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| 70000 Level Courses (70700-70899) *70703 AMERICAN MUSIC AND CULTURE: FROM JAZZ TO TIN PAN ALLEY A study of the historical evolution of jazz styles in the United States from the 1890s through the contemporary scene, including American popular music (Tin Pan Alley), protest music, and motion picture/television music. Included is an examination of the correlation of musical styles on cultural changes in America.
Curt Wilson, Professor of Music and Director of Jazz Studies, teaches jazz ensembles, jazz history, jazz arranging, improvisation, orchestration, and composition courses at TCU. As a professional woodwind player, he spent two years touring with Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians. Professor Wilson has also performed with the Glenn Miller-Tex Beneke Orchestra, Tommy Dorsey-Warren Covington Orchestra, Bob Crosby, Crystal Gayle, Dionne Warwick, Mel Torme, Don Henley, and others. In addition he has written music for practically every genre of American music. In 1999 he was commissioned by TCU to compose a work for the inauguration of Chancellor Michael Ferrari - ‘Fanfare, Fugue, and Finale” for symphony orchestra. 70713 PHYSICAL FITNESS AS A LIFESTYLE The physiological changes that take place in the body as a result of acute and chronic exercise. Specifically, the concepts of physical fitness, conditioning programs, wellness, body composition, nutrition, risk factor reduction and the influence of exercise on disease and aging are investigated.
70723 THE RISE AND FALL OF POSITIVISTIC PHILOSOPHY The development of logical positivism of empiricism from the 18th century (with George Berkeley) to the 20th century (with A.J. Ayer). (Positivism is the doctrine that all experience can be subsumed under the principles of natural science; positivism equates philosophy with science.) The major focus of the course is Ayer's infamous book, Language, Truth and Logic (1936) and the reactions it generated in Anglo-American and Continental philosophy. Many of these reactions are discussed in A.J. Ayer's Memorial Essays (1991) and C.E.M. Joad's A Critique of Logical Positivism (1950). *70733 SCIENCE, SCIENTISTS, AND SOCIETY How is science different from or similar to other areas of human endeavor such as art, religion, philosophy, or politics? This course explores the workings of science and scientists by studying recurring themes and selected episodes of scientific change and the social and intellectual milieu in which they occurred. The focus is on the interaction between science and society from the Renaissance through the Enlightenment and the Victorian Era and into the Modern Age. Related topics range from man's (and God's) place in the universe to sociobiology, sexism, and evolutionary ethics.
Dr. John A. Breyer, Professor of Geology, received his Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska. He is the author of more than 35 articles in scientific journals and has broad experience in the energy industry. His work has been recognized by awards from the Energy Minerals Division of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists and the Coal Geology Division of the Geological Society of America. In 1990, Dr. Breyer received the Burlington Northern Faculty Achievement Award, and in 1991 he was elected a Fellow of the Geological Society of America. *70753 POETRY AND CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN CULTURE This course focuses on the major developments in American poetry from 1945 to the present to address these central questions: How well does poetry address the needs, concerns, and anxieties of contemporary American culture? Have international crises, domestic political and cultural shifts, and the proliferation of electronic media rendered poetry obsolete, or does poetry still hold particular promise in terms of its ability to shore crumbling values or, better, to envision a new ethics, one more responsive to the complexity of our times? *70763 GEOPOLITICS AND WORLD COMMUNICATIONS The study of global communications in the context of world politics. Overview of world mass media characteristics, impact of British colonialism, role of the United Nations, the New World Information Order, ownership of communication technology, issues in monopoly of knowledge, analysis of information flow and world economy and role of image-makers.
*70773 HISTORY OF MEDIA SEX AND VIOLENCE This course examines the history of sex and violence in film and on television. Topics that may be covered include efforts to regulate or restrict film and television program content, how formerly taboo topics relating to sex and violence have been presented in film or on television, how media companies attempt to profit by presenting sex and violence in film and on television, what the manner in which sex and violence are presented in film and on television tell us about the society of the time, and how the First Amendment limits government regulation of film and television content. *70803 PLANTS, PEOPLE AND THE ENVIRONMENT The effects of dramatic population increases on the environment with special emphasis on the role of green plants in the biosphere. The course concentrates on the function of plants with regard to world food production, global warming trends, deterioration of the ozone layer, acid rain, nuclear war, and habitat destruction as it relates to natural ecosystems such as tropical rain forests. 70813 THE COLD WAR AT HOME AND ABROAD From the end of the Second World War in 1945 until the collapse of the Soviet Union forty-five years later, the Cold War dominated the domestic and foreign affairs of the United States. This course examines the origins of the Cold War and some of the consequences, including the development and application of the containment policy, McCarthyism, the wars in Korea and Vietnam, various other interventions, the de-bates over diplomatic issues, and the various strategies employed by different presidential administrations. Students will have a chance to do some reading on these subjects and to discuss them. Also they will view episodes from CNN’s production, "The Cold War". The requirements consist of short weekly papers based on the readings and also a kind of term project, a five-seven page critique of John Lewis Gaddis' book, We Now Know. The other readings are T.G. Paterson and J.G. Clifford, America Ascendant: U.S. Foreign Relations since 1939 and R.J. McMahon and T.G. Paterson, The Origins of the Cold War, 4th ed.
Mark T. Gilderhus, the Lyndon B. Johnson Chair in the history department and a former president of SHAFR (the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations), spent twenty-nine years at Colorado State University before coming to TCU in 1997. He teaches courses on U.S. military and diplomatic history and has written various articles and books on related subjects. The Cold War is one of his areas of specialty. *70843 THE ETHICS OF COMMUNICATION An examination of contrasting models and standards of communication ethics. Students apply these perspectives to specific situations in politics, advertising, interpersonal communication and writing.
*70863 BIOETHICAL ISSUES OF MODERN SOCIETY Three main aspects of the work of a hospital ethics committee are: self-education through reading the literature in the discipline, drafting hospital policies on matters raising ethical issues, and doing case analyses. Members of the class will be formed into a committee to do all three things. Issues will include withdrawal of life-support, use of reproductive technologies including cloning, physician-assisted dying, and more ordinary topics such as informed consent and confidentiality. The course explores 20th century American culture through examining the ordinary objects of our lives, from A-1 Sauce to Zippo lighters, studying how, when, and why ordinary objects rise from the culture and in turn give shape and character to both culture and personal identity. |