Applied Linguistics/TESL 19, Seminar 1
Language Tests: Gatekeepers or Door Openers?
Lyle Bachman (Enrollment: Limited to 15 students)
Language tests have become a pervasive part of our education system and society, being used for a wide variety of purposes such as university admissions, placing students into foreign language programs, hiring employees with foreign language ability, and identifying English language learners in schools. But how valid are language tests as measures of language proficiency? How useful are language tests for making these high-stakes decisions? What are the consequences, both beneficial and harmful, of using language tests for these purposes?
Professor Bachman has extensive international experience in language test development. His publications include Fundamental Considerations in Language Testing and Language Testing in Practice (with Adrian S. Palmer), both of which received the MLA's Mildenberger Award for Outstanding Research Publication.
|
Architecture and Urban Design 19, Seminar 1
Rebuilding Rome: Using Virtual Reality Modeling
to Experience the Ancient City
Diane Favro
Cities are meant to be experienced, not merely evaluated as two-dimensional plans. New technologies allow researchers to project themselves into recreated 3-dimensional historic environments. Using the Rome model created at the UCLA Cultural Virtual Reality Lab, students will examine aspects of architectural reconstructions and VR modeling. During visits to the campus Visualization Portal, students will move through ancient Rome in real time. In class they will explore the uses of such VR models for research, education, museums, and popular films.
Diane Favro is a professor in the Department of Architecture and Urban Design. Her research focuses on Roman architecture and urbanism, and the uses of digital technology to study and explain historical architecture. As Associate Director of the Cultural VR Lab at UCLA she has overseen the creation of diverse historic interactive digital models (including the Forum Romanum and Colosseum) that allow observers to move through the recreated buildings in real time. Professor Favro is the current President of the Society of Architectural Historians.
|
Comparative Literature 19, Seminar 1
Kafka's Short Fiction - or
How Does the Modern World Work?
Kathleen L. Komar
Franz Kafka was a German speaker in a Czech city - and a Jew in a German-speaking population. This double alienation helped him to understand the alienation of the modern world in general at the beginning of the 20th century. His name has become an adjective (Kafka-esque) that signals the inescapable absurdity of the modern condition. We will read several of Kafka's short fictional pieces in order to analyze what kinds of alienation he captures in his narratives and how that alienation works. I believe his texts will help us understand our own current social condition as well as give us insight into other modernist writers of the first half of the 20th century.
Kathleen Komar is a professor of Comparative Literature who works primarily in German, American and French literatures. She earned her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Princeton University. Komar has published on a wide variety of topics from Romanticism to the present in both American and German literature. Her books include Pattern and Chaos: Multilinear Novels by Dos Passos, Faulkner, Döblin, and Koeppen, and Transcending Angels: Rainer Maria Rilke's "Duino Elegies". She co-edited with Ross Shideler the volume Lyrical Symbols and Narrative Transformations. A recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award in 1989.
|
Comparative Literature 19, Seminar 2
Poets and Desire
Ross Shideler
Representations of desire in poetry take many forms and the object of desire ranges from standard love poems to the "ideal" that haunts Mallarmé or Yeats and Wallace Stevens. We will read poems by 19th and 20th-century European and American poets such as: Baudelaire, Valéry, Södergran, Ekelöf, Tranströmer, Cavafy, Eliot, H.D., and Rilke as well as other more contemporary poets ranging from Rukeyser to Gluck and Fulton. While, there will be an emphasis on close reading of poetry, we may read essays that will illuminate the problem of "desire."
Ross Shideler is a professor of Comparative Literature who works on 19th-20th-century Swedish, French, English and American literature. He has published many articles, translations of plays by the Swedish author Per Olov Enquist and of Swedish poets as well as poems of his own. His books include: Voices Under the Ground: Themes and Images in the Early Poetry of Gunnar Ekelöf, Per Olov Enquist: A Critical Study; and Questioning the Father: From Darwin to Zola, Ibsen, Strindberg, and Hardy as well as having and edited with Kathleen Komar, Lyrical Symbols and Narrative Transformation.
|
East Asian Languages and Cultures 19, Seminar 1
Anti-Americanism in Korea: Korea-U.S. Relations
and the Crisis in Korea
John B. Duncan
A survey of the history of relations between the U.S. and Korea, a critical examination of how relations have worsened in recent years, and a consideration of how that complicates efforts to resolve the current crisis in the Korean Peninsula.
John Duncan teaches Korean history in the Dept. of EALC and is Director of the Center for Korean Studies at UCLA. He has published widely on Korean history and his current research interests are on popular culture and non-elite identities in 19th and early 20th century Korea.
|
English 19, Seminar 1
Reading William Hogarth's Art
Charles L. Batten
(Class meets every other Monday for two hours)
"I have endeavoured," wrote William Hogarth, "to treat my subjects as a dramatic writer: my picture is my stage, and men and women my players." The most important engraver in England's eighteenth century, Hogarth uses his visual art to tell stories - similar to plays and novels - that convey moral, social, and political lessons. His satiric views continue to have relevance in the modern world. While this seminar will primarily focus on "reading" Hogarth's most famous visual narrative sequences - "The Harlot's Progress," "The Rake's Progress," "Marriage a la Mode," and "Industry and Idleness" - it will also examine individual plates like "Credulity, Superstition, and Fanaticism."
Professor Batten is currently Vice Chair for Undergraduate Studies in the English Department. He has written on eighteenth-century travel literature and is currently attempting to complete a book on the literary and cultural importance of deism. He has won the campus Distinguished Teaching Award.
|
English 19, Seminar 2
Tales of Madness by Edgar Allan Poe
Frederick Burwick
Students will read accounts of mental pathology familiar to Poe, and will discuss how Poe's study of cognitive and aberrational psychology informed his representation of delusion and hallucination in his short stories. One short story will be assigned for discussion each week
Frederick Burwick is a Professor in the Department of English. With an interdisciplinary approach to literature, he explores the interactions of literature with art, science, music, and theater. Author and editor of twenty-five books, one hundred articles and twenty reviews, his research is dedicated to problems of perception, illusion, and delusion in literary representation and theatrical performance. His essay, Edgar Allan Poe: The Sublime and the Grotesque, appeared in Prisms (2000), and his book, Poetic Madness and the Romantic Imagination won the Outstanding Book of the Year Award of the American Conference on Romanticism. He has been named Distinguished Scholar by both the British Academy (1992) and the Keats-Shelley Association (1998). His Poetic Madness and the Romantic Imagination (1996) received the Outstanding Book of the Year Award presented by the American Conference on Romanticism.
|
English 19, Seminar 3
Origins of Identity: History and Memory in Women's Poetry
Karen Rowe
Who we are or may become originates in a history, each unique by virtue of ethnic heritage, gender, sexuality, spirituality, and individual talent. In personal writings and poetry, women voice maternal stories that also recollect a communal history replete with images of homelands, political struggle, and ancestral rituals. This seminar studies how memory imprints identity, how the past suffuses our present. Remember, Audre Lorde proclaims, "poetry is not a luxury" but a "litany of survival."
Karen Rowe is a Professor in the Department of English. Her research ranges from Renaissance and early American literatures to later British and American women writers, from continental fairy tales to women's education and curriculum reform. She was Founding Director of UCLA's Center for the Study of Women and teaches courses cross-listed through the Women's Studies Program.
|
English 19, Seminar 4
Bollywood Cinema: Imagining the Indian Nation
Jenny Sharpe
(Class meets every other Wednesday for two hours)
Bollywood or Bombay cinema has achieved mainstream recognition through the academy award nomination of Lagaan and box-office success of Hollywood-produced, Bollywood-inspired films like Monsoon Wedding. We will examine a few Indian films for how they infuse classic cinematic styles with epic Hindu plots, Victorian melodrama, Orientalist imagery, Indian folk theater, and (more recently) MTV youth culture to create entertaining musicals and melodramas that also address the complexities of the modern Indian nation.
Jenny Sharpe is a Professor in the Department of English. She teaches courses on non-Western literatures in English, Comparative Literature, and Afro-American Studies. She is the author of two books, Allegories of Empire: The Figure of Woman in the Colonial Text (1993) and Ghosts of Slavery: A Literary Archeology of Black Women's Lives (2003).
|
English 19, Seminar 5
Reading Emily Dickinson Reading Us
Thomas Wortham
Language as metaphor, language as riddle, language as truth, language as void, language as seeing and unseeing ourselves. What does it ever/always/never mean? Does language enable or disable? In ourselves do we find a community of others? In reading Emily Dickinson do we read ourselves? What is "poetic" language? How does it work? Do we exist outside, apart of it? Do we create it or does it create us? Are we the unanswered question it asks or the mystery it hides by revealing? "What nonsense!" Let's see. At least it might be fun. What else is there?
Professor and Chair in the Department of English. He really believes poetry makes a difference; otherwise he is considered harmless by most people. He likes to see students think. (Maybe he isn't so harmless after all.) He read Emily Dickinson's poems first when he was thirteen years old and hasn't yet recovered.
|
|
|
Film & Television 19, Seminar 1
The Genius of Charlie Chaplin
Steven Ricci
(Class meets every other Wednesday for two hours)
During the quarter, we will be viewing prints recently restored by archives from around the world and presented by the UCLA Film and Television Archive, of Chaplin masterpieces. Students will be required to attend between six and eight of the rare Archive screenings. We will explore the artistic and social projects proposed by these classic films.
Steven Ricci is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Information Studies and the Department of Film, Television and Digital Media. He is the Director of the Interdepartmental Degree Program in Moving Image
Archive Studies. He also serves as Secretary General of the International Federation of Film Archives and has authored studies of the relationship between Hollywood and European Cinemas.
|
French & Francophone Studies 19, Seminar 1
Africa in a Global Context
Dominic Thomas
The focus will be provided by a consideration of important cultural, social, and political issues in contemporary Africa: civil conflict, genocide, humanitarian relief, AIDS, female genital mutilation, famine, multi-national activity, Islam, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and political activism.
Dominic Thomas is an Assistant Professor in the Department of French and Francophone Studies, and is on the faculty at the African Studies Center. His courses and research focus on contemporary Africa and questions of racism and immigration in Europe. He recently published Nation-Building, Propaganda, and Literature in Francophone Africa.
|
Honors Collegium 19, Seminar 4
Stage and Screen: Works by UCLA Students
Carol Petersen
(Class meets every other Tuesday for two hours)
This seminar will focus on works created by students in the Department of World Arts and Cultures, Film, Television & Digital Media, and Theater. Student choreographers and directors will visit our class to discuss their artistic processes, media, and purposes and to show clips of their performances and films. We'll also view and discuss photos I've taken during rehearsals and production. Class members will make journal entries responding to each session and to readings suggested by our presenters.
Carol Petersen is UCLA's Director of Academic Affirmative Action. She has taught writing courses and team-taught courses in diversity, conflict, and conflict resolution; the history and politics of affirmative action. Her photos have been exhibited in the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, the Harriet and Charles Luckman Fine Arts Gallery, and the Skirball Cultural Center and published in Racial and Ethnic Relations in America (McLemore, Romo, and Baker, eds.), the Los Angeles Times, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
|
Italian 19, Seminar 1
Cinema and Conscience: Italian Neorealism
Thomas Harrison
(Class meets every other Thursday for two hours)
A study of one of the most striking bodies of European film, and generally considered the highpoint of Italian cinema, which arose as a reaction to Mussolini's dictatorship and the catastrophe of World War II. We will study a handful of films by Rossellini, Visconti, and De Sica in the context of social and film theory of the age (the 1940s).
Thomas Harrison is a scholar of 20th century Italian and Comparative Literature as well as cinema. He teaches the annual GE course called "Sex and Politics in Italian Cinema" (Italian 46).
|
Music 19, Seminar 1
The Music We Love
Roger Bourland
(Class meets every other Wednesday for two hours)
Each seminar will involve the participants bringing in music to play for the class. The presenter will give a brief background of the artist or performers, their influences, their aesthetic, and any other pertinent information. Finally, the student will discuss what it is that speaks to them in the music. Members in the seminar will be expected to respond to each presentation. The goal will be to become exposed to new music from a variety of genres and aesthetics.
Roger Bourland (Ph.D Harvard), a Professor in the Department of Music, has composed music for orchestra, wind ensemble, chorus, chamber music, film, theater, dance, and radio which have been performed throughout North America and Europe. His teachers included Gunther Schuller, John Harbison, Leon Kirchner and Earl Kim. His most recent composition, The Crocodile's Christmas Ball and other Odd Tales for chorus and wind ensemble, was premiered by five groups around the country in December 2002.
|
Music 19, Seminar 2
The World of Chamber Music for Strings
Paul Coletti
(Class meets every other Monday for two hours)
Explore the repertoire for string instruments in small combinations. This seminar-session is strictly for string players with experience in chamber or orchestral music. Repertoire will be drawn largely from the Classical period. The instrumentation will depend upon the make-up of the class. Students will perform, sight-read, listen, and participate in chamber music every session.
Professor Paul Coletti is head of the Chamber Music Program at UCLA. He has performed in major cities worldwide. He performed the Bartok Viola Concerto with Lord Yehudi Menuhin conducting the Berlin Radio Symphony, live on Eurovision Television and his "Viola Tango" show, in association with pianist/composer Hannah Reimann, was televised by CNN. For ten years he was the violist in two award winning ensembles; the Menuhin Festival Piano Quartet and Typhoon.
|
Music 19, Seminar 3
Vocal Arts: Steps to Better Singing
Juliana Gondek
(Class will meet Week One through Week Seven for 90 minutes on Tuesdays: 4:00-5:30 p.m. Enrollment: Limited to 15 students. Not for declared Voice Majors)
Seminar will introduce students to basic principles of good singing. A "hands-on", active exploration of voice technique, including: understanding the vocal mechanism; developing stronger breath support and expanded capacity; creating a balanced, attractive tone; increasing range, flexibility, and pitch accuracy. Students will learn helpful vocal exercises, with possible in-class performance demonstrating accumulation of skills.
Professor Juliana Gondek, international opera star, symphonic/recital/recording/TV-radio broadcast soloist, joined UCLA's faculty in 1997. A Grammy Award-winning recording artist (1996, Best Opera) with 16 recordings/videos, she has sung with top orchestras and opera companies worldwide, including: Metropolitan Opera, New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Opera, Netherlands Opera, Geneva Opera, Venice Opera, Carnegie Hall, Salzburg Festival, Edinburgh Festival, Pacific Festival (Japan), Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Concertgebouw (Amsterdam).
|
Philosophy 19, Seminar 1
The Limits of Things
Calvin Normore
Can there be a world which includes both every thing and every sign? We begin from three closely related paintings by Rene Magritte: The Use of Words I, Two Mysteries, and The Air and the Song. In each of these a subject of the painting is itself the relation between things and paintings of them. We then set these paintings and the talk about them in a larger frame of discussions of paradox. Our aim is to see when a sign can be about itself without paradox. Finally we return to art to see if what cannot be said can be shown.
Calvin Normore is a professor of Philosophy at UCLA . He specializes in the history of medieval and early modern philosophy and his interests include the history of logic and the philosophy of art.
|
Scandinavian 19, Seminar 1
"The Fellowship of the Ring": Tolkien's View of Good and Evil in the Community
Jules Zentner
(Class will meet Week One through Week Nine on Wednesdays for 75 minutes, 3:30-4:45 p.m.)
The Fellowship of the Ring will be read and analyzed in terms of J.R.R. Tolkien's view of the battle between Good & Evil in the world, the individual, and the community.
Dr. Zentner received his doctorate from UC Berkeley after doing much of his preparation at the University of Uppsala and University of Stockhom in Sweden. He has taught at Berkeley, the Univ. of Minnesota, and UCLA.
|
Scandinavian 19, Seminar 2
"The Hobbit": Tolkien's View of Good & Evil in the Community
Jules Zentner
(Class will meet Week One through Week Nine on Tuesday s for 75 minutes, 3:30-4:45 p.m.)
The Hobbit will be read and analyzed in terms of J.R.R. Tolkien's view of the battle between Good & Evil as it affects the world, individuals and members of communities.
Dr. Zentner received his doctorate from UC Berkeley after doing much of his preparation at the University of Uppsala and University of Stockhom in Sweden. He has taught at Berkeley, the Univ. of Minnesota, and UCLA.
|
|
"The interaction between students and faculty was wonderful. The smaller environment allowed me to get to know the professor better and feel more comfortable discussing the subject with the other students. It helped to facilitate discussion, interaction, and a more enjoyable and stimulating learning environment."
Student comment
|
|
Anthropology 19, Seminar 1
Social Relationships: What are They and How do People Create Them?
Alan Page Fiske
(Class meets every other Monday for two hours)
What is a social relationship? Are there indefinitely many forms of relationship, or only a few elementary structures? How do people form relationships, and what motivates people to sustain a relationship? In this seminar we shall draw on anthropological and psychological research and social theory to explore the basic processes of meaningful social coordination. Along the way we shall consider how scientific theories are constructed, tested, and developed. Students will see several kinds of research and collect some of their own data.
Professor Alan Fiske is a psychological anthropologist who studies how cultural, psychological, ontogenetic, evolutionary, and neurobiological processes interact to shape human social relations. He is Director of the Center for Behavior, Evolution, and Culture. He received a BA in Social Relations from Harvard College and a PhD in Human Development from the University of Chicago. He was a Peace Corps Volunteer and WHO Consultant doing tuberculosis control and smallpox eradication. He lived in Africa for eight years, including participant observation fieldwork in Burkina Faso.
|
Anthropology 19, Seminar 2
AFRICA: The Roots of Crisis
Peter B. Hammond
(Class meets every other Thursday for two hours beginning Second Week)
An exploration of the causes and consequences of Africans' struggle against persistent underdevelopment. Students do a critical reading of materials on resistance to colonial conquest and the slave trade; the Africans' fight against ecological degradation; their battle for economic, social and political justice; and the war against AIDS.
Professor Hammond is a cultural anthropologist speciaized in the study of issues related to economic development in the former French and Portuguese colonies in Africa. He is a recipient of the Luckman
Distinguished Teaching Award.
|
Anthropology 19, Seminar 3
The Anthropology of Collective Violence
Douglas Hollan
Especially since the events of September 11, 2001, we are all more aware of violence that is directed against whole groups of people. This seminar will examine, from an anthropological point of view, the causes and consequences of collective violence in the contemporary world.
Douglas Hollan is Professor and Chair of Anthropology. He is a cultural and psychological anthropologist with interests in the cross-cultural study of mental health, illness, and healing and an advocate of person-centered ethnography. Professor Hollan is a recipient of the UCLA Distinguished Teaching Award.
|
Chicana/o Studies 19, Seminar 1
Affirmative Action, Then and Now: How the Supreme Court Molds U.S. Society
Otto Santa Ana
(Class meets every other Tuesday for two hours beginning Second Week)
We will critically compare the language of U.S. Supreme Court opinions on affirmative action. We won't read them as legal documents. Instead, we will scrutinize the Court's language to learn what it thinks about citizenship, nationhood, meritocracy, justice, and individual rights. Have its views really changed? What difference will it make? The 1978 Bakke opinion, which guided the nation's higher education policy for a generation, will be compared the 2003 opinion.
Professor Otto Santa Ana is a linguist and critical discourse analyst. He wrote Brown Tide Rising: Metaphoric Representations of Latinos in Contemporary Public Discourse. In it, he analyzed mass media news reports to understand how the general public continues to misunderstand Latinos, and Latino political issues. Now he is turning his attention to another important formative language, legal discourse, to make sense of the kind of society that the Court visualizes and strives to create.
|
Chicana/o Studies 19, Seminar 2
Death, Gender, and the Border: 320 Bodies and Counting (1993-2003)
Alicia Gaspar de Alba
(Class meets every other Wednesday for two hours. Enrollment: Limited to 15 students)
Who is killing the women of Juárez? What is killing them? Why are they being killed the way they're being killed? Who is profiting from their deaths? This interdisciplinary seminar examines the ten-year crime wave of murders, mutilations, and serial killings of poor brown women in Juárez, Mexico. The goal of this seminar is to develop an interdisciplinary methodology by which we can examine the social, political, economic, and cultural infrastructure in which those crimes continue unabated. It is offered in conjunction with the "Maquiladora Murders Conference" sponsored by the Chicano Studies Research Center on Days of the Dead, 2003. Students will be expected to attend and participate in the organizational process of the conference.
Alicia Gaspar de Alba is an Associate Professor of Chicana/o Studies and English, and Associate Director of the Chicano Studies Research Center. She is the organizer of the upcoming "Maquiladora Murders" Conference at UCLA. She has authored several books, including a cultural study on the CARA exhibition titled Chicano Art Inside/Outside The Master's House, a historical novel, Sor Juana's Second Dream, and a mystery novel on the Juárez crimes. Most recently she edited Velvet Barrios: Popular Culture & Chicana/o Sexualities.
|
Communication Studies 19, Seminar 1
Watching the Dog: Television News and the Diversionary War Hypothesis
Tim Groeling
Leaders of nations have often been accused of using warfare to rally the public to their side and shift attention away from domestic political problems. The "diversionary war hypothesis", most famously articulated by the movie Wag the Dog, has actually proven quite controversial among researchers. Using the unique resources of UCLA's News and Public Affairs video archive, this section will explore public opinion about and news coverage of American uses of force abroad over the last quarter century.
Tim Groeling is an Assistant Professor of Communication Studies/Speech, where he teaches courses on political communication, communication technology, presidential communication, and computer-mediated communication. He is currently
completing a book titled Man Bites President: Divided Party Communication and Unified Government that examines the news media's intervening role in partisan communication.
|
Geography 19, Seminar 1
Wildfire Danger, Drought, and Urban Sprawl: A Field Trip
Hartmut Walter
The mountain forests surrounding the Los Angeles basin have been severely affected by four years of insufficient rainfall. This course will investigate the link between drought, increased tree mortality, and the ever increasing residential development near and in forested open space. A bus will take us to Lake Arrowhead in the San Bernardino Mtns. where water shortages and dying forest tracts pose serious planning problems for human decision makers.
(Pre-field trip meeting: Thursday, Oct. 9; Post-field trip meeting: Thursday, Nov. 19; 5:00-6:00 p.m., 1261 Bunche Hall; Field trip: An all-day event on Saturday, Oct. 18 (8:00 a.m.-8:00 p.m.)
Professor Walter is an ecologist and bio-geographer who specializes in wildlife conservation in California and Africa. He teaches field courses introducing students to the wild life and natural heritage of southern California. His research is worldwide focusing on the theory and management of national parks and nature reserves.
|
History 19, Seminar 1
Where Do You Come From? Diversity and Identity in America?
Edward A. Alpers
This seminar explores issues of diversity and identity by posing the complex question, "Where do you come from?" We will follow this question both by reading selections from a number of different American authors and by asking it of ourselves and our families.
Professor Alpers has been teaching at UCLA since 1968 and is constantly astonished by the diversity of experiences of our undergraduates. His own personal history and his scholarly work on Africa and the African Diaspora bring him to the current topic.
|
History 19, Seminar 2
Scientific Revolutions
Theodore Porter
We often think of science as advancing methodically and relentlessly. But in one of the most influential academic books of the last half century, Thomas Kuhn argued that scientists are quite tenacious, and in a way, conservative, in holding to their core assumptions, and that scientific chance sometimes occurs by radical breaks, or revolutions. We will read that book, along with a few papers about key episodes of scientific change, and talk about how our understanding of science should change in the light of its history.
Professor Theodore Porter teaches history of science in the Department of History at UCLA. He has written books and articles about how the ideas and practices of science participate in the larger cultural and political environment, and especially about the uses of numbers, measures, and statistics in science and in public life.
|
History 19, Seminar 3
Race, Religion, and Region: The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction
Janice L. Reiff
This class will consider the issues of race, religion, class, and region raised by the arrival of 57 New York City "orphans" at their new homes in Arizona's mining country in 1904 and what they reveal about American society more generally.
Professor Reiff teaches American social and history and directs the UCLA Oral History Program. Her research considers ethnicity, race, class, and place in 20th century America.
|
History 19, Seminar 4
Utopias and Dystopias in the Western Tradition
Teofilo F. Ruiz
This course will examine how different thinkers (from Antiquity to the Present) have imagined a world in which justice, equality, property, freedom, and gender-equality will be the norm. At the same time, the course looks at dystopian works that imagine the future as a nightmare. Readings include Plato's Republic, Thomas More's Utopia and Huxley's Brave New World.
Professor Ruiz received his Ph.D. from Princeton in 1974 and has taught at Brooklyn College, the CUNY Graduate Center, the University of Michigan, the Ecole des hautes Etudes en Sciences Socials and Princeton--as 250th Anniversary Visiting Professor for Distinguished Teaching - before coming to UCLA in July 1998. A scholar of the social and cultural (popular culture) of late medieval and early modern Castile, Teo Ruiz is now completing two books: the first, A Social History of Spain, 1400-1600, will be published by Longman. The second, From Heaven to Earth: The Reordering of Castilian Society in the Late Middle Ages, is forthcoming from Princeton University Press.
|
History 19, Seminar 5
Conflict and International Peacekeeping in the 1990s
William R. Summerhill
(Class meets every other Tuesday for two hours)
Seminar examines the post-cold war military interventions that were designed to create peace and stability in warring regions. Special attention is given to the political context of intervention decisions, and to measures of success that can be applied to evaluate each intervention.
William Summerhill is Associate Professor of History, and teaches courses on Latin America, Brazil, and economic history. He received his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1995.
|
History 19, Seminar 6
Important Ideas in American History
Richard Weiss
(Class meets every other Wednesday for two hours)
This class will consider important ideas in American history ranging from the colonial through the modern periods. For each meeting, we will read some primary source material and use it as a basis for class discussion.
Richard Weiss is Professor of History. His primary area of concentration is twentieth - century social and cultural
history. He is currently working on a book on the influence of Alfred Adler's ideas in the late 20th century. His earlier writings focused on the success myth and on
race and culture in American life. His teaching career has been at Hunter College, Columbia University and UCLA.
|
Honors Collegium 19, Seminar 1
From Tattoos to Tourism: Using Traditional Culture for National Identity
Larry Loeher
Nation states in the South Pacific have struggled with issues of how to construct national identity after the end of formal political colonization (mostly post-WWII.) "Traditional Culture" has been used to this end, sometimes at odds with culture as practiced and experienced. External stereotypes of Pacific "Paradise," developed in part for the tourism industry, further compounded the effort towards self-definition. This seminar will look at how the concepts of "traditional culture," especially of Polynesia, are defined, displayed, and exploited.
Larry Loeher is Associate Vice Provost for Instructional Development at UCLA. He received his PhD in Geography, and has supported and led student field research efforts to Samoa, Australia, New Caledonia, the Cook Islands, and Wallis and Futuna. His research interests include media documentation of cultural representation, as well as the impact of the tourist industry on the environment and on local community culture.
|
|
|
Information Studies 19, Seminar 1
Images of War in Literature for Children
Virginia Walter
(Class meets every other Monday for two hours)
How do children make sense of war? This course focuses on children's books as social artifacts that reveal prevailing values. We will read and discuss contemporary children's novels and picture books about war in an effort to understand the messages and information being communicated to children.
Virginia Walter is a former Children's Librarian, a published author of books for children, and a member of the 2004 Newbery Committee, charged with selecting the most distinguished American book written for children in 2003. She teaches and writes about social issues in Children's Literature.
|
Law 19, Seminar 1
Law and Popular Culture
Michael Asimow
(Class meets every other Tuesday for two hours)
This seminar will explore the interface between law and popular culture. It will examine the way that law and lawyers are portrayed in film and television and explore the effect on the public of popular culture representations of lawyers. We will examine such issues as the adversary system, heroic and evil lawyers, and the life of lawyers today. In each case, the representations in film or television will be contrasted with actual data on these subjects.
Michael Asimow has been Professor of Law at UCLA since 1967. His specialties are contracts, administrative law, and taxation, as well as law and popular culture. He wrote Reel Justice: The Courtroom Goes to the Movies, a guidebook to courtroom movies. He has also published a number of articles about lawyers in popular culture.
|
Law 19, Seminar 2
Law and Popular Culture
Paul Bergman
(Class will meet for two hours on irregular Wednesdays: October 1st, 15th, 29th, November 12th
and December 3rd)
This seminar will engage students in the analysis of law, lawyers and the legal process in films and television. Adopting the perspective that popular culture serves to educate non-lawyers about legal issues, we will look at what is being taught and the effect of those teachings. Among the issues that the seminar may explore are the death penalty, law school and the adversary system.
Professor Paul Bergman has been on the faculty of the the UCLA School of Law since 1970. His specialties include Evidence and Trial Advocacy. Since writing Reel Justice, Professor Bergman has taught a seminar in Law & Popular Culture on a number of occasions, and given film clip-based talks to groups of lawyers and judges around the country and in England. He has also published a number of articles relating to Law and Popular Culture.
|
Law 19, Seminar 3
Peace, Non-Violence, and The Law: A Brief Introduction
Kenneth Graham, Law
Law prides itself on providing for the peaceful settlement of disputes but assumes that "peace" is the natural state of affairs. Does this mean that law is like the doctor who wants to cure cancer but does not care about its social causes? To what extent does the law disturb the very peace it claims to preserve? Do legal rights prevent disputes or encourage them. I know of no answers to these questions but do have some ideas about how we might think about them.
Kenneth Graham is Professor of Law at UCLA. He received his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Michigan. He has been teaching at the U.C.L.A. Law School since 1964. His legal specialty
is the law of evidence, a subject on which he has published 10 volumes.
|
Law 19, Seminar 4
Legal Recognition of Race and Ethnicity: A Critical Appraisal Using U.S. and African Examples
Frances Olsen
(Class meets every other Wednesday for two hours)
This seminar draws on African examples to evaluate "colorblindness" in American Constitutional interpretation. It analyses the history of legal recognition of race and ethnicity in the U.S. and the (pseudo-) science of defining race. We then explore relationships between ideas of the "Black Power" movement (1960s and 70s) and contemporary Critical Race Theory. Finally, we examine the debate in Ethiopia regarding the extensive legal significance their 1995 Constitution gives to ethnicity and the contrasting debate in Mauritius regarding "communities."
Professor Frances Olsen has taught at 7 universities in the United States, 6 universities in Europe, 5 universities in Asia; and she also taught Ethiopian Constitutional Law at Addis Ababa University, in Ethiopia, Africa. She has talked at some 200 universities and published in 2 dozen countries. She represented the Native Americans at the last major uprising (Wounded Knee, South Dakota, 1973), participated in both U.N. Conferences on Women (Beijing, 1995), and has been teaching a course on Civil Disobedience at the Law School the past 3 years.
|
Policy Studies 19, Seminar 1
Critical Problems in American Intelligence Agencies
Amy Zegart
Although the September 11th terrorist attacks may not have been preventable, recently declassified information suggests that the U.S. intelligence community did not perform as well as it should have. This seminar starts by examining the critical problems hampering U.S. intelligence efforts before 9/11. We then turn to history, tracing the origins and evolution of the CIA. Finally, we connect past to present, examining competing explanations of why the intelligence community adapted poorly to the rise of terrorism after the Cold War.
Amy Zegart is an Assistant Professor of Policy Studies. She received her B.A. from Harvard College and her Ph.D. in Political Science from Stanford University, where she studied under Bush National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice. Her book, Flawed By Design: The Evolution of the CIA, JCS and NSC, won the highest dissertation award in Political Science. She has worked on the Clinton NSC staff and the Bush 2000 Presidential campaign. Zegart is currently writing a book about why U.S national security agencies adapted poorly to the rise of terrorism.
|
Sociology 19, Seminar 1
Music and Social Identity
William G. Roy
Music has an uncanny ability to bring together people of different life experiences and parts of society. However, it can also reinforce the social boundaries that separate people. All music carries connotations of particular races, classes, and genders. People often think that various types of music sound like African-American, Hispanic, or white music, or sounds masculine or feminine. At the same time, music can be a way that people express membership in a race, gender, or class. This course will examine of how different thinkers (from Antiquity to the Present) have imagined a world in which justice, equality, property, freedom, and gender-equality will be the norm.
William G. Roy is a Professor of Sociology. His Publications include Socializing Capital: The Rise of the Large Industrial Corporation in America, and Making Societies: The Social Construction of Our World. He has won the Distinguished Teaching Award at UCLA and the Distinguished Contribution to Teaching Award from the American Sociological Association.
|
Sociology 19, Seminar 2
Isaac Encounters Ishmael: On the Relationship Between Islam and Judaism
Chaim Seidler-Feller
An analysis of Islamic teachings regarding Jews and Judaism and of the image of Ishmael and of Islam in Jewish sources. Issues to be addressed include: the myth of a perpetual "Golden Age", holy war, commonalities and divergences between the two religious traditions, the centrality of Jerusalem in both Islam and Judaism, Maimonodies' unique perspective on Islam, and the fate of the Jews under Islamic rule as compared with their experience in Christian Europe. Qur'anic, Biblical and historical source materials in translation will be utilized throughout.
Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller is in his twenty-seventh year at UCLA Hillel as director. He previously served as Hillel Director at Ohio State and as Rabbi of Congregation Ahavat Achim, New Bedford, Massachusetts. He was ordained in 1971 at Yeshiva University where he also earned a Masters Degree in Rabbinic Literature. Rabbi Seidler-Feller is a lecturer in the Departments of Sociology and Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at UCLA where he teaches courses on the "Jewish Experience in Contemporary America", on the "Social, Cultural, and Religious Institutions of Judaism" and on "Philosophers and Mystics.
|
Sociology 19, Seminar 3
The Children of Immigrants
Roger Waldinger
The re-emergence of mass immigration to the United States is now yielding a second, even more fateful impact: the emergence of the "second generation," consisting of the children of foreign-born parents, who are either born in the United States or born abroad, but brought here at a very young age. This course will introduce students to the rapidly growing scholarly literature on the children of immigrants, drawing on scholarship in sociology, anthropology, and history, and asking about contrasts between second generations past and present
Roger Waldinger, Professor and Chair, Sociology, has written extensively on contemporary immigration to the United States. His most recent book, How The Other Half Works Immigration and The Social Organization of Lab was published by the University of California Press in 2003. His current research focuses on the descendants of immigrants, past and present.
|
Sociology 19, Seminar 4
Contemporary Chinese Immigration: A Sociological Examination
Min Zhou
(Class meets every other Thursday for two hours)
This seminar focuses on issues related to contemporary Chinese immigration to the United States since 1965. Specifically, it examines how major events in the homelands (mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan) and in the U.S., the culture of origin, the family, the ethnic community and its institutions, and the patterns of intra-group and inter-group social relations have interacted to affect processes of migration, resettlement and adaptation among immigrant Chinese and their offspring.
Dr. Min Zhou is Professor of Sociology and Chair of Asian American Studies Interdepartmental Degree Program at UCLA. Her main areas of research are immigration and immigrant adaptation; immigrant youths; Asian Americans; ethnic and racial relations; ethnic entrepreneurship and enclave economies; the community; and urban sociology. She is the author of Chinatown, co-author of Growing up American: How Vietnamese Children Adapt to Life in the U.S., co-editor of Contemporary Asian America, and co-editor of Asian American Youth.
|
Women's Studies 19, Seminar 1
Sexual Harassment Law and Policy
Christine A. Littleton
What is sexual harassment? How does it affect women at work and school? Are men sexually harassed? How do sexual orientation and race affect these issues? What legal tools are available to stop the harassment? Is law the best way to deal with it? Do laws and policies against sexual harassment interfere with free speech? Is flirting still okay? Some of these questions have answers, others are still being debated; all of them will be discussed.
Professor Christine Littleton joined the UCLA Law School faculty in 1983. She teaches Women and the Law, Employment Discrimination and Remedies. Currently she also serves as Chair of the Women's Studies Programs, where she occasionally teaches feminist theory. As an attorney, she works on cases involving discrimination on the basis of race, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation and disability, and has counseled both employers and employees.
|
|
"I really enjoyed this seminar. It gave me a chance to experience and explore a part of the world that was foreign to me. It made me think, it made me angry, sad, and it gave me hope. Great seminar."
Student comment
|
|
"Students are held accountable for their ideas in smaller group discussions. They must come to trust their own minds. Fiat Lux seminars encourage students to think and do."
Faculty comment
|
|
Atmospheric Sciences 19, Seminar 1
What if the Moon Didn't Exist? Earths that Might Have Been
Robert Fovell
If our Moon didn't exist, we would lack eclipses, romantic moonlight and tides. Yet would anything truly significant have changed? Perhaps surprisingly - "yes." A moonless Earth would likely be far nastier place: windier, stormier, and possibly much hotter. Life might still have evolved but probably would have taken a very different course. We propose to explore why.
Robert Fovell is an Associate Professor of Atmospheric Sciences. He studies the development and organization of severe storms; his hobbies include photography.
|
Chemistry and Biochemistry 19, Seminar 1
Serendipity in Science
Herbert D. Kaesz
An inquiry into unexpected discoveries in science that have had significant impact on society and an analysis of the circumstances, which brought these about. Serendipitous i.e., fortuitous observations become significant only where the observer can recognize or correctly interpret the discovery, as in the case of the mold metabolite penicillin discovered by Fleming in 1928 giving rise to a new class of antibiotics. Discoveries in medicine, which derive from an indigenous oral tradition prior to their entry into Western European practice will also be discussed. A librarian will address the seminar regarding use of library and computerized search facilities.
Professor Kaesz received an A.B. from N.Y.U. and his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard University. Professor Kaesz began his career at UCLA in 1960; his research interests are in the field of organometallic chemistry. Prof. Kaesz received the Tolman Medal from the So. Calif. Section of the American Chemical Society, has held two foreign fellowships, one from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and one from the Humboldt Foundation (Germany), and has twice held the post of Professeur Invité in France. Prof. Kaesz received the American Chemical Society Award for Distinguished Service in the Advancement of
Inorganic Chemistry.
|
Chemistry and Biochemistry 19, Seminar 2
Viruses, Buckyballs, and Icosahedral Symmetry
William M. Gelbart
Viruses - ranging from the common cold to flu, polio, AIDS and SARS - are among the most insidious threats to our health. And yet they are also among the simplest of all biological systems. Furthermore, an overwhelming fraction of them have perfect geometric shapes; like buckyballs, the newly discovered state of elemental carbon, viruses often have the same symmetry as a soccer ball. In this seminar we learn the connections between these special shapes and the fundamental biology and physics of viruses and fullerenes.
Professor Gelbart was educated at Harvard University (B.S. 1967) and the University of Chicago (M. S. 1968, Ph.D. 1970), and then did postdoctoral work at the University of Paris (1971) before joining the UC faculty, first at Berkeley (1972-5) and then UCLA (1975-). He is a theoretical physical chemist who greatly enjoys teaching and who has worked for 25
years on the statistical mechanics of liquid crystals, polymers, and lipid membranes. Since just a few years ago, however, he has become overwhelmingly seduced by the physical properties and life cycles of viruses.
|
Earth and Space Sciences 19, Seminar 1
California's Most Dangerous Volcano
Emily Brodsky
Long Valley Caldera on the eastern edge of the Sierras is renowned as one of the world's most restless and closely-watched volcanic complexes. We will spend the entire weekend of October 4-5 in the area studying the geological records of past eruptions and geophysical indicators of what is to come. There will not be any regular weekly meetings for this field class. The class will meet for one introductory seminar meeting on Thursday, September 25, from 5:00-6:30 p.m., in Geology 4677. Each student will be assigned a topic to discuss in the field. At the appropriate field location they will be asked to give a short presentation on their topic. For instance, a student might discuss giant ash eruptions at the Bishop Tuff or geothermal heat near the bubbling hot springs.
Dr. Brodsky is an expert in the physics of volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. She specializes in problems of triggering and initiation of these natural hazards.
|
Earth and Space Sciences 19, Seminar 2
Flesh and Blood from Stone: Paleontology in Action!
Mark Webster
(Class meets every other Friday for two hours)
Fossils have always captured the public imagination, and paleontology is a high-profile research field. This seminar focuses on critical aspects of paleontology rarely considered by non-professionals, such as sampling and species identification. Students will come to terms with these issues first-hand as they conduct research on a group of 510 million year old trilobites, handling all aspects of the study including collecting the fossils on a three-day field trip, interpreting the ancient environment, and identifying the specimens in the laboratory. (Camping in the desert), The field trip will run from Friday afternoon/evening until Sunday night, most likely at the end of the second week of the term (although this can be altered depending on student demands). Food, and basic camping equipment for the trip will be provided. Following the field trip, the students will meet for a couple of hours every other Friday, 1:00-2:50 p.m. in Geology 5644 in the lab to identify the fossils collected and (hopefully) discover a nice evolutionary story for themselves.
Mark Webster is a Professor of Paleobiology in the Department of Earth and Space Sciences. His studies combine investigation of the developmental biology and morphological variability of trilobites with detailed stratigraphic and paleoenvironmental information, providing insight into the patterns and processes of trilobite evolution.
|
Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology 19, Seminar 1
Utopian Visions of Human Biology
John Merriam
Nature-nurture, eugenics, genetic determinism, gene therapy and, now, human cloning continue to produce controversy. We will evaluate the scientific merit of different positions in that controversy, and the moral and ethical limits over using DNA science.
Professor Merriam has been a professor of genetics since 1968, and teaches introductory genetics, advanced human genetics and advanced genetics laboratory of model organism regularly. His graduate training emphasized combining human genetics with studies on model organisms.
|
Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology 19, Seminar 2
GM Crops: Human Health Welfare, Prosperity and Debate
Roger Pennell
(Class meets every other Tuesday for two hours)
Plant breeders have been using crosses to transfer desirable genes from wild relatives into important varieties for hundreds of years. They have been importing thousands of genes at a time. Now, scientists have the ability to introduce genes one at a time into crop plants, and to control how they work. These genetically-modified (GM) crops have great potential as sources of improved nutrition and pharmaceuticals. They are also controversial. This seminar uses GM crops to explore the interplay between technology and human welfare, prosperity and culture.
Dr. Roger Pennell - Program Manager at Ceres. Formerly at the John Innes Institute and Royal Society University Fellow at UCL and the Salk Institute.
|
Nursing 19, Seminar 1
101 Ways to Be Healthier: Living an Evidenced-based Healthy Lifestyle
Chandice Covington
(Class meets on irregular Thursday for 2 hours. The meeting dates are: 10/2, 10/16, 10/30, 11/13 and 12/4)
Ever wondered if coffee was really bad for you? How much exercise is enough? And what's really up with those trans-fatty acids? This course will explore the top 10 health myths and truths nominated by the students. By the end of the term, the student will be armed with a clearer perception about evidenced-based healthy living. We will explore consumer myths and truths about health prevention.
Professor Covington is a nurse scientist. Her search for trusted data and her native heritage suggest that health is blend of genetics, activity, diet, habits, and relationships. She has published and researched on health care prevention and promotion in at risk populations.
|
Organismic Biology, Ecology, and Evolution 19, Seminar 1
Evolutionary Medicine: How Natural Selection Helps Us Understand Why We Get Sick
Peter Nonacs
(Class meets every other Tuesday for two hours)
Why do we grow old and die? Why do our own cells sometimes become cancers that grow wildly until they kill us and themselves? Why are plant poisons designed to kill insects such as caffeine, nicotine and chocolate some of our favorite substances to eat? Questions like these have long puzzled medical science. An exciting new approach to these "why" questions involves the application of evolutionary principles. In this course we will look at disease, illness and human behavior not as constant phenomena, but as having evolved and continuing to evolve through Natural Selection. Evolution is the fundamental concept that unifies all of modern biology and, perhaps very soon, modern medicine as well.
Peter Nonacs is an Associate Professor in the Department of Organismic Biology, Ecology and Evolution. His main research interests are in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. Ongoing research in his lab involves work with ants, wasps, stream insects, fish, and birds.
|
|
|
Organismic Biology, Ecology, and Evolution 19, Seminar 2
Water and the Natural and Human Environment of Los Angeles
Glen M. MacDonald
Pre-field trip meeting: Wed., Oct. 15, 2:00-4:00 p.m.; Field trip: Sat., Oct. 18, 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.; Post-field trip meeting: Wed., Oct. 22, 2:00-4:00 p.m. Please see the Schedule of Classes for Pre-and Post Field trip meetings locations. (Enrollment: Limited to 14 students)
Water is central in structuring the natural environment of LA. This course will present an introductory classroom seminar and then use a one-day fieldtrip to visit the different ecological zones of the region that reflect water availability (chaparral, oak woodland, conifer forest and desert). We will also examine monuments to human ingenuity (Los Angeles Aqueduct) and tragedy (ruins of St. Francis Dam). Finally, we will look at how climate has changed the amount of water available in the recent and more distant past.
Glen MacDonald is a Professor of Organismic Biology, Ecology and Evolution. Professor MacDonald conducts research on climatic and environmental change. His scholarly awards include election as a Life Member of Clare Hall Cambridge, the University of Helsinki Medal, the Henry Cowles Award for Excellence in Publication, and the Astor Visiting Lectureship at Oxford. He has also been awarded the McMaster University Teaching Award and the UCLA Teaching Award.
|
Pediatrics 19, Seminar 1
Exploring the World of Medicine in the Diagnosis and Treatment of Disease
Daniel S. Levi
(Class meets every other Tuesday for two hours)
If you're considering a career in medicine, try this course. Students will explore the world of medicine with a different unknown case each week. All cases will be based on actual patients from UCLA Medical Center. Undergraduates will be treated as if they were medical students or even first year residents as they attempt make a diagnosis and determine a treatment plan. Students will learn basic history taking skills and will be introduced to both physical and laboratory diagnosis. Enjoy learning about medicine without the stress of medical school!
Dr Daniel Levi is a new faculty member joining UCLA's Division of Pediatric Cardiology starting July 2003. He became interested in medicine during his 3rd year at Stanford and enrolled at the UCSF School of Medicine. He did residency at UCSF and a fellowship in Pediatric Cardiology at UCLA. His interests, other than teaching, are in interventional Pediatric Cardiology and in medical device research.
|
Psychology 19, Seminar 1
Stress! Causes, Symptoms, and Remedies
Carlos V. Grijalva
This seminar is intended to gain a better understanding of "stressors" in our lives and the impact they can have on mental and physical health. The causes and symptoms of stress will be examined and stress management techniques will be highlighted.
Carlos V. Grijalva is a professor of behavioral neuroscience in the department of psychology. He
has been on the faculty since 1982 and has taught both undergraduate and graduate courses in behavioral neuroscience, and on the psychobiology of emotion
and stress. He served as Associate Dean in the Division of Honors and Undergraduate Program, College of Letters and Science from 1991-1996.
|
Statistics 19, Seminar 1
The Value of Money
Nicolas Christou
How much will one dollar today be worth next month? Or next year? Or in ten years? It depends on how much interest the investor earns if the dollar is deposited in a bank account. Or it depends on where the dollar is invested. There are investments that yield a higher return than that of a bank but they are associated with some probabilty (risk). How do we measure and manage risk? Real life examples will be used such as those involving the present and future value of money (credit cards, car loans, home loans, student loans) and stock market investments.
Nicolas Christou received his Ph.D. in Statistics in 2000 from the Stern School of Business, of New York University. Since then he has been an Adjunct Assistant Professor with the Department of Statistics at UCLA. His current research interests include spatial statistics, applications of statistical models in Finance, and teaching of Statistics.
|
Statistics 19, Seminar 2
Order in the Stochastic Universe
Ivo Dinov
(Enrollment: Limited to 15 students)
This multidisciplinary course will connect ideas from the fields of neuroscience, philosophy, physics, engineering, social sciences, biology, genetics, mathematical and statistical modeling. The marriage of determinism and chance can be found all around us and in each of these areas. We will discuss how we can model and introduce limited "order" in the seemingly chaotic Universe. Various principles will be discussed relating trade offs between quality vs. amount of information, statistical vs. practical significance, population vs. sample analysis, etc.
Professor Dinov's background includes mathematical, statistical, engineering, computational and neuroscientific training. His research involves modeling multidimensional human brain data, including cognitive, psychological, physiological evaluation and neuroimaging.
|
Statistics 19, Seminar 3
Playing with Chance
Juana Sanchez
(Class meets every other Wednesday for two hours)
This seminar consists of playing games of chance (widely understood) with computers in a lab. We can't predict for sure the outcome of many things but in many cases we can predict how often some outcomes may happen. Probability theory is a field that teaches us how to make those predictions. Computer simulations using random numbers allow us to make them easily without having to learn all the mathematics involved in a probability course. Our goal will be to acquire hands-on experience at self-discovering the answers to probabilistic prediction questions and the laws
of chance using the random numbers in the lab.
Juana Sanchez, Ph.D. Washington University, St. Louis, 1989. She taught at the University of
Missouri before she came to UCLA, Department of Statistics. Her research interests include Statistics Education, Time series, Bayesian Probability Theory, and applications of Statistics in Diabetes Research.
She has published in several journals, such as the Journal of the American Cancer Institute, Proceedings
of the American Statistical Association, and Advances
in Econometrics.
|
Statistics 19, Seminar 4
Decoding Bio-information: A New Challenge for the Quantitative Sciences
Chiara Sabatti
We assist to a data-deluge in the life sciences - the sequencing of the human genome being one example.
To interpret all this information, life scientists have turned to mathematicians and statisticians in an unprecedented way. In the past, other sciences have used quantitative analysis to a large extent: physics and economics are two - very different - examples. Is this going to happen to the life sciences? What are the contributions, so far, of mathematics and statistics? How can we define the emerging field of "Bioinformatics"?
Chiara Sabatti is an assistant professor in the Departments of Human Genetics and Statistics. She conducts research in statistical genomics and faces daily some of the challenges discussed in the seminars. She has a master degree in Statistics and Economics from Bocconi University (Italy) and a Ph D in Statistics from Stanford University. After obtaining her doctoral degree, she has been working on the analysis of genetics data, developing mathematical models and computational tools.
|
|
"I feel like the professor really did a good job probing issues and pushing us to think about things critically. She really challenged us to look at issues from different perspectives and consider them in different ways."
Student comment
|
|
"The class size of 15 made every class a personal experience with direct interaction between faculty and students."
Faculty comment
|
|
"This was the most intensely interactive
class I have had at UCLA."
Faculty comment
|
|
"The professor prodded us to think deeply about the stories we had read and a general discussion ensued during each section. The intimate atmosphere allowed most people to open up and share their feeling."
Student comment
|
|
|
Arts & Humanities