Course Schedule and Catalog

Long Title: THE SHAPING OF WESTERN THOUGHT

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Study of the foundational, intellectual and artistic texts of the western tradition from Ancient Greece to Medieval Islam. Consideration of texts and images over time and in their historical development as we reflect on who we are and how we got here. Readings would include: The Gilgamesh Epic, Homer's Illad, Thucydides' War, Plato's Republic, Book of Genesis, Virgil's Aeneid, Gospels of Luke and of Thomas, Augustine's Confessions and The Qur'an. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: OUR ENVIRONMENT: SCIENCE AND CULTURE

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: In this course, students will learn environmental concepts, the science and culture behind them and possible reactions to related problems from a political, economic and cultural perspective. The instructor will introduce the necessary background material in biology, ecology and chemistry as needed but the emphasis will be on obtaining scientific literacy in environmental studies. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: VIOLENCE AND HUMAN NATURE

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: The topic of violence has engaged social scientists from many fields and can provide an illuminating and interesting focus for understanding the research and rationale of psychologists, political scientists, anthropologists and sociologists. Topics covered in this course include the early concepts of human behavior, evolutionary, biological, cross cultural, and historic approaches, cultural factors and the mass media, the sociology of violence, Freud and other emotion theorists, group violence, and legal, political and psychological solutions to controlling violence. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: ISLAM: STATE AND SOCIETY

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course offers an analytical and theoretical examination of government and social systems in the Arab and Muslim world. Because no one discipline is sufficient for an adequate understanding, this course reaches across the disciplines to include various subjects. History, economics, political science, gender studies, as well as literary and cinematic are the venues for learning about the region. The course will maximize student participation and students will be expected to be fully engaged through class discussion, oral presentations and writing assignments. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: SHAKESPEARE AND FILM

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course will examine several Shakespeare plays and their theatrical productions. The instructor will teach each play as a text (and a script) first, and then study the films of these plays in an effort to understand the choices the film-makers have made in adapting Shakespeare's plays to the screen. In this course, then, we will be concerned with studying both Shakespeare's plays and what happens to those plays in the hands of a creative film-maker. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: THE SOLAR SYSTEM, THE SUN AND THE MIND OF MAN

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course will explore the beauty of our near-by cosmic environment, the solar system, both as a work of nature and also from the standpoint of a challenge to the observational and analytical capabilities of human beings. The course will follow two parallel tracks: a historical/conceptual understanding of the solar system and the various paradigms or models used to describe the physical "universe." In the second track we will tour the solar system beginning with the Sun, examining each planet and its satellite(s) in detail. The course will be non-mathematical; however, a few equations maybe show to illustrate a point. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: THE WHOLE IS GREATER THAN THE SUM OF ITS PARTS

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: There are a series of interrelated themes in this course. We want to study and discuss ideas that can be relevant to a number of disciplines in the social sciences. We want to use these ideas to explore some interesting questions that are asked in the social sciences. But just because an idea is interesting does not mean it is valid. So we also want to think about how we might determine if these ideas actually account for behavior in the real world (i.e., how would we test these ideas and insights?). Department Permission Required.

Long Title: EARTH SYSTEMS DYNAMICS

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course involves exposing the advanced student to the interactions among the several mechanisms that combine to produce a working Earth. It would include concepts of Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Geology, Meteorology and Ecology. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: STEREOTYPES, PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: In the past century social scientists have learned an enormous amount about stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination, yet they remain poorly understood by the public at large and especially by public policy makers. We all hold stereotypes, show prejudices and discriminate although not necessarily in traditional racist or sexist ways. This course will explore what social scientists, especially social psychologists, have learned about these issues especially in the last quarter century. While we will cover traditional racial and gender issues, we will also consider material related to obesity, homosexuality, mental and physical disability and age among other topics. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: MUSIC AND OTHER ARTS: COLLABORATION AND FUSION

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course will introduce students to the collaboration between music and other arts - poetry, drama, mythology, the visual arts (as applied to set and costume design) and dance - that often occurs during the creation of large musical works such as symphonies, operas and ballets. By investigating six musical masterpieces, it will be possible to discuss aspects of the collaborative process and how they lead to artistic fusion. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE ROMAN EMPIRE: SOCIETY & CULTURE DURING THE PAX ROMANA

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: When the emperor Augustus achieved supreme power in 31 BC, the Roman state began a period of stable rule and prosperity that lasted for more than two centuries. This course will examine the basic elements of Roman civilization during the Pax Romana. How was imperial power exercised and represented in art and architecture? What place did women, soldiers, slaves and foreigners have in Roman society? What were the basic modes of religious expression? What were the basic parameters of law and administration? How did the city of Rome develop as the hub of a multi-ethnic state? To answer these and other questions, we will discuss ancient texts in translation and modern interpretations. Time will be devoted each week to methods of scholarly research and writing. No previous knowledge of Roman history is required. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: CONTEMPORARY CHINA AND THE CHINESE DIASPORA

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course explores the transnational forces changing the lives of nearly a quarter of humanity, the 1.4 billion people of Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and the diasporic Chinese communities of the Americas, Europe, and East and Southeast Asia. In order to explore the political, economic and social processes of liberalization that have created this new era of the increased circulation of people, ideas, commodities and technologies across national boundaries, seminar participants will use materials and methods from many scholarly disciplines and traditions: political science, history, economics, anthropology, gender and media/cultural studies. And in order to study these increasingly mobile populations that often fall outside the boundaries of conventional studies approaches in the social sciences, students will critically examine innovative comparative case studies and survey methodologies. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: DNA: HUMAN IDENTITY AND ORIGINS

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: "Who am I?" "Where did I come from?" All branches of knowledge address these fundamental questions. This course examines how DNA informs the structure and function of humans, and how humans have in turn used DNA as a source of information to solve mysteries and improve lives. We will introduce the structure of DNA and show how it influences physical traits and is passed on from parent to child. We will review the original goals of the Human Genome Project and discuss how the surprising results that emerged from it have altered the way we view the role of genes in human development. We will examine how breakthroughs in DNA technology have allowed us to answer questions about human origins, worldwide migrations and personal genealogy and aided criminal investigations and medical treatment. This course will also use the specifics of DNA investigation as examples of science in action. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: SOUTH BY SOUTHEAST ASIA: CRUCIBLE OF DIVERSITY IN RELIGION AND POLITICS

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course will cover an ethnological and pre-colonial review of the region and cover such topics as: the role of religion in framing culture and politics in the region; the impact of colonialism and its long-term impact on the culture and politics of the region; the past and present impact of nationalism on politics, economics and culture in the region, what forces frame them and how they operate; the prospects for democracy in the region; the challenge of economic growth equity and modernization in the region; the foreign policy issues facing the area including efforts at regional cooperation; and key contemporary problems facing the region such as the rise of radical Islam, the India-Pakistan Issue and demands and problems of minority groups in countries of the region. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: SCIENCE IN THE FIRST PERSON

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Have you wondered what it would be like to participate in a major scientific discovery, or to deal with highly competitive or cantankerous colleagues, or to convince a skeptical world that your idea is right and the rest of the world has got it wrong? By reading material written by scientists who have made major discoveries, we will look at how science is done from the first-person perspective. We will see how scientists confront troubling thoughts when they see the modern world in conflict with the nature they love, and why science has been called a "contact sport." Department Permission Required.

Long Title: PICTURES AND WORDS: A VIEW OF MUSLIM POLITICS THROUGH THE ARTS

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: In this course comprised of three related segments, students will take a deeper look into the topics introduced in Islam: State and Society (MLSC 504). They will first consider Iranian film and its relationship to the only revolution in the region, and have an opportunity to hypothesize about the relationship between the visual arts and politics. Students will next look at the work of fiction authors and consider the themes that dominate the literature. Finally, students will apply the skills gained in the first two segments by focusing on one country whose selection is to be determined by the current political situation. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: MODERN DRAMA ON FILM AND IN PERFORMANCE

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course will focus on drama not only as text but also as performance. We will read modern plays and discuss them as they are often discussed in English courses, concentrating on theme, character, world, imagery, language and dramatic action. In addition, we will also examine the "texts" as scripts, as working papers for actors and directors: in short, as source materials for performance. To this end we will also view movie versions of many of these plays. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: JUDGING SCIENCE

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: In this course we will explore the simple, logical steps to acquire and extend scientific knowledge and will discuss several examples of sound, as well as flawed, scientific conclusions. We will review certain conflicts that arise between science and other major forces in our society: ideological and political beliefs, entrenched economic interests, decisions of our courts of law. All along, we will attempt to develop simple but sound criteria for dealing with the task that confronts all of us: judging science. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: PSYCHOLOGY OF BELIEFS

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Beliefs are among the most primitive, important and central of mental constructs. Many of our reactions to others are based on our beliefs and our perceptions of theirs, and it is impossible to understand racism, prejudice, religious and national conflicts without considering disagreement over basic belief systems. While there are several ways to approach the study of beliefs, we will focus on problematic beliefs, sometimes called anomalous or bizarre beliefs. Examples are beliefs in ESP and the paranormal, astrology, the reality of events that could not possibly have occurred, scientific theories and medical cures that are rejected by most experts, as well as extreme religious and political ideas. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: ART MUSIC IN WESTERN EUROPEAN CULTURE

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course will trace music from the medieval courts and cathedrals to twentieth and twenty-first century concert halls. It will be taught using selected pieces of music representative of a specific time, place and situation in western Europe and western Russia. Music tells a great deal about how a society functions; it opens windows to social history, philosophy, concepts of math and of science, art, literature and architecture. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: THE SUSTAINABLE ENVIRONMENT

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course is intended to introduce students to some of the central concepts and issues of environmental studies, including environmental science, policy, history and literature - with an emphasis on scientific characteristics of the environment and human experiences and attitudes toward the environment in which our societies exist. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: EVOLUTION IN SCIENCE AND SOCIETY

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: In this course, participants will learn about the physical and biological development of our planet and its life, as well as discuss how biological evolution is viewed in today's society. Emphasis will be on the study of evolution as it is recorded in the fossil record. Participants will have the chance to examine fossil specimens as well as environments of fossil formation. The specific objective of this class is for participants to develop an understanding of evolution with a focus on how the theory has been built over time. The broader objective is to practice critical thinking and presentation skills while focusing on how society faces scientific data. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: THEORY AND PRACTICE OF PUNISHMENT

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course will focus on the writings of some of the most influential scholars in sociology, legal philosophy and political theory who have contributed to the creation of ideal or normative views of legal punishment and exposing the harsh realities of how non-violent and violent criminals are actually punished. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Darwin's theory of evolution has influenced psychologists and other social scientists for the past 150 years, often in crude and not always useful or acceptable ways. Major developments in evolutionary biology over the past half century have opened opportunities for more sophisticated applications to psychology. One of the fastest growing and most controversial areas of modern psychology, evolutionary psychology seeks to explain fundamental issues such as sex differences, proclivities toward violence, cooperation, trust and competition in social groups, the ways and whys of human cognition, as well as the existence of art, music, literature, and religion. This course will explore these topics and more, and we will examine arguments both for and against this controversial perspective on human behavior. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: PLAGUES AND POPULATIONS

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course will examine the interaction of pathogens and human societies. It will cover the biological nature of pathogens and disease, the human immune system and therapeutic and societal interventions to prevent and cure disease. Specific diseases will be studied to determine the biology of the disease agent, its exploitation of the human host, its transmission and epidemiology and how the disease impacts the economic, political, social structure and values of the affected populations, and how the response to disease may limit its impact. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: CONTEMPORARY MORAL ISSUES

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: The cardinal objective of the course is to stimulate students to analyze and evaluate the opposing viewpoints of some scholars who have expressed their views on some of the most disputed moral issues in contemporary American culture. Specifically, the required readings for the class focus on abortion, the death penalty, euthanasia, world hunger and poverty, sexual morality, drugs and addiction and affirmative action. Arrangements will be made for a tour of a prison unit and the opportunity to discuss the death penalty with several inmates. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: COMPARATIVE APPROACHES TO THE HISTORY OF EMOTIONS

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course will explore fundamental questions about the nature of feelings. Are emotions biologically encoded or culturally controlled reactions? Are emotions "felt" differently in other cultures or time periods or are emotions universal? Can emotions be perceived collectively or are they part of individual experience? Are women "more emotional" than men? Are emotions irrational or rational? In considering these questions in the context of a series of case studies from history, anthropology, archaeology, and linguistics, we will be engaging with some of the most complicated and enduring questions facing the student of liberal arts: what does the range of human experience tell us about the relationship between the body and culture, the individual and society, people and objects? Department Permission Required.

Long Title: PHYSICS FOR SOCIETY

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course will introduce the essential physics that students need in order to understand today's core science and technology issues. Topics will range from the physics of energy, to climate change, to spy technology, to quantum computers. We will address questions such as how practical are alternative energy sources? Can satellites really read license plates from space? What is the quantum physics behind iPods and supermarket scanners and how much should we fear terrorist nuke? The course will explore critical physics topics: energy and power, atoms and heat, gravity and space, nuclei and radioactivity, chain reactions and atomic bombs, electricity and magnetism, waves, light, invisible light, climate change, quantum physics, and relativity. The course will generally be non-mathematical or any mathematics used will be explained in context. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: GENDER EQUITY

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course will focus mainly on the status of women in different cultural settings around the world. We will examine the implications of gender violence and inequality that exist around the world and the power relations within the home, within nations, for women in different parts of the world. Thus the course will evaluate the position of women in situations of forced labor, trafficking, prostitution, rape and domestic violence. The course will pay particular attention to how women, as individuals and in organized groups, have faced challenges to improve their lives and how the micro credit programs have empowered them. Readings will consider policies designed to improve standards of living for women around the world and to enhance gender equity and women's empowerment. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: KNOWLEDGE, POLITICS, MORALITY AND RELIGION IN 17TH-18TH CENTURIES WESTERN PHILOSOPHY

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: In the history of Western philosophy, the 17th-18th centuries are characterized as the Age of Enlightenment, during which scholars in all fields of knowledge were experiencing freedom from the centuries old yoke of religious authority. Human reason and the pursuit of knowledge dethroned the Christian teaching on the life of faith and biblical revelation. In this course we will focus on the modern mind, namely, Hobbes, Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza, Locke, Berkeley, Hume and Kant. Their views on knowledge, politics, morality and religion will be explained into the context of the climate of intellectual and religious opinion in which they lived. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: AFRICAN CRISIS IN CONTEXT

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: We know Africa largely as a place of “crisis”…as a place plagued by ethnic warfare, stifled by government corruption, unable to feed itself, and, if not beyond hope, certainly far from “developed”. In this class, we will explore questions at the heart of understanding problems in contemporary Africa: Why is Africa underdeveloped? Are problems like corruption and ethnic warfare somehow part of African cultures? Are famines the product of climatic or human agency? What are the ethics of AIDS vaccine research in Africa? This class explores the historical, cultural and economic contexts of some of the most pressing issues facing the continent in order to better understand causes and consequences of thinking about Africa as a place of crisis. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: THE GRAND DESIGN

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: The book “The Grand Design” by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow asks the big questions: how did our universe begin and is it the only one or are there multiple parallel universes; why is there something rather than nothing; why are we here; why are the laws of nature so finely tuned that they allow a stable universe? Guided by the Hawking/Mlodinow book, this course will explore these questions. We will address the question: do the laws of physics provide for the possibility of a multiplicity of universes of which ours, by happenstance or probability, turned out to have the right set of physical constants to provide for a stable universe and hence the possibility of life or is a Devine Creator necessary? To address these questions we will take a layman’s tour of basic concepts of cosmology, quantum mechanics, relativity, string theory, and extra-dimensions. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: SELF-DETERMINATION IN ARAB WORLD

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course investigates the history of the struggle for self determination and democracy in the Arab world. It provides a historical perspective by exploring the antecedents to the current so-called "Arab Spring," specifically by comparing the anti-colonial nationalisms of the twentieth century with the today's pro-democracy movements. It will also examine the role of the West, including the United States, in hindering or promoting anti-colonialism, nationalism and democracy in the Arab world. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: HUMAN RIGHTS IN WORLD AFFAIRS

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: The course examines the history of human rights and humanitarianism from the eighteenth century Enlightenment era to the present. How did human rights become the premier moral language of our times and the idiom in which recent generations frame their idealism? While universal human rights may seem timeless, they have a long and checkered political and philosophical history. This seminar will explore that history through anthropology and legal studies as well as through case studies of non-governmental organizations. Special attention will be given to international law and shifts in international politics in the twentieth century. The course will also analyze the passions that motivated people to pursue human rights and the empathy that led them to uproot injustice. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: "PLEASE SIR, I WANT SOME MORE": DICKENS, OLIVER TWIST, POVERTY, AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: During the worldwide celebrations of Charles Dickens's bicentenary in 2011-12 Oliver Twist received vibrant new attention because its treatment of children, welfare, poverty, domestic violence, and anti-Semitism seemed so relevant to contemporary issues. In this course we will read the novel alongside and against the economic and social theories and practices of Dickens's time, and ask many questions. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: TRADITIONAL CHINESE CULTURE AND ITS MODERN LEGACY

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: An analysis of the language, philosophy, religion, art, literature, institutions and social customs of the Qing dynasty (1644-1912), the last imperial regime and a crucial bridge between "traditional" and "modern" China. Although this course is intended in part as an exercise in appreciation, it is designed primarily to encourage critical and creative thinking about another place and time. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: PROFILES FROM THE PAST: FAMOUS FIGURES IN WESTERN HISTORY

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: What has happened during the course of time, regarding culture and human experience that has been transmitted from the ancient to the modern world? What ideas and concepts concerning subjects such as politics, art, music, and philosophy have been our legacy from the western past? This course will survey the answers to these questions covering the time of classical Greece through the period of the high middle ages. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: OUR CHANGING PLANET

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: The Earth can be studied by considering it to be made up of certain elements or systems that interact. The systems that we will consider in this course are the lithosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere. Not quite earth, air, fire and water, but close. We will then explore how these systems interact and finally attempt to evaluate the human impact on the entire earth. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: IMMIGRATION AND THE STATE: EUROPE AND THE US IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: The course traces the history of immigration within and to Europe and to the United States from the late 19th century to the present. How did the United States and the European states elicit, regulate or contain successive waves of labor and colonial migrants, stateless persons and asylum seekers? And what type of legal, political and cultural debates did the "immigrant question" raise in the public sphere since the advent of mass migration? We will discuss key issue regarding immigration including political asylum, guest-worker programs, assimiliation and integration debates, and immigrants and the welfare state Department Permission Required.

Long Title: IS ANYBODY OUT THERE: THE SEARCH FOR LIFE BEYOND EARTH

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Imagine what the reaction would be if life were discovered on another planet in the solar system or on a planet orbiting another star. With the dawn of the space age tools have become available to tackle this problem with serious scientific research. This course will look at some of this research and examine the prospects for finding life. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: HUMAN RIGHTS, GENDER EQUALITY AND RELIGIOUS BELIEFS

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This class aims to explore the intertwined relationship between gender equality, human rights and religious beliefs globally. Additionally, the class will focus on realities and misconceptions on women's status in the Middle East and North Africa and explore the impact of the socio-cultural and political context on shaping gender relations across the region. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: THE EPIC JOURNEY

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This class explores some of the classic texts of Western literature, books from the ancient world that have had, and continue to have a formative influence on who we are and how we got here. The works we will study all share a common theme: the epic journey. We explore different variations of this theme, follow ancient travelers on their journeys, and reflect with them about their discoveries. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: INTRODUCTION TO GRADUATE RESEARCH, ANALYSIS AND EXPOSITION

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: The goals of this course will be to develop the students' abilities to perform library or Internet scholarly research at a graduate level; conduct graduate-level analysis of representative graduate-level readings and topics similar to those encountered in the MLS program; demonstrate the advanced analytical and critical thinking abilities required inside and outside the graduate classroom; express the results of scholarly research and analysis and original ideas in the written formats that meet the criteria for graduate-level essays, papers and reports; use oral expression, discussion and presentation techniques at the level expected in graduate classrooms. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: INTRODUCTION TO WESTERN ART: CAVES TO CATHEDRALS

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course will introduce students to major art historical periods and monuments of the western world from the first appearance of images in the caves of Paleolithic Europe to the construction of Medieval cathedrals and the illumination of books of hours in the fifteenth century. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: AGAINST THE GRAIN: DISSENTERS IN AMERICAN SOCIETY

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course will offer a biographical focus on ten Americans who challenged the orthodoxies of their time and place. Where these radical dissenters visionaries or cranks? What led them to challenge the conventional wisdom of their day? Which of their ideas came to fruition, and which ones were rejected? By examining unpopular ideas and the men and women who propounded them, perhaps we can understand the dynamics of social change. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: HOW COME COMMUNISM COLLAPSED?

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This history course will investigate the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989 and 1991 and related historical issues. Why did Marxism, which is based on a critique of capitalism, succeed in Russia in the first place since Russia was essentially an agrarian state? What led to the emergence of the Cold War after World War II? Was it the Yalta agreements, aggression by the Soviet Union, American intransigence, or what? When did the Soviet system sign its own death warrant? Who was the prime mover in the events of 1989 - Ronald Reagan, Mikhail Gorbachev or the East Europeans themselves? And what about Yugoslavia? Why did the collapse of communism there mean bloody warfare, whereas it did not in the USSR and in Czechoslovakia? Department Permission Required.

Long Title: EXPLORATION AND DISCOVERY IN ANTARCTICA

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course will introduce students to the seventh continent through the history of austral exploration and through an explanation of the scientific research that has happened, is happening and will happen there. This course will begin with a basic scientific description of the highest, driest, coldest, windiest continent on Earth. Participants will then study journals of some of the original explorers as well as recent works analyzing the "glory days" of polar exploration. The class will then move from the period of exploration, through the early scientific work, and on to the modern hypothesis-driven science that is taking place now and is being planned for the future. The class will close with an examination of tourism and its effects on the nature of the Antarctic ecosystems and cryosphere. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: TRANSNATIONAL CHINA: THE MIDDLE KINGDOM IN GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Almost everyone in the contemporary world is aware that the 21st century may well be "China's century." This course will focus on the ways that geography, history and the forces of "globalization" have shaped the politics, social life and culture of East Asia. Although the focus of this course will be primarily on China, we will give some attention to other parts of East Asia, including pre-modern and contemporary Korea, Japan and Vietnam. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: THE HEBREW BIBLE AND ITS INTERPRETERS

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This seminar seeks to acquaint students with the principal parts of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, with the modern, historical-critical study of the Bible as an academic discipline, and a few episodes in the recent history of the Bible in the West. Our reading of the biblical literature will primarily be historical-critical in the sense that it emphasizes that the Hebrew Bible is rooted in the ancient Near East, its history and literature. At the same time we will be sensitive to traditional, Jewish and Christian readings of the Bible as they evolved over two millennia and examine how these faith-based traditions arose, how they differ from modern critical approaches and how the two can complement each other. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course examines how the body, health, illness and healing have been conceptualized across different cultures and different historical periods. This course also explores the complex interrelationship between biology and culture, and discusses how historical, political and cultural factors have helped shape our biology to produce specific distributions of health and disease. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: THE CHALLENGE OF CLIMATE CHANGE: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Global climate change is actively studied and critically assessed at four different levels: (1) detecting a change in the global climate, (2) attributing that change to anthropogenic causes, (3) modeling future climate to determine the degree of change under different economic and culture scenarios and (4) an emerging study of possible human and environmental responses to climate change either by strategies of mitigation or adaptation. The degree of uncertainty among scientists and level of skepticism among informed others increases as we progress from an assessment of detection, to attribution, to prediction and finally to response. This course addresses these four levels of understanding, attempting to provide reasonable evidence for a particular position at each level and a consideration of the validity and accuracy of those positions. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: EYE AND BRAIN, MIND AND WORLD

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: How do humans know about the world around us? How does any system, natural or artificial, know about any other system? The question of epistemology is among the most fundamental in all of philosophy, and there is no better example with which to begin an answer than human perception, because it is through our senses that we acquire most of the knowledge we gain in our lifetimes. This course focuses on vision because it is the best understood, and perhaps the most important, of the human sensory systems, and it reveals how the eye and brain interact to give us reliable (albeit usually misleading) understanding of the world. We approach vision and the other senses from several disciplines. Along the way, we learn about how other animals perceive as well as about how our ability to perceive develops from infancy into old age. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: PSYCHOLOGY OF HAPPINESS

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Truth, beauty and, yes, happiness, are issues that have engaged thoughtful people over the centuries. What is happiness (and what makes us happy)? Until recently we have relied on philosophers and religious thinkers for answers to that question, and many of them have provided useful recipes that seem to work for at least some people some of the time. The last century or so has seen many psychologists and self-help gurus who have also handed out (well, more often sold) recipes that generally seem to be less satisfactory than the wisdom of the ancients. Interestingly until recently psychologists have tended to ignore this seeming important topic, but in the past 10 or so years social and personality psychologists, neuroscientists and even economists have begun to pose empirically answerable questions about happiness and to find some data-based answers to what makes people happy. In this course we will read some of the traditional wisdom provided by religious and philosophical thinkers, but we will focus primarily on questions and issues that are subject to empirical resolution. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: JOURNALISM IN CRISIS: TRANSFORMATION OF THE NEWS MEDIA & IMPLICATIONS FOR AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course will examine historic, social, economic and political aspects of the transformation of American news media. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls a little over a half a century ago in the Judean desert has been celebrated as the most significant manuscript discovery of the 20th century. Students will study the fascinating history of the discovery and publication of the Scrolls. They will read the most important Scrolls, learn about the beliefs and practices of the Jewish group that authored them and discuss what can be learned from the Scrolls about the nature of Early Judaism and the origins of Christianity. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: CHANGING VIEWS OF VICTORIAN ENGLAND

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Ever since the early days of Margaret Thatcher's prime ministership when she frequently ballyhooed the virtues of "Victorian Values," scholars have been revisiting the stereotypical history of life and lifestyles during Victorian Great Britian. For much of the last century we have perceived Victorians as living soberly prudent lives, living in overstuffed houses, filled with overstuffed furniture. We have commonly depicted the Victorians as persons who revered the institutions of religion, family, country and social convention. This course stresses the result of the most recent historical research which challenges the more traditional views. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: PUBLIC SPEAKING

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course is designed to give the student exposure to and experience using basic principles and skills of oral communication in the public context. Emphasis will be on the development of speech organization, support and delivery. Informative and persuasive speeches will be practiced. An important outcome of the course is that the student better understand and appreciate the important role public speaking plays in modern society. Instructor Permission Required.

Long Title: TEN MASTERPEICES OF NORTHERN RENAISSANCE ART

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course will introduce students to the great "masterpieces" of painting produced in Northern Europe during the Renaissance of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Each week we will focus on a single work of art from this period and explore a constellation of issues around the creation and reception of the painting. Students will learn in-depth methods of visual analysis and interpretation of works within their historical context. These same skills and strategies may be applied to the full range of western painting and provide useful tools for enriching visits to museums or experiences of European travel. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: OCEANWAYS OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Never in the history of imperial expansion has there ever been anything that compared to the British Empire at its height in the days of Queen Victoria. In size the Empire was supreme, ruling the largest area and the largest number of people. The circumstances surrounding its acquisition were haphazard; its motives and benefits mixed. The residual effects of the Empire upon the modern world are incalculable. This course will examine these aspects of the Victorian Empire and compare them with imperial activities of the present day. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: CREATIVE NONFICTION

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Creative nonfiction takes many forms, including expository writing, personal essay, narrative story-telling, literary journalism, memoir, nature and science writing, travel and food writing, historical narrative, biographical narrative, and academic and cultural criticism. This course is designed to help students read and write creative nonfiction with a focus on the voice, structure, messages, style, and technique found in contemporary creative nonfiction. The material covered applies to the humanities, the social sciences, and the sciences. Department Permission Required. Repeatable for Credit.

Long Title: THE AWAKENING OF RUSSIA: A MUSICAL AND HISTORICAL PASSAGE

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: There was a spectacular flowering of Russian culture in the aftermath of the death of Czar Nicholas I (1825-55). Ushered in was a relatively liberal ear which, combined with a powerful natural upsurge, yielded a period of remarkable creativity - noted especially in this course by Russian music. This interdisciplinary course will couple the historical and musical threads of Russian culture from the death of the aforementioned Romanov Czar until the end of World War I and the outbreak of the Russian Revolution. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: GEOLOGY AND ARCHEOLOGY OF CENTRAL TEXAS

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: In this course, participants will learn about the geological and archaeological history of Texas. Classroom sessions will focus on scientific principles relevant to Texas and the people who made the critical discoveries in these fields, with a review of both primary and secondary literature, as well as current scientific articles. The course will culminate in a weekend field trip through central Texas, which will include stops at various sites of geological and archaeological significance. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: MASTERPIECES OF THE POETIC TRADITION

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course will introduce students to the appreciation and analysis of poetic masterpieces. We will focus on poetry produced in the English and American literary tradition, with particular attention paid to the poems, poets, and cultures that influence the development of those traditions. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: ART MUSIC IN WESTERN EUROPEAN CULTURE II

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This is the second course in a sequence devoted to advanced musical understanding. In the first part of this sequence (Art Music in Western European Culture I) we will examine a wide range of music from a single time period. In this, the second part of the sequence, we will instead concentrate in depth upon one piece of music per class and will combine a focus upon advanced listening skills with music specific research techniques. The first weeks of the class will review musical listening, discourse, and the specialized skills necessary for musical research. Subsequently, each class session will focus upon a major work by a significant composer such as Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Mahler, and Debussy, among others. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: THE SCEPTER'D ISLE: ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL BRITAIN

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: From the murky prehistoric times of Stonehenge and New Grange to the tumultuous times of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, the dramatic combinations of history and myth have continually fascinated lovers of the British Isles. This course will explore ancient and medieval Britain, meandering from prehistoric sites to the early invaders, from the delightful legends of Glastonbury to the centuries of Roman invasions, from the Anglo-Saxon heptarchy to the Norman invasion, and from the hegemony of the Roman Catholic church to the challenge of secular kings. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: WHAT MODERN WAS: CELEBRATING THE CENTENNIAL

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: What constituted "modern music" in 1912? Works such as Arnold Schoenberg's Perrot lunaire, Claude Debussy's Jeux, and compositions by American composers Henry Cowell and Charles Ives set the bar for musical modernism that year. But other pieces from France, Germany, Russia, Spain, Hungary and England suggested that the future would present major changes. What did audiences in the United States know about such music? What did they think about it? What did the founders of the Rice Institute think about the new musical trends? How did the music played at the opening festivities of the Rice Institute reflect these perceptions of musical modernism? This course will consider these questions from a variety of parameters and get a sense of "what modern was" and its relationship to the momentous events of 1912 in Houston, Texas. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: ADVANCED CREATIVE NONFICTION

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course offers students an opportunity to continue to practice writing creative nonfiction in a guided workshop format. The primary emphasis in the course will be on the professor and students reading and providing constructive feedback on the students' creative nonfiction writings. In addition, the students will read further examples of various types of creative nonfiction writing and complete writing exercises designed to allow them to work on the voice, structure, and technique of their writing. This course is designed for students with experience in writing creative nonfiction, such as completion of MLSC 617 or a similar course or creative writing workshop experience elsewhere. For those who have not taken a creative nonfiction course in the MLS program, consultation with the instructor is recommended before enrolling. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: THE SHAPES OF POETRY: A WORKSHOP

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course examines fundamental architecture of poetry. How do poets create a sense of shape? What are the nuts and bolts of a poem? Students will read widely in the history of poetry, from traditional meters and historical forms to contemporary free verse and experimental or open forms. Part workshop and part seminar, this course will feature critical and creative assignments and is designed for writers and non-writers of any level of experience. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: THE BROTHERHOOD: LIVES AND LOVES OF THE PRE-RAPHAELITES

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB), founded in 1848, was a small group of British artists who boldly challenged the conventions of Victorian-era art and the materialism of industrialized England. While the PRB influenced the British art world for the remainder of the century, this course will focus on the intriguing personal lives of the artists, including Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt, and John Millais, rather than the art they created. These artists, along with their wives, paramours, and models (often all one and the same) were part of a highly prolific Victorian creative class which for this course will revolve around the locale of central London and the influence of the towering figure of art and architecture - critic John Ruskin. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: JOHN RUSKIN AND HIS WORLD

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course will examine John Ruskin (1819-1900), who rose from a troubled childhood to become one of the most influential critics of art and architecture of his century, forever fulminating the notion that art had a moral purpose and especially that art and architecture produced in France and Italy in the Middle Ages. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: THE BIRTH OF MODERNISM, THE GREAT WAR, THE AFTERMTH: 1910-1920

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: One hundred years have passed since the momentous decade that brought us the beginnings of modernism, the "war to end all wars," and post war cynicism. This course will examine those tumultuous years from the perspective of the wide array of music written to satisfy all types of tastes and circumstances. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: EFFECTIVE THINKING

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: The basis of success in everything, academics, personal relationships, professional life, business leadership, or anything, is effective thinking. This course will address the process and practice of how to think effectively, analytically, and creatively. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: CAPSTONE I

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory

Course Type: Research

Credit Hours: 3

Description: The capstone course is designed to help students utilize the knowledge gained in the previous courses and to demonstrate mastery of the intellectual skills required for a Master of Liberal Studies degree. The capstone course will culminate in an extensive written paper (or original creative work such as poetry or fiction) and an oral presentation to MLS faculty and fellow students. The capstone course may be completed in one term as one course, or, optionally, the student may with the advisor's approval, take two terms to complete the capstone. The determination as to whether the capstone will be a one or two term project should, in most cases, be made before the start of the first term. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: CAPSTONE II

Department: School of Continuing Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Research

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Continuation of MLSC 700 Capstone I; or for students who plan to take only one term to complete the capstone. Department Permission Required.