Fiat Lux Freshman Seminars
Fall
Quarter 2005
Art History 19, Seminar 1
Who was Buddha? What did he teach? How is he
depicted in art and literature?
Robert Brown
This seminar will
explore who Buddha was, what he taught, and how he is represented in art and
literature. We will study the life story of Buddha using biographical texts
translated into English and representations in art of India and Southeast Asia.
What identifies image of Buddha? Fieldtrip to Los Angeles County Museum of Art
to visit their important collection of Buddhist art. What Buddha taught as his
great insight into nature of life and death using key texts such as Dhammapada.
When Buddha reached enlightenment, what was his realization? How Buddha is used
in modern fiction, including Hermann Hesse's novel Siddhartha. Are Buddha and
his message pertinent to modern Western life and culture?
Robert Brown
graduated from UCLA with a Ph.D. in Indian art history in 1981. Immediately
after graduation he worked at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, being
promoted to Curator of Indian and Southeast Asian Art in 1984. In 1986 he began
teaching at UCLA where he is presently Professor of art history. In 2000 he was
reappointed as Curator in the Department of South and Southeast Asian Art at
LACMA, a position he holds with his UCLA professorship. The relationship of the
museum to the university is among his interests. His areas of research include
both India and Southeast Asia, and he particularly studies the Indian
influences on and relationships with early Southeast Asian art, culture, and
religion. He has lived for several years in both India
and Thailand and has
traveled throughout South and Southeast Asia.
Art History 19, Seminar 2
Italian Renaissance Painting in Los Angeles Museums
Joanna
Woods-Marsden
The course will
focus on the typology and function of Italian Renaissance Painting: the large
altarpiece on the Church altar (with its predella and pinnacle components); the
small devotional image for private prayer in the home; the rise of secular and
mythological narrative paintings; and the portrait. Examples will be studied in
situ during field trips to 3 Los
Angeles museums.
Born in Ireland, Joanna Woods-Marsden was educated at Trinity College,
Dublin, the University
of London, and Harvard University.
She has taught at UCLA for 21 years. An expert in Italian Renaissance art,
Professor Woods-Marsden has recently specialized in portraiture Renaissance Self-Portraiture: The Visual
Construction of Identity and the Social Status of the Artist, Yale, 1998.
She is currently working on a book about the visual construction of gender in
portraits by Titian.
Design | Media Arts 19, Seminar 1
What Is Interactive Media?
Erkki Huhtamo
Interactive
media is one of the buzz words of contemporary media culture. From interactive
entertainment to interactive shopping, learning, design and art, we encounter
the word "interactive" over and over again. However, we rarely seem to
have the patience to stop and ask what interactivity really means. What are its
basic features? What is it used for? Where did it come from? Is it a powerful
new way of empowering the individual as we have been promised, turning him/her
from a passive consumer to an active producer of cultural content? Or could it
be that interactivity is just a sham, a clever trick to turn our attention away
from the fact that we are still only consumers, targets of the powerful culture
industries? These are some of the issues that will be discussed in the seminar.
Numerous examples of interactive media from multimedia applications to games
and art will be shown and discussed.
Erkki Huhtamo
is a Professor at the Department of Design | Media Arts, responsible for
teaching media theory and history, as well as media arts. He has published
extensively, lectured around the world’s, curate media art exhibitions and
created television programs about media culture. Currently Professor Huhtamo is
working on two book projects, one dealing with an Archaeology of Interactivity and the other with the History of the Moving Panorama, a Forgotten
Mass Medium of the Nineteenth Century.
English 19, Seminar 1
Origins of Identity: History and Memory
in Women's Poetry
Karen Rowe
Study of how
memory and history imprint identity, and how past suffuses our present. Who we
are or may become originates in 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 communal
history replete with images of homelands, political struggle, and ancestral
rituals. By heeding truths gleaned from ancestral past, each woman comes to
know her self and infuses her poetry with distinctive vision and voice that
makes lives, both old and new, into poetic memoirs. Remember, Audre Lorde
proclaims, "poetry is not a luxury" but a "litany of
survival."
A Professor of
English, Karen Rowe's 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 the Founding Director
of UCLA's Center for the Study of Women and teaches courses cross-listed
through the Women's Studies Program. She received a Distinguished Teaching
Award and has been active in curriculum transformation and general education
reform.
English 19, Seminar 2
Melodrama
Joseph Nagy
Meaning
"drama with song," melodrama encompasses vast array of literary,
theatrical, and cinematic forms and spans history from era of classical Greece
to modern times. Representative types of melodrama, including ancient and
medieval prosimetrum, opera/oratorio, musical theater and film, and
"Bollywood" cinema. Consideration of what is cognitive, aesthetic,
and cultural impact of alternation of poetry and prose, song and story,
aria/duet and recitative/dialogue, or musical number and drama or comedy. Is
melodrama an outdated artistic form? What is melodramatic about melodrama, and
why? Students develop projects/presentations on particular examples of
melodrama.
Joseph Nagy is
a Professor of English, teaches courses on folklore and mythology, and Celtic
Studies; publishes on medieval Celtic literatures and Indo-European mythology.
English 19, Seminar 3
The Supernatural as Psychological Case Study:
the Tales of Le Fanu
Frederick
Burwick
Five short
stories that Sheridan Le Fanu published as In
a Glass Darkly (1872) are presented as case studies from records of Dr.
Hesselius, specialist in mental pathology. In discussing these five tales,
attention is given to developments in aberrational psychology during generation
prior to Sigmund Freund, to presumed relationship between occult phenomena and
mental derangement, and to ways in which supernatural tale mirrored
psychological case study.
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. He is the author
of The Haunted Eye, Illusion and the Drama,
Madness and Romantic Imagination,
Frederick Burwick is currently at work on a study of
cognitive psychology the literary accounts of apparitions and hallucinatory
experience.
English 19, Seminar 4
Legends, Fairy Tales, and New Worlds of
Possibilities
Jenny Sharpe
Examination of
literary rewriting of oral stories, legends, and fairy tales in short fiction
from around the world. Topics include transformation of narrative across space
and time, postmodern rewriting of traditional tales, magic of modern fairy
tales, and creation of new cultural identities for modern world.
Jenny Sharpe is a Professor
in the Department of English. She
teaches courses on Caribbean,
Black British, and World 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
Palestine
and Israel:
Roots of Conflict
Saree Makdisi
Background and
history, as well as ongoing central themes, of conflict between Israelis and
Palestinians from the early 20th century to the present.
Saree Makdisi
is Professor of English Literature. In addition to his work on British
Romanticism, he has written on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in venues
including the London Review of Books and the Los Angeles Times.
English 19, Seminar 6
Distinguished Writers Series
Mona Simpson
This course is
designed to coincide with the visits to campus of several distinguished fiction
writers. Students will read the writers' work, before their visit here. We will
discuss the work, analyze its place in contemporary fiction and the literary
tradition. Students will be required to attend the readings and also a small
session before the reading, during which the distinguished guest will answer
questions the students have prepared in advance.
Mona Simpson is the
award-winning author of four novels, including Anywhere But Here (1987) and Off
Keck Road (2000). Knopf will publish her new novel, My Hollywood, later this year.
English 19, Seminar 7
Metaphysical Poetry
Robert Watson
During the
early 17th century, an amazing, puzzling, and beautiful mode of poetry emerged that
would eventually become known as the Metaphysical school. We will read and
discuss some of those works, mostly brief poems by John Donne, George Herbert,
and Andrew Marvell, and try to solve their riddles, absorb their emotions, and
understand their place in the society, history, and religion of the period.
Robert Watson
is a Professor in the Department of English, and has written extensively on the
poetry of this period in a previous book and a forthcoming one.
French & Francophone Studies 19, Seminar 1
Dominic Thomas
This course
will focus on important issues in Africa today: genocide, female genital
mutilation, conflict diamonds, oil politics, the Truth and Reconciliation
Commission in South Africa,
AIDS, child soldiers
and Africa in the media.
Dominic Thomas is Chair of French and Francophone
Studies and an Associate Professor of Comparative Literature. He is also a
faculty member in African Studies, European Studies and Global Studies. His courses and research focus on
contemporary Africa and questions of racism and immigration in Europe.
He is the author of Nation-Building, Propaganda,
and Literature in Francophone Africa.
Jewish
Studies 19, Seminar 1
In the
Beginning: Reading the Book of Genesis
Carol Bakhos
In this seminar, we will read the major stories of the first book of the
Bible, the Book of Genesis, and focus on literary, theological and historical
issues. We will pay special attention to the creation story, Adam and Eve, the
call of Abraham, the binding of Isaac, the expulsion of Ishmael, the live of
Jacob and the Joseph cycle. Topics include the role of women, the idea of
covenant, and the characterization of God. We will also examine the role these
stories play in Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
Carol Bakhos, Assistant Professor of Late Antique Judaism, is a member of
the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures. She is also the
undergraduate advisor of Jewish Studies. Professor Bakhos is a graduate of
Harvard Divinity and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Her book, Ishmael on the Border: Rabbinic Portrayals
of the First Arab is forthcoming (SUNY Press).
Music
History 19, Seminar 1
Gender
and Sexuality in the American Musical
Raymond Knapp
This seminar will
explore the gender roles and sexual expression in the American musical through
readings, viewings, and discussions.
Raymond Knapp
is Professor of Musicology, specializing in the symphonic tradition from the
eighteenth to twentieth centuries, and, more recently,
in the American Musical, on stage and in film. He has published books on Brahms, Mahler, and the American Musical,
with a second book on the musical due out in early 2006. He has taught courses
at UCLA on Beethoven, Mahler, Haydn, Mozart, the American musical, Nationalism,
musical allusion, and the music of the 18th through the early 20th centuries.
Near Eastern Languages 19, Seminar 1
Islamic Government: The Panacea?
Ismail K. Poonawala
This seminar
will explore the origins of the modern concept of Islamic government that arose
between the two world wars. It was Hasan al-Banna' (d. 1949), the founder of
the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt,
who advocated the view that Islam is a comprehensive system of life and that
"the Qur'an is our constitution." It will also deal with Sayyid Qutb
(d. 1966), the ideologue of Islamic revival and Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Abu al-A'la Mawdudi (d. 1979), the
founder of the Islamic Party in Pakistan,
who campaigned to establish an Islamic state. However, it was Ayatollah
Khomeini (d. 1989) who succeeded in establishing the Islamic government in Iran
in 1979. Each week discussion will revolve around selected readings.
Ismail K. Poonawala is a Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures. His books and articles deal with various aspects of Islam. He also teaches Contemporary Islamic Thought.
Philosophy 19, Seminar 1
Abelard's World: Poetry, Philosophy, and Love
Calvin Normore
Famous as
lover, poet, and philosopher, Peter Abelard (1079-1142) got in on ground floor
of contemporary conceptions of all three. Exploration of his life, work, and
environment, and how he was regarded by his contemporaries and today. Class
meets three times in October for about three hours each, over meal if possible:
once to look at Abelard's life, his love affair with Heloise, and his various
social roles as knight, student, teacher, philosopher, lover, poet, theologian,
monk, abbot, and social activist; second time to examine his poetry; and third
time to look at his philosophy. During break of few weeks, participants work on
presentations. Class meets twice more during term by arrangement to hear and
see presentations.
Calvin Normore
is Professor in and former Chair of the Philosophy Department at UCLA. His
research is largely in medieval and early modern philosophy and he has written
several articles on Peter Abelard (by whom he is fascinated in a guarded sort
of way).
Understanding Ritual and Religion
Richard Lesure
What is ritual?
What do people achieve by taking part in rituals? Importance of ritual in
religion, and more generally in peoples' lives, has received considerable attention
in social sciences. For anthropologists, recent work of Catherine Bell in
re-thinking ritual as category is particularly important. Examination of Bell's work, focusing on
understanding her theoretical framework and debating its implications.
Richard Lesure
is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Chair of the
Interdepartmental Graduate Program in Archaeology. He has conducted
archaeological fieldwork in Mexico
and is interested in both the anthropology and archaeology of ritual and
religion. For several years he has taught a seminar class on the history of the
anthropology of religion.
Anthropology 19, Seminar 2
Picturing the Past: Winter Counts of Lakota Sioux
Russell
Thornton
Consideration
of what are known as "winter counts" (from Lakota "waniyetu
yawapi," or "winters they count"). Winter counts are Native
American calendars whereby years are recorded in terms of most significant
event that occurred during year. Most existed historically as oral
remembrances, then later in pictographic and written forms. They typically
cover events of the 19th century, though many extend back into the 18th century
and beyond, and some extend to today. They are associated with plains tribes,
especially Lakota of northern plains and Kiowa of southern plains. Here,
consideration is focused on Lakota winter counts. Special attention is focused
on newly rediscovered Rosebud Reservation Winter Count and its relationship to
other winter counts.
Russell
Thornton is Distinguished Professor of Anthropology in the University of California
at Los Angeles
(UCLA). He is a registered member of the Cherokee Nation (Oklahoma). He received his B.A. and M.A.
degrees in sociology from the University
of North Texas in 1965 and 1966, and
his Ph.D. in sociology from Florida
State University
in 1968. He subsequently completed postdoctoral work in social relations at Harvard University
in 1968-69 and in demography at the University
of Southern California in
1980. He has taught at the University
of Pennsylvania, University
of Minnesota, Dartmouth
College and the University
of California at Berkeley as well as at UCLA. He has lectured
widely in the United States
and other countries. A world-recognized authority on American Indian historical
demography, his interests also include epidemiology, revitalization movements,
repatriation of human remains and cultural objects, and American Indian
calendars in the form of winter counts.
Anthropology 19, Seminar 4
Food, Culture
and Identity
Monica L. Smith
A hundred years ago, the U.S.
government's "food pyramid" contained 12 items; now there are just 4.
How did this change come about? How do ideas about food differ from one era to
the next and from one culture to the next? How does food serve as both an
integrative and divisive social category? In this course, we'll use readings
and discussion to look at the social construction of food categories, cuisine,
and the politics of food to understand the role of food in creating and
maintaining culture.
Monica Smith is an Assistant Professor in the Department of
Anthropology who is interested in the relationship between humans
and material objects starting in the deep archaeological past. Her current
research on food and consumption addresses the role of ordinary goods in the formation of culture and identity.
Chicana & Chicano Studies 19, Seminar 1
Death, Gender, and the U.S.-Mexico Border
Alicia Gaspar
de Alba
Who is killing
the women of Juárez? What is killing them? What do their extremely violent deaths
signify? Who is profiting from these deaths?
This course will examine the 12-year crime wave of murders, mutilations,
and serial killings of poor brown women in Juárez,
Mexico, across the border
from the professor's hometown of El
Paso, Texas. We will
work at developing an interdisciplinary methodology by which to examine the
social, political, economic, and cultural context in which those crimes
continue unabated and unresolved, including an analysis of the crimes in the
context of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Professor
Alicia Gaspar de Alba teaches courses in border studies, chicana/o literature,
art and popular culture, and creative writing in the Department of Chicana/o
Studies. She has published 7 books, among them two novels, two poetry
collections, one short story collection, and two academic books. She is an
expert on the Juarez femicides, and in 2003,
she organized a major international conference on the murders at UCLA.
Economics 19,
Seminar
1
Winner's Curse in Common Value Auctions
Hongbin Cai
Exploration of
well-known phenomenon of winner's curse when people bid in common value
auctions. Winner's curse occurs when person who won auction wishes he/she had
not. Since common value auctions have many interesting real-life applications,
insights gained from lab experiments on auctions have significant implications
for markets where unhappy winners are important. Examples include but are not
limited to: book publishing markets, draft choices of sports teams, political
contests and voting behavior, and companies racing to discover and patent
inventions.
Professor Cai
received his PhD in economics from the University of Stanford,
and has been on the faculty of the UCLA economics department since 1997. He
specializes in microeconomic theory, contract theory, and industrial
organization. Professor Cai's research interests include bargaining theory,
corporate finance, committee decisions, and political economy. His research,
some of which is supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, has
been published in professional journals such as the American Economic Review
and the Journal of Economic Theory.
Economics 19,
Seminar
2
The Extent of Fairness and Self-Interest
in Bargaining and Economic Decisions
Earl Thompson
This course
gets students to explore the nature of trust and fairness in bargaining
situations via the simple 'ultimatum' bargain game. This game has proven very
useful for analyzing how self-interested individuals behave in bargaining
situations, as compared to individuals who are motivated by fairness concerns.
It has been conducted in many countries (rich and poor) over the last decade
with the discovery that most cultures appear to have norms of fairness (except
certain very primitive cultures). In addition to bargaining, some time will
also be devoted to the experimental analysis of public good contributions and
wage setting, and in general to the exploration of the extent of motives such
as fairness, trust and reciprocity versus pure
self-interest in economic decisions.
Professor
Thompson received his PhD in economics from Harvard
University and served as an assistant
professor in Stanford
University before joining
the faculty of the UCLA economics department. He specializes in microeconomic
theory, government policy, and monetary theory. His research interest includes
social organization, industrial organization, labor, and public choice. In
addition to his extensive publications in professional journals, Professor
Thompson is also the author of two books: Ideology
and the Evolution of Vital Institutions: Guilds, the Gold Standard and
International Cooperation (with C. Hickson), and A Reconstruction of Economics.
Economics 19,
Seminar
3
Napster, AIDS, and Intellectual Property
David K. Levine
Controversy surrounds
downloading of music over Internet and aggressive response of RIAA to protect
copyrights. Included is lawsuit against Napster and individual music lovers.
Also controversial is patent protection afforded AIDS drugs, resulting in such
high prices that they are unavailable in Africa,
area most devastated. Copyrights and patents are justified in U.S. Constitution
by Article I, Section 8: "Congress shall have Power to... promote Progress
of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and
Inventors exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
Examination from economic perspective of extent modern intellectual property
law promotes "Progress of Science and useful Arts." Colonial conquest
and slave trade; Africans' fight against ecological degradation; their battle
for economic, social, and political justice; and war against AIDS.
David K. Levine is the Armen
Alchian Professor
of Economic Theory at UCLA. He is co-director
of CASSEL, co-editor of
Econometrica, co-editor
of NAJ Economics, a fellow of the Econometric Society, member of the American
Economic Association Honors and Awards Committee and member of the Sloan
Research Fellowship Program Committee. Professor Levine's current research
interests include the study of intellectual property and endogenous growth in
dynamic general equilibrium models, the endogenous formation of preferences,
institutions and social norms, learning
in games, and the application of game theory to experimental economics.
Education 19, Seminar 1
Service Learning and Students' Lives
Bruce Barbee
This seminar
will help students better deal with their university experience by having them
gain a better understanding of involvement theory and how involvement relates
to persistence. In particular, students will study what is known about
particular form of involvement known as "in-service" learning and of
its clear relationship to persistence. Students will gain an understanding that
in serving others, they serve themselves and enhance the chances that they will
persist to graduation. Enrollment by instructor permission only.
Bruce Barbee is
an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Graduate School of Education and
Information Science and Director of Academics in the Commons, a division of UCLA College,
Honors and Undergraduate Programs. He
received his B.A., in Economics, University
of California, Berkeley,
1963, M.S., in Higher Education, Indiana
University, 1967 and Ed.
D., Higher Education, UCLA, l985
Geography 19, Seminar 1
The UCLA Ecosystem: Understanding Our
Campus Environment
Hartmut Walter
Join a full day
field trip of the UCLA campus on October 15 from 9am-5pm featuring discussion
and site visits of UCLA's energy resources, water and sewage treatment systems,
transportation planning, and planning strategies. Includes an ecotour of the
astonishing campus fauna and flora (from all continents!). Discuss how UCLA
manages to squeeze more people, cars, and buildings into the smallest area of
any UC campus. Learn to apply basic environmental principles to the north and
south campus and ponder the question of how to enhance the sustainability of
this unique ecosystem. Introductory meeting on October 4 (12-1pm) and final discussion on
November 15 (5-7pm).
Professor
Hartmut Walter is a senior ecologist and bio geographer who has been on this
campus for many years teaching field courses and a suite of courses on
ecosystem properties, global change and endangered species. He finds UCLA to be
a fascinating ecological place and wish to share his excitement with you. He
works closely with the environmental student organization on campus trying to
monitor wildlife and restore some natural habitats.
History 19, Seminar 1
Truth and Reconciliation in
Post-Apartheid South Africa
William Worger
Examination of
ways in which perpetrators and victims of apartheid have described their
experiences and accounted for their actions in support of/in opposition to
white supremacy. Focuses on first-person testimonies given to Truth and
Reconciliation Commission.
Originally from
New Zealand, Professor
Worger specializes in the history of South Africa
while also teaching the history of all of sub-Saharan Africa.
Each summer he takes a group of students on a Travel Study trip to Southern Africa to examine where and how history was made
and experienced by the people of the region.
History 19, Seminar 2
Important Ideas in Modern America
Richard Weiss
In this course
we will examine the ideas of important figures in American history and thought
from the late 19th century onward. Among them are Woodrow Wilson, John Dewey,
William James, Betty Freidan, and Malcolm X. Instructor will provide historical
context in discussions of these ideas.
Richard Weiss is a Professor
of History. His main interests are American social
and cultural history. He is also a trained psychoanalyst interested in applying
psychoanalytical theory and insight to historical issues
History 19, Seminar 3
Los Angeles:
Past and Future.
Architecture and Ethnicity
Teofilo Ruiz
This seminar has three components. The class will meet for one
hour on October 20th, 3 to 3:50 to provide historical context. Then
on Saturday, October 22nd, we will travel by bus or van (to be arranged in
advance) from Westwood to Downtown Los Angeles. We will take an extensive
walking tour of the central areas of the city with emphasis on the eclectic
architecture, the presence of the past, the new futuristic look of the city,
and the ethnic diversity of Los Angeles. We will have lunch at the Grand
central market, and then continue our tour on foot. We will return to the west
side, exploring areas such as the canals of Venice and views from the Pacific Palisades
bluff. We will then meet again for an hour on October 27th, 3:00 to 3:50 to provide a summary and
assessment of what we have seen and discussed.
Teofilo F. Ruiz, a professor of History at UCLA and former chair of the Department, researches and writes on the Middle Ages. He has published eight books and numerous articles, he loves to teach Fiat Lux courses.
History 19, Seminar 4
The First Utopia: More or Less
Russell Jacoby
This course
will consist of a close reading of "Utopia" [1516] by Thomas More,
who coined the term. We will consider his life, and his ideas on property, religion,
and happiness as well as their contemporary relevance.
Russell Jacoby
is a professor of history who has long researched and written about the utopian
tradition and its contemporary relevance. Among other studies he just published
a book on utopianism, Picture Imperfect:
Utopian Thought for an Anti-Utopian Age (Columbia University Press, 2005).
History 19, Seminar 5
The United States
and the Middle East: Another Look
James Gelvin
This course
will trace the relationship between the United
States and the Middle East,
paying particular attention to the cold war and post-cold war periods. Among
the topics to be discussed: the cultural roots of American policy, variables
and invariables in American Middle East policy, American Middle East policy within
the frameworks of containment and globalization, new world orders and the war
on terrorism, and, of course, the big three: oil, Israel, and Arabs.
James L. Gelvin
is Professor of History specializing in the modern Middle
East. He is author of,
The Israel-Palestine Conflict: One Hundred Years of
War and The Modern Middle East: A History.
History 19, Seminar 6
Ward Churchill and the Bounds of Academic Freedom
Melissa Meyer
Students will
read a scholarly article by Ward Churchill, his 9/11 editorial, and an
analytical series investigating charges about Churchill being published by the
Rocky Mountain News. They will write an opinion piece stating their view of
what the University
of Colorado should do
regarding Ward Churchill, if anything, in light of the persistent controversy.
Melissa L.
Meyer is Professor of History and American Indian Studies. She has written, The White Earth Tragedy: Ethnicity and
Dispossession at a Minnesota Anishinaabe Reservations, 1887-1920, Thicker than Water: The Origins of Blood as
Symbol and Ritual and numerous articles. Her field of expertise cover most
areas that Ward Churchill has written about.
History 19, Seminar 7
Terrorists and Door Kickers: Terrorism and
Counterterrorism Past and Present
Patrick Geary
Since September
11, enormous attention has been focused on the ability of small, non-state
organizations to inflict tremendous damage on powerful states, but such
asymmetric warfare is hardly novel. This seminar will look at a variety of
approaches to understanding terrorism as well as at the efforts in the past and
present to defeat it.
Professor Geary
is a European historian who in addition to teaching and writing on Medieval
European History, Conflict Resolution, and Nationalism, assists the US Joint Special
Operations Command on education issues in combating terrorism.
Honors Collegium 19, Seminar 1
Ronni
Sanlo and Suzanne L. Seplow
The course explores the ways in which American culture is affected by
sexual orientation and gender identity issues. Topics include overview of
historical perspective, legal and political issues specifically relating to
education, sexual identity development, impact of bullying and harassment in
schools and colleges, relationship between sexual orientation discrimination
and all other forms of discrimination, how to be an ally, and impact of sexual
orientation issues on all people regardless of their sexual orientation.
Ronni
Sanlo is the director of the UCLA
LGBT Campus
Resource Center
and lecturer in the Graduate School of Education. Her three books - Working with LGBT College Students: a
Handbook for Faculty and Administrators; Unheard Voices: The Effects of Silence on Lesbian and Gay Educators;
and Our Place on Campus are published
by Greenwood Press. She is the originator of the award-winning Lavender
Graduation, an event that celebrates the lives and achievements of LGBT
students. She lives on the campus of UCLA as a member of the
Faculty-in-Residence program.
Suzanne L. Seplow, Ed.D., is
a graduate of the GSEIS Educational Leadership program at UCLA. Her focus is on
maintaining living/learning communities that foster positive impacts on student
learning. She specializes in learning
communities, environmental influences and student development theory.
Human Complex Systems 19, Seminar 1
Cognitive Processes: Exploring how you Perceive,
Decide, and Learn
Dario Nardi
In 1923 long
before neuroscience was a discipline, psychiatrist Carl Jung proposed eight
cognitive processes that all people have potential access to. Exploration of
these eight processes, which link to many questions about human experience,
through fun activities, exercises, and discussions. For example, how do we
determine physical risk when acting on impulse? Why do we sometimes cling to
past? And how do objective agreements between people arise from being able to
take measurements using ruler or clock? Emphasis on how mind mediates daily
life situations with other people and environmental demands, with eye on
practical applications such as improving individual study skills. Examination
of present scientific evidence for Jung's theory. Philosophical questions such
as how do we know what we know, and if learning is built into thinking process.
Dario Nardi,
Ph.D. teaches computer modeling-and-simulation at UCLA where he is a Human
Complex Systems faculty member. He has also taught in UCLA's Program in
Computing and Honors Collegium. Dario has been a researcher with the
Temperament Research Institute since 1992. He is the author or co-author of
multiple books on personality, multiple intelligences, and organizational
development. Dario received his doctorate in systems science from the State
University of New York and his undergraduate in Aerospace Engineering from USC.
His educational background also includes East Asian languages and cultures and
creative writing. Dario is creator of Socialbot, a virtual/robotic agent
capable of socially intelligent behavior; and he is a winner of UCLA's 2005
Copenhaver Award for innovative use of technology in the classroom.
Information Studies 19, Seminar 1
Securing Information
Highway: Law and Disorder on Electronic Frontier
Jean-François
Blanchette
Throughout the
day, we make use of security technologies in order to prove our identity to
others
(ID cards),
commit to contracts (handwritten signatures on credit-card receipts), pay for
services (bus tokens), etc. As we conduct more and more of our social
interactions through electronic networks,
appropriate equivalents to these (often low-tech) security mechanisms must be
designed. Exploration of common security objectives--confidentiality,
anonymity, commitment, payment, authentication, and voting. Through lecture and
discussion, examination of technical solutions (e.g., cryptography, biometrics,
and watermarking) suitable for electronic environments. Framing them within
their larger social context, comparison of these solutions with earlier
technologies they seek to emulate.
After
completing studies in computer science and cryptology, Jean-François Blanchette
received a Ph.D. in social studies of science and technology from Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute in 2002. Blanchette's dissertation research followed the
definition of a new framework for recognizing the evidential value of
electronic documents and digital signatures in French evidence law. He is
currently working on how organizations go about replacing paper-based
information processing systems with electronic ones, with an emphasis on
security, authenticity, record-keeping and signature technologies.
Law 19, Seminar 1
Peace, Nonviolence, and The Law
Kenneth Graham
This seminar
explores the question: how do courts help or hinder efforts to peacefully
change status quo? We shall look at the way judges respond to nonviolent
protests to how they think about questions of peace, violence, and social
change. Though lawyers like to think that law helps preserve peace (police
officers are sometimes called "peace officers"), often those who
engage in violent or nonviolent acts seem to think otherwise. While we will not
be able to say who is right, we will look at the evidence pro and con and try
to come up with helpful ways to think about question.
Professor Kenneth W. Graham, Jr., has taught at the UCLA Law School since 1964, primarily litigations subjects such as evidence and civil and criminal procedure. Served as a prosecutor in the Ventura County District Attorney's Office and as a consultant to the Hawii Penal Code Revision Project. Author of 15 volumes on the law of evidence. He is the 1987 UCLA’s Distinguished Teaching Award recipient. For detailed biography, please visit the Law School website.
Law 19, Seminar 2
Introduction to Negotiation
Russell
Korobkin
Introduction to
interdisciplinary negotiation theory, which borrows from economics, game
theory, cognitive psychology, and social psychology, as well as practical
insights from law and business. Students will have opportunity to apply theory
to negotiating situations through in-class simulation exercises.
Russell
Korobkin is professor of law at the University
of California Los Angeles
(UCLA), where he teaches Negotiation, Contracts, Health Care Law, and Law and
Behavioral Science. Prior to joining the UCLA faculty
in 2001, he held appointments at the University of Illinois College of Law and
the University of Illinois Institute of Government and Public Affairs, and he
taught as a visitor at the University of Texas School
of Law. Professor Korobkin is the author of the textbook Negotiation Theory and Strategy (Aspen Law & Business, 2002),
as well as more than 25 scholarly articles on negotiating in the transactional
and dispute resolution contexts and other topics that combine law, economics,
and psychology. Prior to entering law teaching, Professor Korobkin received his
B.A. and J.D. degrees from Stanford University, clerked for the Honorable James
L. Buckley of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit,
and worked as an associate at the law firm of Covington
and Burling in Washington, D.C.
Law 19, Seminar 3
Gay Law
William
Rubenstein
Gay rights
issues are in the news every day: same-sex marriage, gays in the military, sodomy
law repeal. This seminar is designed to consider these issues in greater depth.
We will examine the legal situation lesbians and gay men confront in five
different areas of their lives: sexuality, identity, working,
coupling/marriage, and parenting. The seminar will cover several areas of
constitutional law (Due Process, First Amendment, Equal Protection), as well as
statutory protections such as non-discrimination laws. The reading will consist
of actual judicial opinions, supplemented by non-legal materials about gay
people's lives drawn from a variety of sources (history, psychology,
philosophy, poetry, fiction, interviews, etc.). The seminar will thus
constitute an introduction to both the law and to lesbian/gay studies. Students
interested in pursuing work in either
of these disciplines, or both, are encouraged to enroll.
William B.
Rubenstein, a Professor at UCLA School
of Law, is a leading national expert on sexual orientation law. Professor
Rubenstein directed the ACLU's national Lesbian and Gay Rights Project before
becoming a law professor. He litigated precedent-setting cases aimed at
combating discrimination against lesbians and gay men throughout the country.
Professor Rubenstein has taught courses on gay law at Harvard, Yale, and Stanford Law Schools.
At UCLA, he teaches and writes about the subject, and is the faculty chair of
the Charles R. Williams Project on Sexual Orientation Law, the
nation's first “think tank” on sexual orientation law.
Law 19, Seminar 4
A Citizen's Guide to U.S. Economic Growth
Samuel C.
Thompson, Jr.
This course is
geared for the person who is not an expert in economics. The course will
address economic issues arising since the last presidential election, such as
an examination of the current state of the debate on Social Security reform.
Discussions and readings should give students a fundamental understanding of
the most significant issues affecting economic growth and the understanding of
tools the government can utilize in attempting to promote economic growth.
Samuel C.
Thompson, Jr. is a Professor in the UCLA School of Law and Director of UCLA Law
Center for the Study of Mergers and Acquisitions. The Center holds annual
conferences on tax, corporate and related aspects of mergers and acquisitions.
Thompson earned a B.S. from West Chester
University in 1965, an M.A. in Applied
Economics from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton
School and Graduate School of
Economics in 1969, a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in
1971, and an LL.M. in taxation from New
York University
in 1973. In Spring 2003, the School of Law welcomed back Samuel C. Thompson,
Jr. when he transferred the Center for the Study of Mergers and Acquisitions
from the University of Miami School of Law to the UCLA School of Law.
Law 19, Seminar 5
Law and Urban Problems
Michael H.
Schill
This seminar
will examine current urban conditions and how they are shaped, influenced and
possibly ameliorated by law. In most parts of the United States, the conditions of
large and medium-sized cities have declined in the postwar period. Some of this
decline is attributable to market forces, but a substantial amount is shaped by
the way cities are treated by law. In this seminar, we will examine the state
of cities today, the historical roots of urban problems, how law and policy
have shaped today's reality and various proposals to solve these problems.
Dean Schill is
a national expert on real estate and housing policy, deregulation, finance and
discrimination. He has written or edited three books and over 40 articles on
various aspects of housing, real estate and property law. He is an active
member of a variety of public advisory councils, editorial boards and community
organizations. Before joining the faculty of UCLA School of Law, Dean Schill
was the Wilf Family Professor in Property Law at New York University School of
Law and professor of urban planning at NYU's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School
of Public Service. From 1994 to 2004, Dean Schill served as the director of the
Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy.
Prior to that, Schill was a tenured professor of law and real estate at the University of Pennsylvania. He has also been a
visiting professor at Harvard
Law School.
Management 19, Seminar 1
Health and Happiness
Martin Greenberger
The Declaration
of Independence affirms that among our unalienable rights are life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness. It's curious that Thomas Jefferson, though having
strong personal commitment to health, did not include the pursuit of health in
these rights. Recent Harvard article announcing marvel of modern medicine that
regulates gene transcription and helps prevent heart disease, stroke, diabetes,
obesity, and cancer. It improves strength, balance, and blood lipid profiles.
Bones become stronger, and new capillaries grow enhancing blood flow and
delivery of oxygen and nutrients. Attention span increases, appetite is
moderated, and healthier foods become more desirable. Blood volume increases
and fats metabolize more efficiently. Even immune system is stimulated. What is
this drug? Jefferson knew about it. It was
part of his prescription for health and happiness.
Martin
Greenberger is IBM Professor of Computers and Information Systems at the UCLA Anderson
School. He leads graduate
seminars in Biotechnology and Investing in Health. Greenberger is president of
Council for Technology and the Individual, a nonprofit foundation concerned
with the human side of technology. He is Senior Fellow at the Milken Institute
and has been on the UCLA faculty since 1982.
Management 19, Seminar
2
An
Introduction to Human Resource Management
(This course will be team-taught by five faculty from
the Anderson School of Management)
Sanford Jacoby, Christopher Erickson, Samuel Culbert, Daniel Mitchell, and David Lewin.