Fiat Lux Freshman Seminars

Fall Quarter 2005

 



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ART & HUMANITIES


 

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

Africa in a Global Context

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).

 

 

 


CULTURE & SOCIETY


 

Anthropology 19, Seminar 1

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

LGBT is Not a Sandwich, or Straight Talk about

Gay Issues in America

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.

 

This team-taught course is intended to provide an introduction to managing the employment relationship in modern organizations. Topics include origins of human resource management; negotiations; diversity; pay practices; and HR and business performance

 

The course will be offered every other week for two hours per session. Each session will be taught by a different professor from the Anderson School of Management.  Each faculty member has done extensive research in their area of specialization, which are: history of management (Jacoby); pay practices (Mitchell); human resources and business performance (Lewin); diversity (Culbert); and negotiations (Erickson).  For more complete information, go to: www.anderson.ucla.edu/acad_unit/hrob/ .

 

Management 19, Seminar 3

Understanding Organizational Experiences'

Good and Bad

Bill Mckelvey

 

We spend much of our lives in organizations, for work, play, education, religion, etc. Some are effective; some not. Some show top-down military-like control and authoritarianism. Others behave like brains, ant colonies, or psychic prisons. Some allow unleashing of energy, creativity, and dreams. We all experience them differently. On a scale of 1 to 7, i.e., from psychic prison to self-fulfilling, where do you place your experiences in high school, sports programs, summer jobs, other organizations, or with respect to UCLA? Authoritarian organizations produce passive-dependent, childlike behavior. Others constantly produce of bottom-up, emergent, entrepreneurial novelty. What causes organizations to be one way or another? In which kind would you be better off working? Course Objective: Understanding different kinds of organizations, why different kinds occur, and how to cope with, or change and improve them.

 

Bill McKelvey received his BA (physics, business economics, mathematics, music) from Monmouth College, IL and PhD from MIT (management). He is Professor of Strategic Organizing and Complexity Science at UCLA Anderson School. He chaired the building committee that produced the $110,000,000 Anderson Complex at UCLA, which opened in 1994. He initiated activities leading to the founding of UCLA's Center Human Complex Systems. He has advised some 170 student consulting projects in firms. He has produced more dissertation award-winning doctoral students than any other school professor in the US. He has been Professor in Residence at U. Paris-Dauphine, U. Nice, and U. Durham. Organizes the Lake Arrowhead Conferences on Agent-based Modeling in the Social Sciences. Books include: Organizational Systematics (1982), which remains the definitive treatment of organizational taxonomy and evolutionary theory; Variations in Organization Science (1999, co edited; Sage); Complexity Dynamics in Organizations (2006); 21st Century Leadership: Getting Ahead of Complexity Dynamics.

 

 

Management 19, Seminar 4

The Entrepreneurial Process

Hans Schollhammer

 

This seminar focuses on the important aspects of starting a new business enterprise with emphasis on the challenges faced by an entrepreneur(s) in initiating a business venture and directing its early development. The main objective of the seminar is to familiarize the student with the crucial stages in the entrepreneurial process, with effective entrepreneurial strategies, and with analytical techniques used to identify and evaluate new venture opportunities; the legal structure and organization of a new business; the development and roles of a business plan; approaches to new venture financing; teambuilding and staffing considerations, and the marketing task in a new venture context. Topics of individual seminar sessions are:
1. The Nature of Entrepreneurship
2. Characteristics of Successful and Failing Entrepreneurial Ventures
3. Approaches to the Identification and Evaluation of Venture Opportunities
4. Format and Roles of a Business Plan
5. New Venture Financing
6. Teambuilding and Staffing in a New Venture Context
7. Managing Entrepreneurial Ventures

 

Hans Schollhammer is Professor in the Global Economics and Management (GEM) area of the Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA. He received his Dipl.Kfm. degree from the University of Munich (Germany), and MBA and DBA degrees from Indiana University. Besides UCLA, Professor Schollhammer has held faculty positions at INSEAD in Fontainebleau (France), the Cranfield Institute of Technology (England), the Institute for International Studies and Training in Fujinomiya (Japan), and Columbia University, New York. At the Anderson School Professor Schollhammer teaches courses as part of the Entrepreneurial Studies Program and courses focusing on international management issues as part of the International Business and Comparative Management Program. Professor Schollhammer is the author of books and articles on entrepreneurship and international management issues.

 

 

Sociology 19, Seminar 1

Slide Rules, Punch Cards, and Relatives: How Computing Used to be Done

David Mcfarland

 

Long before contemporary computers, there were abaci and addiators, sectors and slide rules, early computers size of buildings, as well as original digital devices better known as fingers. In this seminar we will study highlights of such developments of computational devices and techniques, especially those related to quantitative work by early sociologists.

 

David Mcfarland is an Assistant Professor of Sociology. He has been using computers since 1962, before he became a sociologist he also collect old computational devices, some of which will be demonstrated in this seminar. His recent publications have been on the topic of this seminar. Earlier publications included some mathematical models of social processes including occupational mobility, population growth, and marriage formation. Courses he teaches include Social Stratification (157), Mathematical Sociology (112), and Statistical and Computer Methods in Social Research (113). The latter use contemporary, not historic, computational tools, namely Mathematic (112) and Stats (113) software on networked personal computers.

 

 

Sociology 19, Seminar 2

Zen and Art of Cooperation:

Buddhist Approaches to Peacemaking

Peter Kollock

 

This seminar examines  Zen Buddhism, not in context of religion, but as system of social psychology that has evolved over 2600 years. We will examine Zen Buddhist practices for developing cooperation and peace in one's self, one's relationships, and larger society. Key element is weekend retreat at Zen Buddhist monastery in Southern California.

 

Peter Kollock is Professor of Sociology at UCLA. His research focuses on cooperation, trust, and risk in groups. He studies a wide range of situations in which group members gain by cooperating but where a temptation to behave selfishly exists, examining the factors that encourage or discourage the emergence of cooperation, community, and trade. His recent work has concentrated on studies of online communities and markets. He received UCLA's Distinguished Teaching Award in 1992.

 

 

Sociology 19, Seminar 3

Making Societies: The Social Construction

of Our World

William Roy

 

What do time, space, race, gender, and class all have in common?  They are all things that people take for granted as natural, but which are shaped by human societies.  This course looks at how our understanding of time, space, race, gender and class in western societies is very different from the way they are understood in other societies, and then how they developed in the West as they have.  The course is a chance to look at the "big picture" about how modern society is different from other times and places.  For example, we think of time as linear, while others understand it as linear.  Many societies have categories of people that could be called racial.  Some argue that there are societies without any genders.  The seminar will use a book written by the professor that addresses these sorts of issues.

 

William Roy is Professor of Sociology, specializing in comparative-historical sociology.  His research has focused on the rise of American industrial corporations, resulting in Socializing Capital:  The Rise of the Large Industrial Corporation in America. (Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1997).  Recently he has been examining American folk music, social movements, and race.  He is winner of the UCLA Distinguished Teaching Award and the American Sociological Association Distinguished Contribution to Teaching Award.

 

 

Women’s Studies 19, Seminar 1

Sexual Harassment Law and Policy

Christine A. Littleton

 

State and federal law prohibit sexual harassment at work and at school.  What counts as sexual harassment?  What’s the difference between flirting and harassment? Can men be sexually harassed? Is racial harassment similar or different? What legal remedies are available for someone who is being harassed? How does UCLA's policy against sexual harassment work? Should anti-harassment procedures focus on punishing harassers or on helping those who are harassed? What other methods could be used to reduce or eliminate sexual harassment? Some of these questions will be answered; all will be discussed.

 

Christine Littleton, Esq., is a Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law, Chair of UCLA's Women's Studies Program, and Interim Director of the Center for the Study of Women. She teaches both law and women's studies, is a nationally recognized theorist in feminist jurisprudence and an expert on sexual harassment. Littleton was a founding member of the Board of Directors of the California Women's Law Center, and is currently of counsel there.

 

 


Science & Technology

 

Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences 19, Seminar 1 (Canceled)

Thirsty Future? Drought in Age of Climate Change

Bjorn Stevens

 

In this seminar we will study droughts: what we know about their causes, and how they impact humanity from a variety of perspectives (social, cultural, political). The class will start by reading the book: Floods, Droughts and Climate Change by Collier and Webb. Thereafter the class will break up into four or five teams each of which is responsible for: (i) identifying a question they want to answer about drought, (ii) researching what is known about the question, (iii) presenting their findings to the rest of the class. After spending approximately four lectures on the Collier and Webb book, class meetings will be a combination of group based and class discussion designed to help refine research questions, suggest strategies of investigation and ultimately share findings. The goal of the class is to learn something about droughts, and at the same time learn how to be rigorous and inquisitive in ones thinking.

 

 

Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences 19, Seminar 2

Wind, Water, Chaos: Science and History of Hurricanes

Bjorn Stevens

 

In this seminar we will take a closer look at hurricanes in wake of colossal destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina, What are they? Why do they form? Are they becoming more frequent? Reading and discussion of just-published book Divine Wind which was written for general public by one of world's foremost authorities on hurricanes. Based on development of our understanding of hurricanes in general, particular evolution and structure of Katrina is charted using variety of meteorological data.

 

Bjorn Stevens is an Associate Professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences.  His interests are on how clouds affect the climate system. He combines a variety of techniques ranging measurements in clouds using aircraft, remotely sensed measurement from the surface or satellites, numerical simulation, and theory, to gain insights into factors regulating clouds, and how they might change in a changing climate system. Dr. Stevens received his PhD in Atmospheric Sciences 1996 from Colorado State University. Before coming to UCLA he had research fellowships to study Clouds at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg Germany, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder Colorado. In 2002 he received the Meisinger Prize of the American Meteorological Society. This prize is given annually for outstanding contributions to our understanding of the atmosphere by a young scientist.

 

 

Biomedical Engineering 19, Seminar 1

NeuroEngineering: The Technology That Could

Enable the “Matrix”

Jack Judy

 

Brain-computer interfaces portrayed in “The Matrix” movies make use of neuroengineering technologies, many of which already exist. Implantable devices
that interface directly with human senses, such as allowing the deaf to hear, are a commercial reality. Research efforts are now underway that will enable
the blind to see, and the paralyzed to move. Direct brain-computer interfaces are future goals Topics include past, present, and future neuroengineering technologies and devices, and their possible social implications.

 

Dr. Judy is an Associate Professor in the Electrical Engineering Department. He is also the co-director
of the UCLA NeuroEngineering Program, an NSF-funded training program in the Biomedical Engineering and Neuroscience Programs. His interests include a variety of neuroengineering research projects: electrode arrays for retinal prosthetics, wireless neural transceivers, microprobes for Parkinson's disease research, and MEMS-enabled hydrocephalus shunts,
as well as neural control systems for spinal cord injury, ocular motility, and deep brain stimulation.

 

 

Chemistry and Biochemistry 19, Seminar 1

Unexpected Discoveries and their Impact on Society

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.

 

 

Earth and Space Sciences 19, Seminar 1

Bad Science

John Vidale

 

Although most science research is conducted well, in notable cases scientific method has gone awry with dramatic and long-lasting results. Review of eight concrete examples of deeply flawed science, avoiding theoretical ethics or scientific method approach. Topics are mix of honest resolvable disagreements, philosophical differences, and fraud. They include these misadventures: earthquake prediction; the Piltdown Man; Trofim Lysenko, whose misbegotten genetic theories starved millions of Soviets and Chinese; creationist challenges to evolution; homeopathy; cold fusion, Papp engine, and global warming. Focus on quality of science rather than politics. All assignments are online.

 

John Vidale is a Professor in the Earth and Space Sciences Department, and also Interim Director of the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics. He studies earthquakes and Earth structure, and has both generated and tried to impede bad science. His recent projects include whether the inner core spins, how fault zones break and heal, and whether tides trigger earthquakes. He often is grilled by the press about various geophysical disasters.

 

 

Earth and Space Sciences 19, Seminar 2

Signs of Glaciers Past: Eastern Sierra and Tuolumne

Jonathan Aurnou

 

Since the time of their uplift, Sierra Nevada mountains have been carved and re-carved by glaciers. Week end studying geological record of past ice ages along eastern front of Sierras and Tuolumne Meadows area of Yosemite National Park. Examination of massive glacial moraines of Convict Lake and hike to top of 11,004-foot Gaylor Peak: (http://www.summitpost.org/show/mountain_link.pl/mountain_id/1829) to survey array of glacial landforms. Each student becomes expert on topic relevant to trip and helps educate class when we arrive at field area that pertains to their expertise. NOTE: Strenuous hike up Gaylor Peak requires that all participants be in very good physical condition.

Professor Aurnou studies geophysical and planetary fluid dynamics. His laboratory work focuses on planetary cores dynamics and how core flows generate planetary magnetic fields. He is also carrying out computer simulations of the large-scale winds that exist in the deep atmospheres of the giant planets. Glaciers, which do not exist in planetary cores or the atmospheres of Jupiter or Saturn, have always been a passion.

 

 

Ecology and Evolutionary Biology 19, Seminar 1

Parasites: Eating Us Alive

Donald Buth

 

This seminar will introduce students to the parasitological half of the animal kingdom by way of popular text that emphasizes historical aspects of this biological phenomenon. Humans as hosts are emphasized. Topics include how parasites have influenced human evolution and human history.

 

Donald G. Buth, PhD University of Illinois 1978. His research includes studies of population structure and phylogenetic relationships of North American freshwater fishes, and distributional patterns of helminth parasites of marine fishes. His courses include vertebrate biology (EEB 111), ichthyology (112), systematics (EEB 130), field biology of marine fishes (EEB 164), and parasitology (EEB 181).

His current research involves the distributional patterns of helminth parasites in marine fishes that live in the rocky intertidal zone.

 

 

Ecology and Evolutionary Biology 19, Seminar 2

Evolutionary Medicine: How Natural Selection Helps

Us Understand Why We Get Sick

Peter Nonacs

 

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? Why are new and deadly diseases appearing in our hospitals? Questions like these have long puzzled medical science. Exciting new approach to these "why" questions involves application of evolutionary principles. Disease, illness, and human behavior not as constant phenomena, but as having evolved and continuing to evolve through Natural Selection. Evolution is 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 Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. 

His interests are in behavioral ecology and the evolution of social behavior. Although most of his research is on insects, he is interested in general questions about evolution and the ecological interactions between organisms.

 

 

Ecology and Evolutionary Biology 19, Seminar 3

Frenzy of “The Birds:” Toxic Algae that Inspired Hollywood

Elma Gonzalez

 

There are a variety of species of unicellular algae that pose a threat to marine and freshwater organisms and increasingly to human populations as well. In this seminar, our goal is to understand the diversity of the harmful organisms, the conditions under which they become harmful, and the potential for future increase in their incidence along north American shores.

 

Professor Elma Gonzalez has taught courses in Plant Physiology, Cell Biology, Introduction to Molecular Biology and Marine Phytoplankton Physiology. Her research is currently focused on a group of phytoplankton, the coccolithophores, capable of subcellular calcification. One prominent example is Emiliania huxleyi with the ability to "bloom" across large areas of the subpolar oceans. The coccolithophores are not harmful and may well be beneficial in that they use bicarbonate in seawater to form their coccospheres (calcium carbonate) which eventually end at the bottom of the ocean. Ancient deposits of these chalks are visible around the world. A notable example of such chalk cliffs (fossils of E. huxleyi) are the White Cliffs of Dover.

 

 

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering 19, Seminar 1

Energy, Population, and the Environment

Laurent Pilon

 

Industrial nations face unprecedented combination of economic and environmental challenges, including how to meet expanding energy needs without adding intolerable amounts of greenhouse gases to atmosphere and further impacting climate and environment. Increased fossil fuel usage threatens public health and environment while depleting natural resources. These issues are addressed from demographic, economic, and political perspectives. Fast population growth in developing countries and emergence of global economy create unprecedented stress on resources. Emerging countries claim access to same standard of living as industrial nations, resulting in increasing energy needs. From international security standpoint, energy issues include potential for conflict over access to remaining supplies of fossil fuel. The course discusses all these issues in a comprehensive and interactive manner.

 

Laurent Pilon is an Assistant Professor in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department at UCLA. He received his B.S. and M.S. in 1997 in Applied Physics from the Grenoble National Polytechnic Institute, France. He worked for two years for the French Atomic Energy Commission before starting his doctoral studies. He graduated from Purdue University in 2002 with a PhD in Mechanical Engineering. At UCLA he teaches undergraduate and graduate classes in thermodynamics and thermal sciences.

 

 

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 1969, and regularly teaches introductory genetics, advanced human genetics, and advanced genetics laboratory of model organism. His graduate training emphasized combining human genetics with studies
on model organisms.

 

 

Psychology 19, Seminar 1

The Diversity Challenge: Understanding and

Overcoming Group Conflicts

Yuen Huo

 

Progress in civil rights and a new wave of immigration have created an unprecedented level of diversity in American schools, workplaces, and communities. As individuals from different cultural, ethnic, and racial groups come together, questions are raised about how this demographic shift plays out. Can people from different cultural backgrounds find ways to live and work together, despite their differences? Or is social division along ethnic and racial lines inevitable? These and other questions are addressed by drawing upon scientific research on origins and consequences of group conflicts and strategies for overcoming them. Films and in-class exercises supplement readings to stimulate class discussion.

 

Yuen Huo is an Assistant Professor of Social Psychology. Her research concerns group dynamics, inter group relations, the psychology of justice, and ethnic minority and cultural psychology. She is particularly interested in how psychological processes affect the dynamics of ethnic relations in the workplace, the legal system, and in American politics. Before joining UCLA, she was a research fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California. Her research was recognized by the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues' Otto Klineberg Intercultural and International Relations Award.

 

 

Psychology 19, Seminar 2

Human Aggression: Causes, Myths and Management

Seymour Feshbach

 

In this seminar the role of evolutionary and other biological factors and social and cultural influences will be considered. Specific attention will be given to similarities and contrasts with animal aggression, to gender differences, to mass media influences, to socialization factors, to the role of individual differences in aggression in attitudes towards war, and to approaches to the reduction of aggression.

 

Dr. Feshbach's principal area of research interest has been the study of aggressive behavior. He has been President of the International Society for Research on Aggression and President of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues. He has written theoretical papers on the functions of different forms of aggression and has carried out empirical research on television influences on aggression, the relation between sexual arousal and aggression, play aggression, and the role of individual aggression versus nationalism in attitudes towards war. With Professor Norma Feshbach, he has implemented and evaluated empathy fostering programs, in schools, that are intended to reduce aggression and social prejudice.

 

 

Statistics 19, Seminar 1

Hold'em or Fold'em: Poker and Probability

Frederic Paik Schoenberg

 

Fundamental concepts of elementary probability theory and statistics, which are useful in very wide variety of scientific applications. Students learn basic foundations of probability, including axioms of probability, addition and multiplication rules, conditional probability, expected values, and combinatory. Discussion of important statistical concepts such as standard deviation, law of large numbers, central limit theorem, simulation, standard errors, and confidence intervals. All of these topics, which are broadly applicable in the sciences, are motivated by examples of situations and concepts that arise naturally when playing Texas Hold'em, game of strategy and chance whose complexity is surprising and whose popularity is rapidly increasing.

 

Frederic Paik Schoenberg is an Associate Professor of Statistics at UCLA. He earned his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in 1997 and specializes in point processes and their applications in the environmental sciences.

 

 

Statistics 19, Seminar 2

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's savings account but they are also associated with some 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, will allow us to address the previous questions, and to better understand the value
of money.

 

Nicolas Christou received his Ph.D. in Statistics in 2000 from the Stern School of Business, 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 3

Statistics of the Death Penalty

Richard Berk

 

In this course, we will examine several sets of official statistics describing death row populations and consideration of what is empirically known about processes by which people in the U.S. are sentenced to death. Context is larger debate about death penalty and such questions as whether death penalty deters violent crime.

 

Richard Berk is a Professor in the Department of Statistics who has done research on the death penalty. He has also served as an expert witness in a number of death penalty cases, including one ultimately decided by the US Supreme Court.

 

 

Statistics 19, Seminar 4

Paradoxes of Random Events

Ilia Zaliapin

 

History of science is a history of its mysteries and paradoxes. This is especially true for the Science of Random: Theory of Probability and Statistics. During this course we will discuss problems, which inspired (as well as confused) many great people of the past and thus prompted development of mathematics of random. We will concentrate on paradoxes --- seemingly contradictory statements that may nonetheless be true and sophisms --- plausible but fallacious arguments. The main goal is to highlight some important and exciting concepts that once allowed to resolve great mysteries of chance, and which now constitute the foundations of the modern Theory of Probability and Statistics.

 

Ilia Zaliapin is a researcher at the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics. He earned his Ph.D. in 1999 from Russian Academy of Sciences. His primary research interests are in statistics of extreme events (catastrophes) and hierarchical methods of time series analysis with diverse geophysical applications, including the earthquake prediction problem.

 

 

Statistics 19, Seminar 5

Eugenics and Statistics: Interpreting the Genetic

Basis of Human Traits

Chiara Sabatti

 

The identification and interpretation of the genetically basis of human traits like height, IQ, temperament, has been source of considerable debates from the beginning of such studies. And rightly so, as there are a number of implications for society associated to the diverse interpretations. We will focus on the debate that took place at the beginning of the last century. The mechanism of inheritance of traits like height was not clear; the emerging field of statistics contribute to establish the existence of a genetics basis for them and a founding father of Statistics as R.A. Fisher proposed mathematical models used to date to explain the inheritance. This is an ideal example to understand the role of statistics in framing what can be considered as scientific truth with particular reference to genetics - and what are the terms of its implication in society.

 

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 in Statistics and Economics 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.