Elizabeth Nutt Williams, Ph.D.
Dean of the Core Curriculum and First Year Experience
St. Mary’s College of Maryland
18952 E. Fisher Rd.
St. Mary’s City, MD 20686
Phone: (240) 895-4467
Email: enwilliams@smcm.edu
Office Associate:
Diane Wimberly
Phone: (240) 895-2185
Click here to learn about Registering for the Seminars
Monday/Wednesday/Friday 12:00-1:10pm
A World of Work
Asking and Answering the Big Questions about Drugs of Abuse
Creating Families through Adoption
Crime and Punishment: Issues in Criminal Law
Dreams and Dreaming
Gasoline and Glaciers: Going, Going, Gone
It’s About Time
Mark Twain
Marriage, Family, and Religious Values: A Multicultural Perspective
Shanghai Story: An Urban Experience in Modern China
The Origins of Scientific Thought
The Road to the White House
The Self and the Strange
Totally Awesome: American Literature of the 1980s
Tuesday/Thursday 12:00-1:50pm
Charles Darwin and the Theory of Evolution
Fairy Tales and Their Interpretation
Freakonomics
Literature of the American Civil Rights Movement
Music as Culture
Philosophy and Film
Science, Pseudoscience, and Paranormal Belief
Sports and Culture
The Art of Political Protest
The Cultural Implications of Technology
The Ideas of History
Victorian Monsters and Modern Monstrosity in Art, Literature, and Film
Tuesday/Thursday 6:00-7:50pm
Cultural Ecology of Easter Island: Catastrophe or Triumph?
First Contact: Soviet and American Science Fiction during the Cold War
Freakonomics
Philosophy and Film
Monday/Wednesday/Friday 12:00-1:10pm
A World of Work
(With Dr. Andrew Cognard-Black and Peer Mentor Lisa Cote)
We work. Even when we are not “working,” we are often working: taking out the trash, raising children, maintaining human relationships—these are all forms of work. We do other things, too, of course, and those of us fortunate enough to live in “modern,” wealthy parts of the world have more leisure time than ever before in human history. But for most people, even in the wealthiest nations, work is the activity that occupies the greatest share of their time and energy, and this fact has captured the attention of philosophers, scholars, and political and religious leaders. Thinkers from Aristotle to Jesus to Marx to Woolf have had something to say on work in one way or another. Work is also at the center of some of the most important and contentious issues of our day. Should the government mandate a minimum wage or shouldn’t it? Should “affirmative action” be upheld, rejected, or revised? Should more women be firefighters, soldiers, and CEOs; should more men be nurses, elementary school teachers, and stay-at-home fathers; or is the current gendered division of labor a product a “natural” order that should be left alone? These are among the questions we might discuss in A World of Work. This course is intended for budding economists, sociologists, human studies majors, and, more generally, any first-year students struggling with the possibility of what they will “be,” as we say, when they “grow up.”
Dr. Cognard-Black is a Liberal Arts Associate and Adjunct Professor of the Liberal Arts. He has been a Visiting Assistant Professor of Sociology and English at St. Mary’s since 2003 and received his Ph.D. from The Ohio State University in 2004. His interests include: sex, gender, family, work, social stratification, and education.
Email: ajcognardblack@smcm.edu
Webpage: http://www.smcm.edu/soan/soan_faculty.htm
Asking and Answering the Big Questions about Drugs of Abuse
(With Dr. Linda Coughlin and Peer Mentor Stephanie Scurci)
Recreational drug use is an ongoing social and public health concern in the U.S. and around the world. We will think scientifically about this issue and, working together, devise a number of important questions that you will then research. The questions that you devise will be based on your seminar group’s interests and concerns- how does someone think about drugs used for recreation beyond just saying “no”? Perhaps along the way we can dispel some myths about drugs, hone your critical thinking and analysis skills and help you learn to think about this important issue in your own rational ways.
Students should leave the class having thought deeply about, discussed and analyzed a body of knowledge about the effects abused drugs have on humans.
Dr. Coughlin is the Associate Provost for Academic Affairs. She is also an Associate Professor of Biology and Neuroscience. She received her Ph.D. from George Washington University in 1991. Her research interests include: soft coral communication, mu opiate receptors in the hypothalamus, and how drugs of abuse change brain receptors.
Email: lgcoughlin@smcm.edu
Webpage: http://www.smcm.edu/neurosciences/faculty.htm
Creating Families through Adoption
(With Dr. Anne Leblans and Peer Mentor Katie Bamberger)
Changes in adoption policies and practices throughout the 20th and into the 21th century reveal major changes in mentality and in our way of thinking about family in general, society, identity formation, ethics, etc. We will use the topic of adoption as a window on those larger issues and on others, including globalization, race and media. The seminar will be taught from a cultural studies perspective but the interests of students considering careers in psychology, public policy or law will also be met.
Dr. Leblans is an Associate Professor of German who received her Ph.D. from the University of Oregon. She is interested in the carnivalesque and its subversive potential, problems of modernity and the dream-life of capitalism, fairy tales and children's books, and psycho-historical aspects of reading.
Email: apleblans@smcm.edu
Webpage: http://www.smcm.edu/ilc/faculty.htm
Crime and Punishment: Issues in Criminal Law
(With Dr. David Finkelman and Peer Mentor Stephanie Klapper)
Many of the most interesting questions about human beings, their relationships with each other, and their relationships with the larger society, can be asked in the context of the criminal law. What kind of behavior is “bad” and blameworthy? When is a person responsible for his or her “bad” behavior? What causes such behavior? How should we decide on its proper or just punishment? These and related questions will be the focus of this course.
Dr. Finkelman is a Professor of Psychology who received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in Clinical Psychology. His research interests include: clinical psychology, psychology and law, history of psychology, and philosophical and theoretical issues in psychology.
Email: dgfinkelman@smcm.edu
Webpage: http://www.smcm.edu/Psyc/FacultySites/dgfinkelman/INDEX.HTM
Dreams and Dreaming
(With Dr. Janet Kosarych-Coy and Peer Mentor Christina Torres)
This course examines one of the most puzzling aspects of human experience: dreaming. The study of dreams and dreaming will be approached primarily from the viewpoint of psychology, but we will also draw on the disciplines of biology and anthropology to investigate the nature of dreams, the methods by which they may be studied, their possible functions, and strategies for interpreting their meanings. Students will learn how dreams change over the course of the lifespan and how they are related to one’s personality. Special types of dreams (e.g., lucid dreams and nightmares) and dream-like phenomena (e.g., hypnogogic imagery and sleep paralysis) will also be explored.
Dr. Kosarych-Coy is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Human Development who received her Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh. Her research interests include: counseling and clinical psychology, rational-emotive therapy, and learning disabilities.
Email: jmkosarychcoy@smcm.edu
Webpage: http://www.smcm.edu/psyc/FacultySites/JKCOY/INDEX.HTM
Gasoline and Glaciers: Going, Going, Gone
(With Dr. Al Hovland and Peer Mentor Liz Becker)
This seminar provides an exploration of the role of petroleum in contemporary society and the need to prepare for the exhaustion of this resource. It’ hard not to be aware of the mounting evidence for the consequences of burning massive amounts of oil. Al Gore’s movie and book “An Inconvenient Truth” brought the issue to the attention of the general population. The 4th report of the IPCC released in 2007, while not reaching as broad a segment of the population, showed the consensus concern of the scientific community. In this Seminar, we will look at the science associated with the use of petroleum and its impact on society and the environment.
Dr. Hovland is an Associate Professor of Chemistry who received his Ph.D. from Wayne State University. Dr. Hovland just finished a 3-year term as the President of the Faculty Senate.
Email: akhovland@smcm.edu
It’s About Time
(With Dr. Josh Grossman and Peer Mentor Michael Damiano)
Time is an all-pervading, essential aspect of existence. We can measure it, but we each perceive it differently. It governs our lives, yet we often take it for granted. What is time? What exactly is its role in the world and in our lives? Is time’s progress constant and universal, or is time mutable? This Seminar will tackle these questions, drawing on physics, philosophy, sociology, and history. We will examine attempts to define time, perceptions of time, the role of time in society, and its key role in the physical sciences. We will study techniques for measuring time, as well as technologies that rely on these techniques. Our society’s understanding of time changed dramatically with Einstein’s Theories of Relativity. We will tackle these theories and their counterintuitive implications, then wrap up with some classic and contemporary time-travel fiction.
Dr. Grossman is an Assistant Professor of Physics who received his Ph.D. from New York State University at Stony Brook in 2002.
Email: jmgrossman@smcm.edu
Webpage: http://faculty.smcm.edu/jmgrossman/
Mark Twain
(With Dr. Ben Click and Peer Mentor Ashley Ridgeway)
Mark Twain understood that a humorous story depends for its effect upon the "manner of the telling," not the "matter." Through exploring the manner in which Twain told his stories, this class will study the liberal arts skills of which Twain was a master. What skills am I talking about? In today’s language, certainly not Twain’s, they are critical thinking, written expression, oral expression, and information literacy—the cornerstones of a traditional liberal arts education. Given that Twain was an autodidact (self taught) who never went to high school, it is amazing that he became America’s greatest humorist, the funniest man in the world during his lifetime, and a prolific and profound writer, speaker, and social philosopher. Well, it’s unlikely that any one of us will become the next Twain, but by studying the “manner” of Twain’s telling as well as his “matter,” we should all improve as thinkers who can effectively write, speak, and find and use information.
Dr. Click is a Professor of English who received his Ph.D. from Pennsylvania State University.
Email: baclick@smcm.edu
Marriage, Family, and Religious Values: A Multicultural Perspective
(With Dr. Betul Basaran and Peer Mentor April Pavis)
In this Seminar we will explore some of the fundamental beliefs about marriage and family in selected Western and non-Western cultures. Many studies focus on prescriptive literatures, especially religious and legal documents which interpret marriage and family as a set of normative rules. In addition to exploring descriptions of marriage and family as ideal or normative institutions, this class will include less normative perspectives, such as those reflected in stories, films, and narrated life experiences in various religious and cultural traditions. We will work together to evaluate these sources critically. Emphasis will be mostly, but not exclusively, on non-Western traditions such as the Islam in the Middle East and Hinduism in South Asia’ with specific emphasis on the role of women in each tradition.
Dr. Basaran is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies who received her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. Her teaching and research interests include early-modern Ottoman social and economic history, history and politics of the modern Middle East and North Africa, and women in the Islamic Middle East.
Email: bbasaran@smcm.edu
Webpage: http://www.smcm.edu/philrelg/assets/3Faculty/Basaran.htm
Shanghai Story: An Urban Experience in Modern China
(With Dr. Charles Musgrove and Peer Mentor Joseph Francella)
“On the eve of the twentieth century, few places were as exciting as Shanghai. Once a wilderness of swamps, Asia’s ‘Sin City’ evolved into a dazzling modern-day Babylon: redolent with the sickly sweet smell of opium; teeming with illicit sex, crime, and poverty; rife with corruption and glamorous wealth.” This quote comes from the back of a recent book on Shanghai (by Stella Dong) and reveals the allure that this city’s history has in the imaginations of many today. This course will use historical texts, novels, films and other media to analyze the history of this city from the mid 1800s to the present in order to understand the myths and realities of this important cosmopolitan metropolis, long considered China’s window to the world, and vice versa.
Dr. Musgrove is an Assistant Professor of History who received his Ph.D. from the University of California, San Diego in 2002. His specialty is in Asian History.
Email: cdmusgrove@smcm.edu
Webpage: http://www.smcm.edu/history/faculty.html
The Origins of Scientific Thought
(With Dr. Susan Goldstine and Peer Mentor Lauren Payne)
The goal of this seminar is to study the historical events and philosophical discussions that have led to our modern understanding of logic and of the scientific method. We will focus primarily on three broad periods in history. The first is the ancient Greek period, including Zeno's Paradoxes, the teachings of Aristotle and Plato, and the competing schools of thought on the nature of matter and the universe. The second is the flowering of Arabic mathematics and science in the centuries around the turn of the second millennium. The third is the seventeenth century, including Descartes, Newton, and the beginnings of the scientific method.
Dr. Goldstine is an Associate Professor of Mathematics who received her Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1998. Her research interests include number theory, algebraic dynamics, and integral lattices.
Email: sgoldstine@smcm.edu
Webpage: http://faculty.smcm.edu/sgoldstine/
The Road to the White House
(With Dr. Todd Eberly and Peer Mentor Sara Metz)
This course will follow the 2008 Presidential Race from the Conventions in August and September through to the final transition team plans in December. Students will become pundits, advisers, and historians, and candidates as they follow the twisting and turning Road to the White House. This examination of the presidential selection and election process will supplement current events with an examination of historical developments in the presidential selection process and past presidential campaigns. We will consider the changing influence of money, media, and mass communications. Key elements of the course will include active class discussion of daily news and assessments of significant events in the campaign. Throughout the semester students will be introduced to historical concepts and significant events/developments in the process by which America chooses a Chief Executive.
Dr. Eberly is an Assistant Professor of Political Science who received his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
Email: teeberly@smcm.edu
Webpage: http://faculty.smcm.edu/teeberly/
The Self and the Strange
(With Dr. Brad Park and Peer Mentor Scott Zuke)
In our contemporary, “post modern” world serious concerns about self-identity have been raised. Many thinkers have challenged the very idea of a unified self. In its place, they have argued that the self is an inherently fragmented and irreducible plurality. Other thinkers have argued that strong notions of identity are morally dangerous, because such identity practices lead to an inability to appreciate the novel and the strange. They have exposed links between deep assumptions about the value of identity and systematic intolerance expressed in terms of various ways of suppressing the strange, e.g., sexism, racism, colonialism, etc. This Seminar will utilize a wide range of sources, from philosophical and religious texts, to poetry, prose, film, and art, to investigate the complex relationship between self-identity and the experience of the “strange,” i.e., the experience of Otherness and difference. We will consider a variety of theories concerning the nature of the self (e.g., substantive self, narrative self, relational self, role theory of self, etc.) as well as analyzing different ways in which we encounter strangeness (change, death, our bodies, cultural difference, the Other, etc.).
Dr. Park is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy who received his Ph.D. from the University of Hawaii. His scholarly interests include East Asian Philosophy, phenomenology, hermeneutics, and philosophy of the mind.
Email: bdpark@smcm.edu
Totally Awesome: American Literature of the 1980s
(With Brandi Stanton and Peer Mentor Matt Koval)
Today’s American culture is filled with allusions to the eighties (black leggings and booties, the sound of the Killers and Justin Timberlake, conflict in the Middle East and astronomical national debt). Although these trends will vanish as quickly as they appeared, writers from the “Me, Me, Me!” era produced lasting contributions to our culture that still resonate today. This course explores major American literature of the 1980s—highly acclaimed texts and authors that have become part of the U.S. canon. We will keep an eye focused on the period’s major socio-historical events and recurring themes: postmodernism, multiculturalism, the Cold War, paranoia, alienation, frivolity, materialism, AIDS, nationalism, drugs, divorce, and America, among others, in order to examine the how the literature both reflected and informed its contexts.
Brandi Stanton is a Liberal Arts Associate and Adjunct Professor of the Liberal Arts. She has been a Visiting Instructor of English since 2007 and will receive her Ph.D. from Indiana University in August. Her teaching interests include 20th and 21st century American poetry and fiction, postmodernism, hybrid genres, feminist theory, and composition.
Email: bstanton@smcm.edu
Webpage: http://www.smcm.edu/english/stanton.html
Tuesday/Thursday 12:00-1:50pm
Charles Darwin and the Theory of Evolution
(With Dr. Bill Williams and Peer Mentor Joanne Buchbinder)
We will read Charles Darwin's "The Origin of Species" and at least one other work by Darwin. We'll study "The Origin's" impact, both on its own time and on the modern world, including consideration of current attacks on teaching evolution in public schools. We'll discuss the extent to which the evolutionary perspective affects all of modern biology, even such apparently non-evolutionary fields as medicine and genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
Dr. Williams is a Professor of Biology who received his Ph.D. from Stanford University. His specialty is in plant physiology.
Email: wewilliams@smcm.edu
Webpage: http://www.smcm.edu/biology/Faculty/index-2.html
Fairy Tales and Their Interpretation
(With Dr. Anne Leblans and Peer Mentor Winona Landis)
In this seminar, students will revisit the fairy tales they grew up with and examine them from an adult perspective. Students will read fairy tales from many different cultures, study their histories and the way they saturate modern culture. Students will learn how critics from many different disciplines interpret fairy tales and present their own interpretations. Assignments will include both creative and scholarly projects.
Dr. Leblans is an Associate Professor of German who received her Ph.D. from the University of Oregon. She is interested in the carnivalesque and its subversive potential, problems of modernity and the dream-life of capitalism, fairy tales and children's books, and psycho-historical aspects of reading.
Email: apleblans@smcm.edu
Webpage: http://www.smcm.edu/ilc/faculty.htm
Freakonomics
(With Ranajoy Ray-Chaudhuri and Peer Mentor Alec Stone)
Ever wondered whether sumo wrestlers are dishonest fellas or saints? Do people react differently to names like DeShawn or DeAndre than to ones like Sean or Andrew? Why do most of the drug dealers in the South side of Chicago still live with their moms (yup, they do)? Does Rudi Giuliani take credit for something that’s better explained by Roe versus Wade? Freakonomics is an answer to these and a host of other social questions.
Mr. Ray-Chaudhuri is an Instructor of Economics who received an M.A. from Jawaharlal Nehru University and an M.A. from The Ohio State University.
Email: rraychaudhuri@smcm.edu
Literature of the American Civil Rights Movement
(With Dr. Jeff Coleman and Peer Mentor Benjamin Cumbo)
This seminar will introduce students to selected works of literature (poems, short stories, novels, essays, and works of drama) written approximately between 1955 and 1975 that specifically address America’s Civil Rights Movement. Students will discover how the literature of the period reflects the complex and often tumultuous social climate and how several writers consciously worked to establish a new field of literary inquiry. Students will be expected to critically engage many of the prevailing and opposing views on the relationship between social equality and cultural production by conducting research, writing essays, and presenting their conclusions orally during the course of the semester. Ultimately, students will attempt to ascertain if and how the most transformative social movement of twentieth-century America informs our twenty-first century lives.
Dr. Coleman is an Associate Professor of English who received his Ph.D. from the University of New Mexico. His teaching interests include contemporary multicultural American literature, African-American literature, creative writing and literature of the human condition.
Email: jlcoleman@smcm.edu
Webpage: http://www.smcm.edu/english/coleman.html
Music as Culture
(With Dr. Sterling Lambert, Dr. Deborah Lawrence, and Peer Mentor Brianna Hughes)
Some pieces of music are referred to as classics – appealing to people across the boundaries of not only time and place, but also gender, race, age, and religion. In this course we will explore four such works (Monteverdi’s opera “L’Orfeo,” Mozart’s Requiem, Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and the Beatles’ album “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”) in order to examine 1) how each one represents its unique context and culture, 2) what each one is about, and 3) why each piece still has profound meaning and appeal.
Dr. Lambert is an Assistant Professor of Music who received his Ph.D. from Yale University. His research area is early 19th-century Viennese music, and he is especially interested in the songs of Schubert and the instrumental music of Beethoven.
Email: jslambert@smcm.edu
Dr. Lawrence is an Assistant Professor of Music who received her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. Her research interests include music of the Renaissance, especially Renaissance Spain, and opera. She also enjoys flamenco music and dance.
Email: dalawrence@smcm.edu
Philosophy and Film
(With Dr. John Schroeder and Peer Mentor Camilla Lee)
This course will explore philosophical issues related to the study of film. The first segment of the course will examine the writings of contemporary philosophers who reflect on the nature of film and who ask important questions about the moral, social, and political status of film in American culture. The second segment of the course will examine classical philosophical texts from the Western and Asian traditions, combined with screenings of films that either stem from or relate to the philosophical issues of those traditions. The readings will include philosophers such as Plato, Kant, Nietzsche, Confucius, the Buddha, and Lao Tzu, and the films will be from various genres and cultures, including contemporary and Classic Hollywood films, avant-garde films, and films from India, Vietnam, and Tibet.
Dr. Schroeder is an Associate Professor of Philosophy who received his Ph.D. from the University of Oregon.
Email: jwschroeder@smcm.edu
Webpage: http://faculty.smcm.edu/jwschroeder/index.htm
Science, Pseudoscience, and Paranormal Belief
(With Dr. Rich Platt and Peer Mentor Maya Cosentino)
This course will explore psychological factors that contribute to belief in paranormal phenomena and pseudoscience. We will consider how to differentiate between science and pseudoscience. This will include examination of scientific methods, logic, evaluation of evidence, etc. We will also examine some common paranormal beliefs and some of the cognitive and social psychological factors that contribute to such beliefs. The course places heavy emphasis on critical thinking skills in the evaluation these beliefs.
Dr. Platt is an Associate Professor of Psychology who received his Ph.D. from the University of Florida. His interests are in Cognitive Psychology and include: deductive reasoning, problem solving, decision making, and human memory.
Email: rdplatt@smcm.edu
Webpage: http://www.smcm.edu/psyc/FACULTY.HTM
Sports and Culture
(With Dr. Helen Daugherty and Peer Mentor Lucy Bill)
This course will explore the interrelationship between sports and American culture.
Key areas for discussion will include the social structure of sports, competition versus cooperation, individualism versus teamwork, and leadership and inequality. Sociological methods for observation research will be introduced, and students will engage in observational study—either using St. Mary’s College, or other local sports events.
Dr. Daugherty is a Professor of Sociology who received her Ph.D. from the University of Maryland, College Park.
Email: hgdaugherty@smcm.edu
Webpage: http://www.smcm.edu/soan/helen.htm
The Art of Political Protest
(With Dr. Joe Lucchesi and Peer Mentor Kate Pollasch-Thames)
This Seminar considers historical instances when the visual arts and visual media become an organizing force in moments of political and cultural crisis, one that gives a voice and vocabulary for political activism and resistance. Through a series of case studies drawn from 20th century Europe and the United States, students will examine how art and visual images forcefully articulate ideas of political change, dissent, or opposition in times of political unrest. Topics may include Dada and World War I; the civil rights movement and Vietnam war in 1960s America; and the current conflict in Iraq. With their own writing, oral, and visual projects, students will explore the power of visual information in a politically charged environment, the complexities of crafting an effective political argument through visual means, and the relationships between political texts and images.
Dr. Lucchesi is an Associate Professor of Art History who received his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He teaches Western art from Ancient to Modern. His other teaching interests include: issues of gender and sexuality, alternative media, critical theory, and museum studies.
Email: jelucchesi@smcm.edu
Webpage: http://www.smcm.edu/art/lucchesi.html
The Cultural Implications of Technology
(With Dr. Doug Toti and Peer Mentor Stacey Meyer)
It is arguable to say that we are currently in the midst of the greatest technological boom since the Industrial Revolution. This Seminar will focus on the impact of new technologies on the cultural and individual levels. Students will begin by engaging in the process of defining technology. This will be followed by a brief survey of historical examples in order to provide a basis of comparison for the examination of how newly developed Web technologies are reconstructing our ideas of intellectual property, authority, and informational literacy.
Dr. Toti received his doctorate in Education from the University of Virginia and his M.S. from Western Carolina University. Dr. Toti has taught in the Educational Studies Department at St. Mary’s and is currently the Learning Technology Supervisor for the campus.
Email: dstoti@smcm.edu
The Ideas of History
(With Alan Sturrock and Peer Mentor Jen Yogi)
Mindful of Santayana's admonition --"those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it" --this seminar explores 'the ideas of history' in two parts. Part One samples the evolution of historical thought in the Western World through the contributions of Greco-Roman historiography, Judaic-Christian tradition, Romanticism/ Positivism and 'modern' Critical Constructivism. Part Two uses an inquiry-based learning approach to focus on the application of lessons learned from Part One. The following 'essential' questions will provide the framework to analyze current events in history on the world stage: 1) what is historical imagination? 2) what is historical evidence? 3) how does history reenact past experience? 4) what is a historical cause? And 5) why do historians revise history?
Dr. Sturrock earned his Bachelor's Degree in Education from the University of Dundee [Scotland], his Master's degree in Education from Duke University, and his doctorate in education from Harvard Graduate School of Education. He has taught as an adjunct in the Educational Studies department for the last four years and is currently working with the Masters in Teaching (MAT) program. When he is not teaching [and learning] he follows the fortunes of Arsenal and Glasgow Celtic football clubs [something of a 'full-time' occupation]!
Email: asturrock@smcm.edu
Victorian Monsters and Modern Monstrosity in Art, Literature, and Film
(With Dr. Jennifer Cognard-Black and Peer Mentor Zach Pajak)
Frankenstein’s monster; Scrooge’s ghosts; Count Dracula; Mr. Hyde; the Hottentot Venus; the Elephant Man; and Jack the Ripper. The Victorians both adored and reviled their monsters, and ever since their inception, Americans and Europeans alike have delighted in adapting them and their stories into art and film. As Foucault once said, we are the new Victorians, and as such, we, too, are perversely fascinated by nineteenth-century monsters and what they represent (violence, “deviant” sexuality, cannibalism, physical strength, and a complete disregard for human laws and norms). While we may believe we distance ourselves from Victorian monsters as “alien” or “non-human,” in point of fact the reason we re-make them again and again is because they symbolize our deepest fears and conflicts: our fears of the unknown, the uncanny, and the irrational; our fears of failed progress and authority; our fears that we will be “violated” by those whom society has deemed backward, unworthy, or somehow “Other.” Through narratives, films and art from the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries, in this Seminar we will examine monster narratives as well as interconnections between Victorian monsters and culture by considering some of the major issues of both their time and ours: science and evolution, industrialization and commercialism, women’s rights and domesticity, race and empire, fashion and image, as well as aesthetics and criticism.
Dr. Cognard-Black is an Associate Professor of English who received her Ph.D. from The Ohio State University. Her specialty is nineteenth-century correspondences among Anglo-American women writers and, in particular, how these women wrote and thought about writing in an era of authorial professionalization.
Email: jcognard@smcm.edu
Webpage: http://www.smcm.edu/english/cognard.html
Tuesday/Thursday 6:00-7:50pm
Cultural Ecology of Easter Island: Catastrophe or Triumph?
(With Dr. Dan Ingersoll and Peer Mentor Jacqueline Mastny)
Writers like archaeologist Terry Hunt and Jared Diamond declare ecological and cultural catastrophe for Easter Island. Even their titles sound taps, as in Diamond’s “Easter’s End” (1995) and “Twilight at Easter” (2005), or Hunt’s “Rethinking the Fall of Easter Island (2006) and “Rethinking Easter Island’s Ecological Catastrophe (2007). Was there really a catastrophe? We will locate and review the literature on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and talk with anthropologists and archaeologists who currently conduct research there. In Seminar we will explore a range of perspectives on Rapa Nui, from catastrophe to triumph; participants will present evaluations of the sources and perspectives and lead discussion, as individuals and as small groups. How are theories framed and hypotheses tested? What kinds of data support or contradict the theories? How do Western cultural assumptions shape the assessments of Easter Island prehistory and contemporary culture?
Dr. Ingersoll is a Professor of Anthropology who received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1971. His interests include: material culture, myth, and archaeology.
Email: dwingersoll@smcm.edu
Webpage: http://www.smcm.edu/soan/soan_faculty.htm
First Contact: Soviet and American Science Fiction during the Cold War
(With Dr. Tom Barrett and Peer Mentor Ashton Habighurst)
This Seminar will examine international and domestic themes in science fiction novels, short stories, and cinema from the 1940s to the 1960s in the United States and the Soviet Union. In both countries, science fiction could be a means of criticizing the cold war enemy, but it was also a mirror for examining domestic threats such as conformity, lack of freedom, and the dangers of technology. One major theme the class will address is the tendency of American science fiction to imagine invasion, dystopia, and apocalypse, while Soviet sci fi presented mutual coexistence and peaceful evolution.
Dr. Barrett is an Associate Professor of History who received his Ph.D. from Georgetown University.
Email: tmbarrett@smcm.edu
Webpage: http://www.smcm.edu/history/faculty/barrett.htm
Freakonomics
(With Ranajoy Ray-Chaudhuri and Peer Mentor Alexander Borman)
Ever wondered whether sumo wrestlers are dishonest fellas or saints? Do people react differently to names like DeShawn or DeAndre than to ones like Sean or Andrew? Why do most of the drug dealers in the South side of Chicago still live with their moms (yup, they do)? Does Rudi Giuliani take credit for something that’s better explained by Roe versus Wade? Freakonomics is an answer to these and a host of other social questions.
Mr. Ray-Chaudhuri is an Instructor of Economics who received an M.A. from Jawaharlal Nehru University and an M.A. from The Ohio State University.
Email: rraychaudhuri@smcm.edu
Philosophy and Film
(With Dr. John Schroeder and Peer Mentor Sydnee’ Hinton)
This course will explore philosophical issues related to the study of film. The first segment of the course will examine the writings of contemporary philosophers who reflect on the nature of film and who ask important questions about the moral, social, and political status of film in American culture. The second segment of the course will examine classical philosophical texts from the Western and Asian traditions, combined with screenings of films that either stem from or relate to the philosophical issues of those traditions. The readings will include philosophers such as Plato, Kant, Nietzsche, Confucius, the Buddha, and Lao Tzu, and the films will be from various genres and cultures, including contemporary and Classic Hollywood films, avant-garde films, and films from India, Vietnam, and Tibet.
Dr. Schroeder is an Associate Professor of Philosophy who received a Ph.D. from the University of Oregon.
Email: jwschroeder@smcm.edu
Webpage: http://faculty.smcm.edu/jwschroeder/index.htm
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