Fiat Lux Freshman Seminars
Winter
Quarter 2007
Ancient Near
East 19, Seminar 1
Archaeology and
Virtual Reality: The Greco-Roman
Willemina Wendrich
In this course, we will explore the use and usefulness of virtual reality
in order to understand archaeological sites in dimensions of time and space.
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
Comparative Literature 19,
Seminar 1
The Short Works
of Franz Kafka, or How
the Modern World
Works
Kathleen Komar
An examination of the short works of one of the world's most famous and
puzzling authors, Franz Kafka. Kafka has been labeled everything from
Existentialist to Realist, from mystic to comic. This seminar will examine the
implications that Kafka's unique perspective has for our own times. Students
write three questions based on readings to shape each class discussion.
Kathleen L. Komar is Professor of Comparative Literature and German at
the
is the author of several books.
Comparative
Literature 19, Seminar 2
Poets and Desire
Ross Shideler
Representations of desire in poetry range from blatantly sexual to the esthetic
ideal, and the object of desire might be person or painting. Poems by Sappho,
Catullus, Mallarme, Yeats, and W. Stevens will be studied to see how they
express or approach desire. Other international poets read include C.
Baudelaire, C.P. Cavafy, P. Valery, and G. Ekelof, and some contemporary
American poets such as Louise Gluck, Sharon Olds, and Alice Fulton. This
seminar will be conducted within a context in which students wary of or unfamiliar
with poetry can do close reading and participate in open discussions.
Ross Shideler is a professor
of Comparative Literature who works on 19th-20th-century Swedish, French,
English and American literature. He has
published many articles, translations of plays by the Swedish author Per Olov
Enquist and of Swedish poets as well as poems of his own. His books include: Voices Under the Ground: Themes and Images
in the Early Poetry of Gunnar Ekelöf, Per
Olov Enquist: A Critical Study; and Questioning
the Father: From Darwin to Zola, Ibsen, Strindberg, and Hardy as well as
having written and edited with Kathleen Komar, Lyrical Symbols and Narrative Transformation.
Design | Media
Arts 19, Seminar 1
What Is
Interactive Media?
Erkki Huhtamo
Interactivity and interactive media have been among the most repeated
buzz-words of media culture for more than a decade. Still, their actual meaning
is far from clear. There is not a single theoretical book fully devoted to
interactivity, exploring its theoretical, cultural and historical
underpinnings. In this seminar, we will develop a broader understanding of
interactivity, particularly in relation to media, art, and design. We will discuss
different definitions of interactivity and explore its relationship to earlier
phenomena like mechanization and (full) automation. We’ll review a wide variety
of interactive applications, ranging from interactive media art and interactive
entertainment to cinema and design. The goal of this seminar is to lead its participants
to a more critical understanding of the concept and its uses.
Erkki Huhtamo
is a Professor at the Department of Design | Media Arts. He is a media
archaeologist, writer, and exhibition curator. He has published extensively on
media archaeology and media arts, lectured worldwide, created television
programs, and curated media art exhibitions. His research deals with topics
like peep media, Marcel Duchamp's optical experiments, the use of 3-D imaging
by media artists, the pre-history of the screen, and the archaeology of mobile
media. He is currently working on two books, one about the 19th century moving
panorama, and another on the archaeology of interactivity.
English 19, Seminar 1
Sex and Violence
in the Narrative Art
of William
Hogarth
Charles Batten
"I have endeavoured," wrote William Hogarth (1697-1764),
"to treat my subjects as a dramatic writer: my picture is my stage, and
men and women my players." The most important engraver of
Charles Batten is an Associate Professor in the Department of English. He
is the author of Pleasurable Instruction:
Form and Convention in Eighteenth-Century Travel Literature.
English 19, Seminar 2
Words, Feelings,
Things: How to Read a Poem
Paul Sheats
An informal weekly hour of reading and discussing a few poems, bringing our
collective experience together in appreciation and understanding. In this seminar
we will examine such questions as What makes a group of words a poem? How can
poetry illuminate our individual lives and also our society? How does a poem
survive its own historical time? What happens to ordinary language when it is
made into a good poem? What is metrical language and poetic form?
Paul Sheats is an Emeritus Professor in the Department of English. He has taught English poetry at UCLA,
Haverford, and Harvard, and has published books, editions, and articles on the
poetry of the English romantic period.
English 19,
Seminar 3
Fantasy, Fairy
Tales, and New Worlds of Possibilities
Jenny Sharpe
In this seminar, we will explore contemporary retellings of ancient stories
inhabited by werewolves, trolls, magicians, and genii. What relationship do
fantasy and fairy tales have to the real world? How does its narrative
perspective transform telling of a tale? Does magic still have place in the modern,
technological world? We will explore how writers reinvent the folk tale for the
modern world by reading their reinterpretation of traditional stories like Red
Riding Hood, Three Billy Goats Gruff, The Gingerbread Boy, Arabian Nights, and
The Ballad of Fa Mu Lan, among others.
Jenny Sharpe is a Professor of English who specializes in postcolonial
literature, postmodern fiction, and magical realism. She has published books
and essays on film, fiction, and poetry from the Caribbean and
English 19,
Seminar 4
Medieval Trial
by Combat: Law, Chivalry,
Theology, and
Spectacle
Eric Jager
In this seminar, we will consider one of the most controversial practices
of medieval
Professor Jager earned his Ph.D at the
English 19,
Seminar 5
The Satan
Seminar
Henry Kelly
In this seminar, we will review all of the references to Satan (Devil) in
the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) and New Testament, and analyze the various
functions assigned to Satan in each instance.
Henry Kelly is an Emeritus Professor in the Department of English. He has
been a Professor of English and Medieval-Renaissance Studies at UCLA since
1967; he has published many writings on religious studies.
Ethnomusicology 19, Seminar 1
The Cognitive Science of Music in Science Fiction
Film
Roger Kendall
In this course, we will view such films as Metropolis, Forbidden Planet,
and excerpts from others such as Star Trek and Star Wars. In addition, vintage
TV shows such as Time Tunnel are incorporated. Discussions and analyses will center
on how the music incorporated in these films exhibits elements of experimental
semiotic theory and aspects of meaning that have percolated through decades of
science fiction in media. Connections of visual and musical elements will be a focus
of the analysis.
Roger A. Kendall is a Professor of Systematic Musicology in the
Department of Ethnomusicology. His research interests include the
psychoacoustics of timbre in natural versus synthetic contexts, the tunings of
the Gamelan, and the cognitive processes in musical expression and
communication. He was a consulting editor for Music Perception for 15 years.
Recently, he has built a model of musical meaning in film and animation. He
tests his experiments using an original computer program, MEDS (Music
Experiment Development System) that is used internationally.
Film and Television 19,
Seminar 1
The Art of Cinematography
William
McDonald
Who is
responsible for the camera and lighting decisions on feature films? The cameraperson? The cinematographer?
The director of photography? All of them, for they are the same person. This
seminar, will survey the technological and artistic developments of
cinematography within the
William
McDonald is a veteran cinematographer whose credits include dramatic and
documentary films. He is head of the Cinematography Program in the
Film
and Television 19, Seminar 2
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 will center on 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 the relationship
between the literary (screenplay) and the visual (film 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, and a
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, has 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 four. While president of Valhalla
Motion Pictures, the company produced 22 episodes of Adventure, Inc., the
documentary, True Whispers, and the feature films, Clockstoppers, and The Hulk.
She serves on the board of Project: Involve, and is a past president of
IFP/West and Women In Film. Boyle has received the Crystal Award and the Alumni
of the Year from
French 19, Seminar 1
How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman!
Jean-Claude
Carron
The title of
this seminar is borrowed from a Cannes Festival Award-winning 1971 film by
Brazilian author Nelson Pereira dos
Jean-Claude Carron is a Professor in the Department of French and
Francophone Studies. He has published books on French Renaissance poetry and on
François Rabelais, as well as articles on history of ideas, philosophy and
literature, rhetoric, poetry, dialogues, theater, Montaigne, Mallarmé, etc. He
is currently working on the history of gastronomy. The Fiat Lux seminar is
related to his interest in 16th-century philosophy and the birth of skepticism
in
German 19, Seminar 1
Three Penny
Opera: John Gay, Bertolt Brecht,
and Kurt Weill
Wolfgang Nehring
A discussion of Brecht's most famous work, based upon John Gay's “Beggar's
Opera” and was particularly successful through the music of Kurt Weill. In this
seminar, we will examine the questions What did Brecht find in the old play?
What did he do with it? What is the role of Brecht’s team? Discussion topics include
entertainment vs. politics, theater as means of criticism of bourgeoisie and
capitalism, and ideas and music.
Wolfgang Nehring has been a Professor of German for 35 years at UCLA. His
expertise is German Culture and Literature from the 18th Century to the Present
German 19,
Seminar 2
Writing about
Love in the High-Middle Ages
James Schultz
This seminar will focus on two great love stories of the Middle Ages:
Abelard and Heloise, and Tristan and Isolde. The former historical figures
struggle over the nature and meaning of their love in a series of
brilliantly-crafted letters. The latter fictional characters achieve their
supreme literary representation in the romance of Gottfried von Strassburg.
These two texts- letters of Abelard and Heloise and Gottfried's Tristan
romance-provide opportunity to consider how medieval ideas of love differ from
ours as well as how medieval writing about love differs from ours.
Dr. Schultz received his BA from Harvard in 1969; and his PhD from
Music 19, Seminar 1
Global Rap: Hip-Hop Outside of the
Robert
Walser
Rap music
emerged from
Robert Walser
is a Professor of Musicology at UCLA. He is the author of Running with the Devil: Power, Gender, and Madness in Heavy Metal Music, and editor of Keeping Time:
Philosophy 19, Seminar 1
Faith, Reason, and Politics:
Shaping the
Medieval World
Calvin Normore
Peter Abelard and
Bernard of Clairvaux represent two poles of thought- Christianity and politics
in the 12th century. Famous as lover, poet, and philosopher, Abelard
(1079-1142) got in on the ground floor of contemporary conceptions of all
three. Equally famous as theologian, founder of a new kind of more austere
monastery, impetus behind the Second Crusade, and architect of centralized late
medieval Church, Bernard (090-1153) had enormous influence inside and outside
the medieval church. The two confronted one another at a council called (under
Bernard's influence) at Sens in 1140, at which Abelard's work was condemned. This
seminar explores the lives and central ideas of each, the environment in which
they worked, the way they were regarded by their contemporaries, and the way
they are regarded today.
Calvin Normore
is Professor in the Philosophy Department at UCLA. His research is largely in
medieval and early modern philosophy and he has written several articles on
Peter Abelard but, as yet, none of Bernard.
Scandinavian 19, Seminar 1
Scary Movies: Film, Folklore, and
Ideology
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 topics that come up time and again in both
urban legends and popular film. Sometimes, popular films are based entirely on
these legends (“Scream,” “Urban Legend,” “Men in Black”); other times, they
simply make use of similar motifs. Although they keep us entertained and frightened,
there is more to these stories and their presentation than simple
entertainment. Exploration of how the storytelling of legends can be used to
endorse
ideological
positions. This seminar will focus on how this process translates into popular
film. Its goal is to develop an understanding
of how narratives, particularly those that aim to create fear, can be used for
local or global political ends.
Timothy Tangherlini is a Professor of folklore in the Scandinavian Section and the
Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures. His research interests span from
Old Icelandic morphology to Korean punk rock. He has written several books on
storytelling, and the ideological uses to which people put stories. His
books include, Interpreting Legend
and Talking Trauma: Paramedics and Their
Stories.
Theater 19, Seminar 1
Medicine in the
Arts and Humanities
Shelley Salamensky
Medicine is much more than simple biology. In this seminar, we will explore
a wide variety of lively materials concerning patient, doctor, body, mind, and
the magic of science.
S.I. Salamensky is an Assistant Professor of Theatre and Performance
Studies, and also teaches European Studies. She holds a Ph.D. in Comparative
Literature. She is working on a book entitled Immaterial Science: Pain,
Cure, and the Staging of Knowledge.
Anthropology 19, Seminar 1
American Indian Population Decline from
Circa 1492- 1900: Was it Genocide?
Russell Thornton
The American Indian population of what is now the
Russell Thornton is a Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at UCLA. He
is a registered member of the Cherokee Nation (
Anthropology 19, Seminar 2
Stone-Age
Hunting from A to Z
P. Jeffrey Brantingham
Hunting of small and large game animals has been a key feature of human
adaptations for more than 2 million years. This seminar surveys archaeological
evidence for key behavioral, technological, and ecological features of
Paleolithic (Stone Age) hunting adaptations. Topics include hunting, scavenging
in competition with large-bodied predators, and the role that human hunting may
have played in several large-scale animal extinctions.
P. Jeffrey Brantingham is a Paleolithic archaeologist specializing in the
Middle and Upper Paleolithic of East Asia. His current research is focused on
investigating the timing of the human occupation of the Tibetan Plateau.
Asian 19,
Seminar 1
Crisis in
Northeast Asia: Nuclear
John Duncan
John Duncan is a historian of
Chicano Studies 19, Seminar 1
After the
Rebuilding at Ground Zero
In this seminar,
we will study public debates about the effort to rebuild at ground zero in
Economics 19, Seminar 1
How Rational Are
You?
William Zame
An exploration of the idea that human decision-making is not by rational
utility-maximizers in the traditional sense. Many behavioral theories suggest
that in each human there is not a unique agent that makes economic decisions;
rather, there are many selves with contradictory preferences. Thus,
self-control is important in making of economic decisions and factors that
affect self-control may play a vital role in the rationality of economic
choices of agents. These factors can be systematically examined in the laboratory,
and results have wide-ranging applications for economic policy because
consequences of this policy depend critically on degree of rationality of
economic decisions.
William Zame received a Ph.D. in Mathematics from
Economics 19, Seminar 2
The “Winner's
Curse” in Common Value Auctions
Hugo Hopenhayn
This seminar examines the phenomenon of “winner's curse.” Winner’s curse
occurs when a person who wins at an auction wishes he or she 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 in
other areas where unhappy winners are important, such as political contests and
voting behavior, jury decisions, and companies racing to discover and patent an invention.
Professor Hopenhayn received his PhD in economics from the
Education 19,
Seminar 1
The Possibilities
and Difficulties of
Urban K-12
Public Education
Eloise Metcalfe
This seminar will examine and discuss what is happening in Los Angeles
K-12 public schools in low income areas, using a social justice framework.
Dr. Metcalfe has extensive public school experience in
Education 19,
Seminar 2
Education and
Globalization: Critical Concepts
Carlos Torres
This seminar will analyze the implications of globalization in education
with specific focus on what is happening in Los Angeles, addressing in particular
the voices of teachers and how they see the processes of globalization
affecting teaching, instruction, curriculum, and policy.
Dr. Torres is a political sociologist of education, who is Professor of
Social Sciences and Comparative Education at GSEIS. He is the Director of the
Paulo Freire Institute at GSEIS, and a Founding Director of the Paulo Freire
Institute in
Geography 19, Seminar 1
American Rivers: History of Environmental Change
The objective
of this course is to offer students a basic understanding of rivers and how human
agency has changed them in the
Geography 19,
Seminar 2
Hammer of the
Gods: Climate Change and
Human History
Glen Macdonald
Today we face the specter of rapid climate change caused by increased
greenhouse gasses. However, this is not the first time such challenges have
confronted humans. This seminar explores the nature
and causes of past episodes of rapid climate change and evidence of their
impact upon prehistoric humans and historic civilizations, including those in the
Near East,
Glen MacDonald is a Professor of Geography and of Ecology and
Evolutionary Biology. He has published over 100 articles on environmental and
climatic change and also an award-winning book on Biogeography. In addition to
awards for his research, he has won the UCLA Distinguished Teaching Award and
has appeared on the Discovery Channel, as well as national and regional news
programs.
History 19,
Seminar 1
How We Remember
the Bomb
Ludwig Lauerhass
The first military use of atomic bombs devastated
Ludwig Lauerhass, Lecturer Emeritus in History, has taught and researched
widely on themes of nationalistic and national identity in Latin America and
the
History 19,
Seminar 2
Terrorists and
Door Kickers: Terrorism and Counterterrorism, Past and Present
Patrick Geary
Since 9/11, 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 looks at a variety of approaches to
understanding terrorism, as well as efforts in the past and present to defeat
it.
Although a professor of history since 9/11 Dr. Geary has become involved
in assisting the US Joint Special Operations University and the Naval
Postgraduate School in developing approaches to teaching elite special
operations officers how to face the challenge of the new terrorist environment.
This seminar is a way for Professor Geary to share what he has learned with
UCLA students.
History 19,
Seminar 3
The Rise and
Fall of Communism
Arch Getty
A survey of the rise and fall of communism, from Marx's original theories
to the collapse of the Soviet Union under Gorbachev, with emphasis on theory
and its application in practice in a variety of historical settings. This seminar
is conducted in a discussion-type format.
A specialist in the history of the Soviet Communist Party, Dr. Getty is
the author of five books and more than 40 research articles, mostly on the
Stalin period of Soviet history. He is a professor of history at UCLA, a
History 19,
Seminar 4
Political
Documentaries in American Society
Vinay Lal
Among the most remarkable aspects of contemporary American life is the recent
efflorescence of the political documentary. Though the tradition of political
documentaries first gained prominence in the 1960s, the last decade has
witnessed an extraordinary revival of the documentary form. Participants in
this seminar will view important documentaries such as “The Fog of War,” “The
Corporation,” and “Why We Fight,” with the intent not merely to understand the phenomenon
of the documentary, but to also ask certain questions, such as What exactly is a
documentary form? What does it document? What is its relation to other archives? and
How can one distinguish between documentaries and propaganda films?
Vinay Lal is an Associate Professor of History and Asian American
Studies, and Chair of the South Asia IDP. He writes widely on Indian history
and politics, the Indian Diaspora, Indian cinema, and also on contemporary
American politics. He has a column on American affairs in the Economic and Political Weekly,
History 19,
Seminar 5
“No Pasaran”: The
Spanish Civil War in
Music and Cinema
Gabriel Piterberg
The Spanish Civil War was an early and tragically unsuccessful attempt to
nip fascism in the bud in the 1930s. It gave rise, however, to an unprecedented
international solidarity at the level of common idealist people. This seminar
analyzes the revival of spirit and lore of that era through contemporary
popular song and film.
Gabriel Piterberg is an Associate Professor in the Department of History
at UCLA. He was born in
History 19,
Seminar 6
Teofilo Ruiz
This seminar is an introduction to the complex ethnic and architectural
history of
Teofilo Ruiz is a Professor of History at UCLA. His area of research is
medieval and early modern
History 19, Seminar 7
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 the western
individualistic values of achievement and guilt. This seminar involves 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
Honors
Collegium 19, Seminar 1
LGBT is Not a
Sandwich: Straight Talk on the Effects of Silence on Sexual and Gender
Minorities in Los Angeles
Ronni Sanlo and Suzanne Seplow
This seminar informs students through active discussion and participation
about the myriad ways in which people and communities are affected by issues of
sexual orientation and gender identity. Topics include the history of sexual
orientation issues, health and legal issues of sexual and gender minority
people, sexual/gender identity development, and legal issues directly affecting
UCLA and
Ronni
Sanlo is the director of the
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 2
The Black
Student Experience at UCLA
Kelly Lytle-Hernandez and La'Tonya Rease-Miles