Published: November 15, 2007

With the semester coming to a close next month, it is important to begin thinking about what courses you should take for the upcoming spring semester. Even if you have already made your schedule, these new course offerings are interesting enough to make you log back on to OASIS and rearrange your schedule.

Check out these new spring courses before it’s too late to change your mind!

Communications and Media Studies

History of Women’s Magazines
CMLU 4606
Amy Aronson
Tues. and Fri.. 11:30 a.m. – 12:45 p.m.

Explore popular women’s magazines like “Cosmopolitan” and “Ladies’ Home Journal,” and the questions they  evoke such as “what [these magazines] say, what they mean, and the impact they have on gender identities, social roles, and American life,” Professor Amy Aronson said.

Writing TV Dramas
CMEU 3305
Matthew Hall
Mon., 6 – 8:45 p.m.

Learn about the principles of dramatic writing and how to apply them by writing your very own television scripts for programs including soap operas and docudramas.

Latino Journalism
LLGA 5023
Luisita Lopez Torregrosa
Tues., 6 – 8:45 p.m.

Though a graduate level course, Latino Journalism will also be open to undergrads with permission. In this reporting and writing workshop, students will write and evaluate news, profiles and feature articles and how they reflect and report on Latin America and Latino subjects and issues. This course is also cross-listed with Latin American Studies.

Mass Media and National Identity
CMLG 3681
Jonathan Gray
Mon. and Thurs., 10 – 11:15 a.m.

This course is not exactly new; it was last offered in 2003, but it will be new to all current students. “We’ll look at how America and other countries’ national character, politics, history, and goals have been enunciated in the media, and how the media have been a battleground for competing visions of the nation,” Professor Jonathan Gray said.

Philosophy

Love, Care, Self, Autonomy
PHLU 3972
John Davenport
Mon. and Thurs., 2:30-3:45 p.m.

The course “tries to bridge the gap between philosophical work on agency and work on personality and emotions in psychology,” Professor John Davenport said.

Mind, Matter and Form
PHLU 4220
William Jaworski
Mon. and Wed., 1- 2:15 p.m.

Professor William Jaworski described this course as “a cross between philosophy of mind and philosophy of Aristotle.” Students will explore the possibility that Aristotle may have understood the nature of the mind better than philosophers in the present day.

Classical Values: The Art of Living
PHLV 3515
Babette Babich
Tues., 6 – 8:45 p.m.

Using readings from Homer, Pindar, Aeschylus, Sophocles and other classical philosophy readings, this Senior Values course explores the classic ideal of the art of living and care of the self.

Middle East Studies

Civil Wars in Africa
AALG 3072
Amir Idris
Tues. and Fri., 1:00 – 2:15 p.m.

“The course enables students to understand the historical and political factors that contributed to the [African civil wars],” Professor Amir Idris said. It will also help students “to move away from the popular Western misconception that the root causes of the conflict lie in the ethnic and tribal structures of the African societies.”

Sociology and Anthropology

Politics of Reproduction
SOLG 3260
Hosu Kim
Tues. and Fri., 2:30 – 3:45 p.m.

Use cross-cultural and social historical materials to examine cases in which the control over reproduction is consented while focusing on family, religion, morality, health, economy and government.

Latin American Social Movements
ANLG 3476
Stuart Rockefeller
Mon. and Thurs., 2:30 – 3:45 p.m.

Learn about Latin America’s current social movements and the underlying social problems that have inspired these important movements.

Political Anthropology
ANLG 3365
Richard Kernaghan
Tues. and Fri., 1 – 2:15 p.m.

Examine contributions made by socio-cultural anthropology to political thought through ethnographic readings in this Global Studies course. The roles of language, violence and rituals played in the life of political groups will also be considered.

Commuters, Clocks and Roads
ANLG 4010
Richard Kernaghan,
Tues. and Fri., 2:30 – 3:45 p.m.

Commuters and travelers as rendered in works of ethnography, historiography, literature and film will be explored in this class. Students will be encouraged to conduct “transportation research” in the New York area.

Literary Studies

Romantic Encounters
COLU 3426
M. Cheng
Tues. and Fri., 10 – 11:15 a.m.

This course considers a wide array of fiction and non-fiction from the Romantic period that concerns themes of cultural and national differences, exploration and tourism.  Students will emerge with an understanding of the connection between the idea of the foreign and the role of the writer in the Romantic period and will be introduced to theories of gender, representation, and discourse analysis.

Representing Art in Literature
COEU 4412
Andrew Clark
Wed.,  6 – 8:45 p.m.

“The course is looking at a crisis in representation that arises around the portrait (painted not literary) and its verbal representation in French and English literature,” said Professor Andrew Clark.

Cross-listed with Modern Languages and Literature

Writing Violence: Peru 1980-2000
SPLU 3730
Cynthia Vich
Mon. and Thur., 2:30 – 3:45p.m.

Taught completely in Spanish, “the course aims to give an insight into the logics of political violence in this particular context (Peru in the late 20th Century), showing how substantial works of fiction, poetry, film, visual art and academic discourse have reflected on the issue,” Professor Cynthia Vich said.