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| 60000 Level Courses (60800-60999) *60803 PAX AMERICANA: UNITED STATES FOREIGN RELATIONS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY Now that the Cold War is over and the twentieth century is coming to a close, how well did the United States fulfill its destiny of making the past hundred years the "American Century" that so many Americans predicted in the 1890s? This course offers some perspectives as answers by tracing the development of a global American foreign policy from the period following the Spanish American War until the end of the Cold War. It also examines the forces - both foreign and domestic - that influenced those policies as the United States tried to formulate new diplomacies to meet each of the ever changing challenges in world affairs of this most dynamic century. 60813 RECENT AMERICAN-JEWISH FICTION This course is an examination of the distinctive contribution to recent American fiction made by American-Jewish fictionists. The course focuses on similarities and differences between concerns and visions of such authors as Elie Wiesel, Bernard Malamud, Philip Roth, Isaac B. Singer and Saul Bellow. *60893 THE CONCEPT OF AN EDUCATED PERSON: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES An examination of changes in the concept of an educated person. The focus is on Western European civilization from Homeric Man to the present, though the influences of other traditions are noted. Emphasis is placed on the impact of technological changes, political developments and other social forces have had on the qualities one should possess in order to be considered an educated person. *60903 BRITISH HUMOR FROM THE GOONS TO THE YOUNG ONES "British Humor," as exemplified in popular culture by Monty Python's Flying Circus has gained acceptance in the U.S., but is actually based on a long tradition that has its roots in the special love of wit, puns, paradoxes, and epigrams the English have manifested since the Viking invasions. Even though sensing the laughable and absurd is a universal trait, humor is expressed according to cultural differences and values of class, education, or special interest. Students in this course will look at British Humor on radio, TV, and film and attempt to define its unique attributes.
*60933 CONTEMPORARY LIFE AND THE ENVIRONMENT A study of human ecology and its impact upon the environment. Man was originally shaped by his environment, but technology has reversed the roles so that man now profoundly affects his environment. The course deals with our ultimate problem: finding a balance of resources and population to enable all of earth’s inhabitants to coexist in an impartial environment. 60943 PHILOSOPHY IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY: ON LIFE AND LIVING William James’s reflections on life and living(1895/1899) prompt the central question, what are the conditions to lead the life of a person? This question is addressed by the following literature: Robert Nozick, The Examined Life: Philosophical Meditations (1989), John Kekes, The Examined Life (1992), and Richard Wollheim, The Thread of Life (1984).
60953 MODERN ASTRONOMY: FROM THE ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSE TO BLACK HOLES An introduction to recent developments in astronomy and astrophysics: how the Universe began and how will it end, the age of the cosmos, the origin of galaxies, the birth, life, and death of stars, stellar and galactic black holes, millisecond pulsars, supernovae, comets and quasars, and the worlds of the solar system. Questions to be pondered include: Where and what is the missing mass? Are we alone in the Universe? Are we in danger from a comet colliding with earth? Where and how did life originate? The latest discoveries by the Hubble Space Telescope, Cassini, and other space missions are also discussed.
60963 THE DISAPPEARING GOD IN MODERN LITERATURE The religious dimensions of modern literature are explored in terms of how various authors treat the reality of God. The novels chosen are examined through a study of their principal traits, such as elements of religious myth and fantasy, motifs of criminality, quests for new orders of meaning and new forms of community, and the recurrence of urban life as a metaphor for modern spiritual experience. These traits are analyzed as various means that authors use to test religious values or to suggest alternative secular visions of the world. |