Fiat Lux Freshman Seminars

Winter Quarter 2007

»  Arts & Humanities

»  Culture & Society

»  Science and Technology

ART & HUMANITIES

Ancient Near East 19, Seminar 1

Archaeology and Virtual Reality: The Greco-Roman Village of Karanis in Egypt

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 Egypt, and teaches a graduate level field work class there. She has worked as an archaeologist in Egypt for 18 years, participating in expeditions in several regions, working on a wide range of periods of Egyptian history.

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. Readings of several Kafka short fiction pieces including The Metamorphosis, The Country Doctor, An old Manuscript, In the Penal Colony, Report to an Academy, A Hunger Artist, and The Judgment. These pieces help us understand why Kafka remains so timely despite having lived in context very different from our own.

Kathleen L. Komar is Professor of Comparative Literature and German at the University of California, Los Angeles. She won UCLA's Distinguished Teaching Award in 1989. She served as Chair of Comparative Literature, as Associate Dean of the Graduate Division, and as Chair of the Academic Senate at UCLA. Komar has published on a variety of topics from Romanticism to the present in American and German literature; and she has written on the works of Hermann Broch, Rainer Maria Rilke, Alfred Döblin, Christa Wolf and Ingeborg Bachmann, among others. Her books include Reclaiming Klytemnestra: Revenge or Reconciliation (2003), Transcending Angels: Rainer Maria Rilke's "Duino Elegies" (l987), Pattern and Chaos: Multilinear Novels by Dos Passos, Faulkner, Döblin, and Koeppen (1983), and the collection Lyrical Symbols and Narrative Transformations, co-edited with Ross Shideler, (1998).

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 England's 18th century, Hogarth uses his visual art to tell stories- similar to plays and novels- that convey moral, social, and political lessons. His satiric views of sex and violence continue to have relevance in the modern world. This seminar’s primary focus will be on reading Hogarth's most famous narrative sequences- "The Harlot's Progress," "The Rake's Progress," "Marriage-a-la-Mode," and "Industry and Idleness." It will examine individual plates such as "Credulity, Superstition, and Fanaticism."

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 India.

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 Europe: trial by combat, also known as "the judgment of God." The seminar consists of a study of the judicial duel through an actual legal case that unfolded in 14th-century France, reading a short historical account of the notorious Carrouges-Le Gris affair (1386), emphasizing the legal, military, religious, and social aspects of judicial duel.

Professor Jager earned his Ph.D at the University of Michigan and taught at Columbia University before joining the UCLA faculty in 1996. He specializes in medieval literature and is the author of three books, including The Last Duel, the basis for a recent BBC television documentary.

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 Hollywood film industry. Beginning with silent films and moving toward today's latest developments in digital imagery, it will capture a broad conceptual understanding of one of the most influential art forms in history. Students enrolled will see screenings of clips from films under discussion.

William McDonald is a veteran cinematographer whose credits include dramatic and documentary films. He is head of the Cinematography Program in the School of Theater, Film and Television and is the recipient the UCLA Academic Senate Distinguished Teaching Award. As a documentary producer and cinematographer, his work has focused on portraits of writers and artists in such films as Women of Mystery: Three Writers Who Forever Changed Detective Fiction and Funny Ladies: A Portrait of Women Cartoonists.

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 UCLA Law School.

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 Santos, telling us of the surprising treatment of a 16th-century French explorer by a tribe of cannibals. This encounter with the New World raised the question of others for Europeans and of the acceptance of a totally different civilization by a world centered on Christian and Greco-Roman values. The seminar will look at this encounter at a specific moment in time-middle of the 16th century- when French Catholics and Protestants settled in Rio de Janeiro and came into contact with the Topinanba Indians, people at the center of the movie of same title and known then as cannibals. French Christians, divided by the rise of Protestantism, discovered in these so-called savages examples of values that put them to shame. How this encounter with the New World helped early modern writers reassess their sense of moral certitude in ways that could be exemplary for us today.

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 Europe.

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 Princeton University in 1977. He has held faculty positions at Columbia, Yale, the University of Illinois at Chicago and UCLA. He is a Professor of German (specialty, medieval German literature) and director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies Program. He has published books on the narrative structure of Arthurian romance, childhood in the middle ages, medieval sexuality, and courtly love.

Music 19, Seminar 1

Global Rap: Hip-Hop Outside of the USA

Robert Walser

Rap music emerged from New York City in the 1970s but it quickly spread to the rest of world, speaking for many communities in many different languages. In this seminar, we will examine one or more musical examples from a different country each week, concentrating on how local scenes adapt and customize musical and lyrical resources that circulate globally, how people use rap to mark their cultural distinctiveness and connect to worldwide hip-hop identity, how their uses of rap relate to music's origins among African-Americans and Latin-Americans. No technical knowledge of music required, although we will analyze not only lyrics, but also music, video, and arguments about genre's meanings and worth.

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: Readings in Jazz History. His groundbreaking analysis of a song by Public Enemy was published in the Journal of Ethnomusicology in 1995 and has since been reprinted in five books.

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.

CULTURE & SOCIETY

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 United States declined from 5+ million circa 1492 to a mere 250,000 by 1900. This seminar will examine this decline, its pattern and its underlying causes. Particular attention will be devoted to the nature of genocide and whether the decline actually could be characterized as genocide.

Russell Thornton is a Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at UCLA. He is a registered member of the Cherokee Nation (Oklahoma). He has taught at the University of Pennsylvania, University of Minnesota, Dartmouth College and the University of California at Berkeley. 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, and repatriation of human remains and cultural objects.

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 North Korea

John Duncan

Readings and discussions on the North Korean nuclear crisis and a consideration of the historical context and contemporary implications for Northeast Asia and the world.

John Duncan is a historian of Korea, the Director of the Center for Korean Studies, and Chair of the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at UCLA.

Chicano Studies 19, Seminar 1

After the World Trade Center: The Politics of

Rebuilding at Ground Zero

Eric Avila

In this seminar, we 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 the 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 real estate, 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 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.

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 Tulane University and is a Distinguished Professor in the Departments of Economics and Mathematics at UCLA, where he has been on the faculty since 1991. He is also the 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.

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 University of Minnesota in 1978, was on the faculty of Stanford University, Universidad Pompeu Fabra, Universidad Torcuato di Tella, and Rochester University, before coming to the UCLA economics department in 2003. He specializes in microeconomic theory, contract theory, macroeconomics, and industrial organization. His research interests include the study of labor markets, contracts, industry dynamics, auctions, and innovation. Professor Hopenhayn has published extensively in professional economics journals.

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 Los Angeles County public schools. She has taught Pre-Kindergarten through Eighth Grade and she has held numerous school and district level positions of leadership. She has served as a California State Mentor Teacher and a School Improvement Coordinator. Dr. Metcalfe was responsible for state and federal projects for the Beverly Hills Unified School District and has been at UCLA since 1993, where she has been the Director of the Teacher Education Program since 1997.

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 São Paulo, Brazil, with Paulo Freire. He is currently the President of the Research Committee of Sociology of Education, International Sociological Association, and past president of Comparative and International Education Society. He is the author, co-author, or editor of more than 50 books and 190 research articles.

Geography 19, Seminar 1

American Rivers: History of Environmental Change

Stanley Trimble

The objective of this course is to offer students 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 at 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 the USGS from 1973 to 1984, 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.

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, Egypt, India, Mesoamerica, and California. It examines the premise that in addition to negative consequences, rapid and unexpected environmental changes may also contribute to increasing innovation and societal complexity.

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 Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It precipitated the end of World War II, and ushered in the new Atomic Age. Since then, the event has been subject to widely divergent interpretations in the U.S., Japan, and the world at large. This seminar highlights the bombing's remembrance and commemoration from 1945 through it’s 50th anniversary in 1995, focusing on sources from documentary and feature films to journalistic accounts, and from artistic renderings to museum exhibitions. Analysis will emphasize how debates have continued to this date, without resolution.

Ludwig Lauerhass, Lecturer Emeritus in History, has taught and researched widely on themes of nationalistic and national identity in Latin America and the United States. Since retirement from full-time service, he has taught annually either at UCLA, in Brazil, or in UCLA's Center for American Politics and Public Policy in Washington, DC. He is writing a book on American Memory, Monuments, and National Identity.

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 University of Moscow Fellow of the Humanities, and a Visiting Scholar of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

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, India's leading journal for public intellectuals. His books include Empire of Knowledge: Culture and Plurality in the Global Economy, and Of Cricket, Guinness and Gandhi: Essays on Indian History and Culture. He has two forthcoming books:one on the Indian city, to be published by Oxford UP, and another on political trials in colonial India.

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 Buenos Aires, and the Spanish Civil War songs were his childhood songs, those that he heard at bedtime. He teaches Middle Eastern history.

History 19, Seminar 6

Los Angeles: Architecture and Ethnicity

Teofilo Ruiz

This seminar is an introduction to the complex ethnic and architectural history of Los Angeles. It combines the history of the development of the city with actual visits to some of its most interesting neighborhoods and architectural sights.

Teofilo Ruiz is a Professor of History at UCLA. His area of research is medieval and early modern Spain. He is the author of ten books and numerous articles. He often leads tours of LA and has a similar program in Paris every summer.

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 Roman Empire, especially Christianity and Judaism.

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 Los Angeles.

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 2

The Black Student Experience at UCLA

Kelly Lytle-Hernandez and La'Tonya Rease-Miles