Spring 2025 Colloquia
Registration on Nov. 11th, 2024
Overenrolls in DWC sections are not allowed. If you have an emergency or exceptional reason why you cannot enroll in an available seat, you may fill out this form to request a different section. However, completion of the form does not guarantee over enrollment. Students must register for an open seat if available. Students with holds should submit an exception form if they are not able to register for DWC courses. The director and/or Mrs. Belcher will not consider in-person requests without submission of this form. https://forms.office.com/r/uWuVFC5vmS.
DWC 202 C01: T 2:30-4:20, S01 & S02: R 2:30-4:20
Time and Time Travel
Mark Pedretti, Alex Moffett
In his Confessions, Augustine asks, “What then is time? If no one asks me, I know; if I want to explain it to a questioner, I do not know.” Indeed, the nature of time — its form and movement, its objective existence and subjective experience — has been a persistent problematic throughout the philosophical history of Western Civilization. In the modern era, it has also been the locus for imaginative exploration in various genres of speculative fiction: the time travel story. From Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court to Avengers: Endgame, time travel is a recurring plot device enabling narrative possibilities outside of linear chronology. But what do these time travel narratives tell us about the concept of time? Conversely, what notions of time do they rely upon? Where does narrative’s imaginative horizon expand the limits of our conceptual understanding of time?
This colloquium intends to place philosophical and scientific concepts of time into dialogue with a host of time travel narratives in both literature and film, in order to interrogate these questions. Students will develop an understanding of different notions of time throughout the history of the West, and will use that conceptual apparatus as a heuristic for interpreting those speculative texts, ultimately working towards a research project in which they select a time travel narrative not covered in class and use the analytical vocabulary they have cultivated as a means for interpreting it.
DWC 202 C02: T 10:30-12:20, S03 & S04: R 10:30-12:20 Our Monsters, Ourselves
Sharon Murphy, Elizabeth Bridgham
“Our Monsters, Ourselves” will study the development of western thinking about monsters throughout history. The course will use monsters as a lens though which to study how different cultures imagined ‘the other’, using it to define and distinguish their own cultural norms and boundaries, and how the development of western thinking about monsters reflects changes in western culture itself. Students will read an array of interdisciplinary texts that focus on some kind of monstrosity, including texts drawn from history, literature, philosophy, theology, art and archaeology, anthropology, and folklore. In so doing, they will encounter a wide variety of monsters and will consider the cultural importance of vampires, werewolves, zombies, and even such human “monsters” as Jack the Ripper. By the end of the course, students will have developed an understanding of what these monsters say about the cultures that created them.
DWC 202 C03: T 8:30-10:20, S05 & S06: R 8:30-10:20
Race & Identity in Contemporary America
Iain Bernhoft, Jiyoon Im
Questions of identity lie at the heart of American politics and culture. Your race, your sexual orientation, your chosen pronouns—these are the categories by which we define ourselves and our politics. At the same time, we understand the ways in which certain identities are marginalized or subject to violence. Hence, fundamental questions of freedom, justice, and representation are newly cast in terms of “identity.” This course examines the way we talk about identity in America today—race, gender, and sexual identity. It will ask questions such as: To what extent are individuals free to choose their identity? What kinds of assumptions do we make about race, gender, and sexual identity, and why? What role should nature—and human nature—play in navigating these issues? Why are these identity claims so controversial in an age dominated by self-expression and equality? And what is the Catholic response to these urgent moral claims? While the course will focus on contemporary America, it will also include perspectives from Britain, Jamaica, Ghana, and South Africa in order to help us see beyond the American bubble. Our readings will include Anglo-American essays, novels, and films from the 21st century.
DWC 202 C04: F 10:30-12:20, S07 & S08: W 10:30-12:20
Medical London: Mapping Health, Wealth, and Inequality
Licia Carlson, Stephanie Boeninger
Maps can serve as important scientific tools to help us understand the spread and transmission of disease. But they are also important visualizations of illness as a collective phenomenon, something that goes beyond the incommunicable pain of the individual. As Tom Koch argues “It is in the map that a consistent collection of symptoms is located by a dot, bar, or ‘x’ to mark the location of the person who suffers. In the map those cases are joined in a manner that asserts their commonality in a way all can see”. In this course we will examine the ways in which maps of London have been used throughout history to understand and mark the effects of disease, and the moments when maps have contributed to surprising medical advancements and the saving of many lives.
DWC 202 C06: M 12:30-2:20, S09 & S10: W 12:30-2:20
Dark Psychology and Literature
Olga Limnios, Gregory Charpentier
“Don’t get too close, it’s dark inside; it’s where my demons hide.” This line speaks to all of us. No wonder the song it comes from—“Demons” by Imagine Dragons—was such a huge hit. However, shining a light on the dark corners of human psyche is not an exclusive purview of rock musicians. Centuries before Imagine Dragons, Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, John Milton, Edgar Allan Poe, Mary Shelley, and Nikolai Gogol devoted their art and skill to examining the human condition in all its manifestations, including such problematic human traits as manipulation, coercion, and hubris. After them, came Oscar Wilde, Arthur Miller, Paulo Coehlo, and Chuck Palahniuk (among others) and continued shining the light on the shadowy aspects of our behavior. In turn, Freud, Frankel, Adler, and Jung offered professional psychological insight into these darker manifestations of human nature.
In this class, we will examine both the literary representations of human darkness and attempt to uncover their psychological roots. We will center on the theme of self-deceit and trace it to all the unsavory behaviors exhibited by Othello, Satan, Dr. Frankenstein and numerous other literary personages. In the process, we will also look inside ourselves. Like an ancient Greek tragedy, this course will not provide you with the answers but will rather invite you to contemplate. Throughout the semester, you will be thinking about what drives us to hurt ourselves and others, why is beauty so complex that it can damage as well as uplift, what role does fear play in the way we approach and bend reality. Ultimately, you will walk away from this course with a more complete understanding of what it means to be human—even if that completion involves the dark side of our psychology.
DWC 202 C07: M 12:30-2:20, S11 & S12: W 12:30-2:20
Clinical Bioethics
Gina Noia, Amy Delaney
This course provides an in-depth study of topics in clinical bioethics. Topics may include decision-making capacity, informed consent, proxy decision makers, pediatric ethics, confidentiality, allocating and rationing care, health care disparities, futility, moral distress. Students will learn the view of the human person and health care that grounds Catholic teaching on the professional-patient relationship, established secular bioethical and legal norms for each topic, and perspectives on controversial topics. In light of these norms and perspectives, students will consider real-life cases and participate in simulation-based learning.
DWC 202 C08: T 12:30-2:20, S15 & S16: R 12:30-2:20
The Neuroscience, Psychology, and Ethics of Social Status
Dominic Verner O.P., Victoria Templer
This colloquium will consider the nature of human sociality, the human desire for status and recognition, and important ethical questions surrounding particular social behaviors such as the giving of honor and shame. We will approach these topics through the lens of contemporary neuroscience and psychology as well as the Aristotelean-Thomistic tradition of philosophy and theology. Over the course of our semester, we will consider the following questions from this interdisciplinary perspective: to what extent are our brains “wired” to recognize and to form social hierarchies? How does the neuroscience of emotion relate to social interactions? To what extent have our brains and motivated behaviors been shaped by social interactions throughout cognitive evolution? What role might honor, and prestige have played in the evolution of our species? How does human sociality compare to other social animals? Is it possible to not really care what other people think of you? Can the desire to be “cool” be sanctified? When is it good to give and to seek honor? Is it ever morally justified to shame someone?
DWC 202 C09: W 12:30-2:20, S17 & S18: M 12:30-2:20
Disease, Catastrophes, and Social and Artistic Mobilizations in the Caribbean
Monica Simal, Jessica Mulligan
The Caribbean is a complex region that has been historically affected by the impact of Western colonization, slavery, revolutions, migration, and neocolonial policies, whose consequences shape the economic, political, and social realities of its various islands. Through examining how the region has been impacted by diseases, epidemics, environmental disasters, and catastrophic natural events that have put infrastructure and health systems at risk and in precarious situations, students will understand concepts such as biopolitics, necropolitics, pneumo-politics, humanitarian coloniality, compound crisis, decolonization, environmental justice, social displacements, etc.er Antilles by European explorers in the 15th century, disease, disaster, and political and social transformation have been inextricably linked in the Caribbean. Using literature, art, theology, and philosophy, we will explore key moments in the history of the region where catastrophe and disease catalyzed political and social transformation. More than just a source of suffering and destruction, encounters with disease and disaster have also sparked new artistic movements, changes in political regime, and literary and social movements.
This seminar will enhance and foster the skills of bilingual students (English and Spanish) currently enrolled in DWC courses. We welcome Heritage Speakers, Native Spanish Speakers, as well as intermediate and advanced level Spanish students.
DWC 202 C10: R 12:30-2:20, S19 & S20: M 12:30-2:20
Islam, Reason, and Reform
Emann Allebban, Bilal Ibrahim
What is the status of reason in Islam? What is the relationship between philosophy, theology, and science? What is the role of reason in interpreting scriptural sources? What role did mystical traditions play in the intellectual history of the Islamic world? Does Islam need reform? This colloquium explores the complex interplay between reason and revelation in Islamic traditions. More broadly, what were the different ways of “knowing” about the self and the world? How was Islamic thought and science influenced by Western traditions, and vice versa?
We will examine central topics and problems in Islamic intellectual history, including knowledge and its foundations, God’s existence and attributes, science and cosmology, and mysticism. In addition to the major ideas and works of Islamic thought, we will explore social and cultural aspects of the intellectual tradition, including the translation movement, institutions of learning, and patronage. Finally, we will consider the Islamic world’s encounter with imperialism and modernity. How did the Islamic world respond to Westernization? Can Islamic thought provide solutions to modern problems in the Muslim world, from politics to social issues of the day?
DWC 202 C12: T 12:30-2:20, S23 & S24: R 12:30-2:20
War and Peace
John Lawless, Elizabeth Palazzolo
Few topics are as important in the study of Western Civilization as consideration of our recurring pursuit of warfare and our dogged attempts to achieve and to preserve peace. This colloquium looks at both theoretical reflections (Is war inevitable? in our genes? Are we psychologically uneasy with lasting peace? Is there an identifiable “western” way of war and peace?) and practical matters of waging war (such as sieges, tactics, weapons, etc.) and of maintaining lasting peace in the ancient, medieval, early modern, and modern periods. We will have opportunities to look at how history, literature, art, film and music reflect the glory and horror of war or poignantly express the deep human longing for peace.
DWC 202 C13: T 2:30-4:20, S25 & S26: R 2:30-4:20
Me, Myself and I: The Reading and Writing of Autobiography
Alison Espach, Cristina Rodriguez, Eric Bennett
How do we write ourselves? This interdisciplinary course will ask students to examine the autobiography from both sides of the page, as authors and as critics. Autobiography as a category insists on identifying the author as the speaker: the class readings will interrogate who gets the privilege to speak for themselves, and how and why writers from different backgrounds – social, religious, ethnic, racial, national – might tell their stories differently. We will also study autobiography’s other major claim: that it’s true. We will examine this claim by asking the following questions: What is literature’s relationship to truth? What is memory’s relationship to truth? What is an individual’s relationship to the truth? And can anything crafted really be true?
In addition to studying multiple genres of autobiography, including memoir, personal essay, and autobiographical fiction, we will also practice writing in these genres: students will write and workshop original pieces that imitate an author’s prose style and form. The art of imitation is one practiced by many great thinkers and writers throughout history because there is no better way to engage with the specific choices made by each author. It also gives students the rare opportunity to “try on” a prose style and format as they develop and discover their own. “Me, Myself, & I” is grounded in the belief that reading and writing are acts of self-creation, as well as direct ways of engaging with the world. This course aims to give students the necessary tools to better understand and express their own identity in an increasingly global and complicated world. Authors include St. Augustine, Frederick Douglas, Richard Wright, Thomas Merton, Anne Sexton, Richard Rodriguez, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and others.
DWC 202 C14: R 4:30-6:20, S27 & S28: M 4:30-6:20
How the Right Became Right: The Origins and Development of Modern American Conservative Thought
James Keating, Sandra Keating
This colloquium investigates the political, religious, historical, and cultural background of modern American conservative thought. Because conservatism represents a significant dimension of contemporary politics, and has allied movements in philosophy, aesthetics, and religion, we believe that offering such a colloquium will be of great interest and contemporary relevance to our students, and will also serve as a fitting capstone to the first three semesters of DWC. Students will engage with a wide variety of primary texts from the history of American conservative thought. This legacy is quite rich, and encompasses themes beginning with the founding of the American republic and the debates about the ratification of the constitution, outlined in The Federalist Papers, to current issues uniting (and possibly dividing) traditional conservatives, neoconservatives, and libertarians. The colloquium begins by examining the global political background – national socialist, collectivist, and totalitarian – against which American conservative thought developed. It ends by examining current issues important to American conservative intellectuals, such as the defense of free speech.
DWC 202 C15: F 12:30-2:20, S29 & S30: T 12:30-2:20
Entwined Faiths: Theological and Cultural Interactions Between Judaism and Christianity Across the Ages
Arthur Urbano, Benny Bar-Lavi
Judaism and Christianity have typically been understood as two autonomous religions that, following a “parting of the ways,” have, by and large, developed separately from each other. However, by engaging in mutual reflection, both religions have profoundly influenced each other’s theological, philosophical, hermeneutical, and aesthetic production. This course will trace and examine the often neglected and misunderstood mutual religious influence that has shaped Judaism and Christianity from Late Antiquity to the present day. We will explore how key questions and concepts, such as creatio ex nihilo, the problem of evil, the compatibility of divine omniscience with moral agency, and the relationship between reason and revelation, among others, were addressed by drawing on each other’s ideas and insights.
We will delve into specific examples, such as Philo of Alexandria’s influence on St. Augustine, the Christian roots of Medieval Jewish pietism, Maimonides’ impact on Aquinas, who, in turn, shaped the Jewish thought of Late Medieval Spain. We’ll also explore the decisive role of medieval Christian art in illustrated Jewish books, the mutual influence of Biblical hermeneutics in Early Modernity, and the shared effort to address problems related to theodicy, multiculturalism, and religious toleration in the 20th and 21st centuries. Some of these exchanges were conscious, some unaware, some ambiguous, and some unwitting. Yet, in all cases, they teach us about the profound relation, indeed the co-development, of both religious traditions.
DWC 202 C16: T 4:30-6:20, S31 & S32: R 4:30-6:20
Music, Beauty, and Desire in the Modern Era
Cathy Gordon, Bob Barry
This class will explore the depictions, considerations and critiques of the modern engagement of human desire. We will explore proposals and projects that go beyond modern engagements such as commodification and consumerism, employing especially music as a creative and interpretive lens.
DWC 202 C19: M 8:30-10:20, S35 & S36: R 8:30-10:20
Staging History
Robert Stretter, Robin Greene
The past has been the playground of dramatists since the earliest days of the ancient Athenian theater. Whether a play stages events drawn from the remote past or confronts audiences with a representation of contemporary history, theater has been and remains a critical force in both reflecting and creating history.
In this colloquium, students will explore the interplay between history and drama by reading a selection of stage plays dating from the ancient through the modern world. We will consider such topics as 1) When and why do we stage performances of history in the present? 2) How do historical plays speak to their contemporary audiences? 3) What responsibility, if any, do playwrights have to historical accuracy? 4) What is the role of plays in creating popular history, and how can their historical characters take on lives of their own? 5) How do historical plays inspire audiences to adopt new perspectives or to change their contemporary realities?
While our main focus will be on stage plays, we will occasionally examine film and TV adaptations of those plays as a way to extend our understanding of how and why history is transformed into dramatic art.
DWC 202 C21: M 10:30-12:20, S47 & S48: W 10:30-12:20
Tocqueville: Then and Now
Patrick Breen, Raymond Hain
Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America is at once the best book ever written about the United States and the best book ever written about democracy. The purpose of this colloquium, centered around a close reading of Democracy in America, is consequently three-fold: first, to understand Tocqueville’s achievement on its own terms and in its proper historical context, allowing us insight into the birth of modern democracy; second, to recognize a wide variety of serious and significant political questions that confront us today and, often enough (though in different clothes), likewise confronted Tocqueville in the 1800’s; and finally, to bring Tocqueville’s claims to bear on our own contemporary situation in order to help us come to a deeper understanding of the nature and demands of genuine democratic life.
DWC 202 C22: R 10:30-12:20, S47 & S48: T 10:30-12:20
Sci-Fi, Faith, and Philosophy
Justin Noia, Bill Patenaude
This course will read and discuss important and new works of science fiction, in conjunction with relevant philosophical and scientific texts. Science fiction is an important medium for addressing philosophical questions, because, e.g., a lot of philosophical theorizing involves conducting ‘thought experiments’ to test philosophical views and works of science fiction often set up elaborate thought experiments that take ideas to their logical extremes. Science fiction is also valuable for exploring future possibilities for scientific progress. Topics may include warfare, artificial intelligence, pandemics, the value (and danger) of knowledge, utopias and dystopias, surveillance, personhood, transhumanism, extraterrestrial life, time travel, and our place in the universe.
DWC 202 C23: F 8:30-10:20, S47 & S48: M 8:30-10:20
Consciousness, Contemplation, and Conviction
John Allard, Peter Costello
This course will explore and analyze religious beliefs and practices in a variety of settings: Europe, Asia, and the Americas. We will consider manifestations of human religious consciousness as they occur in artistic, literary, religious, and philosophical frameworks. Our approach takes its cue from the philosophical perspective known as phenomenology, and so we value the importance of noticing and being present to the data of human experience. Thus, readings and class discussions will probe accounts and artefacts that relate to such religious meanings as transcendence, the awareness of the presence and the absence of God, and the transformational process known as conversion. The course is designed to encourage students to participate in conversations attuned to the human person reflecting upon the meaning of her or his own religious experience.
DWC 202 C24: T 4:30-6:20, S47 & S48: R 4:30-6:20
Me, Myself and I: The Reading and Writing of Autobiography
Alison Espach, Cristina Rodriguez, Eric Bennett
How do we write ourselves? This interdisciplinary course will ask students to examine the autobiography from both sides of the page, as authors and as critics. Autobiography as a category insists on identifying the author as the speaker: the class readings will interrogate who gets the privilege to speak for themselves, and how and why writers from different backgrounds – social, religious, ethnic, racial, national – might tell their stories differently. We will also study autobiography’s other major claim: that it’s true. We will examine this claim by asking the following questions: What is literature’s relationship to truth? What is memory’s relationship to truth? What is an individual’s relationship to the truth? And can anything crafted really be true?
In addition to studying multiple genres of autobiography, including memoir, personal essay, and autobiographical fiction, we will also practice writing in these genres: students will write and workshop original pieces that imitate an author’s prose style and form. The art of imitation is one practiced by many great thinkers and writers throughout history because there is no better way to engage with the specific choices made by each author. It also gives students the rare opportunity to “try on” a prose style and format as they develop and discover their own. “Me, Myself, & I” is grounded in the belief that reading and writing are acts of self-creation, as well as direct ways of engaging with the world. This course aims to give students the necessary tools to better understand and express their own identity in an increasingly global and complicated world. Authors include St. Augustine, Frederick Douglas, Richard Wright, Thomas Merton, Anne Sexton, Richard Rodriguez, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and others.
DWC 202 C26: T 10:30-12:20, S51 & S52: R 10:30-12:20
Persuasion, Rhetoric & Judgment
Iaian Bernhoft, Jiyoon Im
We live in times of increasingly extreme political polarization, siloed in “filter bubbles” with our ideological allies and treating our political adversaries as deplorable. Some observers fear that freedom of speech and thought are dying out—that “cancel culture” is replacing open discussion and debate. Is persuasion a dying art? Have we lost faith in our fellow citizens’ capacity to exercise good judgment? This colloquium investigates the proper place of persuasion and judgment in liberal democracies. In it, we will consider why persuasion is necessary in a liberal democracy, and what are the necessary conditions for persuasion. We will read closely texts and speeches from ancient Athens and contemporary America, in order to understand more clearly the proper role and effective practice of democratic persuasion. Readings will include selections from Thucydides, Aristotle, Shakespeare, Rousseau, Abraham Lincoln, and Frederick Douglass. Students will also analyze contemporary political speeches and messaging on today’s hot-button issues in order to see the art of persuasion in practice. Finally, students will have the opportunity to cultivate their own art of persuasion through composing and delivering short speeches and debates.
DWC 202 C27: F 8:30-10:20, S71 & S72: T 8:30-10:20
The Story of Human Migration
Robert Hasson, Terence McGoldrick
Beginning with prehistoric hunter gathering societies clashing with farming city states at the dawn of what we call civilization, to the modern displacement of approximately 100 million persons, the story of human migration is as relevant to understanding the development of Western Civilization as ever. This course will survey the history of migration up to its present form with the multiple issues it raises for social justice, the common good, conflict and progress. Portraits of migration at the US-Mexico border as well as from refugee camps in Turkey and Venezuela will seek to give a human face to the drama of displaced people and its impacts. We will read literature and view films to evoke empathy. We will probe the theological idea of the immigrant as Christ figure, the ethical questions of modern migration, and its causes as well as the policy aspects in receiving nations to make comparisons. The course will also incorporate social work ethical principles to consider and understand contemporary contexts of forced migration. We will unpack the question: Why is the US immigration system called a broken system?
DWC 202 C29: W 12:30-2:20, S57 & S58: F 12:30-2:20
Harmony and Discord: Cold War Politics in Science Education and Music
Lin Zhang, JoAnn Thomas
This course will discuss the rise of science in the US through inventions in early times, such as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Edison, and expands on US international relations during the cold war period and its impact on reshaping science education in the US. Affected by the launch of Sputnik, the call for more scientists has been listed at the forefront in all science educational policies since then. The global cold war has forever redirected the purpose of science education and the ways science has been taught. That said, the course will review the historical government policies and documents, compare societal values and purposes of science education in early times vs. since the cold war, and has students reflect on the in-depth meanings of science education in our society over time. The policies developed regarding the Vietnam war and the fear of the spread of communism deeply affected the youth, their education and the music of the cold war. This course will also cover how historically the power of music during the cold war affected government decision making to end the war in Vietnam and the draft.
DWC 202 C30: W 8:30-10:20, S61 & S62: F 8:30-10:20
Virgins, Harlots, and Martyrs: Women in Early Christianity
Damian Day O.P., Kathleen Cavender-McCoy
This course focuses on women’s religious identities in the Catholic tradition, beginning in the first century CE, and moving through the early Christian period. This course explores the complex intersectional gender identities of Christian women, including virgin, wife, mother, harlot, and martyr. The course proceeds by exploring the tension between historical and systematic approaches to women’s identity in the early church. Engaging primary sources, this course listens to the voices of women to understand their contributions to early Christianity.
DWC 202 C31: M 10:30-12:20, S61 & S62: W 10:30-12:20
Art and Revolutions in the Muslim World
Gizem Zencirci, Ann Shafer
This course offers an international and multidisciplinary tour of art in the context of revolutions from the 20th and 21st centuries, including cinema, literature, visual art, theater, and performance art as it relates to the Muslim World. It focuses on art practices that have emerged from and contributed to political movements, including religious movements for social equality, and those against state oppression. Students will learn about the cultural politics of revolutionary movements in the Muslim World and will gain skills in analyzing the role of a wide array of art forms. The course will also introduce crucial theories and debates about relationships between aesthetics and politics, the role of artists and other intellectuals in political struggle, and the way governments attempt to control what artists make and who it reaches. In addition to weekly written assignments, students will develop and present their own final project as part of the course assignments.
DWC 202 C32: M 4:30-6:20, S63 & S64: R 4:30-6:20
Comparative History of Retail
Courtney Bozigian, Guolin Yi
While we are living through the shift from brick & mortar shopping to e-commerce, we are also witnessing a reimagination of the shopping experience.Students will create plans for modern retail experiences that can co-exist in today’s online world, by learning about and discussing the evolution of retail models within time periods and cultures.
This colloquium not only traces the history of retail from early marketplaces through the rise of department stores and e-commerce, but also compares the retail models in the West (Netherlands, England, and the U.S.) and the East (China, Japan, and Korea).
We will explore modern global retail brands through multiple lenses including history, economics, sociology, religion, art & architecture, as well as branding & marketing. Questions and topics will include:
- How do retail models emerge and evolve?
- How do retail models reflect the societies in which they exist?
- What factors impact the development of retail beyond economic or financial models?
- What are the possible factors that would contribute to the success/failure of Western retail models and brands in East Asia?
- How can we leverage historical retail models to reinvent or reimagine the modern retail experience?
DWC 202 C33: R 3:30-5:20, S67 & S68: T 3:30-5:20
History of Sports
John Vidmar O.P., Sean Holley
This course is designed to familiarize the student with the cultural history and development of sports in the West. The course will attempt to integrate not only the history of actual sports (such as the beginnings of golf) and current issues in sports, but also philosophical, theological, social, medical, and economic issues throughout the history of the West. Guest speakers drawn from the various athletic disciplines both on and off-campus will augment the lecture material. The professors will also supply literature on the subject as well as audio-visual support.
DWC 202 C34: M 2:30-4:20, S71 & S72: W 2:30-4:20
Only Connect: Producing Ourselves in the Digital Age
Amy Foley, Osama Siddiqui
Being together is a tricky business. What does it mean to “be yourself” when you are part of a group that has made you? How do you manage your own desires and wishes in a society full of expectations for you? How can we produce ourselves while remaining in connection? In this course, we will navigate the hazards of what it means to be an individual in connection, and sometimes struggling, with a group. We will study the feelings and conflicts produced by modern social spheres, such as attention/distraction, belonging/dissent, (self) control, conformity, (in)authenticity, inanity (or banality), and expectation. We will explore ways in which modern society compels us to produce ourselves in various domains, such as the economy, the workplace, media, interpersonal relationships, and the digital world, among others, and how it affects our ability to relate to others meaningfully, have agency, and know ourselves as individuals. Our course readings will include a range of 20th and 21st century writers, philosophers, and artists who have reflected on these themes. In addition to readings, we will also do hands-on activities and creative work together.
DWC 202 C35: W 10:30-12:20, S69 & S70: M 10:30-12:20
The “Western Tradition” and Scientific Racism
Maia Bailey, Jennifer Illuzzi
Students will think critically about the evolution of racial science from the 18th century to the present. This course, co-taught by a historian and evolutionary biologist, will address the history and growth of scientific thought on race, and critically examine the impact of this thinking on our contemporary world. We will assess student learning through students reflecting on their own relationship to racial histories, exploring the power of genetic analysis in shaping their own stories of selfhood. Students will be able to analyze how discredited racist thinking is still prevalent in contemporary discourse. Through reading and writing on primary and secondary source texts on the history of race, students will come to synthesize a variety of perspectives and historical understanding of racial science.
DWC 202 C36: T 1:30-3:20, S71 & S72: R 1:30-3:20
The 1990s: Peace, Prosperity, and Popular Culture
Jordan Zajac O.P., Humbert Kilanowski O.P.
In between the Cold War and the War on Terror, Western civilization underwent its most recent period of relative peace. The historical and cultural trends and movements from the 1990s (broadly defined as the time between June 4, 1989 and September 11, 2001) continue to shape our society today, even if they seem to come from a long-lost age. What was to happen next on the changing world map after the fall of European Communism, as the United States emerged as the chief superpower in a decade that saw the end of the Soviet Union, the end of apartheid in South Africa, and the end of the Troubles in Northern Ireland? How did music, movies, sports, and entertainment in general change during this time—not only the forms of entertainment themselves, but the ways in which we experienced them? How did an emerging “Generation X” and cities such as New York, Los Angeles, and especially Seattle shape the picture of the nation (which was certainly not without conflict), and how did the Church respond to the challenges of the time to lead humanity toward a new millennium? And how did technology, especially with the rise of the Internet, spur economic progress and promise to draw the globe closer together—while at the same time bring new fears and end up pushing our society toward polarization?
This course will aim to answer these questions, using Chuck Klosterman’s The Nineties: A Book as a guide, along with personal testimonies and multimedia sources, and the writings of Pope St. John Paul II as a theological commentary on the events and issues of the time. It will raise not only a sense of appreciation for the era and its effects on the present day, but a desire for authenticity that society as a whole sought throughout the decade, and which many still strive to find today. We will examine whether this final decade of the 20th century was really “the end of history,” or just the end of the beginning—for after all, “every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.”
DWC 202 C37: M 8:30-10:20, S73 & S74: W 8:30-10:20
Coffee, Chocolate, and Diamonds: How Africa and Eurasia Shape Our Daily Lives
Olga Limnios, Comfort Ateh
From a first date at a coffee shop to a diamond engagement ring, our courtship rituals and our daily routines thoroughly depend on people and societies that we know very little about. This class will introduce you to the cultures, the industries, and most importantly, peoples who supply many raw materials that North American society can’t function without. Together we will uncover unexpected connections between the United States, Ghana, Cameroon, and Russian Federation. Some of the topics discussed will be food politics, globalization, and ethical trade.
