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Willamette University
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Salem, Oregon 97301
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THE FOLLOWING ARE DESCRIPTIONS FOR SPRING2008COURSES THAT ARE NEW OR CHANGED SINCE THE LATEST VERSION OF THE PRINTED CATALOG, OR THAT AREONE OF THE FOLLOWING:
One Time Only Courses with MOI Designation
Feminist Economics
The course provides an introduction to feminist analysis as applied to economic issues. The class uses feminist analysis as an example of an alternative to mainstream economics, emphasizing the role of assumptions in economic theories. Topics to be addressed include economics of the household, causes and consequences of racial, gendered and ethnic differences in wealth, economic mobility, social networks and labor force participation rates. Additional topics may include immigration, globalization and economic policy. This course also counts towards Women and Gender Studies.
Politics 315 - Extreme Politics
The course addresses a series of related topics in the area of politics and ethics. Begins with historical context for initial Western theorizing in this area in the work of Aristotle and Thucydides, and proceeds through St. Augustine, Machiavelli, Kant and Weber. Transitions to the modern "problem of dirty hands." Then takes up a series of problems on such topics as war, historical injustices, ethical international intervention, terrorism, and torture. Course ends with a consideration of the characteristics of a good political order. Seminar: discussion, two papers, oral final exam. Robert Hawkinson.
ASIA 201 - Asian Studies Colloquium (0.5)
This course is designed to help organize Asian Studies events, hold seminars, and conduct community-based academic activities and services. With the guidance of the instructor, the participants are expected to take the leadership in initiate projects on Asian Studies from different disciplinary perspectives. Projects may include such topics as socio-economic policy, oral history, ethnic identity, religion, education, language, folklore, or film on Asian and Asian American cultures and societies..
"One Time Only" Topics Courses
ARTS 244 (CA) - Topics in Sculpture
The topic for this spring will be "Responding to African Sculpture". After a brief survey of both historical and contemporary sculpture from the African continent, students will respond to specific works by making sculptures in any appropriate medium that relates to the form, content, theme, cultural context, use of materials, or approach of the chosen work. The course acknowledges the debt of modernism to the art of Africa, and recognizes the fact that contemporary sculptors continue to be influenced by it. This course allows students to conduct an in depth, focused exploration of topics, genres and modes of expression not covered by the regular sculpture curriculum, and could address such areas as: sculptural installation, site specific sculpture, the sculpture of the body/figure, multi-media sculpture, environmental sculpture, sculpture and the pre formative aspect, and the found object in sculpture. The class will focus on one assigned topic, and the topic will vary from semester to semester. An experimental, innovative approach to the topic will be encouraged. May be repeated for credit if the topics varies. Contact Professor Andries Fourie if you have any questions about the course.
Hist 306 - Modern Latin American Revolutionaries
This course examines the lives of five individuals whose actions helped shape modern Latin America. Focusing on Simón Bolívar, Emiliano Zapata, Ernesto "Che" Guevara, Rigoberta Menchú, and Gioconda Belli, the course uses biographical, autobiographical, film, and other sources to examine the factors that led these men and women take up the cause of revolution. It explores the ways in which they transformed the societies in which they lived, and assesses the extent to which their legacies influence the present.
Hist 443 - Medieval Intellectual History: Troubadours, Philosophers, and Bards
This course is designed to introduce students to the major intellectual currents of Medieval Latin culture beginning with Roman Christianity and continuing to the fourteenth century. Selections from a diverse range of genres, including poetry, philosophy, devotional writings, letters, autobiographies, and visions, will allows students to explore such topics as the birth of courtly love literature, the rise of vernacular literature, medieval philosophy and the rise of scholasticism, the cultural role of bards, philosophers, and visionaries, the role of medieval women authors, and the literary tradition of medieval pilgrimages of the soul. Authors will likely include Boethius, Abelard, Maimonides, Dante, Chretien de Troyes, the Gawain poet, the authors of The Romance of the Rose, Christine de Pizan, Hildegard of Bingen, and poets of the 'Golden Age' of Spain. The main themes we will explore in this literature include the relationship between love and knowledge, or reason and passion; medieval notions of the "self"; and the nature of the ultimate good.
SPAN 446 - History and Memory in Contemporary Spanish Literature 244 (MWF 12:40 - 1:40)
A key component of the transition to democracy that took place in Spain between 1978 and 1988 or so after the Franco dictatorship was the so-called "pact of forgetting." While this policy of tolerance or amnesty for crimes committed during the Civil War (1936-1939) and postwar allowed for the peaceful transition to a constitutional form of government, it also meant the repression of public, personal, or artistic expressions of dissidence against the official version of history propogated by the Franco regime (1939-1975). Very recently the novelists Carmen Martín Gaite, Dulce Chacón, Luis Landero and Javier Cercas have touched on the themes of the past (history) and the remembering of it (memory). In this course we will read El cuarto de atrás (1978), La voz dormida, El guitarrista, Soldados de Salamina and a story from the collection Modelos de mujer by Almudena Grandes. We will focus our readings and discussion on issues of historical or social memory and the possibilities for reconcilliation with a difficult past that Spanish authors and citizens face today. A. Overstreet.