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| Interdisciplinary Studies - Home | Requirements | Course Atlas | Internships | Honors | ||||||||||
Course Atlas - Fall 2008IDS 190/CPLT 190: Good Worlds/Bad Worlds (Freshman Seminar) Bammer, TTH, 1:00pm - 2:15pm MAX: 18 (IDS 12/CPLT 6) Contents: This course examines some of the ways in which people in the modern (post-Enlightenment) world have imagined alternative futures. These possible futures are often cast in the form of “other” worlds, which are projected as either “good” or “bad” alternatives to the world we currently live in. Implicit in these utopian or dystopian visions are both a critique of current social conditions and a blueprint for a different social order. We will examine some of these blueprints to see what kinds of alternative worlds people have envisioned and assess how they are better or worse than what we already have. Drawing on philosophical concepts that propose ways of assessing whether a social order is good or bad, we will study examples of “good” and “bad” worlds proposed by contemporary writers, thinkers, artists, and film-makers. Among other things, we will ask what makes the bad worlds so much more compelling to write and think about than the good worlds that seem boring by comparison. Finally, we will compare the alternative worlds imagined in these creative works to the real worlds envisioned by political treaties and national constitutions. Texts:
Particulars: Weekly responses to course materials and two short papers. One longer paper or a creative project (the latter requires special permission of instructor). No exams.
Content: This course examines the origins and development of distinct disciplines in contemporary universities through the lens of what counts as evidence in different fields of human knowledge. Incorporating regular visits and lectures by guest faculty, IDS 200 provides a venue for undergraduates to encounter exciting current research of a range of scholars from the ILA and across Emory University, who will speak from their expertise in response to our unifying question about evidence. What terms, metaphors, and methods do we use to explain and understand human experience? The fabric of human life is complex not only in its variety, but in the level at which we analyze and question. For love of her brother, a young woman defies the law. But could the young woman’s love, her thinking, speech patterns, and motivations be due to genetic dispositions, neural mechanisms, or mental disease? Such questions highlight the problematic nature of evidence and explanation. Evidence in one form of inquiry often baffles those trained to pose different sorts of questions. What, if anything, unifies the underlying principles of knowledge, science, or expertise? Texts: Visiting speakers will enter into conversation over inescapable texts such as: Sophocles, Antigone; Plato, Republic; Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy; Chaucer, Wife of Bath; Shakespeare, As You Like It; Shelley, Frankenstein; Dickens, Hard Times; Rushdie, Midnight’s Children. Other class sessions will be devoted to understanding of these and other texts (including Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel), and to critical analysis of visiting speakers’ interventions. Soltis, 8:30am - 9:45am Content: Personal identities are constructed and altered through complex historical, cultural, and psychological processes and experiences. Through the study of a variety of texts from cultures other than those of the US, we will explore some of the forces that appear to shape identity and mark it in familiar terms: gender, race, nationality, religion, class, colonialism, ethnicity, space and place. The course has three intertwined themes: 1) Individual coming of age and identity formation, 2) Global forces and the shaping of identity, and 3) IDS 216WR: Visual Culture Aschner-Restrepo, 3:00pm - 3:45pm MAX: 18 Content: This course introduces students to the treatment of vision and visual media in the humanities and the interpretive social sciences. We will explore the cultural construction of vision, visual representation, and "visuality" in diverse societies, with particular attention to the ideological dimensions of photography and cinema. We will also critically examine how anthropologists and others have used visual methods-- especially photography and ethnographic film-- to represent and interpret human societies and cultures. IDS 385WR/CPLT 389WR/HIST 385WR/PHIL 385WR: Marx, Nietzsche, Freud Goodstein, TTH, 2:30pm - 3:45pm MAX: 19 (IDS 7/CPLT 4/HIST 4/PHIL 4) Content: Dubbed "the masters of suspicion," Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud each contributed in a unique way to the skeptical culture of modernity. Marx exposed the relation between ideas and their material origins; Nietzsche called the very idea of truth into question; and Freud suggested that human existence itself rests on dark and unexamined foundations. The founders, both consciously and unwittingly, of movements that attempted to use their insights to transform politics and culture, these intellectual revolutionaries changed the landscape of modern life. In this course, we will focus both on understanding their ideas and methods and on learning how to use them ourselves. As critical thinkers committed to extending the power of self-reflection into new regions, Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud were the inheritors and extenders of the enlightenment. But all three were also highly aware of the power of the irrational to shape human existence. The tension between rationality and irrationality is at the heart of the distinctive new ways of thinking associated with their names. This course will closely examine the ideas of each of these "masters" of argument: we will study each on his own terms, engaging in careful and critical readings of major works. We will also practice using the paradigms they developed by reading Heinrich Kleist's "The Earthquake in Chile" from Marxian, Nietzschean, and Freudian perspectives. Throughout the course, we will also be concerned to think about the methods of each thinker in relation to the others. Particulars: This course is particularly recommended for IDS majors and others planning senior projects that require a theoretical foundation. It fulfills the post-freshmen writing requirement, so in addition to careful reading, you will also be doing extensive writing, both analytical and interpretive. We will approach writing as a continuous process of revision and experiment, focusing on helping you to understand and manage that process in a way that works best for you as an individual. IDS 385: Imaging Bodies, Screening Lives (CANCELLED) Grimshaw, TTH, 10:00am - 11:15am MAX: 18 Content:Photographic technologies have long been associated with the study and mapping of human diversity. Beginning in the early nineteenth century, the camera was heralded as a breakthrough in the documentation of the world, promising new standards of objectivity and scientific veracity. But from the outset the evidential status of the photograph has been problematic. In this class, we will examine the different debates about the use of the camera in social documentation and we will explore its role in mediating cultural difference. The course is built around a number of topics. These include debates about the power of images, photography and race, images of illness, representations of childhood, cross-cultural encounters, and televising lives. Our exploration of these topics will draw on perspectives derived from cultural anthropology. IDS 385S/JS 370S/REL 370S: Holocaust Memoirs Bammer/Lipstadt, T, 2:30pm - 5:30pm MAX:18 (IDS 6/JS 6/REL 6) Content: Memoirs are both documents of a history lived and textual (re)constructions of that experience remembered. Taking Holocaust memoirs as the focus of our inquiry, we will examine what it means for a text about the Holocaust to be both an historical document and a personal narrative. Within the scope of this inquiry, we will consider questions of evidence and truth; the relationship between experience, historical fact, and memory; the distinctions among ”truth,” ”reality,” and ”realism.” The readings for this course will include memoirs of the first generation, who experienced the Holocaust directly; the second generation who were born during or directly after the Holocaust; and those who, at an additional remove, live with its ”post-memory.” Readings will include selections from the following: Erika Fischer, Aimée and Jaguar: A Love Story, Berlin 1943 Particulars: Each student will give an oral presentation(in collaboration with a class-mate) on one of the assigned texts and write two papers of 7-10 pp. Active participation is expected and will include informal written responses to the weekly readings. IDS 385SWR/HIST 487SWR: Medieval Law and Literature White, TH, 2:30pm - 4:30pm MAX: 12 (IDS 8/HIST 4) Content: This course examines the representation of treason trials, bloodfeuds, and inheritance disputes in medieval literary works and the relationship between literary representations of law and legal practice. Texts: Readings will include Béroul's Romance of Tristan, Njal's Saga, Beowulf, The Death of King Arthur, The Song of Roland; and selections from medieval legal texts. Particulars: Weekly short papers or oral reports; a final research paper (25 pages). This course fulfills General Education Requirement I.C. (Advanced Seminar). It also fulfills the Emory College Post-Freshman Writing Requirement. Permission only class. IDS 385WR/CPLT 389WR/ENG 389WR: Shakespeare in Russian Culture Glazov-Corrigan, MWF, 2:00pm - 2:50pm MAX: 3 Content: This class examines several paradigms for understanding Shakespeare's formidable influence in Russian culture: from Bloom's anxiety of influence, to Eliot's claim that Shakespeare cannot be a poetic influence, to Pasternak's conception of the battle entailed in the transmission of tradition, and then to Mandelstam's vision of influence as a forceful impulse to speech or even a mating call. Eight of 10 Shakespeare's plays will carefully discussed in order to understand which of the themes have the strongest impact and new life in a Russian culture and which are overlooked and downplayed. IDS 385/CPLT 389: Deception, War and the Image Caruth, TTH, 10:00am - 11:15am MAX: TBA is war-making so deeply bound up with deception? And how are politics and history affected by the centrality of war in the political realm? Starting from the questions, this course will examine 20th century literature, film and (political and literary) theory in order to consider the relation between war and image, lying and politics, the production of history and its denial. IDS 385WR/CL 329WR/HIST 385WR: Byzantine Literature Ekonomou, M, 5:00pm - 8:00pm MAX : 20 Content : The world of Byzantium, or the Eastern Roman Empire which was centered at Constantinople, offers a rich variety of writings in prose and verse. In the more than one thousand years of existence the Byzantine Empire drew on its heritage from the classical world of Greece and Rome, blended it with the developing Christian tradition, and produced a unique culture to whose literature this course is an introduction. The course will begin with a general introduction to the Byzantine Empire outlining the empire’s history from its foundation by Constantine the Great in the fourth century to its conquest by the Ottoman Turks in 1453. We will then turn to a reading, analysis, and discussion of prose and poetry texts that will include a wide range of writings stretching from the Age of Justinian to the fall of Constantinople. These will include histories, saints’ lives, monastic foundation documents, legal documents, religious poems and hymns, theological and canonical texts, secular poetry including medieval Greek romances and epic poetry, the Byzantine novel, fables, bestiaries, praises, laments, and a variety of satire, epigrams, and letters. Prose authors will include the historians Procopius, Michael Psellos, Anna Comnena, Niketas Choniates, and George Sphrantzes. Verse to be studied covers a wide range of styles from the hymns of Romanos Melodos and the nun Kassiane to the poems of Theodore Prodromos and Theodore Metochites. Readings on the lives of holy men and women will range from Egyptian ascetics such as St. Mary of Egypt to the pillar saint Daniel the Stylite. Letters will include the correspondence of emperors, princesses, bishops, and scholars from the pagan aesthete Libanius to Manuel II Paleologos. Texts: Materials will come from published texts, copies of texts provided by the instructor, and from materials available electronically IDS 485R: Internship for Interdisciplinary Studies Written permission of Director of Undergraduate Studies required prior to registration. For more information, please contact: Undergraduate Secretary , The Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts, S415 Callaway Ctr. IDS 490R: Supervised Reading and Study Written permission from instructor required prior to registration. For more information, please contact: Undergraduate Secretary, The Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts, S415 Callaway Ctr. IDS 495R: Honors Written permission from instructor required prior to registration. For more information, please contact: Undergraduate Secretary, The Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts, S415 Callaway Ctr. IDS 499R: Senior Research Written permission from instructor required prior to registration. For more information, please contact: Undergraduate Secretary, The Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts, S415 Callaway Ctr.
For more information please visit the additional pages listed to the left. OFFICE HOURS: 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. (EST) , Monday - Friday
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