This list of courses planned for May 2014 is preliminary. We expect changes, but are posting these topics to aid students in longer term planning.
International Travel Courses for 2014
INQ 177/ARTH 177 A Tale of Two Cities
Instructors: Dr. James Hargrove and Dr. Ken McGraw
Prerequisites: Permission
Fee: TBA
On location in Paris and London
London and Paris are two of the most influential cities in the history of world civilizations. They have been home to major figures from the history of literature and art. Both of these cities are as much products of the imagination as they are real places. To know a city physically, one must stroll through its streets. But real knowledge of such complex things as cities requires more. It requires context, familiarity with place as evoked, constructed, and reflected in the minds of its inhabitants. How have art and literature shaped our ideas about London and Paris? What do poetry and novels, paintings and buildings from the 18th and 19th centuries tell us about English and French cultures--the cultures that produced two cities often regarded as works of art themselves?
INQ/HIST 177 American Tourist in Rome
Instructor: Dr. Mary Henold and Professor Giuliana Chapman
Prerequisites: Permission
Fee: TBA
On campus for one week and then on location in Rome
This unique course, taught by an Italian professor and a historian, combines both language instruction and historical study to prepare students for meaningful travel to Rome. Students will spend a week on campus in language study to gain basic communication skills in Italian. They will then spend two weeks in Rome where they will have the opportunity to practice their skills. While in Rome we will read American travelogues and fiction from the 19th and early 20th centuries to explore how Americans have imagined and responded to "the Eternal City" in the past. Students will have the opportunity to experience the same sites visited by earlier American visitors, compare their responses, and write their own travelogues to articulate a twenty-first century perspective on being an American in Rome.
INQ 277 Comparative Education--France
Instructor: Dr. Tim Reynolds and Dr. Lisa Earp
Prerequisites: EDUC 210 and Permission
Fee: TBA
On location in France
The course will be a comparative study of non-American education and international education. Students will be participant observers in international classrooms under the supervision of classroom teachers and an Education faculty member. International travel will allow the students experiential learning in the culture and schools of the host nation.
INQ 277 Fieldwork in Comparative Phonology
Instructor: Dr. Jim Ogier
Prerequisites: Permission
Fee: TBA
On location in Ireland
Even though Ireland is a relatively small country, it has a great variety of dialects. In this course, students will learn phonetic script and the principles of phonology, and apply them to two very different speech areas within Ireland: Galway and Derry.
INQ 277 Contemporary India in the Shadow of Gandhi
Instructor: Dr. Michael Heller
Prerequisites: Permission
Fee: TBA
On location in India
This course, designed for students of all interests, backgrounds, and majors, is a cross-disciplinary introduction to India. We will learn not only about contemporary issues such as India's technological advances but also about India's traditional wealth and poverty, religious diversity and her amazingly rich history. We will make our survey of India today through the lens of Mahatma Gandhi's life, as the father of modern India and the world's primary thinker on nonviolent social activism and village-based economics.
INQ 277/RELG 277 Political Religions in Europe: Fascism, Marxism, and Nazism
Instructor: Dr. Paul Hinlicky
Prerequisites: Permission
Fee: TBA
On location in Slovakia
In this course we will travel to the center of Europe: Austria, Hungary, Poland and the Czech and Slovak Republics. Here in the period from the end of WWI to the Fall of Communism human passions were harnessed to antidemocratic, totalitarian and often murderous formations so unusual that recent scholars call them "political religions." By this they indicate how these movements filled the vacuum created by the loss of traditional religious faith with new claims of total meaning with which to organize life comprehensively around secular "gods" like nation, race, or class. We will study the texts of these scholars, along with Dr. Hinlicky's new book, Before Auschwitz, in tandem with travelling to significant sites of these political religions. On site we will hear lectures from local experts. We will note how traditional believers responded to these new political religions.
INQ 277/HIST 277 Korea's Modern Trajectory
Instructor: Dr. Stella Xu
Prerequisites: Permission
Fee: TBA
On location in Korea
Korea has grown in importance to American politics and economy thanks to the rise in prominence of its major electronic brands Samsung and LG, as well as its automobile brands Hyundai and Kia. What happened to Korea during the past five decades? What historical, political, and social events have been behind these drastic transformations in Korea? This class aims to investigate the multifaceted transformation of Korea in the twentieth century, as well as the role of the US in Korea, with focus on four major phases in modern history of Korea: from colonization by Japan from 1910 to 1945, to the tragic Korean War in the 1950s, to a suppressive military dictatorship from the 1950s to the 1980s, and finally miraculous economic success and democracy since the 1990s.
INQ 377/SPAN 377 Language and Culture of Spain
Instructor: Dr. Charlene Kalinowski
Prerequisites: SPAN 202 and Permission
Fee: TBA
On location in Spain
Encounter the contemporary culture of Spain, learn about and see some of the country's most significant cultural artifacts, and practice your language skills through immersion. From our base in Madrid, we will explore the city and venture beyond it to other significant locations and regions to gain a fuller understanding of Spain's past and present. This course is designed to increase cultural literacy and promote the development of spoken Spanish through immersion.
INQ 277/HIST 277 Pausanias' Tour of Greece
Instructor: Dr. Jason Hawke
Prerequisites: Permission
Fee: TBA
On location in Greece
Pausanias, a 2nd century AD Greek living under Roman rule, visited sites of past glory and wrote an informative travelogue and cultural history of ancient Greece. Students will travel in his footsteps, a journey that will take them to Athens, Sparta, Corinth, and Delphi, among other sites. Students will experience firsthand the monuments of ancient Greece and modern presentation of them and confront the landscapes that Pausanias describes. In reflecting upon their own reaction and Pausanias' account of the ancient Greek past and its remains, students will interpret their responses to Greece ancient and modern. By immersing ourselves in Pausanias' account, relevant modern scholarship and visiting the landscapes Pausanias once beheld, we will be able to consider the interplay among the physical and imagined pasts, and think about the ways we construct identities through the conversations we choose to have with those pasts and how we conduct them.
INQ 277 Promotions in Paris
Instructor: Dr. Pamela Galluch
Prerequisites: BUAD 233 and Permission
Fee: TBA
On location in Paris
This course provides students with a comprehensive understanding of promotions management in Paris, France. Specifically, this course encourages learning by examining works of art, business atmospheres, traditional media and supporting media. We will stimulate creativity at museums, such as the Louvre and Musée d'Orsay. We will examine sales promotions, including business atmospheres and design, in the shopping district down the Ave de Champs-Elysées. We will examine promotions on billboards, in the métro, on buses, in premier magazines, etc. This course may be used as an elective within the Marketing Concentration.
INQ 177 Rhetoric of Tourism
Instructor: Dr. Erica Cooper
Prerequisite: COMM and Permission
Fee: TBA
On location in South Africa
A rhetorical analysis of how certain high-visibility regions are persuasively constructed to appeal to tourists. What makes one region more attractive to tourists than another? How does the advertising and marketing of a place color the way we perceive it? Designed for students of all interests, backgrounds, and majors, this is a communications course that takes a multidisciplinary approach to tourism from the perspectives of business, cultural studies, social history, and ecology. Emphasis is placed on the complex interrelationships that develop among tourists, residents, businesses, and local governments.
INQ 277 Service and Peacework in Belize
Instructor: Dr. Katie Elmore
Prerequisite: Permission
Fee: TBA
On location in Belize
How can we build global understanding and peace through international development, education, and service? This question will serve as a framework for our experiences with Peacework in Belize. Students will travel to San Ignacio where they will be immersed into the local community and culture through service-learning experiences. With a primary school as our service base, we will work side-by-side with local teachers, school leaders, and laborers in a developing community. Students will also explore the local Belizean culture, history, and natural beauty through music, food, and day excursions beyond the school site. To be effective in our service, students will study the culture and history of Belize as well as the current governmental and social support systems. These varied experiences offer students much to think about as they consider the differences between their own lives and life in a developing country. The entire trip will be contextualized with readings, shared writings, and many conversations.
INQ 277 Stockholm on the Water
Instructor: Dr. James Peterson
Prerequisites: Permission
Fee: TBA
On location in Stockholm
Stockholm, Sweden has pioneered an influential and complex model of social ethics. It is the birthplace of social security from birth to death to implement lagom- to each an equal share, but it is also the home of a popular royal family in their palaces, Ingvar Kamprad (the founder of IKEA who is often listed as the world's wealthiest businessman), and the ultimate personal distinction of the Nobel Prizes. To make our study of the city's social choices manageable, we will focus on the multifaceted interaction of Stockholm life with water. Stockholm is built on 14 islands where Lake Malaren meets the Baltic Sea, such that it is one third parks, one third city, and one third water. We will start each day at a site where Stockholm and water meet and then free students to complete a project investigating that point of interaction. What are the social choices and underlying ethic that shape how the people of Stockholm live with one another and ever present water.
Domestic Travel Courses for 2014
INQ 177 Adventure into Nature
Instructor: Dr. Steve Powers
Prerequisites: Permission
Fee: TBA
This course is an adventure into nature examining the geology, plants, and animals of the southern Appalachians and their interactions with each other and their human inhabitants. These interactions will be experienced in a classroom setting as well as first hand through a week-long trip into the southern Appalachians that will include many strenuous hikes, wilderness camping and snorkeling in rivers. This course will provide students with a background in natural history, experience with resources commonly used by amateur and professional naturalists, experience planning and executing adventures into nature, and experience interpreting those adventures within an academic context providing students with the tools necessary for a lifetime of adventuring into nature.
Field Trip Courses for 2014
INQ 277/SOCI 277 Politics in Art
Instructor: Dr. Marit Berntson
Prerequisites: SOCI 101
Fee: TBA
Overnight trip to Washington D.C.
The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the study of political ideas, conflict, events, and action as expressed in literature, cinema, and other works of art--technology, architecture, painting, and sculpture. We will view several films, read 2-3 books, and take a field trip to Washington, DC to learn about the architecture of our capital's major buildings, monuments, and the design of the city itself. We will visit the Smithsonian, the National Gallery, and the Newseum. Students will explore the representation of politics in art through a combination of requirements including large and small group discussions of films, books, and art, informal essays and journal writing, and a final exam consisting of short answer and essay questions.
INQ 277/PHIL 277 Relating to Nature: Philosophy, Literature, and Immersion
Instructor: Dr. Monica Vilhauer
Prerequisites: None
Fee: TBA
Overnight camping in cabins with just the bare necessities
How can we understand our relationship to nature? Are humans fundamentally separate from, or a part of nature? Are human beings superior to the rest of nature? Is it possible for humans to live in a harmonious relationship with the rest of nature? Can we learn from non-human forms of life? This course introduces students, in an intensive learning environment, to the ways in which philosophers and literary writers have conceived of the relationship between human beings and nature in the Western tradition. In the third week, students immerse themselves in nature by setting up camp in rustic cabins in the woods, unplugging from modern conveniences, and engaging in a number of outdoor (recreational and survival) activities. In the third week students will be challenged to simplify their lives and pare down to the bare necessities . . . this means spending a week without the use of electronics, internet, phones, and with only very basic shelter, clothing, bathing, and food options. In the third week, students will be living in close quarters with their classmates and engaging in a higher than normal amount of physical activity in addition to their regular studies. We will be in session (departing on our trip) on Memorial Day. This class is reading, writing, and dialogue intensive, and the third week will challenge students mentally, physically, and socially. Contact professor if you have specific questions.
INQ 177 The Broadway Musical
Instructor: Dr. Joe Blaha
Prerequisites: None
Fee: TBA
Overnight trip to New York City
An examination of one of the most privately subsidized and widely exported products of American culture: the Broadway musical. Works from American musical theater have been translated and produced in nearly every country in the world. But is it just spectacle, or is there something deeper that attracts audiences and investors? Is this art or just entertainment? Can it be both? Who are the artists, who are the producers, who is the audience and what are the compromises? This course will study the artistic and cultural traditions, the limitations and the possibilities inherent with the Broadway musical. Travel to New York City to experience productions from Broadway to off-off-Broadway is part of this course
INQ 177/SOCI 277 Understanding Poverty through Service
Instructor: Dr. Kristi Hoffman
Prerequisites:
Fee: TBA
Overnight trip
This course provides the opportunity to explore and reflect on poverty as a lived social condition in the contemporary United States. Poverty will be examined through discussion of a variety of readings and experientially through community service. Field trips will encompass doing volunteer work as a group.
Campus Courses for May 2014
INQ 277/IR 277/POLI 277 African Politics through Film
Instructor: Dr. Joshua Rubongoya
Prerequisites: POLI 101 or INQ 260PS
Fee: None
This course examines African politics in the context of the major historical, economic and cultural factors that have determined and continue to shape political systems on the continent. The course will be taught through a) contemporaneous film, b) docudramas and c) a required text.
INQ 277 Business Lessons Learned from Celebrities
Instructor: Dr. Ivy Kutlu
Prerequisites: None
Fee: None
This course uses the unconventional examples of celebrities from arts, entertainment and sports to introduce several business concepts such as products, innovation and creativity in product development, brands, promotion strategies, management and entrepreneurship. Students will use their analytical/critical thinking skills to deduce important business lessons that can be used by any organization.
INQ 177 Demystifying Food
Instructor: Dr. Marilee Ramesh
Prerequisites: Any BIOL or CHEM course
Fee:
In this course, we will examine an activity we do on a daily basis: eating. We will explore some of the biology and biochemistry of the plants, animals and fungi which make up our diet. We will look at the ancestors of certain food organisms and discuss how agricultural practices transformed them into the foods we include in our diet. Next we will bring biology into the kitchen-how do we transform the plants and animals from the field into cuisine at the table? We will explore the mechanisms behind the transformation of milk into cheese and ice cream, the transformation of grains to breads and beer, and techniques involved in food preservation. Finally, we will discuss the politics of food and food production, including aspects of organic food and Genetically Modified Organisms. The role of food in our culture and traditions will be incorporated throughout this course.
INQ 277 Experimental Economics
Instructor: Dr. Edward Nik-Khah
Prerequisites: ECON 121 or 122
Fee: None
The use of controlled laboratory experimentation in economics was regarded an impossibility a mere two decades ago, and yet practitioners have recently been recognized with nothing less than the Nobel Prize in economics. In this course we shall find that the study of laboratory experimentation in economics provides a golden opportunity to develop an understanding of the sudden emergence of economics as an "experimental" science, experience being an experimental economist and an experimental subject, and examine the pathways along which experimentation is actually changing social science. Students will not only learn the precepts of the field, but also have the opportunity to participate in real experiments.
INQ 177 Film as Social Icon
Instructor: Dr. Bruce Partin
Prerequisites: INQ 110 or HNRS 105
Fee: None
Students will view 12 films produced in the United States between 1950 and 1964. They will examine how these films are distinctive products of their times not only technically but also in terms of their narrative content and the socio-political issues they raise.
INQ 177/BIOL 177 It Could Happen to Us
Instructor: Dr. Brooks Crozier
Prerequisites: None
Fee:
An exploration of plagues in human history and a reflection on the appearance of drug-resistance in microorganisms. Students will learn through research, lecture, reading, a lab exercise and film, the history, politics, biology, and potential modern significance of human diseases, such as Plague, Tuberculosis, Influenza and Cholera and the pathogens that cause them.
INQ 277/CJUS 277/POLI 277 Law & Film
Instructor: Dr. Todd Peppers
Prerequisites: None
Fee: None
This course will examine how popular culture (more specifically, film) portrays lawyers and the legal system and how those images affect our perceptions of the legal system.
INQ 177 Mathematics of Games and Gambling
Instructors: Dr. Adam Childers & Dr. Hannah Robbins
Prerequisites: None
Fee:
The gaming industry is a multi-billion dollar industry that relies on the mathematics of its games to drive their profits and avoid their losses. This course provides both a hands-on and a computational analysis of the probabilities involved when gambling and playing games. We include an introduction to the rules of and basic winning strategies for roulette, blackjack, various forms of poker, and other games, including selected board games and sports. Students will also learn to apply skills developed in this class to other games they come across.
INQ 277 Philosophy & Food
Instructor: Dr. Brent Adkins
Prerequisites: None
Fee: TBA
This course studies the relation between the perennial philosophical question, "How should one live?" and the more mundane question, "What should one eat?" The relation between these two questions will be explored through reading, discussion, and hands-on experimentation in the kitchen. Every class will contain both discussion of assigned readings and an opportunity to cook. The cooking will be focused on the cuisine of Italy, particularly Roman cuisine.
INQ 177 Poems on Paintings
Instructor: Dr. Melanie Almeder
Prerequisites: None
Fee:
A study of poems that have been written about specific paintings. The focus will be on discovering the different reasons that poets have chosen particular paintings for their subject matter. The course will devote one week to the many poems that have been inspired by the paintings of Edward Hopper.
INQ 277 Russian Culture in the 21st Century
Instructor: Dr. Martha Kuchar
Prerequisites: INQ 110 & 120 or HNRS 170
Fee:
Immersion in the culture of the New Russia: literature, art, music, media, religion, and other facets of culture, high and low.
INQ 277/SOCI 277 Sociology Goes to Bollywood
Instructor: Dr. Meeta Mehrotra
Prerequisites: SOCI 101 or INQ 260SO
Fee:
The purpose of this course is to help students understand and critique the social construction of gender in India as reflected in Indian cinema. Students will watch several films and examine how men and women are represented in Indian films, whether these representations reflect reality, and how women challenge traditional gender expectations. While the focus is on gender, students will also be introduced to some of the central and unique socio-cultural, economic, and political issues in India, and to the unique conventions of Indian cinema.
INQ 177 Space Exploration
Instructor: Dr. Rama Balasubramanian
Prerequisites: None
Fee:
The need for space research and exploration stems from our human nature to explore and better understand the world we inhabit. The scientific foundations of our Universe and the history and implications of space explorations in the past, present and the future will be addressed in this course. The main guiding questions are: Why explore space? What are the challenges of space exploration? How does space exploration change us as a human race? By examining these fundamental questions, the students will gain a better understanding of the origins of our Universe, the nature of our planet Earth, and our roles and responsibilities in preserving the place we call home.
INQ 177 The Science of Flavor
Instructor: Dr. Skip Brenzovich
Prerequisites: None
Fee:
Why does heating render cilantro flavorless? Is there a difference between natural and artificial flavorings? Why do people spend millions of dollars a year on perfumes and colognes? Taste and smell, two senses which have a profound effect on our daily lives, are nothing more than our bodies' way of detecting the chemical world around us. During this course, we will examine the science behind these two senses and how our quest for percent flavor has shaped modern history. Through a series of hands-on exercises, we isolate and identify the source of flavor from a variety of natural sources and then use our knowledge to make our own synthetic scents.
INQ 177 Truth and Beauty: Images of the Real
Instructor: Dr. Virginia Stewart
Prerequisites: None
Fee: None
Studies of a range of forms by which images of reality are produced: (a) traditional journalism, video documentary, news photography; (b) literary journalism/creative non-fiction, cinema verite, photojournalism; (c) short fiction, box office cinema, photographic art. Course questions distinctions between "fact" and "truth" and examines ways in which truth is "found," "constructed," and "mediated."
INQ 277 Visual Analysis of Data
Instructor: Dr. Jeff Spielman
Prerequisites: INQ 240
Fee: None
Data visualization is a collection of graphical methods that are powerful tools in analyzing the structure of data. These techniques are useful for both the basic analysis of data and for the interpretation of the data by others.