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This class will explore the many connections between American jazz and the struggle for civil rights in the 20th and 21st centuries. Because of the music's origin in the African-American community, class discussions will focus specially on this aspect of American civil rights history, though the history of other social groups will also enter the discussion. Other topics for discussion will include the complex position of women in this male-dominated misical style and how women's performances spoke to unique political concerns.While the specificity of American jazz and American history is the starting point, the class will raise larger questions about the relationship between music and politics: what does it mean for music to be "political"? Can music (or any art for, for that matter) effect real change in people's everyday lives?
Today, having children, maintaining health, and dying are influenced by high-tech medicine. Sperm and egg donation, frozen embryos, surrogate mothering, genetic engineering, cloning, organ transplantation and physician-assisted suicides are in the news and in our lives. This class takes and interdisciplinary approach to examining how these advances are affecting living and dying in America. Class will be taught by Dr. Sandra Garcia on Wednesday from 2-4:50 in CPR 115.
Debates about the human condition and its potential for improvement have long occupied the energies of politicians and policymakers, as well as scientists and philosophers. In this modern incarnation, the so-called "Nature/Nurture Debate" continues to fuel controversies in science and medicine, both ethical and empirical. From questions about genetic counseling and neonatal care to copyright issues surrounding the human genome and the large-scale production of genetically modified foods, scientific issues are thoroughly imbued with economic, legal, political and social considerations. In fact, this type of social complexity has long characterized debates about the effects of heredity and the environment on humanity. This course will explore the modern history of these debates from the mid-nineteenth century to the present in a predominately American context.
In this course we will examine a variety of nineteenth- and twentieth-century utopian theories and alternative communities as critiques of the mainstream American society and values. To begin, we will explore the idea of the "New World" and the new United States as possible Utopias in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The primary groups and ideas to be examined include the Shakers, the Transcendentalists, the Oneida Perfectionists, Edward Bellamy's "nationalism," early twentieth century technological utopianism, feminist utopias/dystopias, mid-late twentieth century communes, and the contemporary "community movement," focusing on the "new urbanism" and cohousing.