Core Courses Spring 2008

CORE 1: INTRODUCTION TO THINKING AND WRITING

IDST 1050-01 Funny Business: Professional-Grade Humor

Instructor: Dr. Michael Gleason.  Nothing kills humor like trying to explain it.  Let’s do it anyway.  As an introduction to this college’s liberal arts abilities, this course is designed not only to sharpen your writing and thinking but also to foster historical and cultural insight.  Your job is to analyze a wide array of elements in the prose and poetry of funny, famous, and not-so-famous “Southern” writers, including Mark Twain, Nikki Giovanni, Richard Wright, Eudora Welty, William Faulkner, Padgett Powell, and Zora Neale Hurston.  Ranging over two hundred years and several genres, in both fiction and non-fiction, our selections include works by men and women, blacks and whites, native Southerners and the honorary sort.  The targets of their humor—or sometimes just the means to achieve it—are the Lofty and the Traditional, such as sex, race, religion, politics, and education; but sometimes the themes are less lofty—from fishhooks to bar fights, from first dates to last rites, and from county fairs to family feuds.  Whatever the topic, our discussions and your essays will closely examine form and content in order to formulate reasoned, evidence-based arguments in support of your analysis of literary humor. MWThF 8:00

IDST 1050-02 The Problem and Promise of Race in America

Instructor: Dr. Kristen Oertel.  In his 1903 work,The Souls of Black Folk, black intellectual W.E.B. DuBois argued that "the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color line."  Just over one hundred years later, DuBois's concerns continue to resonate with the American people, as we struggle to reconcile the promise of America with its reality.  In this course we will study DuBois and others who have written about race and racism, focusing especially on the idea of whiteness and how white, black, brown and ethnic or immigrant Americans have forged their racial identities in the land of equality and opportunity. TTh 10:00

CORE 2-5

IDST 1118-1128 Heritage of the West in World Perspective

Instructors: Dr. Ted Ammon, Dr. David Davis, Dr. James Bowley and Dr. Eric Griffin. Beginning with antiquity and continuing to the present, this program brings together history, literature, philosophy, religion, and the arts in an integrated approach to the study of Western culture within a global context.  It is the equivalent of eight semester hours each semester extending throughout the year. In the spring, this course examines developments in Western culture from 1500 to present in the context of world history. IDST1128 is open only to students who have completed IDST1118 in the fall. All students will be assigned to the same section and professor as in the fall. The class meets three times a week (MWF) for discussion and four times a week for lecture. Students register for a 9 or 11:00 discussion section and attend lectures on Monday and Wednesday at 1:00 and Tuesday and Thursday at 9:00. Heritage meets the Fine Arts requirement as well as the requirements of Core 2-5.

CORE 3: PRE-MODERN WORLD

 IDST 1300-01  The Uses and Abuses of Passion in the Middle Ages

 Instructor: Dr. Laura Franey. Many of the positive and negative developments in human societies in the later Middle Ages might be attributed to the focus at that time on passion -- passion not just in our usual everyday sense of intense romantic feeling but also in the more general sense of "any strong, controlling, or overpowering emotion, as desire, hate, fear, etc.; an intense feeling or impulse."  The word "passion" also was frequently used to refer to Jesus's sufferings leading up to his crucifixion, and so naturally that sense of the word was very important in the vocabulary of the Catholic Church at the time.  In this class we will look at several different "uses and abuses" of the concept of passion in literary texts, religious writings, and historical events.  We will study the significance of passion in some of Chaucer's poetry, in courtly love poetry and early English plays, and in the writings of Christian and Islamic mystics.  We will also examine how the fiery rhetoric of passionate religious belief contributed to such events as the Crusades, the creation of Islamic empires, and early European colonialism. Foci: Literature and History. MTWF 9:00

IDST 1300-02  Heresies and Orthodoxies in Catholicism, 1300-1600

Instructor: Cory Conover. This course examines the Catholic Church from the rise of mendicant orders through the Age of Discovery.  This Christian leviathan influenced not only spirituality, but also literature, politics, economics and foreign relations.  In this class, you will read works by ascetics, mystics and scholars to gain access to the spiritual thought and devotional practices of the period.  We will analyze the most important religious rebellions of the day like the anti-popes of the Great Schism, the Hussites and the Protestants to learn how they reshaped the political and cultural landscape of the West.  We will spend much of our time in Europe, but will also study the relations between Catholics and peoples of the Americas, Africa and Asia. Foci: History and Religion. MWF 10:00

IDST 1300-03  Heresies and Orthodoxies in Catholicism, 1300-1600

Instructor: Cory Conover. This course examines the Catholic Church from the rise of mendicant orders through the Age of Discovery.  This Christian leviathan influenced not only spirituality, but also literature, politics, economics and foreign relations.  In this class, you will read works by ascetics, mystics and scholars to gain access to the spiritual thought and devotional practices of the period.  We will analyze the most important religious rebellions of the day like the anti-popes of the Great Schism, the Hussites and the Protestants to learn how they reshaped the political and cultural landscape of the West.  We will spend much of our time in Europe, but will also study the relations between Catholics and peoples of the Americas, Africa and Asia.   Foci: History and Religion. MWF 11:00

IDST 1300-04 Art in Context: Renaissance Humanism and Zen Buddhism

Instructor: Dr. Elise Smith. How can we understand our own humanity more fully by considering pre-modern views of human nature, the interaction between women and men, and the relationship between humans and their God or gods?  In this course we will compare two cultures of the 15th and 16th centuries: Western Europe, with a focus on Renaissance Italy and Reformation Germany, and Japan, particularly the Muromachi and Momoyama periods.  While we will look at religious, philosophical, and literary texts, we'll use the art of the period as our primary investigative tool.  Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Durer, among other European artists, as well as such Japanese artists as Nobutada, Fugai, and Bankei will provide us with visual information about these two cultures. Foci: Fine Arts and Religion.  MWF 11 + Th 9:00

IDST 1300-05 Imagining the Divine

Instructor: Dr. Lola Williamson.  This course will explore ways in which Christians, Muslims, and Hindus in the pre-modern world imagined the divine as they used their minds, hearts, and souls to understand that which some say is beyond understanding.  We will look at scholarly, mystical, and devotional ways of apprehending the divine.  We will also look at artistic representations of the divine, including painting, sculpture, and architecture.  A goal for the course is to understand not only what each religious tradition produced conceptually and artistically, but also how cultural imagination works as it attempts to symbolize a transcendent realm in relative terms.  Foci: Religion and Fine Arts.  MW 1:00

IDST 1300-06   Life in a Time of Death: Bubonic Plague and the Cult of Death

Instructor: Dr. Austin Wilson. A consideration of the bubonic plague of the mid-1300's as a historical event that greatly affected religious, intellectual, artistic, economic, and social life. Particular attention will given to literary treatments of the Black Death. Parallels will be drawn with more recent epidemics, such as the 1918 flu epidemic and AIDS.  Foci: Literature and History. TTh 10:00 + W 12:00

.IDST 1300-07 The Quest for the Holy Grail  

Instructor:Mary Louise Jones.  A study of two Grail texts: Perceval by Chretien de Troyes and The Quest of the Holy Grail by Sir Thomas Malory.  This course will delve into the medieval world that created this powerful literature by understanding it religion, architecture, and social history.  It will also take us into the study of the mythical hero, the Crusades, caritas (spiritual love), courtly love, the cathedral and the castle. Foci: Religion and Literature. TTh 10:00

IDST 1300-08 Imagining the Divine

Instructor: Dr. Lola Williamson.  This course will explore ways in which Christians, Muslims, and Hindus in the pre-modern world imagined the divine as they used their minds, hearts, and souls to understand that which some say is beyond understanding.  We will look at scholarly, mystical, and devotional ways of apprehending the divine.  We will also look at artistic representations of the divine, including painting, sculpture, and architecture.  A goal for the course is to understand not only what each religious tradition produced conceptually and artistically, but also how cultural imagination works as it attempts to symbolize a transcendent realm in relative terms.  Foci: Religion and Fine Arts.  TTh 1:00

IDST 1300-09  Speculum Musicae: Music and the Medieval Mind - How Music Reflected Life, Thought, and Spirituality in the Middle Ages

Instructor: Dr. Lynn Raley. Speculum Musicae (The Mirror of Music) is designed to deepen understanding of the Middle Ages through encounters with some of the music heard on the European subcontinent between 1000 and 1500 CE. Music reflects life in any given era. The course considers what life was like for different classes of society in the Medieval period, and attempts to understand this music as an outlet for spiritual, intellectual and emotional expression. Focus: Fine Arts. TTh 2:40

CORE 5: CONTEMPORARY WORLD

IDST 2500-01 National Identity, Belonging, and “Multi-Culturalism”

Instructor: Nick Brown. The question "What is 'Multi-Culturalism,'" provides the principal theme of this course.  As its primary case study, the class will investigate 20th century Great Britain with emphasis on the "make-up" of the imagined national body.  As the center of a vast Empire, London in specific has attracted "different" and "other" peoples and cultures from around the world.  As a consequence, Britain has struggled and continues to struggle as a "Multi-Cultural" nation-identity.  How it has attempted to navigate and re-imagine "difference" and "diversity" will be examined.  Ultimately, the course seeks to answer: is the creation and stable functioning of a multi-cultural state possible. Focus: History. MWF 8:00

IDST 2500-02 Education and Society

Instructor: Dr. Ming Tsui. “From the desk where I sit,” President Lyndon Johnson declared, “I have learnt one great truth. The answer for all our national problems – the answer for the problems of the world – comes to a single word. That word is ‘education.’” Through a review of American education history, this course will examine the benefit of education for individuals and for society as a whole. Focusing particularly on our educational systems since the end of the World War II, we will examine the impact of societal factors, such as economic development, political movements, as well as changes in cultural values and beliefs, on our schools. We will explore how our educational processes affect the way we think, live and work. Readings and discussions are to facilitate our understanding of 1) the role of education in modern society, 2) the issue of economic inequality and education, and 3) the limits and possibilities of schooling. Focus: History. MWF 9:00

IDST 2500-03 Sudan: A World in Conflict

Instructor: Greg Miller. Since the beginnings of the Sudanese civil war in the early 1980s, more than two million people have been killed, hundreds of thousands in the region of Darfur in the last few years.  What are the sources of this conflict?  We will explore Sudan's history and some of the religious, ethnic, linguistic, geographical, and political components of this ongoing conflict.  In addition to  historical studies, we will read Sudanese autobiographies, poetry, and essays.  We will examine current efforts to save threatened lives and build a peaceful society.  We will work with local Sudanese refugees to document their lives and their connections with family and friends still in Sudan or refugee camps in surrounding African countries. Foci: History and Literature. MTWF 9:00

IDST 2500-04 An “Awakening”:  Women in Art & Literature 1900-1940

Instructor: Dr. Carolyn Brown. In this course we will use Kate Chopin’s novel The Awakening as our starting point and theme, examining works of literature and paintings that illustrate the awakening of women during the first forty years of the twentieth century. Although heroines of early twentieth century novels suffer tragic fates, endings quickly changed as authors created more confident and independent female protagonists, reflecting the feminist movement of the time. In art, depictions of women also radically changed due to experimental innovations during the modernist period. As in IDST 2400-03, we will use the Norton Anthology of Literature by Women as our primary text, reading poetry and prose selections by early twentieth century women writers such as Gertrude Stein, Virginia Woolf, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Zora Neale Hurston, and Dorothy Parker, who emphasize women’s experiences and female perspectives. In addition, we will read novels by Edith Wharton, E. M. Forster, and W. Somerset Maugham, that provide us with heroines who struggle with issues of identity, independence, marriage and sexuality. Finally, films and slides will be shown to enrich our understanding and further explore these particularly “female” themes. Foci: Literature and Fine Arts.  MWF 10:00

IDST 2500-05 Musical Theatre: An American Tradition

Instructor: Jeannie Marie Brown. Musical theatre is one of America’s favorite original art forms. This course focuses on the development of musical theatre of the 20th century, by studying musicals in their historical context from the 20’s to the 90’s. Students not only study musicals, but experience first hand, the world of the singer, actor, and dancer through classroom exercises, videos, and attending live performances. The course will culminate with short student performances of material from a chosen musical. Focus: Fine Arts.  TTh 10:00

IDST 2500-06  Media, Propaganda and War, 1933-1945

Instructor: Rebecca Miller. In times of war, nations attempt to boost morale and wartime production by celebrating a heroic myth of nationalism and demonizing the enemy.  The period immediately before, and during, World War II illustrate this.   Both the Allied and Axis powers made use of propaganda to aid their cause.  The Nazis' hyper-racialized, anti-Semitic propaganda and the United States' endeavors to unite its citizens, both black and white, against 'evil' Nazis and Japanese are all symptomatic of this trend.  This course examines moving image and print media in the period 1933 to 1945, focusing especially on Germany and the United States.  It demonstrates how both sides depicted the enemy, boosted morale, manipulated history, and illustrated elements of gender, ethnicity, and race, to ensure victory.  Readings on media theory and propaganda, as well as weekly writing assignments, will complement the various feature films, newsreels, war films, and animated shorts of the period. Focus: History MW  2:45

IDST 2500-07 Of Womanizers, Malicious Mendicants, and Ivory Peg-Legged Billionairesses: 20th Century German-Language Drama in Translation

Instructor: Dr. James Pfrehm.  Schnitzler, Dürrenmatt, Brecht, Frisch, Zuckmayer, Strauß (no, not the composer[s]!)... They were the powerhouse playwrights of 20th German-language theater. Spanning nearly a hundred years and three countries, the words, characters and themes of their plays serve as a looking glass of the fierce socio-political changes that rocked Europe throughout the 1900s. In this course we will use the works of these and other 20th century dramatists to gain a deeper understanding of 20th century European life--the good, the bad, and (what else?) the ugly. Foci: Literature and Fine Arts. TTh 10:00 + W 12:00

CORE 6: TOPICS IN SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

IDST 1610-01 Human Development in Cross Cultural Perspective

Instructor: Dr. Connie Schimmel. Human development permeates every aspect of our lives from our own individuation to our families, our work, and the rearing of our children. In this course the competing theories and ideas surrounding the physical, social, emotional, and cognitive aspects of human development from conception to adulthood are presented. Students examine those human qualities, issues, and school and personal experiences which have shaped the development of their individual selves as they construct an underlying framework for human development and their place within it.  TTh 10:00 + W 12:00

The following departmental courses in the spring have been approved by the Core Council as satisfying Core 6:

• Political Science 1000
• Psychology 1000
• Sociology/Anthropology 1000, 1100, 1110

CORE 7: TOPICS IN NATURAL SCIENCE WITH LABORATORY

IDST 1720-01 How Things Work

Instructor: Dr. Kristina L Stensaas. How Things Work is part of an integrated 2-semester course sequence (with IDST 1710) which encompasses chemistry and physics and emphasizes applications to real-world situations. Modules will include forensic science, kitchen chemistry, electricity, and how the universe works. The 2-semester course sequence fulfills Core 7 and 9 and is designed for freshman and sophomore non-science majors.
Meeting times:  TTh 10:00 + Th 1:00

The following courses offered in the spring have been approved by the Core Council as also satisfying Core 7:

• Biology 1000, 1020, 1710
• Chemistry 1221 + 1223
• Geology 1000, 1100
• Physics 1011, 1013, 1211, 1213

  CORE 8: TOPICS IN MATHEMATICS

The following mathematics courses offered in the spring have been approved by the Core Council as also satisfying Core 8:

• Mathematics 1100, 1110, 1130, 1150

The following mathematics courses offered in the spring have been approved by the Core Council as also satisfying Core 8 or 9:

• Mathematics 1210, 1220, 2230, 2240
• Mathematics - Any course at or above 1210 that has not been used to meet another core requirement

CORE 9: TOPICS IN MATHEMATICS, NATURAL SCIENCE, OR COMPUTER SCIENCE

 The Core Council has approved the following courses offered in the spring as satisfying Core 9:

• Computer Science 1010, 1020
• Geology 2000
• All courses approved as satisfying (but not used as) Core 7
• Mathematics 1210, 1220, 2230 or any mathematics course at or above 1210 that has not been used to meet another core requirement.

CORE 10: REFLECTIONS ON THE LIBERAL ARTS

FINE ARTS

The following courses offered this spring meet the Fine Arts requirement:

• Art 2200, 2230, 2580, 2590, 2750, 3300, 3310, 3350, 3360, 3400, 3410, 3430, 3450, 3460, and all studio art and art history courses.
• CLST 3750
• Theatre 1010

Any IDST course with a Fine Arts focus or the two-semester Heritage sequence will meet this requirement.  In addition, completing four semesters in Singers or a music ensemble, or completing four semesters of studio music lessons (voice or instrument) or significant participation in four Millsaps Players productions will satisfy the fine arts requirement.