Master of Liberal Arts & Science

MLAS Course Roster

* Spring Registration: Monday January 15, Kirkland Hall 6-7PM
* Classes from January 15th - April 26th

Spring 2007 Courses

 

MLAS 260 58

Twentieth-Century Russian Prose

Prof. Konstantin Kustanovich, Slavic Lang & Literatures
Monday 7-9:30
Buttrick 204
First Class: January 15th

COURSE DESCRIPTION: During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Russian literature made an enormous leap from its apprenticeship in the bustling literary shop of its West European predecessors to becoming one of the greatest literatures in the world. Many experts believe that the high level of sophistication, complexity, and beauty of Russian prose and poetry results from the specific conditions in which they grew and matured. Because of strict censorship Russian literature and, to a lesser degree, other arts were bestowed with the mission of conducting views and ideas that could not be expressed in newspapers, journals, and nonfiction works. Using metaphors, hints, allusions, and other devices, Russian writers created rich fictional works with many layers of meaning. This technique of masking sensitive issues with seemingly innocent content is often referred to as “Aesopian Language.” This course will provide students with the cultural and political context and help them decipher hidden meanings, which will enable them to fully comprehend and enjoy the richness and beauty of the texts. In order to facilitate active class discussion, students will be asked to read the assigned texts and reflect on accompanying questions.

Course Content

Yuri Olesha, Envy: A short novel describing the clash between the utilitarianism of the new regime after the Bolshevik revolution in 1917 and the artist’s creative drive that finds no place and recognition in the young Soviet state.

Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago: The famous novel will be read not only as the story of two lovers and their trials during the first quarter of the twentieth century and/or as the political commentary on the Russian Revolution and Civil War but also, and primarily, as a philosophical work of biblical proportion.   

Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita: The novel, which is arguably the best work of fiction in twentieth-century Russian literature, combines poignant satire of Soviet Russia in the 1930s with poetic representation of ethical questions dealing with conformity, cowardice, and betrayal in totalitarian society.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich: This novel is a great work of fiction, but it is even more important as the first work in Soviet literature that frankly portrays life in a slave-labor camp of the Stalinist era without paying mandatory lip service to the Communist ideology.

Vassily Aksenov, The Rendezvous: Aksenov’s novel is an excellent example of the use of “Aesopian Language” in Russian literature. In an allegorical form, smartly using cultural allusions, the author revisits the theme of the conflict between the artist and the regime, which we will have already encountered in Olesha’s Envy.

Yuri Trifonov, The Exchange: Trifonov creates ethical conflict not in the extreme situations of war, revolution, or political oppression but in everyday life during the relatively benign “period of stagnation” under Brezhnev. In his prose of the late 1960s and ‘70s Trifonov introduces an innovative narrative technique, replacing the customary authorial voice with the voice of an unreliable narrator.

Short stories by Tatyana Tolstaya and Ludmilla Petrushevskaya:  Literature of the late Soviet and early post-Soviet periods. Works of these authors represent transition, already present in some of Trifonov’s novels, from ideological topics to exploring relationships on personal level. Also like Trifononv and in the spirit of postmodern times, these authors eliminate the dominating authorial voice.

COURSE INSTRUCTOR: Konstantin Kustanovich is Associate Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures. He has a MS degree in Physics and Mechanics from St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, MA in Russian Literature from NYU, and Ph.D. in Russian Literature from Columbia University. He is the author of The Artist and the Tyrant: Vassily Aksenov's Works in the Brezhnev Era and articles in major American and European journals and collections on Boris Pasternak, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Yuri Trifonov, Venedikt Erofeev, Russian Postmodernism, and other important authors and topics. His research interests lie in the area of Russian twentieth and twenty-first century literature, cinema, and culture. At Vanderbilt he has taught courses on Russian literature of the twentieth century, Russian culture of the twentieth century, Russian cinema, Jews in Russian culture, as well as Russian language courses. A Fulbright scholar, he spent academic year 2001-2002 in St. Petersburg conducting research and teaching courses on Russian émigré writers and Russian avant-garde art at Nevsky Institute of Language and Culture.

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MLAS 270 25

History of Economic Thought

Prof. Andrea Maneschi, Department of Economics
Calhoun Hall 423
Thursday evenings 5:30-8:00
First Class: January 18th

COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course traces the evolution of key economic ideas from the Greeks, through the mercantilist writers, the French économistes, Adam Smith, Robert Malthus, David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill and other members of the classical school, to the marginalist and neoclassical schools (W. Stanley Jevons, Carl Menger, Léon Walras and Alfred Marshall),  heterodox economists such as Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, and twentieth-century economists such as Paul Samuelson and other winners of the Nobel Memorial Prize in economics. Present-day economists generally regard Keynes as the most important economist of the twentieth century. His General Theory of 1936 sparked the AKeynesian revolution@ that impacted economic theory as well as policymaking by creating the new field of macroeconomics. By observing how economic concepts were formulated, interpreted and sometimes revolutionized by successive generations of economists, we will gain a better understanding of contemporary economic theory, and recognize that much of it derives from the past. Reading directly from the writings of the great economists will allow us to understand how this theory came to take its present shape, and who the chief innovators were.

As textbooks, we will use Stanley Brue and Randy Grant, The Evolution of Economic Thought, 2006, supplemented with some of Adam Smith=s writings in Robert L. Heilbroner (ed.), The Essential Adam Smith,Robert Heilbroner=s The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times, and Ideas of the Great Economic Thinkers, and a book of readings from the writings of past economists so that students may gain a first-hand impression of how these economists wrote and the ideas they are best known for.

Class meetings in this interactive course will combine lectures with class discussion and student presentations. Grades will be based on a mid-term exam, some short papers, and a longer final paper.

COURSE INSTRUCTOR: Andrea Maneschi is Professor of Economics and directs the Graduate Program in Economic Development at Vanderbilt University, whose students earn the M.A. degree in economics. He received the B.A. degree in Engineering Science at Oxford University in 1958 and the Ph.D. degree in Political Economy at Johns Hopkins University in 1964. At Vanderbilt he has taught courses in international trade, economic development, the history of economic thought, and macroeconomic theory, and a freshman writing seminar on Adam Smith=s Wealth of Nations. He is the author of Comparative Advantage in International Trade: A Historical Perspective (Edward Elgar, 1998), which explores the origin and evolution of one of the key concepts of international economic theory and policy, the principle of comparative advantage. His research has increasingly focused on the history of economic thought.

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MLAS 270 23

Contemporary Caribbean

Professor W. Frank Robinson, Department of History
Tuesday Evenings 7-9:30
Buttrick Hall 304
First Class: January 16th

COURSE DESCRIPTION: The modern Caribbean states represent a unique and challenging experience in world history. Since the beginning of the European invasion of the Americas in 1492, the Caribbean region has alternated between the center and periphery of international affairs. Shaped historically by the experiences of slavery and colonialism, the Caribbean has produced societies with a population make-up different from any other region of the world. This course is about how this region developed its special qualities and about how its peculiar history helped fashion the contemporary Caribbean with all its problems and its possibilities. Main themes in the course will include the legacy of slavery and the plantation system, the development of modern political systems, the Cuban revolution and its impact on the Caribbean and Western hemisphere, nationalist politics in the Dominican Republic and Haiti, the ambivalent identity of Puerto Rico, politics and economics in the Commonwealth Caribbean, and the impact of the United States on the region.

COURSE INSTRUCTOR: Professor W. Frank Robinson is the Associate Director of the Center for Latin American and Iberian Studies. An historian of Latin America and the Caribbean, his academic training and research focus broadly on Atlantic Studies. He teaches courses that cover both the colonial and national periods, including the rise and decline of the Iberian Atlantic empires, modern Central America, and the modern Caribbean. His current research focuses on social and political movements in twentieth century Latin America.

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MLAS  260 60

Spectacle in the Ancient World: Theater and Sports

Professor Barbara Tsakirgis, Dept. of Classical Studies
Wednesday Evenings 7-9:30
Furman Hall 311
First Class: January 17th

COURSE DESCRIPTION: The concept of entertainment as spectacle is much older than Hollywood films and professional sporting events; the ancient Greeks and Romans invented the idea of productions with special effects and sporting events with lots of sweat and blood.  We will examine the idea of spectacle in the Greek and Roman world by reading both ancient tragedies and comedies (in translation) and by tracing the development of sporting events from their origins as religious celebrations to their well known spectacular forms, such as gladiatorial games and chariot races.  Several films, including A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Ben Hur, and Gladiator will make us viewers of these ancient spectacles.

SYLLABUS

Circus: Roman chariot racing and its origins in Greece
Week One: Introduction to the Mediterranean world and to Greek drama
Week Two: Greek Drama: Theaters in Greece and Oedipus the King by Sophokles
Week Three: Greek Drama: Antigone by Sophokles
Week Four: Greek Comedy: Lysistrata by Aristophanes and Dyskolos by Menander
Week Five: Roman Comedy: the transmission of drama to Rome; Menaechmi by Plautus
Week Six: Plautus and Hollywood: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
Week Seven: Greek Athletics: The origins and the Olympic Games
Week Eight: Greek Athletics: The Victory Odes by Pindar and the Panathenaic Games
Week Nine: Greek Athletics: Other Panhellenic sanctuaries; Birth of the modern Olympics
Week Ten: Roman Gladiatorial Games
Week Eleven: Roman Gladiatorial Games and  Ridley Scott’s Gladiator
Week Twelve: The Roman
Week Thirteen: Student in-class reports on research topics
Week Fourteen: Student in-class reports on research topics


COURSE INSTRUCTOR: Barbara Tsakirgis is associate professor of Classics and History of Art as well as chair of the Department of Classical Studies.  Her research focuses on the houses and households of the ancient Greeks and she is associated with the American excavations of the Athenian Agora, the ancient civic center of Athens.  Prof. Tsakirgis serves as a member of the boards of the Archaeological Institute of America and the Friends of Centennial Park and the Parthenon.

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MLAS 260 59

Foundation Of Ethics

Prof. Henry Teloh, Dept. of Philosophy
Furman Hall 109
First Class: January 15th

COURSE DESCRIPTION: The requirements for the course are two eight-page essays.  I will provide the topics, but there will be ample choice.  The selections below include both essays by “professional” ethicists and literature.  I prefer to teach ethics through literature because literature best teaches us – leaving experience aside – how we ought and ought not to treat other people, animals, etc., and ethics is about how we ought and ought not to treat others.  I desire student participation, but will often jump-start it with questions or brief lectures.

This course is the initial principles course in the Ethics Certificate Program within MLAS.  Students interested in pursuing the certificate in ethics should plan to take this course first, because it will provide a careful examination of the ethical principles and theory essential to the other ethics courses in the series.  For more information on the certificate programs, see the “Certificates” section of the MLAS web site or consult with the director of the program.

Books for the course: 

John Arthur, ed., Morality and Moral Controversies
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
Norman MacLean, A River Runs Through It
Peter Taylor, Summons to Memphis

Week I           Narcissism and Respect for Persons

  1. Arthur, Kant, “The Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals,” pp. 56-65.
  2. Peter Taylor, “The Instruction of a Mistress,” handout.
  3. Lasch, “The Culture of Narcissism Revisited,” handout.

Week II          The Empty Self
   &    III

  1. P. Cushman, “Why the Self is Empty,” handout.
  2. F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Week IV         Utilitarianism
   &     V

  1. Arthur, J.S. Mill, “Utilitarianism,” pp.65-74.
  2. Arthur, Onora O’Neill, “Kant and Utilitarianism Contrasted,” pp.78-83.
  3. Arthur, R. Brandt, “The Real and Alleged Problems of Utilitarianism,” pp.83-89.
  4. Arthur, P. Singer, “All Animals are Equal,” pp.146-155.
  5. Arthur, P. Singer, “Rich and Poor,” pp.477-483.

Week VI         Virtues and Vices
   &    VII

  1. Arthur, Aristotle, “Nicomachean Ethics,” pp.50-56.
  2. Norman MacLean, A River Runs Through It.

Week VIII     Virtues and Vices, cont.

  1. Peter Taylor, Summons to Memphis

Week IX         Mill’s Liberty Principle
   &      X

  1. Arthur, J.S. Mill, “On Liberty,” pp.358-366.
  2. Arthur, J. Finnis, “What’s Wrong with Homosexuality,” pp.273-275.
  3. Arthur, L. Pineau, “Date Rape:  A Feminist Analysis,” pp.292-300.
  4. Arthur, Bennett and Sullivan, “Same-Sex Marriage:  A Debate,” pp.312-315.
  5. Arthur, LaFollette, “Licensing Parents,” pp.328-336.

Week XI         Economic Justice
    &  XII

  1. Arthur, Nozick, “The Entitlement Theory,” pp.469-477.
  2. Arthur, Rawls, “A Theory of Justice,” pp.386-396.
  3. I. Young, “Five Faces of Oppression,” handout.
  4. Arthur, Rachels, “What People Deserve,” pp.483-489.

Week XIII     Open Topics
   &     XIV

COURSE INSTRUCTOR: My name is Henry Teloh and I am a professor of philosophy at Vanderbilt.  My main area of interest is Plato, but I have also taught upper division ethics and social and political philosophy classes.  I have been at Vanderbilt thirty-five years, and next year I will be emeritus – which means I can park anywhere!

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MLAS 260 61

Drawing and Composition: From Concept to Artifact

Prof. Michael Aurbach, Dept. of Art
Tuesday 7-9:30
Bronson Ingram Studio Arts Center
First Class: January 16th

COURSE DESCRIPTION: MLAS 260 is an introductory drawing course designed to elevate one’s awareness of what lies behind the act of creating images and the making of art.  Drawing exercises, slide lectures, and other events will highlight the conceptual and historical issues associated with picture-making and the artistic process.  Traditional studio assignments will be presented to help improve observation skills, and various exercises will address problems associated with spatial development, the figure, value, and non-representational imagery.

No background in studio art or art history is required.  Enrollment is limited to 12 participants.

 

Instructo

COURSE INSTRUCTOR: Michael Aurbach is a Professor of Art who teaches sculpture and drawing. Aurbach came to art in his late 20’s on a dare by a jogging partner.

His socially inspired sculpture has been seen in more than two-hundred
exhibitions throughout the United States.  He has been honored with
grants and fellowships from such agencies as the National Endowment for the Arts, the Tennessee Arts Commission, and the Southern Arts Federation.  In 1995 Aurbach was honored with the Southeastern College Art Conference Award for Outstanding Artistic Achievement.

He has lectured at more than two-hundred universities, museums, and art
institutions.   The J. Paul Getty Museum, Princeton University, Cornell
University, UCLA, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago are
among the institutions where he has lectured.  Aurbach recently completed a successful term as president of the College Art Association, the world’s largest organization of visual arts professionals.

In 2001, Aurbach’s work entitled The Administrator was selected for the inaugural show of contemporary art at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts.  In 2005 the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia in Atlanta sponsored his first performance piece.  He created an elaborate ceremony entitled The Burial where his work was declared “dead” by a priest, removed from the museum by pallbearers, escorted to a gravesite in a motorcade by Atlanta policemen, and buried in a formal service.    In 2006, a Work entitled The Critical Theorist was included in the third edition of Marilyn Stokstad’s art history survey which is among the widest selling college texts.

You can see his work at:  www.vanderbilt.edu/ans/arts/aurbach/

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