Seminars for 2013
1. Advice about Love and the Literary Narrator. S. Raff. Some elusive piece of information, says a persistent but questionable intuition, holds the key to love and happiness. Why do the narrators of works of literature so often present themselves as purveyors of such information? What do readers mean when they say that they are “in love” with a particular author, book, or character? What does a literary work’s status as an object of love contribute to its authority as an advisor about love? In this seminar, we will examine how various texts represent their role in the life of the reader (literature as medicine, aphrodisiac, guardian, spouse, or seducer) as well as the content of literary advice about love (how to seduce a virgin or annoy her, save a marriage or destroy one, curtail erotic melancholy or prolong it). Our readings may include Ovid, Molière, Laclos, Goethe, Austen, Wilde, Henry James, Freud, and Tommaso Landolfi.
2. Arts Immersion: Air. L. Cameron, T. Flaherty, J. Taylor. Intangible yet ever-present, the stuff of both movement and stillness, synonymous with silence yet the essence of sound, air makes life possible yet always lies beyond our grasp. How do you represent air in music? Through bodily movement? On the stage? In this seminar, we will explore these questions by bringing together strategies from the fields of dance, music composition, and theater design. Cycling through these different ways of knowing and responding to the world, students will work with faculty from each of these distinct yet interrelated arts in a dynamic, team-taught environment. Developing literacy in the languages of movement, music, and design, students will—individually and collaboratively—analyze, reflect on, imagine, and ultimately make both critical and creative works about air.
3. Backstories of the Great Composers. E. Lindholm. Was Mozart really a foul-mouthed brat who never outgrew his penchant for scatological humor? Was Beethoven really an antisocial curmudgeon who immersed himself in composition out of desperation? Was Wagner really a jingoistic anti-Semite whose grand mythological music dramas were just open confessionals of his own ethnic insecurity? What makes great composers “great”? Not everyone loves the music, either now or during the composers’ own times. If someone in 2013 wrote music that sounded just like Mozart, would that be just as great? Why not? In this seminar, we will examine the relationship between composers’ circumstances and their art, and investigate how a composer’s evolving posthumous reputation influences how we regard the music. We’ll look at reviews and other evaluative essays, as well as some historical analyses. Written assignments will provide opportunities to consider and evaluate the life, work, and reception of particular composers, as well as their cultural significance in light of historical information. Students may incorporate their reaction to the music if they wish, but the course will not include any listening assignments. No musical background necessary!
4. Biographies of Biologists. L. Hoopes. In this seminar, we will think deeply about writing about lives and about the lives that biologists lead. We’ll discuss and write about our ideas. Does it make much difference if the author was the actor or the chronicler? Do the biographers and memoir writers agree on what qualities make a good scientist? Might the definition change over time? How do the biographers handle societal attitudes towards scientists from underrepresented groups? We will read biographies and excerpts of biographies of selected biologists from a time span of about 1850 to the present. Texts include Darwin’s Autobiography, The Beak of the Finch, and A Feeling for the Organism.
5. Can Zombies Do Math? G.Karaali. Mathematics is a field of knowledge commonly associated with objectivity and universality, but doing math well requires a certain comfort with ambiguity and a deep desire for elegant simplicity. Furthermore, mathematicians claim the field’s main appeal is not its applicability and power, but rather its aesthetic beauty. Does this make mathematics a particularly human endeavor? In other words, could zombies do math? Could they appreciate it? Our investigations in this seminar will progress along two parallel paths. In one path, we will examine what it means to be a human rather than a zombie, and how we define “humanness” in opposition to the various qualities we attribute to monsters and others. In the second path, our inquiry will involve several cases defending the human nature of mathematics. The readings of the course will include fiction and poetry as well as essays and articles in cognitive science, philosophy, and computer science. We will also look inside ourselves and engage with our own mathematical and creative impulses as we seek to understand what makes us human and how math relates to our humanity.
6. Cold Places. P. Chu. From snow-covered peaks to the circumpolar tundra, from the Arctic sea ice to the frozen landscapes of Antarctica, cold places evoke images of rugged wilderness and vast spaces. Far from being pristine or empty, however, cold places have been the home of diverse communities as well as the setting for dramatic cultural, political, and environmental encounters. In contemporary debates about climate change, they are both vulnerable places and indicators of the health of our planet. How have cold places been represented in art, history, and science? How do they challenge our understandings of the relationship between humans and their environment? In this seminar, we explore cold places through a variety of lenses. Our journey takes place through literature by Lev Tolstoy and Danish author Peter Høeg, documentaries by Jacques Cousteau and Werner Herzog, and works of history and anthropology centered on exploration, scientific knowledge, and the environment. We exercise our creative muscles through critical essays and research into the social and cultural dimensions of climate change.
7. The Economics of Sin. E. Brown. Freedom is good. Sin is bad. While “love the sinner and hate the sin” might be good advice for family and friends, policymakers in a liberal society need a little more guidance. How does the organization of society lead us into the temptations of gluttony, lust, pride, envy, sloth, wrath and greed? When should government intervene, and what type of intervention—education, exhortation, taxation, regulation, prohibition—is most appropriate in each case? In this seminar, we will dip into the economist’s toolkit –understanding supply and demand, keeping an eye on unintended consequences when regulating one behavior is likely to encourage another, being wise in counting costs and benefits– to explore questions of when and how to regulate “sinful” activities. Was New York City’s ban on the sale of sugary beverages in large cups well conceived? Is it more responsible to legalize prostitution than to drive it underground? After evaluating and recommending policies aimed at the seven deadly sins, students will research and analyze an eighth “sin” of their choosing: What makes it so destructive a human tendency, and how might society best confront its temptations?
8. The End of Empire: Crafting Identity in 20th-Century Spanish Literature. M. Coffey. In what was a complete shock for its citizenry, Spain lost the last vestiges of its empire in 1898 to the United States in a war Spaniards now refer to as “the disaster.” The blow was devastating, having brought Spain’s once great colonial empire to a sudden end. Thrust into the unexpected position of a declining global power, Spain began a century-long process of philosophical introspection that eventually developed into violent, internal political struggles that still haunt Spain today. In this seminar, we will examine literature (novels, essays, plays, and films) that represents Spain’s 20th century identity crisis. The War of 1898, the Spanish Civil War, the Franco dictatorship, and the new Spanish democracy serve as the shifting historical background against which writers and philosophers search for meaning in the modern world. All texts in English.
9. The European Enlightenment. G. Kates. European society in the eighteenth century was riddled with inequalities of all kinds: religious bigotry, political despotism, racism, slavery, and class strife. The writers and artists associated with the European Enlightenment suggested radical ways to address these problems. Their proposals encompassed both the political and social realms, imagining new forms of friendship and marriage, as if those relationships might be analogous to politics itself. In doing so, they blurred the lines between the government and the social, the political and the private, and established a moral foundation for our modern era. Readings will include primary works from the period by authors such as Rousseau, Voltaire, Diderot, Montesquieu, and Richardson.
10. From Information to Knowledge. T. Chen. In 2010 Eric Schmidt, then the CEO of Google, said, “There were 5 Exabytes of information created between the dawn of civilization through 2003, but that much information is now created every 2 days.” As a result, rather than deciding what additional data should be collected to answer specific questions, the challenge has shifted to determining how to generate meaningful knowledge from vast stores of existing data. Consider, for example, the IBM Watson machine that beat two human champions in Jeopardy in 2011 or the “big data campaign” that helped lead to President Obama’s reelection in 2012. What insights and innovations were needed to design those systems? How might similar techniques be used to improve, for example, doctors’ ability to successfully diagnose and treat patients? Or to better predict hospitalizations and lawsuits? In this seminar we will discuss technical challenges in making large datasets useful and reflect on the ethical implications of doing so. For the final paper students will explore a case of their choosing.
11. Globalization: Good or Evil? P. Bromley. Large-scale, violent protests against globalization have become a common feature of high-level international meetings, including those of the G-20, the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund. Such protests imply widespread agreement that globalization is dangerous and must be stopped. At the same time, the World Bank has demonstrated that globalization reduces poverty and increases overall global welfare, and recent polls show that most Americans support globalization and believe that it improves their standard of living. In this seminar, we will seek to understand the many benefits and dangers of globalization—economic, cultural, social, environmental, and political—by considering three specific cases: McDonald’s, movies, and climate change. How do we determine which aspects of globalization are good, and which are evil? How can we reconcile the many negative features of globalization with its overall economic benefits? In grappling with these questions, we’ll read a broad range of texts, from scholarly texts by political scientists, economists, and climate scientists to popular sources by political pundits, food writers, and film critics. Students will arrive at your own conclusions about the pros and cons of globalization through writing. The argumentative, analytical papers examine specific cases of globalization using course texts, while the research project allows students to investigate a case of their own choosing in more detail. The final assignment — an op-ed piece — allows students to take and defend a more polemical stance on a particular issue of globalization.
12. Holy War in Early Christianity and Islam. K. Wolf. From its inception, Christianity was a religion steeped in blood. The original members of this sect found themselves subject to intermittent persecution at the hands of the Roman authorities. In the process, some learned to welcome torture and death as a way of achieving a kind of identification with their crucified God. Ironically, the moment the empire embraced Christianity in the fourth century, the church began to experiment with notions of divinely sanctioned warfare aimed at the perceived enemies of the Christian “chosen people.” By the time the followers of Muhammad entered the picture, such concepts had become commonplace. The unparalleled success of Arab expansion in the seventh century has drawn a great deal of attention to the Islamic idea of jihad. In this seminar, we will use primary and secondary texts to contextualize the concept of jihad by considering it alongside imperial Christian attitudes toward, and experiments with, warfare.
13. The Horrific and the Terrible: Japanese Visions of Horror. J. Hall. We often associate ghosts and the supernatural with outdated, premodern thought, but in what ways are ghosts, monsters, beasts, and demons used to presage the future? Or to embody the looming threat(s) of modernity? In this seminar, we will examine literary, cinematic, and mass cultural horror, especially in the context of late 19th and 20th century Japan. In particular, we look to tales of the horrific and the terrible to discover how they negotiated such categories as modernity/tradition, technology/body, and male/female. Attention is paid to late 19th century debates around folk beliefs, to Japan’s rich tradition of ghost stories, and to the current transnational circulation of Japanese horror cinema. We also consider Japan’s nuclear horror: the two atomic bombs dropped on the country and the ongoing human and ecological crisis at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Attendance at semi-regular film screenings is required.
14. Iconic Iconoclasts: Lorca, Buñuel, Dalí. P. Cahill. A cut eye, flying tigers on a poster, poems about gypsies and the moon. Federico García Lorca, Luis Buñuel, and Salvador Dalí all simultaneously represent Spain’s artistic mastery in the early to mid-20th century and, at the same time, embody the boundary-pushing force of the avant-garde. In this seminar, we will explore what it means for poetry, plays, paintings, and films to be iconic and iconoclastic, controversial and co-opted at the same time. How does the success of particular artists overshadow their political, social, and aesthetic complexity? How does a film commissioned by the Spanish government end up being banned in Spain? Examining the literary, visual, and cinematic works of these artists in detail, we will consider how all three push aesthetic and social boundaries within and beyond Spain’s borders, exposing the margins of society, the self, and our sensory perceptions of the world. In research papers, students will be able to explore and frame works from multiple artists in depth: the final paper provides the occasion for students to imagine and design an online or multimedia exhibition of all three artists and their work.
15. Martin Luther King, Jr.: From Montgomery to Memphis. L. Foster. On December 1, 1955 Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery City Bus to a white man. Mrs. Parks was arrested and charged with disturbing the peace. This one act of civil disobedience signaled the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement. This act thrust a young pastor into a role that he never thought was his calling: the leader of a secular civil rights movement. From December 1, 1955 until his death on April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. would by default become the “leader” of the modern civil rights movement. In this seminar, we will analyze the writings, speeches, and teachings of Martin Luther King, Jr., as well as the development and evolution of the Civil Rights Movement.
16. Medical Ethics. J. Tannenbaum. Does a twelve-week-old fetus have the same moral status as you and I do, and if so, does it follow that abortion is morally impermissible? Are there any ethical limits on whether and how stem cell research and in vitro fertilization should be conducted? In this seminar, we will discuss these and other controversies in medicine and medical research. Rather than examine past and current legal history or religious doctrine, we will instead examine, develop, and critique ethical arguments addressing these medical questions. We will focus in particular on what moral status is, who has it, and why. We will also consider different kinds of moral imperatives, such as to be just and generous, thinking through what each involves and the role they might play in in these medical controversies.
17. Modern China in Fiction. A. Barr. China has undergone enormous changes since the collapse of the Qing dynasty in 1911, and compared to just 30 years ago, it is already a very different place. In this seminar, we will investigate the Chinese experience as represented in modern Chinese literature. How do these texts address and transform enduring issues in China, such as the gaps between young and old, state and individual, mainland and Taiwan? What elements from the Western literary tradition have these authors adapted for their own purposes? To explore these questions, we will read classic works by authors such as Lu Xun, Shen Congwen and Eileen Chang—all active in the period before 1949—as well as Pai Hsien-yung, Ah Cheng, Ha Jin, Mo Yan and Yu Hua, who have established their reputations since the 1970s. We will also consider the images of China presented in one or two film adaptations by Chinese directors. All readings in English.
18. Molecules and the Mind. K. Parfitt. At least 20 percent of American adults take a prescribed psychoactive medication for treatment of conditions like depression, ADHD, anxiety, or psychosis. Most of these prescriptions are critical for these individuals to function optimally in their everyday lives, and all of them come with side effects. When writing of living with bipolar disorder, Kay Redfield Jamison states, “Love can help, it can make the pain more tolerable, but, always, one is beholden to medication that may or may not always work and may or may not be bearable.” In this seminar, we will investigate how the brain works by looking at cases in which brain function has gone awry in ways that can be alleviated by drugs. Reading personal accounts of individuals’ struggles with psychiatric illness and neurodegenerative disease, we will consider such difficult questions as: Is addiction a personal weakness or a disease? Are there conditions in which individuals should be medicated against their own wishes? Is there an underuse of psychoactive drugs in our society today? Or an overuse? In addition to short position papers on these questions, students will be able to investigate in detail an issue of their choosing.
19. Nanotechnology in Science and Fiction. D. Tanenbaum. Nanotechnology—which combines physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering—is currently one of the most heavily funded and fastest growing areas of science. Depending upon what you read, nanotechnology may consume our world or enable unlimited new materials, destroy life as we know it or enable immortality, lead us to squalor or utopia, or simply make better electronic gadgets. We will discuss current scientific research in contrast with a range of fiction by Philip Dick, Neil Stephenson, Kathleen Ann Goonan, Paul McEuen, and others. How do science and fiction intermix and inspire each other? Can technology change our self-image and identity? Will technology enhance or subvert the development of the individual or our culture? We will examine how the existing media and literature influence and define both the science and popular culture of nanotechnology.
20. Philosophies of Education. O. Eisenstadt. Since antiquity, philosophers have reflected on how we learn and why we sometimes fail to do so. From Plato through Rousseau and bell hooks to Neil Postman, they have asked whether nature trumps nurture, how humans develop as psychological beings, and what the relationship between teaching and character formation actually is. To what extent are children born paragons of innocent virtue, bundles of selfish inclination, or “blank slates”? To what extent should education be training in citizenship, and to what extent should it be liberation from social conditioning? In reading 21st century philosophies of education, we will think in particular about issues of race and technology: Can education be fair? What kind of testing fosters learning? How can we best reconcile and integrate the central goals of education today: the development of critical thinking, the delivery of information, and—in the great shibboleth of contemporary educational debates—“access”?
21. The Politics of Classical Art. J. Emerick. We refer to ancient Greek art of the fifth century B.C.E. as classic, and thus celebrate a 2,500-year-old phenomenon as a “great achievement” and as somehow foundational. How did this happen? Who claimed classic art as “classic”? We will make the case that, the ancient Greeks themselves did. Athenians had the biggest stake in the program and used it to take political control in the Aegean sea-going Ionian empire they set up to oppose the Persians during the 440s and 430s B.C.E. The aftermath can astonish us. This classic visual culture became a beacon for Hellenistic princes, for Roman senators and emperors, and for people in the West up until modern times. How does the art of a particular moment come to be considered timeless and transcendent? What is “classic art”? What are its cultural uses?
22. Punk: Poetics, Politics, and Provocation. L. Auerbach. “People pay to see others believe in themselves,” proclaimed Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon in 1983. In an increasingly commodified and homogenous society, punk stood for individual agency, the courage to rant and spew, and a provocative stance against the status quo. What exactly is “punk rock” and what can we learn from this confrontational chapter of social and musical history? For some, punk is a musical style; for others, it’s a state of mind. In this seminar, we will explore the punk politic and aesthetic, focusing primarily on classic punk, hardcore, and straight edge. Drawing on manifestos, lyrics, theoretical texts, fiction, films, music, and interviews, we’ll investigate punk’s Dada- and Situationist precedents, and trace connections to current alternative culture. Over the course of the semester, we will write, think about, and respond to the culture of punk, its aesthetic and its political dimensions.
23. Radiohead: The Sound of a Brand New World? K. Dettmar. How can music so difficult be so popular? In 2010, Q magazine named Radiohead’s OK Computer the best album of the past 25 years—and, in fact, Q’s readers had named it the Best Album of All Time 12 years earlier. In that quarter-century, no other band—arguably, no other artist in any medium—had so influenced popular culture while also registering its crises and contradictions. In this seminar, we’ll consider Radiohead as pop musicians, techno-gurus, progressive rockers, Neil Young fans, experimental video- and filmmakers, soundtrack writers and world-famous anti-celebrities. What combination of talents and obsessions might account for the centrality of Radiohead in contemporary culture? We’ll think about their influences (Messiaen, Mingus, R.E.M.) and those they’ve influenced (Coldplay, Muse, Steve Reich). Writing assignments will include close analyses of particular songs, thinking about influence, lyrics, and the interplay of words and music as well as studies of Radiohead as a historical and ongoing cultural phenomenon. What musical, cultural, political world(s) did Radiohead inherit when they formed in Oxford in 1985? What is their legacy—what is the “new” world they have helped to (and continue to help) shape?
24. Rap Music. G. Chandler. “It started out in the dark, they used to do it out in the park.” From its birth in the early 1970s in the poverty-stricken South Bronx to becoming (one of) the dominant genre(s) of popular music, rap has continually evolved during its nearly 40-year existence. From its origins as party music to what Chuck D dubbed “the black CNN” for its development of a social conscience, to West Coast “gangsta” rap and ultimately the commodification of the genre, we will trace the music’s history, including that of important sub-genres. Examining rap lyrics as poetry, we will seek to understand the art form and examine its evolution from the old-school (pre-Run-DMC) through Rakim to current-day torchbearers such as Jay-Z, Nas and Eminem. As rap music has historically been predominately sample-based, we will also examine the issues of copyright that have surfaced as the genre became increasingly successful commercially. In addition to analyses of rap lyrics and music, writing assignments will allow students to research historical and current-day issues related to rap music in-depth, and to write their own rap lyrics.
25. Reasons, Actions and Events. P. Thielke. There seems to be a clear distinction between actions that are done for a reason—your decision to attend Pomona College, say—and events like a landslide striking a tree, or food being digested in your alimentary tract. But what explains the difference between these cases? Are actions free and events causally determined, or are actions rationally grounded while events are not? Must actions be conscious? In this seminar, we will look at a variety of materials drawn from fields such as philosophy, neuroscience, psychology, and behavioral economics, in an attempt to make sense of what, if anything, is distinctive about rational agency, and how it might differ from other events in the world. Topics will include the questions of what motivates us to act, whether we have free will, what role moral considerations play in our decisions, moral luck, implicit bias, and to what extent unconscious factors guide our behavior.
26. “Tripping the Light Fantastic”: A History of Ballroom and Social Dancing. A. Shay. Social dances—such as waltzes, tangos, and sambas—not only encode social and gender roles but also rely on a silent history of cultural appropriation and primitivism. These dances teach their participants how to be a “man” or a “woman” by specifying movements, postures, and social behavior deemed socially appropriate to each gender. Millions of Americans have appropriated dances from African American and Latino societies. In this seminar, we’ll contemplate how any history of social dance must grapple with issues of gender and sexuality, race, primitivism, cultural appropriation, religion, and censorship. We will consider how early 20th century figures such as Vernon and Irene Castle “whitened” and desexualized dances such as the tango, samba, and rumba in order to make them safe to perform by elite members of (generally white) high society. And we’ll consider, as well, the century-long exhibition ballroom dance phenomenon (including the recent popularity of television programs such as Dancing with the Stars). In addition to short response papers to particular readings and performances, students will have the chance to explore a topic that relates to the contexts, gender and sexuality, ethnic, or social issues surrounding ballroom and social dance in cultural and historical context. In order to better understand what goes into these dances, students will attend one rehearsal of the Claremont Colleges Ballroom Dance Team.
27. The Unknowable. S. Sher. How far can human knowledge extend—and what lies beyond it? In this seminar, we will grapple with a range of historically important conceptions of human knowledge, from Plato to modern cognitive science. The seminar will emphasize active personal engagement with these ideas, through critical debate and the rigorous development of written argument. We will enter into a dialogue with skeptics who deny that we can know anything, as well as with thinkers who affirm the possibility of genuine knowledge—albeit within assigned limits. We will also look to the sciences—especially contemporary cognitive and computer science—for novel insights into these ancient philosophical problems. Our study of knowledge will eventually confront us with a striking paradox: To understand the scope of human knowledge, we must understand its limits. But if we grasped those limits, might we thereby transcend them? To identify the unthinkable is to render it…thinkable. Drawing on a diverse collection of ideas from philosophers, psychologists, and mathematicians, we’ll try to make sense of what we can know about what we can’t know.
28. World Football: The History, Politics and Economics of the Beautiful Game. F. Lozano. In this seminar, we will explore how international soccer has evolved over time, and how the sport reflects the different social, political, and economic movements that helped shape today’s world. Drawing on scholarly research in economics, we will study how the beautiful game’s characteristics and international competitive structure explain different social phenomena—including trade, globalization, compensation, inequality, social pressure, violence, and discrimination. Has globalization improved the quality of the game? Who benefits from the globalization of soccer (players, fans, team owners?) and who pays the costs? Other questions we will address are: How do nationalism and soccer intersect? How are class and politics represented and expressed in world soccer? Can soccer become more economically competitive in the United States? Can the American team become more competitive in international competition? Finally, we will analyze the role that FIFA and other governing bodies play in developing, commercializing and globalizing soccer.
29. Yes, But Is It Still Shakespeare? Surveying His Canon Through the Lens of International Film History. A. Horowitz. Since the earliest days of the silent film, the plays of William Shakespeare have been reinvented into cinematic performance vocabulary. Adaptations and deconstructions are now part of the film history of virtually every nation and culture. In this seminar, we will use film versions of Shakespeare as material for discussion and writing prompts. We will discuss works including Akira Kurisawa’s Throne of Blood (Macbeth), Ran (King Lear), and The Bad Sleep Well (Hamlet); Grigori Kozintsev’s Hamlet and King Lear; Vishal Bhardwaj’s Omkara (Othello) and Maqbool (Macbeth); Iván Lipkies’ Huapango (Othello); Orson Welles’ Chimes at Midnight; and such contemporary re-imaginings of Macbeth as Scotland, PA, Men of Respect, and Mickey B—raising issues such as cultural appropriation and the cinematic and poetic license taken by the global artistic community of a writer once considered the exclusive property of the English-speaking world.
