Applied Linguistics/TESL 19, Seminar 1

Language Tests: Gatekeepers or Door Openers?

Lyle Bachman

Language tests have become pervasive part of our education system and society, used for a wide variety of purposes such as identifying English language learners in schools, making admissions decisions to universities, placing students into language programs, screening potential immigrants, and selecting employees. But how useful are language tests for making these high-stakes decisions? By what standards can we evaluate the usefulness of these tests, and the fairness of decisions that are made? What are the consequences, both beneficial and harmful, of using language tests for these purposes? We will be reading and discussing selected articles that address these questions.

Lyle Bachman is Professor and Chair of the Department of Applied Linguistics and TESL. His current professional interests include the nature of the interactions between test takers and assessment tasks, validity theory, language issues in large-scale educational assessments, the technologies of test design and development, and the interfaces between language testing research and other areas of applied linguistics research. His publications include Fundamental Considerations in Language Testing, Language Testing in Practice (with Adrian S. Palmer), and Interfaces between Second Language Acquisition and Language Testing Research (co-edited with Andrew D. Cohen), and Statistical Analyses for Language Assessment. He has also published numerous articles in the area of language testing and evaluation. He is currently co-editor of the Cambridge Language Assessment Series. He has received the MLA’s Mildenberger Award for Outstanding Research Publication.

Ancient Near East 19, Seminar 1

Mummies: Death and Afterlife in Ancient Egypt

Willemina Wendrich

The Bowers Museum in Santa Ana has regular cooperation with British Museum, which gives students unique resource to see important objects from world-renowned collection in real life. During one two-hour introductory lecture and four two-hour meetings in which students prepare brief informal presentations on subjects discussed in class, thorough introduction is given in preparation for informed visit to exhibition. Discussion of development and physical aspects of mummification in Egypt in different periods, religious reasons for mummification, other preparations for burial and afterlife, as well as role that burial and afterlife had in daily life in ancient Egypt. Group will visit exhibition together. Exhibit entry fee $12.

Willemina Wendrich is an Associate Professor of Egyptian Archaeology at the Department for Near Eastern Languages and Cultures. She directs the UCLA excavations in the Fayum Oasis in Egypt, and teaches a graduate level field work class there. She has worked as an archaeologist in Egypt for 17 years, participating in expeditions in several regions, working on a wide range of periods of Egyptian history.

Architecture & Urban Design 19, Seminar 1

Time for Ancient Rome

Diane Favro

Modern cities are directed by time. From store hours to synchronization of stoplights, modern urban environments are shaped by diverse temporal structures. How did people experience cities before time became a commodity shared by everyone with a wristwatch? In ancient world, hours and calendar were flexible. The Romans linked time and space in literature, philosophy, and environmental design. Notably Vitruvius included a book on timekeeping devices in his architectural tract, and the Romans celebrated birthdays of important buildings and the city itself. This class will examine temporal issues in relation to Rome, considering rhythms of daily activities, alternatives to mechanized clocks, and temporal rituals. Class will make use of virtual reality models created at Experiential Technologies Center which allow students to move through recreated historic environments in real time. Comparisons to modern contexts inform understanding of urban temporality.

Diane Favro is a professor in the Department of Architecture and Urban Design. Her research focuses on Roman architecture and urbanism, methods and pedagogy of architectural history, and women in the profession. Professor Favro's monograph, The Urban Image of Augustan Rome (Cambridge University Press 1996), analyses the symbiotic relationship between physical interventions and conceptual shifts in the imaging of a capital city. Other publications explore Roman municipal legislation, administration, imagery. She was co-editor of Streets: Critical Perspectives on Public Space (UC Press 1994), for which she also wrote a chapter on the urban impact of Roman triumphal parades. In 1995 she received The Parthena Award for her efforts to promote women and their contributions to the built environment. Currently Professor Favro is Director of the UCLA Experiential Technologies Center which creates virtual reality computer models of historic environments. 2002-04 Professor Favro served as the elected President of the Society of Architectural Historians.

English 19, Seminar 1

Thoreau's Walden: Alone and Together

Thomas Wortham

No better advice has ever been offered than this challenge by Henry D. Thoreau: "Every man has to learn the points of compass again as often as he awakes, whether from sleep or any abstraction. Not till we are lost, in other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations." Let's get lost reading Walden together.

Tom Wortham is Chair and Professor of English; his area of study is nineteenth-century American literature and culture. More important, he first read Thoreau when he was thirteen, and hasn't recovered since. "I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."

English 19, Seminar 2

Supernatural as Psychological Case Study:

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 generations prior to Sigmund Freud, to presumed relationship between occult phenomena and mental derangement, and to ways in which supernatural tales mirrored psychological case study.

Frederick Burwick is an Emeritus Professor in the Department of English. He is the author of The Haunted Eye, Illusion and the Drama, Madness and Romantic Imagination. Professor Burwick is currently at work on a study of cognitive psychology and the literary accounts of apparitions and hallucinatory experience.

Ethnomusicology 19, Seminar 1

Music Theory through Recorder

Roger Savage

Would you like to learn music theory while learning to play an instrument? This class is for students who would like to study rudiments of music theory by playing recorder. Each class includes practice pieces and exercises related to music notation, keys, melody, rhythm, rounds, and harmony. Students will also have the opportunity to write and perform short compositions. By taking practical approach to music theory, students will develop a foundation for reading, playing, and writing music. Students need not have any prior experience. Recorders will be available for purchase at nominal cost on first day of class.

Roger Savage is Associate Professor in the systematic musicology program. He teaches courses in the aesthetics, philosophy and sociology of music, and he has special interests in hermeneutical philosophy and music criticism. His research focuses on intersections between musical aesthetics, politics and questions of personal, social and cultural identity. Last summer he traveled with a group of students to Venice, Salzburg, Vienna and Paris as the director for The European Musical Aesthetic Travel Study Program.

Film and Television 19, Seminar 1

Introduction to Film Making: So You Want to

Make Movies?

Barbara Boyle

Three screenplays are read without disclosing the title of screenplay or resulting movie. Analysis and discussion of visual style, cast, director, music, and other essential elements used to convey tone and message of movie made from script. Films actually made from screenplays are then shown so that relationship between literary (screenplay) and visual (movie and all its components) is understood. This course will also introduce a glossary of basic film industry terms. Three feature length motion pictures will be viewed.

Barbara Boyle is a Professor and Chair in the Department of Film, Television & Digital Media.

Film and Television Producer. Boyle's credits include Phenomenon, Instinct, Bottle Rocket, Eight Men Out, Mrs. Munck, and The Hi-Line. Her company, Sovereign Pictures, Inc., financed and distributed internationally 25 films including, My Left Foot, Cinema Paradiso, Reversal Of Fortune, Impromptu, Hamlet and The Commitments. Sovereign's films were nominated for 14 Academy Awards and won 4. While president of Valhalla Motion Pictures, the company produced 22 episodes of Adventure, Inc., the documentary, True Whispers, and feature films, Clockstoppers and Hulk. In 2003. She serves on the Board of Project: Involve and is a past president of IFP/West and Women In Film. Boyle has received, among others, a Vision Award from IFP, the WIF Crystal Award and the Alumni of the Year from UCLA Law School.

French 19, Seminar 1

Jealousy in French Literature

Patrick Coleman

Jealousy, like other complex emotions, is more than feeling. It is a way of perceiving and processing information about the world. This course will explore the relationship between feeling, knowledge, and interpretation as it is dramatized in three modern French stories of jealousy. The aim of the course is to show how literature can help us understand how emotions work in our lives.

Patrick Coleman is Professor of French and Francophone Studies. He is the author of three books and many articles in the fields of eighteenth-century and contemporary francophone studies. His Fiat Lux proposal reflects the research for his current project, a book on anger and gratitude in French Enlightenment writing.

German 19, Seminar 1

Is A Non-Violent World Possible?

Robert Kirsner

Can there ever be an alternative to violence and war? Mahatma Gandhi thought so and waged non-violent campaign against British which resulted in India gaining independence from Britain in 1945. And in early 1960s, Martin Luther King, Jr. and his followers waged non-violent campaign to end racial segregation in the United States. In this seminar we read and discuss Gandhi scholar Michael Nagler's provocative book The Search for a Non-Violent Future (second edition 2004, first edition given American Book Award 2002) as well as selections from writings by and biography of Gandhi, and interviews with living social activists inspired by Gandhi.

Robert S. Kirsner is a Professor of Dutch and Afrikaans in UCLA's Department of Germanic Languages, where he teaches these two languages, the literatures written in them (from Holland, Belgium, the Caribbean, and South Africa), and also a course on Linguistic Theory and Grammatical Description. His research focuses on functional, discourse-based, and cognitive approaches in linguistics, emphasizing the use of empirical quantitative data in analyzing grammatical structures. He is most interested in the interaction of grammar and intonation.

He likes to read science fiction and he is also interested in Eastern religions and philosophy.

Honors Collegium 19, Seminar 1

Stage and Screen: Works by UCLA Students

Carol Petersen

This seminar will focus on works created by students in the Departments of World Arts and Cultures; Film, Television, and Digital Media; and Theater. Student choreographers and directors discuss their artistic processes, media, and purposes, and show clips of their performances and films. We will also view and discuss photos taken during rehearsals and production. Class members make journal entries responding to each session and to readings suggested by presenters. Class meets every other week for two hours, beginning first week.

Carol Petersen is a photographer and Faculty in Residence in Canyon Point. She recently retired from the position of Director of Faculty Equity. Earlier she held positions as Vice Provost of the College of Letters and Science and Director of UCLA Writing Programs.

Iranian 19, Seminar 1

Consciousness and Intuition: A Study of Persian Philosophical Texts

Hossein Ziai

This seminar will focus on a 12th century philosophical text (available in a bilingual Persian-English edition), and each week one of the ten sections of the text will be read and examined in detail. Special attention will be placed on the Aristotelian principles expressed in the text. A major question addressed in the seminar will be: "How are the Aristotelian principles refined in their Persian expression."

Hossein Ziai is a Professor of Iranian and Islamic Studies & Director of Iranian Studies. Professor Ziai holds a BS from Yale University in Intensive Mathematics and Physics, 1967. He received his
Ph.D. from Harvard University in Islamic Philosophy, 1976.

Jewish Studies 19, Seminar 1 (Seminar Canceled)

Jewish Settlers on American Frontier

Eleanor Kaufman

This course explores writings about and by a population that might seem like contradiction in terms: Jewish farmers, cowboys, ranchers, and small-town settlers in American West between 1850-1930. We will first read short memoirs and fictional narratives about western Jewish settlement (on Jewish homesteaders and cowboys in North Dakota, and on Wyatt Earp's Jewish wife). Questions about diaspora studies and process of constructing archive will be included: How does one represent a fleeting population that is no longer present in sites in question, except in the form of Jewish cemeteries on prairie? How is material about these Jewish settlements archived or exhibited in museums? How does it relate to other ethnic minorities in American West, especially Chinese immigrants? In exploring these questions, we will turn to writings about the nature of archive. We will also visit a local archive and attend events related to year-long Jewish Studies seminar on history of Jewish Los Angeles.

Eleanor Kaufman is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and French and Francophone Studies, and an affiliated faculty member in Jewish Studies. Her primary research is on twentieth-century French philosophy, with secondary interests in modern Jewish thought, literature of the Jewish diaspora, Maghrebian literature, and modern American literature. She is the author of The Delirium of Praise: Bataille, Blanchot, Deleuze, Foucault, Klossowski (2001) and co-editor of Deleuze and Guattari: New Mappings in Politics, Philosophy and Culture (1998). She is currently working on three book-length projects: The Jewry of the Plain (on the archives, museums, and cemeteries that commemorate Jewish settlement in remote regions of the American West at the end of the nineteenth century, and also a meditation on the work of Jacques Derrida); The Incorporeal: Phenomenology and the Inhuman from Sartre to Deleuze; and a set of essays that looks at the work of Alain Badiou alongside that of Agamben, Deleuze, Lacan, and Sartre. An essay on Josephine Earp is forthcoming.

Music 19, Seminar 1

Music by Rufus Wainwright

Roger Bourland

In class discussion and analysis of selected songs by singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright. Elements include phrase structure, formal structure, harmonic analysis, melodic analysis, and issues of style and influence.

Roger Bourland (Ph.D., Harvard), a Professor in the Department of Music, has composed music for orchestra, wind ensemble, chorus, chamber music, film, theater, dance, and radio, which have been performed throughout North America and Europe. His teachers included Gunther Schuller, John Harbison, Leon Kirchner and Earl Kim. His most recent composition, The Crocodile's Christmas Ball and other Odd Tales

for chorus and wind ensemble, was premiered by five groups around the country in December 2002. A recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award in 2005.

Music History 19, Seminar 1

VOCES BALAENAE: Whale Songs and Human Audiences

Mitchell Morris

In 1969, cetacean biologist Roger Payne published information about complex vocalizations of Humpback Whales, referring to them as “songs.” One year later, he released first commercial recording of whale songs. These songs became important cultural artifacts in burgeoning "save the whales" movement, and were largely received as instances of music in nature. This seminar will consider whale songs in terms of their sound and the circumstances of their production among whales, and consider what human beings have made of them. We will discuss questions about the definition of music and culture, and thought about how human beings relate to other animals who live in complex societies and possess elaborate systems of communication.

Mitchell Morris is an Associate Professor in the Department of Musicology. Growing up in the rural South, he was frequently curious about the potential "musicality" of animals. In the past five years, he has been pursuing this question more formally, with a special interest in how human beings make sense of whale songs.

Scandinavian 19, Seminar 1

Urban Legend and Popular Film: Politics of Fright

Timothy Tangherlini

Ghosts, UFOs, psychopaths, evil corporations, Satanists, serial killers, wild conspiracy theories, unlikely ways to be killed, and even more unusual ways to survive. These are but some of the topics that come up time and again in "Urban legends." But the stories are not only told to entertain. In this course we explore the ideological positions endorsed by such narratives, and see how these narratives have been deployed in popular film. The goal is to develop understanding of how narratives can be used for local or global political ends. Requirements include collection of stories and posting them on course website

Professor Timothy Tangherlini is a folklorist whose work includes studies of storytelling among paramedics, the political uses of storytelling in 19th century Denmark, and the uses of storytelling in the aftermath of the 1992 Los Angeles riots. He is an Associate Professor in the Scandinavian Section and the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures. His books include, Interpreting Legend and Talking Trauma: Paramedics and Their Stories.

African Languages 19, Seminar 1

Cultural Studies along Swahili Coast

Katrina Thompson

Culture(s) of Swahili coast approaches this broad topic from a variety of disciplinary vantage points. Swahili coast is large region that includes parts of four countries and encompasses a wide variety of linguistic and ethnic groups, including but not limited to the Swahili. Intensive study of Swahili coast, and the role of Swahili beyond the coast, affords opportunity to develop a deep knowledge of single region that is both diverse and, arguably, unified by the Swahili language. No single approach can do this region justice, and thus vibrant scholarship has arisen within this area. By reading some of the best of this scholarship, and developing their own analyses of cultures they discuss, students will learn to combine tools from multiple disciplines.

Katrina Thompson earned both her M.A. and Ph.D. from the Department of African Languages & Literature, UW-Madison. A specialist in Swahili language and culture, she regularly teaches the language at all levels. A former Fulbrighter to Zimbabwe, her research focuses on African identities and popular culture.

Anthropology 19, Seminar 1

Oklahoma and its Indians:

History of American Indians in Oklahoma

Russell Thornton

An examination of the state of Oklahoma as it approaches its centennial in 2007, with particular emphasis on Indians of Oklahoma. Topics include the geography of Oklahoma, the formation of Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory as locations to relocate American Indians, the attempted formation of the Indian state of Sequoyah in 1905, the creation of state of Oklahoma, and Indians of Oklahoma today.

Russell Thornton is Professor of Anthropology. He is the author or editor of seven books and over 100 scholarly papers, focused on North American Indians. Born and raised in Oklahoma, he is an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation (Oklahoma). He is the chair of the Cherokee Nation’s Great State of Sequoyah Commission, formed to plan the Cherokee Nation's Centennial Celebration in 2005 of the proposed Indian state of Sequoyah and response to the Centennial Celebration of the statehood of Oklahoma in 2007.

Chicana & Chicano Studies 19, Seminar 1

Now What? After World Trade Center

Eric Avila

In this seminar will study public debates about the effort to rebuild at ground zero in New York City. What should be built? Who should decide? What are the contending visions? Since this unprecedented act of violence upon New York landscape, architects, planners, politicians, developers, academics, artists, activists, and grieving families are engaged in intense debate about how to rebuild and what principles should guide that effort: economic value, global peace, civic unity, public memory, social welfare, aesthetic design, and monumental grandeur. This seminar will focus upon that two-acre parcel of lower Manhattan that is now known as ground zero, and will consider the past, present, and future of that site to understand broader dynamics of urban transformation.

Eric Avila is an Associate Professor of History and Chicano Studies at UCLA and he is the author of Popular Culture in the Age of White Flight: Fear and Fantasy in Suburban Los Angeles," published by the University of California Press in 2004. He is a historian of twentieth century America, and his teaching and research interests center upon issues related to ethnic studies, urban history and cultural history. He is currently writing a cultural history of highway construction in urban America after World War II.

Economics 19, Seminar 1

Winner's Curse in Common Value Auctions

Hugo Hopenhayn

Exploration of the well-known phenomenon of "winners curse" when people bid in certain kinds of auctions. Winners curse occurs when a person who won at an auction wishes he had not won. Since many other interesting phenomena have the same basic structure as common value auctions, insights learned about auctions in the laboratory have significance for other areas where unhappy winners are important, such as in political contests and voting behavior, jury decisions, and companies racing to discover and patent an invention.

Professor Hugo Hopenhayn received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota and is interested in microeconomic theory, industrial organization, and macroeconomic theory. He joined the department of economics at UCLA in 2003, after teaching at the University of Rochester since 1994. Professor Hopenhayn has done research and published extensively on entry and exit of firms, labor market dynamics, and repeated interactions under asymmetric information such as auctions.

Economics 19, Seminar 3

Reliability, Trust and Contracts

William Zame

This seminar will analyze the issues of trust and reliability in contracting environments, such as employer-employee relationships, or partnerships.

In many cases, economic activity builds not on written contracts enforceable in a court of law, but informal agreements and relationships between the interacting parties. In these cases, there are usually some individual incentives to cheat, but payoffs are greater if mutual trust can be sustained. Uncertainty about other individuals' incentives and actions also complicate decision-making in these settings. The course will use laboratory experiments, and in particular the "trust game" to analyze decision-making and outcomes in environments where trust and reliability are important in determining financial payoffs and the social surplus.

William Zame (Ph.D., Mathematics, Tulane University 1970) is Distinguished Professor in the Departments of Economics and of Mathematics at the University of California at Los Angeles (where he has been on the faculty since 1991) and Director of the California Social Science Experimental Laboratory (CASSEL).

Before coming to UCLA he held appointments in the Mathematics Departments of Rice University, Tulane University and the State University of New York at Buffalo, and in the Economics and Mathematics Departments at The Johns Hopkins University. He has also held visiting appointments at the Institute for Advanced Study, the University of Washington, the Institute for Mathematics and its Applications, the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, the Institut Mittag-Leffler, the University of Copenhagen, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, and the University of California at Berkeley. He has been a Fellow of the Econometric Society since 1994 and is a Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation for 2004-2005.

Education 19, Seminar 1

Student Activism from the Sixties to the Present

Robert Rhoads

This course explores student activism at colleges and universities in the United States from the 1960s to the present. Primarily, we will engage in a comparative analysis between student activism of the 1960s and contemporary forms of campus activism. The course will be interdisciplinary in nature, stressing sociological, historical, and cultural understandings. It includes key readings and documentary films.

Professor Robert Rhoads is a Sociologist of Higher Education, specializing in student movements and the democratization of colleges and universities. He has published several books on student activism and social change, including Freedom's Web: Student Activism in an Age of Cultural Diversity and Community Service and Higher Learning: Explorations of the Caring Self, and The Political Economy of Globalization in the Americas (with Carlos Alberto Torres). His most recent research interests center on student-initiated retention efforts, graduate student unionization, and the effects of globalization on higher education.

Geography 19, Seminar 1

American Rivers: History of Environmental Change

Stanley Trimble

The objective of this course is to offer students with a basic understanding of rivers and how human agency has changed them in the United States.

Stanley W. Trimble is a Professor in the Department of Geography and Institute of Environment, UCLA. His interests include historical geography of the environment and especially human impacts on hydrology including soil erosion, stream and valley sedimentation, and stream flow and channel changes. His regional interests are the humid U.S. and western and central Europe. Trimble was a research hydrologist with USGS 1973-84, and has been a visiting professor at the Universities of Chicago, Vienna, Oxford, London (University College), and Durham. He is joint editor of CATENA, an international journal of soils, hydrology, and geomorphology and Editor of the Dekker Encyclopedia of Water Science.. His research grants include a Fulbright to the U.K., and his publications are diverse including several in SCIENCE. Most recently, he served on the NRC Committee on Watershed Management, and continues to serve on committees concerned with the Upper Mississippi River where he has done research for three decades.

History 19, Seminar 1

Honor and Shame in the Clash of Civilizations and Religions

Scott S. Bartchy

Honor and shame are core cultural values for the vast majority of human beings, including most Muslims. Ignoring this fact has led to serious (and avoidable) misunderstandings of world events and mistakes in US foreign policies, which have been based most often on western individualistic values of achievement and guilt. Reflection on values with which students were raised as well as achievement of deeper understanding of ways in which honor/shame values continue to influence self-perception, gender roles, and group practices of more than five billion people.

Professor Scott Bartchy specializes in the comparison of the great religious traditions, their histories, and their effects on culture and human behavior. He teaches courses in the history of religion and directs UCLA's Center for the Study of Religion and the undergraduate major in the Study of Religion. In his research he uses insights from cultural anthropology to understand the religions of the Roman Empire, especially Christianity and Judaism. He double-majored in social sciences and religion as an undergraduate and earned his Ph.D. in the Study of Religion from Harvard University. Bartchy is a professional-level jazz pianist and a marathon runner.

History 19, Seminar 2

Genocide and Moral History of Humanity

Vinay Lal

Although violence seems to have been quite pervasive in most periods of history, the 20th century was, many scholars agree, exceptionally violent. Moreover, much of this violence, from massacre of Armenians in World War I to conflict between Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda (1994) was genocidal, if we understand genocide as willful extinction, in whole or in substantial part, of a people on account of their race, ethnicity, religion, linguistic affiliation, or ideological disposition. Just why did genocide become so marked feature of 20th-century life, and what problems does it pose for moral history of humanity? What relationship does genocide bear to idea of nation-state and to notions of moral purity and cultural fetishism? We shall consider several case studies, including Armenian genocide, holocaust of the Jewish people and other marginalized groups in Europe, genocide perpetrated against Bengalis in 1971, and the Rwandan killings.

Vinay Lal is Associate Professor of History and Asian American Studies at UCLA and has been on the history faculty since 1993. He writes widely on Indian history, the popular and public culture of India, the Indian diaspora, global politics, and the politics of knowledge systems. His most recent books include Empire of Knowledge: Culture and Plurality in the Global Economy (London: Pluto Press, 2002; expanded Indian ed., Sage Publishers, 2005); The History of History: Politics and Scholarship in Modern India (Oxford, 2003; new extended ed., 2005); Of Cricket, Guinness, and Gandhi: Essays on Indian History and Culture (Seagull Books, 2003; paperback ed., Penguin 2005); Introducing Hinduism (London: Icon Books, 2005), and (co-edited with Ashis Nandy) The Future of Knowledge and Culture: A Dictionary for the Twenty-first Century (Viking/Penguin, 2005). He is now working on several books, from subjects such as American hegemony and the worldwide efflorescence of political documentaries to the Indian city and political trials in colonial India.

History 19, Seminar 3

Crisis in Darfur: The Debate Over Genocide and International Intervention

Edward Alpers

This seminar examines the continuing crisis in Darfur and seeks to place it in the deeper historical context of the ethnic and regional politics of the Sudan. This is an issue has energized student activists at UCLA who have formed the Darfur Action Committee. Understanding what all issues are so that students can make up their own minds about what is best course of action to take -- personally, nationally, and internationally.

Professor Alpers has been teaching at UCLA since 1968 and is constantly astonished by the diversity of experiences of our undergraduates. He enjoys the less formal contact with students and the opportunity to explore issues that link more directly to students' lives than is normally the case in many undergraduate teaching. The crisis in Darfur is especially significant for Africa scholars like himself who has witnessed the way in which the world at large ignored the clear case of genocide in Rwanda a decade ago and raises a host of moral issues at both the state and personal level that he want students to consider. Before coming to UCLA in 1968 he taught at the University of Dares Salaam in Tanzania and in 1980 taught at the Somali National University in Mogadishu. He is currently Chair of the Department of History.

History 19, Seminar 4

History in Museums

Stephen Aron

Using Museum of the American West and Southwest Museum of the American Indian as laboratories, students will examine the ways in which these institutions present the past. Through instructor-led tours of museums' galleries and collection storage areas, students will gain familiarity with study of material culture. Through discussion with curators, collection managers, and museum educators, students will learn about workings of museums in general and of history museums in particular. Particular emphasis will be put on how museums' presentation of western American history to a broad public compares with recent academic scholarship.

Professor Stephen Aron holds a joint appointment as professor of history at UCLA and an executive director of the Autry National Center's Institute for the Study of the American West. In this dual role, he attempts to bridge the division that has grown up between the world of the university and that of the museum and between academic history and "public history." In this Fiat Lux seminar, he hopes to explore that division and help students cross it.

History 19, Seminar 5

Scopes Trial: Evolution Controversies in America

Theodore Porter

The Scopes "Monkey Trial" was a key moment in the American struggle over the teaching of evolution, and more generally in the enduringly uneasy relationship between science and religion. Current debates, including some newsworthy trials, about creationist textbooks and the status of “intelligent design” in biology demonstrate the continuing relevance of this event. The original trial, held in the small town of Dayton Tennessee, was something of a media circus. Much of what people now think they know about it comes from the Hollywood version, "Inherit the Wind" which took many liberties and turned trial to melodrama. In this class we will look at primary documents such as transcript of the trial itself and textbook, "Civic Biology" through which evolution was taught. We will also explore the profusion of modern websites, some because of the insight they can provide into trial, and others as evidence of continued struggle over (and distortion of) this historical event, in relation to contemporary politics of evolution theory.

Professor Theodore Porter teaches history and history of science at UCLA. He is interested in the uses of numbers and calculation in science, the relations of natural to social science, and in the ways that science provides, and fails to provide, a model of public reason. He has written three books, or perhaps five, depending on how you count.

History 19, Seminar 6

Abraham Lincoln's Historical Legacy

Joan Waugh

The life of Abraham Lincoln continues to spark intense interest and controversy. A large part of that interest springs from the dramatic nature of the Civil War (1861-1865), during which as President of the Union and Commander-in-Chief of the largest assembled army in history, Lincoln ended slavery and reunited North and South. His tragic assassination days after the end of the war plunged the country into a paroxysm of mourning, and ensured his apotheosis as a martyr for the cause of freedom and Union. The purpose of this seminar is to discuss, analyze, and explore Lincoln's life and words. Meeting every other week, students will read closely several of the 16th president's most compelling and important speeches--including the Cooper Union Address, the Gettysburg Address, and the Second Inaugural. Assesses importance of Lincoln in his times and ours. Consideration of ways in which powerful national myth such Lincoln's can unify and uplift, as well as contradict and exclude.

Associate Professor Joan Waugh of the UCLA History Department researches and writes about Civil War era America. Professor Waugh's most recent book is The Memory of the Civil War in American Culture and her current book project is entitled: U.S. Grant, American Hero, American Myth. Professor Waugh is often invited to give public lectures about the Civil War. She appeared on the PBS series, "American Experience" on Ulysses S. Grant first shown in 2002. Waugh teaches the "Civil War and Reconstruction," and "America from 1865-1900" undergraduate lecture courses at UCLA. She is a recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award in 2004.

History 19, Seminar 7

Plato's Republic: Property, Equality, and Knowledge

Teofilo Ruiz

This class will engage in a close reading and discussion of Plato's Republic, first utopian work written. Emphasis will be on the issues of property, equality, gender differences, and knowledge as presented in text.

Teofilo Ruiz is a Professor in the Department of History. He is a medievalist by training and the author of 8 books and numerous articles. Professor Ruiz has been teaching at UCLA for five years. His field of research is late medieval and early modern Spain, but he has taught undergraduate courses on utopias for many years.

Honors Collegium 19, Seminar 2

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 an 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 a 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.

Honors Collegium 19, Seminar 3

Perceptions of Americans Abroad: Discussions

with Visiting Fulbright Scholars

Ann Kerr

In post 9/11 world, there is greater need than ever for Americans to know more about the rest of world and to understand how we are perceived abroad. This course will provide an opportunity to see ourselves as others see us by hearing visiting Fulbright scholars from around world speak about their countries and perceptions of America there and have chance to ask them questions. Scholars speak informally for 10-15 minutes. The remainder of the class time will be hour is devoted to class discussion.

Ann Zwicker Kerr, a native of southern California, has spent a total of 15 years living, studying and teaching in the Middle East. She was educated at Occidental College, the American University of Beirut and the American University of Cairo. She serves on the Board of Trustees of the American University of Beirut, the American University of Kuwait, the President's Council of EARTH University in Costa Rica and the Advisory Board of the RAND Center for Middle East Public Policy. She is the author of Come with Me from Lebanon, An American Family Odyssey and Painting the Middle East.

Honors Collegium 19, Seminar 4

Tolerance: Research, Theory and the

Experience of Living in Los Angeles

Kathy O'Byrne and Suzanne Seplow

This seminar is required for students interested in participating in an Alternative Spring Break program on tolerance, in partnership with LAUSD and the Museum of Tolerance. Museum professionals and several UCLA faculty will provide guest lectures and panel discussions, including two classes at the Museum. The first week will be an introduction to the course, a history of Los Angeles and concepts of tolerance. Week 2 class will meet at the Museum, with an overview of the museum's history as well as research and interdisciplinary theories of tolerance. We will also cover the pedagogy of tolerance and how teachers instruct K-12 students. Week 3 will be a panel on Martin Luther King's legacy of non-violence with three UCLA faculty as guests. Week 4 we return to the Museum, with interactive exercises using the teaching technology and scenarios they provide. The last class will be in week 9 as students are trained and prepare to deliver curriculum units/modules to LAUSD students during UCLA's spring break. Each class will be two hours long.

Kathy O'Byrne is the Director of the Center for Community Learning. A psychologist by training, she teaches several research courses for the Honors Collegium.

Human Complex Systems 19, Seminar 1

Cultural Complexity: Espionage, Cryptology, and Psychological Operations

Nicholas Gessler

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CULTURE & SOCIETY

LGBT is Not a Sandwich, or Straight Talk about Gay Issues in America