395H Seminars - Summer/Fall 2024

When one talks about studying art and music, often one thinks of formalized experiences involving museums or performing arts centers. But art and music are all around us, permeating our lives through the popular culture that we experience daily. They are such a part of our daily landscape that we can easily take for granted the influence they have on our perceptions of the world, American society, our values, who we are, and how we understand the world. In this course, we will explore the role and significance of visual and musical forms of art in American culture. The course will cover art and music in the context of popular culture and explore relationships between art and music in everyday contexts. Students will share their perspectives and connect course material to their own lives throughout the session. This will be accomplished by using a variety of interactive activities, discussions, and a final presentation project.

The aim of the course is to introduce students to one of the darkest phases of modern world history: the systematic annihilation and extermination of indigenous populations around the globe. Genocides are not only modern phenomenon pertaining to the modern world; rather they have existed in some fashion in the pre-modern period. What distinguishes the genocides of the modern period from other incidents of mass violence is that they have become more organized, intense, and lethal by using the tools of modernity. With the development of ideas of race, ethnicity, and nationalism in the 18th and the 19th century, genocides became more ideological in their attempt in justifying the annihilation of indigenous populations. We will explore a number of cases, beginning with the Armenian genocide; the genocides of the indigenous populations of Africa, Australia, and North America; the Holocaust, and ending with more contemporary genocides such as the case of Cambodia, Rwanda, ex-Yugoslavia, and Darfur. The course will end by discussing the development of the idea of Human Rights in response to these mass atrocities.

The Beatles are arguably the most important rock band in the genre. Their music has been at the center of the discussion of popular music and culture for over forty years. The class will be divided into three style periods. The first style period covers the Liverpool to Hamburg experience and the early pre-Rubber Soul albums. The second style period covers Rubber Soul through Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The third style period covers The Beatles (The White Album) through Yellow Submarine, Let it Be and Abbey Road with further discussion of Apple Corp and each of the group’s first solo albums. We will approach their output thematically and trace it through engagement with American Popular Music, religion, politics and fame.

This course reveals the impact that each of us has on the climate. With this understanding, comes choices and actions for a more sustainable future. Earth’s climate is inherently variable, but is currently changing at rates unprecedented in recent Earth history. Human activity plays a major role in this change and is projected to do so well into the future. By incorporating the latest science, this course elaborates on this human interaction with the climate system along with how climate variations affect humanity. The primary issues examined in this course include the human and ecosystem vulnerabilities to climate change; the role of energy choices in affecting climate; the actions humans can take through adaptation, mitigation, and policy to lessen vulnerabilities and, the psychological, political and financial reasons behind climate change denial.