Course TitleDescription

ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL ERAS

 

Classical Literature: Greek Tragedy and its Legacy 
56:606:501:01
Cross-listed: 56:350:528:01
M 6:00 – 8:40PM
Professor Shanyn Fiske 
fiske@camden.rutgers.edu

In this course we will read a number of works by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, studying them within their own historical context as well as exploring their relevance to later literary / historical periods. In addition to Greek tragedies like MedeaTrojan Women, the Theban trilogy, and the Oresteian trilogy, we will examine modern adaptations / interpretations of these classical works such as Christa Wolf’s feminist play Medea: A Modern Retelling; Julia Alvarez’s In the Time of the Butterflies (as a modern Antigone); and Freud’s appropriations of the Oedipus and Electra stories. Along with primary texts, we will read critical works by Simon Goldhill, Jean-Pierre Vernant, Edith Hall, Jennifer Jones, and others that amplify and theorize ongoing conversations between the ancients and the moderns. Course requirements include active class participation, an oral presentation, a mid-term paper, and a longer final paper.

   

Roman Art
Advanced Undergraduate Course 
56:606:502:01
Cross-listed: 50:082:311:01
TTh 3:00 – 4:20 PM 
Professor Susan Jones 
susjones@camden.rutgers.edu 

Art of the Roman Republic and Empire from the Etruscan background through the reign of Constantine; emphasis on the city of Rome
   

EARLY MODERN ERA

   
17th Century Literature 
56:606:511:01
Cross-listed: 56:350:549:01
T 6:00 – 8:40PM 
Professor Howard Marchitello
marchitello@camden.rutgers.edu

COURSE DESCRIPTION FORTHCOMING: Please check back.

   

AGE OF REVOLUTIONS

   
Women and Art: 18th and 19th Century
Advanced Undergraduate Course 
56:606:521:01
Cross-listed: 50:082:305:01
TTh 1:30 – 2:30 PM 
Professor Martin Rosenberg 
mrosenbe@camden.rutgers.edu
COURSE DESCRIPTION FORTHCOMING: Please check back.
   
Colloquium in Material Culture 
56:606:522:01
Cross-listed: 56:512:588:01
Th 5:00 – 7:30 PM 
Professor Charlene Mires
cmires@camden.rutgers.edu

This is an intensive readings course for public historians on interpreting artifacts’ roles and significance in American History, from the 18th through the 20th century. Of special interest to students thinking about working with museums and historic sites.

NOTE: Course requires some historical background.

   

STUDIES OF THE 20TH CENTURY

 
American Realism and Naturalism
56:606:531:01
Cross-listed: 50:352:509:01
Th 6:00 -8:40PM
Professor Carol Singley 
singley@camden.rutgers.edu

We examine late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American literature between the Civil War and World War I, when writers attempted to give the effect of realism by representing characters rooted in social class and engaged with their surrounding. We also explore literary naturalism, a mode of writing influenced by Darwinism that portrays characters as subject to environmental and natural forces often beyond their control. Writers include Rebecca Harding Davis, Mark Twain, Jack London, Stephen Crane, Edith Wharton, Henry James, Charles Chestnutt, and selected Native American and Asian American writers.

 
 
 

 

   
Contemporary Art 
Advanced Undergraduate Course 
56:606:531:02
Cross-listed: 50:082:302:01
TTh 9:30 – 10:50 AM 
Professor STAFF 
Art in America and Europe 1940 to 1980. Includes discussion of Surrealist, Abstract Expressionist, Minimalist, Pop, Op, and Conceptual Art, Happenings, and site-specific and direct metal sculpture.
   
Comparitive History: Politics and Culture in an Age of War, Revolution, and Dictatorship 
56:606:532:01
Cross-listed: 56:512:529:40
Tu 5:00 – 7:40 PM 
Professor Andrew Lees 
alees@camden.rutgers.edu
Students who take this course will learn not only how some of the great events of the twentieth century the two world wars and the Cold War, the Russian Revolution and the Nazi Revolution, and the peaceful revolutions of 1989-1991, among others occurred but also how they affected contemporary observers, leaving their imprint on a rich record of political culture.  Students will also encounter major works by historians, which place these events within interpretive frameworks that will repay close scrutiny and should generate lively discussion.  The focus will be on Europe, but attention will also be paid to interactions with and parallels in the United States.
   
20th Century American Poetry 
56:606:532:02
Cross-listed: 50:352:525:01
M 6:00 -8:40PM
Professor Tyler Hoffman 
thoffman@camden.rutgers.edu
In this course we will read widely in American poetry of the modern 
and contemporary periods, stopping to pause over a few long poems (and poetic sequences) and a few poets whose body of work we will get to know intimately. Focusing on the schools that develop during the course of the century—and the polemical debates that rage between and among members of competing schools—we will take in the work of the high modernists and other experimental poetries of the modernist period that look toward the postmodern moment, as well as a persistent formalist tradition. Our primary attention will be to issues of sound, including the reading aloud of poetry by poets themselves. You will be responsible for writing an original piece of scholarship due at the end of the semester.
 

STUDIES OF IDEAS

   
Attitudes Toward Crime and Justice 
56:606:601:01
Cross-listed: 56:202:673:01
Th 6:00 – 8:40 PM 
Professor Anna King 
annaking@rutgers.edu
In this course, students will become familiar with major issues in the study of public opinion related to issues of crime and justice (e.g., measurement, theory, concept and debates). This investigation will focus on explaining individual differences in ‘get tough’ mentalities, through various theoretical frameworks such as:  psychoanalytic, socio-emotive, attributional, information-based and media perspectives.   Students will learn how attitudes are formed and maintained in a psycho-social context.
   
Psychology of Health and Happiness 
56:606:602:01
Cross-listed: 56:830:5674:40
W 5:00 – 8:50 PM 
Professor Charlotte Markey 
chmarkey@camden.rutgers.edu

This course focuses on understanding psychological processes that influence health and happiness.  Drawing from research and theory in health psychology and positive psychology, topics to be discussed include: stress and coping, personality and health, health behaviors (e.g., eating behaviors), the influence of health care providers, factors that promote happiness, and ways individuals create meaning in their lives.  The changing health care environment and the need to understand the role of individuals’ lifestyles in determining their health and well-being is emphasized.

   

ARTS AND LITERATURE

 

Special Topics: History of the Short Story 
56:606:611:01
Cross-listed: 56:350:593:01
T 6:00 – 8:40PM 
Professor Lisa Zeidner 
zeidner@camden.rutgers.edu

Unlike that of the novel or—even worse—the poem, the history of the short story is short enough to be traced in a single semester.  We’ll do an international survey beginning with the beginning, lingering on some of the great innovators of the form—Poe, Chekhov.  We will look at the contemporary American short story in particular detail, culminating with the reading of a collection of stories by a single author.  Two short papers, one longer paper, and a final exam.

 
   

Linguistics and Literature
56:606:612:01
Cross-listed: 50:615:550:01
W 6:00 – 8:40 PM 
Professor Richard Epstein 
repstein@camden.rutgers.edu

In this course, we will take some of the classic tools of linguistics, sociolinguistics and the philosophy of language and use them in the analysis of passages from literary texts.  The bulk of the course will be an introduction to the discipline of stylistics, the linguistic study of literature.  We will cover topics such as: the foreground/background distinction, conversational structure, speech acts, politeness, inference, point of view and speech/thought presentation.  We will also devote a significant amount of time to the study of metaphor and metonymy.  In addition to studying the basic concepts, strong emphasis will be placed on learning how to apply each of these notions to the analysis of sample texts. 

Course requirements:   Three short (2 page) papers and one longer paper (7-10 pages). 

NOTE: **Please have the course syllabus, reading list, and other introductory handouts with you at the first class session.  They will be available through Electronic Reserves (along with all outside readings).**

   
Modern British Women Writers 
56:606:612:02
Cross-listed: 56:350:594:01
W 6:00 – 8:40 PM 
Professor Anne Vial 
vial@camden.rutgers.edu
When Virginia Woolf argued that a woman needed £500 and a room of her own in order to write fiction, it turned out she was describing a 
condition that was available to a growing group of women for the first 
time. This course will examine women writers of the first half of the 
twentieth century, such as Woolf, Dorothy Richardson, Katherine 
Mansfield, Jean Rhys and others, who were entering and changing the literary conversation as never before. Female modernists shared much of the excitement, anxiety, and audacious experimentation of their male counterparts. But they also faced hostility and marginalization. We will explore a range of issues including sexuality, the politics of publication, and the search for narrative voice. Course work will include oral reports, an annotated bibliography, and two papers.
   

POLITICS AND SOCIETY

 

Human Freedoms and the Constitution 
Advanced Undergraduate Course 
56:606:621:01
Cross-listed: 50:790:442:01
TuTh 11:00 – 12:20PM 
Professor Alan Tarr 
tarr@camden.rutgers.edu

Focuses on the civil-liberties jurisprudence of the U.S. Supreme Court, focusing on such issues as  freedom of speech and of the press, religious liberty, the rights of defendants, equality rights, and the right to privacy.  Tests and a paper requirement. 

   
American Presidency 
Advanced Undergraduate Course 
56:606:621:02
Cross-listed: 50:790:407:40
W 6:00 – 8:40 PM 
Professor Kim Shinebaum 
shienbau@camden.rutgers.edu
The constitutional basis and development of the American presidency. The potentialities of presidential government, patterns of presidential politics, and the power, strengths, weaknesses, and limitations of presidential authority.
   
Modern Political Theory
Advanced Undergraduate Course 
56:606:622:01
Cross-listed: 50:790:372:01
TuTh 9:30 – 10:50 AM 
Professor Alan Tarr 
tarr@camden.rutgers.edu

Focuses on the political philosophies of John Locke, John Stuart Mill, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Edmund Burke, Karl Marx, and Friedrich Nietzsche.  Requirements:  series of short papers on the authors.

 

 

   
Is America At Risk? 
Advanced Undergraduate Course 
56:606:622:02
Cross-listed: 50:790:495:01
Tu 1:20 – 4:10 PM 
Professor Kim Shinebaum 
shienbau@camden.rutgers.edu
The 21st. century presents America with a range of challenges, previously unforeseen or underestimated. Unlike the threat environment of the 20th. century, when Communism or Fascism could be identified as the most important risk factors, challenges today come from multiple sources presenting policy makers with a far more complex foreign policy environment than the nation has faced at any time in its history. 

Moreover, unprecedented demands within the international community for broad global institutional change, together with the emergence of new economic rivals such as China, as well as the ideological challenge of militant Islam among other risks, suggests that America’s thus far unchallenged post -war leadership may erode in years to come. This course will not only identify the risks but also discuss how America can best adjust to its changing place in the world .
   

PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION

   
Philosophical and Religious Perspectives on Childhood
MALS SEMINAR 
56:606:641:01
Cross-listed: 56:163:520:01
MW 4:20 – 5:40 PM 
Professor John Wall 
johnwall@camden.rutgers.edu
This course explores the meaning and significance of childhood in society from a variety of philosophical and religious perspectives. The first half of the course critically examines some of the most influential writings on childhood in history from antiquity to modernity. We ask how these classic texts respond to such questions as the nature of childhood, the aims of child rearing, and responsibilities to and of children. The second half investigates some of the central philosophical and religious issues concerning childhood today. It examines such issues as the changing purposes of families, children’s relations to culture, and children’s rights and political participation.
   
Journies to Heaven, Hell and Other Worlds 
ONLINE COURSE
56:606:642:01
Cross-listed: 56:606:642:W1; 56:606:642:A1 
By Arrangment 
Professor Kenneth banner 
banner@camden.rutgers.edu
Most religions and cultures around the world have stories of ascending  to heaven, descending to hell or traveling to another reality.  They  usually take the form of dreams, visions, near-death experiences or  even claims of physical ascent.  This course will examine accounts  from both the ancient past and the modern world.  It will explore how  scholars study such narratives and what they can teach us about  religious experience and religion itself.
   

RESEARCH IN LIBERAL STUDIES

   

56:606:689:01
Professor Stuart Charme 
scharme@camden.rutgers.edu

Independent study of a special interest to the student, under supervision of an advisor chosen in consultation with the program director.
   

56:606:690:01 
Professor Stuart Charme

 
   

MATRICULATION CONTINUED

 

56:606:800:01 
Professor Stuart Charme