Seminars for 2017

Seminars for 2017

1. iSubmit to iSpy. Mr. Andrejevic. You are the most monitored, tracked, analyzed, sorted, and archived generation in history. Every day, new disclosures highlight this fact: your TV watches you watch, your headphones listen as you listen, your social media platforms track your interactions in order to remember your preferences, your interests, and the pattern of your life. The information collected by these systems is concentrated in the hands of private and public entities as an increasingly valuable resource for purposes including political and commercial influence, policing, and social sorting. If we are to preserve democratic commitments and civil rights in a surveillance society, we need to come to terms with contemporary forms of surveillance by placing them in historical and cultural context and considering their consequences. This class draws on a variety of cultural sources for conceptualizing surveillance in realms including security, commerce, and politics. We will read some influential theoretical works on surveillance (focusing on Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish) and explore representations of surveillance in popular culture and in literature and film. Our goal will be to develop and put to use some key concepts for understanding the contemporary surveillance environment and considering how best to manage its consequences and capabilities.
2. China from Inside and Out. Mr. Barr. This course examines how Chinese society has been understood and depicted in a variety of forms over the last fifty years by a range of authors both Chinese and Western. Readings include essays and commentaries by Yu Hua and Han Han (who live in China), short stories by Pai Hsien-yung, Ha Jin, and Li Yiyun (who were born in China but now live in the United States), observations by Americans who have taught English or conducted business in China, an exchange between political scientists on human rights issues, and a novel by Amy Tan (the daughter of Chinese immigrants to the United States). Among the questions to be addressed: How do we understand the shift from Cultural Revolution politics to the era of economic reform that began in 1978? How different is mainland society from Chinese communities in Taiwan and the United States? What potential for individual freedom exists within China’s authoritarian system?  What are the key challenges to communication and understanding between China and the West? All readings in English; writing assignments include an analysis informed by close reading, an argument essay, and a comparison paper.
3. Tourism: Religious Pilgrimage to Extreme Adventure. Ms. Bromley. Tourism – a $1.5 trillion-dollar industry accounting for 10% of global GDP – is one of the oldest forms of recreation and globalization. In Ancient Egypt, wealthy travelers described visiting the Great Pyramid of Giza, a site now visited by millions each year. This course begins by examining the current global tourism industry. Who is travelling and why? What impact does travel have on tourists? On the places they visit? Going back in time, we will investigate pilgrimage, the first type of tourism undertaken by large numbers of people, focusing on the journey to Santiago de Compostela. Speeding back to the present, we will examine tourism that pushes boundaries, zooming in on summiting Mount Everest. On our journey, we will consider first-person accounts, popular non-fiction, and scholarship from many academic disciplines. Along the way, you will compose a first-person narrative examining your own experiences with tourism, reflect on the benefits and drawbacks to specific types of tourism, and write and present your own research. We will also visit the Getty Center, Trip Advisor’s top thing to do in Los Angeles, studying firsthand the prayer books medieval pilgrims carried with them and the latest exhibitions drawing in visitors from around the world.
4. The Archive. Ms. Chin. This course introduces students to various approaches to thinking about the archive. It examines the different types of institutions that collect materials and explains how public institutions differ from one another, and from private and corporate institutions that collect and manage collections.  The archive, in a broad sense, also means records of the past. We examine how people have constructed the past to make it useful to the present and the future. Through reading and viewing different kinds of historical sources, including written personal narratives (such as memoirs and letters), oral interviews, colonial archives, testimonies, artistic works and other visual materials, we explore why some materials about the past get collected and preserved and some repressed and discuss issue related to doing contemporary and recent history, public memory, as well as the usage of digital technology. In the last few weeks of the course, students are required to do a research project based on the materials available in the Special Collections of the Claremont Colleges Libraries.
5. I Disagree. Mr. de Silva. The most important skill in any relationship – personal, professional, political – is knowing how to disagree. Why? In this seminar we consider the problem of living with difference. What does it take to be the one juror out of twelve who votes innocent? What are the dangers of living with people who agree with you? How does a scientific community confront troublesome new ideas? Is it weak to compromise? Do you enjoy being right? Do you prefer being wrong? The word “disagreeable” is usually taken to mean “unpleasant.” Let us rehabilitate the word and cherish the art of constructive disagreement. During the semester, you will write and re-write and re-rewrite short articles and longer essays. You will practice providing and receiving feedback on written work. You will lead and participate in discussions. You will come to your own understanding about the various issues that we discuss, and learn to appreciate how others understand those same issues. And I will learn from you.
6. “Flashpoints” in Rock & Roll History. Mr. Dettmar.  Rock & roll has both endured and enjoyed a rocky public reception since its earliest days: Bill Haley & the Comet’s “Rock Around the Clock” (1954) provoked riots across the country and rock quickly developed a snarling public image. High-profile dust-ups continue to characterize rock’s relationship with its public; Beyoncé’s debut of “Formation” at the 2016 Superbowl is just one recent installment. In this seminar, we will trace the “scandalous” history of rock ‘n’ roll through its public controversies: Bob Dylan “going electric” at Newport, Jimi Hendrix burning his guitar at Monterey, Sinead O’Connor tearing up a photo of the Pope on Saturday Night Live, Milli Vanilli revealed as frauds. In such moments, we learn a great deal about what rock hopes to be, about its intrinsic contradictions and structural instability, and about the resistance it meets from its own fans. Writing assignments for the course will trace an arc of increasing complexity and more in-depth research, beginning with shorter, “close reading” exercises of musical and filmic moments in rock history and culminating in a sustained, well-researched exploration of the cultural history and significance one of rock’s significant “flashpoints.”
7. Language and Gender. Mr. Divita. How do ways of speaking reflect and construct our experience of gender? In this course we will seek to answer this question by exploring foundational research on language and gender within the field of sociolinguistics, tracing its development from the 1970s to the present. We will examine the linguistic resources through which individuals perform gender identities today; we will also consider the ways in which grammar constrains how gender may be invoked, and how such constraints vary across cultures. Throughout the semester we will engage with current debates about linguistic phenomena—such as uptalk, creaky voice, and the use of “dude”—that are often gendered by popular media in problematic ways. We will also analyze how language can be used as a means of challenging gender norms. During the course, students will collect original language data, which they will analyze in light of the concepts and issues examined in our readings and class discussions.
8. Japan as Utopia and Dystopia. Mr. Flueckiger. Depictions of Japan, whether by foreigners or Japanese themselves, have often made claims about the radical differentness of Japan from other countries. These claims have varied widely in their idealizations or condemnations of Japan, at times depicting the country as a utopia of aesthetic refinement, religious enlightenment, social harmony, or advanced technology, and at times as a dystopia plagued by social breakdown, xenophobia, economic stagnation, or environmental degradation. In this course we will explore such images of Japan through fiction, memoirs, social commentary, films, anime, and other sources, examining not only what these sources tell us about Japan itself, but also what they reveal about how Japan has existed as an object of the imagination.
9. Running for Office. Ms. Hollis-Brusky. Why do people decide to run for political office in the United States? What activates their political ambition? Does this vary by race, gender, age, socioeconomic status, or other factors? How does this compare with other countries? Engaging with both primary sources (political biographies) and secondary sources (political science studies) we will explore the various factors that prompt some people to run for office and others to run from office.
10. Education and Its Discontents. Ms. Karaali. Thinking people have long debated what makes a good education and just what education is good for. In this course, we will tackle these two enduring questions, engaging with classical and contemporary arguments about education and clarifying our understanding of the goals of (a liberal arts) college. We will study the history of schooling in the United States, survey the philosophical underpinnings of education, and investigate the purposes of educating the young in the arts, the humanities, and mathematics. We will read excerpts from the Western canon and other thinkers from around the world, as well as historical surveys and essay compilations arguing for diverse points of view. You will thus begin college with a critique of the notion and institutions of education, and develop a stance that will guide you as you consciously and purposefully move forward in your lives.
11. Muslim Literary Landscapes. Ms. Kassam. In this seminar, we read works by and relating to Muslims from different parts of the globe alongside critical literature in order to extend our understanding of some of the factors that shape the realities of Muslims in the 20th and 21st centuries. Through reading, discussion, and written projects, students have an opportunity develop their understanding of the socio-cultural, historical, religious, and political backgrounds of the issues taken up by each of our authors. By the end of the semester, students should be able to conduct research, read critically, write clearly, and have a reasonable grasp of the contexts in which Muslims live today.
12. The European Enlightenment. Mr. Kates. European society in the eighteenth century was riddled with inequalities of all kinds: religious bigotry and political despotism, as well as new forms of racism, slavery, and class strife. The writers and artists associated with the European Enlightenment suggested radical ways to address these problems. These proposals encompassed both the political and social realms, imagining new forms of friendship and marriage, as if those relationships might constitute analogies 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 such authors as Rousseau, Voltaire, Diderot, Montesquieu, and Richardson.
13. The Spell of Reality. Mr. Kirk. There is an ancient saying, found in various forms in every tradition, according to which “reality must be thought of as a magic spell” (as Saraha puts it). If this is the case, the most straightforward way to understand the nature of reality is to investigate means of tricking the senses, technologies for the production of illusions. In other words, the most direct access to reality will be found in sorcery—or in art. This seminar will investigate some or all of the following topics: the origins of tragedy in ancient Greek goat-sacrifice, the seeding of “Western rationalism” by Mongolian shamans, the rise of romantic love as a misunderstanding of medieval mystical song, gay Ouija-board poetry, witches at CalTech, the religion of money, the cult of school, occult cinema, the psychological reality of UFOs, and the transformation of the gods into illnesses. Literature, film, and philosophy will be our sources.
14. Ralph Ellison and the Blues Tradition. Mr. Kunin. Ralph Ellison believed that American culture was a single entity whose coherence was not meaningfully challenged by real differences of race, politics, religion, class, or geography. This seminar will test the usefulness of Ellison’s concept of culture against his own writing and thought, especially Invisible Man, and against some of the works of his friends and interlocutors. We will pay particular attention to Ellison’s writing about music. Some of his most important statements, including “The World and the Jug” and “Going to the Territory,” are taken from blues lyrics. The blues both inspire and challenge the story that he tells about the coherence of culture in a society segregated by race. What happens when elements of a folk tradition are transposed into the popular culture? What happens to music when it is represented in writing? Readings will be selected from fiction, essays, and poetry by Ellison, Rourke, Tocqueville, Baraka, Jacobs, and maybe a few others.
15. Into Desert Oneness. Mr. Lackey. Deserts stir people in different ways. They are timeless expanses, blighted, vast, and forsaken, places to hide our aggressions, our excess, our injustices. Or they are sacred spaces, sanctuaries that exalt, save, and seclude. How do deserts inspire such a spectrum of powerful associations; why do they invite performance, creation, and reflection? Our charge is to consider the many impressions and expressions of your new home in the desert southwest through the writings, art, and cinema of the desert. A greater goal–the “oneness” we’re after–is a full appreciation of the complexity of these unique natural areas as they relate to the natural, individual, and cultural experiences at different times and places. Austin, Abbey, Twain, Fox, Heizer, Moran and others will take us into the deserts of the American west to begin our inquiry; we will range through the deserts of Africa, the Middle East, and Australia. On field trips to the playas and petroglyph sites of the Mojave Desert, we will employ various creative expression exercises to heighten awareness of the experiences, and help frame our discussions and our writing. 
16. The Economics and Politics of Food. Ms. Novarro.You have heard the saying “you are what you eat,” but have you ever wondered what exactly you are about to eat and why you are eating it?  In the United States, the government has increasingly tried to pass legislation (such as laws requiring calorie counts on menus, laws banning or taxing sugary beverages, or laws requiring schools to provide a “healthy” lunch) with the goal of getting people to eat healthier foods.  At the same time, the US government has had a long-standing practice of protecting the sugar industry while subsidizing farmers growing corn and soy.  While the resulting higher sugar prices may support a goal of healthier eating, extremely cheap corn syrup might seem to do the opposite.  Food policy is really the confluence of many different policies, each with a particular objective.  When considering the potentially conflicting rules as a whole, what is the net effect on obesity and health?  In this seminar, we will explore these questions from economic and political perspectives. We will read several texts and shorter articles that will aid in a critical analysis of current and past government food legislation.
17. Chicana/o-Latina/o Los Angeles. Ms. Ochoa. This seminar unmasks the glitter, fashion, and exclusionary Hollywood representations of Los Angeles by focusing instead on the often overlooked Chicana/o-Latina/o histories, inequalities, and communities throughout greater Los Angeles. Beginning with the Pomona Valley, we start the course with a discussion of the historical and structural factors shaping Los Angeles. We then consider legacies of inequality and resistance from the 1960s to the present, including education, criminalization, illegalization, gentrification and community organizing. Along with reading and writing about Chicana/o-Latina/o Los Angeles, as a community partnership class we will also engage with our local communities by collaborating with area students and participating in social justice meetings.
18. Molecules and the Mind. Ms. Parfitt.  At least twenty 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; all of them come with side effects.  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 under-use of psychoactive drugs in our society today? Or an over-use? In addition to short position papers on these questions, students will be able to investigate in detail an issue of their choosing.
19. Language and Food. Ms. Paster. We know that many aspects of a culture, from routine functions of daily life to intricate social hierarchies and nuances of identity, are expressed through language. More surprising, perhaps, is that cultural knowledge, ideologies, and identities are also communicated by food. A nutrition website suggests how to eat a balanced diet; a traditional dinner plate with servings of protein, starch, and vegetables does the same without words. A folktale about gluttony or a weight loss magazine might convey norms of consumption and body size; mealtime customs such as who is served first, whether a clean plate is encouraged, and who receives “seconds” may reinforce (or complicate) these norms. Religious identity may be expressed by praying, preaching, or testifying; it may also be signaled by food practices (Halal, Kosher, taking communion). In this course we will employ linguistic and anthropological theories to examine the cultural communicative aspects of language and food including similarities, differences, and ways in which these two modes of expression interact. We will grapple with questions of authenticity, exoticization, and appropriation, and students will examine their relationships to their own and other cultures through engagement with case studies and reflective writing about personal experiences of language and food.
20. Lose Thyself. Mr. Quetin. You have just committed to four years of a liberal arts education, the expressed purpose of which is to free your mind and soul. But what happens if it doesn’t work out that way? Or what if your education serves you too well and your freedom takes you to unknown or perilous places? In this course we will explore the art of being lost. We will place ourselves in the midst of the perennial effort to create order and harmony in the cosmos and the natural and societal forces tearing these world views apart. By learning how to communicate our own experiences of being lost we will join a greater conversation with a variety of lost souls over the last few millennia and examine the extraordinary transformations that can occur to those who find themselves adrift. In addition to learning how to navigate the night sky and exploring the nature of the big bang, we’ll be immersing ourselves in epic poetry, autobiographical sketches, philosophical essays, short stories, theater, film and music.
21. Crime Fiction of Los Angeles and New York. Ms. Raff. This course will survey the American hardboiled tradition of crime and detective fiction. We will be asking what cultural work this genre does, where it stands with respect to the broader culture, and what it can teach us about how to construct a good story. Other topics will include the noir aesthetic, the problem of evil, the city as landscape, the ethically unreliable narrator, the antihero(ine), the distance between law and justice, and the place of formulas and conventions in literature. Readings may include fiction by Horace McCoy, James Cain, Raymond Chandler, Jim Thompson, Ross Macdonald, Walter Mosley, Dashiell Hammett, Chester Himes, and Patricia Highsmith as well as nonfiction by Mike Davis, Luc Sante, W. H. Auden, Susan Neiman, Caroline Levine, and Tzvetan Todorov. The course will invite students to write parody, pastiche, and informal reading responses as well as analytical essays.
22. Music and the Liberal Arts. Mr. Rockwell. Philosophers and scientists across history have worked under the premise that the universe is fundamentally musical. Understanding music is thus a means of understanding the world. But what does it mean to know music? How does music relate to other forms of knowledge, and in what sense does music function as one of the liberal arts? What were, and are, the liberal arts, and what should they be? This course will approach these questions by thinking about music from a variety of perspectives: historical, theoretical, cultural, mathematical, and philosophical. Topics will include pre-modern concepts of harmony and rhythm, music and social movements, American popular music, and the purpose of education. Students will write research papers on topics of their choosing, and create their own music.
23. Bad Music. Mr. Schreffler. Music is good…or potentially so. Media reports of people and acts that imply music is not good, such as the Taliban movement banning music in Afghanistan, are at once sensational and practically inscrutable to a modern Western worldview—a worldview in which a core trait of music is its goodness. Poets say it’s good for the soul and scientists say it’s good for the brain. Music is thought to “culture” and humanize people—a belief that causes those who do not appreciate music to be viewed with skepticism. Yet there are significant cultural spheres in the world in which music itself is viewed with skepticism and its intrinsic value considered dubious. From these perspectives, music is bad…or potentially so. Indeed, even modern Western society does not view all music as good. The widespread belief in music as something essentially good is thus contradicted by innumerable scenarios in which people are criticized, shamed, or even punished for engaging with music of certain types or in certain ways. In this seminar, we will explore notions of “bad music” from various ethical and cross-cultural perspectives. Diverse examples of musics, of different cultural groups and historical periods, will provoke critique—often heated—and personal reflection. In writing and discussions, students will be asked to go beyond the facile conclusion that judgments regarding music are merely subjective and of little consequence, to develop and articulate newly informed positions on value—to distinguish what one dislikes, what one simply does not understand, and what one may justifiably call “bad” in a multicultural ethical landscape.
24. Arabesque: The Arts and Aesthetics of the Islamic Middle East. Mr. Shay. What we today term Islamic art did not appear overnight with the advent of Islam as a faith, but rather took several centuries of artists and craftsmen developing and creating designs and elements. Islamic art arose largely from the societies that proceeded it, borrowing selectively from Byzantine and Sasanian traditions in order to bring a new tradition into existence. Through readings, visual examples, videos, and other media, class discussions will examine the spectrum of Islamic art and architecture to identify elements such as geometric design and improvisation that form the basis of Islamic art. Students are encouraged to bring samples of Islamic art or performance to class to share and discuss. The class will examine in detail clothing—especially the sensitive topic of the veil—, calligraphy, music, and dance. Of these, calligraphy is perhaps the most important aesthetic form, making a striking visual impression on any visitor to a Middle Eastern city. This is a writing-intensive course. There will be three formal papers, and abstracts and responses in each class for each of the readings (see syllabus).
25. The Unknowable. Mr. 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.
26. Medical Ethics.  Ms. Tannenbaum. Is euthanasia ever morally permissible? Are there any ethical limits on whether and how stem cell research is conducted? 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? In order to explore these ethical questions, we turn not to the law or religion, but to philosophy. We will focus on what moral status is, who has it, and why. And we will examine different kinds of moral requirements, such as to be just and generous, thinking through the role each plays in these ethical controversies. The style of writing you will learn and engage in is not that of an opinion piece or editorial – which are sometimes used to address ethical questions – but rather argument grounded in logical inferences and supporting evidence.
27. Theatre in an Age of Climate Change. Mr. Taylor. What does the theatre have to tell us about humanity’s symbiotic and ever-evolving relationship with the environment? How can the theatre of today help us re-imagine our relationship to and existence in a rapidly changing natural world? And how can the theatre catalyze and/or inspire activism in our immediate (and urgent) environmental future? By encountering a broad range of contemporary eco-dramas in reading, writing, and discussions, we will explore possible answers to these and other questions central to the study of theatre in an age of climate change. The course will culminate in the creation of student conceived eco-theatre projects. No theatre experience is necessary…
28. Say It in a Letter. Ms. Teixido. Letters have been an important form of communication for as long as there has been written language—and the need to express that language across a distance. The love letter, the poison pen, the dead letter, the letter to change the mind of a sovereign, the whistleblower’s letter, the letter to resign: they are all a fundamental part of recorded history. They document and share a vast range of human experience. Perhaps most importantly, the letter remains a significant form of expression, communication, and record. This course will look at the history of and the production of this form as we compose and send letters, engaging all aspects of epistolary practice. From the material paper and ink to penmanship and mechanics, we will explore letters from the personal and poetic to the political and argumentative. We will read a remarkable range of voices and see the actual correspondence of individuals throughout history at the Huntington Library and the Getty Research Institute. We will venture into recent public controversies and discussions that unfold as a series of declarative letters, looking for the ability of language and the form of the letter to influence and shape our understanding of current experience.
29. First Person Americas. Ms. Wall. Thanksgiving Day tells us a story of life in early America, but there was no single early America and no one story to represent it. It was a kaleidoscopic world, full of different individuals and peoples building lives and families and communities amid wrenching, sometimes shattering, social change. This course uses personal narratives from the many worlds of early America—indigenous, Spanish, English, French, African, multicultural—to explore the messy, multifaceted America they made, sometimes together, sometimes in opposition. In autobiographies, testimonies, travel accounts, captivity narratives, legal documents and other original sources, we can glimpse early Americans trying to make sense of their own lives; and we can follow, imperfectly, the tracks of large social transformations, including conquest, colonialism, disease, the development of racial thinking, economic and territorial expansion and competition, warfare, enslavement, religious conversion, gender relations, environmental change, cultural loss and cultural adaptation. We can never fully understand the past but we can try to listen to the stories people told about themselves and to take seriously what they meant in the telling. Students will write two shorter essays and one longer essay with a graded first draft. The main burden of work is in analyzing primary sources and class discussion.
30. The First Crusade. Mr. Wolf. On July 15, 1099, Jerusalem fell to a large and motley band of Latin Christian pilgrims. According to the best records, the mayhem that ensued led to the wholesale slaughter of the mostly Muslim inhabitants of the city.  As unprecedented as this “First Crusade” was, there is no question that it was deeply rooted in Latin Christian culture and its propensity for violence in the name of religion. Our task will be to unpack what we know about this expedition, using it to appreciate the mindset that dominated Western Europe at the end of the eleventh century. 

Other courses offered by the Writing Program

• ID027 PO - Elements of Argument