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special topics Courses SINGLE SEMESTER FALL 2008 *Business and Consumer Ethics This course is designed to broaden students' awareness of the moral problems and responsibilities that have accompanied the growth of business institutions in our society. Through a selection of historical writings in philosophy, economic theory and political theory, students will examine some classical views about the nature of business activity, profit and the concept of an economic market. *Business Research Methods *Life and Death: Critical Issues in the Death Penalty This course will cover facts, concerns and critical issues related to the death penalty. Points dealing with the inconsistencies of the death penalty will be covered, including the cost, the racial inequity, false confessions, methods of execution, mitigating and aggravating factors. At least two case studies will be discussed that will include videotapes, interviews, trial transcripts and first-hand assessments of cases. *Advanced Academic Writing This course is designed for students with advanced placement in English composition. The class aims to strengthen the writing and research skills required for college-level papers, and will emphasize critical analysis of challenging text, construction of persuasive arguments and effective integration of primary and secondary sources. Topics and readings will be selected by the instructor. *Mathematics in Fiction There are many novels, short stories and movies in which math plays a central role. This “mathematical fiction” includes works in a variety of genres: historical novels and science fiction, humor and drama, children’s books and avant garde literature. What do these works tell us about mathematics and what people think about mathematics? These will be the central questions that we will address in this course. This is an interdisciplinary class, somewhere between an English class and a math class. Mostly what students will be doing is reading literature and discussing it as they would in an English class. Since the unifying theme of the literature they will be reading is mathematics, they will also be learning some really exciting mathematics that most non-mathematicians never get to see. No mathematical prerequisites will be expected, but some ability with mathematical concepts will be helpful. *Apocalypse Now From the ancient near east prophet Zarathustra to the Harry Potter series, and even Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth, the thread (and threat) of rhetorical apocalypse runs through narratives of world history, religion, social movements, and popular culture. Those Manichaean twins — the fundamental conflict of good and evil — contest within our religious faith, color our political activities, haunt our theological narratives, and are otherwise found in various expressions of our imagination, whether in philosophic discourse or popular culture. Yet reports about the death of the Enlightenment seem premature: the atheists are writing back. Bestseller lists and academic tomes by atheists, scientists, and philosophers are contesting this ancient rhetorical apocalyptic framework of belief and understanding. This course will trace this twin thread of apocalyptic rhetoric from origins to contemporary manifestations. The readings are interdisciplinary, using work by historians, philosophers, rhetorical theorists, sociologists and commentators on popular culture. *Race and Violence in Africa The theme of the course is violence of a racialized nature (i.e., black vs. white) in eastern and southern Africa between 1856-1956. Questions to be addressed include: What causes violence? What encourages violence to be practiced when other means of resolving differences are in place? Why is violence retained or maintained as a strategy option when others are available? What roles has race played in social tensions, social conflicts, and in violence broadly writ? In this course, these large questions, and/or others, will guide our explorations of specific case studies, set in certain historical/geographical contexts. The course content will focus largely on the Xhosa cattle-killings in what would soon become part of British South Africa, later the twentieth century racist Apartheid state, the Herero-Nama genocide in German Southwest Africa, a precursor, some believe, to the Holocaust; the Majimaji revolt in Tanganyika; and the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya Colony, a significant event in the histories of African Decolonization, Cold War politics and race relations. *Seminar on Terror, Terrorism and Response to Terror Terror is the strong emotional reaction that results from a threat to one’s life or well being. In recent times, our society has been much focused on terrorism, or the use of terror to achieve political ends. But the political use of terror is not unique to our times. In particular, one could view the experiences of the victims of the Nazi Holocaust as resulting from the terrorism of Hitler’s regime. Moreover, terror has resulted from both natural and man-made disasters.. However, the current use of terror tactics for political reasons, our increased awareness of the effects of natural disasters, and the growing possibility of global man-made disasters warrant an opportunity to explore these phenomena. Utilizing a psychological perspective, the goal of this course is to review what scientists have learned about the extreme emotion described as terror; especially its neurobiology and effects on behavior. We will then focus on the historical examples of the Holocaust and a variety of natural and man-made disasters to more closely examine the range of human responses – both adaptive and maladaptive – to the experience of terror.
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