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Course Criteria
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3.00 Credits
This course examines a variety of masterworks and artists fromthe western traditions of art, dance, music, and theater. Thecourse situates art and artists in historical perspective, emphasizesClassicism, Romanticism, Modernism and relates them tocontemporary modes of expression. Works of art will be presentedin context, so the impact of historical circumstance and culturalexpectation on the creative artist will be apparent. Students willrespond through oral and written analysis to masterworks studiedin class and to works experienced at outside performances. Whileall sections of the course will include historic masterworks from thefields of art, theater, dance, and music, specific content of individualsections will reflect the interests and expertise of the professor.Throughout the semester, we also examine the work and ideas westudy in order to explore the role, meaning and implications ofquestions that have shaped the human experience: Who am I? Whatcan I know? How should I act?
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3.00 Credits
Prerequisite: Core seminar, required for graduationCore 101 through 105 and at least sixth semester standingA variable -content Core Interdisciplinary Senior Seminar that buildsupon the foundation of the five-course interdisciplinary Core. Eachoffering addresses a topic of recognized academic and educationalsignificance, situates the topic in interdisciplinary contexts, makesconnections between the domains of the freshman-sophomore Core,pursues inquiry into the course topic and its context through primary,substantive and Representative texts, and organizes the SeminarTopic according t o one or more of the following schemes: great ideas,cultures, figures, or works (Western and/or non-Western).
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3.00 Credits
Prerequisite: Core seminar, required for graduationCore 101 through 105 and at least sixth semester standingThroughout history, disease epidemics have had a profound impacton societies. In this course, students explore how five diseases(bubonic plague, smallpox, tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV) haveinfluenced the art, literature, science, and behavior of culturesthrough time. We examine how individuals and societies try to regaincontrol and bring order back from the chaos and confusion thatdisease can leave in its wake.Readings include, but are not limited to, works by Boccaccio,Defoe, Boorstin, Jenner, Koch, Sontag, Mann, and Shilts; reportsissued by the Center for Disease Control; and current scientificarticles.
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3.00 Credits
Prerequisite: Core seminar, required for graduationCore 101 through 105 and at least sixth semester standingIn this course we explore the conditions that promote someof the most devastating aspects of human experience. We alsolook at the options available to citizens, minority and majoritymembers, caught in the complex web of interpersonal relationsin these societies. The Holocaust and other genocides will beused to assess cultural commonalities. We approach these eventsfrom an interdisciplinary perspective drawing on the historicalantecedents, scientific contributions, uses of art and literature,philosophical rationales, propaganda campaigns, and socialscientific orientations. Discussion concludes with an explorationof ways by which individual prejudice can be reduced and with an investigation of measures which may prevent further episodes ofgenocide. Texts include: Night/Dawn, Conscience and Courage,short stories by Singer, Books of Evil.
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3.00 Credits
Prerequisite: Core seminar, required for graduationCore 101 through 105 and at least sixth semester standingFrom the Monopoly board game to the Periodic Chart, we take theworld we live in and put it in order. Understanding how things arecategorized gives us a power over our world and finding a new wayto order our world results in ground breaking discoveries. Just thinkof the scientific advances made possible once we understood thatthe planets revolve around the Sun instead of the Earth! This courseinvestigates the history of set structures and categories established inour own primarily European-based culture, and compares them withhow people organize their world in other cultures of contemporaryand ancient Asia, Africa, Oceania and Native America.Readings include selections from: Mark Francis and RandolphHester, Jr. (eds.), The Meaning of Gardens: Ideas, Place andAction (on landscape design); Ivan Karp and Steven Lavine,Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display(on classification of artifacts); Martin W. Lewis and Karen Wigen,The Myth of the Continents: A Critique of Metageography (onclassifications of geography and mapping); Harriet Ritvo, The Platypusand the Mermaid, and Other Figments of the Classifying Imagination;Nathan Spielberg and Bryon D. Anderson, Seven Ideas that Shookthe Universe; Mark Turner, The Literary Mind; and excerpts fromcontemporary films: Party Girl, Angels and Insects, A Day on theGrand Canal With the Emperor of China.
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3.00 Credits
Prerequisite: Core seminar, required for graduationCore 101 through 105 and at least sixth semester standingAll societies share in the struggle between the forces of order andchaos. In this course students explore this struggle, examining crossculturalconnections between Western culture and the cultures ofIndia and China and investigating the similarities and differencesamong these cultures.Readings include selections from: Time Frames in History, OurOriental Heritage, Rig Veda, Kathopanisad, Arthashastra, Asoka'sRock Edicts, The Gandhi Reader, Saints of India, The Koran, I Ching,Anthologies of Chinese Literature, Mao's Red Book, Sources ofChinese Traditions, Chinese Civilization: A Source Book, and China,A New History.
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3.00 Credits
Prerequisite: Core seminar, required for graduationCore 101 through 105 and at least sixth semester standingThe common materials selected for this seminar are works createdby Americans during the period of study that reflects the developingAmerican image contemporary with their time. Additionally, studentsundertake and present the results of independent research onsignificant individuals, events, and trends of the period to broadenthe area of class inquiry. Weekly discussion focuses on assessing andcombining information from all sources to find common threads thatconnect this pivotal time period with our own.Readings include: The Beautiful and Damned by F. ScottFitzgerald; Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis; Their Eyes Were WatchingGod by Zora Neale Hurston; The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.
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3.00 Credits
Prerequisite: Core seminar, required for graduationCore 101 through 105 and at least sixth semester standingLiterally, the word "utopia" means "no place." Yet, throughout history,people have imagined they could establish an ideal community in this temporal world of time and space. Often, the societies they envisionedwere more just, prosperous, spiritual, beautiful, or compassionate thanthose that existed; at other times, what they proposed could only becharacterized by the greed, cruelty, and ignorance it would engender.Participants in this course will study "utopia" as a concept anda theme, a theory and a practice. This survey will take us from thepages of Thomas More's Utopia to the ungoverned virtual space ofthe Internet. In the process, we will consider the way knowledge ofutopias and dystopias shapes our world view and forms our ethos.Readings include: The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood,Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy, Herland by Charlotte PerkinsGilman, Utopia by Thomas More, The Republic by Plato, Walden Twoby B.F. Skinner, and Night by Elie Wiesel.
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3.00 Credits
Prerequisite: Core seminar, required for graduationCore 101 through 105 and at least sixth semester standingThis course attempts to open our minds and imaginations to thecomplex subtleties of underlying gender assumptions implicit ingender/role "assignments." From the first moments of our history, wehuman beings have categorized our surroundings, including our veryselves, in an attempt to order our chaotic world. Stereotyping-reducinga complexity to a simple, easily identifiable formula, becomes anintegral part of that ordering, a sort of communication "shorthand."Sexual stereotyping becomes, for most civilizations, the basis notonly for social structuring and division of labor, but also for valuejudgments and moral justification. Through the interdisciplinary lens- archeological, anthropological, artistic, economic, legal, literary,historical, philosophical, religious and scientific, this course seeksto unearth the complex beginnings and plot the evolution of sexualdefinition from prehistory to present day.
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3.00 Credits
Prerequisite: Core seminar, required for graduationCore 101 through 105 and at least sixth semester standingWhereas ethics examines the interaction of humans with humans,Environmental Ethics examines the interaction of humans with nature.This is a relatively young field of study originating from a series ofhighly visible, interdisciplinary conflicts over resource managementand conservation biology. It took years for society to recognize that wehave the ability to irreversibly alter the environment, and even longerfor us to develop a conscience over the result. Although we might liketo think that the application of logical, objective scientific reasoningto environmental problems will lead to correct decisions, this is rarelythe case. This course will introduce students to the philosophical,social, political, legal, economic and aesthetic considerations ofenvironmental policy decisions. Students will come to understandthe science behind a series of diverse environmental topics andthen examine and balance the alternative perceptions that presentthemselves. This will engender discussion and reflection on the centralquestions of the RWU Core program (Who am I? What can I know?Based on what I know, how should I act?) as applied to environmentalpolicy decisions.
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