<p>So I have to pick an humanities course. Here is what they are offering:</p>
<p>"Harvey Mudd College
Department of Humanities, Social Sciences, and the Arts
Humanities 1: First Year Writing Seminars
Information for Entering Students</p>
<hr>
<p>Course Overview and Options</p>
<p>During your first semester at Harvey Mudd, you will be enrolled in Humanities 1, a demanding four-unit course in reading, writing, and critical thinking skills required of all entering students. The course is offered in sections of about 20 students each. Each section is organized around a reading topic selected by the instructor and described below. The workload in each section is approximately the same, and most sections will have the same due dates for papers and other major assignments. </p>
<p>Please note that this fall there will be one additional option for students taking Humanities 1. A few of the sections will participate in a pilot program for a new college writing course currently under development. Although the overall workload and time commitment will be similar, these sections will operate on a somewhat different assignment schedule from the others. In addition, students in these sections will help the faculty involved evaluate the success of different kinds of assignments and activities. </p>
<p>You can rank the Humanities 1 section topics (including the pilot program) according to your preferences using the attached ranking form. In order to have an impact on your course placement, we must receive your rankings by July 10, 2009. Although we cannot guarantee that every student will receive his/her first choice, we will place students as far as possible according to their preferences. </p>
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<p>Topics and Instructors</p>
<p>Reading And Writing Race (1 section)
Isabel Balseiro</p>
<p>This section of Humanities 1 will explore how the concept of race emerges or is submerged in literature, film, and news accounts of contemporary events. Central questions to this investigation are: What role does race play in literary and cultural analysis? How do readers and writers position themselves in relation to racialized (or deracialized) narratives? How do representations of racial “otherness” mark different texts? What constitutes and who defines the racial self and theother?</p>
<p>Gods, Monsters, or something in-between? Engineers/ Scientists in Society (3 sections)
Hal Barron, Rachel Mayeri, Dick Olson</p>
<p>The Atomic Bomb, the Industrial Revolution, Bio-Engineering – scientific discoveries and technological innovations have enormous consequences: they change life as we know it. But how do cultural values, historical events, political interventions, and media and literary representations, in turn, affect science and technology? This seminar explores the image of the engineer/scientist in films, literature, and scholarly articles where this figure often takes the form of a god or a monster. In addition to examining these tropes, we will ask ourselves if there are other ways to imagine the way in which scientists and engineers stand in relation to the world in which they live. Sources include The Day After Trinity, Dr. Strangelove, Blade Runner, and GATTACA; Mary Shelleys Frankenstein, and Kurt Vonneguts Player Piano.</p>
<p>Arts of Our Times (1 section)
Bill Alves</p>
<p>The last fifty years have been a time of upheaval and explosive change, and this excitement is reflected in contemporary literature, music, and visual arts. In this course, we will explore the connections between these dynamic arts, as well as between the works of art, our society, and ourselves. Ours is an era when traditional boundaries have crumbled, boundaries between past and present, East and West, and popular and fine arts (though this course in general will not cover pop forms such as rock or techno). In addition to reading of novels, poems, stories, and articles, we will also view works of visual art and have regular listening assignments (though no previous musical experience is expected).</p>
<p>Reading and Writing: Peculiar Tastes (1 section)
Marianne de Laet</p>
<p>“Any good reader certainly tries, in Henry James’ phrase, to be one on whom nothing is lost. We constantly adjust our expectations, not seeking to find in Proust the terseness of Hemingway, or in Joyce the headlong action of Alexandre Dumas. But it’s impossible to wholly put aside our genders, our past experiences, and, not least, our often peculiar tastes.” (Michael Dirda, New York Review of Books, April 30, 2009, Volume LVI, Number 7.)
If this sentence strikes you as beautiful and effective, evokes your curiosity, annoys you a bit, and makes you want to know what this peculiar thing called “taste” entails, this seminar is for you. I believe that good reading, good thinking, and good writing go hand-in-hand, and so in this seminar we will use good writing – articles from The New York Review of Books and The New Yorker Magazine – as a challenge for our reading, as material for thinking, and as the basis for our own writing. Other than the quote may suggest, the seminar is not about literature. NYRB and NYM cover current events – whether these events be in politics, the economy, or in cultural, literary and intellectual life; their articles will help us explore and develop our intellectual tastes. You must be willing to read and think, and to grapple with difficult material, in order to enjoy this seminar.</p>
<p>Contemporary Debates in Science: Genetic modification, Stem cells, and Global Warming (1 section)
Jacqueline Wernimont</p>
<p>This course begins with the premise that in order to understand our world and to enable change in the world, we must understand how the world is represented. There are many modes of representation that deserve study; this course will focus on language. We will begin with a short background on the shaping force(s) of language and the role of language in science. With this knowledge in hand, we will focus our attention on representations of genetic modification of food and feed crops, the use of human stem cells for research, and global warming in the U.S. Our primary texts will include popular media, academic research, governmental policy statements, journalistic accounts, and op ed pieces from a wide range of authors. </p>
<p>Building Community (1 section)
Debra Mashek</p>
<p>Four questions serve as the organizing framework for this writing course: What is community? What forces promote verses inhibit the creation of community? How might one balance individual needs with community needs? Is service to community a social responsibility? Approximately 3/4 of our class sessions will involve direct writing instruction, the generation of informal writing, and structured peer-review; remaining class sessions will involve communal interrogation of the assigned texts.</p>
<p>Reading and Writing the Essay (1 section)
Wendy Menefee-Libey and Lisa Sullivan</p>
<p>Every Humanities 1 class provides an intensive writing experience, but in this section the craft of writing will be our subject matter as well as a means for developing and communicating ideas. During the term we will read, discuss, analyze, write about, and delight in a series of complex and acclaimed non-fiction essays, looking both for powerful ideas and for rhetorical strategies that enable ideas to be powerfully conveyed. You will experiment with a variety of styles and strategies, including personal narrative, argument, and analysis. Along the way, you will develop a flexible toolkit of skills for essay development and revision. The seminar will provide challenges and opportunities for writers with varying levels of experience and confidence.</p>
<p>Autonomy and Authority (1 section)
Darryl Wright</p>
<p>Since the Enlightenment, ideals of autonomy have been prominent in Western views of politics and of personal well-being. The autonomous individual claims authority over his or her own life. How should such a claim be understood? What is autonomy and what is its value? What internal and external conditions are required in order to realize it? How does the authority over self implied by autonomy bear on the authority of government, morality, science, or society? We will explore philosophical, literary, historical, and psychological perspectives on these questions, drawn from different time periods and different schools of thought. Texts will include (in whole or part) John Locke, Letter Concerning Toleration; Immanuel Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals; Henrik Ibsen, An Enemy of the People and Ghosts; Ayn Rand, Anthem; Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority; Christopher Hitchens, Letters To a Young Contrarian; Paul Berman, Terror and Liberalism; and Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran.</p>
<p>Writing Course Pilot Program (3 sections)
Jeff Groves, Adam Johnson, Geoff Kuenning, Michael Orrison, and Peter Saeta</p>
<p>With reading selections focusing on a variety of issues at the intersection of science and the humanities, these sections will focus close attention on the process of developing a discursive paper, on the nature of good writing across the disciplines, and on the ways in which the audience one writes for and the academic discipline one writes in may shape what and how one writes. Considerable in-class time will be devoted to the writing process and writing practice, and students will collaborate will the instructors in evaluating and refining the course as it proceeds. "</p>
<p>Based on which teachers are generally regarded as the easiest and coolest, which one should I take?? I want to be done with English already!!!</p>