Special Topic Course Descriptions
The courses described below are offered under "Selected Topics" course numbers. Departments offer Selected Topics only occasionally and the selection is different every semester. Selected Topics courses do not repeat material presented by regular semester courses.
Fall 2008
AH 497/597 Section 1 Hysteria
This art history seminar investigates hysteria from 19th century gendered theroies to Freud, Lacan and Deleuze on Francis Bacon. The class will track hysteria from Surrealism to Britney Spears. Students will curate an Exhibition.
AH 497/597 Section 2 Japanese Art
The famous stone garden, or “Zen Garden”, at Kyoto’s Ryoanji temple supposedly expresses the essence of Japanese culture and spirituality, but in fact, the garden’s fame is the projuct of the 20th century. This classs explores its “creation” through modern interpretations in art, literature and pop culture.
ANTH 490/600 Section 1 Visual Anthropology
This class will explore the ways in which film, still photography and indigenous visual cultures could be deployed in the collection, analysis and distribution of anthropological knowledge. Students will have the option of producing their final projects in one of the formats explored.
C/LA 490 Section 1 and 2 Peer Mentor Seminar
The Peer Mentor seminar serves as an opportunity to apply learned theory to actual classroom situations. Student mentors serve as class facilitatiors in C\LA 195. The seminar focuses on enhancing the skills essential to teaching first year students. Emphasis on lesson planning and experiential activities to help freshman succeed at the university will be made.
CHIN 490/590 Section 02 Transnational China in Cinema
Employs films as “cultural texts” by exploring issues related to the cultural transformation in contemporary China, its globalization process, urban development, and the impact of socio- political changes to the everyday lives of Chinese persons.
COMM 590 Section 1 Humor as Communication
This course is an examination of humor as a communication phenomenon, with particular focus on its role in interpersonal interactions. Review of major theories of humor, analysis of research on humor in naturalistic discourse.
CRJU 490/690 Section 1 White Collar Crime
The course investigates the foundations, types, investigation, prosecution, and punishment of white collar and corporate crimes, as well as justice system and societal responses to such crimes.
CWL 448/548 Section 1 Surrealism
Surrealism attempted to creatively express the workings of the unconscious influenced by Freud’s writing, and emphasized dreams, hallucinations, and the threshold of the conscious mind. This course will explore these issues in poetry, novels, paintings, and films, including continuing influence (for example, on Magic Realism).
CWL 449/549 Section 1 Modernism, Postmodernism, Postcolonialism
This course will study selected works of Albert Camus, Gunter Grass, and Salman Rushdie as major representatives of modern, postmodern, and postcolonial literature in Europe and the world.
ENGL 489 Section 1 Women in the Early Modern Era
This course offers intensive study of early modern texts about and by women, from international and interdisciplinary perspectives. Primary and secondary readings on early modern women in all aspects of their lives.
HIST 290 Section 1 Movies, Television and History
This course will examine how the past is represented in the media. Rather than simply emphasizing the creative distortions movies and Hollywood are famous for, this course would also seek to explore the ways movies have contributed to historical debate and discourse. Also, students will analyze how film and television have shaped the development of our culture and cultural memory.
HIST 290 Section 2 California and the Cult of the Body
This cultural history course will examine the development of the political economy of the body for which the Golden State is notorious. The relationship between bodies, health, religion, place, and the commodification of these associations, will be the central focus of the class. Topics include surfing, beach culture, health and food faddism, beauty culture, yoga and spiritualism. The course will span the late 19th century through the 1980s.
HIST 290 Section 4 Music, Meaning, and Identity in the Western World
Music, Meaning and Identity in the Western World: This course will address the uses of musical forms, music consumption, and musical cultures, including various forms of popular music as well as art music, in the 20th century.
HIST 290 Section 5 Women and Revolution in the Modern World
This class examines the roles women played in political and social revolutions of the 20th century. We will discuss how women forwarded or challenged the goals of these revolutions, how images of women were used, and how revolutions become gendered.
HIST 290 Section 6 Cultural Revolutionaries of the 20th Century
This course will introduce important intellectual mavericks of the twentieth century who challenged the social and cultural conventions of their societies. The course will examine the ways in which these revolutionary artists, musicians, playwrights, and other intellectuals confronted the cultural norms of their times.
PHIL 493/593 Section 1 Color and Color Vision
This course examines leading philosophical positions on color and color experience, including empirical work on color relevant to philosophical issues. Special attention will be given to what philosophical work on color phenomena might be relevant to scientific study.
PHIL 690 Section 1 Well-Being
This seminar introduces students to contemporary philosophical and psychological debates concerning personal well-being. We will explore the relationship between well-being and: desire-satisfaction, life- satisfaction pleasure, autonomy, happiness, rationality, and self- perfection. We will discuss the proper role for well-being within moral theory.
PSY 390 Section 1 Animal Cognition
This course will explore the perceptual and navigational abilities of many species, as well as examining animal communication and what animals know about the minds of others. It will also address the reasoning abilities of animals and processes by which animals learn and adapt to challenges in their world.
PSY 390 Section 2 Child Psychopathology
The course is an introduction to psychopathology of children and adolescents. It will discuss Basic Psychological Theories of Child Psychopathology, Classification, Diagnosis, and Assessment; and it will cover various disorders.
SOC 490 Section 1 Honors Research Seminar
This course will use foundational research processes for the Honors Thesis Seminar. Topics include: literature review, hypotheses formulation and guiding ideas, and data collection.
SOC 490 Section 2 Immigration Seminar
Prerequisite: 355 or consent of instructor. This course will encourage students to develop their research skills by applying them to a contemporary social issue with public policy implications, that of immigration. Students will choose a research question, gather and analyze data, and present their findings in a public forum.
SOC 494 Section 1 Sociology and the Global City
This course examines how globalization has affected the ways large cities operate. Topics include: how cities become integrated in the global economy, the ways which global immigrants become incorporated in cities, and the methods used by governments to regulate and control these new urban worlds.