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Critical Inquiry Seminar (ID 1) Course Descriptions for Fall 2008

Critical Inquiry (ID1) is a program of seminars for first-year students in their first semester at the college. Seminars are taught by faculty from across the disciplines and engage students in rigorous reading, writing and discussion on varied topics. The goal of ID1 is to prepare students to participate fully and successfully in the intellectual community that is Pomona College. Critical writing is an essential component of that participation, and to that end ID1 is a writing-intensive course. All sections of ID1 focus on writing as a recursive process of drafting and revision. All seminars meet at 11 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Courses

1. Contemporary Israeli Film and Fiction. Mr. Abecassis. This course will focus on a series of shorter forms of prose fiction, especially in the post-1967 period. The topics included in the readings touch some of the deeper questions facing Israeli society: being Jewish in Israel; Israel and the Diaspora; the Arab-Israeli conflict; the ethics of war and peace; as well as love, death and laughter set against the background of Israel today. Opting for the study of short novels and short stories, we will have the opportunity to read closely some of the most protean fiction written by three successive generations of writers, from the early twentieth century (S. Y. Agnon and Yosef Chaim Brenner); the period around Israel’s establishment as an independent state in 1948 (S. Yizhar and Israel Shamir); and today (including Amos Oz, A. B. Yehoshua, David Grossman, Aharon Appelfeld, and others). We will also engage with three award-winning recent Israeli movies and documentaries. All texts in English.

2. Simply Sondheim. Mr. Bailey. The Hollywood release of Sweeney Todd in 2007 sparked a renewed interest in American composer Stephen Sondheim, an undisputed giant of twentieth-century American musical theater. A study of Sondheim’s Broadway shows offers a glimpse not only into the history of musical theater, but of the nation which gave it birth and the social complexities that are celebrated in his lyrics and music. This seminar will provide an in-depth study of the composer, several of his musicals, and an opportunity to engage in the artistic process of writing lyrics and music.

3. Facebook, Fairness, and Forgery. Ms. Chen. The increasing presence and power of computers have changed the way we acquire knowledge, think about privacy, keep in touch with friends, and even find love. But how are moral, social, and political issues formulated in terms that allow a computer to find the answer? What does it mean for a computer to “solve” these problems? And are there problems that computers can't (yet) solve? In this class we'll both explore the ways in which computers have expanded our horizons and debate whether there are, or should be, limits on what we approach computationally. Along the way we'll read fiction and non-fiction, we'll learn about current research in computer science, and we'll see how these ideas are used by individuals, companies, and governments.

4. Imagining the Environment. Ms. Clark. Since Rachel Carson’s book, Silent Spring, ushered in the modern environmental movement, nature writing has expanded to include multiple ways of imagining the natural world and our relationship to it. For centuries this genre celebrated the beauty of nature and consoled humans during times of suffering, but now we see the earth itself in crisis. According to Lawrence Buell, “Apocalypse is the single most powerful master metaphor that the contemporary environmental imagination has at its disposal.” What other tropes do we use to imagine the natural world and our relationship to it? What are the implications of imagining the environment as pastoral? polluted? the wilderness? the fallen Garden of Eden? In this course we will read canonical (Berry, Carson, Kumin, Leopold, Snyder, Thoreau, Walker, Woolf) and non-canonical writers (Harjo, Hogan, Ortiz) who explore the relationship between literature and the physical environment, considering such issues as biocentrism, ecocriticism, ecofeminism and environmental justice.

5. The End of Empire: Spain as a Cautionary Tale. Ms. Coffey. In what was a complete shock for its citizenry, Spain lost the last vestiges of its empire in 1898 to the United States in a war Spaniards now refer to as simply “the disaster.” The blow was devastating, bringing to a sudden end Spain’s once great colonial empire. Forced to accept its sharply reduced global importance, Spain began a century-long process of soul-searching, which often involved violent internal struggles. In this course, students will examine literature (novels, essays, plays and films) that represent Spain’s twentieth-century identity crisis. The War of 1898, the Spanish Civil War, the Franco dictatorship, and the new Spanish democracy serve as the shifting historical background against which writers and philosophers search for meaning in the modern world. All texts in English.

6. Life at the Edges: From Deep Sea and Subsurface to Outer Space. Mr. Crane. The discovery of life at the bottom of the sea and deep beneath the surface of the earth has changed our assumptions both about what is necessary for life and about what forms living creatures can take. Almost all environments on earth can support life, and the variety of organisms appears endless, but there do seem to be some immutable laws governing life on earth. In this seminar, we’ll investigate these laws—is there a minimum size for a living thing? is there a minimum number of individual “parts” required for a free-living and replicating organism?—and we’ll think about how what we know about life on earth might help us to recognize extraterrestrial life if we saw it. Readings will be drawn from fields such as deep sea exploration, deep subsurface microbiology, and extraterrestrial life detection.

7. “Flashpoints” in Rock & Roll History. Mr. Dettmar. Rock & roll has had a rocky public reception since its earliest days: Bill Haley & the Comet’s “Rock Around the Clock” 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: Amy Winehouse being released from rehab for her live-via-video rendition of “Rehab” at this year’s Grammys is only the most recent installment. In this seminar, we will trace the “scandalous” history of rock & roll via its public controversies: Dylan “going electric” at Newport, Hendrix burning his guitar at Monterey, Sinead setting fire to 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.

8. War and Peace. Ms. Dwyer. Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace has been hailed as “the greatest European novel” and derided as a “loose baggy monster.” In this seminar, we will immerse ourselves in this controversial, enduring, and influential novel. We will see what War and Peace can tell us about Russian history and culture during the Napoleonic Wars of 1805-1812 (when the novel is set) and during the revolutionary period of the 1860s (when it was published). We will also pay close attention to War and Peace as a work of art: What are the hidden linkages that hold this “monster” together? Finally, we will consider how Tolstoy can help us grapple with questions that are (once again) urgent: What is the nature of war? How does one represent history and experience? What possibilities are there for individual human action in the world at large? All texts in English.

9. Philosophies of Education. Ms. Eisenstadt. Since antiquity, philosophers have reflected on how we learn and why we sometimes fail to do so. From Plato through Rousseau and bell hooks to Neil Postman, they’ve asked whether nature trumps nurture, how humans develop as psychological beings, and what the relationship between teaching and character formation actually is. To what extent are children born paragons of innocent virtue, bundles of selfish inclination, or “blank slates”? To what extent should education be training in citizenship, and to what extent should it be liberation from social conditioning? In reading twenty-first century philosophies of education, we will think in particular about issues of race and technology: Can education be fair? What kind of testing fosters learning? How can we best reconcile and integrate the central goals of education today: the development of critical thinking, the delivery of information, and – in the great shibboleth of contemporary educational debates – “access”?

10. Perspectives on Environmental Thinking. Mr. Elderkin. Why are animals generally given rights, but not trees? Should all living things be given rights? Even bacteria? What role should economics play in deciding? What environmental considerations should be included in economic decisions? Could Thoreau, writing over 150 years ago, really have anything to say on these matters that will help us make decisions in the twenty-first century? How about Aldo Leopold or Rachel Carson, 100 years more recently? How can we train ourselves to have anything better to say? We shall read from these and others more contemporary, such as religious philosopher John Cobb and economist Herman Daly. We shall be bold enough to develop and then assert our own points of view!

11. People, Power, and Religion in the Middle Ages. Mr. Eldevik. Was there really a cult dedicated to free love in the Middle Ages? How did a radical preacher and his peasant army nearly topple the English monarchy in 1381? How did the Crusades begin as part of a religious reform movement but become a vehicle for a full-scale invasion of the Middle East by Christian knights? This course will examine the diverse worlds of medieval religion with a focus on ideas about social power, justice, and reform. In the context of medieval Christianity, religious ideologies were not only mechanisms for dominance and social control; they also helped form a powerful discourse of resistance and popular dissent in early European society, though not necessarily with positive outcomes. Through readings of original sources from the period, as well as current scholarship, we will attempt to understand the intersection of faith and politics in the Middle Ages as ordinary people experienced it.

12. Baseball in America. Mr. Foster. Why is baseball America’s game? This course will evaluate the cultural, economic, historical, and political aspects of Major League Baseball. The purpose of this course is to determine if baseball is more than a “sport” in America. In addition to reading and writing about baseball, each student will have to attend at least one major and minor league game. All students will be required to keep score on a baseball scorecard.

13. Pomona Goes Green. Mr. Gorse. The Earth Charter states that “we stand at a critical moment in Earth’s history, a time when humanity must choose its future.” How do our choices – as individuals in our daily lives, and as members of the planned community of Pomona College – affect this future? How does the concept and goal of “sustainability” unite academic, artistic, pragmatic, and social endeavors? In this course, we will investigate these questions, using Pomona College as our case study: How can we make this a more sustainable “campus,” and how can and should such a campus be a model for our global future? In our search for answers we will read authors such as Italo Calvino, Leo Marx, and William McDonough; write about campus organizations and initiatives; and engage with scholars in the field at the Hart Institute series on “Environmental History.”

14. Election 2008. Mr. Green. What difference will the election make? That is, what policies are the major candidates for President likely to pursue? What are the advantages and disadvantages of those policies? In pursuing these questions, we will choose a few significant areas. As I write this in the spring, Iraq and health care are the leading contenders. Separate groups will research and analyze each candidate’s views, building arguments about the feasibility and desirability of the various programs. We’ll thus develop research questions and arguments by exchanging work in progress, and will find that our investigations take us beyond downloading position papers from the web. Strong partisans of one party or the other may enjoy the course, but I should warn you that I will encourage you especially to research the other side’s views.

15. Space: To Boldly Go? Mr. Grosfils. With an initial robotic exploration of the solar system only decades from completion, humankind is on the brink of launching itself out into space. This forces us to consider a fundamental issue that has, as yet, remained unresolved: Is human exploration of the solar system something we should pursue? Science may provide the means, but it will not provide the right to move out into space; that is a decision we face, a course our society must evaluate. What’s out there that’s worth the risk? What are the physical, economical, political, scientific, religious, and ethical costs and implications if we choose to proceed? What are the costs and implications, perhaps not least to the human spirit, if we don’t? In our exploration of these questions, we will strive to improve our insight into how the interplay between scientific advances and philosophical, political, and religious values affects our lives.

16. The Heart of a Doctor. Ms. Hoopes. In literature, doctors are often portrayed as caring deeply about patients. But as medicine becomes more complex and technology-driven, the ability of a doctor to feel empathy towards patients can be compromised. In this seminar, we’ll read the Hippocratic Oath and consider the hearts of today’s doctors. We’ll think about how medical training affects students, and what we ask when we expect doctors – who frequently must watch their patients die – to respond to the feelings of patients and families. We’ll consider what different cultures expect of doctors, and the challenges doctors face when caring for patients who come from cultures radically different from their own. To increase our insight, we’ll read selections from Robert Marion’s Intern Blues, Pauline Chen’s Final Exam, Lori Alvord’s The Scalpel and the Silver Bear, Abraham Verghese’s My Own Country, Dang Thuy Tram’s Last Night I Dreamed of Peace, Tracy Kidder’s Mountains Beyond Mountains, and other sources.

17. Cultural Psychology. Mr. Hurley. We begin with the assumption that the culture that one experiences (socio-cultural-historical context) has a primary and powerful influence on perceptual, cognitive, and behavioral development. Since context is literally everything, everywhere, across time, how can the science of psychology expect to study it in any meaningful way? This seminar takes an exploratory look at the how the recent Cultural Psychology movement fights to avoid being overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of what it hopes to study by thinking outside the discipline, compromising when necessary, and otherwise letting the questions (rather than traditional methodologies) lead the way. Students will learn the structure and style of writing/inquiry in the social sciences.

18. 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 racism, colonial slavery, gender inequality, and class strife. The writers and artists associated with the Enlightenment proposed radical ways to address these problems. These proposals addressed 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 governmental 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.

19. Dangerous Books. Ms. McWilliams. In 2005, the journal Human Events released a list of the “most harmful books of the 19th and 20th centuries.” The existence of this and similar lists begs the questions: What does it mean to say that a book is harmful – or dangerous? Once we deem a book dangerous, how should we treat it? Readings will include selections from Darwin’s Descent of Man, Foucault’s Madness and Civilization, Hitler’s Mein Kampf, Kinsey’s The Kinsey Report, and Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil, among others. Students will also research and write about dangerous books of their choosing.

20. Creativity in Science. Ms. Perini. Scientists work with data: their observations. But one of the most striking things about science is the generation of new ideas that are distinctively different from prior hypotheses and the data itself. How do scientists go beyond what they already know – beyond what they have seen – to think up new hypotheses? Are scientific discoveries truly creative, or are they merely valuable but inevitable results from using scientific methods? When powerful new ideas and methods are generated in science, is that primarily due to special characteristics of individual scientists, like genius, or to social factors, like scientific institutions or cultural context? How does scientific creativity compare to creativity in the arts and other endeavors? We will consider cases, including early insights about the cause of planetary motion and the double-helix model of DNA, and draw on the history and philosophy of science, cognitive science, and representations of scientists and creativity in popular media.

21. Mathematics and Music: A Marriage of Muses. Ms. Radunskaya. Mathematics and music have been intertwined since the beginning of recorded history. The Pythagoreans considered both mathematics and music a form of mysticism; and the two disciplines share at least one muse, Polyhmnia, the muse of “many hymns” and of sacred geometry. More recent mathematical giants, such as Euler, Newton and Einstein, were also talented musicians, while great composers, such as Bach and Mozart, were formidable and creative puzzle-solvers. We will explore the connections between mathematics and music by listening to a selection of pieces, by discussing what others have written on the subject, and by creating our own musical manifestations of mathematical ideas. Musical examples will span the centuries from the Renaissance to the computer age; readings will include both fiction and non-fiction, history, anecdote, and speculation. No special expertise is required beyond high school mathematics and an enjoyment of music.

22. Music and the Order of the Universe. Mr. Rockwell. Philosophers and scientists throughout history have worked under the premise that the universe is fundamentally musical – Plato, Ptolemy, Boethius, Kepler, and Newton all regarded the study of musical harmony to be a key to understanding natural order. How, then, do harmonic proportions, mathematical structures, musical performances, and the cosmos relate? What accounts for the prevalence and eventual decline of the unified study of these topics? We will address these questions by tracing ideas of music and natural order from Greek music theory through the Scientific Revolution. We will also utilize mathematical and cosmological conceptions of music to analyze examples by Bach, Bartók, Hindemith, Pink Floyd, and Madonna, as well as the soundtrack to the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.

23. The Ethics and Poetics of Friendship. Ms. von Schwerin-High. We speak of a “fair weather friend” dismissively, believing that true friendship doesn’t diminish during hard times. But Hannah Arendt points out that the ancient Greeks understood friendship as a relationship that legitimately flourished during times of good fortune or prosperity. What, then, is friendship, and how are friendships represented? Can a friendship be used strategically to further goals that lie outside of the friendship’s circumference, or does the very idea of strategy undermine the notion of friendship? In this course, we will examine a range of literary, epistolary, and theoretical accounts of friendship, including examples from Antiquity, the Enlightenment, Romanticism, and Postmodernism. Authors also include Aristotle, Schiller, Goethe, Bettine von Arnim, G. E. Lessing, Orhan Pamuk, and Philip Roth. By writing critical essays that put these constructions of friendship into conversation, you will ultimately develop your own understanding of what it means to write about a friend as well as to write as a friend.

24. DNA in the USA: Science, Perception, and Policy. Mr. Seligman. The United Sates is the world’s leader both in scientific research and development and in the training of research scientists, but according to a 2007 Gallop Poll, about 50% of Americans do not believe in evolution. Situated between these two extremes, many Americans find themselves simultaneously excited and made uncomfortable by biotechnological advances. How, then, can we rationally craft laws and public policy that govern this complex and ever-changing field? This course will explore intersections between biotechnology and policy in this country. We will first consider the Eugenics movement of the early part of the twentieth century, where scientific ideas merged with societal biases to create an environment in which egregious laws and policies could flourish. What lessons from that period can we draw upon as we deal with contemporary issues such as transgenic foods, gene patents, stem cell research, and gene therapy?

25. The Wilderness, Paradise on Earth? Mr. Steinmetz. Environmentalists see the preservation and extension of wilderness areas as necessary for the environmental health of the planet. Planners, by contrast, view them as impediments to the prudent utilization of limited strategic resources such as lumber and oil. This seminar will focus on America’s stewardship of wilderness areas, examining questions about their political, philosophical, and physical place in the nation today. What is the distinctive ecology of the wilderness? What spiritual and cultural values does it embody? What is the best approach to its management? The class will explore these questions through the close reading and discussion of classics by proponents of the wilderness, such as John Muir and Edward Abbey, and by experiencing the wilderness directly through field trips to Joshua Tree National Park and a nearly pristine site in the San Gabriel Mountains.

26. Languages of the Stage. Mr. Taylor. How does a play mean? What are those people up there on the stage really trying to tell us? This seminar is an exploration of the various means of expression utilized by artists in creating works for drama, dance, and musical theatre. Our exploration will focus on a detailed examination of theatrical language in all of its manifestations – including the text-based language of the playwright; the verbal and physical language of the actor and director; and the visual language of the designers. We will also investigate the aural language of the theatrical composer; the kinetic language of the dancer and choreographer; the analytical language of the critic; and the experiential language of the audience. A key component of the seminar will be attendance at live performances of drama, dance and musical theatre, both on-campus and at professional venues throughout the Los Angeles area.

27. Light, Perception, and Art. Mr. Whitaker. How does the Mona Lisa smile so coyly? Why does the sun in a Monet painting seem to glisten? In this course we will attempt to answer these questions by learning how light interacts with matter and how we have evolved to process light information. We will begin by learning how early twentieth-century physicists described light, and we’ll use that knowledge to help us understand how light interacts with matter – and how images are formed on our retinas. We’ll then explore the more recent breakthroughs in neuroscience that describe how this information is processed into “images” in our minds. Ultimately, we’ll think about how painters such as da Vinci, Monet, Mondrian, and Close used an intuitive understanding of light/body interaction to create images we find beautiful and compelling.

28. Graphic Novels. Ms. Worley. Is there a difference between graphic novels and comic books, and if so, what is it? Answering these two questions (however provisionally) is the central task of this class. So that we can be precise about our terms, we will begin by looking at the history of comic books, from the Bayeux Tapestry to the Death of Superman, as well as the history and theory of the novel. We will then read and discuss a slew of comic books/graphic novels (including web comics), as well as some theoretical essays that will help us focus our thinking. Finally, we will refine and articulate our understanding of the genre as well as pursue individual research questions. By the end of the term, we will have had a good time reading comics, and will also have given a lot of thought to narrative theory, word-text interaction, and the future of the book.

29. Globalization: Good or Evil? Ms. Bromley. In 1999, Seattle was temporarily shut down as thousands of people from around the world protested a meeting of the World Trade Organization. Such demonstrations are now commonplace at high-level international economic meetings, suggesting widespread agreement that globalization is dangerous and must be stopped. At the same time, recent pools show that most Americans believe that globalization benefits this country, and the World Bank argues that it reduces poverty and increases overall welfare globally. In this seminar, we will seek to understand the benefits and dangers of globalization—economic, cultural, environmental, and political—by considering three specific cases: McDonald’s, movies, and climate change. How do we determine which aspects of globalization are good and which are evil? In grappling with these questions, we’ll read contemporary popular, political, and scientific texts, including Fast Food Nation, Jihad vs. McWorld, An Inconvenient Truth, and One World: The Ethics of Globalization.


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