PENN SUMMER - University of Pennsylvania

MusC 050 910 Tr 5:30pm–8:40pm rommen
World Music and Cultures
Fulfills Arts & Letters Sector
This course examines how we as consumers in the “Western” world
engage with musical difference largely through the products of the
global entertainment industry. We examine music cultures in contact
in a variety of ways—particularly as traditions in transformation.
Students gain an understanding of traditional music as live, meaningful
person-to-person music making, by examining the music in
its original site of production, and then considering its transformation
once it is removed, and re-contextualized in a variety of ways.
The purpose of the course is to enable students to become informed
and critical consumers of “World Music” by telling a series of stories
about particular recordings made with, or using the music of, peoples
culturally and geographically distant from the U.S. Students come to
understand that not all music downloads containing music from unfamiliar
places are the same, and that particular recordings may be
embedded in intriguing and controversial narratives of production
and consumption. At the very least, students should emerge from
the class with a clear understanding that the production, distribution,
and consumption of world music is rarely a neutral process.
MusC 053 936 TBa Muller
African Music
This course is delivered in a fully online format in order to allow more
flexibility for LPS students. Class sessions are offered through a course
website and include live lectures and interactive discussions through both
direct messaging and voice over internet. Between classes, the learning
experience is extended through assignments, threaded discussions and
office hours. For additional information, please visit www.sas.upenn.edu/
lps/online. Online course fee: $60.
near eaSTern lanGUaGeS anD
CiViliZaTionS
nelC 048 910 MTW 9:00am–10:35am Jones
Out of the Abyss: Rediscovering the Ancient
Sumerians, Babylonians, and Assyrians
Fulfills History & Tradition Sector
In ancient Iraq, the Sumerians, Babylonians,and Assyrians, created
one of the world’s great civilizations. By the beginning of the common
era, however, their cities and culture lay lost beneath the sands.
This class focuses on how they were rediscovered and what we now
know about them. We discuss the excavation of ancient cities and the
decipherment of the Sumerian and Akkadian languages, along with,
for example: the history of ancient Iraq; the invention of writing; and
the Epic of Gilgamesh. We use both material artifacts and primary
texts in translation. The collections of the Penn Museum, including
the magnificent finds from the Royal Tombs of Ur and the largest
collection of Sumerian literature in the world, will be used to bring
the class in direct physical contact with the world we are exploring.
Finally, we analyze how the Iternet is revolutionizing the study of
these ancient societies.
22 SUMMER SESSIOn I • MAY 24–JULY 2, 2010
nelC 119 910 MW 10:40am–1:50pm Minuchehr
Middle Eastern Cinema
Fulfills Cross-Cultural Analysis Course / Crosslisted with: CINE 119 910,
COML 119 910
In the past two decades, films from the Middle East have gained exceptional
international reception. This course is designed to explore
the reasons behind this reception through a study of the prevalent
social, political, and historical themes and issues in Middle Eastern
cinema. Questions such as women’s laws, literature and its function,
familial issues and gender roles, historical legacies and political tensions,
and religion, will be discussed. This course assumes no previous
knowledge of film studies or languages of the region. Films from
Israel, the Arab World, Turkey, and Iran will be shown in subtitled
versions.
nelC 382 910 TW 1:00pm–4:10pm haq
Islam and the West
Crosslisted with: HIST 302 910
Surveys in some detail the images of Islam in the West, as well as premodern
Muslim perceptions of Europe and the changing character of
these perceptions in modern times, now including the larger western
world. Particular attention is paid to the medieval period, extending
from the rise of Islam in the 7th century to the Muslim conquest
of Constantinople and the end of Muslim rule in Spain in the 15th
century. Lying at the core of the course is a deep historical irony:
the massive process of the transmission of knowledge and of intellectual
and cultural attitudes from the Greek world into Islam and
from Islam into the Latin West on the one hand, and the phenomenon
of “Orientalism” on the other, the latter embodying a doctrine of
an essential Islam-West dichotomy. Readings include Dante’s Divine
Comedy, selections from the Arabian Nights, as well as modern Iranian
polemics against the western world.
PhiloSoPhY
PhIl 003 910 MTWr 12:00pm–1:35pm staff
History of Ancient Philosophy
Fulfills History & Tradition Sector
A survey of classical Greek approaches to questions about knowledge,
the nature of the world, the soul, ethics, and politics. Will focus
on Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.
PhIl 008 910 MTWr 12:00pm–1:35pm staff
The Social Contract
Fulfills Society Sector
This course examines the role of social contract doctrines in Western
thought and culture. We will focus on the political writings of the
major modern proponents of social contract theory: Thomas Hobbes,
John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and John Rawls. We will contrast
their views with the utilitarian tradition, as represented by the political
and economic philosophy of David Hume, Adam Smith and John
Stuart Mill.We will also study Karl Marx, regarded as a critic of liberal
constitutionalism. The course is designed to provide an introduction
to some of the main issues in modern political philosophy.