Writing Fellows Courses - Fall 2008
Writing Fellows courses employ highly skilled Brown students, called Writing Fellows, who provide writing support for a class. Fellows, who receive training and a stipend, work with faculty course instructors to develop writing assignments and to assist students in drafting and revising papers. Writing Fellows courses are offered in all areas of the curriculum. The majority of Writing Fellows courses are also first-year seminars, which promote close working relationships between faculty and first-year students as well. Fall 2008 Writing Fellows courses are described below.
ANTH 0310 - Human Evolution
In this course, students will examine the theory and evidence of human evolution in the past, present, and future. Topics include evolution and adaptation, biocultural adaptation, fossil evidence, behavioral evolution in primates, human genetic variation, and contemporary human biological variation.
Tuesday/Thursday 9:00-10:20 a.m.
Instructor: Stephen T. McGarvey, Professor of Community Health
ARCH 0250 - Intimate Stories
Images tell stories that carry us to imaginary worlds other than our own. An arresting story in pictures engages us deeply, opening doors to fantastic places and times. In antiquity, many architectural monuments displayed pictorial narratives that animated public spaces and enthralled broad audiences. This course explores cultural aspects of visual narrative imagery from Western Asian and Mediterranean worlds.
FYS
Tuesday/Thursday, 9:00 -10:20 a.m.
Instructor: Omur Harmansah, Assistant Professor, Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology
BIOL 0190 - Development of Scientific Theories: Context and the Individual
In this course, students will examine how the pace and shape of scientific progress is affected by an individual’s social and cultural context and "personality." We will look into how the interplay between society and the individual affects how scientific theories arise, are presented, are debated, and are accepted. The course will initially focus on Charles Darwin and his theory of Natural Selection using Adrian Desmond’s biography of Darwin and James Moore’s Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist.
FYS
Tuesday/Thursday 2:30-3:50 p.m.
Instructor: Stephen L. Helfand, Professor of Biology
COGS 0100 - Intentionality and Theories of the Mind
This seminar will familiarize students with the topic of "theory of mind" – how we understand each other's mental states. In particular, we will focus on how human beings understand others' intentions and beliefs and come to act volitionally. Readings will span developmental, cognitive, social, and cross-cultural psychology as well as neuroscience and philosophy. Emphasis in assignments will be on evaluating and constructing scientific investigations.
FYS
Friday 3:00-5:20 p.m.
Instructor: David M. Sobel, Associate Professor of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences
EDUC 0410 - Controversies in American Education Policy
This course introduces students to perspectives on education based in history, economics, sociology, and political science. Students will study foundational texts in each of these fields, and use the insights gained to examine controversial issues in American education policy, including policies to address ethnic disparities in student achievement, test-based accountability, class-size reduction, and school choice.
FYS
Wednesday, 3:00-5:20 p.m.
Instructor: Martin R. West, Assistant Professor of Education
EDUC 0410 - Brown v. Board of Education
Using sources in history, education, and law, this seminar explores the landmark Supreme Court case of Brown v. Board of Education, which found school segregation unconstitutional and challenged the entire foundation of legal segregation. We will explore the legal, political, and social issues that culminated in Brown and examine the development and deployment of remedies, with particular emphasis on school integration and educational equity. We will consider the legacy of Brown, its impact on the Civil Rights movement, schooling, law, and politics in the late twentieth century, and its implications for the future.
FYS
Monday 3:00-5:20 p.m.
Instructor: Tracy L. Steffes, Assistant Professor of Education
FREN 0720 - From Courtly Love to Postmodern Desire
This course explores the enduring romance between French culture and Eros, from twelfth-century courtly literature to contemporary film. The ambiguities of desire are brought to the fore across changing religious and social contexts. Readings include Duras, Flaubert, Freud, and Baudrillard. Open to students with a 5 on the AP French test, a 700 and above on the SAT II French test, or with instructor's permission.
FYS
Monday/Wednesday/Friday 10:00-10:50 a.m.
Instructor: Virginia A. Krause, Associate Professor of French Studies
GNSS 0090 - Bodies Out of Bounds
In this seminar, students will examine what happens to bodies—and the world around them—when they refuse to stay within "normal" boundaries. Course readings focus on literature from the early modern period to the present; film and contemporary cultural theory will be used for comparison and context. Readings range from Dekker and Middleton's play The Roaring Girl to Octavia Butler's Dawn from the Xenogenesis Trilogy; films include Ma Vie en Rose.
FYS
Tuesday/Thursday 9:00-10:20 a.m.
Instructor: Gail E. Cohee, Director, Sara Doyle Women’s Center
GEOL 0160 - Volcanoes: Windows into the Deep Earth
This course examines the physical and chemical principles controlling the generation of volcanoes and their different styles of eruption. Students will learn where and why volcanoes occur, and what volcanic lavas can tell us about the composition and evolution of the Earth and other planets. Volcanic hazards will be evaluated, and the economic benefits and cultural aspects of volcanism will be explored. The course includes a required two-day field trip.
FYS
Tuesday/Thursday 10:30-11:50 a.m.
Instructor: Alberto Saal, Assistant Professor of Geological Sciences
HIST 0970 - Tropical Delights: Imagining Brazil in History and Culture
This seminar examines the many ways that Brazilians and foreigners have understood this vast continent-size country, ranging from early European explorers' anxieties about cannibalism to modern images of the Amazonian rainforest, Rio De Janeiro's freewheeling Carnival celebrations, and the array of social movements mobilizing for social justice. Through an examination of historical sources, literature, movies, and popular culture, students will consider how multiple images and projections of Brazil have shaped national and international notions about the country.
FYS
Thursday 4:00-6:20 p.m.
Instructor: James N. Green, Associate Professor of History
HIST 0970 - Animals and History
Human beings have lived alongside animals for millennia. Yet only rarely have these creatures featured in historians’ thinking and writing about the past. This course endeavors to introduce students to some of the conceptual questions at the heart of the historical enterprise by revisioning American history around such animals as the horse, the wolf, the buffalo, the passenger pigeon, and the pig.
FYS
Wednesday 3:00-5:20 p.m.
Instructor: Karl Jacoby, Associate Professor of History
HIST 1430 - Truth on Trial: Justice in Italy, 1400-1800
Law courts had a profound impact on Italian society and culture between the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. They helped define what constituted deviance, legitimate knowledge, and individual rights at a time when it was possible to imagine that some gifted individuals could fly, that certain people were created superior to others, and that the sun revolved around the earth. From the persecution of heretics and witches, to the trial of Galileo and the increasing use of courts by women and other marginalized groups, the Italian legal arena mediated what was political, social, scientific, and religious truth. By the eighteenth century, many judicial practices came under criticism, including the use of torture and the death penalty. How did reformers attempt to remake the legal regime and the society with which it was so intricately entangled?
Tuesday/Thursday 2:30-3:50 p.m.
Instructor: Caroline Castiglione, Assistant Professor of Italian Studies
HIAA 0050 - Illustrating Knowledge
This seminar will investigate the history of scientific illustration from the first printed books to the present, using works in Brown’s special collections libraries. Students will investigate the exchange of ideas and the development of specializations and modes of representation in the arts and sciences, from manuscript herbals and early printed maps to photographically illustrated textbooks and computer imaging.
FYS
Wednesday 3:00-5:20 p.m.
Instructor: Evelyn Lincoln, Associate Professor, History of Art and Architecture
ITAL 0751 - When Leaders Lie: Machiavelli in International Context
Niccolò Machiavelli's pragmatic view of the tenuous relationship of ethics to politics has cast him alternatively as the founder of modern political science, the architect of realpolitik, and the proponent of "consequential morality," or the notion that the ends justify the means. This course examines the writings of Machiavelli as well as the precedents and comparisons for his ideas in the Greek and Islamic world, and in a wider European context. The seminar concludes with an exploration of the relevance of Machiavelli to the twenty-first century, focusing on the politics and ethics of the Iraq war.
FYS
Monday 3:00-5:20 P.M.
Instructor: Caroline Castiglione, Assistant Professor of Italian Studies
POLS 0820 - Philosophy of the American Founding
When framing our political system in the Constitution, whom did the Founders rely on for their theoretical framework? In this course, students will explore answers to this question through studying the works of Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Montesquieu, and Burke, as well as the writings of Adams, Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, and other contributors to the Constitution.
FYS
Thursday 4:00-6:20 p.m.
Instructor: Wendy J. Schiller, Associate Professor of Political Science
POLS 1410 - Global Security After the Cold War
This course analyzes major contemporary issues of global security utilizing current theories of international politics. Students will study both continuity and change in global security since the end of the Cold War. Issues covered in the course include proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and of conventional weapons, terrorism, recent arms control and disarmament initiatives, and the changing role of alliances and regional and global security institutions.
Wednesday 3:00-5:20 p.m.
Instructor: Minh Luong, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Public Policy
POBS 0810 - Belonging and Displacement: Cross-Cultural Identities
This seminar focuses on the representation of immigrants, migrants, and other "border crossers" in contemporary literature from Brazil and other countries. How do people respond to the loss of home and the shift to a new culture? Is "going home" possible? How do individuals deal with their dual or triple identities? Students will explore these and other questions while reading works by Piñon, Lispector, Scliar, Rushdie, Salih, Cristina Garcia, V. S. Naipaul, and others.
FYS
Tuesday/Thursday 9:00-10:20 a.m.
Instructor: Patricia I. Sobral, Senior Lecturer in Portuguese and Brazilian Studies
PHP 1070 - The Burden of Disease in Developing Countries
This course defines and critically examines environmental, epidemiologic, demographic, biomedical, and anthropological perspectives on health and disease in developing countries. Emphasis is placed on the biosocial ecology of diseases, especially the changes in underlying causes of morbidity and mortality during economic development. Guest lecturers cover different diseases and public health perspectives.
Students who wish to be considered for this course must submit a special application form, which is available at the International Health Institute website: bms.brown.edu/ihi/. The required permission form must be submitted by noon of the first day of class, and should be submitted either by campus mail (International Health Institute, Box G-S121) or in person at the office of the Department of Community Health, 2nd floor, 121 South Main St.
No students will be pre-registered for PHP 1070 before the first day of class. The instructor will decide which students will be permitted to register after the first day of class. The decision will be based on the replies on the permission form and its date of submission.
Monday/Wednesday 8:30-9:50 a.m.
Instructor: Stephen T. McGarvey, Professor of Community Health
PHP 0070 - Cost Versus Care: The Dilemma for American Medicine
This course is limited to first-year and sophomore students. See explanation below.
In this course, students will grapple with knotty health policy problems including malpractice, the uninsured, drug abuse policy, national health insurance, rationing, and ethics. Active engagement with the issues occurs through seminar discussions, debates, and weekly service learning in the community. The emphasis is on critical thinking and analysis, not memorizing facts.
This course is limited to 20 students and is especially appropriate for PLMEs. Ten places are reserved for CAP advisees. The remaining places are allotted in the following order: sophomores who preregistered as first-year students but did not receive permission to enroll in the course, PLME sophomores, other sophomores, PLME first-year students, other first-year students.
Tuesday/Thursday 1:00-2:20 p.m.
Additional discussion section to be arranged
Instructor: Stephen R. Smith, Associate Dean of Medical Education
RUSS 1290 - Russian Literature in Translation I: Pushkin to Dostoevsky
This course surveys major works of Russian literature from the early and mid-19th century. Authors to be studied include Karamzin, Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Turgenev, Leskov, and Dostoevsky. The class is comprised of both lectures and discussion; no knowledge of Russian required.
Tuesday/Thursday 10:30-11:50 a.m.
Discussion sections to be arranged
Instructor: Alexander Levitsky, Professor of Slavic Studies