The Byrne Seminars

Humanities

Other Areas: Sciences • Social Sciences

Researching the "Real" Dracula
Stephen Reinert (History)

This seminar will introduce students to the methods that historians use to sort through layers of myth and fiction in order to excavate the realities behind a prominent figure of history. The subject is a fifteenth-century Wallachian prince, Vlad III Tsepesh, now known as Dracula. Evidence of his reality and his myth will be drawn from film, literature, folklore, and period pamphlets and woodcuts. Students will investigate the history of Dracula, interpret the nature of the evidence, analyze the images presented, and discuss how and why the authors of those images constructed this figure in the ways that they did.

section 61, index 37205

Twin Towers: The Rise and Fall of the World Trade Center
Angus Kress Gillespie (American Studies)

The attack on the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001 marked one of the most unforgettable days in American history. This seminar will focus on the history of the Twin Towers, from construction to destruction; on current efforts to rebuild; and on the status of the World Trade Center Memorial. Through discussion, documentary films, and guest lectures, we will engage in an inquiry together to address questions such as: Could the attacks have been predicted and prevented? Was there a conspiracy afterwards to hide the facts from the American people? Professor Gillespie's best-selling book on the Twin Towers will serve as the foundational text for the course.

section 22, index 30919

Images and Texts: An Artful Relationship
Ferris Olin and Judith K. Brodsky (Directors, Institute for Women and Art)

How do images and words interact in societies and artistic communities? How are images changed by the inclusion of words? How does the meaning of a word change as a result of being paired with an image? In this course, students will be introduced to works by artists and poets who employ texts in their images or whose words form images. Professors Olin and Brodsky will join with Cecilia Vicuña, a Chilean born installation and performance artist/poet, whose work is on exhibit in fall 2009 during her tenure as Visiting Artist in Residence for the Dana Women Artists Series at Rutgers. Brodsky, Olin, and Vicuña will work with students to create their own projects incorporating words and images. This is an interdisciplinary seminar requiring no previous art or writing experience. Students from all disciplines are encouraged to apply.

section 47, index 30937

Contact Improvisation - Building Body Awareness and Confidence in Daily Life
John Evans (Dance)

In this seminar you will learn a partner dance form called Contact Improvisation. We’ll explore spatial and body awareness, “personal space” and “public space” boundaries, and body language in communication. We will work to achieve and understand how an ease in movement can lead to greater personal confidence and an expanded awareness of the life we are living. Sweats or loose comfortable clothing should be worn; we will move some in every class. Students will keep journals of their movement experiences and observations, and will write on movement-related topics based on assigned readings.

section 15, index 30912

Of Murder and Men: The Case of Dashiell Hammett
Arthur D. Casciato (Director, Office of Distinguished Fellowships, Undergraduate Education)

Our seminar will focus on the writing of Dashiell Hammett and the American hard-boiled detective novel as it has been made (and re-made) into film. At the heart of our inquiry will be the ways in which this popular literary genre both earns and evades its bad reputation as unrelentingly and violently woman-hating. Are there moments in Hammett's career in which he challenges narrow cultural norms of masculinity? Can we find expression in his writing of how a man might change and free himself from traditional social and sexual attitudes? We will explore the possibility that the real crime here concerns the ways in which the movies themselves have robbed the novels of whatever liberatory potential they possess. Readings will include Red Harvest, The Maltese Falcon, The Glass Key, and The Thin Man.

section 06, index 32306

Autism in Literature and Culture
Ann Jurecic (English)

In recent years, magazines and newspapers have reported the inexplicable rise of Autism Spectrum Disorders. With autism’s rise in prevalence and our growing awareness, the disorder is also developing an increasingly powerful cultural resonance. In this seminar, students will explore fact and fiction about autism by reading a range of contemporary texts: scientific journalism, a short novel, as well as memoirs, blogs, and other web publications by people with autism or Asperger’s Syndrome. Using these readings, we will discuss questions about culture and autism, among them: How has culture historically shaped scientific understandings of autism? How is autism depicted in literature and film? What does it mean to speak of “autistic identity” and “autistic culture”? This course is part of a special cluster of courses and events offered at Rutgers in 2009-2010 on the general topic of autism.

section 33, index 30928

Baseball and Literature
Annie King (English)

If you spend the cold winter months counting down the days until pitchers and catchers report for spring training, then you already know what compels novelists, playwrights, and even political pundits to write so passionately on the excitement and frustration, joy and heartbreak of America’s pastime. Both fans and critics alike dissect the economic, sociological, and mathematical aspects of baseball, but in this seminar we will focus on writers who are simply in love with the game itself and will explore the ways in which the game has influenced their work.

section 34, index 30929

Textual Representation and the Female Body
Stacy S. Klein (English)

This seminar will explore how textual representations of the female body shape cultural understandings of beauty, power, sexuality, gender, faith, and the idea of representation itself. Our readings will range widely, from Ovid’s tale of a man changing into an insect, to medieval chronicles of women’s self-starvation, to critical essays that explore spaces for showcasing or re-making the female body, such as strip clubs, beauty pageants, fashion shows, health clubs, plastic surgery, and pornography. Students will draw on their own experiences of inhabiting or interacting with the female body to question how such representations function in our lives today.

section 35, index 30930

Poets of New Jersey
Carolyn Williams (English)

What does it mean to be a poet of place? How does growing up or living in a particular region affect a writers’ view of the world? This seminar will focus on a number of poets who have called New Jersey home, including some of America’s greatest and most-known: Walt Whitman, William Carlos Williams, Allen Ginsberg, Amiri Baraka, and Robert Pinsky (a Rutgers grad and recent Poet Laureate of the United States). We will read and discuss the work of several current and former Rutgers faculty members as well, including Alicia Ostriker, Evie Shockley, Miguel Algarin, and Rachel Hadas. Students will participate in creating a short anthology of New Jersey Poets with Professor Williams.

section 57, index 30943

Every Little Move She Makes: A Mysterious Statue in a Classic Short Story
Uri Eisenzweig (French; Comparative Literature)

In Mérimée’s short story "The Venus of Ille" (1838), the only explanation of a mysterious death appears to be unthinkable: a statue that moves. The statue represents the Roman goddess Venus, but the setting is nineteenth-century southern France, and the character who narrates the story is a man of science. Modern science knows that statues do not move—and yet… In this seminar we will do a close reading of Mérimée’s beautifully structured story (in English translation), and discuss its contrasts, tensions, and paradoxes. Students will be introduced to some basic aspects of contemporary literary analysis. What does this story say to us about the (modern) relation between fiction and reality?

section 14, index 30911

Grimm Fairy Tales: Then and Now
Marlene Ciklamini (German)

The Grimm Fairy Tales have sparked a lively interest from scholars, writers, poets and artists since the 1800s. Scholars immediately recognized the universal nature of the tales and their value as national treasures. Poets and writers drew inspiration from the psychological wisdom of the tales. Today, these tales continue to inspire psychologists, modern writers, artists. and movie directors. This seminar will explore the international fascination and universal appeal of the Grimm collection across many mediums, including Disney films.

section 09, index 30906

Wild Women
Martha B. Helfer (German)

Wild women, crazy women, sexy women, women on the edge: This seminar examines “woman” as the site of cultural and aesthetic critique in literature, art and film, in conjunction with readings from feminist theory. Examples will be taken from fairy tales, history and mythology. Students will develop critical reading and writing skills and gain an introduction to interdisciplinary research in the humanities.

section 25, index 30922

Our Threatened Planet: Ecology in Film
Fatima Naqvi (Germanic, Russian and East European Languages and Literatures) In this seminar, we’ll view several documentary films on the threatened state of the earth’s environment. The subject was popularized by Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth (part of which will be included in the course), but we will focus on three Austrian films released in 2004/2005. What is the unique perspective of artists who come from a small European country that is very concerned with environmental issues? We will read blogs and magazine articles that discuss the interplay between reality and the images in these films. We’ll also compare American vs. European narratives of environmental damage, in relation to their respective political and economic circumstances.

section 45, index 35946

Dying Divas
Rudolph M. Bell (History)

This seminar explores the motif of female death as performed in Grand Opera. The quintessential soprano role finds women killed by their jealous suitors or even their fathers; brides who poison themselves, often after mortally stabbing the husband imposed upon them; and divas who join their lovers in death rather than live without them. The seminar focuses on Italian opera seria, with excursions for Wagner’s Brunnhilde and Bizet’s Carmen, and includes heroines from such operas as Lucia di Lammemoor, La Traviata, Aida, and Madama Butterfly. We will attend a live performance at the Metropolitan Opera in NYC.

section 04, index 30903

Oral History and the American Experience in World War II
John W. Chambers (History)

This seminar introduces you to oral history as a methodology for helping to reconstruct the social and cultural history of the past. We will focus on the experience of Americans overseas and at home during the Second World War. Students will learn to use the acclaimed Rutgers Oral History Archives of World War II, Korea, Vietnam and the Cold War (ROHA – http://oralhistory.rutgers.edu), including how to conduct an oral history interview. We'll analyze readings, films, and oral history interviews with veterans and people on the home front.

section 07, index 30904

The Loeb-Leopold Kidnapping and Murder Case of 1924
Paul G. E. Clemens (History)

This seminar will explore from multiple perspectives a sensational kidnapping and murder case from the 1920s. The case is significant because of the involvement of Clarence Darrow, the most famous trial lawyer of that time, and because of the questions raised about the death penalty and the role of the press in sensationalizing the story. The subsequent fictionalization of the case in literature and movies, such as the 1956 novel Compulsion and Alfred Hitchcock’s classic film Rope (1948), will also be addressed. In this course you will be exposed to different types of historical inquiry and find out how historians approach their craft.

section 10, index 30907

The Salem Witch Craze
Phyllis Mack (History)

In this seminar we will investigate the culture of witchcraft—the values, assumptions, and attitudes that have generated beliefs about witches, both in earlier times and in our own day. We will also examine witchcraft as a crime, specifically, during the witch craze of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which resulted in thousands of executions, mainly (but not exclusively) of women. Our focus is the craze at Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. We will discuss this episode in the context of the history of women and gender, and in relation to religious and cultural values in the early modern period in Europe and America.

section 39, index 35937

Secrets of the 1950s: Alfred Kinsey and the Institute for Sex Research
James Reed (History)

Alfred Kinsey was a pioneer in the area of human sexuality research and founder of the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction. He was one of the first scientists to publish research that addressed human sexual behavior. This seminar will examine Kinsey’s research, and his efforts to gain support for the repeal of sex offender laws in the context of the red and lavender scares of the McCarthy era. Students will view the movie Kinsey and the PBS American Experience documentary on Kinsey. Readings will include the novel The Inner Circle and autobiographical accounts by gays and other sexual minorities of their experiences during the 1950s.

section 50, index 30939

Stephen Sondheim and Writing for Musical Theatre
Richard Chrisman (Music)

Award winning composer Stephen Sondheim is widely regarded as the most important figure in American musical theatre in the late twentieth century—well known as lyricist for West Side Story and composer/lyricist of the music for Sweeney Todd. In this course, we will explore the process of lyric writing and music composition through study of Sondheim’s musical theatre works. We’ll examine musical numbers, from the simplest theater format to full scenes involving songs, dialogue, and action. Broadway protocol and standards for lyric writing, in contrast to that of “popular” music, will be outlined; individual songs will be analyzed and discussed in terms of their form, style, and dramatic placement. We may write some songs ourselves.

section 08, index 30905

Surprise, Nature and Genius: Reading Emerson and Thoreau
Kathleen Hull (Director, Byrne Seminars)

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82) and Henry David Thoreau (1817-62) believed that philosophy should be a lived practice. Their philosophical vision influenced people throughout the world, including Nietzsche, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Seeing life as perilous and uncertain, they advocated an alert response to the world involving finding one’s inner “genius,” especially in relation to nature. They rejected conformity, consumerism, and useless forms of education; and, instead, invite us to trust the universe and to create a self on which we can rely. In this seminar we will read, luxuriously, long passages from On Walden Pond and essays by both these thinkers. On campus, we’ll take a walk around Passion Puddle and perhaps a hike in some more exotic woods, as we reflect on the challenge of finding ourselves and living thoughtfully in the world as a human being.

section 58, index 36022

Spontaneity and the Body-Mind Issue in Classical Taoism
Tao Jiang (Religion)

Taoism, one of the three major Chinese intellectual traditions along with Confucianism and Chinese Buddhism, is celebrated for its ideals of spontaneity and naturalness in human actions. These ideals are an attempt to capture the optimal freedom, ease, and efficacy in our human action, especially in certain cultivated and achieved forms, i.e., in artistic and athletic performances, wherein the body and the mind cooperate seamlessly. The Taoist version of these ideals provides us with intriguing perspectives on the nature of human actions, especially in relation to contemporary views of the body-mind relationship. In this seminar, we will explore these ideas through reading the Taoist classic, the Chuang Tzu (Zhuangzi).

section 31, index 30927

Performance and Politics in the Americas
Camilla Stevens (Spanish & Portuguese)

This seminar explores the relationship between performance and politics in the Americas. We will examine a wide range of embodied practices across the Americas: everyday social roles, cultural performances, theatrical performances, military and political spectacles, and social protests. How do such practices act as political interventions that support, or, conversely, critique, dominant ideologies? This seminar will appeal to students with interests in American and/or Latin American Studies, anthropology, political and social movements, performance, visual arts, music, or literature. Some knowledge of Spanish will be useful, but is not a pre-requisite for the course.

section 54, index 30942



Main Menu Home Fall '09 Seminars Humanities Sciences Social Science Spring '10 Seminars Humanities Sciences Social Science News & Events Student Resources How to Register Books Great Idea? Faculty Call for Proposals Enhancement Resources Faculty Surveys Great Idea? Book Orders & Photocopies Rosters/Grades Scheduling Time Social Events Team Teaching Workshops Quick Links Undergraduate Education Learning Communities RU-info		Humanities Other Areas: Sciences • Social Sciences Researching the "Real" Dracula Stephen Reinert (History) This seminar will introduce students to the methods that historians use to sort through layers of myth and fiction in order to excavate the realities behind a prominent figure of history. The subject is a fifteenth-century Wallachian prince, Vlad III Tsepesh, now known as Dracula. Evidence of his reality and his myth will be drawn from film, literature, folklore, and period pamphlets and woodcuts. Students will investigate the history of Dracula, interpret the nature of the evidence, analyze the images presented, and discuss how and why the authors of those images constructed this figure in the ways that they did. section 61, index 37205 Twin Towers: The Rise and Fall of the World Trade Center Angus Kress Gillespie (American Studies) The attack on the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001 marked one of the most unforgettable days in American history. This seminar will focus on the history of the Twin Towers, from construction to destruction; on current efforts to rebuild; and on the status of the World Trade Center Memorial. Through discussion, documentary films, and guest lectures, we will engage in an inquiry together to address questions such as: Could the attacks have been predicted and prevented? Was there a conspiracy afterwards to hide the facts from the American people? Professor Gillespie's best-selling book on the Twin Towers will serve as the foundational text for the course. section 22, index 30919 Images and Texts: An Artful Relationship Ferris Olin and Judith K. Brodsky (Directors, Institute for Women and Art) How do images and words interact in societies and artistic communities? How are images changed by the inclusion of words? How does the meaning of a word change as a result of being paired with an image? In this course, students will be introduced to works by artists and poets who employ texts in their images or whose words form images. Professors Olin and Brodsky will join with Cecilia Vicuña, a Chilean born installation and performance artist/poet, whose work is on exhibit in fall 2009 during her tenure as Visiting Artist in Residence for the Dana Women Artists Series at Rutgers. Brodsky, Olin, and Vicuña will work with students to create their own projects incorporating words and images. This is an interdisciplinary seminar requiring no previous art or writing experience. Students from all disciplines are encouraged to apply. section 47, index 30937 Contact Improvisation - Building Body Awareness and Confidence in Daily Life John Evans (Dance) In this seminar you will learn a partner dance form called Contact Improvisation. We’ll explore spatial and body awareness, “personal space” and “public space” boundaries, and body language in communication. We will work to achieve and understand how an ease in movement can lead to greater personal confidence and an expanded awareness of the life we are living. Sweats or loose comfortable clothing should be worn; we will move some in every class. Students will keep journals of their movement experiences and observations, and will write on movement-related topics based on assigned readings. section 15, index 30912 Of Murder and Men: The Case of Dashiell Hammett Arthur D. Casciato (Director, Office of Distinguished Fellowships, Undergraduate Education) Our seminar will focus on the writing of Dashiell Hammett and the American hard-boiled detective novel as it has been made (and re-made) into film. At the heart of our inquiry will be the ways in which this popular literary genre both earns and evades its bad reputation as unrelentingly and violently woman-hating. Are there moments in Hammett's career in which he challenges narrow cultural norms of masculinity? Can we find expression in his writing of how a man might change and free himself from traditional social and sexual attitudes? We will explore the possibility that the real crime here concerns the ways in which the movies themselves have robbed the novels of whatever liberatory potential they possess. Readings will include Red Harvest, The Maltese Falcon, The Glass Key, and The Thin Man. section 06, index 32306 Autism in Literature and Culture Ann Jurecic (English) In recent years, magazines and newspapers have reported the inexplicable rise of Autism Spectrum Disorders. With autism’s rise in prevalence and our growing awareness, the disorder is also developing an increasingly powerful cultural resonance. In this seminar, students will explore fact and fiction about autism by reading a range of contemporary texts: scientific journalism, a short novel, as well as memoirs, blogs, and other web publications by people with autism or Asperger’s Syndrome. Using these readings, we will discuss questions about culture and autism, among them: How has culture historically shaped scientific understandings of autism? How is autism depicted in literature and film? What does it mean to speak of “autistic identity” and “autistic culture”? This course is part of a special cluster of courses and events offered at Rutgers in 2009-2010 on the general topic of autism. section 33, index 30928 Baseball and Literature Annie King (English) If you spend the cold winter months counting down the days until pitchers and catchers report for spring training, then you already know what compels novelists, playwrights, and even political pundits to write so passionately on the excitement and frustration, joy and heartbreak of America’s pastime. Both fans and critics alike dissect the economic, sociological, and mathematical aspects of baseball, but in this seminar we will focus on writers who are simply in love with the game itself and will explore the ways in which the game has influenced their work. section 34, index 30929 Textual Representation and the Female Body Stacy S. Klein (English) This seminar will explore how textual representations of the female body shape cultural understandings of beauty, power, sexuality, gender, faith, and the idea of representation itself. Our readings will range widely, from Ovid’s tale of a man changing into an insect, to medieval chronicles of women’s self-starvation, to critical essays that explore spaces for showcasing or re-making the female body, such as strip clubs, beauty pageants, fashion shows, health clubs, plastic surgery, and pornography. Students will draw on their own experiences of inhabiting or interacting with the female body to question how such representations function in our lives today. section 35, index 30930 Poets of New Jersey Carolyn Williams (English) What does it mean to be a poet of place? How does growing up or living in a particular region affect a writers’ view of the world? This seminar will focus on a number of poets who have called New Jersey home, including some of America’s greatest and most-known: Walt Whitman, William Carlos Williams, Allen Ginsberg, Amiri Baraka, and Robert Pinsky (a Rutgers grad and recent Poet Laureate of the United States). We will read and discuss the work of several current and former Rutgers faculty members as well, including Alicia Ostriker, Evie Shockley, Miguel Algarin, and Rachel Hadas. Students will participate in creating a short anthology of New Jersey Poets with Professor Williams. section 57, index 30943 Every Little Move She Makes: A Mysterious Statue in a Classic Short Story Uri Eisenzweig (French; Comparative Literature) In Mérimée’s short story "The Venus of Ille" (1838), the only explanation of a mysterious death appears to be unthinkable: a statue that moves. The statue represents the Roman goddess Venus, but the setting is nineteenth-century southern France, and the character who narrates the story is a man of science. Modern science knows that statues do not move—and yet… In this seminar we will do a close reading of Mérimée’s beautifully structured story (in English translation), and discuss its contrasts, tensions, and paradoxes. Students will be introduced to some basic aspects of contemporary literary analysis. What does this story say to us about the (modern) relation between fiction and reality? section 14, index 30911 Grimm Fairy Tales: Then and Now Marlene Ciklamini (German) The Grimm Fairy Tales have sparked a lively interest from scholars, writers, poets and artists since the 1800s. Scholars immediately recognized the universal nature of the tales and their value as national treasures. Poets and writers drew inspiration from the psychological wisdom of the tales. Today, these tales continue to inspire psychologists, modern writers, artists. and movie directors. This seminar will explore the international fascination and universal appeal of the Grimm collection across many mediums, including Disney films. section 09, index 30906 Wild Women Martha B. Helfer (German) Wild women, crazy women, sexy women, women on the edge: This seminar examines “woman” as the site of cultural and aesthetic critique in literature, art and film, in conjunction with readings from feminist theory. Examples will be taken from fairy tales, history and mythology. Students will develop critical reading and writing skills and gain an introduction to interdisciplinary research in the humanities. section 25, index 30922 Our Threatened Planet: Ecology in Film Fatima Naqvi (Germanic, Russian and East European Languages and Literatures) In this seminar, we’ll view several documentary films on the threatened state of the earth’s environment. The subject was popularized by Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth (part of which will be included in the course), but we will focus on three Austrian films released in 2004/2005. What is the unique perspective of artists who come from a small European country that is very concerned with environmental issues? We will read blogs and magazine articles that discuss the interplay between reality and the images in these films. We’ll also compare American vs. European narratives of environmental damage, in relation to their respective political and economic circumstances. section 45, index 35946 Dying Divas Rudolph M. Bell (History) This seminar explores the motif of female death as performed in Grand Opera. The quintessential soprano role finds women killed by their jealous suitors or even their fathers; brides who poison themselves, often after mortally stabbing the husband imposed upon them; and divas who join their lovers in death rather than live without them. The seminar focuses on Italian opera seria, with excursions for Wagner’s Brunnhilde and Bizet’s Carmen, and includes heroines from such operas as Lucia di Lammemoor, La Traviata, Aida, and Madama Butterfly. We will attend a live performance at the Metropolitan Opera in NYC. section 04, index 30903 Oral History and the American Experience in World War II John W. Chambers (History) This seminar introduces you to oral history as a methodology for helping to reconstruct the social and cultural history of the past. We will focus on the experience of Americans overseas and at home during the Second World War. Students will learn to use the acclaimed Rutgers Oral History Archives of World War II, Korea, Vietnam and the Cold War (ROHA – http://oralhistory.rutgers.edu), including how to conduct an oral history interview. We'll analyze readings, films, and oral history interviews with veterans and people on the home front. section 07, index 30904 The Loeb-Leopold Kidnapping and Murder Case of 1924 Paul G. E. Clemens (History) This seminar will explore from multiple perspectives a sensational kidnapping and murder case from the 1920s. The case is significant because of the involvement of Clarence Darrow, the most famous trial lawyer of that time, and because of the questions raised about the death penalty and the role of the press in sensationalizing the story. The subsequent fictionalization of the case in literature and movies, such as the 1956 novel Compulsion and Alfred Hitchcock’s classic film Rope (1948), will also be addressed. In this course you will be exposed to different types of historical inquiry and find out how historians approach their craft. section 10, index 30907 The Salem Witch Craze Phyllis Mack (History) In this seminar we will investigate the culture of witchcraft—the values, assumptions, and attitudes that have generated beliefs about witches, both in earlier times and in our own day. We will also examine witchcraft as a crime, specifically, during the witch craze of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which resulted in thousands of executions, mainly (but not exclusively) of women. Our focus is the craze at Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. We will discuss this episode in the context of the history of women and gender, and in relation to religious and cultural values in the early modern period in Europe and America. section 39, index 35937 Secrets of the 1950s: Alfred Kinsey and the Institute for Sex Research James Reed (History) Alfred Kinsey was a pioneer in the area of human sexuality research and founder of the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction. He was one of the first scientists to publish research that addressed human sexual behavior. This seminar will examine Kinsey’s research, and his efforts to gain support for the repeal of sex offender laws in the context of the red and lavender scares of the McCarthy era. Students will view the movie Kinsey and the PBS American Experience documentary on Kinsey. Readings will include the novel The Inner Circle and autobiographical accounts by gays and other sexual minorities of their experiences during the 1950s. section 50, index 30939 Stephen Sondheim and Writing for Musical Theatre Richard Chrisman (Music) Award winning composer Stephen Sondheim is widely regarded as the most important figure in American musical theatre in the late twentieth century—well known as lyricist for West Side Story and composer/lyricist of the music for Sweeney Todd. In this course, we will explore the process of lyric writing and music composition through study of Sondheim’s musical theatre works. We’ll examine musical numbers, from the simplest theater format to full scenes involving songs, dialogue, and action. Broadway protocol and standards for lyric writing, in contrast to that of “popular” music, will be outlined; individual songs will be analyzed and discussed in terms of their form, style, and dramatic placement. We may write some songs ourselves. section 08, index 30905 Surprise, Nature and Genius: Reading Emerson and Thoreau Kathleen Hull (Director, Byrne Seminars) Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82) and Henry David Thoreau (1817-62) believed that philosophy should be a lived practice. Their philosophical vision influenced people throughout the world, including Nietzsche, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Seeing life as perilous and uncertain, they advocated an alert response to the world involving finding one’s inner “genius,” especially in relation to nature. They rejected conformity, consumerism, and useless forms of education; and, instead, invite us to trust the universe and to create a self on which we can rely. In this seminar we will read, luxuriously, long passages from On Walden Pond and essays by both these thinkers. On campus, we’ll take a walk around Passion Puddle and perhaps a hike in some more exotic woods, as we reflect on the challenge of finding ourselves and living thoughtfully in the world as a human being. section 58, index 36022 Spontaneity and the Body-Mind Issue in Classical Taoism Tao Jiang (Religion) Taoism, one of the three major Chinese intellectual traditions along with Confucianism and Chinese Buddhism, is celebrated for its ideals of spontaneity and naturalness in human actions. These ideals are an attempt to capture the optimal freedom, ease, and efficacy in our human action, especially in certain cultivated and achieved forms, i.e., in artistic and athletic performances, wherein the body and the mind cooperate seamlessly. The Taoist version of these ideals provides us with intriguing perspectives on the nature of human actions, especially in relation to contemporary views of the body-mind relationship. In this seminar, we will explore these ideas through reading the Taoist classic, the Chuang Tzu (Zhuangzi). section 31, index 30927 Performance and Politics in the Americas Camilla Stevens (Spanish & Portuguese) This seminar explores the relationship between performance and politics in the Americas. We will examine a wide range of embodied practices across the Americas: everyday social roles, cultural performances, theatrical performances, military and political spectacles, and social protests. How do such practices act as political interventions that support, or, conversely, critique, dominant ideologies? This seminar will appeal to students with interests in American and/or Latin American Studies, anthropology, political and social movements, performance, visual arts, music, or literature. Some knowledge of Spanish will be useful, but is not a pre-requisite for the course. section 54, index 30942

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