| HC 2 | Comparative Genocide |
| HC 12 | Sacred Form: Literature and Poetry in India from the Bronze Age to Premodern Times |
| HC 14 | The Interaction of Science and Society |
| HC 16 | Science of the Singing Voice |
| HC 40w | Transformations of Cultural Stories across Disciplines and Texts |
| HC 51 | Music and Society |
| HC 55 | Culture and History of Utopias |
| HC 64 | Neuroscience and Psychology of Art and the Biology of Aesthetics |
| HC 70A | Genetic Engineering in Medicine, Agriculture and Law |
| HC 71 | Cross Cultural Approaches to Media and Culture |
| HC 83W | Politics and Rhetoric of Literature |
| HC 105 | Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Healthcare |
| HC 114 | Architecture from Angeles: The Works of Frank Gehry,Thom Mayne, and Greg Lynn |
| HC 124 | Midwives, Mothers, and Medicine: Perspectives on the History of Childbirth |
| HC 140 | Dominants and Subordinates: Social Psychology of Privilege and Oppression in Public Education |
| HC 171 | Rationality and the Emotions |
| HC 173A | Liberty, Government, and Society in European Thought |
| HC 174 | Future Impact of Nano in New Technologies |
| HC M179 | Critical Vision: History of Art as Social and Political Commentary |
Director: Richard G. Hovannisian, History
Genocide is an extreme
manifestation of conflict in racial, ethnic, and religious interrelations. Its
study in a comparative interdisciplinary perspective is illuminating for an
understanding of more peaceful group relations, the processes by which these
might eventuate in group conflict, and the possibilities for preventative
action. The latter concern is particularly significant given the failure of the
United Nations to act under the provision of the Convention for the Prevention
and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the increasing pressure of population
on scarce resources, the ready availability of highly destructive weapons, and
the habituation of mass killings.
The course is based on a number of case studies presented in theoretical
perspective. The case studies are viewed comparatively to measure similar and
dissimilar circumstances and aspects, and to test certain suggested
characteristics of the victims and the perpetrators, such as differences in
religion, race, or nationality, and the effects of both colonializing and
decolonializing processes. The issues of intent as well as consequences are to
be considered.
Major topics will include theory of genocide, structural analyses of the
societies involved, processes of polarization of group relations, and the role
of ethnic, racial, and religious differences and of ideological commitment in
genocidal conflict.
Application on General Education Requirements: Old L&S GE (Pre Fall 2002) - Social Sciences-Historical Analysis or Social Sciences-Social Analysis; New L&S GE (Fall 2002) - None
Richard G. Hovannisian, Professor of Armenian and Near Eastern History at UCLA, received his BA and MA degrees from UC Berkeley and his Ph.D. from UCLA. A Guggenheim Fellow, he has received distinguished honors for his scholarship, civic activities, and advancement of Armenian studies. He is the author of many articles and books, including Armenia on the Road to Independence; The Republic of Armenia (four volumes); and The Armenian Holocaust. He has also edited and contributed to several other works, including the Armenian Image in History and Literature, The Armenian Genocide in Perspective, and The Armenian Genocide: History, Politics, Ethics. In 1987, he was appointed the first holder of the Armenian Educational Foundation Endowed Chair in Modern Armenian History at UCLA.
HC
12: Sacred Form: Literature and Poetry in India from the Bronze Age to Pre-Modern Times
(4 units)
Director: Hartmut Scharfe, East Asian Languages and Cultures
This course examines the literature of Indian culture and civilization through the development of the early religious poetry (prior to 1,000 BC) to a broad range of literary styles and diverse religious and philosophical movements through the classical, medieval, and pre-modern period (the time before the arrival of the British).
Through translations, we shall examine some important hymns of the Veda and crucial sections of the Upanishads to trace the intellectual development, the heights of Vedic mythology, and the subsequent transformations of it as it develops into what is commonly called Hinduism. The material studied will include poetry of the Rigveda, a documentary film of Vedic ritual, and lyrics of the bhakti movement. The various forms of Hinduism are profiled with sections from the great epics, the popular sectarian writings called Puranas, and selections from tantric works that accent the polarity of the female powers. In a parallel development, the Buddhist and Jain reform movements attained prominence for a while. Buddhism has virtually disappeared from India but it had a major impact on the rest of Asia and maybe the world. Modern Hinduism has a very complex texture that incorporates many of the past ideas and tendencies and tries to define its positions versus other religions that have impacted India in the last centuries.
Application on General Education Requirements: None.
Harmut Scharfe, Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures, was born and educated in Germany. After teaching and studying in India, he came to UCLA in 1965. He is the author of several books, three on the Indian grammarians and two on the Indian state. He has also published dozens of articles dealing with linguistic development in India, Ãurveda, and Indian philosophy. He is currently completing work on a book on education in ancient India.
HC 14: The Interaction of Science and Society
(4 units)
Director: Jeffrey H. Miller, Microbiology and Molecular Genetics
This course addresses the
interaction of Science and Society and examines how this interaction affects
history. The course is aimed at bringing together both science and nonscience
majors for discussions on topics that affect all of society. We shall deal with
case histories, such as Mad Cow Disease and related diseases in humans, and the
spread of the Ebola virus, and AIDS. The course will include topics of current
relevance, such as the issues posed by genetic engineering and by the
possibility of cloning animals and human beings; the debate over how society is
reacting to and needs to react to the prospect that we are losing the war
against infectious disease; and issues posed by the possibility of biological
weapons. One of our texts, The Coming Plague by Laurie Garret, deals with
newly emerging diseases. Another, Guns, Germs, and Steel, by Jared
Diamond of UCLA, looks critically at the fates of human societies.
This course should be of interest to science, history, philosophy, and
political science majors, among others. No special scientific background is
assumed.
Application on General
Education Requirements: Old L&S GE (Pre Fall 002) - Life Sciences; New
L&S GE (Fall 2002) - Scientific Inquiry-Life Sciences; GE Seminar - Yes; GE Writing
II - No
Jeffrey H. Miller
received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in Biochemistry and Molecular
Biology. After two years as a Junior Fellow of the Harvard Society of Fellows,
he joined the faculty of the University of Geneva, Switzerland, where he headed
a research group involved in understanding the molecular basis of mutagenesis.
He is a recipient of the Friedrich Miescher Award of the Swiss Biochemical
Society. After eleven years of teaching and research in Switzerland, he
subsequently joined the faculty at UCLA where he is currently Professor in the
Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics. He is author of over 150
research articles and of six books, including textbooks in Introductory Genetics
and Advanced Molecular Genetics. His most recent book, Discovering Molecular
Genetics, was published in 1996. He has been honored for his distinguished
contributions to the Honors Collegium.
To apply for a spot in this course, please email Prof. Jeffrey H. Miller at jhmiller@microbio.ucla.edu or call 310-825-8460 to schedule an interview.
HC 40W: Transformations of Cultural Stories across Disciplines and
Texts
(5
units)
Director: Cheryl Giuliano, Writing Programs
This course is presented in
two parts, each of which examines the writing and rewriting of a traditional
story type: the adventure story and the “Cinderella” fairy tale. In each part,
the texts will be read as individual works and as examples of transformations of
these classic story forms.
Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, one of the most famous, representative
adventure stories of all time, has been transformed and redefined in many
editions, abridgements, imitations, and remodelings. This course will trace
recreations of the story from its original reporting of Alexander Selkirk’s
shipwreck to Defoe’s radical rewrite of Selkirk’s devastating experience as a
castaway into a survival story and spiritual biography. Defoe’s story was
canonized as the archetypal modern adventure story and as a foundation myth of
modern, enlightened, imperial Europe which began a series of stories motivated
by conservative politics of masculinity and imperialism. Booker prize-winning
writer J.M Coetzee, a white, South African enemy of apartheid, rewrites
Robinson Crusoe in his short novel Foe from the perspective of a
marginalized, female character absent in Defoe’s story.
“Cinderella,” one of the best-known fairy tales in the world, exists in over
700 variants. This part of the course defines and analyzes the popular motifs of
the Cinderella story and studies their transformations across different genres
and time periods in such texts as Shakespeare’s King Lear, Esquival’s
Like Water for Chocolate, and Smiley’s A Thousand Acres. The
changing motifs will be analyzed in terms of cultural values and gender
transformations.
Application on General
Education Requirements: Old L&S GE (Pre Fall 2002) - Humanities-Literature;
New L&S GE (Fall 2002) - None.
Satisfactory completion of this course with a grade of "C" or better will
satisfy the Writing II requirement.
Cheryl F. Giuliano has
a BA in Mathematics from NYU, and an MAT in English Education and a Ph.D. in
Literature from the University of Chicago. She is the author of several articles
in the fields of romantic poetry and composition studies and is a UCLA Luckman
Distinguished Teacher. Her most recent publication is a book of textual
scholarship on Lord Byron’s attitudes toward Wellington, Napoleon, and the
French Revolution (Garland Publishing, 1997), which includes transcriptions of
poems from original manuscripts, descriptions of Byron’s composing process, and
composition histories of the poems.
HC
51: Music and Society
Director: Rogers Brubaker, Sociology
This course will involve both social analysis -- addressing the ways in which the creation, performance, and consumption of music are social activities -- and musical analysis. The musical analysis will focus primarily on Western art music (i.e. “classical” music) of the late eighteenth through the early twentieth century; the social analysis will deal more broadly with different forms of music, not simply with classical music.
Social issues we will consider include the social functions of music; the changing economic and technological foundations for the production, performance, distribution, and consumption of music; the social processes through which genre differences are established or eroded; the multiple uses of music in everyday life; and the ways in which music expresses social identities.
The class will also emphasize close listening and the development of basic skills in reading musical scores and in musical analysis. About half of class time will be devoted to musical analysis; there will also be listening assignments (requiring intensive listening along with the score) each week.
Students should be able to read music. A 10-15 page research paper will be required.
Application on General
Education Requirements: five units of Humanities credit (Visual and Performing Arts Analysis and Practice) OR Society and Culture (Historical Analysis) OR Society and Culture (Social Analysis).
Satisfactory completion of this course with a grade of "C" or better will satisfy the GE Seminar requirement.
Rogers Brubaker is Professor of Sociology at UCLA. He received his B.A. from Harvard College and his Ph.D. from Columbia University. He has written widely on social theory, immigration, citizenship, nationalism, and ethnicity. His books include Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany, Nationalism Reframed, Ethnicity without Groups, and Nationalist Politics and Everyday Ethnicity in a Transylvanian Town. He has a strong amateur interest in music.
HC 55: The Culture and History of Utopias Director: Russell
Jacoby, Political Science
Utopian ideas have longed
served to record the hopes and dreams of society. They have raised perennial
philosophical and ethical arguments about the quest for a perfect society; and
in the more recent past—the 19th century, they both inspired efforts to create
communities of freedom and brother hood and served as engines of social and
political reform. In the 20th century, however, utopian energies have dwindled.
Utopian visions, even, have been denounced as totalitarian and violent.
In this course, we shall consider the culture and history of utopia by
studying major utopian writings, from Thomas More’s Utopia (1516) through
Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward (1888) and beyond. We shall be
concerned both with texts and contexts, history and philosophy. We want to
understand these utopian writings; we want to situate them in their historical
context and consider their strengths, weaknesses, impact, and politics. We shall
also examine the reasons for the collapse of utopianism; and to this end, we
shall consider dystopian or anti-utopian literature. Ultimately, however,
utopianism is not obsolete, and the course will conclude with some recent
ecological and feminist utopian writings. Application on General
Education Requirements: Old L&S GE (Pre-Fall 2002) Humanities-Literature or
Social Sciences-Historical Analysis; New L&S GE (Fall 2002)
None
Russell Jacoby, Adjunct
Professor of History at UCLA, attended the Universities of Chicago, Wisconsin,
and Rochester, where he received his Ph.D. He has taught at numerous schools in
the United States and Canada and has held a Guggenheim and NEH Fellowships. His
books have been translated into eight languages and include Dialectic of
Defeat: Contours of Western Marxism; The Repression of Psychoanalysis: Otto
Fenichel and the Political Freudians; The Last Intellectuals: American Culture
in the Age of Academe; Dogmatic Wisdom: How the Cutter Wars Divert Education and
Distract America; and an edited collection, The Bell Curve Debate:
History, Documents, Opinions. His new book, The End of Utopia, was
published in 1999.
HC
64: Neuroscience and Psychology of Art and Biology of Aesthetics
Director: Dahlia W. Zaidel, Psychology
What is beauty? What is art? How do medical conditions (blindness/deafness) or mental illnesses (schizophrenia, hallucinations) affect art productions? What constitutes creativity and talent?
This course examines the interactions among neuroscience, psychology, anthropology, and philosophy to understand the psychology of beauty and art. Our underlying premise is that beauty, whether of faces, art works, or other objects, is processed by the brain. We shall examine the brain of both the producer and the observer to discover that beauty, whether in the face or elsewhere, has neurobiological underpinnings, despite the fact that the judgment of beauty always seems to be subjective. We shall look at mate-selection strategies in animals and the effects of brain damage in artists. Finally, we shall assess the implications of our discoveries to business and the economy, politics, and science.
Application on General
Education Requirements: Old L&S GE (Pre-Fall 2002) Life Sciences; New L&S GE (Fall 2002) Scientific Inquiry-Life Sciences. Also fulfills GE Seminar requirement - not Writing II.
Dahlia W. Zaidel, Adjunct Professor in the Department of Psychology, specializes in behavioral neuroscience. She has written and published extensively on the biology of the brain and its effect upon behavior. She particularly interested in brain asymmetry, hemispheric specialization, and facial attractiveness. Her recent publications include “Regional Differentiation of Neuron Morphology in Human Left and Right Hippocampus: Comparing Normal to Schizophrenic.” International Journal of Psychophysiology, 34 (1999); and “Neuronal Connectivity, Regional Differentiation, and Brain Damage in Humans.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22 (1999).
(5 units)
(4 units)
(5 units)
HC 70A: Genetic Engineering in Medicine, Agriculture, and Law
(5 units)
Director: Bob Goldberg, Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology
For the first time in human history we have control over our biological destinies by using powerful genetic engineering technologies. What is genetic engineering and how has it affected our lives and society? The class will explore the basic concepts of genetic engineering and its applications in medicine, law, and agriculture. The goal of this class is to put genetic engineering into a scientific and historic perspective so that we can make objective decisions about how this technology should be used in the future.
Questions that will be addressed include: How are genes isolated, reprogrammed, and put back into living cells in order to change their genetic destiny? How has genetic engineering helped push back the frontiers of basic knowledge, created a multi-billion dollar biotechnology industry, and become part of our daily lives? Who owns our genes and can they be patented? How has our ability to manipulate DNA changed our concepts of privacy and made an impact on the criminal justice system? What federal and state laws govern our ability to manipulate living organisms, and what does the Constitution say about science? What is the potential for using genetic engineering to create and combat bioweapons? How is genetic engineering being used to create the livestock and crops of tomorrow? What are the ethical issues related to producing genetically engineered food and powerful new drugs? How does genetic engineering affect the lives of people in the developing world and offer great benefits for their well being in the future? What are the implications of using genetic engineering to diagnose and cure diseases as well as enhance human life?
I will use lectures, films, and discussions to provide a basic understanding of how genetic engineering is carried out and what societal issues are raised by the use of this powerful technology. We will trace the history of genetic engineering technology, learn about the scientists who invented gene splicing techniques, and read Scientific American papers that describe first-hand how genetic engineering has changed our lives. We will also engage in debates about the ethical and societal issues that have arisen as a result of genetic engineering technology and act these debates out in "docudramas" to make them come alive.
At the end of the class, students will have the opportunity to have a "real-life" SRP experience in my laboratory using many of the genetic engineering technologies that they have read about and discussed.
Application on General Education Requirements: Old L&S GE (Pre Fall 2002) - Life Sciences; New L&S GE (Fall 2002) – Scientific Inquiry-Life Sciences
NOTE: This course is NOT for students who have taken the following courses: Life Sciences 3, Life Sciences 4, or Microbiology 7.
Bob Goldberg is a Professor in the Department of Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology and has been on the UCLA faculty since 1976. He received his undergraduate degree in botany from Ohio University and his doctoral degree in plant genetics from the University of Arizona. Professor Goldberg's research focuses on the genes that control seed formation and how to use these genes to make the "super crops" of tomorrow. He has received numerous awards for his contributions to the field of plant molecular biology, including election to the National Academy of Sciences, the National Order for Scientific Merit from the President of Brazil, and being listed as making one of the "Top 20" Professors in UCLA's 75-year history. He has received Distinguished Teaching Awards from the Department of Biology and the Department of Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology, and he has received the Luckmann Distinguished Teaching Award and the Gold Shield Prize for Excellence in Research and Undergraduate Education from the Academic Senate. Recently, Professor Goldberg was awarded a Howard Hughes Medical Institute University Professorship, which is sponsoring this Honors Collegium class.
HC 83W: Politics and the Rhetoric of Literature
Director: G. Jennifer Wilson, Honors Programs
This course examines the relationships among literature, rhetoric, and politics. Drawing on texts from the classical to the present, it examines the way in which art and language become didactic vehicles for the didactic expressions of a culture. The examination of literature and politics will broaden into a general discussion of the development of political discourse in Western thought, in particular, the relationship between the society and the individual, between the politics of the self and the politics of the state, between personal freedom and social obligation, between ideology and the practical business of living, between one nation's or person's values and another's. The course focuses on literary texts which are ostensibly didactic: they examine social ills with the primary aim of exposing them and sometimes with the covert aim of suggesting ways in which we can ameliorate the apparently tragic relationship between human beings and their societies. The class will spend some time practicing close rhetorical analysis as a way of discovering that language, including what Sartre calls "inauthentic" language, is the shaper of both the self and the state; that writing, whether it be propaganda, exposition, of fiction, is always a political, and therefore ethical enterprise.
Satisfactory completion of this course with a grade of "C" or better will satisfy the Writing II requirement.
Application on General
Education Requirements: Old L&S GE (Pre Fall 2002) - Humanities-Literature or Humanities-Language and Linguistics; New L&S GE (Fall 2002) - Arts and Humanities-Literary and Cultural Analysis; GE Seminar/GE Writing II - Yes
G. Jennifer Wilson received her BA at the Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham in England, and her MA and Ph.D. at the University of California, where she has received many awards for her distinguished teaching. Her special field is literature of the American South, and she is the author of articles on the uses of history and politics in literature as well as on honors pedagogy. As Assistant Vice Provost for Honors in the College of Letters and Science, she has a special familiarity with and concern for honor students. She has been recognized by Honors Programs for her outstanding contributions to the Honors Collegium and is a UCLA Luckman Distinguished Teacher.
HC 114: Architecture from Los Angeles: The Works of Frank Gehry, Thom Mayne, and Greg Lynn
Director: Ann Bergren, Classics
The goal of this course is to stimulate interest, understanding, and appreciation of architecture. It is designed to serve students with some interest, but no previous experience with the topic.
The course focuses upon the fact that within the last thirty years or so there has emerged a body of architectural work that—joining other cultural products like film and television—originates from Los Angeles and reaches the world in both material construction and aesthetic influence. This rich and influential aspect of the Los Angeles cultural milieu is represented by three architects: 1) Frank Gehry, arguably the most well-known architect in the world, won the Pritzker Prize – something like a Nobel prize for architecture – in 1989. Critical examples of both early projects and later work – each phase transformed architectural practice and thought - are here in Los Angeles. 2) Thom Mayne has practiced in Los Angeles since the late ‘70’s, is currently on the faculty of the UCLA School of Architecture, and is the 2005 Pritzker laureate. Of his many projects in Los Angeles, the Cal Trans District 7 Headquarters, 2004 joins with the Disney Concert Hall and the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels to form a trio of architectural monuments in the new downtown. 3) Greg Lynn, who is also on the faculty of UCLA Architecture, is the world’s leading pioneer in the use of computer technology for the design and construction of architecture. His work has been featured at the international level for several years. He is the acknowledged exemplar in the use of animation software (the software by which film creates elaborate animations and “special effects”) in the formation of architectural design and manufacture. Ann Bergren, Professor of Classics at UCLA, holds a Ph.D. in Classical Philology and a Master’s in Architecture both from Harvard University. She has taught Classics at Princeton, Stanford, University of Iowa, and Wellesley as well as UCLA; and Architecture at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design and at the Southern California Institute of Architecture. In addition to her published scholarly work in the Classics, she is the author of many articles on architecture and design and is particularly interested in urban architecture and the architecture of the feminine.
HC
140: Social Psychology of Privilege and Oppression in Public Education
Director: Jerome Rabow, Sociology
While we understand a great deal about social arrangements that are permanently unequal (slavery, caste systems), less is understood about social arrangements that are temporarily unequal. Temporary inequality occurs in families and schools. These two institutions are ideally set up to achieve permanent equality in matters of race, gender, and class, but often fail to achieve these goals.
In this course, we shall examine one of these institutions: the contemporary American Public School. The course includes both theoretical and practical components. Our readings on education will focus on the way in which race, gender, class, and sexual orientation tend to become permanent inequalities, establishing deep social arrangements in American life. Concurrently, students will examine the practice of temporary inequality by spending three hours a week tutoring at a public school.
Out of theory and practice, we shall examine how the arrangements of inequalities are encouraged and reinforced in American public education at primary, high school and college levels; and we shall explore possible ways of modifying them.
Application on General Education Requirements: Old L&S GE (Pre-Fall 2002) Social Sciences-Social Analysis; New L&S GE (Fall 2002) None.
Jerome Rabow areceived his Bachelor's degree from Brooklyn College, where he majored in Sociology and Psychology. He subsequently worked with delinquent boys at the Highfields Residential Treatment Center in Hopewell, New Jersey, and was the group therapist at the Provo Experiment in Delinquency Rehabilitation in Utah. Professor Rabow did graduate work at Columbia University and received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. His research interests lie in psychoanalytical sociology, peace attitudes, gender and money, and college students' drinking and driving. His published works include Vital Problems for American Society; Sociology, Students, and Society; Cracks in the Classroom Wall; and Advances in Psychoanalytic Sociology.
HC 171: Rationality and the Emotions
Director: Warren D TenHouten,
Sociology
In the last two decades, there have been remarkable advances in theory and research on the emotions. Emotions have become an important topic in economics, decision theory, management science, political science, education, history, anthropology, sociology, psychology, and in philosophy and other cognitive sciences. There have also been breakthroughs in understanding emotions and feelings in affective neuroscience, stimulated by neuroimaging technologies showing the distribution of activity across various brain structures as emotions are experienced amidst cognitively demanding tasks. These parallel developments have spawned many interdisciplinary fields, including neuroeconomics, neurophilosophy, neuroethology, neuropolitics, neuroanthropology, and neurosociology. Emerging interdisciplinary research efforts are intense, accelerating, and global.
An important topic for such multi-disciplinary investigation is the relationships between emotions and rationality. This relationship has been a contentious issue in the social scientific literature. Rationality has long been a fundamental problem in both classical and contemporary social theory. Many social scientists have considered rationality to be undermined by, or to exclude involvement of, the emotions and emotionality. That is, they have viewed the relationship between emotions and rationality as a negative one. Others, in contrast, have viewed emotions and rationality as interacting synergistically, or as exercising complementary effects. Indeed, recently, in fields ranging from the sociology of emotions to affective neuroscience, there is growing recognition that emotions can positively influence rational decision making and contribute to, or enhance, rationality. It is this emerging consensus -- that there is a positive relationship between emotions and rationality -- that this course proposes to examine. We shall look first historically at philosophers writing on the subject, from the ancients (Aristotle and the Stoics for example) to the Age of Reason (Descartes and Spinoza) and to late 19th and 20th century thinkers such as William James, John Dewey, and Max Weber. We shall then look at more recent work on the relationship between reason and emotions by various cognitive thinkers, neuroscientists, and primatologists. Contemporary experimental studies increasingly show that emotions are not merely correlates of rational thought, but that they are integrated with cognitions in the attainment of effective decision making.
Warren D. TenHouten
is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at UCLA. He received his Ph.D from Michigan State University. A prolific scholar, his forthcoming work is entitled: Emotional power: On the affective foundations of success in love and work. He also recently published A General Theory of Emotions and Social Relations, London and New York: Routledge, 2007 and is author of a many articles on emotions, social relations, time and society, and neurosociology.
HC 173: American Political Thought from the Founders to Lincoln
Director: Daniel Lowenstein,
Law
The readings for this seminar will begin with the period of the Revolution and conclude with political writings and speeches of Lincoln. Most of the writings studied will be by important statesmen, including Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John C. Calhoun, Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln. Grading for the seminar will be based on class participation and short papers commenting on the readings. The seminar is sponsored by the Center for the Liberal Arts and Free Institutions (CLAFI).
Daniel Lowenstein, UCLA professor of law, teaches Election Law, Statutory Interpretation & Legislative Process, Political Theory, and Law & Literature. A leading expert on election law, he has represented members of the House of Representatives in litigation regarding reapportionment and the constitutionality of term limits. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the award-winning theatre troupe Interact and regularly brings the company to the School of Law to perform plays with legal themes, such as Sophocles' Antigone, Ibsen's Rosmerholm, and Wouk's The Caine Mutiny Court Martial. Professor Lowenstein's textbook, Election Law (1995), appears to be the first text on American election law since 1877. He has written on such topics as campaign finance, redistricting, bribery, initiative elections, political parties, commercial speech, and The Merchant of Venice.
HC 174: Future Impact of Nano in New Technologies
Director: James K. Gimzewski,
Chemistry & Biochemistry
Nanotechnology is typically discussed using a metric called the nanometer, which is a billionth of a meter. Certainly, one can classify many technologically and biologically important objects on the scale of the nanometer (nm). For instance, a virus has a diameter of around several tenths of a nanometer. DNA is around a nanometer in diameter but is over a half a meter long. Proteins have dimensions of a few nanometers. A cell is typically several thousand nanometers. In the technological world, the insulating gap in a transistor is nanometric. Molecules that we use every day, such as pharmaceuticals and gasoline, are a bit more or less than a nanometer, and polymers or plastics are made of long spaghetti-like molecules less than a nanometer in diameter but several thousand nanometers long. Terms such as nanoparticles and nanomedicine are used here to describe situations in which critical aspects of the whole or parts of the system are determined by nanometric dimensions in the range of 1--100 nm. The anticipated markets for nanotechnology, on the other hand, are measured in billions. Nanotechnology's economic impact in the coming 15--20 years is fragmented into many areas in units of $US billion per year and indicate a $1-trillion-per-year market. The science behind nanotechnology (nanoscience) is usually lumped under the rubric nanotechnology, and the evolutions of nanoscience and resultant technologies run hand in hand. The conception of the technology is frequently ahead of the science. In many cases, "nanotechnology" is merely used to describe the future in a fictional sense. It is a subject about which everyone, be they artists, scientists, politicians or housewives, doctors, scientists and engineers have their own “dreams and nightmares”. Nanotechnology, is materialism's “endgame,” meaning that it is at once about materiality, in the sense of “controlling matter at a molecular level,” and also presents the potential to undermine that way of thinking altogether. Roy Ascott summarizes this way of thinking: “Materialists may see working in the nano field as the end game, but it is not necessary to embrace a radical transcendentalism to see that nano is located between the material density of our everyday world and the numinous spaces of subatomic immateriality”. In this sense there is an important role for humanists and artists also to reflect upon and participate in the creation of what is also a philosophical transformation for humankind.
This course is more than the science behind nanotechnology, its about the impacts and shifts in technology and how they will potentially influence medical care, the environment and energy issues as well as military, government and economics. Like technology today it is impossible to separate nano from cultural and societal issues that are likely to change in a negative way if we continue corporate-industrial manufacture and welfare. No specialty knowledge of science or mathematics is needed to succeed in this course.
James K. Gimzewski
is Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Director of the CNSI Core SPM Laboratory and Co-Director of the Art|Sci Center at UCLA. Prior to joining the UCLA faculty, he was a group leader at IBM Zurich Research Laboratory, where he was involved in nanoscale science and technology issues for more than 18 years. Dr. Gimzewski pioneered research on mechanical and electrical contacts with single atoms and molecules using scanning tunneling microscopy and was one of the first persons to image molecules with STM. His accomplishments include the first STM-based fabrication of molecular suprastructures at room temperature using mechanical forces to push molecules across surfaces, the discovery of single molecule rotors and the development of new micromechanical sensors based on nanotechnology, which explore ultimate limits of sensitivity and measurement. His current interests are in the exploration of nanoscience in medicine and microbiology. He has established extensive collaborations with the UCLA Medical and Dental Schools. He is actively involved in using Media Art and technologies to people of all ages to bring back excitement in science with a focus on nanotechnology, distant learning and remote control of experiments by the public.
HC M179: The Critical Vision: A History of Art as Social and
Political Commentary Director: Paul VonBlum,
Center for African American Studies
For several centuries, the
visual art forms of painting, graphic art, photography, and sculpture have been
used as vehicles for social and political commentary. Our course explores this
tradition, with an emphasis on modern art in the twentieth century. We shall
focus particularly on the value of art as social, political, and historical
inquiry and on its effectiveness in communicating political ideas and
criticisms. Art works from Europe, the United States, Africa, and Latin America
treat such themes as war, poverty, persecution, alienation, racism, bureaucracy,
and political corruption. The seminar incorporates current research on
contemporary social and political art, including art works such as Latino and
African American mural art, poster and cartoon art, women's issues in visual
art, and new forms of public art such as assemblage, guerrilla, and conceptual
art.
Application on General
Education Requirements: None
Paul Von Blum taught at
the University of California at Berkeley from 1968-1979, where he headed the
interdisciplinary social science major for six years and where he has been
honored for his distinguished teaching. He has taught at UCLA since 1980,
serving in several social science and humanities departments and programs and
receiving a UCLA Distinguished Teaching Award in 1986. He has also taught as a
student-recommended faculty member at UC Irvine. Author of four books and more
than fifty articles and reviews on the relationship of art, culture, and
society, he has lectured widely in the United States, Europe, Africa, and Latin
America.
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