Cultural Studies Program
Spring “Global Issues” Seminars
Course Descriptions for
Spring 2010

Link to Fa'09 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.

CSP 50. FROM THE TEN COMMANDMENTS TO THE “DEATH OF GOD”.

This interdisciplinary study of European culture will examine and analyze material from literature, philosophy, science, medicine, religion, the arts, and political theory. We will consider, in their historical context,  such figures as the authors of the Hebrew Bible, Homer, Sappho, Hippocrates, Sophocles, Thucydides, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, the authors of The New Testament, St. Augustine, figures in medieval Islamic science and medicine, Machiavelli, Luther, Calvin, Copernicus, Kepler, Queen Elizabeth, Galileo, Descartes, Locke, Newton, Defoe, Voltaire, Rousseau, Mozart, Wollstonecraft, Napoleon, Charlotte Corday (bathtub murderess of the French Revolutionary leader Marat), Mary Shelley (author of the original Frankenstein), Bram Stoker (author of the original Dracula), Balzac, Marx, Darwin, Florence Nightingale, Nietzsche (and his claim that “God is dead”) Freud, Woolf, Sartre, de Beauvoir, and Gandhi.

Nina Gelbart (History) & Roger Boesche (Politics)

This is an 8-unit colloquium and seminar course.  Students enrolled in this colloquium will not only get credit for the first year spring seminar requirement, but also will meet the Core Program's Cultural Studies Distribution requirement for Europe.

 

 

CSP 51. IMMIGRATION AND RACE IN AMERICAN POPULAR CULTURE.

Hollywood movies will be the starting point of an exploration of how our nation of immigrants has influenced and produced American popular culture, while navigating and interrupting historic racial divisions.  Our texts will be movies, music, and critical essays, fueling discussions of how race, gender, law, and global politics converge on the immigrant subject and emerge in the production of popular culture, ultimately creating new ideas of what it means to be an American.

 Adrienne Tien (American Studies)

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CSP 52. SCIENCE OF HAPPINESS.

Would you rather win the lottery or become a paraplegic? Surprisingly, scientists have found that a year later, both groups of people are similarly happy. Doing good can be more rewarding than pursuing hedonic pleasure, and more choices can actually make us less happy. This course will look at the research about happiness to better understand which factors really do improve well-being, and experiment with applying these principles to our own lives. We also will examine how happiness varies as a function of cultural context, both across countries and within a culture (such as by age, marital status, social class, and more). This course will challenge you to take a close look at your values, goals, and decisions through examination of happiness from a scientific perspective.

Carmel Levitan (Cognitive Science)

 

 

 CSP 53. THE UNBEARABLE WHITENESS OF BARBIE: RACE AND POPULAR CULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES.

Have you ever said or thought “I don’t look like a Barbie!”?  Join the crowd.  However, the problem that Barbie presents is infinitely more complex than her supposed life-sized measurements.  As the embodiment of complex discourses on race, sex and gender Barbie provides a central figure for this course in exploring broader themes, particularly those of race and social justice.  Thus, we will cover a wide territory that ranges from an exploration of the ways in which scientific racism has been put to use in the making of Barbie to an interpretation of the film The Matrix as a Marxist critique of capitalism.  You’ll never play with your toys the same way again.

 Elizabeth Chin (Critical Theory and Social Justice)

 

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CSP 54.  TRANSNATIONAL SUBJECTS.

This course will explore the impact of lives lived across national borders.  Critically examining traditional concepts such as “citizen” and “immigrant,” we will look at communities, cultures, and ideas that are shaped by people moving back and forth across national borderlines.  We will consider new ways of understanding social issues, such as trafficking in persons, crime and criminalization, and political “belonging,” as these are affected by cross-border movements of people, ideas, capital, and technologies between the U.S. and “elsewhere.”  The course will draw from a variety of academic disciplines; materials will include first-person narratives, theoretical articles and fictional works.

Donna Maeda (Critical Theory and Social Justice)

 

 

CSP 55. COWBOYS, SAMURAI, MANLY MEN: IMAGES OF MASCULINITY.

What does it take to be a “man”?  What does it mean to be “manly”?  How is manhood depicted in literature and popular media?  This class will explore answers to these questions (and more) through a consideration of various literary and filmic texts.  We will examine many representations of masculinity to help us understand how and why constructions of manhood change over time, cultures, landscapes, and in relation to events or experiences.  We will also consider stereotypes of manhood and the symbols, myths, and practices that give a sense of order and perhaps even “naturalness” to representations of masculinity.  Finally, we will explore the intersections of race, class, sexuality, and ethnicity in the constitution of masculine identity.  Texts may include films by John Ford (such as The Searchers), Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo, and Nicholas Ray’s Rebel Without a Cause, along with short stories by Ernest Hemingway and Yukio Mishima, and novels such as Chester Himes’ If He Hollers Let Him Go and Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses.  Please note: enrollment in this course requires that students view films in their entirety outside of class.  We will hold film screenings on selected Wednesday nights throughout the semester, and these films will also be available for viewing in the library (through course reserves).

Julie Prebel (English Writing)

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CSP 56.  US-MEXICAN RELATIONS: COOPERATION AND CONFLICT.

Two neighbors with very different pasts, legal traditions, interests and needs, the United States and Mexico have clashed repeatedly but have also learned to cooperate on many issues.  This course studies U.S.-Mexican relations at three levels: governments, groups, and individuals.  It also explores the impact that changes at one level have on the others – for example, whether changes in U.S. economic and migration policy can alter the incentives for undocumented migration, how the U.S. and Mexican governments have responded to increased cross-border drug traffic, and how Mexican towns have changed with the influx of remittances sent by migrants living in the United States. This course gives students a chance to discuss and understand the complexity of current events in areas such as the life of Mexican-Americans in the United States, border control, drug traffic, and regional trade.  Students will perfect their writing skills, generate questions on relevant policy and ethical issues, and reflect on the past, the present and the future of the bilateral relationship.  

Carina Miller (Diplomacy and World Affairs)

 

 

CSP 57.  UNDERSTANDING HUMAN RIGHTS THROUGH LITERATURE & FILM.

In this course, we will explore the themes of social justice and human rights through the lens of poetry, non-fiction, documentaries, and feature films. The course offers a broad introduction to international human rights norms and instruments, with a primary focus on the problem of genocide and crimes against humanity in the post-World War II period. Through examining rights violations in countries such as Cambodia, Rwanda, and South Africa, we will engage in critical thinking and debate on issues such as the obligation of the “international community” to prevent and respond to grievous rights violations, the challenge to peace posed by the memory of violence and oppression, and the relationship between justice and reconciliation.

Laura Hebert (Diplomacy and World Affairs)

 

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 CSP 58.  MUSIC AND TRANCE: HOW MUSIC INFLUENCES THE ECSTATIC STATE THROUGHOUT THE GLOBE.

This course explores the relationship between music and consciousness in different world cultures with the intention of developing an understanding of the role that music plays in ecstatic experiences. This course draws on ethnomusicology, psychology, anthropology,  dance ethnology, and religious studies.

 Simeon Pillich (Music)

 

 

CSP 59.  FROM THE UNDEAD TO THE ALREADY DEAD: VAMPIRES, ZOMBIES AND MONSTERS IN LITERATURE AND FILM.

The course will consider the ways in which such books as Frankenstein and Dracula and such films as Night of the Living Dead, 28 Days and I am Legend complicate the distinction between the living and the dead, and the human and the inhuman. What are the consequences when certain individuals or, increasingly, groups (or even populations) are declared, despite appearances, undead or already dead rather than living? In what ways are such declarations tied to the use of violence and deadly force? We will take as our starting point philosopher Giorgio Agamben's assertion that one of the central political categories of modernity is that of homo sacer, the individual who can be killed with impunity. 

Warren Montag (English and Comparative Literary Studies)

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CSP 60.  TOO SOON?...A COMEDIC APOLOGY.

Comedians—sometimes they go too far.  And the really shameful thing is that even as we attempt to rouse indignation at comedy’s habitual improprieties, we often find that we ourselves can scarcely resist the temptation to laugh. Surely, comedy's outrageous and insulting behavior demands some kind of apology. In this class, an apology is what we shall aim at (and don’t call me “Shirley”).  The sort of “apology” we shall attempt to develop for comedy in this class, however (in case you had not already guessed), is not the modern kind, the one synonymous with “being sorry,” but rather the ancient kind of “apology,” the one that meant giving a formal account (a “logos”) of one’s behavior so as to defend to oneself from legal prosecution (“apo-“ in Greek means “away from”).  Such an Apology is of course what Socrates offered the Athenians in defense of philosophy, even as he attacked the Greek comedian, Aristophanes. In this course, then, we shall attempt to turn the tables on Socrates, and defend comedy from philosophy (and from whatever other institutions that try to get in comedy’s way).  The course will divide its attention between the ancient and the modern: we shall trace comedy’s literary origin all the way back to archaic Dionysiac worship; yet we shall listen carefully as well to the testimony of a number of important, contemporary witnesses for the defense:  a cultural ambassador (reputedly) from Kazakhstan, a group of cartoon school children from Colorado, a family of dysfunctional, corporate criminals from Orange County, and many, many more.

Damian Stocking (English and Comparative Literary Studies)

 

 

CSP 61.  THE RUSSIAN EXPERIENCE.

The Russian Experience focuses on the enigma and riddle known as “Rus”, “Russia”, “The Russian Empire”, “The Soviet Union” and “The Russian Federation”. This strange land has been a combination of great extremes: West and East, blinding poverty and dazzling wealth, great talent and shocking brutality. The course focuses on the period of Russia's explosion onto the world stage both politically and artistically, beginning with the reign of Alexander I, the Napoleonic Wars and the Decembrist Revolt, and following the development of Russian society and the Russian/Soviet State through the 19th and 20th Centuries, up to the current post-Soviet Russian Federation. There will be equal emphasis on internal politics, the arts, and international relations.

 Larry Caldwell (Politics) and  Walter Richmond (German)

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CSP 62.     BEYOND SOUTHERN SLAVERY.

When Americans think about “bondage,” the images of the South generally come to mind: plantations and cotton, coffles and the Civil War. But what do we make of the fact that Sojourner Truth was enslaved in New York? This class will consider narratives of enslavement that depart from the conventional model in order to explore how the entire United States was enmeshed in legalized racial violence. We will read novels, narratives and criticism that examine Northern bondage and consider the historical erasure that has projected this exploitation and violence onto the South in the popular imagination.   

Gabrielle Foreman (English and Comparative Literary Studies)

 

 

CSP 63.  GETTING HIGH: ALCOHOL AND DRUG USE IN AMERICA AND THE WORLD.

Both controversial and ubiquitous, alcohol consumption and drug use have been contentious social issues throughout human history. The study of alcohol and drugs can thus open a fascinating window into society and culture. This class will consider the wide variety of drugs consumed through history, and the multiple, changing, and contradictory ways in which societies have defined acceptable and problematic drug consumption. This class will not seek to define what constitutes healthy or unhealthy drinking and drug use. Rather, the class will consider the changing place and meaning of drugs in various historical contexts. Major questions the course will investigate include, How did alcohol and drugs shape colonialism and globalization? How have alcohol and drug use been used to stigmatize racial minorities and the poor? How do perceptions of intoxication reflect and shape cultural understandings of gender differences? Lectures, readings, and assignments will place the history of American drug and alcohol use in a broad international and multicultural context, asking such questions as, why did laborers in 19th century China smoke opium while American laborers preferred whiskey? And how did Native American religious beliefs about mescaline shape perceptions of LSD on American college campuses? Students will be given broad freedom to develop a research topic on most any aspect of the history of alcohol and drug use.

Matthew Osborn (History)

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CSP 64.  THE ENDS AND MEANS TO THE LIBERATION OF SOUND.

This course reviews the 20th-century origins of today’s sound landscapes, covering the aesthetics of noise, silence, space, and sound mass, the development of new instruments (new acoustic and electronic instruments, re-invented classical instruments, the electronic music studio, the computer), the international development of creation studios, and the dissemination of sound (radio, recording, the World Wide Web with the MP3, etc.). Sound recordings, films, and articles reviewed will include works by some of the most important music creators of modern times.

Jennifer Logan (Music)

 

 

 CSP 65.  BIOLOGY, LAW, AND SEXUAL ORIENTATION.

This course is designed to investigate and evaluate current scientific data on the role of biology in determining sexual orientation. We shall investigate and evaluate these data in order to pursue the social and legal implications of their interpretation. While biological findings on sexual orientation will be presented and explained, the level of instruction will be geared for non-biology majors with special guest lectures by Prof. Kerry Thompson, Department of Biology. Furthermore, no prior familiarity with social policy and law on this topic will be presupposed.

Some questions that will guide our inquiry include:  What is the data that supports biological predisposition? Is sexual orientation genetic? Is it epigenetic? Is it immutable or a matter of choice? How should the law treat sexual orientation as a matter of classification? 

How should the benefits and burdens of the law be distributed according to this classification? What effect do stereotypes of sexual orientation have on science and social policy, for example, in AIDS research?

This course aims to promote an understanding of the biological impact on complex behaviors such as sexual orientation, and to discuss the social and legal implications of that relationship as engaged citizens.

Kory Schaff (Philosophy)

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 CSP 66.  THE SCIENCE OF MORALITY.

What distinguishes right from wrong?  What distinguishes fair from unfair?  What creatures are capable of moral reasoning?  What creatures are worthy of moral consideration?  How do our moral intuitions change over time?  How do our moral intuitions vary across cultures?  This course will explore contemporary research on the nature and origin of moral appraisal, with an emphasis on psychological, biological, and philosophical perspectives.  Differences in the methods and assumptions of each perspective will be explored through the analysis of primary source materials.

Andrew Shtulman (Psychology)

 

 

 CSP 67.  EXISTENTIALISM.

Existentialism is a philosophy that grapples with the problem of human freedom and moral choice in a world that often seems devoid of transcendental meaning or purpose.  In this course we will read literary and philosophical texts from the Argentine, French, German, Russian, and Spanish existentialist traditions, and will explore the structures and possibilities of consciousness, knowledge, desire, imagination, aesthetics, ethics, and political commitment.  Authors studied will include Albert Camus, Fydor Dostoevsky, Franz Kafka, Eduardo Mallea, Ernesto Sábato, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Miguel de Unamuno.  (Professor Robert Ellis, Spanish and French Studies)

Robert Ellis (Spanish and French Studies)

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 CSP 68.  BRECHTIAN PERFORMANCE.

Breaking the fourth wall, breaking character, breaking out in song – when an actor, writer or director breaks the standard “rules” of performance his or her actions can be traced time and again to the staging techniques of revolutionary German theater artist Bertolt Brecht. This class will examine the roots of Brecht’s alienation affect and how its basic aim to emotionally distance the audience from the art can be seen in myriad contemporary American artistic settings: from Broadway to performance art to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Students will study and interpret various texts, creating original Brechtian performances of their own.

Laural Meade (Theater)

 

 

 CSP 69.  JOBS & JUSTICE: THE LABOR MOVEMENT AND AMERICAN CULTURE.

Work is not only a means for survival, but also a way for people to establish identity, meaning, and social relationships.  Work is also about power and the ability to shape one's working and living conditions. This course focuses on workers- poor and middle class, employed and unemployed, legal and illegal - and their strategies to improve their employment and political conditions, especially through labor unions.  It examines the history and contemporary condition of work, workers' rights, and unions in the context of changes in American society, culture, and politics.  This course traces the history of work and the labor movement from the rise of corporate capitalism in the late nineteenth century to the challenges of globalization (and economic crisis) today.  We will explore the debates over unions and their role in the economy, society, and political system. We will explore changing and contested ideas about worker rights and human rights, debates over the corporate power and government regulation,  and comparisons between the U.S. and other societies.  We will look at the issue of "sweatshops" in history, overseas, and in the contemporary United States. We will look at how work, workers, unions, and employers have been portrayed in popular culture, including newspapers, films, and literature.  We will examine the connection between work, class, gender, race, families, and immigrant status. We will also consider the link between political democracy and economic democracy.  We will explore current challenges facing unions and their future. We will look at current controversies between business, labor, and citizen groups over reforming laws regulation the relationship between management and employees.  We will explore the question: does the labor movement have a future?  The course will pay special attention to the condition of workers and their unions in Los Angeles.  Finally, we will discuss why (and if) college students should care about unions.  We will explore these issues through readings, films, songs, poems, plays, guest speakers,  field trips, class discussions, and writing assignments.

Peter Dreier (Urban and Environment Policy)

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CSP 70.  WOMEN AND THE FEMININE IN PLATO’S PHILOSOPHY. 

Western philosophy, beginning with Plato, was primarily by, for, and about men.  Women were not invited to participate in the public or political arena.  Instead, they maintained the private sphere, necessity, thus affording men the leisure and freedom to pursue philosophy.  And yet, the same culture that excluded and oppressed the women also appropriated the feminine, and particularly the maternal feminine, as a construct for their philosophical speculation.  Indeed, it was Plato’s Socrates, the consummate male philosopher, whose philosophical effectiveness occurred while he was operating with female power.  Readings will include primarily Plato, but also Hippocrates, Xenophon and Aristotle.

 Julie Sadoff (Core Program)

 

 

CSP 71.  DISNEYLAND AND URBANISM. 

From Shanghai to Celebration, Florida, to the new LA Live complex, all around the world real urban areas are increasingly being redesigned to mimic theme parks, driven by dreams of modernity and mass mediated culture. And it all began with Southern California's own Disneyland Park. In this course, we will trace the complex historical dialogue between the iconic amusement park and its urban environment in Southern California over the past half-century, carefully analyzing urban and social history, film, and literature to discover what Disneyland can teach us about the strange, often sprawling geography and culture of modern global urbanism and particularly the peculiar urban environment all around us.

Jeremiah Axelrod (History)

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CSP 72.  HOW TO SAVE THE EARTH. 

Recent scholarship has portrayed an intimate connection between a variety of problems around the world, ranging from education, health, hunger, disease, the environment and even war, and the citizens of rich and influential countries like the United States.  Much of this literature describes the United States and its people as part of both the origins of varying problems as well as their possible solutions. We will compare the ways in which Americans and the international community attempt to collaborate and intervene in societies and social problems across the globe. Drawing on multiple disciplines and case studies, we will ask critical questions, engage in cross-national analysis and develop as writers and researchers. 

Shane Lachtman (Core Program)

 

 

CSP 73.  MISSION OF THE ARTS.

What is "art"? What are visual art, performing art, music, or literature  good for? What can art say? How can we describe, interpret, and analyze  it?

We discuss these questions at the level of individual perception and of aesthetics as well as in regard to the prevailing political system and to the place of art in education.  We will focus on performing arts but incorporate visual art, music, and literature as well.  We will not only read selections from philosophical and theoretical texts by Aristotle, Sigmund Freud, Theodor W. Adorno, but we will also read texts by artists on art and anti-art (for example texts by Friedrich Schiller, the Dadaists, Bertolt Brecht, and Tadeusz Kantor). Our readings will give us an idea of the history of the West's understanding of "art".  A liberal arts college's mission refers to the ancient idea that art and science are not separated.  In view of this background we will question notions of beauty, taste, truth, authenticity, perception, and, last but not least, knowledge.  All analysis and writing will be related to particular art works or artistic concepts.  We will not only explore the meaning of art but we will engage in field trips to a few current art events in the Los Angeles area and in in-class performances.  We will explore the political impact and restrictions of the arts and their value in education.

Uta Schorlemmer (Core Program)

 

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CSP 74.  IDEOLOGY AND SOCIAL UNREST IN AMERICAN HISTORY.

In the early years of the twentieth century, the United States experienced a series of violent labor strikes, lynchings, bombings, and assassinations that culminated in 1919 with a terrorist attack on Wall Street that left thirty-eight people dead and scores of wounded men, women and children.  The response to this terrorist act was not unlike the reaction to 9/11 in our own time.  American democratic institutions seemed threatened by foreign terrorists and ideologies:  anarchism, Marxism, fascism.
This seminar will study the relationship between varying ideologies and social unrest in our history, using the year 1919 as a case study, and then examining similar themes in the 1960s and present day society.

 

Norman Cohen (Core Program)

 

 

 

CSP 75.  FROM BOYS TO MEN: MODERN MASCULINITIES IN LITERATURE AND FILM.

In examining what it means to be a man today, this course will focus on moments of transition in which multiple definitions of masculinity intersect, conflict, or transform. When does the boy become a man?  What rituals and rites of passage inform modern and postmodern conceptions of masculinity? How do relationships between family members, friends, and lovers influence ideas about masculinity?  Finally, how do moral conventions, violence, and war change or reinforce these definitions?

Each writer we will encounter in this course depicts a struggle to grow up and into an identity that can be seen as separate and distinct from versions of manhood that, at times, seem imposed from the outside (by family, society, religion, and nation).  Writing about these varied experiences poses another problem as the authors attempt to articulate the personal, which may often also be the unspeakable.  As a consequence, we will see a blurring of fact and fiction and witness acts of memory that serve both the personal and the political.

We will seek to understand how boys are called or interpolated into manhood by the nation and the family; how war’s violence and aggression shape masculinity and conceptions of fear and bravery; and how art, literature, and imagination influence the development of sexual and racial consciousness.  Does becoming a man mean leaving home to seek unknown adventure and peril in an exotic locale?  How does the boy-becoming-a-man balance allegiances to family, friends, and self with his own desires and ambitions? We will explore these questions and others as we look critically at how boys become men. 

Alison Tymoczko (Core Program)

 

CSP 76.  DISCIPLINE AND DESIRE: THE HISTORY OF SEXUALITY IN THE UNITED STATES

This course examines the history of the politics of sexuality in the United States since the American Revolution. It begins with theoretical works on the intersections of sexuality and politics, including writings by Sigmund Freud, Wilhelm Reich, Daniel Bell, Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, and Michael Warner. It then considers important moments in the history of American sexuality, including the growth of cities and erotic subcultures after the war for independence, the establishment of "republican discipline" and Victorianism in the early 19th century, blackface minstrelsy and the eroticization of slavery, the confinement of prostitution, the creation of domestic and public spheres, the explosion of working-class sexual entertainment during the industrial revolution, feminism and the social hygiene movement, the invention of homosexuality and emergence of gay and lesbian subcultures, black music and the racialization of sex, Betty Friedan's Feminine Mystique vs. Helen Gurley Brown's Sex and the Single Girl, Stonewall and Gay Liberation, Roe v. Wade, the feminist "pornography wars," the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, and the politics of gay marriage.

Thaddeus Russell (Core Program)
 

 

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