| Course Title | Description |
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STUDIES OF THE EARLY MODERN ERA |
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The Collapse of Complex Civilizations |
For the last several years, and with increasing frequency, environmental, economic, and socio-political disasters have dominated the news. Almost every day there is a new story about the Global Economic Crisis and the state of the American economy. Is this just a case of history repeating itself? In this course, we will ask what, if anything, can we learn from the rise and fall of past civilizations, and is this knowledge applicable to developments in modern society? Using concepts from sociology, economics, history, anthropology, and archaeology, we will analyze examples of societal collapse, such as the civilizations in ancient Egypt, Greece, the Maya, and the early Middle Ages. These will then be used to analyze current events in Europe and the America in light of the lessons of the past. |
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17th & 18th Century Art in Europe |
Analyzes European art of the baroque, rococo, and enlightenment years. |
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17th Century British Literature |
This course will be devoted to the study of a wide range of writing in English across the 17th century, in poetry, drama and prose. In the first part of the course (weeks 1-8) we will read broadly in four general areas: Political Thought, Devotional Writing, Emergent Science, and Autography. In addition, for five of these eight sessions, we will take up the reading and study of a number of lyric poets. The second part of the course (weeks 9-14) will be dedicated to the rigorous reading and study of two major seventeenth-century writers: Sir Thomas Browne and Margaret Cavendish. In addition to intensive reading, students will be asked to write a series of response papers, one shorter essay, and a longer essay at semester’s end. |
STUDIES OF CULTURAL DIVERSITY |
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Afro-American Art |
The history of the art of Africans and artists of African descent in the Americas. Emphasizes form and content in the context of aesthetic, racial, political, sociological, and philosophical issues. |
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Race and Ethnicity |
This course takes a comparative approach to examining the complex history of racial and ethnic difference in the Americas, from the sixteenth through the twenty-first century. Focusing on academic interpretations of race and ethnicity as well as some primary-source texts–so that we encounter the language, imagery, and animating questions surrounding race and difference across different eras and regions–we will explore the following:
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STUDIES OF THE ARTS AND LITERATURE |
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Fairy Tales and Children’s Literature |
This course begins with Perrault’s tales, collected to entertain a fashionable courtly audience, and the Grimms’ tales, collected for a scholarly and national purpose. After following the course of literary fairy tales in Germany, America, France, Denmark, Italy, and England (de Beaumont, Fouqué, Hoffmann, Andersen, Hawthorne, Alcott, Collodi, Wilde, Carter, Sexton), we will pursue Victorian England’s fashionable interest in fairy stories, its new fetish for childhood, and its imaginative impulse to transform the industrial landscape. The Golden Age of Children’s Literature (1862-WWI) saw the flowering of fantasy worlds written (ostensibly) for children. Both carnal and spiritual, these worlds play with religious ideals, Darwin’s visions of human development, politics and social satire, and the relationship between language and reality. They anticipate—then shift to accommodate—Freud. Together we will journey through the seminal work of Charles Kingsley’s The Water-Babies, which baptizes a chimney sweep clean when he throws his blackened self into the river. We will, with the Cheshire Cat, loom over the poor, victimized Alice as she tries to reach the last square in Wonderland and Looking-Glass. We will be rejuvenated with the ex-miner Diamond as the North Wind, with her fairy magic, marks the cultural shift to “the child’s work is to play” (At the Back of the North Wind). We will touch base in Italy with a very famous puppet and turn-of-the-century America with Oz, a parable of capitalism. We will challenge Mr. McGregor with Peter Rabbit, careful not to be made into a pie like his father before him, and we will spend a little time with Peter Pan, the animals of Grahame’s River-Bank (The Wind in the Willows) and Milne’s Hundred-Aker Wood. Not to leave girls behind, we will visit Mary Lennox in her secret garden, Laura Ingalls in her wild woods, and Anne in and “of” Green Gables. We voyage with Frodo and Sam as they, mere Hobbits, try to save the Shire and all it represents from the Hitler-like Sauron. The search for a lost Arcadia would never be the same, nor would ideals of childhood. But perhaps, somewhere in the enchanted wood, a bear and a boy will always be playing. In fact, “the boy who lived” anchors our final two novels from the Harry Potter series. Critical readings (in moderation) will underscore our reading selections. Coursework includes participation on sakai and in class (including a short presentation to trigger discussion), a final research paper (15 pp), and a final exam. Each comprise 1/3rd of your grade. |
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Three Centuries of American Poetry |
Course Descriptions will be posted as they become available. |
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History of the English Language |
This course will address the growth and structure of the English language from its origins to the present, with attention to methods of linguistic description. In addition to more traditional historical linguistics (i.e. the effect of language change on the phonology, morphology, semantics and syntax of the language), we will devote considerable attention to socio-historical influences on the development of English, addressing, in particular, questions relating to authority in language: Standard vs. non-standard dialects of English, the rise of dictionary making, spelling reform movements, etc. Course requirements: Midterm exam and course paper. |
| Contemporary Art 56:606:612:02 Cross-listed: 50:082:354 Advanced Undergraduate Course T Th 9:30-10:50am Professor Cyril Reade cyril.reade@rutgers.edu |
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 |
STUDIES OF POLITICS AND SOCIETY |
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| Issues in Public History 56:606:621:01 Cross-listed: 56:512:531:01 M 5:00-7:40pm Professor Charlene Mires cmires@camden.rutgers.edu |
Course Descriptions will be posted as they become available. |
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Childhood Health and Illness |
Course Descriptions will be posted as they become available. |
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Issues and Trends in Criminal Justice |
Overview of current issues and trends in criminal justice with an emphasis on empirical basis of knowledge in the field. This course surveys research and issues associated with criminology and criminal justice, emphasizing the criminal justice and juvenile justice systems, the police, courts, and corrections. |
| Research Methods in Criminal Justice 56:606:622:03 Cross-listed: 56:202:600:01 T 6:00-8:40pm Professor Stacia Gilliard-Matthews stacia.matthews@rutgers.edu |
Course Descriptions will be posted as they become available. |
STUDIES OF PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION |
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Gods & Monsters: Understanding Power |
We experience power in some form everyday, yet we rarely think critically about the role it plays in our lives. Gods and monsters symbolize the extreme poles of our understandings of power and thus serve as instructive benchmarks for this interdisciplinary exploration. The course approaches the study of power from theoretical (e.g., philosophical, political, sociological, and historical), literary, and artistic perspectives and applies these understandings to issues in the public sphere. Some of the questions we will ask include: How are gods and monsters made and what cultural functions do they serve? What is power? How is it created, maintained, and distributed? How does power change? How is power gendered? Readings will include religious analyses of anthropomorphism, Freud on religion the Id, Medieval literary criticism on monsters, Nietzsche on the will to power and Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Michel de Certeau on belief, Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, the Book of Job, 1984, The Handmaid’s Tale, Ceremony, and various articles on the social construction of gender. |
STUDIES IN PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES AND RESEARCH |
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Developmental Psychology |
An examination of life span developmental psychology with reference to classic theories (e.g., Piaget) and recent theoretical and experimental advances. An exploration of typical human development, including infancy, childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, with emphasis on childhood social, emotional, and cognitive development. |
WOMEN, GENDER AND SEXUALITY |
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Women and Art: 18th & 19th Centuries |
A thematic and chronological survey of women as artists, as images in works of art, and an examination of gender issues in art. |
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Women and Work in The Revolutionary Era |
This course, covering the period from the American Revolution through the Napoleonic Wars, will examine women’s complex and growing relationship to paid labor as represented in multiple literary genres (plays, ballads, novels, etc.). In our investigation, we will examine women as authors, actresses, soldiers and sailors, prostitutes and missionaries as they make their way throughout the Atlantic world. |
| Special Topics in Art History: Queer Art & Film 56:606:662:01 Cross-listed: 50:082:486 Advanced Undergraduate Course T 6:00-8:40pm Professor Cyril Reade cyril.reade@rutgers.edu |
After a short introduction to representations of men and masculinity before Stonewall, this course examines queer sexuality in art, film and popular culture following the Stonewall Riots of 1969. We situate the birth of gay liberation in the U.S. in the context of the civil rights struggles, feminism and the anti-war movement. We turn to the work of Andy Warhol that looms over the post-war period, challenged subsequently by the onset of AIDS and the work of General Idea and Act-Up, on the one hand, and the more graphically provocative work of Robert Mapplethorpe, on the other. We examine the diversification of the queer community as transgendered identity asserts itself and the opening of popular culture to issues of diverse sexual identities. We explore expressions of queer sensibility outside of North America and Europe. We turn finally to the issue of gay marriage, both in the U.S. and abroad. This visual, filmic and textual examination is informed by the writings of Judith Butler, Michel Foucault, Richard Meyer, Eve Sedgwick, and the fiction of John Rechy, Gore Vidal and Jean Genet. |
STUDIES IN HISTORICAL ANALYSIS |
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U. S. Historical Readings 1763-1820 |
This course offers a broad and advanced survey of the historiography of the American Revolutionary and Early National periods. Principal issues addressed are: the origins and development of the independence movement and American federalism, the problem of slavery in an age of revolution, the emergence of a democratic and capitalist economy and society, and changing relations and attitudes within the domestic and private sphere. |
RESEARCH IN LIBERAL STUDIES |
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Research in Liberal Studies |
Independent study of a special interest to the student, under supervision of an advisor chosen in consultation with the program director. |
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Research in Liberal Studies |
Independent study of a special interest to the student, under supervision of an advisor chosen in consultation with the program director. |
MATRICULATION CONTINUED |
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Matriculation Continued |
Continuous registration may be accomplished by enrolling for at least 3 credits in standard course offerings, including research courses, or by enrolling in this course for 0 credits. Students actively engaged in study toward their degree who are using university facilities and faculty time are expected to enroll for the appropriate credits. |
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