AAAS 49S.01

AFTER SLAVERY: THE PROBLEM OF FREEDOM (CZ, SS, CCI, EI)

(Cross-listed as HISTORY 49S.06)

INSTRUCTOR: Thavolia Glymph

Freedom is regarded by many, though not all, as a hallmark of the American experience, but it has also been a problem in the American experience.  This course explores the problem of freedom in the aftermath of emancipation in the U.S.  Why and how was the meaning of freedom re-conceptualized?  How did the process, design, and execution of emancipation expose tensions in the very meaning of freedom – between political freedom and economic freedom?   How did ideologies of race inform how Americans thought about (and legislated about) freedom and citizenship for former slaves?  What was the legacy of the Reconstruction era and how has it shaped our conception of race and freedom?

Thavolia Glymph, Ph.D. (Purdue University) is an Assistant Professor of African and African American Studies and History at Duke University.  She is the author of several essays on slavery, emancipation and the U.S. Civil War and Reconstruction, economic history, and southern women.  Her current writing and research focuses on southern women in the transition from slavery to freedom and the formation of an Afro-American women’s radical culture in the post bellum South.

AAAS 49S.02

AFRICANS IN THE AMERICAS (CZ, CCI)

(Cross-listed as CULANTH 49S.02)

Bayo Holsey, Ph.D. (Columbia University) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of African and African American Studies at Duke.  Her fields of teaching and research interests include the transatlantic slave trade, collective memory, African studies, and diaspora studies.

AAAS 49S.03

BLACK EUROPE: EUROPE AND THE AFRICAN DIASPORA (CZ, SS, CCI)

(Cross-listed as HISTORY 49S.05)

Kennetta Perry, Ph.D. (Michigan State University) is a Provost’s postdoctoral research scholar at Duke.  Her fields of teaching and research interests include comparative black history; Europe and the African diaspora; black Britain; Caribbean history; black women’s history; black internationalism; and emancipation and citizenship.

ARTHIST 49S.01

ART STARS: MODERN ARTISTS AS CELEBRITIES FROM PICASSO TO JEFF KOONS

INSTRUCTOR: Pamela Kachurin

This course examines the status of artists in the age of superstardom, beginning with Pablo Picasso and Frida Kahlo and focusing on American modern artists including Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, Yoko Ono, Jean-Paul Basquiat, Cindy Sherman and Jeff Koons.  Readings and discussions will be devoted to the following topics: how and why artists become celebrities, fame and women artists, what role celebrity plays in creative output, the role of dealers and the art market in creating art stars, and how artists cultivate celebrity as an aesthetic strategy.  Readings will be drawn from the mass media and from the fields of sociology, art history and cultural studies.

BIOLOGY 49S.01

GENES, GENOMES & GENIES: BIOTECHNOLOGY AND THE NEW GENETICS (NS, STS)

INSTRUCTOR: Ron Grunwald

The convergence of biology, engineering and information science in the last quarter of the twentieth century has heralded what some have called the “biotech century.”  From the sequencing of the human genome to international controversies over genetically-modified “frankenfood,” the gene has replaced the atom as the new symbol of the promise and the threat.  Is the new genetics the source of technological wonders or ecological and social disaster?  How much of this promise and threat is real, and how much is hype?  This seminar will explore the potential and limitations of the technology and social applications of the new sciences of genomics, genetic engineering and cloning.

Ron Grunwald, Ph.D. (UNC Chapel Hill) is a Lecturer in the Department of Biology.  His research focuses on membrane biochemistry.

James Reynolds, Ph.D. (New Mexico State University) holds the rank of Professor of Environmental Sciences and Biology. His interests center on the response of plants and ecosystems to disturbance, e.g., climate change and human land use. Dr. Reynolds is leading an international research team in a study of the simultaneous roles of biophysical and socio-economic factors in land degradation in arid and semiarid regions of the world (desertification).

ECONOMICS 49S.36 
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES  (SS, EI)

INSTRUCTOR:  E. Roy Weintraub

This seminar will examine the life and work of one of the truly important figures of the twentieth century, John Maynard Keynes.  The context of the development of Keynes’s thought in late Victorian Cambridge, and the influence of G.E. Moore and the Apostles, sets the stage for an examination of Keynes’s emerging role as government advisor, journalist, teacher, and economist.  The seminar will study his connections to the Bloomsbury Group as well as his non-economic writings, both political and biographical.

E. Roy Weintraub, Ph.D. (University of Pennsylvania) joined the Duke University faculty in 1970.  He was trained as a mathematician, though his professional career has been as an economist.  In recent years his research and teaching activities have focused on the history of the interconnection between mathematics and economics in the twentieth century.  His writings have thus charted the transformation of economics from a historical to a mathematical discipline.

ENV 49S.01

WHAT ON EARTH?  AN INVESTIGATION OF CONTEMPORARY ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES

(SS, STS)

INSTRUCTOR: Prasad Kasibhatla

This seminar will delve into the scientific and public policy perspectives on contemporary environmental issues.  In recent decades, there has been increasing awareness of the need to understand and manage diverse environmental challenges, such as global climate change, regional air pollution, water scarcity, loss of biodiversity, and beach erosion.  This course will examine topics such as these, exploring both the scientific study of and societal response to these issues, with a specific focus on developing an integrated way of thinking about contemporary environmental issues.

Prasad Kasibhatla, Ph.D. (University of Kentucky) is an Associate Research Professor in the Nicholas School of the Environment & Earth Sciences.  He has taught courses in atmospheric chemistry, biogeochemical cycle modeling, environmental sciences & policy, and environmental chemistry & toxicology.  His research interests include tropospheric chemistry & transport and regional air quality.

GERMAN 49S.01

THE POETICS OF THOUGHT: PHILOSOPHY IN LITERATURE FROM ANTIQUITY TO MODERNITY  (ALP, CCI, EI) 
(Cross-listed as LIT 49S.02 and PHIL 49S.01)                                     

INSTRUCTOR: Michael Morton

This course will introduce students to some of the ways in which writers have made use of literary techniques in order to explore philosophical themes and to present philosophical arguments.  Works to be considered range from the very ancient (Epic of Gilgamesh) to the fairly recent (Marat/Sade), and include selections from the Bible (Book of Job), the Greek Golden Age (Plato’s Symposium), the transition from classical antiquity to the medieval period (Augustine’s Confessions), the High Middle Ages (Dante’s Inferno), and the nineteenth century (Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground and Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra).  Some of these works bear a decidedly religious stamp; others are resolutely secular in outlook.  Some propose definite answers to the questions they raise, others serve only to deepen our perplexity and intensify our unease.  Throughout the semester students will have several opportunities to engage these issues in their own right, in the form of short written assignments and oral presentations.

Michael M. Morton, Ph.D. (University of Virginia) is an Associate Professor of German.  He specializes in 18th century literature, critical theory, and literary history & criticism, and his research interests include philosophy and literature and intellectual history.

HISTORY 49S.01

RISE AND FALL OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE  (ALP, CZ, CCI, EI)

INSTRUCTOR:  Sumathi Ramaswamy

This first-year seminar focuses on the establishment of British colonial rule in the Americas, Asia, and Africa from the 16th through the 20th centuries.  We will consider the political, economic and cultural forces at work during this period.  Themes of the seminar include race, gender and sexuality; ideologies of colonial rule; science and technology; the economics of empire; and resistance to imperialism that emerged in both Britain and its colonies by the 20th century.  We will also consider some new scholarship that examines the role of visual practices (like photography, art and film) in the making of the British empire, and will conclude the seminar with a discussion of the multi-cultural landscape of post-colonial Britain, itself perhaps the most enduring legacy of its long colonial history.  In addition to scholarly works, we will read novels, short stories, and women’s writings, and will watch a number of films.

Sumathi Ramaswamy, Ph.D. (UC-Berkeley) is a Professor in the History department at Duke.  Her fields of teaching and research interests include South Asian history; the British Empire; visual culture; and the history of cartography.

HISTORY 49S.03

FROM SOUL TO SELF: A HISTORY  (CZ, CCI)

INSTRUCTOR:  John Martin

This seminar explores the history of the “self” in western culture from antiquity to the present.  Is there such a thing as a soul?  A psyche?  An ego?  What is the distinction between mind and brain?  How do cultural contexts and prejudices shape the way we see the self, and vice versa?  What happens to us as we move from a scribal to a print to a digital culture?  Who are we in cyberspace?  Key authors include Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine of Hippo, Ficino, Descartes, Locke, Freud, and Foucault.  The class culminates in a “self-portrait” that individual students present in the medium of their choice (an autobiography, a film, a website, photographs, a painting, and so on).

John J. Martin, Ph.D. (Harvard University) is a Professor of History at Duke.  His fields of teaching and research interests lie primarily in Renaissance and Early Modern history.

INSTRUCTOR:  Kennetta Perry
(See AAAS 49S.03 for course description)

HISTORY 49S.06

AFTER SLAVERY: THE PROBLEM OF FREEDOM  (CZ, SS, CCI, EI)

(Cross-listed as AAAS 49S.01)                                                           

INSTRUCTOR: Thavolia Glymph

(See AAAS 49S.01 for course description)

LIT 49S.02

THE POETICS OF THOUGHT: PHILOSOPHY IN LITERATURE FROM ANTIQUITY TO MODERNITY  (ALP, CCI, EI)

(Cross-listed as GERMAN 49S.01)

INSTRUCTOR: Michael Morton

MATH 49S.01

GAME THEORY AND DEMOCRACY  (SS, QS, STS, R)

INSTRUCTOR: Hubert Bray

As the trend towards democracy continues, the question of determining what democracy actually means becomes increasingly important.  For example, given a finite number of choices, how does a group of equals choose the option which “best” reflects the will of the group?  With two choices, the accepted answer is “majority rule.”  However, in the case of decisions with more than two options, this is an open question in the sense that philosophical notions of “best” are not universally agreed upon.  In this seminar, we will use mathematics to aid us in our discussion on the meaning of democracy and to examine the pros and cons of different approaches to this question.  We will discuss preferential ballot elections (where each voter ranks all of the choices) and cover some of the most common vote counting methods used to determine a winner in a preferential ballot election.  We will see how some of the “obvious” vote counting methods, such as Instant Runoff Voting (used on many college campuses), have some significant theoretical defects.  Finally, the seminar will include an introduction to game theory, which is an essential tool for predicting how intelligent people with agendas behave given carefully defined rules.

Hubert Bray, Ph.D. (Stanford University) is a Professor of Mathematics at Duke.  His fields of teaching and research interests include differential geometry and general relativity.

MUSIC 49S.01          

INSTRUCTOR: Harry Davidson

Throughout the history of the arts in western civilization, certain individuals stand out whose achievements seem to propel the very nature of their respective art forward. They are said to stretch its boundaries by manipulating its raw materials in ways not conceived of prior to their time. These artists end up exerting enormous influence on others - those working in the same field and the culture in general. This course examines the lives and works of specific composers who have had an unusually powerful influence, in the process informing us a great deal about music's path through the ages. It may also yield insights into the natures of influence and progress themselves. Composers to be studied are J.S. Bach, Beethoven, Wagner, and Stravinsky.

Harry Davidson, M.M. (Pacific Lutheran University) is a Professor of the Practice in the Music department and Director of the Duke Symphony Orchestra.  He made his major orchestra debut conducting the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.  He has guest conducted numerous professional and conservatory ensembles, including the Charlotte Symphony, the Akron Symphony, and the Cleveland Institute of Music and Oberlin College Conservatory orchestras.

MUSIC 49S.02

MUSICAL THEATER: OPERA TO FILM  (ALP, CZ, CCI)

INSTRUCTOR:  Jacqueline Waeber

For many centuries, music has played a privileged role in conveying drama in Western culture, particularly in the form known today as “opera.”  The world of opera is filled with drama, including themes of tragedy, murder, betrayal, and impossible love affairs.  In this seminar we will examine the word opera in its broadest meaning, considering a wide range of artistic genres where the music is dramatically justified.  Examples will be taken not only from operas, operettas, and musicals but also from theatrical productions (including films) for which a specific musical score has been composed, from the early period of silent movies to modern productions.  No prior musical experience is necessary.

Jacqueline Waeber, Ph.D. (University of Geneva) is an Associate Professor of Music at Duke.  Her fields of teaching and research interests include opera studies; French musical culture (18th-20th centuries); melodrama; music; and the other arts.

PHIL 49S.01

THE POETICS OF THOUGHT: PHILOSOPHY IN LITERATURE FROM ANTIQUITY TO MODERNITY  (ALP, CCI, EI)

(Cross-listed as GERMAN 49S.01)

INSTRUCTOR: Michael Morton

PSYCHOLOGY 49S.01

THE COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY OF AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMORY  (SS, NS, R)

INSTRUCTOR: David Rubin

We will read from the primary literature (journal articles rather than textbooks) on the cognitive psychology of autobiographical memory and its neural basis.  We will examine in detail how cognitive psychology tries to understand the behavior and neural basis of the way we remember everyday, important, and traumatic events from our lives and the effects this memory can have on our behavior.  Topics will include amnesia; flashbulb memories; the distribution of memories over the lifespan, including childhood amnesia, reminiscence, and the retention of recent memories; the contribution of sensory systems, emotions, language, and narrative; and posttraumatic stress disorder.  There will be one-page weekly thought papers on the readings and a term paper in which you will be expected to explore a question based on your own reading of the literature.

David Rubin, Ph.D. (Harvard University) is a Professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke.  His fields of teaching and research interests include cognition, human memory, and posttraumatic stress disorder.

RELIGION 49S.01

THE CHRISTIAN BIBLE IN HISTORY AND WORLDWIDE  (ALP, CZ, CCI)

INSTRUCTOR: Lucas Van Rompay

This course reflects on the question of how the Christian Bible (both Old and New Testaments) reached us and – even more importantly – how throughout the centuries its users received and reshaped it.  The focus will be on the Christian Bible, but given the intertwinement of Jewish and Christian tradition in the process of the formation and transmission of the Christian Bible, the pre-Christian and Jewish perspectives will receive much attention as well.  Biblical texts not only were passed on from one generation to the other, they also were converted from oral to written form, sometimes lost and recovered, rewritten from one script into the other, and translated from one language into the other.  The Bible, therefore, in its many appearances throughout time and space, reflects as many moments in the cultural history of the people who wrote, read, and transmitted it.  The focus of this course will be on the transformations of the text from the ancient and late-ancient periods into the early modern and modern “western” societies, as well as on cross-cultural comparison with selected evidence from “eastern” cultures.  Cross-cultural inquiry and comparative study of cultures will be very prominent throughout the course.  This course is not intended to study the Bible specifically as a vehicle of Christianity’s expansion.

Lucas Van Rompay, Ph.D. (University of Louvain, Belgium) is a Professor of Religion at Duke.  His fields of teaching and research interests include eastern Christianity, especially Syriac, Byzantine-Orthodox, Coptic, Armenian, and Ethiopic Christianity.

RUSSIAN 49S.01

TOLSTOY AND DOSTOEVSKY  (ALP, CZ, CCI, EI)

INSTRUCTOR: Denis Mickiewicz

We will read War and Peace, The Brothers Karamazov, and selected representative short works.  The great issues and their vivid dramatization will be considered in the light of the author’s irreconcilable approaches to the human condition, culture, artistic goals, and narrative technique.

Denis Mickiewicz, Ph.D. (Yale University) is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Slavic Studies.  His current research focuses on various aspects of signification in modern Russian poetry.  His secondary interests lie in Russian vocal music and the interaction between language and music, and in the philosophy of major Russian writers.

THEATRST 49S.01

ACTING BASICS  (ALP)

INSTRUCTOR: Dana Marks

Dana Marks, M.F.A. (American Repertory Theatre/Moscow Art Theatre; Institute of Advanced Theatre Training, Harvard University) is a Lecturing Fellow in Duke's Theatre Studies department.  Her fields of teaching and research interests include acting, voice, movement, and Viewpoints and Suzuki training methods.

WOMENST 49S.01

GENDER AND SPORTS  (SS)

INSTRUCTOR: Donna Lisker

This course examines two major facets of gender and sports in contemporary America: the actual and the representational.  In the first facet we’ll look at the literal participation of men and women in athletics.  Do men and women (boys and girls) choose different sports?  How are their choices conditioned by social conventions of masculinity and femininity?  What difference does physical difference make?  How have legislative mandates such as Title IX changed the face of sports in America?  What opportunities exist for further change?  Students will examine the ethical and political debate revolving around this issue from the 19th century into the 21st century.  The second facet moves away from literal participation of individuals to representation of men and women in sports.  We will examine films and fictional depictions of men’s and women’s athletic endeavors as well as media coverage of professional and collegiate athletes.  Using a gendered analysis, we will explore how authors and directors draw on or refute stereotypes of masculinity and femininity.  Ultimately, we will circle back to our earlier discussions of participation, thinking through how media and fictional depictions of athletes influence and direct budding athletes.

Donna Lisker, Ph.D. (University of Wisconsin-Madison) has directed the Duke University Women’s Center since 1999, and became Co-Director of the Baldwin Scholars program in 2004.  She was recently appointed to Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education.  Her current research interests include women’s leadership and gender and sports.