Course Title | Description |
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ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL ERAS |
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Greek Art |
This course will cover the art & archaeology of Greece and the Aegaen are from the Bronze age to their incorporation into the Roman Empire. It will examine the art & architecture of this period within its historical and cultural context. This examination will include discussions of the art & monuments and how they complement the knowledge gained from contemporary texts to round out our understanding of the ancient Mediterranean world. The methodologies used and issues examined are pertinent to the understanding of the imagery of any era or culture. |
EARLY MODERN ERA |
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17th/18th Century European Art Advanced Undergraduate Course 56:606:511:01 Cross-listed: 50:082:340:01 M 1:20-4:10 PM Professor Beth Pilliod pilliod@rci.rutgers.edu |
This course examines the art of the 17th and 18th centuries across Europe, with special emphasis on developments in Italy, Spain, the Low Countries France and England. Beginning with the crisis over the proper forms and functions of religious imagery in the late 16th century, artists faced the challenge of reformulating traditional subjects to satisfy the new tastes in art. Practitioners such as Caravaggio sometimes took the new reforms to extremes, resulting in the rejection of his paintings. Or, was his penchant for violence the cause of his failures? How was Caravaggio’s work received and why is it important for art still today? What artistic interests were in common across Europe in the 17th century? How were stylistic choices different? In what ways was art evolving away from some of the traditional types and approaches that had prevailed for centuries? Artists that will be the focus of discussion will include Caravaggio, Velasquez, Rubens, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Watteau, William Kent, and John Constable. There is no text book, but selected readings available via electronic access and occasional handouts will provide the background material. A midtern, final, individual project, and participation will determine students’ grades. |
AGE OF REVOLUTIONS |
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18th Century Literature 56:606:521:01 Cross-listed: 56:350:559:01 T 6:00 – 8:40 PM Professor Geoffrey Sill sill@camden.rutgers.edu |
The focus of this course is on “transatlantic” literary and cultural works of the long eighteenth century, 1660-1800. By that term, we primarily mean works that depict, advocate for, criticize, or satirize the movement of ideas and populations from Britain (including British colonies in Africa) to the various new worlds of America and elsewhere. We might also mean works of British literature and culture that are analogous to (can be “paired with”) works from the other side of the Atlantic. We intend to use these terms broadly–that is, “America” includes both the northern and southern continents, plus the Caribbean sea, and “Britain” includes not only England and Scotland, but also Ireland and other Anglophonic nations. This focus is part of a process of re-writing the canon of eighteenth-century literature that has been in progress for about the last decade. Many of the “old” canonical works are being re-considered in terms of their place in the transatlantic movement of ideas, while non-canonical works are receiving new attention. The canonical list of the M.A. program in English , too, is being re-written along these lines; this course will play an important part in writing of that portion of the new list that will be called “Transatlantic British-American Literature, 1660-1800”. I would like the members of this class to participate actively in the formation of that list. I have begun the process by putting three authors on the list who are (were) profoundly involved in the engagement of Britain with the world overseas–Aphra Behn, Daniel Defoe, and Jonathan Swift. Many of you already know Behn’s Oroonoko, but probably not her play The Window Ranter or The Rover. Many of you know Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, possibly also his Moll Flanders, but probably not The History of Col Jacque, Commonly Call’d Col. Jack. You have probably read Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels more than once, but perhaps not as a satire on Britain’s colonization of the transatlantic world. To these first three authors, I would now like to add two more–Henry Fielding (Tom Jones, 1749) and John Barth (The Sot-Weed Factor, 1960). Barth’s twentieth-century novel is a burlesque of Fielding’s eighteenth-century novel, and also a burlesque of Behn’s, Defoe’s, and Swift’s novels. It should provide a nice retrospective look at the transatlantic eighteenth century from the viewpoint of the twentieth. |
Modern Jewish History
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This is a graduate-level seminar that will examine European and |
STUDIES OF THE 20TH CENTURY |
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20th Century American Poetry |
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 and original piece of scholarship due at the end of the semester. |
Contemporary Art
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This course on comtemporary art begins by looking at the development of postmodern art out of modern art, and interrogating current trends in the art world. We examine the legacy of minimalism, feminism, and reflections on ethnicity, race and sexuality in art. We sample current expressions in media such as painting, photography, installation, projections, the digital and the electronic. Finally we explore works that address memorialization, the environment, and the effects of globalization. |
War and Peace in the 21st Century 56:606:532:01 Cross-listed: 50:525:119:01 Th 1:30 – 4:10 PM Professor Kim Shienbaum shienbau@camden.rutgers.edu |
COURSE DESCRIPTION FORTHCOMING |
Art, Ideas and Creativity in the 21st Century Advanced Undergraduate Course 56:606:532:02 Cross-listed: 50:082:362:01 W 6:00 – 8:40 PM Professor Robert Emmons raemmons@camden.rutgers.edu |
COURSE DESCRIPTION FORTHCOMING |
CULTURAL DIVERSITY |
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Gender and the Arts |
Until about 1970, women’s creative contributions to the arts,and gender issues which affected their ability to contribute to culture, were largely ignored. I, and my colleagues involved in what has been termed “feminist revisionism” feel that any history or account of culture that excludes half of humanity is a false history. So one of the course objectives is re-insert women into the history of the arts, as we explore the history of many forms of artistic and creative expression through the lens of gender. Since the arts are not isolated phenomena, but rather keys elements of human culture, anything which effects people can shape artistic expression, critical reaction and the way we value artists and the works they create. Therefore, we will consider the history of the arts as a type of social history, examining it in the context of history, politics, religion, philosophy and other perspectives. Just as society shapes the arts, the arts shape society. The course should be of interest to students from a broad range of disciploines in the arts, humanities and social sciences |
Children in Cross-Cultural Perspectives |
How do different communities conceptualize and influence children’s physical, emotional, and social development? What roles and behavior are expected of people at different times in their lives? Do children have a sub-culture separate from adults? What kind of agency do children have and how is it enabled or constrained by various discourses and ideologies of childhood, adult roles, and institutions such as the state, schools, religious authorities, or UNICEF? This course will explore cross-cultural variation in conceptions of childhood, child development, and children’s agency, roles, and needs. Students will be introduced to key anthropological concepts and methodologies for understanding the lives and experiences of children cross-culturally. We will be concerned with a broad definition of “children,” encompassing babies, toddlers, adolescents, and young adults, and with the wider social influences, ways of thinking, and institutions that affect the lives of children. Given contemporary attempts to promote children’s rights universally, rights that are based on Western conceptions of the child, and attempts to help children by well-meaning organizations and individuals (usually through adoption, orphanages, and schools), the requirement to attend to differences in how communities conceptualize children’s needs and roles is particularly acute today. |
STUDIES OF IDEAS |
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Sports and Leisure in American Popular Culture 56:606:601:01 Cross-listed: 56:512:680:01 W 6:00 – 8:40 PM Professor Nancy Rosoff nrosoff@camden.rutgers.edu |
This course will focus on how sports and leisure have been part of American popular culture. We will begin with a series of common readings to examine how historians have treated specific topics within this broad category. Each student will also be responsible for presenting the work of another historian to the class. The second half of the course will be devoted to researching, producing, and presenting individual research papers. The readings are organized around three related themes: sports, reading, and eating. These themes were selected to provide a broad perspective on sports and leisure. In addition, these themes will enable us to examine these topics through such lenses as gender, race, sexuality, age, and ethnicity. Moreover, these themes will allow for great breadth as you select the topic for your research
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History of Photography Advanced Undergraduate Course 56:606:601:02 Cross-listed: 50:082:383:01 M 8:00 – 12:00 PM Professor Kenneth Hohing khohing@camden.rutgers.edu |
HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY will consider and define the history of the photographic medium in terms of both its functional and fine art traditions. Beginning with the birth of the photographic process in the nineteenth century, the rapid evolution of materials and techniques will be investigated, as well as the medium?s potential for application in social, industrial, scientific, and artistic areas. Stieglitz and his successors and the advent of Modernism will represent the beginning of the twentieth century, followed by the era of the Farm Security Administration in the 1930s when social documentary and photojournalism became the medium?s popular applications. Finally, the course will investigate photography in contemporary art terms, beginning with the 1970s up to the present day. |
American Historical Fiction 56:606:602:01 Cross-listed: 56:352:509:01 Tu 6:00 – 8:40 PM Professor Sarah Kerman sarah.kerman@rutgers.edu |
Why do novels fixate on the historical past? What is the relationship between historical events and literary uses (or cooptations) of those events? In this class, we will read American historical novels from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, asking what role history plays in the stories they tell. Do these novels contrast history to a more enlightened, or more depraved, present? Do they rely on history as fact, or turn history into a kind of national mythology? We will also ask whether the ?newness? of America as a country (as compared with England or continental Europe) complicates the uses of history for American writers, who must either contend with a limited timespan or extend the definition of ?American history? back to a time without European colonization. In addition to our novels, we will consider various philosophical and critical accounts of the relationship between history and literature, as we seek to develop theories of our own. Possible texts include novels by James Fenimore Cooper, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mark Twain, Charles Chesnutt, John dos Passos, Willa Cather, Toni Morrison, and E. L. Doctorow, and philosophy and criticism by Friedrich Nietzsche, Paul de Man, Fredric Jameson, Michel Foucault, Catherine Gallagher and Stephen Greenblatt, Saidiya Hartman, and others. Requirements include brief weekly responses, in-class presentation, a short expository paper, and a final seminar paper (15+ pages). |
Issues in Criminal Justice 56:606:602:02 Cross-listed: 56:202:510:01 W 6:00 – 8:40 PM Professor Drew Humphries humphri@camden.rutgers.edu |
Issues and Trends in criminal justice is a course designed to engage students in the process of conducting systematic literature reviews. Students are responsible for a set of readings in criminal justice that provides a basis in the field and then they are expected to produce a paper, a systematic literature review, on the topic of their choice. A paper, student presentations, a midterm and an exam are the basis for grades. **Enrollment by Permission of Instructor ONLY** |
ARTS AND LITERATURE |
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Critical Theory |
Is there a correct way of interpreting a piece of literature? Should we just read the “words on the page” as suggested by some critics in the early twentieth century or should we take into account the author’s biography, social class, psychology and audience? What is the purpose of literature? Moral? Political? Simply pleasure? How should women read works written by men? What ideological assumptions do we bring to the study of literature? In what degree are philosophical strategies and literary-critical techniques operative in the exegesis of scripture, as in the interpretation of the Qur’an and the Bible? These are some of the questions posed by the greatest thinkers from Plato and Aristotle through al-Farabi, Aquinas, Ibn Rushd, al-Ghazzali, Hegel and Marx; they have been raised in somewhat different and more modern contexts by critics adopting the perspectives of Psychoanalysis, Feminism, Reception Theory, “New” Historicism, Deconstruction, Gender theory and Postcolonialism. This class will cover selectively some of the important issues and figures in literary criticism from Plato to the present day. |
Literature and the Culture of Childhood |
In literature, art and film, the figure of the child is often the repository of fantasies and anxieties about the spiritual, the imaginative, the technological or mechanistic, the racial or the differently embodied. This graduate seminar will consider, in particular, constructions of the “odd,” “exceptional,” “uncanny” and “queer” child. Through an examination of notions of queerness and otherness as they are expressed in/through child characters, we will gain a greater understanding of how childhood has been constructed/depicted/represented as special, dangerous, transgressive or pure (in both word and image) over time. We will explore such figures and characters as they are represented in children’s literature and “adult” literature of the 19 th through early 21 st-centuries and will read theory and criticism that will help us to understand this important literary and cultural figuration. Characters from children’s literature will include such well-known children as Peter Pan, Diamond (from MacDonald’s At the Back of the North Wind), Max ( Where the Wild Things Are), Thumbelina, and Harriet (from Harriet the Spy), among others. In addition, we will read some works not intended for young readers that feature extraordinary child protagonists, including books such as Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and Carson McCullers’ The Member of the Wedding. |
Romantic Drama |
This course will examine British drama 1780-1830 with an emphasis on the material history of theatrical productions. In addition to reading plays by Matthew Lewis, Joanna Baillie, Lord Byron, and Elizabeth Inchbald, we will become acquainted with the actors, set designers, theater managers, and musicians that collaborated together to bring these authors’ texts to life. |
Structure of the English Language |
Just the mention of grammar makes most people nervous, and it makes English majors very nervous. Most English majors harbor that darkest of secrets: they don?t know grammar. Worse, English majors know that they are expected to be expert grammarians, ready and able to diagram a sentence or name the parts of speech of a sentence at the drop of someone else?s hat. If you suffer from grammar guilt (or even if you don?t), this course is for you. You will not be expected to pretend to know what you don?t, nor will you be humiliated or embarrassed by any lack of knowledge. Instead, we will see how intricate and interesting the grammar of English really is, and that learning grammar needn?t be a frightening experience. We will take a linguistic approach to grammar — we will systematically examine how language works, how to take it apart and how to put it back together. In particular, we will focus on the structure of the sounds (phonology), the words (morphology) and the sentences (syntax) of American English, as well as the meaning of it all (semantics). We will also see how the application of grammatical concepts can help us better understand both ordinary speech and the language of literary texts. Course requirements: The final grade will be based on quizzes and a final paper. 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). |
POLITICS AND SOCIETY |
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Anti-Americanism |
Anti-Americanism, a means of challenging American power and global leadership, and defined as a set of negative predispositions towards the U.S, has been energized by the unipolar world following the collapse of Communism. This course will explore and examine three different ( and even contradictory) forms of anti-Americanism:?liberal? anti-Americanism which criticizes our support for dictatorships abroad; ?social? anti-Americanism which criticizes our lack of social welfare programs and ?sovereign-nationalist ? anti-Americanism from nations wanting to preserve identities which may be at odds with the liberal democratic values America seeks to export. |
PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION |
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Evil |
A close examination of the meaning and significance of evil, particularly moral evil as visited upon human beings by one another. Is there such a thing as “evil”? Why might humanity be capable of it? Is evil a characteristic of only some or of all? Is it culturally relative? What kind of language could make evil available to understanding? Is evil in the world compatible with the existence of a good God? How can one judge the difference between evil and good? Is the concept of evil outdated, or can it still help in understanding and responding to phenomena such as terrorism, genocide, sexism, racism, greed, and poverty? |
Contemporary Moral Issues ONLINE COURSE 56:606:642:90 Cross-listed: 56:606:642:W1 By Arrangment Professor Ed Young profyoung@verizon.net |
This course will focus on the study of articles written on a broad range of contemporary issues of ethical concern. These issues potentially include but not limited to capital punishment, abortion, euthanasia, sexuality, animal welfare, and poverty. Studying the works of respected thinkers on these matters will afford students an opportunity to think more thoroughly and systematically about these issues than would otherwise be likely. Major western ethical theories, potentially including but not necessarily limited to those authored by Bentham, Mill, Aquinas, Kant, and Aristotle will also be studied. Representing the most widely studied attempts to bring unity to our particular judgments of right and wrong under a more general ethical perspective, they are not only the basis of many of the articles we will study, but are also useful in revealing inconsistencies in our own views. |
RESEARCH IN LIBERAL STUDIES |
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56:606:689:01 |
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 |
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MATRICULATION CONTINUED |
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56:606:800:01 |