CENTRE COLLEGE - TENTATIVE COURSE OFFERINGS FOR CENTRETERM 2006-2007

Course descriptions are in the on-line catalog or printed below, if available.
Courses for sophomores, juniors, and seniors.

ANT 321 (Barkin/Passariello) Into the Ring of Fire (off campus)
An introduction to the diverse cultures, religions, and histories of the SE Asian archipelago, including Singapore, Jakarta, Central Java, and Sulawesi.  Students will travel by train across Java, explore colonial sites, investigate ethnic communities, tour historic coffee plantations, go whale-watching in indigenous boats, and swim over coral reefs while delving into colonial, post-colonial, and contemporary indigenous developmental histories and ongoing enterprises.

ANT 360 (Nyerges) GIS and the Environment

ARH 282/482 (Levin) Nineteenth-Century French Art
The course will focus on the art of painting in France during the 1800s, with an occasional glance at parallel developments in French sculpture and architecture, all considered within an historical context. Major artistic movements addressed shall include Neoclassicism, Romanticism, Realism, Impressionism, and Post-Impressionism. The course will conclude with an overview of early-twentieth-century Fauvism and Cubism. Prerequisite: Art 261 for ARH 482.

ARS220/320/321/420(Tapley)Drawing & Painting-II,III,IV,V

ARS 252/452 (Powell) Venetian Glass Techniques

BIO 252 (MacNabb) Sustainability (off campus)

BIO 245 (C. Barton) Freshwater Biology

BIO 375 (Ziemba) Conservation Biology

BIO 455 (Richey) The Biology of Viruses

BMB 316 (Dew) Biochemistry Lab Techniques

CHE 250 (Miles) Intro Inorganic & Analytical Chemistry

CLA 322 (Joyce) Lyric and Elegiac Poetry
Readings in Greek and Roman short verse form (Archilochos, Sappho, Alkaios, Catullus, Horace, Martial, etc.); an examination of the subject matter of short poems (lamentation, longing, passion, and dead parrot) as well as some occasions for song (lullabies, harvest, drinking, weddings); a look at parallels in 20th-century American song and verse. Readings all in English.

CRW 280 Creative Writing

CSC 111 (Bradshaw) Principles of Computer Animation
Recent blockbuster hits like Shrek, Hoodwinked and Finding Nemo have raised public awareness of computer animation. In this class students will learn the foundations of computer animation: how to storyboard a movie, how to light a scene and especially how to place and manipulate digital actors. The end product of this class with be a short computer animated movie. There are no prerequisites for this class.

ECO 458 (Johnson) Sex and Gambling: Economics of the Thoroughbred Breeding and Racing Industry
Application of microeconomic theory to the understanding of the thoroughbred breeding and racing industries. Topics include the history, organization, and regulation of racing and breeding, the impact of other forms of gambling on racing, and the future prospects of breeding and racing. Microeconomic theories of monopoly, asymmetric information, decision making under risk and uncertainty, and principles of finance will be used. Prerequisite: ECO 220.

EDU 227 (Atkins) Practicum & Introduction to Education

ENG 235 (Joyce) Lyric and Elegiac Poetry
See CLA 322.

ENG 305 (Rasmussen) Literary Criticism: Theory & Practice

ENG 372 (Manheim) Literature of the Great Depression
This course will address a variety of literary responses to the suddenly altered social reality brought on by economic collapse: How does social change affect literary subject matter and literary form? What happens to literary work when authors feel suddenly that political impact is of paramount importance? What happens to literary values? What authors or subjects rise? What forms fall out of favor? And perhaps most important, can literature be a form of social action?

ENG 379 (Lucas) Literary New Orleans

ENG 385 (Emmitt) Ulysses
James Joyce's Ulysses is considered the most important novel in English of the twentieth-century. It harkens back to Homer's Odyssey at the same time that it defines modernism. We will read the novel closely, attempting to understand Joyce's project and why it is so revered. We will look at Joyce's schema for the novel and thus consider (among other things) its design, its styles, and its place in literary and cultural history.

ENS (MacNabb) Sustainability (off campus)

FRE 255/455 (Mothion) Vive la Bretagne!

GOV 365(Maximenko)Russian Foreign Policy(off campus)
A study of the influence of political issues, individuals, and processes on contemporary Russian foreign policy.  Students will meet with Russian students, government officials, and diplomats; will visit museums and cultural institutions such as the Bolshoi; and take excursions to Zagorsk and other sites outside of Moscow .

GOV 433 (McIntyre) U.S. Politics in the 60's
This course will provide an overview of the broad range of political and social events and issues that occurred in the United States in the 1960s. Topics include the civil rights movement, the Cold War, the Vietnam War, the rise of the counter-culture and anti-war movement, and the presidencies of Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon. We will examine these topics historically, attempting to understand them by placing them into their appropriate historical context, and we will also examine the lingering practical consequences of these topics, asking questions about their relevance to political life in the 21st century.

GOV 445 (Nuss) France and the U.S.: Institutional, Legal, and Judicial Comparisons
A comparative study of the different origins, evolution, and current governmental practices of France and the U.S., with a focus on the federal presidential vs. the unitary parliamentary system, the differences between the legal systems based on common law vs. Roman law, and the differences between a totally independent system and one closely connected to the European Union. Issues of international law as they affect the two countries will also be considered.

 

 

 

 

HIS 317 (Tubb) The Crusades
This course examines the European crusading movement and how it still impacts the world today. Topics range from steroetypical images of the Crusades–quests, exotic locales, and chivalry–to the darker implications of this medieval undertaking: religious warfare, greed, and intolerance.

HIS 353 (Bradshaw) African Lives
A survey of 20th-century African history through the lives of men and women of very different backgrounds and experience. The study of these lives is linked to an examination of major themes in modern African history and to a critical evaluation of popular perceptions about Africa .

HUM 261 (Roush) Rainmaking: Study of and Preparation for Leadership

HUM 274 (Bitensky) Mystical Turkey (off campus)
Through an intense 16-day musical and cultural study tour guided by two of the most prominent Turkish dancers and musicians as well as local experts, in which students explore the music, art, architecture, craft, dance and performance and religious traditions of this region, this course will examine the ways in which a culture's artistic traditions are a reflection of societal values. Emphasis will be placed on the Greek heritage, Biblical history, contemporary forms of expression as they relate to Islamic culture, practice, and theology, and folklore. Emphasis will also be placed on getting hands-on experience in various artistic traditions, with lessons in dancing, Turkish singing, Turkish percussion, creating pottery, Romany music and dance, etc.

HUM 275 (K. Martin) Paris & Nice: Russian Arts Connection
(off campus) An examination of the lives and works of the Russian writers, artists, and musicians who left their native lands and gathered in Paris and Nice during the early 20th-century period of artistic innovation (modernism) and political upheaval: Chekhov, Chagall, Kandinsky, Nabokov, Stravinsky, Diaghelev and the Ballet Russe, et al.  The class will explore the use of iPods and will travel to Nice, on the Cote d'Azur , by TGV.

INT 400 Internship

MAT 403 (Wehner) Partial Differential Equations

MUS 206 (Bitensky) Mystical Turkey (off campus)
See HUM 274. Prerequisite: Permission of the instructor.

PHI 452 (Colter) Evironmental Ethics
In this course, we will consider the nature of our relationship to non-human entities. What things count morally? Do we have any obligations or duties with regard to non-human animals? To plants? To the environment in general? We will also consider the nature of value and obligation in general. We will then move into examining specific issues such as animal rights, care for the planet, global warming and consider our obligations with respect to those issues.

PHY 220 (Crummett) General Physics-II

PSY 325 (Gulley) Child Abnormal Psychology

REL 457 (Axtell) Civil Society & Sustainable Development (off campus) A study of alternative theories of social and economic development in the current Latin American context (e.g., Nicaragua , Mexico , Cuba ). Briefings with officials, interviews with religious and social activists, and visits to rural and urban civil society groups engaged in creative community development alternatives provide concrete case studies for understanding the interrelationship between social, political, economic, environmental, religious, and ethical aspects of a country's development process. Offered in Nicaragua .

SOC 205 (Goodrum) Introduction to Gender Studies
An exploration of the social and cultural construction of gender differences, focusing on contemporary issues; the course also considers biological differences. Some of the reading and lecture materials will concentrate on sex and gender internationally. We will examine ways that boys/men and girls/women are socialized differently by parents, friends, co-workers, and the media. Next we will explore gender differences in social institutions, including education, family, workplace, and the criminal justice system. We will conclude by examining different types of feminism and contemporary men's social movements.

SOC 250 (Reed) Defining the South
Led by Humana Visiting Professor John Shelton Reed, this course examines persistent cultural differences between Southerners and other Americans. Reed, who is Kenan Professor Emeritus of Sociology at UNC-Chapel Hill and best-selling author of over a dozen books about the South, is noted both for his humor and his insights about southern institutions. His course will explore questions of regional identity and consciousness, regional stereotypes, representations of Southerners in the mass media, localism, attitudes toward violence, and religious behavior and belief. Finally, the course will look briefly at two areas of dramatic cultural convergence during the past half century: black-white relations and voting behavior.

SPA 270 (Daniels) Spanish Culture-II (Spanish America) (off campus)

SPA 457 (Daniels) Culture/History in Spanish America (off campus)
Explore museums, churches and historic sites in Managua, Masaya, and Leon. Experience brief rural home-stays while harvesting coffee in a tropical mountain forest.  Meetings with artists, politicians, economists, and religious activists will focus on the cultural and social effects of Nicaragua 's integration into the global marketplace (colonialism to globalization. Arrangements coordinated by Witness for Peace.