NCSSM COURSE CAtAlOG - North Carolina School of Science and ...

activities include a group project, a paper linking IR theory with current events, a
documentary viewing, discussions of current events, and other assignments.
SS360 Topics in History and Social Science
One trimester
Credit: One unit core elective credit.
Prerequisite: Completion of at least two trimesters of AS303 Writing and
American Studies or AS305 American Studies.
Meeting Pattern: Three periods per week including lab.
This course focuses on a specific discipline or subject within the fields of history or
social science. Students continue to hone the critical thinking skills they develop
in their core required humanities courses, and they gain further practice in
writing the academic essay. Content and methodology will change annually,
based upon the topic for the academic year.
SS362 Twentieth-Century Philosophy
One trimester
Credit: One unit core elective credit.
Meeting pattern: Three periods per week including lab.
This is a course on philosophy and its cultural context from 1840 to the present.
We begin in the 1840s and 1850s with figures like Kierkegaard, who is perhaps
the first philosopher to articulate the problem of existence and the possibility
that life may be meaningless. Kierkegaard’s emphasis on choice and on faith
contrasts markedly with a figure like Nietzsche, who proclaimed the death of
God and who interprets the concepts of choice and will in a sharply different
way. Our work also involves examining the transformations in what Stephen Kern
has called the “culture of time and space,” and how changes in views of the
physical universe are reflected in Heidegger’s philosophy of being and time.
Later in the trimester, we examine Adorno and Horkheimer’s analysis of the
nihilistic elements in the legacy of the Enlightenment and their critique of the
“culture industry,” along with Michel Foucault’s theory of power and its
dynamics. Toward the end of the course, we read works like Judith Butler’s
Gender Trouble and examine the social construction of gender. We also
examine the philosophic novel and read works by Jean-Paul Sartre, Georges
Bernanos, and Dostoevsky. Grades are based on a variety of reading
commentaries and essays. Classes are organized like seminars and are
discussion-based, with students often taking the lead on various philosophic
topics.
SS368 Introductory Sociology
One trimester
Credit: One unit core elective credit.
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