Author: Kevin Abrams
Each year, the various departments at Occidental try to spice up the academic scene by offering an assortment of new courses. Just as the college values diversity among its student body, it also takes a favorable stance toward diversity among its academic offerings.
New courses typically cover more specific and attention-grabbing topics, and in doing so, provide an opportunity for both the curious and the major-oriented to explore new subjects in an academic setting. Here are a few of the many new courses Occidental has to offer for fall 2008.
History Professor Matthew Osborn offers a course focused on studying and discussing the American Civil War, which, the syllabus states, was “the largest, most destructive and controversial armed conflict in American history.” The class aims to address numerous compelling questions regarding the historic event: Was the war inevitable? Could the South have won? What role did African Americans play in the abolition of slavery? And just what motivated each side to go to war over the issue of slavery?
This “is not a class on specifically military history,” Osborn said. “Rather, the class approaches the war as a complete historical phenomenon . . . We will investigate how social and economic developments in the early nineteenth century shaped the conflict, and how the war affected people on the home front. The particular interest I bring to the class is how ordinary people – black, white, Northerners, Southerners, Native Americans, Irish, etc. – experienced the war.”
In Asian Studies, Professor Morgan Pitelka offers a new course entitled “Medieval and Early Modern Japan.” The course studies many elements of Japanese culture during different time periods, including the rise of the samurai, medieval Buddhist culture, civil war and artistic efflorescence, Japan’s international 16th century, the Tokugawa Shogunate, Edo erotic and popular culture, and Japan’s encounter with the West in the mid-19th century. “The fact that [the class] is filled at 35 students shows, I think, the pent-up demand for a course on this subject,” Pitelka said. “Many students today have developed an interest in pre-modern Japan from reading manga and watching anime, from playing video games and from enjoying Hollywood films. While such products don’t necessarily represent Japan’s past accurately, I’m excited to see so much student interest in a time and place so far from our own.”Psychology is offering a seminar course titled “Visions of Love and Community,” which will examine constructions of love and the implications of these constructions in the U.S. “I developed the course because I was critical of the traditional social psychological models [and] assessments of ‘love,'” Professor Jaclyn Rodriguez said. “I wanted to encourage informed discussions about the nature, origins, and development of ‘lovingness’ in U.S. society.” In addition to psychological and sociological texts, the course will also look towards feminist theory, critical race theory and literature as a source of material.
In the department of Diplomacy and World Affairs, a new course entitled “Global Disaster Politics” will be offered. This course, as the name might suggest, aims to use disasters, both natural and man-made, “as a type of analytical window through which we can learn more about diplomacy and world affairs,” Professor Jason Enia said. The course asks such questions as: What makes disasters political events? What can nations’ attempts to prevent or respond to disasters tell us about international & domestic politics (and their interaction) more generally?
Those listed above make up only a fraction of the new courses offered here at Occidental. Covering an eclectic variety of topics, these new courses provide students with the opportunity to both learn something new and practice their critical thinking skills.
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