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Dean's Seminars for FreshmenFall 2008
Dean's Seminars are classes designed for first year students in the Columbian College who are not members of programs with required first-year courses, such as the Honors Program or the Women's Leadership Program. Students may register for only one Dean's seminar each semester of their first year. All Dean's seminars fulfill part of the General Curriculum Requirements (GCR). The GCR category for each seminar is given above the description, as is the five digit course registration number (CRN) that is used for registering, and the name and number of the course and section as they appear in the schedule of classes. The Buddhist Art of
Buddhism has had a profound effect on the cultures of Susanne Francoeur is Assistant Professorial Lecturer in Art. Her primary area of
research has been the Buddhist art of ancient South and
Devotion, Politics and Performance
Performance does not happen exclusively on stage or on the silver screen. Globally and locally, we interweave performances of class status, race, gender, sexuality, morality, and nationality into the fabric of our everyday lives. This course examines how communities across the Americas and the Caribbean use devotional performances – pilgrimage, prayer, dance, shrine maintenance – to survive the hardships that accompany migration: economic uncertainty, xenophobia, family separation, diminishing human rights, and the socio-emotional effects of displacement. This course is restricted to first year undergraduates. Elaine Peña received her PhD in Performance Studies at Northwestern University. Before coming to GW, she was a postdoctoral associate and lecturer at Yale University’s MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies, with a joint appointment in the Ethnicity, Race, and Migration Program and the Religious Studies Department. Her research interests include performance theory and pedagogy, the anthropology of religion, gender studies, informal economy, citizenship/migration issues, and the Americas.
Spaces, Places and Things
This course will provide students with the skills to interpret the cultural messages imbedded in our material surroundings. This vast subject area, generally referred to as material culture, is made up of all sorts of humanly created artifacts ranging from specific objects to vast landscapes. The things around us can be read as texts in ways that parallel the way we draw meaning from books. The material “texts” are particularly important as evidence of cultural values in view of the fact that so few people actually leave written records about their everyday experience. Students will be introduced to the methods of material cultural analysis. They will engage in observing, recording, describing, and interpreting various classes of artifacts, including places and objects. We will be looking for what these spaces, places, structures, and things might be telling us about their designers, makers, users, and consumers. Finally we will try to assemble these particular messages into a collective portrait of social life in the United States. John Michael Vlach is Professor of American Studies and Anthropology and Director of the GW Folklife Program. His scholarship, concentrated on aspects of the African Diaspora, has led to research in Ghana, Nigeria, Haiti, Jamaica, and the southern regions of the United States. He is the author of 10 books and has developed exhibitions for the National Museum of American History and the Library of Congress, as well as numerous museums across the United States. He serves as an advisor to a Capitol Hill community oral history project, was an advisor to the National Building Museum’s exhibition, “Washington: Symbol and City,” and is a member of the Historic Preservation Review Board for the District of Columbia.
Troy and the Trojan War
Much nonsense has been written about Troy and the Trojan War, and for more than a century, archaeologists and historians have struggled to answer questions about the Iliad, Homer’s magnificent tale. Did Troy exist? Where was it located? Was there a Trojan War or is Homer’s tale simply a good yarn? Is there any historical truth in a face that launched a thousand ships, or was there simply a ten-year struggle for political hegemony in the Aegean? This problem-oriented class will focus on the archaeological, historical, and methodological questions surrounding the veracity of the Trojan War. Eric Cline is Associate Professor of Classics and Archeology in the Department of Classical and Semitic Languages and Literatures. Dr. Cline is an experienced field archaeologist, with 17 seasons of excavation and survey in Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Cyprus, Greece, Crete, and the United States. He has published five books and more than 50 articles on international trade and relations in the ancient Mediterranean world and military history through the ages, including Jerusalem Besieged: From Ancient Canaan to Modern Israel, The Battles of Armageddon: Megiddo and the Jezreel Valley from the Bronze Age to the Nuclear Age, and Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: International Trade and the Late Bronze Age Aegean.
Do We Need Biotechnology?
Biotechnology is a broad set of techniques manipulating living organisms through the use of genetic engineering. The advances of biotechnology in the last twenty-five years have been dramatic and its proponents trumpet significant benefits for humanity. However, many biotechnological applications have raised serious concerns. This course introduces students to modern biotechnological procedures and allows them to work in the laboratory on projects involving the manipulation of DNA and living cells. They will use their knowledge to critically assess the benefits, pitfalls, and possible consequences that the “Biotech Century” may pose for our world. David Morris is Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences and Genetics. He was involved in the invention of novel cloning vectors for the genetic manipulation of yeast. He has also worked on the genetic improvement of crop plants. His current research is concerned with the biotechnological production of alcohol fuels from plant biomass. He teaches undergraduate courses in microbiology, biotechnology, and cell biology, and was the 2007-2008 recipient of the Trachtenberg Prize for Excellence in Teaching.
Washington Economic Issues and Institutions
Students will study a series of economic issues and the associated Washington institutions. Arthur Okun's Equality and Efficiency: The Great Tradeoff provides an underlying theme: a capitalist democracy confronts tensions between promoting economic efficiency and maintaining political and social equality. Students will study a series of economic issues and the associated Washington institutions. Arthur Okun's Equality and Efficiency: The Great Tradeoff provides an underlying theme: a capitalist democracy confronts tensions between promoting economic efficiency and maintaining political and social equality. Political institutions mediate this tension. For example, students will read and discuss work on the economic benefits of Central Bank independence. Other examples come from regulatory agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency. Regulations save lives but cost dollars. Other issues and institutions that will be studied include the Federal Communications Commission: What if any content restrictions should broadcasters face? And Congress and the White House: Should Social Security include personal or private accounts? Students will debate and discuss these and other issues and take field trips to area institutions. Wallace P. Mullin, Associate Professor of Economics and Co-Director of the Program in Industry Economics and Policy, previously served as a Senior Economist with the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. Professor Mullin’s research has focused on the interaction between issues in industrial economics and corresponding policy instruments such as regulation and antitrust. His current research is on the optimal penalty structure to deter corporate crime.
American Coming of Age
Through classic works of fiction, non-fiction, and film, this course will examine why and how growing up plays a central role in the American cultural imagination, perhaps the result of our democratic-republican political system and its attendant ethos of radical individualism. Readings will include literature from early periods in US history such as Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography, Frederick Douglass’ Narrative of the Life of a Slave, as well as more recent works such as The Virgin Suicides, Anywhere But Here, and writings from the time between. In addition, we will view such classic coming-of-age films as Rebel Without a Cause, Dead Poets Society, and School Ties. Kathy Lawrence is a scholar of Nineteenth and Twentieth Century American literature. Her research interests center on in particular on Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, and Henry James. Her published work investigates James’s connection to Emerson and his circle and to liberal American thought. Her most recent publication uncovers the relationship between Emerson and little-known transcendentalist Caroline Sturgis, who later became a conduit of aesthetic transcendentalism to James. She is currently at work on a biography of Sturgis.
DC Renaissance: Black Culture in the Nation's Capital
The ‘Harlem Renaissance’ of the 1920s has become firmly established as the lens through which many Americans have come to view the first flowering of African American creativity in the 20th century, but this view overlooks the centrality of Washington, D.C. as an important site of African American cultural production. This seminar will explore the relationship of Washington D.C. to 20th century African American literature and culture through a close examination of works ranging from Alain Locke’s groundbreaking anthology The New Negro, Jean Toomer’s Cane, and the poetry of Langston Hughes, to the music of Marvin Gaye and D.C. Go-Go, to the contemporary fiction of George Pelecanos. We will visit some of the sites associated with the renaissance of the 1920s and conclude the seminar with a consideration of the renaissance presently occurring on and around U Street. James A. Miller is Professor of English and American Studies. He teaches undergraduate courses on African American literature and culture. He is the editor of Harlem: the Vision of Morgan and Marvin Smith, and author of Moments of Scottsboro: the Scottsboro Case and American Culture, published by Princeton University Press. He has written and lectured on Washington, D.C.’s African-American community; his article “Black Washington and the New Negro Renaissance” appeared in Composing Urban History and the Constitution of Civic Identities. In 2002 he was named the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching District of Columbia Professor of the Year.
Evil
We say "Evil is as it does", yet seldom ask if it is made or if it is born. “Evil” as both rhetorical concept and cultural phenomenon as manifest in figures like Fidel Castro, Saddam Hussein, Marilyn Mason bring into relief an arena in which we will read, write about, and discuss works by Shakespeare, Flannery O’Connor, Sharon Olds, Vonnegut, and Didion. Political cartoons, music videos, graffiti, and orations of our current president will serve as an ethnographic barometer as we examine the possibilities of the literary project as representation of our hand in the making and maintenance of our fears.
Shakespearean Washington
Tangible Media -- Seeing Green
If seeing is believing, how do we make conclusions about images? Since strategies of visual storytelling and display are connected to the cultural and political uses of information, how do we begin to see the context along with the image itself? We will concentrate on images and data representing ecological systems and environmental crisis and the way these images reveal and conceal the impact of individuals, products, and systems. This studio-based course will introduce students to imaging software such as Photoshop and Dreamweaver and to locative media (primarily cell phones) to explore and track information for projects. Siohhan Rigg is Assistant Professor of New Media and an interdisciplinary artist whose practice and research focus on art in the public sphere. Her work explores local relationships through experimental forays between personal conversations, recycled media materials, and technological interventions to explore issues that seem specialized or opaque.
Two German Pasts
How has the experience of two dictatorships in the 20th Century shaped German national identity? What role did the Cold War and German reunification play in how Germans think about themselves and remember their history? Does the East German Communist past threaten to supplant Holocaust memory in Germany? To answer these questions and explore how Germany has memorialized and debated its Fascist and Communist pasts, students will take an interdisciplinary approach to consider political debates about victims and perpetrators, memorial sites and museums, and literary works by Heinrich Boll, Gunter Grass, and others, as well as a selection of German films including the 2007 Oscar winner The Lives of Others. Mary Beth Stein is Associate Professor of German and International Affairs. She has published articles on the Berlin Wall and political commemorations in West Berlin. She is currently writing a book on memory and East German
Modern Iran
This seminar will examine four broad issues as they play out in the history of modern Iran from roughly 1800, when an Iranian state was reestablished, to the 1980s, as the Islamic Revolution transformed the country. The issues are: the interplay of ethnic, tribal, dynastic, and other loyalties; support for and opposition to modernization and Westernization; the role of religion in Iranian society and politics; and Iran’s role in international affairs as it was caught between great power rivalries in the Great Game and the Cold War. Seminar discussions will be based on readings in translations of Iranian sources and scholarly works by authors of various nationalities. In addition to active participation in class discussions, students will also write two paper analyzing aspects of the seminar’s main themes. Muriel Atkin is Professor of History. Her research focuses on Iranian-Russian relations and modern Central Asia. Her publications include: Russia and Iran, 1780‑1828; "The Rhetoric of Islamophobia," in Central Asia and the Caucasus; "Tajikistan's Relations with Iran and Afghanistan," in The New Geopolitics of Central Asia; "Tajiks and the Persian World," in Central Asia in Historical Perspective; "Myths of Soviet‑Iranian Relations," in Neither East nor West; and "The Islamic Republic and the Soviet Union" in The Iranian Revolution.
Empires
The goals of this course are to consider the meaning, causes, character, and consequences of empire. We will examine the various definitions that have been attached to the term “empire,” the many types of empires that have arisen in world history, and the applicability of the label “empire” to modern America’s position in the world. We will approach subject from a variety of perspectives—historical, economic, ethical, and so on. The course will be discussion-based and reading and writing intensive. Dane Kennedy is Elmer Louis Kayser Professor of History and International Affairs. He has taught British, British imperial, and world history. He has written books about British settlers in Kenya and Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), hill stations in British India, and the British explorer and author Richard Francis Burton, among other topics.
A Topologist's View of Digital Images
In this course, students will develop the mathematical background needed to appreciate and understand the essential ideas of the approach called “computational topology.” This area of mathematics has many practical applications; students will learn in particular about the instructor’s work related to imaging of the brain. General conceptual themes running through the course will include using mathematical theorems as the conceptual linchpin of a computational algorithm and working with discrete approximations to smooth objects. Professor Lowell Abrams is Associate Professor of Mathematics. He earned his doctorate at the Johns Hopkins University and joined the Department of Mathematics at GW in 2000. His research interests include applications of topology to the study of magnetic resonance images (MRI) of the brain.
The Politics of Public Budgeting
This seminar would focus on the political issues and actors in the federal budget process, with particular emphasis on the relationships between the President and the Congress, and the politics of the Congressional budget process itself. Most of the larger policy questions that currently face or will face the nation—the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, homeland security, health care, Social Security, and tax policy, to name five—have a substantial budgetary component. I intend in particular to relate those budget issues to the 2008 Presidential election. The course will take full advantage of our location in Washington, D.C. to make this seminar as “hands-on” as possible, by having key budget players give guest lectures and by taking several field trips to observe Congressional hearings and visit organizations like OMB and CBO. Philip Joyce is Professor of Public Policy and Public Administration. His teaching and research interests include public budgeting and the federal budget process. He is the co-author of two books and over 40 articles and book chapters, and has 12 years of public sector work experience, including four years with the Illinois Bureau of the Budget and five years with the United States Congressional Budget Office. His international consulting work has taken him to China, Mexico, Latvia, and Slovenia. Dr. Joyce is a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.
Booze, News, and Shoes: Constitutional Law in the 21st Century
This seminar examines how constitutional law both reflects and shapes life in the United States. We will start with a discussion of whether the Constitution matters at all, analyze the allocation of power among the branches of government, and explore certain constitutional rights in depth. We will conclude the course with several simulations of current cases before the Supreme Court, as well as a final discussion about whether the Constitution matters at all. Jill Kasle is Associate Professor of Public Policy and Public Administration and serves as the University Marshal. She is a graduate of Boston University School of Law and has done almost everything that a lawyer can do: she has been a law clerk to a judge, a prosecutor, a defense counsel, a law school administrator, and a professor of law.
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia as a diagnostic entity is over 100 years old, yet controversy remains regarding its definition, course, and treatment. This seminar will explore the history of the diagnosis and subsequently focus on advances in the characterization of schizophrenia as a valid and specific form of psychopathology and on the boundaries of the syndrome. An important part of the students’ approach to understanding this disorder will be a guided but active and independent exploration of contemporary empirical literature using a variety of databases available for scholarly inquiry at The George Washington University. Loring Ingraham, Professor of Clinical Psychology, received his bachelor’s degree in psychology from Yale, completed a clinical psychology internship at Harvard Medical School, and received his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Catholic University. He studied schizophrenia as a senior staff fellow in the Laboratory of Psychology and Psychopathology at the National Institute of Mental Health.
Psychological Reactions to Terrorism Threat
This course will introduce the environmental factors, personality characteristics, and individual differences in perception that help to explain different reactions to the threat of terrorism. The course will include the research literature, and beginning statistical explanations in the relationships between exposure to terrorist events, perception of risk, emergency preparedness, and mental health outcomes. Students will examine "pilot data" from undergraduate populations in order to examine relationships among these variables and learn more about how psychologist measure and analyze such constructs. Cynthia Rohrbeck is Associate Professor of Psychology and a clinical psychologist whose research is focused on stress and coping. She is part of a team examining the relationships among terrorism exposure, perceptions of terrorism risk, emergency preparedness, and mental health outcomes.
Addiction
Addictive behaviors are a major source of morbidity and mortality across the world. They can be found in almost every age group, gender, race, socioeconomic status and culture. This course provides a general overview of the biological, psychological, and social factors related to addiction with a focus on behavior. The course will expose students to the current science of addiction and theories and treatments of addictive behavior, as well as to the implications and effects of addiction for health/medicine, law, policy and society, and its relationship to special populations including the mentally ill, children/adolescents, and professional groups. Class format will include lectures, discussions, video clips, guest speakers, and in-class debates. Charles Samenow is Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. He is trained in general adult psychiatry and has special interests in professional health and wellness, addictions, and psychosomatic medicine. His primary research focus is on interventions aimed at addressing professionalism in medical students, physicians, and other professionalism. Dr. Samenow is the recipient of the American Medical Association Foundation Leadership Development Award and the 1999 Exemplary Substance Abuse Prevention Program Award presented by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Political and Social Commentary in Science Fiction
This course will examine the evolution of the science fiction genre from a historical perspective. We will study the ways significant authors, screenwriters and producers have employed the conventions of science fiction to comment on political and social life, beginning with the writings of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells and continuing through present-day examples such as Heroes and Battlestar Galactica. Along the way we will watch and analyze classics such as The Twilight Zone, Star Trek and The X Files. Some of the questions the class will consider are: why do authors use fiction, and specifically scientifically-based fiction as the vehicle for social critique? How is science fiction significant to the development of entertainment media? How do the themes in science fiction relate to political and social conditions of different historical time periods? Patricia Phalen is Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the School of Media and Public Affairs. He holds a master’s degree and Ph.D. in Radio/Television/Film and an MBA. Her research focuses on the socio-economics of mass media organizations, particularly the relationship between media and audiences. She is co-author of The Mass Audience: Rediscovering the Dominant Model and Ratings Analysis: The Theory and Practice of Audience Research.
Literature, Dictatorship, and Transitions in Argentina and Chile
In this course we will study the literature and film produced during the most recent dictatorships of Argentina and Chile (in the 1970s and 1980s) and during the subsequent transitions to democracy in those same countries (in the 1980s and 1990s). We will explore the dynamic relationship between fiction and politics during periods of intense social repression and censorship, as well as the role of culture in trying to understand traumatic historical events. What kinds of literature are produced during periods of repression, both inside the respective countries and from exile? What happens to literature and culture when discourse itself is controlled, censored, and repressed by military dictatorships? What happens in a society and its culture when a dictatorship ends, and then enters into a transition to democracy that is intimately linked to processes of globalization? How should we view this history—specifically from Washington, DC, today—and how can we view it in translation? We will study the role of the U.S. in this history, and explore the similarities and differences between these historical events and those of other major repressive regimes, such as Nazi Germany. This will lead us to discussions of morality and ethics, as we explore the history of terrorism and torture in the Americas, from the Southern Cone to Guantanamo Bay. Seregio Waisman is Associate Professor of Spanish. A novelist in his own right, he has studied and translated South American fiction, and teaches the literature of South America.
Race, Ethnicity, and Crime
Evolution of the Human Mind
This course will review the cognitive abilities of human and non-human primates in language and communication, social cognition, spatial and physical cognition, numerical competence and memory systems. Throughout the semester, students will be introduced to theories of cognitive evolution and the various methods used to explore cognition between species. Class discussions will be coordinated with activities in the National Zoo’s Think Tank, where researchers are actively exploring the cognitive abilities of orangutans and gorillas, as well as trips to the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) where students can gain insights from exhibits that highlight environmental and social variables that might have shaped early human cognition. Francys Subiaul is Assistant Professor of Speech and Hearing. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University. He has published extensively in the area of human cognition, and especially on “cognitive imitation” in primates and humans.
Measuring Uncertainty
This course focuses on developing an understanding of probability and its wide ranging applications in diverse fields. In early classes, a comprehensive and systematic account of the history and various philosophical theories of probability and their inter-relations will be explained. Later sessions will concentrate on explaining the concepts and tools of probability required to appreciate and model real-life problems. Prerequisites for this seminar series are limited to high school Algebra. No previous knowledge of probability will be assumed. Srinivasan Balaji is Assistant Professor of Statistics. He has taught a variety of probability and statistics courses. His research interest are broadly in the area of probability theory and particularly in the area of stochastic differential equations. He has published articles on these topics in national and international journals.
Policy, Gender, and Inequality
Abortion and same-sex marriage are but two examples of hot-button political issues that bring debates about gender and sexuality into the public policy arena. We will explore differing political and philosophical ideas about equality and the appropriate role of government in reducing inequality. The course examines how policies and policy debates shape, and are shaped by, ideas about gender difference; and how gender intersects with race and class among other inequalities. The focus is primarily on the U.S., but includes cross-national policy comparisons. This course provides students with an introduction to Women’s Studies and to the study of public policy. Cynthia Deitch is Associate Professor of Women’s Studies, Sociology, and Public Policy, and serves as Associate Director of the Women’s Studies Program. She is a sociologist with research interests in gender, race, and class in labor markets and employment policies, and in women’s social movement activism.
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