Renewing the Core: Pilot Courses for 2014-2015

COMPLEX PROBLEMS

Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity

Faculty: Maxim Shrayer (Slavic and Eastern Languages; English) and Devin Pendas (History)
Excerpts from course proposal: ”This course will explore the complex and burdensome history of mass murder of ethnic, religious, and socio-political populations and communities across a number of significant cases, including (but perhaps not limited to) the Armenian genocide, Stalin’s great purges and genocides, the Holocaust (Shoah), Cambodia, and Rwanda. The course will challenge students to think through the causes and consequences of such massive and sometimes unfathomable crimes…The ‘lab’ element would include the requirement to seek out and interview genocide survivors and their children, to analyze primary source documents, to visit local museums and asses their public history function, to engage with fictional or filmic representations of genocide, and to take time for personal reflection on the ethical and metaphysical challenges posed by mass murder.”

Comment: “One of the purposes of the complex problems courses, as I understand it, is to try to learn to think through an issue without losing a sense of personal moral and emotional engagement. You need to be able to step back from events to get a sense of what has happened, and by extension, of the kinds of things that can happen in the world, but at the same time, you don't want to grow callous or cynical. My whole career has been dedicated to trying to strike that balance, and this course will be one opportunity for students to start finding their own balance when dealing with complex, tragic, moral issues in the world around them.” [Pendas]

Global Implications of Climate Change

Faculty: Brian Gareau (Sociology) and Tara Pisani Gareau (Earth and Environmental Sciences)
Excerpts from course proposal: “Collectively China, United States, and Europe contribute more than half of the global carbon dioxide emissions. But developing countries, that are already limited in natural resources and economic capital, are on the front line of climate change impacts...Where will climate change refugees go? What is the responsibility of the global North to the global South for adapting to this new world?  What mitigation measures by the world’s big polluters will promote a socially just solution? This course will explore the solutions to the complex nature of climate change causation and effect using the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris in December of 2015 as a reference point.  Students will come away with an understanding of the science behind climate change, the distribution of natural resources around the world, the effect of climate change on agricultural productivity and international environmental governance. We will also delve into the ethical dimensions of climate change and our responsibility as moral citizens of the global north.”

Comment: “BC students are moderately well-informed about climate change issues. They have heard of climate change, they about the greenhouse effect, they understand that carbon emissions are bad and getting worse. But there is a gap between that level of understanding and recognition of the ways that politics, economics, social conditions, and how we interact with our environment on a daily basis contribute to climate change. Students also are seldom taught about the many negative effects that changes in the global climate are having on the poorest people world-wide. “If there is one overarching misconception or misunderstanding, it is that we as individuals cannot do anything about climate change. This just isn’t true, and we hope to show some of the ways that we can make a difference.” [Brian Gareau]

Understanding the Social Contexts of Violence

Faculty: Marilynn Johnson (History) and Shawn McGuffey (Sociology)

Excerpts from course proposal: “This course will explore some of the most pressing problems of modern race and gender-based violence across the globe. Using both historical and sociological perspectives, we will examine the roots of such violence, the ways in which it has been expressed, the meanings attached to it, and its implications for society...In addition, we will look at historical and contemporary efforts to reduce conflict and violence through political organizing, legislation, and both national and international conflict resolution strategies…During the spring and summer, we will contact locally based anti-violence organizations to develop cooperative relationships and identify possible group projects that would be of use to the organizations while also providing a hands-on learning experience for the students…These collaborations will challenge students to think critically about the didactical relationship between research inquiry and the possibilities of social change; how one’s social identity can impact research and social justice processes; and how various academic disciplines and social justice organizations understand violence in their work.”

ENDURING QUESTIONS

Inquiring About Humans and Nature (Holly Vandewall, Philosophy)
Imagining Humans and Nature (Min Song, English)

Excerpts from course proposal: “Our human experience of ourselves both as rational individuals and as communities capable of language and abstract thought has set us apart from the rest of the natural world.  But humans have found, time and again, that we are not wholly outside of nature.  We have an intimate and interdependent relationship with the rest of creation, an inseparable bond that we have stretched through art and technology and been drawn back into by both desire and physical necessity.  This relationship is fraught with uncertainties, which our questions are meant to illuminate.  What does it mean to be human?  How do we define nature?  What kind of responsibilities do humans have to nature?  Both courses will look back to Western antiquity, when these questions were first proposed, then provide a survey of important responses to them and make connections to how these questions continue to vex a present struggling with complex environmental problems.”

Comment: “Students arriving at BC right now are smart enough to be aware that our current relationship to the rest of the natural world is not sustainable, and driven enough to want to do something about it. But they don't know always know where to begin or what arguments to use to convince others.  One of the exciting things to me about teaching this as an interdisciplinary course with an English professor is that current BC students do know a great deal about how powerful a constructed narrative can be in defining or redefining what we believe - social media teaches that lesson very effectively!  Min and I will be examining both philosophical arguments for the human relationship to the rest of the natural world and literary conceptions of that relationship at the same time with the same group of students.” [Vandewall]

The Body in Sickness and Health (Jane Ashley, Nursing)
Reading the Body (Laura Tanner, English)

Excerpts from course proposal: “How do we live to our full human potential in the context of bodily changes, sickness, disability and aging? What is our responsibility to one another in the face of human vulnerabilities such as aging, illness, poverty, and disability? How do we develop and sustain empathy? What is our responsibility to care for – to care about – the vulnerable in our society? As our linked courses address [such] common issues from different disciplinary perspectives, we will use a series of shared assignments and shared readings to encourage students to make connections between their literature and social science classes and to reflect self-consciously on the way that different disciplinary approaches shape how the body is understood.  Our courses will highlight the significance of interrogating the assumptions behind different ways of knowing, including literature and medicine, the social sciences and the humanities, the global and the local, the theoretical and the pragmatic.”

Comment: “I see BC students as unusually interested in, and committed to, social justice issues; many of them have a very idealistic desire to help others. I think that they will find the focus on how we care for others -- in situations of illness, poverty, aging, etc. -- very useful, and I think combining literary and science/social science perspectives will allow them to think about the body in more holistic terms.” [Tanner]

Epidemics, Disease and Humanity (Katherine Dunn, Biology)
Devising Theatre: Disease As Metaphor (Scott Cummings, Theatre)

Excerpts from course proposal: “Empirical observation and experimentation under controlled circumstances are central to the practice of both biology and theatre, each of which derives its particular truths from getting the same results each time an experiment/performance is repeated. This shared foundation will be used to support and connect the different disciplines represented by the two courses…What excites us about pairing these two independent questions under the Enduring Questions rubric is how dependent they will be on each other. The material covered in Kathy’s course will be the source and inspiration for compositions created in Scott’s course, a strategy which of necessary will trigger a dialogue about the methods of our respective disciplines. In effect, Kathy will be teaching a basic core science course with a lab attached, except it will be a theatre lab rather than a biology lab, one which challenges students to transform their scientific knowledge into an artistic form.”

Comment: “The ostensible gap between theatre and biology is a great opportunity to challenge students to jump the gap and find or forge connections between seemingly unrelated ways of thinking.” [Cummings]

“There are lots of different opinions on what a natural science core class should look like. I have never thought that there should be one formula.  Sometimes the survey courses are great; sometimes the topical courses work better, and have more obvious relevance to the casual learner.  And that's probably the appeal to a number of BC undergrads who have no real interest in science as science, but do have an interest in life issues, which involve science.  An epidemics class has always had that appeal; connecting it to a theatre class creates a whole new level of reflection. [Dunn]

Power, Justice, War: The Ancients (Robert Bartlett, Political Science)
Power, Justice, War: The Moderns (Aspen Brinton, Philosophy)

Excerpts from course proposal: “These two courses will explore how enduring questions about power, justice, and war have been addressed from within two different temporal horizons: ancient Greek thought and modern political thought…For example, when Thucydides renders an account of torture, during the same week students could be reading Jean Amery’s account of his torture by the Nazis; when Thucydides gives an account of a leader with an unsavory reputation engaged in double-dealing, this might be paired with Weber’s theorization of leadership in ‘Politics as Vocation’ or Machiavelli’s description of the proper prince.…With the help of Mission and Ministry, we could arrange for students to explore the effects of a long war on ‘the home-front’ by meeting with young American war veterans (or the organizations in Boston that work with them), or perhaps meeting with other peace and justice initiatives through visitors or field trips.”

Comment: “I would hope that the most appealing part of the course might be that students could come to a deeper understanding of what war is about, since it is so much in the news and a significant part of the lives of this generation. They have grown up with war as a constant narrative in the background of their lives, and knowingly or unknowingly, this has affected them. The course might help inspire them to understand more deeply the ethical dilemmas, ambiguities, and rationales behind war in general, as well as helping them learn how to think about justice and peace in light of those dilemmas and ambiguities.” [Brinton]

Spiritual Exercises: Engagement, Empathy, Ethics (Brian Robinette, Theology)
Aesthetic Exercises: Engagement, Empathy, Ethics (Daniel Callahan, Music)

Excerpts from course proposal: “One objective of these linked courses is for students to realize that their own personal experiences can be the departing point for, and even the subject of, scholarly inquiry; conversely, theology, the arts, and philosophy are not mere disciplines to be learned but practices indispensable to being alive and serving the common good. Another objective is for students to realize that deeply meaningful experiences – whether of the true, the beautiful, and the good; or of the divine both in the world and in one’s self – often don't "just happen"; rather, such experiences are usually the result of being situated in the right place and time with the right preparation and mindset. Such experiences are often the result of a type of exercise.

Comment: “While I think it's true that there are more ways than ever to have one's attention hooked or stolen as a result of gadgets, advertisements, slogans, and social media – our minds these days are like noisy jet skis zipping across choppy surfaces – the challenges to cultivating deep attention is hardly new. Read any ancient text on the good life in theology and philosophy and you're likely to find calls for awakening from slumber. Perhaps the most fundamental spiritual act is to be attentive, to be awake, to be fully present to what is happen here and now. Ancient and contemporary voices of wisdom are virtually united in this one imperative: be awake!” [Robinette]

Truth-telling in History (Sylvia Sellers-Garcia, History)
Truth-telling in Literature (Allison Adair, English)
Excerpts from course proposal: “The courses engage a cluster of questions: Is it possible to know the truth about the past? Is it possible to record or to author truth? What obligations does an author have to tell the truth?...[English and history] may understand ‘truth’ in different ways, and our parallel courses will work through these disciplinary assumptions by sharing key readings and assignments.”

Comment: “Discussions of truth – and how to access or communicate that truth – have great sociopolitical significance now, just as they did back in the time of Socrates. With our courses, specifically, we're interested in asking students to consider and to question how facts and narratives are framed: by people, by circumstances, even by the reader. We also want students to question the idea that truth is limited to a binary role (truth vs. fiction/lying/untruth). Could truth – and how folks frame truth – exist instead on a spectrum? We'll have to see.” [Adair]

“I hope that students will find appealing the way that this course asks a question that is both basic and fundamental: Is it possible to know the truth about the past? Though we will be looking at how published writers answer this question, we are also asking students to think about their own ‘truth-telling’ with regard to the past. When you write about your childhood or how you decided to go to college, how accurate are your recollections? Are there things you forget? Are there things you choose deliberately to overlook? Could it be that you are crafting a particular story thanks to what one historian has called ‘the ordering impulse of imagination’? I hope students will find the internal questions as provocative as the external questions we examine in relation to novels, memoirs, histories, and travel accounts.” [Sellers-Garcia]