2019-2020 Catalog [ARCHIVED PUBLICATION] Use the dropdown above to select the current catalog.
Humanities, Social Sciences, and the Arts Courses
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Department of Humanities, Social Sciences, and the Arts
American Studies
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AMST103 HM - Introduction to American Cultures
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Staff
Description: An interdisciplinary introduction to principal themes in American culture taught by an intercollegiate faculty team.
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AMST115 HM - Print and American Culture
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Groves
Description: Covers numerous developments in American print culture through the careful examination of both textbooks and artifacts (period books, magazines, newspapers, letters, diaries, advertisements, etc.).
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AMST120 HM - Hyphenated Americans
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Balseiro
Description: A focus on the experience of immigrants in the United States and Americans of diverse ethnic backgrounds, as reflected in literature and critical theory. The course will weave together works that treat the lives of immigrants and minority groups in the United States with examinations of such contemporary issues as bilingual education, the conditions of migrant workers, and children as cultural and linguistic interpreters for their parents. The intentionally broad and interdisciplinary nature of the course enables exploration of cultural identities, socio-economic status, and gender-specific roles.
Anthropology
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ANTH110 HM - Life: Knowledge, Belief, and Cultural Practices
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): de Laet
Description: An exploration of cultural attitudes toward life and the human body: from Melanesian origin myths to the human genome project; from the first autopsies to cloning and genetic manipulation; from early body snatchings to the trade in bodies and body parts in the global economy. The question of what constitutes life is subject to controversy, and how it is answered is informed by cultural differences in practices, knowledge, and beliefs. This course aims to help students develop a sophisticated and informed attitude towards cultural difference.
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ANTH111 HM - Introduction to the Anthropology of Science and Technology
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): de Laet
Description: An introduction to science and technology as cultural phenomena and a hands-on initiation into anthropology. While applying basic anthropological methods in the academic environment, students gain an understanding of science and technology as a culturally, socially, and historically specific way of constructing knowledge. In other words, rather than taking for granted the ways in which we make knowledge, this course renders those ways of knowledge-making “strange.”
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ANTH115 HM - War and Conflict
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): de Laet
Description: “The wings of the butterfly—that cause the hurricane at the other end of the earth—aren’t guilty, right? … no one is.” “Just the opposite,” replies Faulques. “We are all a part of the monster that moves us around the chessboard.” As Faulques—the painter/ war-photographer protagonist in Perez-Reverte’s novel The Painter of Battles—sees it, war and destruction and their attendant personal horrors are more ordinary, more typical of human beings than peace and civil order. But while chaos has its own rules and symmetries and nothing is coincidental or happens by chance, as spectators we are complicit in the occurrences of violent upheaval about which we read each day in The New York Times. We will investigate this premise. How do we explain war; what is it for? What does war do to us—distant or not-so-distant spectators—and to others—willing or unwilling participants? Is war endemic to the human condition? Is it a necessary evil? Does it emerge from psychological and irrational “drives,” or from economic, rational considerations? If we have a talent for war, do we have a talent for peace?
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ANTH134 HM - Rationalities
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): de Laet
Offered: Offered alternate years
Description: What does it mean to be rational? Does it mean anything, to say that you are thinking rationally? This seminar takes an anthropological approach to knowledge and knowledge-making practices; it explores connections between rationality and culture. We will ask how and where, in which kinds of practices, “scientific rationality”—as we will call it for the moment—is “located.” What is it about this kind of rationality that is so compelling? Are other kinds of rationalities thinkable, possible, or plausible? Are such other kinds of rationalities perhaps “at work” even as we speak, in parallel with, or embedded in, the ways in which scientists make knowledge? To answer these questions, we will examine objectivity and calculatory logic—the elements of “scientific rationality.” Are objectivity and logic perhaps values as much as they are practices? We will then mine the anthropological literature for alternate logics than the ones we take for granted, examining magical thinking, belief, and indigenous practices that define for “us” what is “irrational.” Are such practices perhaps less irrational than we assume them to be? Finally, we will take on actual scientific practices of knowledge-making, empirically and anthropologically. We may assume that rationality as we know it imbues such practices. But are they perhaps informed by alternate logics as well? Here is where subjectivity and affect come into our picture of what scientific practices are made of; we will try to give such alternate values a place in how the bodies that “do” science act, think and make knowledge.
Prerequisite(s): Any introductory course in anthropology or any introductory course in science, technology, and society
Art History
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ARHI131 HM - A History of Landscape Photography
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Fandell
Description: This course explores how photographic landscape imagery has shaped our experience and ideas of the land. Examining work dating back to the invention of the medium in 1839 to contemporary artists to NASA’s Mars Rover images, we will consider how photographic imagery documents and determines the topography around us.
Art
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ART033 HM - Photography
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Fandell
Description: Approaching the medium from an artistic perspective, students will explore a variety of photographic concepts and techniques. This course emphasizes seeing, thinking, and creating with a critical mind and eye to provide understanding of the construction and manipulation of photographic form and meaning. The fundamentals of working with a digital single lens reflex camera (DSLR), including manual controls and lighting, are covered. Students will also explore everything from cell phone cameras, web cams, and disposable cameras as equally legitimate tools for creating art. Assignments, lectures, readings, and excursions will build on each other to provide students with an overview of the history and contemporary practice of photography. $150 course fee.
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ART060 HM - Workshop in Hand Press Printing
Credit(s): 1.5
Instructor(s): Groves
Description: This workshop introduces students to the basic vocabulary and practices of typesetting, typography, and printing for and on an iron hand press. Work includes a skill-building project and a student-designed semester project.
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ART188 HM - Undisciplined Art
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Fandell
Description: Embracing the contemporary idea that art is not grounded in technique or medium but driven by concepts, this course emphasizes thinking and creating within a context of historical and theoretical concerns. Students will be challenged to re-contextualize skills they already have to address questions central to twentieth and twenty-first century art making. They will be expected to work beyond traditional labels such as painting, sculpture, photography, etc. and use unexpected processes, picking those which are best suited to their ideas and push the envelope as to what is considered art.
Asian American Studies
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ASAM086 HM - Social Documentation/Asian American
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Staff
Description: Viewing of films and other documentary forms by Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) for critique and discussion. Basic instruction in use of digital video technology to document social issues relevant to Asian American and Pacific Islander communities. Community-project.
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ASAM111 AA - Pacific Islanders and Education
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Staff
Description: This course will explore various topics within Indigenous education. Through a variety of mixed methods, this seminar will examine previous and current educational policy and its effects on diverse Indigenous peoples. It will also examine education as a tool for empowerment, resistance, and healing within varied Indigenous communities. Course topics covered include: Native/Indigenous epistemology, decolonizing methodologies, settler colonialism, cultural reclamation, and critical pedagogy. In addition to the course materials, students will engage in service learning by partnering with the Saturday Tongan Education Program (STEP). Participating in STEP will allow students to actively participate in an Indigenous educational initiative that directly relates to the course content and discussions.
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ASAM125 AA - Introduction to Asian American History: 1850-Present
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Flores
Description: This survey course examines the history of Asian immigrant groups and their American-born descendants as they have settled and adjusted to life in the United States since 1850. We will explore issues such as the experience of immigration, daily life in urban ethnic enclaves, and racist campaigns against Asian immigrants. In addition, this course utilizes an ethnic studies framework that requires students to critically explore other themes such as class, community, empire, gender, labor, race, sexuality, settler colonialism, and war from the perspective of Asian Americans.
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ASAM134 AA - South Asian American Experience
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Staff
Description: This course looks at the historical, cultural, social, and political issues which confront the South Asian American community today. Issues such as citizenship and transnational experiences, minoritization, economic opportunity, cultural and religious maintenance and adaptation, changes in family structure, gender roles, and generational shifts are explored
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ASAM150 AA - Contemporary Asian American Issues
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Staff
Description: Survey of contemporary empirical studies focusing on Asian American experiences in the U.S. and globally; major themes include race, class, gender, sexuality, marriage/family, education, consumption, childhoods, aging, demography and the rise of transmigration. Readings and other course materials will primarily focus on the period since 1965.
Economics
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ECON053 HM - Principles of Macroeconomics
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Evans
Description: An introductory course designed to provide a fundamental understanding of the national economy. Topics include theories of unemployment, growth, inflation, income distribution, consumption, savings, investment, and finance markets, and the historical evolution of economic institutions and macroeconomic ideas.
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ECON054 HM - Principles of Microeconomics
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Sullivan
Description: Provides methods of investigating the individual behavior of people, businesses, and governments in a market environment. Topics include elementary models of human economic behavior and resource allocation, and the evolution of market institutions and their impact upon society.
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ECON103 HM - The Great Economists
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Staff
Description: This course surveys the significant contributions of a noted economist.
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ECON104 HM - Financial Economics
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Evans
Description: The principles of money and banking from the viewpoint of both business person and banker. Topics include the operation of commercial banks, related financial institutions, the development of the banking system, international finance, governmental fiscal and monetary policy, and the relations of money and credit to prices.
Prerequisite(s): ECON053 HM
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ECON108 HM - Government, Fiscal, and Monetary Policy
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Evans
Description: Includes an in-depth examination of the federal budget, deficits and the debt, budgetary enforcement, line-item spending, tax policy, and theories of the impact of government economic activity upon the rest of the economy. Monetary policy emphasizes the policies and activities of the Federal Reserve System, efforts to influence interest rates, money growth and credit, and studies of policy options.
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ECON136 HM - Financial Markets and Modeling
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Evans
Description: Modern financial strategy seeks to reduce market risk through the use of complex instruments called derivatives. This course introduces students to the world of futures, options, and other derivatives. Topics to be covered include a survey of the markets and mathematical models of risk and volatility.
Prerequisite(s): ECON104 HM
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ECON140 HM - Economics of Gender, Work, and Family
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Sullivan
Description: An introduction to research and theory in the rapidly growing field of work and family studies. Inherently interdisciplinary, the study of work/family intersections involves the literatures of sociology, anthropology, psychology, legal studies, and history, as well as economics. Topics to be considered include: the relationship between parental work and child development; the economic effects of care-giver status; gender differentials in the workplace; family-related public policy; the division of household labor, and work and health. Taught in seminar style and largely discussion-based.
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ECON142 HM - Development Economics
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Sullivan
Description: A critical introduction to the major orthodox and heterodox theories of development economics and to a selection of alternative strategies. Central objectives include identification of the determinants of economic growth and the distinction of growth from development.
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ECON150 HM - Political Economy of Higher Education
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Sullivan
Description: An exploration of topics central to the political economy of contemporary American higher education. Organized as a seminar, the course is also a workshop in which students develop reading lists, influence the selection of subtopics, and lead discussions. Likely topics include the academic labor market, admissions and marketing issues, college sports, and the role of government funding. Particular attention will be paid to forces that shape the education of scientists, mathematicians, and engineers.
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ECON153 HM - Intermediate Macroeconomics
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Staff
Description: A reexamination of the principles of macroeconomics at a more advanced level. The use of formal models for macroeconomic analysis and application to topical problems.
Prerequisite(s): ECON053 HM ; ECON054 HM is recommended
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ECON154 HM - Intermediate Microeconomics
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Staff
Description: An advanced treatment of micro-economic theory using formal mathematical models for analysis. Optimization models of human behavior and resource use in a market environment are developed, analyzed, and applied to a topical economic allocation problem.
Prerequisite(s): ECON054 HM
Environmental Analysis
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EA010 HM - Introduction to Environmental Analysis
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Staff
Description: This course examines the history of environmental change, the environmental ramifications of economic and technological decisions, the impact of personal choices, and the need to evaluate environmental arguments critically. We will delve into questions such as: What is nature? How have ideas about nature varied across time and across different cultures? How have those ideas about nature influenced interactions with environments? Why doesn’t everyone have access to a clean and safe environment?
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EA174 HM - Building Los Angeles
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Groves
Description: This course explores the complex network of urban communities in which we live in order that we might think more deeply about the relationship of the built to the natural environment. To complicate our conceptions of Los Angeles, we consider the city’s history and infrastructure and examine the social stresses and environmental pressures that result from planning decisions. We also focus on Southern California architecture and design as a profound expression of the relationship between the built and the natural, including new urbanism and the maturation of green design. As a required experiential component, the course features a substantial number of Saturday field trips. $50 fee to cover transportation costs.
History
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HIST081 HM - Science and Technology in the Early Modern World
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Hamilton
Description: We will read works of natural philosophy from the 16th and 17th centuries, including selections by Vesalius, Copernicus, Galileo, Boyle, and Newton, individuals who have often been cast as crucial contributors to “The Scientific Revolution.” Engaging with historians who debate the merits of this term, we will ask whether it is possible to unite these figures and the changes they represent into one coherent intellectual and social movement.
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HIST082 HM - Science and Technology in the Modern World
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Hamilton
Description: An examination of several important episodes in the history of chemistry, biology, physics, and medicine from the late 18th to mid-20th centuries. We will pay particular attention to the ways in which new scientific theories have been developed and evaluated, to the impact of cultural beliefs about gender and race on science, and to fundamental debates within science and medicine about what counts as good evidence and proper methodology.
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HIST127 HM - Twentieth-Century U.S. History
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Staff
Description: An analysis of U.S. history from the Progressive Era to the present, with particular emphasis on social, economic, and cultural developments and their relationships to political change.
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HIST150 HM - Technology and Medicine
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Hamilton
Description: This course explores the increasingly technological nature of medicine in the 19th and 20th centuries, investigating the impact of new technologies on diagnostic practices, categories of disease, doctors’ professional identities, and patients’ understanding of their own bodies. Technologies studied include the stethoscope, electrotherapy devices, X-rays, ultrasound, and MRI.
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HIST151 HM - Science in Fiction
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Hamilton
Description: In this course, we will explore fictional texts as historical documents. Together, we will read novels from the 19th and 20th centuries in which the practice of science is central to the story being told, asking what each text reveals about cultural attitudes towards science in that time period. In addition, each student will pursue a historical research project centered on a fictional source of his or her choice.
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HIST152 HM - A History of Modern Physics
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Hamilton
Description: An examination of the cultural and social worlds of physics in the 19th and 20th centuries. Topics include the relationship of experiment to theory, the development of relativity and quantum mechanics, the role of physicists in the atomic bomb project, and the experiences of women in physics.
Prerequisite(s): One college-level course in physics.
Humanities, Social Sciences, and the Arts
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HSA010 HM - Critical Inquiry
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Staff
Offered: Spring
Description: This seminar course introduces students to inquiry, writing, and research in HSA, through focused exploration of a particular topic selected by the instructor in each section. To encourage reflection on the place of HSA within the Harvey Mudd curriculum, the course begins with a brief unit on the history and aims of liberal arts education. Writing assignments include a substantial research paper on a topic of interest chosen by the student in consultation with her or his instructor. The course ends with student research presentations in each section, followed by a Presentations Days event featuring the best presentations from across all sections.
Prerequisite(s): WRIT001 HM
Corequisite(s): WRIT001E HM may serve as a co-requisite
Literature
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LIT035 HM - Fiction Workshop
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Plascencia
Offered: Fall and Spring
Description: This course is designed as an introductory workshop focusing on the writing of fiction and the discourse of craft. Through the examination of a variety of literary traditions, stylistic and compositional approaches, and the careful reading and editing of peer stories, students will strengthen their prose and develop a clearer understanding of their own literary values and the dynamics of fiction.
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LIT104 HM - An Introduction to Middle English Literature
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Groves
Description: A course for students interested in developing a basic ability to translate and pronounce Middle English. Works studied will include: the first fragment of Chaucer’s “The Canterbury Tales”; “Sir Orfeo”; “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”; and selections from Malory’s “Le Morte D’Arthur.”
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LIT105 HM - The Land and American Literature
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Groves
Description: Explores how landscape is depicted in American literary texts and the relationship between those texts and other modes of representation (painting, cartography, photography, and film).
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LIT110 HM - Performing Shakespeare
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Groves, Dadabhoy
Description: Covers selected dramatic and lyric works by Shakespeare with some attention to other Elizabethan and Jacobean writers. Final project: a public performance of a Shakespeare play.
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LIT117A HM - Dickens, Hardy, and the Victorian Age
Credit(s): 4
Instructor(s): Groves, Eckert
Offered: Fall and Winter break
Description: An intensive study of the work and literary development of Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy. Readings drawn from the authors’ works and related critical, biographical, and historical texts. Class travels to England over winter break; travel expenses are the responsibility of the student.
Prerequisite(s): Permission of instructor.
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LIT141 HM - Monsters in Literature
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Dadabhoy
Description: Our culture is fascinated by things that are weird, strange, horrifying, and grotesque. In other words, we’re fascinated by monsters, those others that stand at the margins of human, civilized society, threatening us by their very existence. Are monsters only very scary things, or do they have a social and cultural function? In this course we will take up this and other questions as we investigate the nature of the monstrous. Moreover, we will explore the libidinal charge that the recognition of the monstrous or unnatural being evokes. Thus, we will examine both the physical and psychological permutations of monstrosity. In this course, we will consider monsters in their non-human, alien, and technological forms as well as some truly terrifying human monsters.
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LIT144 HM - Poe Goes South: the Fantastic Short Story
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Balseiro
Description: A consideration of Poe’s influence on the development of the fantastic short story in Latin America. Topics include: Poe’s reception in Europe and in the Southern Cone, Poe’s influence in the literature of magic realism in 20th-century Latin America.
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LIT145 HM - Third-World Women Writers
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Balseiro
Description: Focuses on the relationships between gender and identity in the writings of Third-World women as well as theoretical background on Third-World feminisms. Authors include Nawal El Saadawi, Alifa Rifaat, Mariama Ba, Bessie Head, Ana Lydia Vega, and Jamaica Kincaid.
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LIT146 HM - Twentieth-Century South African Literature
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Balseiro
Description: An introduction to the interactions between literature, politics, and history in 20th-century South Africa. Readings include drama, poetry, fiction, and biography, and viewings include several films and documentaries.
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LIT147 HM - Writers From Africa and the Caribbean
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Balseiro
Description: An examination of the themes of nation, exile, race, and gender in works by Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Ayi Jwei Armah, Yusuf Idriss, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Nadine Gordimer, George Lamming, Jean Rhys, and Rosario Ferre, among others. Theoretical background on Third-World literature will also be covered.
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LIT155 HM - Post-Apartheid Narratives
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Balseiro
Description: This seminar maps the literary terrain of contemporary South Africa. Through an examination of prose, poetry, and visual material, this course offers some of the responses writers have given to the end of apartheid, to major social events such as the hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and to the idea of a “new” South Africa.
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LIT156 HM - Translation; or, the Foreignness of Language
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Balseiro
Description: This seminar is designed to introduce students to the foreignness of language through literary translation theory and its praxis. Participants will develop individual projects that will be revised and workshopped over the course of the semester. Weekly readings, including essays by theoreticians, accomplished writer-translators, and selections of multiple translations of a single text, will be used to familiarize students with a range of perspectives on translation and its relationship to writing.
Prerequisite(s): Students must have reading knowledge of at least one foreign language
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LIT158 HM - Zora Neale Hurston: Theories of Race, Gender, and Art
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Balseiro
Offered: Spring
Description: This seminar is designed to introduce students to Zora Neale Hurston as an ethnographer and fiction writer. Hurston was the first African American woman to graduate from Barnard College. Born in the South, highly educated in the North, a luminary amongst the talents of the Harlem Renaissance, and buried in an unmarked grave in her native Florida, Hurston’s writing and life offer a unique view onto notions of race, gender, art, and class in the aftermath of Reconstruction that reverberate to this day.
Media Studies
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MS050 HM - Introduction to Film
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Mayeri
Description: Introduction to film analysis, exploring the language of film through weekly screenings and discussions. The craft of filmmaking-screenwriting, cinematography, mise-en-scene, sound, editing—from silent films, to classical Hollywood cinema, to independent film, documentary, and animation. Consideration of film as an art form, as reflection of the culture at large, and as a force for change.
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MS060 HM - Documentary: Fact and Fiction
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Mayeri
Description: Examines the propaganda and poetry of documentary film. In weekly screenings, students will see films on a range of topics: from ethnographic adventures with other cultures to allegorical tales about our animal relatives. This class will explore documentary craft, history, and politics, and analyze the ethics of representing others.
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MS120 HM - Animal Media Studies
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Mayeri
Description: This course will examine representations of animals in film - wildlife documentaries, animated features, critter cams, scientific data, and video art - to address fundamental questions about human and animal nature and culture. Animal Studies is an interdisciplinary field in which scholars from philosophy, biology, media studies, and literature consider the subjective lives of animals, the representations of animals in media and literature, and the shifting boundary line between human and animal. In readings, screenings, and discussions, we will consider the cultural and material lives of humans and animals through the lenses of science, art, literature, and film.
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MS127 HM - The Harmony of Sound and Light
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Alves
Description: New technology has created exciting new opportunities in the arts of abstract film, video, and computer animation. This course will explore theories of abstraction from music into the visual arts and film, analyzing the works of such pioneers as Oskar Fischinger and John Whitney. Students will create their own computer images and animations of “visual music.”
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MS170 HM - Digital Cinema: Experimental Animation
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Mayeri
Description: Intermediate/advanced video course, exploring the creative potential of digital video techniques, such as compositing, animation, and motion graphics. Students develop digital projects and participate in critiques. Lectures, discussions, and screenings enhance students’ exposure to art and cinema. $100 course fee.
Prerequisite(s): MS182 HM
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MS172 HM - Third Cinema
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Balseiro
Description: Emerging in Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s, the notion of Third Cinema takes its inspiration from the Cuban revolution and from Brazil’s Cinema Novo. Third Cinema is the art of political film making and represents an alternative cinematic practice to that offered by mainstream film industries. Explores the aesthetics of film making from a revolutionary consciousness in three regions: Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
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MS173 HM - Exile in Cinema
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Balseiro
Description: A thematic and formal study of the range of cinematic responses to the experience of exile. Exile is an event, but how does it come about and what are its ramifications? Exile happens to individuals but also to collectivities. How does it effect a change between the self and society, homeland and site of displacement, mother tongue and acquired language? This course examines how filmmakers take on an often painful historical process through creativity. Among the authors to read are Aime Cesaire, Edward Said, George Lamming, V. S. Naipaul, Med Hondo, and Hamid Naficy; films to be viewed focus on the third world.
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MS182 HM - Introduction to Video Art
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Mayeri
Description: This course is an introduction to video art through history, theory, analysis and production. The goal for this class is for students to produce meaningful, creative, expressive, innovative media for an intelligent and broad audience. In order to achieve this goal students will learn the fundamentals of video production in labs, critiques, and exercises: conceptualizing, planning, shooting, sound recording, editing and analysis. Students will also learn - through readings and discussions - about pioneers and contemporary practitioners of video art. $150 course fee.
Prerequisite(s): MS050 HM or MS 049 PO or MS 049 PZ or MS 049 SC or MS 051 PO or MS 051 PZ or MS 051 SC or LIT 130 CM
Music
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MUS003 HM - Fundamentals of Music
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Cubek, Kamm
Description: In this course, the student learns elementary concepts of melody, rhythm, harmony, and notation. Basic principles of sight-singing and reading music are included. No previous musical experience is required. This course, or its equivalent, is a prerequisite for MUS 101 SC (Music Theory I) at Scripps College. Carries departmental credit when taught by Alves, Cubek, or Kamm.
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MUS048 HM - Electronic Music Ensemble
Credit(s): 1
Instructor(s): Alves
Description: Rehearsal and performance of new and recent compositions for synthesizers and other instruments. Instrumentation and musical styles may vary. Though some synthesizers may be provided, in most cases students will be expected to own their own instruments.
Prerequisite(s): Ability to play an instrument and read music; Audition may be required for instructor permission
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MUS049 HM - American Gamelan Ensemble
Credit(s): 1
Instructor(s): Alves
Description: Rehearsal and performance of new compositions for instruments adapted from the gamelan, a Javanese orchestra of metallophones and gongs. No prior experience on these instruments is required.
Prerequisite(s): Ability to read music; approval of instructor
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MUS063 HM - Music of the Peoples of the World
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Alves
Description: The fundamentals of music and listening through a survey of traditional music around the world as well as cross-cultural influences. Neither an ability to read music nor any other background in music is required.
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MUS067 HM - Film Music
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Alves
Description: An exploration of the history and aesthetics of the use of music in cinema, primarily the Hollywood film from the so-called silent era to the present. (We will not cover musicals, documentaries, or short films.) The course will include the development of skills of listening analysis and writing about music in the context of narrative film. No background in music or film history is required.
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MUS081 JM - Introduction to Music: Sound and Meaning
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Alves, Cubek, Kamm
Description: This course explores important works of Western art music from diverse historical epochs through listening and analysis. Elements of music, basic musical terminology, and notation are discussed. Attention is given to the relation of the arts—especially music—to culture and society. Carries departmental credit when taught by Alves, Cubek, or Kamm.
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MUS084 HM - Jazz Improvisation
Credit(s): 1.5
Instructor(s): Keller (Computer Science)
Description: The art of simultaneously hearing, composing, and performing music. Chords, scales, chord progressions, and tunes of modern jazz. Theory, listening, analysis, and group practice in improvisation skills.
Repeatable: May be taken for credit up to eight times
Prerequisite(s): Music reading ability, ability to play most of the 12 major scales on an instrument, motivation to play jazz, and permission of instructor
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MUS088 HM - Introduction to Computer Music
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Alves
Description: The basics of using software on a general purpose computer to synthesize and manipulate digital sounds. Neither a background in music nor the ability to read music is required. A background in computers is helpful but not required.
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MUS104 HM - Music Since 1900
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Alves
Description: An investigation of contemporary music through performances, analyses, recordings, and discussions of representative compositions from late Romanticism and such 20th-century styles as Neo-classicism, Serialism and Minimalism, as well as aleatoric and electronic techniques. Offered in conjunction with the Joint Music Program. Carries departmental credit when taught by Alves or Kamm.
Prerequisite(s): The ability to read music
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MUS118 SC - Music in the United States
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Kamm
Description: A survey of the history and development of music in the United States, this course will examine the diverse musical cultures and traditions, including European, African, Latin American, Native American, Asian, and others that have come to this country and have influenced the works of musicians and composers in the United States. Musical examples from American popular culture (jazz, rock, country, and pop), from religious services and practices of various denominations and sects, from ethnic groups and folk cultures within the United States and from art music in the United States will be studied as expressions of important concerns and values in our society, and as influences on music in other countries as well. Carries departmental credit when taught by Kamm.
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MUS132 SC - Stravinsky: His Milieu and His Music
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Kamm
Description: A seminar studying Igor Stravinsky’s life and his ballets, other instrumental music, and vocal music. Study of Russia at the turn of the 20th century, Paris in the early 20th century, ballet, and other arts contextualizes Stravinsky’s music. The course includes frequent student presentations on topics and works. Carries departmental credit when taught by Kamm.
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MUS173 JM - Claremont Concert Choir
Credit(s): 1
Instructor(s): Kamm.
Offered: Both semesters; joint offering of CMC, HMC, Pitzer, and Scripps
Description: A study through rehearsal and performance of choral music selected from the 16th century to the present, with emphasis on larger, major works. Singers will be invited to register after a successful audition. Singers continuing from the previous semester need not reaudition. Carries departmental credit when taught by Kamm.
Prerequisite(s): Successful audition
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MUS174 JM - Claremont Chamber Choir
Credit(s): 1
Instructor(s): Kamm
Offered: Both semesters; joint offering of CMC, HMC, Pitzer, and Scripps
Description: A study of choral music from 1300 to the present, with emphasis on those works composed for performances of a choral chamber nature. Singers will be invited to register after a successful audition. Singers continuing from the previous semester need not reaudition. Carries departmental credit when taught by Kamm.
Prerequisite(s): Successful audition
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MUS175 JM - Concert Orchestra
Credit(s): 1
Instructor(s): Cubek
Offered: Both semesters; joint offering of CMC, HMC, Pitzer, and Scripps
Description: The study, through lecture, discussion, rehearsal, and performance, of styles and techniques appropriate for the historically accurate performance of instrumental works intended for the orchestra. Repertoire will include works from the mid-18th century to the present with special emphasis on the Classical and Romantic periods. Class enrollment permitted only after successful audition. Carries departmental credit when taught by Cubek.
Prerequisite(s): Successful audition
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MUS176 JM - Claremont Treble Singers
Credit(s): 1
Instructor(s): Alves, Cubek, Kamm
Offered: Both semesters; joint offering of CMC, HMC, Pitzer, and Scripps
Description: A study through rehearsal and performance of choral music for soprano and alto voices selected from the 14th century to the present. Singers will be invited to register after a successful audition. Singers continuing from the previous semester need not audition. Carries departmental credit when taught by Alves, Cubek, or Kamm.
Prerequisite(s): Successful audition
Philosophy
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PHIL108 HM - Knowledge, Self, and Value
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Wright
Description: An introduction to philosophy covering representative issues in epistemology, the metaphysics of human nature, and theory of value. Readings are drawn from historical and contemporary sources.
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PHIL121 HM - Ethical Theory
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Wright
Description: A survey of contemporary philosophical thinking about morality, emphasizing how metaethical inquiry into the nature of “goodness,” “virtue” and “moral obligation” can inform normative inquiry into what is good and how to live. Attention is given throughout the course to the application of particular normative theories to personal decision-making and to contemporary social and political questions.
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PHIL122 HM - Ethics: Ancient and Modern
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Wright
Description: A comparative study of the theories of several major moral philosophers, beginning with Plato and Aristotle, and ending with Nietzsche’s critique of modern morality. Other figures studied may include Aquinas, Hobbes, Spinoza, Hume, Kant and Mill. The course emphasizes the ways in which philosophical accounts of the nature of “goodness” and “virtue” shape conceptions of the moral person and the moral life.
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PHIL124 HM - Morality and Self-Interest
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Wright
Description: A study of historical and contemporary arguments for the harmony of morality and enlightened self-interest, along with some of the main challenges raised against such arguments by their critics. Reading assignments may include selections from Plato, Aristotle, Sidgwick, Prichard, Ayn Rand, Rosalind Hursthouse, Derek Parfit, David Gauthier, and others.
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PHIL125 HM - Ethical Issues in Science and Engineering
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Wright
Description: After briefly exploring concepts and theories in normative ethics, this course examines a representative set of ethical issues confronting researchers and practitioners in the natural and formal sciences and in engineering. Issues covered will vary but may include animal experimentation, genetic engineering, internet privacy, the responsibility of engineers to foresee and prevent harm and others.
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PHIL129 HM - Contemporary Moral Problems
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Wright
Offered: Spring
Description: After a brief introduction to some of the main theoretical approaches in moral and political philosophy, and to some key principles of argument analysis, this course will explore philosophical debates on a set of moral-political issues of current concern. Topics will include drug laws; immigration; the ethics of abortion; torture and the ethics of war; the nature of racism and sexism; and religious exemption laws. We will also spend one class period looking at how we might contribute to improving the caliber of public discourse on contentious moral-political issues. Throughout the course we will work to understand how different theoretical orientations lead to different modes of analysis on particular issues, and how the issues themselves are often linked.
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PHIL130 HM - Political Philosophy
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Wright
Description: The major traditions of political thought from antiquity to the present, with emphasis on the modern era, including natural rights theory, social contract theory, political individualism and its critics, the twentieth-century transformation of political liberalism, and the underpinnings of contemporary conservatism.
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PHIL138 HM - Classical Liberalism and Libertarianism
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Wright
Offered: Spring
Description: “Libertarianism” and “classical liberalism” have become standard, if somewhat ambiguous, designations for a variety of political views that advocate a constrained role for the state, geared primarily or exclusively to protecting individuals from force and fraud (or that challenge the need for any state). Whatever their similarities, however, such views harbor important (and arguably fundamental) differences, including in the sorts of normative arguments they rely on; in their conceptions of and attitudes toward law and of the state; in the political role they assign to public justification and deliberation; and in various specific policy prescriptions. This course takes a comparative, critical look at several important statements of classical liberal and libertarian positions by philosophers and social theorists, and at the ways in which these theorists sometimes distance themselves from one another. In some semesters, the course will also consider left-libertarian views that fuse a commitment to self-ownership with egalitarian commitments. Authors may include Richard Epstein, Friedrich Hayek, Chandran Kukathas, Robert Nozick, Michael Otsuka, Ayn Rand, and/or others.
Political Studies
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POST114 HM - Comparative Environmental Politics
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Steinberg
Description: An examination of the political challenges faced by environmental advocates in diverse countries around the globe. Drawing on the fields of comparative politics and public policy, topics include comparative political institutions, environmental movements, corruption, authoritarian regimes, democratization, lesson-learning across borders, policy reform, gender analysis, decentralization, and European unification.
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POST140 HM - Global Environmental Politics
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Steinberg
Description: Analyzes the political dynamics driving global environmental problems and current attempts to address them. Concepts from political science and public policy are applied to issues such as ozone depletion, climate change, trade in endangered species, treaty formation and effectiveness, transnational activism, and multi-level governance.
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POST168 HM - Bicycle Revolution
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Steinberg
Offered: Spring, alternate years
Description: This course explores the challenge of creating bike-friendly cities, using bicycle transportation as a window into broader themes surrounding the politics of social change in urban/ suburban settings. The course combines community engagement with an introduction to relevant research literatures. Each week we will ride along bike routes in the surrounding cities of Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties, meeting with community leaders.
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POST188 HM - Political Innovation
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Steinberg
Description: Under what conditions do novel political ideas become realities? This course explores the origins and impacts of political innovations large and small—from the framing of the Constitution to the development of major social policies, the creation and reform of government agencies and non-profit organizations, and experimentation with new forms of social protest and political mobilization.
Psychology
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PSYC053 HM - Introduction to Psychology
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Staff
Description: An introduction to the field of psychology with a special emphasis on overarching themes and methodologies employed in the discipline.
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PSYC108 HM - Introduction to Social Psychology
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Staff
Description: The study of the way individuals think about, influence, and relate to one another. Sample topics include: conformity, persuasion, social cognition, self-justification, prejudice, and attraction.
Religious Studies
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RLST105 HM - Religions in American Culture
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Dyson
Description: An exploration of American religious history from pre-colonial indigenous civilizations through the present, focusing on three related issues: diversity, toleration, and pluralism. The course asks how religions have shaped or been shaped by encounters between immigrants, citizens, indigenous peoples, tourists, and, occasionally, government agents. In relation to these encounters, the course considers how groups and individuals have claimed territory, negotiated meaning, understood each other and created institutions as they met one another in the American landscape. Attention is also given to questions of power, translation, and the changing definitions of religion itself.
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RLST112 HM - Engaging Religion
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Dyson
Description: This advanced-level seminar uses case studies to explore what counts as religion in a variety of contexts: media, law, academia, economics, politics, etc. How do people recognize religion? What consequences are there for recognizing or denying the legitimacy of religious practices or beliefs? How is that legitimacy judged? How is it narrated? By approaching a few cases studies from multiple perspectives, students gain insight into how the lenses used to assess religion can enable, deepen, or limit understanding.
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RLST113 HM - God, Darwin, Design in America: A Historical Survey of Religion and Science
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Dyson
Description: Course examines the relationships between science and religion in the United States from the early 19th century to the present. Starting with the Natural Theologians, who made science the “handmaid of theology” in the early Republic, we will move forward in time through the publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species and Andrew Dickson White’s subsequent declaration of a war between science and religion, into the 20th century with the Scopes trial and the rise of Creationism, the evolutionary synthesis, and finally the recent debates over the teaching of Intelligent Design in public schools.
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RLST114 HM - Prophecy, Apocalypse
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Dyson
Description: This course looks at American configurations of the End Times, including, but not limited to, the ending of the Mayan calendar in 2012, Ghost Dance religions, Y2K predictions, The Church Universal and Triumphant, Heaven’s Gate, the Left Behind books and movies, and varied interpretations of the book of Revelation in the Christian Bible. Students taking this course will become familiar with various forms of American apocalyptic thinking as well as literature from “new religious movement” or “cult” scholarship in order to explore the enduring appeal of End Time scenarios and to question what makes these scenarios persuasive to individuals at varied points in American history.
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RLST147 HM - World Religions and Transnational Religions: American and Global Movements
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Dyson
Description: What happens to religious practices and communities when they are transplanted to new terrain? Examples include the establishment of “old world” religious enclaves in the United States, New Age adoptions of “foreign” practices, American understandings of world religions, or the exportation of American or Americanized religion to other countries through missionaries, media, or returning immigrants. Considering exchange, conflict, adaptation, and innovation as multi-directional, and always historically and politically informed, the course looks at several historic and contemporary instances of religious border crossings.
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RLST168 HM - Activism, Vocation, Justice
Credit(s): 1.5
Instructor(s): Dyson
Description: The histories of social change activism are filled with individuals who understand their call to fight injustice, to work for community rights, or to alleviate suffering as grounded in their philosophical, religious, or spiritual practices. In this course, students will combine community engagement work with their class work; learning about diverse thinkers and reformers, who have either found religious meaning in their activist or service work, or who have interpreted philosophy, doctrine, theology, or liturgy as demanding action from them. Each semester, readings will be grouped around a particular theme such as: Engaged Buddhism; interfaith activism; violent vs. non-violent protest; the Direct Action years of the Civil Rights Movement; education as activism; theological and philosophical theories of justice; socialisms and social change; queer and Christian communities; and Hindu environmentalism. The class will meet once a week, every other week.
Prerequisite(s): Instructor permission
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RLST180 HM - Interpreting Religious Worlds
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Staff
Offered: Alternating years at CMC, HMC, Pomona, and Scripps
Description: Examines some current theoretical and methodological approaches to the academic study of religion.
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RLST183 HM - Ghosts and the Machines
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Dyson
Description: An exploration of the interrelations between occult mediumship, modern media, and technology in Europe and the United States from the nineteenth-century through the present. The aim of the course is to explore how the Enlightenment and its offspring, modern technology, in their seemingly stark material and rational promises of progress, have never rid themselves fully of the paranormal and irrational. To explore the multiple relations between ghosts and the machines, topics for the course include: ghostly visions and magic lantern phatasmagoria; American spiritualism and the telegraph; phrenology and the rise of the archive; psychical research and stage magic; radio’s disembodied voices; spirit photography and light therapies; psychic television; and magic on film.
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RLST184 HM - Science and Religion
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Dyson
Description: A seminar that examines a variety of interpretative strategies for approaching science/religion interactions; explores the historical patterns of interaction from the Bronze Age to the present; then concludes with an extended exploration of the place of science in the works of a major contemporary theologian such as Wolfhart Pannenberg.
Social Sciences
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SOSC140 HM - Economic Behaviors
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Sullivan
Description: This course will examine a sample of human behaviors commonly seen as economic—including gift giving, pricing, and work ethics—from the perspectives of a variety of disciplines outside of economics. We will be particularly interested in cultural, social, and historical factors that influence human economic actions and interactions and will consider works by anthropologists, historians, sociologists, psychologists, artists, literary critics, and others. This course does not require any background in economic theory and is not designed to advance students within the standard micro/macro economic sequence.
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SOSC147 HM - Enterprise and the Entrepreneur
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Evans
Description: Concepts and practices applicable to working as or with the manager of an enterprise. Some emphasis on enterprise formation and on management in high-technology firms.
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SOSC150 HM - Public Speaking For Science and Citizenship
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Steinberg
Description: This course builds student speaking skills in three areas: communicating advanced topics in science and technology to non-specialists; speaking out on questions of politics and values; and engaging the intersection of the two through presentations on technically intensive social controversies.
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SOSC180 HM - Tropical Forests: Policy and Practice
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): Steinberg
Description: This course takes stock of the past two decades of social science research on tropical forests, examining the scale of deforestation, its causes and consequences, and the track record of attempted solutions. Special emphasis is placed on the ways in which values, institutions, and political-economic forces shape the decisions that will determine the fate of the forests.
Science, Technology, and Society
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STS010 HM - Introduction to Science, Technology, and Society
Credit(s): 3
Instructor(s): de Laet
Description: An introduction to the interactions among science, technology, and society. Examines the different concepts of rationality and the values that underlie scientific and technological endeavors as well as the centrality of value conflict in technological controversies.
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