UNIV 280 a Peace: a Historical Reflection

Binghamton Scholars Course Offerings

Fall 2007 and Winter 2008

You are required to take two scholars seminars during your first two years here at BinghamtonUniversity. Scholars I refers to fall offerings and Scholars II to spring offerings.

All scholars’ courses have a SCHL rubric. Some of these may be cross listed with other departments. Students can register themselves for all scholars’ courses on BUSI except for SCHL395 which is an independent study course set up for students who wish to receive academic credit for a completed study abroad or internship experience required for Scholars III. Please contact the program office if you would like to be registered for this course.

Scholars II Seminars

Choose one of the following scholars’ seminars for the spring semester.

SCHL 280A The Other America: Immigrants, Native Peoples and the Earth (H,J)

Professor George Catalano

Tuesday 2:50-4:15

Michael Harrington’s book The Other America was a groundbreaking study of poverty in the United States, published in 1962. Harrington described a "new American poverty" in his work. Read by President Lyndon B. Johnson, it was probably the driving force behind the "war on poverty. The Boston Globe editorialized that Medicaid, Medicare, food stamps and expanded social security benefits were traceable to Harrington’s ideas. Harrington focused on the problems of migrant workers, farmers, and inner cities, and the Americanhealth care system. Though written over 40 years ago, the issues seem even more relevant today. We shall extend Harrington’s conceptualization of the other or secondAmerica to include the treatment and plight of Native Americans, and Native Hawaiians. In addition special attention will be paid to the treatment of the poor in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Lastly we shall expand our moral boundaries to include the treatment of and attitudes towards the natural world in the U.S. in our discussions.

Course Objectives:

By the end of the term, students will be able to:

Discuss from an historical perspective American attitudes towards various immigrant groups
Discuss the plight of migrant workers
Examine the treatment of the poor in New Orleans in the wake of Katrina
Discuss attitudes towards and the plight of native peoples both on the mainland and in Hawaii
Examine values associated with the natural world
Develop an approach to open-ended design or problem solving.
Design, implement and experience an actual project that promotes respect for and values diversity.

CourseInstructor:

Dr. George D. Catalano, Director, Scholars Program & Professor of Mechanical Engineering

CIW Room 202

E-mail:

Office Hours: TBA

Required Texts:

B. Watson, Sacco and Vanzetti: The Men, the Murders, and the Judgment of Mankind, 2007
Sandra Gilbert, Una Storia Segreta : The Secret History of Italian American Evacuation and Internment During World War II, 2001
M. Harrington, The Other America, 1962
James Wilson, The Earth Shall Weep: A History of Native America, 2000.
David Stannard, American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World, 1993.
C. Rose, 1 Dead in the Attic: After Katrina, 2007
Martha Noyes, Then There Were None, 2003
James Oliver Horton, Slavery and the Making of America,2005

Course Administration:

Reflection essays800
Peace Practicum100
Teacher for a Day 200

______

TOTAL 1100

Grading Policy:

No late assignments are accepted. Assignments are due at the beginning of class.
The standard rubric used for grades at BU will be used. Consult with Blackboard for the specifics.

A List of Requirements for the Course

Reflection papers (8 of 9)

Students will be asked to reflect on the assigned reading for the week.
Essays will be due at the beginning of the first class each week.
Each reflection paper must be no less than 500 words in length.
All papers must use Microsoft Word or equivalent.
A first draft of each essay will be required, graded, discussed and returned to the student who will then resubmit a second or final version within one week’s time

Respect and Diversity Practicum:

You are challenged to identify, design, implement and evaluate some action that brings respect for diversity into the world.
You will report on your practicum to class and write a 300-word essay on the entire experience.

Teacher for a Day

In teams of two students, you will report to the class on some aspect of the readings due that day that your team finds particularly interesting.
Each team’s presentation should be a minimum of 20 minutes in length with 5-10 minutes afterwards for questions.
Students in the class along with the instructor will provide feedback to the presenters
PowerPoint or equivalent software should be used for the presentations..

Academic Honesty

You are responsible for the content and integrity of your individual work. You also bear responsibility for the final product of any group work to which you contribute. Plagiarism and academic dishonesty are serious matters. If it's not your work, don't claim credit for it. Cheating will result in disciplinary action, including possible dismissal from the course. For more information go to:

Attendance and Participation

This is an interactive class, not a lecture. If you are uncomfortable participating, this may not be the class for you. Attendance, respectful participation in class discussions, and contributions to group projects are essential and will count toward your final grade.

You are expected to come to class prepared and to make informed contributions to class discussions and activities. Everyone is expected to engage in civil and respectful dialogue, and to honor the right of others to disagree. Participation in cooperative learning activities (both in and outside of class) is central to the course, so while attendance is required; simply "showing up" for class will not earn you an "A.

Absences, lateness, and non-participation will be taken into account in determining your final grade. Students who miss more than two classes may be dropped from the course. If you arrive late or miss a class, you are responsible for getting any missed notes, information, and assignments. Generally, assignments will be distributed via Blackboard or email, and students are expected to check e-mail regularly for messages related to the class.

You are expected to arrive for the start of class. If you arrive late, please enter the classroom quietly and respectfully. Talking during presentations, creating disturbances, and any other conduct deemed by me as disrespectful or inappropriate will not be tolerated. Cellular phones, pagers, headphones and other devices that may distract or disturb others in the class are not permitted. Incomplete grades are not available except under unusual and extremely severe circumstances.

There is no eating in my classes. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Special Needs

You are encouraged to discuss any special needs with the instructor at the start of the semester. Reasonable accommodations for special needs will be provided as appropriate. For further information, please call the Office for Students with Disabilities at 777-2686.

SCHL280BA Communion of Subjects: Animals in Science, Religion and Ethics(H,J)*

Professor George Catalano

Tuesday/Thursday 11:40-1:05

A Communion of Subjects is a comparative and interdisciplinary study of the conceptualization of animals in world religions. Scholars from a wide range of disciplines, including Thomas Berry (cultural history), Wendy Doniger (study of myth), Elizabeth Lawrence (veterinary medicine, ritual studies), Marc Bekoff (cognitive ethology), Marc Hauser (behavioral science), Steven Wise (animals and law), Peter Singer (animals and ethics), and Jane Goodall (primatology) consider how major religious traditions have incorporated animals into their belief systems, myths, rituals, and art. Their findings offer profound insights into humans' relationships with animals and a deeper understanding of the social and ecological web in which we all live.

We shall examine authors who focus on the traditions embedded within Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Daoism, Confucianism, African religions, ancient Egypt and early China, and Native American, indigenous Tibetan, and Australian Aboriginal, among others. We shall explore issues such as animal consciousness, suffering, sacrifice, and stewardship in innovative methodological ways. We shall address contemporary challenges relating to law, biotechnology, social justice, and the environment.

We shall focus with great intensity upon the writings of Thomas Berry who has been at the forefront of eco-theology over the course of the last century.

Course Objectives:

By the end of the term, students will be able to:

Discuss the role of animals and their related myths in science, ethics and religion in various wisdom traditions
Explore the meaning of animal, and human consciousness
Examine the role of animals in the modern world
Explore issues such as social justice, stewardship and peace as they are embedded within our relationship to the natural world.
Discover the importance of the life’s work of Thomas Berry
Develop an approach to open-ended design or problem solving.
Design, implement and experience an actual project that promotes respect for and values diversity.

CourseInstructor:

Dr. George D. Catalano, Director, Scholars Program & Professor of Mechanical Engineering

CIW Room 202

E-mail:

Office Hours: TBA

Required Texts:

Paul Waldau, A Communion of Subjects, 2006

Robert Wennberg, Gods, Humans and Animals: An Invitation to Enlarge our Moral Sphere, 2002.
Marc Bekoff, The Emotional Lives of Animals and Why They Matter, 2007
Norm Phelps, The Great Compassion: Buddhism and Animal Rights, 2004
Thomas Berry, Evening Thoughts: Reflections on Earth as a Sacred Community, 2007
Thomas Berry, The Dream of the Earth, 2006
Thomas Berry, Circles of Transformation: Finding Our Way in the "Great Work"... Leading Visionaries in Conversation, 2006
Leslie Irvine, If You Tame Me: Understanding Our Connection With Animals (Animals, Culture, and Society), 2004.

Course Administration:

Reflection essays800
Practicum100
Teacher for a Day200

______

TOTAL 1100

Grading Policy:

No late assignments are accepted. Assignments are due at the beginning of class.
The standard rubric used for grades at BU will be used. Consult with Blackboard for the specifics.

A List of Requirements for the Course

Reflection papers (8 of 9)

Students will be asked to reflect on the assigned reading for the week.
Essays will be due at the beginning of the first class each week.
Each reflection paper must be no less than 500 words in length.
All papers must use Microsoft Word or equivalent.
A first draft of each essay will be required, graded, discussed and returned to the student who will then resubmit a second or final version within one week’s time

Practicum:

You are challenged to identify, design, implement and evaluate some action that brings peace and/or justice to the nonhuman world/
You will report on your practicum to class and write a 300-word essay on the entire experience.

Teacher for a Day

In teams of two students, you will report to the class on some aspect of the readings due that day that your team finds particularly interesting.
Each team’s presentation should be a minimum of 20 minutes in length with 5-10 minutes afterwards for questions.
Students in the class along with the instructor will provide feedback to the presenters
PowerPoint or equivalent software should be used for the presentations..

Academic Honesty

You are responsible for the content and integrity of your individual work. You also bear responsibility for the final product of any group work to which you contribute. Plagiarism and academic dishonesty are serious matters. If it's not your work, don't claim credit for it. Cheating will result in disciplinary action, including possibledismissal from the course. For more information go to:

Attendance and Participation

You are expected to come to class prepared and to make informed contributions to class discussions and activities. Everyone is expected to engage in civil and respectful dialogue, and to honor the right of others to disagree. Participation in cooperative learning activities (both in and outside of class) is central to the course, so whileattendance is required; simply "showing up" for class will not earn you an "A.

There is no eating in my classes. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Special Needs

*Please consider enrolling in a unique class combination for Spring 08.

SCHL280B will be offered in conjunction with ENG380R The Call of the Wild: Images of Wild(er)ness in Americian Literature and Popular Culture. These two courses will be linked in terms of some of the parallel key themes between the two classes and in terms of the instructors’ approaches to promoting learning through student’s collaboration on assignments and discussions. You will receive four credits for each class; please review the course description on line. You may enroll in SCHL280B without taking ENG380R but we urge you to consider the value of taking these two courses in tandem. If you are interested in exploring this option, please contact Steve Duarte in the CIW Library (Room 102) at 777-4709 or at

SCHL280D: Great Ideas in Physics (J)

Course Instructor: Professor Robert Pompi, Physic

Course Schedule:Tuesdays and Thursdays 11:40-1:05 TU-205

We will be exploring popular expositions of cosmology and string theory as we approach an understanding of the formation of the universe and the role of strings as the underlying constituent component of all matter. Reading will be assigned for each class period. Each student will prepare three questions and answers based on the reading for that day. The questions and answers will be produced using an appropriate word processor. Each of these submissions must be dated and handed in at the beginning of the class. These questions and answers should be no longer than a single page. The questions should be prepared to initiate a discussion of the assigned readings, not merely a listing of facts. Each question will have the specific page from the assigned reading indicated.

Each student during the course of the semester will be required to give at least two oral presentations on the day’s reading. These presentations are to be approximately ten minutes in length and will be graded. At the end of each oral presentation, the presenting student must present a question or item of general interest which will serve as the first item for group discussion.

Assigned texts:

TEXTS:

D. Falk, “Universe on a T-Shirt”, ISBN# 1-55970-733-X (Arcade)

S. Hawking, “A Brief History of Time”, ISBN# 0486205158 (Dover)

M. Kaku, “Parallel Worlds: A Journey Through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos”, ISBN# 1-4000-3372-1 (Anchor)

B.Greene, “The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality” ISBN# 0-375-727-205 (Vintage)

SCHL280E/ENG380V Modern Satire (C,H)

Professor Michael J. Conlon

Monday/ Wednesday/Friday 1:10-2:10

Handbooks of literature typically define Satire as the “literatry art of diminishing orderogating a subject by making it ridiculous and evoking toward it attitudes ofamusement, contempt, scorn, or indignation. It differs from the Comic in that comedy evokes laughter mainly as an end in itself, while satire ‘derides’; that is, it uses laughteras a weapon, and against a butt that exists outside the work itself. That butt may be anindividual (in ‘personal satire’), or a type of person, a class, an institution, a nation, oreven . . . the whole human race” (M. H. Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms, 187). In this definition of satire, the satirist and the audience join in opposition to the object of attack .Recent theorists of satire, however, point to examples of satire that move beyond a structure of simple opposition between the satirist and the object. In these examples the satirist may actually identify with the object of attack. As performance artist Eric Bogosian puts it: “I’m aiming my guns more and more at people similar to me. The rockstars, the performers, and others are the ones who come off bad in my show. That’s whatsatire is all about. It’s about looking at yourself, not hammering somebody else” (Cited in F. V. Bogel, The Difference Satire Makes, p. 42).

This course looks at a selection of modern works of satire in the context of satire’s double structure of opposition and identification. The course aims to provide students with: 1) a knowledge of the principal elements of satire; 2) an understanding of the recent history of critical and theoretical approaches to satire; 3) a forum for the study and discussion of aggression and anger in contemporary art and literature. Readings for the course will include: Don De Lillo, White Noise, Eugene Ionesco, Rhinoceros, Jerzy Kosinski, Being There, George Orwell, AnimalFarm, Marge Piercy, Woman on the Edge of Time, Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49, Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five, and Yevgeny Zamyatin, We.