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SAGES University Seminars, Fall 2002-Spring 2005
I. Thinking about the Natural/Technological World
USNA 201 – Darwin’s View of Life
Patricia Princehouse, Department of Philosophy
This course will address scientific and historical issues pertaining to the development of Darwin’s theory of descent with modification and his proposed mechanism of natural selection. We will also explore how the neo-Darwinian synthesis of the 20th century corrected and extended the theory to provide an increasingly adequate explanatory paradigm that augments the unity of science. We will pay particular attention to models of speciation and the mathematical theory of population genetics. Students will also address the social, political and ethical dimensions of scientific theories, using, as a case study, how Darwin’s writing changed the dynamics of discourse relating to “racial” and cultural diversity.
The Cleveland Museum of Natural History will provide the venue for a public exhibit of students’ original research projects for the seminar. Student dyads will choose an original letter written by Darwin (contained in the collection of the Dittrick Museum in the Allen Memorial Library) and develop two projects based on that historical document: 1) an original research paper written in scholarly style, 2) a museum display with documents and artifacts as well as exposition of the scientific concepts involved, written for the general public.
USNA 202 – How Engineered Devices Work
M. Adams, Department of Mechanical Engineering
Engineered devices typically lend themselves to insightful description and explanation without requiring detailed knowledge of the engineering science and mathematics that go into their development. The main agenda of this course is a series of six “how things work” modules, covering (1) Automotive Components & Systems, (2) Airplanes and Flight Mechanics, (3) Power Generation, (4) Manufacturing Machinery and Processes, (5) Heating, Air Conditioning and Refrigeration, and (6) Rockets, Satellites and Orbital Mechanics. Each of these topical modules includes an on-campus laboratory demonstration or near-campus facility tour. The course also includes case-study-based, open-forum discussions of professional ethics. Fundamental engineering principles, involving energy concepts, forces and structures, materials of construction, electrical circuits, and fluids will be incorporated into the modules. Students will apply the knowledge they have gained about how engineered devices work through written and oral presentations addressing a variety of issues. For example: How do these devices provide advantages and/or disadvantages to modern society? How do modern materials impact our daily lives? Is space travel important to humanity?
USNA 204 – Evolution of Scientific Ideas
Mano Singham, Director, University Center for Innovation in Teaching and Education
Scientific understanding has evolved over the years. There are very few beliefs about the natural world that have remained intact over the past few centuries, or even the past few decades. The chief goal of the course will be to give students an understanding of how scientific ideas change and how newer ideas supersede the old. Questions to be investigated include: What is Science? How do disciplinary scientific communities (physicists, chemists, biologists, etc.) form and identify themselves? How does the community of scientists within a discipline come to a consensus that it is time to adopt a new paradigm? What scientific, social, political, and cultural factors come into play during the periods of transition? The course will be in seminar format. The students will be given opportunities to develop critical thinking skills (the specific skills to be developed will be selected by the class from an explicit list) as well as writing and speaking skills.
USNA 205 – Gods, Monsters or Innocents: Scientists and their Science
M. Cather Simpson, Department of Chemistry
Students will explore the workings of scientists and science by tracing the development of some of the major ideas that shape our current scientific understanding, from the atomic theory to the origin of life to classical and quantum mechanics. We also explore the question of whether science is self-correcting through an examination of failed hypotheses, the secret science of alchemy, and scientific misconduct. Finally, we examine the picture of science and scientists—as heroes, fiends, and aliens—in contemporary popular culture. The course emphasizes critical analysis of scientific, historical, and literary materials, of popular culture, and of current newspaper and magazine articles. Students need standard high-school level science and mathematics as preparation.
USNA 206– Land and Life in the Americas
B. Saylor, Department of Geological Sciences
This course investigates the physical processes that shape the Earth’s environments and how these environments have influenced, and been influenced by, human history. A principal focus will be the evolution of the Americas since the end of the last ice age. We will apply what we learn to the history of cultural development and to debates about environmental issues facing us today.
USNA 207 – America in a Sustainable World
S. Sreenath, Department of Electrical Engineering
M. Mesarovic, Department of Electrical Engineering
The concept of sustainable development has emerged from a recognition of the finiteness of planet Earth and the potential irreversibility of human-induced changes. In this course, we consider issues of sustainable development from a global perspective, examining the ways in which the United States affects and is affected by the rest of the world. The primary goal of this course is for students to understand the conditions that will affect their careers and lifestyles in the first half of the 21st century. Pedagogically, the course emphasizes the use of real data and verbal reasoning in both oral and written presentations.
USNA 208 – Controversies in Human Evolution
Cynthia Beall, Department of Anthropology
In this course, students acquire a theoretical framework for understanding the processes that forged our bodies, minds and behavior. We will apply evolutionary principles to integrate information from the fossil record, from other primate species, and from modern human biology. In discussions with experts, students will examine new discoveries in this exciting field, disagreements over the analysis and interpretation of data, and the ethical aspects of conducting research on human evolution.
USNA 209 - From DNA Structure to Social Structure
Nathan Berger, Director, Center for Science, Health, and Society
This seminar will examine the social impact and implications of the DNA double helix. The year 2003 marked the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the double helix and its unique base pairing structure, which is used for recognition and transmission of information. This discovery explained the fundamental mechanisms involved in heredity and evolution, and fostered the development of molecular biology as a powerful scientific tool leading to a virtual explosion of genetic research. Included in this explosion was the sequencing of the entire human genome and the rapid expansion of the biotechnology industry.
Although no scientific knowledge is a prerequisite for this course, the class will explore the structure of DNA before considering its relevance to a variety of social settings. Topics for exploration will include forensic sciences; determination of paternity, ancestry, and lineage; generation of designer genes, embryos, and stem cells; and crop and livestock enhancement. Since many of these topics are the subjects of ongoing social and political debate and policy development, it is important that all educated people have a basic understanding of DNA structure, its impact on social structures, and possibilities for the future.
USNA 210 – Forensic Sciences: How They Impact Your World
James Simmelink, Professor Emeritus, Case School of Dental Medicine
Forensic sciences provide a unique opportunity to apply basic science knowledge to help solve medicolegal problems, providing crucial information for identifying the deceased and determining the cause, mechanism, and manner of death. This seminar includes facility tours and expert interviews with staff from the Cuyahoga County Coroner’s office in University Circle. Students will have the opportunity to interview forensic scientists on topics related to their own interests and future careers, including forensic pathology, trace evidence, DNA, toxicology, anthropology, radiology, and odontology. They will then be responsible for presenting oral and written reports to the seminar.
USNA 212 - Where Mind and Body Meet
Thomas Chelimsky, Department of Neurology
Little of our extensive knowledge of autonomic physiology makes its way into everyday learning, either at the college level, or, surprisingly, at the medical level. Yet autonomic function is the primary means of harmonizing the body to the state of the mind, and vice versa. Autonomic nerve endings constitute the exact point at which mind and body connect. This course will highlight autonomic successes and failures, as described in writings from the Bible to the New England Journal of Medicine. The following thematic strands will run through the course: human functions such as sweating, flushing, or fainting; normal and abnormal autonomic reflexes; autonomic neuroanatomy and neurophysiology; measurement of human autonomic function in the clinical laboratory; diseases involving autonomic systems; and comparative physiology.
USNA 213 – Nanoworlds
D. Smith, Department of Electrical Engineering
Nanotechnology describes the manipulation of the world of materials and products at the molecular scale in order to achieve enhanced performance not normally possible through traditional fabrication or processing. Nanotechnology will increasingly revolutionize almost everything we use, from electronics to construction materials to medical diagnostics. Nanotechnology also provides a new paradigm for thinking about how we create things, calling attention to structure all the way down to the finest possible scale. This seminar explores various issues related to nanotechnology as well as the impact of these new technologies on society and culture.
USNA 214 – Geological Evolution of Humans
Robert Walter, Franklin & Marshall College
Our current understanding of how early humans evolved is the result of fossil discoveries made in a wide variety of geological settings—from cave breccias to rift basin sediments—primarily on the African and Eurasian continents. Each of these settings yields a discernible geological story that helps unravel the temporal, environmental, and ecological conditions in which early humans lived. An understanding of these conditions is essential for reconstructing the tempo and mode of evolutionary change. This course highlights the interdisciplinary nature of human origins research, and the critical role that geology plays in telling this story. The course will establish the historical context for human origins research through a literature survey that covers the past three hundred years, including articles by Hutton, de Buffon, Cuvier, Darwin and Lyell, among many others. Essays and discussions will be based on these readings. The students will gain new insights into how evolution works through the geological lens of natural history.
II. Thinking About the Social World
USSO 201 – Society and Technology: How Do They Impact One Another?
Christine Hudak, Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing
This course explores the design, use, and cultural significance of technologies, and assesses the integration of technology into all aspects of our society. The restructuring of traditional human interaction by information technology will provide a contemporary focus for the course. Offered in a seminar format, the course will provide opportunities for scholarly discussion and written communication.
USSO 205 – The Human Struggle through the Lens of Sport
David Hutter, Physical Education and Athletics
This seminar explores, through the medium of sport literature, the interaction of sport, society, and self. Students will examine the social and psychological effects of sport on participants, consumers, and society through the study of fiction, research studies, essays, and poetry having a sport motif. Topics include racism and sexism (valuing diversity), love (cooperating), death (losing), transformation (aging), and achievement (winning).
USSO 206 – Approaches to the Mind: Philosophy, Religion, Psychiatry and Neuroscience
Edward Hundert, President, Case Western Reserve University
Timothy Beal, Department of Religion
What is a mind? What is thinking? What is creativity? This seminar explores these and other questions by comparing and contrasting approaches to the mind from four different fields of study: religion, philosophy, psychiatry and neuroscience. Emphasis is placed on collegial and cooperative group conversation based on careful reading of primary and secondary texts in all four fields. Course requirements include class preparation and participation, an oral presentation, regular short critical reflection papers, and a final essay.
USSO 207 – Utopian Communities in Theory and in Practice
Charlotte Ikels, Department of Anthropology
This course demonstrates how historical and cultural contexts, and one’s position in the social structure, shape visions of the ideal society. In examining hypothetical and actualized utopian communities (e.g. More’s Utopia, Gilman’s Herland, Skinner’s Walden Two, Sprio’s Kibbutz: Venture in Utopia), students will analyze how people have attempted to resolve their dissatisfactions with contemporary social arrangements (e.g. class, gender, ethnic/racial categorization, urbanization, industrialization, secularization) and identify recurrent themes in utopian thinking across the centuries.
USSO 208 – The Impact of Recognition and Reward on Motivation and Success: Can We Go Too Far?
John Ferry, Senior Vice President, The Hunter Group, a unit of Navigant Consulting
In this seminar, students will explore different strategies for motivating, recognizing, and rewarding extraordinary individual achievement. How can individuals and organizations maximize their potential for success? What are appropriate motivators? How can rewards sometimes encourage unethical or illegal behavior? Where do you draw the line? Basic principles of human motivation and behavior will be applied across disciplines (e.g. accounting, business ethics, business law, psychology, sociology) to real-world examples. Primary sources, newspaper accounts, and review articles will be used to understand contemporary events like the Enron scandal. Guest seminar participants from the academic and business communities will join the seminar to participate in discussions. Students will travel throughout the Cleveland community and beyond to interview executives, community leaders, and consultants in business and law, and share their findings through class presentations. By developing an appreciation for the role of recognition and reward in motivating individuals, students will understand this central element of organizational and societal function in different cultures. Students will be challenged to explore their own motivations while searching for success and meaning in their personal and professional lives.
USSO 209 – Face First
Mark Hans, Associate Professor and Chair of Orthodontics, Case School of Dental Medicine
Human beings greet the world face first. In fact, the ability to process facial features seems to be innate. A baby easily recognizes its mother's face, yet the most powerful computers have difficulty using facial features to identify people. This is because all human faces are similar while fine details make each face unique. This course will begin by studying the human face as an anatomic construction of hard and soft tissue skeletal components. We will discuss how we use anatomic facial features to recognize individuals. One homework exercise will be to construct faces using an FBI indentikit. Each student will create an FBI composite sketch of his or her own face; then, in class, students will view each sketch and try to match it with the seminar participant.. Discussion will focus on how facial anatomies are similar or different. What features are seen as feminine, masculine, young, old, etc.?
Following this introduction, the seminar will shift focus from anatomy to sociology. We will discuss facial attractiveness and beauty. What makes a face attractive? Has this changed over time? Are there cultural differences in our perceptions of beauty? How does art reflect society's understanding of beauty? Are beautiful people more successful? What about people who have a facial deformity? What is our reaction to them? We will also discuss how the presence (or, in technologically mediated communication, the absence) of faces changes human interactions. Seminar topics will also include the manipulation of facial appearance through cosmetics, body piercing, veils, and plastic surgery. What are the social and psychological implications of altering facial appearance? We will discuss the new Florida law that requires a full-face photo, without a veil, on every driver's license. Is this fair? Potential discussion points include an individual's right to hide her face balanced against society's right to use the face for identification; religious freedom; and the fight against terrorism.
USSO 210 – Media Literacy: Racial Images, Pop Culture and Public Policy, Private Choices
Sam Fulwood III, Metro Columnist, The Plain Dealer
This course introduces students to the subtle and often ignored influence of racial identity—as represented in popular culture and mass communications—on public policy and private decisions. By examining the ways in which political leaders, business executives, and marketers shape culture, students will come to understand the enormous power that the media wield in an information-driven world. The course will draw from books, newspapers, contemporary music, movies, television programming, and advertising to illustrate the deluge of images and messages that constantly wash over us. Guest speakers—including entertainers, political figures, sports celebrities, and corporate leaders—will join the class for discussion. Through a variety of activities, the class will develop a broader awareness of how economic, political, social, and cultural forces influence the public’s embrace or rejection of media-generated images. The overarching goal of the course is to inspire students to become critical consumers of news, information, advertising, and entertainment.
USSO 211 – Leadership at the Intersection: Civic, Social, Public, and Private Entrepreneurship
Lee Fisher, President and CEO, Center for Families and Children
This course will explore the dynamics of leadership, entrepreneurship, advocacy, and collaboration at the intersection of the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. We will study the power of four key concepts—context, connectedness, leverage, and persuasion—in state and regional economic development, organizational strategic planning, public policy, and political strategy. We will examine how business strategies and entrepreneurial spirit are transforming not only the private sector but also the civic, social, public, and political sectors. We will study entrepreneurship within each of these sectors, along with venture philanthropy and public policy advocacy. We will also examine the development of creative partnerships between the major sectors to advance common community agendas. Students will learn how to write a persuasive memorandum; how to give a speech or presentation; and how to solicit funds. We will use one or more recent state or community projects as a vehicle for examining core concepts; these projects may include local campaigns for a convention center, a county health and human services levy, and a state technology investment bond issue, as well as the 2004 presidential and Ohio U.S. Senate campaigns.
USSO 212 – Sport and American Culture in the Twentieth Century
Chris Sheridan, Associate Editor for Editorial Pages, The Plain Dealer
This seminar will examine the role of athletics in our society, examining in particular its influence on issues of race and gender as well as the religious and mythic aspects of sport. The focus will be on the hold athletics has, at all levels, on our collective psyche, and the influence it wields over vast realms of American society and culture. The tendency in the popular press is to cast sports in absolute terms. It is evil: look at the millions spent on professional players and sports complexes, unrelenting wagering, and the corruption of college athletics as reported in near-endless accounts of recruiting violations, under-the-table booster payments, and fudged test scores. Or it is noble: consider the Olympic ideal, the pursuit of excellence for its own sake, the power athletes have to inspire spectators and influence public attitudes about everything from race (Jackie Robinson) to gender (Billie Jean King). The following topics will be explored through readings, movies, guest speakers, and writing assignments based on controversial issues within each topic: Sport and Race, Sport and Gender, Sport and Community, Sport and Celebrity, Sport and the Individual, Sport and the Academy.
USSO 213 – Accountability and Governance in Corporations
M. Anvari, Department of Banking and Finance, Weatherhead School of Management
Who is minding the store for the shareholders? Why do CEOs get paid so much? How did corporate scandals such as Enron, WorldCom, and Tyco occur? This seminar focuses on issues of accountability and governance in the modern corporation. While the main emphasis is on the business corporation, we will also address the relevance of these concepts to not-for-profit corporations and government agencies. Much of the economic wealth of modern societies is generated by corporations. To understand the role of the corporation in society, students must gain insight into the mechanics of corporate governance, both in theory and in practice. What these entities do, and how they are held accountable, is at the heart of the social contract that binds the citizens together in a democracy. This seminar uses readings, cases, independent inquiry, role playing, guest lectures, and discussions to allow students to develop an understanding of the challenges of accountability and governance.
USSO 214 - Laughter
Tom Bishop, Department of English
We love to laugh. Laughter can be exhilarating, cathartic, embarrassing, debilitating, punitive, liberating, grotesque, or helpless. This course is designed to explore the universal (we believe) human phenomenon of laughter from a number of different perspectives, not all of them areas of expertise of the instructor. We will be interested in such questions as: How do we laugh? Why do we laugh? What makes us laugh? What physiological, psychological, social, and political work does or might laughter do? Do other animals laugh? Do the gods laugh? How do artists and performers make us laugh? Are there kinds of laughter? Has laughter changed across time? Across space? Is laughter gendered? Is there a specifically Roman, Japanese, or Southern laughter? Is there anything that can’t or mustn’t be funny? What is the opposite of laughter? The course will involve a series of readings and discussions—but also a series of jokes, stories, excursions, interviews, and performances. We will want not only to analyze laughter, but also to do it—and to induce it.
USSO 215 – A Social History of the University
Richard Baznik, Director, Center for the Study of the University in Society
This course traces the history of Case Western Reserve University from 1826 to the present, with opportunities to compare historic and contemporary learning approaches. It will offer in-depth looks at leadership, organization, mission, program and campus development, governance and finance, student life, collaboration with other institutions, and interaction with regional and national forces. Few students have the opportunity to experience their institution's history in a structured manner, or to compare its performance with that of other institutions in society. The course will prepare students to examine their own educational environment in the larger social context, and to share their findings with local and national audiences by developing papers, presentations, and web content that will contribute to an updated historical record of Case Western Reserve University, including a book to be published in 2006-07. Activities will include on-site research visits with staff of University Archives, Special Collections in Kelvin Smith Library, and the Western Reserve Historical Society, where students will be briefed on research methods and the historical materials maintained at each venue. Students will also spend half a day at one of the 20 or so other colleges and universities in the region, including at least an hour with the institution's president, exploring similarities and differences between that institution and Case.
USSO 217 – Ethics, an Interdisciplinary Introduction: Truth and Trust
Caroline Whitbeck, Beamer-Schneider Professor of Ethics
What is trust? Whom or what should we trust? Is it morally acceptable to trust in someone's stupidity or cowardice? What are the criteria for being a trustworthy friend or parent? What is entrusted to professionals of various types? What is a lie? Is there a moral difference between types of lies? What factors are relevant to deciding when, if ever, lying is justified? What does lying do to the liar? What is the effect on the person who is deceived? What does lying do to trust within a culture? This course introduces students to classical and contemporary methods of ethical reflection and reasoning from several disciplines, including philosophy. The goal of the course is to enhance students' understanding of ethical concepts and moral reasoning, to prepare them for a lifetime of ethical reflection, discussion, and problem-solving, as well as for more advanced study in the disciplines introduced. We will examine issues of truth, honesty, trust, trustworthiness, and responsibility in contemporary public, private, and professional life. Discussion, active learning methods, and short written assignments and oral reports are the principal methods of learning.
USSO 218 – Traveling Cultures in Britain
Kurt Koenigsberger, Department of English
This seminar introduces students to central social and cultural developments in Britain over the past two centuries, taking as its particular focus the way in which Britain experienced cultural and social change through technologies, institutions, and experiences of movement—especially those of imperial expansion, emigration, tourism, and exhibition. Students will complete a series of research assignments that reconceive important cultural sites and events as products of movement rather than static location. Primary readings draw upon nineteenth and twentieth century novels, journals, travel narratives, and journalism, while secondary readings include works of cultural criticism and literary and historical scholarship.
III. Thinking about the Symbolic World
USSY 201 – Mathematical Life and Death in the Ancient Greek World
Colin McLarty, Department of Philosophy
This course is a seminar on the earliest mathematical proofs. The Greek Thales studied with Egyptian priests and gave the first geometric proof. Pythagoras went to Egypt, on Thales’ advice, then founded a mathematical religious colony in Italy. Plato took much philosophy and mathematics from the Pythagoreans; Aristotle took only mathematics. Their arguments over mathematical science echoed in the world-city of Alexandria, where even slaves were encouraged to be scholars. There Euclid wrote the standard mathematics text for the next 2,000 years, and the great Archimedes synthesized Platonic and Aristotelian conceptions. His mathematics inspired Galileo’s and Newton’s physics, but his war machines inspired a Roman soldier to kill him on sight. A woman, Hypatia, later became the leading mathematician and Platonist philosopher of Alexandria and was torn to pieces by a mob for her pagan ideas. What did mathematics mean to these people? What can we learn about religious freedom, or about the science of war? Why do we all accept mathematics from 500 BC while only specialist scholars remember the physics, geology, or religion of ancient Greece?
USSY 202 - Prophets, Mystics, and Saints: Spiritual Biography and Autobiography
Rev. Clover Reuter Beal, United Protestant Campus Ministries
Can we learn about ourselves through reading others' lives? Focusing on spiritual biographies and autobiographies from a variety of religious traditions and cultural contexts, this seminar explores the ways ordinary and extraordinary religious figures have written about their spiritual lives, how their lives have been interpreted by others, and the importance of spiritual narrative as a way of making meaning for one's life.
USSY 203 – Myth, Ritual, and Society in the Ancient Greek World
P. Iversen, Department of Classics
This course introduces students to Greek, Roman and some near-Eastern myth as well as issues of interpreting these stories. The focus will be on myth as a concomitant feature of religious ritual. What do myths and rituals tell us about the society that generated them? What were their values, their collective memories, and how do these compare to ours?
USSY 204 – System Thinking
R. Boland, Information Systems
This is a seminar in which students critically examine the way that language is used to model and analyze the social world and its organizations. System thinking is used by business leaders, economists, policy analysts and planners to represent the socioeconomic world so that they can manage it. During the seminar, students will read and discuss key works that lay the foundations of system thinking and will apply system thinking techniques to a socioeconomic situation of interest to them. The emphasis will be on questioning the premises of system thinking, surfacing its strengths and weaknesses, and grappling with its ethical implications. The key ideas that students will explore include information theory, cybernetics, system modeling, language, meta language, modeling, and intervention in social systems.
USSY 205 – Religious and Ethical Bodies
William Deal, Department of Religion
Religion, ethics, philosophy, law, government, medicine, psychology, nutrition, athletics, fashion, the media, film, music, corporations, and the military are just a few of the areas of discourse that have specific things to say about what we should or should not do with our bodies and how our bodies should be conceptualized. It is difficult to imagine any human activity or field of endeavor that does not also implicate the body and embodiment.
This course focuses on religious and ethical views of the body and embodiment. Among the questions we explore are: Does a particular tradition value or devalue the body? What role does the body play in the actualization of religious and ethical values? How is the body conceived, symbolized, represented, and otherwise disciplined through religious and ethical discourse? We also consider representations of the body in contemporary popular culture and the values these images engender.
The seminar explores these issues through a combination of reading, writing, discussion, research, and oral presentations. The final four weeks of the course will be used for presentation of student research. Besides oral presentations of research findings and analysis, students will be responsible for assigning course readings in conjunction with their research areas and presentations.
USSY 206 – Mathematics and the Quest for Truth
David Singer, Department of Mathematics
This course explores the philosophical nature of truth and the role played by mathematics in the search for truth. We focus on key discoveries of the last 200 years which changed the way we understand the nature of truth. I: The discovery of non-Euclidean geometry. The parallel postulate of Euclid was questioned from the very beginning, but it was not until the nineteenth century that new geometries were discovered which differed from that of Euclid. We will study these ideas and how they undermined the Kantian view of truth. II: Paradoxes of Infinity. We will look at the paradoxes of Zeno, Cantor, and Russell, and how mathematicians have struggled with the infinite. We will examine the resulting split into the Platonist, formalist, and intuitionist theories of mathematical truth. III: Gödel, Turing, and Post. The mathematical reasoning of Cantor led unexpectedly to the discovery that the axiomatic approach to truth had fundamental, and apparently irreparable, flaws. We will examine the incompleteness theorem of Gödel and the ideas of Turing and others on computation, and how these ideas are playing out today in the age of the computer.
USSY 208 – Wilderness: A Human Nature
G. Bayer, Department of Modern Languages and Literatures
This course will explore the relationship between the experience and the idea of wilderness, that is, the connection between a certain kind of place and a certain kind of aesthetic response. We will read philosophical writings about the idea of wilderness and literary texts on nature and the environment, as well as study the representation of nature in cinema and paintings. The historian Roderick Nash noted in his “Wilderness and the American Mind” that wilderness is not so much a place as an idea. In writings on nature, wilderness takes on a symbolic significance whose meaning changes and develops over time, reflecting different stages of thought and experience. Beginning with European responses to the New World, as in Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” or Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s concept of the Noble Savage, we will move on to transcendentalist, nationalist, and naturalist periods, each of which carries a distinct conception of wilderness.
USSY 209 – Art and Math
Henry Adams, Department of Art History
Joel Langer, Department of Mathematics
Students in this University Seminar will explore relationships between art and mathematics. Topics include pattern, symmetry and beauty in natural forms; symmetry and proportion in art, architecture, ornament, and design; perspective and optics; number, iteration, and infinity; and mathematical and computer techniques and themes in art, architecture, and design.
USSY 211 – Beethoven and the Age of Revolution
Richard Nelson, Cleveland Institute of Music
Beethoven's music is symbolic of the age and spirit of change which reached its zenith with the French Revolution. Fueled by political, social, and emotional reactions, his oeuvre was remarkable in every way. From the early works, imitative of Haydn and Mozart, through his truly unique later compositions, Beethoven was revolutionary in his person and in his music. The course will center on specific Beethoven masterworks which are being presented by University Circle institutions, and student attendance at these concerts will be required. Class discussions will include analytic investigation of these masterworks as well as consideration of their historical and cultural settings. Readings will be taken from Joseph Kerman and Alan Tyson (The New Grove Beethoven), Frida Knight (Beethoven and the Age of Revolution), and George Marek (Beethoven; Biography of a Genius). This course is directed towards the general university student, and no specialized knowledge of music is necessary, though certain rudimentary aspects of musical discourse will be covered.
USSY 212 – Visualizing Information in the Digital Age
Wendy Shapiro, Instructional Technology and Academic Computing
Lev Gonick, Vice President, Information Technology Services
Roger Bielefeld, Information Technology Services
As a society, we have produced more information in the past 25 years than in the previous 2,500 years combined. The digital age often overwhelms us with data and information overload. In this world of sensory immersion, we must learn to interpret, discriminate, and see both the patterns in the data and the data in the patterns.
In this course, students will explore the art and science of visualizing information in the digital age. The course is an exercise in experiential learning. Students will explore the social, behavioral, cultural, and quantitative approaches to visualization and information through research, investigation, reflection and communication. In the process, they will learn how to interpret, express, and shape the world around them.
USSY 213 – Visions of Landscape: East and West in Literature and Painting
Michael Cunningham, former curator, Cleveland Museum of Art
This course will examine the characteristics which identify the concept of "place," better known as "landscape," in the history of Western and East Asian cultures. It will emphasize the recognition of basic East Asian modes of pictorial and literary expression, both to challenge traditionally held western points of view and as a vehicle to stimulate students' engagement in grasping new modes of visual and cognitive perception. Using readings, slide lectures, discussion, and weekly visits to the Cleveland Museum of Art, it will introduce the various ways in which artists have sought to comprehend and then portray the world around them. The seminar seeks to introduce students to non-western appearances and cultural values, challenging them to evaluate their own traditions and beliefs using primarily the faculty of looking closely. This is typically an undeveloped, challenging, and exciting experience, especially when the student has easy access to actual paintings. They can better analyze for themselves "what is there" in relation to what has been written about it, using their own experience and emerging analytical skill.
USSY 214 – The Emergence of Rock and Roll
Warren Zanes, Vice President of Education, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum
This course will consider the birth and meteoric rise of rock and roll in the second half of the twentieth century. Viewing rock and roll’s emergence from musical and social perspectives, this seminar will pay particular attention to the American musical traditions that provided ingredients of the rock and roll sound, the youth culture that was born in the rock and roll era (and without which rock and roll would never gained such momentum), and the issues of race, gender, and civil liberties that were created or complicated by rock and roll’s commercial growth. Various resources will complement the seminar’s primary reading materials, including films, videos, audio recordings, and, where pertinent, artifacts housed at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. Outside speakers, many of them on staff at the Rock Hall, will join the seminar as the subject dictates.
USSY 215 – Learning to See: Architecture and Aesthetics in Context
Carter Edman, Collins Gordon Bostwick Architects
From the temples of Dynastic Egypt through the magnificent cathedrals of Europe to your own back door, explore the transformations of the built environment and aesthetics in the context of politics, sociology, biology, and scientific advancements. Investigate the choices we make as a society as we continue to shape our personal and urban environment. Active discussion, critical thinking, local field trips, and thoughtful writing are essential parts of this seminar, which attempts to elucidate connections between art, architecture, and the currents that move society. Learn to read the language of stone and steel that is written all around us.
USSY 218 – Apophatic Theology
Florin Berindeanu, Department of Modern Languages and Literatures
This course is an introduction to the philosophy and consequences for literature and the arts of negative theology. Known also by its original Greek name, apophatics, negative theology started as a mystical movement that opposed the doctrinal power and influence of the Catholic Church. In basic terms, negative theology holds that because God is clearly not of this world, God cannot be described in terms of what is, but only in terms of what is not. Apophatic discourse aims at liberating theological thinking from scholastic-doctrinaire rigidity while indirectly warning of the increasingly institutional power of the Church, which it views as contrary to the proto-Christian principles of essentiality. In response, the discourse of negative theology revolves around simplicity and abstract thought; for its practitioners, thinking religiously means withdrawing all barriers of expression and thus not limiting speaking to a certain fixed language or content.
USSY 220 – Digital Storytelling: Creating Meaning with Sight, Sound and Language
Wendy Shapiro, Instructional Technology and Academic Computing
Chris Sciuli, Instructional Technology and Academic Computing
Jacklyn Chisholm, Office of Community Partnerships
Storytelling can be a powerful tool to communicate and share experiences, explore meaning, and help people connect to one another. Storytelling bridges age, race, gender, and culture. It explains myth and creates a way to express individual voice. In today's digital age, there is an opportunity to illuminate, illustrate, and express our stories with sensory images. Students in this course will learn to tell their own story, create collaborative stories, and understand other viewpoints through the use of digital media. For example, students can hear and record an elderly relative's journey, or digitize photos from the past and present that story in the context of their own lives. A group of students can explore a myth or historical event by gathering images (letters, photos, music, art) and crafting the story.
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