Select Term Spring 2008 Summer 2008 Fall 2008 Spring 2009

IAH 211-251 Courses - Summer 2008

The course introduces how the artistic traditions of Sub-Saharan Africa (specifically Ghana) are integrated into daily living, culture, politics, and indigenous healing practices. The course uses lecture-discussion sessions, journaling, readings, music and dance performances and instruction, field trips, and exposure to traditional and contemporary art forms to engage participants in a vast breadth of Ghanaian and West African history and contemporary society. The course explores Ghana’s contributions to world civilization through the lens of its artistic creativity, and attempts to deal with changing realities brought about by colonial and post-colonial experiences.

Our section will focus on sacred music of the Asia-Pacific region. Through readings, musical selections, and video clips, we will explore the ways in which people of Asia and the Pacific Rim have expressed their spiritual lives through music. We will investigate how cultural beliefs and practices have flowed through the Silk Road connecting the Middle East to East Asia and around the Pacific. In order to make sense of contemporary Asian religious practice, we will trace historical links between Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam across the region.

This course investigates issues of identity and belonging in India, with a particular focus on the ways religion, gender, and the family shape individual identity. Structured as a multidisciplinary exploration with a strong emphasis on literature, drama, and religion within a historical context, this course challenges students to make connections between an academic study of Indian culture and their direct experience this culture through the study abroad component of the course.

The goal is to increase students' ability to understand China by going beyond Acceptance of headlines and seeking the motivations behind events. It will increase Students' critical thinking by providing alternative ways of constructing life and Society from those in the US. It will familiarize the students with China's history, Language, art, literature, drama, architecture, and religion. It will involve one week Of classes in the US and a two week study tour of China.

The course will examine technical and artistic distinctions that pertain to art and theatrical work. It will explore how those distinctions relate to performances in real life situations, including ways of speaking and moving, and the role both play in creating characters. The course will also examine the factors that contribute to a sense of individual and group identity in relation to political, cultural, and national social forces. The works of theater will be examine in terms of how they are critical of society, how they suggest images of a desirable society, and how they relate to a wide range of social issues and problems in contemporary society.

The course examines the relationship between selected works of art in various artistic media and the social context in which they were created and in which they are received. The selected works of art include prose fiction, poetry, music, cinema, theater, and photography, paintings, drawings, and sculpture. Technical and artistic distinctions between the various media will be presented. The works of art will be examined in terms of how they are critical of society, how they suggest images of a desirable society, and of how they relate to a wide range of social issues and problems in contemporary society.

In this survey course we will look at a variety of examples of American humor, past and present. We will examine American humor in a variety of genres and forms. Special attention will be paid to humor in literature, and in performance by reading stories, poems, and watching films and videos and by listening to audio recordings.

Students will study the literature, culture, history, and settlement patterns of Arab Americans. Students need to have updated System software, updated Browser, virus protection, and the ability to read and write RTF files and preferably a recent version of Microsoft Word.

This course provides an overview of the development of labor in the Americas and workers' response to the conditions of labor. Themes include government-employer relations; worker exploitation; foreign relations; nativism; craft-unskilled worker relations; the state of organized labor in the Americas; and race, ethnicity, and gender. Students will examine and analyze visual, musical, and literary expressions of workers.
This is an online course. Students must maintain the capability to connect to the Internet using a high-speed connection.

This course focuses on the cultural and political experiences of African-descended people in the Caribbean during the first half of the 20th century. Students will be exposed to a range of cultural materials, ranging from historical readings, literary texts, critical essays, music, and films. One of the main objectives of the course is to introduce students to the cross-cultural routes of exchange taking place between the Caribbean and the UK, particularly among Black writers and artists from former British and French Caribbean colonies. From Jamaican-born writers such as Claude McKay to the US-born political activist Ida B. Wells to the rock steady music of Desmond Dekker, this course exposes students to the many cross-cultural influences traveling back and forth between the Caribbean and the UK.

This course explores the lives, music, history, and culture of people of African descent in three different world regions, Africa, the Americas, and the British Caribbean. By dividing the course into two primary units with an emphasis on chronological events, students will learn about the major themes and developments in culture and history of the African Diaspora. In addition to required readings and writing assignments, students will view and listen to selected films and musical recordings that reflect the diverse yet related cultural and historical experiences of Blacks in the Diaspora.

Since the establishment of the Modern Israel State in 1948, it was the site of great waves of immigration of Jewish communities from all over the world, of fierce wars with its Arab neighbors, religious struggle with its ancient traditions, and great cultural development. The course will explore the Arab-Israeli conflicts in Israel, the religious struggle with its cultural heritage, the complicated relationships with the Jewish people outside of Israel, the impact and heritage of the Shoah (the Second World War holocaust) on Israeli society, and the achievements in science, social affairs, literature, theater and cinema.

This program has been tracing the back and forth shifting between naive realist, modernist and postmodernist attitudes in both the US and the EU. Since 9/11 and the US "war on terror" we have paid particular attention to a return to both nationalist and fundamentalist inclinations. Inescapable, however, is the increased potency of postmodernist approaches to marketing and media as well as to politics itself. The IAH 221C course is the grounding course of the program in that it sets out to distinguish realist, modernist and postmodernist paradigms. The Transcultural Perspectives course is our cultural contrastive course, one which this year focuses on the seemingly undeniable forces of the globalized market and technology. The Popular Culture course continues that contrast on the level of 'everyday life, discourse, practices' paying particular attention to film, TV, art, literature, and music.

Why are cities cool? Why does modern economic and cultural activity center on city life? How does building cities where younger workers prefer to live become a goal of public policy? This course invites students to look into some of the root causes of Michigan´s problem with cities. We will look at how the modern city came into being–first London, then New York, then industrial giants like Chicago and Detroit. Essays, film and television show us how the modern city became the model site of modern living.

This course will look at a variety of philosophical, artistic, literary, and scientific discussions of whether modernity is making us more or less free. Sources will include philosophical essays, a play, two novels, two films, a symphony, a scientist, and others. Topics include what is freedom? What is progress? Are we slaves of our economic system? Our genes? Our governments? Must we break the shackles of modernity to make ourselves free?

Through case studies carefully chosen for this course, students have a chance to travel to the world of nature through space and time for a better understanding of the importance of the relationship between humans and nature. The trans-disciplinary approach taken in this course thereby increases students´ knowledge of the way humans perceive and establish their relationships within the biological world and the consequences of these relationships. Through class presentations of selected topics, students can illustrate this relationship according to their unique talents, creativity and interests. Students also experience the connection between local action and the role small contributions can make to the whole from multiple relationships within our global village. An important component of the course is the review of philosophers of nature and naturalists' work in the US and Europe.

In this class, we will critically explore our social environment by investigating the nature of capitalistic culture. As we will not focus specifically on economic questions, we will instead ask how capitalism determines our attitudes, our way of life, and our beliefs. We will read texts from classical philosophy and sociology, as well as two contemporary authors. In addition, we will study the course topic by discussing Brecht´s play "The Good Person of Sezuan."

In this course, we focus on conflict and moral dilemmas within the context of the history of the United States under the broad categories of gender and race/ethnicity using materials from philosophy, literature, film and music. In particular, we will consider: what are race and gender; what might we wish race and gender be; what are social constructions and natural kinds; and how are race and gender informed, constructed, metamorphosed and/or constrained by popular culture?

This course considers the key role that moral issues have played in the course of human conflict with a particular focus on the United States and Europe during World War II. The class will combine an on-campus phase of intensive study followed by four weeks in Europe where students will visit locations where some of the critical decisions were made and the actual events happened during World War II. Other issues to be studied and considered will be the relationship between history and memory and to assess the role of moral issues as they developed and changed during World War II. Understanding how eyewitness testimony concerning moral issues has shaped history will be an additional focal point for study in the course.

We will provide an introduction to some of the basic concepts of health care ethics and of the history of health care in Europe and America. We will then discuss several issues in health care from a coordinated ethical/historical perspective. Our main focus will be on a comparative study of the US and UK health care systems–the nature of each “system,” how it got that way, and desirable directions in which each might develop in the future as it struggles to provide a high quality of care with limited resources. We will give considerable attention to the problem of health care rationing/ health care cost control/ health care priority-setting as problems of health care justice. We will critically assess the policy mechanisms already in place in the US and the UK aimed at addressing this problem. One of the newer problems we will be discussing this year is what some would call the “liberalism” problem in relation to “ethically controversial” new technologies, most especially technologies linked to genetics and reproductive decision making. The core question is: Should citizens who are deeply opposed to certain interventions, such as the use of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis to produce a “savior sibling,” have to pay taxes in order to support access to that technology? Or should such technologies be excluded from funding by the National Health Service or Medicaid in the US or other insurance plans where individuals have no other options? In such disputes, which side has the stronger claim for saying that the core values of liberalism are “on their side”?

Participants in this six-week program in County Monaghan, Ireland, will live with, learn from, and work alongside citizens of the county. As they immerse themselves in Irish life, they will consider efforts at cross-border reconciliation in Monaghan and Monaghan's regeneration and peacebuilding programs. They will also study past religious and class conflicts between the residents of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, and they will visit historic sites. In class meetings, participants will discuss contemporary efforts at peace, reconciliation, and community building in cross-border communities, and they will consider poems, articles, books, and works of graphic art related to cross-border conflicts. Members of the County Monaghan Community Network will also assist in guiding the students as they explore the past and the present of this troubled region.

In linguistic theory, language is thought of as part of human biology, as natural to humans as having arms but not wings. This course examines the underlying nature of human language, understood in these terms, and considers how children acquire it so effortlessly, and how it is instantiated in the brain.

A social and musical history of jazz and its position in U.S. society. Emphasis is placed on the primary innovators of the music, including Armstrong, Ellington, Parker, etc., as well as the creative requirements for improvisation and performance. The role of jazz within the greater arts community (reviewers, other artists, promoters, historians, etc.) is analyzed, as well as the unique and changing position of the Black jazz artist in American society. Students will attend jazz concerts outside of regular classes and write reviews/descriptions of those concerts.

Reggae music has not only produced such superstars as Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Jimmy Cliff, and more recently, Sean Paul, Shaggy, Beenie Man and Buju Banton; it has also made enormous contributions to the world of popular music, and US pop is no exception. Several mainstream pop/rock bands, rhythm and blues, rap and gospel groups have incorporated elements of reggae into their recordings and live performances. Commercials on both radio and television have also done the same. The impetus for rap in the early 1970's came from a branch of reggae named ´dj toasting.´ The idea of the remix, so much a part of the music recording process today, was also borrowed from reggae. This course explores the social, historical and religious context in which reggae was created in Jamaica in the 1960´s and traces the development of this musical genre from its earlier forms of ska, rock steady, reggae, dub, dj toasting and dub poetry to today´s dancehall styles. Throughout the semester, musical examples and poetic texts will be presented, analyzed, and discussed within the framework of Jamaican musical traditions, verbal art and spirituality, and how these aspects of culture are intimately interconnected with each other and with folkloric, historic, economic and socio-cultural phenomena. Attention will also be drawn to the social and political significance of reggae and the Rastafari Movement in Jamaica and in other parts of the world, and on the centrality of Africa as both a cultural and religious center among Rastafari. The course objective is to further develop skills in writing and in critical analysis while expanding the student´s horizons and outlook on issues of race, class, religion and history within a local and global context.

Ideas about and a history of the USA roughly 1963-1974 are examined through the artistic expressions and cultural commentaries provided primarily by the songs but also by the images and careers of The Beatles. In addition to recordings and films of and made by the group, other cultural expressions and history texts are utilized to provide a framework and various contexts for socio-cultural and historical illumination and analysis.

“Music, Art, Literature and Language in Bregenz, Austria” offers a unique opportunity to study music, art,literature, cultural history and conversational German on the shores of Lake Constance in a gorgeous alpine region where Austria, Germany, and Switzerland meet.

In Jane Austen's rich, compelling novels, characters are continually confronted by complex ethical problems and opportunities. We will contrast Austen´s depictions of evil, moral insight, emotion, judgment, self-reliance and dependence on others, and how she shows the ways in which class and gender shape and limit lives, with contemporary philosophical discussions of similar topics. Requirements include four 4-6 page essays and quizzes.

This course examines the Middle Ages East and West from an archaeological and socio-cultural perspective, inviting students to consider how moments of historical, theological and religious significance find reflection and response in works of art, theater, music and literature. The course is implemented entirely online using ANGEL, a password protected learning website. Students will purchase a textbook and course pack. Additional primary and secondary readings, images, music, an interactive chat room environment will be available on ANGEL. Students will hear their lectures in MP3 format and streamed video both delivered from a remote computer and accessed in ANGEL. Students will complete tests and other graded assessments (to include quizzes, essays and exams) online using ANGEL. Basic knowledge of internet search engines, MS Word and MS PowerPoint, as well as a reliable computer and either broadband or DSL connection are required.

The Italian culture, which has lent so many of its artistic and political developments to our own, is both familiar to us and distinctly different, frequently misunderstood, often viewed in popular culture as baffling and contradictory, if attractive. Through the lens of Italy's culture we can see our own with greater acuity; we can dispel the myths and learn much about the choices we ourselves face as citizens of our own country and the world. An understanding of Italian culture cannot be reached without knowledge of its history, politics, and especially of its artistic traditions, which in our own country are largely viewed as separate domains, but which in Italy are inextricably linked and have created the nation we see today.

This course will, as part of the Theatre in London program, introduce the student to contemporary British theatre practice paired with the study of historical theatrical traditions. Following Robert Edmond Jones' example from The Dramatic Imagination, the student will explore the influences of modern theatre by looking at art, fashion, style and culture and write opinion papers on assigned topics. The course will be supplemented with visits to London museums, backstage tours, and attendance at theatre performances.

Musical theatre and society have long had a love-hate relationship. Theatre can be used to entertain us, or to mirror events and reflect moral issues. When it entertains us we love theatre and the opportunity to be released from our everyday concerns. But when theatre holds up a mirror for us to see what we want to ignore or to remind us of an ugly past or dirty secrets, we find it disturbing. We will explore this influence over the last 400 years. We will discuss this theatrical history briefly during the first week of class, but the focus of our study will be modern (post 1980s) musical theater, both with regard to gender and especially class. We will attend theatrical performances of modern musicals in London, and watch videos of other musicals. We will discuss the ways in which these shows influence our perception of society. We will also have guest lecturers from British theatre to give us a British perspective.

In this class we will explore the ways in which contemporary Western creators find and develop new ideas. We will compare these processes to those of older and more traditional societies. Then we will look at the ways in which our cultural attitudes about creativity are changing. Throughout the course, students will have many opportunities to experiment with different approaches to the creative process.

In this course you will be introduced to the influence of design, art and the digital humanities on Modern Theatre and Performance. Students will explore the creation of theatrical environments from page to stage with reference to art, design, music and historical iconography. The course will result in process projects using the student's heightened artistic vision applying theories learned in class to enhance an existing modern script with historic artwork.

In 1997, South Africa adopted a new constitution, ending its oppressive and contested apartheid era and establishing a new democratic, non-racial government. This course introduces students to the history of the peoples of this remarkable nation through an examination of its literature, visual arts, and music and the institutions that preserve and present cultural heritage. Special attention will be given to how this transformation process is both reflected in and impacted by cultural expression and cultural policies. Particular attention will be given to issues of diversity and multiculturalism, the role of artistic expression as a form of social action, and the documentation and interpretation of the apartheid and post-apartheid experience.