Steven Flusty
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Program | FR–SOFreshmen–Sophomore | 16 | 16 | Day | S 16Spring | This program is intended for those students interested in exploring the development and diffusion of arts and culture in a global urban context. Students will work to understand the mechanisms by which visual, theatrical, musical, architectural, culinary and other artistic endeavors take form within and between world cities, and in turn transform those cities. They will explore the operations and effects of globalization as a collation of extensive homogenizing and diversifying relations. Students will probe such problematic phenomena as Coca-Colonization and McDonaldization, cultural imperialism, cultural appropriation and the privatization of culture. In so doing, students will investigate institutional structures and initiatives that foster and sustain vibrant artistic communities, while also uncovering the basic market forces that operate in sectors such as the global entertainment and media industries. Students will write about, read, and discuss challenges posed by globalization of the arts, as well as intervention strategies for cultural survival. With seminars, lectures, guest speakers and films students will discuss arts and cultural development, nonprofit and governmental issues that come to light in a global context.Students will have the option of either doing a major individual or group project on one of the program’s major themes or an in-program embedded internship in which they associate with a business, governmental, or nonprofit organization that works at the intersection of the arts and culture. Students who chose to do the in-program internship must do so in consultation with the faculty and Academic Advising. Please go to for more information. Interested students should consult with the faculty about their proposed internship placements prior to or during the Academic Fair, March 2, 2015. The internships should be located in the Seattle/Portland I-5 corridor or on the Olympic Peninsula within a reasonable distance (i.e., Mason or Grays Harbor Counties). All internships must follow college procedures. While students can seek out their own internship possibilities that reflect their artistic or entrepreneurial interests, we will also work with campus resources and the faculty member's contacts to identify internship possibilities. | Lee Lyttle Steven Flusty | Mon Tue Thu | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO | Spring | Spring | ||||
Marianne Bailey
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Program | FR–SRFreshmen–Senior | 8 | 08 | Day | Su 16 Session II Summer | Marianne Bailey | Mon Tue Wed Thu | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Summer | Summer | |||||
Theresa Aragon
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Program | JR–SRJunior–Senior | 12 | 12 | Weekend | S 16Spring | The world as we know it has changed immeasurably over the past ten years. Our horizon has been expanded through quantum advances in communication and computer technology. We are now members of a global society and as such have an intellectual responsibility to attempt an understanding of globalization. Globalization has created both opportunities and challenges for international business and will serve as the organizing framework for our study of international business. We will inform our understanding through the perspective of politics, economics, social science, culture and history. Learning in this program will be interdependent and dynamic. It will require everyone’s best effort and full commitment. Credits will be given in globalization and international business. | Theresa Aragon | Sat Sun | Junior JR Senior SR | Spring | Spring | ||||
Thuy Vu and Dariush Khaleghi
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Program | FR–SRFreshmen–Senior | 8 | 08 | Weekend | F 15 Fall | W 16Winter | In order to understand issues emerging in international business and globalization, a good appreciation for the interconnection between international finance and ethical leadership is a must. This two-quarter program will focus on the issues faces by the leadership of multinational corporations in dealing with international financial systems, organizational culture, communications and ethics. In addition to international business policy issues, this program will discuss globalization, international monetary systems, cross-cultural leadership, business cultures and ethical management practices. The class will help students move toward a better understanding of the concepts of business sustainability and social responsibility at the domestic and international levels.In Fall quarter, we will focus on developing the skills necessary for understanding the key issues in international business, how international trade has evolved for the past century and what has changed with the emergence of new economic powers. Our study will include learning about the importance of organizational culture and ethical leadership in developing and promoting successful international business practices. In Winter, we will learn about the evolution of the global monetary system and its impacts on the international financial sector. The program for Winter quarter will also cover the important area of intercultural communication, international marketing and leadership development for local and global businesses.This program is for students interested in learning about international finance, economic globalization and marketing, ethical leadership and socially responsible business management. We will be using lectures, case studies, seminars and workshops to build up the students' understanding in these areas. | Thuy Vu Dariush Khaleghi | Sat Sun | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Fall | Fall Winter | |||
Ted Whitesell, Krishna Chowdary, Rob Cole and Alison Styring
Signature Required:
Winter
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Program | FR–SRFreshmen–Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | F 15 Fall | W 16Winter | This two-quarter program is designed to introduce the interdisciplinary field of environmental studies. This field employs the tools of natural and social sciences as well as the humanities to understand and effectively address the enormous environmental challenges of this generation. The program will use a variety of teaching styles, including field trips, films, guest speakers, case study and research projects, as well as lectures and seminars on a wide array of critical environmental issues. Readings will include classics of environmental literature that have inspired and informed citizens for generations, notable contemporary books in the field, textbooks, scientific articles, and a novel. A central goal of this program is to advance students' ability to think critically and in-depth about environmental challenges and solutions. The program will expose students to the following range of topics: climate change; pollutants in our air, freshwater, oceans, and soils; the mass extinction of species; sustainability and sustainable development; ecological restoration; environmental justice; protected areas; sustainable energy; human population and the environment; science and advocacy; and threats to Puget Sound, along with efforts to protect it.Focusing on ecosystems and environmental issues in the Pacific Northwest, the fall quarter will emphasize development of the skills and tools necessary to pursue environmental studies at a more advanced level. This means instruction and practice in using the following: systems-thinking; the principles of population, community, ecosystem, and landscape ecology; ornithology; the study of landscapes and soundscapes; urban ecology; social science principles essential for understanding sustainability and conservation; field research methods; introductory quantitative and qualitative analytical methods; and the general nature of biogeochemical cycles. Emphasis will also be placed on developing skill in analytical writing as practiced in the social and natural sciences, based on research using library databases of peer-reviewed journal articles, and demonstrating competency in formatting citations and references.The winter quarter will take a more global perspective on environmental studies. Students will be challenged to apply and more fully develop the skills and knowledge introduced in the fall quarter through in-depth research projects on critical environmental problems and associated solutions. Lectures and seminars will expose students to a more advanced and in-depth examination of critical environmental problems and solutions around the world. | Ted Whitesell Krishna Chowdary Rob Cole Alison Styring | Tue Tue Wed Thu Thu | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Fall | Fall Winter | |||
John Baldridge and Thomas Rainey
Signature Required:
Summer
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Program | FR–GRFreshmen–Graduate | 8 | 08 | Day, Evening and Weekend | Su 16 Session I Summer | This study-abroad program will explore two great cultural centers of Russia, Moscow and Kazan. Moscow is Russia’s Eternal City, the old and the new capital of all the Russias. In Moscow, the group will take guided tours of major historical sites, including the Moscow Kremlin, the Armory Museum, the Tretyakov Art Gallery, Novodevichi Convent and Monastery, and the Trinity-St. Sergei Monastery outside the city. Then participants will take a night train to Kazan on the Volga River, the very heartland and capital of Tatarstan, a semi-independent republic in the middle of Russia. Kazan was the capital of the last Tatar successor state, re-conquered for Russia by Ivan the Terrible, in 1552. It is where the Asian East meets the Russian West, the population evenly divided between the Volga Tatars and Russians. The Tatars are Sunni Muslims, and the Russians are Eastern Orthodox Christians. In Kazan, student travelers will receive lectures on the culture, geography, and environmental history of Tatarstan from the faculty of Kazan Federal University. They will visit several cultural sites in and around the city, including the Kazan Kremlin, the city art museum, and archeological exhibits. The primary activities of the group in Tatarstan, however, will be several ecological field trips to protected areas, such as the Volga-Kama Nature Preserve ( ). The group will then return to Moscow, where, time permitting before our flights home, we will perhaps stroll along the Arbat, pay our respects at the monument of Russia’s unknown soldier, lay some flowers at the foot of the statue of Russia’s greatest poet, Alexander Pushkin, or spend a few quiet moments in one of the city’s famous churches, listening to a Russian choir singing a sacred mass. And wherever we go, we will enjoy Russian and Tatar food, sights, sounds and hospitality. Application and $200 deposit are due March 1, 2016. You can find more information here: / | John Baldridge Thomas Rainey | Summer | Summer | ||||||
Marianne Bailey, Marianne Hoepli and Kathleen Eamon
Signature Required:
Winter
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Program | SO–SRSophomore–Senior | 4, 12, 16 | 04 12 16 | Day | F 15 Fall | W 16Winter | S 16Spring | Our program will explore the productive paradoxes of Germanic sensibilities by working through foundational works in literature, philosophy, psychoanalysis, music, and visual arts from German-speaking thinkers and makers. We will be especially concerned with the unmistakable coexistence of a drive toward order, structure, technology, and systems, with an equally persistent melancholy, deep inwardness, and mysticism. Goethe’s is written in German; so, too, is the Dada The philosophical systems of Kant and Hegel, for example, feed Nietzsche’s critical tongue. Freud and the psychoanalytic tradition name and analyze the chaotic forces of human depths decades after German Romantics intimated and sang praises of that darkness, figuring its caves, jewels, and labyrinths in their poems and paintings. The operatic wave of Wagnerian ritual “Gesamtkunst” (total art) joins, in the German canon, the ethereal choirs of medieval mystic, Hildegard of Bingen, and the perfect symmetry of a piece from Mozart. We will ask what in this dual mentality allowed the rise of fascism, and how the artists and thinkers who opposed it and came of age in its wake were radically changed in their understanding of their language, their work, themselves, and their notions of art and of humanism. In fall and winter quarters, we will work across a long history, drawing from the Medieval and Renaissance eras with the aim of better understanding German Romantic literature, art, and philosophy of the late 18th and 19th centuries, and studying that period in turn so that we can approach works from 20th-century moderns, as well as works by outsider artists found in the fringe galleries and theaters in contemporary Berlin. Language study (beginning and intermediate) will be integral to our work for all students who plan on traveling to Germany in spring quarter. Spring quarter will include further language, philosophical, and cultural study, as well as significant individual project work. Students may elect to travel to Germany for nine weeks of field study, first in Berlin for intensive language and cultural studies, and then on excursions into, for example, Austria, Switzerland, and southwestern Germany during students’ “ (walking time). In Berlin, we will continue our historical trajectory with an emphasis on works of post-modernity and the situation of the contemporary European and world city, studying Berlin’s art, music, drama, and architecture. During the students will pursue their self-designed curriculum incorporating travel and cultural research; a portion of winter quarter will be devoted to developing those projects. Students on campus will engage a version of the all-program syllabus while developing their own individual projects with the support and help of faculty and one another. These students will have their own version of the when they can make field trips of their choosing. These might include touring independent poetry publishers, traveling to a nearby or distant museum or archive important to their research, or wandering the mountains or seashore reading and writing about the German Romantic poets and thinkers like Nietzsche, Novalis, or Hesse. All students will join together at year’s end to present their spring experiences and projects. This program will offer advanced work in the humanities and excellent preparation for graduate work. | Marianne Bailey Marianne Hoepli Kathleen Eamon | Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Fall | Fall Winter | |||
Peter Bohmer and Carlos Marentes
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Program | SO–SRSophomore–Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | S 16Spring | We will examine the nature, development, and concrete workings of modern capitalism and the interrelationship of race, class, and gender, primarily in the contemporary context. We will focus on the themes oppression, exploitation, social movements, reform, and fundamental change, as well as the construction of alternatives to capitalism, nationally and globally. We will examine social changes that have occurred in the past, present trends, and alternatives for the future. We will examine different theoretical frameworks such as liberalism, Marxism, feminism, anarchism, and neoclassical economics, and their explanations of the current United States and global political economy and of key issues such as climate change, poverty and inequality, immigration and the criminal justice system.In studying the U.S. experience, we will study linkages from the past to the present, between the economic core of capitalism, political and social structures, and gender, race, and class relations. Resistance and social movements will be a central theme. We will also investigate the interrelationship between the U.S. political economy and the changing global system, historically and in the present. We will study causes and consequences of the globalization of capital and its effects in our daily lives, and the role of multilateral institutions. We will analyze the responses of societies such as Venezuela and social movements such as labor, feminist, anti-war, environmental, anti-racist, indigenous, and youth, and the global justice movement in the U.S. and internationally in opposing the global order. We will look at alternatives to neoliberal capitalism, including participatory socialism and strategies for fundamental change.Students will be introduced to economics from a neoclassical and political economy perspective. Within microeconomics, we will study topics such as the structure and failure of markets, work and wages, growing economic inequality, poverty, and the gender and racial division of labor. We will study macroeconomics, including austerity policies and critiques of it, the role of debt, and causes and solutions to unemployment and economic instability.Students will engage the material through seminars, lectures, guest speakers, films, workshops, synthesis papers based on program material and concepts, and a take-home exam. | Peter Bohmer Carlos Marentes | Tue Wed Fri | Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Spring | Spring | ||||
Alice Nelson, Savvina Chowdhury and Therese Saliba
Signature Required:
Winter Spring
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Program | SO–SRSophomore–Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | F 15 Fall | W 16Winter | S 16Spring | For centuries, shouts of liberation have echoed through the streets, from Kolkata, India, to Caracas, Venezuela. Today, new movements are afoot, inviting us to revisit the question, "What does independence mean in the cultural, historical, political, and economic context of the global South?" Third World liberation movements that arose in the aftermath of World War II did so not only as organized resistance to colonial forms of oppression and domination, but also as attempts to reconceptualize an alternative, anti-imperial and anti-racist world view. While gaining some measure of political independence, nations such as India, Egypt, Algeria, Mexico, and Nicaragua found that they remained enmeshed in neocolonial relations of exploitation vis-à-vis the former colonial masters and the emerging U.S. empire. Their post-colonial experience with nation-building bears witness to the actuality that political liberation remains inseparable from economic independence.Through the disciplinary lenses of literature, cultural studies, political economy, and feminist theory, this program will explore how various ideas of liberation (sometimes complementary, sometimes contradictory) have emerged and changed over time, in the contexts of Latin America, the Middle East, and the Indian subcontinent. We will explore religious, national, gender, ethnic, and cultural identities that shape narratives of liberation through the discourses of colonialism, neocolonialism, religious traditions, and other mythic constructions of the past. We will examine how deep structural inequalities have produced the occupation and partitioning of land and migrations, both forced and "chosen."With emphasis on a variety of texts, we will examine the ways in which authors revisit their histories of European and U.S. colonialism and imperialism, question the ways stories have been written, and seek to tell another story, reinterpreting liberation. In fall, we will explore several historical models of liberation and critique dominant representations of Third World nations. We will focus especially on India's path to independence, the Algerian and Cuban revolutions, Egypt/Arab nationalism, and the Chilean Road to Socialism. In winter, we will move forward chronologically, framing our cases within the current context of neoliberalism. Our case studies will include Iran and Nicaragua in 1979 and afterwards, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, post-nationalist resistance movements in Mexico, opposition to U.S.-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, the recent Arab uprisings, and issues of ecology and resource sovereignty affecting the three regions. We will look at feminist involvement in these contexts, as well as the role of U.S. foreign and economic policy in suppressing liberatory movements.In spring quarter, we will focus on migration as a legacy of colonial relations, neoliberal globalization, and heightened militarization. We will examine border cultures and the day-to-day realities of dislocation through the literature of various diasporas, and the quest for community, sovereignty, and economic security in the post 9-11 era. For part of their spring quarter credit, students will have the opportunity to engage in community-based internships around issues of immigration and human rights or project work related to program themes. | Alice Nelson Savvina Chowdhury Therese Saliba | Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Fall | Fall Winter Spring | |||
Ron Smith
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Program | FR–SRFreshmen–Senior | 8 | 08 | Day | Su 16 Session I Summer | This course is an opportunity for collaborative media production between students in Gaza and at Evergreen. We will explore means of low-budget video production using the tools many students have at hand, as we develop an eye for media critique and responsible use of images to tell stories, while simultaneously developing strong personal bonds between groups in dramatically different places and contexts. This course is an experiment for effecting social transformation through new media communication.In this course, we will work together with peers in the Gaza Strip to create a series of short videos exploring our own relationships with themes we find important in our own lives and how we relate with the rest of the world. Such themes could include the meanings of water, food, culture, gender, transportation and politics, ideas that we so often take for granted, but have dramatically different meanings dependent on the geography. Students will work with video editing software to create short, complex video narratives that deal with the topics at hand. Students will also explore the ways to get the best quality video out of the tools they have at hand, using common devices such as camera phones and tablets to document serious topics.Classes will combine lectures, seminars, and workshops, as well as group discussion sessions with peers in Gaza. Students will be expected to contemplate readings on the nature of the media and our perceptions of the Middle East and to develop a powerful theoretical and practical vision for creating a vision of solidarity through digital media. Videos produced in this class will be posted on a public website to foster continued conversation about the topics chosen.This course is open to students with any level of knowledge of the middle east and any level of video production proficiency. Beginning students will be exposed to basic media production skills and to the foundations of media criticism made real through their own production. Advanced media students will be able to convert their high-level production skills to an easily-available medium and will be able to put their ideas about creating critical media into action. | Ron Smith | Mon Tue Wed Thu | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Summer | Summer | ||||
Rob Cole and Patricia Krafcik
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Program | SO–SRSophomore–Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | S 16Spring | Stalin is a pivotal figure not only in Russian and Soviet history, but also world history. Through his mandates, he had a phenomenal impact on the country’s art, literature, politics, courts, prisons, economy, and natural environment, as well as on agricultural and urban life. Guided by Stalin, the U.S.S.R. abolished private property; compelled peasants to work on state-owned collective farms; forced rapid industrialization throughout the empire; redefined education and political loyalty; sent millions of citizens to notorious Gulag "work camps"; and proudly declared war against Nature. At the same time, Stalin's U.S.S.R. also did more than any other country to crush Nazi Germany. And under his rule, the U.S.S.R. transformed a mostly illiterate culture to one which became nearly entirely literate. It also developed a nuclear arsenal second only to that of the U.S. and kept an uneasy peace with its ideological enemies after the close of World War II.In lectures and seminars, we will examine issues raised in a selection of readings from history, literature, and culture, all geared to helping us answer questions raised by our exploration. Viewing and discussing relevant films will also aid in our examination of a variety of issues. How did Stalin manage to rise to power? How did his totalitarian regime take root? How was it that so many Soviet citizens, as well as foreigners, were incarcerated without any upsurge of protest? Did the Stalin legacy live on in the Soviet Union, and has it survived the 1991 fall of that empire? Might we discern this legacy in some aspects of post-Soviet Russia at the present moment? Such questions will lead us to analyzing and understanding these issues both specifically in the case of Stalin and theoretically in instances of coercive government in general.Students will write a major research paper on a topic of choice relevant to our exploration, producing drafts during the course of the quarter, and will also present the results of their research to their peers in poster projects at the end of the term. We will spend the last week of class away from campus, exhibiting and explaining our posters, decompressing in the beauty of Nature and the kind of natural environment which seemed expendable to Stalin in his drive, no matter the cost, to industrialize the Soviet Union. | Rob Cole Patricia Krafcik | Tue Tue Wed Fri Fri | Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Spring | Spring | ||||
Catalina Ocampo
Signature Required:
Spring
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Program | FR–SRFreshmen–Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | S 16Spring | The word “historia” in Spanish means both “story” and “history”: its dual meaning embodies the deeply intertwined relationship between historical events and forms of storytelling in Latin America. While historical forces have shaped how and which stories are told, stories have also changed the way we understand historical events in the region, and often shaped those events as well. In this program, we will explore the complex interrelationship between history and storytelling in greater Latin@ America through the lens of short stories by Latin American and Latin@ writers. We will explore questions such as: How have stories represented, shaped, and intervened in Latin American history? How does history, in turn, shape and affect the way that stories are told in Latin America? What stories are given voice? What stories are silenced? How are different stories told by various communities in Latin America?In order to strengthen students’ linguistic skills and provide greater access to materials from Latin America, all program activities will be conducted entirely in Spanish. Our readings will focus on stories by twentieth- and twenty-first-century authors like Jorge Luis Borges, José María Arguedas, Luisa Valenzuela, Julio Cortázar, Elena Garro, Ana Castillo, and Daniel Alarcón, among many others. While reading these stories, we will analyze the way they represent historical events like the Spanish conquest of the Americas and indigenous resistance, the Mexican Revolution, the Cuban Revolution, dictatorships in the Southern Cone, and Latin@ migration to the United States. We will also explore how these stories reflect on the act of storytelling and the ways in which is carried out, both through writing and through other media like the oral tradition, music, and digital forms. In addition, students will also participate in various forms of storytelling and engage in community work with Latin@ youth from the greater Puget Sound region. Our community work will provide opportunities to exchange stories and engage youth in crafting and telling their own story.The primary learning goals of the program include: strengthening Spanish-language skills in intermediate to advanced speaking, reading, and writing, furthering an understanding of cultural production in Latin America and its interrelationship with historical contexts; and developing skills in literary and artistic interpretation, critical thinking, analytical and creative writing, community-based learning, and cross-cultural communication. Program activities will include lectures, seminar, writing workshops, a weekly focus on grammatical forms, and screening of films or other media; assignments will include grammatical exercises, class presentations, creative writing exercises, analytical papers, and reflections on community work. The program’s objective is to strengthen your Spanish-language skills through immersion in the various modes of storytelling in Latin America and their relationship with historical contexts. | Catalina Ocampo | Tue Tue Wed Fri Fri | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Spring | Spring | ||||
Steven Niva
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Program | FR ONLYFreshmen Only | 16 | 16 | Day | S 16Spring | This program will critically examine debates over the nature and causes of terrorism and violence directed against the United States from the Middle East, and the contending policy options concerning how best to respond to it. The program will focus primarily on debates in the U.S. since the attacks of 9/11 by exploring different theories of terrorism, political violence, and counterterrorism offered by various scholars and theorists. The program will examine the history of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, the rise of Al-Qaida and Jihadist terrorism, and the responses by the U.S. to these developments in the 21st century.To meet the learning goals of this program, students will have to obtain a thorough knowledge of current events; develop a thorough understanding of the history of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East; learn how to assess and compare competing theories of terrorism and counterterrorism strategies; understand the diversity of political, cultural, and religious beliefs within the Middle East; engage in critical thinking; and develop informed opinions regarding all of these topics. The program will be organized around a series of texts, exercises, and assignments, including in-class presentations, role-plays, and several analytical papers. We will watch films and documentaries to supplement our learning. | politics and public policy, international politics, and Middle East studies. | Steven Niva | Freshmen FR | Spring | Spring |