MLAS Course Roster


Spring 2009 Courses

 

MLAS 280 05

Frontiers of Bioscience

Dr. Anthony C. Forster
Location: 205 Buttrick Hall
Days and Time: Wednesdays, 6:30-9:00
First class: January 14

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

Headlines ring out: “Ban All Human Cloning,” “Stem Cells: Dangerous Territory,” “Be Gone Evil Genes!” “Cancer Cured…” Come discover the science and controversy that swirls around the cutting edge discoveries in bioscience such as: human cloning, stem cells, creating life, cancer vaccines and gene therapy. We will examine whether or not these inventions are either sensational science or science fiction, and discuss the ramifications on our society. In addition, you will be introduced to the basics of molecular biology that will enable you to better understand science of the 21st century.

Course Topics to be covered:

  1. The DNA Revolution
  2. The Human Genome
  3. Human Cloning
  4. Stem Cells
  5. Cancer Vaccines
  6. Genetically Modified Food
  7. Creating Life in the Test Tube

Reading from the Stevenson Science and Engineering Library and the web:

The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA
James D. Watson (available in most libraries)

Scientific papers taken from scientific literature.

Molecular Biology textbooks as needed for basics on DNA, RNA, proteins and cells:

Molecular Biology of the Gene 5th ed. (2004) on permanent reserve
J.D. Watson et al.

Genes VIII 7th ed. (2004) on permanent reserve
B. Lewin

Biochemistry 4th ed. (1995) on permanent reserve
L. Stryer

5th ed. (2001) available free on line from the National Library of Medicine (PubMed) at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/bv.fcgi?rid=stryer

Molecular Biology of the Cell 3rd ed. (1994) on permanent reserve
B. Alberts et al.

Course Instructor:

Dr. Forster works on protein synthesis and synthetic biology. He received from the University of Adelaide, Australia, a B.Sc. majoring in Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry in 1983, a B.Sc. Hons. in Biochemistry in 1984, and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry in 1988. He received an M.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Medical School in 1996. He then completed a residency in Anatomical Pathology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in 1999, followed by research as an Instructor at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He moved to his current position, Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Pharmacology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, TN, in 2005. Dr. Forster discovered the hammerhead catalytic RNA structure, invented photobiotin for the preparation of nucleic acid diagnostics and external guide sequences for ribonuclease P, and has created unnatural genetic codes de novo. He has published in journals including Cell, J.A.C.S., Nature, P.N.A.S. and Science, edited a volume of Methods, and has authored patents.

 

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MLAS 270 33

New Methods, New Discoveries, and New Interpretations in Slavery Studies

Professor Jane Landers
Location: 205 Buttrick Hall
Days and Time: Thursdays, 6:00-8:30
First class: January 15

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

This cross-cultural and interdisciplinary course will explore the newest discoveries and interpretations in slavery studies. It will draw on new historical sources and archaeological discoveries to deconstruct some old myths and introduce students to the latest understandings of the Atlantic slave trade, African ethnicity and its cultural implications, and slave life and resistance in the Americas. The class will also consider how these new discoveries are being interpreted in public history sites, museums, and in the media. Case studies will include Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, the first free black town in what is today the United States (near St. Augustine Florida), Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage plantation and its connections to the Black Seminoles, free black life in colonial Cuba, and slave resistance in Cartagena, Colombia, the main slave port for Spanish America.

Course Instructor:

Jane Landers is Associate Professor of History, former Associate Dean of the College of Arts & Science and former Director of the Center for Latin American and Iberian Studies at Vanderbilt University. She received her Ph.D. in 1988 from the University of Florida and teaches Latin American colonial history, Atlantic world history, and courses on comparative slave systems. Her research has been supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Conference on Latin American History, and the Program for Cultural Cooperation between Spain’s Ministry of Culture and United States’ Universities. She is the author, co-author, or editor of several award-winning books including Black Society in Spanish Florida (Urbana, 1999), A History of the Atlantic World, 1400-1888 (Harlan Davidson, 2007), Colonial Plantations and Economy of Florida (Gainesville, 2000) , Against the Odds: Free Blacks in the Slave Societies of the Americas (London, 1996), Slaves, Subjects and Subversives: Blacks in Colonial Latin America (Albuquerque, 2006) and The African American Heritage of Florida (Gainesville, 1995). She serves on the editorial boards for several historical journals, including The Americas and Slavery & Abolition and has consulted on a variety of archaeological projects, documentary films, web sites and museum exhibits related to the African Diaspora. She also directs the NEH supported project “Ecclesiastical Sources for Slave Societies in Brazil, Cuba and the circum-Caribbean”, which is digitalizing the oldest black church records in the hemisphere in Cuba and Brazil.

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MLAS 280 06

The Mathematics of Games

Instructor: Professor Lori Rafter
Location: 1312 Stevenson Center
Days and Time: Mondays 6:00- 8:30
First class: January 12

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

Hold’em or Fold’em? Is the Price Right? To buy or not to buy Boardwalk? Why do people like to play games?

The amusement of games lies in the unfolding of the game, the unknown outcome and the hope of winning, even with the slimmest of odds. The three characteristics of games that provide these uncertainties are the element of chance (games of chance), the large number of combinations of possible moves (combinatorial games) and the varying degrees of information among the players (strategic games). In this course we will develop strategies to overcome these uncertainties as much as possible using a variety of mathematical methods.

Probability theory can be used to analyze games of chance like roulette. Although there is no one mathematical theory to thoroughly investigate combinatorial games like checkers, there are many different mathematical principles that can be used to explain some of these games. The mathematics of game theory, originally developed to investigate decision-making in economics, can be used to analyze strategic games like Rock-Paper-Scissors, dilemmas like the Prisoner’s Dilemma, and even everyday decisions. Finally, we will look at some popular games like poker, TV game shows and board games that involve combinations of all three types of uncertainties.

When appropriate, we will cover the historical development of the games and the associated mathematics.

Course Instructor:

Lori Rafter is a Senior Lecturer and the Assistant Director of Graduate Studies in the Mathematics Department. She received an undergraduate degree in journalism from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and a Ph.D. in mathematics from Vanderbilt. Her research interests are in universal algebra, lattice theory and logic. Since joining the Mathematics Department as a full-time instructor in August, 2004, she has taught an array of topics including calculus, linear algebra, differential equations, the history of mathematics and a course she designed addressing the connections between mathematics and games.

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MLAS 270 34

The United States and the Vietnam War

Instructor: Professor Thomas Schwartz
Location: 305 Buttrick Hall
Days and Time: Wednesdays 6:00-8:30
First class: January 14

COURSE DESCRIPTION:
This course is one of the options for those students following the History MLAS (certificate program).

“From its very beginning the Vietnam War divided Americans.” So writes the historian Gary Hess in a recent treatment of the war. This course will examine the history of America's involvement with Vietnam, an involvement which began with a limited commitment to the French war effort in the late 1940s and escalated into a full-scale American war in 1965. Readings will focus on the reasons for the growing American involvement, the question of military strategy, and the Vietnamese response to intervention. The course will also consider such questions as the role of the media, the impact of the antiwar movement, and the war's overall effect on American society. Finally, we will consider the defeat of the American effort in Vietnam, its consequences and legacies, and the many and varied ways in which the Vietnam experience has influenced and affected America’s current war in Iraq.

Course Instructor:

Thomas Alan Schwartz is a historian of the foreign relations of the United States, with related interests in Modern European history and the history of international relations.   He is the author of America’s Germany: John J. McCloy and the Federal Republic of Germany (Harvard, 1991), which was translated into German, Die Atlantik Brücke (Ullstein, 1992).  The book examined the “dual containment” policy of the United States in Germany, a policy which sought to integrate Germany into the West while using her resources and strength to contain the Soviet Union. This book received the Stuart Bernath Book Prize of the Society of American Foreign Relations, and the Harry S. Truman Book Award, given by the Truman Presidential Library.  He is also the author of Lyndon Johnson and Europe: In the Shadow of Vietnam (Harvard, 2003), which examined the Johnson Administration’s policy toward Europe and assessed the impact of the war in Vietnam on its other foreign policy objectives. He is the co-editor with Matthias Schulz of The Strained Alliance: U.S.-European Relations in the 1970s, which will be published by Cambridge University Press in 2009. He is currently working on two books: a biography of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, tentatively entitled, Henry Kissinger and the Dilemmas of American Power, and The Long Twilight Struggle: A Concise History of the Cold War.

Professor Schwartz has held fellowships from the Social Science Research Council, the German Historical Society, the Norwegian Nobel Institute, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the Center for the Study of European Integration. He is President of the Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations. He serves on the United States Department of State’s Historical Advisory Committee as the representative of the Organization of American Historians. In 2008 Professor Schwartz received the Annual Alumni Education Award from the Vanderbilt Alumni Association.

Professor Schwartz taught for five years at Harvard University, and has been teaching at Vanderbilt since 1990. While at Vanderbilt he has developed courses dealing with the United States and the Vietnam War as well a course within Jewish Studies entitled, “Power and Diplomacy in the Modern Middle East.”

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MLAS 260 78

The Twentieth-Century American Musical in Context

Instructor: Professor Jim Lovensheimer
Location: Blair
Days and Time: Tuesdays 7:00 - 9:00
First class: January 13

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

This course is one of the options for those students following the Creative Arts MLAS (certificate program).

After establishing a timeline for the American musical and exploring how musicals are created from sometimes disparate elements, this class will focus on what individual musicals from various historical periods tell us about contemporaneous concepts about, and representations of, race, gender, politics, cultural history, and social movements. Among the topics to be discussed are Oscar Hammerstein II and race from 1927 through 1950; Li’l Abner as a Cold War Era text; constructs of masculinity in South Pacific; musicals as encoded gay texts; and mega-musicals and 1980s capitalism. The class also will attend a performance of The Pajama Game at TPAC. Weekly reading and writing assignments will provide the foundation for in-class discussion, and each class meeting will utilize videos of live performance. A final paper will be required.

Course Instructor:

Jim Lovensheimer, Assistant Professor of Music History and Literature, Blair School of Music, Vanderbilt University.

Jim Lovensheimer studied musical theater performance, with an emphasis on voice and acting, at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, after which he worked in the professional theater as an actor (in non-musical as well as musical theater), musical director, and vocal coach. Returning to school in 1990, he earned a BM, with a major in music history, from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, summa cum laude (1994), and an MA and Ph.D. from The Ohio Sate University in music, with an emphasis on musicology (terminating degree in 2003). Jim joined the faculty of Vanderbilt in the fall of 2002, where he is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Musicology and Ethnomusicology. Combining his background in theater with that in musicology, Jim writes primarily about the postwar American musical theater. He is currently writing a book, under contract with Oxford University Press, titled South Pacific: Paradise Rewritten, and is researching a second, which considers constructs of masculinity in Cold War Era musicals. Other topics of research and writing have included disco and gay male culture of the 1970s, nineteenth- and early twentieth-century music of the American Midwest, and the relationship between transgender performance and crises in American masculinity. Jim was awarded Vanderbilt’s prestigious Ellen Gregg Ingalls Award for Excellence in Classroom Teaching at the Spring 2008 Faculty Assembly, and he was the recipient of the 2008 Chancellor’s Cup.

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MLAS 260 77

Medical Ethics

Instructor: Professor John Lachs
Location: 109 Furman Hall
Days and Time: Tuesdays, 7:00- 9:30
First class: January 13

COURSE DESCRIPTION:
This course is one of the options for those students following the Ethics MLAS (certificate program).

We encounter moral issues in medicine at our most vulnerable moments. This course will begin with an overview of the fundamental principles of medical ethics, as these are discussed in the famous >Principles of Biomedical Ethics< by Beauchamp and Childress. Next, we will focus on such problems as informed consent, the physician-patient relationship and medical futility (end-of-life problems), mainly by a careful consideration of problematic cases. We will have extensive class discussions. Students will be asked to write a term paper.

Course Instructor:

John Lachs is Centennial Professor of Philosophy. His most recent book is A Community of Individuals. He has presented medical ethics programs to health care professionals in the HCA chain and in other hospitals.

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MLAS 270 32

Mind and Culture

Instructor: Professor Norbert Ross
Location: 02A Garland Hall
Days and Time: Thursdays 6:30- 9:00
First class: January 15

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

Culture, multi-culturalism, pluri-cultural, global culture have become buzz-words in the 21st century. Everyone talks about them, and most everyone seems to know and presumably agree upon what these words mean. At the root of these words – and concepts – stands the idea of culture, sometimes defined as “. . . that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, customs and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society” (Sir Edward B. Tylor; 1881).

Over the last decades it has become clear that there is no such a thing as culture that resides outside our brains, which in itself – as it turns out – is heavily shaped by “culture.”

This course will provide an introduction into the study of culture and cognition, viewed through the lenses of different disciplines. Understanding the relation between culture, thought (cognition) and behavior helps us understand why people do what they do, what the motives are, and how to interact with them. For the Anthropology student it will provide new insight into the mind, while it will allow for the student interested in the cognitive science to get a better grasp of what culture is.

STRUCTURE AND REQUIREMENTS

The class will meet on Thursday afternoon and discuss common readings in a seminar style. This means the success of the class depends on your participation and it is obligatory to come prepared to class. Five books have been selected for the class, all of them available at the Vanderbilt bookstore:

(1) Linden, D. 2007. The accidental mind. Cambridge.
(2) Pinker, S. 1994. The language instinct. New York.
(3) Nisbett, R. 2003. The geography of thought. New York.
(4) Sperber, D. 2002. Explaining Culture. Oxford.
(5) Atran, S. 2002. In Gods we Trust. Oxford.

Additional articles are accessible through the Vanderbilt library e-journal system.

Readings must be completed before class on the day assigned in the syllabus.

GRADING

Class Participation 30%
3 Book Reviews 25%
Reaction Papers and Reports 25%
Final Paper 20%

The Vanderbilt honors code will be applied to all papers! All papers must bear the following signed pledge: I pledge on my honor that I have neither given nor received inappropriate aid on this assignment.

CLASS FORMAT

The course is a seminar class, which means that class discussions and student interactions are the recipe for a successful class. I will eventually lecture on specific topics or might invite outside speakers as the opportunity emerges. In the average class each student will be asked about the readings, attempting to launch a guided discussion. For each reading a group of students will be in charge of preparing a brief summary of the readings as well as a set of questions to be discussed. The questions should be geared toward an understanding of culture, thought and behavior in both general and specific cases and should be made available to the classmates prior to the class. Discussions should intend to bridge to previous readings; starting from the specific points a paper makes discussions should then move to more general points.

CLASS ATTENDANCE

Given the format of the seminar, class participation is obligatory and missing class several times will lead to a grade penalty.

ASSIGNED WRITINGS

Each student will write:

  1. Three book reviews for three of the five books assigned for this class (min of 3 pages max of 5 pages single spaced)
  2. Reaction papers for a set of papers (indicated in the syllabus) (min of 3 pages max of 5 pages single spaced).
  3. Final paper

 

LATE ASSIGNMENTS

Late assignments will be penalized 15 points for every 24 hour period beginning at the due date and time.  It is extremely important that you turn your work in on time.

Course Instructor:

Dr. Ross's research focuses on several Maya groups in Chiapas, Yucatán (Mexico) and the Petén (Guatemala). His work targets issues of culture and cognition, children’s acquisition of cultural knowledge, as well as cultural change. Current projects (funded by NSF and NIH) deal with the domains of folkbiology, ethnomedicine and religion. Dr. Ross also conducts research among North-American populations, mainly Hispanics in the USA and Menominee Native Americans in Wisconsin. He teaches courses on Maya ethnography, Maya language (Tzotzil and Yukatec), Religion, Environmental Anthropology, and Research methods. Dr. Ross has a background in the cognitive sciences (Northwestern University) and is developing an “Anthropology of predicitive Models” to be used within participant observations. Publications include Culture and Cognition, Implications for Theory and Method, Sage Publication (2004); Culture and Resource Conflict, (with Doug Medin and Doug Cox, 2006); as well as an array of articles in the leading journals.

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