The Byrne Seminars (Spring 2010: Humanities)

Spring 2010: Humanities

Other Areas: Sciences • Social Sciences

On Friendship
Seth Koven (History)

Friendships have a history: they begin, they grow and deepen, or decline and wither. Some friendships endure a lifetime while others disappear without a trace. But does friendship itself, as a set of social and cultural practices between individuals, have a history? Does the meaning of ‘friendship’ change over time and place? What are the boundaries between love and friendship? We will approach these questions through the remarkable friendship between a cockney match girl from the London slums and the daughter of a great shipbuilder who abandoned her wealth to live according to principles of radical Christian social justice. We’ll read the surviving archival fragments documenting these women’s cross-class friendship. You are encouraged to bring your own experiences and ideas about friendship to the seminar.

section 71, index 75081

You Are What You Speak
Louise Barnett (American Studies)

What does our speech reveal about us, and what can we learn about someone from his or her manner of speaking? Why do we say certain things but not others, and why are some speakers pleasing to us, and others irritating? We will read some sociolinguistic research on conversation as well as short stories that are built around speaking, including the professor's personal favorite, "What We Mean When We Talk about Love," by Raymond Carver. Students will keep a journal of their own speech interactions, thus becoming more aware of the richness of the spoken word.

section 03, index 69756

Moby Dick
Ann Fabian (American Studies; History)

Everyone has heard of Moby Dick; but few take the time to read this thrilling tale of the sea, published in 1851. Ahab, the brooding sea captain, is pitted against the greatest of great white whales, with the sea a metaphor for . . . the unknown? In this seminar, we will read just one book, but slowly, at the rate of 100 pages every two weeks. We'll use Melville's novel to explore American culture and history in the middle years of the nineteenth century. Discover why President Obama lists this book as one of the most influential in his life. Find out why Moby-Dick matters.

section 14, index 74063

Snowshoeing through Sewers: Exploring the Human Built Environment
Michael Rockland (American Studies)

Adventure is often associated with escaping community, leaving civilization, and "entering nature," in part because of the common view that human beings are separate from nature. In this course we'll assume the contrary, that the environment humans have built—including cities, highways, and even sewers—is part of nature and also a place of adventure and wonder. In addition to reading from books that explore the human built environment (including Looking for America on the New Jersey Turnpike and The George Washington Bridge: Poetry in Steel), we will plan a field trip, perhaps walking the length of the island of Manhattan and crossing the George Washington Bridge on foot, or hiking along the Delaware and Raritan Canal. Beyond following the professor's research agenda, the goal here is to have fun, to engage your imagination in relation to your immediate surroundings and environment, and to see the familiar world differently.

section 48, index 74116

Culture Games: What Do Major Sporting Events Tell Us About Culture and Society?
Mark S. Schuster (Senior Dean of Students)

From the all-male naked Olympics of Ancient Greece to Title IX and its affect on college athletics for women and men, this seminar will look at the culture of sport. We'll discuss a variety of American sporting controversies—steroids and baseball, shock-jock radio announcing and race, and the role of athletics in college education—the causes of these controversies, the fallout from them, and what they reveal about us as communities and as a society. We'll consider how gender, sexuality, and race play in the game of sports. Whether you are a competitive athlete, a pick-up player, a fan, or all of the above, this seminar will open your eyes to the powerful role sports play in American culture.

section 50, index 69811

From Personal Ads to Body Politics: On the Narratives of Sexuality
Ben. Sifuentes-Jáuregui (American Studies)

How do we tell and perform the stories of our sexuality? And what do those stories tell about who we are as individuals or as members of society? In this seminar, we will analyze literary and theoretical works as well as pop culture items and films to understand how sexuality is narrated. How does the form and context of sexual narrative create the notion of "the subject"? Moreover, how are stories of sexuality used to articulate and shape sexual politics? We will pay close attention to psychoanalytic theory, to discussions of how we "perform" our genders in society, and to theories of the body. Readings include short works by Sigmund Freud, James Baldwin, Felisberto Hernández, Angela Carter, and others. Films include Ozpetek's Facing Windows, Barbato and Bailey's Inside Deep Throat, and music videos by 50-Cent, Lil' Kim and Eminem.

section 52, index 69813

Art as Ideology: Ancient Multicultural Societies as Reflected in Their Arts
John Kenfield (Art History)

Every multi-ethnic society, including contemporary America, faces challenges of political and cultural assimilation. This issue has ancient origins. All expansionist ancient societies that controlled multiple ethnic groups—including Assyria, Egypt, Persia, the Hellenistic kingdoms, Rome, and the Umayyad Caliphate—had to deal with issues of incorporation, enfranchisement, and resistance. In this seminar, we will explore these problems and their solutions with special attention to their reflections in the arts.

section 23, index 74078

The Emerging Dragon: Contemporary Western Perspectives on China
Richard VanNess Simmons (Asian Languages and Cultures)

In the past twenty-five years, China has burst upon the world stage, from its status as an isolated developing country to a critical world player in the age of globalization. The country's dramatic rise has prompted many to predict that the twenty-first century will be China's century. Is that true? Where has China come from? And where might it be headed? Through readings, videos, and discussions, this seminar will explore modern China's emergence and development as witnessed by people from the U.S. and Canada who have studied, lived, and worked there in the past quarter century. We will see China on a personal level and consider the possibilities for the future of this vast, ever-changing, and multi-layered land of the dragon.

section 55, index 69816

Acts of the Imagination: Exploring Creativity through Improvisation and Play
Julia Ritter (Dance)

This seminar will explore theories, methods, and techniques of improvisation and play as applied to the creation of dance and physical theater. We will explore pioneering American dance and physical theater artists through lecture, text, video, and film; and discuss how they have shaped contemporary performance. Students who take this seminar should be open to accessing their playful selves and fully participating in creative experiments and improvisations that use the body and the voice. The seminar will include a field trip to New York City for a performance.

section 46, index 70006

Moving Pictures: Thinking through Images
Richard Dienst (English)

In contemporary culture, pictures move like never before. Beyond cinema and television, images now move through computers, phones, iPods, and anything else with a camera or a screen. This seminar is designed to help students better understand this rich ecology of images. The course will start with basic questions about photography, movement, and time, leading toward practical experiments concerning the images we encounter in everyday life. You will be asked to write commentaries as well as create your own images.

section 10, index 69763

Deep Reading: Novels and Computers
Martin Gliserman (English)

How do we make meaning from reading a story? This seminar will directly engage the student in textual research, learning to use several straightforward computer programs to open up a new way of seeing a text: as a matrix of words, akin to a neural network. We will be reading a novel and opening up its inner semantic connections with the help of software. We will examine the body, the built world, and the raw universe; and we will trace some of the dynamics within and among those zones. This project aims to make the process of making meaning more transparent and accessible as well as more precise. Readings may include Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby or Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse.

section 16, index 69768

Street Walking in Victoria's London
Barry V. Qualls (VP Undergraduate Education; English)

The urban metropolis as we know it today first emerged in nineteenth-century England. Novelists, journalists, street sellers, advertisers, prostitutes, workers, and middle class merchants went into the streets in fascinated astonishment at the sights to be seen, the work to be done, the things to be bought. In this seminar, we will explore the challenges faced by writers and artists as they seek to represent "the city" in all its richness and multiplicity in words and images. We will look at Charles Dickens' writings on the city, including A Christmas Carol; journalist Henry Mayhew's interviews with street people in London Labour and the London Poor; Frederick Engels' discussion of Manchester, one of the first great industrial cities; and pictures and illustrations of fallen women, street merchants, and advertisers.

section 43, index 74115

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Contemporary Technological Anxieties
Dianne F. Sadoff (English)

This seminar will investigate why Mary Shelley's Frankenstein horrified readers in the early 1800s, and why the image of the monster continues to haunt us today. Students will discover how Dr. Frankenstein's creature violated species boundaries, challenged historically specific ideas of kinship, and suggested scientific engineering and laboratory experiments on the human body. Today, Frankenstein's monster conjures images and concerns about cyborgs, clones, genetic engineering, and new reproductive technologies. We will study literature, film, scientific concepts, and will address contemporary ethical questions.

section 49, index 74117

MELODRAMA! Now Appearing ON STAGE AND SCREEN
Carolyn Williams (English)

Everything in melodrama seems to demand an exclamation point. But what is melodrama? 1) drama with music; 2) over-the-top acting; 3) plots of extreme situations and emotions; 4) sensational special effects; 5) both stage plays and films; and the answer is 6) all of the above! Melodrama has been important for over 250 years, and it still dominates our popular culture. We will read two plays and a novel, see many film clips, two episodes of television serials, and one film in its entirety, all the while learning what melodrama is and why it is so important.

section 59, index 69976

Witnessing War in the 20th Century
Michael Adas (History)

What impact do eyewitness accounts of military conflicts have on the way war is waged, how society views these conflicts, and the way war is represented in social culture? We will examine these issues using eyewitness accounts from soldiers, nurses, war poets, and correspondents from these three conflicts: the Western Front in World War I; the Pacific theatre in World War II; and the American phase of the Vietnam War. Through our research and discussions we will explore how momentous transformations in the human condition can be traced in the recollections of those who participated in these twentieth-century wars.

section 01, index 69754

From Gallows Tree to Lethal Injection: The Death Penalty in Historical Perspective
Alastair Bellany (History)

Is capital punishment moral? Does it deter crime? What makes a punishment cruel or unusual? The death penalty continues to arouse fierce political, legal, and ethical debate in the U.S. This seminar puts these contemporary questions into the broader context of the history of capital punishment. We will explore the transition from the pre-modern public execution—in which the visible suffering of the condemned was integrated into theatrical displays of political and religious authority*mdash;to the modern hidden execution, performed behind prison walls using new technologies to deliver more "humane" deaths. And we will trace the history of death penalty abolitionism from its beginnings in the eighteenth-century Enlightenment to its political triumph in post-war Europe, and its role in current American debates. We will read classic works of historical analysis, eyewitness accounts of executions, theoretical justifications and critiques, along with fictionalized depictions in novels, songs, and film.

section 04, index 69758

The Business of Doing Good: Combining Entrepreneurial Spirit with Social Activism
Matt K. Matsuda (History) and David S. Williams II (Student Affairs)

Do you want to “make a difference”? Or “make a living”? Learn to do both. Taught by a Professor/Dean and local social enterprise experts, this course offers an understanding and experience of “doing good” by combining social action commitments and business models. Students will study how and why innovation and entrepreneurship have become types of global social action involving Nobel laureates and rock stars. More than theory, students will work in teams and be trained by our social enterprise experts to identify global problems and devise real-life, strategic business plans to address them locally. Opportunities to implement student plans may be available. The class will meet at Rutgers, and also onsite in the city of New Brunswick.

section 35, index 74114

Rutgers and the Challenges Facing Higher Education in the 21st Century
Richard L. McCormick (Rutgers President; History)

The university is, in some respects, a unique place, separate from the rest of the world; in even more fundamental ways, however, the university reflects fully the communities, societies, and peoples of which it is a part. This seminar will introduce students to Rutgers: an American university in the early twenty-first century. Through readings and class discussions, students will explore such subjects as university teaching and research, student life, diversity and affirmative action, and intercollegiate athletics. The course will also place the modern university in larger contexts, including a changing American society amid the challenges of globalization.

section 63, index 70652

The Bible through Literary Eyes
Gary A. Rendsberg (Jewish Studies)

While all other ancient storytelling occurred in poetry (witness the Gilgamesh Epic, The Iliad, The Odyssey, etc.), three thousand years ago a group of Israelite writers opted for a different literary style: narrative prose. Beginning with the book of Genesis and culminating with the life story of King David, this (presumably small) group of authors set the tone for millennia to come. Students will learn how to read the biblical texts through close reading of selected biblical stories that demonstrate the manner, style, ideology, and creativity of these ancient authors.

section 45, index 70005

What If You Can't Go Home?
Cultural Effects of Nazism and Communism on Individual Lives After World War II
Nancy Sinkoff (Jewish Studies; History)

Nothing is more human than the desire to feel at home, with oneself, and in the world. Often a sense of wellbeing is associated with a specific place. This seminar will explore, through travel writing and memoir, the ways in which two groups of people, Poles and Polish Jews, experienced the rupture from their homelands in the twentieth century. Jews lived in Polish lands for a millennium and comprised 10% of interwar Poland’s population. However, the almost total destruction of Polish Jewry in the Holocaust made the Jews a ‘phantom limb,’ a shadowy non-presence, in the post-war period. Post-war Poles also experienced devastating geographic and emotional dislocations due to World War II and to the Communist takeover. Both peoples have produced a wealth of memoir literature. Our seminar will explore the meanings of home, exile, longing, and the human need for connection to place that is shared, in this case study, by Poles and Jews. The paradox of this literature is that both nations appear unaware of the universality of their homesickness.

section 69, index 71822

Music, Death, and Afterlife in the Late Middle Ages
Andrew Kirkman (Music)

Anyone who hears the haunting tones of Gregorian chant feels a connection to a special, even timeless, mode of human expression. But the medieval world that gave birth to that music was very different from ours today. Death was always close at hand: widespread war and pestilence meant that life could be claimed at any moment. This uncertainty was sharpened by fear of what would follow. A dread of purgatory, the "third place" where the sins of life had to be atoned before you could get to heaven, led to displays of religious fervor such as church building, good works, and religious devotions. This seminar will explore medieval views of life and death, with particular focus on the role of music. As the climax to our study, we will make a trip to the beautiful Cloisters Museum & Gardens in Manhattan, devoted to the art and architecture of medieval Europe.

section 24, index 69774

How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall? The World of the Piano and Pianists
Min Kwon (Music)

Is classical music only for the elite? In this seminar, we will explore what lies behind the black and white notes on the page: passion and insanity that inspired and sustained the pianists of the classical world for the past 300 years. This seminar will feature lively discussions on music and an exploration of the composers' lives as reflected in their music. What makes their music so great? Live performances by guest artists and recordings by legends of the past as well as the superstars of today will be featured throughout the semester. The seminar will also shed light on a pianist's journey to Carnegie Hall: the discipline, the interpretation of music, and the art of performing. Although no prior musical training or knowledge is required, an open mind and open ears are a must. We will attend a piano recital at Carnegie Hall in New York City.

section 29, index 69777

World Beat, Exotic Tune
Nancy Rao (Music)

One of the recurring characteristics in Western music history is the use of musical elements originating outside of Western Europe and America, ranging from operas by Mozart, Bizet, and Puccini to fusion in film music and music sampling in global pop. What are the contradictions and potentials inherent in such cross-cultural music compositions and performances? How do certain music aesthetics move from the margins into the mainstream? By watching and listening to opera and movie recordings, video clips on You Tube and MTV, this class will consider issues of cultural taste as well as globalization and popular entertainment. There will likely be a field trip to The Metropolitan Opera in New York City.

section 44, index 70004

Is it Possible to Build an Artificial Person?
Frances Egan (Philosophy)

In this seminar, we will consider whether it's possible to build a device capable of complex thought and intelligent action, examining relevant work from the fields of philosophy and artificial intelligence. We will then consider whether such a creature should be treated as a person, that is, a creature deserving of the respect and protection accorded to (human) persons by law. We will watch the movie Blade Runner and a relevant episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. You will have the opportunity to give an in-class presentation and to participate actively in class discussions.

section 12, index 69765

Ain't Misbehavin': Civility, Manners, and Society
Kathleen Hull (Director, Byrne Seminars; Lecturer, Philosophy)

Vulgar language, verbal abuse, and aggressive public heckling are today's norm on TV, radio, and the street. Free speech we know about; civility we have forgotten. Ask Don Imus! Civility is a set of human attitudes and actions, a kind of "grease" that allows our communities to function smoothly. In this seminar we will explore the question of how to be a well-mannered person in a rude world. Why did Aristotle, Confucius, George Washington, and Jane Austen all believe that good manners are crucial to social harmony? In addition to reading about considerate behavior and discussing our experiences, we'll visit artist Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party at the Brooklyn Museum of Art to learn how to set a table properly, and what civility (taking seriously the perspective of others) has to do with morals and social justice.

section 21, index 69772

Paradoxes of Reasoning: What Happens When Reasoning Seems to Go Wrong?
Peter Klein (Philosophy)

One of the oldest paradoxes in philosophy is Zeno’s Paradox of Motion. It seems to show that no matter how long a race is between a slow turtle and a fast runner (named Achilles), the faster one can never catch the slower one, if the slower one is given a head start. By the time Achilles gets to the point where the turtle was when the race began, the turtle will have moved forward a step; by the time Achilles gets to the point where the turtle was at the end of the first step, the turtle will again have moved forward, etc. Common sense suggests that there must be something wrong with this argument; but what is it? There are many paradoxes in philosophy, having to do with morality, God, human nature, truth, and the existence of objects “outside” of the mind. (Think of the MATRIX and ask how you can know that you aren’t in one right now!) They all challenge our deepest intuitions about what we think we know. In this seminar, we’ll examine a number of paradoxes. How should we respond to them? Should we become skeptical about the power of reasoning? Should we keep trying to “solve” paradoxes? Should we simply shrug our shoulders and ignore them? In conversation with your professor, fellow students, and the history of philosophy, we will explore which answer, if any, is the best.

section 25, index 74079

Apocalypse Now? Religious Movements and the End of Time
Emma Wasserman (Religion)

Many texts in the Christian Bible speak about the end of time, a coming judgment, and the destruction and re-creation of the cosmos. What role did apocalyptic expectation play in shaping the thought of the first Christians and the texts of the Christian Bible? What role do demons, Satan, and the antichrists play in this literature? What is the relationship between violence in society and the expected end of time? In this course, we will compare a number of apocalyptic texts and movements. We will first treat early Christian and Jewish texts, especially the Dead Sea Scrolls, the letters of Paul, and Revelation, and then turn to more modern cases such as the apocalyptic vision of Christopher Columbus, the Heaven's Gate cult, and the Left Behind series of Christian thrillers.

section 57, index 69818

Listening with the Body
Jan Leys (Theater Arts)

"In this seminar we examine the nature of communication, with special attention to the physical aspects of communicating. Our exploration will be both practical and theoretical, using exercises and techniques designed for theater arts students. We will explore what "listening" means, and how it affects our interactions with friends, family, classmates, and strangers. The exercises are designed to illustrate that the way we carry ourselves can greatly help or hinder our ability to communicate in a satisfying manner. Our working hypothesis is that "listening with the body" has the potential dramatically to change not only how we act on a stage, but also how we live in the world. In addition to classroom exercises, we will discuss thematically connected texts and the 1995 film Dolores Claiborne, starring Kathy Bates and Jennifer Jason Leigh.