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by department:
Anthropology 290 (3) - Politics, Culture and Literature - topical description - No prerequisites; open to all students. The course explores dynamic connections between politics and literature (stressing literary language) in a cultural anthropological context. Two main issues are the literary representation of politics (e.g., tyranny) and political response to literature (e.g., realism in poetry); other issues include that of the writer as sacrifice and the classic conflict between aesthetics and political utility. The focus is on the two national cultures of Mexico and Russia (particularly during rebellion), probably supplemented by brief case materials from India, Iceland, China and Romania. Interwoven with the main emphasis is a thread of political-literary interfaces involving the American Civil War. Readings come from Juan Rulfo, Anna Akhmatova and other Mexican, American and Russian writers, and from anthropology and other social sciences. The course is based primarily on discussion, with close reading of classical texts. Friedrich.
Art 390 (3) -The Arts of Buddhism - topical description - This course looks at traditional arts associated with early Buddhism in India, Theravada in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, and Vajrayana in the Himalayan regions. The focus then shifts to Mahayana Buddhism and its various manifestations, from India to China, Korea, and Japan, and ends with the arts associated with the Chan/Zen meditation sect of Buddhism. Slide lectures with some seminar features. O'Mara
Biology 396 (3) Selected Topics in Cellular and Molecular Biology: Cancer Genetics - topical description - Prerequisite: Biology 220. All cancers are genetic: they arise from alterations in genes that control cell growth. This course examines the current models for causes of cancer, focusing on oncogenes, tumor suppressor genes, mutator genes and inherited cancer syndromes, as well as environmental contributions. Limitations of current therapies in dealing with the genetic basis of cancer and the emerging field of gene-based therapies are considered. Welsheimer
Chemistry 100 (4) - Modern Descriptive Chemistry - next offered Fall 2000
Chinese 111-112 (8) - First-year Chinese -
This course is linked; the second term must be completed to receive any
credit toward degree requirements for the first term
Chinese 261-262 (8) - Second-year Chinese - This
course is linked; the second term must be completed to receive any credit toward
degree requirements for the first term
Classics 295 (3) - The World of St. Augustine - Newly scheduled course - topical description - No prerequisites. A consideration of St. Augustine's most important works in their cultural and intellectual context. The courses centers on Augustine's Confessions, On the Trinity and City of God. It includes as well biographical materials and supplementary readings from Augustine's forebears and contemporaries. Crotty
Computer Science 397 (3) -Seminar on Genetic Algorithms - topical description - Prerequisite: Computer Science 201. This seminar introduces the basic features of genetic algorithms: solution space, populations and evolution of generations using fitness, crossover and mutation. Student projects explore applications of genetic algorithms to a number of research areas, the corresponding modifications to the basic model, and the kinds of results obtained. Students implement a genetic algorithm to illustrate the use in their area of exploration. Whaley
Economics 399A (3) -
Industrial Revolutions: The Advent of the Modern World - topical
description - Prerequisite: Economics 101. Sophomores welcome. The
Industrial Revolution is a watershed in human history. Over the last 150
years, technology has wrought changes in geography, communications, politics,
family structure, work content and organizations, social interaction and
culture. This course examines several of these facets. One segment
focuses on "models" of historical process in classic works, from
technology as a "driver" (Karl Marx), to business structure and
geography (Adam Smith) to culture (Max Weber). We also analyze specific
places, cultures and economies, such as the Dutch Republic (16th & 17th
centuries), Japan (18th & 19th centuries) and the US (19th & 20th
centuries). Students also use art as a window on economic history, in particular
the art of the Dutch masters. Classes focus on discussion of readings.
Students are responsible for a term project, which in the past has ranged from a
paper on literature to helping produce iron from local ore to creating a web
site on a historic Polish textile center. Smitka.
Economics 399B (3) - Experimental Economics - topical
description - Prerequisite: Economics 201, 390 or permission of instructor.
This subject explores the use of laboratory methods to study economic behavior.
Topics include the design of experiments, laboratory techniques to test
theories, financial incentives, and analysis of experimental data. Experimental
economics emphasizes applications in a variety of topics: bargaining, auctions,
market price competition, market failures, voting, contributions to public
goods, lottery choice decisions, and the design of electronic markets for
financial assets. Capra
English 101 (3) -
Expository Writing: Writing Nature - topical description - This
course focuses on representations of the environment in Thoreau's Walden, Annie
Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, and The Woods Stretched for Miles, a new
anthology of Southern nature writing. Students write response papers to weekly
readings as well as formal essays on topics of the their own devising. The final
paper focuses on a particular aspect of our bioregion. Warren
English 105A (3) -Composition & Literature: Coming of
Age - topical description - This course examines a number of
literary works dealing with the process of coming of age, that is, the
fundamental human movement from a state of youth to adulthood, immaturity to
maturity, naivete to awareness, innocence to experience. In discussions and
essays, the focus is on the tensions, aspirations, pains, joys, myths, and
realities of this transition. Major questions include: what are the crucial
stages involved in coming of age? how do issues such as authority, rebellion,
and conformity affect one's coming of age? how does the process differ for men
and women? what roles do sexuality and desire play in this process? what larger
patterns--mythic, religious, social, economic--are reflected in this movement?
how is coming of age related to love? to death? what happens if the
"normal" pattern is broken? Readings include Joyce's Dubliners,
selections from Wordsworth's Prelude and from his poetry, Shakespeare's Romeo
and Juliet, As You Like It, and The Tempest, Austen's Pride and Prejudice and
Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard." Conner
English 105B (3) - Composition & Literature: The
Eternal Feminine: Literature By & About Women - topical description
- A course that examines literature written by and about women in three genres:
fiction, poetry, and drama, with some attention given to nonfiction if time
permits. The class explores the various genres to see if there is a particular
feminine voice in literature and how this voice reflects any cultural,
historical, social or psychological change. Among the possible writers examined
are Alice Walker, Amy Tan, Maxine Kumin, Wendy Wasserstein, Beth Henley, and
others. Miller
English 105C (3) - Composition & Literature: Justice
& Character - topical description - A study of justice as the
means by which people seek a good life for themselves and their communities:
what motivates us to act justly, what must be taken into account in judging
human acts (crimes and punishment, achievement and rewards), the nature and
purposes of law (but also its limits), the place of equity and mercy in just
judgment, what impels people to wrongfully accuse others, how the oppressed deal
with injustice. Literary types include courtroom drama, utopia, detective
fiction, Arthurian romance and poems on events in American history. Craun
English 105D (3) -Composition & Literature: Literature
& Technology - topical description - An examination of novels,
poetry and dramas that investigate the relationship between subjectivity,
technology and society. How do technologies shape who we are and how we
experience -- and act in -- the world? How do writers imaginatively explore this
question in literature? Though we begin with the 19th-century novel
Frankenstein, the rest of the readings focus on authors from the 20th century
(Franz Kafka, Ariel Dorfman, Karel Capek, Wole Soyinka, T. S. Eliot, Allen
Ginsberg) and conclude with William Gibson's cyberpunk fiction Neuromancer. Winkiel
English 105E (3) - Composition & Literature: Art &
Nature - topical description - This course is an introduction to
the study of poetry, fiction and drama with a focus on the representation of
nature in art. Works examined include Shakespeare's "Green World,"
Wordsworth's nature poetry, and the fiction of Faulkner and Melville among
others. Camuto
English 105F (3) - Composition & Literature: Art &
Nature - topical description - same as English 105E
English 207 (3) - The Gothic Novel - topical
description - The Gothic Novel has lent its generic talent for the
excessive, the deviant and the monstrous to one of our most popular contemporary
cultural forms, the horror film. This course begins in the 18th century with a
look at the Castle of Otranto and Jane Austen's turn-of-the-century gothic
parody Northanger Abbey. We then consider how the Gothic expands the
representational horizon of the realist novel through its emphasis on passion
and the extra-rational. We examine the Gothic Novel in the 19th and 20th
centuries as it contests its more "serious" step-sister, the Realist
Novel, through symptomatic moments in which boundaries between good and evil,
health and perversity, crime and punishment, truth and deception, inside and
outside, dissolve and threaten the integrity of the narrative itself. Narrative
runs riot through the Gothic novel as orderly family and social relations break
down only to be (sometimes) ambivalently restored in the end. Novels may
include: Shelley's Frankenstein, Bronte's Wuthering Heights, Stoker's Dracula,
Barnes' Nightwood, Carter's The Magic Toyshop, Jhabvala's Heat and Dust,
Faulkner's Sanctuary, Naipaul's Guerrillas, Haggard's She, and Morrison's
Beloved. Winkiel
English 290 (3) - Seminar for Prospective Majors: Tragedy
& Comedy - topical description - This seminar examines the
fundamental literary genres of Tragedy and Comedy, beginning with the classical
models of Sophocles, Aristophanes and Terence, then turning to the work of
Shakespeare to study the greatest, and most complex, examples in the English
literary tradition of these genres. In addition to exploring definitive works of
tragedy and comedy, the course examines a number of theoretical models for
interpreting these two modes, in an effort to understand both the literary
dimensions of these approaches, as well as the world views -- and the
philosophical and religious positions -- they imply. Conner
English 380 (3) - Modernism & Mass Culture - topical
description - Modernism, or experimental literature of the early 20th
century, was often defined by its most famous practitioners -- T. S. Eliot, Ezra
Pound, Virginia Woolf and others -- as hostile to mass culture: movies,
advertising, fashion, popular music, magazines and fiction. They often
denigrated these popular cultural forms as being sentimental, imitative and
without significant form. This course seeks to read modernist writers with a
revisionary eye towards their relationship towards mass culture and modernity in
general. It traces changes in perceptions of time/space as well as the changes
in physical culture shaped by the emergence of cinema, automobiles, shopping
malls, gramophones, and by World War I and imperialism as they inspired
modernists to enact a revolution in literature. Authors may include T. S. Eliot,
Wyndham Lewis, Virginia Woolf, Djuna Barnes, James Joyce, Mina Loy, Gertrude
Stein, Claude McKay, Nella Larsen, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes and D. H.
Lawrence. Winkiel
English 385 (1) - Preparatory Reading for Study Abroad - Newly
scheduled course - Pass/Fail only; second six weeks - Introduction to
the culture and history of Ireland. The major text is J.C. Beckett's
Short History o Ireland accompanied by lecture of Irish history and the
development of Irish literature and three films on Irish subjects (The Quiet
Man, The Field, and The Commitments). The final exam covers the Beckett
material, including geography and chronology. Conner
Environmental Studies Program (see
the 1999-2000 catalog, page 142):
Interdepartmental 110 (3) - Introduction to Environmental
Studies - This course is the "gateway" course to the environmental
studies program; fulfills general education requirements in the social science
area; and will not require permission nor will it be capped.
Politics 233 (3) - Environmental Policy - Winter 2000
Interdepartmental 397 (3) - Environmental Senior Capstone Course - Winter 2000, Casey and Harbor
French 111-112 (8) - Elementary French - This
course is linked; the second term must be completed to receive any credit toward
degree requirements for the first term
French 161-162 (6) - Intermediate French - This
course is linked; the second term must be completed to receive any credit toward
degree requirements for the first term
French 332 (3) - Etudes de genre - topical
description - Theater across the centuries. The course explores a
variety of dramatic works starting with the Middle Ages, and moving through the
17th, 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. The dramatic texts chosen for the
course consist of a combination of comic, tragic and tragi-comic works
with particular focus on the representation of women characters and on the
evolution of the heroine in theater. Class discussions focus equally on textual
and literary aspects of the plays, as well as on the performative aspects
involved in staging plays from various historical periods. Radulescu
French 343 (3) - La France a travers les siecles:
Questions onomastiques - topical description - What's in a name?
This course addresses that question by examining how the use of proper names
throughout French literature is related to the literary movements and social
structures of the time. Students should consider taking this course in
conjunction with French 190. Koberstein
French 397 (3) - Seminaire avance: Moliere et Pagnol - topical
description - A portfolio-based seminar emphasizing imagery and
Molieresque elements in plays and novels of twentieth-century author, Marcel
Pagnol. Study revolves around Pagnol's major literary works, as well as
cinematic versions of them, and also focuses on a selection of Moliere's plays
not examined in other courses. Students should consider taking this course in
conjunction with French 190. Fralin
German 111-112 (8) -
Elementary - This course is linked; the second term must be completed to
receive any credit toward degree requirements for the first term
German 261-262 (8) - Intermediate - This course is
linked; the second term must be completed to receive any credit toward degree
requirements for the first term
History 302 (3) - Europe
in the Late Middle Ages, 1198-1500 - new course - Examines,
through lectures and discussions, the high medieval papacy, the rise of new lay
religious movements, Franciscans and Dominicans, dissent and heresy, the
inquisition, Jews and minorities, the rise of universities, scholasticism and
humanism, the development of law, Parliament and constitutionalism, the Hundred
Years War, the Black Death, the papal schism and conciliarism, gender roles,
family structures and child-rearing, Europe's relations with Islam and
Byzantium, and the rise of commerce, cities and urban values, as well as of the
"new monarchies." Peterson.
History 314 (3) - Germany, 1890-Present - Cancelled
History 317 (3) - British Isles to 1688 - Cancelled
History 329 (3) - Seminar: Religion & the Church in
Medieval Society & Politic - topical description - The seminar
draws on primary sources and secondary literature to examine the rise of
Christianity, the institutional formation of the medieval church, its relations
with temporal authorities and changing lay religious aspirations, scholastic
theology, the rise of mendicant orders, heresy and repression, mysticism,
prophesy, humanism, women's religious experiences, art, the institutional crises
of the late medieval church, and efforts to reform it. Peterson.
Italian 403 (3) - Directed Individual Study: Intermediate Italian - Newly scheduled course - Permission required
Japanese 111-112 (8) -
First-year Japanese - This course is linked; the second term must be
completed to receive any credit toward degree requirements for the first term
Japanese 261-262 (8) - Second-year Japanese - This
course is linked; the second term must be completed to receive any credit toward
degree requirements for the first term
Journalism 295 (3) - The Press & the Presidency - topical description - The British journalist Godfrey Hodgson has called television "the electronic Mephistopheles," in the sense that campaigners for the presidency sell their souls to it for the sake of election then find themselves at the mercy of its imperatives and timetables once in office. This course will examine the inflation of presidential visibility by electronic media and the expansion of the cable spectrum, combined with the growing attention to White House "scandals," real and alleged, including the Starr investigation and Clinton impeachment, and the way they are covered in print and on the air. Collateral attention to the ongoing 2000 presidential campaign. Yoder
Latin 403 (3) - Ovid's MetaMorphoses - topical description - Prerequisite: Latin 301 or equivalent. A close reading in Latin of several episodes from Ovid's Metamorphoses, as well as a quick survey (in translation) of the work as a whole. Topics include Ovid and the (re)invention of epic; wit and narrative technique; Augustan intertextuality; Ovid as mythographer; and the medieval and modern reception of Metamorphoses. The course is similar in scope and difficulty to the Latin 32x series. Jenkins
Literature in Translation 219 (3) - Seminar: The Chinese Family in Literature - Newly scheduled course - Prerequisite: Personal interview with and permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited. An examination of the inexorable breakdown of the traditional Confucian family clan value system as reflected in certain major literary works ranging from Dream of the Red Chamber (late 18th century) to Chiang Kuei's The Whirlwind (1955), with additional consideration given to the present-day situation under a communist regime. The works are approached in terms of their literary value as well as for the insight they provide into the family system and its societal consequences. Hill.
Management 304 (3) - Fundamentals of
Negotiation & Dispute Resolution in a Business Environment - topical
description - Prerequisite: Management 205 or permission of the instructor.
Modern business seek people who are negotiators and problem-solvers. This
course focuses on negotiating successfully in a commercial environment and
creating business solutions using creative techniques rather than simply
responding to litigation. Lectures, written materials, group projects,
video and role-playing are utilized to explore various theories of negotiation
and types of dispute resolution and to develop practical skills for forming and
preserving business relationships and resolving business disputes. Culpepper
Management 306 (3) - Seminar in Management Info Systems - topical
description - Prerequisite: Management/ Computer Science 310 or
permission of instructor. An examination of the nature of information
systems analysis in a business environment, including an exploration of the role
and activities of a systems analyst in the systems development process.
Also covered are the analysis tools, techniques, and methodologies employed
during the process. Students analyze a real-life problem and make
preliminary recommendations for its solution. Cass.
Military science: Any W&L student may enroll in Army ROTC courses for degree credit at VMI. You should sign up for the "ghost" course MS 100, 200, 300 or 400 during W&L registration, depending on which course sequence you will be taking at VMI. No specific REGISTRATION permission is required. These W&L registrations are not graded and do not count toward your term course load. You will receive transfer credit from VMI upon completion of each course with a grade of C or better. Check the VMI ROTC web page, phone 464.7187 (CPT Chris Whittaker at VMI) or see the W&L University Registrar.
Philosophy/Religion 212 (3) - Philosophy & Religion - topical description - The course in this millennial year will examine a central concern in and about religion: How is religion related to science? We explore a wide range of positions on the following issues: Is there any conflict or even "warfare" between science and religion, e.g. between evolution and creation? If so, in what does the conflict lie, and which side has the better arguments? If not, how do science and religion differ, and how do they fit together? Authors whose positions we explore include: Ursula Goodenough ("religious naturalism"), Stephen Jay Gould ("non-overlapping magisteria"), Pope John Paul II (faith and reason "are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth"), J. P. Moreland (scientific creationism), John Polkinghorne (natural theology), and Steven Weinburg (science without religion). Sessions
IMPORTANT -- Sign up for PE classes
through web registration now. Read the instructions!
Physical Education - Students may express a preference for up to
three skills courses as part of web registration. Please read
the PE instructions. These preferences will be examined after the academic
schedule is set and, if open and not in conflict with the academic courses, one
may be placed in the schedule. Changes or additional sections may
still be handled during the drop/add period.
Certain courses have an additional charge, billed to the
student's account after registration, or personal transportation requirements.
Check the PE web page
for details.
Politics 380 (3) - Race
and Politics in the U.S. and Great Britain - topical description - Prerequisite:
Politics 101. This course explores the politics of race in the United States
and Great Britain in comparative perspective. Course material pays particular
attention to the causes and consequences of contemporary mobilization around
race attending to changes and continuities over time. Racial politics in both
societies are examined through topics such as party politics and elections,
social movement, group consciousness, public policy and political
representation. Kendrick
Politics 390 (3) - Negotiation Analysis - topical
description - Prerequisite: Politics 101 or 104 or instructor's permission.
Covers the application of negotiation (bargaining) strategy to
conflict-resolution. Cases range from factual constitutional conflicts in
today's transitional (democratizing) states, to counterfactual what-if conflicts
in artistic scenarios. Individual research projects forecast the near-term
negotiating power of parliamentary factions-and thus the likely resolution-in
selected states. Open to majors and non-majors. Meets comparative
politics/international relations field requirement in the politics major.
Recommended for career aspirants in business, diplomacy, law and public policy. McCaughrin
Politics 396 (3) - Love and Friendship - topical
description - Prerequisites: Politics 111. This course examines the
nature of and relationship between love and friendship as depicted in some of
the most important philosophic, literary, and religious texts of the Western
tradition. The examination is both thematic and historical, a survey of
classical Greek and Roman, medieval, modern, and postmodern sources. Students
who were enrolled in University Scholars 203 in fall 1999 should not enroll in
this course. Velásquez
Politics 397 (3) - Law and the Political Process - topical
description - Prerequisites: Politics 100, junior or senior status and
permission of instructor. This seminar will address legal issues concerning
access to and participation in the political process. Topics include minority
voting rights, campaign finance reform, corruption, and the rights of political
parties. Open to undergraduates and law students with a meeting time to be
arranged, probably Tuesday evening. Undergraduates will need permission from
Professor Rush. Rush and LaRue
Religion/Philosophy
212 (3) - Philosophy & Religion - topical description - The
course in this millennial year will examine a central concern in and about
religion: How is religion related to science? We explore a wide range of
positions on the following issues: Is there any conflict or even
"warfare" between science and religion, e.g. between evolution and
creation? If so, in what does the conflict lie, and which side has the better
arguments? If not, how do science and religion differ, and how do they fit
together? Authors whose positions we explore include: Ursula Goodenough
("religious naturalism"), Stephen Jay Gould ("non-overlapping
magisteria"), Pope John Paul II (faith and reason "are like two wings
on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth"), J. P.
Moreland (scientific creationism), John Polkinghorne (natural theology), and
Steven Weinburg (science without religion). Sessions
Religion 350 (3) - The Historical Paul - topical
description - No prerequisites; Religion 102 desirable. The course
offers a broad, comprehensive view of Paul's life, travels and thought in light
of literary evidence (genuine letters, historiographical documents and
apocryphal materials) and archaeological sources (data from excavated sites
throughout the Mediterranean world, inscriptions and mosaics). Blumenfeld
Russian 111-112 (8) - Elementary - This
course is linked; the second term must be completed to receive any credit toward
degree requirements for the first term
Russian 261-262 (8) - Intermediate - This course is
linked; the second term must be completed to receive any credit toward degree
requirements for the first term
Spanish 111-112 (8) -
Elementary Spanish - This course is linked; the second term must be
completed to receive any credit toward degree requirements for the first term
Spanish 161-162 (6) - Intermediate Spanish - This
course is linked; the second term must be completed to receive any credit toward
degree requirements for the first term
Spanish 395 (3) - Románticos, Rebeldes y Revolucionarias - topical
description - Este curso investigará la cuestión del romanticismo en
España. ¿Qué es el romanticismo? ¿Existía en España un romanticismo "auténtico,"
uno comparable al romanticismo idealístico de Inglaterra o de Alemania? ¿Cuál
fue la influencia de la Iglesia--del catolicismo ortodoxo español--sobre este
movimiento en España? ¿Tendrá razón Octavio Paz cuando dice que el auténtico
romanticismo español es el modernismo de Rubén Darío?
Estudiaremos el romanticismo como fenómeno tanto cultural como literario.
Leeremos los clásicos textos románticos como el "Don Juan Tenorio"
de Zorrilla, los ensayos de Larra, las "Rimas" de Bécquer, la poesía
de Carolina Coronado. Además compararemos el romanticismo/
modernismo de Latinoamérica con el romanticismo/modernismo español. West-Settle
University Scholars 101
(1) - The Machine and The Garden: History and Prospects of Humanity Computing - topical
description - second six weeks, permission required - How did computers
become entwined in every aspect of our lives? What can we expect in the next 20
years of the evolution of silicon-based life forms? This course and its spring
term continuation (University Scholars 201) use classic texts, syntheses,
predictions, critiques, fictional extrapolations and videos to explore
technological history, scientific and social implications, philosophical issues
and utopian visions of the computer. In US201, students undertake research
projects which will be presented as web pages. Blackmer
University Scholars 202 (3) - The Atomic Bomb: Origins,
Use and Legacy - topical description - This seminar reviews the
science and technology leading to the development and production of the atomic
bomb. With this background, students examine the decision to use the bomb
against Japan as well the political, economic, social and environmental legacies
of this weapon. Students write briefs (short position or information papers)
based on their readings of primary and secondary sources which form the basis
for group discussions throughout the seminar. A term paper is required. GE Area
5c. Settle