Courses

Familiarity with the literary theory necessary for a thorough understanding of the aesthetics, ethics, and politics of reading. Particularly recommended for those intending to pursue graduate studies. Topics may include structuralism, deconstruction, feminism, psychoanalysis, queer studies, and the Francophone theory. May be offered periodically in English.

This course introduces students to some of the major issues that confront the world and provides them with basic analytical tools to help them understand these issues. Each section will focus on a particular issue, such as the control of weapons, women and war, international drug traffic, and the international trading system. The course will feature guest speakers from journalism, the UN, and various diplomatic missions.

Philosophical analysis of issues of current importance and interest. Possible topics: Man and Nature; Philosophy and the Environmental Crisis; the Nature of the Person; Law, Ethics, and Medicine; Film and Politics.

Selected advanced problems from twentieth-century sources. Possible topics: theories of being and reality; the status of individuals; identity and reference; universals; relations; qualities; matter; space and time.

A survey of Middle Eastern governments, political processes, and political group behavior.

Examination of the theoretical and methodological problems underlying twentieth-century political thought. Utilization of psychological findings, development of scientific procedure, problems of concept-formation. Attention is given to fundamental ideological issues in twentieth-century politics.

A survey of popular music in the United States from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present.

A review of the current status of psychotherapy by a comparison of the views of personality and psychopathology implied by the psychoanalytic and behavioral models. Diverse samples of current psychotherapies are studied and compared.

A critical examination of both contemporary Latin American society and film. Organized in five thematic blocks, the course challenges the conventional wisdom about modern Latin America and critically assesses four types of film (commercial, educational, documentary, and propaganda) as texts about society. There are readings, written assignments, and class discussions.

Exploration of the principal theoretical perspectives, paradigms, and schools of thought that can help our understanding of such urban phenomena as gentrification, urban poverty, urban activism, neighborhood development, segregation, city politics, suburbanization, economic restructuring, and urban planning. Urban theory encompasses many interdisciplinary points of view, and we will explore the work of geographers, sociologists, economists, historians, political scientists, and anthropologists.