Fall Seminars

The Core Program reserves the right to change or add CSP seminars. We do so infrequently, on an as needed basis, and update the web regularly to reflect these changes. The information contained on this web page is more current than what was printed in the College Catalog.

First year students must select their CSP Seminar by July 1st,
click here to access the form.

CSP 1. CONTESTED THEORIES OF THE MODERN AND THE MASCULINE IN 1950s AMERICAN ART.

How was Modern art defined in the 1950s in American culture? Generally viewed through the critical writings of Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg, modernism has undergone much revisionism in recent years by studies that focus on artists whose work presents a challenge to dominant theories of modernism. Looking particularly at the construction of masculinity and its connection to a heroic modern art movement, this seminar will examine different approaches and accounts of mid-century modernism. Artists will include Lee Krasner, Helen Frankenthaler, Cy Twombly, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Larry Rivers, Maya Deren.

CSP 2. ARTISTIC EXCHANGE IN THE ANCIENT MEDITERRANEAN
(C.3000 BCE – 300 CE).

This seminar will examine the art and architecture of distinct civilizations in the ancient Mediterranean region: Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Aegean (including Greece), and the Roman Empire. We will analyze indigenous developments along with shared intentions made manifest through international travel, exploration, and political expansion. Art and architecture will be studied as the products of varied interests on the part of these civilizations, and yet our interpretations of these works will acknowledge certain common themes including: monumental ceremonial architecture, social hierarchies and the promotion of individual identities (portraiture), and concepts of divinity (including human and divine interactions). We will integrate our analysis of the artworks with examinations of both primary and secondary literature related to each civilization. Ultimately students will be encouraged to appreciate the visual products of these societies as true reflections of unique periods in ancient history.

Akira Kurosawa (1910-1998) is widely recognized as one of the most influential filmmakers of the twentieth century. He is unquestionably the most famous Japanese director among critics and audiences around the world, but in his home country he was frequently accused of being "too Western" in his style and storytelling. This class will examine five Kurosawa movies to explore issues of cultural authenticity, community, and modernity in film and film scholarship.

Who should you believe: the sculpted Adonis who attributes his heavenly body solely to Product A, or your middle-aged doctor as he looks over horn-rimmed glasses and preaches to you his mantra of fruits and vegetables? By its very nature true Science is unbiased, yet misinterpreted facts and one-sided representations by those looking to further personal agendas leave the general public in a dire state of seemingly endless confusion. This course will focus on how science is portrayed in the media and the consequences of public and popular individuals construing facts for their own benefit. Controversial subjects will be discussed with the aim of removing popular hype and fundamentally deconstructing the issue objectively to evaluate the merit of the arguments.

Initially the perpetual self-correction process of the scientific method will be examined in order to demonstrate the necessity of debate and contradictory viewpoints. The focus will then shift towards examining topics that include, among others, climate change, health/fitness, biotech (e.g. GM foods), etc. In addition to the rigorous writing component, this course will require intensive group work both within the classroom (e.g., presentations) and beyond (e.g., community surveys), and will emphasize development of oral presentation skills.

Note: Students enrolling in this course must have a solid and current background in high school chemistry and biology.

CSP 5. SCIENCE AND ETHICS IN THE HUMAN BUILT WORLD.

Throughout human history scientific discoveries and technological advances have profoundly transformed society. But along with advances, changing technology forces society to confront ethical dilemmas and assess moral standards. This course explores the way science and technology shape society and provides the tools for evaluating the benefits and risk associated with scientific and technological advances. Topics cross several scientific fields and include nuclear technology, global climate change, nanotechnology, biotechnology and genetic engineering. A combination of reading assignments, lecture, class discussion and writing assignments provide the format for critical thinking about these complex topics.

CSP 6. EXPLORATIONS OF THE BRAIN: MEMORY.

We will be reading about memory both in popular literature and in selected journal articles. Case studies will be used to illustrate specific concepts. How are memories created, what are false memories, which is more important: short-term or long-term memory, can Alzheimer’s be reversed, what is the difference between senile dementia and Alzheimer’s disorder? These are among the topics that will be studied in this class. The objective of the class is writing, as well as identifying and analyzing key ideas within the assigned reading.

CSP 7. TRANSAMERICA: GENDER, MOBILITY, AND AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM.

This course will examine “American Exceptionalism” through twentieth-century portrayals of travel, migration, and wanderlust. After historian Frederick Jackson Turner declared the U.S. frontier “closed” in 1893, cultural representations of mobility became a unique marker of racial, class, and sexual identity. We will examine a range of texts, from 1930s blues songs’ affective expressions about African American “Great Migration” to constructions of 1950s white hipster masculinity in Beat writings to the emergent genre of the transgender road movie. Because Hollywood film was historically the U.S.’s first major international export, this class will focus in particular on cinematic representations, both foreign and domestic, of how traveling gender supports or interrogates American nationalisms. Materials will include fiction, memoir, and critical theory from Jack Kerouac, Marilynne Robinson, and Inderpal Grewal; music from Ma Rainey, Memphis Minnie, and Led Zeppelin; and movies such as Bonnie and Clyde, Badlands, Thelma and Louise, My Own Private Idaho, Brokeback Mountain, and Transamerica.

The objective in this class is to learn about U.S. college students’ sexualities. Is campus culture heterosexist, homophobic, or misogynistic? What are the personal and political consequences of identifying as gay, lesbian, straight, bi, queer, transgendered, intersexed, or something else? Do students conflate sexuality with Blackness (e.g., "Pimps and Ho's" parties)? What constitutes a hook-up? Is hooking up emotionally damaging or sexually unsatisfying for women, as older critics have claimed? Is there a double standard for men and women (e.g., “He’s a player” but “She’s a slut”)? Do hook-ups usually involve drunkenness? Can drunk students give each other consent to engage in a sexual activity?
To answer such questions we will read works by scholars from a variety of disciplines as well as works by journalists and college students. Texts include Peggy Sanday’s Fraternity Gang Rape, Laura Bogle's Hooking Up, and Ariel Levy’s Female Chauvinist Pigs.

One popular view of personhood is that of the self-made individual, but narratives often present us with an opposing picture in which the environment alters or determines the self more than the reverse. In this class, we will read short stories and brief novels that present protagonists whose character is permeable, where one’s social and physical position are mutually constitutive. Readings will include Poe, Cisneros, Momaday, and others.

Shakespeare’s plays are wonderfully, beautifully wordy, but wordy movies can be tedious and often quite unwatchable. To translate Shakespeare to the screen requires a film maker who can see what Shakespeare is saying and then present that vision to us in moving images that retain and even amplify the subtlety, insight, and imagination of the Shakespearean text. Some great film makers—Wells, Olivier, Kurosawa, and Branagh among others--have been able to do this very well and the works they have produced are both profoundly Shakespearean and profoundly their own. How film makers see Shakespeare and translate this vision to the screen will be the central focus of this course. We will read Shakespeare and we will watch a lot of films. We will learn how to talk about Shakespeare and about film and, of course, about Shakespeare on film.

This course surveys African musical elements as they exist in North, South and Central America as well as in the Caribbean Islands. Through readings, lectures, videos and sound recordings, we will trace the historical origins of some traditional aspects found in Africa and relate them to the development of many musical genres found in the Western Hemisphere.

CSP 12. HOOD SCIENCE 101: SCHOLARS, SCHOOLS AND RULES IN SOUTHCENTRAL LOS ANGELES.

Hood Science 101 introduces students to Critical Literacy as a mode of knowledge pursuit and production among local urban youth. In this course, we examine the social and political economic forces that have come to shape ‘Southcentral’ and connected communities as a backdrop for understanding urban schooling in Los Angeles. In order to understand the relationships that urban youth have with schools as institutions, we explore the tensions between various notions of literacy, how schools assess that literacy, and students’ own desire/ability to “read and write” the world. In particular, we focus on participatory action research (PAR) as a methodology for empowering urban youth in the service of their own education.

CSP 13. HARRY POTTER AND THE ACADEMIC CONVERSATION.

Paganism. Censorship. Gender roles. Justice. Discrimination. All these issues have been raised in connection with J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. We will examine these best-selling novels and their film adaptations, analyzing and assessing the numerous approaches that scholars have taken in their studies of them. We will enter the conversation that academics have begun, investigating these well-loved books, movies, and the rest of the Harry Potter industry, and examining our own social issues as reflected by the magical world.

This seminar uses primary documents as well as works of fiction, film, and history to examine the social, political, economic and cultural organization and representation of the Mexico-U.S. borderlands since 1800. In the last 200 years, this region changed from a periphery of the Spanish empire, to provinces of northern Mexico, and finally, to the southwestern region of the

United States

. The area is a site of complicated and overlapping histories marked by processes of colonialism, nationalism and diaspora. With particular attention to issues of gender, race, place and power, students will examine various approaches to Mexico-U.S. borderlands studies within the fields of Chicana/o, Mexican, U.S. Western, and transnational histories. Ultimately, the course explores the historical processes that have produced a dynamic contact zone and the interdependency of Mexico and the

United States

while engaging the concepts and issues that have shaped the master narrative of borderlands studies, in general.

CSP 15. CALIFORNIA ENVIRONMENT SEMESTER.

This part of the California Environment Semester will concentrate on improving your writing and presentation skills, and will enhance the learning you will do throughout CES. We will explore the California environment and our relationship through readings, discussions, oral presentations, and written assignments.

Gretchen North (Biology); Bevin Ashenmiller (Economics); Margie Rusmore (Geology)

In last year’s historic speech on race and the American nation, Barack Obama called slavery “this nation’s original sin.” Despite much recent talk of racial reconciliation, the United States and its peoples have only just begun to confront the brutal legacies of chattel slavery. This course explores how various Americans have remembered slavery at three important junctures in the nation’s history: the era of Jim Crow segregation; the decades of mass Civil Rights and Black Power movements; and the 2008 bicentennial of the Atlantic slave trade abolition. Participants will explore the question of slavery’s remembrance while gaining insight into the racial politics of these three eras. How has the memory of African enslavement continued to play a role in national politics and culture? How is the historical memory of slavery linked to contemporary movements for social justice? What is the legacy of American enslavement and what, if any, are the appropriate forms of redress and commemoration? We will investigate these questions by looking at early twentieth-century oral history, Civil Rights and Black Power documents, the 1970s mass media phenomenon of Roots, and recent international memorials of the Atlantic slave trade, as well as contemporary films that wrestle with this difficult past.

Taking guidance from Socrates, the course will engage students in examining the impact of digital technologies on the social and cultural practices of the world in which we live and interact. Readings, discussion and writing will focus on how certain technologies frame our world view, privilege certain structures and relationships, and alter previously developed balances in social, legal and ethical arenas.

The course focuses on the etiology of the major degenerative diseases in our society and the role genetics, diet, and exercise play in their development and treatment. Diseases covered include heart disease, cancer, type-2 diabetes, osteoporosis, and hypertension. Treatment and prevention will focus on how dietary modifications along with exercise can be utilized to treat disease. The current scientific research covering the metabolic, cellular and systemic changes involved in their progression will be of particular focus. This course will cover nutrition and its relationship to health and disease. The physiology and biochemistry of nutrient utilization, from ingestion to use and excretion, will be discussed in relation to their roles in health and disease.

This course is an introduction to the concept that gender, race, sex and sexuality (among other aspects of one’s identity) are social constructions. We shall examine the fight for equal citizenship for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered Americans, commonly known as the “gay rights movement.” Using the period beginning with the birth of Barack Obama in August 1961 we will focus specifically on how notions of who can marry as well as the cultural, religious, legal and societal significance of marriage have changed as the country enters the era of President Obama. Our texts will be academic articles, court cases, popular media pieces and moving images. All students in this class will be using Web 2.0 tools such as blogging, twitter and web publishing to facilitate their development as both consumers and producers of intellectual content. No previous knowledge is required and technological support will be provided.

CSP 20. 20TH CENTURY MUSICIANS: IN THEIR OWN WORDS.

What insights into the musical life of the American 20th century can be gleaned from the writings of leaders who helped shape its course? This class endeavors to find out. Through selected readings of work by 20th century American composers and musicians, this course examines, in memoirs and musical essays, the stories American musicians tell about their artistic journeys. At times joyful, at times painful, their narratives are always compelling, and provide deeper and more abiding insights into the music of our recent past. Our reading list includes memoirs by singer Celia Cruz and composer John Adams, and musical essays by composer Ned Rorem and composer/trumpeter Wynton Marsalis. No prior musical knowledge required.

CSP 21. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO SING?—SINGING IN THE LITERARY IMAGINATION.

At some point in all of our lives, we find ourselves singing, alone or with others, in formal or informal settings, songs we want others to hear, and songs to and for ourselves. What inspires us to sing? How is singing different from speaking? What kinds of singing are there, and what do those different kinds of singing mean? These are a few of the questions that will guide us as we analyze and develop arguments about a rich array of English-language literary works (from Edgar Allan Poe to Willa Cather to Toni Morrison) that take singing as their focus. Students will not need to read music, for our investigation will be the way that singing, as both a literal and metaphorical activity, speaks to what it means to be human.

This course explores sexuality, gender and intimate relationships in humans and other animals. Primary psychological texts, reviews, and fiction will inform a survey of evolutionary, neurohormonal, behavioral, developmental, social, interpersonal, and symbolic processes. The two sections of this course will be taught by different instructors with overlapping and complementary expertise; they will have a common syllabus and the two sections will occasionally meet together.

This course will examine classic and contemporary texts considered as nature writing in the U.S. We will explore three themes in depth: 1) nature writing as literary genre, 2) nature writing as development of spiritual awareness, and 3) nature writing as expression of ecological/environmental concern. Students will write essays that analyze nature writing texts in light of these three themes.

“Reel Lives” will explore documentary with an eye toward understanding the ways non-fictional films “tell the truth.” We will write about a variety of films from different traditions within documentary history. Our themes include “Documentary Muckrakers,” “Noble Savages: Documenting the Other,” “New Realisms and the Promise of Direct Cinema,” and “Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself: Rockumentary Revelations.” Within these themes are films such as Flaherty’s Nanook of the North, Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, Jean Rouch’s Chronicle of a Summer, and the Maysles brothers’ Gimme Shelter. The goal of the course is to understand film representation in new ways that take into consideration the rhetorical, ethical, and philosophical implications of the genre. By the end of the course students will have knowledge of a number of key titles in documentary and a better understanding of the term “film truth.”

The figure of Socrates, both historical and fictional, is riddled with contradictions. Ironically, he is at once both ugly and beautiful, wise and ignorant, philosopher and artisan, male and female. By looking at his trial and death, we can see the character of his life and the virtues he embodied: self-restraint, courage, wisdom and justice. It is the distinctive mark of Socratic education that at once defuses a kind of metaphysical arrogance and generates a kind of grace. Readings will include primarily Plato, but also Aristophanes, Xenophon and Aristotle. In addition to a variety of writing exercises, students will compose a character to perform in a class play.

Americans are simultaneously fascinated and repulsed by prisons, prisoners, and prison life. A consistent reminder of this fascination is the proliferation of an array of reality TV programs exposing life behind prison walls and the popularity of fictional programs and movies about prison life. This course transcends the voyeuristic obsession with prisons and takes a meaningful look at the reality of imprisonment. My personal contact with prisons and prisoners during my years as a public defender and prisoners' rights advocate has taught me that the prison population exists outside of the democratic sphere. This experience has afforded me a deeper appreciation and understanding of core democratic principles of freedom, civil liberties, human rights and equal protection and has energized me to advocate for those principles on behalf of disenfranchised individuals and communities. I believe that students who study incarceration will develop a greater appreciation and understanding of broad democratic principles.

Many people aspire to live in ethically responsible ways and make the world a better place through purposeful action. This course will examine a variety of social problems alongside how local and regional social actors, academics, artists, social movements, non-governmental organizations, community-based organizations, voluntary organizations and citizens try to generate change. We will also learn how to view social, economic, and political problems from academic and organizing perspectives as well as how to act on them.

When theater meets history great artistic moments may occur. Often artworks shock the public and/or challenge the authorities. We can thus learn about history from plays and performances. For example, Bertolt Brecht wrote his play “The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui” about a Chicago mobster who satirically represented Adolf Hitler's political rise in Germany. Arthur Miller wrote "The Crucible" about the 17th century's witch trials to talk about McCarthyism in the United States in the 1950s. Similarly, the East German writer and poet Heiner Müller wrote his play "Hamlet Machine" in the 1970s, but the meaning of his play was only realized during the mass protests in East Germany in 1989. Our class will explore several plays of 20th century and contemporary theater, their dramaturgy, their productions (mostly on DVD), and their historical context.

This seminar will investigate historical transformations in how American society has defined and responded to problematic drinking and drug use, from the seventeenth-century sermons of Puritan minister Cotton Mather to the news coverage of the crack epidemic of the late 1980s. We will not ask whether addiction constitutes a disease or a moral failing, nor will we define what constitutes healthy or unhealthy drinking and drug use. Rather, students will trace the history of changing consumption patterns of alcohol, opiates, cannabis, cocaine, hallucinogenics, and other drugs in the United States. And we will consider the evolving meaning of drugs in American culture by tracing the historical development of multiple and often conflicting responses to problematic drug use. Major questions we will explore include, why are intoxication and addiction particularly pressing problems in a democratic society? How has the line between licit and illicit drug use been defined and enforced? How do wealth and class shape perceptions of drug use? How and why have alcohol and drug use been used to stigmatize various racial groups? To what extent are perceptions of alcohol and drug use governed by gender?

CSP 30. THE POLITICS OF EROS: PHILOSOPHIES OF LOVE AND LITERARY EXPRESSION IN THE WESTERN TRADITION.

What is eros? A feeling? A philosophy? A social contract or bond? Why are many of the major works of literature in western culture dominated by debates about love and its most ideal expression? This course examines how concepts of sexual and romantic love have evolved and changed from Plato to the present day. Paying particular attention to key classical texts that have influenced the expression of amorous themes, this course will focus on representations of love across a diverse range of narrative forms of literature. This course will also investigate how the language of love and desire that characterizes the private grievances of the suffering lover is often the primary vehicle for the expression of political discontent. What is the relationship between desire and persuasion? How is love a metaphor for the individual’s relationship to authority? We will take up these critical questions and others as we explore how literary texts both reflect the social norms of their times and contribute to the creation of new ideals of sexual and romantic union.

CSP 1. CONTESTED THEORIES OF THE MODERN AND THE MASCULINE IN 1950s AMERICAN ART.

CSP 5. SCIENCE AND ETHICS IN THE HUMAN BUILT WORLD.

CSP 6. EXPLORATIONS OF THE BRAIN: MEMORY.

CSP 7. TRANSAMERICA: GENDER, MOBILITY, AND AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM.

CSP 13. HARRY POTTER AND THE ACADEMIC CONVERSATION.

CSP 15. CALIFORNIA ENVIRONMENT SEMESTER.

CSP 20. 20TH CENTURY MUSICIANS: IN THEIR OWN WORDS.