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ANTHROPOLOGY 105g
Culture, Medicine and Politics
Mattingly
TTh, 3:30-5:00
Please contact department for course description.
GENDER STUDIES 210g
Social Issues in Gender
Schor/Accampo
TTh, 11:00-12:15
Please contact department for course description.
GEOGRAPHY 100gm
Los Angeles and the American Dream
Roseman
MW, 2:00-3:20
Los Angeles (and more generally the Southern California region) has long been the quintessential destination for migrants in search of the American Dream. In the late 19th century, promoters heralded Southern California as a salubrious Mediterranean haven. From then until well after World War II, massive numbers of American flocked to Los Angeles, especially from the Midwest, lured by images of mild weather, citrus groves, and cheap land. Although some sought stardom in Hollywood or riches from the oil fields, most aspired to basic elements of the American Dream; a good job and a home of one's own. All along, people were coming from other countries as well; but their numbers have increased dramatically in recent decades. They too are in search of some version of the American Dream. Ironically, the place sold to millions as the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow experiences earthquakes, floods, landslides, and fires. Further, many Angelenos found not the American Dream but instead racism, unemployment, and poverty. This geographical course focuses on Los Angeles, in both its mythical and realized social and physical forms. Alternative perspectives are utilized, drawing concepts from historical and physical geography as well as from economic and social geography.
Required Texts:
Robert M. Fogelson. The Fragmented Metropolis, Los Angeles, 1850-1930. Berkeley, UC Press, 1993. Other readings are in the Course Reader available at the USC Bookstore. TBA additional reserve readings that may be assigned.
Grading and Course Requirements:
Exercise One 30 points (15%)
Exercise Two 30 points (15%)
Midterm Examination 60 points (30%)
Final Examination 70 points (35%)
Discussion Section 10 points (5%)
Total 200 points (100%)
Note: The readings and assignments list may be subject to change. Please contact the department for verification.
GEOGRAPHY 120g
Geopolitics
Dear
TTh, 9:30 - 10:50
This course examines exactly how the concept and practice of the nation-state came to dominate world politics. It explores notions of turf and territory, nationalism, and the growth of geopolitical awareness. A central focus of the course will be on the "state," and how it has altered its geographical expression since the Industrial Revolution. This historical focus will be used to explain the structure and evolution of the geopolitical map of the modern world into the 21st century. This course explores the state, the geopolitical map of the 'western' world 1750-1980, and the future (or lack thereof) of the nation-state.
Readings and Assignments:
The course employs readings from numerous primary and secondary sources, with a focus on The Geopolitics Reader, O'Tuathail Et. Al. (EDS). Two research papers concentrating on contemporary issues in geopolitical theory will be assigned, in addition to a mid-term and a final examination.
Note: The readings and assignments list may be subject to change. Please contact the department for verification.
GEOGRAPHY 257g
Environment and Ethics
McKenzie
MWF, 1:00 - 1:50
This course is about ethical approaches to the environment. Although environmental concerns have become an accepted part of our society, we often find ourselves justifying environmental initiatives based on economic or political arguments. Nonetheless, underneath these accepted rationales are a whole series of moral and ethical issues which, in fact, have been instrumental in the rise of environmentalism. This course seeks to explore these moral issues and how they influence environmentalism, as well as look at various schools of thought in environmental ethics.
Ethics can be defined as the study of how we ought to live, accordingly, this class is about our moral relationships to each other, the non-human environment, other species, and other generations. We will do this by first developing a set of moral tools and principles to help us evaluate environmental issues. In addition to covering standard material in this section, I will introduce the concept of "Geoethics" - the idea of applying a range of moral principles according to the context of a given situation. Second, we will employ a geographical metaphor of distance (both spatial and social), to help us understand our moral relations to others. Specifically, we will examine our relations to those who are distant from us in space (international issues), different species (interspecies) and different generations (intergenerational). The third part of the course will examine three of the most highly developed discourses among environmental ethics, including: animals, international development and the environment itself. The fourth part will explore various streams of environmental ethics, namely, Deep Ecology, Ecofeminism, Environmental Justice, and indigenous critiques.
Course Requirements
Course evaluation will be based on three in-class exams and one group project. Exams will be all essay and will be based on both lecture and reading material. Regular attendance is expected and class participation will count for a portion of your grade.
Readings: In addition to a course reader available from the bookstore, you will need the following texts.
David Cooper and Joy Palmer (1995) Just Environments: International, Intergenerational, and Interspecies Issues. New York: Routledge.
Roderick Nash (1989) The Rights of Nature: A History of Environmental Ethics. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Note: The readings and assignments list may be subject to change. Please contact the department for verification.
HISTORY 245gm
Gender and Sexualities in American History
Banner
TTh, 11:00-12:20
This course will focus on the gender division between a public world identified with men and masculinity and a private world of family and domesticity identified by women. We will deal with the nature of both of these worlds and their interactions throughout the course of post-Revolutionary American political and social history, especially in terms of the issues of the gendered nature of repression and reform in the American past. We will also examine the nature and functioning of gender and sexuality in the American past. What has it meant to be a woman or a man? What is the importance of sexuality and homosexuality in our nation's past.
Required Texts:
Walter Williams. The Spirit and the Flesh. (Part Only)
Lois Banner. Women in Modern America: A Brief History.
Jane Adams. Twenty Years at Hull House. (part Only)
Rita Mae Brown. Rubyfruit Jungle.
Sara Evans. Personal Politics.
Other articles will be available in an article pack put together by Dr. Banner.
Grading and Course Requirements
Midterm Examination 25%
Final Examination 30%
Participation 10%
Term Paper 30%
Note: The readings and assignments list may be subject to change. Please contact the department for verification.
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 101g
International Relations
Nielsson
TTh, 2:00-3:20
This is an introductory survey of international relations as a field of study. The course is divided into four parts. Part I is a brief review of the diverse approaches to theorizing about international relations. Identification of the main actors - the state, international organization and non-state actors - and their interaction is the subject of Part II. That includes the role of great powers, the Global South and trans-national enterprises. Part III: The Politics of global Welfare involves such issues as the characteristics of international monetary and trade relations, the globalization trend and global commons such as populations growth, environmental degradation and sustainable development. Part IV: Global Conflict and Its Management includes the study of different modes of conflict, war - interstate as well as civil wars - security policies and the use of power in coercive diplomacy. This part is concluded by a general comparison of the realist and the liberal perspectives on the future of world politics.
Required Texts:
Kegley Jr., Charles W. and Eugene R. Wittkopf. World Politics: Trend and Transformation. 6th ed. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997.
Grading and Course Requirements:
Attendance & Participation 15%
Written Assignments 25%
Midterm 25%
Final 35%
Note: The readings and assignments list may be subject to change. Please contact the department for verification.
JUDAIC STUDIES 211g
The Holocaust
Gillerman
MW, 2:00-3:20
This course is intended as an introduction to the ethical issues arising from the Holocaust - Adolf Hitler's attempted genocide of the entire Jewish people, as well as the murder of millions of others, during the years 1933-1945. While the approach taken in many courses on the Holocaust is essentially a historical one, the aim of this class is to identify and evaluate the moral dilemmas and challenges that arise from this event. Of course ethical issues do not arise in a vacuum. Historical, sociological, and psychological factors are of supreme importance in shaping the contours within which ethical decisions are made. Proper attention will therefore be paid to these factors in determining the moral lessons that are to be derived from the Holocaust. In this way the course will achieve its objective of assisting the student in gaining an understanding of the processes and complexities of moral reasoning.
It is hoped that the approach to the class will permit the student to view the Holocaust for what it was and is - a tragedy of immense proportions, not only for the Jewish people, but also for the world. In the minds of many ethicists, the Holocaust and related events are harbingers of the most frightening tendencies inherent in an evermore rational, impersonal, and bureaucratically-oriented world. The grading scheme will be as follows:
Midterm Examination 25%
Research Paper 30%
Final Examination 25%
Discussion Section 20%
Note: The readings and assignments list may be subject to change. Please contact the department for verification.
LINGUISTICS 115g
Language, Society and Culture
Anderson
TTh, 11:00-12:20
"Language, Society, and Culture" is a general education course that examines the relationships between patterns of discourse within social groups and harmonious communication in selected institutional and personal settings of everyday interaction. The course focuses on relationships between:
Principal course themes
REQUIREMENTS
The course comprises lectures, discussions, extensive readings, videos, workshops, transcription of conversation, text analysis, written papers, exercises, and an examination. Students also keep a weekly language-and-linguistics diary that provides the basis for one paper (but will not otherwise be inspected). Drafts of papers may be submitted by e-mail or hard copy for timely comments and suggestions. Hard copy drafts of papers must be submitted at least one day prior to the class meeting preceding the meeting on which the paper is due. E-mail copies must be submitted three days before the paper is due, excluding weekends.
Required Texts:
Conley, J. M. & Wm. M. O'Barr. 1990. Rules versus Relationships - The Ethnography of Legal Discourse" (U of Chicago P)
Rose, M. 1989. Lives on the Boundary (Penguin)
Tannen, D. 1986. That's Not What I Meant! (Ballantine)
Note: Other materials will be available in a course packet. You will be notified in class when the packet is ready to be picked up. The readings and assignments list may also be subject to change. Please contact the department for verification.
MULTIDISCIPLINARY ACTIVITIES 166gm
Poverty and Welfare in America
Einbinder
MWF, 10:00 - 10:50
A guiding principle for this course is that marginality is structural to American society. By this we man that there is a market economy with components that systematically and persistently keep certain groups of people at the margins of society. At the same time that marginality is structural to American society, the choice of which groups to marginalize, and the processes by which they are kept at the margins, occur within specific social institutions- in particular, the criminal justice system, educational system and religious organizations. A guiding imperative of the course is to the role of these institutions in examine the goal of these institutions in the marginalization of groups and in the changing social constructions of marginalized groups throughout the history of the United States. For example, when we look at crime today, a general tendency is to bemoan the collapse of family values, moral Principles, and the importance of tradition, and to assume that things were better in the "good old days". Yet the nineteenth century was replete with "moral Panics" the signaled the perceived rise in prostitution, lawlessness, slum dwellers, alcoholism, and opium dens. We will examine the enduring narrative of the excluded "other" and the way it was manifested in the nineteenth century and in its twentieth century derivatives.
PHILOSOPHY 140g
Contemporary Moral and Social Issues
Jeshion
TTh, 9:30 - 10:45
Damnjanovic
TTh, 3:30 - 4:45
* For Professor Damnjanovic's course description, please contact the department.
The course introduces techniques of moral reasoning and classic moral theories which are then used for a detailed investigation of such social issues as affirmative action, environmental ethics, animal rights, pornography and censorship, the ethics of war, and world hunger. We will be considering works by philosophers, legal theorists, political scientists, economists, and sociologists.
Course Requirements:
2 in-class mid, terms (15% each)
1 6-7 page paper (20%)
Final exam (40%)
Participation in weekly discussion sections (10%)
Note: You cannot receive a passing grade without turning in all of the required written work. Also, the readings and assignments list may be subject to change. Please contact the department for verification.
POLITICAL SCIENCE 130g
Law, Politics and Public Policy
John Barnes
MW, 3:30 - 4:50
This course explores a broad range of social issues through an introduction to law, courts, and judicial processes. We will begin by examining the idea of law, the nature of legal education, the selection of judges, the civil and criminal justice system, and the role of appellate courts. We will then explore a series of debates and case studies that will give us a chance to delve more deeply into the politics of law and the pursuit of justice. This course will also ask the following questions: What is "the rule of law?" Does law serve power or justice? What influences outcomes in civil and criminal justice? Was the "Independent Counsel" act a good idea? When do people deserve punishment or deserve to be held "liable" for their negligent conduct? How broad is "freedom of speech?"
Readings and Assignments:
Some of these issues will be explored in movies. But we will also be reading:
Baum's American Courts
Adams' Philosophical Problems in the Law
Lewis' Make No Law
Stern's Buffalo Creek Disaster
Requirements: 1 short paper, 1 longer paper, midterm, final, participation.
Note: The readings and assignments list may be subject to change. Please contact the department for verification.
RELIGION 140g
Religion and Ethical Issues
Rudisill
TTh, 11:00-12:20
The aim of the course is to enable you to become conversant with Jewish and Christian ways of addressing ethical issues, and to increase your capability to analyze critically various judgements reached abut hose issues. Since Judaism and Christianity (both Catholic and Protestant) are such major traditions in the U.S., studying the ways in which these traditions deal with ethical issues will take us straight into the heart of American culture, and the mutual influence between religion and culture.
There is no such thing as a Jewish or Christian position on any ethical issue, especially in an age where both traditions are sharply divided between "liberal" and "conservative" camps. (For example, there is often more agreement on ethical issues between liberal Jews and liberal Christians than there is between liberal and conservative Christians.) Nevertheless, there are certain Jewish beliefs and traditions, on the one hand, and Christian beliefs and traditions, on the other hand, both derived from the Bible, which deeply inform the ethical analyses of these faiths. We shall be attentive to these beliefs and traditions, directly in the first part of the course.
Required Texts:
Dorff, Elliot N. and Newman, Louis E., eds. Contemporary Jewish Ethics and Morality: A Reader. New York: Oxford University, 1995 Jersild, Paul T. and Johnson, Dale A., eds. Moral Issues and Christian Response. 6th ed. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace, 1997.
"Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy, 1984" (pamphlet)
Religion 140 Course Reader
Grading and Course Requirements:
Midterm Exam 15%
First Critical Paper 15%
Second Midterm Exam 20%
Second Critical Paper 20%
Final Exam 30%
Note: The readings and assignments list may be subject to change. Please contact the department for verification.
SOCIOLOGY 142gm
Diversity and Racial Conflict
Kaplan
TTh, 11:00-12:20
This course examines the patterns of race relations in the United States. We will examine the relations between the white community and the communities of people of color, particularly African Americans, American Indians, Asian Americans and Latinos. We will also discuss white ethnic groups.
We will explore the way in which race relations shape our institutions and structures and our daily lives. We will also see the way in which institutional racism operates. Theories personal racism, internalized racism, cross-racial hostility between people of color and the intersection of race, class and gender will also be discussed.
A few of the issues we will be concerned with include: the historical and contemporary expressions of racism in America and the various ways in which racism, sexism, and class are interconnected. We will also consider why these divisions and the accompanying differences in opportunity and achievement continue; how these divisions and differences are reproduced and the reality that lies behind the rhetoric of equality and opportunity and justice for all. For example, how are economic rewards, employment decisions, political electoral campaigns and public policy decisions shaped by racial bias? In what way do these factors influence university admissions, faculty hiring, and relations with fellow students and student groups? Has racism changed over time? On a personal level, how do we cope with our own racism and with racism directed against us? We will also consider the necessary conditions and the processes to bring about effective social change.
Required Reading: (All books are on 2 hour reserve at Leavey Library. See Reference Librarian for Xerox Reader material.)
Christopher Bates Doob, Racism: An American Cauldron 2nd. ed. New York: HarperCollins, 1996
Elaine Bell Kaplan, Not Our Kind of Girl, Unraveling The Myths of Black Teenage Motherhood, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.
Harry H. L. Kitano and Roger Daniels, Asian Americans, 2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice Hall, 1995
Joan Moore and Harry Pachon, Hispanics in the US Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1985
Xerox Reader (available at USC bookstore)
1. "The Prison of Race and Gender: Stereotypes, Ideology, Language, and Social Control: (Paula S. Rothenberg, Racism and Sexism, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1988.)
2. "How Serious is the Problem of Racism?" (William Dudley, ed. Racism in America: Opposing Viewpoints, San Diego, CA.: Greenhaven Press, Inc. 1991.
3. "The Problem: Discrimination, United States Commission on Civil Rights"
Note: The readings and assignments list may be subject to change. Please contact the department for verification.
SOCIOLOGY 150gm
Social Problems
Bengtson
MW, 3:30-4:50
In Sociology 150 we examine some of the major social problems confronting American society today: crime, violence, drugs, discrimination, environmental pollution, terrorism, the prospect of nuclear war. What can we do about these problems? What does sociological research suggest about their causes and their solution?
In this course we analyze these and other problems using the tools of sociological data and theory. We assess the public policies - laws- that have been passed in order to "solve" these problems, and explore why many of these have failed. We focus on two specific issues that may directly affect your experience as adults in the 21st Century: (1) Urban violence (will there be a repeat of the Los Angeles "riots" of 1992; (2) Population aging (will Social Security and medical care benefits be available for you when you retire?)
Sociology 150 explores contemporary social problems in three categories: (1) Issues involving individual deviance (crime, gangs, rape, sexual deviance, mental illness); (2) Problems of social inequalities (discrimination and prejudice reflected in racism, sexism, and ageism); (3) Crises reflecting societal changes during the 20th Century (the worldwide population explosion, population aging, environmental pollution, family and health problems, war and terrorism.)
Readings and Assignments:
The basic texts include Henslin's Social Problems in Modern Society; a volume edited by Los Angeles Time reporters, Understanding the Riots; and two Opposing viewpoints collections: (1) Should abortion rights be restricted? (2) How will an aging population affect America?
The grade for the course is based on : (1) Three exams; (2) Four quizzes; (3) Discussion section participation and assignments throughout the semester; (4) JEP (Joint Educational Project) involvement; (5) Short in-class assignments accompanying each lecture. Extra credit can be earned through participation in class debates, analysis of movies and videos reflecting social problems, or a field trip to the Museum of Tolerance.
Note: The readings and assignments list may be subject to change. Please contact the department for verification.
SOCIOLOGY 155g
Immigrant America
Hondagneu-Sotelo
TTh, 11:00 - 12:20
Pundits and commentators have noted that the twentieth century is ending much as for the United States. One of the ways in which it resembles the earlier part of the is the high level of immigration. Contemporary immigration, however, unlike immigration in the early 20th century, stems primarily from Asia and Latin America, and a major point of destination is Los Angeles. These developments have led to the creation of a new type of multiethnic and multiracial society, and have also given rise to vitriolic anti-immigration politics.
This course will examine the diversity of contemporary U.S. immigration and it will also scrutinize the controversial debates spawned by immigration and anti-immigrant reactions. Immigration has once again surfaced as a major social issue, and students will seek to understand the terms of these debates by preparing for and conducting in-class debates. Although we will cover diverse immigrant groups, including Hindu Indian and Middle Eastern immigrants, the course will focus on Mexican, Asian and Central American immigrants.
Required Reading:
Portes and Rumbaut, Immigrant America: A Portrait
Hondagneu-Sotelo, Gendered Transitions: Mexican Experiences of Immigration
Ong, Bonacich, & Cheng, The New Asian Immigration in LA & Global Restructuring
Waldinger and Bozorgmehr, Ethnic Los Angeles, Immigration: Opposing Viewpoints
Note: The readings and assignments list may be subject to change. Please contact the department for verification. For another section, see the previous entry.
