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Catalog HOME General Information College of Arts and Sciences   General guidelines   Degree Programs   Graduation Requirements   Major and Minor Study   Advising & Academic Standing   Grading   Transfer of Credit   Miscellaneous Information   Abbreviations Conservatory of Music Double-Degree Program Registrar's Office First-Year Seminar Program The First-Year Seminar Program (FYSP) is a unique opportunity for incoming students to begin their Oberlin educational experience in a small seminar setting. The topics and academic approaches of seminars are very diverse, but they are all designed to help students hone their critical thinking and their discussion and writing skills. Moreover, first-year seminars provide important opportunities for students to get to know a faculty member well and to reflect upon the personal value and social relevance of a liberal arts education. Seminars are either Writing Intensive (WRi) or Writing Certification (WR) and Quantitative Proficiency Certification-Half (QPh) courses. The faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences strongly urges all College first-year students to enroll in a first-year seminar. For up-to-date information on the program, as well as expanded descriptions of seminars for 2004-2005, please consult the First-Year Seminar Program Course Catalog or visit the web site at www.oberlin.edu/fys. First-Year Seminars for 2004-2005: 110. Black Women and Liberation 3 hours 3SS, CD, WRi First Semester. This seminar investigates the various ways that Black women of the 1960s and 1970s in the U.S. and South Africa have led their communities and their freedom movements (e.g., civil rights, anti-apartheid) with an important array of skills, resources, and vision. Students will be asked to think critically about the properties of women's leadership and political consciousness. We will use autobiographies and other secondary sources, develop research skills, and explore the bridge between community-based activism and intellectual life. Enrollment Limit: 14. Ms. Brooks 111. Words That Matter 3 hours 3HU, WRi First Semester. Through intensive study of poetic language—language, that is, at its most concentrated, deliberate, and artful—we will seek to become more critically aware of language in general. How do words matter? How do they shape our sensory, emotional, and social experience? Readings will include lyric poems, some critical essays, and a few novels, including Gardiner's Grendel, Kingston's The Woman Warrior, and Maclean's A River Runs Through It. Enrollment Limit: 14. Ms. Bryan 112. Globalization Politics 3 hours 3SS, WRi First Semester. This course will explore the issue of globalization through an examination of classical and contemporary debates about the nature of the international political economy. We will examine such topics as the historical development of the world market; competing theoretical explanations of its rise including liberal, state-centered and Marxist approaches; the impact of global forces on the nation-state; alternatives and sources of resistance to the globalization process such as nationalism and transnational social movements. Enrollment Limit: 14. Mr. Crowley 117. Uses of Metaphor 3 hours 3HU, WRi Second Semester. We will address the fascinating complexity of metaphorical language—how metaphors are used by writers and how they're interpreted by readers. We'll begin with poetry and then explore metaphors in fiction, drama, film, religion, science, politics, and art. Among the questions we'll explore are: How do metaphors inform and direct our thoughts and imaginations? How have metaphors changed over the centuries? Is metaphor an appealing ornament to plain speech, or is it inherent in language itself? Enrollment Limit: 14. Mr. Hobbs 118. Through the Looking Glass: The Intersection of Race, Ethnicity, and Gender with Social Class in Contemporary America 3 hours 3SS, CD, WRi First Semester. In order to better understand the relationship among social statuses (race, ethnicity, gender), social class, and everyday life experiences, this course will focus on social demography and theories of identity formation and group interaction. We will employ current empirical data to investigate the demographic and social portraits of the United States in the new millennium. Emphasis will be placed on how demographic and social factors are entwined and how they interact to affect individual lives and identities. Enrollment Limit: 14. Mr. White 121. Everyday Evolution 3 hours 3NS, WRi First Semester. Dobzhansky's famous quote, "Nothing in biology makes sense, except in the light of evolution," suggests that organic evolution is widely appreciated and understood. However, many think evolution happened only long ago, and others think evolution is simply "survival of the fittest." Using non-technical books, such as Why We Get Sick and The Botany of Desire, we will explore the complexities of evolution as central to everyday natural processes. Enrollment Limit: 14. Mr. Laushman 122. Music Live 3 hours 3HU, WRi First Semester. The course will center on live concerts of art music in Oberlin and Cleveland, involving various performance groups (orchestra, chamber, jazz, opera) and styles (ranging from early to contemporary). It will concentrate on the development of concert life and the place of art music in our time. Discussions will involve study of specific music: its form and techniques (on a level understandable to non-musicians), historical context, function, and aesthetic value to the community. Enrollment Limit: 14. Ms. Macdonald 124. Seeing War and Peace through Religious Traditions 3 hours 3HU, CD, WRi Second Semester. This course explores current arguments for just war and pacifism, as well as the sources of these positions in the religious traditions of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. In addition to reading philosophical and theological works, we will also study several films (including "Apocalypse Now" and "Romero") to bring to life the realities of war and the conditions that often lead to war. The course culminates in a sustained examination of the arguments used and religious beliefs employed by the major parties in the Gulf War of 1991. Special attention will be given to critique of positions that over-romanticize war as well as those that dismiss the lived reality of war and the factors that can make war inevitable. Enrollment Limit: 14. Ms. McClure 125. American Mixed Blood 3 hours 3SS, CD, WRi First Semester. From the coyote and the half-breed to the "tragic" mulatto, people of mixed ethnic and racial heritage occupy a conflicted and controversial place in American history. This course will chart the histories of people of mixed heritage from the colonial period to the present, exploring the relationship between the historical experiences of mixed heritage and broader trends in American history including slavery, imperialism, legal transformation, and changing cultural patterns. Enrollment Limit: 14. Mr. Mitchell 126. Tolstoy's War and Peace 3 hours 3HU, WRi First Semester. A simultaneously close and broad reading of one of the most perverse and radically innovative works of fiction ever written. Reading the work on a number of levels and through variety of critical lenses, we will both situate it concretely in its historical context(s) and grapple head-on with the unabashedly "big" and universal questions about war, peace, life, death, art, gender, free will, history, and the human condition (among other things!) that lie at its heart. Enrollment Limit: 14. Mr. Newlin 127. William Butler Yeats: The Last Romantic 3 hours 3HU, WRi First Semester. A study of the poetry, autobiographical prose, and several of the plays of William Butler Yeats in the context of his late Victorian and Modernist contemporaries. The influence of writers such as Oscar Wilde, T.S. Eliot and Pound on Yeats' poetic practice and theory will be assessed. In Yeats' work we will focus on the poetry collections Responsibilities, The Wild Swans at Coole, The Tower, The Winding Stair and other Poems, and Last Poems, and plays such as Cathleen ni Houlihan, The Words Upon the Window-Pane, The Death of Cuchulain and Purgatory. Enrollment Limit: 14. Mr. Olmsted 128. Media and Memory 3 hours 3HU, WRi First Semester. Beyond offering different sorts of content and engagement for their audiences, various artistic forms and techniques can be understood to provide alternative models for individuals and groups to filter and process experience in general. This course will look at multiple artistic forms (e.g., painting, photography, film, literature), in light of their own technical developments and contrasts with each other across time, in order to develop a greater sense of the many ways medium matters. Enrollment Limit: 14. Mr. Pence 130. Mind and Brain: Unraveling the Mysteries, Delivering the Cures 3 hours 3NS, WRi First Semester. Recent scientific discoveries regarding the biology of brain and behavior have great potential significance for enriching society's understanding of human nature and the human condition. This course is designed as a non-technical, general science introduction to neuroscience research. The importance of this work for understanding human thought, motivation, consciousness, ethics, aesthetics and other aspects of human nature will be considered as will the role of the neurosciences in understanding health and disease processes. Enrollment Limit: 14. Mr. Smith 131. How Early Jews and Christians Rewrote the Bible 3 hours 3HU, CD, WRi First Semester. The first Jewish interpreters of the Bible (including the first Christians) did not just passively read the biblical text, they rewrote it, filling in its narrative gaps with fanciful subplots and using difficult passages as jumping-off points for leaps of poetic and philosophical fancy. We will study these interpretations in early Rabbinic and Christian writings, the Talmud, the New Testament, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Apocrypha, Josephus, and elsewhere, together with the underlying principles of such creative close reading (called midrash in the Jewish tradition). Enrollment Limit: 14. Mr. Socher 133. Science and the Mind 3 hours 3NS, WRi Second Semester. The study of the brain and mind has become one of the most exciting frontiers of science. In this course we will discuss some fundamental aspects of science including reasoning and experimental design. We will also review the basic principles of evolution and the basics of brain structure and function. We will then use these foundations to further explore some of the exciting areas of research in brain and mind. Enrollment Limit: 14. Ms. Thornton 135. North African Women and Islam 3 hours 3HU, CD, WRi First Semester. This seminar examines the condition of women in societies torn between tradition and modernity. We will explore literary as well as socio-cultural works particularly in terms of the distinction between the archaic Arab/Berber tradition and Islam as a religion, the evolution of the status of women in North African societies, and Western representations of Muslim cultures. Assignments include in-class reports, presentations, research exercises, and papers. Enrollment Limit: 14. Mr. Yedes 138. Class: Comparative Perspectives 3 hours 3SS, WRi First Semester. Class is not part of our national conversation the way identities—gender, race, ethnicity, nation—are. Yet it involves at least as much exploitation, oppression and inequality. We lift (and explain) this veil. We ask what class is, utilizing anthropological, economic, historical, political, psychological and sociological perspectives. We analyze cases from various locales and moments. Finally, students produce research papers honing in on an aspect of class that interests them. Enrollment Limit: 14. Mr. Blecher 141. The Writings of Women in Japanese Culture 3 hours 3HU, CD, WRi First Semester. Women have long played a central role in the writing of literature in Japan. Classical narratives by women like The Tale Of Genji were the "bestsellers" of their day. As women's status in Japan declined in later centuries, their literary voices became somewhat muted. In modern times women have again figured prominently in the creation of literature. Through literary and historical readings, women's writings will be analyzed in a cultural context. Class format is discussion. Enrollment Limit: 14. Ms. Gay 142. Lessons from the Maya: Power, Identity, and History in Ancient Mesoamerica 3 hours 3SS, CD, WRi First Semester. Two thousand years ago, a complex culture emerged in Central America known as the Classic Maya. Famous for its art, architecture, writing system, and socio-political dynamics, this culture provides an excellent case study for discovering how archeologists learn about the past. Whether focusing on royal courts or farmsteads, our understanding of this culture is achieved through interdisciplinary research agendas involving anthropology, geology, astronomy, art history, and environmental science. Efforts by modern Maya to manage heritage resources will be considered. Enrollment Limit: 14. Ms. Grimm 144. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. 3 hours 3HU, CD, WRi Second Semester. An interpretation of the lives and thought of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. in the context of the civil rights movement. It will focus on the theological, political, cultural, and psycho-social views which informed their religio-moral thought and actions. The course will include films, autobiographies, biographies, collected writings and speeches, as well as interpretations of these two religious and political leaders. Enrollment Limit: 14. Mr. Miller 146. HIV/AIDS in America 3 hours 3SS, WRi First Semester. What is the state of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in America? Why has HIV infection disproportionately affected particular groups and localities? This interdisciplinary course answers these questions by considering perspectives from the sciences, social sciences, public policy, education, medical care, media and the arts, and activism. In addition to discussing and writing about assigned readings, students will explore these questions by participating in a local community-based organization addressing HIV/AIDS. Enrollment Limit: 14. Ms. Raimondo 149. War and Power 3 hours 3SS, WRi First Semester. By looking at three international conflicts (the Gulf War between Iraq and the coalition that ousted it from Kuwait in 1990-91, the war against the terrorist organization Al Qaida conducted primarily by the U.S., and the U.S. led war to oust Saddam Hussein) students will analyze material on cooperation among states, balancing versus bandwagoning in regional alliances and international relations theories concerned with power, norms, and identity. Students will complete skill-building, research assignments and several short papers. Enrollment Limit 14. Ms. Sandberg 150. Questioning Reality: The North and South American Fantastic 3 hours 3HU, CD, WRi Second Semester. "Magical realism" in Latin America inspired many U.S. writers; authors such as Borges and Cortázar have also read our own classics. We will examine the "invention" of magical realism in the 1960s by Gabriel García Márquez, its use by U.S. novelists and by director-playwright Julie Taymor, and the interactions between feminism and fantasy in Ursula Le Guin and Angélica Gorodischer. The course hopes to show how the fantastic expresses dissatisfaction, either with literary realism or with reality itself. Enrollment Limit: 14. Mr. O'Connor. 151. Understanding World War One 3 hours 3SS, WRi First Semester. More devastating than any conflict Europe had experienced in its long history, the first world war would have a lingering impact on the politics and culture of the modern age. In this class, we will use primary and secondary sources, as well as film, art, and literature to explore the political, diplomatic, social, and cultural history of what came to be known as "the Great War." Enrollment Limit: 14. Ms. Abend 152. The Making of a Martyr: The Life, Work, and Afterlives of Federico García Lorca 3 hours 3HU, WRi First Semester. This course studies the life and work of Federico García Lorca, Spain's most widely read poet and playwright of all times. The course will analyze Lorca's work in the context of Spanish intellectual life and politics in the turbulent 1920s and 1930s, and the international reception of Lorca's work after his assassination at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, which served to propel the poet into martyrdom. Enrollment Limit: 14. Mr. Faber 153. Worldview and History: Approaches to the History of the World 3 hours 3SS, CD, WRi First Semester. This course critically examines approaches to world history and narratives of the rise of the West, European expansion, the discovery of the New World, and the like. What unexamined metageographical conceptions are implicated in Eurocentric assumptions about world historical developments? Readings include critical works suggesting new approaches, so that we may develop a critical perspective on material and cultural exchange and diffusion from a global perspective. Shows how "globalization" has been a relevant term for over 500 years. Enrollment Limit: 14. Mr. Kelley 154. Freud's Vienna: Artists, Intellectuals, and Anti-Semites at the Fin-de-Siècle 3 hours 3SS, WRi First Semester. The Vienna where Freud penned the founding texts of psychoanalysis was the site of unprecedented intellectual and cultural ferment. It was also the birthplace of modern anti-Semitism and the home of the dictator who would destroy much of Europe: Adolf Hitler. How do we connect this political turmoil and intellectual and artistic creativity? In this class, we will explore the politics, culture, and intellectual life of this extraordinary city at this extraordinary moment in history. Enrollment Limit: 14. Ms. Sammartino 163. She Works Hard for the Money: Women, Work and the Persistence of Inequality 3 hours 3SS, QPh, WR First Semester. In the U.S., women earn less, on average, than men and are more likely to be part-time employees. Gender-based discrepancies impact the social positions of women and men in society. Further, racial/ethnic discrepancies within and between gender categories of labor persist as well. Students will learn about the U.S. labor market, the effects of globalization, theories that explain stratification and the causes and consequences of labor market inequalities. Topics will include occupational segregation, comparable worth, gender-based job queuing, and the association between paid and unpaid labor. Enrollment Limit: 14. Ms. John 164. To Hell and Back: Religious Views of the Underworld 3 hours 3HU, CD, WRi First Semester. Called the land of the dead, Sheol, Hades, the abode of sorrows, or simply hell—the underworld is a repeated theme in Western and Eastern religions. This course studies views of hell in Buddhist, Christian, Jewish and Muslim religious texts and art, in ancient Sumerian myth, and classical Roman epic poetry. Texts include: The Epic of Gilgamesh, Virgil's The Aeneid, Dante's Inferno, Al-Ghazali's The Remembrance of Death and the Afterlife, and The Three Worlds According to King Ruang. Enrollment Limit: 14. Ms. Kamitsuka 166. America's Concentration Camps 3 hours 3SS, CD, WRi First Semester. During World War II, while the United States was fighting against fascism, it operated concentration camps of its own. Nearly 120,000 Japanese Americans experienced this contradiction of living in American concentration camps. This course examines the history of the incarceration by reading historians' accounts and examining primary documents from the period. In addition, students will actively explore this history firsthand by conducting oral history interviews with Japanese American former prisoners. Enrollment Limit: 14. Mr. Maeda 168. Other People, Other Worlds 3 hours 3HU, CD, WRi First Semester. This writing-intensive course invites students to explore the very different worldviews and systems of meaning created by other people, in other places and times, as represented by work in religious studies, autobiographies, novels, and films. Specific "worlds" considered will come from Indian, Native American, and Tibetan cultures. Students will think in an informed and critical way about cultural, religious, and historical difference and also explore what happens when "worlds" conflict. Enrollment Limit: 14. Ms. McMillin 169. Coasts in Crisis 3 hours 3NS, WRi First Semester. Rising sea level and severe storms continue to cause coastal erosion yet coastal areas are more populated than ever. In light of this, what is the future of the American beach and beaches worldwide? In this seminar we will investigate the evolution and function of coastal environments over geologic time. We will also consider the recent effects of development and engineering solutions on coastal environments. We will then examine the factors that have led to existing coastal management strategies and the tensions between coastal development and the desire to preserve natural coastal environments. Enrollment Limit: 14. Ms. Moore 170. Fabulous Histories/Factual Fictions: How Literature and History Inform Each Other 3 hours 3HU, WRi First Semester. This seminar invites students to view literature and history not as mutually opposed, but as mutually informing disciplines. To this end, it will examine novels (like Salman Rushdie's Shame and Toni Morrison's Beloved) and historical analyses (like those by Hayden White and David Cohen) that deliberately cross boundaries presumed to define literature and history. Enrollment Limit: 14. Ms. Needham 172. The Religious Thought of Mohandas Gandhi 3 hours 3HU, CD, WRi First Semester. Mohandas Gandhi was among the most radical religious and social thinkers in the twentieth century. His non-violent resistance to colonial rule, as well as his commitment to asceticism, truth, and self-reliant egalitarian communities, won him many admirers and many critics. The course begins with a close look at his own writings from his autobiography and his newspaper articles. The second part of the course assesses his intellectual frameworks and strategies for non-violent non-cooperation from religious, historical, psychological, and political perspectives. Enrollment Limit: 14. Ms. Richman 177. What is Mathematics and Why Won't It Go Away? 3 hours 3NS, QPh, WR First Semester. This seminar will provide opportunities to engage in various activities (problem-solving, conjecture, and proof) and to explore the nature of mathematical thinking and discourse. Works of both non-fiction and fiction will be discussed and issues such as problem-solving vs. theory-building, the nature of mathematical truth and proof, aesthetic qualities in mathematics, mathematics and madness, cognition and mathematics will be considered. Intended for students without extensive background beyond high school mathematics. Enrollment Limit: 14. Ms. Colley 180. The Idea of 'the Folk' in American Culture 3 hours 3SS, CD, WRi First Semester. This course will examine how, throughout the American twentieth century, the idea of "the folk" has been appropriated and manipulated for diverse ideological agendas, and particularly for the articulation of competing definitions of American identity. Special focus will be on the collectors (Ben Botkin, the Lomaxes) and performers (Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly) of the Popular Front era of the '30s, on the creation of a folk music canon through the Civil Rights era of the '60s, and on the disintegration of monolithic notions of a "folk" in the era of multiculturalism. Enrollment Limit: 14. Mr. Goldsmith 182. Traditions of Health and Disease in Folk and Conventional Medicine 3 hours 3NS, WRi Second Semester. This seminar explores scientific and cultural dimensions of diseases, as well as approaches to their treatment taken by a number of societies, ancient and modern. Topics will include: definitions of health and disease; merits of folk remedies, ranging from botanicals and mineral baths to maggots and leeches; challenges of modern drug discovery; and self-medication efforts of animals. Enrollment Limit: 14. Mr. Allen 183. From Page to Stage 3 hours 3HU, WRi First Semester. This course employs theories and methods for studying drama through examining relationships between verbal scripts and staged productions. By attending five to seven plays performed locally and in Cleveland, and by viewing video productions of related works, students will study six to eight significant plays representing a variety of periods and styles, with attention to intersections of history, gender, race, and sexuality. Assignments will stress performing scenes, writing critical essays, and critiquing productions. Enrollment Limit: 14. Ms. Gorfain 186. Justice and Freedom: Reflections through Western Literature, Philosophy and Religion 3 hours 3HU, WRi First Semester. Using Plato's Republic as a guide, this course investigates interpretations of justice as developed in Western culture from its origins in the philosophy and drama of ancient Greece, through its theological interpretation in the medieval period, to its manifestation in modern political and cultural forms. A dominant theme will be the relationship between political justice and the special claims of religious traditions. We will look at the ways various literary genres have addressed these questions from antiquity to the current day. Readings will include Plato, Aeschylus, Augustine, Dante, Nadine Gordimer, and John Rawls, among others. Enrollment Limit: 14. Mr. Gangle 187. Death and the Art of Dying 3 hours 3HU, CD, WRi First Semester. If death is not upon us now, says Hamlet, then it will come later, and if not later, then now: being ready is what counts. But is there really an ars moriendi, an art to dying well, and does our understanding of death shape the way we live? Works of literature, philosophy, and visual art provide models of death for a comparative reflection on how different representations can lead us to reimagine our own life and death. Enrollment Limit: 14. Mr. Deppman 188. Non-Violent Strategies of Conflict 3 hours 3SS, WRi First Semester. Examines the ethical and strategic utility of nonviolent forms of action. Often underestimated as a tool of political and social transformation, nonviolent resistance on numerous occasions has achieved what force often cannot: successful, legitimate regime change. Through readings of classic literature, modern political theory and case studies, the course explores issues including the concept and utility of violence; moral and strategic arguments for nonviolent forms of action; and practical methods of applying nonviolent action. Examines cases of successful and unsuccessful use of nonviolent resistance in Nazi-occupied Europe, India, the United States, and recent democratizations in Asia, Europe and Latin America. Enrollment Limit: 14. Ms. Mani 189. Global Ethnic Conflict 3 hours 3SS, WRi First Semester. The seminar explores the causes and humanitarian consequences of ethnic conflicts and civil wars in Africa, the Middle East and other developing regions. Surveys theories of ethnic conflict, journalistic accounts, and documentary footage in order to understand the violent struggles over scarce resources and political power that have fuelled ethnic and religious conflicts. Focuses on historical, regional and international dimensions of ethnic and religious conflicts, and explores workable solutions that promote conflict resolution, social justice, and post-conflict rehabilitation. Enrollment Limit: 14. Mr. Medani 190. Rationality, Objectivity, and Truth in Science 3 hours 3HU, WRi First Semester. Science is often hailed as a paragon of rational and objective inquiry, a rigorous way of seeking knowledge which can overcome the potentially distorting influence of social, political, and moral values and help us get closer to truly comprehending the hidden operations of nature. In this course we will examine the extent to which this idealization offers an appropriate interpretation of scientific practice. Enrollment Limit: 14. Ms. Ganson 191. Social Justice in the United States 3 hours 3SS, WRi First Semester. This course introduces students to theories and sites of social injustice, including education, the death penalty, the growth of low-wage work, and more. Students will analyze these topics from many angles and will find scholarly material that challenges assigned texts, which in turn encourages critical thinking and debate. Students will write regularly on course themes and other topics. They also will likely take part in service learning within social justice organizations. Enrollment Limit: 14. Mr. Dhingra 193. Destination: L.A. 3 hours 3HU, WRi First Semester. Weaving together various depictions of the "City of Angels," and drawing from an array of sources, this course will explore how differing images of Los Angeles reveal critical and unresolved questions about America's ever-evolving demographic and ever-shifting cultural and social geography. Reading may include James Ellroy's L.A. Confidential, Luis Valdez's Zoot Suit, Joan Didion's Where I Was From, as well as the films Chinatown, Twilight: L.A., and Better Luck Tomorrow. Enrollment Limit: 14. Mr. Liu 194. Hidden Traditions of the West 3 hours 3HU, WRi First Semester. Through the analysis of historical case studies such as Renaissance magical practice, the Salem witch trials of the 17th century, and the "spiritualism craze" in 19th century America, this seminar will seek to uncover what so-called "hidden traditions" offer to those who participate in them. In addition to pursuing each case study in its own historical context, we will ask broader questions regarding the very plausibility of speaking of a "hidden tradition" in the West. Enrollment Limit: 14. Mr. Chaplin