Freshman Seminars Spring 2002
Jewish Law & Ethics
Barry Eichler, Associate Professor of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
An introduction to the literary and legal sources of Jewish law within
a historical framework. Emphasis will be placed upon the development
and dynamics of Jewish jurisprudence, and the relationship between Jewish
law and social ethics. (Distribution II: History and Tradition)
AMES (465) 152.401 or JWST (353) 152.401 | Monday & Wednesday |
3:00 – 4:30
African Worlds
Sandra Barnes, Professor of Anthropology
This course concentrates on popular culture in sub-Saharan Africa. It
examines the way people reflect on and represent various aspects and
issues in their daily lives, in public media, and through a diverse
range of performative and creative outlets. It explores the way cultural
traditions are created, promulgated and perpetuated. It looks at the
way popular culture deals with pleasure and pain; identity, difference
and diversity; wealth and power; modernity and history; gender relations;
suppression, resistance and violence; and local versus global processes.
In short, popular culture will serve as a window through which to observe
contemporary life. (Distribution I: Society)
ANTH (025) 018.401 or AFST (010) 018.401 | Monday | 2:00 – 5:00
Culture Clash
Paula Sabloff, Adjunct Associate Professor of Anthropology
This course will introduce students to anthropological approaches to
social issues such as cultural survival, economic survival, socialization
into capitalism and sometimes poverty, racism, marginality and gender
relations. We will read social theory (e.g., Karl Marx, Adam Smith,
Michel Foucault, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Pierre Bourdieu) relevant to
the assigned ethnographic accounts of communities in other parts of
the USA and around the world (focus on the USA, Latin America and Asia)
and will broaden our understanding of these communities and social issues
through various media (film, museum collections, and archival and Web
material). As part of the Center for Community Partnerships, the class
requires students to combine community service with original anthropological
research (students will receive help in finding proper placement in
an organization if they want help). Student research will be used to
help determine whether or not (and how) the social issues that we read
about are occurring in Philadelphia. (Distribution I: Society)
ANTH (025) 115.301 | Tuesday | 1:30 – 4:30
Native Peoples and the Environment
Clark Erickson, Associate Professor of Anthropology
The relationship between the activities of native peoples and the environment
is a complex and contentious issue. One perspective argues that native
peoples had little impact on the environments because of their low population
densities, limited technology, and conservation ethic and worldview.
At the other extreme, biodiversity, and nature itself, is considered
the product of a long history of human activities. This seminar will
examine the Myth of the Ecologically Noble Savage, the Myth of the Pristine
Environment, the alliance between native peoples and Green Politics,
and the contribution of native peoples to appropriate technology, sustainable
development and conservation of biodiversity. (Distribution II: History
and Tradition)
ANTH (025) 133.401 or LTAM (383) 133.401 | Tuesday & Thursday |
12:00 – 1:30
Art and Technology, 1830’s-2000’s: Theories
and Practices from Photography and Early Film to Digital Images and
the Internet
Ruth Iskin, Mellow Fellow in History of Art
New technologies of image making have radically changed our visual culture.
What happens when new technologies are first introduced? Do artists
experiment with them and make important contributions to new media practices?
Do new technologies of reproduction threaten the domain of art? From
the invention of photography and film in the late nineteenth century,
to radio, television and the Internet in the 20th century, artists who
have experimented with new technologies sometimes abandoned their original
medium and at other times incorporated new technologies into their repertoire
of image-making. For example, Nadar left illustration for photography,
but Degas, who was known primarily for his paintings and pastels, continued
to work in these media while also experimenting with photography; and
Toulouse-Lautrec used color lithography to produce innovative posters.
In the early twentieth century, Bertold Brecht had some advanced ideas
about the potential of radio, and the painter Fernand Leger and photographers
Moholy-Nagy, and Man Ray, experimented with film. In the late twentieth
century and today artists are increasingly working with video and the
Internet. At the same time new technologies of image-making have tended
to spawn new industries and have fundamentally changed the culture of
our time.
This seminar introduces interdisciplinary approaches to issues of art
and technology. We will discuss these questions: What is the relationship
between established practices of art and the emergence of new imaging
technologies? How do new technologies emerge as new industries and as
new art forms? How do issues about the relationship between art and
new technologies inform the art making of modern and contemporary artists?
How do the social practices of reception of a new medium, such as film
in its early days for example, influence the art and technique of film
making? And what, according to artists, theorists and cultural historians,
is the relationship between humans and new technologies? The seminar
includes readings by theorists, artists and scholars which address the
relationship between new technologies, art and culture. It also introduces
students to examples of work produced with what at the time were new
technologies, from photography and lithography to early film, and from
video and computer-mediated digital image-making to the Internet. (Distribution
III: Arts and Letters)
ARTH (033) 100.301 | Wednesday | 2:00 – 5:00
The Medieval City
Robert Maxwell, Professor of History of Art
The medieval city, with its colorful market squares, decorated churches
and drab domestic spaces, was a magnificent hothouse of artistic and
social activity. How were these cities constructed and organized and
how did the lords, monks, artists, laborers and lepers all negotiate
their social interaction through the built space? Which interpretive
models will permit us today to enter into this space?
This course introduces students to major issues in the study of medieval
urbanism and to related areas of medieval art. We will examine how specialists
define cities, as well as how cities might be “un-defined”
or deconstructed. We will look to historical and economic models, but
our focus will be on the built environment-the architecture of churches,
palaces, and fortifications-and on issues of planning and topography.
Case studies will be drawn from well-known examples (Paris, London,
Florence) and lesser-known examples (new towns, late antique settlements,
Carolingian outposts). One of our challenges will be to assess the role
of other types of art—e.g.: sculpture and the minor arts—in
the “urbanization” of medieval society. Special topics will
include pilgrimage and urbanization; utopian and imaginary cities; relics,
rituals and urban processions; ancient and medieval urban theory; the
politics of urban art; public order and disorder; the rhetoric of public
and private space; and medieval visions of cities. (Distribution III:
Arts and Letters)
ARTH (033) 100.302 | Monday | 3:00 – 6:00
The Big Bang and Beyond
Max Tegmark, Assistant Professor of Physics
This is an introductory course for freshmen who do not intend to major
in a physical science or engineering. Theories of the origin, evolution
and structure of the universe ranging from the ancient perspective to
the contemporary hot big bang theory to the provocative inflationary
model of the universe. Topics will include the solar system, galaxies
and large-scale structures in the universe. Elementary algebra will
be used. ASTR 007 and ASTR 001 cannot both be taken for credit. (Quantitative
Data Analysis Requirement and General Requirement VI: Physical World)
ASTR (037) 007.301 | Tuesday & Thursday | 9:00 – 10:30
Structural Biology and Genomics Seminar
Ponzy Lu, Professor of Chemistry
This is a continuation of the fall semester seminar for an additional
0.5 credit unit. Structural biology is the scientific method of describing,
predicting and changing the properties of living organisms, including
humans, based on complete genome structures and 3-dimensional structures
of cellular components. It is a direct outgrowth of the intellectual
and technical revolutions that occurred during the last decade. It has
become a most powerful approach to understanding biology and solving
problems in medicine.
We will discuss how macroscopic biological properties, such as reproduction,
locomotion and viral infection, are determined by chemical properties
of proteins and nucleic acids. Changes in biological function, such
as those that accompany hereditary diseases like cystic fibrosis or
sickle cell anemia, result from minute changes in individual proteins.
Much larger changes in genome and protein structure are often tolerated
without apparent consequence. This selectivity and tolerance provides
opportunities for the biotechnology industry to alter biological functions
in ways thought to guarantee profits.
We will also examine how research results in structural biology are
presented in various audiences. The broad range of medical, social,
and political problems associated with the advances will be considered.
(General Requirement VI: Physical World)
CHEM (081) 022.301 | Tuesday & Thursday | 8:00 – 9:00
Molecules in Motion
Robin Hochstrasser, Professor of Chemistry
The course will discuss exciting recent research discoveries that are
providing us with ways of visualizing chemical reactions and other structural
changes. The course will provide some highlights of laser chemistry
and other new technologies focused on structure determination and real
time measurements of chemical change that are making an impact on our
ability to visualize molecular processes and manipulate molecules. Applications
will be both chemical and biological. The course is intended for those
excited by scientific discovery who are also science majors with at
least a high school AP course in chemistry, and ideally AP physics.
There will be no specific textbook. Readings will be original comments
and papers from the scientific literature. (General Requirement VI:
Physical World)
CHEM (081) 024.301 | Tuesday & Thursday | 9:00 – 10:30
Homer and Troy
Keith DeVries, Professor of Classical Studies
The Iliad and the Odyssey have won great admiration from hearers and
readers for close to three millennia. They have also provoked many questions
about the poet or poets, the date of works, the nature of their composition
and transmission, and the historical reality, if any, of the war and
the society they evoke. In an attempt to answer some of these questions,
we will undertake a literary and archaeological and historical study
of Troy and Greece from the 13th century B.C., the earliest time conjectured
for the Trojan War, down to the 7th century B.C., the latest possible
date for composition. In addition to studying the two Homeric epics,
we will do comparative reading in other early Greek literature and the
Hebrew Bible. (Distribution III: Arts and Letters)
CLST (101) 112.301 | Tuesday & Thursday | 3:00 – 4:30
Ancient to Modern Prison Narrative
Rita Copeland, Professor of Classical Studies
How has the experience of being in prison changed from ancient to modern
times? As in modernity, so in earlier periods there were many reasons
for imprisonment: charges of treason, political or religious dissent,
crime and war. How do prison narratives from various historical periods
reflect differences in the way that people have experienced imprisonment?
Did prisoners in the past personalize their suffering in the way that
modern prisoners often do? How do prison writings establish an idea
of community with other prisoners and with a public outside the prison?
And how have prison writers managed to transform their individual experiences
into the broad social, political or historical statements? We will begin
the course with writings by two well-known modern prison writers: Nelson
Mandela (South Africa) and Leonard Peltier (USA). We’ll then turn
to writings from the past, including: Plato’s account of Socrates’
imprisonment, trial and execution; narratives and transcripts of Joan
of Arc’s imprisonment and trial; and Oscar Wilde’s Ballad
of Reading Gaol. We will end with further selections from modern prison
writing, including fictional and real-life narratives. Over the semester
we will also read some historical and theoretical studies of imprisonment,
including Foucault’s Discipline and Punish: the Birth of the Prison
and some focused studies of ancient, medieval and early modern prison
systems. Your work for the class, in addition to the readings, will
be to write two medium-sized papers (6-7 pages) about works read for
class, and prepare and present one report on a text of your choice that
we are not reading for class. You will also be asked, from time to time,
to do small research exercises on modern or historical topics related
to our reading; these research assignments may involve work on the World
Wide Web. (Distribution III: Arts and Letters)
CLST (101) 130.301 | Tuesday & Thursday | 10:30-12:00
The Ancients and Shakespeare on Justice and Happiness
Anne Hall, Lecturer in English
In this course, we will wrestle with questions fundamental to a liberal
education—the nature of human happiness and its connection to justice.
In sifting these questions, we will turn to the thought of the ancient
Greek philosophers and of Shakespeare. With the various thinkers we
take up, we will be considering the nature of the human soul, the connection
between knowledge and virtuous action, the importance of friendship,
and the importance to happiness of the individual’s connection
to his or her political community. We will read Plato’s Gorgias,
Phaedrus, and sections of The Republic; we will also read Aristotle’s
Nicomachean Ethics; and finally we will read Shakespeare’s Tempest,
Henry IV (Part I and Part II) and Hamlet. The focus in the writing assignments
will be to formulate a thinker’s argument as precisely as possible.
(Distribution III: Arts and Letters)
ENGL (197) 016.301 | Monday, Wednesday & Friday | 10:00 – 11:00
The Idea of a University
Dan Traister, Adjunct Assistant Professor of English
Taking its title from Cardinal Newman’s book about what a university
ought to be, this class will look at his and other ideas about the ideal—or
not so ideal—university. Occupants of the “real” world
often distinguish it from the “academic” world, making their
own real life experiences a basis for discounting or active contempt
of those whose lives are merely academic. In turn, academics may scorn
those who grub in the world and see their own as the only environment
in which disinterested thought and research can take place. Whatever
their status within the academy, faculty may feel marginalized by the
larger society in which they live, anxious to be heard by it yet frustrated
when they are not. Students may think (or have been told) that their
student years are “the best years of their lives.” Yet they
may also wait eagerly for graduation when they finally get out of school
to encounter reality. These and related constructions (academic vs.
real life; the best years of our lives; how we envisage academics in
society; how we envisage the idea of the university itself) are the
subject of this course.
We will read a few “theoretical” texts that consider the idea
of the university from a variety of perspectives. “Theoretical”
works—in addition to Newman’s—will be drawn from such
works as Bill Readings’ The University in Ruins, Stanley Aronowitzs’
The Knowledge Factory, Alvin B. Kernans’ In Plato’s Cave and
Lawrence W. Levines’ The Opening of the American Mind.
We will also read several very different kinds of texts: novels, works
perhaps unlike Newman’s that, explicitly fictitious, consider the
experience of the university from the points of view of students and
faculty. Such “fictions” will be drawn from Owen Johnson’s
Stover at Yale, Willa Cather’s The Professor’s House, William
Maxwell’s The Folded Leaf, Randall Jarrell’s Pictures from
an Institution, Kingsley Amis’ Lucky Jim, David Lodge’s Changing
Places, John Williams Stoner’s Alice Kaplans’ French Lessons,
Mark Merlis’ American Studies, Jane Smiley’s Moo and Richard
Russo’s Straight Man.
This class will require a good deal of reading (although the titles
mentioned above are intended to be indicative only—they are not
a syllabus!). It will have neither a midterm nor a final. Students will
write three short papers, and one longer final one. Those papers will
ask students variously to respond to the readings or to think about
the nature of “the
university” on the basis not only of those readings but also of
their own experience of the university in their second semester at one.
(Distribution III: Arts and Letters)
ENGL (197) 016.302 | Tuesday & Thursday | 1:30 – 3:00
The Next Millennium:
Would Technology Help Us Solve the Environmental Dilemma?
Krimo Bokreta, House Dean in Kings Court English House and Lecturer
in Environmental Studies and Jorge Santiago-Aviles, Faculty Master in
Kings Court English House and Professor of Electrical Engineering
Over the last century we have witnessed the dominance of man over nature.
Technology, our understanding of our environment and our consumption
habits have been the principal weapons used to achieve this conquest.
Now, at the beginning of a new millennium, many questions and concerns
about our actions and perceptions are being raised. Can today’s
technology and the new knowledge about our environment and human nature
assure our survival? How can we use the next one hundred years to reconstruct
and restore our future? These are the fundamental questions that the
class will investigate. The course will rely on evidence, the use of
hypothesis and theories, logic as well as the students’ scientific
inquiry and creativity. We will discuss systems, models and simulations,
constancy, patterns of change, evolution and scale. (Distribution I:
Society)
ENVS (201) 098.301 | Tuesday | 7:00 – 9:30
History of American Education
Anita Gelburd, Assistant to the Deputy Provost
This course covers the development of education in the United States
from the European settlement of North America to the present. Topics
include: elementary education during colonial times, especially relating
to religious development; the roots of higher education; the Morrill
Act and the flourishing of public colleges; the post-Civil War emphasis
on research and the importation of the German university model; the
Progressive Era, including the role of education in the assimilation
of immigrant populations and the birth of the community college movement;
the increasing role of Federal research funding after World War II;
the effects of the Cold War on elementary and secondary education; the
modern shift from education as a tool of democracy to education as a
tool for economic development; and, access issues in the post-1960’s
era, including busing and affirmative action in college admissions.
(Distribution II: History and Tradition)
FRSM (233) 103.301 | Tuesday & Thursday | 10:30 – 12:00
Architecture Today
Witold Rybczynski, Professor of Urbanism
Why do buildings by different architects look so different? The Getty
Museum in Los Angeles, for example, is quite different from the Bilbao
Guggenheim; Rem Koolhas’ proposed library in Seattle is world’s
apart from Tom Beeby’s Harold T. Washington Library in Chicago.
In addition to site, function, and construction, architecture is affected
by style, and today there are many different stylistic approaches. Style
is neglected in most discussions of architecture yet it is central to
the design and appreciation of buildings. The seminar will examine the
role that style plays in the work of prominent contemporary architects
(e.g., Frank Gehry, Robert Venturi, Robert A.M. Stern, Norman Foster,
Jean Nouvel) both in the United States and abroad. Selected readings
will form the basis for written assignments that will include two 5-page
papers and one 10-page term paper. (Distribution III: Arts and Letters)
FRSM (233) 110.301 | Monday & Wednesday | 3:00 – 4:30
Freshman Recitation: Oceanography
Andrea Grottoli, Assistant Professor of Earth and Environmental Science
A study of the two-thirds of the earth covered by water. Composition,
structure, motions, and effects of ocean water. The ocean bottom, including
seafloor spreading and continental drift. Marine biology and geology.
Ocean resources. Web-based recitations use real-time data to solve contemporary
quantitative problems.
Students must register for both the lecture and a recitation. The recitation
listed below is restricted to freshmen. (General Requirement VI: Physical
World)
GEOL (289) 130.001 (lec) | Tuesday & Thursday | 10:30 – 12:00
GEOL (289) 130.201 (rec) | Monday | 10:00 – 11:00
Historians and Modernity
Julia Rudolph, Mellon Fellow in History
How do historians divide up the past? Do accepted historical categories—“the
Renaissance”, “the Enlightenment”, “the Progressive
Era”—reflect real periods that have beginnings and ends? Should
time, as some historians argue, be measured in a linear, progressive
direction, or, as others have claimed, should time be charted in other
directions—in cycles, in peaks and valleys, backwards as well as
forward? This seminar will consider these and other associated questions
about the relationship between present and past, causation and change,
through the study of the development of historical writing. We will
be particularly concerned with the construction of the notion of “modern
times” in the work of historians and theorists such as Petrarch,
Valla, Vico, Gibbon, Hegel, Marx and Weber. This course will fall under
both the pre and post-1800 designation, and focuses on European history.
(Distribution II: History and Tradition)
HIST (317) 101.301 | Monday | 2:00 – 5:00
Time and History in the Middle Ages: Jewish and
Christian Perspectives
Nina Caputo, Mellon Fellow in History
The basic rhythms of nature—the continuous alternation between
day and night, the passage of seasons—are markers of time that
are arguably accessible and discernible to nearly everyone. But the
translation of these natural phenomena by individuals or groups into
a system of signs renders human actions and experience meaningful: patterns
emerge and repeat, discrete events fall into sequence in a meaningful
story. This process of signification forms a crucial strand in the complex
web of culture, of community. In this class, we will consider medieval
Jewish and Christian conceptions of time and history, focusing on three
central issues: the role of time-keeping practices—calendars, ritual
cycles, counting the hours of the day, etc.—in fostering a common
religious faith and identity across time and space; the development
of distinct localized time-practices rooted in local culture and geography;
interpretations of creation and cosmic history. Primary source readings
will include St. Augustine, Gregory of Tours, monastic rules, Otto of
Freising, Talmudic sources, Rashi, and Nahmanides. We will also do a
broad survey of the secondary literature of time and medieval society.
(Distribution II: History and Tradition)
HIST (317) 101.302 | Monday | 2:00 – 5:00
Industrial Time in Nineteenth-Century America
Rosanne Currarino, Mellon Fellow in History
The political economy of industrial capitalism created new divisions
of time for Americans. Factory workers now “clocked in.” Railroads
demanded standardized time for efficient, and profitable, operation.
Middle-class lives were divided into time away from or at home, a split
with significant implications for gender roles and family life. Leisure,
or time away from work, assumed increasing importance in the lives of
working men and women. At the same time, Americans’ representations
of industrial time through prescriptive tracts, fiction and art created
new understandings of temporal divisions of life, proper uses of work
and leisure hours, and powerful protests to industrial capitalism. This
course will address the meaning and significance of industrial time
in the nineteenth century through intellectual and cultural history.
Specifically, it will investigate the effects and creation of industrial
time in relation to industrial labor, representations of work, conceptions
of production and distribution, Taylorization, women’s work and
resistance to industrial time. (Distribution II: History and Tradition)
HIST (317) 104.301 | Monday | 2:00 – 5:00
Science and the Body
Susan Lindee, Professor of History and Sociology of Science
This course will explore how scientific interpretations of the body
have reflected culture. Topics include biology of sex, 1700 to present,
racialized bodies, craniometry, eugenics and the social meaning of DNA.
(Distribution II: History and Tradition)
HSSC (321) 130.301 | Tuesday | 1:30 – 4:30
Knowledge and Social Structure
Henrika Kuklick, Professor of History and Sociology of Science
How does knowledge gain cultural authority? This course is designed
to consider that question, with special attention to the status of scientific
knowledge and the role of scientists in modern Western society. We will
assess these issues through readings in science studies, as well as
through the analysis of episodes such as the recent debates surrounding
the teaching of evolutionary science. (General Requirement VII: Science
Studies)
HSSC (321) 270.001 | Tuesday & Thursday | 12:00 – 1:30
Literature into Film
Joseph Luzzi, Visiting Assistant Professor of Italian
In this course, we will explore the formal and thematic issues inherent
in the process of adapting literary sources for cinema. We will examine
the transition from “text” to “image” by analyzing
how directors translate literary language, metaphor and allusions into
the medium of film. We will also study the cultural, political and social
forces that motivated directors in their literary and cinematic interpretations.
Among the texts/films we will consider are King Lear (Shakespeare and
Brook/Godard/Kurosawa), Death in Venice (Thomas Mann and Luchino Visconti),
The Dead (James Joyce and John Huston), Lolita (Vladimir Nabokov and
Stanley Kubrick), and Sense and Sensibility (Jane Austen and Ang Lee).
We will also discuss the recent proliferation in Hollywood of literary
“period” pieces based on the works of Edith Wharton, Henry
James and E. M. Forester. A peripheral goal of the course will be to
consider why certain national cinemas (for example, Italy) have been
able to produce such a high number of influential adaptations. (Distribution
III: Arts and Letters)
ITAL (349) 280.401 or FILM (215) 249.401 | Monday, Wednesday & Friday
| 12:00 – 1:00
Information and Reasoning
Robin Clark, Associate Professor of Linguistics
Everyone knows that language can be used to transmit information about
the world. It’s harder, though, to say exactly how this works.
In this class, we’ll consider natural language semantics from the
viewpoint of an information agent, an algorithmic entity designed to
extract information about the world from linguistic texts, dialogues
in particular. We will consider how meanings for texts can be built
up systematically. The course will gradually develop a dynamic view
of linguistic meanings. The course does not presuppose a knowledge of
mathematics, although we will introduce some mathematical concepts useful
to linguistic semantics and to an algorithmic approach to meanings as
they become necessary. (Sector IV: Formal Reasoning and Analysis.)
LING (381) 052.301 | Monday & Wednesday | 3:00 – 4:30
Language and Cognition
David Embick, Assistant Professor of Linguistics
Humans have the ability to create and understand an infinite number
of sentences which they have never heard before. This ability is unique
among all the species of the world, although the exact ways in which
human language differs from animal communication systems is a matter
of ongoing discussion. Correlated with this ability is the fact that
children seem to automatically acquire the language spoken in the community
they are born into. This ability has led to the hypothesis that parts
of the human brain are specifically designed for language, and to the
investigation of linguistic ability in a number of related disciplines,
such as linguistics, psychology, cognitive neuroscience and computer
science.
The course examines several topics in the study of language and its
relation to cognition. Because of its apparently species-specific nature,
language is central to the study of the human mind. We will pursue an
interdisciplinary approach to such questions in this course, moving
from the structures of language as revealed by linguistic theory to
connections with a number of related fields that are broadly referred
to as the ‘cognitive sciences.’ A number of specific topics
will be addressed from these related fields. The structures of language
and its role in human cognition will be set against the background of
animal communication systems. We will examine the question of how children
acquire extremely complex linguistic systems without explicit instruction,
drawing on psychological work on the language abilities of children.
Additional attention will be focused on the question of how language
is represented and computed in the brain, and, correspondingly, how
this is studied with brain-imaging techniques. (This course has been
submitted to the General Requirement Committee for review and possible
inclusion in Sector V: Living World.)
LING (381) 058.301 | Tuesday & Thursday | 3:00 – 4:30
Freshman Seminars in Mathematics
Freshman seminars in the math department at Penn aim to give the student
an early exposure to the creative side of mathematics, with an emphasis
on discovery, reasoning, proof and effective communication. Small class
sizes permit an informal, discussion-type atmosphere, and often the
entire class works together on a given problem. Homework is intended
to be thought provoking, rather than skill sharpening.
Each seminar meets for one-and-a-half hours per week, and an entire
year counts for one credit unit. Students may register for one or both
semesters. It is recommended that math majors take both semesters.
One or the other of these seminars is required for the math major, but
both are open to all students interested in mathematics. The best time
to take these seminars is in the freshman or sophomore year. This course
does not satisfy the General Requirement; however, virtually all students
who take it will also take calculus, which does satisfy the Formal Reasoning
and Analysis Requirement.
Introduction to Mathematical Analysis (has a calculus flavor)
Herman Gluck, Professor of Mathematics
MATH (409) 201.301 | Tuesday | 12:00 – 1:30
MATH (409) 201.302 | Thursday | 12:00 – 1:30Introduction to Modern Algebra (has a more algebraic flavor)
Peter Freyd, Professor of Mathematics
MATH (409) 205.301 | Tuesday | 1:30 – 3:00
MATH (409) 205.302 | Thursday | 1:30 – 3:00
Introduction to Philosophy
Curtis Bowman, Lecturer in Philosophy
In this course we will investigate the topic of philosophical anthropology,
i.e., the philosophical study of what it is to be human, as a means
of introducing students to philosophy in general. We will do this by
looking at several traditional themes: ethics, freedom and death. Since
these issues concern everyone, we can begin to develop a philosophical
view of what it is to be human by studying them in some detail. (General
Requirement II: History and Tradition)
PHIL (493) 001.301 | Monday & Wednesday | 3:00 – 4:30
Introduction to Philosophy
Thomas Meyer, Lecturer in Philosophy
An introduction to such topics as our knowledge of the material world,
the relation of mind and body, the existence of God, the nature of morality.
(General Requirement II: History and Tradition)
PHIL (493) 001.302 | Tuesday & Thursday | 3:00 – 4:30
Introduction to Philosophy
Lucas Thorpe, Lecturer in Philosophy
An introductory survey of some central philosophical issues, including:
Is there a God? What is the relationship between the mind and the body?
Are free will and determinism incompatible? Readings will be taken from
both contemporary and historical sources. (General Requirement II: History
and Tradition)
PHIL (493) 001.303 | Tuesday & Thursday | 10:30 – 12:00
Honors Physics II: Electromagnetism and Radiation
Alan Johnson, Assistant Professor of Physics
This course parallels and extends the content of Physics 151 at a somewhat
higher mathematical level. It is the second semester of a small-section
two-semester sequence for well-prepared students in engineering and
the physical sciences, and particularly for those planning to major
in physics. Topics will include electric and magnetic fields; CoulombÕs,
AmpereÕs and FaradayÕs laws; MaxwellÕs equation; emission, propagation
and absorption of electromagnetic radiation; and geometrical and physical
optics. Prerequisite: Successful completion of Physics 170 or permission
of the instructor. Students must register for the lecture and the lab.
Non-honors students need permission. Prerequisites are MATH 240 and
PHYS 150 or PHYS 170, or permission of instructor. (General Requirement
VI: Physical World)
PHYS (497) 171.301 (lec) | Monday, Wednesday & Friday | 10:00 Ð 11:00
Monday | 2:00 Ð 3:00
PHYS (497) 171.302 (lab) | Wednesday | 1:00 Ð 3:00
Issues in American Democracy
Henry Teune, Professor of Political Science
A discussion of persisting and new issues in American democratic theory
and practice. The topics covered will include not only freedom vs. equalty,
society vs. government, and local vs. national government but also recent
events shaped by global change. They are the decline in citizenship/voting,
global constraints on democratic choice and global democratic pressures
to change U.S. policies on criminal punishment, education and the environment.
Special consideration will be given to the idea of ÒAmerican exceptionalism.Ó
Readings will be both classical and contemporary. (Distribution I: Society)
PSCI (505) 009.301 | Wednesday | 2:00 Ð 5:00
The Politics of Food
Mary Summers, Senior Lecturer in Political Science
From the world to your mouth and back again.... The politics of labor,
trade, energy, the environment, advertising, agriculture, health, work,
gender roles and family life all play a role in what we eat. This seminar
will use a variety of readings and research projects to analyze the
connections and conflicts shaping food production and consumptionÑand
their consequencesÑin West Philadelphia and around the world. (Distribution
I: Society)
PSCI (505) 009.302 | Monday | 2:00 Ð 5:00
Religion and Violence
Stephen Dunning, Professor of Religious Studies
September 11, 2001, is a date that few Americans now alive will ever
forget. Images of the World Trade Center exploding in flames and then
collapsing in a cloud of death and debris haunt us, and the vulnerability
demonstrated by the simultaneous attack on the Pentagon fills us with
anxiety. According to the U.S. government investigators, the people
responsible for these acts of terrorism were Islamic extremists, men
who believed that their violent deeds would please God and win them
a place in heaven. Likewise, Timothy McVeigh and abortion clinic bombers
invoke Christianity to justify their terrorism, Jewish terrorists successfully
plotted the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin, and violent acts
have been performed in recent years by Hindus, Sikhs, and Buddhists.
This seminar will address three questions: When can an act of violence
be called Òreligious?Ó Are religions inherently violent and, if so,
how? And how do different religions deal with human violence? (Distribution
I: Society)
RELS (541) 108.301 | Tuesday & Thursday | 1:30 Ð 3:00
Diversity in Higher Education
Jerry Jacobs, Professor of Sociology
This course will explore the changing nature of higher education in
our emerging post-industrial society. We will pay special attention
to contemporary controversies regarding issues of social diversity in
higher education, including gender, race, ethnicity and social class.
We will consider these issues in historical and comparative context.
We will discuss current research in progress that examines whether the
student population in colleges and universities is becoming more or
less diverse. We will examine issues that pertain to adult students
who return to school as well as those who enroll in their late teens
and early twenties. (Distribution I: Society)
SOCI (589) 041.301 | Tuesday & Thursday | 10:30 Ð 12:00
Indians Overseas: A Global View
Surendra Gambhir, Senior Lecturer in South Asia Regional Studies
This course is about the history of Indian immigration into different
parts of the world. The course will consist of readings, discussions,
observations, data collection and analysis. The topics will include
cultural preservation and cultural change through generations, especially
in North America, the Caribbean, the United Kingdom and the African
continent. The course will encourage organized thinking, observations
and analysis of components of culture that immigrant communities are
able to preserve in the long run and cultural components that undergo
change or get reinterpreted. In this context, we will look at entities
such as religion, food, language and family. The course will include
immigrantsÕ success stories, their contributions, their relationship
with other groups in the new society and the nature and extent of their
links with India. The course will also address conflict with other sections
of the host society, including discrimination against and victimization
of immigrants. Other issues will include new social and cultural concerns
of immigrants and the rise of new community organizations such as temples
and cultural organizations to address those issues. The course will
benefit from the study of other immigrant communities around the world.
This broader literature would allow students to see what is common across
different immigrant groups and what might be specific to the East Indian
communities. This course aims at involving students in discussions,
enlightening them about different components of culture and drawing
some general conclusions. (Distribution II: History and Tradition)
SARS (593) 012.301 | Monday & Wednesday | 3:00 Ð 4:30
Crime & Punishment
Eric Schneider, Adjunct Associate Professor of History
How have definitions of crime and forms of punishment changed over time?
What have been the uses and legacy of extra-legal violence? How have
the forms of crime and punishment reflected the structure of American
society? Using both historical and contemporary texts, this seminar
will explore these and other questions and in the process analyze the
development of juvenile justice, the organization of corrections, the
application of the death penalty and the rise of the drug economy. (Distribution
II: History and Tradition)
URBS (657) 110.301 | Tuesday & Thursday | 3:00 Ð 4:30
