MLAS Course Roster
Summer 2009 Courses
* See individual course descriptions for first class meeting date and place.
- MLAS 260 80: Philosophy and Literature: A dialogue
- MLAS 260 79: Picturing the Bible: Visual Scriptures in Jewish and Christian Art
- MLAS 280 07: Cryptography: The History and Mathematics of codes and code breaking
MLAS 260 80
Philosophy and Literature: A dialogue
Instructor: Professor Michael Hodges
Location: Furman 109
Days and Time: Tuesdays 6:30-9:30
First class: June 2, 2009
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
This course will examine five pieces of literature and a set of relevant philosophical works that develop the ideas in the literary works. We will begin with the works of literature and discuss then without specific philosophical guidance. Each reading will be followed by an examination of important philosophical discussions of themes from the reading. There will be three papers through out the term, the last being due at the last class. All philosophical works will be provided. The literary works should be available at local bookstores or from the local library. Grading will be based on the three papers (30% each) and class participation. (10%) We will also offer a Journal writing plan instead of the papers. Such a plan would involve the equivalent of about 5 hand written pages a week to be reviewed and returned each week.
SCHEDULE:
June 2: |
Borges– “The Library of Babel,” “Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” “Aleph”and “Three Versions of Judas.” |
June 9: |
Richard Rorty “The Contingency of Language and Self” (two chapters) from Contingency, Irony and Solidarity |
June 16: |
Orwell 1984 |
June 25: |
Richard Rorty “The Last Intellectual in Europe: Orwell on Cruelty” from Contingency, Irony and Solidarity. V. Havel “The Power of the Powerless.” |
June 30: |
Of Mice and Men and another work (First Paper Due) |
July 7: |
Aristotle on Friendship, Emerson on Friendship and Derrida on Friendship |
July 14: |
Peter Shaffer Equus (there is also a film with Richard Burton and a revival of the play with Daniel Ratcliffe (Harry Potter) in the leading role |
July 21: |
F. Nietzsche The Geneology of Morals (Section One) and Sections from The Birth of Tragedy (Second Paper Due) |
July 28: |
J.P. Sartre The Flies, No Exit |
August 4: |
Sartre Existentialism and Human Emotions |
August 11: |
Final assessment (final paper due) |
Course Instructor:
Professor Michael Hodges received his Ph.D. at the University of Virginia in 1967 and after a brief stop at the University of Tennessee has been at Vanderbilt for 39 years. He was Chair of the Department of Philosophy for 9 year and is currently Director of Undergraduate Studies. He has published two books--one with co-author John Lachs and many articles on subjects in American Philosophy, Wittgenstein, Philosophy of Mind and the Philosophy of Religion. This is the fourth time that he has taught in the MLAS program which he finds one of the most rewarding teaching experiences in his career.
MLAS 260 79
Picturing the Bible: Visual Scriptures in Jewish and Christian Art
Instructor: Robin Jensen
Location: Buttrick
Days and Time: Thursdays 6:30- 9:30
First class: June 4, 2009
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
This course looks at the ways Jews and Christians have visualized their sacred scriptures in visual art through the centuries, with special attention given to the first six hundred years of the Common Era. Although Christianity emerged from a Jewish sect to a world religion, its iconography reflected its conflicted relationship with its Jewish roots. Thus this course also examines the ways the two different faiths expressed their sense of distinct identity apart from one another in their use (or repudiation of) figurative art.
Assignments:
Students will produce two short papers (each about 8 pages in length) or one longer, comparative paper, of 16 pages in length.
If writing two papers: The first will be due on July 9th; the second on August 7. Students will provide short abstracts (selected object and summary of basic argument) along with brief bibliography (approximately 5 entries) on June 25 and July 23 respectively. Each paper will examine one visual depiction of a biblical text or motif as represented in Jewish or Christian art. One of these works will be presented during a class session.
If writing one longer comparative paper: Abstract and bibliography (approximately ten entries) will be due on July 9th, outline on July 23, and final paper on August 7th. Students will choose one biblical theme and show how it is visually represented in both Jewish and Christian art.
Grading:
Abstracts and bibliography for each paper will constitute 15% of the grade
Each paper will count for 30% of the grade
Class participation (including attendance and reading preparation) will count for 10% of the grade.
course Text:
Jeffrey Spier, et al., Picturing the Bible (Yale University Press, 2007) = PB.
Other readings will be scanned and uploaded to the class website on OAK.
Schedule of Lectures and Assigned Readings:
June 4: |
The Question of Religious Art: The Relationship between Text and Image |
June 11: |
The emergence of Christian Art in the second century CE |
June 18: |
The question of image – Idol or Icon? Read: Kurt Schubert, “Jewish Art in the Light of Jewish Tradition” (OAK), Jensen, “Visual Art, Portraits, and Idolatry” (OAK). |
June 25: |
Jewish Art in the Common Era |
July 2: |
Early Christian Visual Exegesis |
July 9: |
Images in liturgical spaces – Synagogues FIRST PAPER DUE – Assignment #1 |
July 16: |
Images in liturgical Spaces - Early Churches |
July 23: |
Jewish and Christian Symbols in Conversation SECOND ABSTRACT AND BIBLIOGRAPHY DUE, Assignment #1 |
July 30: |
Jewish and Christian Illuminated Bibles Read: Schubert: “Jewish Traditions in Christian Painting Cycles” (OAK) |
August 7: |
The Anti-Jewish Content of Christian Art – Reading TBA FINAL DUE DATE - PAPERS |
Course Instructor:
Robin Jensen is the Luce Chancellor's Professor of the History of Christian Art and Worship at Vanderbilt. She teaches both in the Divinity School and the Department of the History of Art. Her research and publication focuses on the intersections of Christian iconography with scripture, theological writing, and ritual practice (liturgy). Her books include Understanding Early Christian Art (Routledge, 2000), Face to Face: The Portrait of the Divine in Early Christianity (Fortress, 2004), and Living Water: Symbols and Settings of Early Christian Baptism (forthcoming, Brill, 2009).
MLAS 280 07
Cryptography: The History and Mathematics of codes and code breaking
Instructor: Derek Bruff
Location: Buttrick 206
Days and Time: Mondays 6:30- 9:30
First class: June 1, 2009
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
Julius Caesar used ciphers to keep his enemies from reading messages he sent to his generals. Sherlock Holmes deciphered a code to solve the mystery of the dancing men. Captain Midnight used a decoder ring to communicate with fans of his radio drama. The cracking of the encoded Zimmerman Telegram led to the entry of the United States in World War One. Germany’s Enigma Machine allowed the country to keep its military decisions secret from the Allies. The defeat of the Enigma Machine by Polish and British cryptanalysts required espionage by Ian Fleming no less and played an important role in the Battle of the Atlantic and D-Day. It also led to the construction of the first digital computers, which ushered in an information age where cryptography makes security, privacy, authentication, and thus electronic commerce possible.
The history of cryptography is a game of one-upmanship between code makers and code breakers. This course is designed to provide an understanding and appreciation of the ways in which codes and code breaking have impacted history, technology, and culture in the past and continue to do so. The course will also focus on understanding and applying important concepts and techniques from abstract mathematics used in classical and modern cryptography. Students will also gain proficiency in creating and breaking fun and simple codes and ciphers.
The goals of the course are as follows:
- To understand and appreciate the ways in which codes and code breaking have impacted history, technology, and culture—and ways they continue to do so
- To understand and apply important concepts and techniques from abstract mathematics used in classic and modern cryptography
- To gain proficiency in creating and breaking simple codes and ciphers
The course will be divided into three main chronological units—classical cryptography up to and including World War One, military cryptography during World War Two, and modern cryptography of the information age. Potential topics for these three units are outlined below.
1.
Classical
Cryptography
a.
Monoalphabetic Ciphers
i.
Examples – Caesar Cipher, Polybius’
Checkerboard, Alberti’s Cipher Wheel, Civil War-Era
Cipher Disks, Captain Midnight’s
Code-o-Graph, Journey to the Center of
the Earth, Sherlock Holmes and The
Adventure of the Dancing Men, Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Gold Bug,” The Great
Cipher of Louis XIV and the Man in the Iron Mask, The Hill Cipher
ii.
Cryptanalysis – Al-Kindī’s Frequency Analysis, Homophonic Ciphers
iii.
Mathematical Ideas – Functions, Permutations,
Modular Arithmatic, Prime Numbers, Probability,
Expectation, Matrices, Matrix Algebra
b.
Polyalphabetic Ciphers
i.
Examples – The Vigenère Cipher, The Beale Ciphers, The Zimmerman Telegram, Germany’s ADFGVX Cipher,
Onetime Pads
ii.
Cryptanalysis – Kasiski Test by Charles Babbage and Friedrich Kasiski,
Friedman Test by William Frederick Friedman
iii.
Mathematical Ideas – Probability, Combinatorics, Vectors, Dot Products, Cauchy-Schwarz
Inequality
2.
World War Two
Cryptography
a.
Germany’s
Enigma Machine
b.
Polish
Cryptanalysis – Biuro Szyfrów,
Hans-Thilo Schmidt’s Treachery, Marian Rejewski’s Bombes, German Blitzkrieg
c.
UK
Cryptanalysis – Bletchley Park, Alan Turing, Colossus, Naval Enigma, Ian
Fleming, Codebook Theft, Ultra Intelligence in the Battle of the Atlantic and
D-Day
d.
Bletchley Park
Post-WW2 – Winterbotham’s The Ultra Secret, Bletchley Park National Codes Centre, Bletchley
Park in Literature and Film
e.
Navajo Code
Talkers
3.
Modern
Cryptography
a.
Post-War
– Claude Shannon’s Theory of Perfect Security, National Security Agency
and the Data Encryption Standard (DES)
b.
Public-Key
Cryptography
i.
Examples – Merkle-Hellman
Knapsack, RSA
ii.
Mathematical Ideas – Functions, Computational
Complexity, Prime Numbers, Euclidean Algorithm, Fermat’s Little Theorem
c.
Authentication
– Digital Signatures, Smart Cards, Message Authentication Codes (MACs), Zero-Knowledge Protocols
d.
Privacy
Concerns – PGP, Civil Liberties, Policy Debates
Course Instructor:
Derek Bruff is an assistant director at the Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching and a senior lecturer in the Vanderbilt University Department of Mathematics. In his work at the Center for Teaching, he helps faculty members and teaching assistants develop and refine their teaching skills and deepen their understanding of the teaching and learning process. In his mathematics teaching, he emphasizes conceptual understanding of computational techniques, uses technology to increase student engagement during class, and investigates how students in his particular teaching context best learn.
Bruff’s research interests center on investigating effective uses of classroom response systems (“clickers”). His book Teaching with Classroom Response Systems: Creating an Active Learning Environment was published by Jossey-Bass in 2009. Other research interests include the role of pre-class reading assignments in mathematics courses, the role of teaching in the academic hiring process, and, in Derek’s home discipline of mathematics, adapting traditional wavelet methods to nonuniform settings. Prior to his current position at Vanderbilt, Derek was a faculty preceptor in the Harvard University Department of Mathematics, teaching several courses and coordinating multi-section calculus courses. Derek earned a Ph.D. in mathematics at Vanderbilt University.