Spring 2011 Benjamin Franklin Seminars Anthropology Benjamin ...

Toni BowersBFS Sector IIIThis course is designed to give advanced undergraduates the opportunity to experienceSamuel Richardson’s masterpiece Clarissa, the most important work of eighteenth-centuryBritish prose fiction. Several weeks will be devoted to closely reading the novel. Then, studentswill consider critical interpretations of Clarissa as well as works of literary theory that mayinform new interpretations of the novel, or of epistolary fiction in general.This is the second semester of a two-semester course in Epistolary Fiction. Each of the twosemester-long sections can stand alone, and each fulfills different requirements within theEnglish major. The first semester is historically and generically driven, the second semester ismore theoretically driven and is built around a single epistolary novel, Clarissa.ENGL-392-401, Cross Listed with: CINE-392-401Contemporary Documentary CinemaTR 12-1:30PMTim CorriganBFS Sector IIISyllabusThis course will engage the multiple historical, technological, and economic changes that havemade contemporary documentary cinema arguably the most vital and inventive film practicetoday. During the first part of the semester, we will examine the historical traditions that havedefined documentary film through the twentieth century: from early “actualities” and the films ofRobert Flaherty in the 1920s through the experiments with cinema vérité and direct cinema in the1950s and 1960s. Alongside these practices, we will read various critical and theoreticalpositions, such as those found in the writings of Dziga Vertov, John Grierson, and Jean Rouch.The second half of the course will tackle the dynamic variety of documentary work made since1980. This will include films by Chris Marker, Errol Morris, Trinh T. Minh-ha, and others wherethe confluence of a digital revolution and the global expansion of different film practices haverapidly redefined the potential and importance of documentary cinema. Requirements willinclude a seminar presentation, a short analytical essay, and a research project. There are noprerequisites.ENGL-395-401, Cross Listed with: COML 395Topics in Cultural Studies: Globalization and the Fate of LiteratureR- 1:30-4:30James EnglishBFS sector III, XCThe process called globalization has been going on for centuries, but the last few decades havewitnessed a dramatically rapid emergence of new systems and technologies of global exchange.Our task in this class will be to consider the ways these developments are affecting literature –reshaping both the internal form of literary works themselves and the larger system of literary

marketing and consumption. We will look at some of the more influential stories of the globalthat have been offered by contemporary English-language novelists: “world fictions” that seemto cut loose from any particular national literary tradition or framework in order to map theirthemes and characters onto a space of constant and often troubling transnational contact. And wewill put these narratives into the context of a literary world system that is establishing newgenres, new readerships, new vehicles of distribution and promotion, new relations betweenprint, film, television, and video.Reading for the course will consist of seven or eight major literary works in the emergent canonof “global English,” possibly including novels by Salman Rushdie, Doris Lessing, Theresa HakKyung Cha, J.M Coetzee, V. S. Naipaul, Jessica Hagedorn, Kazuo Ishiguro, Ken Saro Wiwa,William Gibson, Witi Ihimaera, Michael Ondaatje, or Athol Fugard. We will also study severalrecent films, including at least two that were adapted from these novels. Throughout the semesterwe will also be reading essays and excerpts from some of the major scholars and theorists ofglobalization, including economists, sociologists, and anthropologists as well as literary critics.Written work will include three one-hour exams and a 15-page term paper based on independentresearch and submitted in draft as well as final form.The course is intended as an introduction; no previous coursework or background is expected. Itis, however, an Honors seminar designed for Franklin Scholars in the College and JosephWharton Scholars at Wharton. Others will be admitted by permission as space allows.Environmental StudiesENVS-406-401, Cross Listed with: HSOC-406-401Community Based Environmental HealthTR-1:30-3:00Richard PepinoBFS sector VIIFrom the fall of the Roman Empire to Love Canal to the epidemics of asthma, childhood obesityand lead poisoning in West Philadelphia, the impact of the environment on health has been acontinuous challenge to society. The environment can affect people’s health more strongly thanbiological factors, medical care and lifestyle. The water we drink, the food we eat, the air webreathe, and the neighborhood we live in are all components of the environment that impact ourhealth. Some estimates, based on morbidity and mortality statistics, indicate that the impact ofthe environment on health is as high as 80%. These impacts are particularly significant in urbanareas like West Philadelphia. Over the last 20 years, the field of environmental health hasmatured and expanded to become one of the most comprehensive and humanly relevantdisciplines in science.This course will examine not only the toxicity of physical agents, but also the effects on humanhealth of lifestyle, social and economic factors, and the built environment. Topics include cancerclusters, water borne diseases, radon and lung cancer, lead poisoning, environmental tobaccosmoke, respiratory diseases and obesity. Students will research the health impacts of classicindustrial pollution case studies in the US. Class discussions will also include risk

communication, community outreach and education, access to health care and impact onvulnerable populations. Each student will have the opportunity to focus on Public Health,Environmental Protection, Public Policy, and Environmental Education issues as they discussapproaches to mitigating environmental health risks.This honors seminar will consist of lectures, guest speakers, readings, student presentations,discussions, research, and community service. The students will have two small researchassignments including an Environmental and Health Policy Analysis and an Industrial PollutionCase Study Analysis. Both assignments will include class presentations. The major researchassignment for the course will be a problem-oriented research paper and presentation on a topicrelated to community-based environmental health selected by the student. In this paper, thestudent must also devise practical recommendations for the problem based on their research.Germanic LanguagesGRMN-233-401, Cross Listed with: COML-233-401Censored!TR 1:30-3Bethany WigginBFS sector III, XCAlthough its pages may appear innocuous enough, bound innocently between non-descriptcovers, the book has frequently become the locus of intense suspicion, legal legislation, andvarious cultural struggles. But what causes a book to blow its cover? In this course we willconsider a range of specific censorship cases in the west since the invention of the printed bookto the present day. We will consider the role of various censorship authorities (both religious andsecular) and grapple with the timely question about whether censorship is ever justified inbuilding a better society. Case studies will focus on many well-known figures (such as MartinLuther, John Milton, Voltaire, Benjamin Franklin, Goethe, Karl Marx, and Salman Rushdie) aswell as lesser-known authors, particularly Anonymous (who may have chosen to conceal heridentity to avoid pursuit by the Censor).GRMN-264-401, Cross Listed with: COML-260-401/JWST264-401Translating Cultures: Literature in & on TranslationTR-10:30-12:00Kathryn HellersteinBFS Sector III“Languages are not strangers to one another,” writes the great critic and translator WalterBenjamin. Yet two people who speak different languages have a difficult time talking to oneanother, unless they both know a third, common language or can find someone who knows boththeir languages to translate what they want to say. Without translation, most of us would not beable to read the Bible or Homer, the foundations of Western culture. Americans wouldn’t knowmuch about the cultures of Europe, China, Africa, South America, and the Middle East. Andpeople who live in or come from these places would not know much about American culture.Without translation, Americans would not know much about the diversity of cultures within

This course offers a multifaceted, philosophical introduction to business ethics. We begin withthe “big” questions about economic life. What is the rationale for capitalism? Is it just? Whoshould make the most money? How should we decide who does the hard work? What role (ifany) does deception play in our system? After looking at the big issues, we will look at moreconcrete questions about the obligations of corporations, managers and employees. Docorporations have any obligations besides making money for their shareholders? Can a managerfire an employee just because he doesn’t like him? If a multinational operates in a country wherechild labor is the norm, does that make it alright for the company to hire children? Readings willbe drawn from moral and political philosophy, business reviews, economics, magazines, andpopular literature. Special emphasis will be placed on issues relating to labor and employment.Near Eastern Languages & CivilizationsNELC-356-401, Cross Listed with: NELC-356/RELS-418/JWST-356/JWST-555/COML-556/NELC-556Ancient Interpretations of the BibleTR-10:30-12:00David SternBFS sector IVChristianity and Judaism are often called “Biblical religions” because they are believed to befounded upon the Bible. But the truth of the matter is that it was less the Bible itself than theparticular ways in which the Bible was read and interpreted by Christians and Jews that shapedthe development of these two religions and that also marked the difference between them. Sotoo, ancient Biblical interpretation —Jewish and Christian— laid the groundwork for anddeveloped virtually all the techniques and methods that have dominated literary criticism andhermeneutics (the science of interpretation) since then.NursingNURS-339-401, Cross Listed with: GSOC-339-401/HSOC-339-401“Aging, Beauty, and Sexuality”: Psychological Gerontology in the 21st CenturyW-4:00-7:00Sarah Hope KaganBFS Sector IThis honors course examines the psychological gerontology of advancing age and identity in the21st century. Examination emphasizes gendered notions of beauty and sexuality in ageing andthe life span to foster discourse around historical notions and images of beauty and ugliness inlate life in contrast to contemporary messages of attractiveness and age represented by bothwomen and men. The course is designed to create intellectual foundations as place from which tocritique socially mediated and personally conveyed images and messages from a variety ofmedia and their influence on intrapersonal and interpersonal constructions and social processes.Contemporary and historical ideas encompassing stereotypical and idealized views of the olderperson are employed to reflect dialogue around readings and field work.Classical and

contemporary scholarship from gerontology, anthropology, biomedicine and surgery, nursing,and marketing among other disciplines as well as select lay literature are critiqued and comparedwith interpretation of field work to build understandings of diverse individual, familial, andcultural impressions of aging and identity. Skills for participant observer field work in thetradition of thick description are built to allow reflection and analysis of discourse about aging,beauty, sexuality, and other relevant aspects of human identity. This course satisfies the Society& Social Structures Sector for Nursing Class of 2012 and Beyond.PhysicsPHYS 171-301/302 (lab) /303 (lab), Cross Listed with:Honors Physics I: Mechanics and Wave MotionMWF-10:00-11:00M-02:00-3:00Larry GladneySector VI all classes QDAThis course parallels and extends the content of PHYS 150, at a significantly highermathematical level. Recommended for well-prepared students in engineering and the physicalsciences, and particularly for those planning to major in physics. Classical laws of motion:interaction between particles; conservation laws and symmetry principles; rigid body motion;noninertial reference frames; oscillations.Political SciencePSCI-498-401, Cross Listed with:Shakespeare and Political TheoryM-3:30-6:30Jeffrey GreenSyllabusThis seminar explores the question of Shakespeare as a political theorist by reading six of hisplays, examining them in conjunction with the work of prominent theorists of politics, includingAristotle, Machiavelli, Locke, Nietzsche, Max Weber, Joseph Schumpeter, and Hannah Arendt.Our goal will be to link the dramatization of politics to its theorization, so that we can betterunderstand and interrogate key institutions and practices of modern citizenship and the modernstate. We will pay special attention to such topics as the nature of charisma and charismaticauthority, competing models of popular power, the varieties of apoliticism and their significance,the moral status of thinking, the role of fortune in political affairs, a critical appraisal of the willto know, and competing conceptualizations of colonialism. The six Shakespeare plays to be readas part of the course are: Julius Caesar, Coriolanus, Hamlet, Richard II, Othello, and TheTempest. This course is open to both graduate students and undergraduates.Psychology

Spring 2011 Benjamin Franklin SeminarsCourse NumberCross-ListedCoursesCourse Title Sector Instructor TimeLGST-101-301 Introduction to Law and Legal Process Gail Sarfaty MW-1:30-3:00LGST-210-301 Corp Responsibility and Ethics Thomas J. Donaldson MW 9-10:30NELC-356-401NURS-339-401PHYS 171-301/302(lab) /303 (lab)JWST-356-401/RELS-418-401GSOC-339-401/HSOC-339-401Ancient Interpretations of the Bible BFS Sector IV David Stern TR-10:30-12Aging, Beauty, and Sexuality: PsychologicalGerontology in the 21st Century"Honors Physics I: Mechanics and Wave MotionBFS Sector I Sarah Hope Kagan W-4-7Sector VI all classesQDALarry GladneyMWF-10-11/M-2-3PSCI-498-401 Shakespeare and Political Theory BFS sector IV Jeffrey Green M-3:30-6:30PSYC-001-301Introduction to Experimental PsychologySector V all classesQDAPaul Rozin TR 1:30-3RUSS-202-301 Tolstoy BFS Sector III Julia Verkolantsev TR 1:30-3THAR-279-401URBS-178-401GSOC-279-401/ENGL-356-401AFRC-078-401/HIST 173-401Women in Theatre BFS sector IV Rose Malague TR 3-4:30Urban University Community Relations:Faculty/Student Collaborative Action SeminarCDUS Ira Harkavy W 2-5

we will attend are Sarah Ruhl’s In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play, directed by BlankaZizka at the Wilma Theater; Let Me Down Easy, written and performed by Anna Deavere Smithat the Philadelphia Theatre Company; Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues, to be performed bystudents on Penn’s campus; and Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Ruined, directed byMaria Mileaf at the PTC. The class will include conversations with women working in theprofessional theatre.Urban StudiesURBS-178-401, Cross Listed with: AFRC-078-401/HIST 173-401Urban University Community Relations: Faculty/Student Collaborative Action SeminarTR 4:30-6Ira HarkavyCDUSSyllabusOne of the seminar’s aims is to help students develop their capacity to solve strategic, real-worldproblems by working collaboratively in the classroom and in the West Philadelphia community.Students work as members of research teams to help solve universal problems (e.g., poverty,poor schooling, inadequate health care, etc.) as they are manifested in Penn’s local geographiccommunity of West Philadelphia.The seminar currently focuses on improving education, specifically college and career readinessand pathways. Specifically, students focus their problem-solving research at Sayre High Schoolin West Philadelphia, which functions as the real-world site for the seminar’s activities. Studentstypically are engaged in academically based service-learning at the Sayre School, with theprimary activities occurring on Mondays from 3-5 and Tuesdays from 4-6. Other arrangementscan be made at the school if needed.Another goal of the seminar is to help students develop proposals as to how a Pennundergraduate education might better empower students to produce, not simply “consume,”societally-useful knowledge, as well as function as life-long societally-useful citizens.