Spring 2019 UB Seminar Courses (3-credit)

How do images affect culture, society, and identity in America? As Americans, how do we sort out whom we are, while constantly bombarded with images and symbols telling us who we should be? These are a few of the questions we will explore in this cross-cultural course on American Diversity. Investigating the roles of race, class, religion, gender, and sexuality in the world of images. Throughout the semester we will pay particular attention to visual mediums such as art, television, movies, printed images, and a host of cultural symbols affecting us everyday. Readings and other course materials are interdisciplinary, including anthropological and historical perspectives, documentary films, literary material and most of all, art.

Section: NEZ
Registration Number: 20560
Instructor: Zarragoitia,Nestor E
Schedule: MWF 11:00am - 11:50am
Location: Clemen 21 (North Campus)
Seats Available: 12

From their earliest arrival in the American colonies until current times, African American artists have strived to establish their artistic traditions, while at the same time grappling with their historical social, economic, and political statuses in society.This course will explore that journey, including their struggles for self-identity in an art world whose traditions are rooted in disparity.This class will focus on different eras, art movements, and the lives and works of key artists that define this vision. We will examine the overall impacts of the African Diaspora on artistic expression, and the interwoven social issues confronting each generation.

Section: ZAR
Registration Number: 21634
Instructor: Zarragoitia,Nestor E
Schedule: MWF 9:00am - 9:50am
Location: Clemen 103 (North Campus)
Seats Available: 25

Section: 000
Registration Number: 24491
Instructor: Sternberg,Ernest
Schedule: M 9:00am - 10:40am
Location: Hayes 402 (South Campus)
Seats Available: 24

Section: LAB
Registration Number: 24494
Instructor: Sternberg,Ernest
Schedule: W 9:00am - 10:40am
Location: Hayes 402 (South Campus)
Seats Available: 24

Explore the highly contentious and volatile nature of ancient Greek politics. Topics discussed include: civil war, foreign war, amnesty, revolutionary ideology, political amorality, imperialism, and the origins of democracy. Through an analysis of several case studies, students will understand why the Greeks often encountered great difficulties in their attempts to limit domestic conflict and promote large-scale cooperation. This is a central question for students of ancient Greek politics. But ? as you will see, grappling with it also will provide new and interesting insights into domestic and international politics in the modern world.

Section: BOYD
Registration Number: 20487
Instructor: Boyd,Timothy
Schedule: TR 2:00pm - 3:20pm
Location: Filmor 317 (Ellicott Complex)
Seats Available: 11

This course will explore the representation of the ancient Greek and Roman worlds in modern cinema, focusing on films made between 1960 and the present. We will pay attention not only to what these films show us about modern attitudes toward the ancient world, but also to how modern filmmakers use these films, set in antiquity, to talk about our modern world. Students will explore works of literature, ancient and modern, that offer our discussions rich context and further into how narratives reflect and shape cultural values.

Section: MCG
Registration Number: 20494
Instructor: McGuire,Donald T.
Schedule: TR 12:30pm - 1:50pm
Location: Alumni 88 (North Campus)
Seats Available: 18

What is dignity? What is the relationship of dignity to what Victor Hugo calls the inviolability of life, but also and no less trenchantly to both the death penalty and the right to die? How does the concept of dignity work both to defend and to challenge both the death penalty and the right to die? On Dignity and Death explores these questions through readings of philosophy (Cicero, Kant, Hegel, Foucault), criminology (Beccaria), legal and medical accounts (Dworkin, Cohen-Almagor), literature (Hugo, Camus, Capote, Mailer), and abolitionists (Badinter, Prejean). We will also read the Universal Declaration of Universal Human Rights (1948) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (proposed 1966, ratified 1976) in order to examine the paradox of a universal human right to life that coexists with the death penalty. In addition, we will read several United States Supreme Court decisions concerning both the States right to put to death and its right to make live.

Section: SI
Registration Number: 20549
Instructor: Irlam,Shaun A.
Schedule: TR 11:00am - 12:20pm
Location: Clemen 640 (North Campus)
Seats Available: 17

Communication at the End of Life:This course is designed to examine the death and dying process from a communication perspective. We will look at end-of-life care and communication from multiple contexts to understand how crucial health, interpersonal, group, and family coordination occurs within the medical community.

Section: KET
Registration Number: 20564
Instructor: Tenzek,Kelly E
Schedule: TR 9:30am - 10:50am
Location: Park 143 (North Campus)
Seats Available: 12

Section: DNA
Registration Number: 23835
Instructor: Surtees,Jennifer A.
Schedule: MW 10:30am - 11:50am
Location: Alumni 188 (North Campus)
Seats Available: 24

Section: JD
Registration Number: 23361
Instructor: Del Monte,Jenna
Schedule: TR 12:30pm - 1:50pm
Location: Cfa 144 (North Campus)
Seats Available: 26

Section: MA
Registration Number: 23362
Instructor: Aceto,Melanie
Schedule: MW 11:00am - 12:20pm
Location: Filmor 102 (Ellicott Complex)
Seats Available: 27

Engineers are problem solvers. Problem solving in engineering practice (i.e., industry) differs from the problems typically encountered in the classroom. Notably, "real world" problems are ill-structured, have multiple conflicting objectives, non-engineering standards and constraints, require knowledge from multiple disciplines (even beyond engineering!) and necessitate working on a team. The objective of this course is to allow students with an interest in engineering to explore an engineering identity. Through this exploration, students will gain an appreciation for the characteristics of good engineers: (1) Technical competence (technical knowledge, problem-solving skills, creativity; (2) Interpersonal skills (strong technical communication, effective teamwork); (3) Work ethic (attention to detail, diligence, persistence); and (4) Moral standards: honesty, integrity. This exploration will be facilitated through team projects, individual assignments and a professional development and career planning portfolio. The theme for this course will be consideration of the "Grand Challenges for Engineering" as defined by the National Academy of Engineers (www.engineeringchallenges.org).

Section: I
Registration Number: 20408
Instructor: Latorre,Julia Talarico
Schedule: MW 1:00pm - 1:50pm
Location: Baldy 101 (North Campus)
Seats Available: 20

Engineers are problem solvers. Problem solving in engineering practice (i.e., industry) differs from the problems typically encountered in the classroom. Notably, "real world" problems are ill-structured, have multiple conflicting objectives, non-engineering standards and constraints, require knowledge from multiple disciplines (even beyond engineering!) and necessitate working on a team. The objective of this course is to allow students with an interest in engineering to explore an engineering identity. Through this exploration, students will gain an appreciation for the characteristics of good engineers: (1) Technical competence (technical knowledge, problem-solving skills, creativity; (2) Interpersonal skills (strong technical communication, effective teamwork); (3) Work ethic (attention to detail, diligence, persistence); and (4) Moral standards: honesty, integrity. This exploration will be facilitated through team projects, individual assignments and a professional development and career planning portfolio. The theme for this course will be consideration of the "Grand Challenges for Engineering" as defined by the National Academy of Engineers (www.engineeringchallenges.org).

Section: I1
Registration Number: 20409
Instructor: Latorre,Julia Talarico
Schedule: F 1:00pm - 1:50pm
Location: Clemen 19 (North Campus)
Seats Available: 2

Engineers are problem solvers. Problem solving in engineering practice (i.e., industry) differs from the problems typically encountered in the classroom. Notably, "real world" problems are ill-structured, have multiple conflicting objectives, non-engineering standards and constraints, require knowledge from multiple disciplines (even beyond engineering!) and necessitate working on a team. The objective of this course is to allow students with an interest in engineering to explore an engineering identity. Through this exploration, students will gain an appreciation for the characteristics of good engineers: (1) Technical competence (technical knowledge, problem-solving skills, creativity; (2) Interpersonal skills (strong technical communication, effective teamwork); (3) Work ethic (attention to detail, diligence, persistence); and (4) Moral standards: honesty, integrity. This exploration will be facilitated through team projects, individual assignments and a professional development and career planning portfolio. The theme for this course will be consideration of the "Grand Challenges for Engineering" as defined by the National Academy of Engineers (www.engineeringchallenges.org).

Section: I2
Registration Number: 20411
Instructor: Latorre,Julia Talarico
Schedule: T 10:00am - 10:50am
Location: Park 152 (North Campus)
Seats Available: 9

Engineers are problem solvers. Problem solving in engineering practice (i.e., industry) differs from the problems typically encountered in the classroom. Notably, "real world" problems are ill-structured, have multiple conflicting objectives, non-engineering standards and constraints, require knowledge from multiple disciplines (even beyond engineering!) and necessitate working on a team. The objective of this course is to allow students with an interest in engineering to explore an engineering identity. Through this exploration, students will gain an appreciation for the characteristics of good engineers: (1) Technical competence (technical knowledge, problem-solving skills, creativity; (2) Interpersonal skills (strong technical communication, effective teamwork); (3) Work ethic (attention to detail, diligence, persistence); and (4) Moral standards: honesty, integrity. This exploration will be facilitated through team projects, individual assignments and a professional development and career planning portfolio. The theme for this course will be consideration of the "Grand Challenges for Engineering" as defined by the National Academy of Engineers (www.engineeringchallenges.org).

Section: I3
Registration Number: 20412
Instructor: Latorre,Julia Talarico
Schedule: W 3:00pm - 3:50pm
Location: Clemen 19 (North Campus)
Seats Available: 9

This course will explore cultural productions associated with King Arthur and his world, considering works of literature, mythology, visual arts, and film. After an introduction to the misty beginnings of Arthurian legend in early medieval history, we will engage with a survey of medieval Arthurian works (in translation) from a range of European cultures. Our course will explore chivalry and courtly love, tournaments, knights such as Gawain and Lancelot, and ladies such as Queen Guinevere and Morgan le Fay. We will also examine the modern reception of Arthur, by exploring images of Arthurian characters and texts, reading about modern vision, and by engaging with 2 films that deal (in very different ways) with King Arthur and his knights.

Section: FRA
Registration Number: 20201
Instructor: Frakes,Jerold Coleman
Schedule: W 7:00pm - 9:40pm
Location: Alumni 88 (North Campus)
Seats Available: 22

In American Proletarian Fiction, we will consider five substantial and diverse novels from the Thirties (mostly) to the Nineties, with a focus on working-class experience, including labor, family life, intellectual reflection, sexuality, political organization, and aesthetic experimentation. For each writer, we will consider genre, non-fictional writings on class and society by each author, and their relation to the fiction, the particular quality of waged and unwaged labor in each time and locale, and a critique of capitalist and patriarchal ideology, and utopian visions of liberated collective life. Literary criticism means doing original work with primary sources, generating new knowledge of our works, of ourselves, and of the world. In this class, you will be developing techniques for posing analytical and exploratory questions techniques that you will be able to apply in your future studies at the university and beyond.

Section: HOL
Registration Number: 23183
Instructor: Holstun,James
Schedule: MWF 9:00am - 9:50am
Location: Clemen 438 (North Campus)
Seats Available: 28

How do we process everyday `visuals?, from phone apps to deciding what to wear or where to eat? Who decides (designs) the impact of what we see? How do they do that? We don?t usually think of seeing as something we need to learn to do. Like the acquisition of spoken language, we tend to take seeing for granted ? and yet, just as in spoken and written language, there is a visual language with its own hierarchies and grammar. That language is used by theatre designers, directors, actors, and choreographers, as well as by film-makers and artists. This course will investigate looking and seeing as foundations of design. How do we process looking? We will practice seeing by collecting images, looking to ?find the right questions?. We will apply seeing to our own design experiments. Along the way we will investigate text as a threshold to design, think about visual storytelling, and work to embrace ambiguity. We might even make a snow globe. In the process of discovering and articulating ways to look and see, the course will introduce essential skills for success in college: critical thinking, text analysis, time management, problem-solving, written and verbal proficiency, synthesizing ideas, and ethical issues in design.

Section: CN
Registration Number: 23824
Instructor: Norgren,Catherine F.
Schedule: TR 9:30am - 10:50am
Location: Alumni 195 (North Campus)
Seats Available: 24

Shakespeare is (and has been) such an innocuous part of Western culture that he remains omnipresent throughout history and often pops up in the most unexpected places. This class will examine historical examples of incidental Shakespeare before turning to the modern era to critically encounter Shakespeare via film and digital media. Readings will come from historical texts and popular culture, as well as more ?nontraditional? avenues such as YouTube, Blogs, Twitter, etc. Students will also be asked to watch several films and/or television episodes throughout the course. Through digital channels, students will record and interrogate their own encounters with Shakespeare, culminating in a final research project that uncovers a student-driven Shakespearean discovery.

Section: DR
Registration Number: 20742
Instructor: Rosvally,Danielle
Schedule: TR 2:00pm - 3:20pm
Location: Alumni 90 (North Campus)
Seats Available: 26