May Session
Philosophy 294A: Culture, Gender & Sexuality
Prof. Jose Medina
In this course we will engage in a critical examination of the standards and values that are applied to gender and sexuality in different cultures and in global contexts. We will study deviations from gender expectations and sexual norms, exploring general ethical issues concerning gender and sexual orientation as well as more specific ones about concrete sexual practices and concrete expressions of masculinity and femininity. We will also investigate how globalization has shaped ethical and political issues concerning gender and sexuality in colonial and post-colonial times. We will read authors in Sexuality Studies, Gender Theory, and Global Feminism: Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, Maria Lugones, and Uma Narayan, among others. We will also analyze and discuss movies (such as Crash, Paris is Burning, and Venus Boyz) which put issues of gender and sexuality in a multicultural perspective.
[3 credit hours]
For more information: jose.medina@vanderbilt.edu
Theatre 272: James Bond & Popular Culture
Prof. Jeffrey Ullom
The twenty-one films of James Bond have become part of popular culture, and the figure of the superspy has become mythic in proportion. This series, from its first installment in 1963 to the latest reinvention of James Bond in 2006, not only depict one dashing man’s efforts to save the world again and again from disaster, but these films also trace the development of our popular culture. Issues of violence, sex, the presentation and treatment of women, racial stereotypes, and spectacle among other topics can be discussed after viewing each film, providing an opportunity to explore the changing expectations of American audiences and the developing form of contemporary cinema.
[3 credit hours]
For more information: jeffrey.ullom@vanderbilt.edu
Theatre 273: Utopia/Dystopia - Sci-Fi Visions of the Future
Prof. Phillip Franck
Science fiction as an art form is devoted to suggesting possible futures. In film and television, these futures are revealed through the visual choices made by designers and directors. The course will include the discussion of elements and principles of visual and aural design as employed for these future visions. Watch and discuss a variety of source films and shows including but not limited to: Metropolis, Bladerunner, Star Trek, Star Wars, The Matrix and Battlestar Galactica in order to examine their use of scenery, costume, lighting, and sound design, and determine the filmmaker’s utopian or dystopian point of view.
[3 credit hours]
For more information: phillip.n.franck@vanderbilt.edu
English 268B:
America on Film: Performance and Culture: Film performance in the construction of identity and gender, social meaning and narrative, public image and influence in America
Prof. Sam Girgus
Acting provides a key to the meaning and significance of film. At the same time, the photographic image, editing, and cinematography transform the nature of acting in film. By achieving a special "aura" in film, actors embody and project cultural values, conflicts, and contradictions. The course contrasts actors in terms of cultural values, acting styles, gender roles, personality types such as John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart; Brando and Eva Marie Saint; Bogart and Lauren Bacall; Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift; Paul Newman, George C. Scott, Tom Cruise; Saint and Cary Grant; Brad Pitt and Robert Redford; Denzel Washington and Will Smith; Gwyneth Paltrow and Cameron Diaz; George Clooney and Matt Damon; Julia Roberts and Sharon Stone. It also discusses the special relationship between actors and directors such as Brando and Kazan, DeNiro and Scorsese, Diane Keaton, Mia Farrow and Woody Allen, Washington and Lee. The course compares classic Hollywood acting with the "Method" of the Actors Studio. While studying actors and performance, students write short papers, reviews, and longer, creative "Docuscripts."
[3 credit hours]
For more information:sam.b.girgus@vanderbilt.edu
Russian 235: Adultery Myth in Literature and Film: Anna Karenina
Prof. Irina Makoveeva
This course examines the mythology of adultery as produced by literature and strengthened by visual texts. Accordingly, it begins with the major European myth of adultery—The Romance of Tristan and Iseult.Our primary focus, however, will fall on Lev Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina (1875-77) and its screen adaptations. The freedom with which filmmakers handle the allegedly well-known novel reveals the discrepancy between the literary text and its idea in the collective unconscious. Additionally, we will “read” a graphic novel Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (2000)—a postmodernist revision that undermines the elevated status of the novel and its creator. Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary (1857) and Theodor Fontane’s Effi Briest (1895) will constitute the comparative background for our examination of the metamorphoses of the adultery myth. The course will be taught in English and will count toward the Film Studies major.
For more information: irina.makoveeva@vanderbilt.edu
Communications Studies 294-02: Ireland on Film
Prof. Kass Kovalcheck
Information to come.
[3 credit hours]
For more information: kassian.a.kovalcheck@vanderbilt.edu
Economics 224: Russia in Transition: Economic, social, and political implications
Prof. Victor Supyan
Transition from a centrally planned economy to markets. Trade, investments, labor markets, income, and growth. Taxation, fiscal, and monetary policy.
[3 credit hours]
For more information:victor.b.supyan@vanderbilt.edu
Religious Studies 202: Natural Science and the Religious Life
Prof. Victor Anderson
Maimonides held that both the natural sciences and religious thinking have the same goal. The goal is to understand the nature of the universe we inhabit so that we can learn how to best live our lives as human beings. The natural sciences and religious thinking believe that if we have accurate knowledge of reality, we will be able to lead happier, healthier and more fulfilled lives. This course is an examination of the ways that religion and science interact. Each offers various descriptions of the world and the ways that all things are related. The course focuses on particular areas where scientific and religious descriptions often clash. Some of the areas include: origins of the universe, humanity and its relation to other animals, genetics and human engineering, theories of the after life, and the environmental crises. The course will make use of a wide range of materials from philosophical, ethical and religious literatures and representations of religion and science in science fiction.
[3 credit hours]
For more information: victor.anderson@vanderbilt.edu
History of Art 288: Artists on Film
Prof. Bob Mode
Films on major artists became popular in the mid-20th century, and created a new wave of bio-pics in the past ten years. Both the commercial and artistic success of films like FRIDA or POLLOCK reflect the power of this genre. Alternative approaches, such as I SHOT ANDY WARHOL or the Van Gogh sequence in Kurosawa's DREAMS, have expanded the medium. This course presents a select group of films that demonstrate how techniques of narrative and art direction add exciting dimensions to traditional modes of presentation. Discusions will center on how effectively the filmmakers interpret artists, while studying art/film criticism as a contemporary means of popular expression.
[3 credit hours]
For more information: robert.mode@vanderbilt.edu
Sociology 294: Sociology Through Baseball
Prof. Ronnie Steinberg
Information to come.
[3 credit hours]
For more information: ronnie.j.steinberg@vanderbilt.edu
Sociology 234: Prison Life
Prof. Mary Altani Karpos
Prison Life from the perspectives of prisoners, officials, and the society in which they operarte.
[3 credit hours]
For more information: m.karpos@Vanderbilt.Edu
Music Specialty Course 261: Conducting
Prof. Emelyne Bingham
An introductory course of study stressing the fundamentals of movement and gesture as they relate to style, articulation, phrasing, tempo, cueing, etc. Score reading at the piano. Prerequisite: MUSC 122e, 132b or 133b, and 221. MTWR 4:30:-6:30pm, Blair Room 2190.
[2 credit hours]
For more information: emylyne.m.bingham@vanderbilt.edu
Music History and LIterature 264: Exploring the Film Soundtrack
Prof. Stan Link
Relationships among soundtrack, image, and narrative film. The complex music, sound, and dialog in a variety of American films, from silents to Hollywood blockbusters and cartoons. Topics include diegesis, temporality, continuity, and musical style. Discussion, video, and film research, reading, and listening. No musical background required. MTWRF 9:10-12noon, Blair Room 2192
[3 credit hours]
For more information: stan.b.link@vanderbilt.edu
Special Topics in Music History and Literature 294-01: Opening Doors: Stephen Sondheim and the American Musical
Prof. Jim Lovensheimer
When Stephen Sondheim came to prominence as a composer-lyricist in the 1970s, many audiences as well as critics appreciated his work more than they liked it. He was criticized for writing scores that were cold, analytical, unemotional, and, worst of all, difficult. Time has tempered those reactions, however, and now Sondheim is regarded as an American master of the genre. Works for which he provided scores are currently being re-assessed by directors both in the United States and, especially, in Great Britain, where he has always been popular, and recent productions have demonstrated that these works hold up to innovative and often daring stagings.
In this seminar, we shall examine all Sondheim’s works for the stage, including those for which he provided lyrics but not music. In so doing, we shall gain further insight into why he is regarded as one of the most important creators for the post-World War II American musical stage as well as why his work holds up to close musical and dramatic analysis. (Prerequisites: None, although the ability to read a piano-vocal score is recommended.)
[3 credit hours]
For more information: jim.lovensheimer@vanderbilt.edu
Latin American Studies 294A: Specters of Cuba: The Cultural Production of the Cuban Revolution
Prof. Paul B. Miller
The Cuban Revolution is the preeminent historical, ideological and cultural event in Latin America in the second half of the twentieth century. This popular revolution in 1959 has proven be to a thorn in the side of the United States for almost 50 years and has survived the enmity of nine US presidents. The Revolution has withstood an economic blockade unprecedented in its intensity and duration and the constant threat of invasion and assassination of its leader, Fidel Castro, through means so bizarre (exploding cigars) that they seem to come out of the pages of a Latin American novel. Cuba has lost nearly a tenth of its population to emigration; many of these emigrants settled in Miami and formed a powerful political lobby which has disproportionately influenced US foreign policy and even determined indirectly the outcome of a US presidential election in 2000. Perhaps the emblematic moment of Cuba's rise to international prominence was the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, in which the issue of Soviet missiles on this tropical island, only 90 miles from the USA, escaladed into cold-war showdown which brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.
The Cuban Revolution is a transcendent event in the recent history of our hemisphere. It is essential therefore to understand it in its own terms and outside the demonizing lens of US ideology and foreign policy. To this end, in this seminar we will attempt to assess the complexity of the Cuban Revolution through an examination of its cultural expression. In addition to studying a historical overview of the Revolution's timeline and evolution, we will especially focus on some of the key cultural achievements in Cuba over the course of the last five decades. We will evaluate the literary production of writers and artists sympathetic to the Revolution, as well as the younger and often dissident voices in fiction, poetry, music, visual arts and film. We will also consider Cuba's rise to international prominence in sports (baseball, boxing, track) and ballet. Some of the writers will include Alejo Carpentier, Roberto Fernández Retamar, Nicolás Guillén, Nancy Morejón, Reina María Rodríguez, Norberto Fuentes, Calvert Casey, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Heberto Padilla, Senel Paz, Reinaldo Arenas, and Pedro Juan Gutiérrez. We will study the films of Mikhail Kalatozov, (Soy Cuba/I am Cuba), Gutiérrez Alea, (Memories of Underdevelopment, The Last Supper, Strawberry and Chocolate), Sara Gómez (De cierta manera), Humberto Solas, (Lucía ) Ferando Pérez (Suite Habana, La Vida es Silbar). Musical artists will include Silvio Rodríguez, Pablo Milanés, Sara González, Carlos Varela, Leo Brouwer and Buena Vista Social Club. Finally the painters and photographers we study will include Wilfredo Lam, Tomás Sánchez, Carlos Garaicoa, Alexis Leyva (Kcho), Alberto Korda.
Course requirements will include short writing assignments over the course of the seminar, a multimedia presentation and a final paper.
[3 credit hours]
For more information: http://people.vanderbilt.edu/~paul.b.miller/maymester2008.html
Religious Studies 294 01: Culture, Religion and Politics of Contemporary Arab World
Prof. Bushra Hamad
The interface between religion and politics in the contemporary Arab world. Through close reading of primary and secondary sources, lectures, and discussions, we will explore the impact of colonialism and neo-colonialism on modern Arabic societies and the place of religion in them. Videos and slides will be used where appropriate. No knowledge of Arabic is required. Course will be taught in English.
[3 credit hours]
For more information: bushra.hamad@vanderbilt.edu
Spanish 296 01: SPECIAL TOPICS IN HISPANIC CULTURE PORTRAITS OF A WOMAN: FEMININE REFLECTIONS IN SPANISH CINEMA (1973-2000)
Prof. A. Zamora
One of the most outstanding features of the Spanish national cinema in the last quarter of the 20th century, basically since Francisco Franco’s death, has been the overwhelming abundance and importance of women’s stories, or more precisely, stories about women written, directed and told compulsively by man. The course is an exploration of this cinematographic obsession with the feminine subject, object, gender, genre and sex. It will be organized around two parallel axes: chronology (the historical evolution of this phenomenon against the political, social and cultural developments in Spain) and thematics (the different articulations or images of women throughout this period). We will see ten movies in class, one every other session, from different directors (Almodóvar, Amenabar, Trueba, etc). The last hour of these movie sessions as well the entire next class will be dedicated to analysis, discussions, oral presentations and lectures. I will distribute and assign at least one critical article, in English, per movie. Furthermore, the movies will be shown in Spanish with English subtitles.
[3 credit hours]
For more information: andres.zamora@vanderbilt.edu
American Studies 240 01: Topics in American Studies: Baseball in American Life
Prof. B. Oppenheimer
[3 credit hours]
For more information: bruce.oppenheimer@vanderbilt.edu